[Deck] Ringvault

[Tacosnape]

Since I'm sleepy and not in the mood for a witty intro, Ringvault is a deck attempting to abuse the ever-errataed Time Vault with Rings of Brighthearth. If you're wondering, it works like this.

1. Skip a turn to untap Time Vault.
2. Tap Time Vault to generate a turn.
3. Use Rings top copy the turn generation, giving you the turn you skipped and an additional turn on top of that.
4. Take as many turns as your library can handle and kill your opponent before you deck yourself.

If you kept track, people tried to do this with Mizzium Transreliquat. Rings of Brighthearth is better, possibly enough so to make the deck playable, and here's why. Not only are you dropping the total amount of mana needed from :8: to :7:, you're dropping the mana you need on the board from :3: to :2:. This makes curving out into the combo significantly easier.

I started out attempting to accelerate with Chrome Mox before figuring out that Mox in a deck where the combo is all artifacts is a bad idea. I lost countless games from Mox not having an imprintable card, and accelerating into 2 and 3 mana early only helped me when I had the combo in hand. I needed turn one to dig for the combo. So I tried City of Traitors instead, was reasonably satisfied with it, and stuck with it. I picked it over Ancient Tomb because I needed some life total leeway given that the deck (at the time) also ran Lim-Dul's Vault, Fetchlands, Force, and Thoughtseize.

I also needed a primary kill condition. I wanted a kill condition that filled the following conditions:

1. It needed to pitch to Force of Will.
2. It needed to have some form of evasion.
3. It needed to do something else useful other than kill people.

Cloud of Faeries turned out to be the perfect choice. It pitched to Force, flew, worked as acceleration with City of Traitors, could cycle for a card, and could cycle for two cards if I had a Rings and no Vault.

From there, I piled up a ton of disruption, digging, and draw, and wound up with the following deck:

3 Underground Sea
3 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 City of Traitors

4 Time Vault
4 Rings of Brighthearth
1 Mizzium Transreliquat

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Duress
4 Force of Will
3 Lim-Dul's Vault
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Thoughtseize

4 Cloud of Faeries
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Powder Keg

SB:
4 Planar Void
4 Dark Confidant
3 Stifle
2 Thoughtseize
1 Pithing Needle
1 Mobilization


Card Choices:

Manabase:
It's important to be able to access any color on turn one, so eight fetchlands are needed. City of Traitors accelerates into your combo and will singlehandedly pay for your Rings activations, and also goes well with the miniature artifact/enchantment toolbox the deck runs off Enlightened Tutor / Death Wish.

Combo Pieces
4 Vault, 4 Rings. They're the main combo pieces. The single Mizzium Transreliquat adds a level of redundancy and gives you insurance should anyone try to stop your Rings rather than your Vault.

The Stuff
Brainstorm, Ponder, and Enlightened Tutor give you 12 1-drops that all help search for combo pieces, which is good because, if you didn't notice, your combo pieces cost :2: and :3:. Duress, Force, and Thoughtseize give you ten weapons with which to protect your combo, and also to ensure your Clouds go for the kill once you get your combo going. Swords to Plowshares will remove pests like Meddling Mage or anything that eats a Cloud of Faeries (Flyers, Fanatics, Sharpshooters, whatever), and can also stall for time effectively. Lim-Dul's Vault can be tricky to cast with the manabase, but can set you up very nicely in the right circumstances.

The Weird Stuff
Cloud of Faeries, as mentioned, seriously does everything. It's small, but it kills with infinite turns, cycles, pitches to Force, and accelerates off City of Traitors. A playset is necessary to ensure you can pitch or play them freely without fear of decking yourself before being able to smash your opponent to death.

Engineered Explosives is a single silver bullet that can be Enlightened Tutor for and carries the heavy burden of solving any problem you have. It can kill Mage. It can kill Pithing Needle. It will kill a flyer up to CC 3. It can nail Engineered Plague on Faeries. It will handle most anything you can imagine significantly harming the deck. Powder Keg is his very similar twin. Keg can't hit the Plague like EE can, but Keg can hit bigger things and curves better off City of Traitors.

Sideboard
Planar Void gets the nod over Leyline here for one reason: Enlightened Tutor fetches it. Confidants will bail your ass out against control decks and on occasion draw so much disruption that you can win through an Extirpated Time Vault. The extra Thoughtseizes are around for when you need additional disruption. Stifle is strong against both combo and Pernicious Deed, and is an excellent utility card against random things like Tin-Street Hooligan and Wasteland as well. Needle is a tutorable answer to a plethora of things. And the Mobilization is there for when Cloud of Faeries may or may not be enough to do the job.

Why should you play this deck, you ask? Glad you asked.

1. It's a moderately fast combo deck.
2. It's a combo deck with a ton of disruption and protection.
3. It's completely immune to the immensely popular graveyard hate.
4. It's decently resilient.

Now, with that out of the way, let's go on record to say this is a work in progress, but I've been testing it for awhile. The sideboard's a bit rough (I just now cut Reconstruction for Stifle), and it's taken me awhile to tweak the maindeck up, so any suggestions would be appreciated (Even if I ridicule you for being a retard, I still appreciate your suggestion.)

Toodles,

Taco

[matelml]

Wouldn't Mishra's factory be a better wincon? It doesn't really cost slots and than you can put good cards in the faerie slot. And/or 1 Academy ruins. It stops you from decking which gives you enough time to clear every single blocker with EExplosives+Academy. And it returns combo-pieces.

[Zuriya]

Wouldn't Mishra's factory be a better wincon? It doesn't really cost slots and than you can put good cards in the faerie slot. And/or 1 Academy ruins. It stops you from decking which gives you enough time to clear every single blocker with EExplosives+Academy. And it returns combo-pieces.

QFT

I was going to suggest Dimir Infiltrator, but his solution is probably better unless you opponents play strange roadbumps ( don't know Blastoderm or whatever ).
How about bounce instead of STP. This way you can deal with Solitary Confinement and similiar cards. (for example Capsize, Words of Wind ).

Edit: Too bad that Aether Spellbomb only hits creatures.

[Nihil Credo]

I disagree with Mishra's Factory. The deck is very colour intensive other than the eight artifacts, so Factory would indeed be a strain on the manabase. Since Cloud of Faeries is never dead (and you can even use the Rings to draw two cards with it!), you wouldn't really be saving much room.

Academy Ruins is a fucking autoinclude, though.

[Nightmare]

Hey guys! My name is Gifts Ungiven. With the simple addition of a 1x Argivian Restoration (or a Reconstruction), I get THE WHOLE GODDAMN COMBO.

Why oh why aren't you running me?

Also, I'm quite sad to say this (and believe me when I say that, because I love me some Time Vault), but this deck sucks.

I've tried and tried and tried, and then tried again, but the whole basis of the deck is taking infinite turns with Vault, and it basically is a terrible game plan.

Goblins is going to Steamroll you. Breakfast is faster and more resiliant than you. You can't deal with Tendrils. Thresh won't give you the opportunity to play spells.

Basically, you thrash about and try to assemble a combination of otherwise irrelevant cards, and other decks laugh and do the whole "winning" thing.

I don't mean to be crude, but I do mean to be blunt. Time Vault sucks, no matter what you combo it with.

[Elfrago]

A single chromatic sphere and a pyrite spellbomb could work in conjunction with Accademy Ruins as a kill condition. And they both cicle for 2 colorless.

[Drathro]

A quick untested thought:

Every time I see a Mirage tutor or Lim-Dul's Vault, I consider Street Wraith (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?name=Street_Wraith). Sometimes you want what you tutored for - right now, for (almost) free. Also, with the Rings of Brighthearth out, you can use the Wraith to draw an extra card for :2:. It's just a thought, but I don't know if it would fit into the deck, especially as it doesn't pitch to Force of Will like your other draw spells do.

Edit: Would using it with Rings of Brighthearth this way make it a Street Ringwraith?

[94teen]

So...I like this deck. I really like Time Vault decks, and I really want one of them to be competitive. I have to say that this deck is really cool, but it's not competitive in the current iteration.

There needs to be a reason to play this deck over other options. Cephalid Breakfast and Ichorid are better at comboing, and Threshold and Landstill are better at controlling, so there aren't many reasons to play this deck as it is.

What this deck needs to do is evolve to a point where it can be better than another deck at something. I think that the best direction for this to go is combo control.

CounterTop, Trinket Mage engine, Academy Ruins recursion, the whole deal. This gives you game against combo because you can hold off their initial attempt to combo off while you set up your own combo. Against thresh this gives you a way to win counter wars and attrition wars.

I'm not entirely sure what the best way to make it work would be, but I think something along the lines of...

1 Academy Ruins
1 Swamp
2 Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 City of Traitors
3 Ancient Tomb
3 Chrome Mox

2 Time Vault
2 Rings of Brighthearth
3 Trinisphere
3 Chalice of the Void

4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
2 Duress
4 Force of Will
4 Thoughtseize
3 Counterbalance
3 Daze
1 Counterspell

3 Engineered Explosives
3 Sensei's Divining Top


I think this comes out to 62, but I don't have time to thin the list down at the moment. I think that this is a better direction for the deck because you have a more controlling game. The deck becomes more like MUC with a combo finish, but I think everything works out pretty well.

You've got some discard (not sure if it's worth the splash anymore), a strong amount of counterspells and a counterbalance engine with a fairly diverse range of cc's to help counter stuff. I'm not sure if the cantrips are worth it anymore, as this deck seems to want to drop artifact disruption turn 1. Maybe a build of this that looks something like this, but with a more Mono Blue Stax-ish feel. That'd give you the potential to randomly lock people out of the game, or to play the attrition war and randomly combo out.

EDIT: wow...I just realized I posted a deck without a win condition.... With all the artifact acceleration, I'd think something like Masticore or Razorcore would be good because it's strong against most decks and wins 'Goyf wars, especially if you randomly drop it turn 2.

[Tacosnape]

I disagree with Mishra's Factory. The deck is very colour intensive other than the eight artifacts, so Factory would indeed be a strain on the manabase. Since Cloud of Faeries is never dead (and you can even use the Rings to draw two cards with it!), you wouldn't really be saving much room.

Academy Ruins is a fucking autoinclude, though.

Ruins would indeed have solid potential here. I'll have to look into this.

Agreed, Factory is awful because you have to clear the board to kill with him. Urza's Factory would be the better option, and meh.


Hey guys! My name is Gifts Ungiven. With the simple addition of a 1x Argivian Restoration (or a Reconstruction), I get THE WHOLE GODDAMN COMBO.

Why oh why aren't you running me?

Because Gifts Ungiven is way, way, way too slow.


Goblins is going to Steamroll you. Breakfast is faster and more resiliant than you. You can't deal with Tendrils. Thresh won't give you the opportunity to play spells.

Goblins doesn't Steamroll me unless it gets a clear Lackey and some hot Wasteland action. I've been contemplating a basic land inclusion just to help on this front. It's been about 60/40 for me, though it's worse against builds with multiple maindecked Tin-Streets.

I can't deal with Tendrils? Duress, Thoughtseize, Force of Will, and Stifle all say otherwise. Not to mention Powder Keg and Engineered Explosives doing double duty against Empty the Warrens.

Threshold gets better with the Confidants and additional Seizes, but worse with the Counterbalances and Needles. It's not favorable, but it's not unwinnable. The discard and countermagic make it manageable.

Cephalid Breakfast is faster and more resilient than me. I won't attempt to argue the point. However, the format is -completely- awash with graveyard hate right now, and this deck's being presented mostly as an alternative that's immune. And, interestingly enough, despite it not being as good in a vacuum, this deck has done fairly well against Cephalid so far. (3-3 in games in what very little testing I've done.)

Your personal frustrations with the deck might be well-founded, but they aren't necessarily an indication that the deck doesn't have some potential. I don't expect something that gets stopped by Pithing Needle to ever go tier 1, but I believe a fair bit of improvement has been made upon the deck by Rings of Brighthearth, and that some effort could make the deck fairly competitive.


A quick untested thought:

Every time I see a Mirage tutor or Lim-Dul's Vault, I consider Street Wraith (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?name=Street_Wraith). Sometimes you want what you tutored for - right now, for (almost) free. Also, with the Rings of Brighthearth out, you can use the Wraith to draw an extra card for :2:. It's just a thought, but I don't know if it would fit into the deck, especially as it doesn't pitch to Force of Will like your other draw spells do.

Edit: Would using it with Rings of Brighthearth this way make it a Street Ringwraith?

No to Street Wraith. I -never- need the card I tutored for immediately, because I don't have the mana to use it when I'm playing the tutor. The point of Enlightened is how it curves out with the combo pieces, and the point of Lim-Dul's is to be able to set up your combo piece or some acceleration potential next turn.

...And yes, despite the fact that it might be the nerdiest thing ever posted, we'll say that would make it a Street Ringwraith.

[Media314r8]

Basically, you thrash about and try to assemble a combination of otherwise irrelevant cards, and other decks laugh and do the whole "winning" thing.

I don't mean to be crude, but I do mean to be blunt. Time Vault sucks, no matter what you combo it with.

I agree completely with this statement. The only thing your deck CAN do without the combo is beat with a 1/1 flyer and counter/discard. At least breakfast's backup plan is goyf, a 5/6 or 6/7 beatstick. If either one of the combo pieces costed 1 and could be found with trinket mage, I could see this deck being built with an alternate wincon of dreadnaught... but as it is, there is just so much hinging on getting all the pieces in place, and I'm pretty sure even with a god draw, burn has a fast/faster clock than you.

[Phantom]

I'm not exactly a combo expert, but any chance that new white enchantment Vindicate from Lorwyn fits in here (at least as a one of)? Tutorable. Another out for Needle, Null Rod, and Mages naming Vault and plow, etc. Too slow?

Someone help me out with the name of this thing as I am at work.

Edit: also, Shadowmage infiltrator seems like it combines the role of CoF and Confidant, but might be too subpar at both.

[paps]

I agree completely with this statement. The only thing your deck CAN do without the combo is beat with a 1/1 flyer and counter/discard. At least breakfast's backup plan is goyf, a 5/6 or 6/7 beatstick. If either one of the combo pieces costed 1 and could be found with trinket mage, I could see this deck being built with an alternate wincon of dreadnaught... but as it is, there is just so much hinging on getting all the pieces in place, and I'm pretty sure even with a god draw, burn has a fast/faster clock than you.

As does Goblins and most storm Combos. This deck needs a good back up plan. Preferably, that plan should be fetchable by Enlightened Tutor, so that ET isn't a dead card otherwise. Therefore, Dreadnought + Stifle might not be a bad idea, as Stifle could already work alright as disruption in this deck. At least if you did that, you could get your combo online on turn 2 with much more frequency than you can get this one online by.

Also, does the counterbalance engine really have a place in a fast combo trying to get a lock by turn 2-3?

[Finn]

Taco, this build has to skip a turn before you can go off. OK, Transreliquat needs one extra mana, but wouldn't that extra turn pretty much take care of it? Losing a turn with a combo deck is kinda bad. Your opponent sees the combo pieces coming down and gets to prepare for them on their next turn. Did I mention that you have to skip a turn?

I think I would rather lose with Transrelisquat than lose with this. Atleast I don't lose a turn.

[Tacosnape]

and I'm pretty sure even with a god draw, burn has a fast/faster clock than you.

Burn doesn't have the same disruptive elements (Or any for that matter), and not necessarily. Turn three isn't all that hard of an accomplishment in this deck with a good hand. Examples are as follows.

OPENING HAND:
Underground Sea
Flooded Strand
City of Traitors
Time Vault
Rings of Brighthearth
Force of Will
Brainstorm

Turn one: City of Traitors, Time Vault, go.
Turn two: Untap, draw wtfever, tap City, play Sea, Rings of Brighthearth.
Turn three: Combo off.

OPENING HAND:
Tundra
Tundra
City of Traitors
Enlightened Tutor
Cloud of Faeries
Cloud of Faeries
Time Vault

Turn one: Tundra, go. EOT, Enlightened for Rings.
Turn two: City, Cloud, Cloud, Vault, Rings, go.
Turn three: Combo off.

So while the more common turn is 4 at the present, 3 is quite possible with a decent draw. It would be far more common if a means were devised to play the Time Vault and untap it without mana being involved in the same turn.



Taco, this build has to skip a turn before you can go off.

You're wrong. The current errata with Time Vault is as follows.

Time Vault comes into play tapped.
If Time Vault would become untapped, instead choose one - untap Time Vault and you skip your next turn; or Time Vault remains tapped.
Tap: Take an extra turn after this one.

Therefore you actually skip the turn during your untap step and your turn has already begun.

Therefore, unless you're expecting Stifle, you can simply Untap/Skip the Time Vault and tap it to take an additional turn during the same turn, and repeat this process every turn.

More importantly, if you -do- fear Stifle, you can simply do this on the one turn you're ready to combo off. As the Rings of Brighthearth trigger goes on the stack before your opponent gets the chance to Stifle the Time Vault, you will still be able to copy the Time Vault activation and at least not lose a turn. All this will buy them is one chance to do something.

[Finn]

No time to analyze right now, but that seems reasonable. I am glad you thought this through better than I have.

[matelml]

Street wraith could actually be your win condition, especially if you play 1-2 Urborg, tomb of yawgmoth (which are cool with swampwalk).

[94teen]

I still think this should be a more controlling deck with lots of artifact acceleration. Blue Stax has always been looking for a strong way to end the game, and it doesn't get much longer than infinite turns. Hell, Time Vault on it's own is amazing. Who cares if your opponent gets more turns than you do when they have to sac multiple permanents per turn?

1 Mountain
3 Volcanic Island
2 Academy Ruins
2 Island
2 Flooded Strand
3 Mishra's Factory
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Wasteland
4 Mox Diamond

3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Smokestack
4 Intuition
1 Meditate
3 Propaganda

3 Razormane Masticore
1 Time Vault
2 Mizzium Transreliquat
4 Rolling Earthquake
2 Pyroclasm

or some such. The artifact shell fits so well in a Stax shell, especially with Intuition + Academy Ruins to back up the singletons (not many of those, but could make a great sideboard plan). I think there might even be enough blue to try to squeeze in FoW if you feel the need. It's an idea. I splashed red for mass creature removal and such because..it's necessary in a 'Goyf heavy format. I think white may be a better splash, maybe for 'Geddon or swords. The deck needs an answer to 'Goyf besides Chalice and 3Sphere.

[rufus]

With an artifact heavy approach, and blue/red, there might be a Gifts Ungiven combo with Trash for Treasure, Transmute Artifact, Rings of Brighthearth/Transreliquat, and Time Vault.

[94teen]

I don't think Gifts is necessary. Intuition does the same thing, but better. If you'd like, you can add a Petrified Field to the maindeck in order to make Intuition piles more inevitable. YOu can use that pile to establish Crucible of Worlds by intuitioning for:

Crucible
Academy Ruins
Petrified Field

Then you can Intuition for your combo if you want.

The strong part of intuition is that, because there are three copies of every important card, or recursion for those cards, you can use it as a tutor. The only potential replacement I can see is Thirst for Knowledge.

One other random piece I've thought about is Ensnaring Bridge over Propaganda. This continues to support the artifact theme and provides another lock piece, especially because you tend to empty your hand quickly. THis also supports the theme of letting your opponent take additional turns, because if you have 0-2 cards in hand, they aren't going to be doing much damage.

[Solpugid]

All of the opening hands you posted as being very good included city of traitors. Obviously the acceleration helps you immensely, so is there a way to add a few ancient tomb as well to increase the consistency with which you combo early?

I also like the idea of running a single (or two?) pyrite spellbomb alongside academy ruins as your kill. I realize CoF pitches to force, but I think the extra slots would serve you better.

So...the deck has Rings of brighthearth. And it wins by locking the opponent out of the game. Can we please call this Wedlock?

[94teen]

I like the idea of Spellbomb. It gives you more game against random aggro and a win condition. I'd switch that for the Pyroclasms in my build.

I think that (in a control shell at least) Mizzium Transreliquat is stronger than Rings of Brighthearth because it is strong even without Time Vault, and because it can copy random stuff like Pyrite Spellbomb or Smokestack.

[Cavius The Great]

I don't think Gifts is necessary. Intuition does the same thing, but better. If you'd like, you can add a Petrified Field to the maindeck in order to make Intuition piles more inevitable. YOu can use that pile to establish Crucible of Worlds by intuitioning for:

Crucible
Academy Ruins
Petrified Field

Then you can Intuition for your combo if you want.

The strong part of intuition is that, because there are three copies of every important card, or recursion for those cards, you can use it as a tutor. The only potential replacement I can see is Thirst for Knowledge.

One other random piece I've thought about is Ensnaring Bridge over Propaganda. This continues to support the artifact theme and provides another lock piece, especially because you tend to empty your hand quickly. THis also supports the theme of letting your opponent take additional turns, because if you have 0-2 cards in hand, they aren't going to be doing much damage.

Gifts Ungiven nets you two cards while Intuition nets you only one. That's a big difference and that is why people prefer Gifts as well.

[94teen]

I know gifts nets you two cards. It's one of my favorite cards. However, as far as I've seen, gifts gets essentially no play in legacy. At that price, control decks want to play FoF, and combo decks want to have won by then.

Intuition is the stronger card, in my mind, because you can intuition for three of a combo piece and get that piece. They aren't mutually exclusive, and you could build a deck that runs either or both, but I feel that that's taking this deck in the wrong direction. This isn't fast enough or resilient enough to be played as pure combo, which is why I feel that a choice needs to be made between Gifts or Intuition.

The direction I took with this was making a mono blue Stax shell, and putting this in as a combo finish. That gives you amazing intuition piles (crucible and academy ruins are auto includes), as well as amazing draw power (Cephalid Coliseum, TfK, Intuition, Gifts, etc), and amazing disruption that doesn't really affect your gameplan (Trinisphere, Chalice, maybe even Sphere of Resistance or something similar). In this kind of build, the concentration of disruption needs to be high so that you can get fast lock pieces, and so there isn't enough room for both Gifts and Intuition. Besides, at that point, Intuition has the better cost and can be relatively easily cast turn 1.

Just my opinions which are based on my adaptation of the deck.

[outsideangel]

The advantage of Gifts is that you can start with 0 combo pieces and end up with all of them from a single copy.

[94teen]

The advantage of Gifts is that you can start with 0 combo pieces and end up with all of them from a single copy.

Intuition can technically do the same thing.

Academy Ruins
Rings of Brighthearth
Time Vault

It's not as fast as Gifts, but it gets the job done. I see what you're saying, and I still think the choice is highly dependent on the build.

My biggest problem with Gifts is speed. By the time you're casting Gifts, Thresh has a fistful of counters, aggro has all but won, and combo has gone off. Unless you devote most of your deck to disruption, you can't keep up with the rest of the format.

[Sea R Hill]

I was working on this deck a few months ago.
My builds only used Mizzium Tranreliquat for the combo, but I think my work with the list will still be usefull because it doesn't change so much things with Rings. I have to say that in a pure combo deck, Rings tends to be a little better, but in an aggro-combo deck, Mizzium Transreliquat is clearly better due to its ability to copy an artifact (juggernaut, synod centurion,...).

I tried two different builds:
-one trying to only assemble the pieces and win through the combo,
-the other that uses the combo as an additionnal kill condition, if the aggro plan did not work.


So here is the first build I came up to after some testings:

Mizzium Vault V4

MD :
3 Ancient tomb
4 City of traitors
2 Island
3 Volcanic island
3 Flooded strain
3 Polluted delta
1 Academy ruins

4 Time Vault
4 Mizzium Transreliquat
2 Meloku
3 Tangle Wire
3 Goblin Welder
4 Serum Visions
4 Brainstorm
3 Impulse
3 Chrome Mox
4 Force of Will
3 Fabricate
3 Burning Wish
1 Powder Keg

SB :
4 Defense Grid
2 Shattering Spree
2 Echoing Ruin
3 Pyroclasm
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Reconstruction
1 Rolling earthquake


This build relies on the ability and speed to put the pieces of the combo together, answering threats and opponent's answers (mainly pithing needle) with Burning Wish.

Card choices:
3 Ancient tomb: because 4 Tomb was doing to much damage to me, allowing the opponent to play the aggro match. Multiple tombs often mean Game Over.
4 City of traitors: best land here
2 Island: 2 basics to be protected against Wasteland
3 Volcanic island: for the welders and wishes and their targets (spree)
3 Flooded strain
3 Polluted delta
1 Academy ruins: awesome to get back the combo pieces and the keg

4 Time Vault
4 Mizzium Transreliquat
2 Meloku : the kill, which can be pitched to Fow and is sure to kill after some free turns and a lot of lands even if the opponent has 1 or 2 StP
3 Tangle Wire: awesome interaction with Time Vault
3 Goblin Welder: did you just counter my Time Vault?
4 Serum Visions: good at digging
4 Brainstorm: for digging and getting rid of useless cards (2d city, etc)
3 Impulse: almost always find what you're looking for
3 Chrome Mox: 4 is too much because there are not so much cards to imprint, but it can save you lot of games against black decks that destroys lands and gives you the colored mana that you need
4 Force of Will: to counter opponent counters and needles
3 Fabricate: to get the pieces of the combo or the keg
3 Burning Wish: to find an anwer
1 Powder Keg: the maindeck answer that you can fetch with Fabricate

4 Defense Grid: must have against ******** and landstill
2 Shattering Spree: get rid of needle even if the opponent has counters, or multiple needles
2 Echoing Ruin: to side in
3 Pyroclasm: vs goblins and random aggros
2 Red Elemental Blast: 2 more counters against ***** and Landstill
1 Reconstruction: get back one piece of the combo
1 Rolling earthquake: get rid of all the creatures (well, ok, not the ones with horsemanship...:tongue: )


The problem of this deck is that it is very fragile, and best combos are available. If the opponent can slow you down, and put threats on the table, you're not fine.
It also can't win against burn, because of the tombs.


So I came with another build that could win even if the combo plan gets ruined. Here is the build:

Aggro Vault

MD :
4 Ancient tomb
4 City of traitors
4 Island
3 Flooded strain
2 Polluted delta
1 Academy ruins
4 Wasteland

4 Time Vault
4 Mizzium Transreliquat

3 Serendib Efreet
4 Juggernaut
4 Synod Centurion

1 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Tangle Wire
3 Mox Diamond
4 CotV

1 Powder Keg
1 Razormane Masticore
1 Pithing Needle

3 Fabricate
2 TFK


SB :
4 Defense grid
1 Powder Keg
2 Leonin Bladetrap
2 Propaganda
3 Winter Orb
3 Jitte


Card choices:
4 Time Vault: still a combo deck...
4 Mizzium Transreliquat: is a piece of the combo but is also able to copy juggernaut or a centurion and become a creature
3 Serendib Efreet: picked over Phyrexian War Beast because this one was crap, wastelanding you when getting killed. Plus the efreet is so much better; he flies!
4 Juggernaut: very aggressive creature, but vulnerable to bolt
4 Synod Centurion: if you don't have an other artifact, you already have some serious problems...
1 Umezawa' Jitte: do you really need arguments?
3 Tangle Wire: still awesome with TV
3 Mox Diamond: better in this build than the chrome, first because there is less cards to imprint and then because it can get rid of a useless City
4 CotV: awesome against most decks, when it comes out...
1 Powder Keg: still a good answer here
1 Razormane Masticore: new answer for the aggro MUs
1 Pithing Needle: EE, Deed,...
3 Fabricate: still te best tutor for this deck
2 TFK: with a higher artifact density, this awesome card become playable, and is a great way to recycle additionnal copies of time vault or mox diamond

1 Powder Keg (SB): additional keg against needles
2 Leonin Bladetrap (SB): against goblins and WW
2 Propaganda (SB): against creature decks (ok, goblins!)
3 Winter Orb (SB): against control
3 Jitte (SB): additionnal jittes against creatures deck


The main problem of this less successfull build is that it is not as good as the first one to put the combo pieces together, and not as good as Faerie Stompy to play the aggro role.


I didn't think about the Cloud of Faeries, which seems to be a great inclusion. They play with the lands, but seem like a weaker kill condition than Meloku.

[Nightmare]

Intuition can technically do the same thing.

Academy Ruins
Rings of Brighthearth
Time Vault

It's not as fast as Gifts, but it gets the job done. I see what you're saying, and I still think the choice is highly dependent on the build.I give you Rings of Brighthearth. Have fun winning the game with that three mana useless artifact.

Now add Crucible into the Gifts Pile.

[94teen]

I give you Rings of Brighthearth. Have fun winning the game with that three mana useless artifact.

Now add Crucible into the Gifts Pile.

Point taken.

However, you'll notice that the build I posted before uses Transreliquat instead of Rings. In that case, I'll be more than happy to start copying my other artifacts. It's all relative to what's in the deck.

The gifts pile is too slow in my mind, which is why I tried to fit the intuition pile into a deck that can abuse it anyway. When you play stax, you can abuse both pieces of the combo on their own, and recur them when you have the means to win. Stax + Rings + Time Vault seems like it should work. Is there something I'm missing as to why it doesn't? Is the combo build better?

for reference, the build I'm working with now:



3 Volcanic Island
1 Academy Ruins
1 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Island
2 Flooded Strand
3 Mishra's Factory
4 City of Traitors
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Wasteland
4 Mox Diamond

3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Smokestack
4 Intuition
1 Meditate
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Tangle Wire

3 Razormane Masticore
1 Time Vault
1 Mizzium Transreliquat
1 Rings of Brighthearth
4 Rolling Earthquake

[Lego]

I give you Rings of Brighthearth. Have fun winning the game with that three mana useless artifact.

Now add Crucible into the Gifts Pile.

Wouldn't you want to give them Time Vault, assuming that the Rings can actually do other stuff (like copy Fetches.) Not that anyone is ever going to Intuition for that stuff anyway.

EDIT: Wait, I think you're right. Give them the Rings, and they still have to untap after they draw Time Vault.