Sphinx of Foresight

taef

It's game one and you're playing Squee Bazaar (decklist below). You're on the play and keep a hand with Bazaar and Sphinx of Foresight. Your opponent keeps seven, what is your strategy for the one (or more!) scry 3's?

My answer is that regardless of what is in my hand or how many mulligans I have taken, I will top Vengevine, Hollow One, and Force of Will, and bottom everything else. I remain unconvinced, but my reasoning is that these are simply my best cards.

https://aetherhub.com/Metagame/Vintage/Deck/bazaar-aggro-226477/
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Wasteland
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Strip Mine
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Hollow One
4 Memnite
4 Sphinx of Foresight
4 Vengevine
4 Force of Negation
4 Serum Powder
4 Once Upon a Time
4 Force of Vigor
4 Force of Will
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Misdirection
1 Mental Misstep
1 Chalice of the Void

2 Karakas
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Petrified Field
4 Ravenous Trap
2 Surgical Extraction

BlindTherapy

that certainly seems like an oversimplification. vengevine if you have zero castable creatures (or once upon a time to find them) will be dead for at least a turn. vs other bazaar decks having a wasteland is important. vs many blue decks force of negation is very close to force of will. if you already have sufficient threats in your opener, keeping cards in hand to force or double force is better than having an extra hollow one.
i think the only card in the deck you bottom 100% of the time is serum powder, followed closely by sphinx (there are scenarios where your hand has plenty of pressure and you might just want a guaranteed blue card for your 2nd force).

Thewhitedragon69

If you have bazaar, I think you might keep a couple Squee on top if you have them. A wasteland ruins your day (as it would in any situation), but turning that bazaar into an ancestral each turn seems good.

BlindTherapy

@thewhitedragon69 i think the value of scrying squee depends fairly heavily on the opening hand. if your opening hand is like vine, vine, walla, memnite, your first discard is accounted for so squee is of less utility.

Thewhitedragon69

@blindtherapy If your opener is bazaar, vine, vine, hollow, memnite, then it really doesn't matter what your top 3 are - you already won.

BlindTherapy

@thewhitedragon69 no, the things that matter very much matter, even if the game is likely to be quick. picking up a force for your blue card (the sphinx) can be the difference between winning and losing.
vine/walla/walla/bazaar/sphinx/2 other cards is perhaps a better example hand. squee isn't being discarded til turn 2. squee is best when you're pitching it every turn, so whether or not the hand already has 3 cards it wants to be discarding is a big consideration, as well as how long the game looks to be going in general.

John Cox

I would keep bazaars on top if I had a no bazaar hand on one to three cards, but I guess that's a given. Other wise the OP sounds good.

taef

A better name for this deck is HollowVine, which helped me find this video from IamActuallyLvl1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV4v46QjbQA
A sphinx Scry 3 occurs at 3:43 - Hand is Memnite, Sphinx, Bazaar, Wasteland, Cradle, Powder, Chalice. Scry 3 is top Misdirection and Basking Rootwalla, bottoms Serum Powder. Bottoming all three is mentioned, in order to find Hollow One or Squee.

As I was putting together my updated notes below, I noted differences compared with the sentiment of others:

I am lower on Squee than others.
Others are looking for more of a good balance of cards, rather than strictly powerful cards.
I really liked BlindTherapy's comment about having sufficient threats in your opener. I seem greedy in wanting as much power as possible on turn 1.

Once Upon a Time- I'm seeing good goldfishing results topping a first copy, especially if I can trigger Vengevine turn 1. Annoyingly casting Basking Rootwalla off the first Bazaar activation will turn off a free Once Upon a Time. So this appears to be the only card in the deck that an inhand copy is better than one on top of the library (on turn 1)

Basking Rootwalla or Memnite- If these would be the 2nd creature for triggering Vengevine, I am inclined to top

Chalice of the Void- If you're on the play, Chalice of the Void seems worthy of topping, especially when you are putting least 4 power on board turn 1

Squee, Goblin Nabob- I'm interested to see Squee being mentioned as a top. Squee feels slow in most match-ups and the card advantage is dampened by poor card quality. I would rather have turn one explosiveness, so I'm bottoming.

Bazaar- Having a 'backup' Bazaar against wasteland seems appealing only for bad, 'long game' hands such as 2x Squee and zero power on turn 1. Is it possible that there are hands that are mulligans, even if they have Bazaar? It just doesn't feel right to be playing the long game with this deck, so I'm bottoming.

BlindTherapy

@taef said in Sphinx of Foresight:

Annoyingly casting Basking Rootwalla off the first Bazaar activation will turn off a free Once Upon a Time.

this is technically true, but you can respond to the madness trigger by casting once upon a time, so the once upon a time you bazaar into on turn 1 is still castable.

taef

Holy guacamole, Once Upon a Time is an instant! Thanks for pointing this out. So for a top of library Once Upon a Time, you could madness Rootwallas and find and cast Hollow One. Assuming 4 Hollow One still in your deck, you are about 34% to find Hollow One. Also assuming 4 Vengevine still in your deck, you are 24% to miss on Hollow One but find Vengevine, but you would have to decide to discard Basking Rootwalla before you would know this, and the Vengevine is turn 2 at best.

BlindTherapy

@taef yeah, if you're finding vine off OUAT post-bazaar it's probably because there wasn't anything else in those 5 cards.