For starters, welcome to the format! It's great to see some of the Legacy guys come over and play Vintage.
Vintage is a format marked by the smallest of differences; changing five cards in a deck can be the difference between having a significant advantage over the field and being hamstrung to your opponents.
The Forino brothers (especially Raffaele) have done a tremendous amount of work within the Shop pillar in the last five years. While there were other Shop variants over the years (some notable performers include Robert Vroman's Uba Stax and Tommy Kolowith's R/G Bazaar Stax), by 2009, 5C Stax was the best represented of the Shop decks. Once in a while Shop Aggro would spike a tournament, but the deck wasn't really capable of adjusting; it's sole path to victory demanded casting and attacking with creatures, as opposed to the 5C Stax decks, which could create an un-winnable board state.
The restriction of Thirst for Knowledge was the first major hit that 5C Stax took and the printing of Lodestone Golem sealed the deck's demise.
Once 5C Stax was no longer viable (Shop decks are elegant hate decks; try and answer too many individual decks/threats and you're not dense enough to fight any of them), the Shop deck that defined the pillar wasn't capable of holding together our definition of what the pillar was anymore.
My view on Shops is colored by my experiences with Forino. I think it's impossible to discuss modern Shop decks (and where those decks should be headed) without discussing the decks that the Forino family has built.
Espresso Stax was the first post-Lodestone Shop deck to be built. The deck was an absolute monster for more than a year. Here's Forino's list from a Lotus tournament I ran where it was an all Espresso Stax finals, and Espresso was something like five of the top nine decks:
http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/1692/iframeThe deck evolved to answer the myriad things that were thrown at it. I loved running Rishadan Ports; they were tremendous against the control decks of the era, but with the printing of Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Mishra's Factories worked their way into Shops again. Trygon Predator found Maze of Ith in our sideboard. Phyrexian Metamorph helped answer the Blightsteel Colossus problem, and on and on and on.
Espresso's last major stand (to my knowledge) was at last year's Summer Open:
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=5513&d=231905With the rise of creatures in the field, I cut Karn for Steel Hellkite. With the game becoming more about tempo, I added Ratchet Bombs to the main. I cleaned up the board as well.
I ran that list for a few months before it was time to shelve it altogether.
Martello Shops was the product of Raf Forino looking to bring something new to the field. He had been intrigued by Kuldotha Forgemaster. We had both discussed the nature of Sundering Titan; it was a tremendous card, but it was a card without a home. It needed to be a tutor target, a singleton, and something run against a field of blue decks.
Martello was defined by its respect for its curve. One of the most loathsome things about the Legacy MUD decks is the inclusion of cards that are never really able to be played once drawn. Blightsteel Colossus is the biggest offender. There are Vintage decks like this. They seem like two outcome decks; home run or strike out. When you draw an opener with a plethora of cards that cost more than five mana, you're going to be in trouble. You have to be able to play small in order to get big. You can't just show up big. You'll get killed in the long run. Anybody can run hot for a day. Show me consistency.
Look at Forino's Vintage Champs top eight list:
http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=48076One Duplicant, one Titan, two Hellkites. That's the top of his curve. He has Revokers, Wires, the proper number of Sphere effects. He has a game plan for the first two or three turns that doesn't involve "land a threat, pray it sticks, ride it out to victory". Being Six Drop Shops may be fun for some guys, but it's just not going to get it done month in and month out. People run Wasteland. You don't open up every hand with multiple Workshops. Null Rod is seeing a resurgence in play.
Forino went on a run and demolished the field with Martello. I held off from playing Martello for a while, played it for the first time, and won a Top Deck Games tournament. A year later, the deck was still a beast. I had been discussing an updated Martello Shops list with Will Magrann prior to the MVPLS Invitational in May; I finished fourth, Will won the event.
Defining decks in Vintage is tricky; as mentioned earlier, a few cards can change the nature of a deck. Kuldotha Forgemaster is a card that is run in several different Shop decks, but that doesn't make them all Forgemaster decks. Consider this:
1st - Keith Seals
Metalworker Shops
4 Mishra’s Workshop
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Wasteland
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
4 Metalworker
4 Kuldotha Forgemaster
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Sundering Titan
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Duplicant
1 Blightsteel Colossus
2 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Lodestone Golem
1 Trinisphere
3 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Tangle Wire
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Lightning Greaves
SB:
2 Witchbane Orb
2 Crucible of Worlds
3 Dismember
4 Grafdigger’s Cage
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Duplicant
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
Keith's deck would also seem to be a Forgemaster deck at a quick glance, but it's not. It's a Metalworker deck.
Compare Keith's list with Raf's Champs list. Both decks may initially purport to be Forgemaster decks to an untrained eye, but look deeper; the plays that both decks are trying to make are wildly different. Keith's deck places a clear emphasis on Metalworker (pay specific attention to the Cavern of Souls), whereas Forino's list seems less concerned with one specific threat, and more concerned with the total board-state (notice the count on Spheres, among other cards).
Terra Nova was built, in part, as a direct response to a comment made on TMD. The comment was that without new printings, no new innovation within the pillar was possible. Forino read that and was determined to prove the statement wrong. The deck, like all decks, has adjusted and adapted to the metagames that have come and gone. Initially there were more copy effects, now there are less, and a little more specific maindeck hate to the answers in the field. A misplay kept Forino out of the top eight at my N.Y.S.E. Open II. Tiebreakers pushed him out of the top sixteen. But Forino's list, played by both brothers, is a work of art. It can be found here:
http://www.eternalcentral.com/nyse2decklistsmetagamereport/I won't bore you with the rise and fall of MUD Marinara.
Martello Shops was the Tinker deck. MUD Marinara was the Welder deck. Espresso Stax was the Smokestack deck. Terra Nova was the Sphere deck. 5C's pieces came to find themselves reincarnated in the form of full fledged decks.
While many of the modern Shop decks run similar cards, we must be careful with how we define them. It's the toughest part of a T/O's job, in my opinion, as there's nothing but grief if you're not hyper efficient at it.
Still, welcome to the format!
