Good article, Nat. I really like how you go through each arch type and I agree on the power of a well tuned GWB build. As I wrote in the GWB thread in the Null Rod sub forum, I'm surprised not more people are playing GWB.
Your, or Jake Hilty's, build is interesting and very different from other GWB builds but we do agree on two important issues: The importance of Grafdigger's Cage and Stony Silence main deck.
I'm not sure how 4 Nature's Claim in the main deck works out and I'm not sure if Bitterblossom is good enough. Therefore, I would have liked some discussion on on other card choices as well though. Where's the mentioning of Thalia, one of the best cards when playing a mana denial strategy and amazing against combo?
Doesn't Gaddock deserve a comment? After all, he's Meddling Mage naming Force, Jace, Tendrils, Gush, Tezzeret, Gifts, Engineered Explosives, Massacre, Smokestack, Chalice, Staff of Nin etc. at the same time.
Scavenging Ooze is an incredible card as well as it trumps Tarmogoyf, Crucible, Welder, opposing Deathrites, and together with your own Deathrite and Grafdigger's, you have a pretty good game 1 against Dredge and you completely shut off Snapcaster and Will.
Aven Mindcensor and Phyrexian Revoker could have been discussed as well.
I guess that my main issue with the build is that it seems very weak against Drain/Grixis etc which is a bit paradoxical as you mention that "an average Vintage metagame [mostly consists] of blue control and Workshops". Historically, Fish/Beats/Junk had to have a Tinker plan (and many still take too lightly on Tinker) but nowadays you need a Jace plan as well, which I think this specific build lacks.
Anyway, you should definitely visit the GWB thread in the Null Rod sub forum where we have some good discussion on this arch type.
Hello,
I am Jake Hilty, Nat's friend on team serious who developed this junk build. I can talk you through some of the options that have been made for the deck as well as why some of the cards you mentioned are missing, but I do want to say 2 things, first we are almost inevitably going to disagree on some choices here, it is just the nature of building these sorts of decks and our respective playstyles, so lets keep it as civil as possible (this is my general TMD warning, not for you specifically) and also, there is limited room is these decks, and some cards just won't fit in the main.
Alright as for specifics.
4 Nature's Claim: Originally, we had some number of mental missteps (3 i think?) in place of some of the nature's claims but they didn't test well, and the spot removal was doing good work YMMV on that one. I have found it feels pretty powerful to have back up removal spells in hand at the ready.
2 Bitterblossom: It is interesting that you bring this up and then mention having a hard time with Jace. In my testing so far this is the best card against blue control in the deck. If this resolves the U player (if Grixis) generally has 0 solutions main deck to it at all, other blue players might have 1 and maybe 2 post board if they are really prepared for enchantments. Jace never beats this card in a matchup. Also, it can be effective against the prison shops lists that we see here in ohio on a regular basis, but fundamentally it is there as a way to fight with Jace, and I like it more than Needle/Revoker because (like Null Rod) it isn't bounced by Hurkyl's recall, which is a problem I have run into in the past. I would also say, that once we condense the win conditions of blue decks down to just Jace it is much easier to just win because we have several creatures to attack with. The exception to this in my testing has been YP, which is one of the main reasons that illness in the ranks got added in.
Thalia: In my experience (and i have played here in other builds)she is just ok, it sucks to draw extra dead cards "garbage" aggro decks in my opinion and every thalia beyond the first is a dagger. In addition, decks in this format are made to contend with much better mana denial than paying 1 extra mana. Plus, against most combo decks we have to play her turn 1, or lose, and sometimes that isn't possible. I think things that become active on our turn 0 (read leyline and MBT) just do more work. Also, if i have a two mana card that i need to play on turn 1 i want it to basically win me the game against combo (ala stony silence) and she just doesn't do that. She can be fine but I have started man lists with 3 of her and i always end up cutting down to zero. In this build with all our spells she is even less good, i would imagine in a build like the Humans list from Gencon she is a lot more powerful since you are mostly just playing creatures, but we have 18+ non-creature spells.
Gaddock Teeg: I do like Teeg, a lot, but for the most part I don't worry about most of the cards we are playing him against. If you have a lot of combo in your area, feel free to play this guy in the main somewhere, probably at the expense of something against shops. Making combo a good matchup is so tough anyhow though, that most of the time it doesn't seem worth it to make my main deck worse against other things. Multiple legends and combo hate speed comments from the thalia paragraph should apply here as well, and also remember that Teeg is even harder to cast on turn 1 than thalia is.
Scavenging Ooze is fine, but let's look at the cards you mention Goyf (which we have 8 main deck answers to and if he is being played is generally the only creatures we are at all outclassed by so those answers aren't spead that thin), Crucible (which we have 12 maindeck answers to), Welder (which honestly just hasn't been seeing the play it deserves), Opposing deathrites (which are basically just equivalent to our deathrites, yes we could turn off their abilities but that turns off our own as well), Game 1 against dredge, which already feels ok to me, we have 5 waste effects 4 deathrites 3 cages and creatures that blow themselves up to kill bridges. I am not saying its great but certainly we have one of the better game 1 MUs against dredge. I think scavenging ooze is a super solid card, but I don't know what I want to cut for it. Also, it is generally super slow against Workshops (which I hate) and it is a lightning rod for removal.
I think i addressed the Jace plan thing, but if not let me reiterate. 1) Bitterblossom is nuts against Jace. 2) By shutting off other potential win conditions with permanents or just answers in hand, we force them to only win with Jace and therefore have trouble keeping jace alive against our (relatively) large number of creatures. Again YMMV but so far the only (non-combo) blue decks i have had trouble with involve Young Pyromancer and thus we have added in illness in the ranks to fight that guy specifically, and some other MUs a bit.
