For anyone curious, this is what I've been toying with post misstep ban and with a bit more time to brew. It's pretty obvious there's been some inspiration drawn from the current xerox decks, although this is heavily driven by the tendency of current blue meta decks to be even more planeswalker focused than ever before (grumblegrumblerestrictnarsetplease). It's possible bolt should be a misstep or even just a different piece of interaction and there's also room for Jace to be trimmed to 1, although I have concerns about going that low on win cons.

Still early days in regards to testing so I expect more changes, to the sideboard in particular.

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@zias
Never thought of Magus, I'll give it a test run.

@moorebrother1
I had more bolts in, but it didn't feel good to me.
I'm not sure I would want that many snapcasters in a deck without cantrips.
As for dack, I see him as one of the prime reasons to play this deck, with liquimetal and all.

Hello all,

I thought I would re-instate this list.

Brian Kelly (who's manadrain tag I can't find, apologies) put forward a 1/4 of this deck on the VSL, thank you.

None the less Lavinia has made non-0-creature spells quite the premium. Thus let me present a updated version, with the addition (in the form of removal) from what @wfain suggested

Here we go:
// 60 Maindeck
// 8 Artifact
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal

// 9 Creature
3 Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
4 Arena Rector
1 Spellseeker
1 Monastery Mentor

// 15 Instant
2 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
2 Flusterstorm
1 Flash
1 Dig Through Time
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Gush
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Mystical Tutor

// 16 Land
2 Underground Sea
3 Tundra
1 Island
1 Strip Mine
4 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria

// 4 Planeswalker
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker

// 8 Sorcery
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Fragmentize
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Innocent Blood

// 15 Sideboard
// 4 Artifact
SB: 4 Tormod's Crypt

// 2 Creature
SB: 2 Containment Priest

// 2 Enchantment
SB: 2 Energy Flux

// 3 Instant
SB: 1 Mindbreak Trap
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Hurkyl's Recall

// 1 Planeswalker
SB: 1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion

// 3 Sorcery
SB: 3 Fragmentize

I welcome critique above all else.

Wfain is correct, misstep is wrong. Thank you.

Since the deck is quite obscure I cant explain all selections, but if anything makes little sense please ask me,

All the best,
NBA83

Was thinking about this shell as well coincidentally. Null rod + B2B is a pretty hard lock. You definitely need more threats, I'm also skeptic whether you can support the Sphinx with null rod (which also happens to be extremely vulnerable to the most commonly played removal in the format Pyroblast and Swords to plowshares). I think the deck will likely struggle vs Xerox since they have a better draw engine/ answers, can play around your lock and your list is extremely soft to Lavinia.
Any reason not to splash white for better threats and answers? Have you considered Blue moon at all?

Hi, the guy who top 8'd EW here on 4x notion thieves + wheel + twister.

A lot of the others already mentioned some of the inherent issues.

@neo_altoid to answer some of your points: 1) I wouldn't say I ran hot to be honest. Both of my losses in the swiss were not due to bad luck, but actually my own misplays, though Sperling's pyromancer deck matchup didn't feel great. Even my loss to in the top8 to PO felt like my opponent had better variance than me. Not having preordain (or ponder) speaks to how I like to play the deck (and my playstyle in general). Less fluff/air, more "real" cards. For the most part, the deck ended up trading resources and coming up ahead because there was less fluff. 2) I don't play on MTGO, but if I did, I would probably champion this deck and grind it all the time. 3) And yes, I did get some people because they didn't play around the 2nd or 3rd or 4th thief.

It is definitely a weird deck, which I would classify as midrange with combo type aspect, which sometimes is difficult figuring out the role in the matchup/situation. Has the tools to do a lot and the combo aspect means it only has to midrange for so long or act as control for so long, and sometimes just starts the game as oops I win.

My feeling on the deck is that it is probably heavily meta dependent. Dredge and shops are probably not the best matchups, but the tinker-bot/vault-key combo aspect of it allows it to steal games from them. It is best when blue without much interaction is running around (aka a lot of Paradoxical, where their only interaction is countermagic and an expensive repeal). The less swords and pyroblasts there are, the better notion thief is; I was lucky to not face pretty much 0 swords, and pyroblasts were plenty but I was able to grind out the pyros with multiple threats.

Also, it is not best at any of the archetypes it hybrids as, which is tough to not just play the best deck of the archetype of the format. I like it because I can play multiple roles with it. That's just my playstyle, maybe not an easy or correct way to approach vintage.

Anyone have any updates on playing this deck? Looks awesome as I loved playing miracles in legacy.

@revengeanceful The Humility was never a factor in any of my games that I remember, although it certainly could have been. E.g., shutting down Depths if I hadn't gotten the Strip Mine, shutting down Snapcasters. It's there for those types of things, as well as Oath, Ballistas, and random utility creatures.

I did no play testing except for goldfishes, so can't comment otherwise.

Thanks you for your advice. Blood Moon seems like fun, too, but I'd rather be blue based. Standstill looks fine. Therefore I'd make the following exchanges:
3x Standstill for 3x Preordain
3x Tundra + 4x Mishra's Factory + 2x Islands for 7x Islands + 1x Plains + 1x Tundra
3x Wasteland for 2x Back to Basics + 1x Thing in the Ice
1x Crucible of Worlds for 1x Jace, Vryns Prodigy
2x Stony Silence for 2x Null Rod
Maybe take out Mystical Tutor or Merchant Scroll for another Swords.
Maybe add Narset Transcendent, I really like her.

I love long games, but my biggest threat is the time on magic online. Guess I need to train a bit more 🙂

Thanks guys and best regards,
StormtheBrain

@nba84 I’m sure it’s a budget issue, but there are things like Cabal therapy, Surgical Extraction, Meddling Mage, etc where differentiated cards can be beneficial, even if the other card is strictly better.

@p3temangus I will not deny there are certain games he does feel mediocre. But other games he’s just boss and has been my main win con many games.

I’ve also tried out search for azcanta for the scry effect running 3 bobs and a search. That card also seems good but pretty mana intensive once it flips.

The last paper tournament I played I removed the Bobs and won all my non-shops matches but was pretty stuck against shops which drove me back in this direction. Not saying I am correct in that assessment but I’ve been trying to feel out the best this since then

@brass-man The sharks are back in town!

Thanks for getting back to me! The list looks great. I’m sure it makes for some real grindy games. I’m going to my first vintage event this weekend and looking forward to running some sort of Leovold deck!