Dirty Fish

[GUnit]

A friend of mine recently decided to come along with me to play in his first competitive vintage tournament. His favourite deck has always been his black/white suicide deck, so we tried to pick something for the tournament that he'd feel comfortable with. After tossing together a pretty boring BW list it occurred to me that there wasn't really a good reason not to splash for goyfs, so that's what we did. Here's the list, along with brief card choice explanations:


Dudes (15):

4 Tarmogoyf
This one seems pretty obvious.

4 Dark Confidant
Ditto.

4 Hypnotic Spectre
This could be any number of things, but as long as the deck is playing dark rituals, hyppie seems like a strong choice. His evasion is very relevant once jittes are boarded in, and his ability can obviously be devastating, especially in a slower format.

2 Kataki, War's Wage
With the renewed popularity of workshop-based strategies, Kataki seems like a very strong choice right now.

1 Gaddock Teeg
This is pretty random, I guess, although he seems like a solid inclusion. Other creatures that I considered were withered wretch, jotun grunt, mesmeric fiend, devout witness and nantuko shade.


Disruption / Removal (19):

4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
6 or 7 seems like the right amount for this category, just by my own intuition. I'm not sure what the correct balance of thoughtseize and duress is though.

2 Null Rod
Null rod seems excellent right now, although it's still weak in some matches, such as GAT.

3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
More than 4 of these seems like a lot to support with a tri-colored manabase.

4 Swords to Plowshares
Vintage is more aggrotastic than it's been in a dog's age. Running the full set of swords seems good.

1 Balance
Best card ever printed?

1 Pernicious Deed
Random tutor target. Strong against aggro, artifact manabases, random threats, etc.

1 Planar Void
Game 1 out vs. dredge, solid play versus any will decks.
 

Tutors (3):

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
These seem pretty obvious.

1 Enlightened Tutor
Fetches null rod, deed, planar void, and potentially SB cards.

Loam (1):

1 Life from the Loam
Provides resilience in the face of crucible, and randomly can wreck weak manabases.

Mana (22):

4 Dark Ritual
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Black Lotus
4 Windswept Heath
2 Polluted Delta
2 Scrubland
2 Bayou
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

My manabase was constructed pretty arbitrarily. I don't claim to be an expert in this department, so I may be running too few or too many sources. I just make my manabase and adjust based on goldfishing / MWS games.

SB:

3 Umezawa's Jitte - aggro
3 Pernicious Deed - aggro / shops
4 Leyline of the Void - yard based decks
3 Ray of Revelation - oath, although I doubt this is enough
2 Oxidize - more artifact hate


Other cards that I had considered while building the deck were the following:
- Chains of Mephistopheles (ruins GAT, great with Bob, tutorable)
- Hymn to Tourach / Sinkhole (misdirectable shenanigans)
- Vindicate (slow, but very versatile removal)
- More maindeck deeds
- Devout Witness (disenchant on legs)
- Jotun Grunt / Withered Wretch (yard hate)
- Maindeck Jitte (instead of null rod)

My testing has been limited to MWS games, which I know are unreliable. So far I have been happy with the results, though. I'm planning on playing some form of this deck in a tournament this weekend, after which I will have more relevant results to discuss. Any suggestions/criticisms on specific card choices or the deck as a whole would be appreciated.

[hauntedechos]

@ 50cent man, who thankfully hasn't actually been shot and probly cannot spit cypher....oops I mean GUnit:  How did your friend do in the tournament with this deck?  What did he comment on concerning the deck?  Did he like the lone Teeg or did he wish it were another Kataki?  Did he wish the kataki were Teegs?  How did he feel about the number of Rods in the list? did he want more/less/it was perfect for him?  How did he feel about the Rituals and thier accelerant abilities?  Did they help power out the dudes or did he feel that he could have just played the on colour moxen instead?  how was Balance for him and in what situations did Balance come up and or used?  Did your friend want Extirpates in the board/Main to compliment the Duress effects?  Did he find that if he had Extirpates, he could have nailed fetchlands and waste/striped duals as well as Force of Wills etc. with them?  What deck did you play at the tournament your friend was at? could you compare it and or discuss what factors led you to play something different?

For the upcomming tourny, is there anything you are planning on changing to the list your friend played?  If so, what and why?

Haunted.

[GUnit]

My friend was in contention until either the 5th or 6th round of the tournament, but he definitely lost at least one of his matches simply due to lack of experience.

I'm not sure that the lone teeg was relevant at any point for him.

The rituals he liked because they helped him keep pace with more broken decks. The list plays on-colour moxen as well.

I believe balance won him a few games. I know in one game he'd been fighting GAT with waste effects and duress effects but was staring down a fat dryad and a 5 card hand versus his single card hand of vampiric tutor. Unfortunately for the GAT player, misdirection doesn't have much to say about balance, and 6 for 1 got my friend there.

Extirpate seems good in the deck, I'll have to try it. I had honestly considered them for the maindeck briefly, but decided that it was too cute.

I always play different decks than my friends because they generally borrow most of the cards from my collection. For example, on saturday another friend is playing Rich Shay's Tyrant Oath list, and I'm planning on playing this.

As for changes, that will be determined be feedback here and by testing tonight/tomorrow.

[Tareth]

Did you try out Krosan Grip from the sideboard for Oath?

[Shock Wave]

I don't know how viable this is, but the last few times I've gotten my ass kicked on MWS, it was by a UB Fish deck sporting Bitterblossom. I don't know if that fits into this particular version, but it seems worth exploring.