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Lemnear
08-13-2011, 04:00 PM
The moment Modern was first time mentioned our team (The Raping Sextoys) was toying with the idea of step into the format next to vintage and legacy. With the recent addition of Glimmerpost to the mix of posts this deck was more than just viable in my opinion. I tested 2 special colors to work with the Posts: Blue and Green.

While Blue offers cards like Gifts and Trinket Mage that come into mind. Trinket mage is a strong toolbox for SB and MB (Brittle Effigy, Relic of Progenitus, Chalice, Map, etc.) and is a nice blocker. Gifts is pure cardadvantage and enables to fix mana with piles like (cloudpost/vesuva/glimmerpost/Map) or fetch the bullies lategame. Green is great mana advantage via Sylvan scying, reap and sow, primeval titan and ancient stirrings but I felt uneasy to dedicate so much space to mana in a deck that already"out-manas" any other deck. Both splashes showed me that to make it possible to actually play those cards a minimum of 10 colored sources are a must-have in this deck and tutoring for those is imo a waste. So I strongly considered to play without color that made my teammates wanna brainwash me, still believing blue or green was the way to go. I reconfigurated the whole deck and crushed all those CAW-versions (not banned that time), Zoo, junk, etc. with it.

I handed the testing-list, named Power of the Post, to my testing partner and he had a blast playing it. We tweaked it again after the recent announcements this week and the elimination of some matchups, adjusted the development name for more splash-damage (^^), presenting you....


TRS - The Power

4 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost
4 Vesuva
2 Eye of Ugin
5 Islands
1 Academy Ruins
4 Eldrazi Temple
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
4 Expedition Map
4 All Is Dust
4 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Mind Stone
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
4 Serum Powder
4 Wurmcoil Engine
4 Steel Hellkite
4 Batterskull


SB: 4 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 4 Chalice of the Void
SB: 4 Lodestone Golem
SB: 3 Oblivion Stone


This list might smack you in da face, so I'll explain the choices piece by piece. The special features of the mana base are the eldrazi temple . The Temples are some kind of posts for eldrazis and All is Dust to fire off earlier. Eye of Ugin is a no brainer. Academy ruins is insurance and an excuse to run blue lol. This may vary if I adjust the sideboard that is still in development.

The 4 Eldrazi, bury your opponent under ca, finish the game in one swing or are silver bullets. Map and Mindstone work well together if you start with double posts and stone is rock solid manaadvantage and carddraw. So is Solemn ... to run this efficiently I feel that 3 basics to fetch are enough. All is Dust is a one sides sweeper often cheaper than it's printed 7 due to the temples.

We brainstormed a lot about Trinishphere versus chalice in the main deck ... for this list I suggested the sphere main to slow down opponents development instead of a blindsided Chalice even if it is a supreme option versus combo and zoo. Edit 1

Serum Powder is team-teck ... I developed the use of it for fixing hands in deck with lots of 4-off's such as Legacy Belcher (the deck is insane with powder and seething songs!) and now this one ... a starting grip without access to 2 posts is not acceptable and the blue dust helps a lot. In addition to that it is a turn 2-3 mana accelerator. Do not underestimate this card!

the final 2 playsets are dedicated to all those predicted aggro decks ... wurmcoil is near unraceable and even if destoyed it creates cardaadvantage being a turn 4 play! Batterskull seems odd here but if you realize that you'll often drop him turn 3 and be easily able to bounce and replay it with all the mana you have available, these often so clunky equip becomes a wall impossible to overcome. Those 8 lifelinking dudes are your life insurance! We've tested Karn Liberated this 4 of those slots but the colorless double-vindicate never felt like adding pressure to the opponent and was cut.

Sideboard is still a construction area ... don't give too much about it now.

The opening post will be steadily updated from now on ... a different approach to 12-post ... looking forward to outside impressions.


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Edit 1: Adjusted the maindeck/Sideboard: Removed Trinisphere due to underperformance facing the actual development. Shifted Steel Hellkite to mainboard and Lodestone to the SB
Edit 2: Islands considered a bad thing because of Meerfolk ... needs adjustment (at least I don't give a fuck about the kind of basics). Hellkite too clunky versus swarm and a victim to the common dismember
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Example Matches:
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versus Big Zoo (14.08.2011 as Lemnear on Cockatrice)
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He wins the dice-roll and I keep a decent hand of Steel Hellkite, double Powder, Glimmerpost, Cloudpost, All is Dust and Ulamog

He starts with first turn Fetch for Temple Garden and plays Nacatl. I draw the Spaghetti Monster and lay down a Cloupost. He fetches gain, searching for a Sacred Foundry, sending his Nacatl for 3 damage followed by a Tarmogyf. Bad news. Draw the second cloudpost and play it. He bashes for 4 and ships the turn back. I lay a vesuva and play Hellkite that is pathed to exile. Knight of the Reliquary follows. Facing death I play Glimmerpost and All is Dust. He plays Baneslayer to finish me off but I can counter with a Emrakul, time walk and play my Ulamog for his Baneslayer ... that is more than enough.

1-0

Board Oblivion Stone for Solemns

My starting Grip is 2x Cloupost, Glimmerpost, Emrakul, Batterskull, Vesuva, All is Dust. The Shitzz! He plays Misty Rainforest,go. I play the Claoud only to see it Ghost Quatered in my upkeep, play second one, eot get hit by Lightning Bolt. He plays second fetch and pass back ... good for me. a glimmerpost enters the battlefield for 2 life, play map. He plays Helix eot and mana ... very strange, I eot map for cloudpost. I play skull and wurm the following turns .... both threads that carry the game away ... he tries to come back with Knight of the Reliquary but the female Knight meets the Tentacle monster a turn later ... no resistance ... don't expect any filthy jokes here ^^

2-0
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Special thanks to my whole team and my mate Jo

rupus
08-13-2011, 04:20 PM
I don't like powder. The reason being that in any deck where you're not looking for 1 specific card (Vintage Dredge) it makes mulliganning very difficult. Not to mention its more or less a dead card in any case you draw it and don't need it so its like mulliganning anyways. One card I think would be interesting is Dreamstone Hedron. I would be interested in working a few in. Maybe -4 powder +2 everflowing chalice +2 dreamstone hedron. There's probably a better card than chalice but I don't know it.

Lemnear
08-13-2011, 04:33 PM
I've tested Everflowing chalice. Each time you are able to cast it for real advantage (6 mana or more) I rather drop a threat. Hedron costs a billion mana and is just a bigger mindstone and drawing 3 for 9 mana is pointless facing cards like kozilek. It doesn't close any gap but creates one.

Many people dislike powder and the same flawed arguments against are repeated every time we bring this up. If you have 12 mana available, each mana is a lackluster to draw. If you don't have, it accelerates you like the cards you mentioned but with an additional effect and purpose: Like in Belcher and Dredge you are mulligan for a specific card and that is cloudpost ... even if you have Powder in your opening grip and descide to keep it's a mana accelerator rarely worse than everflowing chalice.

P.S. Ask european Espresso Staxx player about this card for some enlightment

Malakai
08-13-2011, 05:04 PM
Could run Urzatron + 12 posts...

Lemnear
08-13-2011, 05:34 PM
no space 4 that .... finished 2 zoo in a row with batterskulled eldrazi's and more than 60 life in each game lol

Edit opening post: further testing showed that trinisphere is only needed versus Dragonstorm ... this deck destroys zoo, a matchup for that I considered sphere. Shifted the maindeck...

Maveric78f
08-14-2011, 04:20 AM
Why islands? IT looks like the most targetted basic land. At worst, you should be playing 1 basic land of each.

But actually, I'd like to see a slightly green version of this deck with 10 forests instead of :
5 Islands
1 Academy Ruins
4 Eldrazi Temple

And Sylvan scrying instead of Serum Powder. Also Explore looks greats to gain 1 turn since all tutors put the land in hand.

Lemnear
08-14-2011, 07:55 AM
The Islands WILL leave the deck ... the Academy Ruins never done anything in my matches but open the way to meerfolks islandwalk (missed that Lord of Atlantis was in Time Spiral). I lost to it in yesterdays testing more than once.

Legacy meerfolk only replaces Force and Daze with Dismember, Spell Pierce and Disrupting Shoal (sideboard Annul)... which is very powerful and kills me often in turn 4 thanks to Aether Vial (thanks Wizards for ignoring it on your B&R list)

Because I see no real solution to all the 3x Lord, Vial, Spell Pierce hands I faced last night, I tried oblivion stone but this is too slow on the draw. Will test, Norn's Annex, Grand Arbiter (victim to annul and dismember) etc. next. I'll revisit Explore, Ancient Stirrings, Sylvan Scrying and Azusa soon

The Treefolk Master
08-14-2011, 10:43 AM
Question, is there any white card that you absolutely DON'T want to see on the other side of the table?

If not, are there any cards that you have a really hard time beating?

I'm building MWC and I'm looking for something to make this match up winnable :P

4eak
08-14-2011, 11:06 AM
There aren't good MWC answers for this deck that I know of (I've tried). Scepter->Silence is the best I've come across, and you have to land it before they drop Emrakul (which aren't good odds). There are cards which can slow them down slightly, buying some time for scepter, but the inevitability is usually with the 12-post deck.


peace,
4eak

Lemnear
08-14-2011, 11:12 AM
The first incarnation had problem with it's few threats get'n removed or Moon-effects (All in Red) screw the mana ... we adressed the issue by increaing the meat by a curve ... batterskull dodges most removal by his nature too

Testing showed that the only obvious weaknesses of this deck are Aether Vial and bad mulligan decisions.

If you want to hate it out with mono white I would prefer ghost quarter and tectonic edge to give a shot. Quarter a first turn Cloudpost can screw this decks plans. Play Path to Exile and Oblivion Ring.

The Power wins by massive threats like Eldrazi, Batterskull (equip is easily payable and porn in this deck), Hellkite and Wurmcoil Engine. All those cards have a nice mana curve but are non the less expensive. Attack the mana-base, that's my advice at this point and develop pressure.

Time's working against you in this matchup, don't forget that.

Fenrus
08-14-2011, 11:58 AM
Have you considered trying Sundering Titan? At 8 mana he's not much harder to play than a wurmcoil and should instantly win the game versus most three color decks by blowing up their mana.

coraz86
08-14-2011, 12:49 PM
Have you considered trying Sundering Titan? At 8 mana he's not much harder to play than a wurmcoil and should instantly win the game versus most three color decks by blowing up their mana.

This.

Also, this looks like the Gifts Ungiven-based Tron decks that were running around Extended a couple years ago. Gifts adds a ton to the deck and makes it significantly more fun to play. I couldn't say to a certainty what I'd cut for it, but I've been jamming some mono-brown lists myself and I always start with a set of Gifts.

Lemnear
08-14-2011, 12:49 PM
Sundering Titan was the very first consideration of the more-meat-beat idea of 12-post. I've faced many of the Scars-Duals and the Lorwyn Lands recently but know that Titan rapes Zoo's and Loam's manabases but rarely more atm. The lifelink setup kills zoo than harmng their manabase and loam can replay it using the namesake card.

My impression is that there are much more non-basics than shocklands and basics atm so we dismissed him

TRS-Jo
08-14-2011, 12:55 PM
hi,
Eldrazi Temple is a card that we watch very closely. Actually the card proved to be quite important (compared to basics) as you get your drazi or your All is Dust one turn earlier.
Creature based decks can put a lot of pressure on this deck as except Solemn the first creature will hit the board turn 4 the earliest (in average).
This means we are one or two turns away from losing when the deck throws his threats on the board or clears the way with All is Dust.
So sure, we could switch Temple versus more basics and put some colored cards into the deck, but the colored cards need to have a real impact on the decks performance.

Now first a statement regarding Serum Powder.
Serum Powder is a great card in this deck. With this deck you want 6-8 mana turn 4 the absolutely latest, so there are lots of opening hands you do never want to keep. Serum Powder helps with getting good to insanely good opening hands and also works as a mana source.
We play it turn 2 or 3 quite often to reach the 6-8 mana threshold a turn later.

Sylvan Scrying and Explore are possible additions to the deck, but as you already said, we would need 10 forests to support these spells.

Sylvan Scrying is interesting, but I think it needs to compete with Ancient Stirrings, as Stirrings also fetches threats. Stirrings seems a bit more versatile but not so reliable.
Will have to look into it.

Explore however is not so good as it looks. As you need to play a forest first to play it, you lose a land drop (meaning dropping a post). This drawback is negated as you get an additional land drop and a card on the other hand.
So the next turn Explore gave us +1 mana. The card draw makes CA 0. So thatīs all Explore does.
Thatīs if you look at its impact in the early game. Later on we have plenty (10+) mana, so Explore might give us even more mana (if we still have lands in our hand), but the advantage isnīt worse than mind stone or serum powder as it only nets us more mana if we have two lands in hand.

Lastly, Sundering Titan... we considered Titan, but his impact on the game isnīt good enough when he hits the board.
When Titan/Engine hits the board we are almost dead, so getting life points from engine is better than mana screwing the opponent as we will have to deal with a board full of creatures.
Wurmcoil Engine does a better job dealing with creatures than Titan.


Welcome to The Source. Please make sure you format your posts correctly (into proper paragraphs).
-4eak

jjjoness'
08-14-2011, 01:24 PM
I took the deck for a spin today and ran into a LOT of other 12 post variants, all heavily blue, with different concepts though. The counterheavy builds we're quite ok, since they trade threats for counters. But I also ran into a couple of comboish builds packing a timewalk suite. Not even the slightest chance in this matchup. An early Emrakul might get there, but otherwise they will just start to chain timewalks and stuff on turn 4-5 without any chance of interaction on your side.

Lemnear
08-14-2011, 03:43 PM
so they play time warp and Time Stop starting earliest on turn 4 into eldrazi .... they invest 5-6 Mana at this point just to draw a card and lay down another land, hoping to draw another time walk? Doesn't sound to relyable to me ... maybe you can share a list of those decks? For the moment I feel that dropping threads perfoms better overall but I'm open to anything

Kuma
08-15-2011, 04:36 PM
This has been working pretty well for me. It usually does something bonkers by turn four:

4 Cloudpost
4 Eldrazi Temple
2 Eye of Ugin
8 Forest
4 Glimmerpost
4 Vesuva

4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Explore
4 Sylvan Scrying
4 Expedition Map

4 All is Dust

4 Steel Hellkite
4 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Batterskull

2 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

TRS-Jo
08-15-2011, 05:03 PM
How happy are you with Steel Hellkite?
He seems to be too slow to have any impact against fast aggro decks like Merfolk.

Reaver027
08-16-2011, 10:41 AM
I was just brainstorming some blue cards that could be good in modern and i remembered Meloku.
Would Meloku be of any benefit to 12-Post decks ?
Gives extra life if needed and creates a blocker. Sounds not bad but neither too exciting.

Any thoughts on that card ?

Lemnear
08-16-2011, 10:58 AM
You want to put your Lands as fast as possible into play; returning them to your hand sounds like a bad idea. Moreover dropping Meloku and creating a chumpblocker vs aggro costs 6 mana ... compared with skull and wurmcoil a very bad trade (both make more life than meloku could)

TRS-Jo
08-16-2011, 01:22 PM
Lemnear already said it, but let me explain a bit further.

12Post is a deck that wants to ramp insane amounts of mana. Even if you return a Glimmerpost to your hand, the loss of mana is a lot more than just one mana. This deck plays sufficient number of lands so that itīs nearly impossible to miss a land drop till turn 6. So if you return a locus back to your hand, then next turn you can only replay the locus and have less or equal mana than the turn before.

That is an enormous disadvantage just to get a 1/1 chumpblocker into play. Batterskull and Wurmcoil do the job much better and there is also Silent Arbiter who works great as chumpblocker.

With the possible additon of green I am pondering if Firespout might be a better option than Oblivion Stone in Sideboard against Aggro (Merfolk, Elves, Knights, Affinity).

Lemnear
08-18-2011, 08:14 AM
Opening Post, Decklist and cardchoices will be updated on monday...

(Space reserved for explanation on monday.)

Lemnear
08-24-2011, 08:02 AM
Sylvan Scrying, GSZ, Primeval Titan, Reap and Sow, Ancient Strirrings etc. proved being an undeniable advantage in mirrors and vs. combo.

further discussion in Green-Post-Thread