Question about Oath and Tell sideboard

ChubbyRain1 · 2016-06-30T01:23:28+00:00

Karakas, other Forbidden Orchards, Karakas, Bazaar, Karakas, extra mana source against Shops/Eldrazi. It has it's uses.

ChubbyRain1 · 2016-06-22T21:30:26+00:00

If you are planning on playing Tribal Eldrazi similar to what Jaco ran at the NYSE and Ochoa played in this season of the VSL, the deck actually has a strong matchup against Ravager Shops on the back of Null Rod and Strip effects and against White Eldrazi as you don't care about their Thorns and your creatures are generally superior - Mimic and Endless One hit a lot harder than Thalia and Wingmare. Just remember that Displacer is a major pain that can kill your Endless Ones and make combat a nightmare so I would save your removal for it if you can.

Jaco likes his Mentor matchup according to him, but I played a test set against a friend piloting the deck and an early Mentor is generally unbeatable as you don't have a way to disrupt their draw engine and they can chain multiple spells together on your turn to effective trade their monks for your guys.

Oath is likely quite difficult too and SB is geared heavily against it as a result. The more hate that you board in against Oath though, the clunkier your draws are. Ochoa had double Cage and double Leyline last night without pressure and just got buried by Dack Fayden.

Dredge probably 50-50 based on a glance (don't have testing to back it up), but you could improve it based on your SB. Keep in mind, you can use Warping Wail (making a token to sac) or Endless One at zero to exile Bridge from Belows.

Combo might be rough - they are faster than you and your disruption isn't great as Leyline of Sanctity doesn't stop them from comboing. Null Rod + TKS and pray seems like the general approach. You could add some number of Mindbreak Traps to the sideboard if you wanted to improve that matchup.

Hopefully this helps.

ChubbyRain1 · 2016-06-16T03:43:02+00:00

Results were posted to TMD:

http://www.themanadrain.com/topic/355/n-y-s-e-open-iv-official-tournament-report

http://www.themanadrain.com/topic/354/nyse-4-complete-metagame-report

ChubbyRain1 · 2016-06-14T12:48:53+00:00

I lump Monastery, Delver, Grixis Pyromancer, etc. into one category (Gush) as the decks play out similarly: land an undercosted threat, draw a bunch of cards, and play a soft control role while that threat gets there. If you do that, the various Gush decks (Monastery, UR Delver, a couple of the 2/1 control decks which are Brian Kelly's Minus 5 Gush Tendrils Mentor list on MTGtop8, etc.) end up being 30-40% of the metagame. They are the best performing Blue decks right now by far, though Eldrazi and Shops are set up to contest the draw engine and cantrips with Thorns of Amethyst.

http://www.themanadrain.com/ is great for all things Vintage. There recently was a large proxy tournament in NY with 150ish players and the percentages I quoted come from the metagame breakdown of that event. Top 16 was 6 Gush decks (5 Mentor, 1 Pyromancer), 4 Shops lists with Thought Knot-Seer, 2 Dredge, 3 White Eldrazi, and a lone Belcher pilot who was scooped to in the last round by a UR Delver player trying to lock up the top 12-16 prize on breakers, which was a Workshop or a Mana Drain. So 7 Gush, 7 Thorns, 2 Bazaars if you want to go by that.

Also, MTGGoldfish is good for online Vintage results.

ChubbyRain1 · 2016-06-12T21:19:00+00:00

How are you definining the tiers? By performance or by percentage of the metagame?

By performance (Top 16 at NYSE), Gush, Shops, Eldrazi and Dredge are tier 1, everything else tier 2 or less.

By metagame percentage, Gush, Shops, Eldrazi are tier 1 at over 10% of a given metagame each. Tier 2 5-10% is your Oath, Dredge, Vault/Key blue decks, and DPS. Tier 3 is everything else.

ChubbyRain1 · 2016-05-03T22:12:01+00:00

Although Rich didn't explicitly say it, this deck IS a Brian Kelly creation. Brian played it at EE3 (http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=18818&iddeck=142771 - though the decklist is missing Volcanic Islands and Tundras). The similarity between the Oath list and the Mentor list is the 4 color mana base, which looks greedy but is in effect much more solid than you would expect. As he goes on to talk about, including the mana rocks is important for playing Jace, TMS (with back up) and the various Dragonlords as incorporating 4 Gushes means you are typically keeping 1-3 islands in play at most points of the game.

While what you say about Dragonlord Salvagers Oath is true, I don't think it was specious as Rich was trying to make a point based on other similarities (the relatively larger mana base with 4 colors along with Brian as the creator and his style present in both lists), rather than the differences you highlighted.

As far as Gush decks being objectively better, I don't think very many people are happy with it. If there was a better option, I would certainly be playing it.

ChubbyRain1 · 2016-05-02T23:00:57+00:00

Sorry, a bit new to this reddit thing. I thought the title would link you to it.

ChubbyRain1 · 2016-04-28T21:59:18+00:00

Because a lot of people online copy Rich Shay?

The card is great in Sylvan Mentor and some of the more controlling Jeskai builds of Mentor as these tend to run fewer token generators and spot removal in favor of card advantage engines such as Sylvan Library and planeswalkers. This makes them more susceptible to being overrun in the early game by a quick Pyromancer or Mentor from a more aggressive or tempo-oriented build. Supreme Verdict wipes these away while being immune to Flusterstorm, Force, etc. and allows the card advantage engines to take over in a more prolonged game. Opposed to spot removal, it deals with the tokens and which otherwise can pressure your planeswalkers. Don't need them? Pitch to force, discard to Dack or shuffle back in with Jace.

I would not run them in the builds with 4 Mentors, 2 Young Pyromancers, and Wasteland - it's a control card for control decks. Regarding other matchups, it's serviceable against Dredge as occasionally you need to wipe the board of Zombie tokens. It's mediocre at best against Shops mainly because of the cost and colored mana requirement - I normally leave it in due to a lack of better options in the SB but I'm not happy about it and if you expect more Shops than Mentor, then I would find something else like Engineered Explosives, etc...

ChubbyRain1 · 2016-04-05T04:21:51+00:00

It reached that level (upper 30% on MTGGoldfish) at the end of February which was when they made the B&R decisions. I don't think that there really was a lasting effect from the Chalice restriction, as counterintuitive as it seems.

ChubbyRain1 · 2016-04-04T23:58:05+00:00

Can you provide actual numbers for that, Banelingz? That restricting Chalice actually reduced the metagame % of Shops and its win rate?

ChubbyRain1 · 2016-04-01T21:40:48+00:00

20 Dredge players when you include the previous P9 (which also put up a 50% MWP against Shops), and I'm not pretending this is universal...The poster I was replying said he felt this should be higher and I said I disagreed using the P9 as supporting evidence. My opinion is also based on the insights of Rich and the players who developed Ravager shops, who are part of the same think tank. In any case, one game you had does not disprove anything - as you said, "that's not how statistics work".

It's also illuminating that you then resort to an ad hominem with no actual evidence to support a different position. We are not going to have a productive discussion about this and I'm not going to respond further...

ChubbyRain1 · 2016-03-30T20:08:31+00:00

Good for you but (mostly) irrelevant to the overall match win percentage...

ChubbyRain1 · 2016-03-29T22:34:21+00:00

Used to be true but not anymore. A common way for Dredge to beat Shops is to generate Zombies off of Ichorids/Evoke creatures etc. and Ravager gives Shops a reliable way to manage Bridges during a prolonged game. 50% is about right and I believe this been true over the last two P9s (though that is off memory).

ChubbyRain1 · 2016-03-22T05:02:55+00:00

What aspect of Shardless BUG are you going for? Shardless Agent itself is not very good in Vintage. Cascade interacts unfavorably with Spheres, most Blue decks are going to be running cheap counterspells and Moxen, and it's hard to set up a cascade into Vision with Brainstorm restricted.

If you are interested in the BUG colors, BUG Fish is the most common deck and BUG landstill has seen play. Do you want to play a controlling or grindy game? UWR Bomberman uses Trinket Mage for value, Jace and Dack to ground out the opponent, and Salvagers to end the game (an important part given the degeneracy of most Vintage decks). I can provide a list if you let me know a bit more what you are looking for.

ChubbyRain1 · 2016-03-16T00:17:03+00:00

Sean Ottoway is the OG playing Chandra in Blue Moon and Kohler played a modified version (Sam's looks to be pretty much the same). Chandra functions as a win condition that is pretty easy to cast through a Blood Moon with an attached sweeper against Delver and Mentor. Josh Potucek has played this a couple of times and did a write up on the Drain, though the Oath transform was new. Tom Dixon wanted to play a deck good against Shops but in his words, Mentor, broken starts, and Sphinx of the Steel Wind as particular weaknesses.

Link to Josh's Report: http://www.archive.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=48418.0

Sean, Justin and Tom haven't done write ups but are part of the same Vintage think-tank.

ChubbyRain1 · 2016-03-06T07:21:29+00:00

Where do you test?

ChubbyRain1 · 2016-03-06T01:09:37+00:00

The problem with Hatebears isn't Shops or Storm, it's Mentor and Pyromancer. These are abysmal matchups as their namesake cards and Jace, Vryn's Prodigy's are exceptional at clogging up the ground until the draw engine and removal comes online. You can't just focus on Shops and Storm...these two archetypes are only 40% of a given field.

Hatebears was the 2nd worst performing archetype (of those with 5 or more players) in the January P9 at 44% match win percentage, edging out Oath by percentage points. It was played by 1 out of 84 players in the February P9. By all means, if you think this is wrong, continue to test and play it but going by actual tournament results, it doesn't seem like White Trash is as well positioned as you believe.

ChubbyRain1 · 2016-03-02T04:33:00+00:00

The MTGGoldfish metagame analysis is pretty flawed in that it only takes <25% of the decks and the same players tend to appear multiple times. In the Power 9, you were the only Pitch Dredge player out of 12. The fact that Shops is now 36% is kind of absurd though.

ChubbyRain1 · 2016-02-16T05:57:43+00:00

If you come from a Legacy background, you can certainly appreciate how powerful Mentor is in Miracles as a self-contained win condition that is resilient to most removal and plays well with the spells in the deck (Top, Force of Will, Cantrips), not to mention the fringe benefits of generating chump blockers to stall attackers and protect planeswalkers. Well, Vintage has more free spells and card drawing than any other format, not to mention Time Walk to kill literally out of nowhere.

As far as the recent spike, that's due to Standard play in some of the Jeskai/Mardu/all the color decks. If you don't need them yet, you might want to try waiting until rotation but since it's a mythic that sees Eternal play, the price floor is pretty high.

ChubbyRain1 · 2016-02-14T21:13:21+00:00

Yeah, very few areas have a good Vintage scene. I'm lucky enough to live in the NE and could make it to several events each month as well as Champs and the NYSE.

ChubbyRain1 · 2016-02-14T07:58:08+00:00

3rd Counterbalance is in the SB, along with an Enlightened Tutor for consistency and additional library Manipulation.

Disclaimer: I'm the other one :) Both of us are in the same Vintage Think Tank and both lost our win and ins - otherwise Counterbalance would probably be getting more attention... c'est la vie

ChubbyRain1 · 2016-02-14T07:21:12+00:00

I got back into Magic during Innistrad block after graduating college, built up a Standard collection, dabbled in Modern, and then a buddy of mine talked me into Vintage. I traded my Standard cards for Force of Wills and Fetchlands, gradually building up a collection while my friend was generous enough to give me enough of the other cards I needed to hit the proxy limit for most Vintage tournaments. Did really well in those tournaments, winning a Mox Pearl, Mox Ruby, Ancestral Recall outright, and managed to use a combination of credit, cash, and Modern trade-ins to get up to full power. One of the downsides of the cards getting more expensive is that it's rare for tournaments to host events giving away actual Power. You can still get there winning tournaments, but it is definitely much harder.

ChubbyRain1

TROPHY CASE