Returning to Vintage - 3 years behind.

[Mykeatog]

So, I'm back. I am playing Vintage (well, trying to anyway), all over again. Bear with me though, I haven't really played any cards since Team Hadley was slugging it out in the Northeast while type 1 was becoming relevant. Seems like alot of the same cards are rocking the top tables, and a whole bunch of cool new tricks have taken root.

I don't really know anything about the format at all. I can find lists of what cards are good, but most of the old deep forum discussion about decks is gone. When I was getting out team secrecy had been brought up as an issue, but it seriously can't have made the forums as devoid as they seem to me. Anyway, I've got a few years catching up to do, but I've still got The Game in play, here is what I managed to put together for some warm up -- actually, this was kind of fun. I started playing with a buddy of mine and he played a welder and I had tinker in the grip, but I had forgotten to include Triskelion in the pile - so I fixed it. I spent a few nights remembering which spells were awesome, and which cards were there to make sure I didn't get murdered.

Anyway, throwing it back to 2004-2006 Vintage (non-exclusive), here is what I came up with:

Mana:
7 SoLoMoxen
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Lotus Petal
1 Grim Monolith
3 Volcanic Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Tolarian Academy

Worker Bee's:
4 Force of Will
3 Goblin Welder
3 Duress
2 Misdirection

Get me my guns:
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Brainstorm (R.I.P)
1 imperial Seal
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
2 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Time Walk

Ways to Win the Game:
1 Sundering Titan
1 Triskelion
1 Darksteel Collossus
1 Duplicant
1 Mind's Desire
1 Memory Jar
1 Mindslaver
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Yawgmoth's Will

I haven't really put any work into the sideboard. Generally, I take a box of 60 awesome sideboard cards to a tournament, and play whichever 15 seem to make the most sense. Obviously, this is a strategy that I should work on. Alright, so let's get to the questions I want to know the answers to;

What is going on? How many decks are there, and what are they - from what I can tell the field seems very diverse, but what does it consist of? Are the new cards (painters servant, thoughseize, thorn of amthyst) relevant? How about the old ones that are new again (grindstone, strategic planning)? Seems as though this strategic planning card has made it into the tournament scene (top tables at champs), but - sure does seem pretty bad at first glance.

Brainstorm is gone huh? Wow.

Obviously the point of my deck is to trigger a broken turn as early as possible. Which, may have been a decent plan back in 05-06, but it seems like Ichirod was going pretty fast at the championships, and he wasn't really keeping up with Tendrils decks, or Slaver decks, from what I saw.

So how fast is the format? Catch me up - I want to play vintage again.

[hitman]

It seems like you're trying to do too much.  You have several win conditions that will clog up early game hands with their high casting costs.  You're playing three Welders but only two Thirst for Knowledge.  If anything, it should be the other way around and you should run four with all the artifacts your playing and Welders.

Tutors like Vampiric Tutor and Imperial Seal are great for getting bombs in your hand to overwhelm your opponent but you're not well equipped to overwhelm a combo player or even a control player with better disruption.  You don't have a strong draw engine to dig into answers and threats and you're sacrificing card advantage for card quality.  In today's vintage, unless you're going for the throat like storm decks, you're not going to be able to get past a hand full of counters, manabase disruption or permanent disruption like Tormod's Crypt or Aether Spellbomb. 

No basics are not good in aggro-control and Workshop matchups.  Workshop decks try to bottleneck you at mana with cards like Wasteland, Strip Mine, Null Rod, Thorn of Amethyst, Sphere of Resistance, Trinisphere, Gorilla Shaman and Crucible of Worlds.  Without the ability to protect your manabase early by playing basic Islands, their Sphere effects will really hurt when they back it up with Wastelands.  Fish has Stifle, Wasteland, Strip Mine and Null Rod. 

Duress is nice to have against combo in the early game but sometimes lacks the ability to strip anything relevant out of an opponent's hand in the mid to late game because they may have already exhausted their options.  Hard counters like Mana Drain can be more reliable all-around in the main deck and accelerate you into very strong plays like Gifts Ungiven, Fact or Fiction and Thirst for Knowledge.  Without so many Merchant Scrolls around, early Recalls aren't as big a problem as they were so Misdirection loses some value.  It's nice to use to force your own spells through but by the time you're able to abuse your higher casting cost cards, decks like Ichorid and TPS will already have been able to win the game.  In general, combo-control decks want enough control elements to build up to the point where they can overwhelm their opponent.  Misdirection fills this role poorly.

It looks like you want to play Control Slaver or maybe a storm deck with Dark Confidants.  You may want to look up old Brian Demars Burning Slaver lists since you have Tendrils.  He use to play a Tendrils in his board but the Burning Wish was largely there for all around utility.  A lot of Europeans like Dark Confidant in their storm builds so you may want to check those out at morphling.de  Good luck with your deck and I hope my comments were helpful.

[Liam-K]

I don't really understand what you're trying to do with this list.  You look like a CS list with no drains, 2 thirsts, twice as many robots as you need and a completely random tendrils and an utterly useless mind's desire.  If you want to play a broken turn as fast as you can you need to be playing combo.  If you want to play storm spells at all you need to pretty much build your deck around them.  If you want to play welders and robots you need to start with CS and work from there.

No basics is a clear error.  Grim Monolith is generally considered bad.  I can't think of a creature in the meta best dealt with by Duplicant, especially in a deck with no shops and severely constrained welder enabling.



The current top decks seem to be TPS, CS, and Ichorid.  Current TPS is essentially Pitch Long adapted to run without brainstorms, with a man plan sideboard, less balls-to-the-wallness, and a more deliberate bounce enabler plan.  Current CS is essentially old CS with 4 Strategic Plannings (broken in CS, debateable elsewhere) and different metagame slots.  Current Ichorid seems to be capable of running manaless but have mana anyway so they have more sideboard options.

I have not played the strategic planning deck but as far as I can see it is good because it fuels Welder, Crucible, and Will while helping you dig for whatever you want.  Pick the best of the top 3, use the other ones later is not shabby and in the absence of brainstorm, filtering and smoothing is at a premium (look at everyone running ponder).

Painter's Servant keeps getting attention from good players but hasn't earned true respect just yet.  A lot of work needs to be done and a list isn't even close to being settled on, but it appears to be if not top tier, at least not utter jank.  Thoughtsieze gets play when you have need and space for more than 4 duress... misdirecteable is unfortunate.  Thorn doesn't seem to fit into top decks.  Grindstone is relevant only in combination with painter's servant.

[IthilanorStPete]

Just for ease of reference, here's the Control Slaver list that took 2nd place at the recent Vintage Champs:

creature [5]
2 Goblin Welder
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Sundering Titan
1 Triskelavus

instant [19]
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Echoing Truth
1 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
1 Misdirection
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Rack and Ruin
4 Thirst for Knowledge

sorcery [9]
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
4 Strategic Planning
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will

artifact [12]
1 Black Lotus
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Vault
1 Mindslaver
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Tormod's Crypt

land [15]
3 Flooded Strand
3 Island
2 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island

Sideboard:
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Rack and Ruin
1 Pyroclasm
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Sphere of Resistance
1 Thran Foundry
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Trinisphere
3 Wasteland

[Ufactor]

The list looks like it's for 7/10.dec.  This is a non-shop aggro-control artifact deck.  Triple S (Shane Shoots) and Carl Winter both had versions of this deck at some point in time.

The best place to get tech (outside of your secret team, of course) is from tournament reports.  Most posters are pretty good about giving detailed information on how to successfully play with certain decks. See link below.

The average critical turn in the format is 3/4.  With only Ichorid being able to go off on turn two.  TPS can go off this fast with a good hand, but will usually hold until counter backup arrives.  Shop Lock decks, with a few exceptions, are the only ones that can do anything relevant on turn one (Sphere of Resistance, Thorn of Amethyst).  Duress, Tutor, Oath, and dudes are other common turn one plays.


For clarification:

CS= Control Slaver f/ artifacts, Goblin Welder, Mana Drain, and Mindslaver recursion for the lock

TPS= The Perfect Storm, slightly different than three years ago, but you get the idea.  Paul Mastiano's deck examplefies this.

PL= PitchLong balls out storm combo with six or more rituals, pitch counters and Grim Tutor

Ichorid= Bazaar of Baghdad, Ichorid, Dread Return, Cabal Therapy, Bridge from Below and 10-16 Dredge cards (the successor to D4r60n)

For reference:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgevent/usnat08/vintage2

[LordHomerCat]

Just for ease of reference, here's the Control Slaver list that took 2nd place at the recent Vintage Champs:

creature [5]
2 Goblin Welder
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Sundering Titan
1 Triskelavus

instant [19]
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Echoing Truth
1 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
1 Misdirection
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Rack and Ruin
4 Thirst for Knowledge

sorcery [9]
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
4 Strategic Planning
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will

artifact [12]
1 Black Lotus
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Vault
1 Mindslaver
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Tormod's Crypt

land [15]
3 Flooded Strand
3 Island
2 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island

Sideboard:
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Rack and Ruin
1 Pyroclasm
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Sphere of Resistance
1 Thran Foundry
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Trinisphere
3 Wasteland

That's my list and it's insane.  Also, Lotus Petal should be Mana Crypt but WOTC typed it wrong.  Anyway, that deck is terrific, and basically you can probably cut Mindslaver altogether and just tinker out Titan over and over again to kill people.  I would recommend trying that as your starting point as it is solid preboard against almost everything and post-board, you can beat every deck in the format (even combo!).

[Outlaw]

WHOAMG ITS MYKEATOG!!!!! Welcome back!

[The Atog Lord]

Great to see you back, Tog. I don't have any great advice about which deck to play, since I'm trying to figure that out for myself. I'd just try out the Worlds Top Eight decks and see which I like -- that's my plan.

[MadManiac21]

Myke, you're my hero. If you end up back here in NE drop me a line, been running some events/partying at school and would love to have you out.

I wouldn't stand to make any significant suggestions on your list cause I only play workshop.dec these days, but i'd turn duresses into seize and drop either imperial or mystical, no need for 3 topdeck tutors.

[LotusHead]

The best place to get tech (outside of your secret team, of course) is from tournament reports.  Most posters are pretty good about giving detailed information on how to successfully play with certain decks. See link below.

Quoted for Truthery.

Netdeck any list that has Webster(David Ochoa) or LSV(Luis Scott-Vargas) next to it.  They know what they are doing.

(or Shay/Smemmen, etc). 

Truly, tournament reports are where it's at.  Like that Shop Combo deck (with the Umbra Mantles and Metalworkers).  I lose to that pile all the time on MWS.

Will the nerfing of Brainstorm Ponder and Merchant Scroll (and gush), Blue decks don't have to worry about beating each other, they worry about beating non-blue decks (from my limited MWS and maybe once a month T1 tournies experience.)

Force of Will is less prevalent without about cards, but Blue's power is far from neutered...