SSB w/o p9

[McBain]

A while ago i came into drains, and now recently i have come into 3 library's (wee) and i have been trying all sorts of "budget" decks that run mana drain.
i have played around with oath, but the drains didnt suit the deck to well. i played around with slaver, which is what i play with poxies, but i couldnt make it work without the power.
The other lists that i am still thinking about are
1. SSB
2. Tog
3. Landstill

how i like ssb, just because its such a versitle deck, and can pull out wins from many different places, mainly the serv/beltch, tinker/dsc, and bus/slaver.
However in a meta of aggro, and a fair chunk of permission and oath, this isnt always the best choice.

Tog on the other hand, i have not had a lot of experiance with and wouldnt really know how to compile a nice tog budget deck...and the fact that im still trying to track down some cunning wishs...to run my berserk sb.

Landstill was one of my first vintage decks long ago, which i abandon due to no drains to run out early disk. However now i have them so should i give it one last shot?

Any suggestion on a deck, or which deck that i should run?

I will post my SSB list later (at university right now)

[McBain]

SSB deck list as promised

1 mana crypt
1 sol ring
1 mox diamond
1 mana vault
1 lotus petal
1 pithing needle
1 belcher
1 mindslaver

1 DSC
1 pentavus
4 goblin welder

4 brainstorm
4 thirst for knowledge
1 fact or fiction
1 chain of vapours
4 force of will
4 mana drain
1 mystical tutor
1 vampiric tutor
2 gifts ungiven

1 recoup
1 demonic tutor
2 merchant scroll
1 yawgmoths will
1 tinker
1 mana serverance

4 volcanic island
2 underground sea
1 library of alexandria
3 seat of synod
2 island
1 snow-covered island
3 polluted delta
1 flooded strand
1 strip mine (probably replace with fetch or add COW)
1 tolarian academy

Suggestions??

[pyr0ma5ta]

The mana base looks like it could use some work.

Also, while Thirst for knowledge is fine by itself, it's infinitely better when you have moxes to pitch when you don't draw into a robot.  It also looks like you're playing a Control Slaver-ish deck more than a SSB/Gifts deck. 

Also, I've never really liked Recoup Slaver because it's just another terrible card that you can draw that gets stuck in hand.  You end up pitching it to thirst a lot.  Also, a Gifts-Recoup-Yawg pile usually requires 2 other busted cards, usually a combination of Lotus, Academy, Time Walk, Tinker, Burning Wish, and Rebuild, depending on what you're already holding.  Any of the various combo-finishes require about 239672938476 mana to go off, and i'm afraid your lack of cheating mana hurts this plan a lot.  For these reasons, Recoup doesn't belong.

[Largent]

i think you should try to fit at least 1 more gifts in there

PS, most vintage tournies allow 10 proxies so that should be a problem if you want to build something that requires power

[McBain]

where i am currently going to university there is no proxies. Normally when i live in van i play with proxies, and i play C/S. So i guess thats why it kinda looks more like a slaver build.

I could go:
-1 slaver
-1 pentavus

+1 trike
+1 gifts

then the recoup isnt sooo bad, should i swith things up and mabye add a tundra and balance, mabye a burning wish?
thoughts?

[Lymph]

1. SSB
2. Tog
3. Landstill

1. This won't work because of the same reason CS didn't work out.
2. I tried this one myself (owning a playset of drains and a library) but your opponent has the mana advantage (moxen) and can cast their draw spells/tutors faster than you with drain backup. Also Intuition/AK isn't as good as it was a couple of months ago when nobody played it but now there are a lot of Drain TPS decks around. And their Yawgmoth's Will will always be better than yours ie. yours will not always win you the game.
3. Landstill is your best shot (altough the deck itself is hideous) because a powered version only plays 5 power cards (Lotus, 2x Mox, Time Walk, AR).

[McBain]

right now well im at school there are no real power (or any proxies) decks, so im not to concerned about people running power. therefor i dont worry about crazy yawg wills, or a lot of drain decks running around.
Normally well i live in vancouver and seattle area, where there is an actual vintage meta and proxies i will play much different.

Im thinking of trying the landstill out, due how i dont realllyyy need the power to make it somewhat good.
also its a control deck that deals well with aggro,combo and control.

any suggestions on what type to play, IE blue/white or blue/red   mix?
now remember, im not running power, nor is my oppenent (most of the time)

[Lymph]

I'm no Landstill expert but ...

I would definitely play White:
It gives you Balance, Swords to Plowshares, Disenchant. Maybe Meddling Mage, Enlightened Tutor.

You might be able to splash a bit of Red it gives you some nice sb cards:
REB, Rack and Ruin, Fire/Ice, Pyroclasm


I would play something like this:

4 island
2 plains
4 flooded strand
4 tundra
1 library of Alexandria
4 wasteland
1 strip mine
4 mishra factory ( i would stay away from Faerie Conclave)
1 lotus petal
1 sol ring

+2 more manasources

4 drain
4 fow
3 swords
1 balance
1 disenchant
2 Nev Disc
3 Crucible

4 brainstorm
4 standstill
1 mystical tutor
1 Fact or Fiction

1 decree of justice
1 eternal dragon

+4 other cards

Something to fetch strip mine would be nice but all I can think of is Intuition in UW.

Have you considered 3cc ? You can drop the Standstills for some real carddraw (TFK, AK) and add black for tutors (to get strip mine) & duress. Switch the win condition to Tinker + Colossus and maybe a few Vedalken Shackles that can steal about anything.

[McBain]

what kind of list might you run for a 3-4cc deck, budgeted, whos main match ups would be fish, oath, and aggro

[Pitlord]

Given the choice between playing unpowered tog, unpowered slaver, or landstill.. I'd play legacy. :lol: But seriously, I would play tog. He is easy to budget as long as you have the dual lands. The deck plays all sorts of busted draw cards, and you can play intution/Deep anal as a cheap to acquire, efficient draw engine. Tog himself is a powerful win card, and is easily backed up by tinker -->DSC. With a 3c tog buld, you get almost every good tutor and draw card imaginable,a dn a decent win condition.

[warble]

I think you misunderstand the purpose of ssb.  The main objective with every deck that can play belcher is to plop down mad manas turn 1, maybe even a tolarian, and turn 2 after the turn 1 setup you go in for the kill.  SSB simply uses the classic gifts/cs control mechanism to allow a control game prior to the setup+kill phase (that gifts can do really easily).  In your list I see the following mana acceleration:
1 mana crypt
1 sol ring
1 mox diamond
1 mana vault
1 lotus petal
Because you only have a minimal amount, even gifts will NOT help your deck.  There's just no reason to keep hands where you don't have any acceleration and gifts, because you'd rather mull into gas.  Otherwise you're playing the classic control matchup where you know whoever has the manas win.  And since you have no proxies and no power you're really just conceding.  Whoever hits their gifts first wins and you don't ever hit your gifts against a powered deck with this list.  Not...ever...  But I do respect your attempt and so I will show you the way to make the deck work.

1) Duress
2) Mana Leak

What does this do?  First of all, it allows you to be proactive instead of reactive on this initial turns with duress and leak.  Sure, without power you might be a little slower, but the absence of power allows you to increase the duress count to 3 or 4, which is absolutely scary to a control deck.  You know their hand and you take their best card.  Word.  Mana leak increases the opportunity to win that early battle as well as keeping initial threats (such as opposing pithing needles) from doing the maximum damage.  Sure, they can hit a turn 1 needle, but force was all that was stopping that and pithing needle is merely an inconvenience for a deck with the reactivity of SSB.  In addition, duress will add protection for that turn you "go for the win" because you still have that acceleration, it merely happens at a later stage of the game (probably turns 6 and 7 by my estimates).  Since you need to survive, and your list is strictly less broken than a powered cs build, you tweak and increase your survival chances while decreasing the brokenness of the deck.  Just because it's less broken does not mean it will win less.  With that in mind it may be optimal to replace those 3 0-cost artifact accelerants with chalice of the void.  Unless you're going up against a lot of workshops/goblins this should be playable at 0.

Edit: One other note, welder just isn't as broken as it would be with full jewelry in the deck.  It can't be.  Neither is thirst for knowledge.  what IS broken without jewelry is goblins, and that's the reason you see so much of that and fish/landstill in an unproxied environment.  Going up against that makes it a bad choice to run any control deck.  Especially one with already-weakened draw and win conditions.