That's a great topic. Another good "trick" is blocking with JVP, and then flipping it in response, just to suck up damage.

And one of my favorite "tips" and "tricks" articles of all time, has more good ones: http://www.starcitygames.com/article/7063_Sharpening-Your-Skills--Playing-With-and-Around-Mana-Drain.html

@drstreetmention Yeah, it was more about Leo than DRS, but the more people pick up Survival and/or Dredge the more you’ll want DRS anyway. It is possible you could get away from Leo in favor of another Meddling Mage perhaps? Then Noble is probably better.

Hi, looking forward to the book. I really appreciate your articles and podcast, which have helped me get back up to speed after time away from the game. Any chance you will be releasing the book through the Kindle store, or on another format that plays nicely with e-readers?

Thanks for the feedback everyone! That was pretty much my take on it too, just wanted to see if i had the blinders on.

@thecravenone said in Best Lab Maniac deck?:

Y'all are missing the obvious answer.

Every deck should be a Lab Man deck. Put that bad boy in your sideboard and laugh manically as you never lose another Two Card Monte match!

Two Card Monte has pyroblasts though...

Looking at imbalance I would try hard to look at overall win % against the meta opposed to numbers of decks being played. Looking at previous meta results theres some decks that have a very good win % against the meta that are underplayed (big blue). I also think that alot of people enjoy certain play styles and that that contributes to Shops and POs numbers.
I don't think a lopsided meta is necessarily bad if its because people are playing the decks they enjoy! And If theres a card pool change because of it that would be the worst thing for the format.

I know we have win % data for at least 2 data points.

metagame breakdown coming soon

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.

@vcf said in Drawing 14 - Vintage Champs 2018 Top 8 - 8th Place with "Grixis Thieves" or as I like to call it: Ocean's 75 by George Clooney:

happy to see so top scores and naming me
Congrats!

I took some months ago Moatzu's list and changed abrade for goblin.
I'm also starting testing -4leyline, dredge has a lot of issues for it. Did you considered Yixlid Jailer?
I will also will test Tezzeret.

The thing i'm not super fan is 4 notion. How many times did you resolve drawing 14 in 11 rounds?

Thanks for the report and congrats again for your performance!

Thanks! Yes, I also took a look at Moatzu's lists too from online.
Yes, I have also considered Yixlid Jailer and love the card, as it can also clock dredge as hate piece. Not having played vintage in a year, I just took my dredge buddy's advice and played the 4x tormod's crypt.

Tezzeret was great, essentially a 1 card combo for vault-tezz infinite turns over 2 turns, or redundant vault-key piece.

The 4x notion thief may not be correct or optimal, but I was sure as heck gonna just jam it with draw 7s. I drew 14 4 or 5 times in the 11 rounds, but versus shops (3 of the rounds), you board out a lot of the combo pieces, so those rounds don't really count. I attempted to draw 14 4-5 other times, but was disrupted, twice in the top 8. So it isn't a hard thing to do. Most of the time, the notion thief is a must answer flash threat for blue decks so they have to trade counters/resources on it. Then there's the 2nd and or 3rd thief. Eventually, I trade resources off and easily set up vault-key for the win. I found notion thief to be more impressive than JTMS, due to it having flash. And it won beating for 3 a lot too. But yes, 4x notion thief may not be optimal. But my plan for the weekend was to have fun and try to draw 14. The top 8 was a cool side effect of it all