Confidant Control

[dragoscar1]

Hello, I would like to share a deck I have been working on since around 2013. The idea of the deck is to use dark confidant as a card advantage engine much like jace, the mind sculptor, which is pretty good in vintage. The downside to dark confidant is that he is soft to lightning bolt effects, and he causes you to take damage. The first is not hugely relevant as removal effects are not big in vintage and mental misstep can deal with some of it, the second is solved by the use of sensei's divining top/sylvan library and jtms to put land or one drops on the top to take little damage, and to try to tone down the cmc of the deck as much as possible.

For the colors it can go a few ways, you have to play blue, and black for bob, but for the third color they are all viable, green for sylvan library, white for swords to plowshares and mentor. I ultimately chose red as it's the best against shops imo, and pyroblast is good against blue. You can also go four colors but it makes you really weak to wasteland.

Card advantage:
4x dark confidant
2x jace, the mind sculptor
2x snapcaster

Wincon:
1x young pyromancer
1x goblin rabblemaster

Restricted cards:
1x ancestral recall
1x time walk
1x brainstorm
1x ponder
1x gush
1x merchant scroll
1x gitaxian probe

Counterspells:
4x force of will
2x pyroblast
1x mana drain
4x mental misstep
1x flusterstorm

Removal:
1x fiery confluence
1x by force
1x abrade
1x lightning bolt

Misc:
2x dack fayden
2x sensei's diving top

Mana:
1x black lotus
1x mox emerald
1x mox sapphire
1x mox jet
1x mox pearl
1x mox ruby
1x Flooded Strand
1x Island
1x Library of Alexandria
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
1x Strip Mine
3x Underground Sea
4x Volcanic Island

For the win con I went with rabblemaster and pyromancer over tinker/vaultkey, because it takes up less slots(not having to play tutors and yawg will) and flipping blightsteel colossus or having it in your hand doesnt feel good, plus attacking with bob and snapcasters can be a win con as well.

For restricted cards, I'm not playing t cruise or dig through time because there's no room for more can trips, and flipping off bob is bad. No need for tutors.

Counterspells are pretty standard. pyroblast and flusterstorm are great against blue decks, misstep is good against everything besides shops and maybe dredge. And mana drain is good against everything except dredge.

Four removal slots. Fiery confluence is good against shops and pyro/mentor and paradoxical. By force is great against shops and paradoxical. Abrade is versatile but doesn't hit jtms. Bolt hits jtms but gets misstep'd.

Dack is great against shops and can filter your jtms/bob draws. Can also just steal random mana rocks. Divining top for bob as mentioned earlier.

For mana, playing lotus and all 5 mox because turn 1 bob is awesome. Not playing sol ring because jtms and confluence is only thing that has 2 colorless. 1 island is necessary, library of alex is great, 4 tarn for mountain is sideboard, 1 of each other blue fetch to play around spyglass. Strip mine for academy and library and workshop. 3/4 split in favor of volcanic because there is more red cards, and you only need one black source for bob.

Sideboard:
1x Abrade
1x By Force
1x Flusterstorm
3x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Mountain
2x Pithing Needle
2x Thing in the Ice
1x Thoughtseize
1x Toxic Deluge
2x Yixlid Jailer

Abrade, by force, mountain, deluge, thing in the ice: shops package. Abrade and deluge is also good against creature decks like merfolk and pyro/mentor. Mountain for wasteland. Thing in the ice is a blocker that can also be a board wipe and win con.

Cage, Needle, Jailer: dredge package. Since I'm not playing white I need a replacement for containment priest and rest in piece. Cage and jailer are pretty good, though cage gets misstep'd and blown up, and jailer does not turn off snapcaster. Needle turns off bazaar and can also come in against pretty much any deck.

Thoughtseize and flusterstorm for blue decks. Thoughtseize was chosen because oath is a really bad matchup which cage also helps with.

Thanks for reading this far if you're still here, and let me know if you have any advice it would be greatly appreciated, I'm trying to play this in paper tournaments if I can find some. Thanks again, bye!