FEB, viable in Vintage?

[atwa2002]

I am really a casual player, nothing is better for me than smashing my opponents face with a really big creature. Because of this, I have Been working a while on a Full English Breakfast (FEB) list for Legacy. One thing I notice on recent lists in this site, is that most Vintage lists don't pack a lot of creature hate. I think this deck can benefit from that. Here is a list I brainstormed out last night:

Vintage FEB (v1.0)

Mana: 19
4 Tropical Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald

Engine: 8
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Vorath's Shapeshifter

Draw/Search: 8
4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral recall
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor

Support/Protect: 17
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Wall of Roots
2 Quirion Ranger

Toolbox: 8
2 Phyrexian Dreadnought
1 Phage, the untouchable
1 Flowstone Hellion
1 Palinchron
1 Hypnox
1 Arcanis, the Omnipotent
1 Morphling

Card explanation:
Mana: I play only 19 mana sources which is really low. However, being able to gain extra mana from Bop and Wall of Roots and this low count doesn't matter. Nothing is more annoying in this deck than drawing dead lands.
Elvish Spirit Guide: Normally, I would play extra land instead of the guide, but unfortunately you can't discard any extra land you have drawn to the survival.

Survival of the Fittest: This card is the engine for the whole deck, it gives you the cards in your hand that you need, and it put the right cards in the graveyard when you need them.
Volrath's Shapeshifter: Most of the time, when this card hits the floor, it means you have won (or will next turn)

Brainstorm: No explanation necessary.
Ancestral Recall: Too broken not to play.
Time Walk: Too broken not to play.
Demonic/Vampiric Tutor: These were enlightened tutors in the Legacy version, not sure they are really necessary, but You'll be happy when you draw one, most of the time

Force of Will: The best counterspell in the format.
Daze: It is crucial to play your engine as fast as possible, therefore you'll need every free counterspell you can get.
Birds of Paradise: Acceleration, mana-fixer, pitchable to survival.
Wall of Roots: Acceleration, pitchable to survival, also a good blocker first game against decks like fish and goblins.
Quirion Ranger: Not so sure about this card, in legacy it is a rock, but in vintage I'm not so sure. It is mostly used to protect you lands against strips.

Flowstone Hellion: If you have enough mana after you play shapeshifter, this guy can provide in win in the same turn. Some people play a Akroma in this spot, but I like the flowstone ability, which combos really good with phyrexian dreadnought (before damage goes on the stack, activate the flowston ability 8x, in respose discard the dreadnought).
Phage, the untouchable: If you are attacking and your opponent has no blockers, discarding pahge gives you a instant win.
Phyrexian Dreadnought: Most of the time, this card is your win condition, included twice because this is the only creature you really want to be able to find in your library, even if you've drawn one.
Palinchron: Is a nice creature to discard finding a shapeshifter, untaps all your land when you play shapeshifter.
Hypnox: See above.
Arcanis, the Omnipotent: Combos well with morphling. Mostly used in long games to force an opening .in your opponent's defence.
Morphling: See above, activate morphlings untap ability a couple of times, discard arcanis, and draw 3 cards for each time you activated morphlings ability.

Sideboard:
I'm not sure what to include i the sideboard. I'm thinking on the following:
4 Naturalize (against al sort of random decks)
3 Ground Seal (against welderdecks, Dragon)
1 Crater Hellion (against Goblins, Fish etc)

Note: come in to play abilities only trigger when I play the shapeshifter, if I discard a dreadnought after the shapeshifter was played, I don't have to sacrefice creatures.

Any comments, tips, flames of other kind of tought about this deck, Please leave it.

[EnialisLiadon]

Killing via Phage is much better than the old Dreadnaught kill.  As such, you should include a Cephalid Inkshrouder in your build.  Psychatog is also needed, as he helps protect your combo.  If they waste a land, kill a birds, or somehow mess up your graveyard, you can manipulate the grave to make sure the top is what you need it to be.

However, I think FEB is too clunky and slow to be viable, even though it packs a little counter for protection.  The combo is just extremely fragile.  You also suffer from large amounts of hate, like dragon, but dragon can usually play around it...I don't see how this can.

[atwa2002]

If they waste a land, kill a birds, or somehow mess up your graveyard, you can manipulate the grave to make sure the top is what you need it to be.

Quirion Ranger is included to protect my lands, green is the main colour and I can return them to my hand if needed. There aren't a lot of deck which have a lot of cards that can kill a BoP, at least not the first game, only random aggro decks and FCG.

I do need something to protect my graveyard, I was thinking of playing Ground Seal MD. It works against welder decks, and gives protection against the most popular graveyard disrupter in my area: Phyrexian Furnace. Removing the bottom card isn't very usefull most of the time, because I can always discard a extra creature for the kill.

Does someone else have some ideas on this matter?

Cephalid Inkshrouder is a very good creature indeed, any ideas of which card to cut for it?

[Lunar]

in what ways is this FEB list better than something that was at least good at one point in vintage already...vengeur mask...which uses the same principles to win with better overall T1 cards..without mucking things up a bit with stuff like cephalids and walls.

[atwa2002]

in what ways is this FEB list better than something that was at least good at one point in vintage already...vengeur mask...which uses the same principles to win with better overall T1 cards..without mucking things up a bit with stuff like cephalids and walls.

I am not saying this build is better than any other list, this build is in desperate need of tuning. Also, I am not saying this will be better than (for instance) Vengeur Mask, I just want to make it a good/decent deck. If I was claiming this build would be better, I'd be posting in the open forum, not the newbe forum.

All I'm asking for is a little openminded thinking, instead of these kind of comments, if you don't have something usefull to say, simply don't post.

By the way, I found a reason I'd rather play FEB instead of Vengeur. Have you seen the prizes on Illusionary maskes lately in europe? Those are very hard to get.

[Lunar]

you are really mis reading what I posted man...

whenever you want to try something new in any format in magic (especially if it is almost exactly the same as something already established) you need to ask your self and others some questions...such as how is this deck better than vengeur mask which runs an amazingly similar list.  The choice of this FEB runs some sub-optimal cards, like I pointed out.  I was asking you a question not saying you are stupid or anything...My point should be, why would you opt to tune FEB which is not prooven at all in T1, when you could be spending a little time tuning something like vengeur mask which has lots of data already out there to start from...I understand the cost thing for you...its not much of a problem for people in the US as we generally have 10 proxie tournies now and mask isnt too hard to copy.

For a few opinions on the pile you have shown us I would say a few things...

#1...you have like 90% win conditions in this deck...try cutting a few for something more important like protection and disruption...you really dont need every legend in the game to be floating around doing nothing if you have no SoF in play...

#2...you are choosing some stuff based heavily off legacy and extended style principals...wall of roots???? really...? 2 quirion rangers??? why?  Maybe im in need of some education on this deck for T1 play, but these seem really out of place and generally do nothing worthwhile for the deck. (yes I know wall of roots gives you 1 mana a turn, big deal...)

#3..you worry about creature defense...yet you are running a very very comboish deck...throw down a shapeshifter, discard something with evasion, attack, discard or SoF phage or something else brutally big...they might have 4000 goblins out but you should be able to win via combo or bigger creatures before they can...(at least that should be your goal)

#4...speed...as mentioned before you lack in the speed department...to counteract this you need to drop a lot of the chafe sitting around with all of those gigantic creatures that do absolutly nothing if you arent already winning...one alarming aspect of your deck is the mana base...1 basic forest that you cannot fetch is bad...only 5 duals, and only 3 moxen.  the elvish spirit guides are decent if you are planning on seeing a lot of stax decks, but 19 mana seems pretty light overall for me...

SOOOOO what I would suggest is dropping this list...pick up a vengeur mask list....and then edit it to work around not affording masks or something...at least then you can start with something that has worked in vintage in the past rather than blindly going in with something that appears to fail on infinity levels.  Thats just my two cents though, and feel free to write me off as another rude american...

[nataz]

If you arent using mask, there is really no reason to use the dreadnaught. 

I'd suggest akroma + phage as your kill.

akroma flies, first strike, and haste, => discard phage for the win that turn with evasion.

[EnialisLiadon]

On second thought, why not play Oath if you want combo-control?

[cane]

because he doesn't want to play oath, he want to play his FeB

however, I do feel that playing like oath is a better plan for this deck
(I have totally no expirience with this deck and don't consider myself a good player (well I do in my community  )

as pointed out before, this deck wants to be combo
and combo has to be fast, this isn't really, well let's say, it isn't going to be pulled over for speeding

so instead of going to tell you  what to do (how should I know?) I'll be summing up some random thoughts that occured to me

first of, 3 colors? I really don't think your manabase is stable for it, why not go UG
then you can use 6 fetches and they can all fetch the most part of your lands
phage is a kill condition, use it, loose some of the others
also, up the power level, off color moxen really help
you need creatures to discard so you can search for creatures to discard, why not use some that can be helpfull
wonder seems like a good idea, you can pitch it to FOW as well
you lose some turors without black, but green has creature-tutors...
intuition/ak             bazaar/(squee)        ??
aether vial also came to mind, free birds and the like can't be bad (you can avoid summoning sickness)
19 mana sources is TOO low
wall of roots...., it's an early blocker, but do you need an early blocker?


i just made a decklist on how I see it
let me remind all of you again, I'm trying to help, not anything else

5 mox
1 lotus
4 tropical
6 fetches
4 ESG
2 island
3 birds
3 phage
4 survival
4 shapeshifter
3 wonder
4 fow
4 daze
4 brainstorm
1 recall
1 time walk
3 intuition
4 accumulated knowledge

with this i did some goldfishing and got a t3 kill a couple of times

i hoped this helped in any way, if the way was that's really not how it has to be done, then it helped too

[EnialisLiadon]

Playing something obviously inferior to a deck with a similar strategy simply out of impulsive desire isn't the road to success.
On to the deck.

Limiting the mana-base to two colors isn't a bad idea.  However, limiting the creatures is.  It doesn't matter what color the creatures are, as they can be copied via Shapeshifter after discarding them.  I'm sorry, Cane, but the deck you posted is a bastardized build of anything that could be considered close to optimal.  In fact, your build only supports my "play Oath instead" point.

[Toad]

In fact, your build only supports my "play Oath instead" point.

He is a casual player, and wants to play Full English Breakfast. Not Oath.

[cane]

I really thought I made my post clear

I'm not saying this is a good deck
I'm not saying it is a good idea
I'm not saying it will win anything
I'm not saying I'm the best magic player in the world and... well, I ain't saying that much accually

I just tried to make the FEB deck a little better
but this is getting a bit off topic, and I don't want the guys thread closed

seeing as my decklist is considered 'close to optimal' it isn't that bad  however I kind of miss the worldly tutor, he could really be helpfull, but i don't want to screw around with the draw, also impulse seems like a good idea

but I wanna hear from atwa if we are helping him or that we are sucking the joy out of magic

[atwa2002]

but I wanna hear from atwa if we are helping him or that we are sucking the joy out of magic

The last posts are getting better, thanks.

I already play a oath deck, I just wanted to try to make an other decent creature combo deck. I am fully aware that oath (or mask) are better deckchoices when going to a tournament. Unlike some other people, I go to tournaments for the fun, I simply do not care if I win or lose. Winning is a cool thing and it will always be my goal when playing a match, but I really prefer to play something controversial and surprise my opponent with decks they are not familiar with.

BTW, sucking out my joy of magic will be very hard. I can have fun going to a 10 proxy tournament playing a really shitty mono green weenie deck (did it once, the deck wasn't worth giving it a name, I really had a blast)

But, back on topic:
Making the deck 2 colours is indeed better for the deck. Being used playing 2 enlightened tutor in Legacy, I simply replaced them by the black tutors, which was a very bad thing to do indeed.

I have made the following changes:

-1 Underground Sea
-1 Mox Jet
-1 Demonic Tutor
-1 Vampiric Tutor

+2 Island
+2 Impulse

I am thinking about replacing the Quirion Rangers, but what to replace it with? I still believe Flowstone hellion the better choice over Akroma, but when I remove the rangers, maybe I'll test playing both.

[Lunar]

one thing you havnt touched on is the number of dead threats you have in your deck...

You run 8 of what you call toolbox creatures...

these 8 cards are pretty much unplayable on even a somewhat consistant basis...they are 99.5% dependant on shapeshifter/SoF...

I really feel that you deck should be able to drop a few of them, while retaining its full potency, and adding a few more accelerants...

for example, I would at least cut 2 of the creatures and replace them with the 2 off color moxen...there are many other ways to go about it as well...but 8 situational win conditions is BAD.

[cane]

atwa, I have done some testing (with my build as posted) for you

i goldfished 30 games of wich I got
3 turn 2 kills and 4 almost guaranteed losses
but for the most part t3 and 4 are the ones in wich it happens
avarage kill of the 30 games --> 4,5 (losses counted as 10 turns)

the reason for this is, that my build doesn't need SoF to win, intuition does the same thing but faster
just something to think about

intuition is a tutor, graveyardfiller, drawengine all at once and it's even blue
from wich i conclude it would be a good thing to remove a SoF and put an additional intuition in it's spot

for the critics out there, I know goldfishing doesn't prove anything, but I'm in my exams, so feel free to do the accual testing yourselves and let me know

as far as my conclusion on the deck,
my competitive opinion hasn't changed, I don't think this deck is good enough to win something
but my non-competitive opinion has changed, this is really a fun deck to play, much more fun then oath

[LotusHead]

My crappy Shapeshifter deck (Ninja!) uses HardCastable Trinket Mages to fetch Phyrexian Dreadnaughts or other cool 1cc/0cc artifacts. And they beat down.

[the boogie man]

@ cane: how did you use intuition with shapeshifter? intuition puts the cards that it fetches underneath it, so you would already have needed to have a pychatog out or something.

[BigMac]

I dont know if this deck is viable in vintage. However i played against it in a local proxy tournament and i can say a couple of things about it i think.

First of all i think the shapeshifter and the survival to be the pivotal cards of the deck, so it should be easy to find them. So far i have seen 2 possible ways for the survival and as survival can find the shapeshifter that should seal it. The possible cards to find survival are intuition and impulse. So try and include these cards, both as 4. The beauty of both is that you can discard them to FoW. And with all the shuffle options in this deck include off course the brainstorms.

Another way to speed up your deck could be the inclusion of lightning greaves. This card could potetially proove very devastating to opponents as it is easilly cast and it speeds up your deck in several ways. The moment you play a BoP you can use it. The moment you play your doppelganger you can attack.

Another way to possibly speed up this deck is trying to get a better draw engine. This deck absolutely screams bazaar of bagdad to me. It draws cards and discards cards you want on top of your graveyard. With intuition you will have more than 1 way to find squee and i would include more when opting for the bazaar. ( i realise that bazaars are costly as well but i wanted to include this possibility anyways)

You can use phyrexian furnace as well as your opponent. So include it in your deck if possible and work out if it is possible to utilise it to your advantages.

Most importantly you must realise your deck is slow. It is a slow combodeck. If you are trying to win with it you should try and slow other decks down. So try and play it more of a controlish way. Try maindecking null rods perhaps or chalices. Those cards really slow other decks down. Especially when you opt to use Aether vial a chalice for 1 could be devastating.

I hope these possibilities help you with finetuning your deck some more. Lastly i would reccomend to choose 2 or 3 winconditions creaturelike. So for example go for phage, tog and akroma for the win. Remember that a BoP also flies so you really dont need an Akroma for that to fly over other critters. A BoP in the graveyard works just as good. Wonder also works mirracles this way.

Have fun.

[cane]

@willow, indeed a good point that the cards come underneath it
however, you still have one in hand and can discard it on top of the intuition with the shapeshifter abbility

ignorance is curable, I read somewhere  and in this case, it costs 2 generic mana

[atwa2002]

Another way to possibly speed up this deck is trying to get a better draw engine. This deck absolutely screams bazaar of bagdad to me. It draws cards and discards cards you want on top of your graveyard. With intuition you will have more than 1 way to find squee and i would include more when opting for the bazaar. ( i realise that bazaars are costly as well but i wanted to include this possibility anyways)

Bazaar is indeed an option when going to a proxy tournament, I think it can be really good (or at least cool to surprise people with).

You can use phyrexian furnace as well as your opponent. So include it in your deck if possible and work out if it is possible to utilise it to your advantages.

Never thought of it, but it can be really good indeed. I really must try it before I can really say something decent about it, but it seems like it has potential.


I'll experiment with some of these tips, I'll post a tuned decklist one of these days with results. Please feel free to post any comment or tips, I check this site at least once per day.

[LotusHead]

You can use phyrexian furnace as well as your opponent. So include it in your deck if possible and work out if it is possible to utilise it to your advantages.

Never thought of it, but it can be really good indeed. I really must try it before I can really say something decent about it, but it seems like it has potential.


I'll experiment with some of these tips, I'll post a tuned decklist one of these days with results. Please feel free to post any comment or tips, I check this site at least once per day.

Phyrexian Furnace is strictly inferior to Scrabbling Claws in a Shapeshifter deck.  Claws let you chose which card to remove (and your opponent, unless you pay 1 and sac it). Furnace forces you to remove only the bottom card, while Shapeshifters care about the top card of the graveyard.  It is another Trinket Mage target in my deck. (uh, artifact lands and Ivory Towers are the others if you care.)

[atwa2002]

Phyrexian Furnace is strictly inferior to Scrabbling Claws in a Shapeshifter deck.  Claws let you chose which card to remove (and your opponent, unless you pay 1 and sac it). Furnace forces you to remove only the bottom card, while Shapeshifters care about the top card of the graveyard.  It is another Trinket Mage target in my deck. (uh, artifact lands and Ivory Towers are the others if you care.)

I do care, because I always like to hear what kind of deck/engines other people play with.

Claws is indeed the better option for this deck over furnance. I used them as proxies for pyrexian furnance (only own 2 of them) in other decks, stupid I never thought of it myself.

[Eddie]

I play FEB now and then when playing casual, just because it's such a fun deck. Your list is not that bad, but you can consider a few changes.

a) Dropping black (the tutors). You did this already I think. You will be able to construct a better mana base because of this. Also, if you do run black, you might want to try Unearth.

b) The creatures: you have a lot of creatures that only function with survival and/or shapeshifter in play. I'd cut the following creatures, and replace them.
1 Flowstone Hellion: certainly if you drop the dreadnoughts. Use Akroma in this slot if you do.
1 Palinchron
1 Hypnox
1 Arcanis, the Omnipotent
1 Morphling

I'd replace these with the following (in parentheses if not that important):
1 Squee. Ok, doesn't work without the survival, but it helps card-advantage wise)
1 Eternal Witness. Can be used without any component, helps out great in almost every way. You really need to try this.
1 Cephalid Inkshrouder. Obvious with the phage kill. And it's blue meaning it turns every creature into Force of Will fodder if you have survival out.
(1 Gilded Drake: nice in an oath/colossus heavy meta if you can't kill fast enough.)
(1 Psychatog: a bit overkill, but something worth a try at least. Run it if you can. I do.)
(1 Viridian Zealot: nice utility)

That leaves at least one slot. You can also drop a wall and the 2 Quirion Rangers. That's 6 (4 + 2 black tutors) extra slots which I'd use to correct the mana base and add a little more draw.

Marco has a lot of valid points. It's worth to check his post again and try each point he made.