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Vintage Strategy

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  Read Me! Vintage Strategy FAQ
  • Brass Man

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  What are some Common Vintage Tips & Tricks Everyone Should Know?
  • volrathxp

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  @volrathxp common tricks from the top of my head:

  triggering things by casting pyroblast on a nonsensical target. For example, triggering mentor or dack by casting pyroblast on a land.

  common sensei's top tricks like tapping top, holding priority and untapping it with key to tap it again to draw an extra card and put top in hand. Or the tapping top and in response bouncing it by any means (PO, repeal...)
  If you want to draw with top, but don't want to have the top on your library as the first card you can activate tops order ability and in response put sensei's on the library to draw your card. Now when the order ability resolves, you can order sensei's anywhere in the top 3 you want.

  there is value to be gained with triggers that have a scaling factor which is checked upon resolution. For example if you have a Aetherflux reservoir on the battlefield and you cast 2 instants in a row you can gain 3 life total if you let everything resolve individually, or you can cast the second instant while the first reservoir trigger is still in the stack to gain 4 life instead.

  since probe is restricted there are a few sneaky bluffing possiblies available again. Letting a blind cabal therapy on you resolve even though you have a misstep in hand to counter it might be worth it in some situations. Most players will not name misstep with the therapy if it resolves and you save yourself a misstep and some life. (The cost of course is that your opponent could hit something else, sees your hand etc.)

  An oldschool bluffing trick would also be selectively skipping to your second main before casting a spell to bluff having a mana drain in hand.

  There are so many more...

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

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  @Nower1990

  I've been on and off mainboard Sylvan. It's very good (turn 1 Sylvan->Engine Piece is usually lights out!), but it's not perfect, as it isn't really an engine piece. It's better post board, where you're looking for more key pieces.

  Squee helps a lot with Aggressive Bazaaring, and I like 2 in the main (though am going down to 1 for champs testing, as you want a more wide spread of hate pieces).

  I would also shy away from cutting Moxen. The strength of the deck is that you cast something dumb on turn 1 when you don't play bazaar, and you ask "do you have it".

  Not doing that is a recipe for loss.

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  Bazaar Control! 2018
  • YakuzaXRock

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  I think you should rely a bit less in the Squee engine. If you get hit by Leyline or Tormod's Crypt or whatever, a whole part of your deck falls apart. You have:

  4 Squee
  3 Jace, Vryn
  4 Dack
  3 Intuition
  4 Bazaar

  That's 18 slots that are useless under any gy hate, which is very common in the format. I'd tone it down. Take You can take 1 of each of those cards out, get 5 slots for other stuff in the deck.

  And yeah, 4 Groves for 1 Fire is a bit too much too, I guess.

  EDIT: Also, 8 REB on the side? I don't think that's even a plan. Put some Grudges and Null Rods there and take out 4-5 of those.

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  Preordain in U/R aggro
  • John Cox

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  I have been thinking a lot about this deck and how it is played. You = need the Preordains to fix your mana base. If you are playing the Wasteland version then you have 6 fetch lands, 4 Wastelands, 1 Strip mine and 6 mana producing lands and 1 Library.

  Preordain helps you fix that draw to get what you need when you need it and it also allows you to flip your Delver.

  If you cut the Delver and focus on playing Young Pyromancer and Snapcaster Mage then Preordain is a flashback target to get more cards if you do not have anything better. Then, there is the blue stew aspect of using cantrips to draw into delve spells.

  I do not think that they slow you down. They get you Xerox, if you do not want that then you may want to get into a more disruptive Hatebear style deck.

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  A New and Interesting Take on Oath
  • msg67183

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  @msg67183 said in A New and Interesting Take on Oath:

  Well the Rods were to have Disruption against Outcome, but also to have a Permanent I can get back with Sun Titan... which Burtality and the like cant.

  In that scenario just having Pernicious Deed is almost as good. You respond to PO with Deed for zed and they tend to not have much coming back to hand. I understand how Rod stones PO, but its something the pilots of that archtype have a plan for (Hurkyl's). Maybe a Stony, which requires dedicated removal. You could board into Chains as well which stops the deck cold and really just nugs your Preordains and restricted draw.

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  Help with Pitch Dredge
  dredge proxy fowchorid fun hollowone • • Rat3dE

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  Do you guys have any advice for me? I know that @vaughnbros and @BlindTherapy have both already given me some, but if any of you guys have any more suggestions I would be more than happy to hear them.

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  Counterspells
  • moorebrother1

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  @dunnydee I you have a deck with more threats or disruption that is a good strategy. The issue with Xerox v Xerox is not just card advantage but tempo and card draw. If someone can get a Jace or Dack through and you cannot answer it, they you will lose in 2 turns to their tempo.

  If you are on Oath or PO then losing a FOW is not the worst idea depending on how you manage the board. If I'm on Oath and board in 2 uncounterable creatures then I may drop an FOW. If I'm on PO and I bring in 3 defense grid then I may drop an FOW, but that is very situational.

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  Blue Moon
  • moorebrother1

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  @stuart Ral is awesome but he is not nearly as good as Niv-Mizzet. He just does so much work and most control decks have to spend significant resources to get rid of him. The other decks do not really fear him aside from the 5/5 body but once I start casting spells he normally clears the board.

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  Goblins, an Undervalued Tribe in Vintage
  • msg67183

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  @ambivalentduck

  I've been playing this. It can use some tuning but it seems fun.

  // Vintage Goblins Aggro

  // 60 Maindeck
  // 5 Artifact
  1 Black Lotus
  1 Mox Ruby
  3 Null Rod

  // 32 Creature
  3 Earwig Squad
  4 Goblin Lackey
  4 Goblin Matron
  3 Goblin Ringleader
  1 Stingscourger
  3 Simian Spirit Guide
  1 Goblin Chainwhirler
  4 Warren Instigator
  3 Goblin Warchief
  1 Goblin Chieftain
  1 Krenko, Mob Boss
  1 Goblin Trashmaster
  2 Goblin Cratermaker
  1 Gempalm Incinerator

  // 3 Instant
  3 Mental Misstep

  // 20 Land
  4 Cavern of Souls
  5 Mountain
  2 Badlands
  4 Wooded Foothills
  4 Wasteland
  1 Strip Mine

  // 15 Sideboard
  // 6 Artifact
  SB: 4 Grafdigger's Cage
  SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt

  // 5 Creature
  SB: 1 Goblin Chainwhirler
  SB: 1 Sulfur Elemental
  SB: 2 Goblin Cratermaker
  SB: 1 Goblin Trashmaster

  // 4 Enchantment
  SB: 4 Leyline of the Void

  It's a Lackey/Instigator based build that tries to cheat stuff into play. Not sure about the right configurations but having 8 enabler seem good. The new Legion Warboss and Rabblemaster also seem like theyd be good pay-off spells. Maybe even Piledriver.

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  How do we bring prison decks back without breaking the format?
  • moorebrother1

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  To be honest the real thing keeping prison decks out of the meta is mainly Aggro shops, it's just way more efficient and consistent.
  It's kind of like the comparison between landstill and jeskai, why try to completely control the game over many turns instead of just controlling the game long enough to win before your opponent has time to recover.

  They would have to restrict some aggro pieces to make Workshop Prison a viable archetype again

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  Mono Blue Paradoxical Outcome
  • moorebrother1

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  @mediumsteve Your points are very good. And, if I were just playing in a league on MTGO or playing at a small local event I would probably think about a 3 color version.

  I have tested many iterations of the deck and I have to emphasize that if you are playing more than 6 rounds consistency is key. Some people will do extremely well with 3 colors but I have found that against Shops and Jeskai you need to be very consistent. I strongly believe that a 2 color build is good but the single color build is just more consistent.

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  LD/Mana Denial, thoughts and Discussion
  • Serracollector

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  If you want to deploy a mana denial strategy, land destruction is outclassed by taxing effects. The reason being that destroying a land takes away 1 and only 1 mana, while a taxing effect takes away n mana, where n is the number of spells cast.

  So basically Sphere effects are better than Sinkhole effects. If you want more Wasteland effects, I would turn towards Ghost Quarter rather than Assassin's Trophy.

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  Terrible brew idea! DrainTwist!
  • nungnum

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  Thanks everyone for the feedback! I decided that adding more artifacts and white for mentor + swords would be worth playing, I will add some results after testing

  Mainboard

  1x Ancestral Recall
  1x Black Lotus
  1x Blightsteel Colossus
  1x Brainstorm
  1x Demonic Tutor
  1x Dig Through Time
  2x Flooded Strand
  1x Flusterstorm
  4x Force of Will
  2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
  1x Karn, Scion of Urza
  1x Library of Alexandria
  1x Mana Crypt
  4x Mana Drain (LEG)
  4x Mental Misstep
  3x Mind Twist
  2x Mission Briefing
  2x Misty Rainforest
  1x Monastery Mentor
  1x Mox Jet
  1x Mox Opal
  1x Mox Pearl
  1x Mox Sapphire
  1x Mystical Tutor
  1x Paradoxical Outcome
  3x Polluted Delta
  2x Scalding Tarn
  1x Seat of the Synod
  1x Sol Ring
  1x Strip Mine
  1x Supreme Verdict
  3x Swords to Plowshares
  1x Tendrils of Agony
  1x Time Walk
  1x Tinker
  1x Treasure Cruise
  2x Tundra
  2x Underground Sea

  Sideboard

  2x Chain of Vapor
  4x Hurkyl's Recall
  4x Leyline of the Void
  2x Mindbreak Trap
  2x Supreme Verdict
  1x Swords to Plowshares

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  Graveyard and the graveyard hate
  • moorebrother1

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  @brass-man it might be that snapcaster and delve spells are better vs crypt effects than Yawgwill, etc are.

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  Discard spells
  • moorebrother1

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  Here's a cute data point, for what it's worth. I spent most of the day today testing some Battlebond tech @Aelien . We weren't explicitly trying to react to this thread, but our results are probably relevant to the discussion

  I was playing a controlly Grixis deck with 4 Mental Misstep and a Mind Twist

  Aelien was playing a stormy deck with 7 Duress/Thoughtseize effects.

  The Mind Twist was very good for me, and the Duress effects were very good for Aelien. At no point were either of us sad to be running those cards. I think these cards are still quite good against Combo, reasonably good against Slow Control, fine against Tempo Control, and bad against Workshops and Dredge. I think what one does with a Duress is so different than what one does with a Mind Twist that you have very different requirements for wanting them, and I think what one does with Hymn to Tourach is just something no Vintage deck wants.

  Ultimately I think if you're just looking at playing one of Ravager Shops/Jeskai Mentor/Esper Outcome/Inferno Oath/Dredge, in a field that consists mostly of Ravager Shops/Jeskai Mentor/Esper Outcome/Inferno Oath/Dredge, discard effects just aren't the best option over alternatives (with the exception of Cabal Therapy, possibly Unmask out of Dredge decks). That's going to include most players in most metagames ... but I do think there are reasonable decks outside that list, and reasonable metagames that diverge from that list, in which Duress/Thoughtseize/Mind Twist are good choices. Hymn to Tourach, I think, won't make the cut in anything reasonable, and I can't think of any other discard effects that are particularly notable.

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  Gifts and Intuition Piles.
  • Sovarius

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  @sovarius I dabbled with noxious in a non-gifts deck, wasn't impressed and cut it easily.

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  White Eldrazi
  deck tech eldrazi • • Brass Man

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  @DrStreetmention yes, I tend to ship back any hand without any white sources, unless it is explosive enough (Turn 1 TKS, Spheres+Wastelands or the like). About Lotus Petal, I think I'll try it next tournament instead of Mox Sapphire: if we have Stony SIlence in play it will be as bad as any mox; but again, if we have Stony Silence, it means that we had white mana already.

  About mulligans, I felt that I mulliganed a lot (8 times in 17 matches, one of them down to 5, though I won these). I'm not sure it that's inherent to the deck or if I was just unlucky with my opening seven. Sadly, I didn't track which hands didn't keep.

  "They vintage you". I like it

  @ssasala you're right, I haven't tested so much against Shops (I sleeved the deck and take it to the tournament without any testing TBH), and I was lucky in my Top 4 matches; probably if they start explosively we will have a bad time. I'm sure we can fight back, though, as we can also cripple their manabase with strip effects and Stony Silences and play big creatures, like they do.

  About Priests in the SB, that was mainly a meta call; Catalan Vintage League is an endless ocean of blue decks (Jeskai and Paradoxical builds being a 60-70% of the field), so I felt Priests were not needed maindeck. If your meta is more healthy, maindeck Priests are great for sure (though I'm not sure what would I side out to make room for them).

  I haven't tested Serenity yet; I don't feel comfortable with so many non-creature White cards (against Shops post-board, I like to play only lots of mana, as much creatures as possible and Stony Silences) . But if the next matches against MUD go bad, I'll try it for sure.

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  How are you training for Eternal Weekend?
  • moorebrother1

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  I'm firing up a Vintage league over the month of October locally, allowing proxies. About 7 solid so far up to maybe 12 depending on the next few days. We might do round robin, which sounds like a ton of matches, but this actually allows us to play at leisure over the month; each participant meets with each other whenever they can arrange that between the 2 of them, which isn't so hard given nearly every player is a regular attendee at one or more weekly events at our most popular local store.

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  5 color decks
  • moorebrother1

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  I've been playing Paradoxical Oath fora few months, so a little less mana rocks and with Orchard. I'm switching from that to some kind of form of the above brew ideas.