Here's what I would do. This deck has a rock solid mana base, the draw engine you want in the proper proportion, with a hearty counter suite and mini tool box of answers complete with all the tutors you need and the multiple win conditions you have chosen. This list gives you more Snapcaster targets, and will be a bit faster while providing plenty of countermagic, answers and win. The sideboard is crated to beat your toughest match ups in Dredge and MUD, but you can tweak it for the meta NP. Also you need to play 1 Echoing Truth in a Snapcaster Deck. Just my 2 cents.
This is a deck I have been working on for quite some time now. It isn't groundbreaking or anything, but works fairly well and can compete with some of the vintage decks I play against. It is a deck for the true storm player, and plays very consistently.
The idea is to play proactively, presenting your opponent with as many threats as possible in the early game, then resolve Yawgmoth's Will/ Bargain after they are gassed out. Same basic plan as most storm decks. But the use of pure discard and the overall low curve of the deck allows you to acheive threshold consistently by turn three then explode in their face. This is significant in that it adds to the speed of your decks redundancy by making cabal ritual very strong.
secondary draw engines include chain of vapor and double tendrils.
This is a highly playable deck, and has a variety of first turn value plays that can be cast off of a land and a mox. The deck design also allows you to play very aggressively into bob. slapping a second or even a third bob on the table is no sweat, which means hes rarely a dead card. The side board is built primarily to beat shop decks, since this is our bane match-up. But there are also solid options for dredge and blue dec. also.
Might aswell throw og Tezzeret in there. Works great with all the aforementioned cards. Maybe a U/W Turbo tezz build with Ripline as an alt. Win con.tezz can tutor up helm too.
@ void: thanks for your redundant explaination of "can't be countered by spells or abilities." No offense, but that was slightly condescending, lol. I understand the concept, just had'nt considered its interaction with chalice until after I posted. Thanks for your thoughts otherwise.
I really like these decklists, storm combo has always been my favorite style. I am wondering though, storm really seems to have dropped off the map since Lodestone Golem, Mental Misstep and Flusterstorm took over. Do these lists have the answers/ resilience to beat the decks playing these cards? Another question, if a sphere is on the table and you cast land grant, do you have to pay an extra colorless or not?
Here are my issues:
A. You only have 25 mana sources, which is very light for storm. Also too many mana artifacts can polarize your deck against mud or other null rod/ chalice variants, your worst match up..
B. Snapcaster mage + cabal ritual = X
C. As bad as duress is against mud, hatebears, Tmwa etc., flusterstorm is even worse.
D. You only have 1 mb tendrils with no other win condition save 2/1 wizard beat down, and you don't have a full playset of either creature.
E. More bounce seems so good. Its a must have against power hate decks, is a storm engine particularly with all the artificial mana, can bounce sdt for card draw, bounce snapcaster for more spells, protect your bobs from removal, bounce mana crypt/bob/mana vault if its killing you...bounce is your all around utility and your running light.
F. Snapcaster mage is win more against mud etc, which again, is already your worst matchup
G. like you said f storm slows your deck considerably.
No offense, but I get a little tired of hearing the whole coin flip argument. If you do happen to pull an opening hand that wins, trying to slap that win on the table immediately is a ballsy (stupid) move that will probably be met with opposing mental misstep, mindbreak trap, force of will, flusterstorm, chain of vapor your tinkered blightsteel etc. sure you may pull your winning combo in your opener, but if you dont jockey for position to play it, then you stand a good chance of gasing out early and losing. The best countermagic, disruption, removal and hate cards ever printed are available to you in vintage. If you arent using them, then I guess you deserve to have someone elses game winning combo shoved forcefully down your throat
t1
All it takes is 1 grafdiggers cage to hit the battlefield, and your plan to tinker a blightsteel is haulted. 1 null rod to render your moxen/time vault useless. 1 ancient tomb simian spirit
guide magus of the moon to shut down your non basic lands. Vintage decks need resilience and answers to win, not just a god hand and to be on the play. Proxy some decks and play, its fun
Muds basic strategy is to disable your mana base through a series of soft locks, then assume a dominant board position and beat you to death before you can resolve anything meaningful.
Create a mana base which has resilience to their hate. Playing too much artificial mana can make you weak to chalice and null rod. Not enough basic lands gives their wasteland strength. I even have 4 Ancient Tomb in my storm deck sideboard To help punch through spheres, and make consistent land drops.
Use a draw engine that sidesteps their strategy. Cards like dark confidant and Jtms are permanents that provide an effect w/o tapping mana, can be tapped to tanglewire, and strengthen your board position.
Ingot chewer IS probably the best removal spell as it dodges chalice and is cheap. Trygon predator is disenchant with wings that can fly over their whole board.
Hurkyl's recall and rebuild are the silver bullets for combo decks to run. Of course tinkering a blightsteel is the classic win button, but dont be surprised if it gets sculpting steeled/ phyrexian metamorphed.
Force of will, mana drain and steel sabotage are the best counters to run.
Bitterblossom deserves an honorable mention. Provides, chump blockers/fyinng attackers, taps to tangle wire, provides an effect at no mana cost, and is cheap enough to get on the table early.
Wasteland and Strip Mine are great cards, that are usefull, but not gamebreaking in alot of matchups. I think the overall concensus has been
to omit them from blue countercombo lists because of cards like: Blood Moon, Magus of the Moon and Opposing Wastes and Strips. since they essentially
soak up the spots that would be occupied by basic lands that would give you some resilience to said strategies. Vault decks rely on land heavily to provide
mana fixing because of the off color moxen used and other mana rocks. Giving up 4-5 potentially blue lands for LD is not great when ur rocking 4 drains,
3 Snapcaster Mages, 2 Jaces and a Tezzeret. you may find you are in serious need of U mana and you don't have it.
Check out the worlds lists I mentioned earlier to see a good gush list.
Do you even need to use the Voltaic Key if you have Tezz? Can't you just use his ability to keep untapping the Vault instead?
No But Tezz is Probably best when you already have key in play, if you have 6 mana you just cast him and win, for the most part. Most times you won't have your Time Vault just sitting there on the battlefield, I don't like to cast it until i'm ready to combo out, so that it doesn't get blown up by a Nature's Claim or something.
My only question is when looking at a lot of these decks I'm just not seeing the win condition, what am I missing? Obviously Tinker/Blightsteel is one and infinite turns w/ Key/Vault is another, but what else are these decks using as win conditions?
well most lists are centered around pullling off the vault key combo. the 2nd and 3rd place lists at worlds this year had a secondary win con with Trygon Predator / Dark Confidant Beat down. You can Tinker Blightsteel before going infinite effectively against non counter decks. Typically, once you go infinite with Vault, Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Tezzeret the Seeker are the only other win cons typically used. Snapcaster Mage / Bob Beatdown is noteworthy. Also, Vault key is not actually a win con, its a board lock, I know it seems like a hair split, but if you vault keyed in a deck with no other win con, with a Regrowth and Timetwister, You could actually take infinite turns without ever winning the game.
Does this deck use Standstill?
Not to my knowledge, but it is a vintage worthy card, and is seeing play right now.
I was acquiring stuff for Legacy, but have decided to do more Vintage as it just seems more fun to me and there is a pretty good following for it around me (as much if not more than Legacy).
It is fun, and I wish I had a great vintage following around here.
3 Volcanic Island
3 Island
3 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Tolarian Academy
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Voltaic Key
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Time Vault
1 Blightsteel Colossus
3 Dark Confidant
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Drain
3 Mental Misstep
3 Lightning Bolt
1 Echoing Truth
1 Flusterstorm
1 Fire//Ice
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Tinker
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will
3 Yixlid Jailer
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Ingot Chewer
1 Mountain
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Flusterstorm
2 Steel Sabotage
The idea is to play proactively, presenting your opponent with as many threats as possible in the early game, then resolve Yawgmoth's Will/ Bargain after they are gassed out. Same basic plan as most storm decks. But the use of pure discard and the overall low curve of the deck allows you to acheive threshold consistently by turn three then explode in their face. This is significant in that it adds to the speed of your decks redundancy by making cabal ritual very strong.
secondary draw engines include chain of vapor and double tendrils.
This is a highly playable deck, and has a variety of first turn value plays that can be cast off of a land and a mox. The deck design also allows you to play very aggressively into bob. slapping a second or even a third bob on the table is no sweat, which means hes rarely a dead card. The side board is built primarily to beat shop decks, since this is our bane match-up. But there are also solid options for dredge and blue dec. also.
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mana Crypt
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus
4 Dark Confidant
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Necropotence
4 Duress
4 Thoughtseize
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
3 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Time Walk
2 Night's Whisper
1 Yawgmoth's Will
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Swamp
1 Island
S.B:
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Ancient tomb
3 Mental Misstep
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Bitterblossom
1 Helm of Obedience
Welcoming any feedback or criticizm. Thanks for checkin it out
Abrupt Decay
It blows up Trinisphere,Time Vault, Voltaic Key,Tangle Wire, any Bear, any Mox etc., is an instant, and can't be countered.
It does'nt deal with Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Lodestone Golem. But idk, still seems good, what do you guys think? Maybe a BUG Junk deck could Emerge?
A. You only have 25 mana sources, which is very light for storm. Also too many mana artifacts can polarize your deck against mud or other null rod/ chalice variants, your worst match up..
B. Snapcaster mage + cabal ritual = X
C. As bad as duress is against mud, hatebears, Tmwa etc., flusterstorm is even worse.
D. You only have 1 mb tendrils with no other win condition save 2/1 wizard beat down, and you don't have a full playset of either creature.
E. More bounce seems so good. Its a must have against power hate decks, is a storm engine particularly with all the artificial mana, can bounce sdt for card draw, bounce snapcaster for more spells, protect your bobs from removal, bounce mana crypt/bob/mana vault if its killing you...bounce is your all around utility and your running light.
F. Snapcaster mage is win more against mud etc, which again, is already your worst matchup
G. like you said f storm slows your deck considerably.
t1
All it takes is 1 grafdiggers cage to hit the battlefield, and your plan to tinker a blightsteel is haulted. 1 null rod to render your moxen/time vault useless. 1 ancient tomb simian spirit
guide magus of the moon to shut down your non basic lands. Vintage decks need resilience and answers to win, not just a god hand and to be on the play. Proxy some decks and play, its fun
Create a mana base which has resilience to their hate. Playing too much artificial mana can make you weak to chalice and null rod. Not enough basic lands gives their wasteland strength. I even have 4 Ancient Tomb in my storm deck sideboard To help punch through spheres, and make consistent land drops.
Use a draw engine that sidesteps their strategy. Cards like dark confidant and Jtms are permanents that provide an effect w/o tapping mana, can be tapped to tanglewire, and strengthen your board position.
Ingot chewer IS probably the best removal spell as it dodges chalice and is cheap. Trygon predator is disenchant with wings that can fly over their whole board.
Hurkyl's recall and rebuild are the silver bullets for combo decks to run. Of course tinkering a blightsteel is the classic win button, but dont be surprised if it gets sculpting steeled/ phyrexian metamorphed.
Force of will, mana drain and steel sabotage are the best counters to run.
Bitterblossom deserves an honorable mention. Provides, chump blockers/fyinng attackers, taps to tangle wire, provides an effect at no mana cost, and is cheap enough to get on the table early.
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Voltaic Key
1 Time Vault
1 Blightsteel Colossus
4 Dark Confidant
4 Force of Will
3 Mental Misstep
2 Mana Drain
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Fire//Ice
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Ponder
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
2 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
3 Island
Wasteland and Strip Mine are great cards, that are usefull, but not gamebreaking in alot of matchups. I think the overall concensus has been
to omit them from blue countercombo lists because of cards like: Blood Moon, Magus of the Moon and Opposing Wastes and Strips. since they essentially
soak up the spots that would be occupied by basic lands that would give you some resilience to said strategies. Vault decks rely on land heavily to provide
mana fixing because of the off color moxen used and other mana rocks. Giving up 4-5 potentially blue lands for LD is not great when ur rocking 4 drains,
3 Snapcaster Mages, 2 Jaces and a Tezzeret. you may find you are in serious need of U mana and you don't have it.
Check out the worlds lists I mentioned earlier to see a good gush list.
No But Tezz is Probably best when you already have key in play, if you have 6 mana you just cast him and win, for the most part. Most times you won't have your Time Vault just sitting there on the battlefield, I don't like to cast it until i'm ready to combo out, so that it doesn't get blown up by a Nature's Claim or something.
well most lists are centered around pullling off the vault key combo. the 2nd and 3rd place lists at worlds this year had a secondary win con with Trygon Predator / Dark Confidant Beat down. You can Tinker Blightsteel before going infinite effectively against non counter decks. Typically, once you go infinite with Vault, Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Tezzeret the Seeker are the only other win cons typically used. Snapcaster Mage / Bob Beatdown is noteworthy. Also, Vault key is not actually a win con, its a board lock, I know it seems like a hair split, but if you vault keyed in a deck with no other win con, with a Regrowth and Timetwister, You could actually take infinite turns without ever winning the game.
Not to my knowledge, but it is a vintage worthy card, and is seeing play right now.
It is fun, and I wish I had a great vintage following around here.