U/G/W Vial Bant

[Koby]

Hanni -

I remember the tension I experienced with the deck prior to MM. I agree that FoW is now better in the sideboard, and that frees up much more room to develop the aggressive side of this deck. However, I don't think that cutting Vendilion Clique is the solution in the current metagame (NO Rug, Hivemind). This is especially so with having Vial set to 3 as it normally will be for this deck. This allows you to run very nasty tricks with Karakas and repeated filtering of your/opponent's hand.

That said, it looks as though this list is merging close to Excalibur which I think you should examine. By cutting FOW, the decks needs an extra push to retain its solid control over tempo gained from cheap/free counters, and Spellstutter Sprite is a mighty addition to that end.

I'm 100% onboard with the Vial/SFm plan however, and have been since early February.

[Q 221]

Hanni, have you had any success with that list? I'm trying to decide whether to round out my set of Stoneforges to shift to this version, or just to abandon the deck and take things in a different direction. I really like the idea of being able to run Monastery, since it's actually pretty big by Legacy standards, even before Exalted, and conveniently rips through Batterskulls all day long.

- One thing I was noticing in the past was that Lavamancer actually does a lot more against this deck than I thought initially, which could be a problem since it's kind of become a staple of NO RUG. Granted, Knight and Goyf survive it pretty easily, but picking off all the exalted creatures and Stoneforge makes it very difficult to put any significant pressure down. One of the few times I've really wished I had MD Swords available. It also takes out Mage from the board, which seems highly relevant, given that it's one of our better ways to deal with Natural Order. Do you just count on having the Misstep pre-board?

- It seems like almost everything in the board comes in via RUG: Swords, Force, and Mage are highly relevant in that matchup. I assume the SFM package is weaker against them, but given that it seems to be a pretty popular deck, is it ok that we have to rely on our board?

[anwei]

Has anyone tried this in the last 8 months? I'm quite interested in it as a good Vial->SFM setup...

[Mirrislegend]

I abandoned the Vial version long ago. However, given how Snapcaster lets everyone shoot your Hierarchs (hence I abandoned Bant completely), maybe Vial is worth considering again. Then again, I'd rather abuse Green Sun's Zenith (and you can really only run Vial OR gsz, not both)

[ScatmanX]

I abandoned the Vial version long ago. However, given how Snapcaster lets everyone shoot your Hierarchs (hence I abandoned Bant completely), maybe Vial is worth considering again. Then again, I'd rather abuse Green Sun's Zenith (and you can really only run Vial OR gsz, not both)

I really wish to play a deck that runs both Vial and Snapcaster. It would be so sweet.
To bad this one does not run many effitient targets for it.
What killed this deck? I remember to like it a lot. Maybe it is just that bad against Mother of Runes? Because seems awesome against any version of Stoneblade.

[anwei]

Taking a tip from Ari Lax's article on Temporal Mastery, I've started running Aven Mimeomancer against Maverick some success - it functions like Lord of Atlantis' islandwalk and lets you beat ground stalls (and perhaps go without maindeck removal). Swinging in with huge flying Knights/Oozes, 7/5 Batterskulls, and quick-clock Hierarchs is pretty good.

I'm currently testing:

3 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
2 Horizon Cannopy
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Plains
3 Wasteland
(22 Lands)

4 Hierarch
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Aven Mimeomancer
2 Rhox War Monk
(19 Dudes)

4 Brainstorm
4 Aether Vial
3 Force of Will
3 Daze
2 Spell Pierce
1 Jace, the Mind-Sculptor
1 Batterskull
1 Jitte
(19 Spells)

Sideboard likelies:
4 StP
1 Force of Will
1 Spell Pierce
2 Flusterstorm
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Bojuka Bog
2 K Grip
1 EE

Snapcasters are obviously at odds with a high creature+vial (low spell) count and the free counterspells.
I don't own Goyfs. Or most of the hate bears (no Thalia/Teeg, 1 Canonist) to board in, which might be better options than more counters. I also live in a very heavy-combo meta, or I'd drop to like 3-5 counters and run StP maindeck.

[Koby]

With Aven Mimeomancer in the deck, I'd definitely want to run Mother of Runes too. Being able to protect the Birdy will ensure that the creatures will stick around to get feather counters.

[anwei]

That's stayed on the "things to try working in" list since I started playing it. That might be good overall, but can't support enough Blue to deal with a lot of combo, and the countermagic can protect the Mimeomancer as well. Also, as Mimeomancer's main job (besides being a threat) is to punch stuff through, Mother can do that as well.
Also, usually if Mimeomancer is a threat, something else is already a threat. If they have the swords for a 7/7 KotR, they'll probably use it. If not, and I vial in the bird at EOT, he just needs to not immediately die before the Knight is an 8/6 bird for life...