Mana (25)
Draw (10)
- 1x Ancestral Recall
- 1x Brainstorm
- 2x Dack Fayden
- 1x Dig Through Time
- 1x Narset, Parter of Veils
- 1x Ponder
- 2x Preordain
- 1x Sensei's Divining Top
Win Condition (4)
Engine (5)
Utiliy (6)
- 1x Demonic Tutor
- 1x Gitaxian Probe
- 1x Merchant Scroll
- 1x Time Walk
- 1x Vampiric Tutor
- 1x Yawgmoth's Will
Interaction (10)
Sideboard
Other (15)
Introduction
So you like Young Peezey? How about we give it an extra power and toughness? Then we'll give it evasion. And then protection. And just to top it off, how about some life gain? Enter Sedgemoor Witch.
This deck is awesome. It runs as a classic blue control deck with a combo finish (Vintage, am I right?). Sedgemoor Witch + Skullclamp allows us to bury our opponent in card-advantage until we can drop our winning tinker-bot combo (Preferably with protection and a Time Walk to boot).
Please look through all the sections to see how this deck works.
Being a control deck (and just a blue deck in general), we are looking to draw cards. A LOT of cards. And we do just that in a few different ways.
The Engine
This is our draw engine. Essentially what we are doing is giving all our instants and sorceries Kicker : Draw 2 cards and gain 1 life. This gives us a ridiculous amount of value. Not to mention the Witch has protection in the form of Ward, allowing her to punish our opponents for targeting her. Furthermore, if we think she is at risk of being shot down, we can equip her with the Clamp, and swing in, meaning she requires two blockers and has 4 power, and if our opponent wants to play removal to avoid losing a creature, they lose life. Not to mention the two cards we get if/when she goes to the yard.
Spells
Lots of draw spells, and a good majority of them are cast for a single . As we are a Xerox deck running a really thin mana base, it is important to have one mana cantrips to make sure we are cycling through are deck and getting to our lands and winning pieces. Brainstorm, Ponder, and Preordain fill this roll well. The rest of the draw suite is just all the restricted blue cards that are simply too good to leave out. Ancestral Recall being the best of course, and our Delve spells shortly behind in Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise. A bonus is that they are fueled early by all our cantrips. Finally Gush. Besides being "free", we can also use it for some mana floating shenanigans if we miss a land drop.
Permanents
All these cards are pretty common, and for good reason. Our planeswalker package is killer because they all offer card advantage and protection. Jace can scry away threats or bounce a creature, and if it's open, he just Brainstorm's. Dack's loot ability is an awesome way to get to what we need, but he will show up as The Greatest Thief in the Multiverse every once in a while to keep our opponent off of mana (or just steal something like this or this). Finally Narset. Besides keeping our opponent from drawing, she digs for our pieces for two turns, and most of our cards are non-creature, non-lands. The last card of course is Sensei's Divining Top. An absolute staple of the format, it smooth's our draws, and with our fetches we can often find what we need.
Being a control deck, we obviously need to be able to interact with our opponent. We do this in two ways, with counters and with removal.
Counters
We run a lot of counters in this deck, but we need them. Trying to take on the controlling roll in vintage can be complicated because there are so many threats coming down and decision making is so nuanced. The more options we have, the better. FoW and Misstep are just auto 4-of/1-of's in any blue deck. They're free. Pyroblast is great against any and all blue decks, and is a great way to back up our threats and make them stick. Spell Pierce has so many targets it is crazy, so it is a great tempo play, especially early on. Finally Flusterstorm. Great against storm and also for winning counter-wars, but in this deck, that is not the best part. Because Sedgemoor Witch triggers on any cast or COPY, we can make stupid amounts of tokens just by running out a bunch of spells and countering something of our own. Borderline an engine card.
Removal
Main deck Fragmentize is really important in this deck. Our main draw engine is Skullclamp, which dies hard to Null Rod or Stony Silence. It also gets an Oath of Druids out of play if the situation arises. Lightning Bolt always has a target (face) but more importantly it has targets in nearly every matchup. Lodestone Golem in Shops, Jace, the Mind Sculptor in Big Blue, and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben in hatebears. Pyroblast shows up again here as a removal spell, and it takes out all the blue planeswalkers and utility creatures.
The mana base in this deck is pretty thin, being a Xerox deck. We run a combination of regular lands, artifact mana, and utility lands.
Regular Lands
About as simple of a four-color mana base as we can make in 12 cards. Six fetches and six fetchables. We run 2 of both the black and red islands as they are our main colors. We add a single white to make sure we can cast Fragmentize. The lonely basic is there to make sure we don't die to Wasteland.
Artifact Mana
We don't need to go over the top on artifact mana. Because we are fairly color hungry, we can't afford to waste spots on off color Moxen and Mana Crypt. We do need some though, because we want to accelerate an early planeswalker or Witch if we can. We also need something to pitch to Tinker.
Utility Lands
Library is so good in this deck. The main goal is drawing cards, so having seven cards in hand is pretty common. The amount of advantage this card can generate over a period of time is insane. We also run a Strip Mine to keep our opponent off mana and locked down.
There are a number of spells in this deck that either serve multiple uses or are just too high value not to include them in the deck.
Utility Spells
All these cards have a purpose. Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor get whatever we need, and if they resolve, we usually win given all the extra protection we run. Merchant Scroll is what gets us that protection, or a draw spell if we need it. Gitaxian Probe just get's perfect information, draws a card, and is free. Time Walk might just be the most high value spell in the deck. There is nothing better than a free turn. Especially once we have a Blightsteel Colossus out, as we stop any sorcery speed hate like opposing Dack's. Snappy will grab either Ancestral Recall or Time Walk, and that in itself is enough to run it.
One of the biggest advantages of being a control deck is having all the answers. You don't have to guess. You just play them all. Sideboarding with this deck generally isn't too difficult because we aren't trying to transform, we just bring in whatever hate we need.
Dredge
Dredge is gross. It dodges most conventional hate because everything is chucked into the yard and recurred. Ick(orhid). Here's how we deal with it:
IN
OUT
- Jace and Dack as games usually won't last long enough for them to build an advantage.
- Lightning Bolt and Fragmentize as they don't run any targets for them.
- Pyroblast as they have a very small amount of blue spells to interact with, and our other counters take care of that.
Rest in Peace is the most encompassing hate cards for dredge, and it pretty much locks a win if it resolves. It is a huge benefit of splashing white in this deck.Ravenous Trap will always be free, so it is a good way to knock out their yard before they go off. Grafdigger's Cage keeps them from recurring Narcomoeba's and Prized Amalgam's.
Shops
Shops decks play a bunch of robots that will lock you out of the game, and then they beat you in the face with them. Here's how we deal with them:
IN
OUT
- Interaction that does nothing in the form of Pyroblast and Mental Misstep.
- Narset, Parter of Veils as they don't draw enough extra cards.
- A couple of Flusterstorms. Even though we can use them to spam tokens, they have no targets against their deck.
- A Volcanic Island in exchange for the Mountain
Wear / Tear is our catch-all artifact destroyer. Hurkyl's Recall gets us a turn to get our engine running and try and draw into our combo. Lightning Bolts come in to deal with lock-pieces that come in the form of creatures like Lodestone Golem and Phyrexian Revoker.
Oath
Oath decks play Forbidden Orchard to give you creatures and then use Oath of Druids to let them mill into either a Griselbrand or Niv-Mizzet, Parun. They will generally be in a blue control shell to find and protect their combo, so we bring in the following:
IN
OUT
- Lightning Bolt because they don't usually run a lot of targets for it.
- Snapcaster Mage because he gets rendered useless by the Cage.
- Assorted draw and/or counters, depending on the specific build.
Wear / Tear comes in to support Fragmentize in destroying Oath before they have the chance to go off. Another upside is that you can Fuse it and take out a mana rock as well. Grafdigger's Cage just shuts down their deck all together. We can still win with it in play, we just need to make sure we sacrifice it to Tinker and have a Time Walk available so they don't get another upkeep. Finally Pyroblast comes in for protection, and also to take care of annoying things like Oko, Thief of Crowns.
Hatebears/Midrange
The fair decks of vintage. They are just there to slow you down, turn creatures sideways, and get it in. They are generally Mono-White, and are built around Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. They try to lock us out and beat down (kinda like shops). Here's what we do:
IN
OUT
- Pyroblast as they have no targets.
- Spell Pierce as it has a very minute number of targets
- Sensei's Divining Top, as it often gets shut down by a Rod effect.
Wear / Tear is a card that takes care of both Null Rod and Stony Silence at the same time. Lightning Bolt takes down the creatures that hurt us the most. Pyroclasm is an awesome board sweep against them, considering how many 1-2 toughness creatures they run. There is a Sultai variation based around Leovold, Emissary of Trest. We avoid Pyroclasm because they have a lot of creatures with more than 2 toughness, but we add in Pyroblast.
Combo
There are so many flavors of combo decks in vintage. The two most common right now are PO Storm and Doomsday just to name a few. What they have in common is that they are both blue decks and they both run lots of artifact mana to go off ASAP. We are usually pretty well set-up against these decks because we have so many answers, but we do bring in a few cards:
IN
OUT
- Lightning Bolt as these decks don't run many creatures.
- Fragmentize because there aren't many relevant targets, especially at sorcery speed.
Hurkyl's Recall is great against PO decks as we can cast it in response and then they can't draw any cards. Pyroblast is good for both as they are both blue based decks, but won't likely come in against PO just because our other counters are just better.
Big Blue
The mirror match. Who will out draw and counter more? These can be some of the most intricate games we will play. We can bring in a couple cards to help out:
IN
OUT
- Completely dependent on the build. They have different draw spells, responses, engines, and win conditions.
Pyroblast has tons of targets in this deck, so that is a no brainer. Lightning Bolt is there to take care of Jace or Dack, or any number of creatures like Delver , Young Peezey, Mentor, Snappy or Bob.
Summary
Overall this deck is a blast to play. It is controlling enough, but once it gets the draw engine going, it is nearly unstoppable. Drawing an obscene amount of cards off the Sedgemoor Witch + Skullclamp combo is so much fun, and can consistently dig us into a win!
That's It!
I hope you guys like the deck. If you have any suggestions, by all means post them. I am always open to constructive criticism.
If you enjoyed the deck please give it a +1 as they are greatly appreciated!
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Casual
96% Competitive
Revision 2 See all
(1 year ago)
| +1 | Abrade | main |
| +1 | Academy Ruins | main |
| -1 | Blightsteel Colossus | main |
| +1 | Bolas's Citadel | main |
| +1 | Dack Fayden | main |
| -1 | Flooded Strand | main |
| -1 | Fragmentize | main |
| -1 | Gush | main |
| -1 | Jace, the Mind Sculptor | main |
| -1 | Library of Alexandria | main |
| -1 | Lightning Bolt | main |
| +1 | Mana Crypt | main |
| +1 | Manifold Key | main |
| +1 | Mox Emerald | main |
| +2 | Polluted Delta | main |
| -2 | Preordain | main |
| -1 | Pyroblast | main |
| -2 | Scalding Tarn | main |
| +1 | Sedgemoor Witch | main |
| -1 | Snapcaster Mage | main |
| Date added | 3 years |
| Last updated | 1 year |
| Key combos | |
| Legality | This deck is Vintage legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 8 - 2 Mythic Rares 38 - 6 Rares 8 - 6 Uncommons 5 - 0 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.02 |
| Tokens | Construct 0/0 C, Emblem Dack Fayden, Pest 1/1 BG |
| Votes | |
| Ignored suggestions | |
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