Masticore is a good card that is often suggested for such a deck. The synergies are pretty nice but often it does not pass the cut.
IMHO, in the upper curve there are better cards to use (namely golos but i would also probably use wurmoil or steel hellkite before it). It is also a bad topdeck and awfull when using uba/bazaar combo.
The main interest is that it provides a very efficient and nullrod-proof effect to ping creatures. That is strong enough and i often test it as a 2-of in sideboard.

@BillCopes

We are not a combo deck , so i am really not sure if defense grid is a good call.
The most efficient card to deal with Hurkyl's recall is to run 3 witchbane orb. However, because we are doing that the most recent list are now running more chain of vapor instead of Hurkyl's.
An important point is how much pressure you can put on the field, best thing that can happen to us is when they must use their Hurkyl's as emergency button. We can't prevent all Hurkyl's to happen so we want it to happen at our time not theirs. If they play it when we are in attack phase, we have some more time to start build again and they won't gain full advantage of it. My point is, maybe removing creatures from the list was not a good idea.

After some more tests, i played this list yesterday :

// Welder is back

// 22 Artifact
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Sol Ring
3 Crucible of Worlds
1 Trinisphere
1 Black Lotus
2 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Tangle Wire
2 Uba Mask
1 Null Rod
3 Sphere of Resistance

// 14 Creature
4 Goblin Welder
1 Lodestone Golem
2 Goblin Engineer
4 Hollow One
3 Golos, Tireless Pilgrim

// 24 Land
4 Mishra's Workshop
3 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Ancient Tomb
6 Mountain
1 Barbarian Ring
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

SB: 2 Null Rod
SB: 3 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 2 Witchbane Orb
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Ensnaring Bridge
SB: 3 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

I could not test every matchups so i thought it would need some minor tweak to get something more balanced. After the tornament i am much less sold on the list. Here is my experience with it :

The main strategy was to get a tabernacle online with a crucible/strip lock. Post side, we are very solid against MUD, Eldrazi, Survival, Dredge and PO. I wanted the deck to be null rod effect proof.

• Golos is really great. Most of the time i got tabernacle (that does not care being tapped) or a mountain (when missing red source) or strip mine for the win. The body is nice with a decent clock. I did not play Karakas because i could not find a slot for it but my feeling is that it would be overkill most of the time (but i will try it still). Welder tricks with it are cute but most of the time there are more important stuff to do with welder.

• 6 goblins is the right number. I chose a 4/2 split but the entomb effect is so useful here that i am very keen on trying 3/3. I love the way engineer card was designed, i always found welder to be better but now i think they are both interesting, it just depends on the strategy we want. However, in this particular deck, we can't afford to do too many 'cute things' so in the end 4/2 might the be good choice.

• REB were a try to adress the pesky planeswalkers (namely dack and narset) and eventually PO (the card) or chain of vapor/hurkyl's. Revoker can't do the job because of Narset static effect that stops our bazaar. I fear we can't afford to keep mana open for that but i could not test it enough.

Now comes the real problem : stability. With decent opening hands, the deck is really strong but much too often everything comes up the wrong way. Agressive mulligan can help but it is not enough i fear. This problem is a recurring one for red shop. Years ago when i tried to adress it, the only solution i found was to have a really low curve (lower than the one of the deck above) and only a few more costy silver bullets. That way we are less dependant on which lands we get in opening hand. Unfortunately, here we can't do that because our strategy wants us to play more costy cards. So, either we can find a strategy that let us do that or maybe welder tricks are not worth it. Good news is there is still lots of paths to explore.

I have been playing MTG since 1994 (with a break in between Vision till Lorwynn) and my favorite format has always been Vintage. What i can tell from France is (i am talking only about paper as i don't play MTGO or similar) :

• There had been a slow but constant decrease of players in France till about 5 years ago. It is possible that explanation is the no-proxie policy in France because at the same time in USA numbers of players was quite constant or more slowly decreasing (as far as i remember).
• About 5 years ago, when Old School started to be known there was a sudden rise in card prizes. To put it bluntly, it was more speculation/investments than players looking for cards. At that time Vintage entrance cost became really prohibitive so it is near impossible for new players to enter.
• Many Vintage players are quite old and may quit for various reasons.
• Cards availability is also a problem (i mean for the old stapples).

Basically what happened to Vintage is also happening to Legacy, or will happen soon for quite similar reasons. Wizards is supporting Modern as the official eternal format and they don"t care much for the other eternals formats. I am not saying they want them to die, those formats are the 'mythology' of MTG and as such are important for Wizard image but doing what could be really needed to make them alive again might not be worth the trouble.

I talked with many former vintage players and lots of them told me that they quited because at some time they did not like the meta/format. Many found Old school more attractive so they still have the cards but they don't play vintage any more. Also, some people don"t want to walk around with cards that are worth more than the car they are driving ...

With some friends we have been organising Vintage meeting once a month (we started about 2 years ago). We allow unlimited proxies so people may try any deck they may want. We could be doing that at home but we do it in a shop so people might see us. We have lots of fun and some people are coming but basically we never managed to be more than 10.

I can only agree with what had been said about MKM tournaments. There are some serious hints that BOM could happen again in Annecy next year ... so wait and see. However, there is a big Legacy event planned in France (Valence) at end of month and there is supposed to be Vintage too but i am really not sure it will fire.

I did some quick testing and went to our monthly tournament yesterday with a similar list. It went pretty well (3-1), the only games i lost were to variance or stupid errors from me. However, i am not yet happy with the deck and will test it more. Decks i played or tested against so far are : jeskai xerox, hatebear, eldrazi, dredge, PO and mirror. I have not played enough games so here are just some feelings as food for thought :

• Engineer is pretty cool and most of the time i fetch crucible or bridge with it, the entomb effect makes us less bazaar dependant. I feel that 7 goblins might be too much but not sure yet (i might try a 3/3 split as a test).
• I was not happy of the lone Karn and almost never played it when i drew it. The only time i did, it was not very impactful. I will try a very small sideboard target package, namely either only one lattice or a vault/key. The rest of the sideboard will be built as if there was no Karn. If this strategy is working, Karn might ends up in sideboard too as this might be interesting only in some matchup. If it is still akward, i might remove it entirely from the 75.
• During testing (namely against Eldrazi) i found myself hiding behind a bridge and my opponent had 2 revokers online that targetted both goblins. The game was pretty stalled and it was difficult if not impossible to find an out. More generally, i am not satisfied with the plan after we get a bridge online. So i added in an expedition map and switched a mountain for a barbarian ring, and i added a tabernacle in sideboard. I might want the tabernacle main deck and/or a second map but i could not find space for that yet. This strategy gives us more lines of play if needed. I will need more test to decide if it is a good idea or not.
• dredge is a favorable matchup, game 1 is still difficult but not impossible to win. Post board, the plan is simple : mulligan agressively into cage and/or waste, put a bridge (or a cage if needed) online with a goblin, and find a way to kill.
• mirror match is pretty technical if both players are serious.

To sum it all, i like that such a deck has some potential again but there lots of work to do on it to have it really competitive. Now i know how i will spend my spare time before our next monthly event.

You will never steal any Marit Lage with that because any serious Land/depths deck player will activate its combo at the last possible time, namely 'end of your turn'.

If i had a flying Goyf, i would want to attack with it every tunr not really use it for defense. Condition is pretty easy to get against dredge of course but i would probably want to side in other cards than it.
I like the card but not sure if it can fit somewhere in the present meta. Some people tried a blue shop deck some years ago, maybe it could fit in it.

Not exactly on the topic but i see that both lists are running chains in SB. I love the card but i have always been disapointed when i tried it on various decks.
What are your feelings about it here ?

@brass-man said in 7/10 split:

The card was sheer and utter madness. I don't know how long things worked this way. I'm guessing they changed the rules on this card before Arabian Nights was out, but I'm sure there were a lot of house rules surrounding the card. If anyone was around the competitive scene in the early early days I'd love to hear how it was handled. I've always been fascinated and terrified by the implications of the card before they added "status" to the game rules.

I had played a few tournaments back in those days. You are right the card was madness (similar to chaos orb in a way). It was not very easy then to get a full playset of it and there was not many competitive interactions with it so people were playing it mostly in casual decks. i remember i saw one being played in a tournament once but a disenchant flew on it immediately. If i remember well, Wizard produced quickly some errata and explanation in old Duellist mag. I still have them somewhere, i will check.