Flash is Back!!

[urweak]

So I got the idea after seeing how crazy the draw can be in GAT and other newly emerging decks. With the brainstorm ability of Jace, the Mind Sculptor, you can tuck your creatures back into your library so you can Flash + Protean Hulk them back up.

The sideboard is kinda shakey. Its all basically anti-hate, with Leyline for Ichorid. Should I consider [card]Yawgmoth's Will[/card]? [card]Time Walk[/card]? any stuff that might be less obvious?

Some cards that I dont know about yet. At first I had Spell Pierce as Pact of Negation, I am considering something like Daze instead, or just going back to Pact. Regrowth is there to get Flash back if I lose it somehow. Should Yawgmoth's Will replace Regrowth? Also Mana Drain is good, but I feel when I really want it I am already to tight on mana to cast it.

Lands:
4x Misty Rainforest
3x Polluted Delta
3x Underground Sea
2x Tropical Island
2x Island
1x Volcanic Island

Creatures:
2x Protean Hulk
1x Mogg Fanatic
1x Reveillark
1x Body Snatcher
1x Body Double
1x Carrion Feeder

Spells:
1x Flash
2x Summoner's Pact
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Brainstorm
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
3x Thoughtseize
3x Gush
1x Vampiric Tutor
3x Mana Drain
4x Force of Will
1x Ponder
3x Preordain
1x Regrowth
1x Merchant Scroll
4x Spell Pierce

Artifacts:
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Black Lotus

Walkers:
3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sideboard:
4x Hurkyl's Recall
3x Maze of Ith
4x Leyline of the Void
3x Nature's Claim
1x Reverent Silence

After some play testing I added Fastbond, Mox Ruby, and Time Walk. Removing Regrowth and I think 2x Thoughtsieze.

Fastbond can produce some explosive turns to find Flash.

I have played a bunch of games with this deck. It seems that the Noble Fish match up is almost unwinable maindeck as is the Shop/Stax match up.

With Noble, they have so many small counters that hurt your exsplosive draws, land destruction that effects your mana base, and counters + other effects to hurt your tutors. Even a correctly used Swords to Plowshares can hurt your combo.

As for Shop/Stax match up, the thing that effects you the most, are the Sphere effects like Sphere or Resistance. It makes your little draw spells unplayable. Land destruction huts just like in the Fish match up, and the big creatures it can drop are a huge threat.

With this, I have gone with a transformational Oath sidebaord.

Board: 
4x Leyline of the Void
4x Oath of Druids
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1x Forbidden Orchard
3x Energy Flux
2x Reverent Silence   

I havent got a chance to really test the board out for the two trouble match ups. But it seems good in other situations. Usally people come in full bore with graveyard hate from their side. The oath plain gives you a huge advantage and eliminates any advantage they might have had out of the side.

I still wonder however if this will work with Noble Fish, they have a lot of things maindeck to deal with oath to begin with, like Qasali Pridemage.

With shops, the spheres might make Energy Flux unplayable. But the Oath idea still seems strong, its just being able to swing your big guy while they have Tangle Wire out.

Leyline of the Void is for dredge (this matchup is whoever can combo out first, and usally its you. With your tutors and draw I think its a good match up, with leyline in play its almost lights out for them), and the Reverent Silence are for other leylines, but might not really be the best choice.

Anyways, if anyone has suggestions let me hear them.

[Zieby]

Why play the flash combo in this deck when you can play tv+key?

If you wnat to play flash, i would start with 4x Cunning Wish.

[urweak]

If you wnat to play flash, i would start with 4x Cunning Wish.

I dont want to play a 3cmc tutor when I have better options in Demonic tutor, vampiric tutor, merchant scroll, mystical tutor.

[GNU]

If you resolve Y'Will and replay a flash....wouldn't that prevent the hulk from going to the graveyard?

Seems that the combo requires alot of cards which are useless in their own right, when compared to TV or other combo decks....resulting in alot of dead draws. The power that was flash, was its ability to go off so consistantly (due to tutors), fast (due to tutors and b.storm) and protected (still hae all that)..... I understand your not trying to recreate the same deck, as the meta game has changed significantly since then.

[Mr. Type 4]

This deck is too narrowly focused on getting Flash off - I dont think its reasonable to try to play a deck like that without having a back-up plan.  maybe a Tinker/robot plan?  The strength of the original deck was the speed and redundancy of the combo (redundancy as in "my flash got countered, so I just cast another one").  You might be able to get the speed, but this deck just rolls over and dies against a couple common sideboard(or maindeck) cards.  You need to have something else to do when the Flash plan is unreasonable.   

[beder]

I don't want to be rude, really i don't....

But I clearly don't understand why we are even considering a deck that relies on one single card and which has to play 9 other dead cards in order to be able, very rarely, to play its combo...

Being creative is nice. But in that case, I feel like there is no future for such a build.

Again, don't want to be rude, I just don't see any reason why such a build would be playable.

[SiegeX]

This deck suffers from the same fate the Channel-Mirror deck has. It's just way too fragile with only one copy to work with causing you to clutter your deck up with tutors which in turn make the deck way too narrow.

[personalbackfire]

I don't think that this is better than other options but I also don't agree with some of the posts been made. I feel like for the most part they are all just like "blah blah blah why would you do that?" bandwagon garbage.

However on the topic of this deck...

I dont think its reasonable to try to play a deck like that without having a back-up plan...  You need to have something else to do when the Flash plan is unreasonable.   

I agree that you want more than one win condition. Luckily enough for him he already has 3 copies of Jace to act as an alternate win condition... That is separate from just hard casting a Hulk that is.

This deck suffers from the same fate the Channel-Mirror deck has. It's just way too fragile with only one copy to work with causing you to clutter your deck up with tutors which in turn make the deck way too narrow.

I don't see the cluttering the deck with tutors thing. I suppose you are referring to the 2 copies of summoners pact. The rest of the deck looks like a reasonable UBg deck with the flash combo thrown in.

@urweak.
Did you add the 4th Gush? I saw that you mentioned adding fastbond. The gushbond engine is good.

Also is casting jace hard with limited artifact acceleration?

[beder]

I don't think that this is better than other options but I also don't agree with some of the posts been made. I feel like for the most part they are all just like "blah blah blah why would you do that?" bandwagon garbage.

Well, sorry if you feel like what has been said is "blah blah blah".

But again, just wanting to be a little bit objective, here is my analysis :
This deck uses a 2 card combo :
- with one part of the combo being restricted to one => flash,
- the other part not being restricted => protean

And to be able to play that fragile combo, the deck has to be filled with 5 useless cards :
1x Mogg Fanatic
1x Reveillark
1x Body Snatcher
1x Body Double
1x Carrion Feeder

And last funny thing, those 5 useless cards have to be in the library, in order to be able to use the combo...

Let's face it, this is just way too weak in comparison to the other choices available in Vintage.

[urweak]

And to be able to play that fragile combo, the deck has to be filled with 5 useless cards :
1x Mogg Fanatic
1x Reveillark
1x Body Snatcher
1x Body Double
1x Carrion Feeder

And last funny thing, those 5 useless cards have to be in the library, in order to be able to use the combo...

I only need 4 out of the 5 to be in the library. The most important card (Carrion Feeder) is easily hard casted. While the others can be rescued from my hand with Body Snatcher.

I agree that you want more than one win condition. Luckily enough for him he already has 3 copies of Jace to act as an alternate win condition... That is separate from just hard casting a Hulk that is.

@urweak.
Did you add the 4th Gush? I saw that you mentioned adding fastbond. The gushbond engine is good.

Also is casting jace hard with limited artifact acceleration?

No I haven't tried more Gush. Yes it does feel difficult to cast Jace at times. I added Mox Ruby, but maybe I should add more. Also, Hulk beats has won me a few games.

This deck actually combos out rather well despite what some might think. The real problem I have is 12-Sphere.dec and Noble Fish. It is my understanding that Gush decks are particularly weak vs Sphere. With Fish, its the level of beats, plus cheap counters that hurt. If there was a way to remedy this problem I think the deck would be just fine.

[personalbackfire]

[This deck actually combos out rather well despite what some might think. The real problem I have is 12-Sphere.dec and Noble Fish. It is my understanding that Gush decks are particularly weak vs Sphere. With Fish, its the level of beats, plus cheap counters that hurt. If there was a way to remedy this problem I think the deck would be just fine.

The best advice I can offer to beating Workshop decks is playing 4 Misty Rainforest Main, then adding a forest, 2-3 claims, and 3 Predators to your side board. I think that is a pretty good configuration to beat shops. Trygon is really great against them. Obv if they get Maze or a resolved attacking hellkite its bad, but for the rest of the situations Trygon is nuts. Claims are just good in general and can be boarded in vs Oath, which is nice.

I really have no idea on the fish problem. There isn't a ton of fish in my meta and I never test against it.

Edit: Trygon also has the added bonus of destroying opposing leylines which could be awesome.

[median]

Just wondering, why not 3 hulk, 1 pact? I would want to maximize my chances of getting a natural hulk so I would dodge duress and spheres.

[urweak]

Just wondering, why not 3 hulk, 1 pact? I would want to maximize my chances of getting a natural hulk so I would dodge duress and spheres.

Yea, I've though of that. The pacts could probably go all together, i dont think they are that important. But in a build with Elvish Spirit Guide, they become more meaningful.