@moorebrother1 Yeah, it's definitely a blast. I played a little bit in my survival deck, and the issues I had the most were the capability of the deck itself playing it (which isn't the most suited, it's mostly suited to cast leovolds), and one thing I should mention is that karakas is ridiculous against it. Against PO I had 1 chance of playing it (alongside leovold), where it was pretty good (ambush viper kills it, you should watch out for that) without getting bounced by karakas or repeal. What I mean is: it's great when it sticks. And the deck that plays it, should probably take some measures for it to stick (mostly misstep and wasteland). I think UWr was already playing 2 wastes (strip+1wasteland), and that should probably be fine against karas, I guess.

In a UW/UWr shell it should be great with protection and maybe some wastelands for karakas. I think PO is running more than 1 karakas to counter it and leovold, as they should. So that's one thing you should take care of.

I remember when I first started MTGO playing pauper goblins, I lost some amount of games to clock. And it was monored aggro. So, my hint here is: learn the commands first. Be familiar with your hotkeys, because now they will save you from getting timed out and even in the future they will save you tons of time. And in your example, don't just drop leagues.

In the beginning you will probably not get positive EV out of leagues. So you are actually playing $25 to play 6 or 7 rounds (25 is the challenge on saturday, which I recommend you not to play in the beginning, as it takes a lot more of time because of rounds and you probably won't get positive EV in the beginning) or $12 to play 5 rounds (leagues). So if you drop, you will actually be paying $25 to play 3 games instead of 6.

PS.: Triggers you always have a chance to respond (unless they are split second, obv). The thing about stops, is that in certain stops you can play something proactively. When a trigger goes to stack, you will always have a chance to respond it. The usual stops to maximize your time are:
Opp: upkeep, beginning of combat (unless they are playing that goblin that creates a token at beginning of combat, then you would have to have at main), end step;
Yours: Main, attack, block, main (end step is usually depending on the situation).

My advice is: focus on learning the UI. MTGO doesn't look modern, or anything like that, but for me it's the perfect way: is simulates a MTG match, just like in paper. And though it has some bugs, they are usually minor ones.

It isn't easy to get some value out of it, but it isn't hard also. Using the EV calculator at Goatbots.com, with 52% win rate you already have positive EV out of leagues. The prizes for tournaments are pretty nice, you can play whenever you want, don't have to interact if you don't feel like it, don't have to travel, wait for rounds (unless on challenge - but then you can wait watching some nice stuff on your computer), etc. Every program has it's bugs, and I don't recall MTGO having any major bug ATM (the only one that freaks me out is mindbreak trap not showing what you already have selected, I once lost because I had a bad mouse).

I don't know if you will, but I love playing vintage on MTGO.

PS.: If you don't have decks yet, these are my recommendations to building:
Search for archetypes
Bot chain (the best by far IMO)
Bot chain - not as good but can have a better price
Site with prices for tons of bots - This one has lots of other features too
Rarely, but sometimes it's got the best price

Oh, and another thing I forgot is that when you buy/sell on paper, you have to either do tons of research, wait some time for the card to arrive, and sell only to players to don't lose a lot of value out of it. But when you are buying/selling online and search for a lot of bots, most of the cards' higher buy price (bot buying from you) is pretty close to the lowest selling price. So you usually don't lose a lot of value/time when you buy something, then realize you don't want it and sell it again.

And there are lots and lots of small hints of gameplay in general that you will get with time. Rich Shay streamed some amount of times with it and there's probably some good hints there too.

And there's this article about the deck that can help you a little bit. I had streamed myself but the videos go off after some time and now I have only this one small video of gameplay. There's probably other people streaming with it too (don't watch hoogland's stream, that's not good material to learn).

kaluma47
GutoCmtt
RichShay

Rich streams often but rarely with survival, and kaluma hasn't in a while and I think I won't be streaming in the next couple of weeks. But I'd say take a look at those accounts from time to time.

This deck is pretty good at changing gears. You usually go for the bazaar/survival hands, but depending on who you are facing, black lotus + vengevine turn 1 is enough having disruption in hand to stop what your opponent is doing.

If you got no cards in hand, bazaar on upkeep to mill yourself for 2 is usually worth doing. Also, if you have bazaar and have only 1 bad card for the turn, wait for the other turn to be able to activate bazaar and chose the best out of the 4 cards you will have at your disposal.

You have force of will and mental misstep, but you should use your forces will a lot of caution. By that I mean, try to analyze if the play you are trying to stop will make you lose the game, and what can happen if you let that one resolve. I say that because there are some counter-heavy decks that (almost) always want to counter good spells. But your forces are usually there for great spells.

Leovold is ridiculous. I've had some cases where it literally won the game by itself. Like, you're behind getting hit and then all of a sudden your opponents can't profitably cast spells. It's awesome against blue decks in general.

Think a lot about clock and disruption. All the time you have to calculate what is your clock against your opponent, and how your actions will change it. This is kinda basic with magic in general, but there are really relevant decisions on that matter with this deck than with any other I've played, so watch out for that. Things like, against PO or other blue combo deck you can deploy leovold and win in 2 turns after this or combo off and win in 1.

This deck is aggro-control-combo. Know your opponents and read the gamestate, so that you know how it's best to act against it.

You usually can't race combo decks. It's usually better to search for more disruptive hands than go with no disruption (leovold/lavinia are disruption). BUT you sometimes win on turn 2. If you have a hand like bazaar, hollow, rootwalue and 2 vengevine, you should obviously go for it. Even though vintage is busted, I think most of the times winning on turn 2 with no disruption is enough.

Also, this deck takes some time and effort until it brings you some results. It took me a lot of time to figure it out and start getting positive EV out of MTGO leagues, as I imagine that took other people here too. But the journey is pretty cool as well.

And most of all: don't get discouraged when you get "vintaged". Variance has a pretty big roll in vintage, and even though your skills will determine in the long run if you are successful, and decisions matter A LOT, sometimes your opponent will have turn 1 mentor with tons of stuff, or big outcomes, trinisphere, recall+snap+lotus+fow+waste+.... But it happens. And vintage has the best public I've seen on MTGO in regards of not getting salty against lucky opponents, because we can't blame people for how lucky they or we are.

@inkfathombiomage There are literally about 3 different decklists, what are you referring to? They have very different results depending on the metagame, if that's also a question you would make, I think the best one is the BUGw (This one) (Or this one)

@swiftwarkite2 Trophy can get any problematic permanent, including sometimes a bazaar, leyline, walkers, fatties, etc. The uncounterable clause is more relevant than the extra land IMO, but I think it's still worth it. I can bring in against more decks, also. Claim I bring in mostly against shops, oath and survival, and it's pretty good also to have a very cheap piece of permanent removal in those matchups. I like the 1 claim/1 trophy split. In regards to mox opal, I don't think it's worth it yet. The low blue count is a huge problem in this deck, and I don't think it's better than the 4th shaman.

@swiftwarkite2 I'm trying to figure it out. My first attemp is using 1 copy of it instead of the deep analysis. I'm not done with the league, but it feels almost as hard as leovold to cast, as it costs 2 off-color mana (UW). I only drew it twice so far, and in bad spots.

The first time I was with my back against the wall against UR pyromancer and in the other I was against PO with karakas, and it wasn't the right play in neither cases.

Against PO I felt that leovold was way better, as I casted against karakas to get card draw (and the most insane vengevine, entering because when he bounced leovold after I casted it I got 2 more cards in hand and discarded VV + rootwalla), and also I had my opponent with his artifacts locked, and leovold would have locked cheap card draw spells (which lavinia wouldn't).

All that considered, Lavinia sounds pretty good in vintage, and PO w/o karakas (though it already used to play, and with lavinia I think there will be more karakas on PO). I'm not sure it's better than leovold in this shell, and neither if I'd search for it instead of leovold with survival. Maybe, just maybe, it would be better in the bant configuration. I'm still gonna give some try, but I don't think it's really promising.

PS.: Against UR pyro I played Leovold in another game of the match, and I realized it was awesome there in a spot where Lavinia wouldn't have been relevant. I honestly feel like it's a pretty awesome card to play as 2-4 of in a deck that can play it very quickly. We have 3 of the 4 cards that allow it to be played on turn 1 (U/W mox,lotus,time walk), but I don't feel like we can play more copies of it.

@albarkhane Yeah, it's a harder to cast tombstalker in a better color, with the upside of not needing to exile your GY (which means it can be played in multiples, like bedlam reveler) and that it can be a Scryb Sprites if you got hated out. It's a Bedlam Stalker. Tomb Reveler. Tombstalking Reveler. Something like that.

Just one thing I think was missed here when talking about Lavinia dying to removal. This is a one-sided effect, which means it won't be necessary to play it in a hatebear deck. Which means it will probably be played in some misstep/fow decks. Which means they probably won't be able to counter your counters on their removal. I'm not saying this card will or not break the format, just that removal against her is less efficient due to not being normally able to counter our counters.

This sounds really nice. You may sometimes pay 2-4 to activate the hability, it's not a "you must have 7 instant/sorceries to activate". And having it as a 1/1 beater with evasion for U until you are able to activate it is really nice. It's kind of a tombstalker that doesn't require you to remove your cards from your GY. And that's pretty relevant on this format of delve/yawg will/snap/etc.

Personally I don't like delver in vintage, but as there are decks with delver with some results (can't say if they are good or not, but they are there), there may be a deck where this card can shine. Maybe a deck with both reveler and this one? With RIP/leyline it would at least still be playable as a pinger.

I really liked when I had containment priest MD in other lists. But getting the blue count lower on this version is really relevant. TBH I didn't take a close look at the list and spotted only the stony silences issue. Null rod sometimes is awkward which makes me not even get to play it. But shutting off ballista/overseer/hangarback/ravager is usually good enough to make this worth it.

But maybe it's better to not even bring it in and invest in making the deck better against PO with stony over null rod. It's really backbreaking having all the hollow ones and null rods back to hand with hurkyl, but I'm not sure how many repeals are out there nowadays. I'm getting back from vacations and am planning to play it really soon.

But anyways, I think it's valid to play stony over null rod and not bring in against shops, and also what kaluma said in the previous posts. Misstep is an allstar in the blue versions (even without FoW I was playing it as a 4of)