I am in DIRE NEED of help before December 1st (this saturday) for a local vintage tournament. The top 8 places all receive very nice prizes, but the first place in particular grants free admission to the next year's worth of prereleases and tournaments as well as a hefty store credit. I want that.
Originally, I was thinking of making the sleaziest infect deck possible, but then I started thinking about an idea buzzing around the standard forum that makes a goofy infinite mana-engine with defenders. That combo of course is: Axebane Guardian soulbound with Galvanic Alchemist with at least 3 other defenders on the board. You just pay the 3 to untap, have one left over, and repeat for eternity. Endless lols, but fragile in standard. That's where vintage comes in. Help me by suggesting a few 'essential' wall/defender swaps, I'm not very well versed in ALL of my options. Cheap defenders or synergy would be great. My digging methods may also be needing optimum changes...
I'd pull the red from your mana base. Either you go off with the Guardian and have all the red you need, or you'll crash and burn. Red won't do much without the infinite mana.
shield sphere is a must. I think tinder wall, already pointed out, is a good idea too. I think elvish spirit guide might not be a bad idea, depending on how fast you want to go. However, you may find it is better to play a slower, more control oriented deck, with a combo sort of finish. What will your kill be? a massive Blue Sun's Zenith or something? maybe banefire so it can't be countered, but that would be pretty dead otherwise. BSZ at least could draw you a few cards in a pinch. What's the meta like?
EDIT: my bad. didn't look close enough at the decklist posted. I think blue sun's zenith might be better than devil's play as a win, despite the flashback on devil's play. I don't know what your budget is like or if you can use proxies, but if it's doable you definitely want Black Lotus, Moxen in your colors, etc. maybe mana drain to help possibly power out multiple some early threedrops. Force of will because you play blue.
Staff of Domination will also allow you your infinite mana combo though you will need to be able to tap for 5 instead of 4 to make it infinite. On the plus side it should be a little harder to get rid of and also allows you to draw cards with your infinite mana. Given infinite mana and infinite draw I'm sure you can think of multiple ways to win the game since any combo that can win the game in one turn should be available to you. Blue Sun's Zenith was also mentioned as an alt win condition so I'm going to add Exsanguinate as another it doesn't target which is sometimes useful.
To make your win con more robust you can also add Boseiju, Who Shelters All but you'll probably want to also add Candelabra of Tawnos if you do otherwise you have to wait a turn.
I would actually also go with moxen in every color as the extra acceleration should be useful to your deck.
Wouldn't it be better if you ran Freed from Real instead/alongside Galvnic Alchemist? It need two less walls to combo off.
Pemmin's Aura works as well. A more restricted mana cost, but provides protection. Crab Umbra works too, although it requires the same number of walls as Galvanic Alchemist. On the plus side, it only costs U initially and provides totem armor for protection.
Without the dual lands, you are just better off staying in U/G. If the UUU of the Zenith is hard, there is always Stroke of Genius. If you have your own draw engine, Mind over Matter lets you trade cards for mana.
If you're looking to win this event, I'm not sure you'll get there with this sort of deck. Vintage is defined by decks like this:
Turn 1 - Forbidden Orchard, Mox (x), Oath of Druids ----> turn 2 Emrakul or Griselbrand.
Turn 1 - Mishra's Workshop, mana rock, Lodestone Golem ---> keep dropping lock pieces while swinging = you die without casting spells
Turn 1 - Bazaar of Baghdad ----> turn 2 dredge majority of deck, swing for 36 with zombie army
If you cannot interact with lines of play like this, you won't win. You cannot interact with lines of play like this.
well counterspells like force of will or even daze or spell pierce could go a long way towards interacting with the first two examples (obviously spell pierce won't stop the golem but tangle wire, trinisphere, among other things). Dredge honestly isn't worth trying to interact with pre-sideboard. But Grafdiggers cage, leyline of the void, even tormod's crypt would help against dredge (the cage fights oath, too), or pithing needle naming bazaar of bagdad. all sorts of options. In my opninion, for a combo deck, even Shop decks aren't worth devoting more than one slot maindeck to. fight them from the board.
I think it's a decent idea, and it certainly will be unexpected. you just need to make it reasonably competitive.
Do you have a budget? If so what is it? What kind of cards do you already own? Does this event allow proxies? Tell us more.
Because right now I can suggest a list with Black Lotus, Moxen and other high dollar cards, but I suspect thats not what you are looking for.
Also, as a Mod in this section. If you had posted in one of the two areas that deal with deck lists. This question would be avoid. Once you answer the above questions I can move your thread in to the appropriate area.
Endless lols, but fragile in standard. That's where vintage comes in. Help me by suggesting a few 'essential' wall/defender swaps, I'm not very well versed in ALL of my options.
I own a set of Pemmin's Aura, that's not a bad idea. It could be exactly what I need actually..
I'm not going to have any time to buy any cards I don't already own, but assume the majority of my worthwhile cards are Invasion and up. The event is tomorrow! Although I don't want to halt any valid and key suggestions, maybe I could turn this into a vintage go-to after the tournament.
Mana is not an issue in this deck, so no Sol Ring, I hardly need it with all of the ramp. Axebane Guardian is the star of the deck, read closely to find that he produces any number of any color of mana. I only put mountains in so I could use Devil's Play then flashback for infinity later..
This is such a focused deck, if I were to run any counters, they'd need to be synergistic.
The problem is, in order to make infinite mana with him, you have to resolve at least 5 spells, all of which cost 2 or 3 mana. You have minimal acceleration, so your best case for this is:
Turn 2 wall
turn 3 guardian
turn 4 2 more walls
turn 5 go off.
This also assumes you have drawn one of your 5 kill spells, since you have no draw or tutors.
You have no interaction with your opponent to this point. Shops will have locked you out by then, dredge would have killed you, combo ignores you entirely and would have killed you (this includes Oath), drains would have either tinkered for Blightsteel Colossus or Key-Vaulted you, heck even burn has killed you on turn 4.
The issues with your deck in this format are more fundamental than can be fixed with a few tweaks in card choices. You have no draw engine, no ability to interact on the stack, no ability to stop your opponent from doing that they are doing or protect yourself from countermagic. You are running a 3 card combo that still requires at least 4 other cards to work, and none of the combo pieces do much of anything by themselves. None of your walls are big enough to stop most attacking creatures in Vintage (assuming they don't fly or have other evasion), and many vintage decks kill you without the attack step.
How on earth do you interact with this??
5 Moxen
Sol Ring
Mana Crypt
Mana Vault
Black Lotus
Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
2 Mox Opal
4 Dark Ritual
3 Cabal Ritual
Demonic Tutor
Vampiric Tutor
Imperial Seal
4 Grim Tutor
1 Ad Nauseum
1 Necropotence
2 Tendrils of Agony
4 Pact of Negation
4 Duress
4 Chain of Vapor
This list completely ignores everything you are doing and will kill you on turn 1, 2 or 3. , virtually 99% of the time. It has 8 ways to protect its combo against counterspells, multiple ways to go off, a kill that is outright immune to most of the played counters in this format, discard, countermagic, and bounce spells of its own to fight the (very limited) amount of the opponent's plan that can happen befor it can kill you
... and it's not even good.
Try This:
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Serum Powder
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
2 Dakmor Salvage
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bloodghast
4 Ichorid
4 Dread Return
3 Sun Titan
3 Flame-Kin Zealot
1 Angel of Despair
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below
4 Fatestitcher
3 Gitaxian Probe
This list will kill you on turn 2 about 80% of the time through any number of walls. You could have every wall in your deck on the field and it will still attack you for enough to kill you. This is a very bad dredge list.
Artifacts [24]
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Trinisphere
3 Sphere of Resistance
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Tangle Wire
4 Thorn of Amethyst
Lands [19]
1 City of Traitors
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Wasteland
Sideboard [15]
4 Tormod's Crypt
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Duplicant
1 Wurmcoil Engine
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
There was a recent article on SCG in which a fully powered control deck, with counterspells, moxen, etc...went 0-7 against this deck because it could not resolve a single spell, despite a curve roughly 18 billion times lower than yours, due to all the lock elements of this deck.
Sorry man, you're just not playing tournament vintage with this deck.
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"A little nonsense now and then is cherished by the wisest men."
- Willy Wonka
The Quote function doesn't work for me on this forum. Sorry for any confusion created.
I appreciate your long reply, it's pretty helpful to put things in perspective, but nothing will get done if i spend my all days worrying about 'what I could go up against in the future'. So aside from pointing out that 'this deck can be beaten by other decks in this format', you are offering nothing in the way of helpful advice.
I suppose I should mention that this is only a local tournament at a store with a maximum capacity of 30, and the probability of around 18 to 25 players signing up.
The best advice I have taken into heavy consideration is Steel Wall and Pemmin's Aura, I'm worried about Pemmin's Aura not having flash back though..
Umbral Mantle is yet another piece that could run your combo.
I think you need to drop more of your expensive defenders for cheaper and/or utility defenders. Tree seems to have a needless effect for 4, you'd be better off with Blossoms, Tinder Wall, or even Carven Caryatid.
I still don't see why you're weakening the mana base with all that red.
Secretly, when I posted this thread, I had Desperate Ravings instead of Forbidden Alchemy, hence the extra read. Last night at the kitchen table, I used Devil's Play a couple of times for removal, so those two factors lead me to put in a few mountains. All in all, I'd probably remove the cards in that slot for better draws/delves anyway, so when the product is finished; I'll take out those extra mountains for some dual lands or something..
actually, red blast might be a convincing enough argument to keep red in the deck. But I'm not totally convinced. But if you had ingot chewers, or better yet ancient grudge in the sideboard, then you have a pretty good argument.
WUGPhelddagrif GGGOmnath, Locus of Mana BBBXiahou Dun, the One-Eyed RRRAshling, the Pilgrim BBWTeysa, Scion of Orzhov UUUTalrand, Sky Summoner UUBVela the Night-Clad GGBVhati il-Dal RUWRuhan of the Fomori
I am in DIRE NEED of help before December 1st (this saturday) for a local vintage tournament. The top 8 places all receive very nice prizes, but the first place in particular grants free admission to the next year's worth of prereleases and tournaments as well as a hefty store credit. I want that.
Originally, I was thinking of making the sleaziest infect deck possible, but then I started thinking about an idea buzzing around the standard forum that makes a goofy infinite mana-engine with defenders. That combo of course is: Axebane Guardian soulbound with Galvanic Alchemist with at least 3 other defenders on the board. You just pay the 3 to untap, have one left over, and repeat for eternity. Endless lols, but fragile in standard. That's where vintage comes in. Help me by suggesting a few 'essential' wall/defender swaps, I'm not very well versed in ALL of my options. Cheap defenders or synergy would be great. My digging methods may also be needing optimum changes...
It's a really fun tactic. The primer for it is here: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=450393
Here is my current deck, it's not set in stone, but needs to remain at least g/u for the combo.
4 Galvanic Alchemist
4 Gatecreeper Vine
2 Haunted Guardian
3 Tracker's Instincts
2 Forbidden Alchemy
3 Sheltering Word
3 Ludevic's Test Subject
3 Tree of Redemption
4 Fog Bank
2 Manor Gargoyle
4 Devil's Play
7 Forest
4 Island
3 Mountain
1 Rootbound Crag
1 Desolate Lighthouse
3 Hinterland Harbor
2 Steamvents
A word of advice, this is a fragile combo, any sorceries or instants need to have flashback or a way to get out of being discarded by an excavation.
Shield Sphere - 0
Shifting Wall - 1
Steel Wall - 1
Tinder Wall - defender or a ritual effect
Overgrown Battlement - synergistic mana dork
Wall of Blossoms - cantrip
I'd pull the red from your mana base. Either you go off with the Guardian and have all the red you need, or you'll crash and burn. Red won't do much without the infinite mana.
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EDIT: my bad. didn't look close enough at the decklist posted. I think blue sun's zenith might be better than devil's play as a win, despite the flashback on devil's play. I don't know what your budget is like or if you can use proxies, but if it's doable you definitely want Black Lotus, Moxen in your colors, etc. maybe mana drain to help possibly power out multiple some early threedrops. Force of will because you play blue.
I would also recommend worldly tutor.
Blue Sun's Zenith was also mentioned as an alt win condition so I'm going to add Exsanguinate as another it doesn't target which is sometimes useful.
To make your win con more robust you can also add Boseiju, Who Shelters All but you'll probably want to also add Candelabra of Tawnos if you do otherwise you have to wait a turn.
I would actually also go with moxen in every color as the extra acceleration should be useful to your deck.
Pemmin's Aura works as well. A more restricted mana cost, but provides protection. Crab Umbra works too, although it requires the same number of walls as Galvanic Alchemist. On the plus side, it only costs U initially and provides totem armor for protection.
no Sol Ring?
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Turn 1 - Forbidden Orchard, Mox (x), Oath of Druids ----> turn 2 Emrakul or Griselbrand.
Turn 1 - Mishra's Workshop, mana rock, Lodestone Golem ---> keep dropping lock pieces while swinging = you die without casting spells
Turn 1 - Bazaar of Baghdad ----> turn 2 dredge majority of deck, swing for 36 with zombie army
If you cannot interact with lines of play like this, you won't win. You cannot interact with lines of play like this.
- Willy Wonka
The Quote function doesn't work for me on this forum. Sorry for any confusion created.
well counterspells like force of will or even daze or spell pierce could go a long way towards interacting with the first two examples (obviously spell pierce won't stop the golem but tangle wire, trinisphere, among other things). Dredge honestly isn't worth trying to interact with pre-sideboard. But Grafdiggers cage, leyline of the void, even tormod's crypt would help against dredge (the cage fights oath, too), or pithing needle naming bazaar of bagdad. all sorts of options. In my opninion, for a combo deck, even Shop decks aren't worth devoting more than one slot maindeck to. fight them from the board.
I think it's a decent idea, and it certainly will be unexpected. you just need to make it reasonably competitive.
Because right now I can suggest a list with Black Lotus, Moxen and other high dollar cards, but I suspect thats not what you are looking for.
Also, as a Mod in this section. If you had posted in one of the two areas that deal with deck lists. This question would be avoid. Once you answer the above questions I can move your thread in to the appropriate area.
BUWGRChilds PlayGRWUB
BUWGR Highlander GRWUB
UBSquee's Shapeshifting PetBU
BW Multiplayer Control WB
RG Changeling GR
UR Mana FlareRU
UMerfolkU
B MBMC B
I own a set of Pemmin's Aura, that's not a bad idea. It could be exactly what I need actually..
I'm not going to have any time to buy any cards I don't already own, but assume the majority of my worthwhile cards are Invasion and up. The event is tomorrow! Although I don't want to halt any valid and key suggestions, maybe I could turn this into a vintage go-to after the tournament.
Mana is not an issue in this deck, so no Sol Ring, I hardly need it with all of the ramp. Axebane Guardian is the star of the deck, read closely to find that he produces any number of any color of mana. I only put mountains in so I could use Devil's Play then flashback for infinity later..
This is such a focused deck, if I were to run any counters, they'd need to be synergistic.
Turn 2 wall
turn 3 guardian
turn 4 2 more walls
turn 5 go off.
This also assumes you have drawn one of your 5 kill spells, since you have no draw or tutors.
You have no interaction with your opponent to this point. Shops will have locked you out by then, dredge would have killed you, combo ignores you entirely and would have killed you (this includes Oath), drains would have either tinkered for Blightsteel Colossus or Key-Vaulted you, heck even burn has killed you on turn 4.
The issues with your deck in this format are more fundamental than can be fixed with a few tweaks in card choices. You have no draw engine, no ability to interact on the stack, no ability to stop your opponent from doing that they are doing or protect yourself from countermagic. You are running a 3 card combo that still requires at least 4 other cards to work, and none of the combo pieces do much of anything by themselves. None of your walls are big enough to stop most attacking creatures in Vintage (assuming they don't fly or have other evasion), and many vintage decks kill you without the attack step.
How on earth do you interact with this??
5 Moxen
Sol Ring
Mana Crypt
Mana Vault
Black Lotus
Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
2 Mox Opal
4 Dark Ritual
3 Cabal Ritual
Demonic Tutor
Vampiric Tutor
Imperial Seal
4 Grim Tutor
1 Ad Nauseum
1 Necropotence
2 Tendrils of Agony
4 Pact of Negation
4 Duress
4 Chain of Vapor
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Island
1 Swamp
??????
This list completely ignores everything you are doing and will kill you on turn 1, 2 or 3. , virtually 99% of the time. It has 8 ways to protect its combo against counterspells, multiple ways to go off, a kill that is outright immune to most of the played counters in this format, discard, countermagic, and bounce spells of its own to fight the (very limited) amount of the opponent's plan that can happen befor it can kill you
... and it's not even good.
Try This:
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Serum Powder
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
2 Dakmor Salvage
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bloodghast
4 Ichorid
4 Dread Return
3 Sun Titan
3 Flame-Kin Zealot
1 Angel of Despair
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below
4 Fatestitcher
3 Gitaxian Probe
This list will kill you on turn 2 about 80% of the time through any number of walls. You could have every wall in your deck on the field and it will still attack you for enough to kill you. This is a very bad dredge list.
Try this:
MArtello Shops
Creatures [17]
1 Duplicant
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Sundering Titan
3 Phyrexian Metamorph
3 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Kuldotha Forgemaster
4 Lodestone Golem
Artifacts [24]
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Trinisphere
3 Sphere of Resistance
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Tangle Wire
4 Thorn of Amethyst
Lands [19]
1 City of Traitors
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Wasteland
Sideboard [15]
4 Tormod's Crypt
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Duplicant
1 Wurmcoil Engine
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
There was a recent article on SCG in which a fully powered control deck, with counterspells, moxen, etc...went 0-7 against this deck because it could not resolve a single spell, despite a curve roughly 18 billion times lower than yours, due to all the lock elements of this deck.
Sorry man, you're just not playing tournament vintage with this deck.
- Willy Wonka
The Quote function doesn't work for me on this forum. Sorry for any confusion created.
I appreciate your long reply, it's pretty helpful to put things in perspective, but nothing will get done if i spend my all days worrying about 'what I could go up against in the future'. So aside from pointing out that 'this deck can be beaten by other decks in this format', you are offering nothing in the way of helpful advice.
I suppose I should mention that this is only a local tournament at a store with a maximum capacity of 30, and the probability of around 18 to 25 players signing up.
The best advice I have taken into heavy consideration is Steel Wall and Pemmin's Aura, I'm worried about Pemmin's Aura not having flash back though..
-2 Manor Gargoyle
-2 Haunted Guardian
+4 Steel Wall
I think you need to drop more of your expensive defenders for cheaper and/or utility defenders. Tree seems to have a needless effect for 4, you'd be better off with Blossoms, Tinder Wall, or even Carven Caryatid.
I still don't see why you're weakening the mana base with all that red.
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Something like Concordant Crossroads or Anger might be good.
What about Worldly Tutor?
Cavern of Souls naming Human for your combo pieces.
Your sideboard should be a bunch of stuff that kills artifacts and/or enchantments. Plus some Red Elemental Blast/Pyroblast.
BUWGRChilds PlayGRWUB
BUWGR Highlander GRWUB
UBSquee's Shapeshifting PetBU
BW Multiplayer Control WB
RG Changeling GR
UR Mana FlareRU
UMerfolkU
B MBMC B
actually, red blast might be a convincing enough argument to keep red in the deck. But I'm not totally convinced. But if you had ingot chewers, or better yet ancient grudge in the sideboard, then you have a pretty good argument.
B Infect
BW Death & Taxes
UBR Affinity
R Burn
UBR Sac Land Tendrils
UBRG Oops, All Spells
WUG Phelddagrif
GGG Omnath, Locus of Mana
BBB Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed
RRR Ashling, the Pilgrim
BBW Teysa, Scion of Orzhov
UUU Talrand, Sky Summoner
UUB Vela the Night-Clad
GGB Vhati il-Dal
RUW Ruhan of the Fomori
BUWGRChilds PlayGRWUB
BUWGR Highlander GRWUB
UBSquee's Shapeshifting PetBU
BW Multiplayer Control WB
RG Changeling GR
UR Mana FlareRU
UMerfolkU
B MBMC B
It was at 11:30 and I heard 7:00, so I failed miserably on that aspect.
I ended up swapping Depserate Ravings for Forbidden Alchemy, basic lands for more dual lads, I took out Manor Gargoyle and Haunted Guardian for 4 Overgrown Battlement, I added Sphinx's Revalation in place of 2 Tree of Redemption and dropped something I can't remember right now for 2 Pemmin's Auras, I only own two; but it's just enough if not better than Galvanic Alchemist. I went up against my turn 3 infect friend and won about 50% of the time surprisingly. Games rarely lasted past turn 5, so I was impressed by both of our ideas.
But yes, I missed the whole damn thing.