[Article]: Vintage Primer - The Riddler

[Ego_Sum]

Here I leave you the link to my very first article for Eternal Central: [Article]: Vintage Primer - The Riddler.

The following is a brief introduction to what it is:

"The story starts with the unrestriction of Gush/Frantic Search (20th of September 2010), the DCI granted the vintage community a gift that could not be overlooked. This was actually right on time since 3 weeks later it was the Eternal Weekend. For those who don’ t know what it is, I leave you a link here of the coverage done by the EC staff. All this meant that we had to squeeze our brains as much as possible in order to find the correct sinergy for the event. Some days later, Scars of Mirrodin was released with lots of interesting stuff for the King of the formats. After reading it carefully, I found a little jewel, so I started thinking about what it could provide to the vintage format, since its potential is more than obvious: Riddlesmith"

I' d like to thank to the Eternal Central staff (especially to Jordi for offering me this opporitunity, and I hope it won't be the last, because I really enjoy doing this.

I hope that you enjoy as much as I do reading it.

Iñaki.-

[DubDub]

Thanks for the article, which is more than deserving of a thread in the Vintage Deck Discussion area.

I look forward to reading more from you!

[cruzron]

Thanks for the primer! I've been looking for a working list since Brass Man's Premium article in SCG came out.

What are your thoughts on Etherium Sculptor in place of the Helm of Awakening?

[TheBrassMan]

Talk about simultaneous development, sweet!  Like cruzron mentioned I posted a similar list in my premium article two weeks ago, but since "the cat is out of the premium bag" there's not much reason to be secretive about it.  It's really pretty exciting that Ego Sum's team came up with such a similar deck - it implies the idea may have more merit than I gave it credit for (and I thought it was pretty solid before).  For anyone without premium, the differences between my list and Ego's final list are:

- 1 Island           /  +1 fetchland
- 1 Mox Pearl      /  +1 Tropical Island
- 1 Mana Vault    /  +1 Darksteel Colossus
- 1 Spell Pierce    /  +1 Sensei's Divining Top
- 2 Repeal          /   +1 Regrowth, +1 Thirst for Knowledge
- 1 Rebuild         /   +1 Hurkyl's Recall

More than half of those differences are are almost cosmetic (manabase tweaks and rebuild v hurkyls), even our sideboard plans are remarkably similar!

Note that I ran Colossus as my Tinker target, which wasn't mentioned in your article.  I like him a lot in general, but particularly with the Riddlesmith he's has the added bonus of being discardable if you end up stuck with him in hand.  I will admit though, that while I love Colossus as a general-purpose target, if you're running your Tinker man in the sideboard like you are, more specialized robots get more value there.

I totally missed it in my article as well, but in retrospect I agree with cruzon that Etherium Sculptor makes more sense than Helm of Awakening.  It might not even be necessary at all, but I haven't been really disappointed with it yet.

Ego: Repeal is something I wanted to try, but couldn't fit.  How good has it been for you?  Are there any cards that haven't been pulling their weight that look like a natural place to find cuts?

[Phele]

I like this list very much, it is a really innovative piece of work. Kudos to both of you. But I am not sure, if it is really competetive when you compare it with other fast combo builds. These are my reasons for that and it is just based on some online games, so sorry, if I am completely wrong with that:

- It seems to be a bit slower than common Ritual- or Gush-Storm builds, but runs less disruption. How can it compete with these kinds of builds ore the even more disruptive Jace control builds. What is the exact advantage of this list?

- It seems as or even more vulnerable to common hate like Null Rod and Spheres. While regular Ritual-Storm builds can play Confidant to build up enough lands to overcome Spheres or rituals to neglect Null Rod. And regular Gush-Storm builds, like the one who just won the big spanish event, play much less artifacts and Empty the Warrens as a flexible alternative win condition against Rods and Spheres.

[Troy_Costisick]

I have a question about Helm of Awakening.  Is it there just to combo with Tops?  Or is there to help you cast other spells too?  If just to combo with Tops, why not play Etherium Sculptor instead?  It pitches to Force of Will, doesn't help your opponent like Helm does, and is an extra aggro threat or blocker. 

[piZZero]

I'm posting this in the name of Ego_Sum (Iñaki), since he has no rights to post in this forum section. He wanted to answer you all, so here you go! (And please, someone grant him more rights).

"Thank you for the replies, this encourage me to keep sharing with the community.

Can you please add the link to Brassman Article?, I' d like to have a look.

Cruzron: I' ve thouhgt a little about Etherium Scupltor, though I think Helm is stronger, for some reasons, first it is not a creature, which can be occasionally useful, second, since you play Helm only when you are going off (if you feel forced to play it before that time normally means that the game is going bad for you) it helps to maximize your mana to cast the important (or at least interesting) spells you can find in the process (i.e. more Riddlesmiths, Demonic Tutor, ...), and third it can give you a first game symetrical solution against an Sphere form a MUD player. Nevertheless being blue gives him a point.

Brassman: nice to know someone thought about it in parallel! I' ve tested the Bot main deck, but it really brought more sinergistic problems than advantages, this is why I cut him into the Sideboard. However, when I played the Robot maindeck, it was the Sphinx aswell, I can see the point of Colossus, but I think is quite out of the metagame (w/o Thirst, plus so many maideck bouncers played current metagame). About  the Helm being necessary, it' s working amazingly well , I mean there were not few times when I fizzled due to mana problems, and the Helm just solved this radically. Finally, concerning to Repeal, it may seem not very strong, but after playing it, I saw that it's an important part of the deck, not only for giving you 2 extra cards to work with, but also because it is a very solid answer against one of your main concerns: Null Rod.

Phele: combo and combo/control are one of your hardest match ups, this is why I added the 3x Mindbreal Trap to the Sideboard. Anyway you are able to go off very early if you face little out-of-turn disruption (i.e. coutner magic),  The deck is solid because it plays a very tough mana base, something that neither Ritual decks nor Jace-based decks have, with lots of basic lands. Against Null Rod you have plenty of solutions, even maindeck (you play 2 mass bouncers and 2 repeal), so you should handle this eaisily. Against the Sphere problem, your basic lands can give you the edge, playing 14 lands post board and full set of mana artifacts should be enough, this combined with 3 mass bouncers and 3 nature's claim (and once again the Repeals) would take care of any MUD, unless they have a Goddissh Start.

Troy Costisik: as I answered to Cruzron. Helm is stornger than Sculptor once you go off, in order to maximize your mana. It also allows you to play brainfreeze with a single blue mana, which saved me some games just because you can play it with the land drop you didn't made yet, or the blue mox/petal.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-"

[DubDub]

Can you please add the link to Brassman Article?, I' d like to have a look.

Link here: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/20204_City_of_Brass_Riddle_Me_This.html
Requires (currently, at least) SCG Premium access.

Some discussion here: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=41311.0

[zeromancer]

Hi there! Great article, many thanks! As I said in the thread about Brassmans article, I'm trying to break Riddlesmith too. Atm my list looks like a hybrid of your last and Brassmans. Compared to your last list, here are the main differences (choice of lands aside):

- Helm of Awakening    
- Brainfreeze
- Lotus Petal              
- 2 Repeal                  
- Rebuild
- Time Twister

+ DSC
+ Top
+ Spell Pierce
+ 2 Hurkyl's Recall
+ 2 Slots I'm not sure about (Candidates: Nature's Claim, Mindbreak Trap, Cunning Wish, Imperial Seal)

Here's my reasoning:

The Deck doesn't need neither Brain Freeze nor Helm of Awakening. The Plan of my version is
a) to assemble Vault/Key ASAP
b) Tinker/Robot
c) to cycle into a huge Will -> You win with Vault/Key and/or Robot, or if you play it you can still Cunning Wish for Brain Freeze

Lotus Petal is the weakest accellerant, as it is a one-shot giving only one mana and I feel I don't need it given the number of artefacts I run.
Repeal is nice and does some tricks, but vs MUD/Staxx it's useless and I feel that Hurkyl's Recall does way more.
Rebuild is too expensive imo and with three Hurkyl's we should be ok and they also help us to cycle into Will faster.
Twister doesn't help me with my Will-plan and gives my opponent cards which I don't like at all with this deck . Definitely an excusion if you are to go down my route and cut Freeze/Helm. However, it helps with Dredge game one I suppose.

DSC provides a win condition and is still the fastest beatstick if unanswered, and it is able to win more games at random (from any position) than Brain Freeze. Also, like Brassman said, it has a nice synergy with Riddlesmith as it is shuffled back in.

Top: You can't have enough of those in this deck. You want one early, two cycle really fast (Brassman's article) and the rest can be dumped. My idea of running Mishra's Baubles in place of two tops was garbage, of course.

Spell Pierce / Mindbreak Traps / Nature's Claim: Phele said it, this deck is in no version I have seen so far the fastest arround and needs more disruption. Therefore I'd pack at least all 4 copies of Spell Pierce if not even adding maindeck Traps to have more disruption for opposing control or combostrategies that are either more disruption heavy and/or faster. Claims of course help vs Null Rods, Oath of Druids, Leylines and everything brown.

Cunning Wish: I love Cunning Wish dearly, because of the flexibility it offers by providing access to Ravenous Trap / Mindbreak Trap / Nature's Claim game one and also let's you grab Brain Freeze. However it's clunky at 3cc, and I already dismissed Rebuild for that reason. But Cunning Wish is even more clunky as you effectively have to add the cost of the spell you fetch on top. After all, it doesn't seem a good call, at least in MUD/Staxx-heavy metagames.

In contrast to Cunning Wish, Seal is a card that probalby just should be in the list because it helps you find Fastbond / Will / Tinker / Vault/Key / whatever. The card disadvantage shouldn't be that much of a problem in this deck.

cheers.

//edit: spelling