Vise Aggro (10 Proxy)

[extarbags]

Land
4 Mishra's Workshop (Proxies 1-4)
4 Seat of the Synod
3 Island
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy

Other Mana
1 Black Lotus (Proxy 5)
1 Lotus Petal
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Mox Sapphire (Proxy 6)
1 Mox Jet (Proxy 7)
1 Mox Pearl (Proxy 8)
1 Mox Ruby (Proxy 9)
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Grim Monolith
4 Metalworker

Special Guys
1 Platinum Angel
1 Darksteel Colossus
2 Sundering Titan
2 Duplicant
2 Karn, Silver Golem

Beaters
4 Juggernaut
4 Synod Centurion
4 Arcbound Crusher

Namesake of the Deck
4 Black Vise
4 Prosperity

Broken Stuff
1 Tinker
1 Trinisphere
1 Time Walk (Proxy 10)
1 Mystical Tutor

So: this is, firstly, my first crack at making a type one deck, so I'm totally open to the very real possibility that I suck and this deck is horrible and I should go die. That said, when Black Vise was unrestricted, I wanted to take a crack at incorporating it into an aggro deck, and... here we are. It's basically a version of mono-brown shop aggro, with a blue splash to enable Prosperity (which I'll talk about in a sec, don't worry), and a few select broken spells. In that regard, it's actually be fairly decent in whatever random/unreliable MWS testing I've gotten done, but I'm sure there are a ton of improvements to be made. Obviously, it's not awesome against combo, but it could be worse, and it's pretty solid against other stuff (but again, MWS, so you know, take it with a grain of salt).

Prosperity: I know, it's a terrible card, right? Right. But it's actually been decent for me. A big Prosperity facilitated by Metalworkers is almost always a win, because even though they draw into good stuff probably including Force, I end up with a high enough volume of threats and mana that I can either attack for the win the next turn or kill them in their upkeep via multiple Vises, depending on what's allowed to resolve.

Thoughts?

[hauntedechos]

It's certainly off the beaten path, whic I like.  Let's open up with a few questions.

1.  how do feel about Energy Flux?
2.  how do you feel about Kataki War's Wage?
3.  how do you feel about Null Rod?
4.  how do you feel about Hurkels Recall?
5.  do you feel that Sword of Fire and Ice would fit in here somewhere?
6.  how do you feel about splash red for Goblin Welder instead of the splash U for Prosperity?

After thoes questions, some dialouge.

I used to love Black Vice back in high school playing multi player casual (revised era).  When I got into Magic again after a long break, and decided that I wanted to get into Tournament Vintage Magic, I saw what had become of my dear Black Vice TT .  When  it was unrestricted I did a little dance, but never did anything about building a deck for it.  The only deck that i've heard of that has done well with Black Vice has been a R/G beats deck.  Do you think that you could evolve this deck into some sort of Prison/control style deck that might force the player to hold onto cards?

Cards like:

Chalice of the void
Arcane Lab - can only play 1 spell per turn (works in conjunction with chalice to stunt Combo decks relying on 1cc cards)
Wasteland - mana denial program
Stripmine - Mana Denial program
Stifle - has MANY uses such as: stops fetchlands, Oath activations, Storm ability, Welder, Slaver, etc.
Crucible of Worlds - with wastelands and stripmines, this could be a very key Tinker target.
Mind Slaver - it's pretty random, but it could give you a chance to put the opponent back enough turns they never make it back, also a second Tinker target.
Jester's Cap - as a budget deck, this could be a good SB card for you to Tinker in versus combo, stealing Tendrils, warrens, gifts, Tidespout tyrant 1and2 and that silly card that allows them to search outside the game for cards.
9 Spere effects - if this wasn't a budget deck, I would say that this set of cards would greatly improve your matches, while bringing you closer to a classic MUD list of course.

I've only listed the cheap cards here as this is a budget deck.  I feel that in order for the deck to make it to the turn it attempts its combo, you are really going to need to hold off thier mana development.  This seems very key to this deck, as it's the only way to force them to hold onto cards long enough for the Vice to dwindle them down enough to have a purpose in this deck beyond turn 1.

As a side project and admittedly casual pet deck, I have something that is like a bastard child of Landstill (U/W).  While it is not in line with what you are doing here, it does hold off mana development with some of the cards I listed above.  It looks like you have enough mana to drop chalice for 1 and 2 pretty quickly, and that would be great versus combo (hoping they aren't holding Hurkels quite early in the game that is).

Anyways, I hope that this helps in someway for your development.  Feel free to PM me if you want any more conversation about it.

Honestly I don't think that this deck would make it in Tournament Magic, but certainly the aspect of building your own deck and refineing it to the best you can make it is reward enough sometimes.  Lastly, the who knows factor.  If you can find ways to have this deck exploit weakness across the Vintage board, while doing it very quickly  you might have something on your hands. My suggestion was mana denial as everything except Ichorid uses it.  Even so, your deck will at least shut off Bazaar

good luck,
Mike

[Troy_Costisick]

I'm not sure I understand the purpose of Lion's Eye Diamond in the deck.  Could you tell me how you use it in actual play?

Peace,

-Troy

[extarbags]

It's certainly off the beaten path, whic I like.  Let's open up with a few questions.

1.  how do feel about Energy Flux?
2.  how do you feel about Kataki War's Wage?
3.  how do you feel about Null Rod?

These all hose me, but not insurmountably unless they're in combination. If you're asking if I'd run them, I think they're all too damaging to be worthwhile.

4.  how do you feel about Hurkels Recall?

Hurkyl's/Rebuild is in my board (which so far consists of just that and Leyline of the Void and two more Duplicants). Do you think it's worth maindecking? If so, how many, given the almost complete lack of tutors in this?

5.  do you feel that Sword of Fire and Ice would fit in here somewhere?

This is probably an example of me being dumb about Vintage, but that card seems slow to me. Is it secretly awesome in the format in general? If so, I wouldn't count it out of this deck in particular.

6.  how do you feel about splash red for Goblin Welder instead of the splash U for Prosperity?

Honestly? I think it's probably better, but I also think it gets away from what I'm going for here. Without Prosperity, Vise is only really good first turn, often only on the play, and it could really just be replaced with Lightning Bolt. From there, I think it would make sense to evolve the deck into a more typical Aggro Stax shop deck that's been seen around, which is good and all, but not really the same as this.

I used to love Black Vice back in high school playing multi player casual (revised era).  When I got into Magic again after a long break, and decided that I wanted to get into Tournament Vintage Magic, I saw what had become of my dear Black Vice TT .  When  it was unrestricted I did a little dance, but never did anything about building a deck for it.  The only deck that i've heard of that has done well with Black Vice has been a R/G beats deck.  Do you think that you could evolve this deck into some sort of Prison/control style deck that might force the player to hold onto cards?

Cards like:

Chalice of the void
Arcane Lab - can only play 1 spell per turn (works in conjunction with chalice to stunt Combo decks relying on 1cc cards)
Wasteland - mana denial program
Stripmine - Mana Denial program
Stifle - has MANY uses such as: stops fetchlands, Oath activations, Storm ability, Welder, Slaver, etc.
Crucible of Worlds - with wastelands and stripmines, this could be a very key Tinker target.
Mind Slaver - it's pretty random, but it could give you a chance to put the opponent back enough turns they never make it back, also a second Tinker target.
Jester's Cap - as a budget deck, this could be a good SB card for you to Tinker in versus combo, stealing Tendrils, warrens, gifts, Tidespout tyrant 1and2 and that silly card that allows them to search outside the game for cards.
9 Spere effects - if this wasn't a budget deck, I would say that this set of cards would greatly improve your matches, while bringing you closer to a classic MUD list of course.

Some of those are pushing control a little more than I'd like. I have done some testing with some of those (Chalice, Spheres), but unless you get some serious stuff going turn one on the play, they aren't that useful for generating damage from Black Vise, as they're often down to 2-3 cards in hand by the time you start playing that stuff out. Arcane Lab fits in this category, I suspect, but maybe not; however, it does raise another issue, as it doesn't play well with Prosperity.

Cap does seem ridiculously good, I'll definitely use that.

I don't think I can support a set of Wasteland (not that I feel like buying them anyway ), as that would take me down to four blue-producing lands, which I think is too few; as such, Crucible probably isn't worth it just for Strip Mine.

Stifle does seem damn good, particularly for the (currently abysmal) combo matchups... do you think that's worth maindecking, or just boarding?

Slaver I hadn't thought of. I'm normally resistant to that card, but I'll give it a try in here... I could see it paying off sometimes.

Honestly I don't think that this deck would make it in Tournament Magic, but certainly the aspect of building your own deck and refineing it to the best you can make it is reward enough sometimes.  Lastly, the who knows factor.  If you can find ways to have this deck exploit weakness across the Vintage board, while doing it very quickly  you might have something on your hands. My suggestion was mana denial as everything except Ichorid uses it.  Even so, your deck will at least shut off Bazaar

I should mention, I suppose, that I have no grand visions of this becoming a tier one phenomenon or anything. I just want it to be decent enough to play in local low-stakes tournaments, while being something at least somewhat original in a format that seems awfully hard to innovate in. I'll also mention that this isn't meant to be a combo deck; Prosperity-Vise acts as an extra finisher or early burst of damage, but I'd say 60-70% of the deck's action is driven by the efficient beats.

In any case, thanks for the feedback!

[extarbags]

I'm not sure I understand the purpose of Lion's Eye Diamond in the deck.  Could you tell me how you use it in actual play?

Activate in response to Prosperity to help play the stuff I draw off it. I'm not super-sold on it myself, and it might be bad, but honestly, it's been hard to get a feel for how good it is because it comes up so infrequently.

[hauntedechos]

The anti artifact cards I mentioned were of course against you, not for you to play.  If you don't feel they hurt you fast enough to put you out of the game, then that's promising.

 Hurkels Recall was mentioned as a card that combo would play against you, not something that you would play, however in the Stax match I guess I can see your logic.  Remember that in the R staxx match and in shop aggro, you will have to have some way to deal with Goblin Welder, who will undoubtedly swap the Vices with something in the yard.

Sword of Fire and Ice is for your beaters, so that burn spells and bounce spells and Goblin Welder cannot mess around with them, hence the insanely good aspect of the sword.

It's good that you are honest to yourself about the use of R over U.  It's also cool that you are sticking to what you really want to see evolve from this deck at the end of the day.

In concerns with all the cards that I mentioned:

Certainly Lab prevents you from re-casting all the cards drawn etc, but I thought the point was to keep the cards in your oppoents hand, for vice to lay into them. 

I would imagen that Stifle would be maindecked as a 4of to be truly effective in terms of what you want to use it for.  Think of every card that requires Tap to activate and others that are triggered events, and then think of how good it would be to shut the effect off for a turn or during the activation where a sacrifice is required (Memory Jar etc).

In terms of Slaver, it would be like a Time Walk for you really, and depending on how well you screw them up with the Slaver activation, you might even get multiple Time Walk effects from it.  This is where R makes Slaver MUCH better, so you may find another singleton card that suits you better.

In terms of Cap, this is a card that I was thinking of running in the SB for the combo mirror in my PonderLong/Tropical Storm deck.  Typically combo decks only run 1-3 win conditions and taking them out with an unsuspected tinker into Cap would be awesome.  Now, many players would Force the Tinker fearing DSC w/o Bounce or Tinker into Memory Jar to pull ahead in card advantage.  At the end of the day, if you pull it off, it should be GG (unless they have a stupid amount of Warren tokens on the field or something).

In terms of realizing that you're not tier 1, it's again good that you are honest with yourself in terms of what you want out of the deck

End suggestions:

While I know that you aren't trying to become a control deck, there is certainly an amount of U control cards that will be required for your plan to fire off and to even stand a better chance at winning a few games in Tourny.
Echoing truth, counterspell(budget Drains), Mana Leak and Daze all come to mind as usefull and dheap to buy.  Stifle as a 4 of seems definate, but counterspell/Leak/Echoing truth are also very solid choices for the budget player.  Because you are chosing to add splash U over R, you are resigning yourself to the fact that you will attempt to come to a U based gun fight with a knife.  To not pack anything more than the Stifles would be to come with a twig as your effects are not sufficient enough for them to not toss a wrench in your plan.

In the end I would suggest the mana denial/prison plan or go with R and at least add 4-8 blasts.  R also gives you artifact hate and burn which is good versus the artifact mirror.  Keep in mind that the slow nature of your deck is going to require you to adjust this list to accomodate defensive measures.  Sword of Fire and Ice does protect you a little, so if you are really really reluctant to adding control measures, then the swords at the very elast seem to be required.

cheers
Mike

as a last thought, I forgot to mention the use of both Stroke of Genius and or brain geiser to put cards in your opponents hands for vice damage.

[LotusHead]

For some reason I like the idea of Black Vise and "opponents draw cards" spells.

The Arcbound Crushers could easily be Trinket Mages to fetch Black Vices.

You could toy with the idea of "Copy Artifact" for fun. It costs 2, and 2 Juggs is better than one.

[extarbags]

So ok, what I'm looking at now is:

Land
4 Mishra's Workshop (Proxies 1-4)
4 Seat of the Synod
1 Island
2 Snow-covered Island
1 Academy Ruins
1 Tolarian Academy

Other Mana
1 Black Lotus (Proxy 5)
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Sapphire (Proxy 6)
1 Mox Jet (Proxy 7)
1 Mox Pearl (Proxy 8)
1 Mox Ruby (Proxy 9)
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Grim Monolith
4 Metalworker

Special Guys
1 Platinum Angel
1 Darksteel Colossus
2 Duplicant
2 Karn, Silver Golem

Beaters
4 Juggernaut
4 Synod Centurion
4 Arcbound Crusher

Namesake of the Deck
4 Black Vise
2 Prosperity

Broken Stuff
1 Tinker
1 Trinisphere
1 Time Walk (Proxy 10)
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Personal Tutor
4 Stifle

Sideboard
4 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Eon Hub
4 Jester's Cap
2 Duplicant
1 Sundering Titan


I dropped two Prosperity and added another tutor because I figure it probably works better if I can go get it as needed. LED I dropped as a result, because it seems even less relevant now. Strip Mine has magically transformed into Academy Ruins just on a whim; if it doesn't do anything, it'll change back. I would like to work in 3x Sword, but... where? Everything left in this list seems pretty key except for the tutors, but I don't feel great about dropping them either.

[Troy_Costisick]

It's an interesting idea, but I would think that you would want to get your combo pieces together as soon as you can.

Look at maybe adding Transmute Artifact.  For UU, you get another 4 Tinkers for Black Vice.  You might also maybe think about splashing some lands like City of Brass and Volcanic Island to add in Burning Wish to get a Prosperity out of your SB. 

Speaking of your SB, maybe instead of Jester's Cap you could include Powder Keg to blow up permanents that are bothering you or Pithing Needle to stop cards like Bazaar, Welder, and Trikes.

Peace,

-Troy

[extarbags]

It's an interesting idea, but I would think that you would want to get your combo pieces together as soon as you can.

Look at maybe adding Transmute Artifact.  For UU, you get another 4 Tinkers for Black Vice.  You might also maybe think about splashing some lands like City of Brass and Volcanic Island to add in Burning Wish to get a Prosperity out of your SB. 

I thought about this kind of stuff originally, but it's not a strong combo as combos go, and I think that if the deck drives towards it at all times, it would be better served by just playing a combo that's inherently strong. This works well as part of the overall aggro plan, but I start tutoring for combo pieces, I'm afraid this will turn into one of those awful decks built around some janky combo that only kind of works by virtue of the broken cards in the format, but isn't really worthwhile.

Speaking of your SB, maybe instead of Jester's Cap you could include Powder Keg to blow up permanents that are bothering you or Pithing Needle to stop cards like Bazaar, Welder, and Trikes.

That's an idea. I won't be able to test this again until tomorrow night, but I might end up going with some mixture of those.

[gaara_desert]

Land
4 Mishra's Workshop (Proxies 1-4)
4 Seat of the Synod
3 polluted delta
1 underground sea
1 Tolarian Academy

enablers and acceleration
4 dark ritual
4 force of will

artifacts
1 Black Lotus (Proxy 5)
1 Lotus Petal
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Grim Monolith
4 Metalworker
4 lightning greaves
4 arcbound ravager
4 voltaic key

combo searching
1 Tinker
1 Mystical Tutor
4 trinket mage

combo
4 Black Vise
4 Prosperity

this deck is centered more on getting the opponent to draw 20 cards and then die in the next upkeep not really sure how it would do because i don't play much vintage, but the idea is to enable a first turn metal worker with greaves to give it haste and untargetable then get mana and play prosperity and then black vise hopefully with FoW back up.

the main thing i am not sure about is wether to change the proxies to the moxs instead of the workshops. however as the deck is now it is a 5 proxy deck

[Robert the Swordsman]

I'm always surprised to see blue splashes that do NOT utilize Ancestral Recall... it must at least be better than Stifle #4, right?

Is it due solely to proxy limitations?