Quickest Beatdown in Vintage

[desolutionist]

So I've been having some success with a Cavern of Souls Goblins deck on MTGO.  In an effort to improve my win%, I'm entertaining the idea that Goblins may be outdated.  So  I'm taking my question to these public forums: What unrestricted sequence of creatures beats down the fastest?  And obviously creatures with even minor utility or of a common tribal type are preferred.  I want to beatdown by the end of turn 3.  Is it possible?  Atog? Wild Nacatyl?

[msg67183]

Cavern Elves usually wins turn 3

[Will]

Blightsteel Colossus...

[desolutionist]

Blightsteel Colossus...

I want to use Cavern of Souls so I can bypass counterspells.  Maybe if there was a consistent way to generate that much mana, it would be an option.  But nothing I know of...

[wiley]

Construct/Golem aggro, every now and then you get to attack with a hasty blightsteel turn 1.

[zeus-online]

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[Samoht]

Infect kills really fast, but requires spells that can be interacted with.

[desolutionist]

Why is bypassing counterspells of so great importance?
I would think some kind of ravager affinity would provide a quite quick beatdown.

Because a lot of decks are mostly just counterspells and card draw.  In these matchups, Cavern of Souls Aggro is pretty unfair because they can't do anything relevant.  But I want a fast clock so I have game against Tendrils decks.  Goblins can win fairly fast with Lackey+Warchief, but when you don't have them, you're paying 3 mana for a 1/1 and passing the turn.

But maybe the fact that I can get Lackey or Warchief+Lotus makes Goblins the ideal Cavern beatdown deck.  I'm not sure. 

[zeus-online]

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[The Atog Lord]

The fastest beatdown in Vintage is to get them with Tendrils of Agony. If you're playing a deck with creatures that turn sideways, then you are opting to invest in a factor other than celerity.

[zeus-online]

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[The Atog Lord]

Ritual Storm tends to beat counter-heavy decks, in my experience.

[JarofFortune]

It's not a creature, but Price of Progress will surprise a lot of people if you throw it into Goblins for extra Damage output. Aside from that, Eidolon of the Great Revel can be cast off cavern.

[desolutionist]

The fastest beatdown in Vintage is to get them with Tendrils of Agony. If you're playing a deck with creatures that turn sideways, then you are opting to invest in a factor other than celerity.

I don't want to look at it in a vacuum, because realistically against a deck with Force of Will, Mental Misstep, Thoughtseize, Mystic Remora, etc or a deck with Chalice of the Void, Lodestone Golems, and Thorn of Amethysts.  Tendrils is much slower than 1 mana 2/2s.  (Lodestone still slows you down of course.)  

Mono-red block decks win by turn 4.  A Vintage turn 3 aggro deck must be possible.

[zeus-online]

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[desolutionist]

An example of a realistic turn 2-3 goldfish would be Burning-Tree Emissary with Kird Ape/Dryad Militant/Skyshroud Elite followed by some pump spell.  I don't care if something gets countered here because I will still have Cavern of Souls to continue pumping out uncounterable threats.  

I've also thought about Magus of the Candelabra/Cloud of Faeries to get multiple uses of 1 Cavern.

The idea is to win as quickly as possibly and Cavern of Souls is going to aid that strategy by making it difficult to stop.

But lets say I don't draw Cavern of Souls for several games; Isn't it better to try and stick some cheap creatures that can attack rather than play a silly game of Duress, Mental Misstep, Ancestral Recall, etc. until someone resolves a Jace and wins?  If I can resolve a creature, suddenly Jace is practically the opponent's overcosted liability.  How many times have you mulliganed to 5 and Ancestral Recall is your only play and you know your opponent has Mental Misstep but you just have to cast the Ancestral anyway.  I just don't want to play magic like that anymore; its unnecessary.  I want to play a turn 1 creature and watch my opponent fumble around with tutors and draw spells and lose because he doesn't have the resources to win in time

[MTGFan]

Here's a quick, uncounterable, unblockable beatdown:

Turn 1. Cavern naming "rogue", Mox -> Oona's Blackguard / Invisible Stalker
Turn 2. Land, attack with Stalker/Blackguard, tap Cavern, Land, and Mox to play Earwig Squad.Strip your opponent of his Tendrils / Voltaic Key / Colossus / Oath targets with Earwig's Prowl ability and watch him scoop.

[wiley]

Really not sure how this is a question.  Being completely serious, Mr. Grimm's list is close (flex slots make a big difference here based on metagames) to the best beatdown deck in the format atm;

4 Mishra's workshop
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Wasteland
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarain Academy
1 Black Lotus
5 Moxen
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt

4 Metalworker
4 Kuldotha Forgemaster
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 sundering Titan
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Duplicant
1 Blightsteel Colossus
2 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Lodestone Golem

1 Trinisphere
3 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Tangle Wire
4 Chalice of the Void

2 Lightning Greaves

It uses cavern very efficiently, has the best aggro creatures in the format and has a solid backup (or parallel) plan of slowing the game down.  It is ramp aggro, and unless 50% of your field packs 4+ null rod effects, you aren't getting better than this.  There is no point in which you are durdling around doing nothing to further you plan unless you draw nothing but mana sources, which can happen to any deck.

Greaves into metalworker can easily win the game on turn two in multiple ways, and can go a long way to securing the win in a variety of others.  And that is without thinking about how good the other cards like lodestone golem and wurmcoil are on their own.  Wurmcoil alone can trump a wide variety of strategies and almost all aggro strategies.  Meaning that you aren't banking on "lords" or any particular magical synergy, just raw-dogging out one game winning bomb after another.

Here's a quick, uncounterable, unblockable beatdown:

Turn 1. Cavern naming "rogue", Mox -> Oona's Blackguard / Invisible Stalker
Turn 2. Land, attack with Stalker/Blackguard, tap Cavern, Land, and Mox to play Earwig Squad
Turn 3. Strip your opponent of his Tendrils / Voltaic Key / Colossus / Oath targets with Earwig's Prowl ability and watch him scoop.

I played against gobbos with burning oath in my last tournament in VA, he fetched up earwig with matron.  I made him chuck it to wheel.  He got it back with wort and cast it.  I still won thanks to wish.  Not all decks run 3 or fewer win conditions, and while it is a solid play to cap them it isn't viable to bank on that plan.

[MTGFan]

I played against gobbos with burning oath in my last tournament in VA, he fetched up earwig with matron.  I made him chuck it to wheel.  He got it back with wort and cast it.  I still won thanks to wish.  Not all decks run 3 or fewer win conditions, and while it is a solid play to cap them it isn't viable to bank on that plan.

I'm talking about Earwig in a Blue/Black Rogue shell with Force of Well and Spell Pierce and Thoughtseize. You probably aren't going to resolve Wheel of Fortune against that deck quite as easily, or a crucial Burning Wish for that matter.

Alot of decks in Vintage right now *do* rely on 3 or fewer win conditions. Alot of decks have other win conditions in addition to this, but usually they are weaker and easier for an army of (often hexproof or flying) creatures to deal with (opposing Dark Confidants and Jaces, for example, in a deck which you stripped of Colossus and Voltaic Key).

[evouga]

Alot of decks in Vintage right now *do* rely on 3 or fewer win conditions

There's no denying that Earwig is a powerful tactic that hamstrings most decks, but this is an exaggeration. Even if we're discounting Jace as a win condition (dubious IMO), the only decks with 3 or less wincons are minor metagame players like "traditional" Oath, Dack Slaver, etc. Certainly MUD, delver, dredge, humans, burning oath, landstill, etc. still have a fighting chance after Earwig.

[AmbivalentDuck]

The fastest beatdown is probably something like Phyrexian Dreadnought + Stifle. Comes down turn 1, kills by turn 3. Oath of Druids into Griselbargain is probably more consistent.

Is there a reason you want to turn critters sideways when your goal is just to reduce your opponent's life total quickly? I agree with Rich that combo decks are probably the best approach if that's your goal.

[Protoaddict]

You could play burn. That deck genuinely does not care if spells get countered or not cause it has more of them.

I mean, realistically there is no creature deck of the nature you are describing in vintage save for Dredge, but that is a combo deck. If you really wanna pull some wins out of your butt, maybe some sort of cat aggro?

Cavern x4
Fetches
Dual lands
4 Wild Nactal
4 Quasali Pridemage
4 Steppe Lynx
4 Loam Lion
2 Brimaz
4 Path to exile

Or who knows, tribal outside of merfolk is not very good in vintage as of recent times.

[msg67183]

You could use instigater and chrome mox to speed it up? I think that goblins is your best bet. Elves requires you to cast spells and merfolk is too slow. Zoo variants have too varied types and infect/affinity uses non creature spells

Elves does not "require" spells to be cast. The only "spells" in my list are Green Sun's Zenith and Skullclamp. Sure they really help out but aren't required since I have a backup draw engine in the form of 4 Visionary plus 4 Wirewood Symbiote. The deck wins turn 3 fairly consistently, and I would consider it the best creature deck, as it trashes other creature decks with ease.

[hashswag]

I think a pure blitz aggro deck wants to be casting more than one creature a turn, so I'm not sure Cavern is going to make that much of a difference. I'd be looking towards Goblins, as you can cavern out a Lackey and use that to drop an Earwig or a Krenko, which can both take over games very quickly. The important thing about Goblins is that it looks and feels like an aggro deck at first, but it's really a control deck.

[Hrishi]

I might be completely off base with this one, but isn't there a modern deck that does what you are describing? You might be able to get some ideas from there.

[ChronoExile]

There is also rabble red in standard right now, using Goblin Rabblemaster.  Not sure if a vintage goblin deck could be tuned to use some of the same components the standard deck is using, but it is another place to look for inspiration.

[MTGFan]

Alot of decks in Vintage right now *do* rely on 3 or fewer win conditions

There's no denying that Earwig is a powerful tactic that hamstrings most decks, but this is an exaggeration. Even if we're discounting Jace as a win condition (dubious IMO), the only decks with 3 or less wincons are minor metagame players like "traditional" Oath, Dack Slaver, etc. Certainly MUD, delver, dredge, humans, burning oath, landstill, etc. still have a fighting chance after Earwig.

vs. MUD: Take out their biggest threats to your creatures - i.e. 3 Wurmcoil Engines, or Triskelion + Wurmcoils. Rogue creatures often outclass the rest of what they have, because Lodestone is the usually the biggest remainder and he is an x/3.

vs. Delver: Take out any combination of three Tarmogoyf and/or TNN. They can race with Delvers, but Rogues will be doing as much or more damage per turn with their creatures. They might draw the remaining Goyf/TNNs, but their chances of doing so are decreased.

vs. Dredge: Take out bridges and force them to win without the Zombie kill. Earwig is not very effective in this matchup, I admit.

vs. Humans: Just take out their three biggest guys and 2/1 hatebears usually are not a good match for Rogues' TNNs, Earwigs, and pumped hexproof, unblockable guys.

vs. Burning Oath: Almost all of the Oath decks I've seen place recently have NOT played Burning Wish, and instead are completely exposed to being Capped of their Oath creatures.

vs. Landstill: Take out three Jaces and they have to win with Factory beats? Not a good plan vs. a deck with lots of creatures.

[hashswag]

I agree with the above. Even against fair decks with lots of creatures, you can just cap anything they could use to kill the Earwig and go to down. MUD you want to grab anything bigger than Earwig like MTGFan said and against delver you can hit their bolts, then follow it up with hitting any other creatures they have the next turn.

[MTGFan]

In fact, let's take a look at a recent Top 8 of a big Vintage tournament (Eternal Extravaganza) and notice how almost each deck is highly vulnerable to a single Earwig Squad prowling:

1. Oath by Joseph Brown (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=14284&iddeck=105315): Take out 2 Griselbrand and 1 Voltaic Key and they can only win with 2 Jaces against a deck that features 7 creatures with Hexproof.

2. Landstill by Mark Tacco (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=14284&iddeck=105316): Take out all 3 of their Jaces, and their only win conditions are 4 Mishra's Factory. The Dack Faydens are mostly irrelevant to the Rogue deck.

3. Control Slaver by Bob Huang (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=14284&iddeck=105317): Take out the 1 and only Jace, the 1 Myr Battlesphere, and the 1 Mindslaver. All they have left is Goblin Welder and Baleful Strix beats!

4. MUD by Steve Rubin (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=14284&iddeck=105318): Take out the 1 Steel Hellkite and 2 Phyrexian Metamorphs. They have to win with Lodestones and Revokers. They can do it, but their threats are outnumbered by the Rogue deck's threats and Lodestones don't matchup well to guys like TNN and Earwig.

5. MUD by Shawn Griffiths (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=14284&iddeck=105319): Take out 1 Darksteel Juggernaut and 2 Metamorphs. Same general tactics apply as to the deck above.

6. Merfolk by Rachel Unruh (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=14284&iddeck=105320): Just take out their biggest guys: 2 TNNs and a Lord of Atlantis. The matchup isn't affected much by the Earwig Prowling, but the 5/3 body is a huge threat in and of itself in the damage race.

7. Control Slaver by Brian Koval (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=14284&iddeck=105321): Again, a ridiculously easy deck to beat with a single Earwig Squad Prowling - take out their lone Tinker target (Battlesphere), take out their lone Mindslaver, and take out their lone Jace and they have nearly nothing.

8. Gush Storm by Paul Lynch (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=14284&iddeck=105322): Easy. Take out their two only Talrands, take out the single Tendrils of Agony, and they can win with only 3 Deathrite Shaman and 2 Jaces. Again, Jace alone is not very effective vs. a Rogue deck with lots of flying and hexproof dudes.


Of that entire Top 8, I can see only three decks that are not completely crippled by a single Earwig squad (the 2 MUDs and the Merfolk). And even against those three decks, just stripping them of their biggest future threats (bombs that they can play later like Steel Hellkite and TNN respectively) and dropping a 5/3 or 6/4 (with lord pump) body is a big play.

[Samoht]

Landstill isn't close to crippled. You've clearly never played against it if you think that eating the Jace's will win you that match up.