Khans of Tarkir has given Vintage some powerful new cards with Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time. It seems that nearly every deck that can support the mana cost has opted to include one or both of these cards in their builds. As a result Treasure Cruise has already found itself on the Vintage restricted list while Gifts Ungiven is back in play. I think it's interesting that seemingly nobody has discussed whether or not these cards have any place in Storm combo. Combo likes to draw cards. Combo likes card selection and has a high density of powerful cards to find. Combo should be able to fill up a graveyard relatively quickly to feed the delve costs on these cards. I have a few thoughts on the matter.

Combo is in sort of an awkward spot in that it relies heavily on it's graveyard recursion, possibly more so than any other deck in the format. Other decks have a good amount of chaff that they can feed to their delve cards. Fetch lands, counters, cheap cantrips, serum powders, etc. Combo has some of these things, but in the early game it's going to be hard to pay the delve cost without significantly neutering your Yawgmoth's Will by removing the powerful spells you need. I think because of this we'd be looking for things that fit what the deck is trying to do, but doesn't necessarily stifle a Yawgmoth's Will if it's not there. Creating a mana base with more fetchlands than usual seems like an easy one. Many combo lists already run Gitaxian Probe. Although it's not as versatile as Gitaxian Probe (can be cast for , adds to storm, gives information about opponent's hand) Street Wraith performs a similar function with the upside of being uncounterable and ignoring Sphere/Chalice.

This adds a new problem of what can be cut to accommodate these new cards. Storm lists are already so tight that freeing up slots for Wraith, Cruise and DTT might not be practical. For the sake of the exercise, let's take a look at Jesse Martin's most recent combo list on Morphling.de from November:

1 Black Lotus
1 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Duress
1 Grim Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Necropotence
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Mind's Desire
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Tinker
1 Windfall
1 Wheel of Fortune


Lands (12):
1 Badlands
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Underground Sea

SB:
4 Defense Grid
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Leyline of the Void
1 Plague Spitter
1 Rebuild
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Thoughtseize
2 Tormod's Crypt

There isn't much fat to trim on this list. Every cut we make costs us something. Preordain seems like the 60th card. Ponder isn't a substantial improvement on that. Cabal Ritual seems bad if we're adding cards that will take us off threshold as part of their cost. We could cut Duress, but that takes away one of the strongest set ups for a turn 2 kill. Maybe one of the bounce spells and go down to one copy of Tendrils? Maybe Tinker->Inkwell could be a consideration, we're not even running jar with it, but that cuts off a strong path to victory against most aggro decks. Perhaps some of the weaker tutors like Imperial Seal or Grim Tutor could be cuttable? Dig Through Time digs deep enough that it may function like a tutor does as well as providing card advantage, which neither of these cards do on their own. It's sort of a one in hand or two in the bush comparison. Are we just swapping out cards of a similar power level and making more work for ourselves with the added setup?

The other concern that I have is with the mana cost on Dig Through Time. Even with the full delve cost paid for the spell still requires  to do it's thing. Because the deck has Dark Ritual/Cabal Ritual it's typically better at fulfilling casting costs that require  . The only  spells in the deck are Mind's Desire, a 6 cc finisher, and Inkwell Leviathan, which isn't typically cast for it's actual casting cost. How big of a problem will it be for the mana base to support Dig Through Time?

If we're not going whole hog is there a lesser inclusion we could make of some of these cards? How about just swapping out a Preordain for Treasure Cruise? If it's the only delve card in the deck the burden to fill the graveyard quickly is lessened. Preordain seems better on turn 1, but I would think that Treasure Cruise would be a significant improvement beyond that. It gives some nice options to get the effect of Ancestral Recall without opening yourself up to Mental Misstep or Misdirection. Similarly, would Dig Through Time have any merit as a one-of to tutor for?

I'm interested in hearing what you guys think about this and working with you on it.

What does a home run with this thing look like? A Strip Mine and a Tarmogoyf? No thanks.

The thing about Juggernaut is that he hasn't seen play since Lodestone Golem got printed. Slash panther wasn't vanilla. If He didn't have Haste nobody would have played him. The whole point was that he could kill Jace before getting bounced by the -1 ability when the metagame was saturated by Jace.

So did I. Technically came out in 2013 though.

MORE SPOILERS!
I'm still not buying Klep. They wanted to move on and were dismissive of the local PD because he didn't say anything. They didn't believe his story earlier because he was the prime suspect. Now that he's been cleared of any wrongdoing if he comes out and tells the truth they should at least be willing to investigate. If the local detective was poking holes in her story so easily it seems like it wouldn't be much of a stretch to find some more.

IIRC, his reluctance didn't come about until after the pregnancy thing. Even considering that, if he's not willing to bite the bullet to get out of there he's crazy. It just doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.

I had one serious bone to pick with Gone Girl.
SPOILER ALERT!
The second Amy comes home why doesn't he run for the hills? She has this big story about how he'll be ostracized and whatnot. Fine, whatever, better than living with the woman who framed me for murder and killed a different guy. It seemed like there were lots of holes in Amy's cover story. Maybe if you tell the federal investigators she tried to frame you they could investigate more effectively? Just seems like a really bad plot hole.

If I had to guess, I would think that Vial of Dragonfire is probably some cheap artifact that has a cute little combo with the heart-piercer bow. Probably something that destroys creatures that have been dealt damage this turn. It'll probably be a cute limited combo that takes 3 niche borderline playable draft cards and let's you assemble Voltron and do something powerful by limited standards. But that's not really the topic of discussion here.

The topic of discussion here was whether or not this card is Vintage playable. We discussed his first ability and determined that it is at best a marginal improvement over Vedalken Engineer because it's +0/+2, but it doesn't produce colored mana like Vedalken Engineer, so it might be a marginal disadvantage when speaking about sunburst cards (Engineered Explosives), Phyrexian mana artifacts (Porcelain Legionnaire, Slash Panther or Phyrexian Metamorph), artifacts with colored activation costs (i.e.Door to Nothingness) or other colored artifacts (i.e. Master of Etherium). Whether you think he's slightly better than Vedalken Engineer is irrelevant as Vedalken Engineer is nowhere near Vintage playable and rightly so.

So it falls to the second ability to make this card playable. Heart-Piercer bow provides an effect that has been relevant in Vintage. Lava Dart was a thing. Darkblast still is from time to time. It still seems like way too much work for that effect than I would like and it happens too slowly and conditionally. As such, it falls to the mystery card to get this card over the hump. What card could exist that would be enough to make this card playable?  I took about 10 seconds to cook up the most powerful effect that this could be paired with. When I was still doubtful that this card was playable it was clear to me that this card would never see play and we could stop discussing it. I think that's a totally reasonable and practical line of reasoning, everybody else seems to understand my point and for some reason you've determined that this is trolling.

You seem to be taking issue that my hypothetical Vial of Dragonfire isn't the absolute best thing that they could ever print for this card. There's probably some truth to that. Maximum C Dawg made the card narrower with a very specific restriction that makes Renowned Weaponsmith more essential to the process so you can't just replace it with generic tutors or Trinket Mage. You wanted something that combos with his first ability and gets better in multiples? How about this?

Vial of Dragonfire  
Artifact
Nonartifact spells cost more to cast.

How's that? Is that working for you? They're printed similar effects in the past with Lodestone Golem and at similar costs with Sphere of Resistance and Thorn of Amethyst, so printing this card shouldn't be completely outside the realm of possibility. It gets better in multiples. It's castable with weaponsmith's first ability and as a bonus costing puts it just out of range for Trinket Mage. If your deck is mostly artifacts the effect will be non-symmetrical and you'll be able to make good use of Renowned Weaponsmith's first ability elsewhere. Would even this be enough to make you want to play Renowned Weaponsmith? I doubt it. I think this hypothetical Vial would be a staple, but probably not weaponsmith. You would probably just want to cram the Vials into existing Workshop shells and make 17sphere instead of getting caught up in the run around of trying to support this guy's casting/activation costs. If I have to go this deep to try and find plausible scenarios where he might see Vintage play I'm comfortable writing it off and moving on, which is what I'm doing.

It illustrates that point that even if this mystery card was completely amazing, there would probably be better ways to go about it than this guy. That's what it adds.


We already know what the other card is and it is not relevant.

I'm trying to think how good of a card Vial of Dragonfire would have to be to make this thing playable.

Vial of Dragonfire 

When Vial of Dragonfire comes into play, you win the game.

Even then, I think I'd prefer it in a shell with Tutors, card draw and Trinket Mage. I should probably reserve judgment until the other card is spoiled, but I won't. This card is unplayable.

Wow, such a tempting package. It stacks up favorably against a vintage staple with Young Pyromancer. Is the extra in the casting cost a fair increase for an additional point of toughness, Prowess for him AND his tokens and triggering off any non-creature rather than just Instants and Sorceries? It seems like a lot of extra bang for your buck. Even if there isn't a good shell for this guy right now, I think he's certainly powerful enough for Vintage. The only sticking point is the color. I think that the shells that can best optimize his ability don't currently have white.

The Angler is better than a tombstalker, but I'm reasonably confident that won't be enough. The gold standard for generic fat without disruption/evasion right now is Tarmogoyf. The thing about Goyf is that you can sort of set it and forget it. Slip it in on turn 1-2 and watch it grow. You need to fill up your graveyard a bit before you can drop the Angler so he starts later, kicks your snapcaster/regrowth/yawg will etc. in the nuts and ties up your mana when you're going to want to be doing other things with it. Maybe a post-board alternate win condition for Dredge or something?

It's the same story for the Demon. The chance of dumping some keyword abilities on it doesn't really help. The double black would make it a taller order for Dredge, although it might get Flying from a Narcomoeba or something.

The sage is slightly more interesting, but I would still be surprised if it saw any Vintage play. If you're looking to play it in Delver you're looking to make room probably by getting rid of either the Delvers or the Young Pyromancers. So when you compare it to Delver it costs double. You have to cast two non-creature spells to get it up to the point where it hits as hard a flipped Delver. It has no evasion like a flipped delver does. So what's the idea? You're hoping that you can cast a few cantrips to pump him up and just do that for a few turns while sculpting a hand and keeping counters up? I don't know, seems like a stretch. Again, with Delver you could slip it in and if you're locked out by spheres it hits for 3 over a Lodestone Golem's head or it can trade straight up with a Lodestone Golem. I understand you want it in a certain kind of deck and sometimes you have to do a little work to flip a Delver, but even if you can't create those circumstances there is a reasonable chance it'll happen on it's own. The only thing that makes it an interesting discussion is that it cashes in for a card and Delver doesn't. It's hard to know exactly how much that factors into the equation.

Young Pyromancer also looks good in comparison. Better base stats and it generates a permanent rather than a temporary +1/+1. It pitches to FoW and cashes in for a card though, so it's got that going for it, which is nice.

I was curious if you could speak a bit about your sideboard. You mentioned that you have since added the Needle, I was curious about what match up that was for. I noticed you brought it in for the mirror. I was also curious about the Triskelion. Has he been better than another Wurmcoil Engine? Which matchup do you bring in the Duplicant for? Just anything with creatures?

Good write up Roland and congrats.

I guess the question I have for a card like this is if you hit the situation where you're making a ton of mana with Metalworker isn't it better just to play Staff of Domination? I know it's vulnerable to artifact removal, but if they had an Ancient Grudge or Ingot Chewer or whatever they probably would have used it on your Metalworker before you could use it anyways. I know not being an artifact let's this card dodge some hate, but I'm not sure that's enough.

Anybody else hate that Game 1 keep by LSV in his match vs. Steve?
Dig Through Time
Demonic Tutor
Gush
Tinker
Blightsteel Colossus
Underground Sea
Mox Emerald

Just having the Tinker and BSC in hand is already like a mull to 5. The Dig Through Time isn't going to get turned on til later in the game. Doesn't have the second island for Gush. Just seemed really bad for such an excellent player.

Interesting card. It's also the right creature type for Cavern of Souls.

Just off the top of my head:
Tinker for creature
Oath of Druids
Show and Tell for Creature
Goblin Welder for Creature
Ichorid
Narcomoeba
Bloodghast
Dread Return
Fatestitcher
Kuldotha Forgemaster

I think if you're running a deck with Grafdigger's Cage that would appreciate a 2/2 body this should slot in nicely in the main deck. Those decks certainly exist and this card should see play in them.

Is this card fine on it's own? Assuming the best case scenario (hellbent) without a metalworker it's a 9 mana investment, 3 of which cannot come from a Mishra's Workshop, to draw 3 cards. The ability is also anti-synergistic with itself going forward.

Gonna be in San Francisco that weekend. I know you want to make things more fun for people by having me not there Craig. I understand that my absence gives the other attendees hope of victory. I understand that. But to pry into my personal life to specifically select dates that I will not be present for? You've crossed a line sir.

It's great to see that it's getting good exposure like this.

He did keep them in. They were in his opening hand. When I was studying for one of my actuarial exams I tried to find a firm figure on the probability of mulling to 1 and not finding a bazaar. It's possible to calculate, but it was a gigantic pain in the ass and I couldn't write a computer program to do it for me. Steve figured 7% in his initial Dredge article by having somebody run some absurd number of simulations. I figured that was reliable enough.

I think this was just a bad mull from TomM. I was actually looking at his 7 and thinking that was a really strong opener. I ran the numbers. He's about 38% to hit a Dredger with his Bazaar activation (Unless he powdered and I missed it.). The ability to unmask was also a really nice bonus of that opening hand. Even if you missed on that 38% the unmask is probably disruptive enough to buy you another turn to find your dredger. Dredge is already at 7% to mull into oblivion. That number should get a decent boost after the mull to 6 has already happened without a Serum Powder. Clearly it worked out well for him, but I think with the knowledge that Randy had almost no graveyard hate there's no way mulling that hand was right.

EDIT: For some reason I thought TomM was on the draw. Fixed the numbers.

So looking at this card. The morph is more or less a throw away ability right? I don't see a whole lot of situations where you're going to get somebody with this card because they thought it might be a Voidmage Prodigy or an Exalted Angel or something. Having it be uncounterable with a Cavern or saving the mana by not having to pay to flip this would seem preferable at a glance. So we're mostly just looking at the rest of the card.

So, good creature types for Cavern. The body is acceptable for the mana cost. The big question revolves around the ability and if that's good enough. It doesn't trigger off himself. It doesn't trigger off opponent's creatures and it doesn't trigger off tokens should we have some sort of token generating effect in the deck or our opponent gives us some with Forbidden Orchard or Beast Within or something like that.

I'm always skeptical of effects like this where it puts a lot of the decision making about what happens into the hands of our opponents. It deters opponents from killing my creatures, but it's not hard and fast. If my creature is that much of a problem they can just suck it up and let me draw my card or waste a removal spell on this guy before removing the problem creature. It also doesn't definitely draw us cards. If our opponent is that set on me not drawing cards they can just deal with my creatures being on the board. We can add stuff to the deck that would let us take more control over this aspect, but is that worth it?

I honestly don't know with 100% certainty how playable or unplayable this card is. It could be one of those opponent option cards like Standstill or Mystic Remora, which see some play, or it could be more like a Browbeat where it gets no play whatsoever. I'm leaning towards unplayable, but I'm not certain. It just seems too clunky and situational for Vintage.

I actually looked at that before I wrote what I did. Showing up in a top 8 once a month as a 1 or a 2 of fits my definition of fringe play.

If you're going to play the old "hey people said this card was unplayable, but it wasn't!" card, could you at least stick to cards that see more than fringe play? Jace the Mind Sculptor is a nice default for that. Staff of Nin has hardly taken Vintage by storm.

3-0
Chris Pikula
Smmenen

2-1
The Atog Lord
Efro
LSV
Randy Buehler

1-2
Dave Williams

0-3
Bob Maher
Josh Utter-Leyton
Tom Martell

This. Also, it's helpful when their hate cards are things like Yixlid Jailer or Pithing Needle on Bazaar of Baghdad or Wasteland on Bazaar.