Oversoul jumps ship (and builds Dark Petition Storm)

[Oversoul]

Well, this doesn't really fall into the category of "casual decks." But whatever.

Remember this?

I've been into Legacy since it first began. It's sort of been my primary format for the past dozen years. While the extent of my involvement has waxed and waned over time, in the past few years, I pushed to get more involved, to test and play Legacy decks more. And in that time, I've become increasingly frustrated with the format.

I'll still keep tabs on Legacy, probably more than I had at some points in the past, but I have decided to switch my main focus to Vintage.

So I built Dark Petition Storm!

It's not all that popular right now, but I like it. Here's the list I blatantly ripped off Rob Mesotten's 6th place finish in Eternal Weekend Europe 2016...

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mind's Desire
1 Ponder
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Yawgmoth's Will
2 Cabal Therapy
4 Dark Petition
4 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Black Lotus
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
3 Defense Grid
1 Badlands
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea

Sideboard:
1 Tinker
1 Voltaic Key
1 Time Vault
1 Memory Jar
3 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Ancient Tomb
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Island
2 Sadistic Sacrament

I'm actually missing one copy of one card in the list, but I'll clear that up soon enough. As time goes on, I hope to develop a sufficient understanding of Storm's strengths and weaknesses in Vintage to tweak my list on my own, but this is my starting point.

 

[Oversoul]

Got a cool game testing this list, and it's an example of the reason I love this style of deck.

Opening hand:

Badlands
Dark Ritual
Duress
Mana Crypt
Lotus Petal
Dark Petition
Dark Petition

Badlands into Duress reveals nothing that can stop me. Play Petal and Mana Crypt. Crack Petal for B, use it to cast Dark Ritual. I now have spell mastery and BBB floating in my mana pool. Tap Mana Crypt for the remaining mana to cover Dark Petition. Find Black Lotus, play it. Crack Lotus for UUU, spend the BBB from my spell masteried Dark Petition and UU from the Lotus to cast the second Dark Petition, floating U, finding Yawgmoth's Will. Cast Yawgmoth's Will floating U. Storm count is now 8. Replay Black Lotus and Lotus Petal from my graveyard. Crack Petal to replay Dark Ritual from my graveyard. Crack Lotus for a total of UBBBBBB. Replaying Dark Petition from my graveyard, I still have spell mastery (Duress and the other Dark Petition), so I spend five of my six mana to find Tendrils of Agony, then get three mana back from spell mastery. I cast Tendrils of Agony and it makes 12 copies of itself.

Yeah, yeah, lots of decks can get first-turn kills. This one isn't the only one I've played and it's not even close to the best at it. That isn't the point. What's cool here is that the cards work together to provide options. If I couldn't go for the kill right away, I could have used Dark Petition to set up an early Necropotence, trying to combo out on the following turn. If Yawgmoth's Will wasn't going to work, I could hunt for Timetwister and reset. I can usually check disruption with Duress or, failing that, Gitaxian Probe or Cabal Therapy. There are some common lines, of course, but setting up the combo kill with a deck like this is a journey.

 

[Oversoul]

Getting back to this, I've got an interesting and annoying development: the maindeck only has 59 cards. Everywhere I'm finding decklists reported from the event, the same list is shown, but it is actually only 59 cards. Either the tournament organizers missed that this player had a 59-card deck or, more likely, the original reporting of the T8 for this tournament had a slight error and multiple sites copied and pasted the same wrong list (I've seen it happen before).

Major disappointment: I don't actually have a Vintage deck.
Minor disappointment: I don't think the concept is really consistent enough for my liking anyway. Looking into other options...

 

[Oversoul]

Maybe I should just build Dredge. People love playing against Dredge...