Vintage in Four Chapters

First on the docket: Upcoming Tournaments

July 1 in Livonia, Michigan
$15, 10 proxy Time Walk tourney with a Mox Pearl chaser
RIW HOBBIES
29116 Five Mile RD
Livonia MI 48154
(734) 261-7233

July 8 in Columbus, Ohio
$15, infinite proxy for at least $200 between the top four
THE SOLDIERY
4256 N. High St.
Columbus, Ohio 43214

July 15, in Livonia, Michigan
$20, 10 proxy Black Lotus tourney with a Mana Drain chaser
RIW HOBBIES
29115 Five Mile Rd
Livonia, MI 48154
(734) 261-7233

That’s three awesome tournaments in three weeks. So be there!

I’m going to get to at least both of the Michigan tournaments right now since my girlfriend will still be in town on July 8. I told her that I was going to at least one tournament between July 1 and July 8 and that it would be her choice, so that’s why I’m missing the one that would be five minutes from my house in lieu of the one that’s almost three hours away. Regardless, while you guys are all sausage-festing it up in Columbus, I’ll be hanging out with the little woman.

Unless of course she relents and lets me go to the tournament.

Also there’s a tournament on July 21 in Mooresville, Indiana, which is just southwest of Indianapolis. It’s for a Beta Timetwister and will run you $20 for 10 proxies and $1 for each additional proxy up to five. Not too shabby—I was definitely considering this before RIW announced their July 15 tourney. If you want more information on it, I direct you to The Mana Drain.

Second discussion point: The Post-Gush Metagame

Things are really pretty exciting right now. Gifts is gone, but I honestly don’t care about that. More important is that there’s a truly broken aggro-control deck right now, and how many times does anyone get to say that?

Four-Gush Grow-a-Tog, better known as Gro or GAT is really good.

I lost four games in a row against Stephen Menendian in playtesting (I was playing SS) before asking him, “So what beats GAT?”

“Nothing,” he laughed.

“You’re serious.”

“Nothing that I’ve found.”

“Wow.”

Then I beat him two games out of four with Belcher and watched him lose three games out of five to Nam Tran’s Stax list from the most recent Meandeck Open, as piloted by Joe Bushman. (In all fairness, Joe did have first turn Trinisphere twice.)

GAT isn’t invincible by any means, but even against its bad matchups of Stax and fast combo it’s probably better than 50%.

Gush brings with it a host of other decks as well: Four-Gush Doomsday, Four-Gush Storm, I’ve even been considering Four-Gush Fish, but I don’t know why you would play that over GAT.

Bomberman has also spiked in popularity as being, like GAT, an aggro-control deck with a combo finish. For everyone who said that Drains were dead, there were four Bomberman decks in the top 16 at Star City Roanoke, including two piloted by Cleveland’s own Juan Rodriguez (4th) and JR Goldmanbergstein (9th).

One reason for the deck’s recent success, I’m sure, is that it’s one of the few decks that can take full advantage of Auriok Mindcensor by being both white and fully-powered. Gifts may be gone, but GAT still runs four Merchant Scrolls, at least six fetchlands, and three restricted tutors. And running a Doomsday into Aven Mindcensor is, indeed, very bad.

Mindcensor also goes to town on Team Meandeck’s eponymous new creation, more intuitively known as Merchant Scroll TPS. I’ve been privy to this deck for a few months now and figured it would do well at the recent Star City, where it put its two players into 3rd and 5th. It’s a solid deck, to be sure, and it seems to play out much more fluidly than Gifts did. Your results may vary.

The deck poised to make a comeback in a big way, one that is largely unaffected by Mindcensor and unimpressed by Grow-a-Tog’s free spells, is Stax. Whether five-color or mono-red, Stax has the tools to slow the game down to a crawl with mana-denial and taxing. GAT runs only one basic land and fewer than 20 mana sources total, so it’s quite susceptible to enforced mana-screw. Bomberman’s combo can be shut down by Null Rod and Chalice of the Void at zero or one, and that leaves them with only some expensive 2-power dudes to attack with. And five-color answers like In the Eye of Chaos and Chains of Mephistopheles are going to be quite useful as well.

Third section: Vise Aggro of Fire and Ice

Not to mention that Stax has a new friend in unrestricted Black Vise. Here’s a list I’ve been throwing around online that makes use of Vise, my new best friend Sword of Fire and Ice, and one of Future Sight’s goodies.

4x Mishra’s Workshop
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
3x Mountain
2x Keldon Megaliths
2x Ancient Tomb
5x Moxen
1x Black Lotus
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Crypt

3x Bazaar of Baghdad
4x Sword of Fire and Ice

4x Goblin Welder
3x Mox Monkey
1x Karn, Silver Golem
1x Sundering Titan
1x Triskelion
2x Duplicant
4x Juggernaut
4x Epochrasite

4x Sphere of Resistance
4x Black Vise
1x Trinisphere

Epochrasite is still in testing, but that testing has so far been positive. It’s really hard to remove permanently, and Bazaaring one into the graveyard and Welding it into play is quite a nifty trick. At the same time, it’s a 1/1 for two mana most of the time, so you could probably find something stronger, like Gathan Raiders or something.

The card I think I’m missing here is Tangle Wire. I could easily see cutting some combination of Mox Monkey, Titan, Trike, Dups, and Epochrasite to make room for three or four Wires. With four Welders you get extra use out of them, and you have Wires, Spheres, Vises and Swords that can all be tapped and not lose any function.

I have no idea if this deck will work in actual tournament play, but it sure is fun to play around with. Equipping a Juggernaut with a Sword is gigantic and fun and draws cards and kills stuff and is awesome.

Fourth and long: So What Am I Playing

I don’t know!

I have no idea what I want to play at any of these upcoming tournaments because everything seems so wide open and interesting.

GAT is probably again the most powerful deck in the format.

Stax is the most consistent way to answer GAT and combo.

Bomberman is the new old kid on the block and seems to have a game against everything.

Belcher is still incredibly fast.

SS is still strong, but will definitely need some tweaking to be truly competitive again.

Merchant Scroll TPS is probably my new favorite deck to goldfish since, even if it loses its hand, it will still just stumble into wins.

Mostly I think I’m just looking forward to playing some Magic again.

The format seems pretty interesting right now, dynamic too. It will be interesting to see how things are three months from now, when players have gotten their bearings on the new cards and rethought old ideas. Plus, there’s some rumbling questions as to whether Gush will still be in the format come September. Like I said, Gush is powerful and a big shakeup—maybe too big.

We’ll just have to see, though.

I’ll see you across the playmats.