What Does All This Mean?

Now that the craziness surrounding Legacy is over (except of course finding out whether Flash is banned on June 1), I feel that it’s time to start working on Vintage again. I’ll say again that Future Sight is going to be big and fun and exciting for the format. So is Flash, which is probably a fair combo in Vintage and won’t be removed.

We already have some results:

Hulk Flash has already t4’d in Canada and Massachusetts and across the continent in California and across the pond in Spain.

Bomberman is coming on as a premier control deck and has placed well in multiple tournaments. Also, it’s one of the better places for Aven Mindcensors since it already runs white cards and full power. There were 13 maindeck Mindcensors at Myriad Games in New Hampshire this weekend.

Ichorid has done well now that it has three new fun cards to run maindeck. But there still aren’t that many people playing it for some reason.

As a response to that, where Ichorid has made appearances two UB Fish decks have done well with maindeck Yixlid Jailers and Withered Wretches.

Doomsday is seeing a resurgence and has made a couple of t8’s now that Street Wraith can replace Chromatic Spheres. Likewise Street Wraith has shown up in all kinds of Tendrils decks.

What does all this mean? I’m not entirely sure.

Flash is clearly exceptional, and most people are eschewing the Rector-Flash model and its Tendrils kill for the Legacy inspired Hulk Flash with Kiki-Jiki kill. This is strange to me as the Rector deck seems to play better cards overall and can combo off without seeing Rector or Flash. At the same time, usually once you find Protean Hulk and Flash, you win the game with the other deck, so maybe that kind of certainty is comforting.

Both versions of the deck have had their successes, so it may just be a choice of playstyle and card availability.

Ichorid I guessed would see a lot more play than it has. There are a couple of plausible explanations for its absence, though: First, Magic players and Vintage players in general are loathe to give up their pet decks. What I mean is that some people will just always play Slaver (or Stax or Fish or RG Beats) no matter how bad, dead, slow, underpowered, or stupid their friends and opponents say the deck is. So there are some players who won’t venture outside their comfort zone and play a new deck with a new strategy.

Similarly, I think some people just won't play Ichorid because it doesn't feel like you're playing Magic. Sure, it looks like Magic cards, but the idea of using your hand and mana to cast spells gets completely thrown out the window, and if that's why you're playing the game, then Ichorid isn't for you.

Another reason Ichorid hasn’t made quite the splash I predicted is that there is a lot of hate for it right now. Yixlid Jailer is really good against Ichorid, but it’s a 2/1 for two mana against the rest of the field. Really. The only other thing it stops in the format is Recoup, which is only played in Gifts and isn’t a necessity for them to win. Still, Yixlid Jailer has appeared maindeck in the t8 of more than one tourney.

And if people keep getting trounced by Ichorid repeatedly, they'll become more likely to throw in the towel and pick up the deck themselves at some point.

Also, Leyline of the Void stops both Flash and Ichorid and is now suddenly the second most popular hate card.

Stax, by which I mean artifact control, is almost nonexistent now except for those people I mentioned earlier who always play Stax, and even some of them have given up on the deck. This is unfortunate, I think, as it really has a place in the metagame right now. Things like Ensnaring Bridge and Sphere of Resistance put a big damper in Ichorid, as does recurring Tormod’s Crypt. Coincidently, Sphere of Resistance and recurring Tormod’s Crypt also do okay against combo, including Flash.

Unfortunately, Stax is still glacially slow. You may prevent your opponent from doing much of anything, but Hulk Flash still wins by casting one spell, and Gifts and Long can still win by casting Hurkyll’s Recall or Rebuild. Ichorid doesn’t have to cast any spells, it just has to be able to get past Ensnaring Bridge or whatever else you have to stop aggro. Since Stax doesn’t win that fast, these decks all have plenty of time to do their thing.

Once someone figures out how to make Stax win or lock the game in four turns or less, it will be really good again. Mana Drain isn’t even showing up in the numbers it used to.

Until then, Combo and Fish are the new flavors of the day. Combo is fast, still using the same tools it was, though now it has Street Wraith to increase the power of its draws (theoretically of course). Fish is still struggling to keep up. The tools it got from Future Sight—Mindcensor and Jailer—are cute, but one costs too much and the other doesn’t do enough. Maybe the extra damage from Street Wraiths helps out a little?

What does all this mean? Yeah, I still don’t know.

There are at least three decks that I want to test right now—Belcher, UW with Aven Mindcensor, UB Fish, and UbaCaps.

Belcher is a pretty simple change from pre- to post-Future Sight; it’s minus four Desperate Rituals, plus four Street Wraiths. At least, that’s what I’ve started with, and initial results have been positive. I’m still not quite convinced about Street Wraith, but whatever. If the number say it’s right, it must be right.

Oh yeah, and Storm Enitity goes in the board—at least one, at most three. I haven’t quite figured that ratio out, yet, but Storm Entity is really good as a Living Wish target.

UW is all about Aven Mindcensor. I’m starting with that and building around it. Whether I end up with something fishy or something more like Bomberman remains to be seen. I got to like that Meddling Mage guy in Legacy too.

I think the first thing with UB Fish is massive testing against lots of different things. I need to figure out where the weaknesses are and how to best shore them up. Daze is out, Dimir Cutpurse and Withered Wretch might be back in. Extirpate seems good, but in what number? Tutors or no? There are a lot of questions to be answered, but I know that between Force of Will and Duress and Stifle there’s a good deck going on.

What did Uba Caps get from Future Sight? Did it get anything? This deck still seems really synergistic to me, and it’s always played well for me, so maybe this will be making a reappearance. Maindeck Tormod’s Crypts and a couple of Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.

Anyway, after a month of Magic (including six tournaments in four weeks), I’m giving myself a break. I was on the fence about the June 2 tournament at the Warzone, but I realized yesterday that I wouldn’t be able to make it anyway because of prior engagements. Sorry. I know it would have been fun.

June 10 at the Soldiery, though. I’m definitely in for that. Playing something new? Who knows. Could just be the same old thing.

Either way, I’m going to need my Leylines back.