I like the article as it's about my favorite deck and reflects some opinions that are new to me. On the other hand phases like "I have always disliked Sensei's Divining Top, as it is mana intensive and often clunky. I replaced it with Gifts Ungiven (...)" don't seem to be very logical. I also don't like most of the new card choices, but I also didn't like Marcs'. Getting new options is always fine and even if I would not play it, I'm able to think and decide about it.

We did have!

10x UBR Control is awesome. There have never been so many before, just Alex, me and pps 1-2 other guys.

Nice read.

Some things about your boarding strategy:
- I'd really like to stun Wasteland or Forgemaster with Needle
- Snapcaster + Flashback costs way to much mana against Spheres
- EE dodges Spheres and trades positive.

What about this?

- 3 Mental Misstep
- 2 Flusterstorm
- 1 Nihil Spellbomb
- 1-2 Snapcaster Mage
+ 1 Mountain
+ 4 Ingot Chewer
+1 Lighnting Bolt
+1 Engineered Explosives
+1 Pithing Needle

As the BOM winner was this year. German and Spanish players dominate the European vintage scene for some years now. To win a title in the US is a nice addition though

Gratz Marc! Well done.

Don't forget that you can also board Birbery against other decks to steal their BSC. Besides that, I think both cards are too expensive. Why not simply stun Griselbrand with Pithing Needle? It's a solid card in various MUs (Dredge, MUD, Weldercontrol, Turbotezz, Landstill,...). The five turn clock should not be a problem for control decks.

+1

This card does not do anything you want to do in Vintage.

Of course it depends on deck and meta, but in a really controlish deck with 11-12 Counters, Bobs and Snapcasters I'd really prefer Bolts atm. Some additional things besides my further arguments you should keep in mind:

1.) Maindeck Bolts can safe sideboard slots (I don't play any futher creaturehate in my creatureheavy meta besides the 2 maindeck Bolts)

2.) You don't have a quite good chance to handle an early 5/3 guy preboard, b/c drain and Jace mostly are too expensive

3.) Bolts are a 2of, Fire/Ice (normally) is a 1of, you draw them more often and together with Snapcasters they enhance certain preboard matchups significantly

4.) Bolt + 4 Confis + 3 Snapcaster are a highty relevant clock in the control mirror

5.) Against creaturedecks, the flip damage is relevant. With multiple Jaces and Forces to flip and space for only 1 Top + the high damage of your own Missteps, Fetchlands, Vampiric and Forces, you really don't want to have any other expensive spells

6.) X/1s can be handled by Snapcasters and Bobs, X/3s and a brainstoming Jace not

7.) Many creaturedecks don't play Missteps but manadenial and against Missteps you can profit from your dead Flusterstorms

8.) Bolts are faster. Example: your opponent starts with turn 1 Bob and you have no mox. Misstep counters your Bolt, but if you have to wait for Fire/Ice Bob cycles and/or you run into a drain or Flusterstom. Your opponent has 2 more cards in hand as well.

Summarized: If your meta, decklist or playstyle needs Fire/Ice - ok, but overall regarded Bolts are imho the better choice. Most of the latest successfull UBR Confidant/Jace/Snapcaster lists play Bolts as a 2of main, and I think this is correct.

I think Bolts are better than Fire/Ice atm. It flips just for 1 with Confidant, costs less and handels Lodestone, Jace and Trygon. Rebuilt over Hurkyl's also seens a bit strange. And I'd play at least 1 FLusterstorm main to have more cheap Snapcaster targets.

There are many guys playing Gush in Europe, but they mostly get asskicked by the controlheavy Confidant-decks...

@23 mana sources: 2 Basic Islands main and the Mountain in the SB help a lot and a fast Confidant or Top also provide enoth mana in the MUD matchup. Besides that, those lists always play 4 Ingot Chewer and 2-3 Lightning Bolts to have reliable access to early solutions against Lodestone/Panther/Worker or Precursor.

Sure, but who plays Caverns? And: don't tribal decks play Null Rod/Silence?

Can you explain this please?

That's the point. As an U/B controldeck you just want to stall MUD, ramp your mana and cast Hurkyl's. Strix dodges 8 spheres, cycles and stalls an early Lodestone Golem until you are able to generate advantage by let's say Dark Confidant. I don't see what's bad about this.

I'd play this card in a controlboard against MUD and Creaturedecks.

Could be, I cannot remember any more. Without Key, I would have won that game

I've also been facing Marius in Round 1 and he won Game 2 the same way. I built 14 Tokens, he hardcasts Wurmcoil and wins.

Jep. Untapping Wurmcoil with Voltaic Key against a bunch of tokens was very nice during the finals If I were to play Weldercontrol theese days, I'd play Wurmcoil in my 75s.

If I want to play Truth main, I have to cut Hurkyl's Recall for it. The chance of Hurkyl's being better against MUD seems to me higher than the chance of Truth being better against Dredge. You can say that Truth is good in other MUs as well, but in fact, there are really few targets for it. I've been playing Truth in GAT before 06-2008 and (as I made good experiances with it) in the first version of this deck, but I really wanted to have Hurkyl's against MUD. If I expected a metagame with very few Workshops around, I'd definitively prefer Truth over Hurkyl's.

As my SB-Hate for Dredge consists of 7 (+4) Extirpate effcts atm, there aren't that much tokens on the battlefield after I removed Moeba and Ghast.

If your hate works, they don't get zombies. At the point where Truth or Explosives do anything, they develpoed so far, that you probably will loose. That's why I want to play real gravehate and no removal for zomie tokens. It's wasting slots.


I thought of other MUs, not Dredge.

@thewhitedragon: Null Rod doesn't fit in the deck's concept. Without Wastelands it's really bad, and if you play Wastelands, Gush will be bad.

We've been testing serverals combinations. 4 Extraction + 3 Extirpate performed best. My opponent's antihate was nearly useless. Only Unmasks, Therapies and Missteps were effective, but not as effective as a removal for Jailer, Leyline or Cage. I was very surprised how good this strategy worked and how relaxed it was to play.

I tried Truth, but it wasn't worth a slot. The Dredger rarely gets to a point where he has more than 2 creatures in play.

Explosives is far too expensive for this deck. I really liked this card in UB Painter some years ago, but without Moxes, (in average) 4 Mana to cast and activate is too much. Even in the fullpowered decks 4 mana is a lot. Wainting and spreading the cost over 2 turns is often too slow.

Thank you for your reply.

I hardly can include Tinker/BSC with only 3 artifacts in the deck and playing more artifacts will cause a collaps of stabilisation. I need a critial mass of business in the deck to ensure, that I always have a counter/solution available if I need one. I usually play black in every controldeck, but neither Will, nore the tutors are worth a slot. What do you want to find? And: if you want to play black, you'd rather play Confidants over Gush. This deck is more like Landstill, not like Gushcontrol or Confidant/Jace. It's not broken, but very controlish and rarely agressive (even if the list implies that).

I'm going to test aginst dredge today, to see what hate is the best. I thought of Leyline behause of the cheap counters to protect it. Unfortunately, you cannot hardcast it. Grafdigger's Cage or Jailer (with a single Usea instead of the Island) could also be nice. We'll see.

Hi guys,

I'w working on an deck concept involving Gush as a drawspell and creatures to beat. After testing with those Remora-Gush-Goyf decks, which are not good enogh against Confidant/Jace imho, I decided to make something else. Here's what i've built:

U/R Gushcaster

Maindeck (60)
3x Polluted Delta
2x Island
1x Library of Alexandria
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Volcanic Island

4x Delver of Secrets
4x Snapcaster Mage
2x Vendilion Clique

1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Ruby

4x Lightning Bolt
2x Fire/Ice
2x Steel Sabotage
1x Hurkyl's Recall

3x Mental Misstep
3x Flusterstorm
4x Force of Will

4x Preordain
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Brainstorm
1x Ponder
4x Gush

1x Mystical Tutor
1x Merchant Scroll
1x Time Walk

Sideboard (15)
1x Mountain
1x Island
3x Ingot Chewer
1x Mana Crypt
3x Grafdigger's Cage
4x Leyline of the Void
2x Smash to Smithereens

The plan against control is to stall the opponent with counter and spotremoval, while building up card advantage and dealing damage with a large evading creature. The only creature without Flash is Delver, and it just costs 1 Mana. That's why you don't need to tap out during your turn (an advantage over Goyf/Predator builts). Very interesting about this deckconcept is, that you are able to let many spells resolve and play a removal afterwards. That makes you very flexible.

Some choices

Delver:
One-hits Jace and kills within a few turn. Together with Bolts (recycelt with Snapcaster), Delver finishes very quickly.

Snapcaster:
Recycels Counter, Bolts, Anc and Walk, deals damage.

Clique:
Expensive but flashable. Supports the disruption, gets information and bashes for 3 every turn.

Gush without Black and Green:
Gush is no Comboengine in this deck, just a simple drawengine that improves LoA considerably. If you play this deck, you will see how it's drawengine works.

Steel Sabotage:
Bounces BSC and imroves the MUD matchup. Is rarely dead in other matchups.

Lightning Bolt:
Kills Confidants, Jaces, Lodestone and other MUD creatures and Fish. Reduces the clock extremely and synergates with Snapcaster Mage.

Fire/Ice:
Time Walks in the early game (Ice for a land), buys a turn against beaters (BSC, Goyf, Wurmcoil, Hellkite or whatever), burns Confidants, Fish and opponents, pitches into Force. The testings with two of them were very convincing.

If there are other discussable choices, don't hesitate

We've been testing it against Confidant Control and it wins nearly every game without sideboarding pre- and postboard. The worst MU should be MUD, but we also tested it. With a massive sideboard, it becomes positive, too. Testings against Dredge, Gushcontrol and Fish are stil missing, but the Results should be acceptable...

Thoughts?

Sry, miss-click. 

Mana Drain sees much play!


Souce: http://morphling.de/

There is a mistake in the "fast-check". Bazaar of Moxen is in France, not in Spain.

I think your are right with your argumentation. In my opinion, Vintage is very heatly with all it's decks at the moment.

I agree that the problem with Dredge is that many people don't test against it. Their sideboard is weak against the deck and they don't know how to board out or play. There are so many options how to board against this deck. Shall you take out winconditions and try to completely shutdown your opponent's action with massive control? Or is it better to board out control elements and stall the dredge player until your are able to win? This strategy is fully dependent on your deck choice and the slots you are able to fill in your sideboard.

In my opinion, a control deck for example shoud have a good position against blue and an acceptable MU against Shops (50% would be great). To fight Dredge preboard weakens your own strategy. What if you play some Nihil Spellbombs main? You have a 20% MU instead of a 10%? That's really crappy... I'd never try that. You will get bashed by Null Rod decks, if you do that. Rather ignore Dredge in game1 and have a good SB-plan. I agree with Heiner, that Leylines and Needles are the best Hate against Dredge, followed by Jailer. Jailer gets much weaker if the Dredgeman plays well and Needle can be boarded against MUD as well. Needle for Wasteland is soo good guys! And if they play Welder or Kuldothas - fine! More targets.

Against Nulll Rods and Workshops, a good manabase is all. That's why I often run a non-island basic in the maindeck (in Confidant/Jace, not in Gushdecks!) and 3 Islands. Paired with 1-2 Hurkyl's, Jaces and all the broken stuff in your deck, that's enough to get an acceptable preboard-MU. Postboard a good SB fixed the MU. 4-5 a- or c-removals (Claim, Chewer, Bolt, Trygon), a 2nd or 3rd Massbounce (and perhaps 2 Neeldes) is more than enough. Another 7 cards against Dredge (including the 2 Needles) leaves 2 Slots against Controldecks. This could for example be Missteps or Flusterstorms, if you are not running them in the main (i prefer those 2, because they are number 8 and 9 against dredge).

But: This plan just works, if you win against blue preboard and 2 cards in the SB are enough. Decks like the Italian Remora, Dark Painter or the Spanish Speed-Gush or Turbotezzeret decks can do that even in a Gushcontrol-heavy meta.

Euro-lists for reference:
http://morphling.de/printview.php?c=1500&d=1
http://morphling.de/printview.php?c=1496&d=3
http://morphling.de/printview.php?c=1506&d=4
http://morphling.de/printview.php?c=1506&d=5

Player1: Gush sucks, Bazaar sucks! Restrict it!
Player2: Agrees and wants Lodestone Golem to be restriced.
Player3: Null Rod is unfun!
Player4: Can beat all those archetypes...

In my opinion, vintage is a very healthy format at the moment. We have many different archetypes and all of them are strong and broken.

And, if you look around here in europe, you'll find a more diverse metagame than in the US. Example: I'm playing Painter for three years now. I've played 5 tournaments with it this year: German Magic 2: 2nd of 80, 3x Swiss Vintage -> 3x Third (~40 participants), 1x Bazaar of Moxen -> 48th of 383.
Q: Can I beat Gush? A: Like any other blue deck (Remora, Turbotezz,  Jacecontrol,...).
Q: Dredge? A: Even preboard and without any graveyard hate (not consistently, but more consistently than any other blue deck). How? Blast Bazaar and Combo for the win!
Q: Shops? A: 3 Chewer, 2 Needles, 2 Bolts and a second Hurkyl's out of the SB and a good manabase main.
Q: Noble Fish? A: My best MU of all those.

What I want to say? Just play the right decks to beat the metagame!

Did I miss anything?

Why is Tinker/Snapcaster Mage a dissynergy?

Playing Tendrils makes the Deck much faster. You can easily win with a small Tendrils after beating 2 turns. I really like Jace a lot, but I think the Deck is much to fast to maximize Jace's use.
Beatdown and Jace only doesn't look quite reliable to me.

This is what I've built around Snapcaster Mage:

4x Island
1x Swamp
2x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta
3x Underground Sea
1x Tolarian Academy

4x Snapcaster Mage
4x Dark Confidant
1x Blightsteel Colossus

1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Mana Crypt
1x Sol Ring
2x Sensei's Divining Top

2x Duress
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Brainstorm
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Dark Ritual
1x Time Walk
1x Merchant Scroll
1x Hurkyl's Recall
1x Demonic Tutor
4x Mana Drain
1x Tinker
1x Yawgmoth's Will
3x Intuition
1x Gifts Ungiven
1x Tendrils of Agony
4x Force of Will

Intuition is pretty nice in this deck. You can make piles like Lotus, Anc, Ywill with Mage in hand. Mage, Mage, Tinker, or Anc, Tinker, Mage and many more winning piles are also possible. Playing the deck feels a little bit like old Gifts.
Still, there might be some changes. A second Hurkyl's could be needed...

I'm playing 4 Leylines, 2 Pithing Needles and 1 Nihil Spellbomb (with 2 Trinket Mages main) and it works. Leyline is the best hate in game 3 and Needle is even good in game 2, beacause he never activates a Bazaar to get cards into his graveyard. A reset button like Spellbomb is ok, but you cannot rely on it. I've been playing Jailers for a long time, but they are really crappy on the draw. If you keep a hand with turn 1 Jailer you get hit by Therapy, Unmask and Chalice0 and with Sun Titans, there is no second chance. That's why I prefer this package.

+1

Your most interesting article imho. Especially this phase made me smile: Though Americans are often reproached with being - let's say naive concerning this, I agree that this is a very spread trait among magic players.