The Mountains Win Again

[TopSecret]

     Luckily, Future Sight also provided a few good creatures that may help to stop the brokenness.
Xilad Jailer is very good against the suicidal Ichorid builds when it resolves.
Aven Mindcensor can stop most of the broken shinanigans outside of Ichorid.
  This even includes the new Flash-combo deck, because Mincensor hits both Rector and Hulk's search ability.

Unfortunately, the main problem still exists: surviving the first few turns to cast such creatures,
and still not having them disrupted.

   Also, is it possible that Mindcensor could allow Mountains to have an LD element again?
Unfortunately, he lets the opponent get a land from the top 4 cards, so fetches aren't really useless.
Perhaps a color-screw build with both Magus of the Moon and Aven Mindcensor?
This would shut of fetchland mana fixing and hit non-basics,
provided the control (combo?) decks manabases remain the same.
This would also make a big lump on the three mana slot, too.
  Thoughts?

[rkmancer]

If you would to put some Magus of the Moon in this deck. .you have to cut at least one color here (my thought is black). .
The reason why i cut black :
- graveyard hater can be tormod's crypt than Jailer
- Discard spell is no more needed as long as Moon is in the play. .opponent will do nothing till it killed or bounce
- White is better . .with StP and it's creatures (black only have confidant)

There's if Moon in your deck. .but without it. .i think Mindcensor is good to be added no matter its cost (only 3). .
It can be tricked by ancient tomb and / or Simian Spirit Guide. .has anybody try it??

[Sextiger]

Magus can't reallly fit into this deck, all 3 colors are needed.  You definitely can not cut black because the deck relies on Dark Confidant, it's hard for this deck to win without him.

[Myriad Games]

Several iterations of post-Future Sight TMWA have been in development. This is always an exciting time for the deck since it takes the metagame into account. A lot of the fun of playing is making these adjustments for a rapidly shifting metagame. Be sure to stop by the next Myriad Games Vintage Tournament and you may get a chance to see The Mountains Winning Again in the Myriad Gear Challenge.

[Myriad Games]

Chad Behre and Zack Galbreath both made Top 8 at Myriad Games this past Saturday, May 26th with very different versions of The Mountains Win Again. Ryan Durney also made Top 8 piloting a deck entitled "The Swamps Win Again".

Check out the complete report with decklists here.

Congratulations to our TMWA Champions!

[Sextiger]

Grats on Mountains doing well again.  I'm glad the Mishra's Factories have been removed from the deck.  One of the problems with the deck was always threat density and the mana Base and the factories had a hand in both of those problems. 

[rkmancer]

5th Chad Behre with The Mountains Win Again aka "Mountainless Mountains Win Again"

4x Aven Mindcensor
4x Glowrider   
4x Magus of the Moon   
4x Sphere of Resistance   
4x Chalice of the Void   
4x Ghostly Prison   
3x Tormod's Crypt   
2x Gathan Raiders   
2x Exalted Angel   
1x Trinisphere   
5x Plains   
4x Ancient Tomb   
4x Simian Spirit Guide   
3x Plateau   
2x Windswept Heath   
2x Flooded Strand   
1x Mox Ruby   
1x Mox Pearl   
1x Mox Jet   
1x Mox Emerald   
1x Mox Sapphire   
1x Black Lotus   
1x Mana Crypt   
1x Sol Ring

Sideboard
4x Leyline of the Void
4x Umezawa's Jitte   
3x Whipcorder   
2x Exalted Angel   
2x Blood Moon   
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have so much interest with this deck, which have some parts just like I'm thinking about a new
TMWA. . 2 colors and uses both Mindcensor, Moon, Ancient Tomb, and SSG. .thanks a lot to show
me to final shape of that deck. .but I can't understand some mechanism of this deck yet, please some
body help me to understand this deck. 

1st. .is Morph ability count as non-creature spell which its cc 'll reduce by Glowraiders ability??
2nd. .how relation between morph ability and sphere of resistance??

I tried to read my rule book but I can't find any clue about it. .

Btw, congratulation for all "Something" Win Again Deck to have a nice result, and yes. .mindcensor owned this
tournaments. 

Moderator. .how my English, is  it better??

[Myriad Games]

As I understand it, morph creatures are not affected by Glowrider, but are affected by Sphere of Resistance.

Of course, I could be kiboshed again 

[Polynomial P]

Does Chad Behre Post on this site? Congrats to him on a strong finish.

I do like alot of his deck, even if he did drop black completely. I am really curious how the sphere of resistance and glowriders worked out for him in the same deck. I tried the two together a few months ago and hated it. Glowrider is clearly underplayed in vintage since it really doesnt affect his deck while causing major problems for any storm combo. It is especially nice since it has legs and it cant even be hit by mass bounce. My concern is that glowrider and sphere together are too difficult to use. Sphere makes glowriders (and mindcensor) cost 4, which is at the far end of what aggro-control decks are capable of playing, especially with no draw in the deck at all. I suppose Ancient tombs and SSGs help get to the 4 mana milestone, but against the faster decks in the format, I would think that would cause you to slow down too much.

My second concern is that chalice of the void is in a deck with 4 morph creatures main and another 5 sideboard (and 3 tormod's crypts to boot!). The morph creatures are all objectively good creatures and I like them better than jotun grunt. However, what keeps me from playing them in my RBW man-prison is that I am so likely to drop a chalice at 0 that i'd be afraid of never being able to cast them. Is chad playing chalice at 1 or higher more often than not? Is chalice at 0 only played when on the play with chalice in the opening grip?

Chad if you read this please PM me. Thanks.

[rkmancer]

Yup we need that deck creator for his explanation. .
If he add that much spells with 3cc, what did he do when
his ancient tomb become wasteland ed (it a common thing right??)

I played stax a long time ago and find that sphere (or glowrider
in this deck) 'll hurt yourself when workshop is gone. .

As I understand it, morph creatures are not affected by Glowrider, but are affected by Sphere of Resistance.

which is affected?? its morph cc (3) or its cost to face up??

[MrJolly]

which is affected?? its morph cc (3) or its cost to face up??

Its casting cost.

[Myriad Games]

Yup we need that deck creator for his explanation.

That would be me.    This is one of my latest builds of TMWA (designed in conjunction with Chad and all the rest of Team Ball & Chain), so I can field any questions about the build. We're fortunate to have fine players like Chad on the team who are willing to skillfully play new types of decks. Chad posts here occasionally.

Chalice is most often set at 1 though it can be set at 0 under the right circumstances and even 2 in certain matchups. It's not unheard of to hardcast the morph creatures when needed. While the Spheres and Glowriders do slow us down, they usually slow down the opposing deck even more since we're running more mana sources than most decks and over half our spells are creatures and are therefore unaffected by Glowrider.

[Furious George]

This is Chad, of Team Ball and Chain.  We were bouncing around the idea of a black/white deck with lots of discard and the ability to run mindcensors.  It was pretty strong.  But the Dan thru this deck together based on the suggestions of some teamates and we have been working on it since then.

To answer some questions:
Chalice is played on 1 -- you'll notice that this deck doesn't run 1-casting cost things, and getting a chalice on one stops some of the most common and powerful cards in the format...brainstorm, tutors, duress, cabal therapy, stps, dark rituals, welders -- and answers like chain of vapor, repeal (targeting a chalice), emerald charms, etc

Chalice on 0 -- slows this deck down dramatically, but doesn't shut it off -- it's quite realistic to hardcast grunts and angels later in the game.  I'd only consider playing it on zero against storm decks, or in the mirror.

Chalice on 2 -- once you know you are playing against a fish deck, this is the way to go.  Chalice on 2 has been a problem for fish since the deck was first created -- MMs, DCs, JGs etc...  If I had a second chalice after I have one on 1, I'd put it on 2 against flash locking them out nicely.

Sphere of Resistance
The spheres were a mixed blessing this past weekend.  They definitely hurt most other decks more than this one, but there have been times when I wished that I hadn't dropped an early sphere.  It's questionable whether these should be in the SB to bring them in against any decks with a storm win condition -- when they would help the most.


Tombs do get wasted frequently, as do the Plateaus, but this deck has no problem with fish whatsoever.  Sometimes you may have to wait an extra turn to drop your morph.  All the artifact mana in the deck helps here also.  Decks that run wastelands aren't the same decks that win fast on the first couple turns (these first few turns are where ancient tomb really shines).  Getting locked out be a Stax deck is another issue entirely -- but bloodmoons and glowriders are there to help.

This deck is much more powerful when you go first.  Playing a Bloodmoon, or Magus of the Moon, on turn one is sometimes enough to win by itself -- if they don't have a basic land in hand, on color mox, or lotus.  Similarly broken -- is playing a glowrider on the first turn, or flashing a mindcensor in reposnse to a fetch.  Leaving your opponent without any on color mana is quite brutal.  It's extremely important that you consider your sideboarding, and mulligan strategy based on whether or not you are going first.

Right now, my big concern is -- can this deck and its SB be built in such a way that it can beat Ichorid consistantly?  It seems like no amount of hate is sufficient -- perhaps it's just finding the right mix of hate.

[redmage419]

Nice job Chad.

I had a feeling (as soon as it was confirmed) that the Magus could be a strong contender. I even recall mentioning it in this thread on 4/15.

Now we'll just have to see if 'The Mountains' can handle the recent unrestriction of Gush!

[Nastaboi]

After latest unrestrictions, this deck begins to look more and more appealing. Couple of questions:

1. Ghostly Prison. While obviosly good against Ichorid and to some extent goblin tokens and randomness, does the card really have place in maindeck? It does nothing to stop Tendrils, and GAT only needs to attack with one creature as they have time to build it up.

2. Morph creatures. What's wrong with the good ol' Jotun Grunt? He costs less and has often positively relevant ability to boot.

3. No Strips? You won't always have Magus.

4. The SB seems rather weak and I believe much improvement can be made here.

5. Any change to build the list without moxen? I was thinking of replacing them by Chrome, Diamond and some Cities of Traitors. Do you think it would be workable enough?

[Pizzatog]

Hi, I've been reading these boards for a couple of years now, but I almost never post, outside of the occasional thread in the Card creation forum.

I've been playing TMWA for about 2 weeks now, and I've been loving it.

Two questions:

1) Does Black Vise have a place in this deck, now that its unrestricted? Lately I've been trying to fit 4 of them to see how it works out, and its been much better than expected, because you put a faster clock on your opponent, and the deck already relies on clogging up his hand with useless stuff via chalice, blood moon, sphere of resistance, glowrider.

2) How about Mind Twist in the black versions? I haven't gotten around to try it out, but I would like to see it in action.

[rkmancer]

Hey Hey. .what happen with Mountain in Salem's Tournament??
Since it's not in top8 list. .I can't find anything about the improvement of this deck.

Btw, I've tried this deck (MMWA) in the mini-tournament last week n find that this deck
have a big trouble against such a huge creature (as a result of tinker, Atog, and double
angels from oath), so why there's no StP??

[Myriad Games]

Ghostly Prison is good against Ichorid, Flash (builds that swing with creatures), Goblins, and assorted other creature builds. There is currently no spot-removal (for one big creature), but that can be alleviated through choosing particular creatures to deal with large threats. STP is not current included because the build runs Chalice at 1 and that shuts off STP. Same applies to Black Vise. I think Vise could be good in certain builds of this type of deck, but not this particular one. It would need even more prison elements and fewer creatures. Mind Twist's viability is really determined by the proliferation of Misdirections. Hymn to Tourach and Mind Twist seem excellent until they get directed back at you. Grunt is certainly an option for a creature that works well, but you generally need a threat for the long-term and with the presence of dedicated graveyard removal, Grunt loses some of his potency. Leyline on one side of the table removes about half his duration. Strips and Wastelands could be added in different builds, there were just none in this build for mana consistency both before and after Moon. I think you could run this list without Moxen, but you'd like a lot of the explosiveness. On the other hand, you'd be less vulnerable to Null Rod and Chalice at 0. TMWA: MMWA made 15th out of 39 players on Saturday at Myriad Games.

Thanks to everyone for the feedback. Keep it coming!

[wethepeople]

Is there any particular reason that MMWA uses Magus of the Moon, over Blood Moon? I'd imagine that Magus is strictly worse because it allows the opponent to break out of the "Mountains only" lock, via Massacre, or Pyroclasm. Whereas with Blood Moon, they must locate a basic Island, so they can cast Chain of Vapor. (assuming they even run it)

I have been working a lot with Ancient Tomb-based decks lately, and have been successful with a list awfully similar to yours.

EDIT: What's your general plan versus GAT?

[Myriad Games]

Magus is run over Blood Moon because it's better against Ichorid. It's not hit my the enchantment removal that hits Leyline and Ghostly Prison. The idea is to have multiple redundancies. Also, Massacre is much more difficult to cast given that most decks running it rely on Underground Seas to provide the Swamp for it. Naturally plans will need to change as GAT re-asserts its metagame dominance. Perhaps we'll make a Gushing Mountains! 

[Nastaboi]

I thought 9 spheres would work very well versus GAT. The problem is that they only have to resolve one creature as they can easily afford to pay 2 colorless to make it attack.

[wethepeople]

Magus is run over Blood Moon because it's better against Ichorid. It's not hit my the enchantment removal that hits Leyline and Ghostly Prison. The idea is to have multiple redundancies. Also, Massacre is much more difficult to cast given that most decks running it rely on Underground Seas to provide the Swamp for it. Naturally plans will need to change as GAT re-asserts its metagame dominance. Perhaps we'll make a Gushing Mountains! 

It is true that Ichorid generally boards more Enchantment removal (Reverent Silence and Emerald Charm), but with the newer lists using Dryad Arbors main, they are able to squeeze four Contagions in the sideboard, which can get rid of Magus without even needing to tap a single land. This doesn't necessarily make Magus bad, but I believe that a combination of both should be played. (Possibly go up to 6-7 Moon-effects MD)

Why run two Raiders, and two Angels? To avoid consistancy issues, I think that it would be best to just run either/or as a 4'of. I like seeing both in a game, but I usually find myself prefering to have Gathan Raiders, due to it's ability to flip without having to pay so much mana.

Believe it or not, in my last few matches versus Full-Gush-GAT, I've won game one, lost game two, and won game three, every time. (4 matches all together.) Glowriders, Spheres, Chalices, and Moon to top it off make it difficult for them to really get their Dryads to "grow", yet the matchup still appears to have potential to go either way. Whipcorder looks to me like a strange way of dealing with 'Togs/Dryads, but I am yet to actually even activate one versus the deck. How has that worked for you?

[Myriad Games]

Agreed that Ghostly Prison and Windborn Muse are not very effective against GAT.

Raiders / Angels / Whipcorders all work well in different environments and builds. Note that Chalice does not stop Dryad from growing since the spell is still played. The impediments work well to slow decks down, but we need to keep the pressure up, which is why running 20+ creatures is essential. Whipcorder has been situationally good. He'll certainly be better in the Gush-filled environment, but may still be too slow. Time and play experience will tell.

Keep the conversation coming. It's an exciting time in development since the metagame is in such a state of flux.

[wethepeople]

Agreed that Ghostly Prison and Windborn Muse are not very effective against GAT.

Raiders / Angels / Whipcorders all work well in different environments and builds. Note that Chalice does not stop Dryad from growing since the spell is still played. The impediments work well to slow decks down, but we need to keep the pressure up, which is why running 20+ creatures is essential. Whipcorder has been situationally good. He'll certainly be better in the Gush-filled environment, but may still be too slow. Time and play experience will tell.

Keep the conversation coming. It's an exciting time in development since the metagame is in such a state of flux.

Aside from Whipcorder, have other cards in which serving similar purposes been tested? A card that instantly comes to mind is Pacifism, which makes Dryad completetly useless until bounce is retrieved. This isn't necessarily the only card that could serve the given purpose, but a  {2}CC spell seems best to fight GAT, in addition to standard Fish.

I believe that Stax will be a deck that can return to power with the rise of Combo. I noticed that you sideboard nothing for Stax, is there any reason why you choose not to do so?

[President Skroob]

A really janky solution that I came up with instead of Whipcorder would be Intrepid Hero. He's a weak body for 2W (just 1/1), which is why he's janky, but he taps to destroy a creature with power four or greater. That takes out angels, Juggernauts, and Quirion Dryads assuming that they're still playing the game after casting the Dryad. He does it repeatedly, too.

The way that you're fielding the deck at this point, you might find his 2W casting cost to be much less of a drawback.

[Myriad Games]

Whipcorders are preferred over something like Pacifism (which has been played in TMWA in the past) since it deals with threats (including DSC, which Intrepid Hero does not) and also beats. This multi-use nature is key to the choice to include something in TMWA. It needs to be relevant against as many decks as possible.

Leylines are very effective against many of the locks of standard Welder-based Stax builds. We're also running a ton of mana sources, so mana denial strategies aside from hard locks don't tend to impede the game plan much. There aren't that many dedicated cards in the deck against Stax, just a ton of permanents and far more creatures than they run. Also, Magus of the Moon is awesome against Workshop decks since it slows them down and turns many of their useful lands (Wasteland, Barbarian Ring, Workshop, etc) into just plain Mountains.

[wethepeople]

After a great amount of testing with "MMWA", I have noticed that Ghostly Prison has been dead more often than not. The only decks that it even affects are Ichorid and Fish, but elsewhere it has done nothing but been discarded for Gathan Raiders. This, in addition to it's ability to flip easier has inclined me to just cut Exalted Angels entirely. Rarely has the +4 life been relevent when using EA, so I begin to wonder what's the point of even running it. Having WW is not always to my access, whereas simply discarding a dead card from hand has. Have you considered running four Raiders, and zero Angels?

Another thing that came to my mind when reviewing Polynomial P's RBW "Man-Prison" deck was Bazaar of Baghdad. In addition to previous TMWA, I tested Man-Prison a great deal, and always loved drawing Bazaar to help me filter through redundant, or irrelevent cards. Due to the fact that MMWA has no form of card draw (aside from the provided draw step), Bazaar may be a strong inclusion to the newer lists.

[nataz]

I've been trying to get chad and dan to run bazaar forever. For me it makes a lot of sense in a deck like this which can suffer from wrong answer at the wrong time.

[Polynomial P]

Bazaar is what makes Man-prison good and I would never even consider cutting it. However, now that you are playing magus of the Moon, I am not sure that 4-bazaar would be that good. 3 might be the right number, at least to help you find Magus and get rid of the excess mana sources you have (since you are running like 28). I also do not like that you dropped black completely. Clearly, Magus requires that Black goes, which makes me question if magus belongs.

[Nastaboi]

Windborn Muse might be better than Ghostly Prison, because it's not that much harder to cast and is less dead in other matchups. That is, if it's propanganda effect we are looking for, which might not be the case.

How about Orb of Dreams? It could be very effective against GAT, but it has to come down really soon to be effective. It also slows Ichorid down a bit though is not a definite answer.