Type 1.1 Metagame Predictions

[BC]

Wizards of the Coast, in their most effervescent wisdom, have chosen to restrict Flash, Gush, Merchant Scroll, Ponder, and most shockingly, Brainstorm.  Currently there are at least 3 major threads discussing the merit of these restrictions, however I would like to move beyond the initial gut reaction and start a serious discussion about what you all think the metagame will look like after the dust settles.  Obviously the metagame will not reshape over night.  It will likely take several months and many many tournaments before it becomes clear what the new best decks will be.  Will they be brand new archetypes?  Old favorites that get a boost from the new B&R list?  Perhaps the same blue control/combo decks with some of the key cards replaced? 

As for me, here are some decks and card choices that I expect to see at the next few Vintage tournaments:

1.  Ichorid/Dredge.  Obviously none of the restrictions affect this archetype.  As of right now Bazaar of Baghdad remains serendipitously unrestricted.  And I hope to god that it remains this way.  If WotC thinks the Type 1 community is bitching now, just wait until they restrict a card that is worth $200 instead of $0.20.  But that is beside the point.  Ichorid is a strong deck, and will only be stronger now that they can't be raced by Flash.  Bring your Leylines/T. Crypts/Y. Jailers and Extirpates.

2.  Stax.  In my opinion, Stax was a viable deck in the former metagame.  At the last few tournaments I have been to, I played a fairly classic version of Uba Stax and had relatively positive results.  I will admit, however, that Stax had a stressful matchup with Flash, Ichorid, Tyrant Oath, and GAT.  The first two could be handled somewhat with maindeck Leylines, which I had in my build.  The last two had to be handled with skill and a little luck.  With the restriction of Brainstorm and Gush, things are really looking up for Stax.

3.  Tendrils Combo.  Brainstorm and Ponder really helped Tendrils combo decks, as did Gush in certain builds.  However, builds from a few years ago did not have Ponder or Gush, and although most of them did have Brainstorm, they can certainly be built without it.  It is very possible that there will be a resurgence of Grim Long or Pitch Long-type decks.

4.  AGGRO!  Workshop aggro will almost certainly see immediate play, now that Tyrant Oath is crippled and Flash is pretty much dead, and rightfully so.  Goblins will see play as well, maybe even Goblin Foodchain, with Vexing Shushers as an important addition.  Aggro is the default of any format that has seen a major shakeup (see Legacy until about a year ago).  It will probably be a considerable portion of the metagame for a while, but then will lose popularity as control decks figure themselves out again.

5.  All the moxen.  Recently, many (most, actually) of the top decks had dropped off-color moxen and streamlined their mana base.  This was made possible largely by Gush.  With the Gush-Fastbond engine, you could do degenerate stuff with much less mana, so decks were running as few as 19 mana sources.  Now that Gush can no longer protect your precious dual lands from Waste effects, you probably won't see this any more.  Artifact mana will regain its place as the best way to do degenerate stuff early in the game.

6.  Null Rod.  See above.  Moxen bring the Null Rod.

7.  Sensei's Divining Top.  Now that Brainstorm and Ponder are restricted, there is a need for low cost card selection.  I wouldn't be surprised to see blue control decks show up with 1 Brainstorm, 1 Ponder, 2 Top as their starting point.

8.  Gifts Ungiven, Thirst for Knowledge, Intuition/AK.  Gush, the preferred draw engine of choice, is now gone.  Gone for good, I dare to say.  These cards are proven in Vintage, and will most likely see a lot of play in the short term. 

As I said before, it is still unclear how the metagame will settle, and it will probably be unclear all the way through the Vintage Champs in August.  The next large Vintage tournament (in the US, at least) is in two weeks: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=35396.0.  I unfortunately can't be there, but I can't wait to see what shows up.

[BC]

EDIT: Forgot that the restrictions don't go into effect until 6/20.  Guess we will have to wait a few more weeks to see the new metagame.

[Razvan]

i think #6 alone is reason enough to successfully claim this round of restrictions a terrible idea.

and #7 is quite on the money. the card was excellent before, it will only get better.

[Harlequin]

I think Duress and Thoughtsieze become huge.  I think black becomes huge.  Think about it, what is the best response to Duress... Brainstorm="Hide the Goodies."    Black also has the best access to GY disruptions which with flash out of the way, and BU-Rit-Combo losing consistancy, I think the GY comes back in a big way: many have sighted Ichorid, but I also think Dragon could be a new contender as well. 

That is ofcourse if there aren't too many 4x Duress, 4xSieze, 4xExtirpate decks running around.

[Wagner]

and #7 is quite on the money. the card was excellent before, it will only get better.

More reasons to play Null Rod 

[bluemage55]

I strongly disagree that Aggro will see play.  Ichorid, Belcher, and Grim Long will simply swat it aside.

[itsabank]

I think pure control may be about to make a comeback, if not pure aggro.  Workshops and Ichorids will be big, but people will find ways to stop them.  Maybe some new decks will emerge that wouldn't have come about if the format remained as it was.

[BreathWeapon]

Bazaar of Baghdad is going to go rule the format, Dragon just became the dominant combo deck, Madness should compete with Workshop Aggro for beat down, Reanimator should be viable and Cerebral Assassin and Dawn of the Dead are reasonable off shoots.

I have a strong suspicion 4 Bazaar of Baghdad, 4 Leyline of the Void, 4 Chalice of the Void and 4 Force of Will are going to be the first 16 cards in a competitive deck.

[prophetoftheend]

With far less good cards to pitch, FOW/Misdirection just got much weaker.
Lucky for me, I have Belcher almost down to my 10 proxies. I think that belcher will be really good now, but don't know how easy it would be to beat pithing needle/stifle out of the sb without sacrificing a lot of speed. This new ban list will lead to the rise of combo, esp. since the brainstorm into FOW move won't happen anymore.

[meadbert]

Bazaar of Baghdad is going to go rule the format, Dragon just became the dominant combo deck, Madness should compete with Workshop Aggro for beat down, Reanimator should be viable and Cerebral Assassin and Dawn of the Dead are reasonable off shoots.

I have a strong suspicion 4 Bazaar of Baghdad, 4 Leyline of the Void, 4 Chalice of the Void and 4 Force of Will are going to be the first 16 cards in a competitive deck.

Dragon with Thirsts is one option since Thirst allow one to discard Dragon or it acts as a draw engine with Chalice.
A second option would be mana Ichorid.  To get enough blue cards you could run:
4 Force of Will
4 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough
1-4 Chain of Vapor
4 Narcomoeba
2 Cephalid Sage
1 Brainstorm?
1 Ancestral Recall
Maybe Tolarian Winds or Time Walk.  I am not really sure.

Something like that is quite likely.  The question that must be justified is would you rather run Force or Unmask?  With Brainstorm restricted it seems that Unmask is even better.  Unmask also shows you your opponent's hand and thus makes Therapies better.

[BreathWeapon]

Force of Will > Unmask, people are counting on the restriction of Merchant Scroll and Brainstorm to reduce the number of Force of Will, and I don't want to scoop after the opponent resolves a Goblin Charbelcher or a piece of hate.

Here's a work in progress,

4 Force of Will

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Chalice of the Void

4 Intuition
4 Deep Analysis

1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall

1 Tinker

4 Goblin Welder
4 Exhume

4 Sundering Titan

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal

4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
5 Moxes

SB
4 Oath of Druids
4 Forbidden Orchard
3 Ray of Revelation
3 Ancient Grudge

I figure Leyline of the Void and Chalice of the Void are just going to be unbelievably brutal forms of disruption when people shift to Impulse and Night Whispers to hit their land drops or just start running Bazaar of Baghdad.dec.

[Xyre]

Bazaar of Baghdad is going to go rule the format, Dragon just became the dominant combo deck, Madness should compete with Workshop Aggro for beat down, Reanimator should be viable and Cerebral Assassin and Dawn of the Dead are reasonable off shoots.

I have a strong suspicion 4 Bazaar of Baghdad, 4 Leyline of the Void, 4 Chalice of the Void and 4 Force of Will are going to be the first 16 cards in a competitive deck.

You do realize that Dragon is an erratic zombie of a deck that only works if supplied with enough steady draw to keep things running, a la Ponder and Brainstorm, which ironically just got removed. Ichorid is more efficient and faster.

I think we'll see the resurgence of old card drawing engines, like Mana Drain-Intuition-Accumulated Knowledge, and non-blue decks like Belcher. I also think Force of Will's will evaporate from the format, save for in dedicated blue decks and decks with good card engines like Fish, due to a lack of pitchable cards.

[bronxie]

KoN and I are working on a home brew that was good before the B&R of june and will only kick more ass now that our worst matchups are gone (GAT, Oath, Bomberman) so we have what we need for a pro deck after june 20.  Will post list at some point to see what peeps think.

[meadbert]

The following is copied and pasted from a similar thread per Demonic Attorney's request:

The new banned and restricted list for vintage is quite dangerous.  Wizards article that will articulate the reasons that they chose such sweeping changes is not available till Friday so I can only speculate as to why they have done what they did, but diversity seems to be one of the reasons.

First of all, according to my past year's testing (most of which had no painter), the best decks in the format were:

1:  Mud Stax
2:  Dredge
3:  Uba Stax
4:  Drain Tendrils
5:  Tyrant Oath
6:  Shop Aggro

Note that there are 3 Shop decks and 2 Bazaar decks along with 2 Brainstorm decks.  There is only 1 Gush deck, 1 Scroll deck and 1 Ponder deck.

The above list is missing GAT, Empty Gush and Flash.  Flash was close to making the cut, but the GAT and Empty Gush just get crushed by most of the above lists.

Some will say that this list is severely flawed, but I have seen nothing to convince me otherwise.  The Morphling.de compilation of decks came out with a list that is vey similar to this.  Basically it had Flash instead of Uba Stax.

It is true that in recent tournaments there have been a ton of blue based decks, but I would argue that a higher percentage of Shop and Dredge players are actually top 8ing than Gush players.  Unfortunately, it is difficult to find lists for each and evey deck at a tournament, but based on what I saw walking around the recent SCG Richmond tournament there were very few Shops and even fewer Dredge decks yet each top 8ed both days.  What would the top 8 have looked like if the field was 40 Shops, 20 dredge and 5 Gushbond?  I do not know, but my guess is that the Gushbond decks would have been crushed.

The next questions is why are folks showing up to tournaments with these blue based Gushbond decks, when Dredge and Shop based decks are as good or better?  One possibility is that I am totally wrong and Gushbond actually crushes Ichorid and Shops.  I do not believe this is the case.  Instead, I believe that Gushbond/Brainstorm/Scroll/Ponder decks are showing up in numbers because they are actually quite fun!
As much fun as I had playing Dredge day 1 at Richmond, I actually probably had more fun playing TurboGush on day 2.

My concern is that by restricting the most played cards, wizards has actually restricted "fun" cards rather than restricting the best cards.

Flash - Not fun.
Brainstorm - No one wants to win/lose games because someone is mana shafted/flooded.  Brainstorm prevents this from happening and thus leads to games that are more fun.
Ponder - Same a Brainstorm
Scroll - Find Force against Long/Belcher.  Find Truth against Warrens.  Find Hurkyl's/Rebuild or Force against Stax.  Scroll does so much more than find Ancestral.  Scroll can find answers to combo decks.
Gush - Fair card without Fastbond out, but totally busted with Fastbond on the table.  I understand the restriction.

On a power level I certainly could support the restriction of each card except maybe Ponder.  Still, there is more here than power since Leyline of the Void and Force of Will were not restricted.

How are the top decks impacted?  Where does this leave vintage?

1:  Mud Stax - Totally intact.  This deck was built to abuse decks that want to play a lot of spells such as Gushbond decks.  Note that resistors/spheres will also rip apart Belcher and Long.
2:  Dredge - Totally intact.  Had a strong Gushbond matchup, but still has strong matchups against much of the field.  Chalice gets better because artifact mana will be more important.  Leyline is better because Gushbond decks actually use their yard less than other decks.  Unmask will be strong against fast comb and Brainstorm can no longer hide bombs.  Dredge will be better than ever!
3:  Uba Stax - Totally intact.  Uba Mask was first neutered by Wizards and now without Gush, Brainstorm and Ponder floating around Uba Mask is much worse.  Also Chalice@1 may be worse than it once was.  Uba Stax was a hate deck that may need to be retooled.  Perhaps drop down to 2 Uba's and then run 2 Rods?
4:  Drain Tendrils - Loses 3 Brainstorms.  Those could replaced with any of Ponder, Scroll, Gush, Frantic Search, Library of Alexandria, Night's Whisper or even Sensei's Diving Top which pitches to Thirst.  DT crushes Shop decks which should make up most of the top tier.  One problem here is that it is tougher to find Tendrils without Access to Brainstorm post Yawg.  DT can mitigate this by using an AK to draw into a Tendrils that was put on top with Vamp/Mystical.  DT's draw engine of Thirst, Intuition, AK is now pretty much alone at the top.
5:  Tyrant Oath - Oath will still exist, and it may still Oath up Tyrant, but it will be much different having lose 12 cards (3 Scroll, 3 Brainstorm, 3 Ponder, 3 Gush.)  We may see something closer to ICBM Oath with Thirsts and Rods.
6:  Shop Aggro - Untouched.  Spheres/Thorns/Chalice/Trini will be strong against Fast combo.  Wastes/Strip are good against Ichorid and Shop mirror.

Which cards get better and worse:
1:  Fast combo - Better since it is harder to find Force.  Might get worse if Duress/Thoughtseize are played more and if Resistors show up more.
2:  Duress/Thoughtseize - Better since it is important to stop fast combo and Brainstorm can no longer hide bombs.  Also without Brainstorm and Ponder there are few 1 drops to compete with.
3:  Top Deck Tutors - Better since they dodge Duress/Thoughtseize and it will be harder for opponents to find Force.
4:  Moxen/Artifact Mana - WAY better.  With Brainstorm and Ponder restricted there are fewer 1 drops and thus decks will want to power out more expensive spells.
5:  Thirst for Knowledge - Now possibly blue's best draw engine.  Likes artifact mana to A(power it out and B(discard to Thirst.
6:  Intuition/AK - Another candidate for best blue Draw engine.  Plays well with Thirst and Drain Tendrils uses all 3!
7:  Quiet Speculation/Deep Analysis - Might be the best blue draw engine.  Nice in that it costs 1u replacing Scrolls.
8:  Night's Whisper - Replaces Scroll to a certain degree.
9:  Null Rod - Hoses artifact mana which will be more important.  Stops Belcher and Diving Top if that shows up more.
10: Misdirection - Worse with Ancestral showing up less.
11:  Mana Drain - Better.  Turn 2 Disruption is still pretty good and with fewer low cc spells to cast having Drain mana will be key to power out Thirst/Intuition/AK/Fact etc.
12:  Welder - Good In/Against Stax, Belcher and Slaver.
13:  Empty the Warrens - Without Scroll to find Echoing Truth, Warrens will be more difficult to answer.
14:  Wasteland - With Workshop and Bazaar being the two best unrestricted cards in the format Wasteland is very good.
15:  Crucible of Worlds - See above.
16:  Sensei's Diving Top - Replaced Brainstorm and plays well with Thirst.

Other decks and how they may be impacted:
1:  Grim Long - Loses Brainstorm, but Ponder, Scroll and Night's Whisper could replace those and allow Long to be just as powerful.
2:  Belcher - Loses nothing and will not have to worry about Force showing up as often.
3:  Dragon - WGDX loses nothing.  Quiet Speculation Dragon loses Brainstorms but those can be swapped out for Ponder, Tinker/DSC and/or Night's Whisper.
4:  Control Slaver - Night's Whisper and even AKs could replace Brainstorms.  (Note 4 Thirst and 4 AK is a perfectly fine draw engine.  No intuitions needed!)
5:  Deez Goyfs - Loss of Brainstorm hurts, but most of engine remains intact.  Good against Fast combo!  Great against Dredge!  Decent against Stax.
6:  Fish/Suicide black - Rod will be better.  Wasteland will be better.  Some fish decks ran 0 of the restricted cards.
7:  Landstill - Untouched.  The trouble is Dredge and Shops are bad matchups for Landstill, thus while the deck is strong by nature it may have tough matchups.
8:  Pitch Long - Better than Grim Long against Stax, but I am not sure if there is enough blue without the Brainstorms.  Probably you can add Ponder, Scroll and something.  The second issue is that MisD might be worse.  Perhaps some Litz/Long hybrid where you run both Force and Duress would be best.  Force does seem like it would be important against Stax.  Along these lines, Intuition Tendrils might be the best version of Long if Stax really is king.
9:  Gush Tendrils - dead.
10:  Mana Ichorid - With all of the Duress/Thoughtseize and Resistors floating around this seems risky.  Also against combo I forsee showing up, Unmask, Leyline and Chalice are more important.
11:  Doomsday - Mostly dead.
12:  TurboGush - Dead as we know it.
13:  Turboland in general - Probably Shops versions with Null Rod and Horn of Greed against are going to be the best.  Horn was too dangerous with Gushbond floating around.  Turboland's problem will be that it is weak against Fast combo, but is very strong against both Ichorid and Stax.
14:  R/G beatz - Untouched.  Tears up Stax.  Struggles against Fast combo and Ichorid.
15:  MS Paint - Will have to change and adopt a new draw engine.  I would not be surprised to see an MS Paint / Control Slaver hybrid that could be good!
16:  Bomberman - Despite the loss of Brainstorm, Bomberman could be really good.  Perhaps just run a creature heavy U/W version with Meddling Mage, Mindscensor, Salvagers and Trinket Mage.  The other option is to run black for Duress and Thoughtseize to fight combo.

I sat down with 24 decks and mostly guessed how they would perform against each other given the new banned and restricted list.
Basically for decks that changed little I referred to my last round of testing.  For decks with signifant changes I would play a few games and then guess.   This is not really scientific at all, but it is what I have 14 hours after restriction so I will share.

There were a few surprising developments.
Generally Shop decks were not as dominant as I expected because Stax was basically amazing against Gushbond, and it struggles with other decks.  Stax would much rather play GAT and Empty Gush than Control Slaver, Drain Tendrils and Bomberman.

Here are the is what I came up with.  The first record is their total record.  The second record is there record against all decks ranked ahead of them.  Note that I use the "recursively remove the worst deck" method.  This method ensures that which decks get 1-4 is not determined by how well they beat up against bad decks.  Instead it is determined by how they do against each other.
As an example Deez Goyfs is ranked ahead of Powder Dredge because Deez Goyfs wins that matchup.  This is despite the Fact that Powder Dredge had a far better record against most of the field.

1) Deez Goyfs 119-111 (0-0) Strong matchups against decks 2-4
2) Powder Dredge 141- 89 (3-7) Most powerful deck in terms of its raw results.
3) Drain Tendrils 124-106 (8-12) Beat up on some mid level decks like Rod Turboland, Shop Combo, Oath and Dark Bomberman.
4) Pitch Long 122-108 (13-17) Beat up on mid level decks, but struggled with Goyfs, Dredge.
5)  Rod Turboland 127-103 (17-23) Tore up Stax and Fish decks like Deez Goyfs and Bomberman.  Also has strong dredge matchup.  Ripped apart by Pitch Long and Drain Tendrils.  (Note:  I started vintage by playing Turboland, thus I am better with it than with any other deck.  This means I am also better at playing against it, but I would like to point out that it is quite possible that Turboland's record is inflated because of how familiar I am with it.  Mana Denial seemed strong and Turbolands ability to play so many tutors for Strip Mine really helped as did Enchantment removal.
6)  Dark Bomberman 118-112 (22-28) Duress helped against top tier decks.
7)  Stax Combo (112-118) (28-32)
8)  Dragon 128-102 (32-38)  Between Dredge and Rod Turboland there is a lot of Enchantment removal.  Also Needle is a problem.
9)  Oath 136-94 (36-44)  Between Dredge and Rod Turboland there is a lot of Enchantment removal.
10) Mud Aggro 113-117 (40-50)  Oath and Dragon are bad matchups.
11) Grim Long 120-110 (45-55)  The four decks above crush Grim Long thanks to Chalice, Resistor, Rod and Duress effects.
12) Mage Bomberman 115-115 (51-59) A bit slow against above combo decks such as Grim Long, Pitch Long and Dragon
13) MS Paint 116-114 (53-67) Thirsts instead of Gushbond.  Outperformed Slaver and Xerox which are most similar decks.
14)  Xerox 113-117 (58-72) Empty the Warrens is a nice win condition but REALLY missed Brainstorm.
15)  Shop Aggro 111-119 (63-77) I thought it would do better.
16)  Belcher 115-115 (68-82)  Duress Effects are effective against it as is Resistor.
17)  Goblins 122-108 (71-89)  Worse without Flash/GAT to beat up on.  Poor against other combo.
18)  Mud Stax 106-124 (75-95)  Metalworker is a weaker play once Drains show up in numbers.
19)  Study Dredge 105-125 (79-101)  Duresses were a huge problem.
20)  Control Slaver 110-120 (85-105)  Too many creatures again.  Even slower against Combo without Brainstorm.
21) Uba Stax 105-125 (90-110) Uba Mask pretty much sucks now!
22) UW Fish 102-128 (92-118)  Another surprise.  I guess there are a log of bigger creatures
23) Stax 96-134 (93-127) Surprising it did so poorly.
24) RG Beatz 88-142 (88-142) (Liked to beat up on Gushbond.  Poor versus combo.  There is a reason that RG Beatz did poorly when Slaver/Gifts were king.)

[bronxie]

nice job bert, but are these results based on updated decklists?

[M.Solymossy]

Bazaar of Baghdad is going to go rule the format, Dragon just became the dominant combo deck, Madness should compete with Workshop Aggro for beat down, Reanimator should be viable and Cerebral Assassin and Dawn of the Dead are reasonable off shoots.

I have a strong suspicion 4 Bazaar of Baghdad, 4 Leyline of the Void, 4 Chalice of the Void and 4 Force of Will are going to be the first 16 cards in a competitive deck.

Dragon with Thirsts is one option since Thirst allow one to discard Dragon or it acts as a draw engine with Chalice.
A second option would be mana Ichorid.  To get enough blue cards you could run:
4 Force of Will
4 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough
1-4 Chain of Vapor
4 Narcomoeba
2 Cephalid Sage
1 Brainstorm?
1 Ancestral Recall
Maybe Tolarian Winds or Time Walk.  I am not really sure.

Something like that is quite likely.  The question that must be justified is would you rather run Force or Unmask?  With Brainstorm restricted it seems that Unmask is even better.  Unmask also shows you your opponent's hand and thus makes Therapies better.

You know, cuz ICBM hasn't ALREADY been doing htis for months.... 

[meadbert]

This is a mix of postulating and results.  For decks that barely changed I used past results with previous lists.
For decks that changed significantly I played a few games and adjusted past results based on my impression on those few games.  In this manner it is very subjective and less objective than I would like.  I did stay up till around 5am last night testing, but in reality I only played at the most 50 games.  I am going to start a brand new test gauntlet now, but it will be months till it is done.

[meadbert]

Bazaar of Baghdad is going to go rule the format, Dragon just became the dominant combo deck, Madness should compete with Workshop Aggro for beat down, Reanimator should be viable and Cerebral Assassin and Dawn of the Dead are reasonable off shoots.

I have a strong suspicion 4 Bazaar of Baghdad, 4 Leyline of the Void, 4 Chalice of the Void and 4 Force of Will are going to be the first 16 cards in a competitive deck.

Dragon with Thirsts is one option since Thirst allow one to discard Dragon or it acts as a draw engine with Chalice.
A second option would be mana Ichorid.  To get enough blue cards you could run:
4 Force of Will
4 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough
1-4 Chain of Vapor
4 Narcomoeba
2 Cephalid Sage
1 Brainstorm?
1 Ancestral Recall
Maybe Tolarian Winds or Time Walk.  I am not really sure.

Something like that is quite likely.  The question that must be justified is would you rather run Force or Unmask?  With Brainstorm restricted it seems that Unmask is even better.  Unmask also shows you your opponent's hand and thus makes Therapies better.

You know, cuz ICBM hasn't ALREADY been doing htis for months.... 

Has ICBM?  I have not seen a decklist.  TK's was withheld thus I have no idea what was and was not in it.
Did he main deck 4xForce of Will?
Did he maindcek 4xLeyline of the Void?
Did he maindeck 4xChalice of the Void?
Did he maindeck any of the above three cards?
If so then congratulations on being ahead of the curve!

[bronxie]

haha well bert, i guess i dont need those merch scrolls quite so much... haha need 1 though =)

ive been maindeckin leylines in vintage and extended for almost a year now...

[MuzzonoAmi]

I expect a major resurgence of older archetypes that have been crowded out by the speed. UrPhid is probably the strongest deck in the format, given that it's now not fighting against combo/control and takes Stax and its variants to the woodshed. Similarly, Parfait is historically strong against aggro decks, as well as it's ability to answer graveyard based decks. It's possible that it will be too slow, though.

Stax will remain strong, but there's still a chance 3-4CC could come back, most likely as a Slaver variant.

[bronxie]

indeed... and some new decks?

[MuzzonoAmi]

I'm not sure about anything TRULY new, but Madness might come back, especially because it ran none of the hit cards and can support powerful disruption. A good jumping off point might be Team Reflection's Virtual Insanity.

[Moxlotus]

My prediction: mono blue control or maybe something close to meandeck Oath will become the best deck in the format.

[BreathWeapon]

Careful Study feels like the new Brainstorm, if you're using Intuition/Deep Analysis as your draw engine, you're getting a lot of mileage out of Careful Study in Goblin Welder based control.

I think Islands have to go with Goblin Welder, Oath of Druids, Auriok Salvagers/Trinket Mage or Phyrexian Dreadnoughts, old school Decree of Justice and Pyschatog just get ran over by Bazaars and Shops.

[bluemage55]

I predict Thirst for Knowledge will be the new Brainstorm. 

With the ability to pitch dead cards and also useful synergies, I definitely see it as the leading draw engine for decks optimized to take advantage of it, whether ICBM Oath, Control Slaver, or Bomberman.

[Grand Inquisitor]

Careful Study feels like the new Brainstorm

I predict Thirst for Knowledge will be the new Brainstorm

I think you guys are barking up the wrong tree.  Just because it's blue and has "draw" in it doesn't mean it resembles a replacement for brainstorm.  The reality is (and this is why everyone is flipping out), there is nothing close to brainstorm in the existing card pool which will enable plays of similar power.  Sleight of Hand, Opt, Sensei's Top, etc are going to be the closest thing to early search and deck filtering, however, they pale in comparison.

We need to build decks differently now.

[bluemage55]

I think you guys are barking up the wrong tree.  Just because it's blue and has "draw" in it doesn't mean it resembles a replacement for brainstorm.  The reality is (and this is why everyone is flipping out), there is nothing close to brainstorm in the existing card pool which will enable plays of similar power.  Sleight of Hand, Opt, Sensei's Top, etc are going to be the closest thing to early search and deck filtering, however, they pale in comparison.

We need to build decks differently now.

I don't think this is the case. 

Brainstorm was important not only for the early hand corrections, but also for the ability to efficiently turn dead cards into useful ones.  This is critical for reactive decks, which carry conditional cards that you don't want sitting in your hand at times.  Thirst for Knowledge might cost 3, but with a deck properly built to handle it (more artifact mana, plus Mana Drain x4), you can get to in a comparably timely fashion.

As an aside, Thirst will also fulfill the function of Brainstorm in Vintage 2.0 Oath.  With the loss of Brainstorm to put back your Oath targets, using artifact creatures such as Platinum Angel that you can pitch to Thirst is the new way to make it work (see the ICBM Oath thread).

[mistervader]

I am currently in the process of rebuilding Doomsday from scratch. I know losing Ponder, Gush, and Brainstorm all hurt, but I've figured out a decklist so far that seems to be capable of holding its own against everything but Stax. I'll test it a bit, but I'll let you know how I do with it in a tournament.

I daresay that Doomsday isn't quite dead, and Quicken will find some use again.

[meadbert]

So I have been testing extensively and have a few discoveries.  First of all AKs are probably the best engine right now.  Here is the problem.

Shops are not king.  Instead, Wasteland is King.
If you are trying to play traditional blue based control with 1 Brainstorm then you get lots of hands with a fetch and a mox.  In this case what card do you want?

Top is nice since it helps find a new land.  Also you can play top off the mox and shuffle with your fetch if you do not like what you are getting.

Other options:
1: Duress, Turn 1 Underground->Duress is VERY risky if that is your only land.  Wasteland will tear you to pieces!
2: Night's Whisper:  Better than Duress since you draw 2 cards, but still somewhat risky.  Fetching out Underground when it is your only land is just not acceptible.
3:  AK:  Okay, AK for 1 sort of sucks, but it can be cast off an Island which does not leave you open to Wasteland!  Also your next AK is now great.
4:  Cycle Rebuild:  Against, can be used off an Island.
5:  Mystical->Ancestral, can be used off an Island.  Immune to Duress.  Opponent less likely to have Force.
6:  Vamp/Seal for Ancestral, must fetch out Underground and this is VERY risky.

For the above reasons I have been finding that Drain Tendrils has been flowing much better than Control Slaver.  Slaver has been getting these hands with one land and Thirst but not enough mana to cast it.  Do I fetch Volcanic and cast Welder?  Do I fetch Underground and cast Night's Whisper.  Again, that is risky.  Although Cycling AK and Rebuild are not broken plays they really help DT smooth out the draws in the early game and get to where you can cast more expensive draw spells.

Incidently I think Slaver really wants Top for the reasons mentioned above.  Basically Fetch + Mox means top will see 6 cards which has now become very important.  Also there are those Top/Welder games so slaver can build card advantage.  I could see Slaver running as many as 3 tops!
Top also felt good in DT, but I am not sure I would drop Scroll, Ponder or Gush so for now I am not playing with it.

[meadbert]

As an aside, Thirst will also fulfill the function of Brainstorm in Vintage 2.0 Oath.  With the loss of Brainstorm to put back your Oath targets, using artifact creatures such as Platinum Angel that you can pitch to Thirst is the new way to make it work (see the ICBM Oath thread).

Actually, I think Steve was sort of on the right track with his Oath list.  The difference is that I actually expect Intuition and Bazaar, Loam, Strip to be Oath's method of filter.  Loam gets back Orchard, Tutors for Oath, find Bazaar to discard creatures and helps get a Strip lock.  Also if you run Factories like ICBM used to then you have a nice alternate win condition.