[Free Article] Eating Vintage Brains for Fun & Profit

[voltron00x]

In my SCG article this week (non-premium) I take a look at the current state of the Vintage metagame (including some thoughts re: un-restriction and Time Vault that piggyback off the work of Menendian and the discussions in these forums), discuss what I consider to be the best build of Tezzeret, and recap the Blue Bell, PA tournament from 5/23.  I played Ichorid to a finals appearance, losing in 3 games, while my updated Oath deck came in third in the hands of Chas Hinkle.  Lists for both decks are included.

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/17525_The_Long_Winding_Road_Eating_Vintage_Brains_for_Fun_Profit.html

[Elfrago]

Very good article, well written and interesting 

[nataz]

I'm surprised that your ichorid list played 0 fast mana. At the very least I would have expected lotus and petal for quicker fatesticher activations, cabal therp, and post board answers. With your current list of all land based mana sources, the earliest you can play fatesticher is turn two, and to do that you have to have a land in hand, AND not have to discard it to a Bazaar activation. This can be limiting when you have to mulligan multiple times.

Also, fast mana changes the answer on Bazaaring first turn since you'll find more first turn plays with 9 cards as opposed to 7. Do you really think that an opp will not play their crypt/relic/whatever on their turn you you don't dump anything into the yard until eot? I guess I dont understand the logic. The only reason I can think of not to bazaar would be if they had a planar void out, and you wanted to resp to the trigger some how. 

Its good to see more people talking about vintage. Keep writing!

[voltron00x]

I'm surprised that your ichorid list played 0 fast mana. At the very least I would have expected lotus and petal for quicker fatesticher activations, cabal therp, and post board answers. With your current list of all land based mana sources, the earliest you can play fatesticher is turn two, and to do that you have to have a land in hand, AND not have to discard it to a Bazaar activation. This can be limiting when you have to mulligan multiple times.

Also, fast mana changes the answer on Bazaaring first turn since you'll find more first turn plays with 9 cards as opposed to 7. Do you really think that an opp will not play their crypt/relic/whatever on their turn you you don't dump anything into the yard until eot? I guess I dont understand the logic. The only reason I can think of not to bazaar would be if they had a planar void out, and you wanted to resp to the trigger some how. 

Its good to see more people talking about vintage. Keep writing!

First, about the Ichorid deck... I think the reason that the deck avoids fast mana is partially because it plays Chalice on Zero, with Chalice being one of the best plays the deck can possibly make.  It's difficult for any deck in Vintage to race this build of Ichorid because it uses Chalice, Therapy, and Unmask (or FoW) to disrupt its opponent for a few turns, just long enough to Dread Return Hypnotist and force them do discard their entire hand, which this deck can do routinely on turn 2 even without any playing mox / lotus / petal / LED.

"My" list (really put together for the philly open 3 by Chas Hinkle) is based Sean Orcutt's list from the Waterbury: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=37654.0

His list also ran no speed mana. 

It just has a slightly different sideboard, and -1 Unmask / -1 Fatestitcher for +1 Dread Return / +1 Hypnotist.  This originally came about because I only could find 3 Unmask (and we were running 0 proxy to try & win the no-proxy prize), but that card is arguably the worst card in the deck, while the extra Hypnotist and Dread Return have been excellent at increasing the ease of making quick and routine Hypnotist plays. 

As far as the article itself, thanks - I plan on writing as long as SCG will allow me to do so.  Also, for those interested in free Vintage / Legacy articles, my SCG column normally runs on Mondays and is non-premium.  It isn't always about Eternal formats, because I play basically everything, but it often is.  Here are links to a few others:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/17403_The_Long_Winding_Road_The_Power_Registry_and_Other_Eternal_Musings.html
(from 4/27 - a look at the idea of a "power registry" and some comparisons of format "speed" between Extended, Legacy, and Vintage)

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/17382_The_Long_Winding_Road_A_Modest_Vintage_Proposal.html
(from 4/22 - further exploration on Smmenen's ideas re: CE cards and the health of Vintage)

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/17310_The_Long_And_Winding_Road_How_Progenitus_Got_my_Groove_Back_Vintage_Oath.html
(from 4/6 - thoughts on Progenitus Oath including a report on the 4/4 Blue Bell tournament)

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/17200_The_Long_and_Winding_Road_Eternal_Deep_Dish.html
(from 3/11 - a recap of GP: Chicago include a brief mention of the Vintage side event)

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/17135_The_Long_and_Winding_Road_Vintage_and_Legacy_Examined.html
(from 2/24 - a recap of Hellkite Oath and the changes I made to include Progenitus, with a brief tournament report and some pre GP:Chicago brainstorming for Legacy)

[nataz]

First, about the Ichorid deck... I think the reason that the deck avoids fast mana is partially because it plays Chalice on Zero, with Chalice being one of the best plays the deck can possibly make.

Agreed, chalice is one of the best plays the deck makes, but that shouldn't really matter unless you are playing witness->fast mana post turn 1. Any other time the only time you are drawing, as opposed to dredgeing, is turn 1, and hence you should be able to play your fast mana before you play your chalice.

Unless things have gone wrong, the second mana source should be in your hand BEFORE the end of your first turn, it doesn't matter if its a land or fast mana. The exception to this is post board, when there are many situations where you have to dig for cards with bazaar rather then dredge, however there I still think the speed boost > the chance of locking out 2-3 mana sources IF you have chalice on the table.

I top 8'd day two of waterbury with an ichorid list backed by a lot of fast mana. I'm not saying thats the way you have to go since the addition of chrome moxen really locks you into a blue black sideboard, but at the very least petal, LED, and Lotus should be considered in any fatesticher build. \\for ref, here is my report

[voltron00x]

Honestly, I'm not really in a position to debate either way, as I haven't tested a fast-mana version in Vintage.  Certainly the idea of running, say, Petal, LED, and Lotus does have some appeal to it, but at the same time I never really felt like I wanted or needed to speed up the deck in exchange for increasing my vulnerability to cards that otherwise would have no effect on me.  I also like the flexibility you get out of having all your mana tap for any color, so that I could bring in a mix of Chain, Chewer, and Charm and not have to worry about mana costs.  I'm also not a big fan of Chrome Mox in the deck, as it seems terrific in theory but hasn't been as good in actual execution.

In eight rounds with the deck, I lost 5 games total, to:

1. A broken turn-2 Tezzeret PLUS Vampiric for Key opening 7 that I would've torched if I had won the die roll due to Chalice
2. Taking a mulligan to 3
3. Getting blown out by overwhelming hate x3, twice after winning game 1 and once after #2 above, when I had to mulligan to 5 and my opponent had the Needle for my double-bazaar 5-card hand (which I think is a definite keep)

So basically, one game that I lost might've been impacted by having a faster deck.  Admittedly I was in very few racing situations until the top 4, when I narrowly beat my own Oath deck and then lost to a very fast Tezz / Tendrils hybrid list, so if I were to play in a tournament stacked with TPS, my opinion might change.

As a side note, I played some games tonight with Oath against Ichorid, although the Ichorid list was pretty dated.  Regardless the newer sideboard for Progenitus Oath (from my article, with Jailers swapped in for Leylines) seemed to be pretty ridiculous against Ichorid (bringing in 2x Emp. Angel, 2 Needle, 2 Crypt, 2 Jailer, 2 Echoing Truth, 1 Wasteland for 3 Thoughtseize, 2 Duress, 1 Crucible of Worlds, 1 Wipe Away, 1 Inkwell Leviathan, 1 Progenitus, 1 Misdirection, 1 Chalice of the Void).  Oathing into Jailer is pretty hilarious.