Lets discuss Bomberman today

[bebe]

Bomberman is always showing up and often posts good records. Somehow it seems to have
fallen off in popularity with the emergence of Gush decks, Flash decks and Ichorid. So lets
look at a build and where the deck is going today.


the toolbox
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Echoing Truth
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Chalice of the Void

the search
4 Brainstorm
3 Merchant Scroll
2 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

the counter suite
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Drain
3 Aven Mindcensor
2 Misdirection
1 Grand Arbiter Augustin IV

the kill mechanism
4 Trinket Mage
3 Auriok Salvagers
1 Aether Spellbomb

the mana
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
4 Island
3 Tundra
1 Plains
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Strip Mine
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring

sb:
3 Honor the Fallen
2 Hurkyl's Recall
3 CoV
2 Trickbind
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Control Magic
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Wipe Away

edited to reflect my latest test build


How the deck wins ...
Of course you will beat down for the win. What you need to do is
get your combo out and lock down your opponent. This is done by
drawing your deck and using EE, Crypt, Needle and GAA4
to ensure that Walking and beating down gets you that win.
You have enough points in creatures on the board to win after a
single Walk.

Black seems a natural include in the deck but Bob Bomberman is
no faster and often less consistent than a simple u/w build.
Confidants are getting a lot less play in combo and really for
good reason. There is enough search and speed without them. As
nice as the black tutors are Trinket Mages and Scrolls are enough.
Yawg's Will is just not needed in the deck.

Notice also that pyrite spellbomb is a card of the past. Again
it is simply overkill. 

You can deal with Leylines ... just bounce it and go off. After
side boarding its even less of a threat. The deck is under the
radar now but a good Bomberman player will cause problems in any
meta.

Now for a few debatable choices ...
Sensei's Divining Top - Could be a third thirst for knowledge
Grand Arbiter Augustin IV - just a quirk but often quite useful -
overkill?

sideboard -
Well mine is meta gamed but other choices include:
Swords To Plowshares
Extract
Energy Flux
Abeyance
Exalted Angel
Vedalken Shackles

Now I'm sure this will provoke some discussion on a few of my choices both
main and side. But this is a list that I feel pretty comfortable with. So have at it.

[Scyther]

Well, I liked bomberman for a while now and your build look mainly solid.
But I don't see the reason why u can say there is "enough search...".
Merchant Scroll is at its peak right now (semms that it is Smemnens afford ^^) and everybody try to squeeze it in every kind of deck. This is a mainly control dec and so it definetly should have it's place in there. BUT: What do this "enough search" dec go for if it needs CA and the Anc is allready used? At least one Thirst should be added to solve this kind of problem. Further more it definetly puts not enough pressure on the Board. Aven is a really nice addition for the dec but shoul be complement with jotun Grunt. It combos really NICE(!) with Anc and Scroll. So you are able to win without the Combo (remember: Aven/ Mage + Jötun win most within 3 Rounds...) while you keep your hand big and have Tutor and Grave control.
In contrast to Jötun Arbiter looks like a bear ...

And why not randomly steel games just with Salvager and Lotus? Just scroll up a Brain freeze/ Cunning Wish and say next game?

So I definetly would cut a Tundra (with 6 fetchies 3 is more than enough) and the Arbiter for 2 Jötun and squeeze in somewhere 1-2 Thirst for Knowledge. ^^

just my friendly 2 cent =)

[Phele]

Same from me: I always would put in a single Cunning Wish and a Brain Freeze in the board. It helps you to combo out, even so Spellbomb got hated out and it adds a lot of redundancy with Merchant Scroll becoming a Spellbomb together with Lotus and Salvagers. Also a second non artifact solution is fine, as your are already running many Instants in the Board.

Chain of Vapor? Isn't Echoing Truth, Rushing River, Wipe Aways strictly better, or hasn't it been a problem for you to get backfired by bouncing your Salvagers?.

As far as I love Meddling Mage in my board, I recently cut him for Chalice of the Void, as it helps out against many decks, especially quick combo, without being a creature. With Mindcensors maindeck you will see a lot of creature hate after boarding (Massacre for example), that hits Meddling Mage as well. I like Chalice also in the GAT matchup: Chalice on one together with an Mindcensor is real pain for them. Your sideboard generally lacks some solutions for the Fish and GAT matchup but I think this is a meta decision. As nice as it is to have Platz in the deck, doesn't seem the Tinker a little bit random without Mystical tutor.

I like it, that you included Tolarian Acadamy: To me it seems to be a natural fit as you run so many cheap artifacts and you want to have many higher casting cost spells like Salvagers, Mindcensor or Trinket online as fast as possible. I also play Mana Crypt. Even so I know that it can be annoying in the long game and that Bomberman totally plays out like a slow control deck some times: It helps in all Matchups where you need as much mana as possible as soon as possible. And with the even higher creature count now in the deck you should be able to race the 1,5 damage per turn.

I came to the same conclusion as you, that the Brainstorms in this deck are debattable: Sure, it's a great spell, but Bomberman lives from his redundancy and his card advantage tools. Brainstorm help out to let the deck run smoother, but I never felt it needed to run a complete Playset as you already have plenty of possible first turn plays. I cut one Brainstorm and one Merchant to include two Thirsts.

I also ran Grunts in the deck for quite some time with great success, as they add a big beat element to the deck, attack the opponents graveyard and offers you a real draw engine together with the Merchant Scrolls. But meanwhile with decks like Flash and GAT not being disturbed by the Grunts that much, it was obviously the better Move to include the Mindcensors instead.

I also play a single Tolaria West with quite nice results so far. Sure, the cip effect is horrible, but it can be played around. On the other hand you get an uncounterable tutor for Lotus, EE, Crypt and Strip Mine. Especially tutoring up Strip Mine has been a game winning move in many tests.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

Has GAA4 been testing well? It seems so slow...

The deck looks really solid, one fact aside: You have nearly no carddrawing! I think at least two TfK should be a must. Trinket Mage for solutions is nice and all, but how do you expect to stay in control long enough to win when just about every deck has a similar or higher amount of disruption but everybody can outdraw you that easily? You have nothing but Ancestral and no way to reuse it...
A second comment, I never played Bomberman, but honestly cutting Brainstorm sounds completely insane. This is the best general unrestricted card in Vintage (Gush is the best unrestricted card, imo, but it requires commitment in deckdesign) and you have a metric ton of shuffle-effects to optimise it. Especially with so many cards you randomly want or don't want to see in your hand (Mindcensor, Salvagers, the artifact-bullets) depending on the situation. Not to mention that you already don't have many turn 1 plays (basically Brainstorm and Scrolls). Turn 1 land, go is such a waste of a turn in Vintage...

[LotusHead]

As far as I love Meddling Mage in my board, I recently cut him for Chalice of the Void, as it helps out against many decks, especially quick combo, without being a creature.

I came to the same conclusion as you, that the Brainstorms in this deck are debattable: Sure, it's a great spell, but Bomberman lives from his redundancy and his card advantage tools.

I was thinking (JUST THINKING) of Perilous Research in a Chalice Bomberman build.  (Perilous Research: 1U Instant, Draw 2 cards, then sac a permanent).

Currently we Explode or Bounce away Chalices (even our own), maybe Perilous Research is worth testing?

[Zherbus]

A huge strength of this deck is that it's aggro-control-combo. A competent player will assign his role properly in a matchup on the Bomberman side, whereas the opponent will often misevaluate their role in the match. A player with a controlling deck, might misevaluate their role as a control versus combo matchup, overdepend on GY hate, then get beaten to death my Gray Ogres. An aggro control deck might see it as an inferior aggro-control deck and try to overpower it, but lose to it's controlling silver-bullet aspect.

A decent Bomberman player knows where he stands in every matchup and that's a huge advantage over the field. I feel the deck itself isn't so much super-strong, but people don't know HOW to play against it. We're JUST starting to pay attention to it as a community, whereas before it never was on the testing gauntlets of people. Those people ignored it as an actual metagame presence and the tournament environment isn't ideal for learning how to play against it. I think people will try tweaking their decks at first, then adjusting their play.

I've actually been playing it a lot recently and really I've found my victories are coming from landing the right things at the right time (Aven Mindcensor sometimes rules, and sometimes is ignorable), but a very big chunk of that is people attacking the wrong aspect of the deck or at least not hindering my ability to switch gears from aggro to control to combo.

As to a build, I ran a maindeck Chalice of the Void and Thirst for Knowledge as well as artifacts that can commonly facilitate 2U or 2W. All that really means is that I used Mana Crypt in my build where bebe omitted it. I toyed with Mana Vault, but it only worked awesome with Salvagers, so I left it off the list. I also toyed with adding another dual to the maindeck. It's really janky, but it let me run Explosives for 3 more reliably and splash other stuff in the SB (Red Blasts). I ended up taking it out as it really didn't do much for me. In the end, the basic skeleton is fine and the best tweaks you can do is just being a better player in your matchups than your opponent. When people learn how to play against it, I fear it'll be more of an uphill battle.

[Phele]

... but a very big chunk of that is people attacking the wrong aspect of the deck or at least not hindering my ability to switch gears from aggro to control to combo.

Perfect said and I would suppose this aspects will hinder the field from effectively hating Bomberman out of the metagame. You never really know, which side of the deck should be attacked in the moment. And even if you get the right one for the moment: You invested ressources to do so and you can't truly hinder Bomberman from changing the role right after and maybe come back on the winning side. This flexibility will probably keep Bombermans head always over the water. But thats sure: People will get more experience in playing this matchup and so lowering its winning percentage a bit.

One a sidenote: I also play one maindeck Chalice now for a while and I like it as a really strong control element. Beside Staxx, there's practicaly no deck, where Chalice doesn't offer you a strong game finishing move. I might not be game finishing, but even against Ichorid a well timed Chalice on one might have its uses.

[bebe]

All valid points. Like I mentioned I do want to see if I can include a few Thirsts maindeck and perhaps dropping a Brainstorm and a Merchant is the way to do it. I could also cut that Tundra for a Chalice. I presented what I felt was a solid shell but some more testing with the following changes would not hurt... 
- 1 brainstrom
- 1 merchant scroll
- 1 tundra
+ 1 cov ( not convinced entirely but I will test it main deck )
+ 2 thirst
Now I confess to have done limited testing with the deck - about twenty games - but I have played agaionst Bomberman many times and am familiar with the ins and outs of the deck. We have a problem North of the Border - Bomberman has been played in Canada since the very beginning. Around here people are very familiar with the deck and thus you have much less leeway for error.
We have a lot of CS varients being played here and also a lot of gifts. We seee some Ichorid but it is sl;owly being hated out. Flash will undoubtedly make anm appearance now and there are al;ways the random SS, Fish and Goblin decks.
Sure the sideboard can be changed but it is geared for what I percieve to be the toughest matchups. I have had little problem finding my Tinker even without the Mystical as the deck scrolls through a lot of cards fast and really plays defensive until the Plat is found - tinker in itself is always useful in this deck and surprisingly Plat can be hard cast quite often.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

I was actually considering running bitter ordeal in a variant to deal with things like Ensaring Bridge as an alternate win condition as well being able to neuter most decks with out having your combo on line. I’d also include a copy of intuition in place of a merchant scroll or the purposed TFK. Intuition gets you your missing salvager (assuming your running black) or gets you the entire rest of the combo plus an easily retrievable utility item.

[squeegee]

ok, i have been playing bomberman for a while now, and i usually take a fairly nontraditional approach.  also i havent played since future sight became legal, so im sure my list will change, at least for mindcensors.  but here it is.


7 solomoxen
1 mana vault
1 tormods crypt
1 pithing needle
1 engineered explosives
1 pyrite spellbomb
1 aether spellbomb
4 force of will
4 mana drain
2 mana leak
4 brainstorm
3 thirst for knowledge
2 merchant scroll
1 red elemental blast
1 empty the warrens
1 echoing truth
1 ancestral recall
1 time walk
4 trinket mage
2 auriok salvagers
1 grand arbiter augustin 4
4 flooded strand
3 tundra
2 volcanic island
4 island
1 plains
1 library of alexandria
1 tolarian academy
side board
2 red blast
2 exalted angel
2 trickbind
2 sacred ground
2 seal of cleansing
2 orims chant
2 energy flux
1 empty the warrens

ok, so im sure im probably gonna get ripped a new one with this list, but it seems to work really well for me, at least in the meta game that I was in.
because i run red anyway, i left in the pyrite spellbomb, it is great for welder, bob, fish, etc.  as for empty, its a descent win condition, and it gives them something else to think about. 
really, most wins just come from straight beat down, without comboing.  the opponent is trying to combat the combo aspect, and they get beat down by trinks/salvager. 
now, i am going to add mindcensor, but i havent tinkered with that yet.  probably pull red blast from the main, because of ichorid/flash.  other than that im not sure.
my side board was really set up for my meta, but i love chant against will.  i dont know why i have never ran the wish combo, im just not a fan of cunning wish., not saying it is bad, just personal prefference.

anyway, that is my deck, and it works pretty good for me, but i am constantly changing it for the meta.

[Sextiger]

I ran a similar list with red at Waterbury, it worked out very well. I had two draws (one of which would have been an easy win if not for time) and one loss to Stax due to my terrible decision not to mulligan both games.  I always wanted to run Grand Arbiter in a deck and this was the first one I fit one in.  He seems pretty janky but when he hits the board, he is a monster, especially if you run Mana Leaks. 

[bebe]

I'm not convinced that red is at all necessary. You have Truths and EE main deck and can side in StPs if you think the meta requires it. The only real addition is ReB. Not that ReBs are in any way poor choices but I think we have enough options without adding a color.

[quoteI always wanted to run Grand Arbiter in a deck and this was the first one I fit one in.  He seems pretty janky but when he hits the board, he is a monster, especially if you run Mana Leaks.  ][/quote]
Yep, he is janky no doubt but I like him. I still think mana drains over mana leaks - strictly better I feel.

[squeegee]

I can definately understand not wanting to add another color, and with empty not being as broken as it was, i might consider cutting it.  But having the volcanics in there for pyrite spellbomb is extremely helpful.  I prefer that over swords, because swords if you have to swords dsc or grunt, you are already losing, and swords will probably not stop that.  But if you are a position to spellbomb a welder or bob, you will probably wreck them at least for a turn or two.

It is also nice to sb in non blue cards, because everyone is packing reb's, so you can give them dead cards.  Like I said earlier though, i really havent played in a couple months, so until i get back into it, i wont know for sure.

[Midknight]

Main reason why I run red, Flametongue Kavu, I'll take this over REB. Red also give you Rack in Ruin, not like anyone plays Stax theses days. People don't understand the tricks, you can do with this card. Spellbomb it back to hand, while combat damage is on the stack is a insane play. She even kills Grunts. 

[T00L]

This is the list I ran in Roanoke. Elias Vaisberg and I worked on it on the ride down from territories north. It’s basically his version of bomberman with a few updates such as mindcensors and I didn't run cunning wish which he swears by. I figure I’ll give some explanation on some of the less accepted slots in the deck

Maindeck:

Artifacts
1 Aether Spellbomb
1 Black Lotus
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Pithing Needle
1 Sensei's Divining Top - really helps against control and you'll always win top deck wars with this in play in the late game. It’s basically a brainstorm every turn.
1 Sol Ring
1 Tormod's Crypt

Creatures
3 Auriok Salvagers - I’m not sure if 3 salvagers are right I really don't like the card. I mean you run it because it has obvious synergy but it’s so bad without other good cards.
3 Aven Mindcensor
4 Trinket Mage

Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Echoing Truth
4 Force Of Will
3 Mana Drain
3 Mana Leak - Few people play around this and it helps in getting first turn counter mana up off island mox. I really liked it and it was good to me all day. People tend to make really disadvantageous on their first turn if they are under the impression the worst that can happen is you'll force it and lose 2 cards.
1 Misdirection - I really didn't like this I’m probably not running it again. It doesn't stop opposing threats which is what the decks counter magic wants to do. You really are looking to gain control of the game and drop a threat and protect it from getting killed.
4 Thirst For Knowledge

Sorceries
1 Time Walk

Basic Lands
4 Island
1 Plains

Lands
4 Flooded Strand
1 Library Of Alexandria
1 Polluted Delta - I'm probably cutting this for another plains simply because getting double white through wasteland is relevant to my sideboard strategy and it allows you to run out needle on delta blind.
1 Strip Mine
3 Tundra

Legendary Lands
1 Tolarian Academy

Sideboard:
1 Aether Spellbomb
1 Pithing Needle
1 Vedalken Shackles - This was bad against the decks I wanted it against I’m not running it again. The deck I played that day that it was relevant against ran null rod.
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Tinker  - tinker plus friend was terrible for me the deck doesn't want to just run out a threat and hope it sticks you don't have a overpowering enough strategy to recover if it is dealt with like in a tendrils deck. Drawing colossus is pretty awful too and actually lost me a crucial game.
2 Energy Flux
3 Honor The Fallen
3 Orim's Chant
2 Wrath Of God - For the aggro/bomberman match up. This was Elias' idea and it was good for us all day. It seems like a lot of mana but it’s really not that bad. No one in type 1 plays around something like this especially not out of a U/W deck. I think it’s better than boarding in creatures because it’s not helping my strategy at all of controlling the game and wrath of god does that. If I wanted to play bad cards and swing I’d just play fish.

I don't know that’s my take on the archetype it’s probably the best deck in type 1 right now since gifts is gone so yeah

[Scyther]

1 Sensei's Divining Top - really helps against control and you'll always win top deck wars with this in play in the late game. It’s basically a brainstorm every turn.

Basically this card is nothing, even in the late game...
If you don't have any shuffle effects (what schoul be so if your in Topdec mode) this the Top is exacvtly once a Brainstormlike effect. 'Cause after the first time you'll only see one more card than before and this is simply Topdeck...
But in general you even want waste your Trinket mage effect to search for such a bad card. I can just advice from this card.

[squeegee]

tool, how did strip mine work for you??  I used to use it, and it seemed to never be around when the opponent had library on the board.  I took it out when I added red to tighten up the mana base.

Other than that i would not run the top and mis-d.  probably add two merchant scrolls or something.  might have to think about it with the mindcensors floating around.

[LotusHead]

1 Sensei's Divining Top - really helps against control and you'll always win top deck wars with this in play in the late game. It’s basically a brainstorm every turn.

Basically this card is nothing, even in the late game...
If you don't have any shuffle effects (what schoul be so if your in Topdec mode) this the Top is exacvtly once a Brainstormlike effect. 'Cause after the first time you'll only see one more card than before and this is simply Topdeck...
But in general you even want waste your Trinket mage effect to search for such a bad card. I can just advice from this card.

Bebe's list has like 14 shuffle effects.  Top is amazing in Bomberman in all cases except the onces where Null Rod is concerned.

[Phele]

tool, how did strip mine work for you?? 

It works so much better for me since I added a single Tolaria West. Tolaria on Strip Mine can be such a powerfull play and uncounterably "westing" up Lotus too.

[squeegee]

i forgot about tolaria, i still havent got to play with future sight much

[Scyther]

1 Sensei's Divining Top - really helps against control and you'll always win top deck wars with this in play in the late game. It’s basically a brainstorm every turn.

Basically this card is nothing, even in the late game...
If you don't have any shuffle effects (what schoul be so if your in Topdec mode) this the Top is exacvtly once a Brainstormlike effect. 'Cause after the first time you'll only see one more card than before and this is simply Topdeck...
But in general you even want waste your Trinket mage effect to search for such a bad card. I can just advice from this card.

Bebe's list has like 14 shuffle effects.  Top is amazing in Bomberman in all cases except the onces where Null Rod is concerned.

RTFPost...
You allready bold typed it... "Top dec mode". What does it mean? Not so much options in hand and eventually on the board, right?
So u look at the top 3 cards but can't grap a shuffle effect AND(!) what u really need... It's also not like u can take the 3 cards in hand and put back two old cards from your hand (like Brainstorm). So I just don't buy this argument. And as said you really don't wan't to waste a Mage cip for this.
I played bomberman a lot and this card is just CRAP in genaral and gets not better in this dec. Just my 2 cents but I would definetly test to cut it for something really needed (like another Thirst, or the 4th Brainstorm again...)

edit: The top isn't even in Bebes List so he is allready on the right way. ^^

[LotusHead]

Bebe's list has like 14 shuffle effects.  Top is amazing in Bomberman in all cases except the onces where Null Rod is concerned.

RTFPost...
You allready bold typed it... "Top dec mode". What does it mean? Not so much options in hand and eventually on the board, right?
So u look at the top 3 cards but can't grap a shuffle effect AND(!) what u really need...

Well Scyther, maybe it's just my style, but I don't waste every shuffle opportunity as soon as they arive.  I leave a fetch on the field for just such an occasion.  I try not to get stranded with no shuffle effects.  1/4 of the deck is shuffle effects. 

To be fair, my builds usually use black for tutors and Bob's, so Top might shine more there than in a UW builld. I have cast Trinket Mage many a time and wished that Top was in there, during the many times that I tested without Top.  It may just come down to personal style. 

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

On the Top-issue, now I don't play bomberman, but if I imagine playing against it with any kind of control-deck, the only card that seems even mildly annoying for you to fetch is Crypt, and that only if my GY is full enough for the Will-win already. Early on, Top seems to make a gray ogre that essentially ends up not costing you a card (due to cycling Spellbomb or something) into an actual powerful card-selection engine. Considering how long the games Bomberman seems to want to play go, Top will create an insane advantage as your first Trinket target instead of just finding something situational or mediocre...  (I try to keep up a Fetch almost all the time in control anyway as long as I'm not under immense pressure and need an out now, simply because drawing into Brainstorm is so sweet. If I have 5 Top in the deck in addition, the choice is easy. Keep Fetches, don't thin)
Not running 4 Brainstorm in a blue deck with conditional cards is still crazy-talk, though. 

[Phele]

Top will create an insane advantage as your first Trinket target instead of just finding something situational or mediocre

...

Not running 4 Brainstorm in a blue deck with conditional cards is still crazy-talk, though. 

I don't follow you here. In my experience - and I do play Bomberman a lot - when you are not threatened by a next turn kill, searching for anything else with Trinket instead of Lotus or Spellbomb is nothing but toying around instead of going on the kill without losing anything. A Lotus means you have played Trinket for no mana investment and have a big mana boost on the next turn. A Spellbomb can be cycled leaving you with a brand new card AND Trinket in play. So when I lose nothing, why should I search for Sensei? The only time I was searching for Sensei - when I tried it out and didn't find it good enough - was in the midgame, when I already had at least one combo piece online. Just to repeat it: By searching for one of your combo pieces you lose nothing but at max a turn or one/two mana. But that's for sure the case for Sensei as well.

I don't agree with you on the Brainstorm issue as well. Thinking about cutting Brainstorm from this deck is talking about space issues. Bomberman is build around cards that generate card quantity advantage almost card by card: Trinket sticks in play together with exchanging its position in the hand with a cheap artifact. Mindcensor anhilates at least a few tutors and fetch lands of opponent. Salvagers brings back artifacts to the hand. Merchant Scroll and Thirst creates at least exchange in better cases card quantity advantage. Even Needle, Explosives and Tormod usually generates card quantity advantage by anhilating many permanents at once. Just the pitch spells generate real card quantity disadvantage, but thats an undenieable disadvantage.

That's the way Bomberman wins the control game: By winning small with cards that generate card quantity advantage. And believe me it does a good job in this. When you see all the bomberman creatures that way you might think different on just outdrawing Bomberman for the win. It tries the same thing but in a little different way. And now we are on the Brainstorm issue, the best unrestricted tool to create card quality. That's totally true. But I don't want to cut the described card quantity tools for Brainstorm so as a matter of space, I do at least think about cutting one Brainstorm, without desperatly searching for ways to cut it.

Bomberman ist so damn redundant, it doesn't have to dig always deep to create card quality, like Grim Long has to for example. It can just leave this in the moment useless Needle in hand as long as it creates more cards in play and hand as the opponent. And by doing this accidentaly just wins by comboing out or dealing little beats. Btw, so far I found the GAT matchup around 60:40 in favor of Bomberman. The mix of solid counter magic, draw, card quality advantage tools, recurring Spellbombs, Tormods and Explosives and a couple of Chalice of the Void after Boarding is usually too much. Chalice on One and a Mindcensor in game is almost game over.

[squeegee]

ok, on the top issue.  i personally dont think it is good enough to make the cut.  when you play trinket mage, you are either looking for a combo piece, or an answer.  top is neither.  sure it could get you an answer, but the only thing it will get that trinks doesnt, it e-truth, so what is the point.  i run 4bstorm, 4tfk, recall, and library, i dont think you need more draw than that, and there are way better artifacts to fetch than top.  mana vault is usually a better target than top.  the only thing top would be good for is finding salvagers, and you usually have enough counter to wait.  i think that is where a lot of people mess up playing bomberman, they think you have to overextend like you do with fish.  in a couple of matchups that may be the case, but usually you want to sit back and let the opponent beat themselves by running into counters and other answers.

as far a bstorm, i have tried running 3, but i usually end up putting the fourth back in.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

On the Top-issue again. As I said this is honestly pure theory, but are you trying to tell me that against a control-deck this

random battlemage 2U
Kicker 2: draw a card.
2/2

or this

Bigger Faerie
When bigger Faerie comes into play, untap three lands or artifacts called Mox X.
2/2

is what you want to play? If you have a ton of counterspells in hand to draw out the game, having Top to negate drawing cards you don't need right now seems like a great option. With the format actually slowing down post-Gifts (at least in my testing so far), battles against other control-decks like Slaver or the mirror will tend to be decided by raw long-game advantage again. If Spellbomb faciliates this better than Top, something is going very wrong here. It may well be that there is no room in the deck to add a really good trinket-target for the control-matchup instead of mediocre (in the special case of fighting against control with enough mana on the table already to cast Trinket Mage) ones you want to run anyway because they faciliate your combo. But saying that Spellbomb or Lotus (or even Mana Vault...) are usually better in that situation than Top would be seems really questionable to me. Mind you, I haven't played Top in Bomberman, but I have played it in other decks (Gifts and aggro-control deck) and the situations where I was wishing my Top would be a spells that costs U2, puts a 2/2 token into play and lets me pay 1 twice to draw a single card were non-existant, and situations where I would have liked to just have Cycling:2 instead of a Top were rare indeed (because it does quite a good impersonation of that anyway).
As for "Top might get you an answer, but that's what Trinket would do anyway", Top is not meant to find you an answer. Top allows you to draw your bulk-carddrawing and the correct solution for the moment more consistently instead of the random solutions you might not need right now (note that TfKing also resets Top, not only the shuffle-effects).
As for 4 TfK, 4 BS, LoA and Ancestral as being enough carddrawing, if you're not running M.Scroll in addition to create effectively more carddrawing - and the Salvagers-lists I have seen that run 4 TfK usually don't have the usual 3-4 M.Scroll -, you're running fewer draw-spells than the opposing control-deck should be running (or at least have access to thanks to its Scrolls). Trying to sit back and wait for the opponent to beat himself by running into counterspells usually doesn't turn out too well in my experience when the other player is running more carddraw.

Too cut a long story short, if your argument is that there is no card you could cut from Bomberman to give you an actual good target for Trinket Mage against control, I'm fine with that. If your argument is that Spellbomb and Lotus are almost always better than Top in that matchup, something's smelly here.

As for the Brainstorm issue, frankly running less than 4 IS ridiculous. Bomberman is not a Fish-deck that has to spend it's turn 1 and 2 plays on dorks (where an argument, however feeble, could be made that you can't afford having to Brainstorm due to tempo-issues), it runs a comparatively high landcount (so it WILL get draws that are to land-heavy to work out), lots of shuffle-effects (so that you're very likely to actually get to see new cards after your Brainstorm) and situational cards (at least the Salvagers and some part of the Trinket-targets are bound to be horrible in the first few turns of the game). Heck Bomberman has more cards I wouldn't want to see in my starting seven than current Slaver-lists. Brainstorm alleviates Mana screw and flood issues that are bound to come up with any normal manabase, the biggest reason for random losses in Magic. The only sane reason not to run the full four Brainstorm in any U control-deck is if you don't have enough shuffle-effects to actually get rid of what you put back.
Brainstorm's effect is deceptively small but I bet you whatever you want that there are few cards, and all restricted and hopefully already in your deck anyway, that would make your long-term winpercentage with any blue-based control deck higher if they replace a Brainstorm in the deck (with the exception of MAYBE a fifth FoW, but that's not really an option any more than doubling up restricted cards).

[squeegee]

ok, first of all, i do run m. scroll, just did not count that as card draw, even though that is what it gets usually.

and im not saying top is bad, i just dont think it makes the cut in my deck. 

[Vegeta2711]

Top is pretty amazing in any deck with fetches. It improves your card quality immensely and against a deck like CS or GAT it allows you an easier transition or roles if need be. Preemptively fetching an answer is OK sometimes, but just fetching out a random combo piece seems pretty poor to be honest. Your basically weighing an instant impact vs. impact down the road.

A Spellbomb can be cycled leaving you with a brand new card AND Trinket in play

I'm pretty sure playing what amounts to a 5 mana cantripping Gray Ogre is just fucking terrible. Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I feel fetching Spellbomb just to cycle it is just straight up worse than investing that same amount of mana in looking at your top 3 cards and then getting your card draw later. Not saying Top is the end all, be all, but if you have a cheap way to search it out, I can't see any reason not to play it. Especially since the format has actually slowed down since Gush came back and Gifts is gone.

[Phele]

I don't want to hinder Bebes discussion too much, so I keep my answer on Mon in PM. Thanks!

[T00L]

I don't know I mean I really like top it really improves card quality when you're trying to topdeck something. I mean atleast you have a choice in the matter instead of just hoping you get there and also its pretty good with shuffle effects but without them its still solid. I feel like it gives you a better long game when you're playing the control role and also floating something on top of your deck so it doesn't get duressed is still a very strong play. I don't know it was good for me at SCG and like all cards i've ever run i'll continue to run it until its bad for me.