Counter-Top Magus - The Next Level of Vintage

[ErkBek]

I still think this deck is a very good deck in the metagame. Counter-Top Magus has a favorable Long matchup, even with Null Rod aggro, and slightly unfavorable Slaver (only b/c Tinker -> Titan). Here's my current list for those who are still following this deck:

Artifact Accel 8
5 Mox
1 Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt

Lands 16
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
3 Island
4 Underground

Control 13
4 FoW
2 Counterbalance
3 Thoughtseize
2 Duress
2 Mana Drain

Draw/Tutor/Broken 19
1 Brainstorm
1 Mystical
1 Ancestral
1 Walk
1 Vamp
1 Demonic
1 Scroll
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
3 Sensei’s Top
3 Dark Confidant
2 Magus from the Motha Fuckin’ Future
1 Tendrils of Agony

Utility 6
3 Trinket Mage
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Echoing Truth

Tinker Platinum just wasn't getting things done. The 1 Tendrils has added much flexibility to the kill, often times all you need is a Tendrils for 12ish to seal up W's. Tendrils isn't too hard to pull off since the deck has an incredibly powerful Yawg Will or can combo out with Magus.

Magus is no joke. He's like a really good Auriok Salvagers.

Drains have been added to help against topdecked business and resolved Null Rods (Drain their threat that follows Null Rod into a Magus, Confidant, Scroll, etc.). Counterbalance has been dropped to a 2 of since it's poor in some situations.

[OwenTheEnchanter]

Why only 3 Dark Confidant?

Also is Tendrils of Agony better than Brain Freeze?

[ErkBek]

Why only 3 Dark Confidant?

Also is Tendrils of Agony better than Brain Freeze?

3 bobs because you only want to draw 1 over the course of the game. Confidants can also clog up Magus topdecks. I've tried 4 and just was seeing too many. Confidants aren't needed by any means and they're generally very poor after turn 3.

Obviously turn 1 Confidants are nice vs. Control decks, but having Confidants against Fish and Shop decks is great since they keep you drawing cards while they're locking up your ability to play draw spells like TFK. Confidant is generally poor against combo though. If you play him turn 1 instead of a Duress effect, you're usually leaving yourself open to broken plays (not necessarily a turn 1 kill, but stuff like Necro or Draw7 to explode mana for turn 2). If you cast him turn 2 though, you're not disrupting them further, immediately locating more countermagic, or putting much pressure on them.

Brain Freeze does a couple cute things with milling shit when you've got Sensei's Top out or to negate a topdeck Tutor, but generally the deck doesn't have the ability to make storm of 14ish unless I have Academy + Yawg Will + Magus + Top. Tendrils enables tighter Yawg Will kills that don't need Magus in play.

[wiley]

Also is Tendrils of Agony better than Brain Freeze?

Tendrils has a lot more synergy with the other win condition of ogre beats.  Mini tendrils should be good here too, since you might need to eek out a slight life advantage to win against things like fish.

Freeze is only really good when you start using magus a bunch, ie when you should already be winning.  Not to mention that loading someones graveyard without being absolutely sure that it is lethal is a horrible idea.

I like the direction the deck is taking, I found it slightly underpowered in testing but perhaps the tindrils and drains will provide enough of a boost.  Since I'm broke this week I might as well sit at home and test some decks.  I'll post my results and thoughts later this week.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

I love everything Future Sight ever since Shining in 2003... I will definitly be testing this and come back with the results.
A few first observations:

You seem really low on actual carddrawing (Trinkets and Tops provide great filtering admittedly), has this proven to be a problem in locating Magus + the mana to play it early enough?

Is 24 mana working out fine? I know I ran 25 back in 2003 with 4 Brainstorms.

How is the Workshop matchup? It's the only one you didn't mention in your first post on page two. Did you have time to test it yet?
What about Ichorid (Trinket -> Crypt + the decks own speed might push this higher than the typical 5-10% of most decks G1)?

[ErkBek]

I love everything Future Sight ever since Shining in 2003... I will definitly be testing this and come back with the results.
A few first observations:

You seem really low on actual carddrawing (Trinkets and Tops provide great filtering admittedly), has this proven to be a problem in locating Magus + the mana to play it early enough?

Is 24 mana working out fine? I know I ran 25 back in 2003 with 4 Brainstorms.

How is the Workshop matchup? It's the only one you didn't mention in your first post on page two. Did you have time to test it yet?
What about Ichorid (Trinket -> Crypt + the decks own speed might push this higher than the typical 5-10% of most decks G1)?

24 Mana is working out just fine. The deck's mana curve is actually quite low. Also note that 16 of the mana sources are lands that tap for blue or black. No Strip Mines, LOA's, etc.

I haven't tested all that much against shops, maybe 7 or 8 games against monored shop aggro without Null Rods. At the time I was running the first list I proposed (3 Counterbalance and no Tendrils). I split the games then, I'm sure now I'll win even more with Drains and a Tendrils in the deck. Dark Confidant and Trinket Mage both really help buy time and keep you putting perms on the board.

Rarely ever does the deck feel like it's at least not drawing or at least not seeing lots of cards. Just a quick look at all the draw/filters:

3 Confidant
3 Top
3 Trinket Mage ~50% of the time they grab tops
2 Magus
1 BS
1 Ancestral
1 Scroll
1 DT
1 VT
1 MT

The 4 tutors frequently grab Ancestral unless you've got a Yawg Will set up.

[PETER FLUGZEUG]

nobody has talked about mystic remora in this deck yet. I think it's a very strong option:

blue turn 1 play, so to fetch out island, either limiting them playing moxen, duress etc. in their turn or netting you many cards (think of long...)

It helps you develop your mana base (by buying you a lot of time, when you don't want it anymore, you can always let it die.)
It's good synergy with top+counterbalance, if you know how the cards are stacked, you can either draw the card before or after revealing.
I think for a deck that likes to have UUU, this card is quite nice. you have a lot of artifact mana that can fuel the first few upkeeps, as well as just dropping lands. It's basically some time walks, especially against decks with few lands. 
And: It's especially good to drop one the turn you want to go off, in case your opponent wants do do something.

It does nothing against welder/bob/fish though. crap?

[KnowmaD]

Solid. I 've not played this list. At glance I like the fourth trinket mage, minus one top. I use him with fow,  to tutor for tricks, beats. I just like it in hand more .  Though I tend to play little more on the aggro side. So.. I think it will be a fun build to sleeve.
Is there a reason for the third top that i'm unaware of? I thought two worked, and with magus out one.
 

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

I've tested a bit two-fisted against both Slaver (~30 games) and GrimLong (~20 games), and I have to disagree a little with your matchup-results.
When I started testing against Long, I lost the first 4 games in a row and was somewhat disheartened - till I realized Long had won through Duress + Fow on turn 3 each time, not exactly its standard draw. Further testing went a lot better. Still, the matchup does not seem extremely favorable, just slightly so (did you test with the 3 Counterbalance build? Because whenever CB came down, Long got smashed).
As for the good news, the Slaver-matchup doesn't seem unfavorable, either, I' actually somewhat over 50% I think (and my build of Slaver does run 2 more MD Duress than the builds I see online). The MD Tendrils was surprisingly relevant, I won quite a few games by mini-Tendrilsing for ~10 the turn before Slaver was gonna slave me or kill me with Titan. Using Trinkets to get T.Crypt asap won quite a few games, too.

General comments:
Sensei's Divining Top is really the heart and soul of the deck, it's just so insanely good in here, I'd even like to find room for a fourth. Starting the game with Top in play is just sick for this deck.
@KnowmaD: The reason for three tops is that you don't have room for 4. Honestly, don't cut any, it's not a combo-piece, it's just an insane card in here and getting it with Trinket is horribly slow, you prefer already having one pre-Trinket.
I switched the Duress/Thoughtseize count around. Between Bobs, 8 Fetches, Mana Crypt and Vamp, you deal a hell of a lot of damage to yourself already and those two life would often have made the difference in my testing (even against these non-aggro decks). I might want to run 4 Duress, Thoughtseize becomes a Future Sight (uhm, ok, Magus) block because of its damage in close games.
Counterbalance was a house whenever I got it down with a Top, against both Slaver and Long. I won quite a few games playing Fish-style beating down with just a 2-power dork and hiding behind Counterbalance.

Mana Drain was really really good. I might want a third.


Well, the MD is testing fine so far (and looking at the American metagame, the deck should be great there, especially if Workshop is really roughly 50:50).

Any consolidated SB-plans yet? My ideas so far:

- at least 1 Pithing Needle
- Jailers as main Ichorid hate I think
- what for Shop? the classic bounce SB seems mediocre to me in here as you usually need two turns to combo out, one where you drop Magus and the one in which you win. And Magus sucks with Spheres. Bitterblossom actually seems interesting, especially as it doubles against Fish and aggro. Might be to much lifeloss, though.
- Something to compensate for Controls SB would be nice. But what to remove from the MD?
- a third Counterbalance in the SB should be good vs Long and control, considering the way it was performing for me
- Aether Spellbomb to have something to fetch that handles Titan?
- you definitly want something that deals with Null Rod, being locked out of topping has to be really really bad...
- some creature-kill/steal against Fish and possible true aggro-decks
- a single Darkblast to kill opposing Welders or Confidants might be nice

As a final note:

Thank you for making Future Sight (or rather its animated brother) good again! I just love playing with that card.

/Mystic Remora: Could be interesting. I am tapping out completely most of the early turns at the moment, though, so it'd slow me down, too.

[misslehead3]

About the sideboard i think that if you could get away with as much 1 or less costing artifacts so that trinket mage could tutor them up, then your all the better. I would like to hear from becker on this too but how difficult would it be to change to a white, almost transformational sb with salvagers and tundra's or something, i know that everyone in the forums has been saying how bad salvagers is compared to magus but i think they do somewhat different things. Salvagers in GY based and there is no way your opponent would think to side in crypts or leylines against you because the Main Deck does not show as though it is graveyard reliant at all. Also, it would open the sb options up to white cards like STP against fish and Chant against combo and potentially even control. On the other hand adding white might make the deck too spread out and overally weaken the deck, thoughts? If you chose not to go the white direction i think the normal bounce suite would be good. Like 1 hurkyl's 1 rebuild 1 chain, and then i think crypt would be better here against ichorid since trinket can find them very eisily. I do like the 1 pithing needle aproach here because two most of the time is redundant and with so much draw in the deck and other tutors and such, the singleton would be easy to find. Against combo i have always liked chalice of the void when playing stax, but that may not work with wanting to play tops and other things. I honestly do not know what would be the best approach here, the options are extirpate, more duress' and thoughtsiezes, another counterbalance, or some combination of all of them. I've been distracted too long now and forgot what i was gonna say, nice deck anywayz becker and gl with it

[Outlaw]

i'd play manamorph.   allows turn 1 counterbalances and easier to get UUU. Good card.