[Free Article] Conspiracy Vintage Set Review

[forests failed you]

New article up on SCG.  I take a look at the best cards in Conspiracy that are likely to be difference makers in Vintage moving forward.  Will Dack Fayden be a real player moving forward?  Only time will tell!

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/28673_Vintage-Conspiracy-Review.html

Cheers,
Brian

[Meddling Mike]

I thought in the Dack list you put out I didn't feel like there were enough high impact Welder targets to justify the Welders. Is the FB on Ancient Grudge/Nature's Claim worth stretching the mana base into green for?

[Samoht]

I thought in the Dack list you put out I didn't feel like there were enough high impact Welder targets to justify the Welders. Is the FB on Ancient Grudge/Nature's Claim worth stretching the mana base into green for?

I'm in direct agreement with you. I tested some games and felt like it needed either Slaver or Jar or something explosive like that. I also felt that the absence of Abrupt Decay (which I missed at first) makes the stretch to green a bit strange. We'd already be somewhat favored against Shops and most of the green hedges are there. Aside from some Oath hate in the form of Claim, it seems more than superfluous. I definitely prefer to tighten it to Grixis or add Decay.

[Yenite]

What about straight UR with a full welder set ? Allows you to have an explosive part with memory jar/mindslaver/battlesphere and some controlling part by playing Mana drains into Tezz/Ral Zarek/JmTS. Plus you can go for a few copies of bolts to improve any creature match up. The main concern left seems to be oath though

[serracollector]

I would just really like to see a deck utilizing dack with anger and wonder. maybe even a new version of tnt with welder bots and maybe even basking rootwalla and or vegevine.

[Meddling Mike]

I would just really like to see a deck utilizing dack with anger and wonder. maybe even a new version of tnt with welder bots and maybe even basking rootwalla and or vegevine.

I think powercreep in creatures has destroyed Basking Rootwalla as a potential playable card in Vintage. I understand the synergy with Dack, but it just looks so awful when you compare it to the creatures that are available now, even when we're just talking about pure fat. Delver of Secrets, Nimble Mongoose and Tarmogoyf all make Rootwalla look incredibly inefficient, even when he's free.

[ajfirecracker]

I think you're undervaluing the conjunction of "card advantage" and "reasonable body" which is what makes Basking Rootwalla good.

[wiley]

What about putting dack into a urb deck with a heavy mana denial component like strategic slaver from 08?  I would think the tax effects help against gush decks (not so much the wastes and titan) and the crucible + wastes/strip help against oath and shops.  I know I've run maindeck trinisphere in my tezzeret control lists to great effect, and being able to steal sol rings and moxen has been one of the most hyped dack abilities.

The issue is the same as with the tezz control list; surviving until the you can get things like tezz/trini/crucible + strip online.  I couldn't find a way to do it well enough and abandoned list for faster tempo decks, but it was still powerful enough to put me into top 8 every time I played it.

[mmcgeach]

What about straight UR with a full welder set ? Allows you to have an explosive part with memory jar/mindslaver/battlesphere and some controlling part by playing Mana drains into Tezz/Ral Zarek/JmTS. Plus you can go for a few copies of bolts to improve any creature match up. The main concern left seems to be oath though

Well, you're talking about a heavy planeswalkers build, which is something I sort of like.  You have a ton of sorcery-speed bombs, but those walkers are mostly about providing card advantage or card-selection advantage; so those cards have to be super effective at defending your walkers and stopping opposing threats.  If you're running welders you'd want time vault as your primary win-con; which is ok; but then you'd probably want black to tutor for vault/key.  Also yawgwill is good with graveyard strategies.  Welder does depressingly little on its own in some matchups (anything fish-based), which makes it hard to run 4 of them.  I don't think oath is a huge problem for lists like this; cause walkers are good vs. that; but any kind of fast combo is a bad time because so much of your interaction is sorcery-speed - and oath can look like a fast-combo deck sometimes.  Then you're also creature-light so fish matchups are bad cause their creatures pressure your walkers.
But you're basically talking about a standard grixis control list with welders...  You could start with the winning deck from http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=46325.0 and add 2 or 3 Dack.

[Stormanimagus]

I think Dack's real best friend will be Notion Thief. That was the first place I went to with the card and I stand by it. Welder is nice and all, but I'd rather draw 2 a turn and make my opponent discard 2. That seems kinda broken. Welder is easily answered with any ping effect and gy hate. I'm not saying Welder and Dack don't belong in the same deck, jut that I think the synergy between Thief and Dack is better and more resilient to the hate that most decks run.

[Meddling Mike]

I think Dack's real best friend will be Notion Thief. That was the first place I went to with the card and I stand by it. Welder is nice and all, but I'd rather draw 2 a turn and make my opponent discard 2. That seems kinda broken. Welder is easily answered with any ping effect and gy hate. I'm not saying Welder and Dack don't belong in the same deck, jut that I think the synergy between Thief and Dack is better and more resilient to the hate that most decks run.

There are those that would say that turning your Mox into a gigantic robot is pretty broken, just ask tinker.

You realize that the Ping effect applies just as much to a 3/1 notion thief right? Thief also dies to REB and Pyroblast. If they kill notion thief in response to Dack's +1 targeting them, you also give them a free careful study.

A creature that costs  probably should have a bigger effect than a creature that costs  , it costs 4 times the mana.

[serracollector]

dont forget that discarding basking rootwalla can help get around sphere effects and it can block and kill golem. not saying thats a huge issue with dack on board but i can see scenerios where it could matter. not to mention it can block all the two ones commonly used in vintage and swap or pump and stay.

[bactgudz]

dont forget that discarding basking rootwalla can help get around sphere effects and it can block and kill golem. not saying thats a huge issue with dack on board but i can see scenerios where it could matter. not to mention it can block all the two ones commonly used in vintage and swap or pump and stay.

It is 1 mana cheaper, but you still cast the card for its madness cost so it still is hit by spheres and countered by chalice at 1.

[vaughnbros]

Thank you for writing, I enjoyed reading the article.

A creature that costs   probably should have a bigger effect than a creature that costs  , it costs 4 times the mana.

Define bigger?  They have entirely different effects with Dack:
Dack+Welder+Mox+Robot is a 4 card combo, your welder can't be summoning sick, and puts a big robot into play.
Dack+Notion thief is a 2 card combo, and makes your opponent discard 2 and you draw 2.

There are certainly a number of scenarios that someone could devise where one is better than the other.  Both are obviously extremely powerful effects.

[Samoht]

Thank you for writing, I enjoyed reading the article.

A creature that costs   probably should have a bigger effect than a creature that costs  , it costs 4 times the mana.

Define bigger?  They have entirely different effects with Dack:
Dack+Welder+Mox+Robot is a 4 card combo, your welder can't be summoning sick, and puts a big robot into play.
Dack+Notion thief is a 2 card combo, and makes your opponent discard 2 and you draw 2.

There are certainly a number of scenarios that someone could devise where one is better than the other.  Both are obviously extremely powerful effects.

I have never contested that having Notion Thief in play is a bad thing. My problem is all the things that need to happen before putting NT in play followed by the things that need to happen afterwards for it to be good/strong. We can always railroad opponents into lines by our deck construction, but the fragility of a 4 mana 3/1 (that doesn't even fly WTF?) is not something to be disregarded. This card has no immediate impact and requires other things to happen before you get anywhere close to a return on investment. Brian Kelly has made a lot of hay lately by including some interesting action along with it and I don't think we can flat discount that - but at the same time I think that has a whole lot more to do with Brian Kelly than it has to do with Notion Thief. It is not a card that I am looking to include in any decks in the near future, because I find it lacking. As we move further along this creature infested metagame and cheap and efficient removal becomes more abundant, its value will only deteriorate.

[vaughnbros]

Thank you for writing, I enjoyed reading the article.

A creature that costs   probably should have a bigger effect than a creature that costs  , it costs 4 times the mana.

Define bigger?  They have entirely different effects with Dack:
Dack+Welder+Mox+Robot is a 4 card combo, your welder can't be summoning sick, and puts a big robot into play.
Dack+Notion thief is a 2 card combo, and makes your opponent discard 2 and you draw 2.

There are certainly a number of scenarios that someone could devise where one is better than the other.  Both are obviously extremely powerful effects.

I have never contested that having Notion Thief in play is a bad thing. My problem is all the things that need to happen before putting NT in play followed by the things that need to happen afterwards for it to be good/strong. We can always railroad opponents into lines by our deck construction, but the fragility of a 4 mana 3/1 (that doesn't even fly WTF?) is not something to be disregarded. This card has no immediate impact and requires other things to happen before you get anywhere close to a return on investment. Brian Kelly has made a lot of hay lately by including some interesting action along with it and I don't think we can flat discount that - but at the same time I think that has a whole lot more to do with Brian Kelly than it has to do with Notion Thief. It is not a card that I am looking to include in any decks in the near future, because I find it lacking. As we move further along this creature infested metagame and cheap and efficient removal becomes more abundant, its value will only deteriorate.

I was really just commenting on the power of each combo, but since you brought it up...

In a deck already sporting Dack Fayden, Memory Jar (with welder of course), you don't see any merit to playing a singleton Notion Thief?  I think its kind of foolish to just disregard his synergy in such a deck list.  One activation from Fayden or Jar and notion thief has more than paid off.  

Even without those interactions, thief is still a one sided spirit of the labyrinth with flash that can provide an absolute blow out against your opponents' Jaces, Dack Faydens, Gushes, Ancestral recalls, or any other draw spell for that matter.

[Chubby Rain]

@ Forests Failed You - Thank you for putting out these articles. I'm looking forward to how you plan to cover the emerging MTGO metagame.

@ Meddling Mike - Notion Thief and Goblin Welder are similar in that they typically progress your game plan while also disrupting your opponent. However, like Lance said, their effects are very different as are the interactions with the opponent's cards and their synergies with your own cards. You are also exclusive focusing on the question "Which is better between Dack + Thief and Dack + Welder?" when the question should be instead "Which is better: decks with Dack and Thief and decks with Dack + Welder?". The answer to this is both dependent on the other cards in the deck and the metagame as a whole. When you are incorporating Wheel of Fortune, Timetwiser, Memory Jar, and Mikokoro into a deck with Notion Thief and Dack,  becomes much more justifiable (How much should draw 14 + Mindtwist your opponent cost?). Similarly, Welder is also dependent on running Baleful Strix, Mindslaver/Memory Jar/Myr Battlesphere, etc. I'd rather play a deck with Notion Thief in it against a field of TPS, Gush, and Oath, vs playing Welder+Strix in a Workshop and creature heavy metagame. Regardless, I think it is somewhat simplistic to say  <  and therefore Notion Thief < Goblin Welder.

@ Samoht - While I agree with you that players sometimes focus on "the best-case scenario" and that this important to be aware of when evaluating cards/interactions, I think you are underestimating Notion Thief's effect both when it is in play and when it is not in play. While in play, Thief blanks all of the opponent's draw spells, including Gush, Preordain, Ancestral Recall, Thirst for Knowledge, Sensei's Divining Top, Gitaxian Probe, Griselbrand, Wheel/Twister, etc. This makes is incredibly difficult for certain decks like Gush, Doomsday, TPS, and even occasionally Oath to win while simultaneously providing a clock at instant speed and at times uncounterable via Cavern of Souls. If your opponent is not aware that Notion Thief is in your deck, you lose nothing if you do not draw it and have the potential to blow the opponent out in response to a draw spell. If your opponent is aware that you have Notion Thief anywhere in your 75, you force your opponent to decide whether to play around Notion Thief or ignore the possibility of a Notion Thief. This creates a difficult situation for your opponent and I have been on both sides of being blown out by Brian Kelly and losing games in which I played around a nonexistent Notion Thief in his hand.

P.S. Happy Father's Day and I can't wait for this weekend.

@ vaughnbros - I agree with your assessment of Notion Thief in Welder-Strix and have been running it as a 1 of in my Welder-Strix test decks on Cockatrice.

TL;DR - I agree with Lance.