McShusher Snipes

I've been working on this deck based on Guttersnipe and Vexing Shusher, and it's a ton of fun, but it is now time for me to not work on it for a little while. So, I'd like to let everyone else take a look and see what you think. I welcome any comments.

List:

3 guttersnipe
3 vexing shusher
3 jace, the mind sculptor
4 force of will
3 arcane denial
2 mental misstep
2 mindbreak trap
1 sensei's top
1 ancestral recall
1 brainstorm
1 merchant scroll
1 mystical tutor
1 vampiric tutor
1 demonic tutor
1 yawgmoth's will
1 thirst for knowledge
1 time walk
1 tinker
1 time vault
1 voltaic key
1 blightsteel colossus
1 hurkyl's recall
1 lightning bolt

3 volcanic island
2 underground sea
1 mountain
1 island
4 scalding tarn
1 misty rainforest
1 polluted delta
1 tolarian academy
1 library of alexandria
1 cavern of souls
8 mana artifacts

sideboard:
3 grafdigger's cage
1 tormod's crypt
1 pithing needle
3 ingot chewer
2 shattering spree
1 mountain
1 island
1 lightning bolt
2 control magic

I played this past weekend in the 29-man boston vintage event; I went 3-2 and played pretty well, losing to shops and BUG fish, where shops is an ok matchup and bug fish is not in McShusher Snipe's favor. I beat blue, burning long combo-oath, and RUG delver. Of my 8 game wins, 4 were vault-key, 2 were guttersnipe damage, 1 was blightsteel colossus, and 1 was control magic. More on matchups later.

Main Idea.

The big idea is the interaction between Vexing Shusher, Guttersnipe, and Arcane Denial. Guttersnipe wins by putting cards on the stack. Arcane Denial draws cards, which you can then put on the stack. Vexing Shusher provides amazing virtual card advantage by blanking all your opponent's counters.

Guttersnipe is sort of the obvious card here. It does damage. With 2 in play it does an amazing amount of damage. It makes it ok to just play a deck full of counter spells. Those counterspells start killing your opponent fast. I've tried playing with a ton of cantrips, but that build loses to shops. Since people don't play guttersnipe much, people tend to underestimate him, or make outright play mistakes. Like, if your opponent has a bob, he probably won't block with bob if you attack with guttersnipe! People sometimes don't realize Guttersnipe damage can be redirected to the opponent's planeswalkers.

Arcane Denial is a hard counter or an ancestral recall, depending on if you target your opponent's spell or your own. This gives you amazing flexibility in a single card. As a counterspell, the benefits are that it is an unconditional counterspell for just 1u. However, due to the draw trigger, you 2-for-1 yourself. This is the same as force of will, which is also a 2-for-1 in your opponent's favor. People play a lot of Force of Wills. This basically proves it's ok to use a 2-for-1 counterspell on something that is really important to counter. So in this deck, you want to use arcane denial like that. There's plenty of decks in the format that basically do a lot of set up for one or two big threats - Those are the decks this is great against. These include: anything blue, oath, combo. Decks that don't fit this pattern are fish and shops. Fish and Shops are decks where basically every card in that deck is a threat. Arcane Denial is a poor counterspell against those decks, but it's sometimes fine to use it that way. Like you would Force of Will.

Really Arcane Denial is best against blue decks, when you get into some kind of counter war over a spell. Arcane Denial gives you the option of 1) winning the counter war by countering, or 2) backing out of the counter war and ancestralling yourself by countering one of your existing counterspells on the stack. It's best with mental misstep, and this sequence is pretty common:

1) opponent casts ancestral recall
2) you misstep
3) opponent missteps back
4) you arcane denial, targeting your own misstep.

Your opponent's ancestral will resolve now, but on the next turn you will draw 3 cards in the upkeep step. You and the opponent both spent two cards to draw three cards. That's pretty good. Also, these kind of stack shenanigans help turn on your mindbreak traps. Suppose after (4) above, your opponent plays:

5) force of will on arcane denial
6) you mindbreak trap targetting all your opponent's spells

That is an epic blow out.

Note that either use of Arcane Denial helps the Guttersnipe plan: dig through your deck, fast, while putting spells on the stack.

Vexing Shusher synnergizes with the Arcane Denial plan. The main purpose of Shusher is to blank all your opponent's counterspells, which creates immense virtual card advantage. A lot of people misplay with a Shusher opposite them on the board. Some people don't realize they can respond to the activation of shusher with another counterspell - but they usually don't want to, anway. The second purpose is to make sure your big bombs resolve: jace, tinker, will, these are fun things to play uncounterably. The third purpose is that rarely, you make something uncounterable, and then target it with arcane denial to ancestral yourself. It's a great mid-game play. Note Shusher himself is uncounterable. Demonic Tutor for Shusher is usually game over against blue. However, I usually side out 2 of 3 Shushers against non-blue decks. It can be ok against Shops, letting you play stuff through chalice, but its not really as good as anti-artifact sideboard cards.

Card Choices

Jace: This deck wants to play big spells uncounterably. Jace is probably the best thing to resolve if you get to resolve something. Really the main draw engine.

Tinker / key / vault: the deck needs a "win now" condition, and time vault is the best.

Blightsteel: good against fish decks, which this deck has a problem with. Could cut for, say, a lightning bolt, or izzet charm.

Ancestral / merchant / mystical: you can get a lot of milage out of the full suite of restricted blue cards. You frequently get an early opportunity to resolve something good with Shusher in play, and you might as well grab ancestral.

Missteps: Really 3 of these would be better against blue and combo, but I want to limit myself to only a few dead cards against shops. Also, free spells are a key part of the guttersnipe strategy.

Mindbreak trap: There's a lot of combo in my meta. Also free spells are good with guttersnipe.

Cantrips: I don't play them cause then I lose to shops. I do play sensei's top, tho, which is amazing. I used to run two. But, yeah, this deck would run smoother in non-Shops matchups with +1 ponder, +2 preordain.

Cavern of Souls: Nice to have another tutor target to make a goblin uncounterable.

Black cards: I've tried playing just blue/red, in which case you need intuition and a second top to replace the tutors; but the deck works better with will and demonic, especially with time vault.

Library of Alexandria: It's still free wins against a lot of decks.

(sideboard) Control Magic: This deck has trouble with tarmogoyfs. Really anything bigger than a 2/2 is sort of a problem, since attacking with shusher and guttersnipe is part of the plan. Also comes in against bomberman for salvagers. It's usually a 2-for-1 against fish, making them play an Abrupt Decay on their own tarmogoyf rather than on the control magic itself.

Matchups:

BLUE: This deck is excellent against anything blue based on Gush, Tezz, Jace, etc. Guttersnipe damage can be redirected to your opponent's planeswalkers. You basically have inevitability against a control deck based on counterspells. Sooner or later you get a Shusher down and then you just win. Also an early Guttersnipe is a win. Works less well against blue fishy decks like RUG Delver.

COMBO: There's enough counters here to be really strong against Doomsday, Burning Long, or Belcher. Guttersnipe is particularly strong against any combo strategy that runs its own life total down. Generally let your opponent resolve something like doomsday or bargain, and then fight a counter war over the next thing they do, killing them with guttersnipe damage. Lightning bolts are great in these matchups, definitely side in the 2nd one. The maindeck mindbreak traps are great, of course. Plus there's a ton of tutors for them. When the combo player plays a wheel of fortune, respond with mystical tutor for mindbreak trap. Cages in the board are good against burning long and oath-based combo.

SHOPS: Vault-key is the main wincon here. Force of will helps on the draw. McShusher Snipes could use more instant-speed artifact hate for use under tangle wire, but I'm not sure where to get that (steel sabotage is too weak, hurk's upkeep in response to tanglewire is a poor play, rack and ruin is a possibility but costs 3, that 1-mana shatter that was printed in M13 might be good except it dies to chalice at 1). The basics are key in the sideboard, and pithing needle naming wasteland (or mishra's factory) is a good play. It's a hard matchup, but the sideboard is there for it.

FISH: This can be rough if they have bigger dudes than 2/2, and attack your mana development. On the other hand, fish is traditionally weak to tinker-bot and vault-key. My testing shows RUG delver to be even or slightly unfavorable, and new deathrite-BUG builds to be extremely difficult to beat. Control Magic is here for these sorts of matches. I feel like surgical extraction would be good against BUG, but I'm not sure where to find the room.

DREDGE: With 5 pieces of dredge hate sideboard, you have to get slightly lucky. A lot of builds of dredge have too many ways to pop a cage; coupled with their fast clock, it requires some luck to draw into hate and protect it long enough to win.

That's about it. This deck is fun to play and rewards skillful execution. Its also got some new interactions that might spice things up for a stolid blue player. I would strongly recommend this build for metas with a ton of Blue and Combo. And I think guttersnipe is good enough that there's other builds that would work well in other meta games.