Perhaps a Modern Vintage "The Deck" is in order?

Many millennia ago, @Smmenen , walked us through his process of building his "The Deck"...I can't find the link at this moment but if someone can help with that, it'd be great. Otherwise, soon as I can find it I will post it here.

@wfain i love edric more than most people, but i'm not sure it's the best fit here. 3 mana is a lot AND you need to have things on board. I agree it is nice with both sides of force of will, but again seems a little win-more. if there is a deck that doesn't spew half its hand away to get guys on the board that might be a better fit.

also, just ran through another league with a 4-1 (total 13-2). Wins against UW landstill, UWR landstill, Oath (misboarded bc i didn't see enough of his deck, still won 2-0), Hermit druid BUG. Loss against shops to two fast trinisphere hands.

Interestingly enough the top 4 results are actually posted on mtgtop8, and not one but two DPS decks made top 4!

I tried Price of Progress for a bit in a Mono Red Aggro/Control list. I usually won or lost by turn 4 and with Wastelands in the deck my opponents usually fetched basics by game 2. The damage from Price wasn't significant.

I played Bloon Moon, and Magus of the Moon, in Richmond to a top 32 finish.

I’m not gonna discuss the other cards in the deck, or the archetype in general, but I will talk explicitly about moon effects in Vintage and how they play out in matches.

Vs Dredge it’s one of the very best cards, and a card you hope to see in the opening hand. It’s not an autowin, as they can already have a graveyard if you are on the draw, or they can discard down if they are given enough time to do so.

But it still wins a lot

Vs Mud
The card is playable in small quantities. You would never want to see multiple copies of it because each copy beyond the first is an actual do nothing.
It doesn’t prevent anything from happening, it simply slows them down. Taking away a wasteland or factory effect is simply slowing them down. Nothing more nothing less.
You still have to find a way to win the game.

And often times they still have the ability to play through it very fast. All their cards can still get cast with enough time.

Magus of the Moon is worse because 1) it almost never blocks 2) it almost never attacks 3) dies to walking ballista.

If you care enough to invest in this type of effect, you want it to stick around.

Vs the Jeskai control decks
It’s okay. Not great, they can still play through it, not awful. It has a small chance of locking them out early. Especially on the play. It has just as likely of a chance of doing nothing at all against them.

This was my biggest surprise playing them in Richmond, I thought moons would shut these decks down, it didn’t.

Magus of the Moon is especially worse here because of lightning bolt, which they all play.

Vs BUG lists
Okay we found another matchup like Dredge where the card feels like an auto win. They have assassin’s Trophy now if that matters. Abrupt decay did the same job.

This even hurts deathrite shaman because they won’t be able to sacrifice lands to get them in the yard.

Vs Oath
It’s tech against Forbidden Orchard if you can land it before they get an orchard. Asides from that, it is slightly better here than it is against Jeskai, but worse than BUG.

It’s a nice card to see.

Magus of the Moon is also worse here because, well, Oath Of druids text.

Vs Paradoxical Outcome

Pretty bad. Easy to play through without support like a null rod.

Honestly I was boarding out Bloon Moons against this list and I’ve had success against them in general.

Magus of the Moon is much better than Blood Moon here. This is probably the only matchup where I can say that.

Vs Eldrazi

Absolute house against them. Both the colorless and white versions.

Vs Landstill

Very good, but not an ultimate closer. They will find a way to deal with it, but it will provide you with plenty of time.

The only matchup where multiple copies actually get better.

Vs Survival

It’s a solid card, but you run the risk of doing nothing while they ley down threats. High Variance. They can get a lot of work done with a single Forest.

For the record, I haven’t played against Grixis.

So, in summation, the card is playable vs the entire field. But it is only okay vs three tier 1 lists: Jeskai, MUD, and PO. Which is probably why you don’t see moons getting sleeves up a lot these days.

Up to 18-2. 2 5-0's, 2 4-1's. It's a metagame deck but does well in the current MTGO PO + Dredge heavy, Shop-light, MODO metagame. And it's definitely a xerox control variant, but cavern is a nice utility land to grab with vamp against other xerox decks.

Finally a hatebear deck I think is well build (although it does look very soft to Shops). I love the Orim's Chant's. I will definitely have to try those out.

@grr said in What are some Common Vintage Tips & Tricks Everyone Should Know?:

Here's a few things I've noted:

Cavern of Souls actually makes creatures of the chosen creature type uncounterable

...Except if you have the use the colorless mana to cast the creature (say you want to cast a Thought-Knot Seer off 2 Plains, a Mox Emerald and a Cavern naming Eldrazi; you will have to use the colorless mana from Cavern, thus TKS can be countered).

But only if you have to. If you don't have to (ie, you're also using another colorless source), you're assumed to be using colored mana for the generic mana portion of the cost, regardless of whether you announced it. [Source]

@moorebrother1 Thanks for the explanation!
@Stuart I was thinking the same thing. I'll look it up.

@garbageaggro said in Transmute Artifact:

Grim monolith and mana vault are both friends with transmute, as is painter combo, if you really want to play it.

I mean, all of these still play well with Tinker first and foremost, which leads you down the same evaluation path.

Here is where my head is. If you could construct a reason to play mono blue transmute gets a bit of value but for the life of me I cannot think of a list that can justify that. Let's say you wanted to do some sort of Turbo Timevault thing. Your still going to run off color moxen because you need targets but I GUESS you could start here:

1 Ancestral
1 Timewalk
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
5 Moxen
1 Sol ring
1 Mana crypt
1 Mana vault
1 Black Lotus
4 Force of will
4 Mental Misstep
1 Tinker
4 Voltaic Key
4 Voltaic Servant
1 time vault
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Merchant scroll
X Transmute Artifact

Now just as a thought experiment, answer these questions

What actual value are you realistically getting out of going mono blue? With all the ramp would you not be better off running copies of Tezz first? Is transmute still worth using over other possible blue tutor options like personal tutor, or even more xerox pieces like Preordain, Gush, Treasure Cruise, etc?

It just seems like there is simply too much competition for that slot. Tinker is most of the time a card that you win the game off of because your game plan around it is to set up protection the turn you go off. Every Transmute you also run in your deck is one less counterspell potentially to protect the wincon. In this regard the 3 mana versus 2 mana (if you are so lucky) is almost irrelevant since it is not something you are rushing out until your protection is in place.

So glad you're back! I'll be listening to this later today.

deck lists are up

yes you are right

@nower1990 Yeah, I definitely don't think Leyline is a good card to run in Vintage. It's great in Modern, but not Vintage. I was just listing it as a white answer against turn 1 kills. It does have utility vs oath, and it also stops hurkylls if you are on null rods in addition to stony, but those are fringe uses.
Missteps are more useful in general and help dodge T1 kills at times. Mindbreak may only work once, but you are SBing it in G2, so if it works once, that's all you need. Then they also play in fear of it maybe in G3 when you maybe have it or maybe side it back out.
T1 kills aren't all THAT common, but PO can certainly pull it off and not with difficulty. I've lost plenty of times with a G1 on the draw where I drew 7 and died, won G2, then drew 7 and died on G3. PO can just be nuts like that.
Stony, Thalia, Rule, etc. are certainly the better white cards to use in general and will be great turns 2 and beyond. They just won't help turn 1 when you're on the draw.