Vintage Strategy

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  Read Me! Vintage Strategy FAQ
  • Brass Man

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  Survival Salad
  deck tech deck discussion decklist survival hollowone • • wfain

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  @protoaddct I think you’d have to cut ESG for it, which is bad. And helping Hollow One really doesn’t matter very often since if you use Bazaar he’s free already and if you are on only GG for Survival you generally either have time to set up for next turn, an extra creature where you can search up ESG or a non-green Mox laying around
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  Selkie Strike(s). . . AGAIN!
  • Stormanimagus

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  @topical_island I cut it back in 2010/2011 when I played this deck a lot it was very good back then. It really helped in the mirror since this deck was fairly heavily played at that time. I think now you would just lose to PO if you cut the FOW.
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  Paradoxical Outcome - Deckbuilding Primer
  • IamActuallyLvL1

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  @wfain In my early builds of PO, I used to play one Candelabra but it was never as good as I thought it was going to be. Trinket Mage is clutter in deck that just wants to draw cards and play broken stuff. I am working on an alternate version of PO that is not so dependent on tapping artifacts so I may try Candelabra again for a deck that plays similar to the old Academy deck but that style of deck is just not as good in today's meta-game. If Fastbond ever gets unrestricted this may work since you ramp quickly in early turns and play things like Helm of Obedience but right now you are racing the Control and Aggro deck so the play broken stuff is very important.
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  Why is Arlinn Kord played in Oath of Druids?
  • brianpk80

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  @zaefermalkav said in Why is Arlinn Kord played in Oath of Druids?: Great article!!! I'm one of that guys that use Airlinn Kord just because you used it. After reading this i have a new perspective of how important she is. Thanks! You're welcome. It's a honor to have the trust of the community and players like you.
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  Bazaar of Baghdad beyond Dredge
  • moorebrother1

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  @thewhitedragon69 Thats a very different take as I said we avoid serum powder. we can have busted bazaar draws but we can play the long game and not just lose if we cant mull to bazaar. we also don't have to take up sideboard space with hollowones and gurmags as they are already mainboard. Graf diggers is not a very good choice of grave hate it's worth mentioning leyline as that shuts down squee/bazaar as well as survival combo kills yet we can still pull thru. Grafdiggers we just cast decay or manglehorn as we can still fill our grave with impunity. The opponent didn't "not" do anything just that casting 2 mana preordains into 4 mana dack is great vs hollow one not vs hatebears.
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  White Eldrazi
  deck tech eldrazi • • Brass Man

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  @stuart Agreed with you on all accounts! Again, great finish at SCG Con!
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  Empty the Warrens in DPS Sideboards
  • nevilshute

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  I never liked the Empty plan, and i think 3 is way too many. Against fair blue decks i rather board in more Defense Grids or Discard.
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  How can I build a playable mono blue control(or combo) deck ?
  • iloveblue

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  @5space said in How can I build a playable mono blue control(or combo) deck ?: @macdeath said in How can I build a playable mono blue control(or combo) deck ?: Mono blue is not worth it for a combo deck since without the black tutors you loose a lot of consistency. You want a deck with redundant pieces. I would suggest revisiting the Back 2 basics mono blue control with pwalkers and versatile blue creatures (like Consecrated sphinx, Torrential gearhulk, Vendillion clique, Snapcaster mage, trinket mage ...) In today's meta you can use Dismember or Propaganda/energy flux as your creature/artifact answers and have a strong counter package with 3/4 mana drains. How about High Tide? Probably a splash would be good, but High Tide is quite consistent in other formats. I remember reading this back in the day, but it's quite dated: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/13186_Tsunami_Warning_Bringing_High_Tide_to_Vintage.html High tide is barely playable in Legacy. You could build a completely broken vintage high tide for sure, is that deck good? No (believe me i've tried). The deck will have to be filled with "do nothing" cards which are not "must counters" for other blue decks. You basically end up with a deck similar to the old Gush storm decks except you are not favored against other blue decks (which defeats the whole purpose). Off the top of my head, here is a starting point for a high tide list in vintage: MD: 1 Black Lotus 1 Mox Sapphire 1 Mox Jet 1 Mox Pearl 1 Lotus Petal 1 Library of Alexandria 3 Tundra 2 Underground Sea 4 Flooded strand 2 Polluted delta 4 Island 1 Monastery Mentor 1 Ancestral Recall 1 Brainstorm 1 Brain Freeze 1 Dig through Time 4 Frantic Search 4 High tide 1 Hurkyl's Recall 2 Flusterstorm 4 Force of will 4 Mental misstep 1 Mystical tutor 1 Vampiric Tutor 1 Demonic Tutor 1 Merchant scroll 1 Mind's desire 4 Preordain 1 Ponder 3 Time Spiral 1 Time Walk 1 Yawgmoth's Will SB: 3 Containment Priest 2 Tormod's Crypt 3 Hurkyl's Recall 2 Fragmentize 1 Plains 1 Balance 1 Flusterstorm 2 Stony Silence
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  Bomberman 2017
  • enderfall

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  From what I see, most players not familiar with Bomberman, try and add the combo to a blue control shell, or cram three decks into one. That might work here and there, but in that case, why even go Bomberman? Just my two cents. Also, more Jace, The Mindscultor/ Sensei's D. Top, over cantrips and Snapcaster in this deck is best. Jtms IS the back-up plan. Tinker->BsC is good post-board against specific MUs but I wouldn't do it main. Too much tempo loss. The games where you would win with Tinker, you could've won through Bomberman/Jace anyway.
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  How do I beat Jeskai
  jeskai • • moorebrother1

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  I whole heartedly agree that adding the Containment Priest helps a lot with the Dredge match up and it adds a body to a deck that is slow to get bodies on the board. It also helps against Oath but not as much as it does against Dredge. The Containment Priest hurts you in the mirror and is often an unwelcome card to see when you facing another Xerox deck since it is a creature that does not add any advantage. All that being said, I'm with Brian that I hate this deck and wish it would just fall off of a cliff and die. The conditions to beat this deck are just too situational. I tested against it last night with Oath and I just pushed for an early Oath each game and keep pushing. They lost to whichever creature I got off of the Oath. They really only win with a early beatdown against you if you do not resolve an Oath. I played Paradoxical which was even more annoying, and it is a waiting game. The deck has disruptive counter magic but either Erayo or pushing hard into Vault/Key is enough to steal games. It is not an easy match up but a winnable one.
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  Goblins, an Undervalued Tribe in Vintage
  • msg67183

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  Goblin Chainwhirler looks kind of spicy. Hits the jeskai decks pretty hard as it kills everything except for mentor. Can also hit hangerback walker tokens, phyrexian revokers, etc. Time to revisit the good ole little green boys? For the record, here is a rough draft of where i'm starting my testing at: // Vintage Goblins Aggro // 60 Maindeck // 4 Artifact 1 Black Lotus 1 Mox Ruby 2 Null Rod // 37 Creature 3 Earwig Squad 4 Goblin Lackey 4 Goblin Matron 4 Goblin Ringleader 1 Stingscourger 1 Goblin Sharpshooter 1 Siege-Gang Commander 4 Simian Spirit Guide 1 Goblin Chainwhirler 1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker 1 Tuktuk Scrapper 3 Warren Instigator 3 Goblin Warchief 1 Goblin Chieftain 1 Krenko, Mob Boss 1 Goblin Welder 3 Gempalm Incinerator // 19 Land 4 Cavern of Souls 3 Mountain 2 Badlands 4 Wooded Foothills 1 Bloodstained Mire 4 Wasteland 1 Strip Mine // 15 Sideboard // 4 Artifact SB: 4 Grafdigger's Cage // 5 Creature SB: 1 Goblin Welder SB: 2 Goblin Chainwhirler SB: 2 Tuktuk Scrapper // 4 Enchantment SB: 4 Leyline of the Void // 2 Instant SB: 2 Pyrokinesis Biggest thoughts: Is Simian Spirit Guide better or Mox/Crypt/Chrome Mox better. They all have their pros and cons. SSG gets around thorns and provides red, but is a one-shot use. Off-color moxen stays around, but they're off color. Chrome Mox is perma source of red, but costs an extra card. Decisions decisions....atm i'm leaning towards SSG since our deck is so red-intensive. I have no idea if my creature count/toolbox is correct, it's just a bunch of stuff I wanted to play with the idea that Matron can tutor for them. Oh well.
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  StoneBlade
  • moorebrother1

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  I took this Jeskai deck to an event to did very poorly. Every game was close. I cannot for sure say this is a bad deck but it is certainly not advantaged. I played against UR Pyromancer, 2 Card Monte, LandStill, and Managorger Hydra. Every game was very close. Going low to ground has advantages similar to Xerox, essentially this is a Xerox deck without the Pryomancers which may be the problem. I know no one probably cares but I tested this very heavily and it has an even match up against the meta. 1 Mox Emerald 1 Mox Pearl 1 Mox Ruby 1 Mox Sapphire 1 Mox Jet 1 Black Lotus 1 Strip Mine 1 Library of Alexandria 1 Plains 1 Island 3 Flooded Strand 3 Polluted Delta 3 Tundra 3 Volcanic Island 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 1 Dig Through Time 4 Force of Will 1 Brainstorm 1 Gush 1 Treasure Cruise 2 Dack Fayden 1 Ponder 3 Mental Misstep 1 Gitaxian Probe 1 Flusterstorm 1 Pyroblast 1 Wear / Tear 3 Swords to Plowshares 2 Containment Priest 2 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy 1 Monastery Mentor 3 Stoneforge Mystic 1 Batterskull 1 Umezawa's Jitte 1 Time Walk 1 Ancestral Recall 4 Preordain Sideboard 2 Stony Silence 1 Balance 1 Pyroclasm 3 By Force 1 Grafdigger's Cage 2 Rest in Peace 1 Flusterstorm 1 Pyroblast 1 Wear / Tear 1 Swords to Plowshares 1 Containment Priest
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  How to beat Shops
  shops • • moorebrother1

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  I used to be firmly in the Energy Flux camp on this one. (I still think Flux is just crushing, and at least in Control Oath, which runs a bit mana dense, it's pretty good. They can make all the thopter tokens they like.) However, watching Rich Shay, and also my wife as they run Xerox, the 1for1 cheap removal game is viable at least. Shattering Spree is probably the best in that vein, since it can be, but isn't limited to being a 1for1. As a passive observer, it does seem that blunting, and finally taking apart their board with spot removal is viable. Ancient Grudge bears a mention here.
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  Best Hermit Druid Kill?
  • John Cox

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  @john-cox I think it helps for me to first define different reliabilities. Pre-Activation Reliability The set of conditions required to win prior to activating your Hermit Druid. Post-Activation Reliability The set of conditions required to win after activating your Hermit Druid. Post-Board Reliability How well the combination works against opposing graveyard hate. If we look at the reliability for the concise 5 card strategies: This requires all 5 cards involved in the combo to be in your graveyard, library, or in play. Additionally, you need 1GB for Hermit Druid+Lingering Souls. Id say thats fairly reliable. This requires that your opponent cant counterspell your Lingering Souls / Dread Return, or remove your Druid in response to activation (thus reducing your max creature count to 2). This is slightly less reliable as now any interaction your opponent may have means you need one more card in hand to win (counterspells). This combo doesnt work under any graveyard hate. Overall Id say this is one of the less reliable ways to win, but at only 5 cards you have more room to make the conditions work. The Garna combo instead of Angel still has all the same problems for 2 and 3 as the deck still needs to resolve Dread Return. The other two are different though All cards in the combo need to be in your library, or hand. Id say this is unreliable, especially in a long game. The reliability of 2 can be improved via some minor adjustment of cards/strategy with the real key here being resolution of your Dread Return. You can add extra conditions to 1. That is, more conditions to combo, such as counterspells in hand, or additional creatures in play. This could also just be having, say, a copy of animate dead in hand, and extra mana. You can add additional cards to your combo. Specifically, Cabal Therapy+Narcomoeba + Bridge from Below. This allows you to sweep your opponents hand before Dread Returning. A backup plan. A copy of Memory's Journey for instance can help you recover after a failed attempt for one Green mana. Dread return is always going to have limitations against graveyard hate though. A Yawgmoth's Will plan, for instance, could avoid Containment Priest, but would be more mana intensive, 2GGB, and requires a draw step. Stratetically, you can switch up it up and just need a Maniac in play with your Hermit Druid.
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  Decks that are not viable online (Dragon)
  • cleverpseudonym

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  I've played Dragon online before but using Oona, Queen of the Fae as the kill. It's worse than the Tasigur kill but this one is possible to do online.
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  How to beat Paradoxical Outcome
  • moorebrother1

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  @revengeanceful Discard in general is not going to stop any deck in the meta right now. If you are playing discard spells the idea in this meta is to get information and slow you opponent down 1 or 2 turns then win. It really only works in Storm, and BUG and maybe Grixis depending on the build.
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  Miracles in Vintage: A Primer
  deck tech • • Winglerw28

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  Anyone have any updates on playing this deck? Looks awesome as I loved playing miracles in legacy.
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  Prison-style Workshop deck viable post thorn-restriction?
  • Dr. J

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  I really just completely missed the PW:) I don't think we can run Workshop and then try to cast things that don't abuse it. If they ever print a PW that is "artifact PW" then I'll test it, until then I don't think its worth it. You get awkward hands when you mix mana types and doing it in a deck that can't fix its top decks, can't manipulate its library, can't fetch its lands, there are a lot of design constraints that really hamper those plans.
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  looking for a weird dredge list-thought i saw it here
  • BlindTherapy

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  @brass-man You would be surprised how many people miss that a Vengeful Pharaoh is in your GY, and attack into it.