Dark Times
Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2014 11:00 pm
Dark Times is an old deck built around getting out a quick Marit Lage 20/20 Flying Indestructible token via Dark Depths.
Although the archetype isn't "Tier 1" and has only had a few showings in large Vintage tournaments, it's still a strong competitor and can steal games out of nowhere. Some builds don't feature all the Power 9 that many Vintage decks automatically jam into their lists, but there are a few ways to build it and of course you can always put your own touches on it. From what I've seen, there are 3 main builds but they all revolve around Dark Depths, Thespian's Stage, and Vampire Hexmage:
1. Mono-black. This is what I'm currently running. It affords slots for 4x MD Pithing Needle (this deck typically names Wasteland above much
else), acceleration with Dark Ritual, and hand Disruption in Duress and Thoughtseize to protect your combo as well as Dark Confidant and black tutors to find your pieces and an additional win-con. Many mono-black lists, including mine, also MD 4x Leyline of the Void. This of course provides a huge leg up game 1 against Dredge, has incidental impacts on a lot of other matchups, and allows us to run 1 or 2 copies of Helm of Obedience for an alt win-con.
2. B/g. Green is a very natural splash because of the land ramp cards it offers, which allow you to tutor for the uncounterable land combo of Depths + Stage. Go-to cards include Sylvan Scrying, Into the North (Dark Depths is a Snow land, after all, and this brings it into play immediately, not into your hand) and Crop Rotation. I'm
not a big fan of Crop Rotation in Vintage because of the abundance of Mental Misstep and Chalice of the Void on 1. It's great in any Legacy Dark Depths builds, though. Green also affords you the use of Deathrite Shaman, Abrupt Decay, and artifact hate to shore up your Workshops mathups.
3. BUG (Sultai). This mix allows you to run the best tutors from black, some ramp from green, and digging/cantrips/counterspells from Blue to both protect your plan as well as disrupt your opponent's. These are typically considered the more powerful 3 colors in Vintage anyway, and being able to power out an uncounterable land combo adds a powerful approach that many opponents won't be able to handle. The downside here is that you're so all-in on the mainstays of Vintage (typically 6 of the 9 power cards and 12 or so counters) that you're cutting some of the incidental MD hate that the black version allows, such as
Needle, Duress, and Leyline. The counters may be better in games 2 and 3, but the mono-black version can often steal game 1s out of nowhere.
Here's the list I'm working with right now, but I'm always tweaking it:
[deck]
Creatures - 8
4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Dark Confidant
Artifacts - 12
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
4 Pithing Needle
2 Helm of Obedience
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Expedition Map
Enchantments - 5
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Necropotence
Planeswalkers - 2
2 Liliana of the Veil
Black Tutors - 3
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
Other Spells - 9
4 Duress
4 Dark Ritual
1 Diabolic Edict
Land - 21
4 Dark Depths
2 Thespian's Stage
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
8 Swamp
Sideboard - 15
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Extirpate
1 Darkblast
1 Grim Discovery
1 Diabolic Edict
2 Yixlid Jailer
3 Null Rod
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Sadistic Sacrament
1 Snuff Out
[/deck]
This has been working for me to a
moderate degree. I have a hard time against Workshops decks, as you may assume from the lack of artifact hate. That said, we don't need THAT much to combo out, and 4x Needle in the main is actually really powerful in the matchup, naming Wasteland and, more importantly, Goblin Welder.
I'm thinking of making some changes. For starters, I find I'm always bringing in the copy of Grim Discovery. It helps grind through their counters and disruption (like Repeal, ugh) very well. They've let me sac Hexmage and a Depths to create a token and they've taken out the token with Repeal, thinking they're safe for a while. Then I just bring them both right back and combo again. However, it may be best in the board, even if I do bring it in every match up, because it helps fight the way my opponents board whereas I'm catching them off-guard game 1.
I've also got a love-hate relationship with Not of This World[/c:
3mtf36ei]. As you can read, it's a free counterspell to counter anything that is targeting my Marit Lage token (such as [c]Repeal). But you of course don't want to flip this to a Dark Confidant trigger, so it seems the natural swap would be him.
So I've been thinking of the following changes:
[deck]
Out - 21
4 Dark Confidant
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Helm of Obedience
1 Expedition Map
7 Swamp
In - 21
3 Sylvan Scrying
2 Into the North
1 Sylvan Library
4 Not of This World
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bayou
1 Mox Emerald
1 Forest
[/deck]
This affords both more inevitability in finding my combo as well as more interaction with my opponent's gameplan and their disruption of mine.
I may also want to find room for one or both of Grim Tutor and/or Imperial Seal.
Although the archetype isn't "Tier 1" and has only had a few showings in large Vintage tournaments, it's still a strong competitor and can steal games out of nowhere. Some builds don't feature all the Power 9 that many Vintage decks automatically jam into their lists, but there are a few ways to build it and of course you can always put your own touches on it. From what I've seen, there are 3 main builds but they all revolve around Dark Depths, Thespian's Stage, and Vampire Hexmage:
1. Mono-black. This is what I'm currently running. It affords slots for 4x MD Pithing Needle (this deck typically names Wasteland above much
else), acceleration with Dark Ritual, and hand Disruption in Duress and Thoughtseize to protect your combo as well as Dark Confidant and black tutors to find your pieces and an additional win-con. Many mono-black lists, including mine, also MD 4x Leyline of the Void. This of course provides a huge leg up game 1 against Dredge, has incidental impacts on a lot of other matchups, and allows us to run 1 or 2 copies of Helm of Obedience for an alt win-con.
2. B/g. Green is a very natural splash because of the land ramp cards it offers, which allow you to tutor for the uncounterable land combo of Depths + Stage. Go-to cards include Sylvan Scrying, Into the North (Dark Depths is a Snow land, after all, and this brings it into play immediately, not into your hand) and Crop Rotation. I'm
not a big fan of Crop Rotation in Vintage because of the abundance of Mental Misstep and Chalice of the Void on 1. It's great in any Legacy Dark Depths builds, though. Green also affords you the use of Deathrite Shaman, Abrupt Decay, and artifact hate to shore up your Workshops mathups.
3. BUG (Sultai). This mix allows you to run the best tutors from black, some ramp from green, and digging/cantrips/counterspells from Blue to both protect your plan as well as disrupt your opponent's. These are typically considered the more powerful 3 colors in Vintage anyway, and being able to power out an uncounterable land combo adds a powerful approach that many opponents won't be able to handle. The downside here is that you're so all-in on the mainstays of Vintage (typically 6 of the 9 power cards and 12 or so counters) that you're cutting some of the incidental MD hate that the black version allows, such as
Needle, Duress, and Leyline. The counters may be better in games 2 and 3, but the mono-black version can often steal game 1s out of nowhere.
Here's the list I'm working with right now, but I'm always tweaking it:
[deck]
Creatures - 8
4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Dark Confidant
Artifacts - 12
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
4 Pithing Needle
2 Helm of Obedience
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Expedition Map
Enchantments - 5
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Necropotence
Planeswalkers - 2
2 Liliana of the Veil
Black Tutors - 3
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
Other Spells - 9
4 Duress
4 Dark Ritual
1 Diabolic Edict
Land - 21
4 Dark Depths
2 Thespian's Stage
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
8 Swamp
Sideboard - 15
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Extirpate
1 Darkblast
1 Grim Discovery
1 Diabolic Edict
2 Yixlid Jailer
3 Null Rod
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Sadistic Sacrament
1 Snuff Out
[/deck]
This has been working for me to a
moderate degree. I have a hard time against Workshops decks, as you may assume from the lack of artifact hate. That said, we don't need THAT much to combo out, and 4x Needle in the main is actually really powerful in the matchup, naming Wasteland and, more importantly, Goblin Welder.
I'm thinking of making some changes. For starters, I find I'm always bringing in the copy of Grim Discovery. It helps grind through their counters and disruption (like Repeal, ugh) very well. They've let me sac Hexmage and a Depths to create a token and they've taken out the token with Repeal, thinking they're safe for a while. Then I just bring them both right back and combo again. However, it may be best in the board, even if I do bring it in every match up, because it helps fight the way my opponents board whereas I'm catching them off-guard game 1.
I've also got a love-hate relationship with Not of This World[/c:
3mtf36ei]. As you can read, it's a free counterspell to counter anything that is targeting my Marit Lage token (such as [c]Repeal). But you of course don't want to flip this to a Dark Confidant trigger, so it seems the natural swap would be him.
So I've been thinking of the following changes:
[deck]
Out - 21
4 Dark Confidant
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Helm of Obedience
1 Expedition Map
7 Swamp
In - 21
3 Sylvan Scrying
2 Into the North
1 Sylvan Library
4 Not of This World
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bayou
1 Mox Emerald
1 Forest
[/deck]
This affords both more inevitability in finding my combo as well as more interaction with my opponent's gameplan and their disruption of mine.
I may also want to find room for one or both of Grim Tutor and/or Imperial Seal.