new to vintage[deck]

[capo]

Ok, so i have been playing magic on and off since 4th but I have never really played much vintage, Played a little T2 constructed and a lot of draft, but enough about me:

Ever since Skullclamp was banned in T2 I thought it would be cool to make a vintage deck that exploited it. However it's not nearly as broken in vintage as it was in T2. And i didn't really want to design a whole deck just based around skull clamp, considering how much artifact hate there is in vintage. The idea is hence to make a deck focused on weenies that can easily be clamped to build card advantage, but also have only creatures that provide plenty of disruption or card advantage, rather than just providing beats, to deal with combo and control.

First i chose the beats:

I wanted to go u/w/b so I had access to the best weenies and disruption hence my choices were:

meddelling mage:
Seems like an obvious choice, 2 for a 2/2, becomes a nice 3/1 with a clamp and a great ability thats useful against pretty much all decks, especially combo which aggro would otherwise be weak against.

dark confidant:
not wanting to rely just on clamp for card advantage, this guy gives great CA, clampable, and beats for 2!!

Dimir Cutpurse:
More CA, another cheap beat and disruption all in one fantastic card

Aven Mindcensor
a totally awesome ability, wrecking you're opponents sac lands and tutors

Ninja of the Deep Hours
more quality CA and a cheap beater

I was also thinking, but not sure if they can fit in MD

Icatian Javelineers:
nice ability, but only 1 power.

Kataki, War's Wage:
very nice ability, but bad synergies with my equipment

True Believer:
Great card, but i don't think i can afford the WW

After the creatures, the gear:

Umezawa's Jitte:
What a great card, massive damage, fantastic for killing annoying weenies like welder, and it can even save me life wise if my DC is killing me to fast,

skullclamp:
as much as i hate to say that the deck could be made by one card, it makes the deck.

The disruption

duress
a no brainer, needed against combo and great for picking off mana drains or drawing a FOW

FOW
some fows of my own

Daze
in case i don't draw a fow

chalice of the void
i'm not running any moxen, so why should my opponent! I would have run 3 null rods here but bad synergy with the equipment again

brainstorm:
not so sure about this, i feel like i don't really have the mana and am loosing to much tempo here, but then again i needed more to fill my 1 spot in the mana curve and more FOW food aswell, plus it adds consistency and has good synergy with the sac lands


So, the deck list? what i came up with was:

The weenies: 16

4 meddelling mage
3 dark confidant
3 Dimir Cutpurse
3 Aven Mindcensor
3 Ninja of the Deep Hours

the gear: 6

3 Umezawa's Jitte
3 skullclamp

The spells: 19:

4 duress
4 FOW
3 Daze
3 null rod/chalice of the void
4 Brainstorm

The mana: 20

3 polluted delta
3 flooded strand
4 underground sea
4 tundra
1 island
4 wasteland
1 strip mine

The considerations:

The biggest problem i have with the deck is the lack of null rod, i feel like this could be a serious issue, but perhaps chalice is enough? Anything else that could fill the spot?

What about more flyer's? Do i need more ways to ninja my ninja in? Is flying really need in vintage at the moment?

needs more discard? Is duress enough, are there other good cards i should be considering here?

I chose manaless counters because i don't have much mana and ill be using to all to pour out my weenings and gear, but what about misdirect? Does it fit, or is daze better here?

And what about vials and standstills? If i have already dropped the null rod should i be including vials and some man lands and stand still to take advantage of that? But what on earth could i remove for all that?

Let me know what u think of my deck. ALSO: if this is very similar to someone else's deck i am very sorry, I'm quite new to vintage, though i am aware of this decks similarities to some fish builds. (i just don't know of any with clamp)

Chris.

EDIT: fixed some spelling and changed a few other words. Is that ok now?

Hello, and welcome to The Mana Drain!  We definitely appreciate thorough and comprehensive posts such as these, but we also must insist that posts on the site be free of unreasonable misspellings, improper grammar, and internet-speak.  Please look over the site rules, and correct the problematic aspects of your post as soon as possible to prevent it from being deleted.  We look forward to your future contributions.  -DA

[technogeek5000]

So your playing clamp fish... not to crazy... and the deck seems decent. I probably wouldnt play midcensor here because your list wants to be playing as many threats as fast as possible so holding him back would seem bad.

Good luck with the deck.

edit: You might want to try vial as nearly all of your creatures help you draw. Vial will help you play them all each turn.

[capo]

So your playing clamp fish... not to crazy... and the deck seems decent. I probably wouldnt play midcensor here because your list wants to be playing as many threats as fast as possible so holding him back would seem bad.

Good luck with the deck.

edit: You might want to try vial as nearly all of your creatures help you draw. Vial will help you play them all each turn.

but i think mindcensor is a great threat, he flies! And i can hence ninja in for him if my opponent has to many land blockers. What threat is so much better it makes up for his amazing ability?

as for vial i already established it might be nice, but what can i take out to put it in, the deck is tight already. And my manabase is so slow, can i afford to sacrifice the temp to play a vial even though i know it works nicely in the long run can i wait for it to hit two or three?

[Methuselahn]

Unless I'm mistaken, a deck called The Sullivan Solution (or SS) used Clamps in the sideboard in some of it's earliest builds.  It went on to be a successful deck.  So your idea here isn't too off the wall.  

I'd cut all three Jittes. For anything, really.  They are narrow overkill in vintage.  The first suggestion that comes to my mind is probably Vial.

And don't put Null Rod in your Skullclamp deck.    

And i can hence ninja in for him if my opponent has too many land blockers.

You're going to find out quickly that creatures in Vintage are largely evaluated by what they do and not how they stand up in combat.  Flying is near meaningless compared to it's ability to stop tutors.  By far, that's the reason why people play it.  It just seems that you are expecting a lot more combat as suggested by the above quote and the staggering amount of maindeck Jittes.

[BC]

If Clamp is truly the key card in your deck, you should put in some Trinket Mages.  Then if you put in Trinket Mages, you should definitely have Chalices instead of Null Rods, as well as 1 of each: Tormod's Crypt, Engineered Explosives, Pithing Needle.

[madmanmike25]

I am going to assume you are either on a budget or not allowed to play proxies.  Otherwise I would suggest Ancestral Recall and Time Walk

Anywho, Jitte is not as bad as people seem to think.  Adding life hurts Tendrils decks and its other abilities wreck Fish.  ***Maybe someone can help me here, would giving Kiki-Jiki -2/-2 in response to his ability in a Hulk-Flash deck be able to stop that?  I have not played against it AT ALL, just curious***

The problem here is that you run no acceleration making Jitte too clunky.

Also since you have no 1 cc critters, how effective is Ninja?  Try testing Ophidian maybe since at least it comes down faster if you have to hardcast it.  Decent blocker vs Fish as well.

Trinket Mage is a nice suggestion, but I'm not sure this deck can utilize it to the fullest since it has no Moxen/Lotus.

If Brainstorm doesn't work out for you, try swapping in Standstill.

Good Luck.

[A.-1.]

If you want to keep Ninja another suggestion is to run Sage of Epityr, which interacts nicely with Confidant and Ninja.

Another card to consider is Jotun Grunt, possibly over Cutpurse or maybe even Mindcensor. Grunt can buy some time vs Ichorid and he's a house to boot.

@madmanmike25
Some builds of Hulk Flash run Sylvan Safekeeper and all run maindeck bounce. A good Flash player wouldn't walk right into a Jitte with 2 counters on it. I think a better target though would be Carrion Feeder if the first two creatures they find from Protean Hulk are Carrion Feeder and Karmic Guide.

[capo]

Ok so after reading all you're (thank you by the way) replies i have many things to consider:

Sage of Epityr: thats a realy nice ability and the synergie is great too, but if i am putting in more 1 drops, is this guy better than just having a ismaru?

Jotun grunt does seem nice, but i'm not sure how affective he would actually be? I mean as a two drop.. can i even play him as a two drop? I wont have many cards in my graveyard on my second turn, in which case he is a late game only two drop, which is kinda pointless isn't it? If i cant play him till late game i may aswell just pay some more mana for something thats gonna last more than two turns anyway.

And as for the other suggestions well, firstly i have been thinking about the equipment in the deck. How effective is skullclamp with the cretures ihave chosen?

Skull clamp can be used to clamp a 1 toughness creature after he attacks during the second main phase, which is nice. It can also be used to pump a two toughness creature and discourage my opponent from blocking him. But neither of these situations are really optimal. In the first i am throwing away a beater which i payed good mana for, in an aggro deck. I gain CA, but i'm loosing tempo. And with the two toughness situation i'm just making my thief and ninja more vulnerable, they already have good abilities and i'd rather keep them in play.

So is skullclamp just not that good then?

My solution is leonin shikari. The shikari means that instead of just killing my 1 toughness creatures, i kill them in reponse to already being dead, and get to draw. And i can move the clamp onto to whichever creature is dying in combat. I can also do broken things with jitte, moving it noto the unblocked creature, and best of all, lightening greaves, whiches becomes 'all my creatures cant be the target of spells or abilities'

This makes my creature base brokenly good against other aggro decks and super resilient against control because i can always clamp the one that dies, or just make it un-targetable.

it also means i'm running 3 different artifacts equipments, which is a lot. So if i'm already not running null rod i might aswell play 5 proxy and include 3 mox, a time walk and a recall. All these artifacts also make trinket mage a nice option. And if i already have 6-9 other artifacts and trinket mages should i include vial? Personally i think my mana curve isn't clumped enough for it, and my deck is already two clunky, with two many artifacts.

To deal with the influx of cards ill need to relegate mindcensor and chalice to the SB.

The weenies: 16

4 meddelling mage
3 dark confidant
3 Dimir Cutpurse
3 Trinket Mage
3 Leonin Shikari

the gear: 6

2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 skullclamp
2 lightening greaves

The spells: 16:

4 duress
4 FOW
2 Daze
4 Brainstorm
1 time walk (proxy)
1 ancestral recall (proxy)

The mana: 22

1 mox jet (proxy)
1 mox sapphire (proxy)
1 mox pearl (proxy)
3 polluted delta
2 flooded strand
4 underground sea
4 tundra
1 island
4 wasteland
1 strip mine

SB:
3 Aven Mindcensor

However this iteration has serious problems. I have no one drops and not nearly enough mana accelerators for that to be ok. And it's begging for a vial this time with 10 two drops, but i already have 9 artifacts... And i feel terrible including 6 creature's which don't net me card advantage or disrupt my opponent, mindcensor seems to good to be SB'ed. But shikari is so brokenly good! Perhaps shikari should be in the SB for a match up with a lot of removal (like a u/r fish with lavamancers and fire/ice)? And the trinket mage i feel equally guilty about, it's a nice ability and the only reason i only run 2 of each equipment but is it as good as mindcensor? I removed the ninjas because i have no one drops, but do i have enough draw two only run two clamps now that i have no ninja's?

Thanks for you're help so far, hope to hear back soon, i have lots of ideas but just cant make any decisions

[Meeee]

The biggest problem with clamp in the deck your suggesting is that you don't want to kill your creatures, since most of them are either card advantage (confidant, ninja) by themselves or lock pieces (meddling mage, mindcensor) so in reality you are using clamp as +1 power boost to some of your creatures or pre-emptive defense against removal.  Yes you are going to face things like massacre, and pyroclasm postboard the decks that are running these are often going to need only a single turn to kill you after resolving these especially in the case of massacre.  In place of clamp you could be running null rod with is very strong and fish (obviously not very good with clamp) and better finishers like Jotun Grunt.  As far as your new list of the deck, it has removed a lot of fishes stronger elements like chalice (which is great with trinket mage) and replaced them with mediocre cards like Shikari which do nothing on there own and don't even have very impressive stats. 

Basically you seem to be fighting the wrong battles with this deck as the format currently seems to be evolving towards fast combo like Long and Flash, and powerful aggro/aggro control strategies like Ichorid (practically combo) and GAT.  While I wouldn’t recommend clamp in this particular deck that’s not to say there isn't a good deck out there to abuse it, but if you choose to go the fish route I recommend a more traditional build of UWB fish or one with salvagers combo added.

[netherspirit]

Null Rod, Chalice@1 and Pithing Needle all really hurt you, so how about some bounce in the sideboard? Hurkyl's Recall works great with your own Chalice@0 to kill moxen, but Echoing Truth could also work to stop Empty the Warrens and nonartifact threats.

I personally would cut the Jitte's and Lightning Greaves and replace them with three Aether Vials and an Enlightened Tutor.

Yawgmoth's Will may be worth considering if you add more 1 drops.

Good luck!

[wierdmtg13]

if your going to run ninja you should be running some one drops.  you should also cut the lightning greaves and the shikari.  replace them with disruptive or control cards (e.g. stifle or trickbind)