Sex

[cssamerican]

First thing I want to get out of the way right up front is that I don’t play in tournaments. They don’t exist in my area, at least that I know of. A few of my friends and I play with unlimited proxies; therefore, we play with all the power and on many occasion use established decks. Even though you always want to win, not having prizes on the line does give us a chance to work on pet decks, and well, this one is my pet deck. However, with that being said I wouldn't be posting here if I didn't feel the deck was competitive, and could do well in a tournament environment.

Back in January of this year at the StarCityGames.com Power Nine Tournament Series #4, Marc Perez (AKA Phantom Tape Worm) played a deck called Sex. StarCityGames.com did a small question and answer article with him on his deck, in which they posted his deck list. The deck revolved around recurring Time Walk and/or other needed spells. It didn't get much attention because it didn't finish in the top 8 and Meandeck's Tendrils and Eric Miller's Riddler decks largely overshadowed it. I really liked the concept behind the deck though, and I started playing after reading the article back in January.

Sex.dec
By Marc Perez
Creatures (10)
4 [card]Eternal Witness [/card]
3 [card]Birds of Paradise[/card]
3 [card]Werebear[/card]

Spells (29)
4 [card]Accumulated Knowledge[/card]
1 [card]Ancestral Recall[/card]
4 [card]Brainstorm[/card]
1 [card]Burning Wish[/card]
1 [card]Demonic Tutor[/card]
1 [card]Echoing Truth[/card]
4 [card]Force of Will[/card]
1 [card]Gifts Ungiven[/card]
4 [card]Intuition[/card]
1 [card]Merchant Scroll[/card]
1 [card]Mystical Tutor[/card]
3 [card]Nostalgic Dreams[/card]
1 [card]Regrowth[/card]
1 [card]Seeds of Innocence[/card]
1 [card]Time Walk[/card]

Artifacts (6)
1 [card]Black Lotus[/card]
1 [card]Mox Ruby[/card]
1 [card]Mox Emerald[/card]
1 [card]Mox Jet[/card] 
1 [card]Mox Sapphire[/card]
1 [card]Sol Ring[/card]

Lands (15)
1 [card]Bayou[/card]
1 [card]Forest[/card]
1 [card]Island[/card]
3 [card]Polluted Delta[/card]
4 [card]Tropical Island[/card]
1 [card]Underground Sea[/card]
1 [card]Volcanic Island[/card]
1 [card]Windswept Heath[/card]
2 [card]Wooded Foothills[/card]


Sideboard (15)
2 [card]Carpet of Flowers[/card]
1 [card]Cranial Extraction[/card]
1 [card]Chainer's Edict [/card]
2 [card]Chalice of the Void[/card]
1 [card]FireIce[/card]
1 [card]Naturalize[/card]
1 [card]Root Maze[/card]
2 [card]Seeds of Innocence[/card]
1 [card]Simplify[/card]
2 [card]Tormod's Crypt[/card]

The Good
Getting to play über broken cards over and over again is just plain fun, not mention, quite powerful. The concept behind this deck is tempo just like a bunch of other decks in the format such as Fish. The difference here is the way your are achieving it. This deck doesn’t rely on man lands or strip effects; it relies on mini-Yawgmoth’s Wills that let you replay Time Walk along with all your other broken spells over and over again.

The Bad
The deck relies on the graveyard and more specifically Time Walk. This means post board games will always be much more difficult matches against opponents (Pretty much everyone) who have graveyard hate.

The Ugly
Game one it pretty much rolls over and dies to the fast combo decks. Games two and three you could bring in a little help from the board, but it is an uphill battle. In all fairness to Marc there wasn’t much in the way of fast combo decks at the event this list is from. I would guess he built it for that metagame, and that is the reason why the deck was weak in this area.

So, what did I change and why?
I never quite understood why Merchant Scroll was being used instead of Vampiric Tutor. This deck has so many other cards other than blue instants that you want to tutor for that it just never made much sense to me. Hell, it can’t even tutor for Time Walk or a single graveyard recursion spell, which is the heart of the deck.

The next change I found through trial and error. Brainstorm while never bad was never that great either. The deck has so many ways to get the cards it needs, it seemed about the only time I was playing it was in a desperation move to dig for a Force of Will or just because I didn't have anything better to do with my mana. Once I removed Brainstorm from the deck Chalice of the Void began to look very attractive. I had very few spells in the 0-1 casting cost range, it strengthened the decks match-up versus combo decks, and in general gave the deck a tempo boost in a lot of matches. Chalice of the Void just seemed to fit the overall scheme of what the deck was trying to accomplish more than Brainstorm ever did.

Burning Wish was a must have because if you lost Time Walk the deck’s synergy in many cases would just fall apart. I kept thinking there had to be a better backup plan to Time Walk being removed than trying to get it back, especially since you had to splash a fourth color to do so. I tried a bunch of junk, but it was only recently until I thought of the obvious did I find something that really worked. Instead of trying to protect or retrieve cards removed from the game I added the Tinker/DSC combo to the deck. This did two things, first it took some of my opponent’s focus off my graveyard, and secondly it gave the deck a simple win condition that required a lot less thought than before. The lack for the need of red mana also allowed me to replace the Mox Ruby with Mana Crypt, which gave the deck some more explosive turn one plays than it had before.

I bump up the mana creatures in the deck to increase the frequency that I hit four or even five mana turn two. The deck loves mana since it takes a lot of mana to recur and play spells in a turn, and the sooner the deck can go into recursion mode the better chances you will have at winning games. This is where the decisions got tough, I cut Gifts Ungiven from the deck mainly because once I had enough mana to really use it, most of the stuff I would use it for was already in the graveyard. For the other slot it is usually a Chalice of the Void or a Seeds of Innocence depending on what I am expecting to play that day. Well, here is my list.

Sex.dec
ReDux by cssamerican
Creatures (13)
1 [card]Darksteel Colossus[/card]
4 [card]Eternal Witness [/card]
4 [card]Birds of Paradise[/card]
4 [card]Werebear[/card]

Spells (24)
4 [card]Accumulated Knowledge[/card]
1 [card]Ancestral Recall[/card]
1 [card]Demonic Tutor[/card]
1 [card]Echoing Truth[/card]
4 [card]Force of Will[/card]
4 [card]Intuition[/card]
1 [card]Mystical Tutor[/card]
3 [card]Nostalgic Dreams[/card]
1 [card]Regrowth[/card]
1 [card]Seeds of Innocence[/card]
1 [card]Time Walk[/card]
1 [card]Tinker[/card]
1 [card]Vampiric Tutor[/card]

Artifacts (9)
1 [card]Black Lotus[/card]
3 [card]Chalice of the Void[/card]
1 [card]Mana Crypt[/card]
1 [card]Mox Emerald[/card]
1 [card]Mox Jet[/card] 
1 [card]Mox Sapphire[/card]
1 [card]Sol Ring[/card]

Lands (14)
1 [card]Bayou[/card]
1 [card]Forest[/card]
1 [card]Island[/card]
3 [card]Polluted Delta[/card]
4 [card]Tropical Island[/card]
1 [card]Windswept Heath[/card]
2 [card]Wooded Foothills[/card]
1 [card]Underground Sea[/card]

Sideboard (15)
2 [card]Carpet of Flowers[/card]
1 [card]Chalice of the Void[/card]
1 [card]Cranial Extraction[/card]
1 [card]Hail Storm[/card]
2 [card]Naturalize[/card]
3 [card]Pithing Needle[/card]
2 [card]Seeds of Innocence[/card]
2 [card]Root Maze[/card]
1 [card]Tranquility[/card]


How Does the Deck Play?
Most games turn one is about dropping mana. If all you can do is play a land, in all likelihood you should mulligan that hand. You want to be heading into turn two knowing you will have two lands and at least one bird, bear, or moxen to work with. It is important to have this much mana available to you by turn two if you expect the deck to be putting real pressure on your opponent by turn three. Turn two you are trying to assemble draw, set-up your turn stealing engine, or working on getting DSC into play. If you got a good hand it is possible that you will be working on more than one of these lines of attack at this point. Turn three is the turn in which you should be applying some serious pressure to your opponent. In most cases the deck goldfishes to turn four quite regularly, and although that is far from being lighting fast in Vintage I don’t think that is extremely slow either. The nice thing about playing the deck is it can fire bombs at control drawing out counters, and then get those same bombs back to fire at them again.

Nostalgic Dreams: The first time I played with this card I was looking for the big play, and well that is usually a big mistake. This is because discarding cards is part of the cost. You will be in for a rude awakening the first time you discard your hand to return a pile of power from the grave only to have a counter spell basically Mind Twist it away. Believe me it sucks. Therefore, I usually try to only discard useless crap such as unplayable moxen, extra Chalices, and DSC. This way if it does get countered I haven’t really lost any playable spells.

Intuition: This is the true skill tester in the deck, knowing what to Intuition for is the key to your success. There are so many combinations you can get, and those combination decisions depend completely on your hand, board position, and the opponent you’re playing. I still find myself making mistakes in this area of my play. Many of the games I have lost can be attributed to making the wrong decision on what to Intuition for. If someone was going to pick up this deck and start playing it, this is where his or her focus needs to be, in order to use it as effectively as possible.


The cards I tried that were good, but in the end didn’t work
[card]Sunscape Familiar[/card]: Josh Silvestri (AKA Vegetta2711) suggested this card to me. Out of all the suggestions I got this is the one I was sure would be great. I mean it could literally give me three to four mana a turn, easy. The problem is it’s white, so it is difficult to play it early (Which is when you want to) without totally screwing up your mana base. For example, with Birds of Paradise you can put a Forest in play then play then the bird and still be ready to cast anything in your hand turn two providing that you have another land in your hand. Sunscape Familiar requires you to have a mox in your opening hand (Just like Werebear), AND it requires you to have access to an off color land. This combination of cards proved itself to be too difficult to achieve consistently. Believe me, I tried everything, but nothing ever worked to make it play smoothly.

[card]Sakura-Tribe Elder[/card]: I ran these for a while instead of the Birds of Paradise. Mainly because I was playing against a lot of stuff like goblins and Landstill. In those match-ups blocking Lackeys and having a mana base with some resiliency to small burn spells were important. However, once I started using the Tinker/DSC combo and found Hail Storm (I hate Goblins) for my sideboard they became a lot less necessary in these type of games so I dropped them completely for the Birds of Paradise. Which are much more reliable at hitting play turn one.

[card]Recurring Nightmare[/card]: This was my own idea. It is definitely cool to get virtually unlimited turns; however, in most cases it’s totally unneeded. But if you decide to port the deck for casual play you will probably enjoy having this in the deck.

[card]Stampeding Wildebeests[/card]/[card]Stampeding Serow[/card]: I actually got this idea from Adam Grydehoj's recent SCG article. It isn't quite as solid is Recurring Nightmare at getting a continuos recursion engine because of its vulnerability; however, it is a beatstick and would probably be loads of fun in a casual environment.

[card]All Suns' Dawn[/card]: The cool thing about this card is it can be some serious card advantage all on its own; the bad thing is it cost a little too much mana. If they just had priced this thing at it would have been a bomb. As is it is, it's cool for casual play, but once everyone pulls out their Mana Drains its time to put this card away.

I would love to here people’s thoughts on my specific deck list and this type of deck concept in general. So flame away

[Machinus]

I am developing a deck based on three fish-like archetypes with green in them, and this is one of the founding concept decks. Chalice is a strong addition to any aggro control deck like this. However, one of the strong points of these decks is consistency, and I am not sure 3 colors is really that feasible.

[onelovemachine]

Did you have any desire to test crystal shard?

[cssamerican]

Did you have any desire to test crystal shard?

Actually I didn't even think about it. But I am not sure the whole concept of bouncing Eternal Witnesses back to your hand is really worth it in the first place. Plus with cards like Null Rod and Pithing Needle floating around, you would just have something else that could disrupt you if you began to focus the deck around the Crystal Shard/Eternal Witness combo. It still might be worth a try though, I just wouldn't put much stock in it panning out.

I am developing a deck based on three fish-like archetypes with green in them, and this is one of the founding concept decks. Chalice is a strong addition to any aggro control deck like this. However, one of the strong points of these decks is consistency, and I am not sure 3 colors is really that feasible.

I tend to agree with you. I don't think three colors are feasible when you really need to rely on them, especially for turn 1 plays. However, in this deck the third color (black) is only there for tutoring, were are talking two cards. The deck can still get its primary colors in basics if need be, and has creatures that can tap for those primary colors. Because of this I don't think its a problem. Plus look at what the splash gives you. Two more ways to get Tinker, Time Walk, Ancestral Recall, and Nostalgic Dreams. If any thing it adds to the consistency of the deck.

[Kowal]

I actually had a build quite similar to this when Marc and I first figured out how the deck would work.

The chalices were ejected because testing proved having Brainstorms of my own was too crucial, in addition to the fact I tend to recur Ancestral Recall more than I recur Time Walk.

In regards to Crystal Shard, the concept of winning with it is so clunky and overkill that it just isn't feasible.  If you're in a position where you need to go infinite, that can be achieved with Echoing Truth and multiple witnesses.

Witness for Walk.
Walk.
Witness for Walk.
Echoing Truth the Witness.
Witness for Echoing Truth.
Repeat as necessary.

In this way you can also bounce every nonland your opponent has before beginning to attack, which was helpful against junk like Bird Shit or Food Chain.

[Rico Suave]

Has the Tinker plan ever been a problem, considering there are 0 ways to get rid of a DSC in hand aside from going to 8 and discarding?

[MuzzonoAmi]

Nostaligic Dreams lets you pitch DSC.

[cssamerican]

Kowal, I never was impressed with Brainstorm in the deck. Maybe because it seems like I can see any card that I want to by turn three. To me they just never seemed that essential for the deck to run smoothly. This might be that most games I rather play a mana creature turn one than sit on a Brainstorm. Chalice allows be to play my bird or bear then stunt my opponents mana. Chalice in many cases acts like a pseudo Time Walk that doubles as Tormod's Crypt protection, Tinker fodder, or welder hate.

[Rico Suave]

Nostaligic Dreams lets you pitch DSC.

Dur.

Still, 3 ways is not that many.  Perhaps this is just another reason to play Brainstorm.

[oldbsturgeon]

I would be worried too about getting the dsc in your hand with no way to get rid of it. While it wouldnt happen very often, when it would you might have wished for brainstorms, maybe not though. With regards to adding black tutoring for anything is indeed strong, and probably should remain. If you were playing something like duress, then i might wonder its effectiveness, but as it is, i really dont see a problem

[carlossb]

How do you solve the problem of the inclusion of Phyrexian Furnace in so many decks nowadays?

[49 Cents]

Just a little sidenote; The deck was piloted to a number 1 finish this weekend at a rather big tourney in Germany: http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=268.

I've always considered the deck to be casual, but when I started testing it online, it proved to be a hell lot of fun and rather stable as well. Good look with it!

Greetz,

Hugo

[Dralock]

How do you solve the problem of the inclusion of Phyrexian Furnace in so many decks nowadays?

It appears seeds of innocense, chalice of the void, echoing truth, force of will, and the mother of all ... Multiple copies of many cards.

Of course you can always run wish to get back your instants.  But then you would need to include drains.

[Kerith]

Just a little sidenote; The deck was piloted to a number 1 finish this weekend at a rather big tourney in Germany: http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=268.

If I recall correctly, said tournament had 18 players.

[49 Cents]

Just a little sidenote; The deck was piloted to a number 1 finish this weekend at a rather big tourney in Germany: http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=268.

If I recall correctly, said tournament had 18 players.

Really? Somebody told me there where over 50 players :/

Edit: I don't speak German that well, but on their site they say 18 players aswell.. Sorry for the wrong info, I misunderstood that guy apparently.. But still, It had to beat some of the good decks that where around..

[cssamerican]

I will admit that with Brainstorms in place of Chalice of the Void you can manage DSC in hand problems more effectively. However, with Brainstorm you are much weaker versus fast combo decks such as Storm and Belcher game one. I isn't like this type a deck is going to be doing a whole of Brainstorming in response to spells. In most cases you are not going to have a problem tapping out every turn. So, this means Brainstorm is just being used to smooth out draws and remove unplayable junk from your hand. The deck list I presented has seven tutors (Which is actually less than other deck list for the archetype) to get what you need; therefore, smoothing the deck out isn't that big of a priority in my opinion. This leaves removing unplayable junk from your hand. While it does this well, how often will this role be in competition with Nostalgic Dreams? The whole point of running Nostalgic Dreams in the first place was to remove the junk from you hand for the gold in your graveyard. I wouldn't fault anyone for running Brainstorm over Chalice if they felt combo wasn't going to be much of an issue. Because lets face it, drawing cards is always good, but I really don’t think it adds anything special to the deck.

Just a little sidenote; The deck was piloted to a number 1 finish this weekend at a rather big tourney in Germany: http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=268.

If I recall correctly, said tournament had 18 players.

But it was an extremely tough field. Look at the deck that came in second he was running two Ancestral Recalls :shock: (Sarcasm aside, I didn’t realize anyone else was working on this deck)

[cryolyte]

I've been playing with this deck and with wtf a lot lately. In the case of my wtf experience, I boarded in gilded drakes against any deck that did/could run darksteel colossus and I ran 2 waterfront bouncers main to combat it.

My point is this: I believe that too many decks are running DS Colossus for it to continue to be effective, and if any decks start packing gilded drakes (as I did - much to my opponents' dismay) it may be more of a death-knell to run it. I realize that you are running echoing truth and a plethora of tutors.

Just for kicks I ran memory jar in its place and it has been very good in testing. You can tinker it out, or you can cast it, as this deck creates a lot of mana. You don't need to mess with brainstorms now. Also, it dumps any cards you don't use that turn into - the graveyard! Where I can just get them again if I need to!

Any thoughts?

[cssamerican]

Lots of decks are running DS Colossus because he IS that good. If people bring in hate specifically for the Colossus then so be it, that means they probably didn’t bring in sufficient graveyard hate to combat the decks recursion engine. I don’t have a problem taking a few extra turns while beating down with Werebears and Witnesses.

Memory Jar is cute, but really what is it going to do for you? It doesn’t help combat graveyard hate and it doesn’t kill the opponent. Yeah, it’s nice to draw seven cards, but if I am going to use Tinker I want it to do more than get me to threshold. I can do that quite easily without Memory Jar

The only other replacement I could see would be removing Tinker and the Colossus for two Umezawa's Jittes, but I would only consider that if my meta was overly loaded with Goblin Welders.

I can't stress this enough, Colossus in hand isn't a problem. You only have a 33% chance of drawing it in the first 20 cards of you library. So, in two-thirds of your games a Colossus in hand is irrelevent. Then you have three ways to remove it from your hand and seven ways to get that removal. It doesn't take four brainstorms in this deck to manage such a small inconvience.

[Nantuko Rice]

in some slight minor playtesting, we found that this deck was capable of beating workshop aggro (despite chalices for 0 and 2 on the table). a single copy of seeds of innocence and a single copy of echoing truth was enough. sex has so much draw/tutor that workshop aggro usually only gets one chalice to play around with. whether they set it at 2 or 3, sex has the other to play.

sex also has a good matchup against fish. Werebears with infinite time walk...

i thought i'd mention this because of the popularity of such decks at the moment.

unfortunately, sex is easy to hate out. graveyard hate stops it as well as arcane lab.

[NicolaeAlmighty]

I recommend you check out the decklist that won through some tough decks on Morphling. Crazy Euros! I wish our metagame was as fun... http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=268

[49 Cents]

If you read up you'll see that I already posted that link..

Our metagame is really fun. I haven't seen Fish in like a year

[Disburden]

I am thinking about sleeving this or the list on morphling up for testing soon. But I'm stuck with a dilemma, I'm currently playing with meandeck gifts (four merchant scrolls, four gifts, etc). Now do you think this can can reoccur time walk better or in any way as quickly as Gifts? See I'm playing gifts, but I'd like to play something more original and less "soon to be netdecked everywhere", but first I'd like to see if it can compare at all when it comes to speed and power.

[verduran]

Here's a couple of cards  that came to mind when seeing this decklist;

-Mana drain
-Skullclamp
-Exploration/Fastbond
-Oath of druids , battlefield scrounger...
-Recoup

[cssamerican]

unfortunately, sex is easy to hate out. graveyard hate stops it as well as arcane lab.

This is one of the reasons I believe Chalice of the Void is better in the deck than Brainstorm; it gives added defense against various types of graveyard hate in addition to a defense against various types of faster combo decks. However, I am not sure there are many decks that would want to bring in Arcane Laboratory against Sex mainly because Sex does run creatures. I could be wrong because no one has tried it against me, but theoretically it doesn't sound like it would be very viable for a lot of decks as an answer.

Disburden, if your asking if this is as strictly as powerful as Smmenen's Gifts the answer is NO. Sex isn't as focused on one goal or one style of play, and I guess that is the price you pay for playing a deck that doesn't play itself. There is no pre-game strategy on how to play Sex in any game until you see your starting cards. What I mean is, sometimes I go for the quick DSC, other times I go for the Time Walk recursion combo, at times I am content with beating down for few turns while using my recursion on Force of Will for protection. I think that is what I like about playing the deck, every game is different, even the games that only last two or three turns.