4th Place at Myriad in May with Painted Trinkets!

So here is the decklist first and foremost. I usually play Bomberman and I had felt that this combo allows you to play the Bomberman shell minus the white for Salvagers and plus the black for tutors and duress, plus sideboard options.

4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
3 Duress
4 Brainstorm
3 Thrist for Knowledge
3 Trinket Mage
3 Painter's Servant
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Grindstone
1 Tinker
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Mindslaver
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Island
4 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
1 Polluted Delta
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Academy Ruins
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt

Sideboard

2 Extirpate
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Spell Snare
3 Energy Flux
3 Engineered plague
3 Yixlid Jailer

Round 1 - Matt (3 color Fish)

Game 1 - I open with an early Ancestral, but he gets me with duress and therpay and I drop a grindstone. When I play Painter, he has the Swords to Plowshares to stop the combo, but I finally draw into a second Painter and a counter to push through for the game.

In game 1, I had seen Dark Confidants and Aven Mindcensors against me, so I board in the Engineered Plagues. I game 2, he opens with a turn 2 Bob and I respond with a turn 2 Plague on wizards, killing the Bob and leaving him with 2 dead cards in hand. He drops a Meddling Mage on Painter and counters my second Plague, so I Demonic Tutor for TIme Walk with Tinker in hand and get the Colossus and swing twice for the win.

Round 2 - Blaine (Stax)

Game 1 - I open with island sapphire and drain his turn one Uba Mask. I use that mana to play a Sensei's Top and then a Painter. I drain his welder next turn so that he cannot interrupt my combo and Demonic Tutor for the grindstone and deck him.

Game 2 - I mulligan to 6 and force his opening welder, but he drops Lotus and chalice at 1, I play a land and a mox and drop a Painter, but my hand is Brainstorm and Extirpate and that is all I draw for the next three turns, while he locks me out of the game with a Duplicant on my Painter and lock pieces.

Game 3- I get an early Grindstone and Painter, but he has a welder and Uba Mask out. As I had to use Lotus Petal I cannot grind him out, and he gets Smokestack out and even though I have Academy Ruins to recur moxen, I cannot keep up as he plays a second Smokestack and once I lose my combo he welds the pieces in and out to lock me out of the game.

Round 3 - Patrick (Gush Painter)

Game 1 - We fight over my ancestral in the early game which he wins and then he chains gushes with a tutored for fastbond out and can out counter me for my Will and then set his own up to grind me out.

Game 2 - This time my ancestral resolves and I win a fight over my Trinket Mage, which gets me an early Grindstone. He ends up with three Grindstones out, whilst I have resolved three Trinket Mages and although he recalls and Gushes and Time Walks he cannot find an answer and the Trinkets take it all the way.

Game 3 - My opponent mulligans to 6 on the play and opens with a Leyline, so in effect he had a 5 card hand. I open with an Island and a Sol Ring into a Sensei's Top and look at the top three. I resolve a copule of Trinkets getting the Grindstone and allowing me to shuffle me deck for the Top. This gets me to a Painter that resolves through one counter as his Gush cannot find an answer. Eventually I have the ancestral to win through his Blessing in his deck and the game is mine.

Round 4 - Cory (Counterbalance Goyf)

Game 1 - He wins the counter war over my early Ancestral, but I get plenty mana with Lotus and Academy and draw the Grindstone. I counter his Counterbalance and resolve my Yawgmoth's Will, which powers me to victory.

Game 2 - I get the combo early, but he stifles the activation and then Explosives for 0, knocking out all my mana bar the one land in play. He Lightning Bolts the Painter and then attacks me down with a Goyf. I draw a second land in Academy and when he attacks me down to 3, he casts Lighting Bolt, which I drain and then Force his Force. I go to my turn and draw Will, exclaim that if only I had an extra mana I would win, as I had Lotus and threemoxen in the graveyard, plus Painter and the Grindstone in play. Of course I scoop up just before I realise that I had a Mana Drain mana from the Lightning Bolt, whoops!

Game 3 - I open with an early brainstrom to his Ponder and then proceed to Spell Snare 2 Goyfs, slowing Cory down. I Trinket Mage for the Grindstone, but then draw Tinker and get Colossus. I then Thirst into Ancestral and get ahead in cards and attack through the Goyf and Trinket MAge that Cory has dropped, with him unable to find an answer to the big guy.

Round 5 - ELD (GAT)

We ID

Top 8 - Matt (Gush Combo)

Game 1 - I mull to 5 on the draw. Matt starts with some ponder and Brainstrom action to sculpt his hand. I drop artifact accelerants and go for a Thirst to which he Recalls, I Force his Recall and he Forces my Thirst. I tell him, I will now have to draw my Recall as I have an empty grip to his couple of cards. I then draw the Recall to amusement from the spectators and Draw into gas and duress effects to clear the way for the combo to take it home.

Game 2 - Matt mulligans to 6 and we start off with him gushing a few times and I drop the combo to discover that he has the Blessing to protect himself. I proceed to occasionally Grind him to see if he has drawn Blessing. He doesn't but draws Necro and goes down to 5 life, having lost half his life to Painter beats and a tapped Mana Vault. He is able to Brainstrom 3 or 4 times after the necro resolves, but sees Fastbond at least 2 or 3 times even after shuffling each time. He duress away my duress affects even though I am off black mana, but I finally draw Mystical Tutor and am able to get Ancestral and finish the game.

I feel lucky to have beaten Matt, my deck gave me nothing but gas game 1 and in game 2 if Matt had seen a ritual effect off necro I would have been toast. Still, you take the lucky wins when you get them, and try not to be too upset when they go the other way.

Top 4 - Gagooch (Gush Combo)

I didn't take very good notes for these games, but I lost hard both games. I was outdrwan as I didn't see enough gas game 1, and game 2, duress effects kept me down in card advantage, although i made one error by not keeping a second Extirpate which would have stolen the game after I duressed away a Tendrils as I would have taken away all his win conditions.

In conclusion, I liked how the deck played especially as I have not had a lot of experience with it yet. It is probably not the best build of the deck by any means. However, I feel it suits my playstyle as it plays very similar to Bomberman, which was the initial intention.

Thanks to Dan for hosting another great Vintage event at Myriad, and thanks to Rich Shay, who gave me the initial thought to put the Painter combo in this Shell.

Oli