@pugsuperstar keep. You have a cage and a swords. You have to draw well to win but I'd guess an average six would be worse.

I finished 7-3 for 38th place at Champs. I lost vs shops in the last round when I punted several times including missing the win on board in game one. My brain was completely gone after a long day but it was a good run for me. I loved my deck and I’d change only -1 Kataki, +1 Trygon Predator in the board. I’ll write up a bit more later.

My decklist is here

@wappla Thanks for the article. I always enjoy your analysis.

I'm not sure what people are complaining about unless everyone just wants articles with specific step by step instructions on what and how to play. This article analyzes Mentor and talks about why a category of frequently-played hate doesn't do the job. Then we get an overview of why two modern Mentor decks are good and the two cards that tie everything together and Wappla ties the deck back to two different decks that were successful from last years Vintage Champs.

Also @wappla suggests that we should play broken decks instead of Mentor hate in order to beat Mentor and opines that, as a format boogie man, maybe Mentor isn't so bad. Seems reasonable to me.

I appreciate the theory and the analysis.

@The-Atog-Lord said:

No need for an entire book or anything.

If you say so, Rich.

Thanks for the great writeup!

My current list is

4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Spirit of the Labyrinth
2 Containment Priest
4 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Eldrazi Displacer
1 Lodestone Golem
4 Thought Knot Seer
3 Reality Smasher
2 Endbringer

4 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Chalice of the Void

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring

4 Ancient Tomb
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Eldrazi Temple
1 Karakas
5 Plains
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland

sideboard
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Containment Priest
1 Rest in Peace
2 Disenchant
2 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Dismember
1 Umezawa's Jitte

I am liking this list thus far.

I cut Vryn Wingmare because it's not a Human and because 3 is way more than 2 and added a fourth Thalia because this deck really needs Thalia in play.

Spirit of the Labyrinth has been good thus far. It is also not a Human but it's such a beating if it stays in play and helps to keep from falling as irretrievably behind Gush decks if you aren't able to just Thorn them to death.

Containment Priest is the weakest creature in the deck unless it's in a matchup where it's amazing. The interaction with Displacer is fine. I experimented with Canonist in this spot (and also instead of Spirit) but I was underwhelmed. I'm sticking with Priest maindeck for now. Maybe because I feel like at least I can fallback on the Displacer Combo to get me out of a tight spot.

Revoker is amazing. As is Though-Knot. Lodestone is a dumb card that I take out vs. shops but which sometimes just wins.

I like Reality Smasher but I shaved one to find room for two Endbringers for top-end finishing, theoretical card draw, and a way to close games without attacking. This was suggested to me by @sodoyouwearacape on Twitter last night and I like the theory but I haven't actually cast one yet to test it.

Containment Priest and Displacer are the creatures that most often get sideboarded out in some number for me. I don't have a ton of confidence that that is completely right but they are the most situational.

I would be playing some number of Horizon Canopy as suggested by @wappla but I sold them last year as part of my (successful) campaign to obtain paper power. So no regrets there, I'll get some back and test those out at some point. I do like having so many basic lands, though.

I tried to make the maindeck decent against Gush (and blue in general) as well as Storm/Belcher combo. The sideboard is basically six more cards for dredge and eight or nine for shops. For assorted blue decks usually I just bring in a Swords or two, a Disenchant, or Jitte in, depending what exactly I'm playing against.

The biggest issue with the deck so far is getting white mana, especially in games two and three but it hasn't been too terrible most of the time. Maybe Horizon Canopy would lead me to be less ambitious with white cards in the board but Swords, Disenchant, Rest in Peace, and especially Kataki are so impactful that I like having access to them.

Playing the correct lands not just for the current turn but also to set up potential future draws is really tough and interesting.

In the past I've tried Shops a bit but generally I've played various blue decks. It feels weird that I never draw cards, tutor, or even shuffle (that will be even weirder when I play the deck in paper for the first time). The bottom 45 cards in my library basically don't exist unless my opponent casts Timetwister. I find that... I kind of like that.

In general I'm enjoying playing the deck and I'm looking forward to seeing where it does in the next few months. If anyone has any feedback or comments on anything I'd love to hear it.

@wappla It's not hypocrisy to make a deck choice for a tournament. Rich made predictions about what a Gush restriction would do to the overall metagame eventually but, apparently, made a different prediction of what it would immediately do to the metagame in this daily. Or wanted to employ some misdirection before the P9. Or just wanted to play Stax. Whatever.

This deck choice doesn't mean hypocrisy. It also doesn't mean anyone made an idiotic argument. It's a deck choice for four matches in a daily event.

@grr Congrats on the win. I really liked playing White Eldrazi before the Thorn restriction. I'm looking forward to trying out your list.

Seems like you have a lot of tools against PO and blue decks in general. I'm wondering:

• If you've played against Ravager Shops and what you think of that matchup.
• Did you miss the maindeck Containment Priests? The last list I played had trimmed those to two and my feeling has been that we either want to stay at 3-4 (both for dredge/oath and to maximize the combo with Displacer) or cut them completely as without Displacer it just doesn't pull its weight vs. normal matchups.
• Did you have any problems with the white source count, especially for the Stony Silences? I've played Null Rods in the past but maybe that's wrong now with more Hurkyl's in the format.
• Did big Thalia pull its weight?
• I count 31 mana sources, which is 1-2 more than I'd expect. Do you think this is the right number? How do you feel about 2 Horizon Canopies?

Thanks.

I would cut white and play Managorger Hydra instead of Mentor. Mentor is a stronger card but Hydra is also explosive and you'd have a better manabase.

Note that I am somewhat biased as I played Cobra Gush Tendrils with a singleton Hydra at vintage champs.

@diophan said in Vintage Challenge - 9/2/2017:

Thank you @brianpk80 for not having tech issues and being able to record the decks not in the top 32 for us.

Sick burn.

This policy seems like it is in place for Standard and, maybe, Modern. It may or may not be a good policy there but I can understand their concern that people will lose interest in those formats once they are more or less solved.

I expect that they have decided to maintain a consistent policy rather than do something different for Vintage (or Legacy) just to be consistent and not out of any special consideration for Vintage. Even if we had all of the MTGO Vintage data it would be a much smaller dataset than the known Standard results (and for a much bigger format). I don't know whether convincing WOTC to make a different policy for eternal formats is possible or not, but my guess is that any lobbying to get them to change their minds has to lean on this argument of Vintage as an exception.

Though I also have the sad suspicion that MTGO and their reporting tools somehow can't handle a difference in policy between formats. I can't imagine how this would be the case but I also can't imagine how it would take a month to implement B&R changes online either...

I really like Delver. I like that it is aggressive, plays blue cards, Pyroblast, Null Rod and Wasteland.

I considered playing it at Champs but decided to go with Survival instead because I was wary of playing a fair deck in a large tournament (and Survival is the new hotness, etc) but I had a decent amount of success (in the small sample size that I was able to play) with both URg and URw online. I was especially liking URg:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1254983

I went 33-7 with a few different versions of URg Delver in August and September of this past year. Some leagues, a lot of tournament practice matches. I especially beat up on DPS and Outcome but I didn't play Shops much and didn't trust that matchup because of that.

@fsecco @wfain Good points, thanks.

@wfain Exciting list. Is Life from the Loam better than Ramunap Excavator in the board here?

@wfain very interesting list. I like it.

One thing: you went with Deathrite + Bayou over Hierarch despite being solidly in Bant. This is very possibly correct as I hate playing the mirror when my opponent has Deathrites and I do not. The flip side of that is that I also hate it when my own Deathrites don’t tap for mana, especially in the face of Graveyard hate that is already hampering my deck post-board.

Do you think that Deathrite is just better in Bant full stop or is there something about the FoW approach (as opposed to Thalia) that leads you to choose it over Hierarch?

Edit: or is Leovold that good? I realized he was in here just after I posted.

This deck is incredible. I love draw sevens. Very excited to try it out. And nice run!

Somehow I’m feeling the need to add two Goblin Welders to this...

@spook very interesting. Thanks.

@spook Well I probably should have been able to parse that properly anyway. Thanks for the breakdown.

If you already have this handy: how many of each variety were there?

@spook I assume GWUR is Other, here. Does anything else fall in that category?

I finished 7-3 for 38th place at Champs. I lost vs shops in the last round when I punted several times including missing the win on board in game one. My brain was completely gone after a long day but it was a good run for me. I loved my deck and I’d change only -1 Kataki, +1 Trygon Predator in the board. I’ll write up a bit more later.

My decklist is here

I have a theoretical BUGR list. It’s not too far off @wfain‘s from a few posts above. The main deck seems solid and there are a lot of great sideboard options but I feel like I have too many good cards here. How would I side vs PO? How do I get my blue count high enough vs Shops in games two and three?

Creatures:21
4 Basking Rootwalla
3 Deathrite Shaman
1 Elvish Spirit Guide
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Trygon Predator
4 Vengevine
1 Wonder
4 Hollow One

Spells:21
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Flusterstorm
3 Mental Misstep
4 Survival of the Fittest
1 Time Walk
4 Force of Will
1 Treasure Cruise

Lands:18
2 Bayou
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Forest
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Taiga
2 Tropical Island
3 Windswept Heath

Sideboard:15
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pyroblast
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Assassin's Trophy
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Null Rod
4 Leyline of the Void