With Vintage getting into MODO I'm actually thinking of getting into it. I want to play a deck that revolves around Stony Silence. I also want to power it out turn one with some Lotus Petals. I'd probably add some Phyrexian Revokers and Pithing Needle. Thalia should also probably make the deck as well as Leonin Arbiter.
The problem is I know nothing about Vintage and I'm wondering if such a deck can ever really be competitive.
Plains - John Avon - 230
Island - Jung Park - 235
Island - Vincent Proce - 237
Swamp - John Avon - 238
Mountain - John Avon - 242
Forest - John Avon - 246
This deck archetype is often referred to as Hate Bears, it can come in many sizes and shapes. WorstBandNameEver gives you a reasonable mono-white build. Many of these archetypes are "Fish" based incorporating little guys and counterspells, other versions include Red for things like Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon, and there are other versions you can find that are might use this called "Parfait".
Almost all of them seek to disrupt an opponent's Artifact Mana base and/or their Land base and then attack with cheap little guys.
Be aware that this strategy can work against multi-colored, powered decks, these decks can still beat you but it can hurt them sometimes, your winning percentage will be fair.
The problem this deck style has, is when entering the vintage scene, often times people don't have power yet and will play creature decks such as yours. Any given field will contain a number of decks that your deck is going to fair very poorly against. This is the case for many decks, but your deck will be especially full of dead cards in some matchups.
Again if your meta is compromised of all Moxen and Shops then you will do well, but if anyone is playing Zoo or Oath you are going to have problems beating those opponents. Admittedly that's why you have sideboards.
The guy who runs this deck type has been making top 16s in this even series for a long time now, and he's always been unpowered. Similar lists have gone 3-1 or 4-0 rather consistently in MTGO dailies.
I was more hoping of playing this on Modo where the META seems to be all power all day.
Can a turn two ston silence still make an impact?
Yes and no. Power is rather strong, and Vintage is the only format with power in it, so people are going to play the interesting thing over the more fair thing, but if you look at it decks have cut power to a minimum for the most part. Merfolk, the current world champion ran 4 pieces of power total, and a similar list int Worlds made 20th running 0 pieces of power.
As for Stony Silence beyond turn 1, I get that you were told that Vintage is a turn one kill format, but it's not. Most games end several turns down the road and in certain match ups a Stony Silence can just destroy people, the reason it's not as good over all, isn't because it doesn't stop decks who depend on moxen, because against them it's awesome since it's a Stone Rain that blanks potential draws, but rather it's that decks are running less and less Moxen these days. Stony Silence does kind of nothing against decks like Merfolk who run all of 2 artifacts that do anything (three or four if they run Swords/Jitte) and not much more against Delver which runs on colour Moxen and Lotus but little else, meaning that you're not hurting them much since they can still play their Delver off of 1 land.
Stony Silence isn't a good card if you run artifacts with activated abilities, it's to symmetrical at that point, and running Lotus Petals to play it sooner is worse for you in countless match ups, because it just punishes you against Merfolk, Delver, and Dredge (along with other match ups) without hurting them. If all you care about is hurting a Moxen run Phyrexian Revoker or Abolish since you'll be giving up just as much but gain more application in exchange for mising a game off of storm once in a while.
So we get the enemy colored painlands and not the allied color ones? Well that's reverse of the norm, but I thought Wizards was planning to do full 10 land cycles from now on.
Enemy pains could indicate allied Fetches in the next set, to offset the colour imbalance. It would also make sense since it would allow Modern to have access to all 10 Fetches as opposed to only 5.
Or you could read the article, and now that's not true.
Really good, but potentially a little worse than Rest in Peace in some cases but better than it in other cases.
The obvious application is against Dredge, it's a very strong deck in Vintage that can be a power house thanks to Bazaar of Baghdad. However, this isn't the only application, because not only does it stop Snapcaster Mage but it stops power house cards like Tinker, Yawgmoth's Will, and even Kuldotha Forgemaster. Of course they can still Tinker or Forge for a Time Vault or other tricks, but it sure slows them down.
Edit: It also stops the Oath of Druids creature from entering play, though it still lets them tutor for it so if they have a Show and Tell, enough mana, or just go for the Laboratory Maniac they can still use Oath as a pseudo tutor.
So we get the enemy colored painlands and not the allied color ones? Well that's reverse of the norm, but I thought Wizards was planning to do full 10 land cycles from now on.
Enemy pains could indicate allied Fetches in the next set, to offset the colour imbalance. It would also make sense since it would allow Modern to have access to all 10 Fetches as opposed to only 5.
Or you could read the article, and now that's not true.
So we get the enemy colored painlands and not the allied color ones? Well that's reverse of the norm, but I thought Wizards was planning to do full 10 land cycles from now on.
Enemy pains could indicate allied Fetches in the next set, to offset the colour imbalance. It would also make sense since it would allow Modern to have access to all 10 Fetches as opposed to only 5.
Or you could read the article, and now that's not true.
I want to comment on the question and reply on Trinket Mage. The problem with Grafdigger's Cage is that in some matchups it's less then stellar, which is true for so many cards that are terrific in Vintage, essentially there are many cards that absolutely shine in individual matchups -Cage and Stony Silence being classic examples. Demagogery talks about a toolbox where you can run "silver bullets" to help in specific matchups.
But the problem with all of this is that when you draw these cards in matchups where these cards are dead, you are suffering virtual card disadvantage. There are some ways to mitigate this, for example Brainstorm can return your dead card and then a fetchland can shuffle it away, but nonetheless you are playing suboptimal cards for the matchup you are in. At least the "toolbox" approach limits you to generally singletons of individual cards and thus limits the amount of dead cards you draw.
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The problem is I know nothing about Vintage and I'm wondering if such a deck can ever really be competitive.
Spells (14)
3 Grafdigger’s Cage
4 Mental Misstep
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Stony Silence
Creatures (25)
2 Aven Mindcensor
3 Grand Abolisher
3 Porcelain Legionnaire
3 Jotun Grunt
3 Kataki, War’s Wage
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Leonin Relic-Warder
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Lands (22)
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Karakas
10 Plains
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
Sideboard (15)
1 Balance
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
3 Pithing Needle
4 Serenity
2 Surgical Extraction
4 True Believer
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=4832736
Trading 10 full art zen basics for 8 of yours!
I want
Plains - John Avon - 230
Island - Jung Park - 235
Island - Vincent Proce - 237
Swamp - John Avon - 238
Mountain - John Avon - 242
Forest - John Avon - 246
Almost all of them seek to disrupt an opponent's Artifact Mana base and/or their Land base and then attack with cheap little guys.
Be aware that this strategy can work against multi-colored, powered decks, these decks can still beat you but it can hurt them sometimes, your winning percentage will be fair.
The problem this deck style has, is when entering the vintage scene, often times people don't have power yet and will play creature decks such as yours. Any given field will contain a number of decks that your deck is going to fair very poorly against. This is the case for many decks, but your deck will be especially full of dead cards in some matchups.
Again if your meta is compromised of all Moxen and Shops then you will do well, but if anyone is playing Zoo or Oath you are going to have problems beating those opponents. Admittedly that's why you have sideboards.
Ok, enough advice, go have fun.
Can a turn two ston silence still make an impact?
Maindeck:
4 Cavern of Souls
14 Plains
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
3 Aven Mindcensor
3 Dryad Militant
1 Grand Abolisher
1 Jötun Grunt
3 Judge's Familiar
1 Kataki, War's Wage
4 Leonin Relic-Warder
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Abolish
1 Batterskull
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Mental Misstep
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Grand Abolisher
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Abolish
3 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Tormod's Crypt
The guy who runs this deck type has been making top 16s in this even series for a long time now, and he's always been unpowered. Similar lists have gone 3-1 or 4-0 rather consistently in MTGO dailies.
Yes and no. Power is rather strong, and Vintage is the only format with power in it, so people are going to play the interesting thing over the more fair thing, but if you look at it decks have cut power to a minimum for the most part. Merfolk, the current world champion ran 4 pieces of power total, and a similar list int Worlds made 20th running 0 pieces of power.
As for Stony Silence beyond turn 1, I get that you were told that Vintage is a turn one kill format, but it's not. Most games end several turns down the road and in certain match ups a Stony Silence can just destroy people, the reason it's not as good over all, isn't because it doesn't stop decks who depend on moxen, because against them it's awesome since it's a Stone Rain that blanks potential draws, but rather it's that decks are running less and less Moxen these days. Stony Silence does kind of nothing against decks like Merfolk who run all of 2 artifacts that do anything (three or four if they run Swords/Jitte) and not much more against Delver which runs on colour Moxen and Lotus but little else, meaning that you're not hurting them much since they can still play their Delver off of 1 land.
Stony Silence isn't a good card if you run artifacts with activated abilities, it's to symmetrical at that point, and running Lotus Petals to play it sooner is worse for you in countless match ups, because it just punishes you against Merfolk, Delver, and Dredge (along with other match ups) without hurting them. If all you care about is hurting a Moxen run Phyrexian Revoker or Abolish since you'll be giving up just as much but gain more application in exchange for mising a game off of storm once in a while.
Oh... Ok... Clearly.
Can I ask how good is grafdigger's cage?
Really good, but potentially a little worse than Rest in Peace in some cases but better than it in other cases.
The obvious application is against Dredge, it's a very strong deck in Vintage that can be a power house thanks to Bazaar of Baghdad. However, this isn't the only application, because not only does it stop Snapcaster Mage but it stops power house cards like Tinker, Yawgmoth's Will, and even Kuldotha Forgemaster. Of course they can still Tinker or Forge for a Time Vault or other tricks, but it sure slows them down.
Edit: It also stops the Oath of Druids creature from entering play, though it still lets them tutor for it so if they have a Show and Tell, enough mana, or just go for the Laboratory Maniac they can still use Oath as a pseudo tutor.
Oh... Ok... Clearly.
Oh... Ok... Clearly.
But the problem with all of this is that when you draw these cards in matchups where these cards are dead, you are suffering virtual card disadvantage. There are some ways to mitigate this, for example Brainstorm can return your dead card and then a fetchland can shuffle it away, but nonetheless you are playing suboptimal cards for the matchup you are in. At least the "toolbox" approach limits you to generally singletons of individual cards and thus limits the amount of dead cards you draw.