The Mountains Win Again

[Myriad Games]

My latest tournament report has been posted here.

Enjoy!

[andrewpate]

@zabuza
None of the creatures you suggest are terrible, but I see generally stronger options right now.  Blood Knight is mostly good, as you indicate, against Fish creatures, while TMWA has a pretty good matchup against Fish already.  Gobhobbler Rats is just an efficient creature, and I don't even think it's better than Gathan Raiders, which needs to be cut anyway.  Goblin Tinkerer and Viashino Heretic aren't really better than Goblin Vandal against Stax, which can't block in the first few turns anyway, and if you don't expect much Stax you shouldn't be running Vandals anyway.

Sudden Shock is certainly a good card against GAT, but this mana curve essentially goes from 0 to 1 directly to 3, thanks to the acceleration in this current R/B iteration.  A random 2-cost spell will often come at the expense of efficiency.  If you expect tons of GAT in place of this build's good matchups like Stax and Flash, you might consider going back to one of the builds less heavy on pitch spells and without Simian Spirit Guide, possibly putting white back in for Swords to Plowshares and certainly adding some hate like Sudden Shock.

Likewise, if you anticipate lots of Oath, you may want white for StP.  This build is not quite a bye, however, due in no small part to the 8x turn-1 discard you criticize.  Ripping an Oath on turn 1 with Pyroblast mana still open is by no means a poor start post-board, and the Cruel Edicts can come in, as well.

This list already has 4xShattering Spree in the board.  I think that moving any of them to the maindeck would be overkill unless Stax becomes much more popular than it is.

@Dan
You had a Pyroblast Misdirected to a land at Worlds.  Is Red Elemental Blast not a much better choice for exactly this reason?  Especially if you cut Gathan Raiders, which I recommend and which you seem to be intending to do anyway, your reliance on hellbent is not that great and it seems valuable to have removal targeting Psychatog become more difficult to counter rather than less.

[Myriad Games]

Thanks again for the comments. Keep the feedback coming.

Blood Knight: I don't think there's enough Fish and Bomberman in the metagame to make this worthwhile.
Gobhobbler Rats: I like the idea of this guy, especially since he would fill a similar function as the Spectral Lynx I ran at Waterbury
Sulfur Elemental: He's fine as an uncounterable creature, but again, not enough Fish and Bomberman to make him worthwhile. 3/2 for 3 just isn't good enough in this deck given the number of other three drops I have.
Artifact Dudes: I still think that Vandal is one of the best cards against Stax since it can blow up cards of any size and quickly (coming down for 1 mana is very significant in a world full of Spheres and Wastelands. I've run Heretic in the past and considered Tinkerer, but I think the metagame is just too fast now to make them relevant, with the Stax builds aimed at slowing spells and halting mana development promptly. Gorilla Shaman is another option for this slot, since it's better than Vandal against most everything except Stax. Paying 7 to blow up Crucible just doesn't happen all that often. Of course, all of these die to Triskelion, which is why the ...
Shattering Sprees: in the board are so key. I don't think the Sprees are worth running in the main since the rest of the decks are either light on artifacts or too fast to care about Spree.
Pulverize: I prefer to have Shattering Sprees, which don't set back my mana development.
Sudden Shock: It's certainly another option, but it's not nearly as quick as most of my other removal.
Oath: I played against one Oath player at Vintage Champs. I don't think it's a significant portion of the metagame, but the REBs, Duress, Unmask, and Moons should be your primary tools against them. If you can get a good Hellbent swing in with a Poppet you can set them back quite a ways as well. And as Andrew mentioned, Cruel Edicts can come in from the board as well.
Snuff Out: Amazing because it works against virtually everything except Tog (and Negator) The fact that it can kill artifact creatures is also huge.
Unmask: Are they necessary? In this environment, I think they are. It's often not enough to simply impede their hand with a Duress. You want to make sure you grab a key card on turn 1.
Pyroblast: These will most likely be replaced by REBs. The initial logic for running Pyroblast was to support the Hellbent subtheme, but in almost every matchup where you want a REB, you'll have no shortage of targets. Since they're in the board and not in the main, they can easily become REBs to avoid the Misdirection issue cited.

When sculpting your own version, make sure you ask yourself what your metagame will look like. Then adjust your numbers so that they suit that metagame. You should have a certain amount of overall card quality and quantity against each of your major matchups (I have a formal, subjective rating system I use for each card choice) and then fill in the gaps with your sideboard.

[zabuza]

Thanks for your answers. I think are reasonable. I´ve though in another option to reach hellbent fastely. Have you though of zombie´s infestation? It can morph your extra rods, chalies, etc into an horde of 2/2 zombies.
I like the shudden shock and thinking on give them a chance.
The unmask are good but i think you need a lot of black cards to support them, but i´m going to test them.
if i think on any more options i will write them here. Thanks for your help.

[Myriad Games]

You're welcome, Zabuza. We'll look forward to hearing how your testing goes.

We did consider Zombie Infestation, but I feel it's not worth it in a deck with no draw engine. The balance of black and red cards is very important to support the pitch counters. The right color mix and mana base is crucial to the deck performing as well as it can.

[wiley]

A quick question ...

Do o the fact that chalice has waned more and more in relevance (and that in my testing I've yet to come to a point where I would want it in the main) would it be a better choice to replace it in the sb with extripate?

I've never experimented with extripate in vintage before, so I don't know how well it performs, the only matches where I think it would come into great effect is duressing a tendrils or gush and 'pating it.  However, in those instances it is a very strong play that almost (if not totally) neuters the opponent.

Other possibilities include mind twist since even a twist at one can be excellent counter bait on the first turn to pave the way for an unmask.

I'm still trying to find something that outperforms pyrostatic pillar for damage:cost, but I'm coming up short.  Anyone else have any ideas?

Also, does anyone know of a way other than aggressive mulligan skills to consistantly hit the poppet?  I was thinking wheel of fortune but thats rather counter intuitive, and bazzar doesn't really work because of the moons.  Perhaps something along winds of change, but I still wouldn't know what to cut to fit these in.

[zabuza]

Hey, look at this. Searching in my box of cards i´ve found something that can be the supertech of the horrible death to the end of the universe XD. it´s TASTE FOR MAYHEM. it´s an enchant creature that cost R and with a jagged poppet is BRUTAL. when you play this on a poppet and had hellbent you have a 7/4 that make mind twist of seven.IT´s a nice form to close the game XD. well i´llbe waiting for your thoughts about it. The two things i don´t like about it is that it uses slots that are not used to hate and is an enchant creature and the opponent can make you a 2x1 but it helps you to take hellbent anyways.
What do you think about?

[Hell of a Hat]

Enchant creatures are generally bad as they let your opponent 2 for 1 your creature, the only reason Strength of Lunacy was any good was because it had madness, and it wasn't good enough.

[zabuza]

YEah, i know that, it´s one of the reasons why i´m not sure about it but think for a second. in the deck you have 8 discarding spells. is not very difficult to take away the swords(for example) from the hand of the other player and play the enchantment. if you do so, you have won the game because few decks can recover from losing all their hand in a single time(and taking 7 damages as well). i´m going to test it because it can be a feast. Another card that make something similar is Psychotic Fury and is cantrip but this is only "castable" on the poppet nor on the magus. in order to play it easily i´ve thought in the "taste" but i´m going to test tem because leaving the hand of the opponent empty is a good way to be sure you are going to win.
Perhaps may be i´m wrong but only testing give us the truth.
thanks.
If i have anything more i´ll be back around here.
Please give us any idea to upgrade the deck.
thanks.

[Myriad Games]

While Gathan Raiders can be a beast, the real strength of something like Jagged Poppet is that it only takes one hit to make a huge difference, the Poppet just have to stay Hellbent to be effective. For this reason, I think we can pretty easily discard the idea of running creature enchantments in general and specifically those that require Hellbent to be most effective.

Right now I'm testing 3 Pyrostatic Pillars in place of the Gathan Raiders to see how the damage adds up. Other than that, I've switched the Pyroblasts in the board into REBs as previously discussed. Other developments depend on the metagame, so definitely tailor the list to suit your local environment.

I don't think Mind Twist is worth running because this deck doesn't have a huge amount of mana to work with. It would also most likely be played later in the game because of the risk involved with playing one early into a Misdirection. I prefer the pinpoint removal of Duress and Unmask and I don't think this deck needs much more than that (perhaps 2 more discard spells total).

Chalice seems to fit best in a prison style of deck, but it certainly could be tried here. If you test with any of the cards under discussion, be sure to post what matchups you tested and the results.

[mr cheese]

Hey guys, it's Mr. Cheese with the Mountains. Looking at Dan's B/R list made me want to try it out. I remember a while back my brother was playing Rakdos in T2, and I never really liked the Poppet on the other end of the table. I have built a Mountains deck for my meta. My meta is very unique. It's full of random aggro: Slivers, Goblins, Mono Green, Mono Red, some are quite decent and others, well, are noob decks.

Recently in our last tournament the decks that competed inclded...

Ichorid, Stax and Artifact varients, Dragon (yes, you aren't going blind), Fish builds, Many control decks that are non-blue and that are blue, GAT, Flash, Goblins, a little bit of Oath, Tendrils, Landstill, and some Storm varients. Yes, it is pretty random but if you spend a day at one of these tourneys you can get an idea of what it is like.

Now, here's my build for the meta.

OMFG! The Poppet has a JITTE!
5 Mountain
4 Swamp
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Badlands
------------------------------------ 17
4 Magus of the Moon
4 Goblin Vandal
4 Jagged Poppet
4 Simian Spirit Guide
2 Gathan Raiders
 ------------------------------------16
4 Pyrokinesis
4 Duress
4 Unmask
3 Snuff Out
2 Contagion
2 Dead//Gone
3 Pyrostatic Pillar
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
------------------------------------29
SIDEBOARD:15 cards
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Shattering Spree
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Greater Gargadon

I think Jitte's a powerful weapon in my meta and a good idea for this deck in general for these reasons...

1. Creatures are everywhere, from Bobs to Sidewinder Slivers. Must kill the ones that are problematic with a simple counter.

2. Using pump counters when facing down a hard to kill Dryad or a pumped Tog can give you an advantage and kill the little troublemakers

3. You can gain life from the Jitte, this gives reason to run more Pyro Pillars and max out the Snuffs Outs.

Am I missing something, or does this list need a bit of tweaks?

[rkmancer]

Jitte is the most powerful equipment for all format in my opinion. .
but I don't think it worth enough to take place in maindeck list. .
For me, takes too long time to have 4 mana and damage dealing to activate it. .

Since my meta have a lot of oath deck. .I put a big concern on it. .
With the latest TMWA version (R-B jagget poppet), I can say that i don't know
what to do once 'oath of druids' successfully comes to play. .Greater Gargadon
can delay it for a moment but once it played, maybe I just can swing for 9 damage
and oath takes its needed creature to show Angels or Tyrant. .
So, if anyone could give me advice in order to playing against oath. .I'll so appreacite 

@zabuza. .I think for Dead/Gone as a powerful red spell in his format. .it very strong against
fish and becomes a nice tool for bounced unwanted huge creatures (tinker's result, dryad,
atog, or maybe heart sliver to buy some time)

[zabuza]

YEs i think dead/gone is good on that but it has a problem. THe 3cc cost that can´t be fast enough in some cases. I´ve thought in a goblin that cost 1r and does something similar (it has echo, but you never are going to pay for it, aren´t you? XD).
I´ve tested taste for mayhem and when you get hellebnt and the board is empty is brutal but otherwise is a bad choice. Jitte doesn´t like me because in t1 lot of people uses Null rod or a high number of artifact destruction spells so i think iit isn´t the optimal choice again.I´ve thought on : Blazing Specter or Avatar of Discord or Vicious Kavu or Army Ants or Rakdos Augermage. i´m going to test them but i think the rakdos augermage can be a good option because it helps you to get hellebent and makes the oponent discard a card you choose. Please have anybody an idea obout it.THanks

[mr cheese]

Jitte is the most powerful equipment for all format in my opinion. .
but I don't think it worth enough to take place in maindeck list. .
For me, takes too long time to have 4 mana and damage dealing to activate it. .

Since my meta have a lot of oath deck. .I put a big concern on it. .
With the latest TMWA version (R-B jagget poppet), I can say that i don't know
what to do once 'oath of druids' successfully comes to play. .Greater Gargadon
can delay it for a moment but once it played, maybe I just can swing for 9 damage
and oath takes its needed creature to show Angels or Tyrant. .
So, if anyone could give me advice in order to playing against oath. .I'll so appreacite 

@zabuza. .I think for Dead/Gone as a powerful red spell in his format. .it very strong against
fish and becomes a nice tool for bounced unwanted huge creatures (tinker's result, dryad,
atog, or maybe heart sliver to buy some time)

rk mancer: You are right about the Jitte not having synergy with the deck. It can't pitch and Null Rod is pretty common, so I don't think it will stand a chance.If Oath is that much of a problem, splashing white for Swords to Plowshares might be a good idea. Putting a few Dead//Gones in the sideboard would help too if you didn't want to splash white. I think Dead//Gones might be good replacements for my meta. You should also take a look at Sting scourger, he's a good option for bounce.

zabuza: I think the Specter is proabably too much mana, and the Discord is too risky (StP anyone?). The other creatures you suggested I am not sure about.

There's one creature though that we need to consider. Why not run Anger? Anger would speed up the deck. Anger in the yard can make your creatrures give early hits and your opponent won't see it coming. I think we should highly consider it.

[rkmancer]

I can't splash white since it's already R-B and have Magus of The Moon in main. .
Unless anyone told me some nice mana proportion to run 3 colors plus keep the moon, I
won't do that. .

I've run TMWA R-B version with 3 Rakdos Augermage maindeck in the past and he gave
performance as expected, the only problem was just 2 black in his mana cost. .maybe
it becomes Mr Dan's reason to use Jagget Poppet instead Augermage, doesn't it??

A goblin that can bounce so you mean for Stingscourger. .it's really match in goblin decks
because you have matron and can search it as your need. .but in TMWA, I always love
multifunction card as Dead/Gone. .you won't bounce Meddling Mage right?? You can simply
kill him with one red mana. It's an instant anyway. .

[Jacob Orlove]

Guys, I hate to quash a thriving discussion, but the cards and builds people are talking about bear almost zero resemblance to those in the first pages of this thread. That means it's time to start fresh, with a new thread, and I encourage you all to take all these points of discussion there.

However, this thread has run its course, and is being closed. Please feel free to start a new one.