[FREE PREMIUM ARTICLE] Breaking Vintage: Neo Black Primer

[Molten]

Breaking Vintage: Neo Black Primer
http://www.blackborder.com/q/node/4152
Patrick talks about the current trends in Vintage and presents the possibly best budget deck with Zendikar technology.

Let's break Vintage!

http://www.blackborder.com/q/node/4152

[Phele]

Great article: Good read and perfect description of the actual metagame and its main new contenders.

I would love to hear more about your reasons for not including green. Crop Rotation seems to be to obvious to avoid dead Urburg/Depths draws and to build another nice combination with Life from the Loam/Waste/Strip soft locks. Also green provides you with other tools like Tarmo or much better artifact destruction than Gate.

I softly disagree with one of your statements about the fish matchup. Even after boarding (Noble) Fish can still keep up with all your threats. Most of the Nobles here around play between two and three Trygons wich at least give additional options to care about Jitte/Blossoms after boarding. Also Noble has enough removal for all your other threats after boarding and is a Fish with lots of creatures to play around the Gatekeeper effect and to take away your Confidant/Thoughtseize reduced life very quickly. I don't say that this matchup is unbeatable, but during testing Noble I found it at least pretty challenging for the Sui player.

But I totally agree that this deck can be a real contender, as the results in Zürich have proven. Btw, I love the name Amadeus gave its Deck: "Dark Deck" seem to perfectly fit as it describes two key elements of the deck.

[heiner]

Hi
good article and very nice list. The only card I question is sadistic sacrament, while against some decs it is great, a first turn swamp, ritual, sacrament vs. fish or stax is the worst play you can make and will probably force you to loose. I would consider replacing them with 4 Bitterblossoms and instead put it into sideboard. You will strengthen your bad matchups (fish and stax) while deteriorating your good ones only marginaly. Of course Oath is a exception to this where sacrament really shines.

[LotusHead]

Very good article. I enjoyed it immensely, but

While Urborg ameliorates this slightly

way to abuse those SAT words!

[PETER FLUGZEUG]

Of course Oath is a exception to this where sacrament really shines.

Well, this isn't as easy as it might look like. G1, yes, if you can land sacrament it's gg.
G2, many (the good ones) players will have 4 creatures (Iona and 3 Dragons or any other config) so sacrament is rendered less stellar (but still not bad: you can hit 3 oaths and make them discard one). Plus the fact that they have to clog the deck up with 4 fatties.

[Killane]

This is a nice list.

I am curious though, why the Crypt + 2 Jailers instead of Leyline of the Void? I realize that there may not be room in the board for 4 x Leyline, but you do have room for 3 and I've always found it to be far more effective graveyard hate (vs Ichorid it's especially nice if you turn 0 leyline turn 1 Sacrament for bounce spells). It's also brutal against Vroman Oath, which runs only 1 bounce spell that can hit it and will have a hard time winning with the Leyline active (since they can't risk activiating Oath to get Iona, given that she could be on the bottom of the deck and if she's in the last 5 cards they loose).

[vroman]

since they can't risk activiating Oath to get Iona, given that she could be on the bottom of the deck and if she's in the last 5 cards they loose

worth it. on board yard hate would certainly not discourage me from oathing up Iona vs a MONOCOLORED deck.

[Bongo]

Thanks for the encouraging words!

Crop Rotation seems to be to obvious to avoid dead Urburg/Depths draws and to build another nice combination with Life from the Loam/Waste/Strip soft locks. Also green provides you with other tools like Tarmo or much better artifact destruction than Gate.

I'll talk about possible splashes and their advantages next week, so stay tuned.

I softly disagree with one of your statements about the fish matchup. Even after boarding (Noble) Fish can still keep up with all your threats. Most of the Nobles here around play between two and three Trygons wich at least give additional options to care about Jitte/Blossoms after boarding. Also Noble has enough removal for all your other threats after boarding and is a Fish with lots of creatures to play around the Gatekeeper effect and to take away your Confidant/Thoughtseize reduced life very quickly. I don't say that this matchup is unbeatable, but during testing Noble I found it at least pretty challenging for the Sui player.

Of all the Fish decks, Noble Fish is indeed the hardest one to handle. Yes, it has all the tools to deal with Neo Black's (or Dark Deck) threats, but the thing is: you need to handle those threats real quick. Marit Lage doesn't give you a lot of time, and Bitterblossom gets out of hand quickly. Same for Dark Confidant and Umezawa's Jitte. Fish on the other hand doesn't have threats that I need to handle as quickly (aside from Tarmogoyf). Pre-board was slightly difficult, but post-board, I always felt advantaged. Neo Black can bring in better cards than Noble Fish.

[Bongo]

Hi
good article and very nice list. The only card I question is sadistic sacrament, while against some decs it is great, a first turn swamp, ritual, sacrament vs. fish or stax is the worst play you can make and will probably force you to loose. I would consider replacing them with 4 Bitterblossoms and instead put it into sideboard. You will strengthen your bad matchups (fish and stax) while deteriorating your good ones only marginaly. Of course Oath is a exception to this where sacrament really shines.

Even with Fish and Stax in the metagame, Mana Drain Control, SCV and other decks with few win-conditions compose the overwhelming majority of decks. True, Sacrament is not optimal against Fish and Stax, but it is an "I win" button against the majority of the field. Of course, if your local metagame has more Fish and Stax, maindecking Bitterblossom instead of Sacrament is a good idea. Taking out Sacrament makes Neo Black significantly weaker, as you lose a strategic trump card.

[Bongo]

I am curious though, why the Crypt + 2 Jailers instead of Leyline of the Void? I realize that there may not be room in the board for 4 x Leyline, but you do have room for 3 and I've always found it to be far more effective graveyard hate (vs Ichorid it's especially nice if you turn 0 leyline turn 1 Sacrament for bounce spells).

I went with Jailer because I sometimes board it in against Fish and Stax. While Leyline is obviously stronger, I don't like the fact that you have to mulligan aggressively for it. A minor drawback is that you take more damage from Confidant if you reveal it. If you want more hate against Dredge, I think a split between Jailer, Crypt and Ravenous Trap is the best way, since they can't answer the hate with the same card (Chain of Vapor), forcing them to have the right solution.

[RecklessEmbermage]

Why no yawgwin in your list?

It's not good in the first two turns, of course, since your combo doesn't rely on chaining of spells, but the marit lage combo should give yawgwin about as much utility here as in sui decks that run 1-2 tendrils.

And no fetchlands...  Did you omit these cards for budget reasons?

EDIT: Oh. Sorry about that. I just got to that part of the article. In any case: If you happen to not be winning and the game goes longer than you wanted, yawgwin tends to put you back in the driver's seat. It's hard to believe that it shouldn't be included for raw strength alone.

One more thing, while I'm at it: I don't get how Urborg forces you to cut on wastelands. Shouldn't it be the other way around?

I'll read the whole article before making more dumb comments...