Meadbert's Testing Results: Summer 2009 (A few new lists)

[ErkBek]

Also, Meadbert, even though there is room for improvement / clarity in your research, hats off to the sheer amount of work you put into this. It would be great if you can make this more readable in the future and the suggested 96/32 netdeck/roguedeck sounds like a much more representative sample.

I agree completely. This thread and the last one have both been very interesting and I enjoy reading up on some of your rogue decks. While I agree with the shift to 96/32, I don't get why there's so many haters in this thread. Yes, upper tier decks like Tez aren't always tooled to beat rogue decks, but there's still a lot of useful data here. Bert's ridiculous testing sessions keep identifying new, powerful strategies that are relatively unexplored. Manaless Ichorid and Arcane combo-control are both serious competitors. Hermit Vault looks much better than people want to give it credit for.

[nineisnoone]

Also, Meadbert, even though there is room for improvement / clarity in your research, hats off to the sheer amount of work you put into this. It would be great if you can make this more readable in the future and the suggested 96/32 netdeck/roguedeck sounds like a much more representative sample.

I agree completely. This thread and the last one have both been very interesting and I enjoy reading up on some of your rogue decks. While I agree with the shift to 96/32, I don't get why there's so many haters in this thread. Yes, upper tier decks like Tez aren't always tooled to beat rogue decks, but there's still a lot of useful data here. Bert's ridiculous testing sessions keep identifying new, powerful strategies that are relatively unexplored. Manaless Ichorid and Arcane combo-control are both serious competitors. Hermit Vault looks much better than people want to give it credit for.

Are people set on DSC/Cognivore-Extinction?

I pretty much preferred Inkwell and Dreadnaught (with some Stifles).  Inkwell gets around bounce/targetted removal that can also hit your Druid and counts in the yard for Ghoul.  Dreadnaught is an easy +12 gives you a non-graveyard dependent win and the Stifles can answer Crypts.

[meadbert]

DSC is nice in that he goes back to your library so you can take two or more turns to swing in.

Leviathan does not do that.

Dreadnought and Stifle are interesting though.  Stifle is nice for countering Wastes as well as Tormod's Crypt.  The wastes is somewhat important as this deck obviously has no basics.

[nineisnoone]

True. But if you are hitting for +7, then you need less turns to swing on combo. It's a preference thing, generally I like DSC more than Inkwell, but I just prefer him here for whatever reason.

Yeah, I was happy with it when I tested it.  I was also messing around with Hall of the Bandit Lord, legendary land, comes into play tapped,  if used on a creature it gives it haste.  It converts the turn you waste on summoning sickness into the turn you play the land.  Making turn 1 of your 2 turn combo into an uncounterable land drop.  I felt that it was a good way to limit the combo's exposure to being disrupted.  I never got around to testing Pact of the Summoner, but that plus Elvish Spirit Guide and Bandit Hall seems like a good combination with it in retrospect.  Bandit Hall means that (assuming all goes well) you don't have to worry about paying the upkeep next turn (you probably could in any case).  Elvish Spirit Guide helps you get the double green to cast and activate Druid with Pacts giving you additional slots for it.  On top being your Hermit Druids too.

[TheBrassMan]

We had to know for ourselves, so, me and T00L decided to test one of the meadbert lists.  Ten games is a small set, but after going 1-9 with Arcane Oath we were too frustrated to continue.  The one win for the deck was pilot error on the non-oath side, and looked like it would have been a loss otherwise. 

We tested it against a Tezzeret list with Tendrils of Agony and Bobs (Bob whom Oath is supposed to be good against, according to the this thread)

To begin with, the mana is terrifying.  Twenty sources is extremely low, and I had to mulligan no source or one off-color mox hands 7 times in the 10 game set.  It leads me to seriously question the results in the original post, I would be surprised to get playable hands in the ratio given, never mind actually win that many games. 

Beyond the mana, (which is a big enough issue to stop there, really) the HUGE number of "utility" cards caused big problems.  Even when the deck would come together, drawing excessive numbers of trinkets and counters made sure it couldn't close the deal.  One game I was excited by an opening hand (though I was excited by almost any opening hand I didn't have to throw back) that allowed turn one EE, Arcane Denial, it, turn two Ancestral, drawing 6 cards.  This seemed like the strongest start I could get, until I drew 3 0 casting cost artifacts, and realized that by spending 3 cards and three mana to draw only 3 relevant cards, the strongest start I could get actually put me behind. 

Certainly this was one of the worst matchups for EEs and Crypts, but that doesn't exactly speak highly for the deck, that it runs 8 maindeck hate cards that dont hit the most popular and powerful deck in the format.  Crypt is only really strong against Ichorid right now, which is relevant but underplayed, and I can't even really think of a modern matchup where EE is exciting.  It really feels like the list is metagamed specifically to beat the other rogue lists

Even in games where oath resolved and activated, I often had to hope I wouldn't hit Triskelivus, as it would result in an immediate loss (or just not put it back in my deck with brainstorm, as I had to do at least once to give myself a chance).  Sometimes I managed to prevent my opponent from winning immediately with an active Tidespout, but was never able to close the deal in time.

10 games is really not a lot, I can admit that freely, but after my experiences, it almost feels irresponsible not to post my results

[meadbert]

I had to mulligan no source or one off-color mox hands 7 times in the 10 game set.  

That is the best I can do as far as coming up with an explanation for 1-9 which is god awful.
As I recall the probability of having to mulligan if you must mulligan to 1 of 14 cards is about 14%.
Using that, the probability of having to mulligan 7 or more times in 10 is about 1 in 12 thousand so your testing results were unusual.  Any chance you left a land out?  Even leaving one out would drastically increase the probability of so many mulligans.

I choose 14 because that is how many blue sources are in the deck.  Keeping hands with just Lotus are generally shady.

Arcane Oath's Tez matchup was never great to begin with although Dark Confidant should help it.

I am in the process of a playing a mini tournament playing the top 4 decks from my testing versus the top 4 at worlds.  I am recording these play by play which will provide more transparency.

EDIT:  Thanks for taking the time to test Brassman!  I know sleeving up a deck and playing 10 games can be time consuming.

[wiley]

It is no secret to Bert that I have tested Arcane Oath, and have tweaked it a fair amount.  I have been playing it mostly against 5c Stax (net decked from prospero), which from my experience has a fairly decent oath match up, and Tez (net decked from ffy's chicago day 1 and later switched to itou's gen con).  I have not had nearly the bad experience you have.  Oath has put up solid results throughout, with a great match up vs 5c and a even-good match up vs tez (itou's did better almost solely on the back of tinkwell). 

A few notes; I have never in a little over 70 games, mostly game twos with oath on the draw, countered my own spell with denial.  I have never seen it as worth the three new cards.  I have a huge problem with using intuition as your only tutor for orchard since it reduces the possibility to naturally draw into another one when the one you get is answered to nil and it costs 3 to cast, which will often mean that you have to pass the turn to get another land drop so you can use it in the first place.

The list that I have come to, and the one that has been played for the majority of those 70 games is this:

// Lands
        3 Island
        2 Flooded Strand
        4 Forbidden Orchard
        3 Polluted Delta
        2 Tropical Island
        2 Underground Sea
        1 Tolarian Academy
// Creatures
        2 Tidespout Tyrant
        1 Oona, Queen of the Fae
// Enchantments
        4 Oath of Druids
// Spells
        1 Ancestral Recall
        3 Arcane Denial
        1 Brainstorm
        4 Force of Will
        2 Lim-Dul's Vault
        4 Muddle the Mixture
        1 Thirst for Knowledge
        1 Vampiric Tutor
        4 Mana Drain
        1 Demonic Tutor
        1 Time Walk
// Artifacts
        4 Engineered Explosives
        1 Sol Ring
        2 Tormod's Crypt
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mox Sapphire
// Sideboard
SB:  3 Chalice of the Void
SB:  1 Life from the Loam
SB:  4 Mishra's Factory
SB:  1 Strip Mine
SB:  2 Tormod's Crypt
SB:  4 Wasteland

I don't really like Oona much, I think I would rather have another tyrant but she has been hardcastable in the past.  It isn't terribly common that the deck gets two oaths, so the best she does is screw over top deck tutors and make a decent amount of chump blockers if you oath her up instead of a tyrant.  The idea was to 'win now' if you oathed into both her and the tyrant (or drew her and oathed up the tyrant), but that doesn't happen nearly as often as I hoped.  When I start testing again (too many school projects right now) I will just replace her with another tyrant.

As far as explosives being a dead card against tez, I think that is wrong.  If you lay it out for two then they cannot start the combo without a bounce spell as long as you have two mana up.  It can also set them back in mana by blowing up moxen, which is often more problematic for them than you, since you will hold back more artifact mana anyway in preparation for tyrant.  It can also blow up key, top, mana vault and sol ring.  Granted its primary use is against stax and to some extent fish decks (kills pridemage so you can oath), but it has uses in most match ups.

[Anusien]

Arcane Oath's Tez matchup was never great to begin with although Dark Confidant should help it.

What does it beat then?  Isn't Tez the most important deck in the format?  If you can't beat Tez, what good is it as a deck?

I don't understand; what was the point of this exercise?  Normally it would be "To see what the best decks are" but you already established that can't happen because you have no netdecks.

[meadbert]

Arcane Oath's Tez matchup was never great to begin with although Dark Confidant should help it.

What does it beat then?  Isn't Tez the most important deck in the format?  If you can't beat Tez, what good is it as a deck?

I don't understand; what was the point of this exercise?  Normally it would be "To see what the best decks are" but you already established that can't happen because you have no netdecks.

The sideboard was built partly for Dredge and then mostly for Stax and then the Oath mirror.  The sideboard's strength against Oath was very important for Arcane Oath's strong performance.  For this reason I doubt it would do as well in tournaments where Oath is not well represented.

As I mentioned originally Arcane Oath's strength is against "jank" if by Jank one means Stax, Dredge, Fish and Oath.  It is the one deck that I singled out to recommend against playing in the current tournament meta.  I never claimed it had a good Tez matchup.  Basically, as Brassman noted, it was metaed to beat the other "Jank" decks in my gauntlet.

Also, the list I posted is just as I tested it which means it was designed 3 months ago.  Wiley has made several improvements as noted above.  Along with his suggestions I would suggest 1 or 2 Colliseums to get creatures out of hand if need be.  Prior to Thirst's restriction getting stuck with Tyrant in hand was not that likely.  Now it is, so a crucial mistake was only running one Tyrant.

Regarding a lack of net decks.  I counted 7 net decks in the top 16.  There may not have been enough net decks which is something I will attempt to improve on in the future, but there certainly were some.  There may also be a concern that the net decks were not recent enough.  Many were conversions of net decks from before Thirst's restriction.  Unfotunately there is little I can do to improve that.  It literally takes me 3 months of testing to finish something like this, so by the time I am done the information is outdated.  When there are mostly irrelevant sets printed and no relevant B&R changes this is less true, but it is always true to a certain degree since the vintage metagame changes at least slightly from quarter to quarter.

There are huge flaws regarding my testing.  It is two handed.  I play rushed.  Tournaments give two brains roughly an hour per matchup.  I usually finish these off in 10-15 minutes and keep in mind I am making decisions for both sides so my brain is only thinking for one deck half that time.  I do not ponder tough decisions for long.  While I am not a great player to begin with, I become even worse as I do rushed two fisted testing.  There are definitely issues there.

For the sake of transparency, I have started playing the top 4 decks I listed (including Arcane Oath) against the top 4 decks from worlds.  I am recording them play by play.  Those 16 matchups should provide some insight as far as how I play the matches.  You will see how frequent and crucial my play (and rules) mistakes are.  I am not going to try to draw any conclusions regarding the power level of the decks, because 16 matchups is too few.

I do believe this has identified good decks.  The winner (Hermit Vault) was a very good deck.  Naturally the Tez decks I tested it against were not running Fire/Ice and Darkblast maindeck yet as Hiromichi did, so I cannot comment intelligently on that specific matchup, but Hermit Vault should do well against Tez in general. (Definitely run a maindeck Progenitus or something to not lose to Leviathan)

Root Maze Oath does well against Tez and I alread posted a sample game in the Root Maze Oath thread.

If you have come here hoping to discover how to beat Tez then there are several suggestions posted.  Arcane Oath is not one of them.

There is other value that can be gleamed from the testing I did, although not from this thread.  I do have every list I tested card for card and I have the results of every game.  This provides me with data I can use to answer questions like "how did decks with 4 Grave-Troll's do against decks with 4 Wasteland."  I could also analyze how decks with at least 3 Null Rods, but no Oath of Druids did against decks with at least 3 Dark Confidants.

If anyone has any specific querries they would like me to perform please P.M. me.

[Anusien]

Did you consider testing fewer decks, devoting more time to each matchup, and getting testing results faster?  If you want to prove that a "meta deck" is a good deck, you should test it primarily against net decks.  Honestly, it doesn't matter whether Arcane Denial Oath loses to Hermit Vault, since that matchup will only occur within your testing gauntlet.  I mean, yes, it may be interesting to you, but it's not relevant to the format as a whole.

Also "net deck" != "deck from before that is converted because of restriction".  Honestly, I appreciate the shitton of effort you put into these.  But most people looked at the thread, saw no decks they can expect to face in their local metagame, and moved on.   It may be interesting, but it isn't useful.

[meadbert]

So I finally finished testing the top 4 decks from my gauntlet against the top 4 from worlds.
This took a while since my daughter was born in the midst of testing.

The top 4 decks from Worlds were:
Tez
Drain Tendrils
Steel City Vault
5 Color Uba Stax

The top 4 decks in my gauntlet were:
Hermit Vault
Arcane Oath
Root Maze Oath
Arcane Scrying

Here are the results:  Note that the Stax matchups took forever so you might want to skim them.

5 Color Uba Stax vs Arcane Scrying
Note that I swapped Lotus Petal for Black Lotus.
Arcane Scrying wins die roll.

Arcane Scrying keeps:
Arcane Denial
Urza's Bauble
Misdirection
Polluted Delta
Repeal
Black Lotus
Mishra's Bauble

5 Color Uba Stax mulligans:
Razormane Masticore
Mox Jet
Goblin Welder
Sphere Of Resistance
Triskelion
Crucible Of Worlds
Tangle Wire

5 Color Uba Stax mulligans:
Black Lotus
Triskelion
Sundering Titan
Uba Mask
Gemstone Mine
Karn, Silver Golem

It was tempting to keep that hand with turn 1 Uba Mask being so strong, but with only 1
"permanent" mana source and Trisk, Titan and Karn in hand I could see this was leading to a loss.

5 Color Uba Stax keeps:
Chalice Of The Void
Tangle Wire
Mox Jet
Mishra's Workshop
Goblin Welder

Turn 1 Arcane Scrying:
  The first question is whether to hold Denial as counter magic or to use it to draw.
  My rule of thumb is to use it to draw if I already have counter backup or if I am missing my
  next land drop.  In this case I am missing my next land drop so I tentatively play to draw off
  Denial.  
  Here there is actually a tough call.  One option is to crack Mishra's Bauble targeting myself
  so I know whether I want to crack Delta or not.  The second option is to go ahead and crack Delta
  now and then Repeal my own Lotus to draw a card.  I decide to crack Mishra's Bauble targeting
  myself.  This reveals Island on top which I like and which guarentees my next land drop and
  allows me to hold Denial up as a counter spell.  I then play Urza's Bauble and crack it.
  I see Mox Jet.  I play Delta and Lotus and then pass the turn.
Turn 1 5 Color Uba Stax:
  On upkeep Denial draws Island and Cephalid Colliseum.
  Stax draws Trinisphere.
  Stax leads with Jet.
  Stax then plays Chalice@0.  The hope is to draw out a counter, but Denial has no 0cc cards in
  hand, is holding Denial to draw off future drawn 0cc spells and has Repeal to bounce Chalice
  if need be so is not even the slightest bit concerned.  Chalice resolves.
  Stax plays Workshop.
  Stax plays Trinisphere.  This cannot stand.  Denial Denials Trinisphere cracking Lotus to pay for
  it.  The next question is do I make use of the floating blue mana.  I could Repeal Chalice in
  which case Stax will just replay it.  A better option would be to Repeal Mox Jet shorting Stax
  of its mana.  In this case I do not do that either because I am likely to win with Tinker and
  for that I will want Repeal to bounce Chalice so I can Tinker out an artifact.
  Instead I choose to not mana burn for 1.

Turn 2 Arcane Scrying:
  On upkeep Scrying draws Drain and Stax draws 2xResistor.
  Scrying draws Island for turn.
  Play Island.  Pass turn.

Turn 2 5 Color Uba Stax:
  Draw Academy.  Tap Shop to play Resistor (Drained)
  Tap Academy to play second Resistor (resolves).
  
Turn 3 Arcane Scrying:
  Draw Mox Jet.
  Play Island.
  Crack Delta for Island going to 19.
  Tap 2 Islands to play Repeal targeting Chalice of the Void.  Draw Mystical Tutor.
  Tap 3rd Island to play Mox Jet.  Pass the turn.
  
Turn 3 5 Color Uba Stax:
  Draw Gemstone Mine.  Play Mine.  Play Wire.  Play Welder.  Pass turn.

Turn 4 Arcane Scrying:
  Welder is annoying.  Normal options are Repeal/Chain or keep Artifacts out of yard with Yawg
  or Skeletal Scrying.  Too early to Yawg for win and not sure what to get with Mystical so just
  wait.
  Tap out on upkeep.
  Draw Skeletal Scrying for turn.
  Play Colliseum.  Pass turn.

Turn 4 5 Color Uba Stax:
  Tap nothing relevant.
  Draw MoxEmerald.
  Weld in Trinisphere for Jet.  Pass turn.

Turn 5 Arcane Scrying:
  Play Skeletal Scrying for 3 on upkeep removing Drain, Denial and Delta.  Drop to 15 life.
  Draw Urza's Bauble, Tolarian Academy and Mox Pearl.
  Already tapped out for Wire.
  Draw Force of Will.
  Play Academy, removing Stax's academy.

Turn 5 5 Color Uba Stax:
  Tap nothing relevant.
  Draw Resistor.
  Play Resistor off shop.
  Weld out Trinsphere for 3rd Resistor.

Turn 6 Arcane Scrying:
  Tap Colliseum + Jet.
  Draw Walk.  Pass turn.

Turn 6 5 Color Uba Stax:
  Tap nothing relevant.
  Draw Titan.  Pass Turn.
  
Turn 7 Arcane Scrying:
  Tap Colliseum to Wire.
  Draw Walk.  Pass turn.  EOT:  Welder welds out Jet for a Bauble.

Turn 7 5 Color Uba Stax:
  Tap nothing.
  Draw Ancient Grudge.  Swing to 13.  Pass turn.

Turn 8 Arcane Scrying:
  Tap nothing to Wire.
  Draw Urza's Bauble. Pass turn.
  
Turn 8 5 Color Uba Stax:
  Sac Wire.
  Draw City.  Play City.  Swing to 12.  Pass turn.

Turn 9 Arcane Scrying:
  Draw Bauble.

Turn 9 5 Color Uba Stax:
  Draw and play Gemstone mine.  Swing to 11.
  
Turn 10 Arcane Scrying:
  Draw Skeletal Scrying.
  Discard Urza's Bauble.

Turn 10 5 Color Uba Stax:
  Draw and Play Workshop.  Swing to 10.

Turn 11 Arcane Scrying:
  Draw and Discard Urza's Bauble.

Turn 11 5 Color Uba Stax:
  Draw Ruby.  Swing to 9.

Turn 12 Arcane Scrying:
  Draw and play Strand.
  Fetch Sea to 8 life.
  Play Walk to 7 life.

Turn 12.B Arcane Scrying:
  Draw Mishra's Bauble, dicard Urza's Bauble.

Turn 12 5 Color Uba Stax:
  Draw and play Wasteland.  Activate targeting Sea.  In Response Scrying Scrys for 1 removing
  Strand, dropping to 6 life and drawing Tinker.
  Swing to 5.

Turn 13 Arcane Scrying:
  Draw Scroll and Mystical for Recall to 4 life.

Turn 13 5 Color Uba Stax:
  Draw and Play Resistor#4.  Swing to 3.

From here Scrying has no chance and conceeds.

Arcane Scrying Sideboarding:
Out: 3xMisdirection, 2xSkeletal Scrying, 4xUrza's Bauble.
In: 2xPithing Needle, 4xEngineered Explosives, Rebuild, 2xHurkyl's Recall

5 Color Uba Stax Sideboarding:
Out: Powder Keg, Triskelion, Razormane Masticore, 2xAncient Grudge
In:  2xEnsnaring Bridge, 2xPyroblast, Red Elemental Blast

Game 2:

Scrying Keeps:
Urza's Bauble
Ancestral Recall
Polluted Delta
Mox Jet
Chain Of Vapor
Cephalid Colliseum
Force Of Will

Stax keeps:
Gemstone Mine
Wasteland
Mishra's Workshop
Goblin Welder
Mishra's Workshop
Gemstone Mine
Tangle Wire4

Turn 1 Scrying:
  Play and crack Mishra's Bauble seeing Scroll which is weak with Recall in hand.
  Play and crack Delta fetching Island and going to 19.
  Play Recall drawing Sol Ring, Mana Drain and Mishra's Bauble.
  Play Misrha's Bauble targeting Stax and seeing Tinker on top.
  Play Sol Ring.
  
Turn 1 Stax:
  Scrying draws Thirst and Mishra's Bauble on upkeep.
  Stax draws Tinker.  Stax plays Gemstone Mine and then Welder which Scrying Forces pitching Chain of Vapor. Scrying to 18.

Turn 2 Scrying:
  Draw Mana Drain.
  Play Colliseum.
  
Turn 2 Stax:
  Draw Barbarian Ring.  Play and activate Wasteland targeting Colliseum.  In response Scrying
  casts Thirst with Colliseum and Sol Ring dropping to 17 life.  Scrying draws Island, Sapphire and Underground Sea and discards Sapphire.

Turn 3 Scrying:
  Draw Explosives.  Play Island.  Play and crack Mishra's Bauble targeting Stax and seeing
  Wasteland.

Turn 3 Stax:
  Scrying draws Pithing Needle on upkeep.
  Stax plays Shop and then Tangle Wire which Scrying Drains.

Turn 4 Scrying:
  Draw Mana Drain.  Play Needle naming Wasteland.  Play Underground Sea.

Turn 4 Stax:
  Draw Bazaar.  Play Gemstone Mine.

Turn 5 Scrying:
  Draw Hurkyl's Recall.
  
Turn 5 Stax:
  Draw Titan.  Play Shop.  Play Titan which is Drained.

Turn 6 Scrying:
  Draw Explosives.

Turn 6 Stax:
  Draw Mox Pearl.  Play Pearl.  Play Wasteland.  Tinker out Pearl, but Tinker is Drained.

Turn 7 Scrying:
  Draw, play and activate Mishra's Bauble targeting Stax.  See Crucible on top.

Turn 7 Stax:
  Scrying draws Explosives on upkeep.
  Draw and resolve Crucible.  Play Bazaar.

Turn 8 Scrying:
  Draw 4th Explosives WTF!!!

Turn 8 Stax:
  Draw Chalice.  Activate Bazaar drawing Resistor and Ensnaring Bridge.  Discard Ring, Chalice and Resistor.  Play Ensnaring Bridge.

Turn 9 Scrying:
  Draw Second Pithing Needle.

Turn 9 Stax:
  Bazaar Smokey and Vamp on upkeep.  Draw Mana Vault.

Turn 10 Scrying:
  Draw Mana Drain.

Turn 10 Stax:
  Draw Chalice of the Void.  Activate Bazaar drawing Blast and Uba.  Keep only Uba.  Play Uba which
  Scrying dutifully Drains.

Turn 11 Scrying:
  Draw and play Fact leaving 2xIsland untapped.
  See Sea, Denial, Strand, Force and Pearl.
  Split puts Force and Pearl together.
  Keep Denial and both lands.
  Play Strand.

Turn 11 Stax:
  Bazaar on upkeep milling Welder and Wire.  Draw Mana Crypt.

Turn 12 Scrying:
  Draw Scrying.  Denial an Explosives off Island and Jet.  Play Sea.

Turn 12 Stax:
  Scrying draws Mana Crypt, Academy and Force on upkeep.

(At this point Scrying is ahead 8-0 in cards.  Then Scrys into DT + 2xForce.
Easiest win is to Tinker for DSC and Hurkyl's Bridge)

Game 3:
Stax keeps:
Gemstone Mine
Mishra's Workshop
Uba Mask
Gemstone Mine
Strip Mine
Mox Ruby
Pyroblast

Scrying mulligans:
Darksteel Colossus
Mana Drain
Arcane Denial
Mana Drain
Fact Or Fiction
Arcane Denial
Engineered Explosives

Scrying Keeps:
Engineered Explosives
Time Walk
Polluted Delta
Mana Crypt
Mishra's Bauble
Pithing Needle

Turn 1 Stax:
  Play Ruby, Shop and Uba Mask.  Normally this is gg, but post board Scrying has a lot of permanent
threats.

Turn 1 Scrying:
  "Draw" Lotus.  Play Lotus, Delta and Bauble.

Turn 2 Stax:
  "Draw" Tangle Wire. Play Gemstone Mine and TangleWire.
  EOT Scrying activate's Bauble and Sees Fetch on top.

Turn 2 Scrying:
  Tap out.  "Draw" Strand.  "Draw" Colliseum.  Play Strand.  Play Mana Crypt.  Fetch Sea.
  Play Needle naming Welder.  Play Explosives at 0.  Play Time Walk (Blasted).

Turn 3 Stax:
  Tap Ruby on upkeep.  Draw Sol Ring.  Play Sol ring and Strip tapped Delta.

Turn 3 Scrying:
  "Draw" and play Explosives at 1.

Turn 4 Stax.  Draw and play Resistor.

Turn 4 Scrying.  Draw and play Vamp getting Tinker.

Turn 5 Stax.  Draw and play Sapphire.

Turn 5 Scrying.  Draw and play Tinker for DSC.

Turn 6 Stax:  Draw and play Recall into Welder, Wasteland and Barbarian Ring.  Note that Welder is still Needled.

Turn 6 Scrying.  "Draw" Force.

Turn 7 Stax:  Draw Smokestack and conceed.  (Ensnaring Bridge was next card so super close game.)

So this was Stax's best chance to win since the other 3 decks are Oath decks.
Arcane Scrying is good against Shops in general, Uba Mask is a wrecking ball against it
so it can struggle.  Because I still test against Uba Stax a lot my board is well suited to beat it.
All the permanent threats post board really help and did well here.

====================================================================================================

5 Color Uba Stax vs Root Maze Oath

Root Maze Oath wins Die Roll

Oath keeps this shady hand:
Balance
Time Walk
Argivian Find
City Of Brass
Argivian Find
Ponder
Intuition

1 Mana sources vs Stax is terrible so I might be making a mistake here.  I am basically hoping that Ponder finds something.

Stax Mulligans this:
Ancestral Recall
Uba Mask
Chalice Of The Void
Crucible Of Worlds
Tangle Wire
Sphere Of Resistance
Wasteland

Stax Mulligans this:
Tangle Wire
Triskelion
Demonic Tutor
Karn, Silver Golem
Powder Keg
Crucible Of Worlds

Stax Keeps:
Wasteland
City Of Brass
Ancestral Recall1
Uba Mask
Chalice Of The Void

Turn 1 Oath:
Play City.  Ponder to 19 life seeing Force, Waste and Gemstone.  Keep Force.  Put Waste on top.

Turn 1 Stax:
Draw Resistor.  Resolve Chalice@0.  Play City.  Recall into Force.  Stax goes to 19.
Oath goes to 18.  Oath pitches Intuition.

Turn 2 Oath:
Draw Wasteland.  Play Wasteland and Time Walk dropping to 17.

Turn 2.B Oath:
Draw Gemstone Mine.  Play Gemstone Mine.

Turn 2 Stax:
Draw Vamp.  Play Wasteland.  Play Resistor dropping to 18.

Turn 3 Oath:
Draw Mystical Tutor.  EOT:  Stax Resolves Vamp dropping to 15 and puts Shop on top.

Turn 3 Stax:
Draw Shop.  Play Shop.  Play Uba Mask to 14 life.

Turn 4 Oath:
"Draw" Oath.  Play Oath to 17 life.

Turn 4 Stax:
"Draw" Ancient Grudge.  Waste City of Brass.

Turn 5 Oath:
"Draw" Root Maze.  Play Root Maze.

Turn 5 Stax:
"Draw" and Play Tangle Wire to 13 life.

Turn 6 Oath:
Waste Shop on Upkeep.  Tap out.  "Draw" Sapphire.

Turn 6 Stax:
Tap nothing relevant.  "Draw" Razormane Masticore.

Turn 7 Oath:
Tap out.  "Draw" Enlightened Tutor.

Turn 7 Stax:
"Draw" Resistor.

Turn 8 Oath:
"Draw" and Play Gemstone Mine.

Turn 8 Stax:
"Draw" and play Gemstone Mine.

Turn 9 Oath:
Tap one Mine.  "Draw" Merchant Scroll.

Turn 9 Stax:
"Draw" and play Shop.

Turn 10 Oath:
"Draw" Intuition.

Turn 10 Stax:
"Draw Ruby"

Turn 11 Oath:
"Draw" and play Orchard.

Turn 12 Stax:
"Draw" and play Shop.

...

Turn 13 Oath:
Oath up Tyrant.  From here win is easy.

Sidboarding:
Oath:  Out: Balance, 2xRoot Maze, Argivian Find. In: Wasteland, 2xNull Rod, Progenitus
Stax:  Out: Uba Mask, Powder Keg, Crop Rotation, 2xAncient Grudge. In: 3xPyro/REB, 2xVault/Key

Stax keeps:
Black Lotus
Voltaic Key
Ancestral Recall
City Of Brass
Goblin Welder
Pyroblast
Mox Emerald

Oath keeps:
Mox Jet
Root Maze
City Of Brass
Force Of Will
Null Rod
Enlightened Tutor
Forbidden Orchard

Turn 1 Stax:
Play Lotus, Play Emerald, Play City, Play Key.

Turn 1 Oath:
Draw Wasteland.  Play Jet.  Play City.  Play Rod dropping to 19, in response STax Recalls into
Pyro, REB and Trinisphere dropping to 19.

Turn 2 Stax:
Draw Shop!  Play Shop.  Play Trinisphere.

Turn 2 Oath:
Draw Intuition.  Waste Shop.

Turn 3 Stax:  Draw and play Gemstone Mine.

Turn 3 Oath:
Draw Tyrant.  Play Orchard.

Turn 4 Stax:  Draw Mana Crypt.

Turn 4 Oath:  Draw and play Gemstone Mine.

Turn 5 Stax:  Draw and Play Shop.  EOT:  Oath ETs for OAth.

Turn 5 Oath:  Draw and play Oath.

Turn 6 Stax:  Draw Welder.  Stax lacks mana to blast Tyrants and thus loses from here.

This was just a tough matchup for Stax.

====================================================================================================
5 Color Uba Stax vs Arcane Oath
Stax wins die roll.

Stax keeps:
Mox Ruby
Vampiric Tutor
Sundering Titan
Mishra's Workshop
Uba Mask
Demonic Tutor
Ancient Grudge

Oath keeps:
Oath Of Druids
Forbidden Orchard
Force Of Will
Engineered Explosives
Mox Sapphire
Tidespout Tyrant
Mana Drain

Turn 1 Stax:
Play Ruby, Shop, Uba.


Turn 1 Oath:
"Draw" Lotus.  Play Lotus, Sapphire, Orchard and Oath.

Turn 2 Stax:
"Draw" Resistor.  Swing to 19.

Turn 2 Oath:
Oath up Triskelivus flipping Blessing.

It actually takes a while for Oath to win from here because only Tyrant is in hand.
Definitely replacing Needle with second Tyrant is improvement.
Anyway, Triskelivus is removed a few times with Ancient Grudge and shoots a Welder but eventually
swings for win.

Sideboarding:
Stax:  Out: Uba Mask, Powder Keg, Crop Rotation, 2xAncient Grudge. In: 3xPyro/REB, 2xVault/Key
Oath:  Out: 4 Force, 4 Crypt, 4 Denial, 1 Muddle. In: 9 Strip/Waste/Factory, 3 Loam, 1 Needle

Stax keeps:
Sphere Of Resistance
Goblin Welder
Goblin Welder
Chalice Of The Void
Vampiric Tutor
Mishra's Workshop
Mox Sapphire

Oath keeps:
Life From The Loam
Life From The Loam
Mox Pearl
Wasteland
Oath Of Druids
Intuition
Wasteland
This sort of shady with no colored source, but that is life.  Against Stax, even with a colored
source you may not have it for long.  Rely on Wastes to keep you in the game long enough to draw
mana.

Turn 1 Stax:
Play Sapphire, Shop, Chalice@2.  Boom!!!

Turn 1 Oath:
Draw Factory.  Waste Shop.  Play Pearl.

Turn 2 Stax:  Draw Welder.

Turn 2 Oath:  Draw Strand.  Play Factory.

Turn 3 Stax:  Draw Crucible.

Turn 3 Oath:  Draw Trops.  Play Trops.  Swing to 18.

Turn 4 Stax:  Draw + play Academy.  Play Crucible.

Turn 4 Oath:  Draw Muddle.  Play Waste.  Intuition for 3xExplosives.  Play Explosives@0.

Turn 5 Stax:  Draw and Play Gemstone Mine.  Play Resistor.

Turn 5 Oath:  Draw Intuition.  Explode Explosives and play Oath.

From here it is pretty much over.

Arcane Oath may lack the raw power of Root Maze Oath, but the sideboard with Life from the Loams
and 9 additional mana sources is ideal for beating Stax so again this was a super tough
matchup for Stax.
===================================================================================================
5 Color Uba Stax vs Hermit Vault

Stax wins die roll.

Stax mulligans:
Memory Jar
Goblin Welder
Tangle Wire
Crucible Of Worlds
Wasteland
Uba Mask
Trinisphere

Stax Keeps:
GemstoneMine4
CropRotation1
ManaVault1
GemstoneMine1
GoblinWelder4
SunderingTitan1

Druid keeps:
Misdirection
Polluted Delta
Worldly Tutor
Hermit Druid
Tropical Island
Polluted Delta
Misdirection

Turn 1 Stax:
Play Gemstone Mine and Mana Vault.

Turn 1 Druid:
Draw Trops.  Play Delta.

Turn 2 Stax:
Draw and Play Wasteland.

Turn 2 Druid:
Draw Dragon's Breath.  Play Trops.  Fetch trops to 19.  Play Druid.

Turn 3 Stax:
Draw Shop!  Play Shop and hardcast Titan blowing up both Trops.

Turn 3 Druid:
Draw Druid.  Play and activate Delta fetching Trops.  Activate Druid.  Win.

Sideboarding:
Stax:  Out:  2 Crucible, 2 Grudge.  In: 2 Ensnaring Bridge, 1 Keg, 1 Tormod's Crypt.
Druid:  Out: 4 Misdirection.  In:  1 Progenitus, 1 Mystical Tutor, 2 Vault/Key.

Stax keeps:
Black Lotus
Chalice Of The Void
Barbarian Ring
Tormod's Crypt
Tolarian Academy
City Of Brass
Uba Mask

Hermit Keeps:
Lim-Dul's Vault
Dragon Breath
Polluted Delta
Gush
Bayou
Black Lotus
Daze

Turn 1 Stax:
Play City and Chalice@2 dropping to 19 and winning the game.

Sideboarding:
Hermit:  Out: 4xWorldly, 4xDruid, 3xNarco, Coggy, Dread, Bridge, Breath.
         In: 4xOrchard, 4xOath, 3xProgenitus, 2xVault/Key, Mystical, Ponder.

Druid keeps:
Lim-Dul'sVault1
OathOfDruids4
Daze2
ForbiddenOrchard2
PollutedDelta2
ForceOfWill2
Misdirection3

Stax Keeps:
Crop Rotation
Sphere Of Resistance
Bazaar Of Baghdad
Sphere Of Resistance
Memory Jar
Gemstone Mine
Mox Emerald1


Turn 1 Druid: Play Delta.

Turn 1 Stax: Draw Trini.  Play and activate Bazaar seeing Ruby and Recall, discarding 2xResistor
and Jar. Play Ruby.  Play Emerald.  Crop Rotation out Bazaar for Shop (Forced).  Druid to 19 and
pitches MisD.

Turn 2 Druid:  Draw Daze, Fetch Trops to 18.  Play Orchard.  Play Oath.

Turn 2 Stax.  Draw Chalice.  Play Gemstone Mine.  Play Recall into Razormane Masticore, Tinker
and Triskelion.

Turn 3 Druid.  Oath up Progenitus.  Lim-Dul's Vault putting 2xForce on top and loseing 4 life.  
Draw Force.

Turn 3 Stax.  Draw Triskelion.  Tinker out Emerald into Daze.

Turn 4 Druid.  Draw Force.  Swing.

Turn 4 Stax.  Draw Resistor.  Too late for anything.

A third Oath matchup was again though although this one should be better since Daze is not
a great weapon against Stax and MisD is pretty dead.  Also, Druid has no basics and
I ran no bounce to deal with cards like Ensnaring Bridge.
Stax easily could have won this matchup, but got unlucky here.

5 Color Uba Stax finished 0-4.  Basically playing 3 Oath decks is tough.
I possibly mis-sideboarded in the Oath matchups.  The better strategy may have been to bring in
Leylines and then attempt to Blast Tyrants and Ancient Grudge Triskelivus etc.  I was playing as
though I did not know the exact deck I was playing thus Progenitus in board was always possible.
Also assembling Grudge, Blast and Leyline seemed tough.  Obivously my strategy did not work,
but I am not sure that Leylines would have been right anyway.

====================================================================================================
Steel City Vault vs Arcane Scrying

Arcane Scrying wins die roll.

Arcane Scrying keeps:
Mox Ruby
Island
Arcane Denial
Mana Drain
Vampiric Tutor
Mana Drain
Demonic Tutor

Steel City Vault Keeps:
Voltaic Key
Polluted Delta
Volcanic Island
Ancestral Recall
Brainstorm
Thirst For Knowledge
Transmute Artifact

Turn 1 Scrying:  Play Ruby.  Play Island.

Turn 1 Vault:  Draw Fact.

Turn 2 Scrying:  
Vault plays Recall into Denial on upkeep.
Scrying draws and plays Lotus.

Turn 2 Vault:
Vault draws Regrowth and Pearl on upkeep.
Denial draws Denial on upkeep.
Vault draws Rebuild.
Vault plays and cracks Delta for Trops.
Vault plays Pearl.  Vault Regrowths Recall.

Turn 3 Scrying:
Vault Recalls on upkeep which Denial Drains.
Denial draws Mishra's Bauble.
Denial Denials Bauble.

Turn 3 Vault:
Denial draws Thirst and 2xUrza's Bauble on upkeep.
Vault draws City.
Vault plays City.  Vault Trasmutes out Pearl for Vault.

Turn 4 Scrying:  Draw Tinker.  Play and crack 2 Urza's Baubles.

Turn 4 Vault:
Denial draws Brainstorm and Strand on upkeep.
Vault draws MisD.
Vault plays Key, Denial Brainstorms in response only seeing 2xMisdirection and Urza's Bauble.
Vault wins.

Sideboarding:

Scrying: No Change.
Vault:  -2 Ancient Grudge, +1 REB, +1 Pyroblast

Scrying keeps:
Arcane Denial
Misdirection
Mana Crypt
Underground Sea
Misdirection
Mox Sapphire
Repeal

Vault keeps:
Force Of Will
Brainstorm
City Of Brass
Thirst For Knowledge
Mox Emerald
Polluted Delta
Ponder

Turn 1 Scrying:
Play Sapphire.  Repeal Sapphire drawing Chain of Vapor.
Play Sapphire.
Play Sea.
Denial a Mana Crypt, (Vault pitches Ponder to Force, Scrying pitches Chain to MisD.)

Turn 1 Vault:
Scrying draws 2xMishra's Bauble and Delta on upkeep.
Vault draws Time Vault.
Vault plays Emerld, City and Time Vault dropping to 18.

Turn 2 Scrying:
Scrying draws Lotus, plays Delta and cracks both Baubles seeing own Force with first and
Vault's Ruby with second.  Vault gives Scrying another turn.

Turn 3 Scrying:
Scrying draws Force and Arcane Denial on upkeep.
Scrying Denials Lotus.

Turn 3 Vault:
Scrying draws Ruby, Bauble and Force on upkeep.
Vault draws Ruby.
Vault play Delta and fetches Sea going to 17.
Vault plays Thirst but Denial pitches MisD to Force going to 19.
Vault takes another turn with Time Vault.

Turn 3.B Vault:  
Draw City.  Play Brainstorm of Sea seeing Regrowth, Delta and Key.  Win.

In general I would expect Arcane Scrying to win this matchup, but I am not that familiar with
Steel City Vault yet, so I am not sure if ripping Transmute for the combo is the sort of thing
that this deck does a lot of it just got lucky and lucksacked into the win.
====================================================================================================

Steel City Vault vs Root Maze Oath

Steel City Vault wins die roll.

Vault mulligans:
Voltaic Key
Force Of Will
City Of Brass
Timetwister
Yawgmoth's Will
Thirst For Knowledge
Voltaic Key

Oath mulligans:
Demonic Tutor
Root Maze
Root Maze
Tidespout Tyrant
Ponder
Enlightened Tutor
Ancestral Recall

Vault keeps:
Ancient Grudge
City Of Brass
Force Of Will
Force Of Will
Mana Crypt
Mox Sapphire

Oath keeps:
MerchantScroll1
RootMaze3
GemstoneMine1
MoxJet1
ForbiddenOrchard2
Balance1

Turn 1 Vault:  Play Sapphire.  Play City.

Turn 1 Oath:  Draw Gemstone.  Play Jet.  Play Gemstone.  Play Root Maze.  EOT:  Vault Grudges Jet,
drops to 19 life.

Turn 2 Vault: Draws Delta.  Plays Delta.

Turn 2 Oath:  Draw Enlightened Tutor.  Play Orchard.

Turn 3 Vault:  Draw Thirst.  Fetch Sea going to 18.  EOT:  Oath ETs for Oath.

Turn 3 Oath: Oath draws and plays Oath (Vault Forces pitching Force to 17, Oath Forces pitching Scroll to 19).

Turn 4 Vault:  Draw Brainstorm.  Play Thirst into Wheel, Petal and Tinker.  Discard Petal.
Play Mana Crypt.

Turn 4 Oath:  Oath up Tyrant.  Draw Argivian Find.  Find out Emerald bouncing Crypt.  Play Emerald
bouncing City.

Turn 4 Vault draw Force.  Replay Crypt.  Replay City.

Turn 5 Oath:  Oath out Tyrant.  Play Demonic bouncing City + Crypt. (Vault Forces Demonic pitching
Brainstorm).  Oath swings with Tyrant.

From here Vault can never quite get Tinker mana up.

Sideboarding:
Vault:  -2 Goblin Welder, +1 Naturalize, +1 Ingot Chewer
Oath:  -2 Enlightened Tutor, -2 Argivian Find, -1 Balance, +3 Choke, +2 Null Rod

Vault Mulligans:
Black Lotus
Force Of Will
Ancient Grudge
Ingot Chewer
Underground Sea
Inkwell Leviathan


Oath keeps:
Gemstone Mine
City Of Brass
Gemstone Mine
Wasteland
Merchant Scroll
Force Of Will
Force Of Will

Vault keeps:
City Of Brass
Mox Emerald
Impulse
Ancient Grudge
Flooded Strand
Memory Jar

Turn 1 Vault:  Play Emerald.  Play Strand.

Turn 1 Oath:  Draw Imperial Seal.  Play City.  Play Seal going to 17, putting Recall on Top.
EOT Vault fetches Sea and plays Impulse intot Fire/Ice, Tinker, Mana Crypt and City.  Keeps Tinker.

Turn 2 Vault:  Draw Key. Play City.  Play Key.

Turn 2 Oath:  Draw Recall.  Waste City.

Turn 3 Vault:  Oath Recalls on upkeep going to 16 and drawing Tyrant, Oath and Rod.
Vault draws Naturalize.

Turn 3 Oath:  Draw Wasteland.  Play Wasteland.  Play Null Rod going to 15.  Vault taps Emerald in
response and then Naturalizes Rod.

Turn 4 Vault:  Draw Force.  

Turn 4 Oath:  Draw Vamp.  Waste Sea. Play Gemstone Mine.  Play Oath to 14.
Vault Forces pitching Tinker.  Oath Forces back pitching Tyrant and going to 13.

Turn 5 Vault:  Draw and play Trops.

Turn 5 Oath:  Vamp on upkeep for Orchard.  Play Orchard.  Scroll for Mystical.

Turn 6 Vault:  Draw and play Tormod's Crypt.

Turn 6 Oath:  Oath up Tyrant.  Mystical Tutor bouncing Crypt getting Demonic Tutor.
Play Tutor bouncing Trops getting Root Maze.  Play Root Maze bouncing Emerald.

From here Vault will never have a mana source again.

The sideboard with Chokes and Null Rods was strong for Root Maze Oath in this matchup.
====================================================================================================
Star City Vault vs Arcane Oath

Arcane Oath wins die roll.

Oath keeps:
Forbidden Orchard
Intuition
Island
Tormod's Crypt
Engineered Explosives
Forbidden Orchard
Mox Sapphire

Vault keeps:
Transmute Artifact
Volcanic Island
Fire/Ice
Rebuild
Force Of Will
Memory Jar
Polluted Delta

Turn 1 Oath:  Play Sapphire.  Play Island.

Turn 1 Vault:  Draw Key.  Play Volcanic.  Play Key.

Turn 2 Oath:  Draw Oath.  Play Orchard.  Play Oath. Vault Forces pitching Fire/Ice.
Oath plays Explosives at 1.

Turn 2 Vault:  Draw Force.  Play Delta.

Turn 3 Oath:  Draw Pearl.  EOT:  Vault Fetches Sea and Cycles Rebuild into Chain of Vapor.

Turn 3 Vault:  Draw Fact or Fiction.  EOT:  Oath Intuitions for 3xOath.

Turn 4 Oath:  Oath Draws Tormod's and then walks last Oath into Force for the loss.
From here Vault wins with Token beats.

Sideboarding:
Oath: No change.
Vault:  -2 Goblin Welder, +1 Naturalize, +1 Ingot Chewer

Oath mulligans:
Island
Time Walk
Tidespout Tyrant
Oath Of Druids
Tormod's Crypt
Tormod's Crypt
Island

Vault keeps:
Island
Underground Sea
Sol Ring
Force Of Will
Inkwell Leviathan
Transmute Artifact
Vampiric Tutor

Oath mulligans:
Tormod's Crypt
Intuition
Force Of Will
Tormod's Crypt
Brainstorm
Oath Of Druids

Oath keeps:
Engineered Explosives
Tropical Island
Force Of Will
Ancestral Recall
Black Lotus

Turn 1 Oath:  Play Trops.  Play Recall (Forced pitching Leviathan)

Turn 1 Vault:  Draw Academy.  Play Island.  Play Sol Ring.

Turn 2 Oath:  Draw Intuition.  Play Lotus.

Turn 2 Vault:  Draw Thirst.  Play Thirst into Time Vault, Mox Pearl and Fire/Ice.  Discard Pearl.
Play Academy.

Turn 3 Oath:  Draw Oath.  Intuition for 3xOrchards. Play Orchard.  Play Oath.

Turn 3 Vault:  Draw Wheel of Fortune.  Play Sea.  Play Time Vault.  Transmute out Sol Ring for Key.
Win.

Oath had some crappy mulligans and then this also shows the weakness of Intuitioning for Oaths.
====================================================================================================
Steel City Vault vs Hermit Vault

Steel City Vault wins flip.

Vault keeps:
Time Vault
Underground Sea
Flooded Strand
Mox Emerald
Wheel Of Fortune
Fact Or Fiction
Tropical Island

Hermit keeps:
Misdirection
Narcomoeba
Ancestral Recall
Demonic Tutor
Lim-Dul's Vault
Polluted Delta
Underground Sea

Turn 1 Vault:  Play Emerald, Sea and Time Vault.

Turn 1 Hermit:  Draw Lim-Dul's Vault.  Play Fetch.

Turn 2 Vault:  Draw Key.  Play Trops.  Play Key, Hermit Fetches Trops in response and Recalls in
response into Force, Dread Return and Worldly Tutor.  Hermit then Forces Key pitching Lim-Dul's.

Turn 2 Hermit:  Draw Hermit Druid.  Play Sea.  Play Druid.

Turn 3 Vault.  Draw Transmute Artifact.  Transmute out Emerald for other Key.  Play Strand. Win.

Sideboarding:
Vault: -2 Ancient Grudge, +1 Tormod's Crypt, +1 Naturalize.
Druid: -1 Gush, -2 Daze, +2 Vault/Key, +1 Progenitus.

Hermit Keeps:
Voltaic Key
Mox Sapphire
Dragon Breath
Imperial Seal
Underground Sea
Vampiric Tutor
Narcomoeba2


Vault Mulligans:
Impulse
Merchant Scroll
Brainstorm
Time Walk
Ponder
Sol Ring
Fire / Ice

Vault Keeps:
Polluted Delta
Force Of Will
Regrowth
Sol Ring
Thirst For Knowledge
Rebuild

Turn 1 Hermit: Play Sapphire.  Play Sea.  Play Key.  Play Seal to 18 for Time Vault.

Turn 1 Vault:  Draw Jar.  Fetch Trops to 19.  Play Sol Ring.

Turn 2 Hermit:  Draw Vault.  Play Vault (Forced to 18 pitching Rebuild.)

Turn 2 Vault:  Draw Sea.  Play Thirst drawing Tinker, Jet and Academy.  Discard Jar.
Play Academy.  Play Jet.  Tinker out Jet for Leviathan.

Turn 3 Hermit:  Draw Emerald.

Turn 3 Vault:  Draw Ponder.  Play Pondering seeing Key, Fact and City.  Keep Fact.  Fact into
Key, City, Wheel, Impulse, Impulse.  Vault takes Wheel + Impulse.  Play Sea.  Swing to 11.
EOT:  Hermit Vamps to 9 for Hermit.

Turn 4 Hermit:  Draw Druid.  Play Emerald.  Play Druid.

Turn 4 Vault:  Draw Volcanic Island.  Play Volcanic Island.  Play Wheel of Fortune into
Mana Crypt, Mox Sapphire, Mox Emerald, Flooded Strand, Flooded Strand, Black Lotus and
Tormod's Crypt.  Hermit draws Polluted Delta, Daze, Bayou, Misdirection, Black Lotus, Dread Return
and Polluted Delta.  Swing to 2.  Play Tormod's Crypt.  Easy win from there.

Steel City Vault won this matchup by just outbreaking Hermit.  I am impressed with Steel City Vault.
====================================================================================================
Drain Tendrils vs Arcane Scrying

Drain Tendrils wins die roll.

Tendrils keeps:
Island
Mystical Tutor
Island
Fact Or Fiction
Volcanic Island
Yawgmoth's Will
Sensei's Divining Top

Scrying keeps:
Urza's Bauble
Force Of Will
Mystical Tutor
Mox Ruby
Force Of Will
Cephalid Colliseum
Black Lotus

Turn 1 Tendrils:  Play Volcanic.

Turn 1 Scrying:  Draw Sol Ring.  Play Lotus.  Play Ruby.  Play Sol Ring.  Play Colliseum.
Play and activate Bauble seeing Top.
EOT:  Tendrils Mysticals for Recall.

Turn 2 Tendrils:  Scrying draws Delta on upkeep.
Draw Recall.  Play Recall (Scrying Forces with Lotus and Sol Ring)
Play Island.  Play Top.
EOT:  Scrying Mysticals to 19 for Tinker.

Turn 2 Scrying:  Draw Tinker.  Fetch Sea with Delta to 18.  Tinker out Emerald for DSC.

Turn 3 Tendrils:  Top on upkeep seeing Sol Ring Rebuild and Swamp.  Put Sol Ring on top with
Rebuild Next.  Draw and play Sol Ring.  Draw Rebuild off Top.  Play Rebuild.

Turn 3 Scrying:  Draw Walk.  Play Sol Ring.  Play Walk.

Turn 3.B Scrying:  Draw and Play Pearl.

Turn 4 Tendrils:  Draw Top.  Play Sol Ring.  Play Fact (hardcast Force from Scrying)

Turn 4 Scrying:  Draw Scrying.  Play Scrying for 4 dropping to 13. Draw Demonic, Academy, Jet
and Misdirection.  Play Academy.  Play Jet.  Demonic for Yawg.

Turn 5 Tendrils:  Draw Swamp.  Play Swamp.  Play Yawg.  Play Recall into 2xDelta + Vamp.
Crack Delta for Sea.  Mystical for Drain.  Play top and activate to get Drain.

Turn 5 Scrying:  Draw Chain of Vapor.  Activate Colliseum to draw Bauble, Island and Sea.  Pitch
DSC, Island and Sea.  Play and activate Bauble.  Play Yawg with MisD backup for Tinker->DSC,
Walk, 2xBaubles, DT->Drain and draw into Island, Strand and Denial.  Get a swing in and pass turn
with 2xcounter backup for the win.

sideboarding:
Drain Tendrils: -1 Darkblast, +1 Duress
Arcane Scrying:  -3 Urza's Bauble, +3 Engineered Explosives.

Drain Tendrils mulligans:
Mana Vault
Mox Emerald
Mox Pearl
Empty The Warrens
Ancestral Recall
Ponder
Dark Confidant

Arcane Scrying keeps:
Underground Sea
Misdirection
Yawgmoth's Will
Arcane Denial
Urza's Bauble
Arcane Denial
Mishra's Bauble

Drain Tendrils keeps:
Rebuild
Duress
Yawgmoth's Will
Underground Sea
Mox Emerald
Lotus Petal

Turn 1 Tendrils:  Play Sea.  Play Duress taking Yawg.  Play Emerald.  Play Petal.

Turn 1 Scrying:  Draw Demonic.  Play Sea.  Play both Baubles and crack.  See Mana Drain and Rebuild.

Turn 2 Tendrils:  Scrying draws Strand and Sapphire on upkeep.  Draw Drain.

Turn 2 Scrying:  Fetch Sea with Strand to 19.  Denial Sapphire (Tendrils Drains, Scrying pitches
Denial to MisD.)

Turn 3 Tendrils:  Scrying draws Strand, Scrying and Drain on upkeep.
Draw Lotus.  Cycle Rebuild into Pyroblast.  Play Lotus.

Turn 3 Scrying:  Draw Jet.  Fetch Island to 18.  Play Jet.

Turn 4 Tendrils:  Draw Drain.
EOT:  Scrying casts Scrying for 3 to 15.  (Tendrils cracks Lotus to Drain)

Turn 4 Scrying:  Draw Mishra's Bauble.  Play + Crack Bauble.  Demonic for Tinker.

Turn 5 Tendrils:  Scrying draws Delta on upkeep.  Draw Intuition.  Intuition for Delta, Volc and
Ruby.  Get Volc.  Play Volc.

Turn 5 Scrying:  Draw Recall.  Fetch Island to 17.  Tinker out Jet (Tendrils Blasts, but Scrying
has Drain)

Turn 6 Tendrils:  Draw Drain.  Play Yawg.  Fetch Sea to 19.  Duress Recall.  Play Ruby, Petal and Lotus.  Rebuild.  Replay Petal,
Emerald and Ruby.  Intuition for 3xDark Confidant.

Turn 6 Scrying:  Draw Chain.

Turn 7 Tendrils:  Draw Sapphire. Play Sapphire.  Play Confidant.

(From here Scrying only out is to hardcast DSC which does not work out as Confidant outdraws.)

Game 3

Scrying mulligans:
Engineered Explosives
Repeal
Mana Crypt
Mishra's Bauble
Mystical Tutor
Force Of Will
Arcane Denial

Tendrils keeps:
Island
Mystical Tutor
Underground Sea
Ancestral Recall
Volcanic Island
Platinum Angel
Dark Confidant

Scrying keeps:
Mox Sapphire
Tinker
Island
Arcane Denial
Misdirection
Underground Sea

Turn 1 Scrying:  Play Sapphire.  Play Sea.

Turn 1 Tendrils:  Draw Warrens.  Play Sea.

Turn 2 Scrying:  Tendrils plays Recall on upkeep (Scrying Misdirects pitching Denial drawing into
Fact, Mana Crypt and Drain.)
Draw Lotus.  Play Island.  Play Mana Crypt.  Tinker out Crypt for DSC.

Turn 2 Tendrils:  Mystical on upkeep for Chain of Vapor.  Draw Chain of Vapor.
Play Volc.  Play Chain (Drained).

Turn 3 Scrying:  Draw Repeal.  Repeal Sapphire into Vamp.  Replay Sapphire.  Fact into Denial.
Swing for 11.

Turn 3 Tendrils:  Fails to draw answer and would not matter Scrying has counter backup.


Game 2 is a perfect example of where Twister would improve Drain SCrying.  Still the "worst" cards
are Scrying and MisD and MisD was pretty huge in the two wins so I am hesitant to pull it.
====================================================================================================
Drain Tendrils vs Root Maze Oath

Drain Tendrils wins die roll.

Drain Tendrils keeps:
Force Of Will
Intuition
Polluted Delta
Chain Of Vapor
Black Lotus
Force Of Will
Time Walk

Oath keeps:
Oath Of Druids
Enlightened Tutor
Enlightened Tutor
Mox Emerald
Intuition
Oath Of Druids
Gemstone Mine

Turn 1 Tendrils:  Play Lotus.  Play Delta.

Turn 1 Oath:  Draw Gemstone Mine.  Play Emerald.  Play Mine.  Play Oath (Forced to 19 pitching
Chain)

Turn 2 Tendrils:  Draw Swamp.  Play Swamp.  Fetch Volc to 19.  Play Walk.

Turn 2.B Tendrils:  Draw Demonic.  Demonic for Yawg.

Turn 2 Oath:  Draw Gemstone Mine.  Play Gemstone Mine.  Play Oath.

Turn 3 Tendrils:  Draw Sea.  Intuition for Vault, Crypt and Petal getting Vault.
Play Vault.  Play Yawg.  Fetch Sea.  Play Crypt.  Play Petal.  Play Lotus.
Play Demonic for Tendrils.  Play Walk and Force it pitching Force.  Play Tendrils for 20.

Sideboarding:
Tendrils: -1 Tinker, -1 Platz, -1 Darkblast, +2 Duress, +1 Hurkyl's

Oath: -2 Enlightened Tutor, -2 Argivian Find, -1 Balance, +3 Choke, +2 Null Rod

Oath Keeps:
Oath Of Druids
Brainstorm
Mox Pearl
Choke
City Of Brass
Intuition
Enlightened Tutor

Tendrils Keeps:
Hurkyl's Recall
Dark Confidant
Mox Ruby
Polluted Delta
Island
Swamp
Sensei's Divining Top

Turn 1 Oath:  Play Pearl.  Play City.  Play Oath to 19.

Turn 1 Tendrils:  Draw Recall. Play Ruby.  Play Island.  Play Top.

Turn 2 Oath:  Tendrils Recalls on upkeep into Bob, Lotus and Petal.
Draw Tyrant.  Brainstorm to 18 into Saphire, Ruby and Find.  Put Tyrant and Choke back.
Play Ruby.  Play Sapphire.  Play Intuition for 3xOrchard.  Play Orchard.

Turn 2 Tendrils:  Top seeing Emerald, Hurkyl's and Mana Vault.  Draw Emerald.  Play Lotus, Petal, Emerald, Swamp and 2xBob.

Turn 3 Oath:  Oath up Tyrant.  Find and Play Rod and Enlightened Tutor and play Root Maze bouncing
all permanents and Tendrils is locked out.

Game 3:

Tendrils Mulligans:
Underground Sea
Mox Jet
Black Lotus
Vampiric Tutor
Polluted Delta
Polluted Delta
Swamp

Oath Keeps:
Choke
Force Of Will
City Of Brass
Force Of Will
Wasteland
Mox Sapphire
Null Rod

Tendrils Keeps:
Hurkyl's Recall
Force Of Will
Underground Sea
Volcanic Island
Mana Drain
Mox Sapphire

Turn 1 Tendrils:  Play Sapphire.  Play Volcanic.

Turn 1 Oath:  Draw Strip Mine.  Play Sapphire.  Wase Volcanic.

Turn 2 Tendrils:  Draw Mana Drain.  Play Sea.

Turn 2 Oath:  Draw Jet.  Play Jet.  Strip Sea.

Turn 3 Tendrils:  Draw Force.

Turn 3 Oath:  Draw Root Maze.  Play Root Maze to 19. (Forced to 19, pitching Drain)

Turn 4 Tendrils:  Draw Force.

Turn 4 Oath:  Draw Null Rod.  Play Choke to 18 (Forced to 18 pitching Drain) (Forced back to 17
pitching Force) (Forced back to 17 pitching Hurkyl's)
At this point Tendrils has Sapphire in play and no hand.
Oath has City, Jet and Sapphire in play with 2xRod in hand.

Turn 5 Tendrils:  Draw and Play Delta.

Turn 5 Oath:  Draw Lotus.  Play Rod.

Turn 6 Tendrils:  Draw Ruby.

Turn 6 Oath:  Draw + Play City.  Play Rod going to 15.

Turn 7 Tendrils:  Draw and Play Delta.

Turn 7 Oath:  Draw Argivian Find.  Find out Root Maze to 14.  Play Root Maze to 13.
In Response Tendrils fetches Island and Swamp to 15.

Turn 8 Tendrils:  Draw Intuition.

Turn 8 Oath:  Draw Force.

Turn 9 Tendrils:  Draw + Play Dark Confidant.

Turn 9 Oath:  Draw + Play Oath.

Turn 10 Tendrils:  Reveal Sea.  Draw Recall.  Swing to 11.  Play Recall.  Draw Academy, Brainstorm,
Jet.  Play Jet.  Play Ruby.  Play Academy.

Turn 10 Oath:  Oath up Tyrant.  Draw Gemstone Mine.  Play Gemstone Mine.  Play Lotus
bouncing Academy.

Turn 11 Tendrils:  Reveal Sea.  Draw Rebuild.  Swing to 9.  Play Brainstorm seeing Emerald, Sol Ring
and Pyroblast.  Put back 2xSea.  Play Emerald.  Play Sol Ring.  Play Academy.

Turn 11 Oath:  Draw Ruby.  Play Ruby bouncing Academy.  Swing to 10.

Turn 12 Tendrils:  Reveal Sea.  Draw Sea.  Swing to 7.  Play Academy.

Turn 12 Oath:  Draw City.  Play City.  Swing to 5.

Turn 13 Tendrils:  Reveal Pyroblast to 4.  Draw Scroll.  Scroll for Chain and Chain Root Maze.
Rebuild.  Replay Moxen Swing to 5.  Play Sea.

Turn 13 Oath:  Tendrils Pyros Tyrant.  Draw Demonic.  Demonic for Walk.  Walk.

Turn 13.B Oath:  Oath up Tyrant.  Draw Gemonstinie Mine.  Replay all Moxen + Rod bouncing mana.

Oath wins next turn.

Root Maze Oath is well suited to beat this deck.  First you have Oath answering Bob.
Then Root Maze makes the Tendrils plan tough and Platz is easy to deal with if you have Tyrant.
The Choke/Rod board plan was strong again.
====================================================================================================
Drain Tendrils vs Arcane Oath

Drain Tendrils wins die roll.

Drain Tendrils keeps:
Mana Drain
Empty The Warrens
Underground Sea
Island
Dark Confidant
Demonic Tutor
Mox Jet

Arcane Oath keeps:
Intuition4
Intuition1
PollutedDelta1
ForbiddenOrchard1
EngineeredExplosives4
Tormod'sCrypt4
Island2

Turn 1 Tendrils:  Play Jet.  Play Island.  Play Bob.

Turn 1 Oath:  Draw Mana Drain.  Play Tormod's Crypt.  Play Island.

Turn 2 Tendrils:  Reveal Walk to 18.  Draw Drain.  Play Sea.  Swing to 18.  Play Walk.

Turn 2.B Tendrils:  Reveal Petal.  Draw Tinker.  Swing to 16.  Play Petal.  Demonic for Recall.

Turn 2 Oath:  Draw Mana Drain.  Play Delta.  Fetch Trops to 15.  Play Explosives for 2. which is
Drained.

Turn 3 Tendrils:  Reveal Vamp to 17.  Draw Ponder.  Swing to 13.

Turn 3 Oath:  Draw Force.  Play Orchard.
EOT:  Tendrils plays Recall which is Drained.

Turn 4 Tendrils:  Reveal Swamp.  Draw Drain. Swing to 11.

Turn 4 Oath:  Draw Pearl.  Play Pearl.  Play Intuition for 3xOath.  Play Oath (Drained) (Forced back
to 10 pitching Intuition.)
EOT:  Vamp to 15 for Chain of Vapor.

Turn 5 Tendrils:  Reveal Chain to 14.  Draw Sea.  Swing to 7.  Chain Oath.  Play Sea.

Turn 5 Oath:  Draw Force.  Play Oath (Drained).

Turn 6 Tendrils:  Reveal Mystical to 13.  Draw Drain.  Swing to 4.  Tinker for Platz.

From here easy win.

Sideboarding:
Tendrils: -1 Darkblast, +1 Duress
Oath: -1 Pithing Needle, +1 Strip Mine

Oath Keeps:
Flooded Strand
Ancestral Recall
Gaea's Blessing
Engineered Explosives
Mana Drain
Muddle The Mixture
Engineered Explosives

Tendrils keeps:
Tendrils Of Agony
Swamp
Hurkyl's Recall
Force Of Will
Mana Crypt
Underground Sea
Brainstorm

Turn 1 Oath:  Play Strand and Fetch Trops to 19.

Turn 1 Tendrils:  Oath plays Recall on upkeep into Force to 19 pitching Hurkyl's.
Draw Sapphire.  Play Sapphire.  Play Brainstorm drawing Chain, Bob and Walk.  Put back Swamp and
Walk with Swamp on top.  Play Sea.  Play Mana Crypt.  Play Bob.

Turn 2 Oath:  Draw Explosives.

Turn 2 Tendrils:  No Crypt Damage.  Reveal Swamp.  Draw Walk.  Play Walk. Play Swamp. Swing to 17.

Turn 2.B Tendrils:  No Crypt Damage.  Reveal Pyroblast to 18.  Draw Sea.  Play Sea.  Swing to 15.

Turn 3 Oath:  Draw Island.  Play Explosives@2

Turn 3 Tendrils:  No Crypt Damage.  Reveal Delta.  Draw Swamp.  Play Delta.  Swing to 13.

Turn 4 Oath:  Draw Tyrant.  Explode Explosives.

Turn 4 Tendrils:  Draw Island.  Play Island.

Turn 5 Oath:  Draw Intuition.

Turn 5 Tendrils:  Draw Mystical.  Play Swamp.

Turn 6 Oath:  Draw Orchard.  Play Orchard.  Muddle for Oath.
EOT:  Tendrils Mysticals for Recall.

Turn 6 Tendrils:  Draw REcall.  Play Recall into Island, Demonic and Petal.  Fetch Volc.
Play Petal.  Chain Petal + Sapphire + Crypt.  Replay all and crack Petal.  Demonic for Yawg and
easy Yawg win.

This shows what Andy was saying.  Even against decks with Dark Confidants Arcane Oath does not
have a great Drain matchup.
===================================================================================================
Drain Tendrils vs Hermit Vault

Hermit Vault wins roll.

Hermit Keeps:
Misdirection
Force Of Will
Polluted Delta
Tropical Island
Ancestral Recall
Vampiric Tutor
Cabal Therapy

Tendrils Mulligans:
Force Of Will
Intuition
Sensei's Divining Top
Mana Crypt
Demonic Tutor
Sol Ring
Mox Pearl

Tendrils Keeps:
Polluted Delta
Demonic Tutor
Mox Ruby
Force Of Will
Underground Sea
Rebuild

Turn 1 Druid:  Play Fetch.

Turn 1 Tendrils:  Draw Brainstorm.  Play Ruby (In response Druid fetches Sea and Recalls.
Tendrils pitches Rebuild to Force going to 19, but Druid pitches Force to Misdirection to counter
Ruby instead.)  Druid draws Trops + 2xStrand.
Play Sea.

Turn 2 Druid:  Draw Lim-Dul's Vault.  Play Trops.
EOT:  Tendrils plays Brainstorm into Jet, Drain and Drain. Puts back Jet and Drain on top.

Turn 2 Tendrils:  Draw Drain.  Play Delta.
EOT:  Lim-Dul's Vault for Druid to 18.

Turn 3 Druid:  Draw Druid.  Play Therapy naming Mana Drain.  Play Trops.  Play Druid.


Turn 3 Tendrils:  Draw Jet.  Fetch Volc.  Play Jet.  Demonic for Darkblast.  Darkblast Druid.

From here Darkblast does its thing and Tendrils wins.

Sideboarding:
Tendrils:  -1 Hurkyl's Recall, -1 Rebuild, +2 Duress
Druid:  -1 Gush, +1 Progenitus

Druid Keeps:
Daze
Polluted Delta
Flooded Strand
Worldly Tutor
Daze
Narcomoeba
Cabal Therapy

Tendrils Keeps:
Darkblast
Lotus Petal
Yawgmoth's Will
Mox Ruby
Pyroblast
Ponder
Polluted Delta

Turn 1 Hermit:  Play Strand.

Turn 1 Tendrils:  Draw Recall.  Play Ruby.  Play Petal.  Play Delta.  Fetch Sea to 19.  Play Recall
into Demonic, Lotus and Gifts.  Play Lotus.
EOT:  Hermit Fetches Trops to 19 and Worldly Tutors for Druid.

Turn 2 Hermit:  Draw Druid.  Play Delta and Fetch Sea to 18.  Play Druid.

Turn 2 Tendrils:  Darkblast Druid on upkeep.  From here Druid has not chance to recover.

So Hermit was the top deck in testing, but Drain decks were not packing maindeck Darkblast and
Fire/Ice.  Those cards make a big difference.
Drain Tendrils record of 2-2 was solid.  I felt like Root Maze Oath was the really tough matchup.
Even Arcane Scrying was a solid matchup if Bob got going early.
====================================================================================================

Tez vs Arcane Scrying

Arcane Scrying wins die roll.

Scrying Keeps:
Mox Sapphire
Urza's Bauble
Demonic Tutor
Mana Drain
Misdirection
Mana Drain
Ancestral Recall

Tez Keeps:
Sol Ring
Merchant Scroll
Volcanic Island
Underground Sea
Thirst For Knowledge
Tezzeret The Seeker
Time Walk

Turn 1 Scrying:  Play and crack Urza's Bauble seeing Sea.  Play Sapphire.

Turn 1 Tez:  Scrying draws Scrying.  Play Sapphire (In Response Scrying plays Recall
and draws Emerald, Drain and Ruby)  Play Sea.  Play Sol Ring.  Play Scroll for Recall.

Turn 2 Scrying:  Draw Force.  Play Ruby.  Play Emerald.

Turn 2 Tez:  Draw Time Vault.  Play Time Vault.  Play Volcanic.  Play Recall (Scrying MisD's pitching Drain and drawing Walk, Urza and Scrying.  Play Walk.

Turn 2.B Tez:  Draw Mana Drain.  Play Tez (Scrying Forces to 19 pitching Drain.)

Turn 3 Scrying:  Draw Colliseum.  Play Colliseum.  Play Walk. Play Urza's Bauble seeing Thirst.

Turn 3.B Scrying:  Draw Scroll on upkeep.  Draw Mishra's Bauble.  Play Mishra's Bauble seeing Drain.
Scroll for Thirst.

Turn 3 Tez:  Scrying draws Mishra's on upkeep. Draw Drain.  
Play Thirst drawing Drain, Bob and Rack & Ruin.  Discard Drain and Rack.
Play Dark Confidant.

Turn 4 Scrying:  Draw Mystical Tutor.  Play Fact into MisD, Force, Repeal, Strand and Delta.
Keep Strand + Delta.  Play Mishra's Bauble seeing Drain.  Play Strand.

Turn 4 Tez:  Scrying Draws Jet.  Reveal Drain.  Draw Bob.  Play Bob.
EOT:  Scrying fetches Sea and Mysticals for Yawg.

Turn 5 Scrying:  Draw Yawg. Demonic for Lotus.  Resolve Yawg through Drain with Drain Go nuts
including drawing 10 cards, Mysticalling for Tinker for DSC and Walking.

Sideboarding:
Tez:  -1 Fire/Ice, -1 Rack and Ruin, -1 Darkblast, +1 Pyroblast, +2 REB.
Scrying:  -2 Urza's Bauble, -1 Repeal, +3 Engineered Explosives

Tez Mulligans:
Tinker
Yawgmoth's Will
Misdirection
Mana Drain
Sensei's Divining Top
Demonic Tutor
Mystical Tutor

Scrying Keeps:
Engineered Explosives
Force Of Will
Force Of Will
Island
Mystical Tutor
Darksteel Colossus
Force Of Will

Tez Keeps:
Underground Sea
Mana Drain
Sol Ring
Misdirection
Chain Of Vapor
Inkwell Leviathan

Turn 1 Tez:  Play Sea.  Play Sol Ring.

Turn 1 Scrying:  Draw Misdirection.  Play Island.

Turn 2 Tez:  Draw Sea.  Play Sea.
EOT:  Scrying Mysticals for Recall.

Turn 2 Scrying:  Draw Recall.  Play Recall (Tez MisD's pitching Leviathan and Drains, but Scrying
Forces to 19 and MisDs pitching 2xForce.)
Scrying draws Sea, MisD and Scrying.  Play Sea.

Turn 3 Tez:  Draw Sapphire.  Play Sapphire.

Turn 3 Scrying:  Draw Mishra's Bauble.  Play and activate Bauble seeing Delta.  Play Explosives@2.

Turn 4 Tez:  Scrying draws Island on upkeep.  Draw + Play Delta.

Turn 4 Scrying:  Draw Mana Crypt.  Play Island.  Play Mana Crypt.

Turn 5 Tez:  Draw Bob.  Play Bob (Scrying responds with Scrying for 4 to 15 drawing Misrha, Urza,
Walk and Thirst.

Turn 5 Scrying:  No Crypt damage.  Draw Denial.  Play Walk.  Denial a Bauble and play Misrha's
Bauble seeing Force.

Turn 5.B Scrying:  Draw 2xDrain and 2xColliseum on upkeep.  Crypt damage to 12.
Draw Denial.  Play Colliseum.  Explode Explosives.

Turn 6 Tez:  Draw Force.
EOT;  SCrying Thirsts into Force.

Turn 6 Scrying: No Crypt damage.  Draw Explosives.  Play Colliseum.  Denial explosives.

Turn 7 TEz:  Scrying draws Demonic Force and Bauble on upkeep.
Draw and play Strand.

Turn 7 Scrying:  Crypt damage to 8.  Draw Emerlad.  Demonic for Tinker for DSC and from
here win easily.

Folks are hard on Explosives, but it is good for me.  Against these sorts of Tez decks it answers
Vault/Key as well as Bob.  It also answers Warrens.  In non Drain matchups it answers
Resistors, Welder, Oath and even Bridge tokens against Dredge.
Arcane Scrying went 3-1 which is fairly solid.

[LordHomerCat]

Was there a summary of game scores or something that I missed?  I'm sorry but there is no way in hell I am ready the descriptions of every game =/

[meadbert]

It looks like it was trunkated.  I will append the rest here:


Tez vs Root Maze Oath

Root Maze Oath wins die roll.

Root Maze Oath keeps:
Wasteland
Tidespout Tyrant
Root Maze
City Of Brass
Oath Of Druids
Intuition
Argivian Find

Tez Keeps:
Brainstorm
Mox Pearl
Underground Sea
Mana Drain
Polluted Delta
Force Of Will
Black Lotus

Turn 1 Oath: Play City.  Play Root Maze to 19.

Turn 1 Tez:  Draw Delta.  Play Lotus.  Play Pearl.  Play Sea.

Turn 2 Oath:  Draw Force.  Play Wasteland.

Turn 2 Tez:  Draw Leviathan.  Play Delta.

Turn 3 Oath:  Draw Argivian Find.  Play Oath to 18 (Tez pitches Leviathan to Force to 19.  Oath
pitches Tyrant to Force to 17, Tez cracks Lotus, Brainstorms into Recall putting Emerald and Thirst on top and then Drains.)

Turn 3 Tez:  Fetch Sea to 18.  Recall into Emerald, Thirst and SCroll.  Play Delta.  Play Emerald.

Turn 4 Oath: Draw Chain of Vapor.

Turn 4 Tez:  Draw Top.  Fetch Sea to 17.
EOT:  Oath Finds out Oath to 16.

Turn 5 Oath:  Draw Lotus.  Play Lotus.  Play Oath to 15 (Tez Thirsts in response into Library, Drain
and Force and pitches Top.  Then Tez Forces to 16 pitching Scroll.)

Turn 5 Tez:  Draw Jet.  Play Jet.  Play Library.

Turn 6 Oath:  Play Intuition getting 3xOrchard.  Play Orchard.

Turn 6 Tez:  Draw Force.
EOT:  Oath Finds out Oath to 14.

Turn 7 Oath:  Draw City.  Play City.  Play Oath (hardcast Force.)

Turn 7 Tez:  Draw Yawg.  Play Yawg.  Play Recall into Fact, Ruby and Mystical.  PlayThirst into
Tez, Force and Hurkyls pitching Ruby.  Play Delta.  Play Lotus.

On Turn 8 Tez Mysticals for Walk and Plays Tez + Walk for the win.

Sideboarding:
Tez:  -1 Fire/Ice, -1 Darkblast, -1 Magus of the Unseen, +1 Pyroblast, +2 REB.
Oath:  -1 Balance, -2 Enlightened Tutor, -2 Argivian Find, +2 Null Rod, +3 Choke.

Oath Keeps:
Gemstone Mine
Brainstorm
City Of Brass
Mox Ruby
Root Maze
Intuition
Choke

Tez Keeps:
Sensei's Divining Top
Time Vault
Underground Sea
Dark Confidant
Mystical Tutor
Mox Pearl
Flooded Strand

Turn 1 Oath:  Play Ruby.  Play City.  Play Root Maze to 19.

Turn 1 Tez:  Draw Strand.  Play Pearl.  Play Sea.

Turn 2 Oath:  Draw Mine.  Play Mine.

Turn 2 Tez:  Draw Hurkyl's.  Play Strand.  Play Bob.

Turn 3 Oath:  Draw Mine.  Play Mine.  Play Choke to 18.

Turn 3 Tez:  Reveal Sea.  Draw Force. Swing to 16.  Play Sea.

Turn 4 Oath: Draw Scroll.  Play Mine.

Turn 4 Tez:  Reveal Bob to 18.  Draw Volcanic.  Swing to 14.  Play Volcanic.
EOT:  Oath Intuitions for 3xOath to 13.

Turn 5 Oath:  Draw Intuition.  Scroll for Force.  Play Oath (Forced, pitching Hurkyls to 17,
but Oath Forces back to 12 pitching Scroll.)

Turn 5 Tez:  Reveal Force to 12.  Draw Island.  Swing to 10.

Turn 6 Oath:  Oath up Tyrant.  Draw Orcard.  Play Orchard.  Brainstorm seeing Walk.  Play Walk
bouncing Ruby(Tez Forces pitching Mystical)

Tez cannot win and then Oath bouncing Bob and has Tez Locked out.

Game 3:

Tez Mulls:
Force Of Will
Sensei's Divining Top
Time Walk
Ancestral Recall
Voltaic Key
Tinker
Mana Drain

Oath keeps:
Merchant Scroll
Oath Of Druids
Forbidden Orchard
Force Of Will
Tidespout Tyrant
Strip Mine
Vampiric Tutor

Tez Mulls:  I almost kept, but with Leviathan being dead I did not.
Sensei's Divining Top
InkwellLeviathan1
LibraryOfAlexandria1
TimeVault1
Yawgmoth'sWill1
ManaCrypt1

Tez Keeps:
UndergroundSea1
ThirstForKnowledge1
Tinker1
DarkConfidant2
ManaDrain1

Turn 1 Tez:  Play Sea.

Turn 1 Oath:  Draw Mystical.  Strip Sea.

Turn 2 Tez:  Draw Sol Ring.

Turn 2 Oath:  Draw City.  Play City.

Turn 3 Tez:  Draw Yawg.
EOT:  Mystical for Walk.

Turn 3 Oath:  Draw Walk.  Play Orchard.  Play Oath.

Turn 4 Tez:  Draw Top.

Turn 4 Oath:  Oath up Tyrant.  Draw Lotus.  Play Walk bouncing City.  Replay City.  Vamp for Root
 Maze bouncing City.

Turn 4.B Oath:  Draw Root Maze.  Play Root Maze bouncing Orchard.  Replay City.

From here Tez is locked out.

Root Maze Oath just went 4-0 which I did not expect.  The Choke/Rod board was superb in 3 of the
four games.  Also Root Maze was tough on many mana bases.  I do not think the 4-0 record is
representative.  I would expect it to go 2-2 and 3-1 usually.

Tez did not have much for Oath in the board.
===================================================================================================

Tez vs Arcane Oath

Arcane Oath wins die roll.

Oath Keeps:
Muddle The Mixture
Island
Oath Of Druids
Force Of Will
Flooded Strand
Arcane Denial
Mox Jet

Tez Mulligans:
Force Of Will
Inkwell Leviathan
Mox Ruby
Demonic Tutor
Dark Confidant
Vampiric Tutor
Dark Confidant

Tez Mulligans:
Mox Emerald
Darkblast
Black Lotus
Mana Crypt
Hurkyl's Recall
Mox Pearl

Tez Keeps:
Library Of Alexandria
Underground Sea
Black Lotus
Ancestral Recall
Rack And Ruin

Turn 1 Oath:  Play Jet.  Play Strand.  Fetch Trops to 19.  Play Oath.

Turn 1 Tez:  Draw Magus of the Unseen.  Play Black Lotus.  Play Sea.  Play Recall (Forced pitching
Arcane Denial)

Turn 2 Oath:  Draw Explosives.  Play Island.

Turn 2 Tez:  Draw Time Vault.  Play Library.  Play Time Vault.

Turn 3 Oath:  Draw Intuition.  Play Intuition for 3xOrchard.  Play Orchard.

Turn 3 Tez:  Draw Dark Confidant.
EOT:  Activate Orchard.

Turn 4 Oath:  Oath up Tyrant.  Draw Strand.  Generate Mana with Jet.  Muddle for Walk.  Walk,
bouncing Lotus.

Turn 4.B Oath:  Oath up Triskelivus.  Win.

Sideboarding:
Tez:  -1 Fire/Ice, -1 Darkblast, -1 Magus of the Unseen, +1 Pyroblast, +2 REB.
Oath:  None.

Tez Keeps:
Force Of Will
Dark Confidant
Mox Jet
Mana Drain
Time Vault
Ancestral Recall
Underground Sea

Oath Keeps:
Mox Jet
Oath Of Druids
Force Of Will
Black Lotus
Tormod's Crypt
Engineered Explosives
Tormod's Crypt

Turn 1 Tez:  Play Jet.  Play Sea.  Play Bob.

Turn 1 Oath:  Draw Drain.  Play Lotus.  Play Oath (Tez Forces to 19 pitching Drain, Oath
Forces back to 19 pitching Drain)  Play Jet.  Play Explosives@2.  Play Tormod's Crypt.

Turn 2 Tez:  Reveal Bob to 17.  Draw Volcanic.  Play Volcanic.  Play Recall into Pearl, Scroll and
Academy.  Play Pearl.  Play Academy.  Scroll for Chain.  Chain Oath.  Swing to 17

Turn 2 Oath:  Draw Island.  Play Island.  Explode Explosives.

Turn 3 Tez:  Draw Brainstorm.  Play Brainstorm into Emerlad, Fact and Walk.  Put back Emerald on top and Fact underneath.  Play Bob.  Play Walk.

Turn 3.B Tez:  Reveal Emerald.  Draw Fact.  Swing to 15.  Play Vault.  Play Fact into Lotus, Drain,
Island, Pyroblast and Red Blast.  Keep Drain + Island.  Play Island.  Play Brainstorm into
Red Blast, Rack&Ruin and Strand.  Keep Rack and ruin. Put Strand on tol and then Blast.
Rack & Ruin Tormod's Crypt and Jet.

Turn 3 Oath:  Draw Drain.  Play Tormod's Crypt.

Turn 4 Tez:  Reveal Strand.  Draw Blast.  Play Strand.  Swing to 13.

Turn 4 Oath:  Draw Force.

Turn 5 Tez:  Reveat Misdirection to 12.  Draw Volcanic.  Swing to 11.  Play Volcanic.

Turn 5 Oath:  Draw Sapphire.  Play Sapphire.

Turn 6 Tez:  Reveal Island.  Draw Sol Ring.  Swing to 9.  Play Island.  Play Sol Ring.

Turn 6 Oath:  Draw Tormod's Crypt.

Turn 7 Tez:  Reveal Force to 7.  Draw Bob.  Swing to 7.  Play Bob (Drained, but blasted back)

Turn 7 Oath:  Draw Muddle.

Turn 8 Tez:  Reveal Force to 2.  Reveal Top to 1.  Draw Tinker.  Play top and peek seeing
Delta, Strand and Drain.  Put Delta and Strand on top.  Swing to 3.

Next turn Tez swings for the win at 1 life.

Game 3:
Oath Keeps:
Arcane Denial
Mana Drain
Island
Polluted Delta
Tormod's Crypt
Oath Of Druids
Muddle The Mixture

Tez Mulligans:
Time Walk
Sensei's Divining Top
Force Of Will
Mana Drain
Force Of Will
Tolarian Academy
Chain Of Vapor

Tez Keeps:
Misdirection
Flooded Strand
Force Of Will
Dark Confidant
Brainstorm
Volcanic Island

Turn 1 Oath:  Play Island.

Turn 1 Tez:  Draw Mana Crypt.  Play Crypt.  Play Strand.  Fetch Sea to 19.  Play Dark Confidant.

Turn 2 Oath:  Draw Explosives.  Play Delta.  Fetch Trops to 19.  Play Oath (Forced to 18 pitching
MisD.)

Turn 2 Tez:  Crypt to 15.  Reveal Scroll to 13.  Draw Jet.  Swing to 17.  Play Volcanic.  Scroll
for Mystical.

Turn 3 Oath:  Draw Orchard.  Play Orchard.  Muddle for Oath.
EOT:  Mystical for Tinker.

Turn 3 Tez:  Crypt damage to 10.  Reveal Tinker to 7.  Draw Delta.  Swing to 14.
Play Delta.  Play Jet.  Tinker out Mana Crypt for Leviathan. 

Turn 4 Oath: Draw Pearl.  Play Pearl.  Play Oath (Tez Brainstorms into Pearl, Sea and Island and kees Sea and puts Pearl on top.)

Turn 4 Tez:  Reveal Pearl.  Draw Island.  Play Sea.  Play Pearl.  Swing to 4.

Turn 5 Oath:  Oath up Triskelivus.  Draw Sapphire.  Ping Bob.

Turn 5 Tez:  Draw Force.  Swing. win.

This matchup was actually reasonably close.  Against a Bob based Drain deck beat Arcane Oath.
Not being able to answer Leviathan is a problem that both this deck and Root Maze Oath need to
fix.  Root Maze Oath can hold back Tinker with Wastes, Strip, Rod, Maze and Choke, but this list
has trouble.
====================================================================================================
Tez vs Hermit Vault

Tez wins die roll.

Tez Keeps:
Mana Drain
Mana Crypt
Volcanic Island
Island
Brainstorm
Thirst For Knowledge
Polluted Delta

Hermit Keeps:
Mox Emerald1
Force Of Will
Flooded Strand
Vampiric Tutor
Lim-Dul's Vault
Cognivore
Polluted Delta

Turn 1 Tez:  Play Mana Crypt.  Play Volcanic.

Turn 1 Hermit:  Draw Force.  Play Emerald.  Play Delta.
EOT:  Tez Thirsts into Top, Force and Bob and pitches Top.

Turn 2 Tez:  Mana Crypt to 17.  Draw Emerald.  Play Emerald.  Play Delta.
EOT;  Hermit fetches Sea to 19.  Hermit Vamps to 17 for Druid.

Turn 2 Hermit:  Draw Druid.  Play Druid (Tez fetches Sea to 16 and Drains, Hermit Forces to 16
pitching Force, Tez Forces back to 15 pitching Brainstorm)
Play Strand.

Turn 3 Tez:  No Crypt damage.  Draw Leviathan.  Play Island.  Play Bob.

Turn 3 Hermit:  Draw Dragon's Breath.

Turn 4 Tez:  No Crypt damage.  Reveal Fire/Ice to 11.  Draw Misdirection.  Swing to 14.
EOT:  Hermit fetch Trops to 13 and then Lim-Dul's Vaults for Druid to 10 putting Recall on top and then Druid, Worldly and Narco.

Turn 4 Hermit:  Draw Recall.  Play Recall, Tez Misdirects pitching Leviathan into Force, Scroll
and Tinker.

Turn 5 Tez:  Mana Crypt to 8.  Reveal Sea.  Draw Drain.  Tinker for Vault.  Scroll for Mystical.
Swing to 8.

Turn 5 Hermit:  Draw Hermit.  Play Hermit.
EOT:  Fire Hermit + Bob to 9.

Turn 6 Tez:  Mystical for Demonic on upkeep.  Draw Demonic.  Demonic for Key for win.

Sideboarding:

Tez:  -1 Rack and Ruin, -1 Hurkyl's Recall, -1 Magus of the Unseen, + 1 Pyroblast,
        +2 Red Elemental Blast.

Hermit:  -4 Hermit Druid, -4 Worldly Tutor, -3 Narcomoeba, -1 Cognivore, -1 Dread Return, -1 Bridge
from Below, -1 Dragon's Breath
+4 Forbidden Orchard, +4 Oath of Druids, +3 Progenitus, +1 Time Vault, +1 Voltaic Key, +1 Ponder,
+1 Mystical Tutor.

Hermit Keeps:
Cabal Therapy
Polluted Delta
Ancestral Recall
Demonic Tutor
Oath Of Druids
Progenitus
Cabal Therapy

Tez Keeps:
Flooded Strand
Mana Crypt
Tinker
Sensei's Divining Top
Island
Volcanic Island
Inkwell Leviathan

Turn 1 Hermit:  Play Delta. 

Turn 1 Tez: On upkeep Hermit: Fetch Sea 19.  Play Recall into Trops, Progenitus and Lim Dul.
Draw Darkblast.  Play Mana Crypt.  Play Top.  Peek seeing Sol Ring, Vamp and Academy.  Put Vamp
on top.  Play Strand.

Turn 2 Hermit:  Draw Orchard.  Play Orchard.  Play Oath.
EOT:  Use top to draw Vamp.  Fetch Sea to 19.  Vamp for Key to 17.

Turn 2 Tez:  Draw Key.  Play Island.  Tinker for Vault.  Play Key.

Turn 3 Hermit:  Oath up Progenitus.

Turn 3 Tez:  Go infinite.

Maindeck Darkblast and Fire/Ice are great against Druid.

Druid finished only 1-3 losing to all 3 decks with maindeck Darkblast and Firce/Ice.

Tez finished a decent 2-2.  Clearly this deck was metaed to beat Dark Confidant based Drain decks
and Shop decks.  There were none making Darkblast, Fire/Ice and Rack&Ruin fairly bad in most
matchups.

Finally Records:

Tez 2-2 (Beating Hermit and Arcane Oath)
Drain Tendrils 2-2 (Beating Hermit and Arcane Oath)
Steel City Vault 3-1 (Losing to Root Maze Oath)
5 Color Uba Stax 0-4

Hermit Vault 1-3 (Beating Stax)
Arcane Oath 1-3 (Beating Stax)
Root Maze Oath 4-0
Arcane Scrying 3-1 (Losing to Steel City Vault)

Overall my gauntlet went 9-7 which proves nothing since:
1:  Test size is too small
2:  I have 100s of games of experience with my decks and was playing other decks for first time.
3:  I was playing fast with poor quality as usual.

The purpose of these example games is to show the methods of my testing and not to actually draw
conclusions about which decks are how good.

Rather than suspecting that my testing is flawed, everyone can now see for themselves just how
flawed it is.

[Smmenen]

In the first three games your Arcane Denial deck had Ancestral or Black Lotus in its opening hand (or drawn on the first turn).   

[meadbert]

Also, Hiromichi Tez mulliganed a lot.  It was really hurt by Mulligans and it has a rock solid manabase compared to all of its competition so it is not representative that it found itself mulliganning more often than its opponents. Clearly 4 games is too little to draw conclusions.  Luck plays a huge factor.

[TrollMcSmash]

   I understand that there may be a bit of problems with the methodology discussed by others, but really Meadbert, hats off to the amount of effort you've put into this. That is non-trivial and commendable.

    I'm fascinated by the data. It must be viewed with the proper amount of skepticism, but it can still yield useful information.

[Bibendum]

As was pointed out, the arcane deck had some luck with your rips but overall it was interesting to read and kudos for all the time spent working