[Free Article] Vintage Avant-Garde: The Power 3 Reigns Supreme

[forests failed you]

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/24739-Vintage-Avant-Garde-The-Power-3-Reigns-Supreme.html

In this article I discuss my insights on the Vintage format at the Gen Con Championships and how I envision the format will stack up moving forward.

Enjoy.

[Prospero]

A very solid read, as always.

[Commandant]

Bloodghast cannot block.

This article seems rushed on a few fronts. If anything you have reaffirmed that Dark Confidant is still very good.

[forests failed you]

Bloodghast cannot block.

This article seems rushed on a few fronts. If anything you have reaffirmed that Dark Confidant is still very good.

There was a Therapy and two Bridges in the yard.

[vaughnbros]

I'm sorry but you are completely overrating dark confidant.  Its a great card but comparing it to bazaar and workshop?  Go ahead and restrict bob and you would barely see any change in the metagame at all.  On top of that if your not playing oath, delver, and standstill or your 3 pillars your deck is terrible?  Noble fish, Tezz, YOUR midranged bant deck, keeper, A majority of gush decks, ect...

I mean no disrespect to you personally, but the conclusions you draw to in this article seem really ignorant to me and this is a poor representation of vintage that is being given to people who don't play the format and read your articles.

If you want pillars of vintage how about Force of will, mishra's workshop, and bazaar of baghdad.  I don't have the data to support this compiled but I'm pretty sure that would encompass 95% of the decks that have won or have been played in the last few years.

[Commandant]

I'm sorry but you are completely overrating dark confidant.  Its a great card but comparing it to bazaar and workshop?  Go ahead and restrict bob and you would barely see any change in the metagame at all.  On top of that if your not playing oath, delver, and standstill or your 3 pillars your deck is terrible?  Noble fish, Tezz, YOUR midranged bant deck, keeper, A majority of gush decks, ect...

I mean no disrespect to you personally, but the conclusions you draw to in this article seem really ignorant to me and this is a poor representation of vintage that is being given to people who don't play the format and read your articles.

If you want pillars of vintage how about Force of will, mishra's workshop, and bazaar of baghdad.  I don't have the data to support this compiled but I'm pretty sure that would encompass 95% of the decks that have won or have been played in the last few years.

You are missing the point of this article.

[Lemnear]

It's News to me that Planes like grixis are vintage legal and you make 2nd with an illegal deck ... just say'n


Put'n Bob in line with Workshop or Bazaar and argue they are on-par on power Level is a joke. Moreover your Claim that Bob only appears in linear-Decks is plain wrong. It appears in reactive Control Decks, in agressive Combo decks and in attrition decks. Bazaar dumps cards, Workshop power Big artifact creatures and "brakes". There's nothin in this article to justify any of those claims.

At some point you Said that all T8 Play One of the Following:

4x Bob
4x Lodestone
4x Bazaar

What so you want to say here? You can add workshop, narcomoeba, Bridge from below or FoW into the list and it still stands true...

[chrispikula]

I'm just not sure why the article acts like Dark Confidant is a new thing. The real breakout technology of this top 8 was Buried Ruin. The deck that won was a fairly straightforward Confidant/Jace/Tinker deck. The Snapcaster/Bolt aspect of it surely made a difference but people recognized that Lightning Bolt was actually pretty awesome in the current vintage format months ago.

[Prospero]

Regarding Bob:

I think that Brian's point wasn't so much that Dark Confidant was as objectively powerful (in a vacuum) as Mishra's Workshop, or Bazaar of Baghdad, but that playing Dark Confidant allows you to run all the other traditional blue brokenness.  Bob is broken because you get to play with Ancestral Recall, Tinker, Force of Will, Jace, and more.  No card is powerful by itself, but the cards that the blue pilot gets to play (with their Bobs) are generally stronger than the cards that the other decks get to play with.  The advantages of Workshop or Bazaar push up the power level, but (in comparing apples and oranges) Sphere of Resistance is not as objectively powerful as Tinker and while Mishra's Workshop is powerful, Bob allows you to play Tinker whereas Shop generally does not.

Buried Ruin was played as the 61st card in the Espresso list that came in second at the Bazaar of Moxen this year.  While recurring your threats is powerful, there are sacrifices that need to be made in order to be able to run that card.  Is Buried Ruin more powerful than Ghost Quarter/Rishadan Port/Mishra's Factory/City of Traitors in a Shop build?  Maybe, but I'd lean towards probably not.  Blaine's deck is interesting for a whole host of reasons, but I think the fundamentally interesting point, for me, is that in lieu of approaching Spheres as a general proactive measure against all spells his opponents are playing, Blaine has included cards like Revoker and Wurmcoil Engine, which are both good at doing one thing specifically well.  I wouldn't call Blaine's deck Espresso Stax for myriad reasons, but one of the most basic is that Espresso is a deck that hates on fundamentals; as long as your opponent is looking to cast spells, they're going to be put in a corner by Espresso.  Blaine's Shop deck does many of the things that Espresso does, but it's looking to fight specific cards more than a whole strategy. 

Overall I think that means that Blaine's deck may be better suited for a given event, but that it is more difficult to build, if only because it has to be called perfectly.  Blaine has to know the environment, and the cards that he's looking to fight, in lieu of looking to do the basics that Espresso does.  It's not to say that he's wrong (clearly, as he finished second, while the highest finishing Espresso deck was Nick Coss, just outside of top 16), but that there are differences which should be noted between the decks.  As a hardcore Prison pilot, I love my Sphere effects too much to leave them in the sideboard, but his deck has a lot of merit.

[vaughnbros]

I'm sorry but you are completely overrating dark confidant.  Its a great card but comparing it to bazaar and workshop?  Go ahead and restrict bob and you would barely see any change in the metagame at all.  On top of that if your not playing oath, delver, and standstill or your 3 pillars your deck is terrible?  Noble fish, Tezz, YOUR midranged bant deck, keeper, A majority of gush decks, ect...

I mean no disrespect to you personally, but the conclusions you draw to in this article seem really ignorant to me and this is a poor representation of vintage that is being given to people who don't play the format and read your articles.

If you want pillars of vintage how about Force of will, mishra's workshop, and bazaar of baghdad.  I don't have the data to support this compiled but I'm pretty sure that would encompass 95% of the decks that have won or have been played in the last few years.

You are missing the point of this article.

I dont believe I am.  A majority of the article talks about the greatness of Dark Confidant and there was even a paragraph or two about how it is better than force of will.  If his point was to just analyze the results of the vintage champs he shouldnt have made an image of tiers of vintage.  And im not quite sure he even gave an argument for why those 3 cards are tier 1.5 and others decks are worse than them...

I understand the whole if I start the game with this card on turn 1 my odds of winning are much greater, but if start the game with force in my opening hand my odds of winning are much greater as well... and obviously the chances of dredge winning with bazaar on turn 1 are higher their chances of winning without it on turn 1 game 1 are nearly non existent.

if we are going by this quote "The best decks in the format all maximize their POWER and CONSISTENCY over the course of a long tournament by playing with the most impactful unrestricted spells that CAN and DO come down on the first turn and quickly generate insurmountable advantage."  First of all bazaar isnt a spell.  Second again force generates an insurmountable advantage of being able to say no to any spell without paying mana.

Top 8 at vintage champs... this is one tournament and as lemnear pointed out I could choice a multitude of cards instead of the 3 he choose.  So this really doesnt add anything.

With these two being my main premises I am pretty sure I could argue for a ton of other cards to be thrown into this category.

Also "Dark Confidant is the only good unrestricted option to draw cards in the blue deck that isn't Jace, the Mind Sculptor, at least for right now." I mean come on this is completely unsupported.  I'm pretty sure you have to mention gush to make this claim.

Moreover your Claim that Bob only appears in linear-Decks is plain wrong. It appears in reactive Control Decks, in agressive Combo decks and in attrition decks.

He said bob was less linear than the other two.

Regarding Bob:

I think that Brian's point wasn't so much that Dark Confidant was as objectively powerful (in a vacuum) as Mishra's Workshop, or Bazaar of Baghdad, but that playing Dark Confidant allows you to run all the other traditional blue brokenness.  Bob is broken because you get to play with Ancestral Recall, Tinker, Force of Will, Jace, and more.  No card is powerful by itself, but the cards that the blue pilot gets to play (with their Bobs) are generally stronger than the cards that the other decks get to play with.  The advantages of Workshop or Bazaar push up the power level, but (in comparing apples and oranges) Sphere of Resistance is not as objectively powerful as Tinker and while Mishra's Workshop is powerful, Bob allows you to play Tinker whereas Shop generally does not.

I don't think this was made very clear if this was his objective.  Again Force allows me a lot of flexibility just a bob does just saying if we are talking about pillars ignoring probably the most played unrestricted card in all of vintage is quite a miss.

[Lemnear]

Moreover your Claim that Bob only appears in linear-Decks is plain wrong. It appears in reactive Control Decks, in agressive Combo decks and in attrition decks.

He said bob was less linear than the other two.

I'm sure there were the pictures of Workshop, Bazaar and bob with the following Subtiitle:

"All the best decks are BIG, LINEAR gambits."




To me the Statement was pretty clear

[Phele]

BOM 2012, won by Dredge,
DDay 2012, won by Dredge,
Morphling Cup 2012, won by UBR Confidant Control,
Ovino end 2011, won by Kuldotha Mud,
Eternal Weekend end 2011, won by Kuldotha Mud.

And in all the Top8s of these most recent 95-plus-tournaments you can find mulitple copies of Confidant Control/Dredge/Mud or Stax variants.

So Gencon 2012 just underlined an already pretty long lasting trend, what the top tier decks are.

[forests failed you]

Moreover your Claim that Bob only appears in linear-Decks is plain wrong. It appears in reactive Control Decks, in agressive Combo decks and in attrition decks.

He said bob was less linear than the other two.

I'm sure there were the pictures of Workshop, Bazaar and bob with the following Subtiitle:

"All the best decks are BIG, LINEAR gambits."




To me the Statement was pretty clear

Apparently, not to you.  The article provides explanation of the ideas that are distilled in a subtitle to a picture, an article which you clearly didn't actually read.  If you like to look at pictures, not bother to read text, and draw your own conclusions -- I wrote an article called: The Top 100 Cards in Vintage, it is all pictures with no text, and is probably better suited for the style of "reading" you prefer.

The statement that a deck is linear means it moves on a line from beginning to execution of its ultimate strategic goal, winning the game.  Dredge, Lodestone, and Bob don't try and control the game via elaborate locks, running the opponent out of cards, etc. these decks try to kill their opponent's by running them over with powerful cards.  Dark Confidant decks are less "narrow" in their ability to address specific draws and situations than Dredge -- which I would argue has the metric of being narrow and linear.  The point of the particular caption you have latched onto, within the context of the article, is that the best and most powerful strategies in the format do the following things:

They are consistent and revolve around cards that are not restricted.
They are turn one plays.
They are all high risk high reward.
They aggressively advance a deck's advantage toward ultimately winning the game.

The point is that in order to play cards that are powerful, you have to make concessions to synergy and take risks to aggressively get ahead.

The point of the article isn't to say:  "Hey, we discovered Dark Confidant."  The point is that going into this event, I think there was an attitude surrounding Bob that he is an option among a lot of options.  It is pretty clear to me that he isn't just "one of the options" at this point, he is the default go to option moving forward and to make the gambit of not playing with the card is a big risk (as it has continued to prove itself to be the premier blue strategy).  I don't think that the attitude of "Bob is the best" was known going into this event -- if it had been the majority of the name blue mages would have been playing the card, and were not in favor of RUG, Landstill, and UW Bomberman.

I have gone out on a limb and predicted that Vintage will continue to move toward a 3 pillar format of Blue decks with Bob, Dredge and Lodestone Golem.  As opposed to a format where the blue pillar is contested between a bunch of other decks.  If you disagree with me on this point, that is fine, don't play with Dark Confidant -- I learned my lesson, but if you don't want to learn from my mistakes and need to figure it out for yourself, then by all means RUG and Landstill till your heart's content.

[Cruel Ultimatum]

I could never figure out why people stopped playing bob. The best conclusion is that people just switched to gush because they either remembered the old days when gush was overpowered or because it makes them look start.

[oshkoshhaitsyosh]

Gush pushed bob out of the spotlight because Gush decks > bob decks head to head. Gush is more broken and a faster way to achieve card advantage. Decks like East Coast Wins destroyed bob decks because gush is faster. Its not because the idea of gush is good, its just in fact good lol. That being said generally a bob deck will be easier to play then a gush deck...

[Cruel Ultimatum]

Gush pushed bob out of the spotlight because Gush decks > bob decks head to head. Gush is more broken and a faster way to achieve card advantage. Decks like East Coast Wins destroyed bob decks because gush is faster. Its not because the idea of gush is good, its just in fact good lol. That being said generally a bob deck will be easier to play then a gush deck...

I disagree, with both the bob tendrils deck that I was running at the end of 2011 and the uwb boberman deck I felt like gush decks were one of the best match ups. I think one of the biggest swings in this is the printing of mental misstep, because you can keep their fastbond off the table and they won't be able to continue generating card advantage through gush on the same turn. When this happens, you will be ahead on mana and use that to your advantage to either take control of the game (bomberman) or end (tendrils). This is especially true with creature based gush decks that don't have the tools to beat you quickly. To put it bluntly rug delver cannot beat a resolved dark confidant.

Another large problem with gush in general is workshops. Outside of the fact that the card gush is pretty bad against the shop strategy, the fact that it forces people to play more lands makes your gushes much worse.

[XxtSundaybxX]

I don't think it's fair to say that "Gush is better than bob". There's way too many things to factor in to make that claim. However, given a proper deck, and strictly speaking gush vs bob(head to head) I will take gush every time. Outside of a straight control deck(gushes and all counters, minimal business) gush is more powerful that bob. Barring no "blowout" hands on either side, I would give my opponent confidant in their opener and gush in mine, and win majority of the games. It's not even close. Now if were talking about bob/gush vs the rest of the format, there are merits to bob in the shop matchup(feeds you cards without setting you back on the resources you need to establish an advantage against your shop opponent). Last year Brian said that Gush was terrible against workshops(I'm paraphrasing) but I'm pretty sure that myth was put to rest. Playing a deck like east coast wins, you had to actively "try" to lose the game against shops, it was very lop-sided.

Egan: When you were playing bob tps, I don't think it was the bobs that made your gush matchup favorable. Sure they help feed you cards if you get him out early enough but more often than not it's the fact that you can race a gush deck, in addition your playing duress and fow to protect your bombs.

[chrispikula]

I really thought the East Coast Wins deck was a fantastic build and never got the credit it deserved (it was popular during the extended break from Vintage I took in 2011 so I never played it) but I still have a hard time believing that it's matchup vs Shops was all that great. I think that unless your deck specifically has cards that circumvent sphere effects (lands that produce multiple mana, Spirit Guides, Engineered Explosives, to a lesser extent Lotus Cobra) there really is a limit to how great your deck can be against Shops.  the reason Shops are good is because they don't give a shit what is in your deck.

[chrispikula]

Gush pushed bob out of the spotlight because Gush decks > bob decks head to head. Gush is more broken and a faster way to achieve card advantage. Decks like East Coast Wins destroyed bob decks because gush is faster. Its not because the idea of gush is good, its just in fact good lol. That being said generally a bob deck will be easier to play then a gush deck...

I really think this is hyperbole.  The fact that Confidant is so achievable as a turn 1 play I think almost completely makes up for the efficiency and speed of Gush. Having a dude is also pretty strong when Jaces are potentially hitting the table. I also happen to think that ECW was just a tighter build than most Bob decks at the time, and ECW also was being piloted by strong players on average. 

[XxtSundaybxX]

I really thought the East Coast Wins deck was a fantastic build and never got the credit it deserved (it was popular during the extended break from Vintage I took in 2011 so I never played it) but I still have a hard time believing that it's matchup vs Shops was all that great. I think that unless your deck specifically has cards that circumvent sphere effects (lands that produce multiple mana, Spirit Guides, Engineered Explosives, to a lesser extent Lotus Cobra) there really is a limit to how great your deck can be against Shops.  the reason Shops are good is because they don't give a shit what is in your deck.

Ancient Grudge is a fantastic card. In addition to grudge, we typically played a natures claim(if not a second grudge). The deck also played 16 lands in the main(later on it was 15) with the 17th in the sb. In my opinion of playing vs shops there's nothing more important that hitting your land drops. Ancient grudges and claims and hurks are great, if you can cast them. obviously sometimes there's just nothing you can do agains turn 1 lodestone, turn two double metamorph, but this is certainly the exception.

Turn one bob is always a strong play. And yeah you'll see your two cards from bob at the same time I see my two cards from gush(if bob is played on turn 1). However if bob is played later than turn 2 forget about it. Also it can be very dependent of who was on the play. For example if I lead land,iseal(for fastbond) go, then you play bob on your turn one,assuming both players have a counter or neither player has a counter, the game is going to get out of reach pretty fast if not over. This drastically changes if bob is played first as you'll see atleast 1 card but you see where im going.

Brian tends to make alot of bold statements that are often proven wrong or atleast inaccurate. Saying that if your not playing bob, your deck is trash is a bold, incorrect statement. Or maybe I misunderstood his quote.

Also Gush vs Bob aside, I actually enjoyed the read.

[forests failed you]

Brian tends to make alot of bold statements that are often proven wrong or atleast inaccurate. Saying that if your not playing bob, your deck is trash is a bold, incorrect statement. Or maybe I misunderstood his quote.

 

Here's the quote:

Basically, my after the fact assessment of deckbuilding for this event is:

"Did your blue deck have four copies of Dark Confidant in it?"

If no, your deck was trash.

If yes, your deck was probably sick.




Specifically, talking about deck choice for the Vintage Championship.  I would back this claim up by saying that if you didn't have four copies of one of these cards in your deck, you didn't make top eight.  I wasn't saying that from now until forever there can be no good decks without these cards, but for the actual event -- playing with these cards was clearly the way to be.

[XxtSundaybxX]

Brian tends to make alot of bold statements that are often proven wrong or atleast inaccurate. Saying that if your not playing bob, your deck is trash is a bold, incorrect statement. Or maybe I misunderstood his quote.

 

Here's the quote:

Basically, my after the fact assessment of deckbuilding for this event is:

"Did your blue deck have four copies of Dark Confidant in it?"

If no, your deck was trash.

If yes, your deck was probably sick.




Specifically, talking about deck choice for the Vintage Championship.  I would back this claim up by saying that if you didn't have four copies of one of these cards in your deck, you didn't make top eight.  I wasn't saying that from now until forever there can be no good decks without these cards, but for the actual event -- playing with these cards was clearly the way to be.

Fair enough

[TheProfessor]

I think when it comes to Gush vs. Bob it is all based on the meta game that you expect.  I played Gush Tendrils in the Vintage Championship, and was 5-1 going into round 7 (11th place after round 6 if I remember correctly).  I lost in game 3 due to a very poor misplay on my part, and dropped to finally get some food after not eating in nearly twenty-four hours.  I feel that the list I had was well positioned against most of the field, although it was more complicated to play than Bob/Jace/Snapcaster, which I was planning on playing up until about a week before GenCon.  I top 4'ed with Marc's list (minus the REB in the sideboard in favor of the 4th Lightning Bolt) the next night in Vintage for Vaults.  I wouldn't say that Dark Confidant is more powerful than Gush, just better positioned in the current American meta game.

[bluemage55]

So now that we're down to only 3 archetypes, can we finally unrestrict Brainstorm, Thirst for Knowledge, and Ponder please?

[Grand Inquisitor]

I really think this is hyperbole...I also happen to think that ECW was just a tighter build than most Bob decks at the time

I remember doing head-to-head with a version of BobTVKey vs. ECW and being repeatedly surprised by the small, but consistent margin of ECW.  This was with a bob list that I had a pretty consistent streak of T8s with.  (Obviously all testing is anecdotal).  Gush is certainly more powerful, but it was actually Preordain that put it over the top.  The gush lists could just abuse that better than the Bob lists could.

However, to Brian's larger point, you really make it back and then some on the entire metagame with Dark Confidant.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Since it hasn't been said here yet, the Snapcasters significantly affect Bob's power level since adding more critters significantly increases that odds that you can end the game by turning 2/1s sideways. Swinging for 2 a turn you may not race the damage from him; swinging for 4 a turn, you almost certainly will unless you flip Blighty or a succession of Force of Wills.

[vaughnbros]

Since it hasn't been said here yet, the Snapcasters significantly affect Bob's power level since adding more critters significantly increases that odds that you can end the game by turning 2/1s sideways. Swinging for 2 a turn you may not race the damage from him; swinging for 4 a turn, you almost certainly will unless you flip Blighty or a succession of Force of Wills.

Your right.  I would say he almost needs other creatures with him to be optimized.  Whether it be goyfs, trygons, trinket mages, auriok salvagers, snapcasters, or something else.  He puts you on such a fast clock that you don't want to be caught not dealing damage to your opponent the only exception to running creatures with him is relying heavily on sensei's divining top or jaces to prevent damage to yourself.  I would say he also needs a full set of moxen to optimize him as well, because every turn that passes without him being on the table his power level is greatly diminished.

Gush has a different restriction on your mana base such that you can't really run many lands other than islands.  

Then you have ones that are really mana intensive, like ak/intuition, or requires you to have successful attacks, like edric, or requires you to have an aggressive mana base, like standstill, or some other restriction.

When choosing the best draw engine for your deck its all about which restriction can your deck handle the best.  I dont think there is a definitive answer to bob is better than gush or even bob and gush and better than standstill, its all about your deck list.  Now obviously other choices in your deck will affect how well you perform in your meta game.

It happens that with how this meta is playing creatures gives you a chance against every deck list.  Seeing as this is a discussion about blue decks, most of them also have a full set of moxen and black mana in their deck.  And if your running the full set of moxen, creatures, and black id say bob is probably the best draw engine for your deck.  Now on a particular day if a lot of people decide to run creature removal bob is probably a bad choice and id rather go with another engine.  This is quite similar to the Martello shops versus espresso shops argument.

[Cruel Ultimatum]

Since it hasn't been said here yet, the Snapcasters significantly affect Bob's power level since adding more critters significantly increases that odds that you can end the game by turning 2/1s sideways. Swinging for 2 a turn you may not race the damage from him; swinging for 4 a turn, you almost certainly will unless you flip Blighty or a succession of Force of Wills.

I would agree, however I think there is something to be said on the flipside of this. You cant really attack with bob if your opponent has 1u up for fear of running it into their snapcaster. If you are under the gun and need to attack play your spell precombat so they have to snapcaster counter prior to you attacking.

[vaughnbros]

Since it hasn't been said here yet, the Snapcasters significantly affect Bob's power level since adding more critters significantly increases that odds that you can end the game by turning 2/1s sideways. Swinging for 2 a turn you may not race the damage from him; swinging for 4 a turn, you almost certainly will unless you flip Blighty or a succession of Force of Wills.

I would agree, however I think there is something to be said on the flipside of this. You cant really attack with bob if your opponent has 1u up for fear of running it into their snapcaster. If you are under the gun and need to attack play your spell precombat so they have to snapcaster counter prior to you attacking.

Thats only if they are playing snapcaster and its really not that big of a deal if they want to trade there you've gotten at least 1 card off your bob already.

[Lemnear]

Moreover your Claim that Bob only appears in linear-Decks is plain wrong. It appears in reactive Control Decks, in agressive Combo decks and in attrition decks.

He said bob was less linear than the other two.

I'm sure there were the pictures of Workshop, Bazaar and bob with the following Subtiitle:

"All the best decks are BIG, LINEAR gambits."




To me the Statement was pretty clear

Apparently, not to you.  The article provides explanation of the ideas that are distilled in a subtitle to a picture, an article which you clearly didn't actually read.  If you like to look at pictures, not bother to read text, and draw your own conclusions -- I wrote an article called: The Top 100 Cards in Vintage, it is all pictures with no text, and is probably better suited for the style of "reading" you prefer.

cute try ... Your "Explantation" aside from the fact that Bob is a possible 1st-Turn-Play was naming twice the phrase "High Risk, High reward" and calling it "the only good unrestricted Option to draw cards..." completely ignoring cards like AK or gush with the later Not Even being considered a Tier in your list which tells a lot. Indeed, your articles with up to no text ARE better.

The statement that a deck is linear means it moves on a line from beginning to execution of its ultimate strategic goal, winning the game.  Dredge, Lodestone, and Bob don't try and control the game via elaborate locks, running the opponent out of cards, etc. these decks try to kill their opponent's by running them over with powerful cards.  Dark Confidant decks are less "narrow" in their ability to address specific draws and situations than Dredge -- which I would argue has the metric of being narrow and linear.  The point of the particular caption you have latched onto, within the context of the article, is that the best and most powerful strategies in the format do the following things:

So linear = want to win?? Interesting Point of view. So Storm Decks are "linear" like knights.dec ... I think you have a different idea of the word linear in terms of Deck strategy than the Most of us.

They are consistent and revolve around cards that are not restricted.
They are turn one plays.
They are all high risk high reward.
They aggressively advance a deck's advantage toward ultimately winning the game.

Would Not sign that.
Point 1: I'm sure most confidant-decks resolve around tinker, Time-key or y.will.
Point 2: seems legit
Point 3: i'm Not sure how "High Risk" it is to Lock an Opponent Out with spheres in the First 2 turns of a game Running a Deck that is mainly filled with mana and beatz
Point 4: stands also True for every beating creature/draw spell/land/etc. in all formats. Vague phrase again

Read your comments without the sections that have been struck through.  Your points can be made without the subtle jabs at the author and they'll be stronger for it.  There's a modicum of respect that should be shown here; Brian was under no obligations to create Vintage content, and yet here we have an article that provides theory, lists, and more.  If you disagree with Brian, disagree with him, but do it in a civil manner - Prospero