MTG Salvation

Hello everyone,

I have been writing Vintage articles on and off for years, and have written a few primers & tournament reports for this very site. I wanted to share some Vintage articles that I have authored with the MTG Salvation community. I'm not doing this to get any click-bait. I'm doing this because I love the site and have poured a lot of work and love with MTG here and have gotten good feedback and engaging discussion from our members here. The article series started as Vintage 101, but after seeing another article series, the name was changes to Shop Class, which is appropriate because the purpose of it was to give the Vintage community a perspective on the format form the point of view of a shops player. Most content on Vintage is produced by people who are primarily blue pilots, so I wanted to give Shops a voice with regards to content.

Feel free to read these articles and discuss them.

Quote from osieorb18 »

Quote from Malpheas »

What list are you running?  We could help with that if you want?

Lol. My current list is:

DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Artifacts (27): 4 Sphere of Resistance 4 Thorn of Amethyst 1 Trinisphere 1 Mox Sapphire 1 Mox Ruby 1 Mox Pearl 1 Mox Jet 1 Mox Emerald 1 Black Lotus 4 Tangle Wire 2 Null Rod 1 Chalice of the Void 3 Fleetwheel Cruiser 1 Mana Crypt 1 Skysovereign, Consul Flagship	Creatures (15): 1 Lodestone Golem 4 Phyrexian Revoker 3 Wurmcoil Engine 2 Foundry Inspector 3 Porcelain Legionnaire 2 Chief of the Foundry Lands (18): 4 Wasteland 4 Ancient Tomb 4 Mishra's Workshop 1 Tolarian Academy 1 Strip Mine 4 Mishra's Factory	Sideboard: 4 Grafdigger's Cage 2 Crucible of Worlds 2 Pithing Needle 1 Batterskull 1 Umezawa's Jitte 2 Ratchet Bomb 2 Triskelion 1 Karakas

Pardon the comment, but I wanted to chime in and offer some constructive critisism when I saw the deck list. As a shop pilot, I feel like this list is being pulled in 3 different places at once.  I've played shops since 2006, and got back into the Northeast Vintage scene after a 4 year abscence in 2014.

Your deck has a lot of tensions, and they are most likely the reason you are experiencing mixed results.  Aggro ravager decks lean on Arcbound Ravager for Dack protection, and is the main driver in Shop lists becoming more aggro on the Shop spectrum. Yes a revoker can shut off Dack, but it is at its best at shutting off artifact acceleration.  Ravager keeps Dack from stealing blockers and fast mana, which is why it has been so widely adopted.  Being how your list doesn't run them or Walking Ballista or Triskelion, there will be times a list like this will just lose to Dack Fayden.  There are ways to build a successful shops list without Ravagers, but aggro shops is not the way to do it.

As for the cards you do have in this list, they are creating tensions that pull you in lots of different directions.  Null Rod is an excellent card post restriction, but plays very poorly with vehicles, especially the skyship.  Without Chalice and Lodestone, there is not enough density of spheres naturally draw your way into locking an opponent out of the game permenantly.  Therefore, sphere effects need to be used as time walks, and you need to create effective tempo plays to close out the game.  A card like Null Rod slows the game down to buy your spheres more time to do their job.  It is your time walk in the right situation, but keeps Fleetwheel and Skyship from pressing the tempo advantage the lock pieces give and converting that time into a win.   Shops aggro is NOT a control deck, and has a to take advantage of its window to win before Dack, Mentor or Oath can take over the game. 

Your creature slots have to synergize with your lock pieces (and for the sake of discussion, we will be including vehicles as creatures).  I agree with the 14 core lock pieces (4x sphere, 4x thorn, 4x wire, 1 chalice, 1 3-Ball) but past that, you need to see whats affected by the other stuff in the deck.  Null Rods do synergize with Foundry Inspector and Fleetwheel ironically, but Rod mitigates the advantages of running fleetwheel.  The trample damage on fleetwheel is necessary for killing Dack in one swing, so thats one tension.

The other tension is with the curve of your deck is in the slot choices surrounding Foundry Inspector.  FI is a card thats not as effective against blue decks (which will comprise more than half the field at an event).  It is there to aid the Shop mirror and to somewhat help with smoothing draws.  FI is at its best when the strategy you take is to "go over the top".  Its BEST when it helps to pump out things on the higher end of the curve, like wurmcoil engine, trike, etc.  It is at its WORST when played alongside things you can already pay for, as it then essentially is just a textless 3/2 creature. The problem here is that porcelain legionaire and chief of the foundry are voth easily castable cards. They can all be reasonably played around 80% of the time with you opening hand turn 1, and often time through a thorn turn 1 without the aid of FI. They also only genrally require only 1 land to be played. Running them makes FI less effective in your list.

In my opinion, you need to decide if you want to play aggro or not. If you do, drop the rod and play ravager, or put it in the board and bring in ravager, as you gain more by not running it than by playing it.

You cut yourself off from Ravager, Walking Ballista, and Hangarback Walker by running Rod, and these are great in all your matchups. Ravager is damage evasion in shops, and because you cant sphere lock your opponwnt reliably, you need to deal him/her 20 to win. Hangarback is a shops mirror breaker and can play damage control if an opponent resolves a dack, JVP, Jace 2.0 or mentor. Both Hangarback and ballista play very will with ravager and can combine with ravager and shorten the turn clock faster under sphere for your opponent.

Once youve decided on that, you need to decide if you want to play vehicles or not. If so, cut the chaff and play them. They give you a very fast clock at the expense of making you softer vs rod. If not, then decide how you want to address the shops mirror: do you want to go big or small? If you go big, your winning by outclassing your opponent's threats. Your going to drop wurmcoils, have bigger Walking Ballistas, bigger hangarback walkers, and/or play trikes. Your FIs will mitigate mana screw and help insulate you from Wasteland effects. If you go small, you are playing under this strategy and looking to maximize damage output in the shortest amount of time. You will be playing Chief of the foundry, steel overseer and maybe include some number of Porcelain Legionaires. Your going to beat your opponents with 4/3 revokers, 4/4 Mishra's factories, and with Arcbound ravagers, balkistas, and hangerbacks that continue to grow larger every turn via steel overseer before the opponent can stabilize. You will be softer to a turn 1 null rod, but any rod after turn 3 is basically useless, as you have the damage on board to close out a game.

You need to decide on an angle of attack and go for the juggular with shops.

Lastly, i believe you mentioned that your deck came from an "imaginary meta". As I said before, I took a 4 year abscence from the tournament scene. However, I didnt walk away from Vintage. While I was laying down roots and starting a family, I had proxied a vintage gauntlet. I would play solitaire (and sometimes invite friends over to play) and see how hand played out, how they drew, and gain an understanding for how they developed in the early turns of the game. I did this for 4 1/2 years. When I got back into Vintage in 2014, I made top 8 in my very first tournament back, a February 1K at Top Deck Games. I knew what the meta was and took an old conventional shops list that I thought was well positioned. I lost to friends who I was unfortunate enought to get paired against round 1, and 2-0ed the rest of my matches into the top 8. If you dont get tye chance to play often, proxy up a gauntlet of the top performing archetypes and see how the cards and hands interact with each other. Its a great way to gain a lot of insight, and literally a great way to learn to pilot certain decks, like storm. I speak from experience... it kepts me sharp. I also took in a lot if content on vintage, listening to podcasts, watching the VSL (until it got terrible) and reading articles from vintage websites. I looked up Winning daily lists and top 8s of premiere events at MTGTop8.com to see what flex slots people were using in certain archetypes to try and understand the reason for the individual slot changes. I even wrote an article here on my tournament at Vintage Worlds 2015 to share that experience and info with my fellow vintage players. Theres a lot to gain if you look hard enough.

I played Tolarian Academy in the early days of edh before thete was as much emphasis on the banned and restricted list. This card was powerful enough to allow players to keep up with/ or beat a turn 2 Braids, Cabal Minion pretty consistently when drawn by turn 2.

Just let that sink in.

I personally think that Tolarian Academy should have been the fulcrum of the power level seesaw of the restricted list: if its stronger then ban it; if jot, let it rock. The edh comittee doesnt share my point of view.

I think the bigger issue here is that blue is objectively the best color in magic, and assuming you have a vast cardpool to build from, the amount of rediculous things you can do with an academy on turn 3 is a lot worse that what you can do witj a cradle or coffers on turn 3. With cradle or coffers, you are probably throwing a lot of power/ damage onto the table and messing up a permenant or two. With Tolarian mana, you have probably reloaded your hand once or twice after dropping 3-10 mana rocks, and are either threatening to storm the table, deaw someone out of the game, or drop a land equilibrium/ sphere & smokestack and pass the turn to stay ahead and virtually win.the game.

Blue esnt fight n the same axis as the other 4 colors of magic, and that the only things that makes those blue cards that dont fairer is their casting cost. That is what makes olarian scary. It made edh feel like legacy, except you replace the card brainstorm with Tolarian Academy. I dont think there is inherently anything wrong with that, but the number of tier 1 decks diminishes greatly when you have to pack you deck with cards strong enough to keep up.

Ironically, many of the cards that did are also banned.

For combo based builds, Transmute is better, not just because it can act as a pseudo entomb, but because Sharuum combo builds generally use their artifacts for either the combo itself or for ramp, making the "artifact convoke" ability worse than better, since almost all the artifacts in that build would tap for one mana, and usually more.

Whir of Invention is better in engine builds, which sacrifice the marginal ramp pieces for utility artifacts, getting you more value from the "artifact convoke"  than a typical mana rock.  Engine builds take the time to scuplt your boardstate, allowing you the time  to build your mana and able to tutor for something large when you need to.  The triple blue is rough, but being able to use something like a salvaing station to pay the tap cost to ramp it is sweet, especially if it's going to tinker something onto the table to make it untap again (something like Noxious Gearhulk) so you can still gain value from the station.

I was disappointed with the first half of the block, but Whir of Invention gives me hope something will come to revitalize this archetype. Inventor's Fair was a step in the right direction, but printings have come too late for too long to Keep up with the EDH arms race.

Happy New Year everyone.

@DiesToDoomblade: Excellent thread you have here. I haven't posted much on these boards since I haven't edh'd has hard as I used to with the job promotion and the really vibrant vintage scene in NY/NJ/PA area. I saw a post someone wrote in the boards about whether or not it is right or wrong to make Breya into Sharuum 2.0, and it's been consistent across the few threads I've read this past week.

Breya and Sharuum are not the same general. They may use similar cards in their lists, but that is about as far as the comparisons go. To me, I've treated Sharuum as a 6 mana WUB Loyal Retainers for artifacts that has evasion and can beat down. Given its color scheme, it's spot on the curve of 75% of games, and the short list of powerful cards that create open ended synergies with Sharuum and other cards, I tuned my list to bring out the best I believed Sharuum had to offer. Lack of relevant printings have really over many years have really derailed her as a competitive strategy

Breya is not Sharuum in the slightest.

Breya is her own win-con with infinite mana. The inclusion of a 4th color completely messes with your ability to have a fetch-engine mana base and take advantage of all 4 colors at every stage of the game. the mana pinch you are feeling with colors is real, and even if you play more U sources, in some games, those islands make come back to bite you in the ass cuz you may find you're stuck with no black or red the other 10% of games: you really want a deck full of 5c lands to not suffer color screw, but don't have enough to have consistency without running taplands and falling behind on board development. This makes you have to sculpt your list to account for colors in the curve, which downplays your ability to fully exploit the cardpool a 4c general offers you. This is a tension that has to be accounted for, that really doesn't exist for Sharuum.

Both generals want to take advantage of the colorless slice of the color pie, but where as Sharuum is the line you'd like to finish with (play cards, do stuff, dump cards in yard, play sharuum, win) Breya asks that you use her to bridge your win (play cards, do stuff, play breya, use breya to do stuff with cards and board, win). While I feel that Sharuum is best as a combo general, but can grind a win. I feel that Breya is a general that can grind wins, and run combos. By that line of thinking, i feel breya would be a better "stax" (god I hate using that term on these boards, it's so misused) general. However, I don't think this color scheme can constrict a board like Derevi can (from turn 1 or 2 and maintain it). This color scheme is more like "develop the board, and then start "Staxing", which is very different.

A true Stax plan is all about controlling a game through mana dominance- jump your curve while putting your opponent behind theirs. Bant is able to do this because they have green, which offers them mana dorks and better lands (because gaea's cradle and serra's sanctum aren't banned, but tolatian is and Coffers < gaea's cradle). This allows bant to efficiently start locking a board down by turn 2. Their dorks are mana rocks that are cheaper, and more resilient to EDH lock pieces than artifacts (most tax effects are like Thorn of Amethyst, not Lodestone Golem).

What Breya offers is a more powerful option of colors than Bant. Bant has enlightened tutor: Breya has vampiric. Bant has Loyal retainers and Karmic Guide for reanimating fatties: we have welder and Reanimate. Breya is going to have to develop its mana, and then manipulate a board into construction using more powerful, more efficient cards.

Derevi Bant's smokestack line would look something like this- Turn 1 land and mana dory, turn 2 land, something else, turn 3 drop a smokestack, turn for put soot counter on and force the table to sac.

Breya line would be more like: turn 1 land welder, turn 2 land mana rock, turn 3 windfall/ wheel into more ramp and lands, pitching smokestack. Turn 4 mystical tutor into temporal mastery), entomb smokestack and weld, take extra turn to put soot counter on, taking advantage of a 5th turn for more shenanigans.

They can both get to the same places, but take two vastly different routes. Green offers consistency at the expense of not being able to deviate when something goes wrong. Breya offers more decision trees but demands excellence in deck building and flexibility in deck slotting. For Breya to truly be Stax, would require the diamond cycle from Tempest at 1 mana, and that never going to happen in edh. instead, it's going to be 4 color control, do stuff and 4 turns later, your opponents scratching their heads, wondering where did the game turn that you got ahead and are pushing for a win.

As for printing, breya seems like a somewhat decent swiss army knife. Sharuum was a surgical instrument. I have the feeling more things will be relevant to breya because she seems to get better simply with more mana, where as Sharuum needs specific cards to do insanely degenerate things. The less specialized a card, the more you can slot things for it. Breya will most certainly get more printings, where as any printing for Sharuum would most certainly be more impactful.

just my 2 cents.

Because I am at my best when i am actively doing things selflessly for others. I have won FNMs in order to donate the box prize to others who have had cards stolen, I become hyper-focused when playing opponents who insult friends, and i really did lift the car in my profile pic to save a life.

This list looks like its pulling from many different directions.  To respond to thr OP, I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent, but the  reason is to better frame my suggestions.

You titled this list a Stax list.  Stax is short for Stacks, which is a vintage term for the original prison list $T4KS, which was named "The four thousand dollar solution"  from which its abreviation originates from.  Most people, especially on the commander threads mislabel griefer decks as Stacks lists, when in truth, they do not fulfill the ideology of a Stax list.  Stax lists draw their roots from the O'Brien School of Magic, one of the earliest strategies of competitive Magic, whose proponents subscribed to the idea that if you could contain your opponent's resources, you could control create an unbreakable gamestate from which the opponent could never recover from.

Griefer decks annoy players because they play cards that fragment and slow down the lines of play that make games enjoyable.  Stax lists are control decks that, instead of using countermagic to exert influence over opponents by controlling the stack, they exert their influence by generating permenant advantage to control the battlefield.  For a deck to truly be a Stax deck, the deck has to generate advantage by breaking the symmetry on cards that help contain boardstates (many of which also have the effect of taxing the stack, to prevent plays that would change the gamestate you aim to sculpt.  In a sense, griefer decks are the alpha apex predator that kills prey for sport or as a show of stregnth, where Stax decks are more akin to the boa constrictor that carefully and with calculation squeezes the life out of its prey in order to feed itself, because preassure is its primary way to hunt.

If you aim to build a stax deck, you deck slots must reflect this ideology, and more importantly, function to exert just as much preassure on the opponent.   Trinket Mage may be there as a tutor, but if isn't the leanest, most efficient tutor for something that is going to put the game away, it doesnt belong in the deck.  I would actullay advise against using planeswalkers: they make for great win cons but terrible board control permenants. With that in mind, the majority of the spells in your deck should aim to control the board, while your win conditions should be as sleek and efficient as possible, synergistic with the board control strategy, and be as compact as possible.  

Darrenhabib gave a great run-down of cards that help lockdown boardstates so you gain gain control of them.  While mana advantage is the primary route one can use to control the board, it isnt the only one that has to be put in check.  Also, in a perfect world, your opponents will have access to the same mana sources that you will, and just as many (if not more) reasons to utilize them. 

Additionally, as the Commander rules help serve to both contain and homogenize mana sources to even the pace and stregth of mana development across all commander colors combinations and power levels, the inability to run multiple Sol Lands, coupled with your opponents' ability to run optimized manabases similar to yours, are additional handicaps this strategy needs to overcome.  As such, you should scrutinize you mana sources very carefully, as a solid and carefully constructed mana base is paramount to the success of this strategy, much more than almost any other in Magic, and especially commander. 

The benefit to jumping through all these hoops, is that you can apply immense preassure over the game, BECAUSE EACH OPPONENT WILL BE STRUGGLING TO BREAK FREE OF THE GAMESTATE YOU ARE CRAFTING.  Many pages have been written about how the rules of 1v1 card advantage are warped and bastardized when applied to multi-player games.  However, when playing prison, because the prison effects are symmetrical, when the opponent who is "most ahead" is still playing from behind, you are winning.  The "come from behind" play has to be sculpted, and ideally will take many turns to formulate, so it can be hedged off before it is too late. 

I hope this helps guide your decisions. Once I can see the direction you list is trying to take, I can make better suggestions on your card choices.

I dont know if im reading this right, but does this allow Sharuum itself to ge/ 2 things back from the grave? If so, ther÷ may be some merit to this here, as it would also boost salvaging station, and might flat out replace rings in the deck.

When Sharuum hits play, it is a permenant you control, just like Altar of the Brood and station... tbis is intetesting

Im not going to say this set is great,.as so far it looks very tame for an artifact set. Im hopi g there is potential

Vintage

Ive put the deck down until we get some real printings. Im thoroughly disappointed in how Sharuun has become outclassed due to lack of.receng printings while everything else has gotten better by leaps and bounds. I feel that Sharuum's ability to shrug off creature sweepers in a creature dominated format is what made her great and healthy for a competitive edh format. It will be a few years before an artifact-centric set idea is revisited. Until then, her deckbox will continue to collect dust on the shelf.

6 mana is too expensive for a 1v1 commander. Go with something cheaper. I would suggest Marath, Derevi, or something along those lines

Work was crazy busy. I'm looking for the tablet to post my list (as my phone is an edge and goes psycho with my big hands). I'll be posting it in a few minutes... just got home.

Here is my current list (still a work in progress)


A few notes:
Mirrorpool is simultaneously the best and worst utility land in the deck. When you drop it turn 1, the "comes into play tapped" clause doesnt hurt as bad. When you need to topdeck just one more mana and you topdeck this, you'll fling the deck across the room. It's best utility is in the subtlety of its uses. Yes you can combo off with Sharuum and this land, but being able to copy an expended Myr Battlesphere to Sieve an extra turn, using Metamorph and Mirrorpool to double up on copies of opposing creatures, using it as a 5 mana Sculpting Steel with Karn, or just a typical value play

Sun Titan is better in this list than he was a few years ago. Its nice to have something that doesnt die to Aura Shards, that can bring back pieces and lands. I like the interaction between this guy and mirrorpool. He's good butnot amazing but he does help recur things in a pinch.

Leyline / Altar of the Brood is the new go-to infi in the deck. EDH has become an arms race with all the redardedness that has seen print over the last fez years while Sharuum decks have gotten much of nothing. Altar is more easily tutorable, can mess with opponent's lines of play (like forcing them to not play their top deck tutors while you have a fetch or thopter foundry available) It makes Nihil Spellbomb more of a priority to land in play. Leyline punishes greedy graveyard based decks, which also happen to be the decks where their recursive engines wreck Sharuum by taking itapat piece by piece. Leyline also has the benefit to be relevant on turn 0at times. I havent had issues of Eldrazi reshuffles, as you just crypt them in response to the trigger. With that said, i wish i had space for crypt itself. I don't

Ugin is just so much better than Karn Liberated. He does cost one more, but the ability to Deed the table into exile while yours remains intact is huge. The plus ability to bolt the table is also relevant for cleaning up the board or picking off low-hanging fruit.

Basalt is in there as a lotus petal replacement and as a possible infinite to be used with foundry and Hangerback Walker which are great mana sinks. With infinite mana it is possible to net infinite untaps with the right pieces on the table... Just create more lines of play to exploit. Not untapping hasn't been that bad, as ive come into turns that im digging for the right kind of gas or a line of play, and i have the mana top untap at the endstep right befire i take a turn. Itis also a chance that was made because im using the next card.

Clock of Omens just does dumb things. While i think the card is cheesy beyond hell, it does bring the power level of the deck up significantly. It interacts well with rings, and allows for interactions that get exponentially larger as you cycle through them. On Sunday, it allowed me to make infinite thopters with Sword of the 'eek and mana vault (with the Sword coming in untapped, just like the token, netting me 2 untapped tokens per cycle). Its a great way to get from 4 to 8 for Ugin and sphinxes, and allows me to bank turns with Sieve to respond to extra turn effects.

Hangerback Walker really hnst been that impressive. Its addition comes from needing a scalable threat I can search out with Artificer's Intuition. It gets somewhat better with other engines, but its primary use is to jumpstart certain engines in the deck, and act as a fat ass for defense.

Cyclonic Rift is hete because it really is an offensive card. When Behind, it breaks up plays and stabilizes the table. When ahead, it just wins games. Also works really well with Memory Jar and Sandstone Oracle.

Sandstone Oracle is a card that is a win more. I like the fact its the right creature type for our Caverns. The other day, i finally got in enough reps with it to see that it can function under hand parity, but it is something you have to coax it to do. By mindful spell casting, meticulous Bazaar activations, and blinking at the right times, you can chew through enough of your deck to get what you need after the initial assault on the table, when everyone is sculpting their hands and board for the next go-around.

The deck has gotten faster, but its still not where I Want it to be. I'll keep waiting for new tools, but until then, the older tech will have to suffice. Also, a mention on the new mulligan rule:

I dont mind it at all. It used to allow people to sculpt their hands with artifact hate. Since its implementation, there have been far fewer austere commands and its ilk pointed my way. However, it does encourage those with a broken start to more easily run a table over, especially due to heavy mulligans and mana inconsistency in the early game. Its allowed me to combo off more often and faster than normal. I miss winning games without the combo finish, but with the arms race, there is no longer an incentive to play fair.

Since shops in Vintage got kicked in the junk, I've been playing more EDH. I've made more changes to the list with improved results. We've only ayes 3-4 man games recently due to player availability mid week, but the deck has combo's off more in these last 8 games than in the last 12 months. I'll post more about it at work, and share my feelings on the slots when I get in.

I finally got in a decent number for games to test the new list, which is still in Flux. The games were all 4 or 5 player games. Mirrorpool did get played a few times. I played a total of 4 games on the day, dropping one to a more broken opening from an opponent while having awkward draws myself, the second to playing without killer instinct (some in game decisions I chose to make kept me 1 turn away from a combo kill, did that to get a better feel for the newly incorporated aggro elements), and took game 3 and 4 handedly. The last 3 games I had drawn mirrorpool when it was useful. In the second game, I chose to copy a SotSW and get in for aggro beats, which padded my life total, but opponent manages to cyclonic rift.the board into a cheated out Time stretch, copying it for 4 turns.The third game, Mirrorpool allowed me to combo with Just itself, the one drop, and a crypt to combo the table from generating the token. The 4th game was grindy, as my opponents decided to break out Anafenza and more grave hate strategies. Board got wiped 3 times, and my lands kept getting wrecked, but copying Sunday Titan allowed me to get my mana back in order to rebuild. The interaction between sun Titan and mirrorpool is insane, as Titan gets back mirrorpool to protect it from grave removal, and keep making more Titans.Was able to win through double aura shards on the back of Sunday Titan and mirrorpool, jockey ed for an opening where enough Titan triggers (and the copies' triggers) plus cards in hand while opponents tapped out allowed me to time sieve for enough turns to kill one Aura shards player on Titan Damage (was tapped out for swinging on me earlier), and the other with Sharuum damage, and the third for just over exacties. The extra turns allowed me to play and protect Tezzeret over 2 turns to fetch enough artifacts to supplement a seive for 4 or 5 turns, where damage put the game away on a non-infinite seive kill (no karn/station tricks, had sword but no thopter half. Ten was pulling out enough free and cheap artifacts to pay for the next turn

Hello everyone,

It's been a while since I have given a full response on these threads. I had caught the vintage bug last year and have been very invested in the NY & NJ vintage scene. It's taken up a large amount of my MTG time. I've been doing pretty well in tournaments lately, and have been working on Shop brews and refining DPS. With that said, I finally had a decent amount of game (running on 2 weeks now) so I actually can speak to that experience as well as the experience with the deck in games before then. I am going to frame the context of my responses with my feeling on the archetype. But first, a public service announcement

Much like Shops in Vintage, Sharuum gets a bad rep for being more degenerate than it really is. It's a deck that is unquestionably powerful, but so are many other archetypes in competitive EDH. For years I have been advocating that Sharuum needs certain fundamental printings to be firmly positioned as a teir 1 deck, now and for years to come. Set after set, those printings have not come. Set after set, many other archetypes have gained strength and have become hyper-competitive due to gaining the level of fundamental additions to their archetypes that Sharuum has not received. Yet people still want to ***** and complain when they see a Sharuum deck on the table, and label it the Archenemy in the room. People need to get real and accept that a Bitter Ordeal for your library is no different than a turn 2 Eldrazi Legend, or a craterhoof behemoth kill for 100 damage per player, Reveilark / Saffi combo for your library, or Narset attacking for infinite timewalks: the end result is the same. Just because you prefer to lose a certain way does not mean that all losses are not equal, so for those of you / us who claim to play EDH competitively, if you do indeed play competitively, than accept a kill for what its worth and get over your egos. In Vintage Shops, being locked out of playing spells is no different than getting every relevant spell of yours countered and losing to Jace ultimates after 6 turns of fatesealing. They are the same thing. Get over it.

With that said, a few things are true of the EDH format:

1. Sharuum has lost more ground than its gained due to a lack of fundamental printings for the deck and strategy creating the inability for the deck to keep up with new EDH technology.
2. The new mulligan rule has actually worked to slow down the format, resulting in less consistency in huge swingy broken plays, and less answers in opening hands due to increased importance in drawing better mana to be able to actually compete in the game. With an increased importance in stable mana bases resulting from the implementation of the new Vancouver Mulligan, we're going to see less flex slots in decks and more streamlined mana curves. All this is good for a deck that has great mana to begin with and hasn't gained a strategy auto-include since Phyrexian Metamorph was printed

All this has led me to believe that waiting to assemble one of our game breaking combos is not good enough, and that, while those combos are still string enough to be in the deck, opponents need to be preassures on more fronts. Now that player's can't free mulligan their way to broken mana and answers / tutors, their in-game decisions will be more costly.

"Do I tutor for the Urborg to get explosive mana, or do I need the Cyclonic rift more"?

These questions will come up at tables more and more, and so I feel playing a more aggressive route will be better for the deck in the long term, at least until we start getting some real goods.

Quote from ajacobik »

I'm going to tool around with Necropotence and probably Phyrexian Arena. My list runs no aggro win conditions at all, just races to assemble any number of interlocking artifacts into a win. The card I miss the most since the rebuild is Mindslaver. I miss the tempo and occasional instant wins it gave.

Ajacobik was speaking to card advantage. In my opinion, now would be the time to press burst card draw. With the mulligan rules being what they may, I find it better to draw a lot now, than play a permenant and pray that you get the turns to gain value. Less pre-game hand sculpting means less answers and permission will be faced as a whole, especially is a mulligan will be punishing you for greedy deck construction. I have cut FOF for Whispering Madness, and am looking to fit Sandstone Oracle into the list, possibly over Mind's Eye. It would justify keeping the reanimation package in, and should increase the deck's overall tempo.

Quote from Stefouch »

I wonder if [b]Jostin123[/b] completely switched to the aggressive route, including Arcbound Ravager, Cranial Plating, Wurmcoil Engine and Lightning Greaves in his list.

Quote from axelsior

Made a few changes to the deck.

OUT: Sphinx of the Steel Wind, Aligned Hedron Network, Kuldotha Forgemaster, Karn Liberated, Trading Post

IN: Talisman of Dominance, Talisman of Progress, Steel Hellkite, Basalt Monolith, Winter Orb

I also removed Trading Post. I still believe it's a very good multi-function card, but it is too slow.

Winter Orb is an obvious powerful card in a list with lots of manarocks. But I think it should not be alone if you take this route. Maybe considering Armageddon ?

It's not a complete switch, but I am back to using Basalt / Rings combo, as I want to cut down on the turns needed to threaten lethal and just want to get there. Instead of building up X thopers per eot, where X is amount of mana you can make, I'm looking to just make infinite, and see if they have an answer. Same goes for infi turns, inf/inf Steel hellkites and hangerbacks, the latter of which still nets you infinite turns if you draw Time Sieve without Salvaging Station. If they're fighing to break up rings combo, they are not going after something else.

Quote from SerenadeSSBM »

We're wondering what you use for the other side of the Basalt Monolith combo, Jostin. Did I guess correctly with Rings?

In other news, I have to say I am absolutely in love with the Vancouver mulligan. Maybe my playgroup just hasn't figured out what is practically a new format, but the combo slowdown really helps out. Now that all four decks aren't rushing to reliably combo out on turn 3, they have untapped mana to stop the turn 4 or 5 combo from the other decks. I think our deck is a lot stronger in this meta than it was before.

That being said, I still like the speedup we've introduced. Altar of the Brood is an amazing addition I should have done a year ago; I never realized how many times I was 2 mana off comboing off. I still haven't gotten a Vindicate yet, and there are many times I desperately want one. Boseiju becomes better in my opinion, as a slow game is more susceptible to significant All is Dusts and graveyard recursion blowouts.

I personally think the deck needs more tutors than I have, not more card draw. Obviously I'm still missing the important Enlightened, but if Grim Tutor gets reprinted it may be wrong not to run it. If we can resolve our haymakers, this meta is much more receptive to them than before.

Vindicate and Cyclonic make two real ways to deal with a Null Rod, and in my meta I think I want one or two more at three or less mana. I'm not sure what even exists for this purpose - maybe Disenchant? It is very often that I want to blow up a problem enchantment/artifact even if it's just the Narset player's Mana Vault. Rest in Peace off of a Zur is also pretty killer to our gameplan, and it seemed better to me to get rid of it and combo as usual than try to Magister kill someone or try to win through other non-grave wincons. If Magister isn't even ideal in that situation, I'm not sure when he is.

I'd really like to see Jostin's aggressive list, and hear more about how he's reliably going infinite and having ways to kill through combat. Infinite Hangarback is pretty adorable and sticks through all non-exile, but the Hellkite seems expensive, slow, and easy to kill. I'm not convinced. If you're going to assemble a combo, Sharuum loops seem so much stronger.

Sharuum loops are still the strongest synergies in the deck. What I mean by aggressive,is spending more time in the red zone and pressuring life totals than just taking a turn to play cards to dig for more cards. If you press them on more than one front, they are going to have difficulty covering all bases.

Quote from ajacobik »

Once again I pretty much agree with everything you said except that Sharuum has become stronger with the Vancouver. I found that I had to mulligan two or three times to find hands with an acceptable curve, even after going up to 37 lands and adding a mana rock. Maybe I just had bad luck for a long time running, but I genuinely think we're weaker now than we were before.

In my opinion, you may just be experiencing variance. However, you do play with counterspells (I don;t think it's gotten to that point yet personally, but if it works for you, rock on) so it may be possible that you're fining a tension between the two and how its impacting how your games play out. I have made some cuts, the biggest being Karn Planeswalker, Trading Post, and Bitter Ordeal (I'm using Altar of the brood / Leyline for now, although, I may cut leyline for T. Crypt, testing will tell). I have however, kept in all the sphinxes, as their ability to keep me another angle of attack and the incidental kills / lifegain has been worth it to me.

Quote from SerenadeSSBM »

(@ TeraInferno)

Hey, a belated welcome to the thread! It's been a little difficult to provide proper discussion with you - we've been discussing the basics of this deck for a very long time, so we generally only talk about extremely specific cards and situations, and I think we may have forgotten how to speak more generally.

So, let's see where you can get what you're looking for. I assume you've read the first page primer, as you know how the deck works and your build is pretty solid, so the next step is to understand Jostin's page 5 mini-primer and perhaps Bitterroot's combo list. In them, we explore why we don't choose more general WUB options like Grave Pact, and why we focus on a very specific package of value artifacts and only a few colored permanents. This thread leans more towards Jostin's ideas, but we are shifting and taking in many more builds than we have before.

It's important to understand that we're talking cutthroat decklists here. This means we won't play powerful cards if they aren't optimal in our specific build, and it can be hard to explain why this is the case. We can try by noting that applicability in a broad set of circumstances is king (which is why you will never see a refined list with Darksteel Forge - Roar of Reclamation is better 90% of the time), and we have learned to distrust cards we like only in ideal circumstances. We will also talk about the most expensive cards even if many of us may not own them to better work towards the most optimal build.

If you want to see how this develops, pages 20-50 or so involve us just getting a handle on the information I've posted above. Over a very long time we've built up versions of Jostin's, Jack's, and Bitterroot's lists, and since EDH players don't actually play all that often (enfranchised magic players in general, really), progress is fairly slow. There are tons of weird interactions that you just won't see at first, second, third, or fourth glances, usually involving Tawnos's Coffin or Karn.

In the past ten or so pages, we've been understanding our decks and coming to terms with the fact that they aren't as good as we thought, so we're trying real revamps and faster deviations with cheaper combos that all win the game (devaluing things like sphinxes, valuing things like Altar of the Brood). We are starting to consider playing counterspells again, but you may find it interesting to know that we're coming from experience where we didn't play them at all for a very long time. (I, for example, am still not convinced - they really need to be worth their weight in tempo, and they also need to be able to beat out a control player with 2-3 spells in hand. I think Force of Will, Swan Song, Flusterstorm, and Mana Drain could have a place, but for pretty much everything else, fat chance.) This is where we are currently at and what you are currently reading, so if your questions aren't about lowering the curve of a very high curve deck, you might not gather too much.

As for your deck, it has a good manabase and a good number of the core Sharuum cards, yet also has a fair number of just plain weak cards like Dissipate and Spell Crumple that should be Force, Swan Song, or Ensnaring Bridge. It has the easily removed Blightsteel that is more of a combo piece than an actually castable card, and a Mimic Vat that isn't efficiently abusable with your current suite of creatures.

More important than that, however, is that it is trying to do too many things at once. If you're playing stax, why are you playing Exsanguinate? In a proper Stax lock, even the 5 mana required to start up infinite mana should be difficult, and Sphinx's Rev has a similar problem. Nevinyrral's lock fights against the beatdown plan, and the lack of Arcum level support makes the Nevinyrral's lock close to impossible.

How do you fight a turn 3 Narset threatening infinite on her first attack? How do you get out of a Teferi Back to Basics lock? What is your plan against Null Rod? What are your plans to victory, and how do you reliably execute one of those plans?

We believe the answer to this is not stax, or glass cannon combo, or goodstuff, but an oppressive set of interacting engines and combos enabled by EDH's most powerful WUB instants, sorceries, and enchantments.

This was a great quality response, and the reason I began sharing ion this thread. I am so glad to see people keep up the high level of discussion here, and thank you to everyone here, including Serenade, Ajacobik, and so many others for keeping it that way. I really wish we could meet so I could buy everyone a round.

Serenade hit it on the head with that last post. I still think that the best method to a win is by utilizing interactive engines to create game ending advantage. However, the cat's been out the bag for the better part of 5 years, and with so much being printed, and us having to do more with fewer competitive options than other decks, we need the deck to evolve to what our needs are. For me, that more graveyard hate and more beating people in the face when I'm not comboing off. Your needs may change. But the core of the deck is still strong enough to survive. With interacting engines, the theory is that engines plug into each other to create gains that no individual card could do on its own. For me, Altar replaces another 1 drop I lost and now combo kills the table (unless they play multiple eldrazi, at which point, my job is to make sure the game doesn't get to that point). Basalt plugs into interactions with my game ending engines, and works well with the Clock of Omens I broght back in after a 7 year hiatus, and gives me something to do with all the thopters I generate EOT. Look for the interactions you need, and plug in the appropriate cogs for the engine.

*edit* I have time to put up my list. This list is NOT set in stone, and is in flux as I test out how the new pieces feel


A few things to note:

1. Have not yet tutored or draw into Mirrorpool, or had a line of play (most common being the anticipated Crucible) where I would have wanted to tutor for one.
2. Lost the Sandstone Oracle I traded for and refuse to buy another on principle, not unless I need to attend a tournament or its found.
3. Sun Titan's inclusion stemmed from a few things:
- a need for Dispeller's Capsule to do more work
- rewarding me for getting into the red zone
- the move from Bitter Ordeal to Altar of the Brood, and titan's ability to get it.
- It's ability to work with fetches to stregnthen the manabase of the deck
- In anticipation of its ability to recycle Mirrorpool