Vintage Control

Long time no talk. It has nearly been two months since I posted on here but that does not mean I have not been playing my favourite format. I have been trying to get some people interested in Vintage in my local playgroup (La Trobe University Card Gamers Club) but to no avail. If anybody has any suggestions I would love to hear them but I am just getting no responses at all (except for a singular game here or there)

I have also taken over running the Eternal (read: Legacy and Vintage) events at Good Games Dandenong and so far my 1 Vintage event had 6 players show up. Tomorrow it will be the first Legacy Event but it does not look promising. I know Legacy is not my strength but I'm am going to show up with my Goblins and do my best. No point playing answers in a format I don't know well enough so I better ask the best questions. Most importantly, Does Piledriver resolve?

Enough about Legacy, lets talk Vintage.

 For the past two tournaments I have been playing my homebrew control deck. Basically I have been moving away from the more all in Combo decks (OK, Cobra gush is not all in but while its the best Storm deck  vs Shops its still required to cast 7-8 spells minimum in a turn for a quick game) and more toward a SLOW control game. I have taken inspiration from Weismanns The Deck and some other control decks such as an old control deck list from Brian De Mars on starcitygames.com. I wanted to be able to control the game state and allow my end game to naturally trump my opponents. So what I was looking for was a way to was hold back any rush and survive long enough to completely control the game state. In order to achieve this I set my sights squarely on Shops, not that I only wanted games against shops but I wanted to get to a high win % against them. That would mean I have a high % against a large portion of the Melbourne meta game

I knew that I wanted a multi angled attack, unlike a oath deck (w/o Vault), to attack my opponents in a variety of ways to keep them on the back foot as I push through my win conditions. After brainstorming I came up with the Idea of running strip effect as well as the traditional counterspell  and destruction packages. Prevent my opponent from being able to cast something he wants, Counter it when he does and destroy whatever slips through (or I allow through).

The First focus (Land Destruction) led me to adding Strip and Wastes, in order to keep my coloured sources up I dropped to 3 Wastelands and eventually added a Crucible of Worlds to make up for that 4th strip effect and be able to indefinitely hold my opponent landless. I also added a Gorilla Shaman to the main as an additional way to keep my opponent off their mana.

The Second focus is my Counterspell package: I definitely start with 4 Force of Will because I want to be able to hold back the person who goes for broke and Force helps with the early game, trading cards for time to get set up. I also moved to 3 Mana Drains because sometimes it is possible to get locked down  under drain mana against shops so I replaced this final Drain with a Spell Pierce. My 9th counterspell (I was looking to use counters strategically rather than counter everything) I was not sure about and it currently is the weakest slot in the deck and I currently use Flusterstorm. It certainly helps in the U matchups  but does next to nothing vs Shops so that's why I am sure it could be changed.

Finally the Destruction Package: these are the spells I want to control anything that slips through or I let through my counters. Keeping my focus on Shops I knew I wanted some amount of Ancient Grudges, Nature's Claim and Trygon Predators, being the natural predators of shops. My personal preference is for Predators as it is reusable but I know Grudges and Claim are in some cases much better because of their ability to be cast under spheres. Beyond shops, Melbourne has some number of decks reliant on creatures (Bob, Lab Maniac, White trash.dec) so I wanted some ways to deal with these little pests.

Getting a Land base to hold all these together means running 4-5 colours. My original list tried to stay away from City of Brass as I have always thought it to be more of a cop out as a land, I did not seriously expect to die from one but as I was looking for longer games the damage would become an issue.

Putting all of that together along with a shell of other cards (mostly draw and tutors) I took the following list to a tournament in the city. I ended up quite far down the standings because of poor play but I knew I was onto something. (I never wrote the list down so this is from memory)

2 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
1 City of Brass
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria
7/6 Fetches
2 Island
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland


1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
5 Moxen
1 Crucible of Worlds
Vault
 Key


4 Force of Will
3 Mana Drain
1 Spell Pierce
1 Flusterstorm

2 Trygon Predator
2 Snapcaster Mage
1 Gorilla Shaman




2 Jace the Mind Sculptor

1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mind Twist
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Ponder
1 Mind Spring

1 Nature's Claim
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Brainstorm
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Gifts Ungiven


I am not sure about the remaining slots but the deck look much like that list.

R1 vs Shops
Great I get to test my deck against what it was supposed to prey upon.

G1, Im on the draw and he goes Lotus Thorn Shop Golemn, and I scoop 3 turns later caught under two sphere effects. I had Force in hand thought I could survive the thorn, My draw for turn was Claim which would have changed my plan but alas it was not to be

G2- Game 2 was a long hard fought game. My early forces were able to hold back his relevant threats, Ancient Grudge proves its worth and the sideboarded Goblin welder shuts him out of the Game as he is unable to break his lotus for anything relevant and I Jace him out without key vault giving him nothing but lands and nothing to do with them. Funny play is a Mind twist for 3 revealing 3 Dismembers.

G3- I lose game 3 to obvious play error, He gets turn 1 Trinisphere and backs that up with alot of sphere effects. Thanks to the high land count (27 I think) I continue to make land drops and manage to hold off his Golems with forces and Grudges. I get an opening  at 4 life thanks to 3 factories and go for vault key and have that set up but I played the Mana crypt I had in hand the turn before thinking I would need the mana but I did not and I lost to it on the first flip. I never tapped it for mana and lost to it, foolish mistake.

1-2 (0-1)

R2 Vs Shops
I get ready for round two knowing my opponent is on Espresso Stax (he beat me at the GP for top 4) and am ready for him

G1- G1 I get everything on line late after draining his threats and Jace ultimate (no Vault) giving him nothing but lands and win the game from there

G2- He locks me out early and  my Trygon gets stuck in my Hand

G3- I hold complete control over this game, he goes Shop mox lodestorn and I force, I waste. He plays a smokestack and I pierce it, I land a shaman and eat his moxen, I eventually land Trygon and he started eating everything my opponent has when he lands a duplicant and while I claim it, the damage is done and I lose to the beat of Golems on my fact

I am not sure how I could have played it differently, the Duplicant was just bad luck.
1-2 (0-2)

R-3 Noble Fish?

G1- A few fights leave both of us low on cards but my jace resolves and bounces his goyf  3 times giving me time to draw into the relevant tutors and assemble Key Vault with 3 Life left.

G2- Wastelands and Grudges leave him going into turn 5 with no permanents, Jace makes short work of him.

Notes from the day

I boarded out Mind Spring every game, so should maybe replace (OK that was probably a given)
Initial red for Grudges was sometimes had to get
Welder + shaman worked great as a team
Tested Oath, very poor matchup
At times felt lack of draw, cant go 1v1 against shops forever
Wastes at times held back production of mana base

Changes thought of:
Tropical- Volcanic
Claim to Board and up Grudges
Another City of Brass
Tinker/Welder in the MB?

After fixing up the deck with most of these changes -Tinker I found out that I had to Give up my wastelands to a friend so he could play Dark Times so this is what I sleeved up for the second event

2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
3 City of Brass
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Polluted Delta
2 Island
1 Tolarian Academy

5 Moxen
1 Lotus
1 Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
1 Nihil Spellbomb

1 Myr Battlesphere
1 Snapcaster
1 Trygon
1 Welder

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

3 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Flusterstorm
1 Spell Pierce
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Fire//Ice

1 Merchant Scroll
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mind Twist
1 Ponder
1 Yawgmoth's Will


This deck is obviously different from the original, the loss of the Mana denial in the form of strip effects led to the loss of Shaman and the loss of Crucible. The counter package remained the same and the anti Shops became more spell based rather than creature.

Taking this list in I was more comfortable as it was a little more streamlined however I did miss the mana denial because I always game my opponent the chance to come back into the game. Mana denial shuts that straight off.

This tournament I faced 2 home brews so there is little Tier 1 Data in this report
R1vs Mad Lab Laboratory maniac and Consultation
G1-I land a turn 1 Jace and just keep pumping him up so when I finally deal with his Laboratory Maniac with a Fire, I win

G2- He goes for the Combo on turn 2-3 and consults for A-Call so he can win in response to any of my shenanigans and dies when it is the 5th card down and I Fire the Maniac

R2 vs Homebrew Black Shops (Shops with thoughtseize)

G1- I am winning with tinker on top of my library thanks to MT and he VT's for a Chains of Mephistopheles and i scoop forgetting the "except for the first card you draw" clause

G2- Early trygon beats everything he has.

G3- We fight through discard and I eventually get Tinker, Battlesphere through his Lilliana of the Veil

R3 vs Oath

G1- I force his Oath and get Key Vault shortly afterwards

G2 He drops Land Mox go and I mind twist away his hand leaving him with nothing taking his Yawgmoth's Will after forcing his force and he does nothing after that.

Between the two deck I am going to have to choose which way I want to go, adding the Mana Denial back or to keep to fighting on the stack and winning through superior answers. There have been games where both is relevant and only further testing will help.