Vintage Challenge - 7/8/2017
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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)
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.
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Congrats diophan
and congrats to desolutionist on continuing to crush with his Gifts list. I wonder when other people will start picking it up.
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Can a drunk @Brass-Man and a drunker Stefan successfully pilot Gifts Ungiven to a Daily 4-0? Tune in next week...
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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.
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@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.
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@diophan congratz on the win.
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@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.
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@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.
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@The-Atog-Lord But I'll bet your BAC was significantly lower than @Brass-Man
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Seriously doubt that would make much of a difference. Gifts is hard, yo!
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@Brass-Man Gifts Ungiven has been the best singleton Bomb in my Mentor Deck.
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@MSolymossy
I've tossed around the idea of playing a singleton Mentor as a bomb in my Gifts deck.
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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?
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@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.
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@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.
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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.
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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!