@drstreetmention I wish you very good luck in that attempt. As I said some time ago, I've faced clone9 with a blue-oriented list with dack and some other stuff, and it was amazing in the mirror. I tried something similar but I guess I didn't think much in the deck designing process and got completely crushed (I didn't even think it was worth mentioning here). But that would be great if it worked.

I've tried my old lists, and got nice results from someone who didn't play it for more than a month (3-2 and 4-1), being 3-1 against PO and losing to UW control and UR Pyromancer too. I guess that list is worse against blue decks (except for PO which is favorable when they don't kill you T1). I picked up a set of nobles and will try the post-japan-champs list.

I wonder how hitogoroshi80's list played out with the 2 gaea's cradle. Hitogoroshi, if you are here and could explain how it went, it'd be nice

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1292793#online

Being able to activate survival several times in the same turn with 1 land sounds AWESOME, as much as being the one land in a hand with like 1 mox, survival and other good cards sounds AWFUL.

I remember that at the beginning of this deck's drafting it was tried and left behind, but I wonder if something has changed or if this should have been tested a bit more.

And now I wonder, if it'd be cool as not a replacement for one of the 18 lands, but as an extra card (like, take out a copy of squee to squeeZE it in). I can imagine taking out a green producing land to squee it in and feeling pretty bad in those 1 lander scenarios, so maybe that's a way to go.

It could really help the deck under thalia and for survival explosiveness, sometimes the deck needs more than the normal green amount of mana for survival activation.

Looks like green is pretty expensable and the decklist leaned towards the red hatebears deck, which is kind of a natural course for this kind of deck IMO. I'd recommend to cut green entirely and play blood moon. It's really an insane card in vintage. It stops bazaar, blue decks usually play only 1 basic land (which won't do much on it's own without moxen), against shops it can slow down and hit the factories. It was always awful for me when people played blood moon against me in vintage, when playing BUG, URw and also with survival.

Chalice sounds great here, playing it for 0 on the play to prevent mana acceleration or for 1 against blue decks on the draw. And cavern of souls to prevent FoW on the hatebears sounds pretty legit too.

Also, I'd play at least black lotus for potential of an explosive turn 1. It can be awkward to draw it later in the game with null rod, which is the reason I wouldn't recommend moxen in general, but a turn 1 moon, or scab-clan, or eidolon + null rod, sounds pretty bad for vintage decks to deal with.

@spook Time walk is a funny card in this deck. It can be the best or the worst card in some situations. I for instance don't play it, so I'll tell you as one of those weird people that don't play this power card. Everything I'll say is from my experience (I didn't get any insights from other people to decide it) and as there are other few people that also don't run it, may be the right reasons.

The problem about timewalk is the beginning of the game with bazaar. It's a 2 mana card that doesn't do anything if not in the right conditions (with pressure or more mana/things to do in hand). Also, it doesn't do anything in the GY. And it's a 2 mana non-creature card.

When you are bazaaring, you are essentially losing card advantage. You lose at least a turn of land drop and some card advantage, which should be compensated with explosiveness. And sometimes, it's not. Sometimes it depends on leaving some creature in hand to trigger vengevine, and when you are on turn 2 or 3 with 2 mana available and still no vengevine triggered, you have to leave it to hardcast some creatures. And when you do that you will usually have 1, 2 or no card left in hand. In order to do that, you would need to discard time walk, which would have done nothing at all in the game.

In my experience, when you play non-creature 2 drops you expect it to have an immediate impact, most likely a very strong impact (such as stony silence, thorn, and obviously survival). When you are playing a deck with thalia, thorn, bazaar, 14 mana-producing lands (which in this spot start being played from turn 2), moxen and spirit guide, you should really only play non-creature expensive spells when it has a strong impact in the game. Obviously you play survival which fits in a "expensive non-creature spell", but that's a part of the game plan, the 5-8 slots for enabler in the deck. And even survival itself, when you start the game with bazaar, it's usually not really good, when you get to play it as you need some amount of green mana for it to be good and starting the game with bazaar usually leave you in a green-mana-shortage for the rest of the game.

Obviously, I may be wrong. But when I played time walk it was always bad (I played it for 2 or 3 leagues only, so I don't mean to say it's always bad). And when I stopped playing time walk, I sometimes missed it, but mostly for not drawing it in the late game when I had already some board presence. I never missed it on the early game, which IMO is the most sensitive part of the game, where you really define if you will or not win the game.

I played yesterday 3 times against Clone9 And I gotta say: what a horrible experience!

He was playing a really weirdly funcional mix of UGRB blue deck with dack, recalls, abrupt,snap, Shaman, force And... The survival pack!

I was horrified about How bad the matchup was for me, And I wonder How was the list he played. I don't know How It was against the rest of the meta, but against the usual lists It was way too strong. I made 2-6 against It, And I have a pretty good Record when playing the mirror.

Revoker And teeg both sound nice to me, at least something worth trying.

About no squee I disagree. I've been actually trying back the Second copy. It's great with Bazaar And can give you several extra creatures against cage and containment priests. That have been pretty relevant to me lately. Also, sometimes you have only 1 creature and not too much mana. With squee you can be more grindy and not too much ALL in.

Been on the bad side of DRS variance. It's been usually good, but when it's bad, it's game-losing bad. Got some cases today, things like drawing no blue mana And had 1 life (no fetch) and didn't draw any blue source in 30 cards with drs on the Battlefield And energy field in hand, or facing blood moon, not being able to rely on It, or even having the 1-of bayou And no source of some specific secondary color mana. I'd make a 2-2 split of It And birds/hierarch, but it'd require the bayou, And I think ALL things considered It may not be worth It.

@ritter I haven't tried riftstone portal, but it seems as good with bazaar as it seem bad without it. It's like an extra land drop when you have an early bazaar into survival. But many times you get to keep a 1 land hand with off-color mox and some mana dork, and with riftstone you just wouldn't be able to do so.

The list I'm running atm is:

For me the URw matchups (mentor/YP) are still pretty good. Actually they got a LOT better for me with DRS and dryad militant. I expected to have a little bit of problem with DRS mana-generating, but I've so far not noticed that problem. What I've noticed is that it's inclusion have improved my win rate. Do you guys have ideas for a black splash that would make this deck better? I've been wondering, as I've included a bayou to get the DRS activation mana, if there's something that would be worth splashing the color. I've played against GBxx versions of this deck, but at least in the mirror they were horribly bad, and brought nothing worth splashing for. But maybe there's something there that would make the splash worth it.

I totally agree with wfain in regards to the 3cmc spells, they are just never worth playing. If you play a silver bullet that's 3cmc hoping to get it with survival, well, if you have 4 mana to spend on survival you probably have better things to do. Which may include paying 2 mana on extra survival targets + ingot chewer, or paying 1 mana on other targets and getting thalia into play. Or just paying 4 mana to get 3 vengevine, 1 rootwalla and 1 hollow one into play, which is at the very least ok.

One thing I really was surprised was how good pyroblast has been. I didn't even consider it something in the first time I was getting this deck together, as there's no misstep to fight the "misstep wars". But it seems like usually people don't expect it and sometimes they can't even play around it (too much pressure) and waste their missteps in other 1 drops. And if they force the pyroblast, you kinda countered a force with a 1 mana spell, which is great. That being said, countering a walker, recall, outcome or force with pyroblast in an essentially naya deck is AWESOME!

I've been noticing how good thalia is against the blue decks. That's pretty obvious of course, but what I mean is that I will be trying the 4th copy of it, probably on the sideboard. The "non-combo-dependant" disruption + aggression (on vintage a 2/1 first striker is kind of a bully) have been ridiculous.

TL;DR:

Thalia's been great, DRS, pyroblast and no 3cmc spells have become kinda no-brainer to me.

I'm trying the DRS (I actually went 100% on DRS) and I'm finding it to be better than birds. I didn't get to try hierarch, but I don't think I've ever missed his trigger. For the first turns of the game it's very good at generating mana (having lands in the GY) and the collateral effect of his other activations is pretty relevant. I'm really liking it.