UB Trix

[Hrishi]

Hi there. I have slowly been getting the cards together for me to switch over to Vintage! Now I honestly don't have many of the expensive cards required to make a super powered deck, I thought it might be cool to bring something cool and unexpected to some of the local tournaments! I also love how Necropotence changes how you play, and the ability to play with this card (and couple others!) is one of the main reasons I want to play Vintage. Most combo decks I see seem to be storm but I wanted to try something different.

The deck I want to put together is essentially UB Trix, based off the original Extended version of Necropotence Trix. However, with Necro restricted, can I still depend on tutoring it often enough to help me draw the cards required for the win? Should I include Bargain? I wasn't sure because it's such an expensive card (mana-wise) and is never going to hit the board without acceleration, but I imagine if I can get it on the board I stand a very high chance of winning.

I realize that it's probably not very competitive, but I like playing cool and unexpected decks, one of the main draws vintage has for me.  

Lands
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Strip Mine
2 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
1 Tolarian Academy

Instants
1 Brainstorm
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Dark Ritual
1 Mystical Tutor
3 Enlightened Tutor
3 Spell Pierce
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

Sorceries
1 Demonic Tutor
3 Duress
1 Ponder
3 Donate
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Artifacts
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Vault

Enchantments
4 Illusions of Grandeur
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain

The mana-base is probably completely off, but I'll deal with the mana base once I have the core-combo pieces and the cards to support them situated first.

This is a very early draft of what I've been thinking about. I can more or less get any card I need, and I'm allowed 5 proxies for Power anyway. Suggestions would be great, thank you!

For a quick explanation, I've chosen UB mostly to be able to protect the combo. Duress+FoW is one of the best ways I can think of to protect it. Black includes efficient tutors in Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor. The rituals are for accelerating mana out, since the combo is fairly mana intensive (4 for illusions+3 for donate), as well as for getting necro into play. I am not sure if the Mana Drains are necessary, but I included it in my first draft just in case! I am concerned I do not have enough ways to dig for cards, but maybe I'm wrong.

No sideboard yet as I am not familiar enough with Vintage, but I'll build one as soon as I have my main deck semi-ready.

[Shock Wave]

You're playing UB in Vintage and you're not running Dark Confidant. I believe that's a sin in some parts of the world.

On a serious note, you simply don't have a way to create any advantage for yourself. Based on this build, you're attempting to assemble a very frail combo in the early game and win. At least if you run Bob, you have the opportunity to win outright by just riding the CA to victory.

[Hrishi]

You're playing UB in Vintage and you're not running Dark Confidant. I believe that's a sin in some parts of the world.

Would I be forgiven if I said I seriously considered Bob but wasn't sure if he had a place in the deck? Thanks for the suggestion anyhow, I'm convinced I need bob.

[Shock Wave]

I would try:

+ 2 Drains -- 4 Drains is generally not a good idea these days, but this deck isn't going to be doing much on the draws anyways, so you may as well beef up the possibility of getting UU up when you're on the play.
+ 4 Dark Confidant
+ Acceleration --- Off color moxes, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault
+ 2 JTMS -- because this card is just unfair

- 5 Rituals
- Necropotence
- 1 Chain
- 1 Duress

Also, I would change the manabase to include acceleration such as Tolarian Academy and perhaps Ancient Tomb as well.

Hope that helps.

[zeus-online]

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[Hrishi]

Thank you for some great advice. I'm not sure why I didn't think about running E Tutor, that's definitely something I'm going to do if I stick with the necro plan. To be honest, the reason I went with necro in the first place is because vintage is the only format where I get to play the card, and I love playing necro

I did see a few lists running academy rector, but I'm having trouble understand how it is better? While rector does let you search for illusions and you can donate soon after, don't you have to wait for your opponent to kill it? Or do you just try to force yourself to discard it? Does that mean you need to run cabal therapy yourself?

Going to post an updated necro list sometime today!

List updated with Enligtened Tutor and a few other changes! I am not sure what to cut out to add Dark Confidants so waiting on this. I added Tinker+Blightsteel too as an alternate win-condition, but I'm not sure if it's necessary. Would like to have Ancient Tombs in too, but no idea what to replace. Added a Lotus Petal for more acceleration.

I know it was suggested to cut out the Dark Rituals, but without them I'm not sure I'd be able to consistently get necro/bargain into play since I am running rather light on black mana. Am  I right in thinking so? Not to mention the BBB can be used for colorless mana in the Trix combo.

[zeus-online]

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