Edna

So much Brokeness! Ugh. Do NOT let me play against something like this. Haha. To be serious though, it looks pretty sickeningly good. I am definitely not a Vintage player, but it seems like this deck would be quite good. Because some of the cards are those that are so broken they're banned everywhere else and/or super expensive, I've never played with many of them and thus have a few questions... Yawgmoth's Will - I know it's a sick card, no doubt, but I'm confused as to its purpose in this (control) deck. Seems better in like combo or w/e (not that just because it's "worse" in here means it can't be in it - any blue deck may want to play Jace though some are of course better than others).
Lotus Cobra - Love the card, but is it really that good for Legacy? Let alone Vintage! What's it for and what's it sided in against?
Inkwell Leviathan - Is this your main win condition? Is it fine in there with the Bobs? Why not Blighsteel as a Tinker target?
Recoup - Really? Why? It's only on your turn even and it's sorcery...

Again, solid deck. Probably perfect card choices for one reason or another but being fairly new to Legacy and never having touched Vintage, I just don't fully understand some of the them.

Ok, so... I feel like Painter's Servant is useless here (well, mostly anyway). Many decks can still stop Iona with things they have down (Jace bounce, etc.) or just beat past it. Outside of Iona, it can work nicely with FoW, but you already have 20 other blue cards in the deck, meaning it's usually not an issue anyway and should be just fine without the Painter. So, I would definitely just cut it completely, although it could be quite nice if you put in a sideboard of like 4 Blue Elemental Blasts/Hydroblast (I think those are the blue ones...) or something like that.

Also, I could be wrong here, but if I remember correctly, Emperion states that you can not change your life total. This also means you cannot "Pay" life - So it shuts down your phyrexian mana cards (Misstep, Dismember - a card that should often be played if possible, etc.) as well as all of your fetch lands! I honestly think (assuming I'm correct about this) that Emperion stands to be more of a liability then a help - especially since it can't fly and is an artifact that is easily dispatched.

I personally really like Sphinx of the Steel Wind as a target - Blocks, gains life, has protection, flying, etc... It's sick stuff. Archon is quite fine, too. Angel of Despair is a juicy one-of answer to well... just about anything! Plus it beats down for 5 a turn which seems decent.:) Hope these little ideas helped a bit and I could point out a couple minor tweaks with the main deck.

The confusion comes from the shrines from Kamigawa block, I'm sure. Those were literally enchantments with the subtype of "shrine."

I may be wrong here, but I would think basically Team America is control/aggro, while Merfolk falls more into the aggro/control type deck. Anyway, I think a few things ragged missed that are "becoming" staples from trends I've seen are the new sword (War and Peace - though mostly nice for it's protection) and Batterskull (which is sooo sick to drop with SFM, even in legacy). Also, I'm not sure how Jace isn't quite a blue staple as it usually at least appears as a 1 of in most blue decks, even if it's in the sideboard. Standstill also falls here, I'd say, though not quite as much of a staple (certainly played a lot, even in decks like merfolk which aren't really "Standstill" decks). Duress is also much more important in Legacy than in standard because many of the best cards pre-Ravnica especially are non-creature cards (though Duress is at it's finest in Vintage I'd say). At the worst, it can remove their Force of Wills or bait a Misstep.

But yeah, that seems like a really nice list ragged! One last random comment... Is there something wrong with me that I ALWAYS first read KotR as something like "Koth of the... Red"? haha

I think another important factor of tempo is not just simply disrupting the opponent but also being able to apply steady pressure at the same time, so creating and applying your own tempo at the same time. Your deck does so quite well with cheap efficient beaters that can hit quite hard. I mean, you wouldn't really call a mono black, creatureless discard deck (maybe winning with Megrim or something) tempo would you? I know I wouldn't. Or a straight UB control deck either...:/

This, like Holwing Mine can actually effectively help you mill your opponent if they're playing this deck, though! Making it not the worst at all!

I'm not fully sold on Skyfisher over Hawk. I mean, let's be honest... Neither is really too amazing as an "aggressive" two drop but they both are there to provide more late game staying power with flying to boot. I can certainly see advantages for both, and while I'm not sure which I'd prefer, I don't think Skyfisher is "just" better than Hawk. I would argue that they're really about equal right now in this deck, both filling similar but clearly different and effective spots for the deck. I think whichever you choose really just comes to preference. One great benefit of Skyfisher for your deck though is that you could easily get away with just 2 or 3. With Hawks, you almost need to run all 4 (certainly no less than 3!). This would allow you to add the 4th Geopede which I think is better than either of them in a Boros deck. Also, you could run an extra Stoneforge Mystic if you wanted then, as well though 3 seems reasonable for Boros.

So... if you could find another way to fit in the 4th Geopede, I personally think I'd prefer Hawk (though wouldn't fault you either way). If not, I like the idea of 2-3 Skyfisher and a playset of Geopedes sounds like a good idea to me. Hope that helped.

Oh, another blue staple is Brainstorm. The card is really quite nuts when played correctly and if you have enough shuffle effects in the deck (bring on the fetch lands!).

Don't forget the 'Goyf! Along with those cards, I've seen quite a bit of Bant lists running some amount of Green Sun's Zenith (often up to 4). This allows you to play more bullets (Pridemage) and fewer of your threats in general while maintaining redundancy. For example, because of GSZ, you can run just 3 KotR or even 2. Something like that. This provides more deck space. With GSZ, most people I've seen also run a single Dryad Arbor. It can work nicely as an extra 1-drop ramp spell on turn 1 or just as an extra creature in a pinch.

If you're running blue, Mental Misstep is actually becoming more of a staple than Force of Will in some decks! I've seen many lists that run 4 Misstep and only 0-3 Force of Wills! At a recent major tournament, the winner was a Bant list with 4 Missteps and no Forces.

Right... This may have been the worst before New Phyrexia... Then Wizards decided to print Darksteel Relic! This deck is still far superior to a deck with even 4 Darksteel Relics in it do to the potential it has in like Two-headed Giant.

Bahaha. That made me laugh pretty good WhiteAndBlue. Cookies! Yes!:)

But anyway, that's cool to hear Ethan. Legacy really is a rough format in that the "best" decks do tend to be incredibly more expensive than standard decks, but if you do like I do and just play with friends who also have "mediocre" legacy decks then everyone is still relatively on par with one another. The biggest problem to me is acquiring actual dual lands so I just use the Ravnica Shock lands. Beta duals are definitely staples but Ravnica duals can work just fine too. Also, with said duals you will want Zendikar/Onslaught Fetchlands. These are some of the staples that don't entirely break the bank (if you go Ravnica duals obviously). After that, it really depends on what you plan to do - aggro, combo, control, etc. Stoneforge is actually becoming quite big in legacy now and you've already got those so it may be a fine starting point. You may want 1 or 2 Jittes to go with them and if you can manage to find one, Sword of Fire and Ice is quite amazing too though not entirely necessary. Hope that helps for a start. Haha. I'm no legacy pro but I'm just kinda entering into it too and that's been much of my initial assessment.

Oh, and in general, most legacy decks don't run much for cards that cost over 4 mana unless you can somehow reduce the cost (Tombstalker/Affinity) or cheat it into play. So... While a bomb in standard, Primeval Titan just doesn't quite cut it as much it seems.

I agree with Ethan. While it can can be an effective deck, it relies too much on the strategy of "questing" while this deck can just use Stoneforge Mystic for Batterskull instead... The deck just has soo much more versatility without the Quest which is part of what makes it so good. It can come from so many angles - kind of like Caw-Blade.

Honest question and not meant as a critique - Why Ponder over Preordain? I honestly have no idea which is really better in a deck like this. I run Preordain, though a large part of that is probably just because they're more readily available for me...

Simply put... I would NOT want to run into this. haha. I honestly think this version looks sick with just that minor tweak. Goyf just seems so much better in the deck to me. If you don't like it, w/e but I just have a hard time seeing too many decks where Goyf isn't pretty much just stellar. Haha. And wow... Ok, you won me over on the Stifle play. Haha. Just thought of another, too! LED! Haha. "Sac. this, discard my hand, adding mana to kill you..." - "umm.. Stifle." "Damn! gg..."

Oh, Aura of Silence seems particularly week as well. Probably switch those out for some real removal and/or Sword of W&P. (Go for the Throat or Dismember seem like great choices).

Sword of War and Peace could be super sweet in this deck. The lifegain is actually very potentially relevant and the damage can be devastating as well. Plus pro White/Red is awesome (even if not so much against my legacy deck).

Sure, that makes sense. I run a BUG list though (very budget for Legacy) and get by just fine with fetchlands and only 2 Green dual lands (Ravnica version) for just 4 Quirion Dryad. I feel like Something similar here would be nice for 4 'Goyfs if you're not too worried about budget. It doesn't hurt the land base too much and is just much nicer for beating down and working with Dark Confidant (two life is much easier to handle than 8!). Everything else seems pretty solid, though.
As for Stifle, I guess I just don't have enough Legacy experience yet to really understand how good it is/can be. If it works for you then great. I'm just not so sure it would be much good in my playgroup really... Stifling some sac-land (fetch or wasteland) seems really good though!:)

Hmm. I'm not too sure about this list, personally. I feel like just staying GW is probably better. With red you now have Goblin Guide, less than a playset of Lightning Bolts, and Koth... Hero is ok, and Urabrask seems pretty underwhelming in this deck. Lots of your stuff already has haste and the rest doesn't need it really. I feel like Koth doesn't do much for the deck than GW can't already accomplish. I mean, an ultimate with Koth in this deck really won't do too much for you in many cases and the -2 is even worse! The +1 is fine, but honestly, if that's all you need him for, just run Thrun or even Garruk. As for the Goblin Guides, they are spectacular but this deck doesn't look like it really can capitalize on them as well as they're basically the only 1 drop attackers and your 2-drops don't really hit all that hard...

This basically leaves only Lightning Bolts as above average for the GW cards. While I love having access to them, I just don't feel it's worth the mana troubles that 3 colors can lead to, especially with no deck manipulation (card draw/filtering) like blue decks. Plus, because of your red build, you have no outs to artifacts/enchantments now with Urabrask being your only out against the Splinter Twin decks.

As a final note, your GW build was MUCH better at using the Vengevines (if for no other reason than the inclusion of Fauna Shaman).

So... While this is certainly not a bad deck, and can quite likely do very well, my money would still definitely be on the straight up GW lists. If you really want to go faster aggro though, I would suggest just dropping either the green and run Boros (advantage = Stoneforge) or dropping the white and going RG Gruul (advantage = ramp and Raging Ravine).

Sorry to sound so down on it. It really is a good list! I just think 2 colors is much better right now. Good luck, as always.

Fair enough. Testing is by far the best way to solve most problems with numbers in magic! :) Happy to help.:)

This really reminds me of my BUG deck, though this is clearly better with the Force of Wills and actual duals. However, I think that BUG is probably the better way to go if you're going to play Dark Confidant and throw in Tarmogoyf instead of Tombstalker. I just think that Tombstalker is a suicide card when paired with Dark Confidant as it will likely lead to you losing nearly half your health if you flip it up.:/ Besides that little issue, it looks like a solid list! Oh, and why Stifle? It seems like it may be better as something like Duress/Thoughtsieze or even the 1 blue to counter a 2-drop card (can't remember the name right now). I'm just not so sure I'd rather be Stifling right now unless you're casting your own Hunted creature or a Dreadnaught. Again, great deck overall. I love this style.:)