Vintage Challenge - 7/8/2017

diophan

We had 54 players register for yesterday's vintage challenge. I was able to win with a less exciting mentor deck than last week's winner. Thanks to @chubbyrain for recording all the results from the swiss.

Top 8:

diophan - Jeskai Mentor
maegwiny - Ravager Shops (no tangle wires)
scarcio - Ravager Shops
desolutionist - Gifts Drain Tendrils
Bradisek - Car Shops (no tangle wires)
gunmaster7 - Unmask Dredge
masedogg06 - Paradoxical Drain Tendrils
stsung - Ravager Shops (no tangle wires)

Top 32 Decklists

Before anyone gets too excited about the Big Blue winrate, note that @desolutionist was the only pilot (we classify paradoxical decks in their own archetype). However if anyone is interested in a modern take on a classic archetype, I suggest checking out his list (JVP is a grindy recoup I imagine). The spreadsheet can be found here. As usual let us know if you spot any errors.

Brass Man

Congrats diophan and congrats to desolutionist on continuing to crush with his Gifts list. I wonder when other people will start picking it up.

Can a drunk @Brass-Man and a drunker Stefan successfully pilot Gifts Ungiven to a Daily 4-0? Tune in next week...

It doesn't beat @diophan ... working on a solution

4 Pyroblast is hard to beat. Started playing more Missteps. Which is good with Baral; makes your worst card a free cantrip. Thinking about playing more black spells like Night's Whisper/Mind Twist (good with Baral) I'll figure it out...

Even Thoughtseize... you really want to be in a situation where you know what they have and can navigate around it. There was a point in game 3 in which I think I made a mistake by "going for it" while he had two unknown cards. Those cards were Misstep and Pyroblast. I think ideally you want to get them bottlenecked on mana such that they can only cast 1 Pyroblast while your Mindbreak Traps are enabled. I should have waited until he played JVP or something. I only cast Ancestral because he Stripped my land and I wanted to do something meaningful that turn (Ancestral + Drain OR Gifts). I knew Ancestral and Drain would be countered, but I wanted to clear the way for next turn Gifts. I had an irrelevant Mindbreak Trap in this scenario and should have just waited.

Brass Man

@ChubbyRain said in Vintage Challenge - 7/8/2017:

Can a drunk @Brass-Man and a drunker Stefan successfully pilot Gifts Ungiven to a Daily 4-0? Tune in next week...

Spoiler Alert: no.

mourningpalace

@diophan congratz on the win.

The Atog Lord

@Brass-Man said in Vintage Challenge - 7/8/2017:

@ChubbyRain said in Vintage Challenge - 7/8/2017:

Can a drunk @Brass-Man and a drunker Stefan successfully pilot Gifts Ungiven to a Daily 4-0? Tune in next week...

Spoiler Alert: no.

But an Atog just did. The Gifts deck is good.

nucleosynth

@The-Atog-Lord said in Vintage Challenge - 7/8/2017:

But an Atog just did. The Gifts deck is good.

Until tonight, I had never seen an Atog Manamorphose before.

mourningpalace

@The-Atog-Lord But I'll bet your BAC was significantly lower than @Brass-Man

Brass Man

Seriously doubt that would make much of a difference. Gifts is hard, yo!

@Brass-Man Gifts Ungiven has been the best singleton Bomb in my Mentor Deck.

@MSolymossy

I've tossed around the idea of playing a singleton Mentor as a bomb in my Gifts deck.

Jeb Springfield

Perhaps I am mistaken, but it seems to me that there were fewer Flusterstorms in this challenge amongst better performing Mentor lists than in previous weeks. I've found that Flusterstorm has been a bit weaker in Mentor decks given the increased presence of artifact mana in the metagame - particularly when trying to defend spells.

Does anyone have any thoughts on Flusterstorm and its current position in the metagame?

KingLeovold

@Jeb-Springfield I think it has declined as more copies of pyroblast have seen play. The pyroblast is able to deal with jaces which has currently put it over the top.

Brass Man

@Jeb-Springfield I've been very happy with 0 Flusterstorm since the restriction (and probably before, but definitely now).

Like @KingLeovold, I tend to prefer Pyroblasts, which can hit both Jaces and Dack Fayden. There's also a tendency for Outcome decks to start their turn by playing Outcome, with lots of mana floating, making Flusterstorm dead.

Gifts in Mentor is certainly viable. If you are playing multiples of Snapcaster and JVP, I would recommend it. It's likely better than Compulsive Research. If people want a starting point...

## CHUBBYRAIN (9TH PLACE)
## VINTAGE CHALLENGE #10648057 ON 05/27/2017
  
Planeswalker (1)
1 Dack Fayden
Creature (7)
3 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
3 Monastery Mentor
1 Snapcaster Mage
Sorcery (9)
1 Balance
1 By Force
1 Fragmentize
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Ponder
2 Preordain
1 Time Walk
1 Treasure Cruise
Instant (20)
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Dig Through Time
1 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Gifts Ungiven
1 Gush
2 Mana Drain
3 Mental Misstep
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Path to Exile
1 Pyroblast
1 Swords to Plowshares
Artifact (6)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
Land (17)
4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
1 Karakas
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Strip Mine
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
60 Cards
Sideboard (15)
1 By Force  
1 Flusterstorm 
1 Fragmentize  
1 Mindbreak Trap 
1 Pyroblast  
2 Swords to Plowshares 
2 Containment Priest  
1 Disenchant 
1 Pithing Needle  
1 Plains 
2 Rest in Peace  
1 Tormod's Crypt

9th place? Well, anyone who has streamed knows that streaming has the tendency to increase your chances of making game-altering blunders. That's what happened in my win and in, when I talked through a line of fetching Volcanic, playing a Dack, stealing opponent's Mox, and setting up subsequent plays, then clicked on Tundra and lost the game without access to red mana.

@Jeb-Springfield Flusterstorm is best at defending your own spells and blowing opponent's out at instant speed. I love it in Thirst and Gifts shells, but when you are counting on Flusterstorm to stop your opponent's threats, it's can often be a worse version of Spell Pierce. Like all Magic cards, Flusterstorm vs. Pyroblast is a matter of context and in the typical Gush Mentor shell, Pyroblast will typically be better.

Jeb Springfield

Thanks for the replies @ChubbyRain, @Brass-Man and @KingLeovold. Pre restriction, I would always play a 2 - 2 split of Flusterstorm and Pyroblast in Mentor decks but have found Flusterstorm to be less good since the restriction.

Last week I spent an evening trying out Scabs' Esper Mentor deck. His list played 3 Flusterstorm and I was interested to see how it would perform against Jeskai Mentor. We played for about 5 hours and it didn't go well for Esper. One of the things I missed most was Pyroblast, especially because my friend was playing 2 Jace, TMS which was often quite tough to deal with.

As Matt said, I have also found that Flusterstorm is quite strong in Thirst for Knowledge & Paradoxical Outcome decks.

Thanks again for your replies!