The Mountains Win Again

[Myriad Games]

This is the latest thread devoted to the swath of Vintage decks known as The Mountains Win Again.

You can locate the most recent previous thread here and the prior discussion thread here.

The Mountains Win Again started as a humble Ankh-Sligh-Burn deck, developed into Mono Red Control, added white to formally become The Mountains Win Again, transformed into three color by adding black, and has experimented with a variety of other combinations and strategies since then, with contributions and developments from a host of different players and deck builders. Most recently, by red/black build has experienced some small success with a Top 4 appearance at a 48 player tournament and 10th place out of 131 players in the Vintage Championships at GenCon. You can also find a plethora of my tournament reports The Mountains Win Again by doing a simple search for "Mountains Win Again" and/or "TMWA" in subject topic only.

The moniker of The Mountains Win Again, abbreviated as TMWA, has come to refer to a wide variety of decks, much like the Fish title has been applied to most creature based strategies that utilize blue. Mountains is perhaps best described as non-blue tempo or aggro-control. I believe this type of non-traditional Vintage deck development opens up a wide variety of design space by not limiting deck building to pre-existing archetypes. The deck constantly evolves and changes to suit the current metagame. Examples of decks that fit in that definition are Zombie Shakespeare's Hide/Seek Control, Polynomial P's PMITA Prison and Vroman's Lava Owls.

My own development of The Mountains Win Again began in June of 2005 and version 1.8 debuted in 9th place at the 40 Dual Land Tournament in West Springfield. I use a new version number for each event I play in and I'm currently working on version 40.1. I always have a blast developing and testing the deck and traveling about to champion the cause of The Mountains at various events. I invite all like-minded players to join me in an invigorating discussion and encourage everyone who has an inkling to try the deck to pilot it at a few events and report your results here.

The make this experience a bit more fun, I've issued a bounty on tournament victories with The Mountains Win Again. Any version of TMWA that makes Top 8 at a tournament with 24 or more players will be eligible for a special prize (foil, foreign, etc) from Myriad Games. Prizes will be customized to suit the individual winners tastes. This bounty applies to all events posted on The Mana Drain until further notice. If in doubt about whether or not your concoction will qualify, simply PM myriadgames and I'll review your list. Once you experience The Mountains Winning Again, simply PM myriadgames with your tournament results and we'll arrange for your prize.

Thank you in advance for joining the discussion and may The Mountains Win Again!

[Namingway]

Alright, so I'm thinking of assembling this deck (the R/B Jagged Poppet version), because it seems like it has a good matchup against many popular decks. I'm Swedish, and the metagame across the Atlantic Ocean is somewhat different from the American one (as seen in the Crossing the Vintage Ocean article).

Would the European metagame described in the article (quoted here):

Europe: UAL Power Nine Archetypes

18% Fish 28
15% Control 23
14% Prison 22
13% Flash 20
13% Combo 20
9% Gush Control/Combo 14
8% Ichorid 13
7% Oath 11
4% Salvagers 6

be a good place to bring TMWA? How would you build the deck for this metagame?
My thoughts have led me to the following:
(Note: I don't own any of the P9, and most tournaments I see don't allow any proxies anyway, so that's why there are no Moxen or Lotus in my decklist.)

TMWA

4 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Mountain
2 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
5 Swamp

3 Gathan Raiders
4 Goblin Vandal
4 Jagged Poppet
4 Magus of the Moon
4 Simian Spirit Guide

1 Demonic Tutor
4 Duress
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Lotus Petal
4 Pyrokinesis
4 Snuff Out
4 Unmask
1 Vampiric Tutor

Sideboard:
2 Blood Moon
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Cruel Edict
4 Red Elemental Blast
4 Shattering Spree

What do you think of this decklist, with the European metagame in mind?

[Myriad Games]

Thanks for your interest, Namingway. I'm not sold on the black tutors. The Moxen and Lotus acceleration are nice for this deck, but by no means necessary, so that should work out well for you. I think the metagame as described is a perfect stomping ground for TMWA. You may want to run the 2x Blood Moon in the main. I found that I sided them in frequently. Cruel Edict should work well against Fish and Control, so those could move to the main as well. I think there are better options for the Gathan Raiders spot, but they are mighty beefy vs. Fish. You could try Grim Lavamancer in those slots, as Vroman as suggested. Also, with only 14% Shop decks in your metagame, I think the Vandals could move to the board. I also think you should change your basic land counts to 1 Mountain and 6 Swamps. It's very important to have a high number of basic Swamps when playing with Moons.

[Guli]

All right here are my remarks.

Sure blue uses force of will/misdirection but blue based control or fish also run strong draw engines so that the damage done by the pitch spells is compensated.

With your new version, no draw at all. Ok you want to reach hellbent ASAP and abuse it but frankly after some limited testing if want to say i am NOT confortable at all to go hellbent. At least run confidants, I know its not a direct threat or pressure but it draws into new fuel. No matter what argument you give i played all kinds of aggro control with all colors and color combinations. The first card you want when you are using black in aggro control is confidant. Ok lets say you really don't want to run confidant. You will burn out pretty fast as it is actually your strategy. Once you lose your beaters or fail to cast a real threat that serves as a clock. How are you going to win after that? So let's say your deck did an excellent job slowing down crippling the whole mumbojumbo but you failed at providing your clock. Or it somehow gets removed from the table. I don't see how this deck will recover. And if you don't want to recover you at least want to cast new threats or refill your hand with disruption to keep the pressure going.

I really think unmask/pyrokinesis/contagi/... is too much for a deck without draw engine. When you use your black cards you wont be able to pitch. If you wait and don't use your black cards you can't put enough pressure. Same goes for red ones. Even in best case scenario, you got a 5/5 beating him down and managed to slow down you will be in top deck mode and 1 removal spell is enough to stop your guy. And after that it will most likely be over

[Namingway]

Thanks for your interest, Namingway. I'm not sold on the black tutors. The Moxen and Lotus acceleration are nice for this deck, but by no means necessary, so that should work out well for you. I think the metagame as described is a perfect stomping ground for TMWA. You may want to run the 2x Blood Moon in the main. I found that I sided them in frequently. Cruel Edict should work well against Fish and Control, so those could move to the main as well. I think there are better options for the Gathan Raiders spot, but they are mighty beefy vs. Fish. You could try Grim Lavamancer in those slots, as Vroman as suggested. Also, with only 14% Shop decks in your metagame, I think the Vandals could move to the board. I also think you should change your basic land counts to 1 Mountain and 6 Swamps. It's very important to have a high number of basic Swamps when playing with Moons.

Thank you for your advice.
Grim Lavamancer seems good, but I sometimes have the problem of not having enough cards in my graveyard to use its ability.

Perhaps something like this:
-1 Demonic Tutor
-1 Vampiric Tutor
-4 Goblin Vandal
-1 Mountain
+2 Blood Moon
+4 Gorilla Shaman (better than Vandal in non-Stax matchups)
+1 Swamp

It seems like there would be an abundance of artifact hate with both Vandal and Spree in the board, though, so I think I'll only be playing one of them. But which one?

[wiley]

Personally I have no true idea of what the metagame will be at the upcoming tourney I'm going to, so I will be taking this list with a few extra cards to switch last minute

4 Goblin Vandal/ Gorilla Shaman
4 Jagged Poppet
4 Magus of the Moon
4 Simian Spirit Guide

2 Contagion
4 Duress
4 Pyrokinesis
3 Snuff Out
4 Unmask

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Pyrostatic Pillar

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby

4 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Polluted Delta
6 Swamp

Sideboard
3 Greater Gargadon
2 Imperial Edict
4 Red Elemental Blast
4 Shattering Spree
2 Blood Moon

----------------

the other cards i will take are another snuff out 2 more blood moons and another imperial edict (i don't have cruel edict, but they work the same).  The cards would replace the main deck pyrostatic pillars if there is not an abundance of TPS decks.

The vandal should be replaced by the shaman if there are ot a lot of stax players, as the shaman is better in every non-stax matchup.  if your playing against tps your combined might of pillars and 8 slots of hard discard are more than enough to stall into a single bent poppet.

1 single bent poppet easily outmatches any draw engine in the game except necro (how many decks currently run necro/bargain?  A single variant of flash?  Which is already stopped by the leyline.)

More dedicated creature kill is necessary in a GAT heavy environment according to my testing.  You really have to be able to get rid of their creatures the same turn they come out (which, unfortunately, imperial/cruel doesn't do.) 

The moons also help greatly against flash and GAT (note though that these don't help quite as often without the power) as they come out 1st or second turn most of the time for me, sucessfully stalling the opponent into a discard spell, or better yet the poppet.

This deck has performed very well for me overall.  While most of the time it is very unforgiving with play errors it can easily stop your opponent in their tracks and strip them clean.  It has been very fun to play and will be the deck I play at the coming tournament in North Carolina.

[Discozombie]

here is a version that I have been toying around with.

/NAME: TMWA
        4 Jagged Poppet
        4 Bloodfire Dwarf
        4 Magus of the Moon
        4 Flesh Reaver
        4 Duress
        4 Unmask
        4 Leyline of the Void
        4 Snuff Out
        4 Pyrokinesis
        7 Swamp
        4 Badlands
        4 Bloodstained Mire
        2 Polluted Delta
        4 Simian Spirit Guide
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Black Lotus

I really have been looking at the frame of the deck and I find that these are the core cards...

        Creature package

        4 Jagged Poppet
        4 Magus of the Moon
        4 ???
        4 ???

        Almost as cheap as free

        4 Duress

        Cheap as free

        4 Unmask
        4 Leyline of the Void
        4 Snuff Out
        4 Pyrokinesis

        Real Estate

        3 ???
        6 Swamp
        4 Badlands
        4 Bloodstained Mire
        4 Simian Spirit Guide
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Black Lotus

which really only gives you 8 slots to play with in the creature package and 3 mana slots to play with. 

I have been looking at the following creatures.

Bloodfire dwarf- 1pt earthquake on a stick
Hammer Mage-melt down on a stick
Magus of the Scroll- cursed scroll on a stick
Gorilla shaman-obvious inclusion
Grim lavamancer-he's pretty good
plague bearer- gorilla shaman for creatures
Flesh reaver-cheap clock at a high price
Phyrexian Negator-not as good with out rituals...
Acidic sliver-2 for 2 and he is pitchable to both
Rakdos Guildmage-might be good for later game and see explaination above
Rakdos Augermage-a bit pricy but he does some cool stuff and pitchable to r and b
Hypnotic spectre-great but again not as good with out ritual
Vicious Kavu-effectively a 4/2 for 3 not too bad and pitchabel to both

really fun deck, i look forward to its evolution.  It reminds me of an old mono black deck I ran once called pitch black, which ran contagion, snuff out, unmask, with massacre in the board, it was a pretty fun deck but I think that this red/black one is much better.

cheers

[rkmancer]

I'd love the idea to put Rakdos Augermage and Grim Lavamancer together. .
They have nice synergy and are powerful in many condition. .Augermage
lock the opponent's hand and feed mancer to burn. .
Maybe 3 each will be the right proportion in additional to replace gathan rider
and some vandals. .

I don't like Flesh Reaver, Vicious Kavu, and any kind of that creature. .
Unlike Jotun Grunt, they just big without any special ability to lock the opponent.

[TopSecret]

Acidic sliver-2 for 2 and he is pitchable to both

That's a very interesting suggestion.
I know that Dan was looking for a two drop with a disruption ability,
and being gold for pitch cards is a good bonus.

The only question is how relevant the two damage is when there's
already so much creature kill maindeck.

[Guli]

Without being happy with this course, i ll play along for now.

It would make me happy to see more slivers entering the T1 scene.

[Myriad Games]

It seems that most folks are generally happy with the base of the deck and are tinkering with specific slots, which is good. The reason that this deck works without a drawing or filtering engine is that the metagame is so accelerated that you can generally determine your initial lines of play (and ascertain the viability of any opening hand) right away. This does require an acute awareness of the existing deck types and how to deal with each. Of those creatures mentioned, I think Acidic Sliver and Flesh Reaver have the most potential, but I'm not convinced that any of them hold a candle to the damage of Pyrostatic Pillar.

[Namingway]

So I assume that you'll be replacing Gathan Raiders with the two-drop creature/spell? Pyrostatic Pillar seems very good. Is the damage you deal to yourself with it ever relevant?

I'll hopefully be taking this deck to a tournament on September 16th. I'll tell you how it goes if I attend.
May The Mountains Win Again!

[Discozombie]

After testing with reaver snuff out can hurt sometimes... but I though of a solution.  Using Terminate instead gives the option of hitting any creature which might be advantagous in some way I can't think of yet.  It does however give you another pitch to both card which can be a huge advantage.  It is now a toss up for which one to try out next in the main, Rakdos Guildmage, or Acidic Sliver.  Sliver works faster, but the guildmage works longer.  I think I will try this version next...

NAME: TMWA
        4 Jagged Poppet
        4 Bloodfire Dwarf
        4 Magus of the Moon
        4 Rakdos Guildmage
        4 Duress
        4 Unmask
        4 Leyline of the Void
        4 Terminate
        4 Pyrokinesis
        6 Swamp
        4 Badlands
        4 Bloodstained Mire
        3 Polluted Delta
        4 Simian Spirit Guide
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Black Lotus

all the creatures minus the dwarf can survive the dwarf going boom.  Since guildmage's ability is not a tap one he can attack and use his ability, hate to seem like I am reading the card to you, but some people might miss that.

Just for the sake of history here is a modern update of what my old pitch black would probably look like today...

//NAME: Pitch Black
        4 Flesh Reaver
        4 Phyrexian Negator
        4 Hypnotic Specter
        4 Nantuko Shade
        4 Duress
        4 Unmask
        4 Contagion
        4 Snuff Out
        4 Leyline of the Void (this was planar void)
        1 Demonic Tutor
        1 Demonic Consultation
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Mox Jet
        4 Dark Ritual
        16 Swamp

[Namingway]

Terminate looks really good. I think I'll be trying it out instead of Snuff Out even without Flesh Reaver. The question is, how often does its casting cost matter? In other words, how often do you need to play both creature removal and something else during one round? In those instances where you need to, Snuff Out is obviously better, since you don't have to pay any mana for it. However, in every other instance, I think Terminate is better. It's cheaper mana-wise, and it's gold, so it pitches to both Pyrokinesis and Unmask. And, as a little bonus, it can kill black creatures too.

[wiley]

My choice is for snuff out over terminate.  In my testing, Black mana is relatively scarce in the opening two turns (which is the ideal time for GAT, flash, and fish to start playing critters to kill) and I would have to decide between casting terminate to stay alive and hold off on the duress or hope i survive the large advantage they will get with 1 turn of their active creature and destroy their hand.

Also if they are playing flash and you tied up your mana on your turn then you only have the kenisis to deal with the slivers, not a very fun proposition.

In all i think the casting cost of snuff out is better, because the 3b late game isn't really much and by the time you've hard cast it you will have seen the opponents hand more than once and know if you need to hold anything back or not.

The final nail was the fact that I run pillars, obviously snuff out would be a better choice there.

Oh, and on the subject of pillar, the only decks it hurts me more than my opponent seem to be stax and its variants.  Even then I am usually satisfied with how it runs.  I absolutely love getting two out against bomberman or tps, makes for some rather amusing expletives.

Mountains?! AND Swamps?! SOOO Good!! 

[LordHomerCat]

Just a quick question, why do you consider Snuff Out to be much better with pillar?  I feel its safe to assume you will almost always be alt-cost-ing it, which means it costs you 4 life instead of the 2 you would lose to playing terminate.  If I'm missing something major here let me know but that seems like Snuff Out will usually hurt you a lot more than terminate would.

[Discozombie]

I do like the snuff out, I just wonder if that much free kill is needed.  You can always board in contagion against flash and you could even put snuff out in the board.  It might go back to the main deck for some cases but I think that terminate is testing well enough so far to warrant further research.  I do like the rakdos guildmage.  He is pretty fun so far and he generates virtual card advantage by being able to generate effects, plus he can help you get hell bent.  and he pitches to both colors!   

I have to agree with LordHomerCat, I may not be up on my math but 4 looks bigger than 2.

On a side note what about replacing one of the unset creature slots with chains of mephistophles?  just a thought.

[Myriad Games]

It is notable that Snuff Outs ACC is relevant to situations where you're locked under Spheres. You can use your mana to pay the additional costs and use the ACC to pay for the core cost, whereas something like Terminate would cost more in those situations. The speed of the deck comes up quite often, especially after board where you'll need three mana available to Terminate a Dryad with REB backup where you only need one Badlands to do that with Snuff Out.

[zabuza]

Hello again.
I´ve tested the deck and i like it. is a bomb in your hands that can explode to the oppoent XD. I´m thinking in several options but now i was thinking about delirium. i´ve thought in it because (in SB) is a bomb against GAT. Okey, they are beating you with a monster that kills you in this turn, don´t worry you have delirium to take the dryad (or atog) and lkill the opponent with her/him.
As long as delirium says opponent it can´t be misidrected (yea, it can be countered, but you have sideboarded so you have blast to deal with). I think it can be a good solution to this match-up and it can be pitcheable to red or black spells. Beside of this i´ve though in pulverize (in SB too) to power up the matches agaiinst MUD or Stax. Isá another free Spell that does´nt hurt us with pillar and kill´s the artifact´s friend for free. XD. in this way you don´t have to use the 4 slots maindeck to vandals or this kind of people.
And last, i´ve thought in cave-in to the match with fish. it kills every guy on the table (except jotun grunt, and your magus will die too but you can kill everybody with it and if you have a poppet it´s near sure you arrive hellbent with it).
Well, i´ll be waiting for your thoughts about all of this.
thanks.

[Myriad Games]

Thanks for the continued feedback and suggestions. Delirium and similar 3CC solutions like Threaten seem inferior to the variety of options at 2CC including Smother and Edicts. I think before I ran those or something like Terminate, I would simply run more Edicts. Vandals can be moved to the board to complement the Shattering Sprees after sideboard if there's not a significant amount of Stax in your metagame. I don't think that sacrificing 2 Mountains to play Pulverize is a suitable solution to Prison decks as there are always more impediments and threats coming. You want something like Vandal that will allow you to eliminate threats repeatedly. Pulverize serves the same purpose as Shattering Spree: to clear the board after they've dumped the majority of their relevant cards from hand, and in this case I think Spree is simply better than Pulverize because it leaves you with lands after the fact. Also, Pillars (if played) should definitely be boarded out against Stax, but possibly kept in against Staxless Stax if you have extra space, particularly if you're on the play. In any deck running creatures that can be killed by Pyroclasm, Cave-In, etc, I'd rather have spot removal. Pyrokinesis already allows you to consistently take out two creatures and Contagion can often nullify two creatures as well.

[Namingway]

What became of the R/W "man-prison" variant with Glowriders and Mindcensors? Is the B/R Poppet version just overall better?
I've tested the R/W version a little bit, and I particularly like the fact that most of its creatures/lock components do something the moment they come into play, whereas with Poppet I often find myself having to wait a few turns to get Hellbent (for example, being stuck with a Pyrokinesis in hand and no red card to pitch). Is R/W still viable compared to B/R, and how would an updated R/W list look like?

[andrewpate]

@Namingway
You might have a look at Vroman's so-called "Lava Owls" deck here:

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=34024.0

It has some "man prison" elements and has been doing fairly well.  That said, I don't think that older R/W and R/W/B versions of TMWA are so much "dead" as they are "not the deck Dan played at GenCon," a subtle distinction I know .  But in a meta with a lot of GAT and Flash, Aven Mindcensor and even Swords to Plowshares aren't as hot as they were a little while ago--Mindcensor comes down too late against Flash (and does precious little against GAT) and one StP is never enough to do anything.

Depending on expected decks (StP is great against Oath, Fish, and (lol) Dragon; Mindcensor is good against Storm, etc.), you might easily prefer the R/W base.  But for now, in the "national metagame," such as it is, a very large amount of discard and removal at the expense of Fish-type "annoyers" is almost certainly superior.

[Myriad Games]

I concur that the R/W prison builds are still options. I just don't think that they're quite as competitive in the broad scale metagame. Definitely check out the previous thread for ideas and modify from there for your liking and your metagame. One change I would definitely make is to add 4x Pyrokinesis.

[wiley]

Just a quick question, why do you consider Snuff Out to be much better with pillar?  I feel its safe to assume you will almost always be alt-cost-ing it, which means it costs you 4 life instead of the 2 you would lose to playing terminate.  If I'm missing something major here let me know but that seems like Snuff Out will usually hurt you a lot more than terminate would.

I have had more than one game where there were two pillars on the field, which would automatically make snuff out the winner there since no mana need be used.

However there have also been many games in which the next person to cast anything with cmc 3 or less would lose and since their creatures all cost 3 or less (GAT and fish mostly, but also bomberman) and the op. had already gone through 2-3 FOW the hard cast snuff out finished off the remains of their board and allowed me to swing for the win.

But as I have said the ability to not tie up your black mana racing your opponent in the early game has seemed rather crucial to me.

[Namingway]

I see.

Back to the B/R deck:
You mentioned testing Mesmeric Fiend in the place of Gathan Raiders in the previous thread. Your comment on this was that the Fiend was either too situational or too vulnerable. Would you care to elaborate on this a bit? How did it perform in different matchups, compared to the Raiders (or other cards considered for this slot)? It would be nice to have something a little more disruptive than the Raiders, which is just a beatstick (albeit a big one!), while at the same time providing a decent clock (something that Fiend admittedly does not do).

[Myriad Games]

As you note, the Fiend was irrelevant as a threat and therefore we were replacing a threat slot with a relatively easily negated temporary removal element. The Fiend just didn't it against GAT, Flash, Stax, Bomberman, or Fish, and that's a significant portion of the metagame.

[Namingway]

I understand and I agree, but I just wanted some clarification. Thanks

The deck seems to be fairly optimized at the moment, considering the cards available. So I guess we just have to wait a couple of weeks for Lorwyn and see what we get.

[TopSecret]

The deck seems to be fairly optimized at the moment, considering the cards available. So I guess we just have to wait a couple of weeks for Lorwyn and see what we get.

Apparently BR goblins is a theme in Lorwyn (as are fat beaters),
so the chances of a strong BR creature being printed aren't that bad.

Here's hoping!

[Namingway]

myriadgames, what did the TMWA list that placed 9th at your latest tournament look like?

[Myriad Games]

Lou Stefanovic played 9th at the September 1st Myriad Games event with this list, which he entitled "Meta-Hate/Burn". It's very similar to the original builds of Mountains back when it was Ankh-Sligh-Burn transitioning into Mono Red Control:

1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Ruby
1x Sol Ring
4x Ankh of Mishra
4x Gorilla Shaman
4x Simian Spirit Guide
1x Viashino Heretic
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Fireblast
2x Blood Oath
3x Price of Progress
4x Burnout
1x Red Elemental Blast
1x Pyroblast
1x Fork
1x Sudden Shock
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Shattering Spree
2x Browbeat
1x Strip Mine
18x Mountain

Sideboard
2x Pyroblast
1x Red Elemental Blast
2x Shattering Spree
2x Anarchy
1x Word of Seizing
1x Slice and Dice
3x Tormod's Crypt
1x Pyrostatic Pillar
1x Sudden Shock
1x Viashino Heretic