Angry Birds (aka, Vintage Superfriends)

[mmcgeach]

Some of my favorite cards are baleful strix and tezzeret, agent of bolas.  These can be combined into a deck that has a number of advantages in the current metagame.

Baleful Strix is :
1) a creature that cantrips and prevents other creature decks from winning.
2) the best blocker for planeswalkers.

Tezz 2.0 is :
1) a source of creatures that are bigger than (almost) every other creature played in the format.
2) sometimes useful for impulsing for members of an "artifact toolbox:" sensei's top, engineered explosives, vault, key, grafdigger's cage, etc.
3) not as vulnerable as a Jace
4) actually wins games pretty quickly by making 5/5's.

I think the next most important possible additions to a deck based on these two cards are:

a) goblin welder.  This has been done in control decks to generate value by welding out baleful strix for nihil spellbomb repeatedly.  Also welder is a good card in many metagames: ones where shops is dominate; as well as also useful for guarding against tinker and key/vault wins.  On the other hand, this a three-card combo that draws 1 card a turn.

b) trinket mage.  This has synergy with the same kind of artifact toolbox Tezz 2.0 enables; plus provides a blocker for planeswalkers.

Of the two, I think Trinket Mage is stronger now than goblin welder.  The best decks are actually beatdown decks that use bob, snapcaster, deathrite shaman, young pyromancer, and vendillion clique.  Trinket Mage trades with many of these for value, or at least attacks into them and forces trades your opponent will not want to make.  Furthermore, most creature removal played in the format now is 1-for-1 spells like abrupt decay, lightning bolt, and swords to plowshares.  Making your opponent play these on your guy that already cantripped for you is a win.

I think Goblin Welder is less good currently.  There's a number of top decks against which he's a total blank (RUG, BUG, merfolk); and the prevalence of shops has been decreasing.

Since both trinket mage and baleful strix do a great job of blocking for planeswalkers, adding additional planeswalkers is part of the plan.

1) Jace.  Include some Jace's.
2) Ral Zarek.  He's in our colors.  He untaps time vault and shoots enemy bobs, as well as being amusingly difficult for a number of decks to deal with (BUG fish, merfolk, some delver lists).  Definite metagame choice for aggro environments.
3) Tezz 1.0.  Honestly, I haven't tried him yet.  But some people seem to like a mix of tezz 1.0 and tezz 2.0.

The next most important card is Ancient Tomb.  Ancient tomb casts planeswalkers quickly, as well as trinket mages.  T1 fetch, T2 ancient tomb, trinket mage -> lotus, T2/T3 planeswalker.  This is a good line.  Tomb is also awesome against shops, and good against other mana-denial decks.

Finally, the artifacts: We could include a lot of potential artifacts that can be found with trinket mage or tezzeret, agent of bolas.

1) sensei's divining top: great source of virtual, and occasionally real, card advantage.
2) grafdigger's cage: I think this is pretty strong; if we don't play snapcaster it's basically great for us, and provides help against a sometimes rough oath matchup.
3) Engineered explosives: This is pretty strong at 1 or 2, usually.  If EE=2 doesn't blow up your birds.
4) pithing needle: ironically, I don't think it's that strong right now since it doesn't hit much in RUG, BUG or Jace/Bob decks.
5) voltaic key: untaps the vault; untaps the sensei's top.  Sometimes also untaps an angry bird for a surprise blocker.


Angry Birds:

4 baleful strix
3 trinket mage
3 tezzeret, agent of bolas
2 jace, the mindsculptor
1 ral zarek

4 force of will
3 mental misstep
2 misdirection
2 thoughtseize

sensei's divining top
grafdigger's cage
engineered explosives
voltaic key
time vault

ancestral recall
time walk
brainstorm
demonic tutor
vampiric tutor
yawgmoth's will

2 ancient tomb
3 underground sea
1 volcanic island
1 island
1 swamp
3 polluted delta
3 scalding tarn
tolarian academy

lotus
5 mox
mox opal
sol ring
mana crypt
mana vault


The mana is a little rough, but enables a lot of explosive plays.  The speed of the deck is important; it's important to land a planeswalker before someone else's value-engine gets online and takes over the game.  This means sometimes an early trinket mage needs to get a color-fixing artifact.  One weakness of this deck is that it really needs both blue and black mana early.

The protection/disruption package is based on the same principles: no mana drain because it's too color intensive and can't help resolve a planeswalker.  The pitch counters + thoughtseize help push through a threat.  Misdirection has been fabulous in my recent experience.  Opponents don't want to spend their 1-for-1 removal on a baleful strix anyway; but when they're forced to do it out of desperation, and then you misdirect that to their own guy, its such an amazing blowout people have actually conceded on the spot.

Time vault is the most synergistic win condition here.  Tinker is a possibility, perhaps for blightsteel or perhaps for myr battlesphere, or as an additional tutor for vault/key.  I've been skipping tinker because I just don't like it... too many decks have too many answers for blightsteel.

Playing the deck: Games can go long.  This deck is built to win an attrition war; it does pretty fair things, like attacking with dudes.  One problem is that combat becomes important, and knowing how to trade blows for your advantage, which is not a usual vintage skill. On the other hand, time vault is a good way to win.  And some people concede if you get two different planeswalkers down, even if there's no real threat of them going ultimate or anything.  Among the more difficult things to deal with are decks that produce bigger creatures: tarmogoyf and batterskull.  In those cases, try to hide behind the birds and set up a planeswalker win; or fly overtop with 5/5 birds.

Some omissions:

Bob:  Too much lifeloss; the curve is high here and we use ancient tomb.  Also it's occasionally a liability to have a deck entirely based on x/1's.

REB: Colored mana can be hard to get; its awesome tho and worth a sideboard spot.

Lightning Bolt: I'd rather run Ral Zarek.  We have enough acceleration that 4 mana for 2 lightning bolts is usually better than 1 mana for 1 lightning bolt.

Snapcaster Mage: Not a lot of targets for that.  Also, not my favorite card.

Potential sideboard:

grafdigger's cage
pithing needle
nihil spellbomb
yixlid jailer
2 ingot chewer
2 hurkyl's recall
engineered explosives
island
mountain
red elemental blast
goblin welder
mindbreak trap
ral zarek

[dangerlinto]

Not running Tinker for Battlesphere with Tezz 2.0 when on it's second turn in play will do at minimum 22 points damage unblocked and minimum 14 blocked seems really subobtimal.

[mmcgeach]

Eh, that scenario always seems kinda win-more to me.  But, yeah, some people seem to like tinker for battlesphere.  Mostly, tho, if I have an active planeswalker, I'm already winning.

[Soly]

I won a Lotus about 3 years back with a UB TEzz list.  Let me *try* and rebuild it


5 Mox
1 Opal
1 Lotus
1 sol Ring
1 Mana Crypr
3 Sea
4 Delta
2 Flooded
2 Swamp
3 Island
1 Seat of the Synod
4 Dark Confidant
4 PHyrexian Revolker
2 Master of Etherium
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
4 Force of Will
3 Thoughtseize
2 Duress
3 Spell Pierce
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Steel Sabotage
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Wak
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Demonic
1 Mystical
1 Vampiric
1 YWill


It was something like that; hopefully it gets you a good starting point.

[xouman]

Soly,no key+vault? I like the approach but i'm surprised about the lack of those two artifacts

[StanleyAugust]

I think I have mentioned it before, but I really like the synergy between Tezzeret 2.0 and Ethersworn Canonist.

[mmcgeach]

I guess the thing I like about this strategy is that it works well in a creature-based meta game.  It's strong against anything that tries to swing in with dudes, since you can block with trinket mages and angry birds.  This makes it good against stuff like delvers, restoration angels, bobs and snapcasters that attack, etc.  Blocking with birds is also good against shops and (even) griselbrands.

Furthermore, the decks that try to win with creatures try to kill opposing creatures with 1-for-1 removal.  That basically plays into your plan, if your opponent is spending lightning bolts and abrupt decays on your creatures that already cantripped, that's a win for you.

Lastly, these decks usually can't handle a Tezz 2.0 or Ral Zarek.  Its pretty hilarious to just lightning bolt a merfolk every turn with Ral Zarek.  And decks that try to win by attacking with 2/1's, like bug fish, can't handle a board full of 5/5's.

The point is, in a meta filled with RUG, BUG, Merfolk, this is a reasonable deck choice.  It's also pretty good against shops since the cantrip-creature plan provides extra permanents on the board.  Its fine against Dredge since there's so many tutors for the dredge hate. 

[vaughnbros]

Needs more Planeswalkers.  Superfriends is all about leveraging multiple planeswalkers on the table in order to generate enormous amounts of card advantage.  There are two set ups I've found to be worth it:
1. Jace, Tezz 2.0, and Liliana.  This set up works if you want to play a little fairer since all 3 of these planeswalkers just want to sit on the table as long as possible.  A big advantage is that you get to stabilize your mana base on 2 colors if you want allowing you to find basic island+swamp to drop your baleful strix.
2.  Jace, Tezz 1.0, and Ral Zarek.  This set up is all about time vault since Tezz and Ral are an auto win if its on the table.  You get red for sideboard cards and lightning bolt, but your mana base becomes more vulnerable to wasteland making baleful strix a very risky option.

Also Deathrite Shaman, "the 1 mana planeswalker", is infinitely better than trinket mage in this.  Its a turn 1 mana accelerator setting you up for turn 2 planeswalkers.  It being a 1 drop vs. trinket mage a 3 drop makes the curve much better.  It also opens up space in the deck as it doesn't force you to run any tutor targets to get utility out of it.

[Protoaddict]

I think Yawgs will is out of place here. You don't have much of anything to get back and for the mana investment you have to toss at it you should be winning the game off it, which I don't see happening. How often are you casting it and just getting a regrowth or snapcaster out of the deal?

Also with no land removal and no creature removal, a True Name nemesis off a caverns is going to eat your lunch quite often. Liliana of the veil or even just an edict may be a better way to go, or the aforementioned tinker.

Also, no main deck artifact removal could bite you in the ass. Null rod or chalice on 0 hits you hard if it gets through. Steel sabotage comes to mind, but maybe just a shatter effect could be useful in the list.

[mmcgeach]

Re: Liliana.  Its a fair point about whether liliana or ral zarek is better.  They both primarily kill creatures, although ral zarek can also kill Jace.  Its sort of likely ral zarek does nothing when it comes down: your opponent has no creature and you have nothing that untaps for massive value, so ral zarek just ticks up doing nothing.  That happens maybe 50% of the time across matchups.  Ral Zarek's ultimate is a possibility in that scenario; but so is just getting blown out by your opponent's tinker or whatever.  Still, its cool to have him sit there and just wait to kill a bob or jace that comes down.  Some decks lose pretty hard if they're cut off from bob and jace.  I dunno if I'd really make the deck 2 color, even if I was running liliana, I think the red sideboard is just needed against shops.

Re: Tezz 1.0.  I dunno if that build is where I'd wanna go with this; that sounds a lot more like a turbo-tezz deck.  Which is good in a different meta, I think: one in which nobody has any artifact hate or creatures that attack.

Re: deathrite.  I've just recently been playing BUG control with deathrite, bob, jace, etc., and was sort of underwhelmed by deathrite.  I think he's awesome in certain tempo builds - BUG fish - but in less focused control decks I think its weak.  Deathrite wants some wastelands, and probably some green mana, and he doesn't really impact combat.  Also he eats lightning bolts readily; he's frequently dead before I can get a mana out of him.  Trinket mage grabs mana or top and I'm then HAPPY to see him get bolted.  Also, in the scenario you suggest, when I play a turn 1 deathrite and mox, and turn 2 planeswalker, I can't then block for the walker with the deathrite.  OTH, if I play a turn 1 tomb, mox, turn 2 land, trinket -> lotus, planeswalker, the trinket mage blocks that turn for the walker. 

I'd be eager to hear more about using deathrite here, tho.

Re: yawg will.  Yeah, I'm not gonna storm out with Will, but, Will is a seriously powerful card.  This deck frequently gets to the late game, where Will is just insane.  But on the other hand, yeah, if I draw it early I just use some acceleration to play will, replay a fetch, replay a brainstorm and a thoughtseize.  That's a fine play for 3 mana.  I agree that will is not at its MOST POWERFUL in this deck, but I feel like it's still better than other alternatives.  I have considered cutting it or siding it out; but my feeling is that's wrong.

Re: True Name.  Yeah, that card sucks.  If I suspect a true-name coming, I'll grab engineered explosives.  On the other hand, flying 5/5 birds race TNN.  The problem with Tinker as an anti-TNN play is that the decks that run TNN (merfolk) are really good against tinker.  If TNN gets adopted in a wider selection of decks, it may deserve additional attention. 

Re: Anti-Artifact cards.  It's a good point; maybe hurks or steel sabotage is worth it in the main.  I lose to an opponent's early tinker if it resolves (nb: tezz 2.0 can make opponent's blightsteel a 5/5, which buys like 2 additional turns).  I will say, tho, that Tezz 2.0 is a GREAT answer to null rod.  Just make all those dead artifacts 5/5.

[vaughnbros]

Re: deathrite.  I've just recently been playing BUG control with deathrite, bob, jace, etc., and was sort of underwhelmed by deathrite.  I think he's awesome in certain tempo builds - BUG fish - but in less focused control decks I think its weak.  Deathrite wants some wastelands, and probably some green mana, and he doesn't really impact combat.  Also he eats lightning bolts readily; he's frequently dead before I can get a mana out of him.  Trinket mage grabs mana or top and I'm then HAPPY to see him get bolted.  

Deathrite is actually much better suited in a control list than a fish deck partially because his body is not very relevant.  In control he is primarily a mana accelerator allowing you to hit 4 drops on turn 2.  Late game he also thrives by continuing to shock your opponent or gain you 2 life while simultaneously making crucible, snapcaster, yawg will, and every other graveyard card worse.

As for bolt if they bolt the deathrite they don't have it for your planeswalker later.  Its not that big of a deal.

Also, in the scenario you suggest, when I play a turn 1 deathrite and mox, and turn 2 planeswalker, I can't then block for the walker with the deathrite.  OTH, if I play a turn 1 tomb, mox, turn 2 land, trinket -> lotus, planeswalker, the trinket mage blocks that turn for the walker.  

I'd be eager to hear more about using deathrite here, tho.

This example is actually a prime situation as to why deathrite is so much better.  Deathrite allows for turn 2 planeswalker with mox or ancient tomb, and remains a mana source+damage+life source after this.  If I have tomb and on color mox I can still turn 2 my planeswalker leaving deathrite up to block.  The line tomb, land, mox, trinket mage, lotus, requires you to have both mox+ancient tomb and you don't get a reusable mana source.    As for getting a blocker, your planeswalkers don't really need protecting, they can do that themselves with bounce, bolt, edict, making a 5/5, or +1/2ing out of kill range.

Re: Liliana.  Its a fair point about whether liliana or ral zarek is better.  They both primarily kill creatures, although ral zarek can also kill Jace.  Its sort of likely ral zarek does nothing when it comes down: your opponent has no creature and you have nothing that untaps for massive value, so ral zarek just ticks up doing nothing.  That happens maybe 50% of the time across matchups.  Ral Zarek's ultimate is a possibility in that scenario; but so is just getting blown out by your opponent's tinker or whatever.  Still, its cool to have him sit there and just wait to kill a bob or jace that comes down.  Some decks lose pretty hard if they're cut off from bob and jace.  I dunno if I'd really make the deck 2 color, even if I was running liliana, I think the red sideboard is just needed against shops.

Ral's only real power comes from having things to untap, without deathrites, additional ways to find time vault, or something like stasis, he's rather underwhelming.

Lilly's power comes mostly from her synergy with Jace+Tezz 2.  There are so very many strong interactions between their abilities.

Combined with Jace: Her +1 puts both players into top deck mode setting up Jace's +2 to great effect.  Jace's 0 can give you a card to pitch to Lilly's +1 if you have important cards in hand.  Jace's -1 in conjunction with Lilly's -2, can be devastating against creature decks.  Jace's -1 into Lilly's +1 works as removal when your opponents hand is empty as well.

Combined with Tezz 2.0:  Tezz's +1 finds you typically an unneeded mana source, which sets up her +1 to save cards in your hand.  Her -2 clears blockers for tezz's -1 to deal tons of damage to your opponent.

If you are leaving your deck as is, I'm not sure the red is necessary at all.  Considering you are already adding color instability with ancient tomb, I'd strongly suggest cutting the singular red card and volc.

[msg67183]

I've been toying with a Trinket Mage Baleful Strix value deck and I think it's really nice. Trinket Mage gets so many different things for every matchup. Here is the rough draft of the list as of right now:


Bird Sh!t and Trinkets:

4 Baleful Strix
4 Trinket Mage
4 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Myr Battlesphere

4 Tezzeret Agent of Bolas

Ancestral Recall
Brainstorm
Tinker
Demonic Tutor
Vampiric Tutor
Time Walk

1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pithing Needle
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Skullclamp
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Aether Spellbomb

4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
1 Mindbreak Trap

Black Lotus
Mana Crypt
Mox Sapphire
Mox Jet
Mox Emerald
Mox Ruby
Mox Pearl
Sol Ring
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
2 Island
1 Academy Ruins
1 Seat of the Synod
Tolarian Academy

Sideboard:

3 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Tormod's Crypt
4 Porcelain Legionnaire
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Rebuild
1 Gremlin Mine

Academy Ruins just seems great against decks where the artifacts have to be sacrificed or get removed.

I've also considered Executioner's Capsule as a Trinket Mage removal spell. What are everyone's thoughts on a deck like this?

[Phele]

Has anybody thought of using a Painter/Grindstone package in decks like these? You get an alternative combo kill and you can use Tez 2.0 to find the combo pieces or to get some extra value out them by making them 5/5. You could also use some Misdirections to protect your combo pieces and your Planeswalkers while also using them to get rid of useless cards - based on a Painter set on blue. The artifact density woul be pretty high, but it cerainly would be a combo approach instead of the controlish Revoker way.

[mmcgeach]

Vaughnbos, I appreciate the feedback!  I think I disagree with your assessment of deathrite shaman; or at least we have different experiences of it.  I think you make a more convincing argument with liliana.  I don't really mean to nitpik, but I guess I will...

Deathrite is actually much better suited in a control list than a fish deck partially because his body is not very relevant.  In control he is primarily a mana accelerator allowing you to hit 4 drops on turn 2.  Late game he also thrives by continuing to shock your opponent or gain you 2 life while simultaneously making crucible, snapcaster, yawg will, and every other graveyard card worse.

I was under the impression that BUG fish decks were doing very well, and BUG control lists were doing a lot less well.  I agree its tempting to put deathrite in a BUG control build; that's what I've been trying, although, somewhat surprisingly, not with much success.

As for bolt if they bolt the deathrite they don't have it for your planeswalker later.  Its not that big of a deal.

But then he's dead, right? I was making a contrast with trinket mage, where even if the trinket mage gets killed, he's still left you with, (most commonly) a sensei's top.  Aside: I find sensei's top to be a serious MVP.  If it's a choice between having an active deathrite shaman in play and an active sensei's top in play...  that's pretty close, but I'm leaning toward sensei's top.

This example is actually a prime situation as to why deathrite is so much better.  Deathrite allows for turn 2 planeswalker with mox or ancient tomb, and remains a mana source+damage+life source after this.  If I have tomb and on color mox I can still turn 2 my planeswalker leaving deathrite up to block.  The line tomb, land, mox, trinket mage, lotus, requires you to have both mox+ancient tomb and you don't get a reusable mana source.

I was assuming the ancient tombs would go out with the trinket mages, since they have like zero synergy with deathrite and you no longer need tomb for mana acceleration since you have deathrite for it.  So, I was assuming you were suggesting something like:

-3 trinket mage
-2 ancient tomb
+4 deathrite shaman
+1 strip mine

But, I'm not an expert on deathrite builds... What sort of change were you suggesting, exactly?

As for getting a blocker, your planeswalkers don't really need protecting, they can do that themselves with bounce, bolt, edict, making a 5/5, or +1/2ing out of kill range.

that's just not my experience... planeswalkers really are better with a blocker in front of them.  Sure there's scenarios where they can help themselves, but they're better if they don't have to.  Jace is free to brainstorm; Tezz 2.0 frequently doesn't have an untapped artifact to animate; a flashed in snapcaster isn't death to the walker; etc.

Re: Lilly vs. Ral Zarek.  You make a good argument that Lilly is more efficient that Ral Zarek.  In recent games, tho, I find Ral Zarek untapping the time vault wins me 1 out of 10 or 12 games (1 game per 4 matches).  Do you think Lilly's +1 ability is as good?

If you are leaving your deck as is, I'm not sure the red is necessary at all.  Considering you are already adding color instability with ancient tomb, I'd strongly suggest cutting the singular red card and volc.

I've never had success against shops without red in the board.  What kind of sideboard do you find works best against them in straight U/B?  And would you suggest going U/B/g with deathrites, or just skipping the {g} activation on deathrite and using them in U/B?



Phele: there's some guys on here that have done well with painter builds.  http://morphling.de/printview.php?c=1795&d=6, for example.  Maybe they'll comment directly, but my understanding is those builds are really good in shops-dominated metagames, although they can also be good against blue with all the REBs.  I've played that build a few times, and, it's a good shell; but the painter/grindstone combo just isn't as strong as other vintage combos.  The painters are weak to removal and the grindstone combo is a lot slower to set up than vault/key. 

I think the main difference between that and the stuff in this thread is baleful strix.  I don't think there's room for both painters and angry birds in the same build.


Re: Revokers.  This is an interesting idea!  It looks like the relevant difference is something like:

-2 jace
-1 vault
-1 key
+4 revokers

... and then the revokers would be free to name Jace and Time Vault, frequently, I assume.  It seems like you get a strong disruption/denial plan in that kind of build... but are 4 revokers really as good as Jace and vault/key?  Its a different kind of gameplan, for sure.

[vaughnbros]

For reference here is the straight UB version of what I'm talking about:

3 Deathrite Shaman
3 Baleful Strix

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
4 Force of Will
2 Dismember
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Mental Misstep
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
2 Mana Drain
1 Tinker
1 Myr Battlesphere
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Voltaic Key
1 Time Vault

1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus

1 Tolarian Academy
1 Swamp
3 Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand
1 Tropical Island (Not sure if this is needed or not)

SB:
2 Snuff Out
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Steel Sabotage
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Pithing Needle
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Flusterstorm

In my hands its amazing against creature decks, and has a decent game against every other archetype in the format.

Deathrite is actually much better suited in a control list than a fish deck partially because his body is not very relevant.  In control he is primarily a mana accelerator allowing you to hit 4 drops on turn 2.  Late game he also thrives by continuing to shock your opponent or gain you 2 life while simultaneously making crucible, snapcaster, yawg will, and every other graveyard card worse.

I was under the impression that BUG fish decks were doing very well, and BUG control lists were doing a lot less well.  I agree its tempting to put deathrite in a BUG control build; that's what I've been trying, although, somewhat surprisingly, not with much success.

I'm not sure why you have to play BUG to play deathrite.  You can be playing either black or green to cast him and use him for his primary role of a mana accelerator.  BUG fish does better than BUG control because it has been played by far more people recently and as a result it is a more optimized than control.

As for bolt if they bolt the deathrite they don't have it for your planeswalker later.  Its not that big of a deal.

But then he's dead, right? I was making a contrast with trinket mage, where even if the trinket mage gets killed, he's still left you with, (most commonly) a sensei's top.  Aside: I find sensei's top to be a serious MVP.  If it's a choice between having an active deathrite shaman in play and an active sensei's top in play...  that's pretty close, but I'm leaning toward sensei's top.

You have to put it in context to how much mana you are spending though.  If deathrite and trinket mage are comparable I think its pretty clear that spending B is better than spending 2U+.

[mmcgeach]

Gee, Vaughnbros, it's a nice looking list.  I'll probably give it a shot (maybe -1 liliana, +1 ral zarek); see if the deathrites fix my colored mana issues. 

Also I see how you have game against shops...  impressively few maindeck cards that are dead against them.  Shops is a rare matchup in my area, although an important one.  I dunno how much maindeck dismember hurts me against combo, gush, and blue control, which are bigger players in my meta. 

The cool thing about trinket mages is they are basically a draw engine... which I'm hesitant to give up.  As you've argued, their color-fixing is probably worse than that of the deathrite.  But, maybe sitting there with no cards and a deathrite shaman is ok if I also have Liliana.  It seems like you maybe undersold the interaction of deathrite and liliana; which looks pretty strong. 

In your list, do you ever want to go up to 4 deathrites, or 4 angry birds?  Do you miss yawgmoth's will?

[sylverfyre]

Lily is the real deal.  Sacrifices true-names all day while slowing down the clock because I had to beat her down.  Trinket mage is also surprisingly obnoxious how much time that 2/2 body can buy you against merfolk. 

As merfolk, not being able to swing in with my lord when I'm on 1 lord + some other guys is a huge clock extender.

[mmcgeach]

Well, I played this lately, relative to my earlier list:

+2 liliana of the veil
-2 thoughtseize

-1 mox opal
-1 mana vault
+1 island
+1 polluted delta

-1 ral zarek
+1 jace, the mindsculptor

-1 engineered explosives
-1 grafdigger's cage
+1 tinker
+1 myr battlesphere

+2 mana drain
-1 misdirection
-1 volcanic island


Liliana was awesome.  Glad to have 2, performed really well against basically everything, especially true-name nemesis, which people were playing in BUG fish and merfolk.  Also the +1 is a lot better than I would have thought.

Same for tinker->battlesphere.  Or battlesphere in general.  I think >50% of the time I put it into play I hardcast it, which is easy to do with the ancient tombs and trinket mages.  It didn't lose me any games that blightsteel would have won, and maybe won me a few extra through the hardcasting.

I moved the red splash to the sideboard, and its fine there against shops.

I tried a build +3 deathrite -3 trinket mages -2 ancient tombs +2 thoughseize, and that actually performed really badly against BUG fish. I think partly because the deathrite is so fragile, it either dies or gets misstepped, or sometimes has to compete against opponent's deathrite for lands to exile; and partly because 23 mana sources + 3 deathrite is a lot worse than 25 mana sources + 3 trinket mage against a mana denial deck.  Trinket mages have just been awesome.  I realized the primary play is trinket into top or lotus/accel; so I actually don't miss the maindeck trinket package.  EE and needle and stuff is fine in the sideboard.  Anyway, I didn't test deathrites in other matchups, but inability to have game against BUG fish is basically a dealbreaker for me; its the top deck in our meta.

Liliana suggestion was amazing.  Fantastic across matchups.

[serracollector]

I have toyed around with tezz 2 and strix but never considered trinket mage. the list i ran had more drains and two battlesphere and was more comboish tryin to get tezz ultimate asap. i would consider seat of synod as a one of and add mana vault back in. it can be found w mage and help cast a myr. i also included twister jar and windfall. mage into lotus into twister is great since you can mage out lotus again. 

[mmcgeach]

Oddly, I've also tried a combo-ish build with jar and twister (and dark rituals and tendrils).  The singleton timetwister doesn't seem terrible.  The deck (as currently posted) can lack for draw; and a big hand refill is usually strong against tempo & mana denial decks, which is enemy #1.  It might be worth trying.

What's good about seat of the synod?  The list already loses hard to null rod unless tezz is online.  Would you suggest dropping a basic island for the blue artifact land?  Doesn't that just make the wasteland matchup harder?  With trinket mage, I sometimes get a blue mox; if I've cast trinket off, say, lotus, and I don't have a permanent blue source; but I don't see how fetching seat is better than fetching the mox.

Mana vault: I think this is maybe too many colorless sources with the ancient tombs in the list.  Also, I like mana vault better with Ral Zarek in the list.  Mana vault is kinda neat with trinket mage.  I've sometimes cast trinket off land and mana vault and fetched voltaic key... but that seems silly w/o top or (as you suggest) battlesphere in hand.  But with multiple battlespheres and more colorless accelerants, that'd lead to less consistent draws and more erratic performance.  I guess I just find that landing the early planeswalker is almost as good as winning, and these other contortions are a little excessive.

[serracollector]

As i said i also ran a full set of drains. there were many games where i would drop turn one land mox and mana vault into turn two myr w force or misd back up. its not combo. more combo control. myr is so easy to just hardcast then if they destroy myr or bounce it you still got four dudes to block your tezz you drop turn three. use his find ability once then turn four ultimate for the win or close. also nothing like draining a jace and dropping a myr practically for free off it. its so not hard to get ten artifacts on the board when you got two creatures that give you five artifacts and tinker to find them and three draw sevens to drop all your mox. i ran seat because of times my blue mox was already out and i needed blue. say you got a hand of mox blue ancient tomb and trinket mage and two drains and force. you can now turn one mage get seat and turn two you got drain ready.

[mmcgeach]

So, this deck does very well against stuff like shops and dredge and BUG fish; its about even against stuff like bob/jace control.  I still feel weak to early bobs.  And would like more game against other (creature-based) mana denial strategies. 

gonna test:
-1 baleful strix
+1 trinket mage
-1 mental misstep
+1 toxic deluge

I'm not quite sure what the best anti-creature card is (besides, say, liliana of the veil); I'd like something that kills bob, deathrite, loadstone, tarmogoyf, and restoration angel.  And preferably all at the same time.  Toxic Deluge seems like the card.  Although i'm tempted by Far // Away.  Other thoughts?

[TheWhiteDragon]

So, this deck does very well against stuff like shops and dredge and BUG fish; its about even against stuff like bob/jace control.  I still feel weak to early bobs.  And would like more game against other (creature-based) mana denial strategies. 

gonna test:
-1 baleful strix
+1 trinket mage
-1 mental misstep
+1 toxic deluge

I'm not quite sure what the best anti-creature card is (besides, say, liliana of the veil); I'd like something that kills bob, deathrite, loadstone, tarmogoyf, and restoration angel.  And preferably all at the same time.  Toxic Deluge seems like the card.  Although i'm tempted by Far // Away.  Other thoughts?

Damnation, dismember, EE.

If you want to just stop the bleeding, try ensnaring bridge, no mercy, or propaganda.  I'm also a huge fan of stinkweed imp against anything running critters and no white.

[mmcgeach]

So, I keep playing this.  Some thoughts:

+ You want 3 Jace, maybe 4.  You want 3 missteps.
+ Toxic Deluge is the best anti-creature card; perhaps better than Liliana.  Liliana is great and all, but against decks that you want her to do the work, those decks also run abrupt decay, and Lily eats abrupt decays like George Bush eats sushi (it goes down quick, and then I want to vomit).
+ You can switch the baleful strixes out for deathrite shaman.  That makes the deck produce even more crazy mana, and makes it better against most of the field.  Baleful Strix still seems better against decks running tarmogoyf and resto-angel and v-clique, but that's probably less important in most metas.  The deathrite build pushes you more toward a BUG landbase, which is ok, cause that lets you run abrupt decay, which is good against a lot of things that are hard: bob, time vault, and null rod.

There's other questions I have tho: is adding a maindeck cage in place of yawgmoth's will a good trade?  Is it worth running a split between Tezz 1.0 and Tezz 2.0?  If anyone is interested in testing, please feel free to post your results.  Or PM me, or whatever.

[mmcgeach]

Well, I made top 8 in a 43-person field at Pandemonium (Boston), going undefeated in the swiss and then losing vs. Storm (Reid-Duke-style Long).

I used this list:

3 undergound sea
1 volcanic island
1 swamp
4 polluted delta
3 scalding tarn
2 island
1 tolarian academy
1 ancient tomb

blacklotus
5 mox
sol ring
mana crypt

4 force of will
2 spell snare
3 mental misstep

3 baleful strix
4 trinket mage

1 tezzeret, the seeker
1 tezzeret, agent of bolas
2 liliana of the veil
1 ral zarek
3 jace, the mind sculptor

demonic tutor
vampiric tutor
time vault
voltaic key
sensei's divining top
yawgmoth's will
ancestral recall
time walk
brainstorm
pithing needle
tinker
myr battlesphere

sideboard:

2 grafdigger's cage
1 tormod's crypt
1 yixlid jailer
2 ingot chewer
2 hurkyl's recall
1 mountain
1 swamp
2 toxic deluge
1 misdirection
1 flusterstorm
1 mindbreak trap


some comments: spell snare was good in the mana drain slot.  This deck can lose to an early bob, oath, null rod, etc, (etc: particularly stoneforge mystic and survival of the fittest), and spell snare is good against that.  The maindeck pithing needle was pretty much the MVP of the whole day.  There's a ton of stuff that it's good against in the meta I was expecting.  The 2 lily's + 2 toxic deluge + 1 misdirection + 2 basic swamps were key in testing to have a realistic chance against BUG, of which there were several, but which I managed to dodge.

Rnd 1: Casey on Two-Card Montey
Casey's a great guy and a newer player to the contemporary vintage scene (I think he hasn't played much in the preceding 19-20 years); he comes to the Tuesday weekly events and gets better every week.  The 2-card montey deck is a little strange, trying to assemble painter-grindstone or leyline-helm, and using mishra's workshops and ancient tombs for mana.  From my perspective, it seems occasionally strong and generally inconsistent; I keep a hand with the pithing needle game 1 and prepare to name grindstone if I don't see a turn-0 leyline.  He drops 2 painters over the first 2 turns, one of which I spell snare; but he turns on his red blasts.  My needle and a few forces hold off his combo until I can find a trinket mage, and establish some mana.  The game leads to one big turn where I tinker and that gets REB'd, then I play yawgwill, replay a land and the mox I tinkered, replay DT for lotus, use lotus to replay tinker for battlesphere.  I get in one shot with the battlesphere and then he finds a REB for it, leaving me with 4 tokens and a trinket mage to beat down against his 1 painter.  That plus his ancient tombs gets there.

The other game I get a trinket -> pithing needle on grindstone, he plays 1 grindstone and discards another.  I get down Jace and start Jacing into a hand full of counter magic.  I think I assemble Vault-Key.  Spellsnare is good vs. painters.

Rnd 2: Rex on Dredge.
Rex has just started playing vintage, and he's come to two of our Tuesday events, so I know he's on dredge.  He serum powders and I mull to six, I find a hand with land, lotus, trinket (for pithing needle) which I jam on my turn 1.  Rex ends up getting 1 bazaar activation, and only 1 dredger for the first N turns of the game.  He has to wait to draw up to 8 cards to discard the dredger again.  He also only hits one bridge and 1 ichorid, and not enough black creatures to make that a threat.  I drop a couple angry birds and consider using liliana on myself to kill his bridges.  I force his first chewer and by the time he finds the second one I have key in play and he chooses to kill that instead of the needle.  That was probably correct because I'm holding tinker; I tinker for battlesphere and that gets there in two.

Next game I keep a hand with turn 1 tezz, agent of bolas.  He unmasks me and takes Tezz.  His hand was basically all anti-hate and he blows up a bunch of my mana artifacts.  This game is a little weird; I eventually tinker for cage and it sticks for a while; but I get beat down with golgari thugs that I don't want to kill cause it'll recur his ingot chewers.  I win with consecutive top decks: Ral Zarek, and DT-> Vault.

Rnd 3: Adrian Becker on Orcish Lumberjack Survival
Man, I love playing against Adrian's decks.  I have a ton of respect for his deckbuilding.  Also a really great guy, fun to play against, win or lose.  Game one he plays turn-1 lumberjack, I play a land.  I spellsnare his turn 2 null rod.  I play trinket-> pithing needle. He plays survival and gets one activation before I can needle it.  I play liliana and make him sac his lumberjack.  He plays squee, which, it turns out, is good against both liliana's +1 and -2 abilities.  We draw a bit and I make him sac the squee, and he ends up playing a kalonian hydra into my lily with 2 counters.  I make him sac the hydra; but he responds by fetching up a dryad arbor and sac'ing that instead. That would be a killer play, except that I play my other liliana and make him sac the hydra.  He plays another one; I play a Tezz 2.0 and animate a mox.  I've got key, needle, 5/5 mox, tezz with 2 counters, and lily with 2 counters.  He's got a 4/4 hydra.  He attacks tezz, making his guy 8/8, and plays squee.  I'm at 17 life, and Adrian's down to 10.  This looks like it's about to challenge our ability to make complex combat math calculations, but I topdeck demonic and get vault to go with the key.

Game two I keep mox sapphire, sea, fetch, two angry birds, time vault, and tinker.  I think I'm doing well, until Adrian leads with 2 moxes, land, and magus of the moon.  I play mox, mountain, time vault.  Turn two I topdeck force and play tinker-> key, and Adrian has no out.  Adrian goes on to make top 8.

Rnd 4: Jesse Martin on TPS.
It's Jesse Martin, who came in 2nd at the last big event at Pandemonium.  I know he's on TPS, cause, he's Jesse Martin.  I mull to five which is force, trinket mage, two off-color moxes, and the key.  I force his turn 1 necro, and I draw needle.  I play it naming necro, thinking: "Well, its probably more likely he plays will at some point than goes for bargain, so I should name necro in the unlikely case it comes out of the yard."  Which, in retrospect, I think is wrong, and basically you should always name bargain against storm.  He doesn't have a great hand either and plays a ritual->ritual into wheel of fortune.  This gives me force, DT, vamp, jace, trinket mage, and the goddamn fetchland I need to get blue/black mana online.  He passes.  I tank for a bit and fetch a sea, play DT for force, so I have two blue cards and two forces.  I force two big plays, then upkeep vamp for vault and win.

Game two starts with more mulls, me to 6 and Jesse to 5.  His turn-two play is timetwister, which is ok with me, I have sapphire + land in play.  He twists me into a hand with some mana and trinket mage, so I play an early cage.  This is of some help, cause I'm pretty sure he's on the tinker->blightsteel plan, in addition to the yawgwill plan.  His hand isn't great, and I misstep a duress and ritual.  I'm drawing nothing but countermagic, and sit there with a hand of force, force, mindbreak trap, misdirection, misstep.  He goes for it with EOT vamp: I misstep, he missteps, he goes to his turn and plays mana crypt, mana vault, cabal rit for threshold, then windfall, I hardcast force, and his last card is mind's desire, which I trap.  I kill him with trinket mage beats + mana crypt rolls, still with force + misdirection in hand.

Rnd 5: ID with Paul Ewenstein on U/W Stoneforge control.
Paul is a fantastic magic player across formats, and a frequenter of our Tuesday vintage events.  We're the only undefeated's left, and I'm happy to draw with him.  At one point over the last two month, he beat me three weeks in a row in the finals of the Tuesday events.  :/

Rnd 6: also ID.

(Amazingly, I didn't lose one single game in the swiss. I credit luck, good matchups, and sick topdecks.)

Top 8: Isaac Foote on Reid Duke'ish Long (Storm)
This and the Jesse Martin TPS matchup are not in my favor.  Game one I mulligan to 5 looking for either early action or a counterspell, I don't get either and he gold fishes me on turn 3.  At one point I have two liliana's in my hand, brainstorm and shuffle them both away, then draw for turn: it's Liliana.

Game 2 I have the choice of casting turn 2 jace or tezzeret, the seeker.  I decide on tezz and fetch Cage.  Isaac shrugs a bit and plays empty for storm 5. Next turn I topdeck trinket mage, get the key, play it, and fetch the vault with Tezz, winning.  This is kind of an interesting situation. I have island, sea, mox pearl, mox jet, and sol ring.  In hand I have tezz, jace, mana crypt.  Among the leading options: play tezz, do a -0, fetch lotus, play jace, brainstorm? Fate seal?  I decided tezz->cage is safest since I have no countermagic.

Game 3: I mulligan to 5 again after seeing no action or counterspells in the first 13 cards.  He goldfishes me on turn 3.  Considering mulligans and the 2 natural draws during the game, I saw 20 cards, and not one of my 12 counterspells.  I actually didn't see a single counterspell in this entire match.  It probably makes up for the five-live-counterspell hand I had against Jesse Martin.

Isaac's a really good guy, who started playing magic a year ago, or so, and decided other formats sucked and got seriously into vintage.  He's basically mastered vintage Storm in under a couple months, which I think is sort of amazing.  Happy to lose to one of the Tuesday vintage regulars, but I'm unhappy with the extent to which my deck crapped out on me in that match.


I feel like the strength of this deck is the incredibly flexible yet powerful cards it runs.  The planeswalkers really do give you a huge variety of options and it's sort of tricky to think through them all; but it's usually easier for me to do that than for my opponents to do that.  Some weaknesses are the smaller counter package (ugh) and the inability to keep a one-land opening hand.  Also, this deck is super fun to play.

[Untranslated]

mmcgeach, Thanks for starting this thread and sharing your lists.  Great name btw - Superfriends!  I also loved reading your tournament report, I can't even tell you!  Being new to the scene, to get a sense of what it's like from the Top 8 player's perspective is pretty darn cool.  Congrats for going undefeated in the 6 rounds, that's impressive.
I thought your description of Two-card Monte was spot-on.  Since reading the primer by Matt Elias and putting it together, I had won some games here and there, but mainly it was a salad tosser.  My win percentage was probably around 15%, maybe less due to play errors.  Hands and draws were frequently unreliable, and the mana base was very problematic thanks to Ancient Tomb and CoB.  But it was a great deck to stuggle—I mean start with.  I learned about card synergy (or lack thereof) and how deck tweaks affect performance.  It may be worth revisiting at some point, but I've got a lot of catching up to do, so onward and upward.

I appreciate the thoughts and card choices contributed here, it's been an interesting read.  I for one have definitely felt the impact of the Trinket Mages and have been very unsettled to say the least when mccgeach has had 2 or 3 walkers in play. 

[mmcgeach]

Thanks Untranslated...  Glad you found it helpful.

I think if anyone else is interested in this archetype, I should mention a few things:

1) deathrite shaman was terrible.  relying on it to make mana is basically an aweful idea w/o wastelands, it's really vulnerable to removal and misstep and chalice = 1.
2) trinket mage is perhaps my MVP of the format at the moment.  However, you can't keep a hand that does nothing but land, land, land -> turn 3 trinket mage.  That just loses.  At least some acceleration is required in your opener.  Thus the ancient tomb(s).  I cut down to 1 since I found with more I had trouble vs. aggro strategies.
3) the best play really is trinket -> lotus -> turn 2 planeswalker.  And, it turns out, Jace really is the best planeswalker.  Although Lily, Jace, and Tezz 1 or 2 can all take over the game by themselves.
4) Tezz 2.0 wasn't an automatic win in my meta anymore.  Making a 5/5 mox doesn't beat batterskull and tarmogoyf and true name nemesis.  Also if you play Tezz 2 into a bob, make a 5/5 mox to block, your opponent disenchants / nature's claims the mox endstep, then swings with bob and kills Tezz.... that's a huge blow out.
5) variety in planeswalkers is pretty good.  It keeps your opponents off balance, and maximizes your win cons.
6) Lilly is awesome.  You should basically always use her +1 ability, even if you have decent cards in hand.
7) baleful strix is maybe the best thing I could think of in its slot.  Cycling is really handy.  It makes the deck feel a little faster, tighter; and it does slow down most opposing decks.  Its not perfect, tho.  If there were some cheap carddraw spell, that might be a better idea.  Nights Whisper, maybe?  stuff like Thirst is attractive, but you don't want to end up with a deck with all CMC >= 3 cards.

It'd be fun to get Dack Fayden in here soon...

[mmcgeach]

Superfriends 2015.

Trinket Mage looks a lot worse now next to Monastery Mentor.  I think Superfriends wants to move away from running creatures at all, and instead run sweepers.  So far, this has been testing well.

3 jace
3 dack
1 ral zarek

time vault
voltaic key
tinker
blightsteel colossus

4 force of will
3 mana drain
1 flusterstorm
1 misdirection
3 mental misstep

2 supreme verdict
1 swords to plowshares
1 balance
(0 or 1 terminus)

1 ancestral recall
1 sensei's top
1 brainstorm
1 time walk
1 treasure cruise
1 merchant scroll
1 mystical tutor
1 ponder
2 preordain

5 moxes
sol ring
black lotus
mana crypt

1 arid mesa
3 flooded strand
3 scalding tarn
3 tundra
2 volcanic island
1 island
tolarian academy
library of alexandria

and the sideboard is sort of a work in progress. But I think we want either cages or tormod's crypts for the splash damage against combo.  Also another anti-creature card.

I feel like the meta-game is maybe : Oath, Combo, Delver, Mentor, Shops and Dredge.  I think for the most part blue control'ish midrange stuff doesn't work...  except for this.  White answers a lot of the meta with the sweepers; blue answers the rest.  Basically every deck is reliant on creatures now, except combo (and in some sense, oath), so having sweepers like balance and supreme verdict gives virtual card advantage while our permanents are just lands and walkers.  Then it's a matter of keeping a high enough counterspell/disruption package to have good game against combo & oath, which this list does; and leaning on the sideboard vs. dredge and shops. 


Planeswalkers : The focus on Dack and Jace is important; these are the best guys.  Ral Zarek I like as another time vault untapper and to repeatedly bolt creatures.  Also making mana with him isn't half bad.  There's no playable white walkers (yet - hello, Narset!) but Ajani Vengeant comes closest.  I would immediately include a couple Narset when that becomes available.

[msg67183]

If you want a card in your board to answer many matchups for creatures, what about 1-2 Moat? Seems pretty strong at answering every creature in the meta aside from Narcomoeba, Insectile Aberration and Steel Hellkite (wouldn't bring this in against Oath so I left Griselbrand off my list).

[serracollector]

Wear/Tear and Engineered Explosives should be somewhere in there for Oath and Mud.