typical opening line

[chrispikula]

You are playing typical Tezz list (not Trygon Tezz) vs some form of control deck, you aren't sure what.  Your opener is 3 fetchland, mox pearl, brainstorm, vampiric tutor, demonic tutor. You win the roll.  How do people play this turn? 

[Cyberpunker]

Demonic Tutor for Force of Will. Upkeep Vamp for Ancestral Recall. Play Ancestral Recall with Force backup (if you did not Force anything on their turn). If you still have the Brainstorm, play it the turn later on your main phase. (EDIT: play brainstorm if you did not draw a Mana Drain or something else worth casting at that time). (EDIT EDIT: Play around Spell Pierce if you suspect they may have it)

What would you do Chris Pikula?  

[MaximumCDawg]

I'm awful at this, but I'll take a stab.  Perhaps my guess will help educate me when people correct me.

I notice that I'm heavy on tutors but low on disruption.  I also notice that my opponent is more likely to have a turn 1 Chalice than anything else that will punish my mox. So I'd roll out a blue fetch and the pearl.  Pass the turn.  End step, crack for US, brainstorm.  

From here, it gets really speculative, but this would be my plan: If it resolves, see if there is something obvious on top like vault, key, lotus, tinker, or will; if not, pick up some disruption (putting a fetch back).  Shuffle the library with my own fetch on my next main phase.  Now I've got DT and VT on-line, probably some form of disruption in my hand.  Depending on what the opponent does, I might be tempted to assemble Vault-Key that turn, hoping to play them the next.  Dunno.

[vassago]

Demonic Tutor for Force of Will. Upkeep Vamp for Ancestral Recall. Play Ancestral Recall with Force backup (if you did not Force anything on their turn). If you still have the Brainstorm, play it the turn later on your main phase.

What would you do Chris Pikula? 

Same but maybe vamp for tinker?

[Cyberpunker]

Demonic Tutor for Force of Will. Upkeep Vamp for Ancestral Recall. Play Ancestral Recall with Force backup (if you did not Force anything on their turn). If you still have the Brainstorm, play it the turn later on your main phase.

What would you do Chris Pikula?  

Same but maybe vamp for tinker?

The Tinker route is harder to win against Tezzeret because you are all in on the Tinker while they still have resources to either find the bounce or keyvault you. It is also more devastating if Tinker gets countered, whereas if they counter your Ancestral Recall you are still in the game due to the card disadvantage not being so much.

Ancestral can both put you ahead of your opponent, allowing you to control him on their turn while digging for threats on yours. Hope I make sense.

[nataz]

fetch -> u sea
pearl
demonic -> recall
pass turn

untap
draw X
u sea -> brainstorm (bait)

if bs resolves then it depends on what you see.

Working on the assumption that they don't have duress. Also figure you should be aggressive drawing cards with this hand in the control match. I'm not a huge fan of vamp here (-CA) when I already have the potential to see seven cards with demonic -> recall, the draw, and bs + fetch, so I'm okay letting it go back into the deck on the brainstorm depending on what I see and what my opp played on his turn.

Your first drawn card matters a lot as well. Lotus, on color fast mana, dark conf, force, duress/thoughtseize, etc., can all change your play. Same goes for what they do on their turn.

Still in general, drawing cards is better then trying for a blind tinker (bleck), and I'd rather raw dog 2 huge draw spells then tutor for duress or FOW to clear the way and still have the chance of getting blown out by two counters, or a duress on their turn and a counter on yours. 

[chrispikula]

I think DT for Ancestral seems like the best play, but it also seems like the easy and obviously play in some ways, and I constantly wonder if I'm too often assuming my best play is to draw 3 random cards. 

[JACO]

Mox Pearl, fetchland, pass.

It's not worth casting Demonic Tutor here, because you're giving your opponent much more information, as well as opening your hand up to Thoughtseize or Duress for no reason (as well as Wasteland, playing against 'unknown control'). If your opponent does have the Duress/Thoughtseize you can respond with either Vampiric or Brainstorm. You can also respond to whatever they do at their end of turn, or on your turn.

When playing against another control deck I don't even want to cast Vampiric Tutor, to be honest. They're not going to counter it, and you're going to be -1  in cards when you don't need to be. You can always shuffle it and a spare mana source away with the Brainstorm in the coming turns.

[vassago]

JACO has a point. DT on turn one seems very awful, as thoughtseize is everywhere. Brainstorm at eot seems better, possibly turn two fetches into business?

[nataz]

I'll buy the eot vamp argument over demonic during main phase if you are really worried about duress effects, but sitting on mana and then brainstorming eot of opps first turn seems bad. You get way more mileage out of brainstorm + fetch, plus you want to dump that extra land anyways. Honestly, this feels like the perfect brainstorm hand, and I want that almost as much as I want ancestral. After all BS will essentially cost me U + 1 card for at least 2 new cards (1 + whatever I dump the land for), with the option to dump vamp as well for a third extra card.

Thats why I don't like the double tutor go for force option. I really don't want to pitch brainstorm AND use a force to protect my recall. 

Thats also why I'm willing to risk losing the recall to a duress on my opps turn. BS should be good enough for me to recover + if they don't duress I should have enough CA to bury them and win the game.

[limitedwhole]

Delta Mox Go:
If Opponent plays thoughtseize or BOB, cast brainstorm.
If opponent doesn't play thoughtseize or bob do nothing.

On following turn if opponent cast bob or thoughtseize, cast DT for ancestral and play it.
On following turn if opponent didn't cast bob or thoughtseize, cast brainstorm, play fetch.
?

[Rico Suave]

If you are not casting Demonic Tutor on the first turn, it is a mistake to cast the Mox. 

[Neonico]

I would just go land go, then either
 - brainstorming in response if they duress/Thoughtseize,
 - brainstorming in response of a big threat (Tral, Bob, etc...) to try to get force of Will, or a thrat that can negate your opponent's advantage (using your tutors for disruption)
 - if no duress/thoughtseize/threat, i would go nothing turn 1 and brainstorm + fetchland during my 2nd turn mainphase, sac and Vampiric for ancestral recall at the end of opponent's turn 2.

Seems to be the most valuable opener with this hand for me For Card/Quality advantage. it's also the best way to have the maximum value of your 2 tutors, simply because you have a small chance to draw the cards you could tutor up for off your brainstorm and/or ancestral recall. The big advantage of this hand is that you still got a 2nd tutor to maximize the pressure with tinker if ancestral recall got countered.

[Demonic Attorney]

I would also play the fetch and pass.  The only reason to run out a Mox turn 1 is if I have a play that requires using it or if I'm playing against a deck with Chalice, which seems possible but very unlikely from the scenario description.  Keeping the fetch up is a hedge against Strip effects, which also aren't very likely given the configuration of control decks in the current metagame, but it counts for something.

More importantly, it allows you to maximize the value of your other business as the game evolves.  Burning a tutor on Ancestral for 3 random cards is fine, I guess, but I don't think it makes the most of what these cards could do for you.

First let's take Brainstorm.  You don't want to use it right now because you have no dead draws.  But if you wait a few turns, you might be able to filter away your Tinker-bot or other undesirable cards.  As someone else noted, it's also an important hedge against Duress/Thoughtseize, which are seeing a lot of play these days.

Now let's take the tutors.  I think they're generally stronger in a control vs. control matchup if you wait on using them.  In a few turns, you might draw into one of the Key/Vault components, allowing you to set up Duress + the other component with your tutors and take home the game.  This is especially true after using the Brainstorm-- that could lead you into a number of strong plays.  If you draw into Lotus/Crypt/Sol Ring and a control card, you could Vamp EOT and then run out Tezzeret with protection.  If that gets there, great.  If not, you've got the other tutor to try to set up Will for DT -> Vault, VT -> Key, Brainstorm, Key, win, once your manabase develops sufficiently.

If your opponent Forced your Brainstorm while tapped out and you were confident they didn't have the double Force, you could then tutor for Recall and be way ahead on cards, with some reasonable assurance that AR won't backfire.  Playing DT -> AR blind against a control deck with no protection seems like a big risk.  It could get Forced or, worse still, Misdirected.  

So yeah, I'd wait to see how the game developed, and I'd almost certainly wait on using the tutors until after I'd Brainstormed to see how to maximize my lines of play, unless my opponent did something crazy that made one specific play a no-brainer, like if they Scrolled for AR and passed, in which case I'd Vamp for Duress and go that way.

[meadbert]

I am not a fan of Demonic for Force and then Vamp for Recall in this case.

It is Demonic for Force that I do not like in particular.  The trouble here is that you started with 4 mana, a top deck tutor and 2 business spells.
Demonic for Force turns 1 business spell into protection and then if you actually pitch Brainstorm to Force you have turned both business spells into disruption.
This leaves too little gas. 
Duress or Thoughtseize can take Brainstorm leaving you with a hand that has Force with no blue card to pitch and some mana to go with Vamp.
Basically 3 Fetchlands + Mox + Vamp hands make Brainstorm really good thus I am not eager to pitch it to Force.

Even if you Force Recall through Spell Pierce your net card advantage is zero since you lost 1 CA to Vamp and another to Force and get +2 from Recall.
Furthermore since extra mana barely helps here you really lost card advantage since you lost all of your business and presumably draw at least 1 mana source.

I would have DTed for Bob on turn 1.  Objections to turn 1 Demonic were Duress, Thoughtseize and Wasteland.
Also, Spell Pierce or Dark Confidant could have been mentioned.

Your Dark Confidant could be decent at answering their Dark Confidant.

Duress and Pierce do not apply to Bob since he is a creature.  They could take Brainstorm or Vamp, but Dark Confidant will outdraw in a long game.  Given that this hand has 4 mana sources and 3 lands, Wasteland is about the best possible thing that could happen to you, so by all means give them that option.  Even if I were not going to play Demonic, I would have fetched Sea before their turn perhaps feigning fear of Stifle hoping they go for Wasteland.  The only mentioned "risk" is Thoughtseize which can take either Bob, Brainstorm or Vamp.  If you keep Vamp, then you can still Vamp for Recall on upkeep.

The main actually risk vs Demonic for Force or holding up Vamp/Brainstorm mana, is if they have turn 1 Recall (Or turn 1 Vault/Key)  in which case you would have liked having Force or at least the opportunity to try to Brainstorm into Force.

[JR]

Assuming you are playing against a tezz list or something resembling a control mirror, I would play fetch and pass. If they have a major threat, I can Brainstorm in response, and the other fetchlands allow me to see new cards. If they don't do anything relevant, I think I end of urn vamp for mana drain, draw it play a land and pass. This allows you to third turn DT with drain back up, which hopefully gives you a more informed DT target, or allows you to drain the turn two threat they have. If you drain the turn two threat, demonic becomes an even more powerful play.

I think this line of play is probably the most controlling one I have seen posted. I think tutoring for Recall is fine, but no one is going to counter brainstorm as bait if you have just tutored, so people thinking recall resolving in that situation are silly. Tutoring for tinker, like Jaco has said,opens you up to thoughtsieze, etc. needlessly. I also think that tutoring for tinker pulls your pants down. If your opponent has any good blue cards in their hand, you really have gained nothing if you tap out and put a big guy on board.

[TopSecret]

Play fetch, pass. Brainstorm eot, or if they do something that makes Vamp really good, play Vamp.

Is going Demonic for Ancestral really that good? I do not play Tezz and I haven't calculated the probability of possible draws, so maybe I have botched everything here. It just seems to me that you can always Demonic Tutor later and with so little information against an opposing control deck, you'd just want to react to them while giving them as little information as possible and this hand is able to do that.

[Killane]

Assuming you are playing against a tezz list or something resembling a control mirror, I would play fetch and pass. If they have a major threat, I can Brainstorm in response, and the other fetchlands allow me to see new cards. If they don't do anything relevant, I think I end of urn vamp for mana drain, draw it play a land and pass. This allows you to third turn DT with drain back up, which hopefully gives you a more informed DT target, or allows you to drain the turn two threat they have. If you drain the turn two threat, demonic becomes an even more powerful play.

I think this line of play is probably the most controlling one I have seen posted. I think tutoring for Recall is fine, but no one is going to counter brainstorm as bait if you have just tutored, so people thinking recall resolving in that situation are silly. Tutoring for tinker, like Jaco has said,opens you up to thoughtsieze, etc. needlessly. I also think that tutoring for tinker pulls your pants down. If your opponent has any good blue cards in their hand, you really have gained nothing if you tap out and put a big guy on board.

I quite like this line of play. You've covered the based nicely and set yourself up for some powerful plays, with DT remaining as a business spell.

I really don't think Demonic -Ancestral is a good line of play. You end up 1 card ahead, and you've wasted one of your most powerful spells in doing so. you already have Brainstorm + a Fetch, which is usually almost as good as Ancestral, and leaves you up just as many cards as tutoring into Ancestral does.

[Grand Inquisitor]

I mostly agree with everyone (fetch, pass), but I don't think it's been described above why yet.

The key to your hand is (1) the black tutors and (2) that you have no disruption.  You can either play aggressively (go for the combo) or incrementally depending on what you learn from your opponents first turn and, more importantly for you, what brainstorm shows you.

This is a hand I slow roll while looking for an opening to go aggressive around turns 3-5.  I may not even go for the brainstorm until turn 3 if it gets me beyond spell pierce and my opponent isn't applying pressure.

[Cyberpunker]

I think DT for Ancestral seems like the best play, but it also seems like the easy and obviously play in some ways, and I constantly wonder if I'm too often assuming my best play is to draw 3 random cards.  

So you would go Turn one Demonic for Ancestral and then? Your best play is to draw 3 cards vs the mirror btw.

[chrispikula]

I really don't think Demonic -Ancestral is a good line of play. You end up 1 card ahead, and you've wasted one of your most powerful spells in doing so. you already have Brainstorm + a Fetch, which is usually almost as good as Ancestral, and leaves you up just as many cards as tutoring into Ancestral does.

I don't understand this analysis. You neither waste a powerful spell, nor do you end up only one card ahead.  And yes maybe, Brainstorm + fetch is nearly as good as Ancestral, but I can't see how that makes a difference either. I'd rather Ancestral twice than once. 

[chrispikula]

I am not a fan of Demonic for Force and then Vamp for Recall in this case.

It is Demonic for Force that I do not like in particular.  The trouble here is that you started with 4 mana, a top deck tutor and 2 business spells.
Demonic for Force turns 1 business spell into protection and then if you actually pitch Brainstorm to Force you have turned both business spells into disruption.
This leaves too little gas. 
Duress or Thoughtseize can take Brainstorm leaving you with a hand that has Force with no blue card to pitch and some mana to go with Vamp.
Basically 3 Fetchlands + Mox + Vamp hands make Brainstorm really good thus I am not eager to pitch it to Force.

I agree with all this.  I feel like if I DT for FOW and then actually have to use the FOW, I'm looking pretty bad in this game. 

[voltron00x]

I mostly agree with everyone (fetch, pass), but I don't think it's been described above why yet.

The key to your hand is (1) the black tutors and (2) that you have no disruption.  You can either play aggressively (go for the combo) or incrementally depending on what you learn from your opponents first turn and, more importantly for you, what brainstorm shows you.

This is a hand I slow roll while looking for an opening to go aggressive around turns 3-5.  I may not even go for the brainstorm until turn 3 if it gets me beyond spell pierce and my opponent isn't applying pressure.

I think this line of thinking is closest to mine.  I'd probably play it exactly like this.

[limitedwhole]

"If you are not casting Demonic Tutor on the first turn, it is a mistake to cast the Mox." 

Not so sure about this.  This is only a mistake if you are playing against The Deck.  If you don't play the mox you open yourself up to disrupt and if you don't play the mox your opponent can Spell Pierce or Nix it, then start laying wastelands/strips.  If your oppoennt uses his first turn to Natures claim your mox, you have three land plus brainstorm so you should be alright mana wise and should be able to pull ahead in mana development and play the ancestral.

Can you explain your rational for not playing the mox?  Disrupt on your brainstorm would be a game winner.

[Grand Inquisitor]

Can you explain your rational for not playing the mox?

One more card to brainstorm back.  Btw, I love that Disrupt and Nix are part of your rationale; where do you play?

[limitedwhole]

You should probably not put the mox back. Lol.

[Wagner]

To me, one of the biggest reasons not to play the Mox is to keep you from showing your opponent your hand is more explosive than he thinks.

His 1st turn play should be greaty affected it if knows you will have 3 mana on turn 2 or not, since it gives you a ton more plays, and opens you to some more brokeness if you draw another mox on turn 2, showing him you may have up to 4 mana.

3 is enough for Tinker and Tutor/Scroll for Recall as well as Confidant with Pierce backup, you do not want to let him know you can do that yet.

[limitedwhole]

"3 is enough for Tinker and Tutor/Scroll for Recall as well as Confidant with Pierce backup, you do not want to let him know you can do that yet."

If he has Thoughtseize he is playing it, if he has bob he is playing it.  If he doesn't he is holding up spellpierce.  i fail to see, how I am going to impact his play much by playing the mox.  If he thoughtseizes and I brainstorm in response I want to force him to take the vampiric tutor, not let him take my only mox and take away my ability to play DT off one blue.

 Playing the mox is the right play against every control deck I can think of except The Deck.

[Rico Suave]

You should probably not put the mox back. Lol.

Even if this is true, you can still keep the Mox after casting Brainstorm.  But cutting off the option that you might want to put it back with Brainstorm is wasteful unless there is a greater reason to play the Mox on turn 1 (fear of Mystic Remora or Timetwister?).

[serracollector]

Fetch>US, mox, End Turn, EOT Vamp, for ancestral, play fetch, pop, cast DT for Lotus, Cast ancestral, if they counter Pop Lotus for Brainstorm, and pray.

May not be the correct play, but its what I would do.  I am a little more aggro than most tho.