[Deck Article] Keeper Reborn

[bluemage55]

It's really an extremely suboptimal use of deck space to include something for the only purpose of being pitched or cycled.

I would argue that having artifacts to pitch to TfK is not in itself a suboptimal use of deck space.  It's the question of what else do the artifacts do that makes their usage optimal or suboptimal.

I also disagree with what you've deemed to be the function of top. Top's primary function is to increase your card quality. It has an added bonus of synergy with tfk, and welder.

The drawing engine is the central component of any blue deck.  For the purposes of this deck, one that utilizes the Thirst + Welder engine, the primary function of any artifact is to fuel this engine.  I would have a difficult time including Top (let alone multiple Tops) randomly in any deck that does not have Thirst to pitch it or Counterbalance (possibly Bob as well). 

For me, the primary function of both Top and Star is that they pitch, the secondary function is that they can self-cycle, the third function is that they can be used for Welder tricks, and their tertiary function is that they mana filter or improve card quality.  In designing this deck, it would seem that Star fulfills the secondary function more effectively than Top, and that Top has a stronger tertiary function.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

 @blue mage
I think you've misunderstood what I’m saying.
I don't know if you ever played slaver, or played in a slaver heavy meta, but if you recall how they used there thirsts, it was much more efficient in function and deck construction. They ran about 14 artifacts, sometimes more, never less. These artifacts, save a few big robots, are all extremely usefully early game, because of the acceleration they provided; additionally these artifacts bring tfk online. Sometimes mana producers are just not what you want to see mid-late game. In a deck configuration like slaver, tfk enables you to trade a not so useful artifact, for three new cards. This means you can do silly things like run tons of artifact sources without the worry of mana flooding (at fault of the artifact producers) once you've established yourself.
I feel the robot welder thirst synergy is pretty self explanatory, but with more robots, is a lot more relative and efficient than in your current shell.

Now let’s explore the functions of chromatic star as you have stated:
These are:
1. The primary function of the Stars is to pitch to Thirst for Knowledge and to cycle.
2. The key advantage of Stars and Tops over other artifacts is that they can be used to draw with Welder, and that they can cycle cheaply.


Before anyone makes the argument "star can be used as a mana fixer", Id like to point out that if a mid to late game control deck is depending on a one time fixer to fix a color problem your in for trouble the next time you need to make mana of that color, your better off adding fetches, or even relic to solidify your mana base.

What bothers me the most is your first statement "the primary function of the stars is to pitch to thirst and to cycle." It seems to me your saying, "I'm running these artifacts, so I have artifacts, and these are the least bad." if you look at slaver, its artifacts consist of early game acceleration and win conditions. Your stars are garbage early game, and less garbage late game.
Here is why I feel star is suboptimal:
1. Star (for the purposes you've given) makes mulliganing a difficult decision for all the same reasons street wraith did. In addition, you now have to work up 2 free mana, one at sorcery speed, to use this suboptimal cycling effect.
2. Mana. This card simply does nothing in the means of acceleration, certainly nothing comparable to the moxen you've cut in your list to make room for stars. This is an accelerated format, and I feel this will put you at a disadvantage.
3. Late or early game stars provide you the less vision than top. Top is more likely to find you relevant cards than star, not to mention that top can perform this function multiple times where star can not. This makes star a suboptimal card early and late game.
4. When it comes to late game welding tricking, the star CAN NOT provide you with a draw AND 3 cards of vision on the way out. Star does very little it terms of deck manipulation making it strictly worse than top late game
5. Evading duress. I've played a lot of top in a duress heavy meta, top was great for obvious reasons. Without brainstorm, duress is even better; I'd expect to see more of it.

I would also disagree with your statement about drawing being the central component of any blue deck. I had always believed that deck manipulation was the central competent to any blue deck. I would consider drawing to be a very important part of deck manipulation, simply because it gives you more to work with. I would tutor of tinker, to match the duress in my hand, than draw a few potentially bad cards any day of the week. This is why top is so good, it manipulates the cards in your deck, and the more mana you have, the crazier top gets.

I'm also very confused with your defined hierarchy of star/top function, specifically the second and third. I would never consider "cycling" to be a valid function of a card in a deck. When you cycle a card you are saying "this is a card I do not want" (obviously something you do not want to think about the cards you are running). It seems a little strange to run a card because you can get rid of it for -1 mana because you have no bored function for it. You also have to realize that cycling is just a mechanic that improves your card quality, this is something that you, yourself has stated that top does better.

Now you might be disagreeing with my views on cycling citing street wraith as an example. However, street wraith's function is NOT to cycle. If you look at the decks that run street wraith, there are only 2 competitive ones, Ichorid and Combo. In Ichorid, street wraith's function is to dredge, effectively “draw” 4-6 cards. In combo street wraith's function is to enable a 56 card deck, taking advantage of its manaless activation.

the only functions I see star performing in this list is to be card that you do not want, and happens to be an artifact for tfk, to be a card you don want and will pay 1 mana to cycle, or to do something top does better.

I don’t mean to give out so many negative comments, discourage you from posting new lists for discussion, or trying new things out. I actually think in doing this you are doing a great thing for the format. I do, however, see star as an extremely weak card choice.

[Sean Ryan]

For your own good stop listening to Oscar Tan.

I must concur with the last post, its hard to take this thread seriously with the three Chromatic Star sticking out like a sore thumb.  Don't be offended by some of the critiques, you are actually being offered some good advise from the community.

What exactly are you Welding?  The problem is that when you aren't welding Stars for advantage both the Welder and Stars are much less powerful and just talking up space.   

Have you tried looking through the Tournament archives for Top8 deck lists to reference?  You might enjoy Atog Lord or FFY take on Slaver.  If you like the idea of having dedicated answers try playing Tog, it's the deck that superseded 4ccontrol years back.  You could still have access to the Wishes and even an Explosives.  I"m also surprised not to see a Gorilla Shaman in the deck as it's great for grinding long games. 

Just my 2 cents. 

Good luck with your Vintage education.

[arkmagus]

For me, the primary function of both Top and Star is that they pitch, the secondary function is that they can self-cycle, the third function is that they can be used for Welder tricks, and their tertiary function is that they mana filter or improve card quality.  In designing this deck, it would seem that Star fulfills the secondary function more effectively than Top, and that Top has a stronger tertiary function.

Therein lies the priority differences that's the cause of some of this see-saw discussion.  It is an intriguing part of your design strategy to prioritize the ability of your card to cycle over its specific ability.  As to how this prioritization (and consequent choice of cards) will contribute to a win can only be tested in actual games.  There's little else to be gained in debating the strategy behind your prioritization since it can only be proved or disproved with empirical data.  I do hope you bring your list to an actual game, even a proxy one, and let us in on the result. 

[bluemage55]

I don't know if you ever played slaver, or played in a slaver heavy meta, but if you recall how they used there thirsts, it was much more efficient in function and deck construction. They ran about 14 artifacts, sometimes more, never less. These artifacts, save a few big robots, are all extremely usefully early game, because of the acceleration they provided; additionally these artifacts bring tfk online. Sometimes mana producers are just not what you want to see mid-late game. In a deck configuration like slaver, tfk enables you to trade a not so useful artifact, for three new cards. This means you can do silly things like run tons of artifact sources without the worry of mana flooding (at fault of the artifact producers) once you've established yourself. I feel the robot welder thirst synergy is pretty self explanatory, but with more robots, is a lot more relative and efficient than in your current shell.

I'm aware of how Slaver used to play, and I agree with most of your analysis.  However, there are a few things to consider:

Mana Sources:
I'm running 7 artifact mana sources, compared to 8 or 9 for the most of the lists I'm seeing.  I'm not doing much different in that regard, except dropping the least useful artifacts, like off color moxen and Mana Vault.

Slaver lists ran more than acceleration + robots:
A cursory glance at past lists suggest they also made use of cheap utility artifacts like T. Crypt and Crucible.  I'm doing the same thing here, only I'm converting more of the robot slots to utility slots.

BS no longer exists:
A number of people have been saying this, and I agree: blue's deck building strategies need to change in the new age of Vintage.  I don't believe that the Thirst + Welder engine can afford use as many robots in the past as they used to, because BS is no longer around to put dead cards back.  While Thirst still exists, a mere 5 cards (Thirst x4 + BS) is insufficient to cycle through as many robots, in addition to other cards that can be situationally dead (like extra mana sources).  The deck design philosophy I'm running with here is to minimize the number of dead cards so that the deck is more consistent, at the cost of potentially explosive power.

A second result of not having BS or Ponder is a substantial reduction in the amount of both 1 drops and card filtering.  Meadbert has suggested on another thread to fill this gap with Top, and expects many new Slaver lists to take advantage of its synergies with Welder.  I'm doing the same here, except with Star for its other advantages.

Before anyone makes the argument "star can be used as a mana fixer", Id like to point out that if a mid to late game control deck is depending on a one time fixer to fix a color problem your in for trouble the next time you need to make mana of that color, your better off adding fetches, or even relic to solidify your mana base.

The mana base is solid, and I'm not counting on Star to ensure access to colored mana.  However, a little help doesn't hurt, and it has situational advantages such as when you don't want to fetch out a dual land (for fear of Wasteland), and turning Mana Crypt/Sol Ring/Tolarian Academy/Drain mana into an extra colored mana when you need it.

IWhat bothers me the most is your first statement "the primary function of the stars is to pitch to thirst and to cycle." It seems to me your saying, "I'm running these artifacts, so I have artifacts, and these are the least bad."

You can restate that as, "I need artifacts, so I'm going to use these slots by filling them with the artifacts that are best for my deck".

Iif you look at slaver, its artifacts consist of early game acceleration and win conditions. Your stars are garbage early game, and less garbage late game.

As noted above, Slaver does run utility as well.  Regarding your main argument, I'd like to point out that Slaver's big robots are worse than garbage early game (they can't even be played), and strong late game.  In addition, I don't consider the stars garbage, because the ability to cycle makes them reasonable early game.

1. Star (for the purposes you've given) makes mulliganing a difficult decision for all the same reasons street wraith did. In addition, you now have to work up 2 free mana, one at sorcery speed, to use this suboptimal cycling effect.

By that logic, Brainstorm, Top, and Ponder also make mulliganing decisions difficult.  I would venture to say, however, that if they were robots instead, the decision is made easier, but that's just because you're options are being reduced.  Also, Stars have a net cost of 1, because the second mana you pay is given back to you (and filtered, to boot).

I2. Mana. This card simply does nothing in the means of acceleration, certainly nothing comparable to the moxen you've cut in your list to make room for stars. This is an accelerated format, and I feel this will put you at a disadvantage.

I haven't cut moxen for them.  I've cut robots.  The fewer moxen is appropriate given a lower mana curve for the deck as a whole.

I3. Late or early game stars provide you the less vision than top. Top is more likely to find you relevant cards than star, not to mention that top can perform this function multiple times where star can not. This makes star a suboptimal card early and late game.

Top cycles poorly without a shuffle effect.  It does improve card quality, but essentially at -1 CA, and requires mana each time you peek.

I4. When it comes to late game welding tricking, the star CAN NOT provide you with a draw AND 3 cards of vision on the way out. Star does very little it terms of deck manipulation making it strictly worse than top late game

I agree.  However, the Top's inability to cycle without a shuffle effect in the early game is a bigger concern for me, especially when I draw a second Top.

I5. Evading duress. I've played a lot of top in a duress heavy meta, top was great for obvious reasons. Without brainstorm, duress is even better; I'd expect to see more of it.

Hmm.  An interesting point that I have not considered.  Thank you for the lesson.

I would also disagree with your statement about drawing being the central component of any blue deck. I had always believed that deck manipulation was the central competent to any blue deck. I would consider drawing to be a very important part of deck manipulation, simply because it gives you more to work with.

While I agree, this doesn't undermine the point I was making, which is that drawing is important.

I would tutor of tinker, to match the duress in my hand, than draw a few potentially bad cards any day of the week.

Interestingly enough, this is precisely the principle under which I am operating in using Stars instead of robots.

This is why top is so good, it manipulates the cards in your deck, and the more mana you have, the crazier top gets.

I never want to be in a position where I have a crazy amount of mana anyhow, unless the game is effectively over.  I'd rather have more relevant cards.

I'm also very confused with your defined hierarchy of star/top function, specifically the second and third. I would never consider "cycling" to be a valid function of a card in a deck. When you cycle a card you are saying "this is a card I do not want" (obviously something you do not want to think about the cards you are running). It seems a little strange to run a card because you can get rid of it for -1 mana because you have no bored function for it. You also have to realize that cycling is just a mechanic that improves your card quality, this is something that you, yourself has stated that top does better.

Essentially what I'm saying is that running the Stars or Tops are superior to having big robots, becauses they will never be dead cards.  At worst, they turn into something else.

I don’t mean to give out so many negative comments, discourage you from posting new lists for discussion, or trying new things out. I actually think in doing this you are doing a great thing for the format. I do, however, see star as an extremely weak card choice.

Having heard my counterarguments, what is your recommendation in terms of actual card changes then?

For your own good stop listening to Oscar Tan.

I will choose who and what I listen to, though I thank you for the concern.

I must concur with the last post, its hard to take this thread seriously with the three Chromatic Star sticking out like a sore thumb.  Don't be offended by some of the critiques, you are actually being offered some good advise from the community.

I'm fully aware they stick out.  But innovation (whether good or bad) always does.

What exactly are you Welding?  The problem is that when you aren't welding Stars for advantage both the Welder and Stars are much less powerful and just talking up space.

I use the Welders to gain CA using Stars,  to Weld out Platinum Angel, to reuse EE, to generate mana using Welder tricks, to protect artifacts from removal, and to interfere with opposing artifacts (and possibly weld in their 0 cc artifacts before I use or reuse EE).

Have you tried looking through the Tournament archives for Top8 deck lists to reference?  You might enjoy Atog Lord or FFY take on Slaver.

I have referenced both the lists on Starcity, the lists here, and those found on Morphling.de.

If you like the idea of having dedicated answers try playing Tog, it's the deck that superseded 4ccontrol years back.  You could still have access to the Wishes and even an Explosives.  I"m also surprised not to see a Gorilla Shaman in the deck as it's great for grinding long games. 

I suspect the efficacy of Tog will be reduced with then new restrictions.   

Therein lies the priority differences that's the cause of some of this see-saw discussion.  It is an intriguing part of your design strategy to prioritize the ability of your card to cycle over its specific ability.  As to how this prioritization (and consequent choice of cards) will contribute to a win can only be tested in actual games.  There's little else to be gained in debating the strategy behind your prioritization since it can only be proved or disproved with empirical data.  I do hope you bring your list to an actual game, even a proxy one, and let us in on the result. 

I'm not quite ready to pay to construct this deck and for the entry fees of a tournament quite yet, but I can certainly post my playtests here.

[jeffthefob]

Ok, I cracked ^^

I'm not quite ready to pay to construct this deck and for the entry fees of a tournament quite yet, but I can certainly post my playtests here.

Not just to this quote, but the thread as a whole.

THERE are MANY tourneys around the area you live in.  Sacramento and Berkeley constantly hold type 1 for a while now; Sacramento almost an year and Berkeley is at its 4th year I think.  I have never seen you before in any of these tourneys, you should drop by.  We can carpool and etc. to counter the high gas money XD XD By going to local tourneys it will definitely be more fun and make you better at magic (not saying anything about your skills and etc, I have never seen you play.)

There are some players in Davis, and I would think we are pretty decent at type 1.... I would love to meet new players of all kinds.  Also it may be better to test against real life players instead of on MWS with people you don't know at all.  Most people just think playing the deck against other decks is playtesting, but playtesting is lot more than that.  I feel like people throw the word "playtest" too much around without doing it right or misused it.  Again, not saying you are, but there are players in Davis as opposed to MWS.

-Jeff

[Sean Ryan]

I suspect the efficacy of Tog will be reduced with then new restrictions.   Wink

The restriction of Brainstorm shouldn't hurt old school Tog any more than the other Drain decks.  Tog replaced Keeper/4cc because it was so much more streamlined and had a combo finish.  The loss of BS hurts decks that have dedicated answers such as Keeper much more than Tog which has the flexibility of Cunning wish.  It also has enormous draw power with the Inutition/AK engine.  The question is whether it is stronger than the other options (Drain Tendrils, Slaver, Oath, BBS) for the new metagame. 

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

As you have stated, you are running 7 artifact mana sources, opposed to the traditional 8 or nine. brainstorm was the reason people could run fewer mana sources in a deck. You are running less artifact sources, and less ways to find them. Id say that’s very different. Also, your "least useful artifacts" are extremely useful. You run tfk, scroll, fof, tinker, cunning wish, fire/ice, EE, timewalk, yawgs' will, and platinum angel. these cards all come on line faster with full sets of moxen. In addition, hard casting your solo platz can be highly relevant.
For these reasons artifact sources are better than star.

slaver lists and their artifacts:
True slaver, occasionally ran a solo crucible and more common t crypt. From what I've seen most people running crucible end up cutting it, but it was interesting in testing (opening up potential strip and slave locks). Tormod's crypt is very acceptable because it obstructs people's game plans in a single card, I would consider testing t crypt in the main. Either way, both of these cards are better the star, though I wouldn't recommend crucible.
Slaver also ran more robots than you. Slaver was a deck that could compensate for drawing its robots with brainstorm (to keep them as tinker targets), tfk and weld, or simply hard casting them. With solo platz main, less mana acceleration and less brainstorm, solo angel in hand can be very hard to deal with, leaving you with one narrow predictable line of play, welding (in a meta where people will be maidecking tormod's crypt/leyline, or so I've been seeing). Diversifying and adding win conditions + adding mana is a good place to start. I'd suggest platz+dupe+trike/vus. This leaves you with more lines of play and makes it no bid deal to discard a robot to tfk or just getting it stp'd. Having a robot in your hand is ways going to be better for your game then star in hand. Star will never win you games.

Re: bs no longer exists:
Honestly, I can't think of a worse draw in a deck than that star you just want to get rid of. Adding mana and robots in their place adds explosiveness and a raw power level that star does not. I've definitely seen the "1st main ancestral, force, drain on force, 2nd main cast trike" play enough to not consider robot in hand a dead draw.

Your second part in this section leads me to believe your need to check your math on top and star.
top: 1 mana to play, 1 mana to activate, tap draws a card of your choice 3 deep. If you have an additional mana open you can put an additional look on the stack and draw with top manipulating your next draw as well with 2 cards of vision, 1 being top. The additional synergies with fetch lands is too obvious to go in depth with.
star: 1 mana to play, and additional mana to activate. Goes to the yard. Gives you a mana of your choice. Draws you a card with out any possibility of manipulation. Gives you no manipulation later in the game. No synergy with fetch lands

top with welder: gets played taped, draws a card then gets welded. An additional mana gets you an additional 3 cards of vision
star with welder: gets played, welded out and draws you a card.

The only thing star does that top does not is give you one colored mana, which you'll probably burn off.  Top as noted above does a number of things star does not.

In response to mana fixing:
I never said you intended to use this card as a mana fixer. I was just attempting to keep people from bringing its up as a huge benefit of star. A one shot mana fixer that net loses you mana has no place in an archetype like this with the amount of choices the format provides you with.


In response to your "you can restate that as, 'I need artifacts, so I'm going to use these slots by filling them with the artifacts that are best for my deck" comment.
I have given you a list of reasons why star is strictly worse than top, and you have given no evidence to the contrary by simply stating that they are the "best".

Response to slaver drawing robots early game:
Hard casting triskelion turn 2 is certainly not unheard of; turn three with drain mana is borderline easy. Most of the time robot in slaver's opener gets pitched to tfk, just like stars primarily function as stated by you is. The main difference here is that once you resolve a welder you could have a huge robot and start killing people, or a star, which you can turn into +1 to hand 2 turns after welder comes into play. THIS IS A LOT OF TIME! Star seems rather slow and inconsequential when compared to an aggressive play like triskelion (or dare I even say a 7/10). The robots are looking worlds better than star right now if you ask me.

In response to star brainstorm ponder and mulliganing.
Honestly, I find rather shocking your even making this comparison.  Brainstorm and ponder both give you an ancestral recall's worth of vision and options. for one blue. This is very different than the card of vision for 2 mana and no options star gives you.
(I'll address your comment on the cost of playing star and activating it at the bottom of this post)

In response to what you've cut for what.
Pure semantics. The fact of the matter is you’re not running a full set of moxen, and an extra robot or two. This would most likely be a better decision than running 3x star for the reasons listed below.

Top and "cycling"
Keep in mind that top can immediately give you +1 ca at anytime. For the rest of your concerns, see the comparison I made between top and star above. True at times it can be mana intensive, but it will always do more than top in terms of card quality.

The rest of your comments I believe I've answered in one of the sections above.


Stars converted mana cost, activation cost, and filtering.
Your list is currently running 3 moxen, crypt, and black lotus as its 0 casting cost artifacts. If your interested in the +1 ca star provides, let’s rule out using petal and lotus as activation for star, because it negates the cantrip effect (costing you 2 cards to get 1). This leaves you with 3 moxen and mana crypt. Mana crypt is a questionable line of play and very situational turn one, but we will include it anyways. More then half the time you will have 1 mana in your opening play. Lets say you use that mana to play star. Your opponent does something, seeing you've tapped out with star, and you need to draw a card. You can not. Top will still blindly draw you one blindly in this situation, making it better than star early game. No matter how you look at it, you will always need to mana to play and activate star immediately, unlike top. In this regard star is much like rewind. Despite rewind costing a net 0 and star costing you 1 you can't treat these cards as such. Just like how rewind sits in your hand and does nothing till you have 4 mana in play, star sits on the field and does nothing till you have free mana, opponents will take advantage of this.

[MaxxMatt]

hello all,

I would like to dodge reasoning and nitpicking done about Welders & Robots & ChroSpheres or the other issues about what or when Rakso or anyone else said useful things about Keeper or 4c-c.





Instead, there are more than a couple of reasons to turn back on 2003,  update a staple 4cc control list and play it again.


Those are my thoughts about last B&R restrictions impact.

--> Singleton Brainstorms ( fixing decks bad initial hands will be more difficult. Not a single and low casting costing protection to discard effects ) 
--> No MScrolls & Gush ( got killed all the dominant modern bllue.control.combo strategies )
--> No Flash ( got killed a cool way to both win coin's toss and games )
--> More MW.dec ( required more stable decks, more interacting decks, more "1.for.X" strategies )
--> More Aggro.Control.dec ( required more stable decks and more "1.for.X" strategies )
--> More Dredge.dec, or from a broader point of view Grave.dec ( keep it empty and you'll win a lot )
--> Slower Storm.dec ( lack of Gush & BS & Scroll made us difficult to find monster key spells )


I find really hardcore to replace Brainstorm or to balance the deck with cards that are able to fullfill similar goals.
In the end, there is no way to complete this transition in a satisfactory way.

I'm going to play Keeper or Control-X again with this deck's configuration, way similar to the ones always proposed, but revamped and streamlined a bit with the shortly described possibly future metagame in mind.


(12) __ Protections
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
2 Mindtwist
1 Echoing Truth
1 Balance

(12) __ Drawers & Fixers
3 Skeletal Scrying
2 Impulse
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Fact of Fiction
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Timetwister
1 Time Walk
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder

(2) __ Winners
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Yawgmoth's Will

(5) __ Toolbox
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Sensei Divining Top
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Regrowth
1 Extirpate

(5) __ Tutors
2 Cunning Wish
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Tinker

(24) __ Mana
3 Island
3 Undeground Sea
3 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus

(15) - Sideboard
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Pithing Needle
2 Oxidize
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Platinum Angel
1 Chain of Vapors
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Extirpate
1 Gush

C Wishes and Skeletals can interact themselves covering both strategical and general porpouse roles.
Sideboard instant speed spells have been reduced to the minimum playable: a 3cc drawer that can protect your lands and quickly activate LoA, a grave & redundant opponent's spells killer, an instant speed tutor and a general porpouse low cc bouncer.
The other cards can cover gaps against Combo decks ( CotVs ), MW.dec ( Oxidize & Needles ), AggroControls ( E.E., Needle & Platz ), Grave.dec ( TCrypts, Platz & Needles ): choices have been done with those matchups in mind.
Control games can be won outplaying opponents. Due to the fact those matchups are inherently slower and based more on skill & experience rather than lucky draws and restricted cards, I'm confident on being able to optimize resources in order to win against opponents without sideboard dedicated cards.

Maindeck is really solid: it benefits of a lot of gamebreaking cards and sinergies usually will let you go 1forX against your opponent.
Twister and TCrypt are cool against Dredge.dec and YWill.dec but you'll be able to optimize Twister alone thanks to Skeletals.
Full set of Brainstorm have been replaced with different 1 and 2 cc spells. Those quality spells are paired with Skeletals for the needed quantity.
You can win through Gifting out things or use FoF and Gifts itself to build up EoT game breaking sequences of spells.
Discarding cards cards with Mindtwist and Balance is stronger now than in the past: opponent now has no Brainstorms to easily gamble you and protect himself and Misdirections will not be so frequent for sure now that GaT & GrimLong have been crushed by B&R.
YWill, Twister & Regrowth are needed, from my own point of view, to recurr powerful spells and protect from discard effects.
All the spells maindecked are "1 for X". I continue to underline this thing because it is crucial when playing control decks to have things able to fill the gap with the opponent with a few powerful and wisely used spells.
Mana development is a key factor for the win. Optimizing a single MDrain during the first few turns of the game or keep initial hands with some accelerations, will let resolve bombs like MTwist, FoF or Gifts quicker, with the peace of opponents.


This is a starting skeleton, customizable at will by anyone: feel free to optimize it at will, but keep in mind to keep it well balanced.
I tuned and streamlined it a lot before writing it there because it is simple to talk about an almost dead deck, proposing new lists as "the salvation".

I opted to revamp this archetype because of recent restrictions: such as a two-edged knife, modern blue.control decks got axed, but they gave to 4c-keeper more breath than I could have ever thought.

M.

[bluemage55]

THERE are MANY tourneys around the area you live in.  Sacramento and Berkeley constantly hold type 1 for a while now; Sacramento almost an year and Berkeley is at its 4th year I think.  I have never seen you before in any of these tourneys, you should drop by.  We can carpool and etc. to counter the high gas money XD XD By going to local tourneys it will definitely be more fun and make you better at magic (not saying anything about your skills and etc, I have never seen you play.)

There are some players in Davis, and I would think we are pretty decent at type 1.... I would love to meet new players of all kinds.  Also it may be better to test against real life players instead of on MWS with people you don't know at all.  Most people just think playing the deck against other decks is playtesting, but playtesting is lot more than that.  I feel like people throw the word "playtest" too much around without doing it right or misused it.  Again, not saying you are, but there are players in Davis as opposed to MWS.

-Jeff

Neat, a player from Davis.   

I haven't played in any tournaments since coming to Davis to start college.  I've just been too busy with graduating due to a 3-year graduation plan, work, membership and presidency of a professional fraternity, and a serious long-term relationship.  I'm interested in returning now due both to the massive Vintage shakeup and the expectation that I will have more time following graduation this year (at least until law school).

But I'm pleasantly surprised to find a Davis player here on TMD.  Where do you play in Davis?  I checked with Bizarro World when I came to Davis and was told they don't hold Vintage tourneys.

The restriction of Brainstorm shouldn't hurt old school Tog any more than the other Drain decks.  Tog replaced Keeper/4cc because it was so much more streamlined and had a combo finish.  The loss of BS hurts decks that have dedicated answers such as Keeper much more than Tog which has the flexibility of Cunning wish.  It also has enormous draw power with the Inutition/AK engine.  The question is whether it is stronger than the other options (Drain Tendrils, Slaver, Oath, BBS) for the new metagame. 

I'm referring to the restrictions of Gush, Merchant Scroll, and Brainstorm combined.  I considered the redundant 3 engines of Brainstorm, Gush, and Intuition -> AK combined to be its biggest strength.

[bluemage55]

As you have stated, you are running 7 artifact mana sources, opposed to the traditional 8 or nine. brainstorm was the reason people could run fewer mana sources in a deck. You are running less artifact sources, and less ways to find them. Id say that’s very different. Also, your "least useful artifacts" are extremely useful. You run tfk, scroll, fof, tinker, cunning wish, fire/ice, EE, timewalk, yawgs' will, and platinum angel. these cards all come on line faster with full sets of moxen. In addition, hard casting your solo platz can be highly relevant.  For these reasons artifact sources are better than star.

As iterated above, this list runs a lower mana curve than Slaver lists.  The principle reason to do so is that I never want to be in the position where I can hardcast a big robot, because it means I'm likely substantially behind (or way ahead) anyway.  Up until the moment where a big robot is cast, all that artifact mana is just sitting around doing virtually nothing, as opposed to an artifact which either serves as removal or can cycle.  Artifact sources are also completely useless when both players are in topdecking mode, as opposed to an artifact which can cycle.

I believe here, we are having a conceptual disagreement on the role of artifact mana.  I feel that the role of mana is limited to accelerating into threats that demand an answer which will cost the opponent CA (either forcing them to pitch to FoW, or breaking a Lotus to respond).  I do not ever want to be using it to cast powerful spells that are still answerable by a single card.  That's a Standard kind of thing, and inappropriate for a format where every card counts.

slaver lists and their artifacts:
True slaver, occasionally ran a solo crucible and more common t crypt. From what I've seen most people running crucible end up cutting it, but it was interesting in testing (opening up potential strip and slave locks). Tormod's crypt is very acceptable because it obstructs people's game plans in a single card, I would consider testing t crypt in the main. Either way, both of these cards are better the star, though I wouldn't recommend crucible. 

I've tested Crucible, and I did actually like its function, but I found the 3cc to be annoying in a deck already with a lot of 3 drops.

Slaver also ran more robots than you. Slaver was a deck that could compensate for drawing its robots with brainstorm (to keep them as tinker targets), tfk and weld, or simply hard casting them. With solo platz main, less mana acceleration and less brainstorm, solo angel in hand can be very hard to deal with, leaving you with one narrow predictable line of play, welding (in a meta where people will be maidecking tormod's crypt/leyline, or so I've been seeing). Diversifying and adding win conditions + adding mana is a good place to start. I'd suggest platz+dupe+trike/vus. This leaves you with more lines of play and makes it no bid deal to discard a robot to tfk or just getting it stp'd. Having a robot in your hand is ways going to be better for your game then star in hand. Star will never win you games.

As above, I'm not particularly interested in adding mana. 

And I disagree that having a robot in hand is going to be better than Star.  Star can turn into disruption, card drawing, or an answer, all of which do actually win games.  Star is more likely to do this than a big robot being castable.

Re: bs no longer exists:
Honestly, I can't think of a worse draw in a deck than that star you just want to get rid of. Adding mana and robots in their place adds explosiveness and a raw power level that star does not. I've definitely seen the "1st main ancestral, force, drain on force, 2nd main cast trike" play enough to not consider robot in hand a dead draw.

Adding mana and robots decreases the efficiency of the deck.  There's a reason why green decks running Llanowar Elves and Birds to cast giant creatures don't work in Vintage.

Your second part in this section leads me to believe your need to check your math on top and star.
top: 1 mana to play, 1 mana to activate, tap draws a card of your choice 3 deep. If you have an additional mana open you can put an additional look on the stack and draw with top manipulating your next draw as well with 2 cards of vision, 1 being top. The additional synergies with fetch lands is too obvious to go in depth with.
star: 1 mana to play, and additional mana to activate. Goes to the yard. Gives you a mana of your choice. Draws you a card with out any possibility of manipulation. Gives you no manipulation later in the game. No synergy with fetch lands

top with welder: gets played taped, draws a card then gets welded. An additional mana gets you an additional 3 cards of vision
star with welder: gets played, welded out and draws you a card.

I do not need a lesson on what the 2 cards do.  I assure you that I've considered their functions carefully.

The only thing star does that top does not is give you one colored mana, which you'll probably burn off.  Top as noted above does a number of things star does not.

You also missed the fact that Star does not require a fetch land to cycle itself.  And the fact that multiple Stars are more useful than multiple Tops.

In response to your "you can restate that as, 'I need artifacts, so I'm going to use these slots by filling them with the artifacts that are best for my deck" comment.
I have given you a list of reasons why star is strictly worse than top, and you have given no evidence to the contrary by simply stating that they are the "best".

I've given both reasons and criteria in numbered form.  My rationale is logically consistent, and if you disagree, it's only because you assign a different utility to the value of looking at the top 3 cards of your library and/or to the value of being able to self-cycle without a fetch land.

Response to slaver drawing robots early game:
Hard casting triskelion turn 2 is certainly not unheard of; turn three with drain mana is borderline easy. Most of the time robot in slaver's opener gets pitched to tfk, just like stars primarily function as stated by you is. The main difference here is that once you resolve a welder you could have a huge robot and start killing people, or a star, which you can turn into +1 to hand 2 turns after welder comes into play. THIS IS A LOT OF TIME! Star seems rather slow and inconsequential when compared to an aggressive play like triskelion (or dare I even say a 7/10). The robots are looking worlds better than star right now if you ask me.

I've already stated that I'm aware that a big win card is more valuable in the late game than Star is.  However, I'm more concerned about the significant disadvantage of having a dead card in hand during the early game. 

In response to star brainstorm ponder and mulliganing.
Honestly, I find rather shocking your even making this comparison.  Brainstorm and ponder both give you an ancestral recall's worth of vision and options. for one blue. This is very different than the card of vision for 2 mana and no options star gives you.

The point here is that simply because a card makes it more difficult to mulligan does not discredit it as bad.  We've all been in situations where BS hit no land and we had to sit there for 2 turns doing nothing.  However, this is not probable, and we simply calculate based on the ratio of cards in our deck what we're likely to hit.  Having Street Wraith or Star in hand doesn't make the decision substantially harder because you already know the number of mana sources left in your deck and can thus anticipate how long you'll need to wait to hit a mana source or business card.

In response to what you've cut for what.
Pure semantics. The fact of the matter is you’re not running a full set of moxen, and an extra robot or two. This would most likely be a better decision than running 3x star for the reasons listed below.

Again, I disagree.  The risk of extra mana sources or robots being dead cards, either in the early game or in top deck mode, makes them weaker in my mind than Stars.

Top and "cycling"
Keep in mind that top can immediately give you +1 ca at anytime. For the rest of your concerns, see the comparison I made between top and star above. True at times it can be mana intensive, but it will always do more than top in terms of card quality.

Top does not give you +1 CA.  It gives you card parity.

Stars converted mana cost, activation cost, and filtering.
Your list is currently running 3 moxen, crypt, and black lotus as its 0 casting cost artifacts. If your interested in the +1 ca star provides, let’s rule out using petal and lotus as activation for star, because it negates the cantrip effect (costing you 2 cards to get 1). This leaves you with 3 moxen and mana crypt. Mana crypt is a questionable line of play and very situational turn one, but we will include it anyways. More then half the time you will have 1 mana in your opening play. Lets say you use that mana to play star. Your opponent does something, seeing you've tapped out with star, and you need to draw a card. You can not. Top will still blindly draw you one blindly in this situation, making it better than star early game. No matter how you look at it, you will always need to mana to play and activate star immediately, unlike top. In this regard star is much like rewind. Despite rewind costing a net 0 and star costing you 1 you can't treat these cards as such. Just like how rewind sits in your hand and does nothing till you have 4 mana in play, star sits on the field and does nothing till you have free mana, opponents will take advantage of this.

I don't randomly use Star on turn 1.  There is no benefit to doing so, as my relevant disruption cards are either Thoughtseize or Force of Will.  If I cast Top, it's likely that I can't cast Thoughtseize, so there's no reason to dig for the most part.  If I do have Land + Moxen/Sol Ring/Mana Crypt + Star + Thoughtseize/BS/Ponder in hand, then I will drop the land, the artifact mana source, cast Star, sac, and cast the business spell.  I turned the artifact mana's source (which most likely does nothing anyway this turn) into a cycle.

On turn 2, on the other hand, I can tap a land, use Star for blue mana, and tap the other land to Drain.  Alternatively, if I have a Mox out, I can tap 2 lands and the Mox, cycle Star, and cast Thirst or Wish.

Have you ever actually played with Star?  It doesn't seem like you're aware of its intricacies and usage.

[bluemage55]

@MaxxMatt

The primary problem I have with your shell is that it runs on the Skeletal Scrying engine.  Why is this a good idea compared to the other engines available (be they Thirst, Intuition -> AK, or Deep Anal)?

[MaxxMatt]

### bluemage addressing skeletals

This deck, like an evergreen virgin, is extremely tight: 60 slots aren't enough to pack in all the wished broken spells.
Drawers are crux & delight of control decks: they are needed and they have to be redundant but without filling too many space.

If you add 4 or 5 additional drawers you are doomed. Deck will be really consistent & flexbile but it will feel empty, especially during midgame or late game, when this deck shall win.

You can use 4 TFKs or 4 Skeletals. It is more stylish than really different when playing with them for a long time. You'll be able to optimize them all with a bit of additional experience.
You can't do the same if control decks will play redundant engine like Intu+AK+Deep & so on. This is the best draw engine all around, especially with Gush restricted, but it takes too many space to be build up.




Keeper & similar decks needs other things inside the pile in order to take control for a few turns and win.
Feel free to play TFKs over Skeletals. Skeletals are inherently better because they will net you more cards, but you can be frightened by their color. So go with TFKs. On the other hand, don't be afraid to realize at some point, that you are always playing with an overcosted Brainstorm/Impulse that only a few times net you a single card.



In order to win with 4c-c. I have to Drain things into Mindtwists and Skeletals.
Large spells with huge impacts on the game.

4C-C is more a Balance/MTwist.dec rather than a Drawers.dec
And even nowdays, this is an huge strength, especially if unexpected and well played.




Your own build resemble more ControlSlavery rather than 4C-C. It is an oversimplification, of course, but it is an useful one in order to focus on crucial themes:

Is Welder needed here ? Are his own artifact switches so much important and game winning to steal space to other control elements?
 
The answer is "no", of course, because of Robots. They are the worst and the best spell to throw into grave with a deck similar to yours. Without Robots, you are overestimating the impact of Platz & Spheres on the game. They both have no CIP effect and little to nothing weight. If you are winning, you'll win, if you are losing, you'll probably still lose.

So why add Welders? No real reason.

So I focus on opponents' cards and single spells that can deal with a lot of opponents' ones.
TCrypt, E.E., MTwist, ETruth, Balance, Gifts, SDTop, CWish for general porpouse Instants, CotVs and Needles.
All together, they would slow down multiple aspects of opponents strategy.

Drains and Drawers are, instead,  the neeeded 1for1 answer to unanswereable spells and the needed refilling effect to survive 'till midgame.

No other way to choose 4C-C over Welder.dec
Find a consistent and stable way to play and optimize Welders into a 4c-c without playing C-Slavery and yuo'll have your deck.
Otherwise, optimize things as good as you can, but feel free to at least try my own deck skeleton and feel his raw power. 


Enjoy!
Maxx

[bluemage55]

Keeper & similar decks needs other things inside the pile in order to take control for a few turns and win.
Feel free to play TFKs over Skeletals. Skeletals are inherently better because they will net you more cards, but you can be frightened by their color. So go with TFKs. On the other hand, don't be afraid to realize at some point, that you are always playing with an overcosted Brainstorm/Impulse that only a few times net you a single card.

I'm not just concerned about the color of Skeletals.  I'm also concerned about the fact that you need to have graveyard cards to remove:

1. There are now fewer cantrips going to the grave (no BS, Ponder, or Scroll).
2. They don't synergize with Yawg's Win.
3. Leyline and T. Crypt will give you problems.

In order to win with 4c-c. I have to Drain things into Mindtwists and Skeletals.
Large spells with huge impacts on the game.

That seems unreliable, both because you can only run Drain x4, and due to the likely increase in the number of Duress effects.  I also find it problematic that you don't have more disruption in order to protect those large bombs.

4C-C is more a Balance/MTwist.dec rather than a Drawers.dec
And even nowdays, this is an huge strength, especially if unexpected and well played.

That doesn't seem like an ideal strategy, given the fact that these cards are both situational.

Is Welder needed here ? Are his own artifact switches so much important and game winning to steal space to other control elements?
 
The answer is "no", of course, because of Robots. They are the worst and the best spell to throw into grave with a deck similar to yours. Without Robots, you are overestimating the impact of Platz & Spheres on the game. They both have no CIP effect and little to nothing weight. If you are winning, you'll win, if you are losing, you'll probably still lose.

So why add Welders? No real reason.

1. Welders allow this list to minimize the number of slots devoted to winning the game due to the recursion they offer.
2. They serve as situational removal of opposing artifacts, including game-ending threats like Tinker -> DSC.
3. Welders provide recursion of removal effects such as T. Crypt and EE.
4. Welder tricks generate extra mana and CA.

[So I focus on opponents' cards and single spells that can deal with a lot of opponents' ones.
TCrypt, E.E., MTwist, ETruth, Balance, Gifts, SDTop, CWish for general porpouse Instants, CotVs and Needles.
All together, they would slow down multiple aspects of opponents strategy.

It really seems like you're just throwing bombs (either card drawing, discard, or mass removal) as soon as you can come up with the mana for them (preferably using Drain).  Does that not open you up to vulnerability from Duress/Thoughtseize?

No other way to choose 4C-C over Welder.dec
Find a consistent and stable way to play and optimize Welders into a 4c-c without playing C-Slavery and yuo'll have your deck.
Otherwise, optimize things as good as you can, but feel free to at least try my own deck skeleton and feel his raw power. 

That seems to be the case.  I'll test out Skeletals, I used to run them in 4c control but I haven't played with them in awhile.  Thanks for the input.

[Hydra]

As you have stated, you are running 7 artifact mana sources, opposed to the traditional 8 or nine. brainstorm was the reason people could run fewer mana sources in a deck. You are running less artifact sources, and less ways to find them. Id say that’s very different. Also, your "least useful artifacts" are extremely useful. You run tfk, scroll, fof, tinker, cunning wish, fire/ice, EE, timewalk, yawgs' will, and platinum angel. these cards all come on line faster with full sets of moxen. In addition, hard casting your solo platz can be highly relevant.  For these reasons artifact sources are better than star.

As iterated above, this list runs a lower mana curve than Slaver lists.  The principle reason to do so is that I never want to be in the position where I can hardcast a big robot, because it means I'm likely substantially behind (or way ahead) anyway.  Up until the moment where a big robot is cast, all that artifact mana is just sitting around doing virtually nothing, as opposed to an artifact which either serves as removal or can cycle.  Artifact sources are also completely useless when both players are in topdecking mode, as opposed to an artifact which can cycle.

I believe here, we are having a conceptual disagreement on the role of artifact mana.  I feel that the role of mana is limited to accelerating into threats that demand an answer which will cost the opponent CA (either forcing them to pitch to FoW, or breaking a Lotus to respond).  I do not ever want to be using it to cast powerful spells that are still answerable by a single card.  That's a Standard kind of thing, and inappropriate for a format where every card counts.

Your list is no less vulnerable to single card "answers" than standard CS, so I'm failing to see what sense you're trying to make in your argument.  "I don't play that card because it might get countered/bounced" is definitely more of a "Standard" kind of thing than it is a Vintage one, as in Vintage you recognize the possibilities on such events and aim to play the most "broken" cards possible so that if they don't have the answer they lose, period.  Your deck fails to capitalize on this concept in the same way it fails to abuse Will, you completely lack the ability to "go broken".  That is why CS, Tog and Gifts were able to muscle 4cc and 3cc out of the format to begin with, and you're returning to an evolutionary "throwback" when the format is still filled with decks that necessitate the "combo" finish.

Re: bs no longer exists:
Honestly, I can't think of a worse draw in a deck than that star you just want to get rid of. Adding mana and robots in their place adds explosiveness and a raw power level that star does not. I've definitely seen the "1st main ancestral, force, drain on force, 2nd main cast trike" play enough to not consider robot in hand a dead draw.

Adding mana and robots decreases the efficiency of the deck.  There's a reason why green decks running Llanowar Elves and Birds to cast giant creatures don't work in Vintage.

Yes those decks aren't viable, but not for the reasons you think.  Green decks running Elves and Birds don't work because they don't have haste and are a one for one mana investment, so you're technically not "accelerating" your mana production at a speed which is acceptable in Vintage.  Moxes, Sol Rings, Crypts, Vaults, they all see play because they provide more mana than they cost on the turn you play them.  Look at Stax, that deck is all mana acceleration, robots and disruption, and I don't see anyone arguing that the deck isn't viable.

What you're failing to realize is that in a deck like CS robots are specifically chosen for the effects they have on the state of the game.  Trike, Sundering Titan and Duplicant control the board position, Crucible fixes your mana against decks like Stax, Mindslaver usually wrecks your opponent's gameplan and Darksteel Colossus is the fastest "win" condition around in robot form.  You consider spare Moxes to be "useless" in that they don't do anything late game, but the fact that they allow you to play Thirsts ASAP and drop a Robot if necessary make them invaluable to CS.  The fact that they are also free storm and allow for the casting of "expensive" cards such as Gifts or Will made them invaluable to Gifts.  The fact that they are potential dead draws later on isn't taken into account because worst case scenario in CS they give you another Weld, and in Gifts it means one less storm to win.  Robots, on the other hand, can be a dead draw at times but CS is designed to minimize that, and seeing one robot isn't a terrible thing in CS as for plays similar to what h3x described above, which is usually how CS beats decks like Fish.

Your second part in this section leads me to believe your need to check your math on top and star.
top: 1 mana to play, 1 mana to activate, tap draws a card of your choice 3 deep. If you have an additional mana open you can put an additional look on the stack and draw with top manipulating your next draw as well with 2 cards of vision, 1 being top. The additional synergies with fetch lands is too obvious to go in depth with.
star: 1 mana to play, and additional mana to activate. Goes to the yard. Gives you a mana of your choice. Draws you a card with out any possibility of manipulation. Gives you no manipulation later in the game. No synergy with fetch lands

top with welder: gets played taped, draws a card then gets welded. An additional mana gets you an additional 3 cards of vision
star with welder: gets played, welded out and draws you a card.

I do not need a lesson on what the 2 cards do.  I assure you that I've considered their functions carefully.

I don't believe you have.  Brainstorm and Ponder were both considered "too good" to keep around in multiples because they provide you with the "vision" of 3 cards and allow you to make adjustments to what you draw.  Top does the same thing, but is more mana-intensive.  Card drawing in Vintage is measured based on how many cards you can see for as cheap as possible.  Impulse didn't make the cut in the past because it cost two mana to see 4 cards (where as Brainstorm was 1 for 3), and with Star you're paying 2 mana to see 1 card.  Top is 2 mana to see 3 cards, which on first activation makes it worse than Impulse, but the fact that it's from that point on a "Brainstorm" worth of vision makes it much better in the long run.

The only thing star does that top does not is give you one colored mana, which you'll probably burn off.  Top as noted above does a number of things star does not.

You also missed the fact that Star does not require a fetch land to cycle itself.  And the fact that multiple Stars are more useful than multiple Tops.

You can still "cycle" Top without a Fetch, you just get it back next turn without needing Welder tricks, which doesn't seem awful to me.  Multiple Tops are useless true, but once you have the first Top active, why on Earth are you seeing more?  Top also can put itself back in your hand late game to pitch to Thirst if you need to make sure that you have an Artifact to pitch to Thirst.

In response to your "you can restate that as, 'I need artifacts, so I'm going to use these slots by filling them with the artifacts that are best for my deck" comment.
I have given you a list of reasons why star is strictly worse than top, and you have given no evidence to the contrary by simply stating that they are the "best".

I've given both reasons and criteria in numbered form.  My rationale is logically consistent, and if you disagree, it's only because you assign a different utility to the value of looking at the top 3 cards of your library and/or to the value of being able to self-cycle without a fetch land.

That much is obvious, you're undervaluing the fact that manipulating your draw then cantriping is better than a plain cantrip.  The fetch land argument is weak because once you have Top active you normally don't want to *not* have it active, so getting your Top right back is nice.  If you want to put off drawing that top, then pay to activate the top and tap it with that on the stack, then shove the Top down as the 3rd card.

Response to slaver drawing robots early game:
Hard casting triskelion turn 2 is certainly not unheard of; turn three with drain mana is borderline easy. Most of the time robot in slaver's opener gets pitched to tfk, just like stars primarily function as stated by you is. The main difference here is that once you resolve a welder you could have a huge robot and start killing people, or a star, which you can turn into +1 to hand 2 turns after welder comes into play. THIS IS A LOT OF TIME! Star seems rather slow and inconsequential when compared to an aggressive play like triskelion (or dare I even say a 7/10). The robots are looking worlds better than star right now if you ask me.

I've already stated that I'm aware that a big win card is more valuable in the late game than Star is.  However, I'm more concerned about the significant disadvantage of having a dead card in hand during the early game. 

That's a fair argument, but I don't think a card that is slow in the early game and useless is in the late game is going to sway many people when the "late game" in Vintage can start as early as turn 3.

In response to star brainstorm ponder and mulliganing.
Honestly, I find rather shocking your even making this comparison.  Brainstorm and ponder both give you an ancestral recall's worth of vision and options. for one blue. This is very different than the card of vision for 2 mana and no options star gives you.

The point here is that simply because a card makes it more difficult to mulligan does not discredit it as bad.  We've all been in situations where BS hit no land and we had to sit there for 2 turns doing nothing.  However, this is not probable, and we simply calculate based on the ratio of cards in our deck what we're likely to hit.  Having Street Wraith or Star in hand doesn't make the decision substantially harder because you already know the number of mana sources left in your deck and can thus anticipate how long you'll need to wait to hit a mana source or business card.

Except that said Street Wraith or Star could've been mana or a business card and you wouldn't need to do the math at all.  What h3x is arguing is not that this alone makes it bad, but that the drawback of that and its other drawbacks are not mitigated by the pros of the card, and that makes the card bad.

In response to what you've cut for what.
Pure semantics. The fact of the matter is you’re not running a full set of moxen, and an extra robot or two. This would most likely be a better decision than running 3x star for the reasons listed below.

Again, I disagree.  The risk of extra mana sources or robots being dead cards, either in the early game or in top deck mode, makes them weaker in my mind than Stars.

I've already made my arguments above for this, although it seems more like a stubborn stance in the face of more experienced players than anything on your part.

Top and "cycling"
Keep in mind that top can immediately give you +1 ca at anytime. For the rest of your concerns, see the comparison I made between top and star above. True at times it can be mana intensive, but it will always do more than top in terms of card quality.

Top does not give you +1 CA.  It gives you card parity.

This is true, but Top gives you 3 options of parity to the one that Star provides.

Stars converted mana cost, activation cost, and filtering.
Your list is currently running 3 moxen, crypt, and black lotus as its 0 casting cost artifacts. If your interested in the +1 ca star provides, let’s rule out using petal and lotus as activation for star, because it negates the cantrip effect (costing you 2 cards to get 1). This leaves you with 3 moxen and mana crypt. Mana crypt is a questionable line of play and very situational turn one, but we will include it anyways. More then half the time you will have 1 mana in your opening play. Lets say you use that mana to play star. Your opponent does something, seeing you've tapped out with star, and you need to draw a card. You can not. Top will still blindly draw you one blindly in this situation, making it better than star early game. No matter how you look at it, you will always need to mana to play and activate star immediately, unlike top. In this regard star is much like rewind. Despite rewind costing a net 0 and star costing you 1 you can't treat these cards as such. Just like how rewind sits in your hand and does nothing till you have 4 mana in play, star sits on the field and does nothing till you have free mana, opponents will take advantage of this.

I don't randomly use Star on turn 1.  There is no benefit to doing so, as my relevant disruption cards are either Thoughtseize or Force of Will.  If I cast Top, it's likely that I can't cast Thoughtseize, so there's no reason to dig for the most part.  If I do have Land + Moxen/Sol Ring/Mana Crypt + Star + Thoughtseize/BS/Ponder in hand, then I will drop the land, the artifact mana source, cast Star, sac, and cast the business spell.  I turned the artifact mana's source (which most likely does nothing anyway this turn) into a cycle.

On turn 2, on the other hand, I can tap a land, use Star for blue mana, and tap the other land to Drain.  Alternatively, if I have a Mox out, I can tap 2 lands and the Mox, cycle Star, and cast Thirst or Wish.

Have you ever actually played with Star?  It doesn't seem like you're aware of its intricacies and usage.

Star functions the same as Chromatic Sphere, which had been cut completely from decks for not doing enough.  The more you argue the more it sounds like Star is merely in there for you to have something to cast turn one if you don't see Thoughtseize, and that's a poor reason to keep a card around.

Keeper & similar decks needs other things inside the pile in order to take control for a few turns and win.
Feel free to play TFKs over Skeletals. Skeletals are inherently better because they will net you more cards, but you can be frightened by their color. So go with TFKs. On the other hand, don't be afraid to realize at some point, that you are always playing with an overcosted Brainstorm/Impulse that only a few times net you a single card.

I'm not just concerned about the color of Skeletals.  I'm also concerned about the fact that you need to have graveyard cards to remove:

1. There are now fewer cantrips going to the grave (no BS, Ponder, or Scroll).
2. They don't synergize with Yawg's Win.
3. Leyline and T. Crypt will give you problems.

Skeletal was run in Gifts as a one of by a large number of players (including myself) towards the end of the deck's life span with the second two issues existing, but the raw power of the card for large numbers made those issues worth risking.  The first is more problematic now to be certain, but Fetches and Counters still provide plenty of fodder to use for it.

In order to win with 4c-c. I have to Drain things into Mindtwists and Skeletals.
Large spells with huge impacts on the game.

That seems unreliable, both because you can only run Drain x4, and due to the likely increase in the number of Duress effects.  I also find it problematic that you don't have more disruption in order to protect those large bombs.

That's actually the standard way most Drain decks win quickly.  Maxx's list is capable of winning without Drains, it's just a more difficult task.  it was the same way for CS and Gifts.  4 Force and 4 Drain has often been considered an acceptable amount of disruption game 1, so I'm failing to see why you feel he'd struggle to protect his spells when it's never been an issue in the past.

4C-C is more a Balance/MTwist.dec rather than a Drawers.dec
And even nowdays, this is an huge strength, especially if unexpected and well played.

That doesn't seem like an ideal strategy, given the fact that these cards are both situational.

I agree that this is not an ideal strategy, but the fact that other decks are just flat out superior in the card drawing front to Keeper make this the case.  Your deck has the same issue about card drawing, but fails to address the bombs part like he does.

Is Welder needed here ? Are his own artifact switches so much important and game winning to steal space to other control elements?
 
The answer is "no", of course, because of Robots. They are the worst and the best spell to throw into grave with a deck similar to yours. Without Robots, you are overestimating the impact of Platz & Spheres on the game. They both have no CIP effect and little to nothing weight. If you are winning, you'll win, if you are losing, you'll probably still lose.

So why add Welders? No real reason.

1. Welders allow this list to minimize the number of slots devoted to winning the game due to the recursion they offer.
2. They serve as situational removal of opposing artifacts, including game-ending threats like Tinker -> DSC.
3. Welders provide recursion of removal effects such as T. Crypt and EE.
4. Welder tricks generate extra mana and CA.

Welders also take up slots you could've devoted to "win conditions" and other disruption.  The recursion is nice, but unless CS you're not set up to capitalize on it with your lack of "bombs" to bring back.  If you're looking to abuse EE and T. Crypt, Bomberman does it better than CS does.  Welders also generate mana better when you have a full compliment of Moxes, which you refuse to do.

[So I focus on opponents' cards and single spells that can deal with a lot of opponents' ones.
TCrypt, E.E., MTwist, ETruth, Balance, Gifts, SDTop, CWish for general porpouse Instants, CotVs and Needles.
All together, they would slow down multiple aspects of opponents strategy.

It really seems like you're just throwing bombs (either card drawing, discard, or mass removal) as soon as you can come up with the mana for them (preferably using Drain).  Does that not open you up to vulnerability from Duress/Thoughtseize?

All decks are vulnerable to Duress/Thoughtseize without Brainstorm.  Your deck just "feels" less vulnerable to you because you run next to no bombs.

[nineisnoone]

If you want to put off drawing that top, then pay to activate the top and tap it with that on the stack, then shove the Top down as the 3rd card.

OOoh. Sexy. I like that. I hadn't thought of that. 

[Webster]

To bluemage55,

It seems like the group of people who disagree with your logic on chromatic star's inclusion, the majority who are intelligent people that know what they're talking about, will not be able to make you change your mind despite their repeated eloquent posts. I could join them and construct a post with my own reasonings, but I'm not going to do that. I don't want to walk into that pitfall. What I am going to do is make the following proposal;

Put your money where your mouth is and go get some real testing done.

I'm sure you have probably tested for some amount on MWS/Apprentice. Frankly, unless you have someone who you know is capable of playing at a level which minimizes playskill superiority of one player over another with both players not being completely horrible, then the playtesting you're getting done really isn't productive at all.

It seems like you believe what your talking about and are posting arguments which are trying to compel the other people on these forums that you're right, but it's hard to believe from their (and my own) standpoint that you are correct because:

A. No one really knows who you are.
B. Since A exists, your experience, playskill, and ability to evaluate cards and combinations becomes a question.
C. Since B exists, the gut feeling of someone is going to weigh a lot more heavily than your arguments.

If you put some numbers up to back up your claims, then people will be more likely to believe you. The initial steps of proposing your deck and defending it seems like they've almost concluded; you're gotten feedback, had the opportunity to digest that it, and made counterpoints defending your choices. Now you should go and throw your creation into the fray.


There is a shop in Sacramento which holds multiple type 2 tournaments each week. Many people who go there for type 2 also play type 1. You should go there, mingle, trade, and get some games in. I recommend Tuesdays and Thursdays. The tournaments on those days start at 6 PM.

Adventures In Comics and Games
6026 Fair Oaks Blvd.
Carmichael, CA 95608
(916) 973-9064

If those times are inconvenient for you, here are other opportunities:

There is a type 1 tournament at Adventures on Saturday, June 14. Details are here.

There is a type 1 tournament at Eudemonia on Sunday, June 22. Details are here.

I will be there this Thursday to hang out and on Saturday for the tournament. Feel free to proxy up a few decks to duel. This is quite an opportunity that I'm presenting to you.

[jeffthefob]

Being the Fob I am, I can't quite transfer what is in my mind onto paper as well as Web did, nor in that manner ^^"""

I suggest you to meet up with us on Thursday, Friday, or even Saturday.  LSV, Web, and I will be at Adventures on Thursday and Saturday and I certainly don't mind giving you a lift any of those days.  If you can't make it, then please drop by where I live or we can meet up in Davis and "test" a bit.

Finals are over on Thursday, heck you may even not have finals on Thursday.  Don't know if you are in a "hurry" to go home on Friday, but I see there are ample opportunities where you can meet us up and "put your money where your mouth is and go get some real testing done."  And at the same time, you get to know vintage players around the bay and you can even get your Arcanis, The Omnipotent signed by LSV.

Oh, one last thing, I am not so sure if a lot of ppl play type 1 Tues. or Thur. at Adventures like Web said, but they do get a turnout for their monthly type 1 tourneys.  Again, a lot of tourneys around, it would be nice to see vintage blood in the bay.

[Ufactor]

I must have seen the same arguement about Chromatics occur once per page of this thread.  We seem to be running out of useful content here, without even speculating on whether this belongs in the Improvement Forum.