[Single Card] In the Eye of Chaos

[justindz]

As I learn more about the Vintage scene and regrow my old school Magic knowledge I note that (obviously) decks are very heavy on a tight curve inolving a high presence of instants.  So In the Eye of Chaos will slow counters, draw engines, and instant-speed removal.

Or at least, that's the theory.  Here is a rough list:

4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
4 Sinkhole
4 Phyrexian Negator
4 [card]In the Eye of Chaos[/card]
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Ebon Drake/Drinker of Sorrow
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Seal of Removal
1 Lava Dart
1 Mind Twist
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Diamond
1 Black Lotus
4 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland
4 City of Brass
3 Underground Sea
2 Swamp
2 Ancient Tomb
1 Island
1 Badlands
1 Strip Mine

Phyrexian Negator - Against Combo/Control, this guy's somewhat of a tank.  In a metagame with lots of aggro, probably not a good list to play at all.

In the Eye of Chaos - Partly to protect the Negator and partly to drastically slow down any answers to Negator, combo effects, and card drawing tactics.

Ancient Tomb - Assist the first turn Eye of Chaos or Negator, hopefully with the other card following.

Sinkhole/Wasteland/Strip Mine - These effects are designed to also help protect the Negator and to decrease chances of playing around Eye of Chaos.

Please don't call me names.  I know these aren't traditional power cards.  In general, I think the whole thing is pretty awful compared to guarding the Negator with a Nether Void.  However, it was a fun list to build.  Any comments, suggestions?  I definitely think Eye of Chaos is appropriate (if at all) in a non-blue heavy deck since blue's power is pretty much instant-dependant.

[Revvik]

In the Eye of Chaos is certainly an interesting card, one which is begging to have a deck designed to break it.

Unfortunately, no one deck in Vintage is capable of this, and it would take a complete bottoms-up design to exploit this card.

I'll be honest, I think this might be the wrong direction to take.  You have a lot of cards that are anti-synergistic with In the Eye of Chaos, notably Dark Ritual.

This deck looks like it's trying to accomplish the Workshop Aggro method of attack: Play a tempo-stealing card (in this case, In the Eye of Chaos, in WSAggro's case, Trinisphere), play fat (Juggernaut/Negator) and ride it to victory before the opponent can recuperate.

As far as a single-card discussion of Trini-I mean, In the Eye of Chaos is concerned, it might be fairly easy to utilize it using a different pillar of Vintage; not Dark Ritual.

Mana Drain:
Obviously, the entire deck would be crippled by its own Eye.

Mishra's Workshop:
THIS is interesting.  The amount of acceleration present in Workshop decks can be tweaked to make In the Eye of Chaos a valuable weapon against combo.

Workshop -> Grim Monolith, Sol Ring, Gilded Lotus, Mirrodin Talismans (yeah, I know), and supported by a five-color manabase (or, with the Talismans, one heavy on Ancient Tombs and City of Traitors) makes a first to second turn Eye feasible.

[justindz]

The Dark Rituals and Negators are a side-effect of me tweaking this deck out of a WUB-Control list.    I was trying to avoid going in the Workshop direction personally because I could never afford a playset (same reason for black w/ disruption vs. blue w/ FoW).  However, that's no reason not to play out the idea.

How to win?  Is In the Eye of Chaos enough protection for the Negator or should the deck just go for Juggernaut or Phyrexian War Beast action?  If we use Workshops, the answer may be "yes" based solely on the mana.  I was trying to accomplish, if feasible, a first turn hand disruption + negator covered by a second turn In the Eye of Chaos.  I don't think that goldfishes very well.

[Revvik]

Juggs & War Beasts combined with enough fast acceleration sounds like a viable plan, since In the Eye of Chaos can protect almost as well as Trinisphere did.

The only problem so far is the lack of interaction between Mishra's Workshop and Eye.

I'm sure there are other, cheaper alternatives, such as basing it around a control skeleton but using sorcery speed draw (like Deep Analysis), creature removal (Innocent Blood & Chainer's Edict), and basically creating the deck around being a Mana Drain sinks (Italian Drains are about half the cost of 'Shops).
The only problem here is: Can In the Eye of Chaos come down fast enough to matter, OR Is In the Eye of Chaos a strong enough effect to force the opponent into your strategy?

This list would start like:
Protection:
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
3-4 Duress
Removal:
2 Innocent Blood
1 Chainer's Edict
Search:
2-3 Cunning Wish
Demonic Tutor
0-1 Mystical Tutor
The Thing the Deck is Named After:
3-4 In the Eye of Chaos (too many copies doesn't matter, he pitches to Force of Will)
Draw:
4 Careful Study / Brainstorm (since I'm pulling this list out of my ass, I don't know if sorcery speed would actually matter.  I'm guessing it wouldn't.)
3-4 Deep Analysis
Random Braingeyser (if protected by an Eye, it's harder to counter and makes a good Drain sink.  Just throwing out ideas)
Kill:
Whatever.  Masticore, Negator, Morphling...

Obviously this isn't so much a real list as a generalization.

And then the manabase as you'd see fit.  Full power probably isn't necessary, but I'd utulize all of the moxen, the Lotus, Walk, Ancestral... simply because all that acceleration means a faster Eye.

So far, the only way this list could handle artifacts is Cunning Wish -> bounce, so splashing red for Red Elemental Blast and Rack & Ruin could help.

[mr_rogers]

I really like the Workshop idea for this deck.  I am actually working on building up my own version of the deck using the Warbeast/Juggernaut kill.  The only problem I'm having is deciding what to run as draw spells. Wheel is obvious, Memory Jar fits in since I'll probably run tinker/DSC aswell. I'm not sure what else to put in the deck, Duress is a must, so is Will and Demonic Tutor. I don't own any power but would play this deck in a five proxy event anyway, so I'd proxy up 4 moxen and a lotus most likely. Welder would probably be in the deck and maybe Tangle Wire and Stacks too. I think Crucilbe is a must since there won't be any basic lands in my version. Also I plan on running 4 Wasteland and a Strip Mine too.

  Any suggestions or help on if this is the right way to go with this deck would be greatly appicated.

[Revvik]

I don't know how I missed that, but Tangle Wire is freakin' nutz when resolved with In the Eye of Chaos.  That is a lock.  Damn.

Still, there is a problem with Workshop not providing colored mana.  There are moxen (not consistantly drawn) the diamonds from Mirage (poor man's moxen) and the Mirrodin talismans to compensate.

Draw Spells for the Workshop version - Tinker/Jar is good, and could work with some higher CC kill conditions.  Brainstorming a list, the ones that are apparent are:

Tinker / Jar
Wheel of Fortune
Thoughtcast (terrible without a lot of artifacts in play.  I think a manabase would have to be developed first, and if there's enough artifact acceleration / artifact lands, these become good)

And while I'm thinking of Thoughtcast, Affinity comes to mind.  In the Eye of Chaos could be a pretty good way to cover Affinity's ass from Rebuild, Hurkyl's Recall, Rack & Ruin, and all the other single card strategies that effectively hose it (save Null Rod).

[justindz]

I'd vote against Tinker/Jar because you'd have to shoot Tinker before Eye of Chaos or it would end up costing 6 mana (none of which can be paid with workshop).  If you got hit with Mana Drain doing this you could pretty much kiss the game goodbye.  Also, although Mana Drain and FoW are obviously good in most Vintage lists, they would seem to be dead cards in this deck after the 2 or 3rd turn on average (especially since you can't pay over the Eye of Chaos) with workshops.  Is a higher black disruption count a better option?

Tangle Wire would help make good use of the Workshops.  They're in a version I am working on now and I agree that they can really put some hurt on draw engines.  The other alternative (and a somewhat budget approach) would be Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors which can still help resolve a first or second turn Eye of Chaos and contribute to spells.

What about using a kill condition that takes advantage of the dead cards in hand rather than removing the instant-speed permission?  Something like Psychatog maybe?  The Eye/Tangle version would probably leave the opponent with a sizeable hand and Black Vise could be worth something?  It would be too unreliable to kill with, though.  Given the amount of pain land use, mana crypt/vault/ancient tomb damage, etc. it usually wouldn't have to go a full 20.  Not sure that gets it anywhere, though.

[BWM]

Everybody keeps naming the Mirrodin talismans...


However, I can see this card in one of those odyssey-egg-decks...

but in that case it would become another Xantid Swarm...

[Revvik]

I'd vote against Tinker/Jar because you'd have to shoot Tinker before Eye of Chaos or it would end up costing 6 mana

Only affects Instants and the now-obsolete Interrupts.

As for utilizing it in an "Egg" deck, I think this card is far more anti-combo and anti-control, definitely fitting in with the Prison or even aggro archetypes.

Using Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors gives a really low colored mana count - thus, using more artifact sources is necessary.

If running the Workshop version discussed above, what artifact mana seems more useable?
The eggs may work, even giving the deck a sort of pseudo-draw, but they still require non-Workshop mana to activate, giving the deck more consistency issues than it needs.

Another thing to note: this deck needs a gameplan, and I think its focus is a turn one In the Eye of Chaos with not only enough mana for it to not affect the deck (a), and to play out a large enough threat that combined with disruption can finish the game before the opponent can recuperate (b).

(a) doesn't matter as much to the versions with Mishra's Workshop, since it's threats / disruption will be permanent based, and In the Eye of Chaos only effects instants.
Still echoing Tangle Wire, since Tangle Wire can shut down sorcery-speed options for breaking the "lock."

[justindz]

I apologize for being an idiot.  I forgot Tinker wasn't an instant

So how about something like this...

4 Duress
4 Su-Chi
4 Cathodion
4 Tangle Wire
4 In the Eye of Chaos
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Transmute Artifact
2 Deep Analysis
1 Platinum Angel
1 Sundering Titan
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Tinker
1 Mox Diamond
1 Chrome Mox
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Wasteland
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
2 City of Traitors
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Island
1 Strip Mine

It's obviously budget aside from the Workshops (which could, in theory, be Dark Rituals for the early 3 drop).  I kinda thought working Eye of Chaos and Transmute Artiface (which both need breaking) in to a list would be fun.  The basic idea is to go for early disruption or beats depending on your opponent then use transmute to upgrade beats.

I couldn't figure out where to put in a Mindslaver.  That would be a great outlet for transmuting a Cathodion with no other open mana.  That or a Duplicant, maybe.

Obviously, this deck could be powered up.  Anyone wanna try a list with some $$ in it?

[Hi-Val]

I remember having tried this in DARGON because the deck only runs Intuitions and Ancestrals, but it ended up being just strictly worse than Xantid Swarms. However, I think it's the kind of thinking to look for what deck can best exploit it. Something with Crucible/Strip is necessary, as well as other lock components or a fast win, because this card is just a stall.

[Godder]

In the Eye of Chaos and Chains of Mephistopheles could make for some annoying disruption. In any case, try modifying existing MWS aggro decks by replacing 3Spheres with these, just as a first step in the process.

If that doesn't work well, new ideas will have to be tried . One issue I see for MWS aggro decks is that 1 cost disruption/draw (StP, Oxidise, Ancestral etc.) isn't affected as much, as any Mox can pay the additional cost, and isn't hindered in getting into play, unlike 3Sphere, which made those spells much less effective, as well as the means to play them quickly.

[mr_rogers]

I agree with Godder that In The Eye of Chaos could replace 3sphere. I think a new draw engine is need with as few instants as possible though, maybe A. Recall and Brainstorm since two mana is easy to get. I also think more mana acceleration is needed aswell. The tailismens are a good idea with the obvious moxen, Lotus, ect...

  One question is should welder be included? I see a lot of potential for him in the deck, bringing back Wires or the jar or messing with CS style decks. Karn also seems like a natrual fit in this deck maybe even losing Warbeast to fit him in. He would be a bomb when dropped under an Eye with all the atrifact acceleration. Karn also can waste oppsing moxen keeping the opponent locked down even more.

  Well that's all for now, I really like the ideas I've heard so far.

[Freelancer]

It might be possible to dump it into a stax list and rework the draw engine and mana base a bit...(ie. back to draw7's or artifact drawers, dump the thirsts) Ithe eye of chaos is just a stall but a almost as effective stall as trinisphere...(casting a rebuild/rack and ruin against stax becomes near impossible with in the eye of chaos in play) And late game (turn 4+) still very potent (unlike trinisphere), is this the new 'unfun' card?
Would be fun if we managed to restrict this bad boy as well...
(since not being able to play with your cards=sucks ballz )

[Revvik]

Since colored mana would be troublesome, is Transmute Artifact the route we want to take this?  It seems to me as if it could help with Gilded Lotus.  Imagine:

Turn one:
Workshop, Mox, Suchi.
Turn two:
Blue-producing land, Talisman of Dominance (U/B), Transmute Suchi into Gilded Lotus, play In the Eye of Chaos with Gilded Lotus and some floating mana or threat.

Transmute Artifact lets you do really cute tricks with the artifacts you have, including the Talismans once the superior Gilded Loti are in place, like fetching out toolbox threats (Karn, Duplicant, etc.) or pulling out that artifact that allows you to play non-land stuff at instant speed (which would probably be better with a five-color manabase, allowing stuff at instant speed).  But I think those are tweaks and details that should be worked out once the base list has been established.

A good disruption base, in addition to In the Eye of Chaos:

4 Tangle Wire
3 Crucible of Worlds
1-2 Karn
4 Wasteland
Strip Mine
4 Sphere of Resistance(?)

Other possible inclusions are Chalice of the Void, but if you're running Welders and Transmute and etc, etc, it could hurt you.  Chalice for 1 hurts much less than any other, since it only shuts out Welder.

The manabase is MUCH more tricky, and I think that it could be as small as Cerebral Assassin (my build of CA has 12 mana producing lands )

As far as the draw engine goes, it might be possible to use Draw7s instead of other sorcery speed draw, since the goal of most of the deck is to make it difficult for the opposing player to cast threatening spells.

Wheel of Fortune
Tinker / Jar (Good with welders, since you can recur the Jar, especially good with Transmute to tutor for the Jar as well)
Timetwister (would mean no Welders)
Windfall (Since the opponent may be playing few spells)

The obvious downside of the draw7s is that they work best when you're ahead... (EDIT: Saw Freelancer's post on draw7s.  Old Stax builds may be the correct place to start, but chances are they are a little too outdated - decks are faster.  Granted, no one version has been decided on yet as to where to take this, so suggestions are welcome.  Plus, Smokestack is another way to make it harder to escape the Sphere of Resistance / Eye of Chaos / Crucible + Strip-Waste)

Hell.  I think there are a lot of great ideas on what to include and what the gameplan of a Workshop version of Eye of Chaos could contain, but I'm way too unfocused to think on them now.  I'll do some testing later tonight.

[justindz]

I think a good direction might be 3 In the Eye of Chaos, 1 Trinisphere and 4 Chalice.  I don't think the deck needs Welder to be successful, but you could always Transmute/Tinker the Chalice to unblock your own cards and upgrade to some fatness like Gilded Lotus, then burn a Mox with Welder to block the 0 slot again.

However, I'm just a Chalice-whore.

Anyway's, I'm working on a Fastbond (curse you, restriction) list now so I'm interested to see where real pros can take this.  Thanks for all the help

[mr_rogers]

Well I'm posting a makeshift list of what I'd probably run. I'll tell you now I have no power and only one MWS but I'll include the five proxies I'd use in a tourny.

4x In The Eye of Chaos
4x Sphere of Resistaince
4x Tangle Wire
4x Goblin Welder
4x Talismen of Dominance
3x Guilded Lotus
2x Karn, Silver Golem
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Tinker
1x Memory Jar
4x Smokestack
1x Mana Vault
1x Grim monolith
1x Sol Ring
1x Balance
2x Crucible of Worlds
1x Black Lotus
4x Moxen(no emerald)
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
3x Ancient Tomb
1x Workshop
4x Gemstone Mine
2x City of Brass

  Well that's a very basic budget list.  I would really appreciate any comments on what to replace or what might work for more draw in the deck.

[Disburden]

Without Welders, I would run hanna's custody. To me running this card and the 3 eyes of chaos would give you a pretty good chance against your opponent. I agree with the 1 3-sphere and 4 chalice suggestion too.

 Not running welder with Hanna would make you also unweldable against your opponent and your fat or lock piece wont be taken away so easily, especially if they can't cast instants either (without a price).

 I was actually trying a build  of MWS aggro with 4 gemstone mine and 4 city of brass for mana stabilty Eye of chaos for the lock with Chains and the lone restricted sphere, then 4 5/3 and other fat (4 Su-chi , Titan, Karn, etc) for swingin' . I was actually liking it quite a bit and made the SB a Stax lock switching variant.  

I'd like to see what people are going to do with MWS once the restriction of 3sphere takes effect on the 20th (prison AND AGGRO).

[mr_rogers]

The only problem with Hanna's Costody is Karn cant be run in the deck.  With things like Guilded Lotus, talismens, and Tangle Wire he is house.  Allowing you to cut the Juggernaut/Warbeasts as your kill.  Cutting these also makes more room in the deck for draw or lock components.  

  I like the Transmute Atifact idea aswell since it will be harded to draw into what you need without TFK or Intuition.  Su-chi is an easy fit into the deck and fatty that can beat down if nothing else.  

  I really like the thinking going into this deck right now.  Let's keep the ideas coming.

[brassman]

I thought this deck was interesting, a very funky combo affinity thing.  Not really a deck built around In The Eye, but in a top 8 nonetheless.

http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=214

[mr_rogers]

Well a couple things I've decided to change in the deck.

1) -Grim Monolith, +Mana Crypt(don't know how I forgot this card)
2) -4 Talismens, +4 Su-Chi(these could also be Cathodians)
3) -4 Smokestack, +4 Transmute Artifact

  I've decided to run the Su-Chi/Transmute Artifact thing to make up for the lack of card drawing in the deck. Also Karn is very important to have in play and running four Transmutes will let me tutor for him easier. I still need to get the mana base more tuned as I've noticed there is not much colored mana to work with. Any ideas as to a better mana base would be great.

[Disburden]

Since I've been working on the same kind of idea rather by strange coincidence  I thought I would post a list that I started. I'm not trying to make this thread flooded with random lists, as I know the moderators hate that (with good reason).  I have a strong belief that MWS aggro can still compete without 3-sphere flooding the decks first turn (I'm sad its gone though..).

I like the idea about in the eye of chaos but my build didnt run it MD, which I would probably change soon depending on how useful it can be against the current meta and control. I'm in no way saying this build is perfect, it is FAR from it, but since we all have the same agenda I thought some posting wouldn't hurt to get some communication going and get a good list out there. I will address first that I am missing four COTV in the maindeck, I had four but then removed them for the Transmute. Hopefully there will be room in the SB but Maindeck CHalice seems more potent.

List (60):

4 Su-Chi
3 Synod Centurion
4 Goblin Welder
1 Karn, Silver Golem
1 Triskelion
4 Juggernaut

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Demonic tutor
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk
4 Transmute Artifact

4 Chains of Mephistopheles
4 Crucible of worlds
1 Trinisphere

Mana:

1 black lotus
1 sol ring
1 mana crypt
1 mox emerald
1 mox jet
1 mox sapphire
1 mox ruby
1 mox pearl
1 mana vault

4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone mine
3 Mishra's Workshop
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Strip mine
4 wasteland

SB (15):

4 Smokestack
3 tangle wire
2 Tormod's crypt
3 In The Eye Of Chaos
2 Stifle
1 Sundering Titan


The Sideboard needs alot of work. I like the idea of running the Stax in the side though, it is a nice surpise against an opponent after game one.
The biggest weakness of this deck is probably back to basics and energy flux, if an opponent packs this in after boarding out you'll be most likely crushed or hosed right off into the next game.  I will need to do more testing with the deck before I can further comment on this list, since I just randomly threw it together within the last week or so, but hopefully we can all work out some kind of gameplan to get this working. I decided not to run 4 workshops and replaced one with an acient tomb. This helped out alot after finding that workshop can be very unforgiving when you first draw your hand of 7 and you cant cast colored spells with it.

[yespuhyren]

I have been playing with this card for a while in a mono blue aggro workshop deck.  

It runs 4 sphere of resistance and 1 trinisphere now  

The aggro creatures are

4x Juggernaut
4x Su-Chi
4x Synod Centurion
3x Razormane Masticore
2x Karn, Silver Golem

The point is that the eye + spheres makes it very hard for you opponent to do anything, so dropping one or two aggro creatures can usually finish the job