Root maze and choke.

Root Maze

Blue is the best color in Magic. I’m glad someone said it one day.
But is blue also the most played color in vintage? Yes it is.
So, are there many islands in vintage? No, only blue Dual lands and one island against wasteland or magus. That’s tech. Flooded, polluted tech.
OK, what about all fetches come into play tapped (some decks run 6 I hear) as well as the fetched land? Ah yes, I forgot, islands don’t untap.
Oh no, you have fastbond?

What it’s good against:

1: nuts
Gush/fastbond
Fetch lands

I think just because it shuts off two key components of the top deck makes this card worth looking at. If this was all, it would be narrow. But how many fetches are the average at the moment? 4-6 per deck I think (except Stax and Ichorid).
It is known

2: halfway decent
bazaar of baghdad/
wasteland + crucible to some extent (because your own lands are tapped for one turn, so it’s not really useful)
Black lotus+yawgmoth’s will+Black lotus
Moxen, Loti, rings, crypts, vaults.

3: just for the record
darksteel colossus
Trinisphere
mindslaver

What it’s good with:

Spheres like thorn of the amethyst, acting like root mazes 4-8 sometimes (in good and bad ways: it could be that they just delay one more turn... or they can bet he win, like searching for a draw spell for 2U isn’t really too attractive. Especially when the draw spell costs one more than usually (like, nothing.)

Against islands:

Drink Choke. I mean, root maze and choke is a hard lock against blue. (well, yes there are artifacts and loti, both come into play tapped and they have no way other than topdecking into them. Further, with thorn in play, it’s impossible to play them.)

What it’s bad against:

Turn 1: something and/or root maze (with on- color mox or something like elvish spirit guide.)
Opponent: OK, land, mox, go.
Turn 2: something for 1 or 2 mana.
Opponent: tutor around for free, play flash, gg.

Which mates does it need?

- something that matters. This should most likely be something that will end the game soonly:
i.e. damage, combat damage, life loss, whatever.
I think creatures would be *goyf* ah, I mean good.

- something nasty. Like, disruption. Counters, discard, more mana denial, board control and/or solutions?
I call discard. Perhaps some soultions as well, along other things. With not mainly being blue, force of will conform countersuites don’t look too appealing to me. Don’t know if more mana denial is nescessary, perhaps waste/strip. If you want to play board control, go away and play workshops. But... could it be goblin vandal to destroy tapped artifacts?

- something fresh. Draw, card advantage of any kind, virtual CA welcome.
Dark confidant, ... ? somehow I’d like to go with bazaar for the goyf because it filters the shit.

- something versatile? Does it need tutors or redundancy?
e.g. tutors w/enlightened and crop rotation for cool lands, even life from the loam? This could all be too expensive, too card-disadvantegous, and you won’t want to play broken. (Well, don’t know if you would want to, but it’s hard with fastbond in play. You could play with enchantrae...

- Colors? ? some mana. NO fetches, NO islands likely. Elvish spirit guide for root maze is cool.

Depends if you play 2 colors or 5.

If it’s 2, then 4x nonblue dual + 4x nonblue painland should be okay. Some cities, a few moxen, a lotus, some elvish spirit guides, waste/strip or not?

If 3- 5 colors ?

4x city of brass, some gemstone mines (with maze, you wont’ be activating too often I fear)
artifact mana, ESG? What else?

Man lands? CiPT lands? (for example the ciptplains from lorwyn... unplayable stuff like that, the danger of cool things.)

I don’t want to push this concept (well, it could turn into one) into one particular direction.
I just highly encourage everyone to think about the benefits of root maze in the current meta and how you could use it. Think of color combinations, synergies, disruption, about the things a deck needs.
Please don’t post decklists from olde, like „wow i had a RG Beatz one day. I used to play root maze, too.“ Post ideas, comments and concepts.

For example: Is it, in the metagame of Autumn 2007 good to have a choke in play (main)? How do I do this? What follows? Etc.
Or, how shall I kill? With a demi-fat one like tarmogoyf, negator, or just with disruptive creatures?
What about Goblins? Do you sacrifice game one? And Ichorid? And flash? Are those decks prevalent?

Thank you for your ideas.