Painter's Key

[marriedwithchildren]

I went to the ICBM Extreme Open this past week end.  After completely bombing day 1 with BobTendrils I felt that I wanted to play a Painter build for Day 2.  I went 0-4 then I droped day 1, then I went 4-0 before I lost to Jake Kempfer's painter deck which took 5th.  My next loss was to Owen Turtenwald who placed 8th with a 5c Tez build.  My final loss was to Ben Swartz playing Mana-Ichorid.  I probably could have done better if it were not for my numerous playmistakes and having not played the deck before.  But this is not meant to be a toureny report, I am looking for advise on the deck.  Here is:

Painters Key
By: Marriedwithchildren

7x SoLoMoxen
1x Mana Crypt
1x Lotus Petal
1x Tormod's Crypt
2x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Time Vault
1x Voltaic Key
1x Grindstone

4x Painter's Servant
2x Gorilla Shaman
2x Trinket Mage
1x Darksteel Colossus

1x Time Walk
1x Merchant Scroll
1x Tinker
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Demonic Tutor

4x Force of Will
3x Mana Drain
3x Red Elemental Blast
1x Pyroblast
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Brainstorm
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Echoing Truth
1x Repeal
1x Thirst for Knowledge
1x Mystical Tutor

1x Tolarian Academy
3x Volcanic Island
2x Underground Sea
3x Polluted Delta
2x Flooded Strand
3x Island

Sideboard:
3x Duress
1x Extirpate
1x Tormods Crypt
2x Pyroclasm
2x Rack and Ruin
2x Pithing Needle
2x Yixlid Jailer
2x Engineered Explosives

I'm going to start with these changes:

Main:
-1 Tormods
-2 Trinket Mage

+1 Engineered Explosives
+1 Gorilla Shaman
+1 Tezzeret

Side:
-2 Engineered Explosives
-2 Rack and Ruin

+3 Ignot Chewer
+1 Yixlid Jailer

Any comments, questions, suggestions and advise is welcomed especially from anyone that I played that day.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

Using both key/vault and painter/grindstone ends up being pretty un focused. I've built varients with people, top 8'd with it, been beaten by it, and don't like it. If your looking for more win conditions in painter, your better off with more painter/stone because it synergizes with your deck more. You also avoid those akward painter/key or vault/stone or vault/painter hands. typicly in painter you want to run around 3:2 painter to stone as is.

If you end up just playing painter, the ingot chewer's are the best possibly ansewer to cotv @1. You can also explore bloodmoon/magus of the moon as an ansewer to fish decks with their janky mana bases if you play 2 color.

[LotusHead]

I would add lands to the deck.

[Caselogik]

I would add lands to the deck.

QFT.

Looking at your decklist, I feel like I am looking at a Tezz-less Tezz deck. For your main deck I would cut:

-2 Sensei's Divining Top
-1 Painter Servant
-1 Thirst for Knowledge
-1 Red Elemental Blast
-1 Merchant Scroll

and add:
+1 Grindstone
+1 Pyroblast
+1 Gifts Ungiven
+1 Ancient Grudge
+2 Thoughtseize

The sideboard is tough since the Meta changes by location and event. You have listed as using:
3x Duress
1x Extirpate
1x Tormods Crypt
2x Pyroclasm
2x Rack and Ruin
2x Pithing Needle
2x Yixlid Jailer
2x Engineered Explosives

I would consider as additional SB card choices:
Varishino Herectic (Or whatever its actual name is)
Ingot Chewer or Ancient Grudge
Hurkyl's Recall
Relic of Progenitus

I would cut the Extirpate, increase the Tormod's, cut the duress's, cut the engineered

But those are just my two cents.

[marriedwithchildren]

Thanks for the coments.  I did have a couple of hands that were a little awkward with the vault-painter, but they wern't awkward for long.  Ignot chewer was the nuts that day and should have been in my board.  Getting Tez and Gifts in this deck are a priority and I will try the thoughtseize main.  Duress in side was useless, extirpate helped but not as much as a 3rd jailer would have (I hate Ichorid).  Thanks for the info.  keep it rolling

[Sporkcore]

I used to run a similar deck that I used to win a Library.

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Tinker
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Pyroblast
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Grindstone
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Voltaic Key
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Mox Emerald
1 Brainstorm
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Academy Ruins
1 Sol Ring
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Vault
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Magus of the Unseen
2 Island
4 Force of Will
2 Tezzeret the Seeker
4 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Painter's Servant
3 Mana Drain
2 Flooded Strand
3 Volcanic Island
3 Polluted Delta
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Underground Sea

Now, since the restriction of thirst, I'd make the extra 3 Thirsts into a Ponder, a Fact or Fiction, the 4th Mana Drain, and a Skeletal Scrying. The Magus of the Unseen would be the Bot of your choice.

When I was playing, I found I went for the Time Vault more often than painter. Painter still got me some wins that day, but I found myself trying to search up Key/Vault more often.

[MEATROCKET]

I top 8'd with a Painter+Time Vault deck a while back.  The only game I was glad I had both combos was when my opponent played Needle naming Vault and I won the next turn with Grindstone.
I then removed the Painters and built a Slaver deck with Vault (I didn't want to play Tez) and was much more pleased with it.

I think playing Vault in Painter is just bad and you'd be much better off with playing a straight-up Painter deck (unless you want to just play Tez of course).  If you did do that, your deck could slim down quite a bit:
-Top/Lotus Petal
-Trinket Mage
-Time Vault
-Voltaic Key
-Echoing Truth
I think these would need to go rather than the flavor calls you've made (Repeal, Shaman, the fourth Painter, Lotus Petal)

+Hurkyl's Recall
+Grindstone
+Fact or Fiction
+Mana Drain
+Misdirection/Repeal (I like this one!)/Rack and Ruin/Pyroblast/Engineered Explosives/Library/something

I think the biggest problem with the Painter/Vault hybrid is that you know the Vault combo is just easier to assemble, which will skew your choices when tutoring and what kind of hands to keep.  So you'll end up with what feels like a Painter+Red Blast package in a Tezzeret-less Vault deck which is just fucking awkward.

[smasher]

  So you'll end up with what feels like a Painter+Red Blast package in a Tezzeret-less Vault deck which is just fucking awkward.

Nice assessment

Also its worth mentioning both of your win cons get turned off by null rod.

[Sporkcore]

Also its worth mentioning both of your win cons get turned off by null rod.

That's a big thing about having Painter in the deck, you can name blue and aim a REB at Null Rod to get rid of it.

[BruiZar]

isn't tinker ->inkwell the secondary win condition of choice if vault is needled or null rod  is in play? The fact that it doesn't rely on activated abilities plus the fact that it hoses aggro is what makes it work. painter requires painter + reb + grindstone to win under null rod which makes it a 3 card combo instead of a 1(2) card combo like tinker(+artifact)

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

I really advocate going the painter rout because of null rod. True with null rod u need painter, stone, and reb. But keep in mind you can run reb as a 5x with out question (6-8 if you really want, but I'd advise against it). If you were playing vault key, you'd be needing bounce that you run as a 1x. I'd definately try to fit inky main, possibly even dsc.

[marriedwithchildren]

Thanks for ALL the input.  This IS a great deck to play.  I haven't had this much fun playing magic in years, Stomping a mudhole in my small yet competitive playcircle.

I LOVE the Key-Top draw engine.  The thing's I've done with Mystical and/or Vampiric Tutor on the stack spell G-A-M-E.  If I'm going to include the Key for the Top I might as well have the Time Vault in there.  I couldn't take out the Trinket Mage cause he's tutoring up what you need.  Tezzeret is uber.  Darkblast is freakin great cause it takes care of Bob and his friends, and has extra synergy with the Top.  Thoughtseize and Duress kinda slowed me down a little.  I feel that in todays games people are prepared for Inky and will Hurkyl's him back to my had so it might as well be DSC to let them feel the clock.  I did however get locked in to a Null Rod-Magus of the Moon lock earlier, it made me want to put the Shamans back in.  The petal is wonderful, so is Repeal but I might cut one to try Academy Ruins. 

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

top key is ridiculously mana intensive, and makes you weaker against null rod.
1 mana, play top, activate draw,
1 mana to key top, activate top
draw x + top
1 mana play top.

three mana for one card and the top you drew is pretty terrible the turn it gets going. not to mention the 1 mana require to spin and very things up a little bit. seems like deep anal is better.

[jaeppel]

top key is ridiculously mana intensive, and makes you weaker against null rod.
1 mana, play top, activate draw,
1 mana to key top, activate top
draw x + top
1 mana play top.

If thats all you do, i agree it doesnt seem very efficient, basically amounting to a "2:Draw a card" effect.  try inserting topdeck tutors, brainstorm, repeal, fetchland, top filter ability, and what have you on that stack and it gets exponentially more busted.

three mana for one card and the top you drew is pretty terrible the turn it gets going. not to mention the 1 mana require to spin and very things up a little bit. seems like deep anal is better.

deep anal is essentially a painfully slow ancestral... if its already in the yard.  so you have to have already bazaar/dredge/intuition/entomb-ed it, which suddenly makes it alot less efficient than top/key.  an untapped top and key side by side let you get as much draw/finlter bang for your buck as you have bucks to throw at them.  deep anal is one shot and bye-bye.  in fact, i dont think i would even think to compare the two... two completely different effects for two completely different decks.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

"if thats all you do with it"
I'd like to clerify that the poster was talking about top+key as "an engine". and thats how the functions as an engine. also i wouldn't describe what the card does as "draw 2", but more of a "draw one and then select from 3 degrees of parity". This makes it a pretty poor engine. Obviously, top synergizes well with tutors and the like, I personaly love the card (it goes nuts in mud with bazaar) and wouldn't cut it. However, it is by no means a reason to keep key around seeing as how it interacts with key in a slow and expensive way that is completely shut down by the most comon piece of hate in the game.

I'll respond to the second part later
later: deep anal is pretty borderline playable, first of all I wouldn't compare it to ancestral. last event I played it as a one of with intuition ak, and it was fine all day (don't forget it's good with tfk and mana drain, not just intuition, and I'd consider entombing deep anal as a desporate play, or a joke). My point is, that deep anal is just plain old better than putting together a 2xcombo with top/key to draw a card or maybe 2 (if your looking at it genrously). Again, if deep anal is barely playable, a 2 card combo that does less and is hated out by null rod is worse.

[marriedwithchildren]

I completely understand where you are comming from and I have had the chance to play the deck without the top/key.  I think it's a matter of preference and meta.  At the tournament I went to I did not play against a null rod all day.  Null rod does hurt the deck even with bounce and blasts/painter.  I have been looking into other directions that the deck can go but can't go into much detail without further testing.  This is my new pet deck  I enjoy any insight into ANY painter deck or card options that are pertinent.

Thanks!