Bumping this thread for some new stuff I'm trying. Nobody's really utilized Kambal, so I cut a few non-human creatures from the must-include white hatebears list and added Caverns to my list. Finding a few humans to fill in.

Two things I noticed while playing a LOT of hatebears: 1) topdeck-mode sucks very much; and 2) it is difficult to be "reactive", much less proactive without any kind of card selection except for 2-3 Recruiter of the Guard, so much of the time either I'm wishing I had one creature and not another, and no way to reliably get it.

Black can solve this with Humans.

Ixalan has a card that I'm very interested in trying, indeed:

Kitesail Freebooter (1B)
"Flying
When Kitesail Freebooter enters the battlefield, target opponent reveals his or her hand. You choose a noncreature, nonland card from it. Exile that card until Kitesail Freebooter leaves the battlefield."
1/2

IMO this is on-par with Tidehollow Sculler in that it's a Human and has some kind of evasion. The P/T arrangement is a little unfortunate, it would be nice to take opposing Jaces and Dacks down a few loyalty points, but this kind of uncounterable effect (with cavern) is in my opinion what is lacking in a lot of hatebears decks, something proactive that, at the very least, can delay broken things from happening until other bears lock them out. (Added bonus that if this actually sucks, there's just Sculler waiting to fill the slot).

In addition to Kambal, Freebooter, and other situationally good hatebears that might come up should they need to (SB Yixlid Jailer, some jank like Royal Assassin), black gives access to Bob, which solves the topdeck mode pretty handily. Bob also "draws" cards underneath a Spirit of the Labyrinth.

My go-to before this was to count on drawing cards as the Monarch with Palace Jailer, but this almost never lead me to victory, someone would attack with a Ramunap Excavator (or any card that has 3 toughness) and I'd have to choose between letting a Canonist die so they can cast all the shite they want, or letting them draw an extra card, sometimes for the rest of the game. Palace Jailer actually very sucks, and a 2/2 for 4 mana that has the capability of giving the opponent an extra card is very, very bad. Without a way to actually stop Elemental tokens, Monk tokens, and fipped Delver (and again, any card with 3 toughness that likes to attack every turn), Jailer is a recipe for disaster. YMMV, but Jailer literally has never done what it needs to for me. It incentivizes attacks from your opponent, which is very stupid for a hatebears deck to want - we're supposed to be the ones going on the offensive. They will find ways to get their creature back -and- become the monarch in the process. There has to be another card other than Jailer and Banisher Priest (which is still preferable), and I think digging deep enough can find us a B Human with a low CMC that can probably do it.

I think the B/W version of the deck should be tested, and I have a list I'll be running very soon, just have to get a few more cards. I had to give up some of the "situational" hate cards like Spirit of the Labyrinth, but adding to the card pool with Black makes adjusting numbers very easy. I'll probably do a writeup if I get any results.

BUUUUUMP

Switched over to these on MTGO (have to say "switch" because of the interface changes which stack ALL lands in some arbitrary order regardless of set or artwork, ugliest in front [natch]). Huge fan of the Tempest-era look/feel of the game.

Just to reiterate, not saying this card is amazing, just seeing if there's something reasonable out there that would make it suck less than it does.

If there was a way to flip it while paying little or no mana, what deck hates having a lotus every turn?

@ajfirecracker That is a very good point. It's not the exact same (a land, can be paid for over 2 turns for +1 of any color on the second turn), but I concur.

Some differences: this can be searched up with SFM and any other card that looks for equipment, has a funny interaction with Oath decks, costs less with cards that are already used in Shops, etc.

I found it interesting also that they'd print this at rare and not as a Legendary land.

Dowsing Dagger (2)
Artifact - Equipment
When Dowsing Dagger enters the battlefield, target opponent creates two 0/2 green Plant creature tokens with defender.
Equipped creature gets +2/+1.
Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, you may transform Dowsing Dagger.
Equip (2)

//

Lost Vale
Land
(T): Add 3 mana of any one color to your mana pool.

I know this requires a lot of hoops to jump, but it turns into a non-legendary, repeatable Black Lotus (Lotus Vale). For 4 mana when it drops (with a flier out), it can flip and then be used the same turn, so it costs a grand total of 1 colorless for an extra 2 damage to the face and a Lotus Vale.

Is there a way to break this card fast enough? As is, I can't think of a way to make this easy, Auriok Windwalker is the only creature with flying that has "equipment" text, and it taps to equip which misses the point. Clearly this doesn't really fit into many decks unless there's a stoneforge build that makes ample use of fliers.

Also Stony Silence/Null Rod kills it, Wasteland kills it, etc.

Any other ideas? Seems like a fun card to brew with, possibly.

The irritating thing that I had brought up last mega-thread that's rearing its ugly head right now is a difference in definitions.

"Gush decks" were the problem, always and forever, the baddy in the room that needed to be taken down, a HUGE chunk of the metagame, according to many people. The error with analyzing the meta that way, as defined by a single card within a set of decks, is the notion that once that card goes away, the "problem" goes away, and that clearly did not happen. Many people saw "the Mentor deck" as the problem, and only now that we don't have this classification of "Gush Decks" to point the finger at, we're resurrecting the older, more accurate designation the problem decks should have had all along, which is Turbo Xerox.

I just find this very irritating, I never understood why "Gush decks" were lumped together, any analysis from that lack of distinction other than "x percentages of decks would like to draw cards at some point during the match so I need to prepare for that" are tending to be inaccurate. Dominance, prevalence, longevity, percent in top8s and top16s, etc. In April, nobody was referring to the Pyromancer decks when they were discussing restriction, nobody was referring to GushBond, they were referring to Gush Mentor. Gush was a part of TX strategy and might have been a defining card within a good portion of those decks, but the problem with the "Gush Mentor" deck was that Mentor was generating win conditions while the deck was doing it's thing. It was enough of a degree better than the next best, -1CMC card that it replaced almost completely. Now it lives on in the most effortless transformation in a 1-of-Gush world.

I don't think Gush was ever the problem, going out on a limb here, I can see why people would be irritated by it (especially if they had the "Gush decks" are all X and they are all problematic viewpoint), but because the DCI hit Gush/Probe and not Mentor/Misstep, we are now discussing bans in Vintage. For those who are saying a 1-of Mentor deck will still make top 8s... Yes, it will. There is no doubt in my mind, even if that deck just replaces the other three with Pyromancer. Mentor restrict will still have a greater effect on the deck's performance than Gush restrict has had, and I would much rather play in a format where the Mentor/Pyro/Tutor deck is making top 8s, instead of now where I've stopped playing Vintage because it's uninteresting.

Rich's comments come 4 months too late. If this was the recommendation given then (which it was by the majority of players) and taken by the DCI, we would have had a healthier format over the past few months and have been able to assess whether or not "pushing other blue decks out of the format" is a reason to restrict Gush, without Mentor dominance. I don't really mourn Gush so much as I just wish the DCI had listened to more people and had made the more correct choice, I'd still be playing Vintage.

Pretty sure Mentor will stay so long as it's unrestricted, and even after it gets the axe. Wrong move if their goal is less restrictions, IMO.

On the plus side, this terrible deck I've been brewing gets slightly less bad due to Gush restrict so I'm not super angry, selfishly, but am pretty disappointed at their reasoning.

Probe restrict makes combo a little more fair, but for those who absolutely need that effect it still exists as a 1CMC card (can't remember the name) so not too terrible.

Mentor is here to stay and will likely be equally annoying.

Casting Regeneration on this thread because there was some discussion in one of the FB groups a few days ago regarding adding subforums; In addition to the OP's list, I'd really like a separate sub for "Developing" strategies and decks, as well as a "Primers" sub.

Having "Developing" would hopefully encourage constructive discussion about strategies without clogging the Vintage Strategy forum with B- decklists for people who don't care to see it, and having a "Primers" section that is relatively clear of other kinds of content would make it a go-to section for how to play certain decks and a great place to send people who want good analysis and strategies for decks, as well as encourage people to fill the section (and TMD in general) with quality, well-thought-out content.

This also oddly solves thread-bury which I've noticed is a problem with the endless scrolling nature of the forum software, and because we have notifications in the top left, there's a way to stay updated about what's going on in the subforums.

The simple fact of the matter is that when Mentor is removed from the equation, Pyromancer is a much more power-leveled card.

Intimating Hydra or Pyromancer all of a sudden will have the same power level of Mentor should Mentor be restricted is frankly absurd. there is no precedence for that idea, and there are no new cantrips since the printing of Mentor that make Hydra or Pyromancer or any other wincon any better than it was in the past, which has been, "yeah, that's cool, but I'll pass,". The only card has been JVP, and JVP attached to a Pyromancer deck is the deck that's chilling at 3.5% of the meta. Pyromancer is clearly not the same power level as Mentor, Mentor an obviously stronger creature and most people who play Gush agree; they exist in the current metagame together, and only 12% of total Gush players are playing with Pyromancer. Getting rid of Mentor isn't going to make the Pyromancer deck any better, other than increase the number of people who decide to play it because it's the best option available. The problem is that "the best option available" at the moment is, in my opinion, amplifying irritations people have with "Gush decks" and creating a state of emergency about random cards from the deck that were only irritating before this, or were "ideologically stifling".

It's not a matter of "swapping wincons in a Gush deck", the wincons being swapped are clearly at different levels of power and the resulting decks will have different viability and put up far different results, IMO much worse results. We can't keep pretending that Pyromancer and Hydra (and obviously Seeker of the Way and Thing in the Ice or a "Magus of the Future for good measure") are as good as mentor, especially if that's the reasoning behind calling for an end to a specific kind of deck in the format and heavy-handed multiple restrictions from the DCI.

@Khahan, To your point about these things combining becoming a problem for the format, we've had unrestricted Gush for... a long time. Some folks are ideologically opposed to it being unrestricted, but until now there's not been a deck as oppressive as Mentor to bring everyone onto their side. This is my point, restrict Mentor, and people will be forced to use wincons that are clearly less good than Mentor, and the number of oppressive Gush decks (and specifically the Gush decks that are irritating people currently) will be replaced by less-good Gush decks and it would reduce the power level of Gush and take it off the hit list for the time being, which seems like a MUCH better action for the DCI to take rather than totally nuking every other card in the Mentor deck EXCEPT Mentor.