RG Beats

2 Porcelain Legionnaire
4 Magus of the Moon
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Mayor of Avabruck
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
2 Viashino Heretic

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide

4 Chalice of the Void
3 Blood Moon
2 Seal of Primordium
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Sylvan Library
1 Trinisphere

1 Lotus Petal
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Windswept Heath
2 Arid Mesa
4 Taiga
1 Mountain
1 Forest

Lots of variations can be made.
I like the manabase to be 20-24 lands and like 90% of the rest of the deck should be cards that either hinder the opponent (Moons/Revoker) or destroy their permanents.
The destroy effects must also be card-economy-spells.. Since you are giving up playing with the most effective spells (YawgWin/Bob/Snapcaster/planeswalkers) you balance it out with playing economy (in any way possible). A critter that can both destroy the opponents permanents and do damage.. sweet. Or just Ancient Grudge that wins games by itself.
Seal of Primordium is added because I really like the way it threatens the opponent. Sure its two mana and sure they know whats coming but it is really effective. (Its kind of like a Gitaxian Probe when you've played it.. the opponents every move will signal what they got in their hand and what their gameplan is).
Mayor of Avabruck & Burning-Tree Emissary? One becomes a fatty and is good against stax and the other guy is free to cast.

What is missing from the deck is Thorn of Amethyst and possibly even Winter Orb. I just couldnt fit them in.
Oh and -1 Taiga, +1 Plateau is also pretty good.

The big blue sea

The thought is big blue critters and a few counters.

Explosive manabase is a must!
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
3 Mox Opal
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Black Lotus
3-4 Ancient Tomb
2-3 City of Traitors

Gotta have some counters..
Force of Will, Misdirection.. Mana Drain maybe.. Mana Leak OH YES.. some fillings probably
So then something like:
4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection
2 Mana Drain.. possibly three
4 Mana Leak

Cute shit:
Tinker, Blightsteel Colossus, Expedition Map (Thespian's Stage+Dark Depths). Time Walk, maybe Ancestral Recall, maybe Thirst for Knowledge, Tezzeret U/UB.
1 Tinker
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Thirst for Knowledge

Critters!
Crystalline Nautilus, Esperzoa, Sea Drake, Imaginary Pet, Gathan Raiders, Fathom Seer, Phantasmal Image, Lodestone Golem, Arcbound Ravager, Phyrexian Revoker, Porcelain Legionnaire.
Illusory Angel (comboish with Esperzoa)

So to the final product;

1 Blightsteel Colossus
4 Illusory Angel
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Lodestone Golem
2 Porcelain Legionnaire
3 Sea Drake
4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection
4 Mana Leak
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Expedition Map

1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
3 Mox Opal
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Black Lotus
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
1 Tolarian Academy
8 Island

Lots of 0-1 artifacts and 2C-lands should accelerate the mana so that at least 6 critter can be cast the first turn.
Playing Chrome Mox gets you that sweet blue mana turn one but with 7 cards that pitch another card.. naa.
Porcelain Legionnaire is the man.. dies to just about any targetting spell but can also block almost any other critter in the format.
Lodestone Golem is in more or less just because you have that kind of mana and theres really no other large critter at that manacost in color.
Expedition Map works as both an artifact and the best way to accelerate mana. After SB it can fetch Depth-combo or Academy Ruins.



See this post as a bit of a teaser. With the groundwork in this post a whole lot of different decks can be built.. anything from UB depth-control (budget possibility!) to straight up aggressive affinity-type deck.

Enchantment aggressor

Trimming the deck.

3 Dryad Militant
3 Nyxborn Shieldmate
4 Spirit of the Labyrinth
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Qasali Pridemage
1 Aegis of the Gods
4 Eidolon of Countless Battles

2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Rest in Peace
4 Ethereal Armor
1 Oblivion Ring
4 Aether Vial
3 Sterling Grove

4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Wild Growth

3 Savannah
4 Windswept Heath
2 Forest
5 Plains
2 Serra's Sanctum


Getting 2-1'd is bad mkay. When playing a budget deck where every card counts you do not want to get in to possitions where a 2-1 is likely. This means trimming away a couple of spells.
Sterling Grove is bad with Ethereal Armor and bestow-critters.
So I start by removing a couple of these spells. -3 EA, -2 SG. I feel youd like to cast one of either once in a while. SG+AotG is foolproof vs Jace & Lightning Bolt. Add in a Spirit or RiP and you got a party!
Being able to cast a Ethereal Armor in a long game is just.. too good.

Serra's Sanctum is a risk, -2 SS. I feel 3 Savannah could just open up too much for decks with Wasteland to get at you so -1 Savannah.

Without playtesting I think 4 EoCB is good. They are THE killcon. Also happy with the number of cmc1-critters.
Pridemage is pretty sweet..
Cant really see any more trims I want to do. I like the landauras better than Noble Heirach or equals because they are really hard to kill.

So here comes the fun part.. what can now fit in!
Its 5 spell- and 3 land-slots open.
The lands will be filled with fetchlands. Fetch dont get Stifle'd in vintage so they are great at defending against landlocks.
For spells two great cards are Porcelain Legionnaire & Spider Umbra. PL is huge and totem armor is just unfair at times. +2 PL +1 SU.
+1 Enlightened Tutor, +1 Oblivion Ring will be the last slots.


3 Dryad Militant
3 Nyxborn Shieldmate
4 Spirit of the Labyrinth
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Qasali Pridemage
1 Aegis of the Gods
4 Eidolon of Countless Battles
2 Porcelain Legionnaire

3 Enlightened Tutor
1 Rest in Peace
1 Ethereal Armor
1 Spider Umbra
2 Oblivion Ring
4 Aether Vial
1 Sterling Grove

4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Wild Growth

2 Savannah
4 Windswept Heath
2 Forest
5 Plains
2 Marsh Flats
1 Verdant Catacombs


Yes I thought about Stony Silence and I just think its shit. Locking offcolor moxes? No thanks.. Id rather have a threat.

Building on a budget

I love budget decks. Apart from new extremely strong cards (havnt seen any of those lately..) the one way I see anything happening in the vintage format/meta is by budget decks pushing it.

Building on a budget gets you less mana acceleration so every other card in your deck has to be more powerful then that of a powered decks "fillers". Cards like Daze shine here.

Punishing powered decks have been the way to go before. I think thats wrong. With so many powerful cards I think the budget decks should be the aggressor (obviously not vs Oath). Each card should pack just a bit more punch then the cards in a powered deck. For exampel Null Rod does nothing for a budget deck but can disrupt the gameplan of a powered deck. Having artifact destruction cards in the deck is the right way to go I think. Ancient Grudge, Smash to Smithereens, Viashino Heretic, Terminus.. any card that gets you just a bit more of card/quality advantage in the match is good. Disrupt can be good in the right meta. Well you probably understand what I mean here.

Do not play Mental Misstep unless you can pitch it to Force of Will or Misdirection! IT'S A TRAP! While MM is a good card you cant usually counter anything really good with it. Most if not all powerful cards in vintage are at CMC 2, 4 & 5.

Last block pushed enchantments.
Enlightened Tutor has become the best tutor for budget decks because of last block. Fetching Aegis of the Gods or Spirit of the Labyrinth, Rest in Peace (cause why not play one in MD), Seal of Cleansing or Oblivion Ring. There are so many choices and responses to opponent strategies.
Eidolon of Countless Battles & Ethereal Armor are great game-enders.

Playing Thalia, Guardian of Thraben forces you go play Aether Vial. Having the +1 effect is great but its at the expense of mana acceleration (Wild Growth & Utopia Sprawl) and answears (RiP & OR). I am not sure if a white budget deck is better with or without Thalia.. or rather I am not sure how much +1 matters.

Dredge

Dredge has got two problems. The first one is decks that are quicker then it and the second is hate-cards.

Quicker decks:
This is for me the biggest problem for dredge. These decks are combo decks that usually wins with Oath of Driuds (Storm/Time Walk-chaining combo) or regular storm decks. It is very important to recognize what kind of deck you are up against to know what your gameplan is.
Dredge has very few answears to these type of decks. All decks run Cabal Therapy and apart from that you have two viable options:
Unmask & Flame-Kin Zealot. Unmask makes you run more black cards in your 75 (full playsets Golgari Thug, Ichorid, Darkblast and so on) and FKZ makes you run at least two Dread Return to get one in the graveyard "in time". (Running more then one copy of FKZ is not usual but can be viable)
Playing Leyline of Sanctity could work but it is a lot of all in and thus not worth it imo.

Hate cards:
At the moment the three most common stategies against dregde is also the best answears so far.

• Rest in Peace/Leyline of the Void - By far the hardest to work around. Any card you discard with Bazaar will get removed, drasticly limiting your "digging for answear" ability. Wispmare and Nature's Claim are good here but the decks that play RiP/LotV usually pack a lot of counters. If they run a quick combo this will be a hard MU.

• Ravenous Trap - If you suspect your opponent of playing this you will need to keep Unmask in and/or cast a Cabal Therapy for it before you go off.

• Grafdiggers Cage + Mental Misstep - Very easy to play around this combination. Ingot Chewer is a great answear that can only be countered by Mana Drain and Force of Will. Any discard spell will secure the destroy effect and win from here. You can dredge up and cast (FOR MANA!!!) Golgari Thug and Stinkweed Imp and then win either by tokens from Bridge from Below or just straight up combat damage from your tiny critters.

Back from BoM9

Back home from BoM9.
I played only vintage; two trials (7/3) & main event (2/x). I played Emra-Oath.
I really really liked the deck and how it played its matches.
Decisive losses were: two landscrews from mulligans, one to five and one to four. One match because the opponent just had a bit more luck then me in drawing answears (I played Ancestral AND Thirst that match).
Fun things about Oath include that some of the most powerful mulligans you can have is with Oath. I won 3 out of 4 matches where I mull'ed to 5. Land mana-artifact and threat turn one can be hard to deal with and if they keep a 7 and you mull to 5, they are going to play their turn 1 a bit more unsafe then if you'd kept a 7.

Anyways things I liked and disliked about the deck:
Two Emrakul, the Aeons Torn in MD was both good and bad. I have the feeling now after trying a few matches with only one in MD that two give you a lot more freedome in how you can play. Activating Oath with one Emra in play already gave me a 50% chance to reshuffle the deck. Getting spells back is sometimes extremely good. The more tutors you have the better this is.
I need a new robot in SB. Having the Blightsteel Colossus is sweet.. you win lots of games by playing a threat turn one and getting him out.. buuuuut then again some times you go up against decks that can actually handle it. A Inkwell Leviathan will be added to SB.
Thoughtseize was the bomb. I played two i MD and now play three. At the turnament I had the third in SB but would side it in against all non-workshop nor dredge decks. A possible bad play with it is playing it turn 1 when you suspect your opponent is playing combo. Holding a mana for the scare effect and a counter is usually better then taking one card and scaring them to go off. Casting it turn 2 was never bad.
Preordain did not impress.
Two Swan Song & three Mental Misstep was the right sum. Three Spell Pierce was great in combination with the other counters and Thoughtseize.
Misdirection has gone up from one to two copies.. great defensive spell for a deck that really only needs defense because its so aggressive.
 Dragon Breath is awsome as long as you do not draw it. One more has been added to SB to make Jace-matchup better (lots of people love the Jace-control decks). A Terastodon also greatly helps in that MU.

Decklist as is now:
MD
4 Forbidden Orchard
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island 
1 Island
5 Blue-Fetchlands
5 Mox ABU
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt


4 Oath of Druids
1 Show and Tell
1 Tinker
1 Blightsteel Colossus
2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Dragon Breath

1 Beast Within
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
3 Thoughtseize
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
2 Swan Song
3 Spell Pierce
3 Mental Misstep

SB
2 Pithing Needle
4 Nature's Claim
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Flusterstorm
1 Dragon Breath
1 Terastodon
2 Show and Tell
1 not sure what to put here..