[Free Article] Two Card Monte: A Vintage Primer

[voltron00x]

This week, I have a primer about Two Card Monte, the combo deck I played in Harrisburg on 1/31.  Its an interesting deck that's still in development, but is competitive and a lot of fun to play...

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/18785_The_Long_Winding_Road_Introducing_Two_Card_Monte_A_Vintage_Primer.html

[Killane]

Really interesting concept.

My only question is this: why you started developing the deck, why look for an artifact based fast combo deck in a metagame infested with Null Rods?

Apart from that the build does look very solid and powerful.

[voltron00x]

Well, the idea sort of came at random from a post on TMD.

As far as Null Rod, my meta is oddly devoid of Null Rods, which is why I wanted to play the deck (and also why I played Fish in NY - players in our meta can cheat in terms of their main and sb answers to Null Rod).

For instance in NY on 1/23 when I played Fish, there were only 4 Fish decks, and one didn't have Null Rod in the main;  I believe I was the only player using Null Rod in that top 8.  There were also 2 Dredge decks in that top 8, so this deck would have been well-positioned for the meta of that tournament.  In Harrisburg on 1/31, I think there were maybe 4 or 5 players using Null Rod in the whole tournament, and one was Shop Aggro that only had 2 (which I beat in rd 1).  Another was the deck I lost to in top 8, which only has 1 Null Rod in the main.

[Yare]

Thanks for the write up on this deck, as it explained some subtleties I did not pick up from just looking at the decklist previously. Also, props for just coming up with this deck at all; like you said, it is really hard to create new strategies in Vintage.

[Killane]

Well, the idea sort of came at random from a post on TMD.

As far as Null Rod, my meta is oddly devoid of Null Rods, which is why I wanted to play the deck (and also why I played Fish in NY - players in our meta can cheat in terms of their main and sb answers to Null Rod).

For instance in NY on 1/23 when I played Fish, there were only 4 Fish decks, and one didn't have Null Rod in the main;  I believe I was the only player using Null Rod in that top 8.  There were also 2 Dredge decks in that top 8, so this deck would have been well-positioned for the meta of that tournament.  In Harrisburg on 1/31, I think there were maybe 4 or 5 players using Null Rod in the whole tournament, and one was Shop Aggro that only had 2 (which I beat in rd 1).  Another was the deck I lost to in top 8, which only has 1 Null Rod in the main.

That's pretty funny. You can hardly turn aroudn here without bumping into a Rod or ten.

I like the deck - I wish I could play it as it's right up my alley, but I don't own shops.

Kudos for coming up with it.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

Interesting article.  I've been goldfishing this deck since you posted it, and have found it to be a lot quicker and more consistent than I thought it would be, although it does occasionally mull into oblivion.  Time will tell whether or not it will be viable, but good job developing it nonetheless.  I disagree with a few things you say, however:

At the moment, Belcher and Ad Nauseam Tendrils (ANT) see little play due to their weakness against Tezzeret.

ANT is definitely not "weak" against Tezz; what you are worried about with ANT is B/R or Mono-R Stax.  That said, the printing of Lodestone Golem will likely make things more difficult for ANT in the Workshop matchup, whereas this deck will be largely unaffected.

It's wrong to board out Demonic Consultation against Tezz, Fish, and Dredge.  Consultation is the best tutor in the deck.  Why would you not want to have a 1 mana Demonic for any of your combo pieces?  It just doesn't make sense.  If you're looking to board out tutors (although I don't know why you would want to), Vamp is definitely weaker.

Also, I'm somewhat concerned about the boarding out of Serum Poweders in some matchups.  When I was goldfishing the deck, a lot of hands would not have a complete combo, and thus be crap without Powder.  I can understand how Confidant makes up for this in the Tezz match (since Confi himself is business), but in the Fish and Oath matches it looks like you are decreasing your consistency to add a few hate pieces, which are useless if you aren't in a position to go off in the first place.  Consequently, you become even more dependent on the opening hand and more vulnerable to mulligans.

[Oath of Happy]

I would think that Thirst for Knowledge should be in this deck.  It can filter out top decked Serum Powders, but if the opponent has Null Rod out game 1 and no artifact in the yard, and you happen to draw your Titan, you have no way to weld it in.

[voltron00x]

Interesting article.  I've been goldfishing this deck since you posted it, and have found it to be a lot quicker and more consistent than I thought it would be, although it does occasionally mull into oblivion.  Time will tell whether or not it will be viable, but good job developing it nonetheless.  I disagree with a few things you say, however:

At the moment, Belcher and Ad Nauseam Tendrils (ANT) see little play due to their weakness against Tezzeret.

ANT is definitely not "weak" against Tezz; what you are worried about with ANT is B/R or Mono-R Stax.  That said, the printing of Lodestone Golem will likely make things more difficult for ANT in the Workshop matchup, whereas this deck will be largely unaffected.

It's wrong to board out Demonic Consultation against Tezz, Fish, and Dredge.  Consultation is the best tutor in the deck.  Why would you not want to have a 1 mana Demonic for any of your combo pieces?  It just doesn't make sense.  If you're looking to board out tutors (although I don't know why you would want to), Vamp is definitely weaker.

Also, I'm somewhat concerned about the boarding out of Serum Poweders in some matchups.  When I was goldfishing the deck, a lot of hands would not have a complete combo, and thus be crap without Powder.  I can understand how Confidant makes up for this in the Tezz match (since Confi himself is business), but in the Fish and Oath matches it looks like you are decreasing your consistency to add a few hate pieces, which are useless if you aren't in a position to go off in the first place.  Consequently, you become even more dependent on the opening hand and more vulnerable to mulligans.

Consultation is the best tutor in the deck provided that you're hunting for something you have in multiples.  When you're looking for counter-measures to the opponent's cards post-sb, it becomes significantly worse.  That came up a lot in testing.

Similarly, Serum Powder is not very good against deck that pack Force of Will AND Thoughtseize / Duress, such as Tezzeret and Oath.  This is also something that became apparent through testing that wasn't really obvious from goldfishing.  The main way you lose to those decks is by going all-in too quickly.

Having said that, this is based on a week of testing and 1 tournament.  I'm relatively certain there are better configurations of 75 and there may be better sideboard techniques.

Personally, I was never impressed with ANT's match-up against Tezz, but I know you're a fan of the deck and have played it a lot, so I'm not going to challenge you on it - just my personal observations.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

Have you considered a transformational sb into Workshop Aggro?  This might help against some of your harder match-ups, like Fish and Null Rod Stax.

[Stormanimagus]

Have you considered a transformational sb into Workshop Aggro?  This might help against some of your harder match-ups, like Fish and Null Rod Stax.

Interesting Point. This could be a good home for SB Lodestone Golems as a way to combat Null Rod Strategies. Would you then also run Magus Of the Moon in the SB? And possibly even SoFI?

Also: @Matt — Would it be possible to run just a UR manabase and cut the 3 Black Tutors in favor of 3 Intuition? Or 2 Intution + 1 Thirst? I realize you can't hard-cast Leyline anymore, but is that really a big problem? Just curious.

-Storm

[personalbackfire]

Have you considered a transformational sb into Workshop Aggro?  This might help against some of your harder match-ups, like Fish and Null Rod Stax.

Interesting Point. This could be a good home for SB Lodestone Golems as a way to combat Null Rod Strategies. Would you then also run Magus Of the Moon in the SB? And possibly even SoFI?

Also: @Matt — Would it be possible to run just a UR manabase and cut the 3 Black Tutors in favor of 3 Intuition? Or 2 Intution + 1 Thirst? I realize you can't hard-cast Leyline anymore, but is that really a big problem? Just curious.

-Storm

Why would you want to run a UR mana base?
Playing 5coor mana bases allow you to board/ play anything that you want, since color availability wont be an issue. The only upside I could see is if you plan on running a basic or something, but I think you would lose more games to that then you would to waste lock or something. Thats not to mention that the tutors are really good in this deck, since usually you can just get the other combo piece, welder, or whatever it is u need.

[voltron00x]

One of the sideboard options I considered was to just load up on artifact guys - Lodestones, Juggs, Titans, whatever - and try to just bash the hell out of Fish decks or Shop decks with Null Rod using the advantage from Leyline and my own Welders.  Never had time to test it, though.

[rpf5029]

Matt, as I said at the Harrisburg tournament, this deck seems SO much fun to play.  I was curious about the 4th Grindstone being cut for (then) a Red Elemental Blast.  It does have limited applications by itself, but it's really good against topdeck tutors (especially when people forget about it) and also works pretty well with your own Goblin Welders.  I saw you cut Wheel for Titan in this article's list.  Wheel seemed to be doing pretty well, but I like the inclusion of a giant robot.  I really want to play Timetwister in here, but man... Goblin Welder sure does hate that card. 

Thanks for making testing interesting again! 

[jovialevil]

Ha, the deck looks good.  Nice to have more than one single strategy to go for in a combo deck.

It looks like one might even be able to put something together that preserves the general idea in a low / no proxy environment by replacing the painter's servant combo with oath of druids, and just filling up the mana with dark ritual.  Something along the lines of:
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Serum Powder
2 Ill-gotten Gains
4 Helm of Obedience

4 Duress
4 Thoughtseize
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will

3 Nature's Claim
2 Pernicious Deed
4 Oath of Druids
1 Iona, Shield of Ephemera
1 Krosan Reclamation

4 Dark Ritual
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Swamp
1 Strip Mine

...some of the synergies vanish, like the ability to use serum powder for anything useful after drawing a starting hand, but it was still fun trying to think of a way to put together a more budget-friendly adaptation of your deck.

[Phele]

I just played a bunch of games against the deck and I gotta say, that it is really explosive. Maybe not like Belcher, but like TPS you gotta be prepared to stop the deck going off in turn two or turn three. Beside that: A mix of Natures Claims, Ancienst Grudges and Pithing Needles is an easy and very effective way to board against it. For that it is a very good boarding plan of Two Card Monte to board Confidants in control-matchups. Otherwise they would solve your first threat and you would run out of gas.

[A_Outcast]

this deck is amazing, but i really dont like it cant answer a t1 or t2 null rod aside from tinker :'( and possible painter/reb.  otherwise this deck is friking amazing

[Phele]

As quick or even quicker decks like ANT can be a problem with almost no Protection beside REB and Leyline. But these decks seem to be not that common in the US recently.

[mikekilljoy]

I was wondering why anyone would dust off that deck for any tournament around here. Nice article.

[sorcutt]

How do you like the manabase in the deck?  You run 7 red spells, 3 black spells (not including Leylines), and 2 blue spells main.  The sideboard is a little bit more diversified in terms of colors.  Would you consider adding fetches/duals to streamline the manabase?

[voltron00x]

The mana base seems ok, just b/c we’re asking it to do quite a bit.  Switching to fetches and duals, you’d lose a lot of the flexibility you get out of the sideboard, and having to cast Leyline does come up as one of the common outs to a quick loss from a deck like Tezz is a Chain of Vapor on the Leyline.  Having to cast a 2nd Leyline may come up a bit more in the future depending on the popularity of Nature’s Claim.  BB for Leyline, RG for Ancient Grudge, U for Tinker, Recall, and Chain of Vapor, W for Balance… its probably too much to ask from anything but rainbow lands.