Anti-Painter

[Bulls on Parade]

Hey guys, I haven't posted/ read here for (literally) years but for some reason felt compelled to check up on Magic. It seems like there's a lot of interesting stuff going on, and I've put a deck together that I feel could have potential with a lot of development, but more importantly revolves around a card I've wanted to be good since it was printed.

No surprise there:
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
2 Merchant Scroll

Something completely different:
4 Artificer's Intuition
4 Stifle
2 Phyrexian Dreadnought
2 Darksteel Colossus
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Chalice of the Void
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Pithing Needle
1 Sensei's Divining Top

Needs more cards:
1 Chain of Vapor
2 Misdirection
3 Mana Leak


5 Moxes
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
3 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
5 Island
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria

And that's only 58 cards, but I have no idea what decks need. I'm not sure about Gush and Ponder doesn't seem like a great choice.

Obviously I pretty much compiled different "tech" that I thought seemed good and jumbled it into a deck that wants to beat the new big combo. The coolest thing I found was that you can Stifle Dreadnoughts now.

Pitching Colossus to A. Intuition gets it back into your library, but Leyline of the Void is a PITA.

So yeah. Have people already considered AI and dismissed it? I don't play Magic at all anymore and don't even own cards so I won't be attending any tournaments, I just thought of what seemed like a potentially good idea while skimming through tmd/ procrastinating my finals studying.

Rob, IM me if you read this/ are still around TMD.

[madmanmike25]

So yeah. Have people already considered AI and dismissed it?

I think most people value Trinket Mage more is all.  Essentially AI costs 1UU and you have to discard, whereas Trinket Mage costs 2U, replaces himself, and can beat.  The fact that it can be used multiple times isn't really important since you are going to search for an artifact you want to play meaning you won't have many artifacts in hand to keep going.  I think even Salvager combos still liked Mage better.  Might not be bad as a 1-2 of though.

And that's only 58 cards, but I have no idea what decks need.

Mystical Tutor for starters.  Maybe Ponder too.

[LordHomerCat]

I would think you would want some way to actually draw some cards.  The only +CA card I see is Recall, so maybe a thirst or two or Fact or Fiction or something would be good so that you can actually get cards into your hand.

[Edi1986]

Whith 3sensei and locket of yesterday (arteficer's intuition can fetch all of them) you can go for infinite spells and kill with brainfreeze....

[madmanmike25]

Whith 3sensei and locket of yesterday (arteficer's intuition can fetch all of them) you can go for infinite spells and kill with brainfreeze....

Hmm how many cards does that take?  3 Tops, Locket, AI, and Brainfreeze= 6 cards.  But wait, there's more...

Your best case scenario is discarding the first Top(to make locket work) to AI and then you still need to discard 3 more artifacts to fetch out the remaining pieces.  So that's a 9 card combo?? 10 if you had to discard something else to get that first Top.  Yikes.  I would rather use Intuition in that situation and get to use AK, which I feel is underrated.

Locket+Chromatic Spheres/Stars is also an option for AI, but there are surely better draw engines in Vintage.

If AI was like Survival of the Fittest with no restrictions on what type of artifact you could get then it would be awesome.  The more I think about it AI just seems underwhelming, but good luck.