[Premium Article] The Mean Deck Solution to the Vintage Metagame

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/14339.html

This article goes live Tuesday, June 19th at midnight.

Here is the teaser and the decklist:

So Many Insane Plays – The Mean Deck Solution to the Vintage Metagame

On February 23, Patrick Chapin threw down the gauntlet:   

“Seriously, if you want to maximize your chances of winning in t1 magical cards, I highly recommend spending your efforts perfecting the hybridization of gifts and long, which is much like perfecting the ruy lopez…

Play proficiently with said deck and you will be the winner.

I don't mean to be cynical, but I really feel like we, as a team, would really fare alot better if we would all unite our efforts into perfecting Mean.dec.   There is always time to play around with fun ideas like blue stax and green goblins, but lets get all our heads together and figure out how to make a deck that utilizes all the best cards which are:
1.Mostly blue.
2.Uses as many of the Over-Powered 9 as possible (brainstorm, merchant scroll, mana drain, gifts ungiven, force of will, dark ritual, grim tutor, mishras workshop, and bazaar of baghdad).  I think we can build a deck that uses most if not all of the first 7.
3.Uses cards that win the gifts and long match ups, like duress main and pyros/graveyard hate side.
4.combos out game 1, but becomes more controlling games 2 and 3.
5.wins with tendrils or ETW”

I took Chapin's challenge seriously.   Assuming he's right, how do I accomplish most, if not all of these objectives?   To a certain extent his goals are obvious in the ideal, but difficult to implement. It wasn’t that I hadn’t thought of fusing Gifts and Long before, or contemplated how to make Merchant Scroll synergize with Long’s aggressive components, but I had never figured out how to make it “click.”   Merchant Scroll never worked well in a Long shell, despite several attempts.   How do you fuse the two decks without diluting Long or without making the deck too top-heavy or overly “linear”?  How do you put Grim Tutor and Gifts Ungiven in the same deck when they compete for the same mana?  How do you stuff all those cards together while running a smooth, coherent game plan that isn’t totally reliant on Yawg Will and therefore hosed by cards like Tormod’s Crypt?   

These were the design challenges that were met and answered.   I’m proud to present:

 
The Mean Deck

Stephen Menendian

2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Swamp
2 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Tolarian Academy

1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
4 Dark Ritual

4 Duress
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
4 Brainstorm
4 Merchant Scroll
1 Ancestral Recall

1 Fact or Fiction
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Rebuild
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Tinker (Or Burning Wish)
1 Darksteel Colossus (or 1 Mind's Desire)

This deck is an attempt to perfect the hybridization of Gifts and Long and asserts to be the final evolution point of the two decks. This is the Mean Deck.   

In my article “Offshoots and Ladders” on February 12, http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/13687.html  I documented the evolution and development of the Gifts and Long archetypes.   I pointed out that people were finally connecting the two archetypes strategically.   We saw attempts to bridge the divide between Gifts and Long.  The card pools were converging.   

However, there were two problems.  First of all, the decks at the center weren’t really true hybrids.   They were either wedded to Gifts Ungiven or Grim Tutor and fell clearly to one side or the other of the spectrum.   The decks that lie truly in the middle, on the other hand, were awkward fusions that appeared more an amalgam of good cards rather than something that resembled an actual coherent Vintage deck.   They were Frankenstein Monsters rather than decks that made sense in their own terms.   What the Gifts/Long hybrid needed was a strong, synergistic and coherent plan.

My epiphany came when I realized that we were too wedded to both Gifts and Grim Tutor.   Trying to fit Grim Tutor and Gifts into these decks was holding us back.   The most powerful engine wasn’t Grim Tutor or Gifts, it was Merchant Scroll.   It was Merchant Scroll that made Meandeck Gifts unique and enabled a full complement of Gifts.   Merchant Scroll is the most powerful unrestricted tutor in Vintage.   It’s cheap, it’s powerful, and it’s flexible.   

The Meandeck Gifts plan was intended to resemble this basic structure, as I explained when introducing that deck (http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=23618.0):
 
The game plan of the deck is this:
 
Step One: Scroll up Ancestral and Resolve it
Step two: Play Gifts and Resolve it
Step Three: Combo. 

What we've discovered is that step two can be bypassed or replaced.   In a sense, I'm cutting the Gifts Ungiven -- and all its logistical problems -- for Necro and Bargain and

and for the rest, you'll just have to wait until Weds to read the article

It's unfortunate that we couldn't debut this deck four months earlier, but there were no major events to play it in.    And with Gush becoming unrestricted, it is no longer the best deck in the format.   

This deck has been a team effort.    Pat Chapin, Paul Mastriano, and Brian Demars have all helped co-develop this deck.

I hope you like it. 

[jakjakman]

Kick-A!!  This is what I've been waiting to see!   And it looks like the deck is walking the walk with both Paul and Brian making top 8.  I'm interested in your comment about the deck no longer being the best deck because of Gush (I assume GAT?).  Will your article go over the viability of this deck post June 20th?

[mulder]

Everybody claims that Gifts >>> Fof. So why do you still play Fof and no Gifts?

[Methuselahn]

ugg.  Well, at least we're not using Mike Long's name to describe a deck, but "Mean Deck" is hardly discriptive enough for me to use.

After all the talk of Street Wraith in your "Pouring Rain GAT" article thread on SCG,  I'm VERY curious as to the reasoning why you haven't included it.

The deck itself looks interesing, chock full of bombs and then Merchant Scroll to find bounce to build storm.  At least, that's what it looks like to me, which is how I tried building this when I heard you guys were playing "Scroll Long" as we called it, in Meandeck land.

Mean Deck broke the format again.

 

Uh, lets not go overboard here.  I'm not seeing the tournament results that proves this.  


In my opinion, you should have waited on this thread until Wednesday so you don't have to say "wait for the article on Wed."  Which I imagine will happen.

[dicemanx]

61 cards - is that an error?

It's good that there weren't many big events this year thus far, because the universe would have imploded on account of two decks (Mean Deck and ICBM's Twilight Gifts) occupying the "best deck" slot .

I'm looking forward to reading the rationale for such an assessment this Wednesday. I also look forward to seeing Chapin in action in T1! (He's not playing in the event right?)

[Vegeta2711]

So it's Ritual Gifts, minus Gifts... um, congrats on figuring it out?

P.S. before anyone goes out of their way to 'correct me' on this point, note that the list is 1 scroll, 1 FOF, 1 TT and 2 Mis-D instead of Gifts / recoup off LSV/Webster's Ritual Gifts list.

[Imsomniac101]

Forgive me if I'm wrong Smennen, but isn't that 4 Scroll TPS?

[Smmenen]

ugg.  Well, at least we're not using Mike Long's name to describe a deck, but "Mean Deck" is hardly discriptive enough for me to use.

True, but Merchant Scroll is sort of "my card."    It was the primary innovation in Mean Deck Gifts.    In essence, this deck is Mean Deck Gifts in aggro mode without Gifts.   It's built around the card I've been aggressively promoting for the last two years, and at times have been laughed at and other times lauded.   

Ritual Gifts was an outgrowth of Mean Deck Gifts and this is an outgrowth of both decks.   It is also an attempt to perfect the hybridization efforts of Gifts and Long.

However, and unfortunately, that whole metagame is no longer around post Future Sight. 

Re: "TPS": TPS decks existed in the pre-Trinishpere era and then grew to fame during Trinisphere era.    TPS wasn't an Ancestral centered deck and typically ran Time Spiral and Windfall.    Modern TPS lists often ran Gifts.   TPS is a deck that played practically no early game and just ran bombs.    Long is a Yawgmoth's Will centered deck that runs Grim Tutors or 4 Burning/ Death Wishes.    This is a very different deck strategically.    That's why neither TPS nor Long is really appropriate. 

@ Diceman: The deck only has 14 land.  I fixed the decklist.   

I noted with irony with team ICBM published their twilight Gifts list because at one point the MD here had the same disruption suite.    Paul and Brian aren't running Misdirection I believe.   For a while I was also running 1 Mana Drain, then 2, then 1 again, as you'll read about Weds. 

@ Veggies:
"So it's Ritual Gifts, minus Gifts... um, congrats on figuring it out?"

The same could be said of Scott Limoges with regard to MDG.  I mean, Ritual Gifts is just MDG with a couple more Rituals, necro, and bargain.  Congrats on figuring that out?  It's like 56 cards the same as the MDG list I posted in June of 2005.   The truth is that the simplist changes are sometimes the most profound.   I mean, perfecting the Long/Gifts hybridization has been the goal of pre-Future Sight type one, but until Feb, no one realy challenged the place of Gifts in the Ritual Gifts shell.   If you want to think of this as Ritual Gifts without Gifts, that's certainly valid.   In my article Offshoots and Ladders I talk about how I simultaneously developed Ritual Gifts but dismissed it as overly vulnerable to certain tactics.   This is an attempt to really make the aggro mode of MDG work in the pre-FS environment. 

[Methuselahn]

True, but Merchant Scroll is sort of "my card."    It was the primary innovation in Mean Deck Gifts.    In essence, this deck is Mean Deck Gifts in aggro mode without Gifts.   It's built around the card I've been aggressively promoting for the last two years, and at times have been laughed at and other times lauded.   

Fair enough, I suppose.

I just want to state for the record that it tickles me to see the hybridization of two Will decks ending up in producing a deck that is not focused on Will.

[Smmenen]

True, but Merchant Scroll is sort of "my card."    It was the primary innovation in Mean Deck Gifts.    In essence, this deck is Mean Deck Gifts in aggro mode without Gifts.   It's built around the card I've been aggressively promoting for the last two years, and at times have been laughed at and other times lauded.   

Fair enough, I suppose.

I just want to state for the record that it tickles me to see the hybridization of two Will decks ending up in producing a deck that is not focused on Will.

Well, it may not be fair to say that isn't focused on Will - it clearly is.  But the difference between Gifts and Long and this deck is that it isn't reliant on Will (to the extent that Ritual Gifts and Long deck are).    Gifts forces you to really put alot of emphasis on Will (as does Grim Tutor).    By cutting those cards you de-emphasize the importance of Will.   This deck's game plan (the "A" game, so to speak) does not involve Yawg Will.  It is but one of several equally valid paths to victory.

But yes, the irony is noted

[Sextiger]

So it's Ritual Gifts, minus Gifts... um, congrats on figuring it out?

P.S. before anyone goes out of their way to 'correct me' on this point, note that the list is 1 scroll, 1 FOF, 1 TT and 2 Mis-D instead of Gifts / recoup off LSV/Webster's Ritual Gifts list.

Ha, you beat me to it. I was gonna say it is 3 year old TPS but with Merchant Scrolls

[Anusien]

I believe Paul Mastriano has Tinker, Colossus, Desire and Cabal Rituals main.

[Zherbus]

It's a little frustrating to hear the armchair quarterbacks come out of the woodwork to oversimplify a deck that's really gone through so much time and effort. Firstly, Tendrils combo-shells are pretty much set in the same core of like 80% of the cards, so even a 5 card difference is alot. That aside, there's a lot of history and nuances that need to be seen to fully appreciate where the deck landed.

Personally, there was nothing earth shattering about the build or some new techy stuff that's been sitting in the Mean Deck basement. For those who wanted to see some wacky card from a long forgotten set "break" the Tendrils archetype, I'm sorry that the list disappoints. For those who can appreciate some of the nuances for what they are: minor changes that have big effects on how the games are played, then I'm glad the list was worth it.

I think the hype he built was certainly lopsided, but please give his article a solid read when it comes out to better appreciate everything that went into it. Josh, you know I love you, but there's really more to this than a one-sentance simplified summary and I hope you can see that.

[Vegeta2711]

I think the hype he built was certainly lopsided, but please give his article a solid read when it comes out to better appreciate everything that went into it. Josh, you know I love you, but there's really more to this than a one-sentance simplified summary and I hope you can see that.

I'll certainly read the article and give the listing a try, since I have had a lot of fun tweaking the Long / hybrid archetypes in general. It's just my natural reaction to Steve when he comes off sounding like something has replaced the wheel when really it's just been given a set of shinier rims.

On a serious note, and if you just tell me 'wait for the article' I'll understand, I was curious about the inclusion of Misdirection. Do you guys really feel the 9th and 10th disruption slots are that valuable even though they're simply so much worse than Duress and Force of Will? Have you considered simply including the Mind's Desire and say a maindeck Pyroblast or something similar to that? I know Mis-D has been added to a lot of decks recently, but it seems like it wouldn't be so hot in the current metagame (even before Gush).

[The Atog Lord]

Steve,

Perhaps you're wondering why, instead of typing panegyrics about your amazing deckbuilding skills, the responses to your list have so far been lukewarm at best. This is in no small part due to the fact that your "new" list is composed entirely of cards from previous, recent Tendrils decks without anything new added. However, that isn't the main source of the negative responses.

Had you just waited until the dust settled and then discussed your new list, everyone would have been eager to hear about this configuration of cards. New or not, this isn't something we've seen you and your team play before, and it would have been interesting to hear your take on this sort of deck.

However, that's not what happened at all. Instead, you've told us "it is the best deck, period." You've alluded to your "mean deck" in ominous posts. You've even told us that Meandeck is the "best Vintage team." In other words, you built up expectations beyond what you delivered. Your new deck seems fine and all -- but you got everyone salivating for a deck that wins on turn one with triple counter backup and breaks an eight dollar card from Mirage in half.

You gave us Star Wars Episode I -- not bad on its own, but crushed under the weight of its own hype.

[Zherbus]

Do you guys really feel the 9th and 10th disruption slots are that valuable even though they're simply so much worse than Duress and Force of Will? Have you considered simply including the Mind's Desire and say a maindeck Pyroblast or something similar to that? I know Mis-D has been added to a lot of decks recently, but it seems like it wouldn't be so hot in the current metagame (even before Gush).

I agree with what you wrote. I was never a huge fan of MisD, but I'm not one of the core-guys (Smmenen, Demars, Mastriano, and Chapin). I was kind of on the outskirts of this while working on my deck, since I couldn't play this myself. But yeah, my build used less MisD and more maindeck Red Blasts.

[Smmenen]

Steve,

Perhaps you're wondering why, instead of typing panegyrics about your amazing deckbuilding skills, the responses to your list have so far been lukewarm at best. This is in no small part due to the fact that your "new" list is composed entirely of cards from previous, recent Tendrils decks without anything new added. However, that isn't the main source of the negative responses.

Had you just waited until the dust settled and then discussed your new list, everyone would have been eager to hear about this configuration of cards. New or not, this isn't something we've seen you and your team play before, and it would have been interesting to hear your take on this sort of deck.

However, that's not what happened at all. Instead, you've told us "it is the best deck, period." You've alluded to your "mean deck" in ominous posts. You've even told us that Meandeck is the "best Vintage team." In other words, you built up expectations beyond what you delivered. Your new deck seems fine and all -- but you got everyone salivating for a deck that wins on turn one with triple counter backup and breaks an eight dollar card from Mirage in half.

You gave us Star Wars Episode I -- not bad on its own, but crushed under the weight of its own hype.

Rich,

None of those thoughts had actually crossed my mind!  It sounds like something in your thinking, and not mine at all!

First of all, I hadn't ever mentioned the "mean deck" publically until today (this morning when I explained in response to your posts that my teammates were playing this shell).   

Far from being ominous or menacing, they were merely explanatory.  It sounds like you imputed a tone to them that was nonexistent.   Please, point to the ominous posts!

Secondly, my post that Mean deck was the "oldest and best vintage team" was posted many hours after I posted this decklist, and half facetiously in the SCG forums in response to a comment from an ICBMer.   I doubt that most people who even replied to this thread even saw that post let alone changed perception of this list.   Your post implies that that comment somehow colored people's view of this decklist.  The problem with that claim is that I posted this long after I made that comment, and that comment was made in a forum and place where it was contextually evident that it was in response to a claim made by a different team in a light-hearted spirit.   

Finally, of course this list isn't made up of new, never previously used cards!  (And nether was Mean Deck Gifts or many of Mean Deck's creations).   It was explained in the first post that this was an attempt to perfect the previously unsuccessful (at least strategicaly - as explained in the first post) hybridization of Gifts/Long.   What's new is the unique way in which this was accomplished - providing a coherent and successful gameplan instead of being a mismash or amalgam of good cards or, alternatively, without being either a Gifts or Long variant.    What's new is the strategic element.    You should know as well as anyone that just because you reconfigure old elements, that doesn't mean there isn't anything new    Synergies count!   A deck is more than the sum of its parts.

I think once you consider this deck with the benefit of time, you'll see that the strategy that underlies this deck -- the plan -- is what separates this deck from previous attempts at similar ideas.    Far from being a shiny new rim, this deck actually acheives something no one has publically shared before, tactically and strategically

Let me ask you this: when I debuted Mean Deck Gifts in 2005, what was your reaction then?   That may give you some insight into how people are reacting now.   The reaction was pretty lukewarm, at best!   People were like: "huh:?

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=23618.0

Sample some of those reactions if you don't believe me.  Look at the responses of Machinus, Whatever Works, Alban, and Webster, among many others.   Their response is generally incredulous to openly critical!

In fact, and to be perfectly honest, the response to the mean deck confirms exactly what I know this deck to be.  My goal wasn't to shock or surprise, but to hopefully make people go: "a ha - that's so obvious I should/could have thought of that."   If the list is commonsensical, then that just underscores its power.    But hindsight is 20/20, and it should reveal at once what was such an obvious gap in previous design.

I'll take the Star Wars Episde I analogy - that movie made a ton of money!   


Re: Misdirection:

I'm the only one on the team running it.    Brian and Paul both run combination of other cards in that slot.  In the article I explain that it is a personal preference, but other cards fit just as well as Zherbus explained. 

[The Atog Lord]

It sounds like you imputed a tone to them that was nonexistent.   Please, point to the ominous posts!

Someone with The Emperor as his avatar is automatically assumed to be posting in an ominous tone at all times I suppose you did change your icon today, though.

The list is certainly interesting enough that I'll test it. Merchant Scroll is quite a powerful card, and your deck does abuse quite a few design mistakes. I'm not currently certain if Merchant Scroll is the best unrestricted blue tutor, as there is one that gets a better card than Ancestral while also giving you a threat on the table for one more mana. Still, putting two players into top eight is a good accomplishment, and it will be fun to see what happens to your new deck when Gush crashes into the format.

[Smmenen]

It sounds like you imputed a tone to them that was nonexistent.   Please, point to the ominous posts!

Someone with The Emperor as his avatar is automatically assumed to be posting in an ominous tone at all times I suppose you did change your icon today, though.

The list is certainly interesting enough that I'll test it. Merchant Scroll is quite a powerful card, and your deck does abuse quite a few design mistakes. I'm not currently certain if Merchant Scroll is the best unrestricted blue tutor, as there is one that gets a better card than Ancestral while also giving you a threat on the table for one more mana. Still, putting two players into top eight is a good accomplishment, and it will be fun to see what happens to your new deck when Gush crashes into the format.

Unfortunately, I've already tested that matchup, and it is not very good.    This deck was designed waaaaaaaaaaay before Future Sight/Flash/Gush became a metagame factor. 

The Mean Deck was also designed for a metagame where Drains were a factor.   

While we as a team are proud enough of this deck to call it the "Mean Deck," a title we can't recycle, we are going to have to go back to the drawing board come June 20th.   As I talk about in my article, the GAT (and other 4 Gush decks) matchup is 50-50, at best.    The GAT deck has just an insane consistency and tenacity that you can't match (perhaps any deck can?).   Hard to tell at this point.   

Unfortunately, the metagame that this deck was intended to "solve" is now dead.   

But, as with all things in life, we move on.     It's just unfortunate that we couldn't debut this deck sooner, since it's been in the mean deck lab for such a long time. 

Back to the drawing board, eh?   

EDIT: On the other hand, if Gush is re-restricted, along with a few other cards people are complaining about....

[jakjakman]

EDIT: On the other hand, if Gush is re-restricted, along with a few other cards people are complaining about....

Like Merchant Scroll?

[Smmenen]

EDIT: On the other hand, if Gush is re-restricted, along with a few other cards people are complaining about....

Like Merchant Scroll?

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo


If Scroll is the engine of the Mean Deck, GAT, and Flash, that's a fairly ubiquitous engine, huh? 

The DCI takes away all my precious....   

[Aardshark]

EDIT: On the other hand, if Gush is re-restricted, along with a few other cards people are complaining about....

Like Merchant Scroll?

more likely flash / essential dredge deck component?

[Xman]

If Scroll is the engine of the Mean Deck, GAT, and Flash, that's a fairly ubiquitous engine, huh? 

The DCI takes away all my precious....   

Scroll is a pretty power component in the engine.  Hell, it is like having a set of Twin Turbos in your deck.  It just might get restricted as it is pretty crazy.

Sorry about your Precious........

But as for Gush, I am on record saying it should never have come off the list despite I love it being 4 of again.  And time will tell if Gush goes back on the list due to decks like GAT & possibly a 4-Gush tendrils build.

but back to the topic.

Steve, I am a fan & respect you about 80, eerrr, 75% of the time, but someitmes your tone does come off as I am the best, as is Meandeck, and there is nothing you can do about it.  But as is, this list is getting an even colder reception to Meandeck Gifts.  Also as you have stated, it is 4 months old (February, correct?).  Hence it needs a face lift before it has even done anything.  this happens sometimes unfortanatly.  You know as well as I do that a deck we create & consider game breaking or whatever is not always recieved with the fanfare we want, nor is it always accepted into the standard testing lists of many people.

The deck looks like an allright list, but again, it is yet another tendrils combo deck in a field that is flooded with combo right now.  I guess the biggest things that people 9possibly not just myself) were hoping was that it would be a different prison or control deck that would swing the pendalumn back away from combo for a change.  Or that it would be completely innovative.  When you tease about decks, people are generally expecting something completely new, which I agree, is damned near impossible for every new deck.

But another question for you is, do you think it may have been over-developed?  I know I have run into this problem in creating meta-decks that we develop something really good, and then keep developing it where it is not as great as it was at one point, but due to the fact it has been developed by people like us, we think it can always be imprved while that is not exactly true.

[MaxxMatt]

hurry oh!
hurry oh!
Steve post his own NEW build that will be here to give us A CHANCE to win.
Thanks.


Click here or anywhere in france.sites or spanish.sites or german.sites.
You will be astonished at reading about similar decks running tourneys and winning top8s since years.

...or here...


What the luck, isn't it? ...Think about those stupid builds called TPS, running cards different from the ones you remember they are using. So sweet and delicious are your words...

What you can read from those european links, aren't BAD-PILES-TPS but extremely well tuned decks that are 3-4 cards off your new toptier build.
No shitty T.Spirals inside at all SINCE YEARS!!!
Read the history evolutions of lists.
Inform yourself and read

For the entire Magic's worlds, you "remember" untrue things and they IMMEDIATELY become THETRUTH!
You have to be careful at talking in public, because people tend to canceal history favouring newer but not correct facts.
"Historical Memory", on the other hand, is way the most important thing and I DON'T WANT IT TO BE MISTYFICATED.
Vegeta, Mathusalem, Insomniac and other yet silent people told you my exact words but you seems not to hear them at all.



Feel free to attack me but I HAVE to be free about saying the truth again.






This is our history about TPS and Smmemen.
You always REFUSED, EX ABRUPTO, to correctly value TPS.builds.
Anyone of them.
At any time different people tried to build up one of them you trashed it with unfair words.
Without any foresighting comment or any wise hint.
You always looked at the label "...TPS...." and send it to trash.
No way to let you think about this deck FOR YEARS!!!

Now, you take out a set  of 3-4!! cards from the deck and PROUDLY NAME IT "THENEWDECKSOLUTIONFORYOUNPREP AREDALL!"
 
Isn't it ironic?

When talking about this argument with you, it seems to me to look at a Salvador Dalì's picture... all the things painted in the picture are real, as I usually remember them. They exist and I recognize them but... but... but... they are a bit distorted, placed in strange places, incoherent contexts and the same things tend to appear new while I know they are almost the same.



IMHO, it would have been more fair and respectful from your own perspective, state:

"I look at 3c-TPS, this time. Cool deck.
I exclude all the needed cards to add a full set of M.Scrolls, because I'm Smmemen. Cool idea.
This deck is mine, now.
This deck is stronger, now.
This deck is too good not to be played, now.
Be respectful when talking about 4ScrollTPS, now"


The subtle way you INTENTIONALLY MISS the first two lines, FORCED ME ( and possibly other people ) to talk/write this way.
In the same arrogant way you are used to refer to "tps-piles" in the past.

Are this deck so strong because of 4M.Scroll instead of 3 or 4 mixed cards?
No. In those slots, you could have found additional tutors or other powerfull fixers of tools.

Would you have found TSpiral, FranticSearch, DeepAnal and other slower cards and anachronistic ones in modern tps builds?
NO. HELL! NO!!!!

Isn't your deck, TPS without 4 cards?
Yes, but it is not important.
The crucial thing is that you don't look at HOW the entire world is referring to such a deck since years.
You continue to refer to the decks you proposed as "meandeck", whatever they are...
You are not respectfull about other works at all.



Be careful on answering me.
I'm not going to do a " deck's name issue with you".
It is a futile argument and a non productive one.

I simply want that you recognize your lack of actual informations about modern TPS.
You have to rephraise all the sentences about TPS and the "hybridation" of that new deck with Gifts/Long...
You have to recognize that, IF Gifts/Long decks are really near to this deck, TPS is ALMOST the same skeleton ALONE.



MassimoMattioli aka MaxxMatt

[Meddling Mike]

Just a random observation:

This deck's only noticeable "innovation" over random TPS decks from the post long restriction (the newest card I see here is DSC) days seems to be the inclusion of 4xMerchant Scroll, which has been around and should be reaching an all time low with Aven Mindcensor starting to show up in Vintage.

Call me an "armchair quarterback" if you will, but I just find it hard to believe that much time/effort/testing went into hammering out this list. If this list came from some random person or if it had whiffed at Roanoke (not that two people t8ing with it at a 60 man vintage tournament and competent players playing it should be definitively proof that this deck is actually good by ANY stretch) I probably would've categorized this list as "Bad TPS" but since this is not the case I'll hold off on making such judgments.

Normally in this situation I'd start testing with it to gain perspective and a more informed opinion, but with the metagame about to make a big shift with the B/R changes and with new decks developing and becoming more popular like Bomberman/Ichorid I just don't see the point and won't be testing it anytime soon.

[o uncola o]

Merchant Scroll has been popular in T1 since at least 1996.  Its popularity has waxed and wained, and you may have discovered it for yourself two years ago, but the card has seen considerable play since its printing.

http://www.trollandtoad.com/p135650.html

Could not find the decklist, but three copies were used in a deck listed in the above cited "guide".

[Zherbus]

Call me an "armchair quarterback" if you will, but I just find it hard to believe that much time/effort/testing went into hammering out this list. If this list came from some random person or if it had whiffed at Roanoke (not that two people t8ing with it at a 60 man vintage tournament and competent players playing it should be definitively proof that this deck is actually good by ANY stretch) I probably would've categorized this list as "Bad TPS" but since this is not the case I'll hold off on making such judgments.

ESPN called and...

Seriously though, as I've mentioned, you really need to understand the history behind this. You mention Aven Mindcensor, which is a VALID critism as is, but we already mentioned that this is a deck developed before 4Gush and before Future Sight. It might help you to see the evolution the deck took. Sure, there's nothing NEW in the deck as far as cards go but the real change is in deck operational theory.

Honestly, if Smmenen doesn't fully describe the evolution in his article, I will be happy to share some of the major leaps, steps back, and steps forward we took with the deck. I fully understand everyones reflex to post "Wait, what is this bullshit? It's the same shit people have been running save 4-5 cards!" From my point of view, it's a lot more interesting than that.

[Flying Men]

What's that? I've been running TPS with the SAME decklist (excluding red for wheel of fortune and Gift over FoF) nearly 6 months ago.

I thought the deck was fast and solid enough to become a tier 1, the deck in itself is good and the theory around it works. the deck didn't work the same.

scrolls became 3

now I'm running a 2 scrolls version, it's faster, more consistent and less tutor dependant.

every scroll after the 1st one can fetch just bounce, protection or brainstorm -not fair for a combo deck, something really useless when storming.

step 1: fetch ancestral and solve it.
step 2: random bomb and protect it
step 3: combo out and win

consistance of the gift engine combined with the Long plan (my bombs 're bigger than yours, just protect my bombs and the deck will do the rest)

works...in theory

just two cents, from a very bad TPS player who never tried 4 scrolls in a combo deck.

[lordarcanis]

First, to Flying Men:  I would think that if the first thing you wanted to do in a game is fetch Ancestral with Scroll, you should include four Scrolls.  Did you just mulligan until you had scroll?  Or did you use another tutor to fetch Ancestral?

To all:  I think that the reaction to this deck is a little over the top.  The way everyone responds to this post like it is the most important thing ever is not just caused by Steven's arrogance, I think it is also because we have come to expect him to carry most of the major innovations in the format.  Maybe this is just me, but since Steven is the only consistent, good author of Vintage articles, it seems like he should turn the world upside down with each new decklist.  Sometimes he does, and sometimes the changes are more subtle.  That's what has happened here.

I don't think it is right to complain that this deck isn't different enough from xxxx (TPS, Rit Gifts, etc).  Most Vintage decks of this nature share at least 75% of the same cards.  You didn't hear anyone complain that Gifts was the same thing as Control Slaver, or that Long and TPS are similar.  It is because of the power level of these cards.  We are reaching an age where there are three possible deck configurations:

1. Decks that use the most powerful cards they can: Long, Gifts, Slaver, TPS, etc.
2. Hate decks: Fish, Stax, TMWA
3. Decks with insane engines and a lot of synergy, but don't quite fit #1: Ichorid (and new decks could possibly be added to this at any time).

I think that if you have a problem with Meandeck's "lack of originality," that means you have a problem with the above structure of the format.  If that is the case, maybe you should play Legacy.

[Smmenen]

Very well put.

For those who are confused or not quite sure about how to think about this deck,  it would be very useful to refer to the article I wrote in Feb entitled "Offshoots and Ladders":
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/13687.html   The table at the bottom might provide a useful visual cue.   After reading that article, then re-read the article excerpt above.