Did you have shops matches and how did they go?

No shops till first round of top 8. Tough match but not unwinnable. A series of unfortunate draws killed me. Turn 2 Kataki met a top decked Tolarian Academy. A perfectly set up mana drain on Wurmcoil was foiled by a top decked Cavern of Souls. 3sphere locked me out of my very relevant Snapcaster + Disenchant sequence after missing land drops for something like 4 turns in a row. Overall my draws lined up terribly to my opponents (Nelson), but I am a firm believer that luck is more often than not a key factor no matter how well you play.

I also played at Depot's Sunday event and split top 4 after facing and beating 3 shop matches. For that event I swapped the 2 Kataki for a Devout Witness and Hurkyls Recall. I love the Witness and usually don't run Kataki but I wanted to try something out that would let me continue to swing for 2 while slowing down the shops player.

Also, I have to tell them to fix my list. The 2 dismembers listed in my sideboard are actually 2 disenchants.

Yeah, it'll be the deck that pretends chalice is unrestricted by playing 4 Trinket Mage.  I really wish they hand't restricted that card.  It was such an interesting card at 4 though due to the chalice for 0 on the play.  Made moxen a little less powerful.  It feels like restricting Wasteland or something that punishes prevalent strategies.  Obviously it is very good in shops on the play though so... 

Could you see cutting some counter magic and/or some number of planeswalkers for 2-3 gushes?

I my lastest builds, I often cut the Plains completely and run an Ancient Tomb instead. The deck is very heavy on colorless and Tomb helps getting Trinket or Thirst on turn 2 and is just plain good against the shop matchup.

I sometimes try the tomb over plains too, or over a cavern. I can agree in a UW bomberman deck, but when featuring a third color, then it gets more complicated. Funny thing is that plain goes to sb in more than 50% of rounds, but against bears and mud is HIGHLY appreciated.

About ancient tomb, the extra mana for trinket or auriok is awesome, but this deck already plays full set of moxen, sol ring and crypt (I cut mana vault), so taking fitting another colorless mana source is hard. Maybe with 0 drains and some fof/gifts...

My list started being esper instead jeskai, but changed because of:

-Confidant is awesome in slow matches. However it killed me randomly after showing fows, misdirections (decay was common), auriok, tasigur... And since mentor appeared, the lose of life is really relevant.
-Nihil was better than pyrite until mentor appeared. Also, graveyard is not really important in my meta. The fact that pyrite kills mentor, revoker (stops combo), thalia (same)... was important.
-Dack fayden performs lots of awesome roles in the deck:

• Steals moxen in order to pay our greedy spells, specially auriok and top. Also slows a bit the opponent
• Searches aggressively for the combo, specially with top
• Puts artifacts on the grave to be recycled with auriok
• Is heavy mud hate; while does not protect our combo, it stops the aggro from the opponent
• Avoids losing to random BSC or vault lots of times

-Red has better artifact hate than UWB, specially chewers and wear//tear (oath is hard)

Without black we lose demonic (no replacement), and I wasn't playing vampiric or will. We also lose notion thief (but it's not a must play, and I maindeck spirit of the labyrinth currently).Tasigur is really nice and it would be my main motivation to go back to black, but nowadays I prefer red.

Also I plan to test Alesha, Who Smiles at Death. Anybody could argue that for the same cost I can play mentor and just win, but alesha recovers trinket and auriok for instawin while mentor usually takes few turns to win. Also I believe that alesha is marginally better against mud, but of course cannot demonstrate it

Miquel is probably the best bomberman player in the league. If he plays FoF and 0 Faydens, probably it's because of good reasons

I'd also play fayden if I'm playing volcanics, even over Jace. And about Fact, it's really powerful. Not only you are digging deeper, often it gives more CA and most important of all, it's not hosed by Notion Thief or SotL. If this deck had black instead red, probably gifts would be better than FoF,

Btw, I assume the hydroblast in the sb is actually a pyroblast...

I have recently sleeved up the following and had some success over the weekend before I had to drop from an event to run errands for my pregnant wife (priorities, ya know..)

Mana:
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
Creatures:
2 Dark Confidant
3 Trinket Mage
2 Auriok Salvagers
Other Spells:
1 Sensis Top
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Brainstorm
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoths Will
1 Tinker
1 Dig Through Time
2 Fact or Fiction
2 Jace The Mind Sculpter
2 Swords To Plowshares
4 Force of Will
2 Mana Drain
3 Mental Misstep
2 Flusterstorm
1 Mindbreak Trap
60 Cards
SB - Sorta threw it together last min based on some scouting
1 Path to Exile (Great against shops and Void Winnower, pretty lousy otherwise for me)
2 Supreme Verdict (MVP)
1 Inkwell Leviathan
2 Disenchant
2 Hurkyls Recall (should be serenity, I think, but I do not own any and did not feel like proxying)
3 Grafdiggers Cage
1 Tormods Crypt
1 Rest in Peace
1 Aegis of the Gods
1 Ethersworn Cannonist

Some notes on the matchups I saw

Oath: This was my one loss in 5 matches with this deck.  In G1, he mulligans to 6 on the play so I aggressively force his Ancestral but that leaves me vulnerable to a turn 2 Orchid-Oath.  He Oath's on his upkeep and although I am happy to see him mill Time Walk AND Yawgmoths Will, he Oath's up Iona, and he smartly names white, preventing me from Plowing.  Griselbrand comes next turn and I am quickly defeated. 

G2 He gets down an early Oath without an Orchid, so I am able to sculpt my hand including a bonkers FoF of: Time Vault, Salvagers, FoF, Jace TMS, Trinket Mage.  He has no choice but to split the vault and the trinket mage, not knowing that I already had another trinket mage in hand.  I assemble vault key shortly after that.

G3 He was again able to force through an Oath & Orchid, turn over an Iona again naming white.  I was able to assemble vault key staring down lethal damage, but he had the ancient grudge in his yard to break it up.  Unfortunately I did not have time to find a counter or grafdiggers cage with Iona and Griselbrand and me under 10 life, I had to go for it and hope that he would forget about grudge.

Blue Moon:
G1 is spent mostly countering each others business, which takes roughly 30 minutes.  The highlight is an extensive counterwar over a fact or fiction that we won by missteping a copy of my fluster and then dropping a fluster of his own with me 1 mana off paying for it.  He is eventually able to beat me down with a trinket mage.
G2 is much faster, despite him resolving an early top he is unable to generate much action and I set up vault key after I drain his Force on my Trinket mage, then fact or fiction in my second main phase. 
G3 we are low on time  and again he is seeing a ton of mana but little action.  We go to turns and on turn 4 I am able to go infinite with Salvagers, lotus and Nihil spellbomb, but with no way to actually win...vault key is fairly useless on turn 4 with out lethal damage available.

Worldgorger Dragon Combo
My opponent goes t1 Bazzar pass, so I automatically assume he is on dredge.  I fortunately draw a mana crypt with my first draw which allows me to trinket mage for Nihil spellbomb.  I was initially surprised to see him force my Trinket mage, but I force back and the spellbomb sticks.  He bazzars EOT discarding Griselbrand and another fatty, so now I know this is some sort of re animator dragon combo deck.  My spellbomb keeps him from doing much of anything while I chip away with Trinket Mage and assemble vault-key.

G2 my opponent goes for an early kill but I have force +fluster.  He spent most of his gas on this effort and I am able to pull and stay ahead for the win

Mentor x2:

Both of these Matches were played outside the tournament, so the games sort of blended together on me, but in one of the games I topdecked either valut or key with the other in hand, and won with FOW backup.  Another game I wont with Confidant/Trinket Beats.  I will say the games I lost I lost due to an early mentor that got out of control before I was able to find a swords or EE.  Post board, Supreme verdict is an absolute house in this match up.  Many of the Mentor decks in my area are either not on Mindbreak trap or did not have it handy when the time came.  I try to play supreme verdict similar to how others play pulverize vs shop...wait until the absolute last moment and let it rip.   

Some overall comments on the deck...

Dark Confidant is really a pet card for me, I have tried to work it into any deck I play that is on Black and part of me wished I was on 3 instead of 2.  The games where it stuck I was able to pull so far ahead on cards, then combined with either a Jace or a Top forget about it...either your opponent answers it fast or you can stack your hand with counters and play defense.

Supreme verdict, again...such a house.  I wish I could justify a main deck slot but its nearly un-castable against shops and you want to have as few dead cards as possible.

Flusterstorm should most definitely be mana drain #3, and I would make room in my board for the second fluster

Vamp Tutor and Tinker are the two big IF's for me here...Vamp is great for finding answers post board, but I am not sure how many times I actually cast it without having to protect it with a misstep, where misstep was also my blue card to pitch for force of will...perhaps that was just poor luck but at least once I vamped, misstepped, and then got the vamped card countered because I had nothing to pitch to FoW.  Next tournament I may try two Thirst For Knowledge in these slots.

Nihil Spellbomb v Pyrite Spellbomb: The Match i could have won in turns stings, but I do not know if I can run Pyrite if my only red sources are ruby and Lotus.  Both have stand alone utility in their applicable matches, and I do not want to go 4 colors for one card. 

Fact or Fiction is such a great card, especially when you fact into another fact.  Dark confidant is the only reason I would not consider a third in this list.

Thoughts? Opinions?

Sure do, got one of those myself at the moment.


Shhh, keep it a secret.  Confidant is still a very playable card.  People who want to load up on things like Flusterstorm, REBs, and other things like that are usually soft to him.  Not to mention it makes people keep, or board in, removal, which can be good if your deck is built to exploit that.  In this deck, it's good to draw out the removal that might be aimed at Salvagers.

Last Eternal Weekend I had 4 Confidants in my deck and I wouldn't have wanted them to be anything else.  I don't get to play Vintage much any more though, so I can't really give you too much more.  My decklist was (and still basically is) pretty much from 2010 (but it's not Bomerman) and it's still surprisingly good.

This was my yesterday's list:

7 creatures
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
2 Auriok Salvagers
3 Trinket Mage

17 lands
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Cavern of Souls
1 Library of Alexandria

16 artifacts
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 AEther Spellbomb
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Voltaic Key
1 Time Vault
1 Grafdigger's Cage

18 instants
4 Force of Will
3 Mental Misstep
1 Ancestral Recall
2 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Dig Through Time
1 Repeal
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Disenchant
1 Mana Drain
1 Flusterstorm
1 Brainstorm
1 Fact or Fiction

2 sorceries
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Time Walk

SB: 2 Containment Priest
SB: 1 Aegis of the Gods
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 Disenchant
SB: 1 Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Grand Abolisher
SB: 1 Supreme Verdict (should have been toxic deluge)
SB: 1 Serenity
SB: 2 Swords to Plowshares
SB: 1 Pithing Needle


Decisions:

2 Aurioks instead 3. Playing 2 tops, vampiric and demonic it seemed right.
3 trinkets because trinket is great, but thirst and fof are also great and go over 4th trinket
2 tasigurs because of the body and the ability to instawin with infinite mana and ancestral
No mana vault, most of the time does little and make us still more vulnerable to rod/stony silence.
1 nihil because it's awesome most of the time and 1 aether in case I find some tinker into robot or random situations. Didn't like it at all.
1 cage in case I find oath, or as an early answer to dredge. It also answer wills and snapcaster, but yesterday it didn't even appear.
Vault and key because key+top is awesome, and this pair steal lots of games, specially when opponent controls your graveyard.
2 thirsts and 1 fact or fiction because thirst is great with so many artifacts and fact does what we want from it: search for auriok while putting artifacts in the grave. I could play more.
No treasure cruise, I already destroy enough grave with tasigurs and dtt


Possible changes
Canonist can go again into maindeck, our combos are not really annoyed (by the time you have combo, you have explosives to remove her if needed) and some opponents get really slowed. However she does little in certain pairings and we are more exposed to removal. Similarly with abolisher.
Black over red gives tutors, tasigurs and maindeck nihil. We lose fayden, pyrite and chewers. Hard call.
Spirit of the labyrinth can hurt lots of decks and we can be out of trouble taking out thirsts and brainstorm. Spirits and fact or fiction are great replaces for them. Deck explosiveness gets hurt and we keep removal alive against us, while we create less graveyard for tasigur. It depends on the metagame.

When I played it I don't added confidants, but tried to get some drawing nevertheless with drawings in your turns, or other advantages:

-fayden (targetting opponent)
-repeal in your eot
-fact or fiction
-top+key in your turn

I also considered arcane denial since playing it in my turn means I'm drawing 1 and you 0 (awesome!), but never had the guts since I cannot do that against half the field. At worst, it's still -1 CA even with spirit.

More interesting cards to try:

-Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer: disable opponent's creatures. However the creatures are enabled again if gwafa leaves play.
-Mikokoro, center of the sea: one sided draw.
-Gifts ungiven