oops! the old thread for this post got displaced so I'm recreating it - Brass Man

Fun episode as always! Looks like it was recorded right before Mystic Sanctuary was spoiled which is why they didn't mention it.

So far personally this has felt like a pretty nice set for Vintage. Wishclaw is playable, but not as scary as I personally feared, Sanctuary and Stonecoil both seem solid without being problematic. A nice balance was struck here, I think.

Kevin Cron and Steve Menendian review Throne of Eldraine, for Vintage.

0:01:00: Announcements
0:16:25: Modern Horizons Report Card
0:59:00: Throne of Eldraine Mechanics
1:04:12: Wishclaw Talisman
1:46:50: Once Upon a Time
2:01:00: Mystical Dispute
2:06:10: Shimmer Dragon
2:10:10: Witch’s Vengeance
2:20:00: Questing Beast
2:27:20: Emry, Lurker of the Loch
2:34:51: Deafening Silence
3:22:55: Stonecoil Serpent
3:34:47: Robber of the Rich
Total runtime: 3:50:50

Show Notes
– Throne of Eldraine visual preview

Contact us at @ManyInsanePlays on Twitter or e-mail us at SoManyInsanePlaysPodcast@gmail.com.

Hey @clausuk23 ! The site theme is custom, and honestly a little hacked together, I'm not sure I'd recommend using it, but you're absolutely welcome to, I've open sourced it here: https://bitbucket.org/andyprobasco/nodebb-theme-themanadrain

Some of the design also comes from plugins and custom widgets, which I'm happy to talk about, but it could definitely be annoying to put it together.

However the theme is MOSTLY based on the existing 'Material' theme, which you can get here: https://github.com/pichalite/nodebb-theme-material. It looks like it was updated 3 months ago so it might be in better shape than mine anyway. I'm willing to bet that the Material theme will give you a lot of what you're looking for with a lot less work than setting up mine would be. Both my theme and the Material theme should be free to use so don't worry about that.

I'm happy to talk forum-admin'ing so if you have any other questions let me know.

@mike-noble but ... it has haste. And if you have this in play, a 2nd creature cast will return Vengevine ... so ... autoinclude?

As someone who's played a lot of Cranial Plating I think this card can probably close out a game faster than it looks. There's no doubt this doesn't have the raw power and flexibility of Workshop staples like Arcbound Ravager and Walking Ballista, but it could serve a role in matchups where racing is more important than resiliance (combo? the mirror?). This works at full capacity under a Null Rod and could be a piece in the Null-Rod-Shops deck/transformational sideboard that's been slowly bubbling below the surface for years.

Check out "untap.in" it's a browser-based mtg client that has a small vintage community running regular leagues.

@wfain my friend @JonHammack recently won an event with a BUG-esque deck splashing red for Wrenn and Six. I think there are several approaches where a fourth color might make sense ... but the deck name "BUG!" is so pleasing to me I find it hard not to call it that.

Karn, the Great Creator has inspired several new decks, but the breakout in terms of success and popularity is a combo deck based on Karn and Mystic Forge. Karn can tutor for Mycosynth Lattice or the Time Vault/Voltaic Key combo, and Mystic Forge can draw your entire deck with a Foundry Inspector and Sensei's Divining Top, or simply generate massive card advantage. With a huge amount of mana acceleration and the occasional Serum Powder, the deck is very redundant and consistent, making it very very likely to resolve one of those two four-cost spells on the first turn, either of which is very likely to lead to a kill on turn 2 or 3.

Vasu's exact list, posted above, placed four players into the top 8 of the recent NYSE 2019 event, and focuses entirely on speed and answers to common hate cards. Other players opt to take the list in a more aggressive direction, by adding more Workshop Aggro-style threats, or a more disruptive direction, adding Sphere of Resistance.

As of today, KarnForge is the deck to beat, and it would be a mistake to enter a tournament without a plan for it. Future KarnForge development will likely revolve around reacting to those plans.

In this brave new world of Karn, BUG is leveraging the strength of the newly-printed Force of Vigor and Collector Ouphe to catapault itself up to top-tier.

Like a Xerox deck, BUG has a mix of efficient threats, counters, and removal, but BUG decks tend to have a flatter power curve, with each card having value on its own, rather than filtering to your best cards with cantrips, which are becoming more of a liability in a post-Narset metagame. Black/Green/Blue threats tend not to have the raw power of a Monastery Mentor, but often have some disruptive or utility ability tacked onto them.

I often recommend BUG to players who enjoy midrange decks in other formats, and almost no other Vintage deck gives you that feel. BUG is one of the most personalizable decks in the format and lists tend to vary quite a bit from player to player.

What cards and strategies have you been using in BUG?

@craw_advantage Illusionary Mask is a truly insane card. Look at the Alpha wording again and remember that Morphs didn't exist for years. There was no such thing as a "face-down card", and the fact that a "face-down card" is a 2/2 creature with no abilities wasn't a thing. In Alpha, a Mask-face-down creature is just a creature with all of its characteristics, your opponent just doesn't know about them.

If you use Mask to play Shivan Dragon, you can pump its power without revealing it.

If you play a Serra Angel with Mask, you can attack with it and it won't flip until it deals damage. Your opponent can't block it without a flyer, but they don't know that it has flying.

If you use a Mask to play Rock Hydra it's going to have a bunch of counters on it. I guess. You could technically pay 10 mana and decide X=0 anyway.

If you play a Plague Rat with Mask, your other Plague Rats are bigger. It's kind of a tell, but your new rat is still face-down.

If you use a Mask to play a White Knight, and your opponent activates Pestilence, your White Knight won't flip up and your opponent won't know why. If they play a Swords to Plowshares on a Black Knight they committed an illegal action and ... well, I guess that depends on the REL level? Of course, REL levels didn't exist. Maybe you tell your opponent "sorry you can't do that, pick something else."

The card was sheer and utter madness. I don't know how long things worked this way. I'm guessing they changed the rules on this card before Arabian Nights was out, but I'm sure there were a lot of house rules surrounding the card. If anyone was around the competitive scene in the early early days I'd love to hear how it was handled. I've always been fascinated and terrified by the implications of the card before they added "status" to the game rules.