EBA in competitive Vintage

[Astro]

Mesmeric Fiend is definately some good.  Not a good beater though, what were you pulling out for its inclusion?  One of the more noticable things that sets this deck apart from WU Tang Fish is that it has fewer creatures but makes up for the lack with heavier beat sticks than 1/1's.  What did your creature set look like? 

Skeletal Scrying is really good, however I haven't tested it in this deck yet.  Lately I've been running 4x Phids which haven't let down yet. 

   

[49 Cents]

Skeletal Scrying is really good, however I haven't tested it in this deck yet.  Lately I've been running 4x Phids which haven't let down yet. 

I think the biggest problem is the space you have..

On Jitte / Sword:

I still think jitte is better. It costs 1 less than Sword, so it drops earlier, and it kills welders and 4/4's.

Freelancer asked this in the WTF topic:

1) Why a jitte over Sword of Fire and Ice? In several threads the discussion usually ended up giving the nod to SoFI because it has a immediate effect when equipped and has protection instead of a irrelevant ability (life gaining).

Jacob answered with this:

1) Jitte is much, much better than swords, because it can actually kill creatures, instead of being an expensive curiosity. Jitte took down Exalted and Platinum in two different matches, which is the kind of thing that U/g otherwise can't do. Jitte also won a game against Goblins where SoFaI would have forced me to just race.

Pretty much says it all..

Greetz,

Hugo

[Astro]

Skeletal Scrying is really good, however I haven't tested it in this deck yet.  Lately I've been running 4x Phids which haven't let down yet. 

I think the biggest problem is the space you have..

What do you mean by this statement? 

[SonataOfTheCathedral]

On Sword vs Jitte:

I think EBA has a bigger problem of drawing cards over killing creatures. EBA tends to run out of steam. Netting cards back is actually more useful and a huge problem creature with EBA is welder actually. I would consider maybe one Jitte in the main or even a couple in the sideboard.


If anyone wants to fiddle a better configuration would probably be 2x Sword and 1x Jitte for this deck. I quickly took the Jitte out from frustration of it not netting me cards back vs Slaver which I often needed because between SoFaI and Swords To Plowshares I think Platz can be answered.

Other thoughts:

Skeletal Scrying is definetly good. I think it should be an auto include along with Mesmeric Fiend if you want to focus on equipment.

To follow up the focus on beefy/additional creatures I think Old Man Of The Sea is way better then Serendib Efreet mentioned earlier.

The Mesmeric Fiends have been simply amazing in testing. You take their card and then proceed to kill them with the card that gets a beefy sword on him.

[49 Cents]

Skeletal Scrying is really good, however I haven't tested it in this deck yet.  Lately I've been running 4x Phids which haven't let down yet. 

I think the biggest problem is the space you have..

What do you mean by this statement? 

Sorry, maybe I should've been more clear; I mean, I honestly don't know what to cut to make room for Scrying, the decklist is TIGHT..

Fiends seem cute, but it had the same problem Scrying had: You haven't got any room for it, I would much rather pack better cards than Fiends..

Greetz,

Hugo

[Joblin Velder]

I've been playing the deck for a little bit now and the one card I really hate in the deck is Impusle. It seems to me that this deck wants quantity of cards, not really quality. Using Impulse in EBA is a little harder than in Monoblue or any other control deck. THis deck is usually looking for two things when it casts a draw spell: Threats and counters. Impulse might give you one, but it just put the other on the bottom of your deck. Whoever brought up skrying is on the right track. I switched the Impulses out for them and have liked the deck's performance a lot more.

[Astro]

Fiends seem cute, but it had the same problem Scrying had: You haven't got any room for it, I would much rather pack better cards than Fiends..

Precisely!

[SonataOfTheCathedral]

I brought up the scrying idea and still strongly agree with it. It is way superior over Impulse...

Here is my current list and it has been testing REALLY well.

Threats:
3x Phyrexian Negator
4x Meddling Mage
3x Mesmeric Fiend
1x Old Man Of The Sea

Draw:
2x Skeletal Scrying
2x Sword Of Fire And Ice
1x Fact Or Fiction
1x Ancestral Recall

Disruption:
3x Swords To Plowshares
2x Duress
4x Mana Drain
4x Force Of Will

Taking Extra Turns and Such:
1x Time Walk
1x Yawgmoth's Will

Filter:
4x Brainstorm

Tutor:
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Mystical Tutor

Sources: 22
3x on color moxen
1x lotus
4x Polluted Delta
2x Flooded Strand
1x Strip Mine
1x Library Of Alexandria
3x Tundra
1x Island
4x Underground Sea
2x City Of Brass

[49 Cents]

I brought up the scrying idea and still strongly agree with it. It is way superior over Impulse...

Here is my current list and it has been testing REALLY well.

Threats:
3x Phyrexian Negator
4x Meddling Mage
3x Mesmeric Fiend
1x Old Man Of The Sea

Draw:
2x Skeletal Scrying
2x Sword Of Fire And Ice
1x Fact Or Fiction
1x Ancestral Recall

Disruption:
3x Swords To Plowshares
2x Duress
4x Mana Drain
4x Force Of Will

Taking Extra Turns and Such:
1x Time Walk
1x Yawgmoth's Will

Filter:
4x Brainstorm

Tutor:
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Mystical Tutor

Sources: 22
3x on color moxen
1x lotus
4x Polluted Delta
2x Flooded Strand
1x Strip Mine
1x Library Of Alexandria
3x Tundra
1x Island
4x Underground Sea

Man, you didn't brought it up, just use the Ctrl-F function on Scrying But that's Ok

About your list: Personally, I should cut the fiends, add an extra Duress, Scrying and Old Man, and replace the Swords with Jitte's because they are better IMO. And why run Mystical over Vampiric? Sure, Mystical pitches to FoW, but Vamp can search Mage, Jitte/Sword and Loti..

Greetz,

Hugo

[Luiggi]

Elias: what were you guys testing it against? I'm certainly open to trying out the Fiends if they were that good in testing...

I also agree 100% regarding the Swords vs. Jitte debate: in this deck I think Swords are just better. Jacob's deck has a lot more fast creatures than EBA, so it might make more sense to run the cheaper equipment in Jitte. Since with EBA we will be waiting to use our mana for things like Mana Drain and Scrying we can't always tap out like his deck can. Jitte is amazing in Worse Than Fish, but not necessarily in here. Additionally WTF doesn't have StP as removal, which makes the Jitte's removal component more important. We always have the option of StP'ing an Akroma, Platz or other annoying creature, something his deck doesn't do.

Luis

[elias]

I remember having an unpowered version of this. It all started with me going back to magic after four years of not playing. I searched the net for a cool extended deck (since I wanted cards that were ewasy to get) and found the meddling mage/infiltrator deck with dromar as a kill card. Now we played with casual rules back then so I got StP in the deck as well as a lone Underground Sea scrounged from my old cards.

My last build before I disbanded the deck (we have a non-powered meta)
[24]
2 Caves of Koilos
2 Skycloud Expanse
2 Flooded Strand
2 Adarkar Wastes
1 Underground Sea
1 Underground River
1 Sol Ring
1 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
4 Island
3 Swamp
3 Plains

Critters [10]
4 Meddling Mage
4 Shadowmage Infiltrator
2 Exalted Angel

Control [17]
4 Force of Will
3 Duress
4 Dromar's Charm [wtf was I thinking]
2 Absorb
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Mind Twist

Randomness [2]
1 Balance
1 Akroma's Vengeance [really, wtf was I thinking]

draw [7]
4 Brainstorm
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll (not sure about this one)

It did pretty well. It fought control and combo pretty well. Because of how long I played it, I could make it win against Sundering Titan and Stax.

I crumbled to burn. Painfully. Weenie and Stompy (random aggro) were fine. Fish was difficutl but winnable (since I could use balance, Stp, or Dromar's Charm to kill his critters or a huge angel). But Burn/sligh killed me. Maybe it was because of the fact that I couldn't find chill nor COP: red for the tourney...

@ Luiggi: I don't remember posting here...

[SonataOfTheCathedral]

He was talking to me, it so happens my name is Elias.

[Astro]

Ok, I've been testing a pretty close list to Luiggi's lately, and I have been getting my ass beat.  Firstly I want to say that most of my 40 or so matches have been close, however its not aggressive enough to beat aggro and not controlling enough to beat control.  However, I do want to note that all of these matches were preside board.

First match up (which comes as no surprise) I've been testing it against Red/Green Beatz which hasn't even been a contest as Negator licks ass in this match up.  However, Meddling Mage isn't exactly stellar either as there really aren't any bombs worth naming that mage can stop.  This match up is horrible. 

Second match up, I've been testing it against Control Slaver.  This can be a close one and I can win a few here and there, however Slaver packs too many threats and in the end I get out countered, out drawn, and out played.  Somehow Welders seem to hit the table and its over.

Third match up, is Stax.  This one sucks too, I just can't deal with heavy amount of disruption and lock pieces.  To many threats to counter and not enough speed to close the deal. 

I'm going to tinker around with the build a bit, but I want to make some major changes.  Anyway, if anyone wants to test it a bit more I'd be interested in seeing how it fares against Dragon, Fish, FCG, and TPS.

[SonataOfTheCathedral]

Control Slaver/Gifts is basically a 50/50 tossup with the build I was running.

I tested against Workshop aggro as well against a pretty good player and I was winning a majority.

I demised TPS in every way possible.

Oath was rather difficult for me because the HUGE counterwall that I need to go through. That was the only matchup that disheartend me.

Skeletal Scrying vs Slaver was a house or a first or second turn negator on the play was game over. I am confident in the Control match if you play tight. I liked Old Man Of The Sea a lot against Welders as well.

The hugest problem I noticed was the Mana Base. But 6 fetches should be smooth vs wasteland but I might go down to four fetches and more basics but I hate that whole late game draw lots of lands. And Wasteland is at an all time low.

Oh yea fiends make a lot of matchups much smoother.

[Astro]

I'm interested in Mesmeric Fiend, however not interested enough to test them.  Like I mentioned before, they have a cool ability but they aren't much of a beat stick, they seem like they'ed fit much nicer in a Fish deck.  Imo, they're a bad Duress with the negative drawback your opponent has the chance to get back thier card.  I'd be much more interested if they came on a 2/2 body.

[EDIT] Grammar

[Luiggi]

EliasV: there are only 20 mana sources in the deck you posted. It seems to me that you're missing at least a Sol Ring and something like another Island. You could probably cut the third StP and the Old Man of the Sea, because otherwise you're getting mana-screwed way too often, like what happened to me last night when testing against Mark with Stax, .

Luiggi

[SonataOfTheCathedral]

There is twenty two sources listed. Maybe you are reading it incorrectly?

[Luiggi]

I posted my message before you edited your post early this morning to list the 2 Cities of Brass, .

Astro: just to chime in on the Mesmeric Fiend issue, I've really liked them in testing. Along with Duress they make your Mages a lot better, and they can even beat when you equip a Sword to them. They're better than Duress in that they can take a creature, that can also come in handy. Anyway, I've really liked them so far, and the Scryings are light years better than Ophidians...

Luiggi

[SonataOfTheCathedral]

TMD is not AIM. If you have a message for just one person, use the private message feature of TMD. Don't waste everyone's time with a worthless post.

-Jacob.

[Luiggi]

Just something I noticed in testing this deck in the final days before SCP9 Rochester (where I was planning on running it) is that it absolutely folds to Wasteland. I knew Wasteland was bad for the deck already, but I hadn't realized the extent to which it was bad for the deck. WTF was giving this deck nightmares, since Mongrels eat Negators for breakfast, Jitte is some good and their mana denial was devastating.

If the meta shifts away from Wastelands (unlikely at this point because of the successes Fish and WTF have been having) then I'd be happy to give this deck a try again, but for the current metagame I don't think it's good at all.

So at Rochester I decided to run my Goth Slaver (AKs are not really being used at all these days, and AK'ing for 3 and 4 was so hot for me all day long) and ended up with an obviously-less-than-stellar 3-2-3. Yes, that's right, 3 frickin' draws. In two of those matches one more turn would've won me the game, since I was beating down with Platinum Angel and my opponents ended up at somewhere between 1-4 life... Platz was great for me all day long in terms of not dying, but for beatdown I should've run Pentavus, which would've won me those games for sure. Instead I ran Trike, because of the expected Fish decks. Obviously I ended up facing none, .

Luiggi

[49 Cents]

Just something I noticed in testing this deck in the final days before SCP9 Rochester (where I was planning on running it) is that it absolutely folds to Wasteland. I knew Wasteland was bad for the deck already, but I hadn't realized the extent to which it was bad for the deck. WTF was giving this deck nightmares, since Mongrels eat Negators for breakfast, Jitte is some good and their mana denial was devastating.

If the meta shifts away from Wastelands (unlikely at this point because of the successes Fish and WTF have been having) then I'd be happy to give this deck a try again, but for the current metagame I don't think it's good at all.

So at Rochester I decided to run my Goth Slaver (AKs are not really being used at all these days, and AK'ing for 3 and 4 was so hot for me all day long) and ended up with an obviously-less-than-stellar 3-2-3. Yes, that's right, 3 frickin' draws. In two of those matches one more turn would've won me the game, since I was beating down with Platinum Angel and my opponents ended up at somewhere between 1-4 life... Platz was great for me all day long in terms of not dying, but for beatdown I should've run Pentavus, which would've won me those games for sure. Instead I ran Trike, because of the expected Fish decks. Obviously I ended up facing none, .

Luiggi

That's too bad.. Maybe you could try Leviat's Tech, Sacred Ground, against Wastelands?

Greetz,

Hugo

[Luiggi]

I thought of that, but we'd be siding them in in almost every matchup, given that most any aggro-control deck is running 4-5 Strip effects, and that they have been making up such a large part of the metagame lately. If that's the case then they should probably be in maindeck, something I'm not willing to do since it would weaken the deck. I've talked with my friend Elias about cutting the White and making it straight Blue/Black, but that means we'd lose excellent cards like Meddling Mage and StP, again something I'm not willing to do.

I think it's possible to make an Aether Vial version of the deck, with more creatures, but that would probably involve cutting Mana Drain, since we'd be primarily playing our creatures with Vials. Since just about every color combination under the sun has been tried in conjunction with Aether Vial lately, how about something like this?

4 Mesmeric Fiend
2 Rootwater Thief (or maybe something like Waterfront Bouncer or Kira)
4 Meddling Mage
3 Phyrexian Negator

3 Chalice of the Void
4 Aether Vial
2 Umezawa's Jitte

4 Brainstorm
3 Duress
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
4 Force of Will

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Strip Mine
3 Tundra
4 Underground Sea
2 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Swamp
4 Island

The main problem with this is that it only has 16 Blue spells, and that's counting the FoWs, that might be a bit low in terms of pitchable stuff. I'm not sure how much of a problem it would be, though...

Luiggi