Well, after some more testing, I think Trinket Mage may be a waste in the deck. Chalice can only really be played for 0 (since our combo pieces are at 1 and 2), Explosives can be useful at 0 and 1, but it's by no means a star, leaving Needle and Seat as the ultra unexciting search targets. After some testing, though - I have found that using Fabricate is very nice in this deck. It opens up a lot more possibilities for search and can be used to find artifact lands/mana, combo pieces, or a number of silver bullets...
As for everything else that has been said... Let me preface this by saying I analyze data for a living, so I very much have a 'show me the data' attitude when it comes to commentary...
@Complete Jank - Point 1 - How can you criticize a card for being vulnerable to Wasteland and then suggest splashing another color which automatically makes you vulnerable to Wasteland? Seat is probably not the best Mage target, but if you have the game under control, this deck can always use a mana boost. If you keep a hand with fetch, Seat and have problems, that's a play-skill issue really in my opinion. [And calculate out the number of times you get an opener like that - it's not very often with 1/18 lands being the artifact]. I'm currently working on a list that eliminates the problem too, but not by splashing a color. Point 2 - Your argument about disruption is valid for most combo, the problem here is that if I were to splash black, I wouldn't play this combo. Blue/Black has way better things to do than to sit and cast Top a hundred times before destroying a library (It really is pretty easy to disrupt if you know how). And please note, most combo plays black for Rituals first and Duress second - just take a peak at the number of combo decks with Duress in the board and Ritual in the main. Point 3 - The same thing is true for splashing white (except the part about Rituals) - Your deck becomes better if you remove the combo and add in some green creatures and call it UWg Threshold or something similar. Point 4 - A good player might play around Daze. Often good players are trying to play cards, though, and they need to cast a Brainstorm to find land. Often good players are trying to cast a Dark Confidant early to get ahead. Often good players walk right into Daze. The list of cards that can be 'played around' is long, but not even close to making them 'bad' or unplayable. And Spell Snare is great vs certain decks, but with Flash gone it is again (sadly maybe) not main deck worthy. [Not to mention that it can't target many of this deck's biggest problems]. Point 5 - Please test the deck before making comment. I can appreciate that you have played a 'similar deck' in a 'competitive environment' but that means different things to different people. I've seen people play this on Magic Online, it's similar and sometimes competitive - but that decklist is neither in Legacy because of a vastly different card pool. I'm not arguing that this is the best deck list, just that your comments need to be about this deck list. 'Black is good in combo' doesn't help. 'Pithing Needle destroys you' doesn't help. Point 6 - Daze is good in a deck where you want to play out permanents on early turns and maintain counter back-up.
@Isamaru - I'm confused... This deck plays neither Moat or Wrath of God. Interesting comment... I guess...
Sorry for the length of comment... Back to the deck...
I've currently pulled the Trinket Mage, Chalice, EE for Fabricate, Powder Keg, Chrome Mox and am now evaluating using Thirst for Knowledge.
@Xanth - I wouldn't use the snow-lands. There still wouldn't be enough snow-permanents to make good use of Scrying Sheets and the deck would get very mana intensive very quickly needing to use top to set up each activation. Mouth of Ronom is far too slow for legacy.
@Top Deck - Flash is definitely the card in need of banning. Protean Hulk isn't broken unless you can 'cheat' it into play. A 2-mana blue instant makes that way too easy (and consistent with the support available). Please take a look at the history of Flash and why it was errata'd in the first place (Academy Rector into Yawgmoth's Bargain). Banning Goblin Warchief wouldn't do you any good either, but I'm guessing that's just a troll. Before Flash came along, I would've argued against Ringleader since it offers Goblins the 'broken' mechanic. But I've come to believe that Goblins really just sets the 'baseline' for the format. Also, please don't try to turn this thread into a ban/no ban thread (My guess is there are enough of those).
@Miscalcul8edRisk - I love the idea of the Seat of Synod. If I were to use Academy Ruins, though, I might be inclined to test a list running more artifacts and Thirst for Knowledge. You might even be able to throw in a Sundering Titan as an alternative win from the board.
@razefire - What are the advantages of running your list over the current list? What match-ups do you improve? I don't question whether you win games or not, but I tested your list a couple times and just found it brutally slow. It plays a little better against some aggro (but a little-lot worse vs combo and control), but I still couldn't see the justification for white since Propaganda slows aggro to the point that they really can't do enough fast enough in the games it factors into. I found that Enlightened Tutor was slow and required a lot of mana, especially if I was going for a combo piece that wasn't the second Divining Top. Humility was either great or does absolutely nothing. Counterspell was easily worse than Daze since the 'free' spells are much more useful in the early game as you set up the board. Cunning Wish was almost never a card I wanted to see in hand because I either needed a different combo piece or wanted draw and Wishing for draw is just plain bad (I can't really name many draw spells that I'm willing to pay an extra 3 for) in this format. I also found that casting the first Wish for utility really didn't help me either since I was forced to sit and draw into another one so I could Wish up the win condition. I would think that if you were to splash white, you would be better off going almost towards an Isochron Scepter / Orim's Chant type deck and use an approach more like the Extended-legal decks.
Well to address the argument of this vs. Solidarity, I feel that this deck will have better match-ups vs. Other decks due to the heavy counter-magic while maintaining the "same" win condition. And this deck should win when playing vs. Solidarity for exactly that reason.
I think you will want to test this more before making general claims. It is definitely not intuitive how this improves match-ups vs aggro-control - please explain. I'm not saying Solidarity is automatically better, but again, this clock is very slow and will allow a (competent) player enough time to draw into the hand that they need (unless you draw perfect every time). In the games I played with this last night, I was not consistently happy that I was playing this over Solidarity or Spring Tide.
I have always thought this is a 'neat' idea for a deck, but it ultimately boils down to being a 4 card combo deck - 2x Sensei's Divining Top, 1x Helm of Awakening, and 1x Brain Freeze - which is often just bad (especially in an environment where a turn 2 combo with counter back-up is possible). I can understand wanting Counterbalance since it is very good with the Top, but you only play 4x free counters (Force of Will), so when exactly are you tapping out to play Counterbalance or Erayo (not to mention, the Top, the Helm, or any of your permanent support cards)?
In my opinion (and I actually did test this - not extensively, but about 10-15 games versus random opponents), this deck needs much more focus to be considered competitive. With 5 different 2-of spells (including a combo piece), too many games came down to randomness. You do roll through a perfect draw once in a while, but more times than not it felt very random (draw-dependent) when I won and I was always seemed to be missing one key piece in my losses.
What I found - there are too many 'side-combos' in this deck. Scroll Rack works great sometimes and other times just cycles the same cards. Erayo is a waste of time. It's fun when you flip him, but it is totally win-more and not needed to win. Long-Term Plans is another card that combos great with other cards, but it is very inconsistent. Here's what I've morphed into...
I'm still not sure if the deck doesn't want a little more land, but with so much search it's hard to want to add any. I keep going back and forth over the idea of using some spaces for Cunning Wish and using a wish-board, but I felt in the current meta (Flash-legal) that Stifle was a better maindeck choice. With this deck, I've found that there is so much shuffle going on that I am able to find just about any card in a pretty timely fashion and with decent consistency. There's probably enough that some could be cut if 'better' cards are identified. The sideboard is more just a collection of ideas that could make it into the sideboard - the current meta should really be lots of combo hosers in my opinion.
Not that it matters in the current meta, but how do you beat Goblins? (It may be (i.e. I pray) an important consideration after June 1). In my experience, this comes online a little slow and at that point why not just play Solidarity?
I agree that this is not a good card for the deck. The only time that I could see it being solid would be to reveal it off a Mind's Desire while you are going off (which means I wouldn't want to play more then 1 since I NEVER want to draw and actually play this). And it's a complete 'win more'-card in that situation.
The bigger question to ask would be what are you replacing with it? It not better than Yawgmoth's Bargain. It's (obviously) not better than Necropotence. I still believe there are a few questionable slots, but I don't believe that Null Profusion would be better than any of the available options for those slots.
@ Mr. Nightmare - I think if you splash for Red you almost certainly would just play Grim Long. The trade here is pitch magic (more stable mana) vs utility (more diverse mana), right? You'll have to forgive my ignorance with your post, but what is Cruel Bargain?
@ Evenpence - Am I missing something? What is the interaction of Tendrils with Necropotence? I know some people play 2x Tendrils because of poor interaction with Memory Jar, but I've never heard or seen an 'interaction' with Necro. Please elaborate.
I'm really enjoying playing this deck and hope some discussion takes off here.
I have recently decided to make a foray into competitive Vintage and Pitch Long was my deck of choice.
I have played a number of games with both TK's list and Jeff's list, but have yet to settle on a build I am entirely happy with. I have tested other configurations and think those builds are closest, but still haven't come to terms with a few things...
#1 - I dislike Lion's Eye Diamond in Pitch Long because I think using it is anti-synergistic with the Pitch cards. It is true that this deck likes the extra lotus effect, but I think for that cost, it becomes too situational to warrant inclusion.
#2 - I prefer Infernal Contract over Windfall. This really boils down to that I rarely pay 8-10 life for 4 cards, but more likely after a Necro- or Bargain-draw am paying 3-4 life for 4 cards to refuel as I'm going off. Windfall almost never nets what you want it to (that's been my experience anyhow).
#3 - I like the third Misdirection. 7 Pitch spells seems like the right number, but the slot is often one that gets boarded out so I'm willing to listen.
#4 - I haven't found the need for Time Walk overwhelming. With this amount of Pitch magic, I haven't had trouble pushing through when going off and almost never wanted to play the Walk when I could. About all it did was up the storm count as I went off... I consider that a so-so slot.
#5 - Rebuild vs Hurkyl's Recall... Is this really 6-of-one-half-dozen-of-another? I've almost never cycled the Rebuild... Am I missing something?
#5 - 2x Tendrils of Agony. This seems like too many. While I understand the need for a second win condition (the random Extract, etc.), it's just that I can't help think the deck could be more effeciently built without the second one in the maindeck.
This has left me with ~2-3 slots that I'm not conviced are set. I'm open to suggestions for cards to test in those slots - but would like to hear others experiences.
@ Dissolution - Good Luck! (finding a how-to guide to Pitch Long that is). I suggest reading posts on all the major message boards dealing with Vintage and then play the deck over and over and over again. When you are finished with that, play some more and then play some more after that. The running theme that you will get from 99% of the articles on Vintage Combo is that the decks are VERY skill intensive and those articles are 100% TRUE. It takes the average player a good number of games before they truly learn some of the possible answers to the numerous questions that will come up in the first turns of a Vintage game. It is very difficult to describe and, I think, comes across as condescending at first, but once you goldfish ~100 hands and look at everything that can come up as your attempt to go off, you soon realize just how true it is. And, as Mr. Nightmare pointed out, Pitch Long is a very difficult deck to goldfish because the 'Pitch' cards seem really crappy when you get a mittful during testing. As for sideboarding, I am still learning myself so I don't have a concrete answer, but I have started to group the deck into sections (bounce, tutors, mana, accelerants, broken/business, win) to get a feel for what I can side out for certain match-ups. Remember, though, sideboarding can become very specific to your local meta - so the rules don't necessarily apply across the board (i.e., if you don't see a lot of Drain decks, you may be able to configure the board differently).
Realistically, if Jitte doesn't need to be banned in Standard then Aether Vial and Disciple of the Vault should be unbanned in Extended. The exact same arguments can be used for those 2 cards.
Aether Vial can be stopped by any artifact removal that stops Jitte plus all the other artifact removal allowed in Extended, so it can't be that bad, right? Disciple of the Vault can also be answered, there are tons of ways to remove or kill a 1/1 creature, right?
Jitte, as has been pointed out, warps the format and allows decks to win almost by accident (count the number of times Ghazi-Glare decks win with a Jitte-wielding Wood Elves). It can be answered and it can be dealt with, that's all true. The problem is that if it's equipped on ANY creature and not answered quickly - you scoop (Merfolk of the Pearl Trident beatdown is viable?).
The bottom line is Jitte makes other cards better and that's what's wrong with it. Putrefy and Faith's Fetters are both good cards that are made better simply because Jitte is in the format (name another artifact that you would need/want to Putrefy). The same goes for the creatures that Jitte can equip. Wood Elves, Watchwolf and Loxodon Hierarch are all going to get played anyway, but if you play 12 creatures and plan to attack, you're better off running Jitte than not because Jitte is re-usable removal, pump, and life gain all-in-one.
I'm not whining, make no mistake. If I run a beatdown deck, I'll run Jitte until it gets banned. But it does warp the format and it deserves to be banned for that. The arguments against banning it - lots of answers, not 'format defining', not as powerful as Skullclamp - they're all a pile. Aether Vial has more answers in Extended than Jitte does in Standard, Disciple of the Vault is an auto-include in 1 deck not 1 (or more) deck type/style, and Skullclamp is a true exception (it's the only card since Mirrodin Block banned in Legacy, I think). But all those cards have 1 thing in common, they warp the format and are banned because of it.
Well, let me start by saying thank you for the comments. It really didn't take that long to write up since I take lots of notes and sift through lots of decklists to see what works and I usually write up something similar just for myself so I can see what made me do certain 'dumb' things in the past...
I didn't really mean to suggest that the new 'counterpost' has to be an exact duplicate of the original to be good. I just use that as a starting point for my design. As I tried to point out, it has lost a lot of efficiency and that's really what forces the changes - not necessarily that the 'game has changed' (many archetypes exist simply because they are sound ideas). Our 'Post' is a different color which hurts the mana; the counters are terrible by comparison; and not having Swords to Plowshares hurts a ton (moreso than any other card that is lost in my opinion). I designed my deck as a starting point since it can attempt to generate the same style of lock that Finkelpost does.
@doublelift - I don't really understand what you mean by 'risky'. It is not an easy deck to play the first few times, that is for sure (even harder as you are learning other decks in the meta), but I haven't found it to be 'risky'. And, once the lock is in place, you win - most of my opponent's just scoop when they realize I have an unlimited supply of Rewind as my only card in my library. In fact, the addition of the Recollects has made it a lot more stable than my original version since you don't have to be as concerned with playing the 1- and 2-ofs early. You can (almost) always keep something of universal use in your hand or near/on the top of your library. If there are specific match-ups you think it would be deficient in, please let me know and I will seriously test those match-ups.
@Eegag - Thank you.
@SSolbergg - I dropped the Mana Leaks after significant testing and it wasn't an easy decision, but it really does make sense to me to drop them. It is a 'good' counter early; it's an 'ok' counter mid-game; but it's utterly horrendous late. As I pointed out previously, in order to get them early you would want 4 in the deck, but I always wish the second one was a different counter. And, you are right, it is slow. But with experience, I am getting my Game 1's into the 30-40 minute range :uhh:. It's better post-board (even without a sideboard) since the time goes down the better I know my opponent's deck. I am currently testing 1-of finishers (I'm looking at Hunted Lammasu, both Legendary Dragons, Meloku, Blinking Spirit 8^), Iwamori, Hierarch, Selesnya Guildmage, and Biorythm :wink2: ).
Overall, I think the 'finisher' strategy will be better out of the sideboard. It's nice not having any maindeck 'threats' making most of your opponent's removal dead. When he side's his removal out, in comes the beats.
Fred Bear...
I also updated the mana base (again). It is now...
I've been reading the forums now for a couple of weeks (since a friend of mine told me he had gotten good information here before :wink2: ) and I've finally decided to post some of my own ideas. Let me start by saying that I've read this entire post (all 19 pages) and, hopefully, my post will do it justice. The two decks that I am currently playing are Counterpost '05 (or whatever you want to call this one) and Mono-Black Control splash Green. I don't want to take anything away from the post creator, but my take on Counterpost is a little different (let me appologize here for the length of my inaugural post too - I wanted to explain most of the thinking behind my choices and may have gotten a little carried away)...
In fact, let me start with the decklists that I dug up when I first heard about Vitu-Ghazi and the possible revival of the 'Counterpost' archetype. (I typically go with the 'shoulders of giants' approach to deck-building and like to see what has worked historically before attempting a list myself). First...
If you've never seen either of these lists, they may look kind of surprising by today's standards. Counterpost actually did contain 61 cards (I didn't make an error) and Finkelpost contains NO finishers, just soldier tokens and only 2 token generators. So how did these decks win? As every post on here recognizes - control the board, control what hits play after that, pump out an uncounterable army after that, attack and win.
The problem really arises that it appears Wizards has 'dumbed' down this type of deck by making it less and less efficient. So, the first question to be asked is - Can it be built efficiently and be competitive? I think everyone in the post believes this to be true (since we are all playing it), but objectively how 'bad' is it?
Well, first and foremost, let's look at the lands we lost. We need our Soldier Generator, Kjeldoran Outpost. It's been renamed and changed (we're generating Saporlings now) a bit so it is now called Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree. How close is it? Kjeldoran Outpost costs 3 land per activation - Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree costs 5 land per activation. That doesn't look so good in terms of our efficiency, but... Kjeldoran Outpostalso required you to sacrifice a Plainsfor the Outpost to be put into play. You can view that 'cost' as really being 4 land per activation of the outpost plus increasing the cost of the first spell of each turn by 1 White Mana. Vitu-Ghazi helps us in that respect, since if we don't activate it, it costs us nothing. All-in-all, I believe it is a pretty fair trade.
We also need to replace Thawing Glaciers which was a mana-accelerating/fixing/deck-thinning land. We don't have a comparable land to this, but we do have access to Journeyer's Kite which is actually better. If you do the 'math', you'll see very quickly that (undisrupted, of course), if you play each as soon as possible, you will generate more of a mana advantage using Journeyer's Kite than Thawing Glaciers. This becomes increasingly important since Vitu-Ghazi will hurt our mana base with it's added color requirements.
This will be a trade off, then - we lose a little efficiency in Vitu-Gazi from Outpost and we gain a little replacing Glaciers with Kite. So what about the spells? Let's look at the instants first...
Counterspell, Dissipate, and Force of Will added up to give 8 counters to the deck. All of those counters stopped spells dead. In today's standard it takes 4 mana to stop something dead, period. The best we could come up with to fill those 8 slots would be Hinder and Rewind (or go all out and use Minamo's Meddling or Induce Paranoia to have 8 'real' counters). Again we are going to give up effeciency in another 8 slots. Without Force of Will, we are also going to give up any chance at an early counter. We really will be sitting back and not planning on countering anything until at least turn 3. We could try something like Disrupting Shoal, maybe?
Brainstorm and Impulse each served as search/cantrips. In fact they were a little better than that because really with a full complement of each, you could almost cycle your entire library to see whatever you wanted. This is another aspect that has been completely taken away from the Blue mage by Wizards . What we are left with at instant speed is Sensei's Divining Top and Telling Time. Both are additional drop-offs in efficiency, Telling Time will only go 3 deep and cycle 1 card while the Divining Top will only let us choose 1 of 3 to draw. The Top and Telling Time both have great synergy, though, together and more importantly with Journeyer's Kite. I'd still rather have the 1 mana instant cycling cantrips but for now we'll do what we can (I guess).
Then the 2 toughies. Abeyance was a 'slow-down' control card that bought you a turn most times and served as a cantrip. I think Remand may be about as good as we can get in those slots - not quite as good, but serving the same purpose. Swords to Plowshares is the last instant we need to find a new home for... And it's just not gonna happen. There is no way without dipping into another color that we can remove/destroy a creature without it attacking or blocking or damaging us. We have a huge array of spells at our disposal to deal with those things - Reciprocate (requires damage), Terashi's Verdict (requires attacking creature with power <3), Devouring Light (requires attacking or blocking), and Chastise (requires attacking). That's great most of the time since most people plan to attack - but those slots really need to deal with creatures whose abilities kill us. Guildmages, Jushi Apprentice, and Meloku, the Clouded Mirror all pose difficuties because smart players will never attack with these creatures. That means we can only counter them or Wrath them away. That's not good since for us since we'd like to get 2 for 1, or better, out of our Wraths. This means we're already looking at a major hit of efficiency here and I'll come back to those slots.
Disenchant has changed colors, but is still available to us since it is still 'in-color' for our deck in the form of Naturalize. That just leaves the Enchantments, Sorceries, and Artifacts.
There was 1 and only 1 artifact in Finkelpost - Soldevi Digger. It was an important one, though. When combined with Browse (and to a lesser degree Brainstorm and Impulse), you could use the Digger to customize your draw steps at the end of the game ensuring that you always had the answer to your opponent's threat. Now, tell me if you couldn't choose what seven cards were in your hand when your opponent untapped and what your next draw (or two) would be you wouldn't take full advantage of it! Well this card helped Finkelpost do just that for the late-game. Replacing it, if we need to, is easy since we have access to a better Soldevi Digger in the form of Reito Lantern. For only 1 more mana in it's activation cost, we can target any card in either graveyard! Finally, an improvement!
We also lose Political Trickery, but if we need it - Shifting Borders is available to us. It's more expensive, yes, but is available at the ever important end step of our opponent's turn (i.e. it's an instant now).
Wrath of God and Circle of Protection: Black remain the same making our last loss the enchantment Browse. Again, what did this card do? It allowed us to cycle our library. We were left with only the cards/answers we needed. Is it replaceable today? Yes. How? Tunnel Vision (I'm not the first to suggest this card).
The immediate objections to Tunnel Vision are (1) it is a 6cc sorcery and (2) it is a 6cc sorcery. The answers to those objections (yes, I know it's the same objection) are that (1) you don't cast it until you need to find an answer (making it a tutor), (2) you don't cast it until you are ready to set up the lock with Reito Lantern and set up your draws, and (3) you don't cast it until you can protect yourself. If you'll notice, these are the same conditions for casting any other 'finisher' (i.e. if you are tapping out to play Meloku turn 5 or Keiga turn 6 - you are either playing greatly inferior competition or doing something dreadfully wrong with a control deck). Tunnel Vision can also be used on your opponent in conjuction with Hinder to quickly Mill him to death.
So after all that, what am I suggesting? Well, here's the list I'm testing...
Several of my choices have been determined by the intial testing that I have done. I had originally used Mana Leak. It is supremely inferior in this deck in my opinion. It's usefulness runs out in the very early game which is very contradictory to how you want it to work since if you want it early you want to play 4, but you will almost never want a second one (unless they are clumped together on those early turns). I also originally chose Devouring Light, but it just doesn't help against Jushi Apprentice, Guildmages, Meloku, good opponents, etc. Just like I did when playing my Mono-Black deck, you learn to play around it. Fetters shuts off most of those annoyances as well as provinding a little life gain, though this is the other extreme that I am testing now - I believe the truth lies somewhere in between. I had originally tried a maindeck Ivory Mask, but quickly realized the obvious anti-synergy with Tunnel Vision. I also started with 3 Tunnel Vision maindeck but found that too often you get one that is just not necessary late in the game. 2 is enough to find 1 by the time you need it.
In my early testing, I have found that even with only 22 land, I regularly get all my lands out (typically all the basics plus at least 1 of each of the non-basics). I have also found that this deck thrives on the late game. You basically Wrath away the early game, Counter and Fetters the mid-game, lock the late game, create tokens, and win. I do, however, wonder if a finisher of some kind wouldn't be in order since I've had a problem with guys 'top-decking' into game-breakers that I was 'just a turn away' from having an answer for or some such. I am actually considering Hunted Lammasu simply because his efficiency is so great compared to even the dragons (i.e. he allows me to keep up significant mana to create another token, cast a counter, or even wrath and recur him in a single turn).
I look forward to hearing comments and suggestions to my take on the new Counterpost. (Again, I appologize for the length of my post, but I wanted to try and answer questions before they come up as much as possible).
Fred Bear...
P.S. Just for reference - it is my belief that as far as sideboard's go, I think they are very dependant on your meta and it's difficult to suggest what to include (i.e. if it should go in every sideboard, why isn't it in the maindeck?). I play mostly on MTGO and the meta there has shifted significantly to Ghazi-Control with all the World's Bandwagonners - so I would suggest a sideboard to deal with those types of decks. I believe the maindeck should be 'generally' strong regardless of the sideboard. FB...
As for everything else that has been said... Let me preface this by saying I analyze data for a living, so I very much have a 'show me the data' attitude when it comes to commentary...
@Complete Jank - Point 1 - How can you criticize a card for being vulnerable to Wasteland and then suggest splashing another color which automatically makes you vulnerable to Wasteland? Seat is probably not the best Mage target, but if you have the game under control, this deck can always use a mana boost. If you keep a hand with fetch, Seat and have problems, that's a play-skill issue really in my opinion. [And calculate out the number of times you get an opener like that - it's not very often with 1/18 lands being the artifact]. I'm currently working on a list that eliminates the problem too, but not by splashing a color. Point 2 - Your argument about disruption is valid for most combo, the problem here is that if I were to splash black, I wouldn't play this combo. Blue/Black has way better things to do than to sit and cast Top a hundred times before destroying a library (It really is pretty easy to disrupt if you know how). And please note, most combo plays black for Rituals first and Duress second - just take a peak at the number of combo decks with Duress in the board and Ritual in the main. Point 3 - The same thing is true for splashing white (except the part about Rituals) - Your deck becomes better if you remove the combo and add in some green creatures and call it UWg Threshold or something similar. Point 4 - A good player might play around Daze. Often good players are trying to play cards, though, and they need to cast a Brainstorm to find land. Often good players are trying to cast a Dark Confidant early to get ahead. Often good players walk right into Daze. The list of cards that can be 'played around' is long, but not even close to making them 'bad' or unplayable. And Spell Snare is great vs certain decks, but with Flash gone it is again (sadly maybe) not main deck worthy. [Not to mention that it can't target many of this deck's biggest problems]. Point 5 - Please test the deck before making comment. I can appreciate that you have played a 'similar deck' in a 'competitive environment' but that means different things to different people. I've seen people play this on Magic Online, it's similar and sometimes competitive - but that decklist is neither in Legacy because of a vastly different card pool. I'm not arguing that this is the best deck list, just that your comments need to be about this deck list. 'Black is good in combo' doesn't help. 'Pithing Needle destroys you' doesn't help. Point 6 - Daze is good in a deck where you want to play out permanents on early turns and maintain counter back-up.
@Isamaru - I'm confused... This deck plays neither Moat or Wrath of God. Interesting comment... I guess...
Sorry for the length of comment... Back to the deck...
I've currently pulled the Trinket Mage, Chalice, EE for Fabricate, Powder Keg, Chrome Mox and am now evaluating using Thirst for Knowledge.
Fred Bear...
@Top Deck - Flash is definitely the card in need of banning. Protean Hulk isn't broken unless you can 'cheat' it into play. A 2-mana blue instant makes that way too easy (and consistent with the support available). Please take a look at the history of Flash and why it was errata'd in the first place (Academy Rector into Yawgmoth's Bargain). Banning Goblin Warchief wouldn't do you any good either, but I'm guessing that's just a troll. Before Flash came along, I would've argued against Ringleader since it offers Goblins the 'broken' mechanic. But I've come to believe that Goblins really just sets the 'baseline' for the format. Also, please don't try to turn this thread into a ban/no ban thread (My guess is there are enough of those).
@Miscalcul8edRisk - I love the idea of the Seat of Synod. If I were to use Academy Ruins, though, I might be inclined to test a list running more artifacts and Thirst for Knowledge. You might even be able to throw in a Sundering Titan as an alternative win from the board.
@razefire - What are the advantages of running your list over the current list? What match-ups do you improve? I don't question whether you win games or not, but I tested your list a couple times and just found it brutally slow. It plays a little better against some aggro (but a little-lot worse vs combo and control), but I still couldn't see the justification for white since Propaganda slows aggro to the point that they really can't do enough fast enough in the games it factors into. I found that Enlightened Tutor was slow and required a lot of mana, especially if I was going for a combo piece that wasn't the second Divining Top. Humility was either great or does absolutely nothing. Counterspell was easily worse than Daze since the 'free' spells are much more useful in the early game as you set up the board. Cunning Wish was almost never a card I wanted to see in hand because I either needed a different combo piece or wanted draw and Wishing for draw is just plain bad (I can't really name many draw spells that I'm willing to pay an extra 3 for) in this format. I also found that casting the first Wish for utility really didn't help me either since I was forced to sit and draw into another one so I could Wish up the win condition. I would think that if you were to splash white, you would be better off going almost towards an Isochron Scepter / Orim's Chant type deck and use an approach more like the Extended-legal decks.
Just some thoughts...
Fred Bear...
I think you will want to test this more before making general claims. It is definitely not intuitive how this improves match-ups vs aggro-control - please explain. I'm not saying Solidarity is automatically better, but again, this clock is very slow and will allow a (competent) player enough time to draw into the hand that they need (unless you draw perfect every time). In the games I played with this last night, I was not consistently happy that I was playing this over Solidarity or Spring Tide.
I have always thought this is a 'neat' idea for a deck, but it ultimately boils down to being a 4 card combo deck - 2x Sensei's Divining Top, 1x Helm of Awakening, and 1x Brain Freeze - which is often just bad (especially in an environment where a turn 2 combo with counter back-up is possible). I can understand wanting Counterbalance since it is very good with the Top, but you only play 4x free counters (Force of Will), so when exactly are you tapping out to play Counterbalance or Erayo (not to mention, the Top, the Helm, or any of your permanent support cards)?
In my opinion (and I actually did test this - not extensively, but about 10-15 games versus random opponents), this deck needs much more focus to be considered competitive. With 5 different 2-of spells (including a combo piece), too many games came down to randomness. You do roll through a perfect draw once in a while, but more times than not it felt very random (draw-dependent) when I won and I was always seemed to be missing one key piece in my losses.
What I found - there are too many 'side-combos' in this deck. Scroll Rack works great sometimes and other times just cycles the same cards. Erayo is a waste of time. It's fun when you flip him, but it is totally win-more and not needed to win. Long-Term Plans is another card that combos great with other cards, but it is very inconsistent. Here's what I've morphed into...
4x Force of Will
3x Daze
3x Counterbalance
3x Stifle
Combo Package
4x Sensei's Divining Top
3x Helm of Awakening
2x Brain Freeze
Utility Drawer
4x Brainstorm
4x Portent
4x Trinket Mage
1x Pithing Needle
1x Engineered Explosives
2x Chalice of the Void
4x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta
14x Island
4x Hydroblast
3x Propaganda
2x Echoing Truth
2x Wipe Away
2x Tormod's Crypt
2x Spell Snare
I'm still not sure if the deck doesn't want a little more land, but with so much search it's hard to want to add any. I keep going back and forth over the idea of using some spaces for Cunning Wish and using a wish-board, but I felt in the current meta (Flash-legal) that Stifle was a better maindeck choice. With this deck, I've found that there is so much shuffle going on that I am able to find just about any card in a pretty timely fashion and with decent consistency. There's probably enough that some could be cut if 'better' cards are identified. The sideboard is more just a collection of ideas that could make it into the sideboard - the current meta should really be lots of combo hosers in my opinion.
Just some ideas, I guess...
Fred Bear...
The bigger question to ask would be what are you replacing with it? It not better than Yawgmoth's Bargain. It's (obviously) not better than Necropotence. I still believe there are a few questionable slots, but I don't believe that Null Profusion would be better than any of the available options for those slots.
@ Evenpence - Am I missing something? What is the interaction of Tendrils with Necropotence? I know some people play 2x Tendrils because of poor interaction with Memory Jar, but I've never heard or seen an 'interaction' with Necro. Please elaborate.
I'm really enjoying playing this deck and hope some discussion takes off here.
I have played a number of games with both TK's list and Jeff's list, but have yet to settle on a build I am entirely happy with. I have tested other configurations and think those builds are closest, but still haven't come to terms with a few things...
#1 - I dislike Lion's Eye Diamond in Pitch Long because I think using it is anti-synergistic with the Pitch cards. It is true that this deck likes the extra lotus effect, but I think for that cost, it becomes too situational to warrant inclusion.
#2 - I prefer Infernal Contract over Windfall. This really boils down to that I rarely pay 8-10 life for 4 cards, but more likely after a Necro- or Bargain-draw am paying 3-4 life for 4 cards to refuel as I'm going off. Windfall almost never nets what you want it to (that's been my experience anyhow).
#3 - I like the third Misdirection. 7 Pitch spells seems like the right number, but the slot is often one that gets boarded out so I'm willing to listen.
#4 - I haven't found the need for Time Walk overwhelming. With this amount of Pitch magic, I haven't had trouble pushing through when going off and almost never wanted to play the Walk when I could. About all it did was up the storm count as I went off... I consider that a so-so slot.
#5 - Rebuild vs Hurkyl's Recall... Is this really 6-of-one-half-dozen-of-another? I've almost never cycled the Rebuild... Am I missing something?
#5 - 2x Tendrils of Agony. This seems like too many. While I understand the need for a second win condition (the random Extract, etc.), it's just that I can't help think the deck could be more effeciently built without the second one in the maindeck.
This has left me with ~2-3 slots that I'm not conviced are set. I'm open to suggestions for cards to test in those slots - but would like to hear others experiences.
@ Dissolution - Good Luck! (finding a how-to guide to Pitch Long that is). I suggest reading posts on all the major message boards dealing with Vintage and then play the deck over and over and over again. When you are finished with that, play some more and then play some more after that. The running theme that you will get from 99% of the articles on Vintage Combo is that the decks are VERY skill intensive and those articles are 100% TRUE. It takes the average player a good number of games before they truly learn some of the possible answers to the numerous questions that will come up in the first turns of a Vintage game. It is very difficult to describe and, I think, comes across as condescending at first, but once you goldfish ~100 hands and look at everything that can come up as your attempt to go off, you soon realize just how true it is. And, as Mr. Nightmare pointed out, Pitch Long is a very difficult deck to goldfish because the 'Pitch' cards seem really crappy when you get a mittful during testing. As for sideboarding, I am still learning myself so I don't have a concrete answer, but I have started to group the deck into sections (bounce, tutors, mana, accelerants, broken/business, win) to get a feel for what I can side out for certain match-ups. Remember, though, sideboarding can become very specific to your local meta - so the rules don't necessarily apply across the board (i.e., if you don't see a lot of Drain decks, you may be able to configure the board differently).
Hope that helps,
Fred Bear...
Aether Vial can be stopped by any artifact removal that stops Jitte plus all the other artifact removal allowed in Extended, so it can't be that bad, right? Disciple of the Vault can also be answered, there are tons of ways to remove or kill a 1/1 creature, right?
Jitte, as has been pointed out, warps the format and allows decks to win almost by accident (count the number of times Ghazi-Glare decks win with a Jitte-wielding Wood Elves). It can be answered and it can be dealt with, that's all true. The problem is that if it's equipped on ANY creature and not answered quickly - you scoop (Merfolk of the Pearl Trident beatdown is viable?).
The bottom line is Jitte makes other cards better and that's what's wrong with it. Putrefy and Faith's Fetters are both good cards that are made better simply because Jitte is in the format (name another artifact that you would need/want to Putrefy). The same goes for the creatures that Jitte can equip. Wood Elves, Watchwolf and Loxodon Hierarch are all going to get played anyway, but if you play 12 creatures and plan to attack, you're better off running Jitte than not because Jitte is re-usable removal, pump, and life gain all-in-one.
I'm not whining, make no mistake. If I run a beatdown deck, I'll run Jitte until it gets banned. But it does warp the format and it deserves to be banned for that. The arguments against banning it - lots of answers, not 'format defining', not as powerful as Skullclamp - they're all a pile. Aether Vial has more answers in Extended than Jitte does in Standard, Disciple of the Vault is an auto-include in 1 deck not 1 (or more) deck type/style, and Skullclamp is a true exception (it's the only card since Mirrodin Block banned in Legacy, I think). But all those cards have 1 thing in common, they warp the format and are banned because of it.
Just my 2 cents.
Fred Bear...
I didn't really mean to suggest that the new 'counterpost' has to be an exact duplicate of the original to be good. I just use that as a starting point for my design. As I tried to point out, it has lost a lot of efficiency and that's really what forces the changes - not necessarily that the 'game has changed' (many archetypes exist simply because they are sound ideas). Our 'Post' is a different color which hurts the mana; the counters are terrible by comparison; and not having Swords to Plowshares hurts a ton (moreso than any other card that is lost in my opinion). I designed my deck as a starting point since it can attempt to generate the same style of lock that Finkelpost does.
@doublelift - I don't really understand what you mean by 'risky'. It is not an easy deck to play the first few times, that is for sure (even harder as you are learning other decks in the meta), but I haven't found it to be 'risky'. And, once the lock is in place, you win - most of my opponent's just scoop when they realize I have an unlimited supply of Rewind as my only card in my library. In fact, the addition of the Recollects has made it a lot more stable than my original version since you don't have to be as concerned with playing the 1- and 2-ofs early. You can (almost) always keep something of universal use in your hand or near/on the top of your library. If there are specific match-ups you think it would be deficient in, please let me know and I will seriously test those match-ups.
@Eegag - Thank you.
@SSolbergg - I dropped the Mana Leaks after significant testing and it wasn't an easy decision, but it really does make sense to me to drop them. It is a 'good' counter early; it's an 'ok' counter mid-game; but it's utterly horrendous late. As I pointed out previously, in order to get them early you would want 4 in the deck, but I always wish the second one was a different counter. And, you are right, it is slow. But with experience, I am getting my Game 1's into the 30-40 minute range :uhh:. It's better post-board (even without a sideboard) since the time goes down the better I know my opponent's deck. I am currently testing 1-of finishers (I'm looking at Hunted Lammasu, both Legendary Dragons, Meloku, Blinking Spirit 8^), Iwamori, Hierarch, Selesnya Guildmage, and Biorythm :wink2: ).
Overall, I think the 'finisher' strategy will be better out of the sideboard. It's nice not having any maindeck 'threats' making most of your opponent's removal dead. When he side's his removal out, in comes the beats.
Fred Bear...
I also updated the mana base (again). It is now...
4 Adarkar Wastes
1 Forest
6 Island
3 Plains
4 Temple Garden
2 Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree
2 Yavimaya Coast
In fact, let me start with the decklists that I dug up when I first heard about Vitu-Ghazi and the possible revival of the 'Counterpost' archetype. (I typically go with the 'shoulders of giants' approach to deck-building and like to see what has worked historically before attempting a list myself). First...
4 Adarkar Wastes
7 Island
6 Plains
5 Mountain
3 Thawing Glaciers
2 Kjeldoran Outposts
4 Blinking Spirit
Spells
1 Binding Grasp
4 Counterspell
4 Disenchant
2 Force of Will
1 Hydroblast
3 Icy Manipulator
2 Jester's Cap
1 Lava Burst
2 Power Sink
2 Pyroclasm
4 Stone Rain
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Zuran Orb
and
4 Adarkar Wastes
8 Island
2 Kjeldoran Outpost
4 Plains
4 Thawing Glaciers
Spells
4 Abeyance
4 Brainstorm
3 Browse
1 Circle of Protection: Black
4 Counterspell
3 Disenchant
2 Dissipate
2 Force of Will
1 Gerrard's Wisdom
4 Impulse
1 Political Trickery
1 Soldevi Digger
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Wrath of God
If you've never seen either of these lists, they may look kind of surprising by today's standards. Counterpost actually did contain 61 cards (I didn't make an error) and Finkelpost contains NO finishers, just soldier tokens and only 2 token generators. So how did these decks win? As every post on here recognizes - control the board, control what hits play after that, pump out an uncounterable army after that, attack and win.
The problem really arises that it appears Wizards has 'dumbed' down this type of deck by making it less and less efficient. So, the first question to be asked is - Can it be built efficiently and be competitive? I think everyone in the post believes this to be true (since we are all playing it), but objectively how 'bad' is it?
The only cards that are still available to us in their original forms as seen in Finkelpost are... Adarkar Wastes, Island, Plains, Circle of Protection: Black, Gerrard's Wisdom (called Presence of the Wise now), and Wrath of God. That's only 22 cards in a 60 card deck and 16 of those are lands meaning we are left to replace well over 2/3 of the spells!!
What can we do?
Well, first and foremost, let's look at the lands we lost. We need our Soldier Generator, Kjeldoran Outpost. It's been renamed and changed (we're generating Saporlings now) a bit so it is now called Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree. How close is it? Kjeldoran Outpost costs 3 land per activation - Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree costs 5 land per activation. That doesn't look so good in terms of our efficiency, but... Kjeldoran Outpostalso required you to sacrifice a Plainsfor the Outpost to be put into play. You can view that 'cost' as really being 4 land per activation of the outpost plus increasing the cost of the first spell of each turn by 1 White Mana. Vitu-Ghazi helps us in that respect, since if we don't activate it, it costs us nothing. All-in-all, I believe it is a pretty fair trade.
We also need to replace Thawing Glaciers which was a mana-accelerating/fixing/deck-thinning land. We don't have a comparable land to this, but we do have access to Journeyer's Kite which is actually better. If you do the 'math', you'll see very quickly that (undisrupted, of course), if you play each as soon as possible, you will generate more of a mana advantage using Journeyer's Kite than Thawing Glaciers. This becomes increasingly important since Vitu-Ghazi will hurt our mana base with it's added color requirements.
This will be a trade off, then - we lose a little efficiency in Vitu-Gazi from Outpost and we gain a little replacing Glaciers with Kite. So what about the spells? Let's look at the instants first...
We need to replace Abeyance, Brainstorm, Counterspell, Disenchant, Dissipate, Force of Will, Impulse, and Swords to Plowshares.
Counterspell, Dissipate, and Force of Will added up to give 8 counters to the deck. All of those counters stopped spells dead. In today's standard it takes 4 mana to stop something dead, period. The best we could come up with to fill those 8 slots would be Hinder and Rewind (or go all out and use Minamo's Meddling or Induce Paranoia to have 8 'real' counters). Again we are going to give up effeciency in another 8 slots. Without Force of Will, we are also going to give up any chance at an early counter. We really will be sitting back and not planning on countering anything until at least turn 3. We could try something like Disrupting Shoal, maybe?
Brainstorm and Impulse each served as search/cantrips. In fact they were a little better than that because really with a full complement of each, you could almost cycle your entire library to see whatever you wanted. This is another aspect that has been completely taken away from the Blue mage by Wizards
Then the 2 toughies. Abeyance was a 'slow-down' control card that bought you a turn most times and served as a cantrip. I think Remand may be about as good as we can get in those slots - not quite as good, but serving the same purpose. Swords to Plowshares is the last instant we need to find a new home for... And it's just not gonna happen. There is no way without dipping into another color that we can remove/destroy a creature without it attacking or blocking or damaging us. We have a huge array of spells at our disposal to deal with those things - Reciprocate (requires damage), Terashi's Verdict (requires attacking creature with power <3), Devouring Light (requires attacking or blocking), and Chastise (requires attacking). That's great most of the time since most people plan to attack - but those slots really need to deal with creatures whose abilities kill us. Guildmages, Jushi Apprentice, and Meloku, the Clouded Mirror all pose difficuties because smart players will never attack with these creatures. That means we can only counter them or Wrath them away. That's not good since for us since we'd like to get 2 for 1, or better, out of our Wraths. This means we're already looking at a major hit of efficiency here and I'll come back to those slots.
Disenchant has changed colors, but is still available to us since it is still 'in-color' for our deck in the form of Naturalize. That just leaves the Enchantments, Sorceries, and Artifacts.
There was 1 and only 1 artifact in Finkelpost - Soldevi Digger. It was an important one, though. When combined with Browse (and to a lesser degree Brainstorm and Impulse), you could use the Digger to customize your draw steps at the end of the game ensuring that you always had the answer to your opponent's threat. Now, tell me if you couldn't choose what seven cards were in your hand when your opponent untapped and what your next draw (or two) would be you wouldn't take full advantage of it! Well this card helped Finkelpost do just that for the late-game. Replacing it, if we need to, is easy since we have access to a better Soldevi Digger in the form of Reito Lantern. For only 1 more mana in it's activation cost, we can target any card in either graveyard! Finally, an improvement!
We also lose Political Trickery, but if we need it - Shifting Borders is available to us. It's more expensive, yes, but is available at the ever important end step of our opponent's turn (i.e. it's an instant now).
Wrath of God and Circle of Protection: Black remain the same making our last loss the enchantment Browse. Again, what did this card do? It allowed us to cycle our library. We were left with only the cards/answers we needed. Is it replaceable today? Yes. How? Tunnel Vision (I'm not the first to suggest this card).
The immediate objections to Tunnel Vision are (1) it is a 6cc sorcery and (2) it is a 6cc sorcery. The answers to those objections (yes, I know it's the same objection) are that (1) you don't cast it until you need to find an answer (making it a tutor), (2) you don't cast it until you are ready to set up the lock with Reito Lantern and set up your draws, and (3) you don't cast it until you can protect yourself. If you'll notice, these are the same conditions for casting any other 'finisher' (i.e. if you are tapping out to play Meloku turn 5 or Keiga turn 6 - you are either playing greatly inferior competition or doing something dreadfully wrong with a control deck). Tunnel Vision can also be used on your opponent in conjuction with Hinder to quickly Mill him to death.
So after all that, what am I suggesting? Well, here's the list I'm testing...
4 Adarkar Wastes
6 Island
5 Plains
1 Forest
4 Temple Garden
2 Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree
Spells
4 Faith's Fetters - my replacement for Swords to Plowshares
4 Hinder
3 Journeyer's Kite
2 Naturalize
1 Reito Lantern
2 Recollect
4 Remand
4 Rewind
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Story Circle
4 Telling Time
2 Tunnel Vision
4 Wrath of God
Several of my choices have been determined by the intial testing that I have done. I had originally used Mana Leak. It is supremely inferior in this deck in my opinion. It's usefulness runs out in the very early game which is very contradictory to how you want it to work since if you want it early you want to play 4, but you will almost never want a second one (unless they are clumped together on those early turns). I also originally chose Devouring Light, but it just doesn't help against Jushi Apprentice, Guildmages, Meloku, good opponents, etc. Just like I did when playing my Mono-Black deck, you learn to play around it. Fetters shuts off most of those annoyances as well as provinding a little life gain, though this is the other extreme that I am testing now - I believe the truth lies somewhere in between. I had originally tried a maindeck Ivory Mask, but quickly realized the obvious anti-synergy with Tunnel Vision. I also started with 3 Tunnel Vision maindeck but found that too often you get one that is just not necessary late in the game. 2 is enough to find 1 by the time you need it.
My only other additions/changes to the deck is Story Circle for Circle of Protection: Black and Recollect. Story Circle is slightly more versitile in a format with Hypnotic Specter and Char. Recollect is also a nice answer to retrieve a naturalized/putrefied Reito Lantern or other utility that I need to recur.
In my early testing, I have found that even with only 22 land, I regularly get all my lands out (typically all the basics plus at least 1 of each of the non-basics). I have also found that this deck thrives on the late game. You basically Wrath away the early game, Counter and Fetters the mid-game, lock the late game, create tokens, and win. I do, however, wonder if a finisher of some kind wouldn't be in order since I've had a problem with guys 'top-decking' into game-breakers that I was 'just a turn away' from having an answer for or some such. I am actually considering Hunted Lammasu simply because his efficiency is so great compared to even the dragons (i.e. he allows me to keep up significant mana to create another token, cast a counter, or even wrath and recur him in a single turn).
I look forward to hearing comments and suggestions to my take on the new Counterpost. (Again, I appologize for the length of my post, but I wanted to try and answer questions before they come up as much as possible).
Fred Bear...
P.S. Just for reference - it is my belief that as far as sideboard's go, I think they are very dependant on your meta and it's difficult to suggest what to include (i.e. if it should go in every sideboard, why isn't it in the maindeck?). I play mostly on MTGO and the meta there has shifted significantly to Ghazi-Control with all the World's Bandwagonners - so I would suggest a sideboard to deal with those types of decks. I believe the maindeck should be 'generally' strong regardless of the sideboard. FB...