Round 1
Round 2
Round 3
Round 4
Blood Moon is undeniably powerful against all of the blue multicolor decks of the format. Being able to slam a Moon on turn 1 and eventually draw more mana disruption is a great way to work around having to play lots of counterspells. Still, I don’t think Blood Moon was the breakout three-drop of the deck.
That honor goes to Dack Fayden, who is truly the greatest thief in the Multiverse. I’m glad that one of our opponents was a Shops deck so that Dack’s power level could shine. Workshop decks are already quite threat-light (which is what happens when you’re disruption-heavy), so they’re heavily reliant on blue decks having to fight their Spheres and Thorns. When they don’t draw them on turn 1, things get a lot worse for the Shops deck. When Mana Vault comes down on the other side of the table, it tends to invalidate a lot of what the Shops deck is up to. Still, all of that aside, stealing Lodestone Golem was a highlight.
As far as raw power, that honor goes to Time Vault. I know some people have hated on Time Vault recently, but I really just don’t get it. The card flat out wins you games. It doesn’t do much besides win you games, but you only play one copy of it, so it’s not really jamming up your draws too much. It is, I think, probably the best way to beat a Workshop deck.
I was happy with the decision to cut down on Gorilla Shamans. Three copies is pretty egregious with so few ways to sift through them. Two copies were fine, and I was happy with how they forced my opponents to play, but I’m not convinced I would play them again.
The Gifts Ungiven was quite good. It turns out that tutoring four times is really busted in Vintage. Who knew?!
I loved Loved LOVED the sideboard planeswalkers. Being able to play a turn 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor is disgusting, and this deck can play quite a few. I will be playing quite a few more turbo-Planeswalker decks in Vintage.
Overall, the comments section killed it. Good work, everybody. This deck — like most blue restricted-card combo-control-planeswalker decks — turned out to be real sweet.