# Strategy Specifications
## Deck Name And Archetype
Counter Vine is a Vintage Bazaar aggro-combo graveyard deck built to convert `Bazaar of Baghdad` into recursive pressure, free creatures, and free interaction while using `Wasteland` and `Strip Mine` to punish opponents who stumble. The registered configuration is not a generic graveyard deck: it is a counter-heavy Vine shell with `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, `Mindbreak Trap`, `Mental Misstep`, `Force of Vigor`, `Fury`, and `Chalice of the Void` sharing space with the core pressure package of `Vengevine`, `Hollow One`, `Basking Rootwalla`, `Blazing Rootwalla`, `Squee, Goblin Nabob`, `Master of Death`, `Noxious Revival`, and `Serum Powder`.

- Format validation: Active format is Vintage, and the supplied validation contract says the registered deck passes with 60 main-deck cards and 15 sideboard cards.
- Main-deck inventory check: The main deck contains 4 `Wasteland`, 4 `Bazaar of Baghdad`, 4 `Blazing Rootwalla`, 4 `Vengevine`, 4 `Squee, Goblin Nabob`, 4 `Serum Powder`, 4 `Noxious Revival`, 4 `Hollow One`, 4 `Master of Death`, 1 `Mental Misstep`, 3 `Mindbreak Trap`, 4 `Force of Will`, 3 `Force of Vigor`, 4 `Force of Negation`, 1 `Strip Mine`, 1 `Chalice of the Void`, 4 `Basking Rootwalla`, and 3 `Fury`.
- Sideboard inventory check: The sideboard contains 2 `Collector Ouphe`, 1 `Fury`, 4 `Leyline of the Void`, 1 `Karakas`, 3 `Ravenous Trap`, 2 `Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth`, 1 `Petrified Hamlet`, and 1 `Force of Vigor`.
- Archetype tags: Use aggro, combo, and graveyard as the active tags; treat the duplicate supplied tag string as one normalized tag set, not as separate strategy identities.
- Stock status: Treat Counter Vine as a hybrid of a recognizable Vintage Bazaar/Vengevine shell and a custom counter-oriented build, not as a fully stock list with default sideboard assumptions.
- Rogue status: Treat unusual card quantities and the high pitch-counter density as intentional until test logs prove otherwise; do not overwrite this identity with generic Bazaar deck habits.
- Primary role concern: The pilot must decide whether each game is a fast graveyard-pressure game, a disruption-backed tempo game, or a post-sideboard containment game based on legal opening actions, visible hate, and known matchup context.
- Mana concern: The deck has very little conventional colored mana; runtime decisions must respect that many spells are expected to be cast for alternate costs, free costs, madness-style lines, pitch costs, trap conditions, or from graveyard-recursion pressure rather than from normal land sequencing.
- Legality concern: The decision agent must never assume `Bazaar of Baghdad` produces mana, must never assume a pitch spell is castable without the required legal alternate-cost resources, and must rely on the rules engine for exact castability, replacement effects, timing, and target availability.
- Role concern: `Bazaar of Baghdad` is the deck's main engine card, but `Serum Powder` means opening-hand evaluation is not a normal keep/mulligan problem; mulligan decisions should be treated as deck-defining, not procedural.
- Opponent information status: No specific opponent deck, metagame list, or revealed opposing cards are supplied in this section, so matchup labels and hate expectations must remain conditional until visible state, public logs, sideboarding stage, or the rules engine exposes more information.
- Runtime discipline: Veles must prioritize legal actions first, visible state second, and this strategy third; this guide should bias choices but must not invent hidden cards, assume unlisted opponent staples, or claim certainty about card text when the engine output is narrower than the strategic heuristic.

## Thesis
Counter Vine assembles `Bazaar of Baghdad`, recursive graveyard pressure, free creatures, and pitch interaction into a tempo-combo opening that makes the opponent answer multiple axes before they can stabilize. The ideal game converts Bazaar activations into `Vengevine` returns, discounted or free `Hollow One`, madness-style pressure from `Basking Rootwalla` and `Blazing Rootwalla`, recurring discard fuel from `Squee, Goblin Nabob` and `Master of Death`, and enough zero-mana interaction to stop the opponent's first decisive spell.

The deck wins by forcing compressed turns where the opponent must respect creature combat, graveyard recursion, mana denial, and stack interaction at the same time. Prioritize hands and lines that create an active `Bazaar of Baghdad` game, put real power onto the battlefield quickly, and preserve the pitch resources needed for `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, `Mindbreak Trap`, `Force of Vigor`, `Fury`, or `Mental Misstep` when a visible or matchup-known exchange is decisive.

The deck is not trying to play a normal mana curve, trade one-for-one forever, or win by hoarding cards in hand. Do not keep slow hands just because they contain many powerful spells; do not spend `Wasteland` or `Strip Mine` casually when Bazaar pressure is not yet established; do not fire pitch interaction into low-impact spells when the hand needs that card to protect a near-term `Vengevine` or `Hollow One` burst.

The priority stack is engine first, pressure second, disruption third, and cleanup fourth, with visible state allowed to override that order. A legal `Bazaar of Baghdad` activation that unlocks recursive pressure is usually the most important action; a lethal or survival exchange, a hate permanent, or an opponent combo window can move interaction above engine development.

## Role Package
- Threats: `Vengevine`, `Hollow One`, `Basking Rootwalla`, `Blazing Rootwalla`, `Fury`, `Collector Ouphe`, and sometimes `Master of Death` are the bodies that turn engine velocity into a clock. Treat `Vengevine` and `Hollow One` as the primary pressure cards, `Basking Rootwalla` and `Blazing Rootwalla` as cheap creature-count enablers plus damage, `Fury` as removal that can also attack, and `Collector Ouphe` as a post-board disruptive creature rather than a generic beater.

- Payoffs: `Vengevine` rewards sequencing multiple creature casts in a turn, and `Hollow One` rewards discard-heavy turns that the rules engine marks as legally castable. When both payoff lines are available, favor the line that leaves the strongest battlefield while retaining enough pitch protection for the opponent's next decisive action.

- Engines: `Bazaar of Baghdad` is the deck's defining engine, `Squee, Goblin Nabob` and `Master of Death` are recurring resources for repeated Bazaar activations, and `Serum Powder` is the opening-hand selection engine. Card text check required for exact `Master of Death` timing in runtime slices; use only legal engine actions exposed by Veles.

- Velocity: `Bazaar of Baghdad`, `Serum Powder`, `Noxious Revival`, `Basking Rootwalla`, `Blazing Rootwalla`, and `Hollow One` create the burst turns. Use `Noxious Revival` as a conditional top-deck or graveyard-resource tool only when the target and timing are legal and the life/card cost advances pressure, protection, or recovery.

- Interaction: `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, `Mindbreak Trap`, `Mental Misstep`, `Force of Vigor`, `Fury`, `Wasteland`, `Strip Mine`, and `Chalice of the Void` are the main ways to stop the opponent from ignoring the clock. Spend them to protect a fast kill, answer graveyard or artifact/enchantment hate, stop a decisive combo turn, or deny mana when the opponent's visible board makes that denial meaningful.

- Protection: `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, `Mindbreak Trap`, `Mental Misstep`, `Force of Vigor`, and `Noxious Revival` protect the plan in different windows. Preserve blue cards for pitch counters when a stack fight is likely, preserve green pitch resources for `Force of Vigor` when visible hate matters, and avoid treating protection cards as interchangeable.

- Recursion: `Vengevine`, `Squee, Goblin Nabob`, `Master of Death`, and `Noxious Revival` let the deck keep functioning after discard, Bazaar churn, removal, or counterplay. Recursion is not a license to waste threats; use it to rebuild pressure or set up the next legal burst.

- Mana: `Bazaar of Baghdad`, `Wasteland`, `Strip Mine`, `Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth`, `Petrified Hamlet`, and `Karakas` define the land package, but `Bazaar of Baghdad` is not a mana source unless the engine says a special effect applies. `Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth` and `Petrified Hamlet` are sideboard mana-support lands; `Karakas` is a sideboard utility land whose exact tactical use depends on visible legendary permanents and legal actions.

- Sideboard modules: `Leyline of the Void` and `Ravenous Trap` are graveyard-containment cards, `Collector Ouphe` attacks artifact-centric plans, the extra `Force of Vigor` increases artifact/enchantment interaction, the extra `Fury` increases creature control, and `Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth`, `Petrified Hamlet`, and `Karakas` adjust mana or utility needs without changing the deck into a conventional midrange strategy.

## Primary Win Conditions
- Bazaar burst pressure is the default win path: use `Bazaar of Baghdad` to discard `Vengevine`, reduce or enable legal `Hollow One` casts, and turn `Basking Rootwalla` plus `Blazing Rootwalla` into the creature-spell count that returns `Vengevine`. Prioritize this line when the opening hand has `Bazaar of Baghdad`, at least one payoff or recursive discard resource, and enough speed or pitch interaction to survive the opponent's first decisive turn.

- Vengevine-chain execution should sequence legal cheap creature spells before low-impact actions: cast `Basking Rootwalla`, `Blazing Rootwalla`, and discounted `Hollow One` in the order that produces the strongest battlefield and satisfies any visible `Vengevine` return condition. Preserve `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, `Mindbreak Trap`, `Mental Misstep`, or `Force of Vigor` when the opponent can stop the burst with a visible stack action, artifact/enchantment hate, or a faster combo line.

- Hollow One tempo is the cleanest non-graveyard-adjacent pressure when the rules engine marks `Hollow One` as castable after discard. Prioritize `Hollow One` when graveyard recursion is disrupted, when `Vengevine` is absent, or when a large early attacker plus `Wasteland` or `Strip Mine` can compress the opponent's recovery window.

- Recursive Bazaar attrition wins by converting repeated `Bazaar of Baghdad` activations into fresh threats and discard fuel from `Squee, Goblin Nabob`, `Master of Death`, `Vengevine`, and `Noxious Revival`. Card text check required for exact `Master of Death` timing; use only legal return, draw, discard, or target actions exposed by Veles. Prioritize this line when the first burst is answered but Bazaar remains active and the opponent is not presenting immediate lethal or protected combo.

- Disruption-backed pressure wins when a modest battlefield is enough because `Wasteland`, `Strip Mine`, `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, `Mindbreak Trap`, `Mental Misstep`, `Force of Vigor`, `Fury`, or `Chalice of the Void` blocks the opponent's stabilizing turn. Prioritize this line when visible mana, stack texture, or battlefield context says one denied spell, land, artifact, enchantment, or creature buys multiple attack steps.

## Secondary Win Conditions
- Rootwalla combat can finish games without `Vengevine`: use `Basking Rootwalla` and `Blazing Rootwalla` as real attackers when the board is clear, life totals are low, or `Fury` has removed blockers. Pump or mana-use choices must follow legal actions and visible combat math; do not assume hidden removal or exact blocker choices.

- Fury pressure is a backup creature plan after it answers opposing creatures. Use `Fury` to stabilize the board first, then attack when the resulting clock is meaningful or when removing blockers lets `Hollow One`, `Vengevine`, `Basking Rootwalla`, or `Blazing Rootwalla` close the game sooner.

- Mana-denial tempo is a secondary lock-pressure plan: combine `Wasteland` and `Strip Mine` with any existing attacker when the opponent is short on lands, relying on pitch interaction to cover the spell they can still cast. Do not spend land destruction into a board where the opponent already has enough visible resources unless it protects lethal, prevents a known utility land action, or strands a critical color shown by public information.

- Chalice pressure is a narrow lock plan around `Chalice of the Void`. Card text check required for exact counter choice and rules impact; commit it only when Veles exposes a legal cast/action and the visible or matchup-known context supports the selected number more than preserving the card for Bazaar discard or pitch-resource decisions.

- Post-board creature disruption can become a win condition when `Collector Ouphe` attacks while restricting artifact-centric opponents. Treat `Collector Ouphe` as pressure plus disruption, not as a reason to abandon Bazaar sequencing; it matters most when the opponent's visible permanents or known matchup role make the static effect relevant.

- Graveyard-containment pressure can win post-board when `Leyline of the Void` or `Ravenous Trap` slows an opposing graveyard plan long enough for ordinary attackers to end the game. These cards are not damage sources, so pair them with the fastest legal `Vengevine`, `Hollow One`, Rootwalla, or `Fury` clock available.

## Emergency Lines
- Behind on life: prioritize survival exchanges over engine greed, especially legal `Fury` actions, blocks that preserve the highest future clock, and pitch interaction that stops immediate lethal or a decisive combat trick. Continue attacking only when the race math remains favorable after visible blockers and known damage on board.

- Behind on board: use `Fury` to remove the creatures that most change combat, then rebuild with `Hollow One`, `Vengevine`, `Basking Rootwalla`, and `Blazing Rootwalla` rather than spending all resources on low-impact pressure. If a single blocker is preventing lethal pressure, removal can outrank another Bazaar activation.

- Behind on cards: lean on `Bazaar of Baghdad` only when it improves quality, unlocks recursion, or finds free interaction; repeated blind activations without `Squee, Goblin Nabob`, `Master of Death`, `Vengevine`, `Noxious Revival`, or castable threats can deepen the deficit. Preserve the last blue or green card if it is needed for a visible pitch-interaction window.

- Behind on mana or denied Bazaar: use `Wasteland` and `Strip Mine` defensively to slow the opponent while searching for pressure through legal draw/discard or normal cast actions. Sideboard lands such as `Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth`, `Petrified Hamlet`, and `Karakas` matter only when registered for the game and exposed by Veles as legal land or utility actions.

- Graveyard recursion shut off: pivot to hard pressure from `Hollow One`, Rootwallas, `Fury`, and disruptive permanents or spells instead of overcommitting to dead `Vengevine` lines. Use `Force of Vigor` on visible artifact or enchantment hate only when it restores a meaningful engine or prevents the opponent from winning.

- Opponent combo ahead: stop the decisive action first with `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, `Mindbreak Trap`, or `Mental Misstep` when legal, then rebuild pressure. If no interaction is legal, choose the fastest visible clock and avoid spending actions on marginal selection.

- Primary win conditions removed: treat the game as a tempo race with whatever bodies remain, using `Noxious Revival` only for a concrete legal target that immediately improves the next draw, protects from deck exhaustion, restores interaction, or reassembles a threat line.

## Resource Model
- Life is a spendable buffer for speed, not a long-game cushion. Accept early damage when it preserves `Bazaar of Baghdad`, enables the fastest legal `Vengevine` or `Hollow One` pressure, or keeps pitch interaction available; trade life for board only while visible combat math leaves enough turns to win the race.

- Hand cards are fuel before they are traditional card advantage. `Bazaar of Baghdad` converts excess cards into graveyard setup, cast-cost reduction for `Hollow One`, madness-style pressure from `Basking Rootwalla` and `Blazing Rootwalla` when legal, recursion from `Squee, Goblin Nabob` and `Master of Death`, and pitch resources for `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, `Force of Vigor`, and `Fury`.

- Mana is intentionally scarce, so free and alternate-cost actions are the deck's real economy. Prioritize legal zero-mana or pitch lines when they create pressure or stop a decisive opponent action; do not hold cards for theoretical hard-casts when the current game is being decided by `Bazaar of Baghdad`, `Vengevine`, `Hollow One`, land denial, and pitch interaction.

- Board presence is the conversion target for every early resource. `Vengevine` and `Hollow One` are the premium battlefield returns, Rootwallas are both enablers and attackers, and `Fury` is removal that can become pressure after it changes combat.

- The graveyard is an active staging zone, but only while the rules engine exposes useful recursion or cast sequences. Put `Vengevine`, `Squee, Goblin Nabob`, and `Master of Death` into the graveyard when that advances a visible plan; pivot away from graveyard reliance when `Leyline of the Void`, `Ravenous Trap`, or opponent graveyard hate changes the public state.

- Exile is a cost ledger and a disruption zone, not free value. Exiling cards to `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, `Force of Vigor`, `Fury`, or `Serum Powder` must be justified by immediate survival, combo prevention, pressure generation, or mulligan quality; preserve the last relevant blue, green, or red card when a stronger visible response window is likely.

- Lands are split between engine access and mana denial. `Bazaar of Baghdad` is usually the highest-value land because it starts the deck's core conversion loop; `Wasteland` and `Strip Mine` become priority when denying a visible land blocks the opponent's next meaningful turn or protects an existing clock.

- Sacrifice fodder is not a built-in resource for the registered main deck. Do not treat Rootwallas, `Vengevine`, `Hollow One`, or `Fury` as disposable unless Veles exposes a specific legal sacrifice, cost, or combat exchange; otherwise they are clock, defense, or enabling bodies.

- Information is strongest when it comes from public actions and revealed zones. Use visible stack actions, lands, graveyards, exile, revealed hands, sideboard stage, and previous logged choices to decide whether to protect a burst, fire pitch interaction, use land destruction, or wait on `Force of Vigor`; never infer exact hidden cards without revealed evidence.

- Sideboard bullets convert narrow resources into matchup-specific time. `Leyline of the Void` and `Ravenous Trap` buy graveyard containment, `Collector Ouphe` pressures artifact engines, extra `Force of Vigor` answers artifacts/enchantments, extra `Fury` answers creature boards, `Karakas` is a utility land when legal and relevant, and `Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth` plus `Petrified Hamlet` are mana/land texture tools when boarded.

## Mana Guide
- Keep hands for engine function before colored mana. A hand with `Bazaar of Baghdad` plus discard payoffs, free threats, or pitch interaction is often functional without colored-producing lands; a hand with only `Wasteland`, `Strip Mine`, and expensive colored spells can fail unless it has legal free interaction or a credible `Hollow One`/Rootwalla line.

- Sequence `Bazaar of Baghdad` as the first land when the hand needs velocity, graveyard setup, or `Hollow One` reduction. Use `Wasteland` or `Strip Mine` first only when Veles shows an immediate opposing land that must be answered, or when the hand already has enough legal pressure without Bazaar.

- Play lands after draw or selection when the current turn could reveal a better land choice. If no draw, Bazaar activation, or public selection action will occur before the land drop, play the land that enables the most important visible action now; do not delay a land drop past a required priority or combat window without a reason.

- Treat `Bazaar of Baghdad` as a non-mana engine land. Do not expect it to pay for spells; use it to create legal discard, graveyard, and reduced-cost lines, then rely on `Wasteland`, `Strip Mine`, sideboard lands, or alternate costs for actual payments.

- Use `Wasteland` and `Strip Mine` as mana sources only when casting or paying for a visible legal action matters more than land denial. When an existing attacker is already pressuring the opponent, destroying a key land can be stronger than spending colorless mana on a marginal action.

- Track pitch colors as carefully as lands. `Force of Will` and `Force of Negation` need blue cards for alternate costs, `Force of Vigor` needs green cards, and `Fury` needs red cards; choose Bazaar discards and exile payments so the next visible interaction window still has a valid pitch card when possible.

- Use `Noxious Revival` with life payment only when the legal target changes the next draw or protects a concrete line. Card text check required for exact payment and timing through the engine; do not spend life to topdeck a card that does not affect the next turn cycle.

- Post-board lands change mana texture but do not replace Bazaar discipline. `Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth` can make land-heavy hands cast green costs more realistically when legal, `Karakas` is utility first and mana second, and `Petrified Hamlet` requires card text check before relying on any color or condition.

- Mulligan mana rules favor Bazaar plus action over ordinary land counts. Use `Serum Powder` only through legal pregame actions when the current hand lacks `Bazaar of Baghdad`, lacks a credible free-pressure plan, and lacks matchup-critical interaction; do not exile a hand that already has strong engine access and protection without a clear upgrade need.

- Spend mana before combat only when it changes attackers, blockers, or a decisive stack fight. Otherwise preserve visible mana and pitch options through combat and opponent priority windows, especially when `Force of Vigor`, `Fury`, `Noxious Revival`, Rootwalla pump actions, or sideboard interaction could matter.

## Mulligan Guide
- Strong keep: keep `Bazaar of Baghdad` plus at least two payoff/enabler pieces such as `Vengevine`, `Hollow One`, `Basking Rootwalla`, `Blazing Rootwalla`, `Squee, Goblin Nabob`, or `Master of Death`. This hand has the deck's real engine, can turn excess cards into battlefield pressure, and can still function without colored mana if the legal Bazaar activation appears.

- Strong protected keep: keep `Bazaar of Baghdad` plus pitch interaction when the hand can still apply pressure. `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, `Mindbreak Trap`, `Mental Misstep`, or `Force of Vigor` are worth keeping with Bazaar when the visible matchup or game-one uncertainty rewards stopping a decisive early spell, artifact, enchantment, or stack sequence.

- Medium keep: keep no-Bazaar hands only when they contain a credible free-pressure plan plus disruption. Examples include multiple Rootwallas with `Hollow One`, `Serum Powder`, `Noxious Revival`, and one or more of `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, `Mindbreak Trap`, or `Fury`; these hands are acceptable when they can interact and attack without needing a perfect draw.

- Risky keep: keep `Wasteland` or `Strip Mine` hands without `Bazaar of Baghdad` only when land denial clearly buys time against the visible opponent and the hand has legal follow-up pressure or pitch interaction. A hand of denial lands plus stranded `Vengevine`, `Squee, Goblin Nabob`, and no enabler is a low-function trap.

- Automatic ship: mulligan hands with no `Bazaar of Baghdad`, no `Serum Powder`, no legal free creature pressure, and no matchup-critical interaction. Also ship hands that rely on hard-casting multiple colored spells through only `Wasteland`, `Strip Mine`, or `Bazaar of Baghdad` unless sideboard lands make the visible payments legal.

- Serum Powder rule: use `Serum Powder` aggressively when the current opening hand lacks `Bazaar of Baghdad` and lacks a strong protected no-Bazaar plan. Do not use `Serum Powder` on a hand that already has Bazaar plus pressure, or Bazaar plus critical interaction, unless the visible matchup demands a specific sideboard card more than the whole hand.

- Trap-hand warning: do not overvalue hands with many pitch spells but no blue, green, or red pitch cards left after likely costs. `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, `Force of Vigor`, and `Fury` are only protection when Veles shows a legal alternate-cost payment; preserve pitch color density during mulligans and Bazaar discards.

- Matchup-dependent keep: keep `Mindbreak Trap` more often against visible fast spell-chain decks, keep `Force of Vigor` more often against artifact or enchantment starts, and keep `Fury` more often against creature boards. Keep `Chalice of the Void` only when the legal value and matchup context are clear; Card text check required for exact counter-setting policy through the engine.

- Play/draw adjustment: on the play, favor Bazaar engine hands that can produce immediate pressure before the opponent stabilizes. On the draw, raise the value of `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, `Mental Misstep`, `Mindbreak Trap`, and `Force of Vigor`, because the opponent may present a decisive action before the first attack matters.

## Turn Arc
- Turn 1: play `Bazaar of Baghdad` first when the hand needs engine access, then use the legal activation to discard `Vengevine`, `Squee, Goblin Nabob`, `Master of Death`, excess `Serum Powder`, or redundant interaction according to the current line. Prioritize lines that make `Basking Rootwalla` or `Blazing Rootwalla` legal, reduce `Hollow One`, and set up a second creature spell for `Vengevine` when Veles exposes that sequence.

- Turn 1 deviation: play `Wasteland` or `Strip Mine` first when the opponent has a visible land whose removal blocks an immediate decisive line and the hand can still create pressure later. Use `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, `Mindbreak Trap`, `Mental Misstep`, or `Force of Vigor` only for actions that threaten the game plan, not for low-impact bait.

- Turn 2: convert the first Bazaar cycle into battlefield damage. Cast or madness Rootwallas when legal, deploy `Hollow One` when its cost is reduced, and use the second creature spell to return `Vengevine` only when the stack and graveyard state actually show that legal trigger path.

- Turn 2 deviation: use `Wasteland` or `Strip Mine` before adding marginal pressure when the opponent's next land-based action is more dangerous than one extra attacker. Use `Noxious Revival` only when the target will immediately change the next draw, protect an engine piece, or rebuy a specific interactive card; Card text check required for exact timing and payment.

- Turn 3: shift from setup into lock-step pressure plus selective denial. Attack with `Vengevine`, `Hollow One`, Rootwallas, and `Fury` when legal attacks preserve a fast clock; hold creatures back only when visible blockers, races, or survival math make defense more valuable.

- Turn 3 deviation: pitch-cast `Fury` when removing visible creatures changes combat, protects the clock, or prevents a lethal counterattack. Card text check required for exact damage division and targets; do not assume Fury can answer noncreature permanents unless the rules engine exposes that legal action.

- Turns 4-5: treat recurring `Squee, Goblin Nabob` and `Master of Death` as Bazaar fuel that keeps pressure and interaction flowing. Continue discarding recursive cards before live pitch cards unless the current stack or board demands immediate protection.

- Turns 4-5 deviation: pivot away from graveyard dependence when public hate changes the battlefield or exile rules. If `Leyline of the Void`, `Ravenous Trap`, or another visible graveyard effect is present, value hard battlefield threats, land denial, and pitch interaction over speculative `Vengevine` loops.

- Late game: win by preserving live attackers and denying the opponent's recovery turn. Repeated Bazaar activations should find more free bodies, protect attacks with pitch spells, and turn dead cards into pressure; avoid emptying the hand into a visible sweeper, prison piece, or stack fight unless waiting gives the opponent a better position.

- Late-game emergency: use `Noxious Revival`, pitch interaction, `Force of Vigor`, or `Fury` for survival when the opponent presents lethal, lock pieces, or a faster combo turn. If no pressure remains, prioritize rebuilding with `Bazaar of Baghdad` over spending resources on temporary exchanges that do not produce a clock.

## Card Roles
- `Bazaar of Baghdad`: treat `Bazaar of Baghdad` as the primary engine card, not as ordinary mana. Activate it when the hand wants graveyard setup, Rootwalla access, `Hollow One` discounting, or recursive fuel from `Squee, Goblin Nabob` and `Master of Death`; do not spend the activation just to see cards if the current hand already has a legal pressure sequence and the discard would strand all interaction.

- `Bazaar of Baghdad`: discard recursive or graveyard-payoff cards before live protection. Prefer discarding `Vengevine`, `Squee, Goblin Nabob`, `Master of Death`, redundant `Serum Powder`, and excess lands before discarding `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, `Mindbreak Trap`, `Force of Vigor`, `Fury`, or pitch cards that make those spells legal.

- `Vengevine`: use `Vengevine` as the deck's highest-pressure graveyard payoff. Put it into the graveyard early with `Bazaar of Baghdad`, then prioritize legal sequences that cast two creature spells in one turn when Veles shows the resulting trigger path; never assume it returns from exile, from library, or without the engine exposing a legal trigger.

- `Basking Rootwalla`: use `Basking Rootwalla` as both pressure and `Vengevine` trigger material. Cast it normally when it is part of a two-creature turn, and use the discard-linked line only when Veles exposes it as legal; Card text check required for exact pump timing, so pump only when the engine offers the action and combat math benefits.

- `Blazing Rootwalla`: use `Blazing Rootwalla` as redundant free creature density for Bazaar turns. Favor lines where it converts a discard into battlefield presence, reduces `Hollow One`, or supplies the second creature spell for `Vengevine`; avoid throwing it away into a visible blocker if holding it enables a later multi-creature turn.

- `Hollow One`: use `Hollow One` as the main non-graveyard body after a Bazaar or discard-heavy turn. Deploy it when the engine shows a low or zero mana cost and when it adds a fast clock, pressures planeswalkers if present, or plays through graveyard hate; do not hold it for theoretical maximum value if the opponent is likely to stabilize next turn.

- `Squee, Goblin Nabob`: use `Squee, Goblin Nabob` as repeatable Bazaar fuel and attrition insulation. Discard it early when the hand has `Bazaar of Baghdad`, then use returned copies to keep future Bazaar activations from costing live cards; do not pitch it to alternate costs unless that exact payment prevents a decisive opposing action.

- `Master of Death`: use `Master of Death` as recursive filtering material and graveyard pressure support. Put it into the graveyard when Bazaar needs durable fuel, return or use it only when the legal action improves the next decision, and preserve life total awareness if the rules engine presents a life-payment or upkeep-style choice; Card text check required for exact trigger timing.

- `Serum Powder`: use `Serum Powder` almost entirely before the game starts as a mulligan tool for finding `Bazaar of Baghdad` or a credible no-Bazaar hand. After the game begins, treat extra copies as discard material unless a legal battlefield use is exposed; do not protect `Serum Powder` over live pressure, pitch interaction, or recursive fuel.

- `Noxious Revival`: use `Noxious Revival` as a precise top-of-library repair card, not generic value. Target `Bazaar of Baghdad`, `Vengevine`, `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, `Force of Vigor`, `Fury`, or another visible graveyard card only when the next draw or immediate stack context makes that card matter; Card text check required for exact payment, timing, and target legality.

- `Force of Will`: use `Force of Will` for decisive opposing spells that stop Bazaar pressure, exile or disable the graveyard, win immediately, or prevent the deck from executing its next turn. Preserve blue pitch material when possible, especially `Force of Negation`, `Master of Death`, `Mental Misstep`, and extra `Force of Will`; do not counter low-impact bait while a faster clock is already active.

- `Force of Negation`: use `Force of Negation` as additional free stack protection against noncreature interaction, combo pieces, prison effects, or graveyard hate when the engine exposes a legal cast. Card text check required for exact turn and exile restrictions, so obey the legal action list rather than assuming it works like `Force of Will`.

- `Mindbreak Trap`: use `Mindbreak Trap` against visible spell-chain turns and stack sequences where ordinary countering may be insufficient or unavailable. Keep it more highly against fast combo and storm-like public action patterns; do not spend it on the first medium spell unless the visible sequence, spell count, or matchup context makes the current spell decisive.

- `Mental Misstep`: use `Mental Misstep` as a narrow but efficient answer to one-mana interaction, acceleration, or hate when Veles shows the opposing spell is a legal target. Because there is only one copy, spend it on cards that directly block `Bazaar of Baghdad`, stop the graveyard plan, or enable an immediate opposing win; Card text check required for exact mana value targeting.

- `Force of Vigor`: use `Force of Vigor` to answer visible artifact or enchantment hate, fast mana, lock pieces, or battlefield engines that prevent the deck from attacking or using the graveyard. Preserve green pitch material when the matchup signals artifacts or enchantments; do not fire it at low-impact permanents if a known hate piece or lethal setup is likely to appear.

- `Fury`: use `Fury` as creature-board control that protects the clock or prevents a lethal race. Pitch-cast it when removing blockers, hate creatures, or opposing pressure changes combat immediately; Card text check required for exact alternate cost, damage division, and target limits, so choose only targets and allocations exposed by the rules engine.

- `Chalice of the Void`: use `Chalice of the Void` only when the legal counter choice and matchup context are clear. Card text check required for exact X-setting and effect handling; avoid setting it in a way that visibly blocks your own available Rootwalla, `Noxious Revival`, `Mental Misstep`, or other immediate actions unless stopping the opponent is more important.

- `Wasteland`: use `Wasteland` as disruption, not as a substitute for `Bazaar of Baghdad`. Prioritize destroying a visible land that enables an immediate opposing engine, mana burst, or stabilizing line; avoid spending it just because a target exists when Bazaar activation or adding pressure will end the game faster.

- `Strip Mine`: use `Strip Mine` as the highest-impact land-denial card because it can answer a broader visible land range than `Wasteland`. Fire it when removing the land prevents a decisive action or protects the current clock; hold it when the opponent is mana-flooded and the deck instead needs Bazaar velocity or attackers.

- Pitch-card ecosystem: manage `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, `Force of Vigor`, and `Fury` as packages with their required colored cards. Before discarding or pitching, count whether the remaining hand still supports the next likely free spell; a hand full of uncastable pitch interaction is worse than a slightly slower hand with one live answer.

- Graveyard ecosystem: manage `Vengevine`, `Squee, Goblin Nabob`, `Master of Death`, `Basking Rootwalla`, and `Blazing Rootwalla` as the Bazaar engine's core material. If visible graveyard hate is active or likely, shift value toward `Hollow One`, land denial, hard battlefield pressure, and free interaction instead of overcommitting more recursive cards to a zone that may not function.

## Interaction Priorities

- Counter immediate combo, prison, or graveyard-hate actions before medium card advantage. Spend `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, `Mindbreak Trap`, or `Mental Misstep` when the visible stack would win now, disable `Bazaar of Baghdad`, exile or lock the graveyard, shut off creature casting, or prevent the current `Vengevine` turn from happening.

- Preserve free interaction for the highest-leverage spell in a chain. `Mindbreak Trap` is strongest when the opponent has already cast multiple spells or when the visible action is the payoff of a storm-like turn; do not spend it on a setup spell if `Force of Will` or `Force of Negation` can answer the same threat and the opponent still has public resources to continue.

- Use `Force of Vigor` on battlefield hate that blocks the deck's operating zones. Prioritize artifact or enchantment graveyard hate, artifact mana that enables an immediate kill or lock, and prison pieces that stop attacking or spell-casting; ignore low-impact artifacts if the current board already presents lethal or near-lethal pressure.

- Use `Fury` to remove creatures that change combat or stop the graveyard plan. Remove hate creatures, must-block creatures that brick `Vengevine` or `Hollow One`, and attackers that create a lethal race; ignore small utility bodies when the opponent is already dead to attacks before that text matters.

- Use `Wasteland` and `Strip Mine` to cut off decisive mana, not to trade resources automatically. Destroy the visible land that enables a lock, combo turn, hard-cast stabilizer, or removal window; keep land destruction in hand or on board when activating `Bazaar of Baghdad` or adding creatures is the faster path.

- Treat `Chalice of the Void` as a matchup-specific lock piece only when the rules engine exposes a legal setting. Card text check required for exact counter placement and impact; avoid a setting that visibly turns off your own immediate `Basking Rootwalla`, `Blazing Rootwalla`, `Noxious Revival`, or `Mental Misstep` line unless the opposing deck is more damaged than you are.

- Bait interaction with replaceable pressure before committing scarce protection. A free or cheap `Hollow One`, a Rootwalla cast, or a nonessential `Vengevine` trigger can draw a counter; protect the spell or trigger sequence only when it represents a decisive clock, restores multiple `Vengevine`, or forces the opponent to answer immediately.

- Shift counter priorities by archetype. Against fast combo, counter the payoff or mana/action that makes the payoff inevitable; against blue control, counter graveyard hate and sweepers before ordinary draw; against artifact prison, save `Force of Vigor` for lock pieces and use `Wasteland`/`Strip Mine` on enabling lands; against creature decks, let nonlethal setup resolve and spend `Fury` or combat resources on the board.

- Do not invent discard, exile, or bounce lines. This registered main deck has no proactive discard or bounce spell; if Veles does not show a legal discard, exile, or bounce action, choose among visible counter, destruction, land-denial, combat, Bazaar, or pass actions only.

## Combat And Trading Rules

- Attack aggressively when recursive pressure is online. `Vengevine`, `Hollow One`, `Basking Rootwalla`, and `Blazing Rootwalla` should usually push damage when the opponent must answer the board before executing their own plan; do not hold attackers back just to preserve perfect board texture if the clock shortens by a full turn.

- Preserve engine creatures when they enable the next `Vengevine` trigger. Avoid trading away the only cheap creature in hand or on board if the next turn needs two creature spells; trade Rootwallas more freely when extra copies, `Hollow One`, or Bazaar fuel already make future triggers likely.

- Trade `Vengevine` into blockers when recursion is realistic or damage is decisive. Accept trades if the graveyard remains functional and the hand can cast enough creatures soon; avoid sending `Vengevine` into exile-like or permanently unfavorable combat outcomes unless the attack forces lethal pressure.

- Use `Hollow One` as the stable battlefield body through graveyard hate. When public hate weakens `Vengevine`, attack and block with `Hollow One` more conservatively because it may be the main remaining clock; when no hate is visible, use it to force blocks that make future recursive attacks lethal.

- Block only when life total or engine survival requires it. Above roughly 10 life, prefer racing unless the opponent presents a short clock; below roughly 8 life, evaluate blocks that preserve a two-turn survival window, especially if a Bazaar activation can rebuild pressure next turn.

- Use `Fury` before combat damage when removing blockers or attackers changes the race. If legal targets and damage allocation are exposed, kill the creature that unlocks the largest attack or prevents lethal return damage; Card text check required for exact damage division and alternate cost rules.

- Do not overprotect `Squee, Goblin Nabob` or `Master of Death` in combat because they are primarily resource engines. Their battlefield combat value is secondary to Bazaar fuel and recursion context; trade or expose them only when Veles shows they are creatures in combat and the trade materially protects life total or lethal pressure.

- Attack planeswalkers or battle-like permanents only when the visible permanent will otherwise stabilize the game. If opponent life is under immediate pressure, keep damage pointed at the opponent unless the permanent's next activation clearly breaks the clock, removes the graveyard engine, or creates lethal counterpressure.

- Against combo, maximize the fastest credible clock while holding free interaction. Combat math should favor reducing the opponent's turn count over preserving blockers, because unused blockers rarely matter if the opponent's next resolved payoff wins.

- Against creature decks, turn recursive bodies into attrition. Trade Rootwallas and recurring `Vengevine` for creatures that would otherwise win the race, but keep enough creature density to rebuild after Bazaar activations and avoid chump blocks before life total demands them.

- Against prison or graveyard hate decks, value non-graveyard attackers and land denial. `Hollow One`, hard-cast Rootwallas, `Fury`, `Wasteland`, and `Strip Mine` become more important when recursive attacks are constrained; do not keep feeding the graveyard if visible hate makes that zone unreliable.

## Selection And Tutor Rules

- Treat `Bazaar of Baghdad` as the deck's main selection engine, not as a normal draw spell. Activate it when the hand contains discard payoffs, redundant free counters, graveyard cards, or excess lands; avoid activating only when the current hand already contains a decisive creature-spell chain and the discard cost would break that chain.

- Use `Bazaar of Baghdad` before creature sequencing when it can enable `Hollow One`, place `Vengevine` in the graveyard, or find a second creature spell. The best Bazaar turn usually converts hidden hand texture into visible pressure; do not make a land drop first if choosing between `Bazaar of Baghdad`, `Wasteland`, or `Strip Mine` changes whether the engine can start.

- Discard recursive and graveyard-positive cards first. Prefer discarding `Vengevine`, `Squee, Goblin Nabob`, and `Master of Death` when they are not needed as immediate castable creatures; discard extra `Serum Powder`, excess legendary-irrelevant lands, and redundant free interaction next when the matchup does not demand that specific answer.

- Keep castable creature density when `Vengevine` is waiting. Do not discard both cheap creatures if the next legal line needs two creature spells; preserve `Basking Rootwalla`, `Blazing Rootwalla`, and discounted `Hollow One` as action material unless Bazaar is clearly digging for survival interaction.

- Use `Serum Powder` only in mulligan selection, where the rules engine exposes the legal replacement choice. Powder hands should be judged by whether they contain `Bazaar of Baghdad`, enough engine material, or matchup-critical free interaction; do not keep a weak non-Bazaar hand merely because it has `Serum Powder` after the mulligan window has passed.

- Use `Noxious Revival` as graveyard topdeck selection when the next draw or Bazaar activation converts the card immediately. Put back `Bazaar of Baghdad` if land access is the bottleneck, `Vengevine` or a creature if recursion math needs it, `Force of Vigor` for visible hate, or a free counter when a known stack fight is imminent.

- Use `Noxious Revival` against an opponent graveyard only when the target card and timing are visible and relevant. It can disrupt graveyard sequencing or deny a graveyard payoff by moving a card to the top of its owner's library, but do not spend it this way if your own engine needs a topdeck or if the opponent's next draw benefits them.

- Use `Master of Death` return decisions as hand-fuel selection. If the upkeep action is legal and life loss is acceptable, return it when Bazaar needs discard material or when another creature spell is needed; decline or delay when life total is under a short clock and the hand already has enough engine cards. Card text check required for exact trigger timing.

- Treat this deck as having no true tutor package. `Bazaar of Baghdad`, `Serum Powder`, `Noxious Revival`, `Squee, Goblin Nabob`, and `Master of Death` manipulate access to cards, but they do not justify naming absent utility cards or assuming a hidden card will appear.

## Priority And Stack Rules

- Hold priority interaction for stack objects that beat the current clock or shut off the engine. Use `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, `Mindbreak Trap`, and `Mental Misstep` on visible spells that create a faster win, stop Bazaar or graveyard pressure, exile the graveyard, lock casting, or remove the lethal board.

- Let low-impact setup resolve when pressure plus interaction already wins. Passing on ordinary cantrips, mana development, or nonlethal value is correct when the opponent still must answer `Vengevine`, `Hollow One`, or Rootwalla pressure and your free counter is needed for the payoff.

- Use `Mindbreak Trap` for storm-like or multi-spell turns when Veles shows the legal trap action and the current stack or turn history supports it. Do not fire it at the first minor spell if `Force of Will` or `Force of Negation` can answer that object and the opponent can still continue.

- Use `Force of Vigor` at the last safe window before hate or a lock matters. Destroy artifact or enchantment graveyard hate before activating Bazaar or resolving graveyard pressure when possible, and destroy prison or mana artifacts before they produce a decisive lock or combo turn; Card text check required for exact alternate-cost and targeting limits.

- Use `Noxious Revival` on the stack-adjacent window that changes the next draw, Bazaar draw, or graveyard interaction. Respond to graveyard exile by saving the most important legal target only if the action is exposed and actually moves the card out of danger; otherwise preserve it for your own selection.

- Activate `Bazaar of Baghdad` with priority when the new cards and discard decisions matter before the next spell. Main-phase Bazaar is preferred before casting creature spells for `Vengevine` and `Hollow One`; opponent-end-step Bazaar is preferred when you only need to reload and do not need new cards for the current stack.

- Sequence free creatures and creature spells to respect `Vengevine` triggers. If `Basking Rootwalla`, `Blazing Rootwalla`, and `Hollow One` are legal creature actions, cast or otherwise execute the pair that maximizes visible `Vengevine` return chances; do not spend a counter window or Bazaar activation between them unless the stack demands it.

- Treat optional payments and alternate costs as tactical gates, not reflexes. Pitching to `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, `Force of Vigor`, or `Fury` is correct only when the answered object or removed creature matters more than the card being exiled; preserve blue cards when future stack fights are more important than the current spell.

- Use `Fury` when its legal stack or battlefield action changes combat, removes a hate creature, or prevents lethal pressure. Do not spend it on a creature that can be ignored by racing unless the visible board shows that creature blocking, attacking, or enabling a lock. Card text check required for exact evoke and damage-allocation handling.

- Respect engine output over assumptions. If Veles does not show a legal counter, Bazaar activation, alternate-cost spell, trigger, or target, pass or choose another listed action rather than inventing a response window.

## Sideboard Map

- Priority: Sideboard by opposing axis, not by generic card strength. `Counter Vine` wins by preserving `Bazaar of Baghdad` velocity, recursive pressure from `Vengevine`, free creature chains, and enough free interaction to stop the opponent's decisive turn; sideboard cards should either protect that engine, attack an opposing engine, or answer a permanent that stops graveyard pressure.

- Graveyard mirrors and Bazaar decks: `Leyline of the Void` is the primary hate plan when the opponent also depends on graveyard movement, recursive creatures, dredge-style replacement, or graveyard payoff loops. `Ravenous Trap` is the follow-up hate card when the opponent can function through a missing opening `Leyline of the Void` or when Veles shows a legal trap window after multiple opposing cards entered a graveyard. Add role cards: `Leyline of the Void`; `Ravenous Trap`. Reduce main-deck emphasis: creature removal and artifact/enchantment removal that has no visible target class.

- Artifact mana, prison, and lock decks: `Collector Ouphe` is the pressure-plus-lock piece when the opponent relies on artifact mana or activated artifact engines, but it also changes this deck's plan by asking the pilot to win through creatures rather than artifact help. `Force of Vigor` is the cleanest answer to visible artifact or enchantment hate, especially graveyard hate, prison permanents, or artifact mana that enables a decisive turn. Add role cards: `Collector Ouphe`; `Force of Vigor`; `Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth` when green casting access matters. Reduce main-deck emphasis: stack interaction that cannot answer resolved permanents.

- Creature pressure and hate-creature decks: the sideboard `Fury` joins the main `Fury` copies when the opposing battlefield contains small creatures, disruptive creatures, or blockers that prevent `Vengevine`, `Hollow One`, `Basking Rootwalla`, and `Blazing Rootwalla` from ending the game. `Fury` is weaker when the opponent presents few creatures, when the battlefield is empty, or when pitching a red card would damage the deck's ability to keep pressure. Add role cards: `Fury`. Reduce main-deck emphasis: narrow counters that miss the opponent's permanent-based plan.

- Legendary creature and single-threat decks: `Karakas` is a tactical land when bouncing a visible legendary creature matters more than another disruptive land. It is poor when the opponent has no relevant legendary permanents, when colorless land slots already strain the ability to cast `Collector Ouphe` or `Fury`, or when the deck needs maximum `Bazaar of Baghdad` access. Add role cards: `Karakas`. Reduce main-deck emphasis: the least relevant disruptive land effect only when the matchup does not hinge on opposing mana denial.

- Green access lands: `Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth` supports hard-casting green sideboard cards and can make disruptive lands produce colored mana, but it can also help the opponent if their visible plan benefits from improved land mana. `Petrified Hamlet` is a narrow color-support land for creature-heavy sideboard games; use it only when the post-board plan expects to cast sideboard creatures or pay colored costs through pressure rather than rely solely on free spells. Add role cards: `Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth`; `Petrified Hamlet`. Reduce main-deck emphasis: a land plan that cannot cast the post-board permanents being added.

Graveyard mirror / Dredge-style Bazaar opponent
Side in: 4 Leyline of the Void; 3 Ravenous Trap
Cut: 3 Fury; 3 Force of Vigor; 1 Chalice of the Void

- Plan: Start with maximum graveyard hate because the opposing engine can invalidate ordinary racing. Keep hands with `Leyline of the Void` highly, but still respect the deck's need for `Bazaar of Baghdad` or a functional creature chain; a hate-only hand that never applies pressure may give the opponent too many draw steps. `Ravenous Trap` should be held for a visible graveyard burst or legal trap prompt rather than spent into a low-impact graveyard unless the rules engine shows the opponent is about to convert those cards into a win.

Artifact prison / Workshop-style permanent lock
Side in: 2 Collector Ouphe; 1 Force of Vigor; 2 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth
Cut: 3 Mindbreak Trap; 1 Mental Misstep; 1 Noxious Revival

- Plan: Fight resolved artifacts and mana engines rather than overloading on spell-stack answers. `Collector Ouphe` is strongest when cast before the opponent's artifact engine snowballs, but do not keep a slow hand that only casts `Collector Ouphe` while failing to pressure. `Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth` improves the chance to cast `Collector Ouphe` through colorless lands; monitor visible opponent lands because the same card can improve opposing mana.

Creature-hate / initiative-style pressure opponent
Side in: 1 Fury; 1 Petrified Hamlet; 1 Karakas
Cut: 1 Chalice of the Void; 1 Mindbreak Trap; 1 Force of Negation

- Plan: Add creature interaction and land utility without diluting the recursive aggro shell. The extra `Fury` is for visible creatures that block, race, or shut down the graveyard plan; `Karakas` is only valuable when the opponent's relevant threat is legendary or when Veles shows a legal bounce line. `Petrified Hamlet` is a support land for creature-casting games, not a reason to keep a low-pressure hand.

Blue combo / spell-chain opponent
Side in: 3 Ravenous Trap; 1 Force of Vigor
Cut: 3 Fury; 1 Force of Vigor

- Plan: Keep the stack-interaction core while adding graveyard punishment only if the opposing combo uses the graveyard as part of the visible or known archetype pattern. `Mindbreak Trap`, `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, and `Mental Misstep` remain important because this matchup is often decided on the stack. The extra `Force of Vigor` should be valued when the opponent presents artifact mana, enchantment engines, or hate that must be removed before the creature engine can close.

- Role change: `Collector Ouphe` turns the deck into a disruptive creature deck when artifact mana is central, but it is not a universal anti-combo card. Bring it for artifact-heavy engines; leave it aside when the opponent's decisive cards are instants, sorceries, or graveyard actions that `Collector Ouphe` does not touch.

- Role change: `Leyline of the Void` is a pregame battlefield card, so its value is highest in opening hands and sharply lower as a later draw. Mulligan decisions may prioritize it in graveyard matchups, but runtime action selection must still obey legal `Serum Powder` and mulligan choices shown by Veles.

- Role change: `Ravenous Trap` is reactive graveyard interaction, not a substitute for pressure. Hold it when the opponent must commit more graveyard material, fire it when the legal prompt and visible graveyard show a payoff window, and avoid using it on your own graveyard because this deck depends on `Vengevine`, `Squee, Goblin Nabob`, and `Master of Death`.

- Role change: `Force of Vigor` becomes protection for the graveyard engine against hate permanents and a tempo card against artifact mana. It is bad when there are no relevant artifact or enchantment targets, when pitching the required card would break the active creature chain, or when a counterspell would answer the same threat before it resolves.

- Role change: `Karakas`, `Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth`, and `Petrified Hamlet` are sideboard lands with matchup jobs, not automatic land upgrades. Add them only when their visible function matters: `Karakas` for legendary permanents, `Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth` for green casting access, and `Petrified Hamlet` for colored creature support in fairer creature games.

## Matchup Guidance
- Aggro: Race as the graveyard aggro deck when `Bazaar of Baghdad` plus `Vengevine`, `Basking Rootwalla`, `Blazing Rootwalla`, or `Hollow One` can produce immediate pressure. Value `Fury` against visible small creatures, hate creatures, and blockers that would turn the race; pitch decisions must preserve enough red cards and creature count to keep pressure meaningful. `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, and `Mindbreak Trap` are weaker against creature-heavy starts unless the opposing threat is stack-based or game-ending. Add role cards: `Fury`; `Petrified Hamlet` when colored creature support matters. Reduce main-deck emphasis: narrow stack interaction against creature-only pressure.

- Control: Mulligan toward a hand that does something unfair early, because slow draw-go games give the opponent time to align answers with `Vengevine` recursion. `Bazaar of Baghdad` is the best long-game resource because `Squee, Goblin Nabob`, `Master of Death`, and graveyard creatures can keep producing threats without relying on normal draw steps. Protect the first decisive burst with `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, `Mental Misstep`, or `Mindbreak Trap` only when the legal stack action answers a card that stops the engine, exiles the graveyard, sweeps the board, or wins before the attack step. Add role cards: `Force of Vigor` for visible artifact or enchantment hate. Reduce main-deck emphasis: `Fury` when the opponent has few creatures.

- Combo: Keep hands that combine pressure with free interaction, not hands that only interact while failing to close. `Mindbreak Trap` is a premium answer to spell-chain turns, while `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, and `Mental Misstep` protect against early engines, tutors, and stack payoffs when Veles shows legal targets. `Force of Vigor` matters when the combo relies on artifact mana, enchantment engines, or permanent hate that blocks your own graveyard line. Add role cards: `Ravenous Trap` when graveyard volume is part of the opposing kill; `Collector Ouphe` when artifact activations are central; `Force of Vigor` against artifact or enchantment engines. Reduce main-deck emphasis: `Fury` against creature-light combo.

- Tempo: Prioritize a fast board over perfect card economy because tempo decks punish slow setup and isolated threats. `Hollow One` is strong when `Bazaar of Baghdad` makes it cheap and forces the opponent to answer a large body while `Vengevine` pressures from another axis. Use `Wasteland` and `Strip Mine` aggressively when the opponent is visibly constrained on mana, but avoid land denial that delays activating `Bazaar of Baghdad` or casting a sideboard permanent. Add role cards: `Fury` for cheap creatures and blockers; `Karakas` only against relevant visible legendary threats. Reduce main-deck emphasis: expensive or narrow interaction that does not answer the current battlefield.

- Midrange: Convert recursive card flow into repeated attacks, because one-for-one removal is least effective when `Vengevine`, `Squee, Goblin Nabob`, and `Master of Death` keep returning value. `Fury` should answer creatures that race, block profitably, or shut off the graveyard plan; do not spend it on low-impact creatures when attacks remain favorable. `Noxious Revival` can preserve a key threat, reset a countered free spell, or manipulate the next draw, but it should not slow a live creature chain without a clear reason from visible state. Add role cards: `Fury`; `Petrified Hamlet` for fair creature games where colored casting matters. Reduce main-deck emphasis: `Mindbreak Trap` when the opponent is not chaining spells.

- Big mana: Treat the matchup as a clock plus mana-denial test, because giving the opponent several stable turns risks a payoff that free counters may not answer cleanly once resolved. `Wasteland` and `Strip Mine` are high-value when they attack a visible bottleneck land, but `Bazaar of Baghdad` access usually matters more than an unfocused land-destruction line. Use `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, and `Mindbreak Trap` on payoff spells, engine pieces, or accelerants that immediately change the clock. Add role cards: `Collector Ouphe` for artifact-mana engines; `Force of Vigor` for artifact or enchantment mana engines; `Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth` only when casting green sideboard cards matters. Reduce main-deck emphasis: creature removal against creature-light builds.

- Graveyard: Start from the assumption that ordinary racing may fail if the opposing graveyard engine is faster or more deterministic. `Leyline of the Void` is strongest before the game begins, and `Ravenous Trap` is strongest when the opponent visibly commits enough graveyard material for a payoff window. Preserve your own graveyard plan when possible; do not fire graveyard hate in a way that undermines `Vengevine`, `Squee, Goblin Nabob`, or `Master of Death` unless the rules-engine prompt and public state show survival requires it. Add role cards: `Leyline of the Void`; `Ravenous Trap`. Reduce main-deck emphasis: `Fury` and artifact/enchantment removal when the opponent's battlefield is not the fight.

- Artifact/enchantment: Identify whether the permanent is a mana engine, prison piece, graveyard hate card, or win condition before spending `Force of Vigor`. `Force of Vigor` is worth pitching to clear a permanent that stops `Bazaar of Baghdad`, shuts off graveyard recursion, locks attacks, or accelerates the opponent beyond the combat clock. `Collector Ouphe` is best when the opponent depends on artifact activations over multiple turns, but it should not justify keeping a hand with no pressure. Add role cards: `Collector Ouphe`; `Force of Vigor`; `Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth` to cast green permanents. Reduce main-deck emphasis: stack-only answers that miss resolved permanents.

- Go-wide: Use `Fury` to break up boards where multiple small creatures would race, block `Vengevine`, or make attacks unprofitable. Keep pressure hands that can attack before the opposing board becomes too wide, and prefer lines that create multiple bodies with `Basking Rootwalla`, `Blazing Rootwalla`, `Hollow One`, and recurring `Vengevine`. `Chalice of the Void` is only meaningful if the legal action and matchup context show it constrains the opponent more than your own madness and free-spell plan. Add role cards: `Fury`; `Petrified Hamlet` for creature-casting support. Reduce main-deck emphasis: `Mindbreak Trap` unless the opponent also has spell-chain turns.

- Single-threat: Answer the one threat only when it changes the race, blocks profitably, or carries a game-ending engine. `Karakas` is valuable against a visible legendary creature and much weaker otherwise; do not add it merely as another land. `Wasteland` and `Strip Mine` can be better than creature interaction when the opponent has one threat but cannot deploy follow-up pressure without a key land. Add role cards: `Karakas` for relevant legends; `Fury` for nonlegendary creatures that must be removed. Reduce main-deck emphasis: broad graveyard hate unless the threat depends on the graveyard.

- Burn: Favor fast starts, free bodies, and life-total awareness because self-inflicted costs and slow graveyard loops can make the opponent's reach lethal. `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, and `Mental Misstep` should answer burn spells only when the visible life total, stack, and next attack step make the exchange necessary; otherwise preserve them for cards that stop your clock or multiply damage. `Fury` is for creatures that add repeat damage, not for marginal battlefield cleanup. Add role cards: `Fury` against creature-heavy burn variants. Reduce main-deck emphasis: slow nonlethal setup that spends cards without increasing the clock.

- Removal-heavy: Lean into recursion and redundant threats rather than protecting every creature. `Vengevine` is the key punishment for one-for-one removal, and `Squee, Goblin Nabob` plus `Master of Death` lets `Bazaar of Baghdad` continue feeding action. Avoid overcommitting pitch spells to protect a single `Hollow One` when the same cards could enable another wave or answer a graveyard-exile effect. Add role cards: `Force of Vigor` against permanent hate; `Leyline of the Void` only if the opposing removal deck uses graveyard recursion. Reduce main-deck emphasis: `Fury` when there are few opposing creatures to remove.

## Specific Matchup Notes

- General/archetype-only: Revealed cards, legal actions, and rules-engine prompts override these assumptions; do not infer hidden permission, hate, or combo pieces from archetype labels alone. Use `Bazaar of Baghdad` as the default engine, then let visible pressure, visible graveyard hate, and stack context decide whether the hand is a race, disruption, or recovery hand.

- Blue stack decks: Protect the first explosive creature wave only when it converts into immediate pressure or preserves `Bazaar of Baghdad` velocity. Priority targets are spells that stop the graveyard plan, exile the graveyard, counter the decisive creature-chain turn, or create an unbeatable noncombat position. Add role cards: `Force of Vigor` against visible artifact or enchantment hate; `Collector Ouphe` against artifact-heavy mana. Reduce main-deck emphasis: `Fury` when the opponent shows few creatures.

- Bazaar mirrors and graveyard combo: Treat graveyard interaction as a timing resource, not a decorative keep reason. `Leyline of the Void` is the strongest pregame role card, while `Ravenous Trap` should be held for a visible graveyard-commitment window unless survival requires immediate use. Priority targets are opposing graveyard payoffs, recursive pressure, and effects that make your own `Vengevine`, `Squee, Goblin Nabob`, or `Master of Death` recursion irrelevant. Add role cards: `Leyline of the Void`; `Ravenous Trap`. Reduce main-deck emphasis: `Fury` unless visible creatures matter.

- Workshop or prison artifact decks: Prioritize hands with pressure plus an answer to resolved artifacts or artifact mana. `Force of Vigor` answers the permanent fight, `Collector Ouphe` attacks activated artifact infrastructure, and `Wasteland` or `Strip Mine` can punish land-light keeps. Priority targets are permanents that stop `Bazaar of Baghdad`, prevent attacks, shut off graveyard recursion, or accelerate the opponent past your clock. Add role cards: `Collector Ouphe`; `Force of Vigor`; `Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth` when casting green sideboard cards is realistic. Reduce main-deck emphasis: stack-only counters that do not answer resolved permanents.

- Fast spell combo: Keep interaction-dense hands only when they also have a plausible clock or `Bazaar of Baghdad` to find one. `Mindbreak Trap`, `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, and `Mental Misstep` should be saved for the spell or engine step that actually wins or makes winning trivial; do not spend them on bait unless visible stack context confirms the current spell is the bottleneck. Add role cards: `Leyline of the Void` or `Ravenous Trap` only against graveyard-dependent combo. Reduce main-deck emphasis: `Fury` and creature-combat tools.

- Creature pressure decks: Race with free bodies first, then use `Fury` to break boards where blockers or repeat attackers change combat math. `Hollow One`, `Basking Rootwalla`, `Blazing Rootwalla`, and `Vengevine` are the primary stabilizers because they attack while absorbing removal. Add role cards: `Fury`; `Petrified Hamlet` when colored creature casting matters. Reduce main-deck emphasis: `Mindbreak Trap` when the opponent is not chaining spells.

## Risk Summary

- Mana risk: `Bazaar of Baghdad` is essential but does not cast most spells, so a hand can be powerful and still fail if it cannot deploy `Collector Ouphe`, hard-cast a creature, or use sideboard lands on time. Avoid spending `Wasteland` or `Strip Mine` when doing so strands required colored actions or delays the only active engine.

- Matchup risk: The deck can misassign roles by racing when it should disrupt or by holding interaction while the opponent builds a decisive battlefield. Re-evaluate after every revealed card, visible permanent, and stack exchange.

- Draw risk: `Serum Powder` decisions can improve opening quality but can also exile needed density. Do not assume a Powder hand is correct merely because it has an action; compare it against the need for `Bazaar of Baghdad`, pressure, graveyard material, and free interaction.

- Over-sideboarding risk: Too many role cards can dilute the `Vengevine` creature-chain plan and make `Hollow One` weaker. Add narrow cards only when the opponent’s revealed plan makes their text matter more than raw speed.

- Graveyard risk: `Vengevine`, `Squee, Goblin Nabob`, `Master of Death`, and `Noxious Revival` all reward graveyard access, so opposing graveyard hate changes the entire hand valuation. `Force of Vigor` should be preserved for hate permanents when those permanents are the visible obstacle.

- Sweeper/removal risk: One large wave can lose to a battlefield reset or efficient removal if it empties the hand without recurring pressure. Favor lines that leave `Squee, Goblin Nabob`, `Master of Death`, or another creature-chain follow-up available.

- Closer risk: `Hollow One` alone may not close quickly enough through blockers, and `Vengevine` recursion can stall if creature count is mishandled. Sequence free creatures so the rules engine confirms legal `Vengevine` triggers rather than assuming the graveyard will convert itself.

- Interaction risk: Pitch spells trade cards quickly, and wrong-target counters leave the deck without both protection and pressure. Use `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, `Mindbreak Trap`, and `Mental Misstep` on visible must-answer stack objects, not on low-impact setup.

- Sequencing risk: Activating `Bazaar of Baghdad` before choosing a creature chain, pitch payment, or `Noxious Revival` target can hide a better line if the decision agent treats all discarded cards as equal. Choose the intended payoff first, then discard, revive, pitch, and cast in the order the legal actions actually support.

## Test Feedback Checklist

- Deciding factor: Record whether the game turned on `Bazaar of Baghdad`, recursive `Vengevine` pressure, free stack interaction, permanent hate, creature combat, or opposing graveyard hate; name only the visible cards that caused the turn.

- Mulligans: Check whether the opener had a real plan before keeping, especially `Bazaar of Baghdad`, `Serum Powder`, multiple free creatures, `Hollow One`, or enough interaction to survive without Bazaar. Flag keeps that had action but no velocity.

- Serum Powder: Track whether `Serum Powder` exiled critical density such as `Bazaar of Baghdad`, `Vengevine`, `Basking Rootwalla`, `Blazing Rootwalla`, or free blue cards for `Force of Will` and `Force of Negation`. Note whether the new hand actually improved the plan.

- Mana: Review every game where `Wasteland`, `Strip Mine`, `Karakas`, `Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth`, or `Petrified Hamlet` mattered. Ask whether using a land as disruption delayed a needed cast of `Collector Ouphe`, `Fury`, `Basking Rootwalla`, or `Blazing Rootwalla`.

- Velocity: Count turns where `Bazaar of Baghdad` activation converted into graveyard pressure, `Hollow One` cost reduction, `Squee, Goblin Nabob` recursion, or `Master of Death` recursion. Flag Bazaar activations that discarded resources without producing pressure or protection.

- Engine: Confirm whether `Vengevine` triggers were produced by legal creature casts and not assumed from graveyard presence. Note missed creature-chain turns involving `Basking Rootwalla`, `Blazing Rootwalla`, `Hollow One`, and `Master of Death`.

- Interaction: Review each `Force of Will`, `Force of Negation`, `Mindbreak Trap`, `Mental Misstep`, `Force of Vigor`, `Ravenous Trap`, and `Noxious Revival` decision. Ask whether the chosen target was the actual bottleneck or whether the deck spent protection on a low-impact object.

- Removal: Mark whether `Fury` removed a creature that changed race math, protected attacks, or stabilized combat. Flag games where `Fury` was stranded, pitched too early, or pointed at a creature that did not affect the clock.

- Sideboard: Compare post-board draws against the planned role cards. Ask whether `Leyline of the Void`, `Ravenous Trap`, `Collector Ouphe`, `Force of Vigor`, `Karakas`, `Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth`, `Petrified Hamlet`, and the extra `Fury` had visible targets or diluted the pressure plan.

- Closing: Identify games where early pressure failed to close after the first wave. Ask whether the pilot preserved `Squee, Goblin Nabob`, `Master of Death`, `Noxious Revival`, or extra creatures for a second `Vengevine` wave.

- Role: Record whether the deck was supposed to race, disrupt, or recover after hate. Flag turns where the pilot stayed defensive while ahead on clock or attacked while interaction should have been protected.

- Mistakes: Note any legal-action mismatch, pass with relevant interaction, missed `Bazaar of Baghdad` activation, poor pitch-card choice, or attack into visible bad combat. Separate rules-engine uncertainty from strategic error.

- Stranded cards: List cards stuck in hand or exile without function, especially `Fury`, `Force of Vigor`, `Force of Negation`, `Mindbreak Trap`, `Collector Ouphe`, `Karakas`, and `Petrified Hamlet`.

- Over/underperformers: Track which exact cards won games, stabilized games, or failed repeatedly. Separate matchup-specific performance from global quantity conclusions.

## First Tuning Questions

- Bazaar dependency: Is four `Bazaar of Baghdad` plus four `Serum Powder` producing enough functional openers, or are too many games still decided by no-engine hands?

- Creature density: Are four `Basking Rootwalla`, four `Blazing Rootwalla`, four `Hollow One`, four `Master of Death`, and four `Vengevine` enough to trigger pressure reliably after sideboarding?

- Recursive package: Does `Squee, Goblin Nabob` provide enough long-game fuel, or do repeated games show it is too slow against fast combo and prison starts?

- Free interaction balance: Are four `Force of Will`, four `Force of Negation`, three `Mindbreak Trap`, and one `Mental Misstep` protecting the clock, or are they creating too many pitch-card and pressure-density conflicts?

- Permanent answers: Is three main-deck `Force of Vigor` plus one sideboard `Force of Vigor` the right amount against graveyard hate and artifact prison, or are games still ending to resolved permanents?

- Removal quantity: Does three main-deck `Fury` plus one sideboard `Fury` match the expected creature field, or is `Fury` frequently stranded against combo and blue control?

- Mana utility: Are `Wasteland` and `Strip Mine` winning enough games to justify land-disruption timing risks, especially when sideboard cards require colored mana?

- Sideboard mana: Do `Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth`, `Petrified Hamlet`, and `Karakas` make sideboard plans more executable, or do they reduce pressure without solving the matchup problem?

- Graveyard hate allocation: Are four `Leyline of the Void` and three `Ravenous Trap` both necessary, or is one package outperforming the other in actual Bazaar mirrors and graveyard combo games?

- Artifact hate allocation: Are two `Collector Ouphe` enough against artifact mana and prison, or does the deck need more permanent-based disruption rather than additional pitch interaction?

- Closer problem: When early `Vengevine` or `Hollow One` pressure stalls, is the issue creature sequencing, insufficient removal, opposing blockers, or graveyard hate? Tune only after identifying which failure is repeated.

- Role conflict: Does the deck lose more by being too interactive and slow, or too aggressive and unprotected? Use that answer before changing quantities of counters, `Fury`, `Force of Vigor`, or sideboard hate.

## Veles Tactical Policy

### Policy: Bazaar Opener Gate
Priority: High
Decision families: mulligan; pregame
Cards: Bazaar of Baghdad; Serum Powder; Vengevine; Basking Rootwalla; Blazing Rootwalla; Hollow One; Squee, Goblin Nabob; Master of Death
Phase windows: opening hand; mulligan; Serum Powder replacement
Runtime cues: prompt:mulligan; action:use Serum Powder; action:keep
Use when: evaluating any opener before the first game action.
Avoid when: the rules engine has already locked the hand or no mulligan choice is legal.
Instructions: Keep hands with Bazaar plus graveyard payoff, free creatures, or protection unless the visible hand cannot produce pressure. Use Serum Powder aggressively when the hand has no Bazaar, no credible creature-chain pressure, and no strong interactive reason to keep. Do not keep slow hands just because they contain multiple pitch spells.
Pilot skill floor: high
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: First Bazaar Setup
Priority: Medium
Decision families: mana; priority
Cards: Bazaar of Baghdad; Wasteland; Strip Mine; Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth; Petrified Hamlet
Phase windows: main phase; first land drop
Runtime cues: action:play Bazaar of Baghdad
Use when: Bazaar of Baghdad is a legal land play and no land has been played this turn.
Avoid when: a prior light-model decision selected a different exact land action for a visible sideboard spell or lethal disruption line.
Instructions: Lead on Bazaar when the hand needs velocity, Vengevine setup, Hollow One cost reduction, Squee recursion, or Master of Death recursion. Delay Bazaar only when a visible land-disruption line or sideboard spell is clearly more urgent.
Pilot skill floor: medium
No-API allowed: yes
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Bazaar Activation Commitment
Priority: High
Decision families: selection; priority
Cards: Bazaar of Baghdad; Vengevine; Squee, Goblin Nabob; Master of Death; Hollow One; Basking Rootwalla; Blazing Rootwalla; Noxious Revival
Phase windows: upkeep; main phase; end step; opponent end step
Runtime cues: action:activate Bazaar of Baghdad; prompt:discard
Use when: Bazaar activation is legal and the hand/graveyard state must decide whether to convert cards into pressure or resources.
Avoid when: the activation is mandatory or the hand has already been fully scripted by the current decision request.
Instructions: Activate Bazaar to assemble Vengevine triggers, enable Hollow One, recycle Squee, Goblin Nabob, or set up Master of Death. Preserve interaction when the opponent’s visible plan can win before the next attack. Choose discards from visible redundancy, not from hidden assumptions.
Pilot skill floor: high
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Vengevine Creature-Chain Gate
Priority: High
Decision families: priority; selection
Cards: Vengevine; Basking Rootwalla; Blazing Rootwalla; Hollow One; Master of Death
Phase windows: main phase; post-Bazaar sequencing
Runtime cues: action:cast Basking Rootwalla; action:cast Blazing Rootwalla; action:cast Hollow One; action:cast Master of Death
Use when: legal creature casts can create or extend a Vengevine turn.
Avoid when: graveyard hate or a stack interaction window makes the sequence illegal, stopped, or materially changed.
Instructions: Start the creature chain when the visible legal actions can produce immediate pressure or force the opponent to answer the graveyard. Cast the low-cost creature that preserves the most follow-up creature actions. Do not assume Vengevine returns unless the engine shows the trigger or legal sequence.
Pilot skill floor: high
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Deterministic Rootwalla Cast
Priority: Low
Decision families: priority
Cards: Basking Rootwalla; Blazing Rootwalla
Phase windows: main phase; madness or normal cast prompt
Runtime cues: action:cast Basking Rootwalla; action:cast Blazing Rootwalla
Use when: exactly one legal action casts Basking Rootwalla or Blazing Rootwalla and the current policy already selected creature-chain execution.
Avoid when: multiple payment modes, pump choices, or alternative creature actions are visible.
Instructions: Execute the exact legal Rootwalla cast to continue the selected Vengevine or board-pressure line.
Pilot skill floor: low
No-API allowed: yes
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Hollow One Deployment
Priority: Medium
Decision families: priority; combat
Cards: Hollow One; Bazaar of Baghdad; Vengevine
Phase windows: main phase; post-discard turn
Runtime cues: action:cast Hollow One
Use when: Hollow One is legal to cast after visible discards or cost reduction.
Avoid when: casting Hollow One consumes a required creature-chain slot that prevents a stronger visible Vengevine turn.
Instructions: Cast Hollow One early when it adds a fast clock or supplies the second creature for Vengevine. Prefer pressure over holding Hollow One unless visible removal, blockers, or stack threats make a protected line necessary.
Pilot skill floor: medium
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Recursive Fuel Selection
Priority: Medium
Decision families: selection; priority
Cards: Squee, Goblin Nabob; Master of Death; Bazaar of Baghdad; Noxious Revival
Phase windows: upkeep; draw step; discard prompts; graveyard recursion prompts
Runtime cues: prompt:return; prompt:discard; action:put on top Noxious Revival
Use when: visible recursive cards can be returned, discarded, or preserved as Bazaar fuel.
Avoid when: the rules engine has not shown the card as visible or legally selectable.
Instructions: Use Squee, Goblin Nabob and Master of Death to keep Bazaar activations stocked after the first wave. Preserve one recursive source when the hand is low on material. Treat life payments and draw-step timing only according to legal prompts.
Pilot skill floor: medium
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Noxious Revival Target Self
Priority: Medium
Decision families: selection; interaction
Cards: Noxious Revival; Vengevine; Bazaar of Baghdad; Force of Will; Force of Negation; Force of Vigor; Mindbreak Trap
Phase windows: upkeep; draw step; main phase; opponent end step; stack window
Runtime cues: action:target self Noxious Revival; action:target Vengevine Noxious Revival
Use when: Noxious Revival is legal and a visible own graveyard card is the target required by the selected line.
Avoid when: the target choice decides between pressure, protection, or denial.
Instructions: Route Noxious Revival target choice through reasoning unless the current line names the exact visible card. Use it to recover Bazaar, rebuild Vengevine pressure, protect key interaction, or disrupt opposing graveyard lines only when the visible stack and clock justify it.
Pilot skill floor: medium
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Pitch Permission Gate
Priority: High
Decision families: interaction
Cards: Force of Will; Force of Negation; Mindbreak Trap; Mental Misstep; Noxious Revival
Phase windows: stack; opponent combo turn; opponent key spell
Runtime cues: action:cast Force of Will; action:cast Force of Negation; action:cast Mindbreak Trap; action:cast Mental Misstep
Use when: a counter or trap action is legal against a visible spell or spell sequence.
Avoid when: the target is low impact and the opponent has not presented a visible bottleneck.
Instructions: Spend permission on effects that stop immediate loss, graveyard hate that shuts off the engine, prison pieces that block Bazaar pressure, or interaction that removes the winning attack. Preserve pitch cards when the clock already pressures the opponent and the stack object does not change the race.
Pilot skill floor: high
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Exact Mindbreak Trap Execution
Priority: Medium
Decision families: interaction
Cards: Mindbreak Trap
Phase windows: stack
Runtime cues: action:cast Mindbreak Trap
Use when: exactly one legal Mindbreak Trap action exists and the current decision request identifies the visible stack object or spell sequence as the selected target.
Avoid when: multiple stack targets, payment modes, or competing permission actions are legal.
Instructions: Execute the exact Mindbreak Trap action selected by the interaction gate.
Pilot skill floor: low
No-API allowed: yes
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Force Of Vigor Permanent-Hate Gate
Priority: High
Decision families: interaction; selection
Cards: Force of Vigor; Bazaar of Baghdad; Vengevine; Leyline of the Void; Collector Ouphe
Phase windows: stack; main phase; opponent end step; response to hate
Runtime cues: action:cast Force of Vigor; prompt:choose target artifact; prompt:choose target enchantment
Use when: Force of Vigor can answer visible artifacts or enchantments.
Avoid when: no visible permanent meaningfully blocks Bazaar, graveyard pressure, combat, or the opponent’s immediate engine.
Instructions: Prioritize graveyard hate, prison artifacts, and lethal engine permanents over low-impact targets. Choose pitch costs by preserving the current pressure package and the minimum protection needed for the next turn.
Pilot skill floor: high
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Fury Removal Gate
Priority: Medium
Decision families: interaction; combat
Cards: Fury; Vengevine; Hollow One
Phase windows: main phase; combat; precombat; postblockers
Runtime cues: action:cast Fury; prompt:divide damage; prompt:target creature Fury
Use when: Fury is legal and visible creatures affect lethal math, blocking, or survival.
Avoid when: the target choice is cosmetic or the pitch cost removes the only pressure/protection plan.
Instructions: Use Fury to clear blockers for Vengevine and Hollow One, stop creature-combo pressure, or stabilize a race. Divide damage only from visible toughness, damage marked, and legal targets.
Pilot skill floor: medium
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Wasteland And Strip Mine Timing
Priority: Medium
Decision families: mana; interaction
Cards: Wasteland; Strip Mine; Bazaar of Baghdad; Collector Ouphe; Fury
Phase windows: main phase; opponent upkeep; opponent draw step; precombat
Runtime cues: action:activate Wasteland; action:activate Strip Mine
Use when: land destruction is legal against a visible opposing land.
Avoid when: using the land prevents casting a visible required sideboard card or weakens a faster pressure line.
Instructions: Fire land disruption when it denies a key mana turn, protects the clock, or stops a visible utility land. Do not spend Wasteland or Strip Mine just to use mana when Bazaar activation or creature pressure is the stronger plan.
Pilot skill floor: medium
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Combat Clock Discipline
Priority: Medium
Decision families: combat
Cards: Vengevine; Hollow One; Basking Rootwalla; Blazing Rootwalla; Fury
Phase windows: declare attackers; declare blockers; combat damage
Runtime cues: prompt:declare attackers; prompt:declare blockers; action:attack with Vengevine; action:attack with Hollow One
Use when: attackers or blockers must be chosen from visible battlefield objects.
Avoid when: exactly one legal no-attack or no-block action exists and combat cannot affect life total or creature survival.
Instructions: Attack when the visible race favors pressure and blockers do not erase the engine. Hold creatures back when survival, crack-back math, or a necessary Vengevine recast turn matters more than damage. Use Fury and Rootwalla sizing only from legal prompts.
Pilot skill floor: medium
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Chalice Commitment Gate
Priority: Medium
Decision families: pregame; priority; interaction
Cards: Chalice of the Void; Bazaar of Baghdad; Basking Rootwalla; Blazing Rootwalla; Noxious Revival; Mental Misstep
Phase windows: pregame if applicable; main phase; early turn
Runtime cues: action:cast Chalice of the Void; prompt:choose X
Use when: Chalice of the Void is legal and the X choice can constrain a visible opponent plan without locking out the selected own line.
Avoid when: X choice is not visible, the deck needs conflicting one-mana actions, or the opponent’s plan is unknown.
Instructions: Treat Chalice as a commitment, not an automatic play. Choose X from visible matchup context, legal actions, and own hand dependency; Card text check required for any unusual engine interaction shown by Forge.
Pilot skill floor: high
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Leyline Pregame Commitment
Priority: High
Decision families: pregame; sideboard
Cards: Leyline of the Void
Phase windows: opening hand; start of game
Runtime cues: action:begin with Leyline of the Void; prompt:put onto battlefield
Use when: Leyline of the Void is in the opening hand and the engine offers a pregame battlefield action.
Avoid when: no Leyline pregame action is legal.
Instructions: Put Leyline of the Void onto the battlefield when legal in graveyard matchups and post-board games where it was intentionally included. Do not infer opponent graveyard reliance from hidden information.
Pilot skill floor: low
No-API allowed: yes
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Ravenous Trap Timing
Priority: High
Decision families: interaction
Cards: Ravenous Trap; Leyline of the Void; Noxious Revival
Phase windows: stack; opponent graveyard-combo turn; response window
Runtime cues: action:cast Ravenous Trap; prompt:target player Ravenous Trap
Use when: Ravenous Trap is legal and a visible opponent graveyard event or graveyard state threatens an immediate payoff.
Avoid when: the opponent graveyard is low impact or the same turn has a stronger visible permission requirement.
Instructions: Aim Ravenous Trap at the opponent when the visible legal action text identifies the opponent as the graveyard player. Preserve it when the opponent is baiting with expendable cards and the decisive graveyard action has not appeared.
Pilot skill floor: high
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Collector Ouphe Deployment
Priority: Medium
Decision families: sideboard; priority; combat
Cards: Collector Ouphe; Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth; Petrified Hamlet; Bazaar of Baghdad
Phase windows: main phase; post-board early turns
Runtime cues: action:cast Collector Ouphe
Use when: Collector Ouphe is legal to cast and visible opponent artifacts matter to mana, combo, or prison development.
Avoid when: casting it delays a faster lethal creature chain or the mana source assumptions require a card text check.
Instructions: Deploy Collector Ouphe early against artifact-dependent boards, but do not keep a hand solely on Ouphe without pressure or mana. Card text check required before relying on Petrified Hamlet for colored casting.
Pilot skill floor: medium
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Sideboard Plan Gate
Priority: High
Decision families: sideboard
Cards: Leyline of the Void; Ravenous Trap; Collector Ouphe; Force of Vigor; Fury; Karakas; Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth; Petrified Hamlet; Mindbreak Trap; Force of Negation; Force of Will; Vengevine; Hollow One; Squee, Goblin Nabob
Phase windows: between games; sideboard lock
Runtime cues: prompt:sideboard; action:submit sideboard plan
Use when: choosing a legal post-board configuration.
Avoid when: exact matchup label, game number, or registered sideboard inventory is unavailable.
Instructions: Bring hate that attacks the opponent’s visible axis while preserving Bazaar pressure. Add Leyline of the Void and Ravenous Trap for graveyard races, Collector Ouphe and Force of Vigor for artifact/prison decks, Fury for creature boards, Karakas for visible legendary threats, and Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth or Petrified Hamlet only when colored sideboard casting needs support.
Pilot skill floor: high
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes
