My Vintage GRO Deck
First off, I cut my finger and I’m typing with a band-aid on. Apologies for any keystroke errors that slip through.
I posted before that a few of us (actually, exactly 2 of us) have started playing proxy Vintage. Basically 15 proxy, although I don’t think we actually set a limit. I went about putting together an Oath deck and promptly discovered that I don’t like playing Oath and I don’t really like the Time Vault + Voltaic Key win. So I shredded the deck and decided to go off the rails and play something 1) bad and 2) with my own innovations in a format that I don’t quite understand!
That, my friends, is the recipe for success.
So I looked at these old Gro decks which featured things like Werebear and Mongeese alongside:
Basically, you play those creatures, a bunch of counters, draw spells and other powerful effects and they get big and clock the opponent who is trying to set up an end game around all your permission. But I didn’t think the Threshold dudes were terribly impressive. So I started trying to think of other efficient, powerful, evasive tempo creatures that work well in Legacy in a primarily UG deck.
Oh, right…
In a deck chock full of powerful blue and black instants and sorceries, a low land count and an aggro-control plan, I thought to myself “why not?”
Counter Goldblum v1.0
- 4 Quirion Dryad
- 4 Delver of Secrets
- 1 Blightsteel Colossus
- 4 Force of Will
- 4 Mental Misstep
- 4 Gush
- 3 Gitaxian Probe
- 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
- 1 Brainstorm
- 1 Ponder
- 1 Preordain
- 1 Tinker
- 1 Merchant Scroll
- 1 Demonic Tutor
- 1 Mystical Tutor
- 1 Ancestral Recall
- 1 Time Walk
- 1 Yawgmoth’s Will
- 1 Fastbond
- 1 Black Lotus
- 1 Mox Sapphire
- 1 Mox Emerald
- 1 Mox Jet
- 1 Mox Ruby
- 1 Mox Pearl
- 1 Black Lotus
- 1 Sol Ring
- 4 Misty Rainforest
- 3 Polluted Delta
- 3 Underground Sea
- 3 Tropical Island
- 1 Island
- 1 Forest
Your basic strategy is to apply pressure with Delver/Dryad and then either ride that wave to victory or pursue some combination of Jace/Tinker as an alternate win that can be assembled while battling the ground game.
Possible Tweaks
I’m trying the Gitaxian Probes, but it’s possible that they should instead be some combination of:
- Preordain
- Spell Pierce
- Spell Snare
- Vampiric Tutor
I’ll have a better sense after testing. For now, I like that Probe helps you Gush/Jace even better and allows you to keep some borderline opening hands too.
Anyway, there you go. If you play Vintage and think I’m a terrible person for not playing Bobs, feel free to chime in and yell at me.
