The Mountains Win Again is Back!

[Ozymandias]

Also, there are a couple good answers to Oath beyond the "standard" one of "deny their mana before they can Oath":

Genju of the Spires doesn't trigger oath
Chalice 2 keeps Oath off the board.
SB Ggargs, Goblin Bombardment, and Leyline of Sanctity can keep the opp from ever oathing.
Hell, sometimes you can even just race them to oath with an aggro draw.

[policehq]

The only card you listed that wasn't available during TMWA's original period is Leyline of Sanctity. I don't feel like Oath would have a problem removing it.

The printing of Tez didn't make Oath obsolete.@overseer

[Ozymandias]

It's not that any of these is a surefire solution; it's just that by their powers combined, they can slow Oath down long enough for you to softlock them and actually win.

[Troy_Costisick]

The only card you listed that wasn't available during TMWA's original period is Leyline of Sanctity. I don't feel like Oath would have a problem removing it.

The printing of Tez didn't make Oath obsolete.@overseer

No, but the evolution of Tez/Jace decks and the proliferation of MUD Prison-Agro decks is making Oath obsolete.  TMWA is well positioned to take advantage of that kind of metagame.

[Ozymandias]

Played Mountains last sunday, punted my way to 2-2, decided that I need more anti-shops stuff MD.

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Null Rod
3 Blood Moon
3 Genju of the Spires
3 Gorilla Shaman
4 Manic Vandal
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Magus of the Moon
3 Mogg Fanatic
4 Pyroblast
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby

Lands (18):
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
7 Mountain
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Arid Mesa

Sideboard (15 cards):
 
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Relic of Progenitus
3 Pyrokinesis
3 Pulverize
1 Red Elemental Blast

My only concern with 4x Vandal is that it gets stuck in your hand sometimes, when only you have artifacts.

[Stormanimagus]

Played Mountains last sunday, punted my way to 2-2, decided that I need more anti-shops stuff MD.

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Null Rod
3 Blood Moon
3 Genju of the Spires
3 Gorilla Shaman
4 Manic Vandal
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Magus of the Moon
3 Mogg Fanatic
4 Pyroblast
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby

Lands (18):
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
7 Mountain
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Arid Mesa

Sideboard (15 cards):
 
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Relic of Progenitus
3 Pyrokinesis
3 Pulverize
1 Red Elemental Blast

My only concern with 4x Vandal is that it gets stuck in your hand sometimes, when only you have artifacts.

It gets stuck in your hand because it's 3 CMC dude. Run something more efficient like Shattering Spree in its place and you'll have better odds of beating MUD. Trust me on this one.

[bebx]

Since I added Manic Vandal in my deck I never felt its 3cc is a problem. The deck has 4 Traitors and Tombs to help accelerate casting it. I also think that it's only a random situation that Manic will get stuck to your hand, I can't think of any deck right now in vintage that don't have artifacts (well maybe Ichorid) but Manic is thier on the list because of Shops deck above all other decks we face so I don't think it will ever get stuck on your hand against shops.

My anti-shops spells MD - 2 Gorilla Shaman, 4 Manic Vandal and 2 Shattering Spree (plus 7 Moon effects, 4 LBolts and 3 Dead/Gone)
SB: 3 Null Rods and 1 more Shattering Spree.
My W-L against shops is 4-1 base on the above lists.

What I'm testing right now is putting in Skullclamps in the deck since the deck don't have draw engine. I can't decide though of the right number if its 3 or 4 ? (considering I have 4 Sculpting Steel MD) I've replaced Manic Vandal with Keldon Vandals so I can draw right away with a single clamp in play. I still have the Gorilla Shaman (3) and Liquimetal Coating (3) combo MD. I've remove FOD and replace it with Genju of the Spire.

The only sad thing here in my place is that Vintage is dying because of the rise of Legacy Format in the Country.

[d0rsal]

i've had good luck w/ Koth in my mtns wins agn

[i_set_fire]

Probably a dumb question, but is there any advantage to running pyroblasts instead of REB?  I ask because I want to try this deck and I don't have any pyroblasts but have a bunch of REBs. 

[Ozymandias]

Pyroblast can get out of your hand to hellbent Gathan Raiders. Other than that, not much.

[3rdEyeThinker]

sculpting steel answers tinker pretty well

[TopSecret]

Probably a dumb question, but is there any advantage to running pyroblasts instead of REB?  I ask because I want to try this deck and I don't have any pyroblasts but have a bunch of REBs.  

Besides what Ozymandias mentioned, Pyroblast can be Misdirected to non-blue things, whereas Red Elemental Blast can only be Misdirected to things that are blue at the time, I think. This is perhaps more relevant than it sounds because I think depending on if you initially pick a permanent or spell with Pyro or REB, they can only be Misdirected to that kind of card. Like, if you target a Psychatog with REB, there has to be another blue permanent in play for the opponent to Misdirect the REB away from the Tog. (Whereas if you target something like Ancestral, the opponent can pretty much always Misdirect REB to the Misdirection itself.) I think (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

So if you are going to play against Misdirection more than needing to pitch the card from your hand for Gathan Raiders or Threshold or Lavamancer, REB is probably better than Pyroblast.

[Ozymandias]

sculpting steel answers tinker pretty well

Hm. I guess it does at that. Might be a good choice for the SB.

[TopSecret]

sculpting steel answers tinker pretty well

Hm. I guess it does at that. Might be a good choice for the SB.

It might be pretty decent against MUD, too.

[i_set_fire]

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Null Rod
3 Blood Moon
3 Gathan Raiders
2 Genju of the Spires
3 Gorilla Shaman
2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Magus of the Moon
3 Mogg Fanatic
4 Pyroblast
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby

Lands (18):
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
7 Mountain
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Arid Mesa

Sideboard (15 cards):
 
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Relic of Progenitus
3 Pyrokinesis
3 Pulverize
1 Red Elemental Blast

I played this list this past weekend with these changes:
-1 Mogg Fanatic
+1 Ali from Cairo

SB
-1 Pyrokinesis
+1 Pyroclasm

I went 2-3. 
My meta used to be shops was the thing to beat so that is why I choose this deck.  My two wins were against shops so my plan worked.  However, all three losses were to Oath.  2 months ago when I played at this monthly tourney I did not see any Oath.  Did they all of a sudden get popular again?

My problem and question is: How do you beat oath with this deck?  Post board, I would have the leyline, the REB, the pyrokineses and pyroclasm for token killing.  I would mull to try and get leyline in my opening hand since otherwise it is essentially not castable.  But I do not like mulling below 5. 

Also, I think I would maindeck 1 if not two, pulverizes.  It was helpful against the non-shop matches to assist with vault/key and moxen should null rod get bounced/countered/not drawn.  Also, the two mountains in the GY feed lavamancer.  I was thinking in place of the mogg fanatics as they were rather unspectacular.

Finally, not once did I get leyline in an opening hand without mulling twice.  However, my opponent had orchard, mox, Oath in at least one game per round without mulling.  I should have known when my GPS stopped working and Subway was out of my favorite sub that this was going to be an unlucky day

[RecklessEmbermage]

My problem and question is: How do you beat oath with this deck?  Post board, I would have the leyline, the REB, the pyrokineses and pyroclasm for token killing.  I would mull to try and get leyline in my opening hand since otherwise it is essentially not castable.  But I do not like mulling below 5. 

Leyline is nice, but other than that, I don't think monored has any good enough options. Greater gargadon would be nice in a burn deck, but gut yours, for instance. I think you'd do wiser in branching out to one or several colours. Hide/seek is a nice, maindeckable card, for instance.

[bebx]

I'm trying to test if Liquimetal Coating is a good answer for Oath, i haven't done any playtest yet though. This is my list now:

13 mountain
4 ancient tomb
2 city of traitors

1 mana crypt
1 sol ring

3 liquimetal coating
4 sculpting steel

4 simian spirit guide
3 gorilla shaman
4 keldon vandal
2 viashino heretic
4 magus of the moon

2 genju of the spires
3 blood moon

4 lightning bolt
3 dead/gone

3 skullclamp

sb:
3 red elemental blast
2 pyroblast
4 tormod's crypt
2 shattering spree
3 pithing needle
1 genju of the spires

It's either you copy thier creature via Coating + Steel or destroy Oath with Coating + Vandals and Heretic. It's slow but it may work.

[Troy_Costisick]

I worked for three months trying to get Liquimetal Coating to work.  It never did.  It's best to attack Oath through its mana base.

[xouman]

Besides, coating does not work under null rod (this is a null rod decks post :p). You managed to take profit of skullclamp? It seems to be nice with genju if needed. Probably crucible does not have a spot since without wastelands and fetchlands would be dead most of the time, but combines with skullclamp + genju.

Btw, I miss lavamancer in that list. Maybe there are not fishes or confindants in your meta? Even with juggys or golems it's useful.

[xouman]

I played a kind of tmwa yesterday, getting a 3-3

The list:

4 magus of the moon
4 blood moon
4 simian spirit guide
4 gorilla shaman
3 goblin welder
2 genju of the spires
1 red elemental blast
1 pyroblast

4 lodestone golem
4 chalice of the void
3 skullclamp
3 ensnaring bridge
2 chromatic star
1 crucible of worlds
1 sol ring
1 mana crypt

9 mountain
4 ancient tomb
4 wasteland
1 strip mine

sideboard

3 grim lavamancer
3 goblin bombardment
2 lightning bolt
2 ingot chewer
1 pyroblast
1 red elemental blast
1 shattering spree
1 ravenous trap
1 tormod's crypt


1 round tezz with side Oath (2-1) 1-0, 3 points

first match I crucible, star and skullclamp (that gets a fow). then I drop an early moon, and he can't play with it in play. In second game I have simian+reb, and gorilla shaman. He mulls, opens with ancestral (reb)+ 2 moxen. I play gorila, and next turn he plays lotus, demonic, key, vault, gg. Third match I land gorila and welder. He plays pithing on welder, and when i play moon he plays hurkyl's to himself and then pithing to welder+tinker to BSC. Gorila eats pithing and then welder takes care of BSC. After I win, he shows me the oath and emrakul in hand.


2 round wgbu fish (0-2) 1-1, 3 points

first match he plays a T1 cursecatcher, and T2 leonine, while I play chalice on 0 and chalice on 1. I play magus on T3, and he responds with mindcensor. I drop anoher magus, and then another after changing one for leonine.Mincensor beats me to 0. If I had 1 more turn, I may had win since I drawn golem.
In second match I play lavamancer, he starts with swords and then leonine and confidant. I play magus and golem and have control until he draws jitte and takes control. I play ensnaring bridge and manage to get my hand to 1. With only simian in my hand, I made an horrible mistake, allowing him to get -1-1 to leonine and attack (I was at 2), and then he pumps leonine and wins.

round 3 the deck (1-2) 3 points
first match he draws all, and plays tinker to sphinx ftw. in second match I start with T1 magus, T2 gorilla and he plays balance with lotus. But then I got another moon and scrape win. In last game, I have gorilla in play and game in control, with crucible and golem in hand. I play crucible to test if he has any counter (with wasteland in graveyard) but he topdecks jace and plays will to get a good position. He plays sower to my gorilla and counters my golem. I play ensnaring bridge and slower him a lot, but then ancient grudge wins the game.

round 4 ichorid (2-0) 6 points
first game he mulls to 3 with bazaar, and I waste his bazaar. i play a moon a couple of turns later and it's all. in game 2 he mulls to 2, opens with bazaar and i play again strip + moon. I was quite lucky :p

round 5 ub fish (0-2) 6 points
first game he opens with leonine and then ninja, while I kept a risky hand with no red mana after a mulligan. I can't get a mountain and he wins easy. In game 2 i open with welder, genju and a couple of skullclamps but few mana, and he lands an energy flux quite early. genju beats to 7, but then he gets some bears and I'm not drawing lands for playing genju again. I play magus of the moon, but he already has 3 basic lands in play and wins really easily, with leonine, ninja and jotun

round 6 tps (2-1) 9 points
first game he opens with library (strip) and then swamp, duress, taking star (I had ancient tombx2 in hand, but no red source) I play crucible on 0, and he plays jar with little luck. next turn he manages to plays desire with mana vault and ritual for 3 and shows tinker, bargain, mystical (OMG!!!). despite crucible, he manages to play tendrils for 8 spells while getting at 3 life. in second game he mulls to 5 looking for a good hand, and I start with moon in T2, and then a golem to end match. in g3 i open with welder and clamp  it early as he does not seem to play robot. I land moon after wait several turns with reb in hand, and then golem x 2. He tries tinker but i take it with reb and 2 simians from my hand and it's all.


conclusion: chalice and moons are a very good choice, golems being awesome too. on the other hand, genju + skullclamp were under pair. ensnaring bridge it's better than it seems, giving time against aggressive decks and stopping robots, and when match is in control i can get cards to attack. fish decks game me trouble, lavamancer didn't show when needed but bears don't gave real trouble (jitte and jotun did) and I could have won with decent hands. next time I would test a different draw engine and maybe thorns (i didn't include then because i planned to play chalice on 2 as early as i could)

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

I'm not surprised you had trouble with Fish decks.  Red-based decks almost always do.  I highly recomend Pyrokinesis as an answer.  It can wipe away multiple creatures and is castable under a lot of Spheres.  I run a full compliment of Lightning Bolts in my main deck as well.  I do like Goblin Bombardment in your SB for the Oath matchup.  Nice tech!

Peace,

-Troy

[xouman]

Well, I lost 0-2 to first opponent due to missplays and a bit of bad luck (he raced me in first match because I only saw 3 creatures in all game, and lost second because I didn't discard simian when I could - he couldn't get ride of ensnaring and he would die because he drawed more than me), and lost to second player because my first hand mulled to 6 sucked and in second match I couldn't get any hate (lavamancers, blasts, lightnings) and very few lands.

I agree that tarmo would be a real trouble, that's why I included golems,bridges main, and chalice (I would play it at 2 as quick as possible), but bears apart from trygon shouldn't be much of a hassle. Oh, yeah, jotun. That hurts. nevertheless, most fish in my meta are 3c, 4c and 5c, so a quick moon could kick their ass.


I couldn't test against mud or oath. Oath feels terrible, but with so many moons and strips, plus gorilas and welders, MUD seems favorable, don't you think so? Apart from a quick start or an unanswered meralworker a MUD player can be locked himself.

[serracollector]

Greater Gargadon + Skull clamp seems like great synergy to me personally.

I would never play a RDW deck without the 5/5 morphing hellbent guy, he runs over fish, dukes it out with Jugs/Golems/Lodestones/Trikes, and just straight up wins against everything else.

my 2 cents.

[xouman]

ummm that 5/5 must be gathan raidesrs, and I'm not fond of it. It's usually card disadvantage and as you sais it kills golems and juggys, but also die in the process. besides against combo and control it is not better than, let's say, genju. I would prefer rakdos pit dragon. For 1cc more and not card disadvantage it's a 3/3 that can be pumped and fly, but with hellbent does not die against golems (due to double strike), can fly to evade most blockers and attack for >10 easily. The problem is that I ordered them but I didn't received them on time :p

I have been thinking, and skullclamp were not really bad since they attracted more than one counterspell (people were really afraid when they saw a unknown deck with skullclamps). Genju showed little, and always under few mana, so I could give them another opportunity.

Cards I consider to try:

-SOFI/jitte (the first gives card advantage, and evades my own COTV at 2).
-rakdos dragon
-more chromatic star
-forgotten cave
-wheel of fortune

and for the sideboard
-boil
-gargadon
-trinisphere (quite obvious)
-thorn of ametyst


I also would like to fit a couple of tops in the main, but with no access to shuffle it's a quite bad card...

[Troy_Costisick]

Wheel of Fortune is a bad idea in a TMWA deck.  It always helps your opponent more than you.  You might think about Vexing Shusher in your SB too.  It can let you play Chalice of the Void more agressively and get your Gargadons past countermagic if needbe.  Also, you should be running some number of Shattering Sprees, IMO.

[xouman]

I only have 1 shattering spree, and it was in the SB :p I was planning to play liquidmetal but finally decided against it.

Wheel of fortune seems ok under chalices and moon, and after I have spent my hand with quick mana and early creatures, but I agree it's not a good choice.

Vexing is interesting, and I haven't thought about it. But my spells are not cheap and most of the time I don't have one free mana, and vexing does little by itself. I would give it a try maybe

And I was forgetting about sculpting steel. It's a great weapon against robots (as good as ensnaring bridge, it seems to me), and I can copy a golem if i have one. I can use it to drain decks post side and mud. What do you think?

[Ozymandias]

I wouldn't play this deck without sculpting steel in the board. You need need need an out to tinkerbots.

As far as card advantage goes, I was considering the Ichor Wellspring/Greater Gargadon engine. I happen to like dropping Chalice of the Void at 2, though--my last few lists have only played Rod at the slot. I think Mountains needs to be content with virtual card advantage/incremental stuff like Manic Vanda/Gorilla Shaman.

Greater Gargadon is a house in the MD by the way.

[xouman]

Last saturday I played 3 welders and 3 bridges maindeck to face robots. plus 2 reb in order to cut tinker, 4 chalices and 4 gorilas to break artifacts. Between bridges and sculpting, i prefer bridges maindeck since they are better against every non tinker creature, and they never annoy my own creatures. I lost only once to tinker, it was a sphinx in a Deck (he also had a jace in play, so would have bounced my copied sphinx)

Besides, sculpting would be better in a red shop, but this deck has fewer artifacts worthing to be copied (only golem came to my mind).

Gargadon is nice in a metagame filled with oath. Last tournament there were about 5% (plus some decks playing oath in the SB). I wouldn't play it MD, so many missed turns before it can be played, I need to put pressure and moons/spheres/cotv from the beginning.

[Aaron Patten]

I'd play this deck almost as is, it looks awesome.  I'd just scout the meta to see how much oath was being played and then maybe main the gargadons.  

Seems like there's better cards now then mogg fanatic but maybe it's ability to kill welders/other important creatures makes it good enough.  The gathan raiders seems like the weak link if it gets blocked.  I was going to comment on the simians being weak as well but i like how they let you cas't spells through spheres so I will not say such things.  

I dunno if it needs all that blue hate since red has usually has a good strategy against blue anyways.  How do you deal with a good start by a workshop aggro deck?  

Play pyrostatic Pillarx4 in the sidebaord against storm.  I'd stick to mono red just because of the LD immunity and moon effects.  

[xouman]

simian were key. You can drop a moon one turn before, use REBs and against fish it's a bear. This deck only plays 9 mountains and 0 moxen, so cutting simians means having to include more mountains. And in middle game I expecto to clamp them to draw 4 cards

I need blue hate because most blue decks play at least 2 basic islands (specially in second game, where surprise has faded), and tinker is our worst enemy.

Against a heavy start from MUD we can only pray, as many decks We have 4 ancient tomb, 4 simians and sol+crypt to accelerate, 5 strips to cut mws, 8 moons to make lands normal, 4 chalices and 4 gorillas to cut fast mana for them, and 3 welders to change artifacts if we managed to destroy an artifact (via gorilla, opponent playing a mox under a cotv). Crucible allows us to recover lands if we cannot play moon and they have strips/crucible/stax. And finally we have bridges to stop golems and juggys if they started beatdown.

After sideboard lavamancers and lightnings can kill golems and metalworkers (althought lavamancer is not good stopping a first turn metalworker), one shattering spree and 2 ingot chewer that are maybe too much hate. There are LOTS of cards against MUD imho, but unfortunatelly our best chance in the first game against "lotus, mox, mws, sphere, golem" is play as quick as possible a golem, gorilla+welder, or skullclamp + simian/magus, always under fast mana.

Against TPS 2 rebs, 4 chalices, 4 golems are heavy against them, and 4 gorillas, 8 moons, 5 strips limite their game while we are attacking, but it's not the best pairing.