Part two of Steve’s Combo-Control blowout takes a look at the hottest decks in Vintage, decks that you absolutely must be prepared for if you plan to play at the Power 9 in Richmond this weekend. Smennen tells you what makes these decks tick, looks at the strengths and weaknesses, and then takes a peak at what the future might hold for the combo-control archetypes.
Deciding to play the right deck is critical to Type One success. This article is going to provide a comprehensive overview of the six best Mana Drain decks in the format. It will trace the trends in development thus far and bring us to some very recent design innovations. The trend that was already in the making has suddenly blossomed at the same time as the restriction of Trinisphere, resulting in the most broken Drain combo decks ever.
We hate to toot our own horn around here, but the day before the Chicago Power 9, we published an article about the very deck that won the tournament the next day. Today Stephen Menendian talks about variations of Vintage Oath of Druids decks, including the deck he designed that finished second at that very same Chicago Power 9, this time in the hands of Brian Demars.
In the first months of 2004, we threw together some Grim Tutor variants of the deck in preparation for what we believed would be a forthcoming announcement. We did some preliminary testing and tuning and then we waited. And waited. And waited and waited and waited. Finally, the announcement came. Now that people are concerned about the deck, some even claiming (absurdly) that Grim Tutor needs restriction. This article is going to demystify Grim Tutor and introduce Grim Long by tying my experience with all three incarnations of the Long.dec archetype together to provide a solid foundation for your own testing.
Since its introduction at the last StarCityGames Chicago Power 9, Doomsday has remained one of the more interesting combo decks in Vintage. With another Chicago Power 9 only a week away, Stephen Menendian revisits the decklist with an updated version and a veritable godbook on how to combo out of practically any situation. This is an article Vintage players simply cannot afford to miss.
Today Steve wraps up his massive Psychatog Primer with complete matchup and sideboarding advice for every major deck in the format.
When Stephen Menendian writes an article, the Vintage world pays attention, but when he writes a deck primer, the whole of the Magic world often stops by to see what new tech exists. Today Steve updates Dr. Teeth for the new Vintage era. How many colors should you be playing? What should your Cunning Wish sideboard look like? Your opponents will be reading this article, can you afford not to?
Control Slaver is the hottest Vintage deck on the planet, but there’s a huge amount of debate about what the best configuration looks like. Should the deck run the Intuition/Accumulated Knowledge engine? Is it worthwhile to add Black to the deck? What’s the best deck configuration to help you win the mirror match? Does Meandeck really need to use training wheels to win? All of these questions and more are examined inside!
It’s that time of year again and the pressure to restrict something in Vintage has never been greater. However, there should be no restrictions unless tournament data tells us that something needs to be done. I will briefly list out the winning decks from major tournaments over the last six months and then summarize the relevant data for the six tournaments that will point us toward what we are looking for.
In the first part of this series, I introduced a new Type One deck. It was an attempt to break the format – A deck that will take a great deal of time to completely master, will test your limits, hone your skills, and demand elevated focus. In this article, I’m going to explain and justify the various card choices and show how to play them correctly.
What if you designed a Type One deck that could literally cast every spell in the deck on turn 1 more than 50% of the time? Would this deck become the new powerhouse in Vintage and merit tons of bannings to shut down the engine, or is it possible that in designing such a deck with the current card pool, you actually made it too difficult to play? Stephen Menendian knows the answers to these questions because he designed it, played it, and is now here to tell the tale of this latest Meandeck creation.
Mike Flores wrote an interesting article on degree of difficulty. I found the Flores’ article interesting not because I strongly disagree with him – but because I think the real issue is worth exploring: what skills does Type One test? Vintage is clearly unlike any other format. Nick Eisel once described some in-game analysis contained in one of my articles as “bizarro world.” Rather than compare Type One on a better or worse scale, this article will explore and explain what I think are the critical skills Vintage players must have to be successful.
The DCI has done a great job of cleaning the detritus from the restricted list that had accumulated over the years. In the past two years, Berserk, Fork, Braingeyser, Hurkyl’s Recall, and many other cards were unrestricted, reflecting the fact that they are no longer the power cards they were eight years before. But the Restricted List has taken years to accumulate, and there is still stuff on the list that arguably shouldn’t be. In this article, I’m going to look at the six most questionable cards on the list and examine the pros and cons of unrestriction.
There were good arguments for unrestricting Doomsday. Doomsday combo would seem to be no faster than Worldgorger Dragon, which everyone agrees is “fair combo.” I figured, however, that with the Type One card pool, it only takes one truly inspired set of five cards to break the living hell out of it… And so we looked through the Dojo archives to find inspiration. Barely a week had passed when JP showed probably the most elegant win condition ever conceived: Doomsday for Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus, Dark Ritual, Mind’s Desire, and Beacon of Destruction.
So when does a card meet the distortion criteria? That’s one of the primary questions I want to address in this article. It requires a close analysis and a careful look. The critical inquiry is whether a card is “excessively” distorting. This is the problem with Crucible of Worlds. Crucible of the Worlds is not an inherently powerful card, but its presence in Type One is disturbing to many players. Crucible presents an important test case for my proposed framework and to that end I’m going to parse out these arguments for and against restriction in detail.
