What is the current tier 1 to playtest against?

[Bone]

Me and some friends want to play in the biggest sanctioned vintage tournaments in Europe. Therefore we need extensive playtesting but in our group and local vintage metagame there is almost no powered decks. So my idea was to proxy some of the tier 1 decks so we could playtest against eachother. But what decks are the current tier 1 and what should i choose to playtest against, not too many decks please because printing is a b!tch.

Here is what I had in mind: (currently 5 decks)

TezzVault
Tendrils (Remora, Drain, BoB... what version should I choose?)
Stax (Mono Brown, Red, White, Aggro... what version should I choose?)
BUG Fish
Ichorid (Manaless, Mana or Dredge?)

Is there other decks I should include in this decks to beat testing box?

Thanks

[Duncan]

I'd test against the following decks:

- Manaless Ichorid
- BUG Fish
- Mono R Workshop Aggro
- TPS
- Tezzeret
- Oath of Druids

That is a bare minimum of decks you want to know how to play against. I'd throw in different variants of those types (like Mana Ichorid, Stax, Shaymora etc. ) if you want to test more, which I think is useful, but with these 6 you get a feeling for the different strategies you will face. Also, RG(w) Beats might be good to put in the gauntlet.

[voltron00x]

First and foremost I'd suggest the following:

1 - Tezzeret (with Mana Drains & TFK - this is the "gold standard" as of right now)
2 - Tezzeret (with Remora & Dark Confidant - see the list Mastriano used to win the Philly Open on 5/9)
3 - "Shaymora" / Remora Control
4 - Mana Ichorid (with Hypnotist & Fatestitcher)

If whatever deck you want to play can't at least compete with these decks, it'd be wise to choose a different deck, as these make up the current Tier One in Vintage.  If you have the time and interest, I would add the Tier 1.5 decks:

5 - Oath of Druids (at the risk of self-promoting, my updated Oath list will be in my SCG article tomorrow and is non-premium)
6 - 5 Color Stax or some other Shop variant of your choosing such as Shop Aggro (although 5C Stax seems to be the list still putting up results, see Nick Detwiler's list from the Philly Open.  I believe he made another top 8 with it this past weekend)
7 - Fish (there are many versions to choose from, but basically you're testing against an aggro Null Rod / Chalice strategy)
8 - TPS or ANT (TPS probably being the better deck - for a new version of this archetype, see the Tez / Tendrils Hybrid from the Philly Open 3 top 8, which won the Blue Bell event on 5/23 as well)
9 - Gro (see Menendian's list from the Waterbury; a similar list made Top 8 at Blue Bell on 5/23)

Your other potential opponents if you want the full gauntlet might include:

10 - Elves (combo)
11 - R/G Beatz (Menendian posted an interesting Fish-esque build on SCG that should be non-Premium now) or possibly the Mono-Red deck from the Philly Open 3 which is very strong against Tezzeret
12 - Other Drain variants (Slaver, Painter), although these have significant overlap with Tezzeret
13 - Dedicated Aggro strategies are a possibility as well, such as Zoo or Affinity

Menendian also wrote up an end-of-year look at Vintage both on SCG and on Wizards.com, which gives an excellent rundown of the metagame at that point also.

[LotusHead]

5 - Oath of Druids (at the risk of self-promoting, my updated Oath list will be in my SCG article tomorrow and is non-premium)

Actually, many of us like reading Vintage Articles, and pointing the way to free articles is welcome.

I'd add Bomberman to the list of tier 1.5 decks.

[LordHomerCat]

There's no reason to test 3 mana drain decks before anything else.  Play against a drain deck like Tezz or Shaymora (whichever you expect to be tougher for you: tezz if you have dudes, shaymora if not).  Play against whatever workshop deck is common in your area (in Europe Mono Red and MUD are big right?), play against TPS or Ad Naus, play against Ichorid (post board especially), probably a version with fatestitchers.  Play against Oath but don't worry too much about it, play against some version of that European Dark Confidant control to make sure you have a plan for confidant.  Then play against a fish variant which will be tough on you (BUG fish if you are playing a drain deck, for instance) to get a feel for the matchup.  You don't really need to test against 5 different drain decks and every shop deck and every random aggro deck and so on.  That will just be a waste of your time.  I wouldnt bother testing against Steve's decks until people start playing them, and I wouldn't bother testing against Zoo or Goblins or other random stuff like that unless you know for a fact someone (good) will be palying the deck and you will probably have to beat them in the top 8 to win.

[Ruven]

little hint: if you're planning on going to an italian Tournament then I'd definitely test against UR fish, which are heavily played there (so I've heard) and differ a lot from other Fish strategies insofar as they don't run Rod but a lot more Disruption with the Spellstutters. (Meaning they have about 16-17 counters postboard some of which can be played again (Stutters) during the match, so beware).
On the other hand I think the Italian Meta is currently the only one where this Fish variant is actually played, so if you're not planning on going there, then there's probably no need to test against it.

[Duncan]

There's no reason to test 3 mana drain decks before anything else.  Play against a drain deck like Tezz or Shaymora (whichever you expect to be tougher for you: tezz if you have dudes, shaymora if not).  Play against whatever workshop deck is common in your area (in Europe Mono Red and MUD are big right?), play against TPS or Ad Naus, play against Ichorid (post board especially), probably a version with fatestitchers.  Play against Oath but don't worry too much about it, play against some version of that European Dark Confidant control to make sure you have a plan for confidant.  Then play against a fish variant which will be tough on you (BUG fish if you are playing a drain deck, for instance) to get a feel for the matchup.  You don't really need to test against 5 different drain decks and every shop deck and every random aggro deck and so on.  That will just be a waste of your time.  I wouldnt bother testing against Steve's decks until people start playing them, and I wouldn't bother testing against Zoo or Goblins or other random stuff like that unless you know for a fact someone (good) will be palying the deck and you will probably have to beat them in the top 8 to win.

I agree with this. This is why I posted the list I did. After testing against a Tezzeret deck you benefit more from testing against a different strategy than playing against a slightly different Drain deck.

The RG(w) deck I mentioned should probably be a WG(b/r) deck.

[The Atog Lord]

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