Top 8 with Mr. Miyagi (Enlightened Sensei)

Enlightened Sensei is my new project. Simply put, the deck is Sensei-Sensei and Legacy Counter-Top fused together with Enlightened Tutor. Dark Confidant is your draw engine, and the rest is gravy.

Here is the Deck:

//Lands
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
3 Tundra
2 Island
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria

//Creatures
4 Dark Confidant

//Spells
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
3 Enlightened Tutor
3 Counterbalance
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Brainstorm
1 Future Sight
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Balance
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Etherium Sculptor
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Voltaic Key
1 Time Vault
1 Vedalken Shackles

// Sideboard

2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Planar Void
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Arcane Laboratory
1 Sacred Ground
1 Energy Flux
1 The Abyss
1 Darkblast
1 Tinker
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind

I've been testing this build for a few weeks now and I've found it to be fast enough to keep on par with Confidant fueled decks, while still netting enough card advantage off counterbalance to tip the scales.

I brought this to the 19-person event this last weekend at Myriad Games. 19 people is low attendance, but some of the best Vintage players in the world play regularly here.

That being said, this tournament report is lacking, mostly due to silly round interactions, I would not have been averse to playing more games.

Round 1: BYE. hurray

Round 2: Tezz with E-tutor, no bobs.
Game 1-
I win the roll, play fetch, go. He goes all in on a turn 1 Tezzeret, which I force and he forces back. He Tutors Time Vault and passes. I Enlightened Tutor for Seal of Cleansing, play it and smash Time Vault. He has zero cards in hand, and my Dark Confidant next turn kills his Tezz and then outdraws him ridiculously.

Game 2-
We both play land-go for a bit, with me topping EoT. He Enlightened Tutors for Voltaic key eot, and on his turn lays Time Vault and passes with 2 mana up, waiting on a 3rd for drain no doubt. I EoT Enlightened tutor for Seal of Cleansing, and plant it with a drain on his drain and smash his time vault. On his turn he lays voltaic Key, and tinkers it out for Sphinx of the Steel Wind while I have a bob on the board. I opt to let it hit me twice bringing me to 2, but I have a ridiculous will set up at this point fueled by bob & Library online for 3 turns. This lets me tendrils me out of the red zone (He was at 31 life from sphinx), seal of cleansing his dude (cast 2 times this game for the win), and then guarantee infinite turns killed him by always flipping top off Bob for a 2-to-1 damage conversion.

Round 3: Chris Playing Combo-Elves
This deck absolutely cannot be underestimated. If you do not pack appropriate answers, you absolutely will get steamrolled by this deck.
Game 1- I know he is playing elves and I'm on the play, so I keep a ridiculous hand versus elves, a turn 2 counter-top. He lands 2 elves before being locked out of casting any CmC 1 spells for the rest of the game. They attempt to go the distance but I drop Etherium Sculptor after 4 turns of beats to halt their assault. At that point the game is just going through the motions of setting up a Will while countering his 3 CmC answering elves. I didn't see any summoner's pacts, but I would've countered them just on the principle of him getting a Maindecked Vexing Shusher.

Game 2- He mulls, I inform him I'm keeping, and what a keep it is. A turn 1 The Abyss with decent amounts of mana and acceleration, although no counters. He lands a llanowar elf and passes, I play my World Enchant, tech I stole from Chris himself! We play a few turns of land-go, where he builds up a critical mass of elves and/or removal while I draw land after land. He attempts to go for the critical elf-mass, casts heritage druid, which resolves, then cast birchlore rangers, which get handily countered. This would put him outof mana for his 3rd elf and 4th elf, letting him accelerate. Instead he has to pass, and let the abyss kill off his druid. I'm still drawing mana sources galore, but have finally drawn an enlightened tutor. In my EoT he Gleeful Sabotage's my Abyss. He goes off the best he can with minimal elves, but hits lands and destruction instead of more elves. He does have a huge grip of 6 though, which undoubtedly would spell my death next turn. I EoT Enlightened Tutor for Future Sight, and go with plan "get there." Future Sight requires me to heaftily tap out while showing counterbalances and forces, finally a Yawgmoth's will lets me dig 6 cards deeper, and the final card is Balance with minimal cards in hand and then I tutor for infinite turns.

Round 4: ID with Colin (new guy playing Null Rod)

Round 5: ID with Ollie (Ain't tournament structure great? /palm)

Top 8 Rich Shay playing Bob Tezz with Back to Basics.

Game 1: Involves me keeping a hand of Tolarian Academy, Time Vault, Mox Jet, Sensei's Divining Top, Force, Drain, Balance. He plays library go, frowns. I'm on the draw, draw an Underground Sea and place down my artifacts. He draws off library, gets an underground and duresses me, thinking for awhile, rightly so, and takes Mana Drain. I draw Demonic Tutor, like a lucksack and consider my options. I subscribe to the kid with scar on face school of magic, which is "If you have Demonic Tutor, don't be a tard, win this game." Hilariously enough, I lose this match later due to not subscribing to this philoslsophy wholeheartedly. Top selection gets me a bob after 6 turns of digging, which lays down counter top to clinch game 1.

Game 2: Rich pulls the same shenanigans on me, with a Bob outadvantaging my counter-top being starved for mana already with 2 lands, nevermind the Back-breaking Back to Basics that turned off my turn 1 Library and several duals I had out.

Game 3: I keep an opener with force, tezz, mox jet, island, bob, bob, balance. He has a bob of his own, and we have the bob-race going. I admiteddly forget several aspects of this game, but recall it was a tight game of him having top-bob, and me random flipping bob all game and hitting me hard for over 2 cmc on average. I plant Tezz early and tutor up Black Lotus, which lays down Seal of Cleansing. His Bob reveals a pithing needle and I am thankful for having Seal of Cleansing options. He beats me down to 7 life with his bob lays Back to Basics, locking out my Tolarian and white mana,and passes. I EoT kill B2B with Seal. I have Will, and assume this game is wrapped up. Bob flips take me to 5, with him at 6. He has 3 cards in hand, Pithing needle and two mystery cards. With three mana open. I should have thought longer about what he could have for three, or what would necessitate a top activation with a drain, but I didn't. I debate Killing tezzeret by sacrificing him for 4, tutoring up Time Vault, casting Will, and replaying Tezzeret for the win, but fear the blind flips and figure I have plenty of time. I tutor up a 1 and in response he Vendilian Clique's me, taking my Yawgmoth's Will, well fudge. I Tutor up sensei's divining top and look, revealing a newly shuffled will to the top. I tap to draw and go for Yawgmoth's Will replaying seal of cleansing, finally leaving top-Etutor-Etutor as my top cards, figuring I can survive a hit of clique, and establish infinite turns with top next turn with my 2-3 draws depending on his attacks. I attack with one BoB taking him to 4 and pass with mana drain up. He reveals a FLOODED STRAND off Dark Confidant, which is pivotal. He goes down to 3 mana available and casts Demonic Tutor. I think "he only has 3 mana, I don't fear anything at 3" and let it resolve. He of course tutors tendrils and tendrils me down to lethal with clique beats. Had I countered the Demonic I would have had the game guaranteed with 2 bob flips, or highly likely with 2 shuffles to find a zero CmC card.

kid with scar on face, I will learn your less well. While I realize a top 8 finish is not impressive, I end up making a glaring misplay that would have won me my last game, putting me into the top 4 split, which shows the deck itself is performing magnificently. Vintage players just mentally scoop to counter-top, and Future Sight is bigger than any bomb you can run when your topdeck tutors are inhand tutors.

I strongly encourage people to pick up the deck and feel it out for yourself. This deck gives me the Control-esque feeling that Control Slaver once gave me, and I see no reason why it cannot put up incredible numbers in any meta.

::EDIT:: Names changed to protect the innocent. I'm quite sure that the instant enchantment destruction Chris did cast on my EoT was indeed Gleeful Sabotage, which would seem odd. I seem to never let a tournament go by without some form of shadiness. Maybe Chris himself can clarify if I was in error about him casting this eot, and it was on his turn.