Thank you Joe Dyer for interesting views on cards being banned in the vintage format.
Another aspect that cards will eventually be banned in vintage is a combination of time and the willingness to keep the game of Magic interesting. The goal of Wizards of the Coast is to keep the game going and to sell cards, these two objectives go hand in hand because selling cards generates profits to keep the game going. To keep the game interesting, new and often powerful cards are often printed every year. Lets take into consideration of what happened in 2017. Monastery Mentor made up a large percentage of the decks being played in Vintage, was then restricted and then the number of Monastery decks went down but Monastery Mentor is still one of the primary win conditions in Paradoxical Outcome decks even though being restricted. People play Time Vault and one copy of Manifold Key in their decks as win conditions as do people play Tinker and one copy of Blightsteel Colossus as win conditions; restricting Manifold Key and Blightsteel Colossus would have no effect. Now take into consideration Demonic Consultation and the new Thassa's Oracle, both win the game in combination with each other with Demonic Consultation already being restricted and only needing one Thassa's Oracle to win the game with; restricting Thassa's Oracle would do pretty much nothing. All three examples are a different way of winning the game and require different hate strategies to counter. It appears to me that Vintage in going to be dominated by one type of deck in the future where restrictions will do nothing. All you need is two of a variety of different combinations of cards to win the game. With the availability of tutors, draw spells, Serum Powder and the mulligan getting one of these three card combos into your hand is very likely along with ways to protect them, have disruption and being able to combo within the first couple of turns; and in such a deck a single Monastery Mentor will also work well. I am not sure if such a deck exists today and I also think that I am missing some combinations of cards that work well with both of them being restricted. I am however certain that as the game of Magic progresses there will be more synergies and combos made and that such a deck will dominate the format; where restricting cards will do no good and Wizards will be forced to ban cards to balance the format.
In regards to dredge decks. Is it safe to assume that you can take out Dredgers and put in some Once Upon a Time in place of those dredgers since it will find dredgers or and additional Bazaar of Baghdad? If so maybe 4x Shambling Shell, 1x Golgari Grave-Troll and 2-3 Once Upon a Time (maybe Hogaak too) may be enough to bring back Force of Vigor back to the Main Deck from the Side Board.
Does anyone have any math on this card in Dredge decks?
The release of Modern Horizons has had a large impact on Pitch Dredge with the addition of Force of Vigor, Force of Negation and Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis. Dredge has also had to adjust itself to the release of War of the Spark with Karn, the Great Creator and Narset, Parter of Veils and the release of Core Set 2020 with Mystic Forge. Versions of Pitch Dredge have been tested over the past couple of months with some very interesting results. Based on the latest Dredge decklists from www.mtggoldfish.com for the past three weeks, it seems as though there has been a popular Pitch Dredge decklist that can possibly be established as a primary decklist for Pitch Dredge.
The following decklist was found on www.mtggoldfish.com was found 11 times over the past three weeks that did well on various Vintage Challenges and Leagues out of 20 total Vintage Dredge Decks:
4x Narcomoeba
4x Prized Amalgam
4x Shambling Shell
4x Stinkweed Imp
3x Ichorid
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Hollow One
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1x Ashen Rider
4x Cabal Therapy
1x Gitaxian Probe
4x Mental Misstep
3x Dread Return
2x Force of Vigor
4x Force of Will
4x Serum Powder
4x Bridge from Below
4x Bazaar of Baghdad
1x Petrified Field
(sideboard varies)
Within the past three weeks there has been 4 decks that were the same as the above except for differing with 1-3 cards within the Vintage Challenges and Leagues.
So if you take the 11 decks that are the same, the 4 decks that are almost the same and there being a total of 20 Vintage Dredge Decks in the past three weeks of Vintage Challenges and Leagues; you basically have 75% of the decks being the same. This may be the new Pitch Dredge Deck.
Daniel Worobec
@neo_altoid recommended that I move this post over here so that more people can see it.
Using Hope of Ghirapur in KarnForge
Karn Shops is one of the top performing decks in the Vintage format but is often defenceless. In the N.Y.S.E. Open VI there were five Karn Shops decks in the top nine that seemed to rely on just 3-4 coppies of Defense Grid in the deck for protection. I propose that adding copies of Hope of Ghirapur would improve upon an already powerful Karn Shops.
I do say that Defense Grid is better to defend Karn Shops is than Hope of Ghirapur. My argument is that four Defense Grid is not enough to defend Karn Shops with and that multiple Hope of Ghirapur would help.
Hope of Ghirapur denies your opponent from casting non-creature spells on the second phase of a turn. Often is that all you need to win the game is to have a Karn, the Great Creator or Mystic Forge on the battlefield and Hope of Ghirapur can deny the opponent from using counter magic or other interaction that would stop a Karn or Mystic Forge.
Hope of Ghirapur is cheap to cast and is free with Foundry Inspector.
Manifold Key’s secondary ability can be useful to make Hope of Ghirapur unblockable if your opponent has a flyer to block with.
Hope of Ghirapur can make Karn Shops faster by slowing the opponent. It can take away half of an opponent’s turn by denying them the ability to cast sorceries, enchantments, planeswalkers, and non-creature artifacts for a turn. This is very helpful in slowing down fast combo decks such as Paradoxical Outcome, Dark Petition Storm and Karn Shops mirror-match.
Because Mystic Forge lets you draw many cards per turn, you can cast multiple Hope of Ghirapur turn after turn, preventing your opponent from counter your spells and casting non-creature spells during their turn for multiple turns. This could give you enough turns to assemble a Time Vault/Key or Karn/Mycosynth Lattice combination and lock your opponent out for the rest of the game.
Let’s take a look at the final match between Joe Brennen and Vasu Balakrishnan in the N.Y.S.E. Open VI. Vasu was playing Karn Shops combo with Mystic Forge and Joe was playing BUG Control. In game one Joe had a hand full of counterspells. If Vasu had a Hope of Ghirapur on the battlefield at the time, Joe would have been unable to cast most of his hand. In round two, Joe countered a Mystic Forge. If Hope of Ghirapur had attacked, Joe could not have played his Force of Will to counter Vasu’s Mystic Forge and Joe would have been unable to cast his Narset, Parter of Veils on his turn. The game may have turned out differently but these are just examples.
Thank you for considering using Hope of Ghirapur in Karn Shops. I look forward to seeing how Karn Shops evolves over the next couple of months and how it will perform at Eternal Weekend.
Daniel Worobec
Karn Shops is one of the top performing decks in the Vintage format but is often defenceless. In the N.Y.S.E. Open VI there were five Karn Shops decks in the top nine that seemed to rely on just 3-4 coppies of Defense Grid in the deck for protection. I propose that adding copies of Hope of Ghirapur would improve upon an already powerful Karn Shops.
I do say that Defense Grid is better to defend Karn Shops is than Hope of Ghirapur. My argument is that four Defense Grid is not enough to defend Karn Shops with and that multiple Hope of Ghirapur would help.
Hope of Ghirapur denies your opponent from casting non-creature spells on the second phase of a turn. Often is that all you need to win the game is to have a Karn, the Great Creator or Mystic Forge on the battlefield and Hope of Ghirapur can deny the opponent from using counter magic or other interaction that would stop a Karn or Mystic Forge.
Hope of Ghirapur is cheap to cast and is free with Foundry Inspector.
Manifold Key’s secondary ability can be useful to make Hope of Ghirapur unblockable if your opponent has a flyer to block with.
Hope of Ghirapur can make Karn Shops faster by slowing the opponent. It can take away half of an opponent’s turn by denying them the ability to cast sorceries, enchantments, planeswalkers, and non-creature artifacts for a turn. This is very helpful in slowing down fast combo decks such as Paradoxical Outcome, Dark Petition Storm and Karn Shops mirror-match.
Because Mystic Forge lets you draw many cards per turn, you can cast multiple Hope of Ghirapur turn after turn, preventing your opponent from counter your spells and casting non-creature spells during their turn for multiple turns. This could give you enough turns to assemble a Time Vault/Key or Karn/Mycosynth Lattice combination and lock your opponent out for the rest of the game.
Let’s take a look at the final match between Joe Brennen and Vasu Balakrishnan in the N.Y.S.E. Open VI. Vasu was playing Karn Shops combo with Mystic Forge and Joe was playing BUG Control. In game one Joe had a hand full of counterspells. If Vasu had a Hope of Ghirapur on the battlefield at the time, Joe would have been unable to cast most of his hand. In round two, Joe countered a Mystic Forge. If Hope of Ghirapur had attacked, Joe could not have played his Force of Will to counter Vasu’s Mystic Forge and Joe would have been unable to cast his Narset, Parter of Veils on his turn. The game may have turned out differently but these are just examples.
Thank you for considering using Hope of Ghirapur in Karn Shops. I look forward to seeing how Karn Shops evolves over the next couple of months and how it will perform at Eternal Weekend.
Daniel Worobec
I don't understand why some of these decks can't win tournaments?
@brianpk80 plays odd-ball cards all the time and he wins often and he is legitimate.
After considering Force of Vigor in Vintage Pitch Dredge decks, I have made the following findings in adding Force of Vigor to the sideboard and to the main deck of Pitch Dredge.
Adding Force of Vigor to Pitch Dredge will have to include additional green cards to exile to Force of Vigor in order to cast it.
I have found that most Pitch Dredge decks use a creature to give your other creatures haste such as Flame-kin Zealot and Dragonlord Kolaghan. While both are effective they are neither blue nor green that can be exiled to Force of Will or Force of Vigor. I believe Maelstrom Wanderer is a good alternative to be added to Pitch Dredge that is both blue, green and can be exiled to cast Force of Will and Force of Vigor and should be added as the “Haste” creature.
Force of Vigor in the sideboard:
I would like to recomend three different sideboard options that can utilize Force of Vigor. These recommendations assume that there are four Golgari Grave-Trolls and a Maelstrom Wanderer in the main deck.
Sideboard option one:
4x Force of Vigor
4x Noxious Revival
3x Shambling Shell
Shambling Shell can be take the place of Golgari Thug and can be exiled to Force of Vigor. The ability to be Dredged to your hand after being discarded or dredged from you library makes it an excellent candidate for the sideboard. Shambling Shell is also a green card that can be added to the deck without causing much disruption to the natural workings of Dredge decks.
I find that adding four Noxious Revival would be good candidates for being cards that you can exile to Force of Vigor. Noxious Revival is a good utility cards in Pitch Dredge decks allowing you to recover a Bazaar of Baghdad and getting a second Bazaar from your graveyard. Noxious Revival is also good at getting utility cards from your graveyard such as Force of Will, Force of Vigor or getting a Hollow One into your hand. Other applications include putting a card onto of your opponent’s deck that they may not want, saving a Bridge from Below from being exiled and putting a Narcomoeba on top of your library.
Sideboard option two:
4x Force of Vigor
4x Basking Rootwalla
3x Vengevine
Sometimes there is an opportunity to sideboard cards in that make your deck more aggressive rather than to come up with answers to hate cards. Survival decks have been popular for playing Hollow One, Basking Rootwalla and Vengevine with Bazaar of Baghdad. Hollow One and Bazaar of Baghdad are already in the main deck and Basking Rootwalla and Vengevine are both green cards that can work well in Pitch Dredge when combined with Bazaar of Baghdad and Hollow One. In my play testing I do find that getting the appropriate combinations of cards into your hand is inconsistent. But there are a limited number of green cards that work well in Pitch Dredge and this may be a good option.
Sideboard option three:
4x Force of Vigor
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
2x Nature’s Claim
This option allows there to be six cards that can destroy artifacts and enchantments that work well in combination with each other. Elvish Spirit Guide and Nature’s Claim can be exiled to Force of Vigor. Elvish Spirit Guide can be used to cast Nature’s Claim as well as be able to pay for taxing sphere effects when casting spells. Casting Force of Vigor may be consistent with this option, getting one of the four copies of Elvish Spirit Guide to cast Nature’s Claim is even more consistent alongside with Force of Vigor. This is the best option when working against Leyline of the Void since it has an option of casting Nature’s Claim and not relied of anything from the graveyard.
When sideboarded into the main deck, all three options provide a total of sixteen green cards to be utilized with Force of Vigor. Golgari Grave- Troll has an increase chance of getting into your hand since it can be dredged back into your hand. I prefer option one the best when it comes to being the overall most effective.
Force of Vigor in the main deck:
With the London Mulligan taking into effect soon, Pitch Dredge may not rely on Serum Powder as much and there may be decks that do not include Serum Powder. Having the extra four spaces in Pitch Dredge may enable enough room to include Force of Vigor and counter magic as well as being well balanced and effective. The inclusion of Force of Vigor in a Pitch Dredge deck without Serum Powder is demonstrated in the following deck.
4x Bazaar of Baghdad
4x Bridge from Below
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Hollow One
2x Ichorid
2x Dread Return
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
4x Narcomoeba
4x Prized Amalgam
4x Force of Will
4x Mental Misstep
3x Force of Negation
1x Maelstrom Wanderer
4x Force of Vigor
4x Noxious Revival
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
3x Shambling Shell
There are twenty blue cards and sixteen green cards in the deck, this should be enough cards to support the pitch cards that are in the deck while being balanced and effective. This is of course if Pitch Dredge can still be played without Serum Powders when the London Mulligan takes effect.
Notable creatures to put in Pitch Dredge to help support Force cards are Domia, Sage of Stone, Muldrotha, the Gravetide, Prophet of Kruphix and Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis.
I would like to thank Dr. Rich Shay for recommending to use Shambling Shell as a possible card to pitch to Force of Vigor.