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Kap'n Cook
04-04-2018, 10:06 PM
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This thread is dedicated to Drew’s memory. It needs to be stated before anything else that this restart of sorts for Painter would not have been possible without his invaluable contributions. He was a great player, amazing advocate, and even better person. The world is poorer for his loss. I know I would have never been as diligent in my testing or focused in my play if he wasn’t a part of the history of this deck. So an eternal thank you and gratitude from me brother. We may not have always agreed, but you are missed, and I thank you for everything…

-Seth





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5KxZ5Lc_YA


Strawberry Shortcake is the combo centric white-splash variant of Imperial Painter. It utilizes Enlightened tutors to increase speed and consistency with a small increase in Wasteland susceptibility. . Splashing white really helped solidify one of Imperial Painter’s greatest weaknesses: the consistency problems that came with not being able to find grindstone beyond naturally drawing it. Besides having better access to the combo and maindeck answers, the inclusion of tutors in Shortcake also frees up sideboard space for silver bullet tutor targets as opposed to the need for multiple copies of hate pieces. Since its inception in 2012-13, Shortcake has put up Top 8s in some of the biggest tournaments, becoming the best toolbox combo deck in the format.



Brief History of Imperial Painter

Imperial Painter was created shortly after the printing of Painter’s Servant in Shadowmoor in May, 2008. The deck slowly gained traction and become a viable meta-contender, albeit very rarely seen because of the scarcity of Imperial Recruiter, formerly only available in Portal Three Kingdoms. You can read more about the evolution and testing of the deck in its initial state in the other two Imperial Painter threads. Any discussion of mono-red should be done there as they are different enough in choices and playstyle to each warrant their own thread. Throughout the testing of Imperial Painter, various people began testing out splash colors. However, due to how few pilots of even the base deck there were, testing colors were never really fleshed out beyond maybe one or two dedicated pilots in the early years.

Around 2013 Painter started to become a known quantity. By that I mean opponent’s were starting to learn how to play against the deck and it was no longer the case that no one had any clue what you were doing. Even at this stage, however, it was still one of the most uncommon matchups you could face. A few rule changes to the overall legacy meta also were introduced around this time. You can read more about the ‘present day’ imperial painter in the second thread here.




Creation of Strawberry Shortcake


Going over old deck lists the first deck that truly resembled what Shortcake is currently was posted to the Source around February 2012. Before that, E tutor and other card selection cards were used, but each build also had strong aggro components where a first turn threat was a reliable and reasonable line. For whatever reason (most likely due to meta game issues with a high prevalence of BGx rock style decks in the Maryland area at the time), the first list used 4 Faithless Lootings. Looting allowed better card selection/advantage when paired with top in a discard heavy meta, but this also required a fairly slow meta which Delver variants helped to make antiquated. This list looks funny in a vacuum because some of the earliest iterations were still using the white splash mana base with an outdated Stoneforge package in the sideboard. From combing through the threads it seems the Stoneforge and lands split were kept mainly out of laziness and previous positive results rather than any strategic goal.

Seth would end up piloting this list to a 5/66 at the Grand Prix Bmore Legacy side event after winning a smaller side event the day before. Over the next month the deck needed to increase its consistency along with its speed. It is from this that the Faithless Lootings became E tutors. By this time the core of the deck was solidified. He again took the updated list to a top 4 finish at a GPT at Tales of Adventure in PA, winning a Juzzam Djinn. The list was given mild tweeks over the next 6 months trying to show others the strategic advantage of E tutor over the slower draw engines that people were trying.


After these months of testing, I switched over to playing the white splash at Seth's behest. We refined for a few months and GP Washington DC was the debut event for this new white-splash Painter build. I managed to end 6-3, not a terrible showing for a new build. From there, more tweaking and testing led up to the Starcity Baltimore Open in January 2014, where I finished 5/402 and Seth finished 36/402, an insanely good showing for Shortcake considering we probably were the only two players in the field on the white splash. It was after that finish for the deck that Shortcake put up the best finish in any tournament for any variant of Painter, when Jean-Mary Accart (Lejay) took it to 5th place out of 1,587 people in Grand Prix Paris in February. After that finish, Shortcake gained many followers and from that point up until Sensei’s Top was banned in April 2017 it was the premier toolbox-combo deck of the format, able to adjust to any meta changes through small additions or subtractions of one or two cards between main and side. The pure power and synergy of Shortcake was evident, especially as very few cards wizards printed from 2013-2017 ever made their way into the deck.



Name

The name Strawberry Shortcake was originally coined as a joke toward the end of 2013. The first reference I could find to the name in any sort was in my GP DC report, where I mentioned calling it Strawberry Painter. After that Seth and I started further developing the list for Starcity Baltimore and he said we should call it Strawberry Shortcake because it was an even dumber name. After the Baltimore finishes we managed to put up, the name Strawberry Shortcake was here to stay.




Imperial Painter Split

You probably are asking why this new thread needs to be started. I will leave most of the history of Shortcake to Jack as I am too old to remember this shit. I do remember that for the last 10 years there has been no deck I have played more, won with more, or loved more than this one with its shitty wb portal cards. It is from this place I was deeply saddened by the banning of SDT. I knew at the time that the deck would be fundamentally altered although I could not have fathomed how the deck would be completely neutered. And for nearly a year I stopped playing it. It wasn’t till about December 2017 that I had the itch to sling Painter and started to evaluate why the deck was actually not performing as it had to be more than the simple removal of three non combo cards in a deck of 60 that made it nearly unplayable in a developed meta.

It was from this I realized that it was really 2 things that were keeping Painter down.

1. We lost SDT.
More ranting on this at the end This limited our ability for card selection. We lost the edge in grinding out matches. Welder lost tricks, we could no longer hide cards from discard nor could we abuse Enlightened tutor. While the selection loss was evident from the start the subtle losses to the deck really added up. Subsequent cards that were tried may answer one avenue that SDT addressed but there was nothing that provided the card selection, interactions with welder, ability to combat discard, all while being on curve and repeatable the way that SDT was.

2. The format evolved.
This is more subtle than point 1. If you casually look at the format you see tempo shells and terrible mana bases, and Miracles. How could Painter not thrive in this environment? The issue was that the format had morphed. Without fear of counterbalance there was a race for the bottom. Cards selection improved as cantrip counts increased and DRS never had to fear being locked out for free, allowing basically every deck a mana dork that also gave it an end game which could now resolve at any time in the game. So while mana bases became stretched, decks in general increased the ability to have the proper answer or threat. Painter did not have the tools to combat both of these. Blood moon had become worse with DRS everywhere, and decks in general could find the piece to disrupt our deck more reliably than Painter could find the proper cards and combo pieces.



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Current Decklist:

12/22/2019


4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
2 Plateau
1 Great Furnace
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire
4 Mountain

4 Lotus Petal
1 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Imperial Recruiter
4 Painter’s Servant
3 Goblin Welder
3 Goblin Engineer
1 Goblin Cratermaker
1 Ethersworn Canonist

4 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast

3 Grindstone
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Blood Moon

3 Enlightened Tutor
3 Smuggler's Copter
3 Karn, the Great Creator


Sideboard:

1 Grindstone
1 Mycosynth Lattice
1 Pithing Needle
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Surgical Extraction
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Red Elemental Blast


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It is from this wreckage that the newest version of Painter comes from. Differences between lists are pretty minimal beyond personal preference for a card slot. It would be nice to be able to take credit for the idea but a lot came from the old thread. People were trying a couple Smuggler’s Copters. Lavaman was being added as well to decent success. Initially this was dismissed as both of these cards had been tested years ago to minimal success, and Copter seemed weird and too similar to equipment, which the deck didn’t need or want. However the format had changed and that Copter isn’t like equipment. The strength in both these cards lies in the synergy between them, along with where they fit on the curve, while allowing the deck to address the current meta.


Card Choices


Imperial Recruiter: For Shortcake the only number is 4. Anything else is sub-optimal. A tutor that is on curve and leaves behind a body is something that red should never have access to. Even without Copter in the deck, Its ability to assemble the combo, or get Welder to recur combo pieces cannot be understated. Additionally, Recruiter needs to be looked at in the context of how much life he is saving as a blocker, which is invaluable when comparing to any budget option someone wants to try. In a combo deck that has the ability to grind, saving life by blocking a Tarmogoyf or Gurmag Angler is huge since we are also trying to leverage the mana boost of Ancient Tomb. He can bail you out at any time and he increases side boarding options and saves sideboard space. While in the past we often joked about beating down with shitty 1/1s, Copter has allowed the Recruiter to provide a much needed punch in the deck after he serves his tutor role, allowing improved board presence and value for the deck.

Painter's Servant: It is one half of the combo. This little guy turns every card a color. Outside of the exile zone, every card in the game, is one color, lands and artifacts included. This allows Grindstone to continue to mill as each time it checks, the cards are the color called with Painter, regardless of their type. It should be noted that Painter has to be in the table during resolution of the effect of Grindstone. Even though the blast effect package is less these days, it should go without saying that you need 4 of these guys.

Goblin Welder: Recursion, protection, recruitable and it is also a lightning rod for removal. Probably the only reason it’s not a 4 of is because it can take a little bit of time to set up and is sometimes completely dead. There is a reason why many people view Welder as one of the most powerful cards of all time. Even with the omnipresence of DRS, he is still an allstar and often times draws removal and counters or just lets you win.


Grindstone: The other half of the combo. We can no longer use grindstone to clear away topdeck chafe with Top, but it is still a weird pseudo tutor in the context of Goblin Welder and fills the yard for Lavaman. It can also sometimes screw up opponent’s brainstorms or counterbalances. Although blind milling your opponent is probably never the correct play without the intent of natural grindstone victory.

Blood Moon: The number of moons has sometimes come under scrutiny, but the fact is that it can win the game completely on its own. It’s also not worthless as a late game play to fix your mana and stop Ancient Tomb lifeloss. One important play that I don’t see a lot of people doing is to use Moon to make a land drop without losing a City of Traitors on the field even if Decay or Grip mana is being floated. Moon often serves as a haymaker of sorts that can draw out the counter or Decay, allowing your real threat, the combo, to resolve and successfully activate. It is reasonable to want your opponent to counter the Moon, and keeping hands with this in mind is critical.


The whole reason to splash white. Even with the lost synergy between Enlightened Tutor and sensei top, e-tutor still enables instant speed tutoring for prison or combo pieces for a single white mana. The dynamic between tutor and blood moon is a non-issue, as usually when a blood moon is in play your opponent is either completely locked out or severely hampered anyways.

Ancient Tomb is the best land in all of Legacy. Any other number than 4 is incorrect as well, since it enables the stompy curve and breaks one of the fundamental rules of magic of 1 mana per land.


In the past lavaman was not worth the space, as Jaya was usually good enough. We lacked sufficient ways to ensure multiple activations and otherwise a 1/1 just doesn’t cut it. However the format changes and with it the evaluation of cards. The Lavaman is now a relevant threat and this is due to a number of factors. He serves as an efficient way to deal with DRS. He can come down on the play turn one and deal with DRS allowing your Blood Moon to shut down an opponent’s mana. When looking at him, one needs to think about Goblin Welder. Often times your opponent will feel the potential of the card and remove it long before it has a chance to have multiple activations. This is critical as he absorbs removal that may otherwise disrupt the combo. It also provides some protection against Surgical and disrupts Deathrite using our Graveyard, as we can remove the card they target as part of Lavaman’s cost. The other area where he impacts the board is that he crews the Copter for an efficient mana cost. The 2 cards work together in a manner that allow the deck reach it didn’t have, without sacrificing the core of Shortcake.



Copter is the key card which allows Shortcake to be viable. It functions as a way to cantrip and put pressure on your opponent while increasing the utility of the shitty creatures we play and allowing them to have more of a presence on board. Its ability to be played off a sol land then be crewed by our summoning sickness creature turn 2 is enormous. It immediately gets rid of the worst card in your hand while starting to put pressure on your opponent’s life. This is huge as dealing 6 over two turns can totally change the way that an opponent plays their cards. Unlike SDT, opponents will actually target it with discard and removal. It is a relevant clock, and can generate value through blocking. Unlike SDT, it continues to provide value in a mana efficient way and can easily blank sorcery speed removal which we see a lot on the format. As is, I think this is a card you want turn 1, and it plays a large role in future sequencing of plays. Because of this, you really need four in the deck as it has been one of the best first turn plays in the deck outside of the first turn Painter into the second turn combo kill.




Additional thoughts on card choice:

It's also important to address the 4 Copters vs only 3 sensei tops in previous Painter lists. My memory is hazy but I can honestly never remember testing more than 3 SDT in any version of Imperial Painter, save for Drew's personal list which also had usually 21+ lands. While going over the history of this deck and rereading the old threads there were a few brief mentions to the correct number of tops in a list. I even commented years ago that I only ever tested 3 copies, and this was backed up when I checked out my card availability at the time, with only 3 copies of the card in the collection. I think it is reasonable to think that maybe the lists we were using were not optimized at the time. I think some of the numbers, the notion that 3 was best, came from earlier lists which ran fewer fetch lands and no E tutors which made SDT seem worse. These earliest lists also were in an era when Figure of Destiny first turn was a great play because the speed in general was slower along with goblins being the best or at least one of the best decks and SDT, could not be played first in a lot of situations. The number of people testing Painter regularly also played into this. Plus since people were having success with 3 tops, there never was any real push to see whether the number was correct. Only after losing it did running 4 really seem like it would have been ideal. With that in mind, and while the Copter is not exactly the same as SDT, I feel comfortable having 4 copies in the deck serving a similar role as SDT.

The deck is fairly defined at this time with minimal wiggle room in the main. There isn't any math to back this up but having at least 16 dudes to crew the Copter has felt “right”. Even with this many guys sometimes you struggle to resolve a creature, so I would really hesitate dropping below this number in the deck. With this in mind you are essentially left with a few deck choices that aren’t wrong, and actually do have upside if you choose to customize.

The flexible spots are as follows:

Fast Mana

Currently running five and I think that is the right number even after the lost petal-top-welder synergy. The 3/2 split favoring Lotus Petal was done to maximize white mana while also giving more searchable options and late game value with SSG. I could see a 3/2 split favoring SSG as being better for Copter interactions, but the extra white mana count and artifact counts also have upside. If you are finding difficulty in the late game with grinding this might be a small thing to gain a few points.

The 19th land

Currently we are running the Great Furnace and its upside with Welder and E tutor are pretty clear. That being said there are arguments for an additional fetch, basic mountain, Plateau, or the 4th City of Traitors in this spot. Each choice has merits but the higher ceiling of the artifact land has been preferred so far in testing

3 Flex spots

Currently we are running some combination of an Ensnaring Bridge, Ethersworn Cannonist, artifact Removal and additional blasts. Engineered explosives was in one of the spots but its ability to not be searched under a Chalice has led us to explore alternates. Currently it's probably not a good idea TO bring this deck to an open meta without Bridge and artifact hate maindeck. Chalice is everywhere, and Revokers are still highly played. Now what to choose is up to you. Maniac Vandal is a strong card. Hedge mage is a lot worse since we can't as reliably have access to our fetches to get plateaus with top gone, and the other options are just easier to cast off a sol land and don't require two mountains in play already. Outside of Sylvan Library there are so few enchantments in Legacy right now that you care about. Omniscience and Sneak Attack are usually just killing you that same turn. The repeatability of Heretic has been good, and Vandal is a fine card, just slightly weaker against Death and Taxes. Without Bridge it is almost impossible to beat Show and Tell decks game one. At least having an “Oh shit” card is nice and it does do some work buying turns against Eldrazi and Reanimator lists. I would really say Bridge is not a flex card currently. Cannonist is probably the weakest of the batch but is nice to have for storm game one, along with having value against elves, Miracles and some Show and Tell variants. I would not argue with any number of random answers in this spot as each meta is different and you need to play what makes you comfortable.


Blast Effects

In the past 6+ were the norm. With the ability to float and dig for them with SDT, their flexibility was incredible. Without SDT, some of their versatility is diminished. The card still is incredibly strong against numerous match ups with and without Painter on the table. In the current meta the blasts still do an excellent job at destroying Delvers, but with so many Abrupt Decays you need to be very selective with when you cast your blast effects and should view them more preciously than when we had Top around. Hitting a cantrip can oftentimes be brutal and as more straight counter spells of blue cards is many times better than waiting. The incredible upside of selective removal in a pinch is just gravy. I think a transition away from using them as permanent removal and more as a reactive counterspell give the deck a small amount of reactivity that we lost in the transition between SDT and Copter. Keep this distinction in mind when you sequence your plays and make decisions on use.


3/2 Welder/Lavaman split

For most of testing 3 Lavaman was used just to feel the card out and he was awesome. But in the end the general strength of Welder still wins out. The 3rd Lavaman has been moved to the board as he is incredible against Elves, Delver variants, and Death and taxes. Often times only 2 activations are needed to give you the breathing room or the opportunity to combo off. The number of one drops is really important to ensure that your curve is low enough to really take advantage of the Copter in the deck. If anything adding a 6th may be correct. But as you can see, with our race to the bottom in casting cost, Chalice is really rough on one, necessitating strong artifact hate in the main. You also couldn't argue with someone flipping the numbers around or even going 4 Welders to be honest, as each configuration has merits.



It is from this that the Phoenix rises so to speak. The list was cobbled together with these cards in mind. The synergy of the new addition combined with the disruption of Blood Moon and blast effects along with a combo that wins without combat is something that can still contend in modern legacy.






Deeper Thoughts


Shortcake is and always will be a combo deck at its core. Every card you play should either work to facilitate the combo, or your ability to assemble the needed pieces. In Magic, like most things in life, we use short hand to describe plays, board states and cards. So while we will say Blood Moon locked the opponent out, or that we went the aggro route in a game, what those statements miss is the fact that the fundamental goal of the deck broke down. The failure of the combo in any one game isn’t a big deal as most linear or glass cannon strategies are fairly weak in Legacy.

The core of Shortcake is a deck based around Painter’s Servant and Grindstone, interacting in a way to ensure that your opponents deck ends up in their graveyard. While Painter lists, even those running 4 Imperial Recruiters can be traced back to Lorwyn Block, it wasn’t till around Jan/Feb 2012 that Shortcake and its strategies started to really distance itself from previous Recruiter based Painter strategies. It stripped away cards like Figure of Destiny and added increased tutoring to the deck to improve consistency. Welder counts went up to add increased resiliency and combo potential. So while the deck could and would still routinely resolve a first turn Blood Moon, there was a concerted effort on faster and more consistent milling action. We were able to reduce variance, and provide a consistency that few decks outside the blue cantrip shells could match. At the end of the day this is still the focus of the deck.

Below this are some old posts from previous Painter threads which should help to illustrate fundamentals of the deck, but more broadly how to approach playing magic and deck construction and evolution in general. Even removed from their context (And approx over 6 years old like Jesus Ad Nauseum as the most powerful card is almost quaint at this point) they hopefully illustrate some of the strengths, weaknesses, and tactics of the deck.

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Seth-

The notion of saying the deck plays the control role should also be addressed. I do this as much as anyone else and its lazy from a game theory standpoint to say bc the deck doesn’t really ever play a control role. Moon effects are really a prison type element. I’ll use Vintage as a good example. Much like workshop decks, Moon cuts off resources, in this case the correct colored mana, and in that way it can “control” certain elements of the game. Ensnaring Bridge is the same thing as it “controls” combat, but even with these cards we aren’t controlling the game really, just locking out certain parts so that we can employ our own means to victory. Much like Vintage shop decks, they lock down resources then swing with any number of dudes they do. Painter’s “control” elements function in much the same way. So I think people should look at it in a more prison sense which helps to generate tempo and window to execute your primary plan. So if you want to modify the build think more about elements to lock out resources. My advice would be to try and find cards that augment this strategy, although as I will not later I think this is in general a bad idea.

Painter is a fun deck and it is a versatile deck. But at its core it is a combo deck. The thing it does best is combo out games. Pure and simple. As I noted above it can play prison elements, although usually not as strong a strategy in this deck as the combo elements( Variance, which I address in detail later, sometimes makes the prison elements stronger than anything else, but don’t worry I will address it). We shouldn’t use agro when we talk about the deck bc the beat down plan is more reactive to a clear board state and a lack of ability to combo at this time. At no point is Painter a true aggro deck or plan like Zoo was years ago. Currently there is no aggro deck in Legacy. We do the beat down plan as a means to an end but you should never open up your first seven cards and keep the hand thinking I’m on the beat down plan. (Aside, one of the first lists Hollywood built was with 3 Figure of Destiny and 3 SoLS. I can not remember if this predated goyf, but I would say that deck could be said to have a true aggro plan as FoD scaled beautifully at the time and was a truly aggressive creature. With the Equipment you could play the deck in a manner where you were committing resources to the board and using your man to directly attack your opponent’s life total from the beginning. Currently there is nobody’s version that actually is configured in this way. I suspect that there is a possible way to build the deck for a given meta where this is still possible. But with the increase in strength of creatures over the past five years this seems like a basically wasted idea as we could never scale the deck without losing its other elements. So it may still exist but I suspect if you found it it would be like running Burn, and overall shitty idea that is basically just a waste of your entrance fee. )

I will be happy to address the fact that the combo aspect of the deck is the strongest and the others avenues we have are very watered down compared to other decks with those strategies, but now I want to address Variance as it directly ties into this being a Combo deck first and foremost. The strongest card in Legacy is probably LED or Ad Nauseum. The reason storm doesn’t win more is due to variance. It can do the most broken things but at the same time it can just dick around trying to find the correct combination of those crazy powerful cards. The deck with the least variance would be a Stoneblade variant. They are able to use their cantrips to minimize the variance, ensure consistent draws and ensure that they have the correct card for each situation. With the exception of Jace no card they run is broken are even close. ( I am not addressing Brainstorm here. I would say probably 99% of what is written about Brainstorm on the internet is wrong. Using it first turn can oftentimes be better than waiting till turn seven bc early use may make the deck more consistent in the long run as the first couple turns may be at a premium relative to the loss of total cards seen by turn seven as seeing ten cards on turn 1 is stronger than seeing 17 cards on turn seven in setting up the rest of the game. However the more cards you see the more likely you are to find the correct card you need.) The pros and good players play stoneblade bc of the decrease in variance. If you want to do well at a large event with a varied meta and good players you choose the deck with little variance. This is why zoo was great 4 years ago. Essentially every card was the same in the deck, making it incredibly consistent with no truly powerful cards in its maindeck.

Variance is a huge part of painter. It is one reason that it really isn’t a great choice for a huge event if you really want to win. I continue to play it bc I love the deck. As a doctor I have little time to play magic anymore but I know the deck well. Due to the variance, rounds are short which I like anymore. If you really want to win with the deck you should be trying cards that minimize Variance. Diluting down the deck to do too many things will only increase said variance. By adding more prison elements( which is an overall weaker strategy), you are increasing your variance. Thus it may work for a match but that doesn’t mean it was the correct play. This is why when I play storm I go all in on the combo with a hope of mild disruption. There are about a half turn to a little less than a full turn faster than us. ( the difficulty in the turn depends on if its Empty the Warrens vs Tendrils). I have been fortunate to play against some of the best Storm players in the world as the Syracuse crew comes to DC area often. Against Bryant and Royce and the rest canonist may occasionally win you the game, but a good storm player can more often then not beat that one piece of disruption. The only true way to make the canonist or thorn work would be to have it with the combo elements in hand. Once you start wasting your tutors to find the weak disruption you are watering down your overall best strategy to strengthen a weaker strategy. It is as equally likely that a good player and a terrible player will draw the nuts with storm and just beat you turn one. Its variance and it happens. But I know most of the time if I can increase my decks consistency, know my deck better, that most of the storm players I sit across from I am better than and I can leverage that small advantage to allow my combo to beat theirs.

This post has some broad strokes, but I hope my points that strengthening the combo should be your number one priority. This is why I still feel that the white splash is the strongest version of the deck. ( I will never say that I have the best build), but I am pretty sure that the white splash is the best as it addressing everything I just posted. It cuts down on Variance giving you an incredibly strong tutor that strengthens the strongest aspect of the game. It allows the prison component to be stronger and more focused in the matchups where that will allow for the time for victory. And with the recent board it gives you access to a better beatdown plan at minimal cost if you have to shift focus away from the combo. It also uses RiP which strengthens the combo while giving you more combo pieces overall. Which again this is a combo deck first and foremost.

I mentioned the Dojo before bc without these fundamentals understood nobody can hope to do well in magic. You may win one tournament or have a hot run just based on matchups or luck, but you will never be able to advance the deck or your play without it. Painter will never be a deck to beat, even if recruiters were five bucks. Its due to variance, but I love the deck and will try to continue to make it better. Nobody has to listen to anything I said but if you do I promise that after time you will have more success with this deck and any other deck you play.

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Major Finishes, Tournament Reports, and Useful Links ---- (Under Construction)


SCG Baltimore January 26, 2014

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=62808
Jack aka Kapn Cook -- 5/402 (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25661-Deck-Imperial-Painter&p=787045&viewfull=1#post787045)
Seth aka Sroncor -- 36/402 (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25661-Deck-Imperial-Painter&p=786457&viewfull=1#post786457)


Glen Burnie MD February 9, 2014
Seth -- 8/114 (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25661-Deck-Imperial-Painter/page49)


Grand Prix Paris February 15-16, 2014
http://wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gppar14/welcome Jean-Mary Accart aka Lejay -- 5/1587


Tales of Adventure BOM Trial February 22, 2014
Jack -- 1/173 (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?27659-Slinging-Blue-Sky-at-Tales-of-Adventure)


SCG Seattle March 16, 2014
Brenden Mcbain -- 23/320

SCG D.C. August 24, 2014
Sean Park -- 13/285

SCG Somerset August 31, 2014
Jack Kitchen -- 4/443 (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28516-Baking-Shortcake-in-Jersey)

SCG Minneapolis October 26, 2014
Daniel Rude -- 15/247 (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?25661-Deck-Imperial-Painter&p=842523&viewfull=1#post842523)

SCG Baltimore IQ, March 2, 2015
Jack -- 1/230 (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?29261-Baking-a-Blue-Ribbon-Cake-in-Baltimore&p=870636#post870636)


MTGO Legacy Challenge, May 14, 2016
Jack -- 1/60+ (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?30682-Shortcake-Maketh-Man-Double-Eternal-Challenge-Top-8)






Match ups

Below are just some reference points for how to attack certain match ups. Currently due to newness of the deck and the potential for a shake up in the meta in the next two weeks, we are holding off on more detailed sideboarding strategies as we work through the match ups and final deck construction.

Miracles: I want to say this is favorable, but that sometimes depends on a the flavor that people are playing. Going for the early combo now is probably more correct than it has been since we can’t out grind them anymore, making them have the removal and accepting losses more when they do. Smuggler’s Copter is really strong here helping to speed up your clock by putting pressure on their life total which was something in the past we struggled to do. This helps reduce the total cards they see in a given game, making it harder for them to slow roll cards. Blood Moons effectiveness is variable. Shutting off shuffle effects is always good, but newer trends have seen more basics to the point where it is sometimes difficult to shut them off od double blue, which was always a strong play in the past even if they fetched a basic plains and island before you could cast it. The Cannonist is really strong here, reducing the ability to string cantrips and allowing us to win counter wars much easier. Calling blue is a real gamble in this match up as allowing them to pitch trash to FoW instead of their good blue cards is brutal, as one of the worst feelings is seeing a Terminus pitch to FoW. aS a result you probably should call black most of the time and use your blasts to fight counter wars. While you can not really grind with them you can trade cards for a couple turns, putting pressure on them, slowing their cantrips, which should allow you a window to win. Copters ability to improve your draws over three turns is also enormous here.

BUG/x Piles: A matchup which will vary depending on play/draw, but on the whole is probably slightly favorable matchup given the presence of Blood Moon. DRS has made the matchup not as favorable as it was in the past, but the Lavaman and sideboard help. BUG is the weakest of the bunch as it lacks the red of the piles lists. But in general they all have shitty manabases. LEading with Moon is very strong but due to the 3 plus colors sometimes on the play you are better served playing it turn 2 with counter back up. On the draw, just slam it and make them have an answer, then develop your board bc they have to respond to a Moon. Copters really shine here, as does the Pyroclasm in the board as Strix can just be a headache. Calling blue is a gamble here. Much like Miracles making them pitch good blue cards to FoW is much better then letting shit like Young Pyromancer do it. In these match ups there are plenty of great options to get insane value from the blast just targeting blue cards and spell. I would say less than half the time you will call blue.

Lands: No longer the cake walk that the deck was 3 plus years ago. Between the more traditional variants and the newer turbo depths lists they can kill you with frightening speed. Blood moon in general does a great job slowing them down, but it is hardly game ending anymore. With Mox Diamond and ESG they can easily get the mana they need to resolve K Grip and Decays to break the lock. Luckily the mill approach still messes with them. The key is making them spend the Decay and Grip early allowing the combo to win the day. Bridge helps stop the attack and Welder is a huge creature here. Grave hate is sort of hit or miss in the match up, sometimes you destroy the engine other times they create a 20/20 and just laugh. Remember the Copter draws cards with blocking as just buying a couple turns can allow you to assemble the combo and win. You can safely call blue against Turbo Depths, traditional lands it is probably safe also, although I have seen some real weird lists lately, but I doubt they have REB in their board, although that could change if Back to Basics sees more play as that card is really underplayed in the current meta.

Elves: A favorable matchup since we are faster. Beyond turn 2 and the advantage tips in elves favor. Moon is good on the play and early but after a mana creature is down moon is basically useless. While DRS is good, Natural Order is the most important card to worry about. Cannonist is awesome here and it ensures your combo is faster than theirs. After boarding, the match up is much more in your favor bc while they can bring in Decays and other targeted artifact hate, you have additional Lavaman, pyroclasm, and Cannonist, along with a possible 3ball. All of these cards if used smartly will easily buy you 2 plus turns which should be more than enough time to assemble your combo and win. Wirewood Symbiote, Heritage Druid and Birchlore Rangers should be killed before DRS as they are more critical to the big NO turn. You can safely call blue every game.

Tendrils: ANT is probably even to slightly positive now since we can’t protect the top of our library with top. TES is definitely a bad matchup as long as the pilot isn’t braindead. Chrome Mox nullifies Blood Moon and empty on turn 1 is usually too much. ANT is way slower and its reliance on early turn cantrips gives us time to blast their cantrips and combo before Past in Flames lines are set up. Maindeck canonist is also game over, whereas TES can wish for answers. Overall you do not want Moon in this match up. Be aggressive with Blasts on cantrips. I find that the RiP/Helm package is awesome here as RiP can really fuck with their end game killing Past in Flames and Cabal Ritual, which buys time. Also while I would not think that actively beating down with dudes is viable unless a 3 ball or Cannonist is on the table, 2 turns of attacking with the Copter can make Adnauseum kills much harder as you are basically giving them 10 life or so. You can safely call blue every game as countering a key spell often is the only path to victory although hitting early cantrips can be back breaking also.

Reanimator: Inherently a bad matchup because of their disruption suite and speed. Usually if they are successful in getting a creature onto the field then you will lose, although rarely you will be able to pull a win out of your ass. Be careful of running out a naked painter as Iona will become the hardest lock in the history of the game. RiP is super strong against the non blue variants, however with the blue variants you will also need to game plan for Show and Tell. The good news is that non blue variants can't Grisslebrand into FoW, so you will at least get a turn in which you should be able to do stuff unmolested allowing a small window for victory. Against blue shell reanimator you will call blue much less than 5o percent of the time as there ability to get multiple Fow is fairly high. Against the RB lists you should be able to safely call blue, although they may have REB in their board, that is something I do not know and I personally have not experienced, but I would play the card if I was them.

Death and Taxes: Painter’s weird stepbrother no one likes. One day, both decks were driving down along the shitty creature road, DnT chose to branch off and take the exit towards prison while we took the cool kid route towards combo. Fast hands are usually good enough to win, but the longer the game goes the more bullshit you’ll have to put up with. Lavamancer has helped a bunch, but there are also subtle ways to outplay them using Welder. Pyroclasm is an allstar here. As are the Copters and Heretic. Copters ability to be colorless is really relevant with Mom on the table. Jitte is a nightmare. Moon is sometimes awesome and other times terrible. You can safely call blue all the time.


Chalice stompy : A turn one chalice will usually be game over if we haven’t been able to land a Welder or a Grindstone beforehand. The rise of these decks is the main reason why a Recruitable artifact destruction spell is needed. Otherwise, these decks are pretty easy to navigate if one of those are down, as we can cast other artifacts into it to weld into play. Eldrazi is a little different because of the presence of Thought Knot acting as hand disruption, but Ensnaring Bridge is usually king. Red chalice is probably the hardest version since moons are ineffective and they’ll run planeswalkers and other big mana removal. Otherwise, we are faster and can usually combo out without worry of instant speed removal. You can safely call blue in these matchups. However you oftentimes side out some number of blasts on the draw, so it becomes much less important.

Show and Tell Variants: There are many flavors adn I am grouping all those that run either Show and Tell/ Sneak Attack or some other dumb combination of Mark Rosewater’s disaster of a wet dream. Eldrazi’s ability to reshuffle is one of the worst things for our deck. They basically make you need a three card combo to win through that. The match up is winnable but it is rough. Game one is basically unwinnable with current deck configuration. But a timely Bridge can allow for a window to win with Lavaman, and Copter beats using Welder for recursion to slowly push through damage. Sometimes you can get a blast on Show and Tell which when backed up with a couple turns of Copter attacks, you may be in a position for victory. Games 2 or 3 the match up improves but is still unfavorable. Get rid of Moons and bring in gravehate, the RiP/Helm package really shines in this match up. Calling blue is a gamble here also. Being able to get a Sneak Attack without open red mana is the dream, although I feel only a bad player would allow you to do so. It is with this in mind that you will most of the time call black here also, although it is reasonable to sandbag the Painter longer in this match up than others for the upside of hitting a naked Sneak Attack.

Burn: An insanely terrible matchup. If the person playing burn is playing it because they view it as a solid metagame choice and know what they are doing, you can’t win. Fortunately, you probably won’t face any competent burn players, so you’ll end up with a 20% chance of winning, it’s just that hard. You can occasionally squeeze out a win, those numbers go up if you run the RiP/Helm package. While I still stand by the claim that you build the deck and board without Burn in mind, the fact that our grave hate actually gives us an avenue to victory against our worst match up is a nice little plus. Hopefully you win the first two rounds and you stay multiple tables ahead of the burn players. Game one call blue, then it becomes a mind game. I would doubt they would bring in REB against you as they are already favored so much, but people are stupid. Be warned.



Shortcake will always be able to survive in some capacity because the format will always revolve around bad manabases and blue. Brainstorm will never be banned, so this will allow our bad cards to at least have a shell. How competitive the deck remains will basically be a question of how many stupid blue shell cards Wizards keeps printing while simultaneously having no clue how to manage the banned list. Anyone with a brain could have seen that hard control as a deck should be allowed to survive. The way to manage it is to allow aggro to be able to go underneath it. An instant speed one mana wrath should not exist. Control should need to have to use the traditional 4 mana sorcery speed sweepers, which would re-institute the rock-paper-scissors meta on the macro level, with the push and pull of early game interaction vs high mana answers keeping stronger decks in check. It is this complete inability to comprehend the legacy dynamic that led Wizards to ban our glue card Sensei’s Divining Top. Instead, people who don’t play legacy get to make high level decisions about the banned list and also print idiotic garbage like True-Ape Nemesis, Terminus, Deathskill Shaman, and Leovold Emissary of Anal Pillaging without testing.




I’ll finish with it really is a shame that so many new painters won’t be able to experience Shortcake in its tuned iteration. Although we talked a bit recently that even with how good we felt the list was at the time of the banning, we were only running three tops which was probably wrong in hindsight. That is also one of the reasons Shortcake is so much fun. The community is very small, since most don’t want to buy cards for a niche deck where the cards don’t overlap and few will put in the time to learn it. You can see that Painter lists from 10 years ago are still basically the same 55-56 cards just with slightly different numbers here or there. The ceiling of the deck was astronomical, since without the crutch of brainstorm to fix horrible keeps, knowing weird lines and probabilities and utilizing the stompy manabase and fast mana were the only way to leverage the deck’s bad yet synergistic cards over the course of tournaments without punting. The speed and resilience the deck demonstrated while being able to switch between fast combo, prison, aggro, and even hard control at a whim. Someday top might be unbanned, but until then, we’ll have to resort to re-thinking a lot of the basic principles of shortcake and test a bunch to get it back to its proper spot as the #1 Legacy Deck.

Until then.


Special thanks go to:

Seth (sroncor1) who co-wrote this and anyone else who fucks with Shortcake


Shortcake is dead, long live Shortcake and Fucking Free Nedleeds already.

sroncor1
04-04-2018, 10:06 PM
Reserved for Later

sroncor1
04-04-2018, 10:07 PM
Reserved for future lists

sroncor1
04-04-2018, 10:07 PM
Reserved for future thoughts

aslidsiksoraksi
04-05-2018, 01:57 AM
Thank you for this, it was a very interesting read. Always been interested in Painter tho I have never played it (my main deck is Pox). Love the idea that it has a lot of power and explosivity, but can also grind games away. And Goblin Welder is a hell of a card.

My question, and I'm sure you expected it, is how is Shortcake different from the mono-red lists and the blue lists (with or without chalice) that are going around? Or more specifically, why play shortcake over those? It seems you're more focused on the combo than the mono-red lists, which are largely a lot like mono-red prison with the combo in the place of chalices. In relation to the mono-blue lists, you seem faster but also somewhat less protected? And you have moon where they have chalice (sometimes).

If you could say more on these points I'd love to hear it.

Stevestamopz
04-05-2018, 02:21 AM
Can we get a section for all of your reports Jack?

In tears laughing at the last paragraph, nicely written. Let's get back to "blood mooning bitches into barrels."

sroncor1
04-05-2018, 07:16 AM
@Steve- Shortcake is much different than mono red painter and has continued to diverge in the post SDT meta. The old thread does cover lots of this but I will try some broad strokes to sum this up.
1. We are centered on increased consistency to reduce variance. Instead of the random 2-3 counts of cards with high end haymakers, we look to resolve the combo and then add in ways to increase redundancy through out the deck.
2. We are focused on achieving and resolving 3 mana for our spells. I actually think most of the mono red lists need to rework their mana base as they have added more and more high end cards with double red in the casting cost. This allows us to use a mana base that is different than other stompy lists. The mono red lists should probably be transitioning to more Chome Mox t this time, we don't need that.
3. In the last 5 plus years Shortcake has been the most consistent high performing version of the deck in Legacy.
4. Besides the above points, I hope the primer spells out the other advantages/reasons for Shortcake vs other versions.

Now with respect to that blue version, it is a different beast all together. That is more a variant of Painted Stone than it is a Imperial Painter variant. From its mana base, to the tutors, through its end game, the entire deck is different. Now I haven't played the deck, but there is no way Shortcake could ever run a spell with 3 colored man in the casting cost. I am not sure I can address the less protected as I think that is the opposite actually. Welder and blast probably give our combo more protection and resilience than theirs I would have to think.

In the end Shortcake wants to mill to win and the deck is designed to increased how often we do that, and to do that as fast as possible while dropping the variance. I am not the best person to talk about those other lists as I have never really played them, but from the construction you can tell that isn't their number one goal, or they are built to have other avenues. We felt that was a weakness in the current meta and has been a weakness for some time as the format has continued to become faster and more consistent across the board.

Seth

jasper
04-05-2018, 08:09 AM
Nice work on the new thread, guys! Looking forward to seeing further developments with Shortcake and Imperial Painter in equal measure.

Looking at both your lists (and this is something that was always discussed with the old lists too), I'm wondering whether any consideration has been given to the addition of a basic Plains? As a related question, how often do you find yourself locked out of white mana by a Blood Moon with an Enlightened Tutor in hand?

+1 for Jack's reports, those things are hilarious.

Regarding the section on Smuggler's Copter, I did a minimal bit of maths in the Imperial Painter thread. Just in case anyone's interested, the probabilistic difference between 16, 17 and 18 creatures isn't that large. Your chances of having at least one creature in your first 8 cards (turn two on the play) is 93.07% with 16, 94.33% with 17 and 95.39% with 18 creatures respectively. It's worth noting that the differences obviously become more pronounced if you're looking for two creatures, assuming that the first will eat removal. Conversely, the probability of having at least one Smuggler's Copter in an opening hand with four copies is 39.95%, dropping to 31.54% with three copies. The chances of having two copters in your opener is only 6.32% even with four copies.

This would lend support to the idea that 4 Copters is the right number for the deck and that 16 crewing creatures is a reasonable number. I really like the Ethersworn Canonist in the main of Seth's list as a tutorable hedge against a wide variety of decks and, in the failcase, a way to crew the copter.

Are there plans for a section on sideboarding? That seems to be where the two lists diverge the most, with the RiP-Helm plan in Seth's list eschewed in favour of more flexible solutions in Jack's. Given that burn is such a bad match-up, we could go back to running Sphere of Law as a tutorable (if a little slow) answer. CoP: Red might be worth testing as well, although the constraints on mana that it places are not inconsiderable.

I also think that a section about Enlightened Tutor would be very useful—in my opinion, it's one of the most difficult cards to play correctly in the deck. Sometimes it's correct to get a Moon to lock your opponent out, but knowing when you should just go for the combo is vital.

pettdan
04-05-2018, 08:22 AM
I only managed to read a small fragment of this yet but it's all very nicely put together, thanks for the effort!

sroncor1
04-05-2018, 09:30 AM
@Jasper- Thanks for the kind words and math. Those numbers sort of back up the testing. I would love to get the creature up to 18 but its really hard.

With respect to E tutor, plains, and getting stranded: I agree the card is very difficult to play. But I think the best way to to think of the card is as a augmentation of the plans that the decks wants to accomplish. That being said sometimes it isn't needed, sometimes you can win without out or in spite of it, and other times its just a dead draw. Its sort of like a prospect in baseball. Some have high ceilings, but often those with the highest ceilings also have the lowest floors with a high chance of busting. But the upside is so tantalizing you have to take the chance. This is how I see E tutor. Along with that you really can't afford to run a basic Plains in the deck. You already run so few red sources, that cutting more is really hard. Compounding that, you really don't want to ever fetch it before a Blood Moon as that delays deploying Blood Moon by too many turns. So you are on the drawing into it randomly which is a thing for sure, but that upside is too small I feel for the downside of having the basic Plains in your opening hand as the only source of permanent colored mana. A general rule of thumb is that if you properly played Blood Moon, locking yourself and your opponent out of colors beyond red, then you should win that game even with a couple dead draws in your hand. Copter continues to help mitigate this also. There is also the whole needing to run non Onslaught block fetch lands which just feels bad...

With respect to playing the card, I do not know if I can offer any specific advice. It is highly situational and I think the best way to figure it out is to just sling the deck to be honest. I wish I could create a list, but there are so many variables. I do think I probably get Blood Moon less these days. Outside of the combo pieces the most likely target is probably either Great Furnace or Ensnaring Bridge to be honest. I personally like to use the card two ways. Either fire it off immediately bc I have already sort of figured out my first 2-3 turns and want to maximize mana efficiency, or wait till the last possible second to minimize the impact of card disadvantage( as -1 card when you have seen 14 is much different from -1 card when you have only seen 10 cards). So for me it's either I know my sequencing over the first several turns and I use E tutor to get there or I let the game develop, build my board and then wait and see what I need at the end. Both of these lines in simplistic terms show the incredible versatility of the card. Outside of that I do not know exactly how to answer this bc it is so specific to board state and what your opponent is doing.

With respect to the sideboards, they are very close. I want people to see the RiP/Helm as really just 4 RiP in the board. I choose 4 gravehate, and my hate of choice is RiP as I think it is the strongest. The Helm is just there as an oops I win which sometimes steals you a couple games. The issue with gravehate is that I do not think there is a best one to be honest. I do think that Faerie Macabre probably isn't what you want. But Relic, Surgical Extraction, and Crypt all have strengths and weakness which I could see working, and all adequately answer Eldrazi shuffling, which I think at baseline you need from your gravehate.

Seth

CptHaddock
04-05-2018, 12:16 PM
Have you guys tried out walking ballista yet? I cut my 3rd lavamancer in favor of it and it's been great. I was finding that even with 2 lavamancers I was barely just having enough to use multiple lavamancer activations while still trying to keep up welder activations. It also doubles as a very good threat/large burn spell towards the end of the game.

It's unfortunate but I think that you are 100% correct and want some sort of artifact destruction dude maindeck now.

Kap'n Cook
04-05-2018, 12:22 PM
Have you guys tried out walking ballista yet? I cut my 3rd lavamancer in favor of it and it's been great. I was finding that even with 2 lavamancers I was barely just having enough to use multiple lavamancer activations while still trying to keep up welder activations. It also doubles as a very good threat/large burn spell towards the end of the game.

It's unfortunate but I think that you are 100% correct and want some sort of artifact destruction dude maindeck now.


Funny that you mention ballista as Seth and I were briefly discussing him yesterday when we were finishing up the post. Obviously its definitely a lot of upside as we can find it with both tutors and it is a variable threat. I think it definitely merits further investigation, just not sure over what spot, although the lavamancer slot could very well be it. It is true what you say about the lavamancers being harder to sustain if you can get two out, although I've been finding that its nearly impossible to have one stick around as they eat removal almost instantly. For that reason I am still happy with the current split and running 3 overall as it is such a house against Delver if we are able to stick one of them.



Can we get a section for all of your reports Jack?

In tears laughing at the last paragraph, nicely written. Let's get back to "blood mooning bitches into barrels."


That's the hope mate. Gotta put all of these Turbo Kinko's deathrite trashcan abominations in all the barrels. Most of the actual painter reports are linked in the reports section, although I should comb through and see if there are any other reports by me or anyone else that were just posted in the old thread itself and add them





There is also the whole needing to run non Onslaught block fetch lands which just feels bad...

Seth


Quoted for the motherfucking truth

rabidw0lf
04-05-2018, 09:59 PM
I see no mention of Chandra at all. Was she not good enough in your testing ? I don't know I could not play her, Having a way to dig that doubled as a non-mill win con for sneak/tin-fins was really amazing.

Kap'n Cook
04-06-2018, 12:54 AM
I see no mention of Chandra at all. Was she not good enough in your testing ? I don't know I could not play her, Having a way to dig that doubled as a non-mill win con for sneak/tin-fins was really amazing.


I think her Ultimate was a super reasonable win condition when we could chain Sensei Tops together, and obviously her other abilities were great when we had control of the game behind a bridge or painter and blasts. With trying to run copters, the space to ensure that the copters are best built around doesn't really allow room for a planeswalker like Chandra like it did in prior shortcake lists. we had better control over the cards we saw with top, so obviously we could find Chandra quicker than usual. I think if the meta shifts with the banned announcements soon then we could explore the planeswalkers further, but as of right now, having to contend with Grixis Delver and how wide they go doesn't really allow room for a 4 drop that kind of contradict the higher pressure the copters allow.

Granted, a slow shortcake build with walkers could probably be built, it would just feel weird since we are then trying to both combo quickly and also cautiously navigate the board to assemble walkers. I just don't think we have the card selection anymore to really make that a consistent strategy.

sroncor1
04-06-2018, 08:52 AM
@Chandra- Basically what Jack said. She is a strong card for sure, but she is not what we want to do. As I have mentioned in the previous thread, our mana base is not constructed in a manor to reliably cast her aggressively which is a real issue. Double red can be real tough to get. She also really struggles against Delver variants as we can not reliably protect her.

I will admit I never tested her in the newer version of Shortcake, as I never saw the need to have a card with that effect. Moving forward, you would need to figure out which match up and when she is really needed. From there you would have to figure out what cards to cut to add her to the deck. That last part is really tough as spaces are so tight. While toy can argue some of the dorks we use are the weakest cards, she really can not compete with Lavaman.

I will say that I will probably test out the new Karn though. I do doubt the artifact creatures he creates will get too big, but those are some great effects on a 5 loyalty body that can be cast off 2 sol lands. That being said I am not sure what match ups I want him in, but his ability to easily crew the Copter and give us some cards is nice amount of power for a card.

Seth

drude1
04-06-2018, 06:33 PM
Hello all. I like the new digs. Jack and Seth well done on the spoiler. Thanks for putting in the work.
On to business, Seth I'm glad you brought up the new Karn. I immediately thought of this deck when I saw it spoiled. It's very good in this deck for all the reasons that you mentioned. And I easily think you could cut a couple dudes for Karn as he does also power copters as you mentioned. Having said that, I still think Chandra is a viable option for this deck as well. I say that for two reasons...
First, the copter is pretty good at playing defense is you want it to. It trades with delver, leovold and most other legacy creatures pretty well and nobody wants to keep attacking with young pyro tokens or similar just to let you loot every turn. So, copter actually can do a decent job of protecting Chandra.

Second, I don't think shortcake as a deck necessarily has to go in the copter direction. This might be the one issue I have with the spoiler. I think "shortcake" as a deck is referring to red/white imperial painter lists in general and i do think it is reasonable to build the deck with lots of fast Mana, more copies of bridge and 3-4 copies of Chandra. Chandra is basically a turn 2 or 3 Planeswalker in this deck which is pretty good. She packs very good creature removal, ok card advantage and is actually a pretty fast finisher and if she ultimates it's usually game over. I really think copter lists are still a work in progress as you guys haven't had a ton of luck with the list yet and it's not unreasonable that you eventually scrap it or something better comes along (eg. Maybe Karn is the missing piece). Don't get me wrong. I've always liked smuggler's copter and tried to make it work with Daretti for a long time (it took me a long time to move away from the deck after top ban). I'm just not 100% sold on it yet. (I will say I like Karn with copter way more than Chandra work copter just because of the obvious synergy).

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

Kap'n Cook
04-06-2018, 09:07 PM
Sup homie. I completely agree that the copters may end up not being correct or as good as something else at some point. As of now though the copters have kind of felt the best so far compared to what we were with top. There’s also a reason that this primer is in the new and developmental for now. It’s pretty unestablished as you mentioned so we are just trying a bunch of stuff. Going towards more of a fortress build could also work im sure, it would just have to build with all those factors in mind and probably slower conboing

Really excited to try Karn too as it’s kust a really big versatile dude we’ll see how it has to be built around.

sroncor1
04-06-2018, 09:27 PM
@drude-I think Chandra is strong and viable, I am just not sure she is what the deck needs. While I agree with your points on her strengths there are a few issues with them. In general you want to be swinging with the Copter each turn. While the blocking is nice to get the looting effect, you really want to ensure that you are seeing those two cards every turn. So in reality holding it back is fairly bad. I also feel that to truly take advantage of a Planeswalker with double red, we would need to rework the mana base. I have spent a lot of time thinking about Planeswalkers and I think there use is really hard to evaluate. The power level on the high end is so great that I think, that their variance makes it had to see there strengths and weaknesses without stepping back.

If you were to use her I, you would have to cut something. I am open to evaluating it, but what would you remove?

With respect to Shortcake and going the Copter direction, that is more of a way to increase the consistency of the deck. Shortcake was always focused on the combo, and reducing the Bridge and other board controlling elements. The actual colors are not really important. Yes we run Rw, the colors do not define the list, its the focus that designs it. As the primer stated, really the first list was mono red and I was really just lazy in not desleeving the mana base for the first month. Adding more Bridges and 3 plus Planeswalkers really changes the direction of the deck. We really need only three mana to really function in this deck, and those other lists run a much higher curve which dictates a differently constructed mana base, which would be one more designed for multiple turns of more colored mana than we are. If you go that route, you really want a more traditional stompy mana base, which we are happy to not play.

As to the success, I actually have to disagree with that. I did not have a great finish at a larger event I played in, but that was more just bad luck in facing so many Chalice of the Voids. The maindeck Heretic fixes that, and had I had him I would have most likely been able to top 8 the event had I had something to tutor for in those match ups. Online the deck has consistently been doing quiet well for me. I need to start doing some more weekend events, its just been really fucking hard to set aside a Sunday. I also think performance will start to improve games 2-3 as we can now start to fine tune the board in general. It took over 150 matches just to sort out the main deck. Karn may be a viable piece for the deck, but it will not replace what Copter does. The speed that you can deploy it, the ability to finally pressure an opponents life total as a resource, along with the ability to choose the cards you keep all all things that Karn can't do.

Seth

aslidsiksoraksi
04-06-2018, 09:49 PM
aight y'all sold me on the deck. and then some other dudes sold me the cards, looking forward to taking it all for a spin. gotta tap some white-bordered bois.

150 matches is a solid number. did you keep track of your record or matchups? could be interesting.

RE adding bridges - I am obviously new but it seems like with 3x E tutor and 1 Bridge we're at an effective 4 bridges, should that turn out to the card we need. So in bridge-relevant matchups we have just as much chance to get it as we would in a monored list (though we can't just topdeck it save our skins, true enough). I honestly like this more lean and tool-boxy approach, it seems more flexible and has more combo potential via 3 extra copies of all the pieces.

sroncor1
04-07-2018, 10:34 AM
To be honest I didn't keep a running excel sheet, but I sort of wish I did. The issue was that the first 50-100 matches I was constantly tinkering with the maindeck and the sideboard. SO while they were super helpful in working through sequencing and validation of ideas, they aren't so good right now as the deck has changed significantly.

While I was working on the primer I spent a lot of time rewatching the matches that I did play to help figure out different lines and if they were the best. I do think that was very helpful. So while I will admit the deck hasn't performed at any large event the list is fairly well tuned from a deck design standpoint. I know Jack just went 4-1 in a league and the game I was playing with him, he made a misplay that should have had him being 5-0, beating Sneak and Show lists 2-1. While I will not say a league result really matters, I think we will continue to see similar results moving forward now that the maindeck is fairly well developed, the sideboard is rounding into shape, and we have a better grasp of the sequence of plays that need to happen over the first three turns.

Enjoy the deck and have fun!

Seth

SDBobPlissken
04-08-2018, 09:31 AM
Just picked up this new list and I must say that it is a lot of fun to play. Need to get more comfortable with it though. I caught a real beating from death and taxes so that is definitely a match up I need practice with. I think it might have just been a matter of not drawing any sideboard cards though. Pretty much playing Seth’s list but I like Kozilek’s return instead of pyroclasm. I feel like the one extra mana is worth it for instant speed and the fact that it’s colorless. Too many times I’ve gone to pyroclasm against death and taxes and a flickerwisp saves one of their creatures and a mother of runes saves the flickerwisp. Do you think trinisphere is really necessary in the board? I feel like it’s just going to slow us down vs storm especially since we already pack three canonists in the 75. (Seth, are you still -1 red elemental blast +1 canonist in the main). I’m thinking of packing a containment priest instead of 3ball for reanimator and sneak and show.

Hoping to get to try this out at my LGS on Monday. Great job with breathing life back into the best deck/combo in legacy.

Megadeus
04-08-2018, 10:39 AM
Any thoughts to Welder + Faithless Looting as an engine or is that bad? Looting helps filtering and finding combo as well as filling yard for Welder and Lavaman. I'm sure you've tried it in the past. Just curious as to why it isn't good enough

sroncor1
04-08-2018, 11:19 AM
@SD- Glad you like the list. I think your suggestions are all very reasonable. The Cannonist is probably the weakest card in the deck and I can totally understand why you would make that swap. Yes I am still 5 blast, 1 cannonist main.

With respect to the board, out side of 2 Cannonist, 3 mass removal spell, and 4 grave hate, I would say anything could be reasonable and correct. I listed a sideboard bc I thought it would be helpful as most games you play post board, but that being said it was only in the last 50 matches or so that I really started to try and fine tune the board. With that in mind many of those cards have only been played in ten games after we tuned the main deck. So I fully expect a lot of changes there and would love to get the communities suggestions and results. Different mass removal is very likely the correct call. For me I went with Pyroclasm bc its been so strong in the past and I have been fairly happy with it. That and it doesn't kill Painter which matters when you have Painter and Copter on the board. 3ball is sort of a card I added to combat delver and Elves actually. I do bring it in against Tendrils, but that wasn't the main reason why I added it to the board.

@Faithless looting- It was in the in the original Shortcake list in 2012. It fell out of favor for the power of controlling your next draw with E tutor. After the SDT ban I tinkered with 4 Looting lists and they all felt fairly weak. While the filtering is nice, you need to flash it back or have a Welder live to really get value from it. With the current Delver and Elves lists, committing 4 mana over two turns is sort of brutal for card parity. There may be a way to up the welder count, remove the blasts, and add in Looting to the deck to augment the Welder/Copter plan, but I don't know. I actually think just running Gitaxian Probe would be better in that situation as the information is enormous as it helps so much with sequencing, especially on the play. And to be honest you are probably paying 2 life to flashback the Looting so the Phyrexian mana is sort of a push.

Seth

Kap'n Cook
04-08-2018, 07:23 PM
Yea Mega the main problem is that looting starts to infringe into tutor pieces and blasts/moon territory if we stay committed to the e tutor plan. If we decide to dial back the tutors to fit in lootings then we basically start moving back to bootleg mono red versions that can’t find grindstone and then also lack the chandra/bridge end game they use. A big part now is just accepting that we’re a shitty red/white deck and will sometimes draw a dead piece. But the overall synergy trade off is at least worth a shot to use the existing shell.

Hopo
04-09-2018, 12:14 PM
I really need to correct that it's Canonist, not Cannonist.

polski
04-09-2018, 02:21 PM
Do you think Painters is well positioned in this meta?

sroncor1
04-09-2018, 03:08 PM
@Hopo- I am glad it didn't even take 2 pages to get our first dumpster fire of a comment. Good to see that is the take away from all the theory and testing we went over.

@polski-That is a tough question to answer I think. Using DTB as a starter I think you have serious game against a large portion of that field. Elves, Grixis, BUG, and Miracles all feel positive to me. Eldrazi and Stompy lists in general have been a tad rough. Storm is really all over the place. The ability to test against good storm players is relatively rare. I think against your average storm player, you would be favored. Hard to say how you would do against the handful of truly good storm players, as the are had to find. But I am inclined to think its a dog fight, and very dependent on who goes first game one. I am still trying to work through the Lands match up, and it may just be closer to even these days. So overall I think it is a reasonable list to a varied meta. The deck was constructed to combat Grixis and other DRS decks in the current meta.

I am not really addressing decks like Death and Taxes or Maverick variants at this time as I think we need to still develop the board along with really needing to see what happens with the next banned and restricted announcement. I doubt much would change to the maindeck, as some Delver variant, along with Elves will continue to be a strong part of the meta. But I could see a lot of changes to the board, which may have sweeping effects to the overall performance.

Seth

Hopo
04-10-2018, 01:31 AM
I don't hang on to typos but that was no typo, it was systematic. Not sure why so edgy about it.

sroncor1
04-10-2018, 07:06 AM
It's due to autocorrect on my computer, which happens if the post is typed in word before posting. Still annoying, like please contribute to the actual deck discussion.

Seth

GradStudent
04-11-2018, 04:48 PM
you and jack going to stream sometime?

CptHaddock
04-15-2018, 12:10 PM
So playing a couple more leagues with the deck i've noticed that i've been running into some problems kind of semi regularly. The first is still the grim lavamancer problem where early on where he's at his finest I just don't have enough fuel for him. I was thinking about remedying this by replacing the Great Furnace in the list with another fetch since it's value kind of diminishes with top being out of the format, since your ability to turn a land into a spell later on in the game is kind of limited now. Lavamancer in general has been excellent, i'm very surprised that we weren't running him as a silver bullet target before. As an added benefit he also helps to negate surgical extraction type effects since you can always eat the cards that they're trying to surgical and he eats a removal spell, making sure that your painters live to see another day.

The other big problem i've been having I frequently run into board states that just stall out. I'll draw a recruiter and have a board state of something like double painter, welder, lavamancer and a couple of lands and not much else going on. Is there some tutor target that we for just random "value" plays in this kind of board state? The ones that came to mind originally were Pia and Kiraan Nalaar and Direfleet Daredevil, however looking through a bunch of cards fitting the criteria, something like Palace Sentials also seems kind of good although a tad bit award with all the strixes, pyromancers and snapcasters in the format. What do you guys thing? Obviously maindeck space is very tight, but I think that a singleton like this would actually be really beneficial.

pettdan
04-15-2018, 04:05 PM
@CptHaddock: a card I'm currently testing in my very different build is Hangarback Walker. It has much better synergy in my list, for different reasons, but why I would even suggest it here is because it's a pretty nice follow up to a t1 Copter. If the opponent destroys it you'll still get a token to crew the Copter with, it's also playable with the same land as the Copter. [edit: probably the opponent would rather destroy the Copter, if they can, but I still thought it worth suggesting.] And if you draw it in such a standoff as you describe you get to grow it +1/+1 each turn which is relevant. You also have Welder to set it off if you need the tokens to get under Bridge or whatever.

NormalGuy
04-15-2018, 04:12 PM
So playing a couple more leagues with the deck i've noticed that i've been running into some problems kind of semi regularly. The first is still the grim lavamancer problem where early on where he's at his finest I just don't have enough fuel for him. I was thinking about remedying this by replacing the Great Furnace in the list with another fetch since it's value kind of diminishes with top being out of the format, since your ability to turn a land into a spell later on in the game is kind of limited now. Lavamancer in general has been excellent, i'm very surprised that we weren't running him as a silver bullet target before. As an added benefit he also helps to negate surgical extraction type effects since you can always eat the cards that they're trying to surgical and he eats a removal spell, making sure that your painters live to see another day.

The other big problem i've been having I frequently run into board states that just stall out. I'll draw a recruiter and have a board state of something like double painter, welder, lavamancer and a couple of lands and not much else going on. Is there some tutor target that we for just random "value" plays in this kind of board state? The ones that came to mind originally were Pia and Kiraan Nalaar and Direfleet Daredevil, however looking through a bunch of cards fitting the criteria, something like Palace Sentials also seems kind of good although a tad bit award with all the strixes, pyromancers and snapcasters in the format. What do you guys thing? Obviously maindeck space is very tight, but I think that a singleton like this would actually be really beneficial.

I don't think I would ever drop the 1 furnace, because sometimes you need to e-tutor for it if you are light on land. I think lotus petal is actually an all-star for feeding lavaman. You can do things like crack petal, weld something to get petal back and crack it again to get 2 cards in your graveyard. You also have copter, and you can grindstone yourself for fuel, or even pyroblast random things just to get more cards in the yard if you really need to.

In the case of stalled board, I usually just recruit more recruiters, and sometimes suicide them into the enemy to fuel lavaman. I'm not against the idea of more tutor targets, but I'm not too keen on Pia and Kiran or Daredevil. I would probably personally look towards something that will let you dig more, like Mad Prophet for instance. Post-board peacekeeper is a common target for me, I've won a few games I had no business winning by just casting a peacekeeper and doing nothing for 10 turns waiting to draw a blast or wincon.

crowe_1
04-16-2018, 03:41 AM
Solemn Simulacrum too cute as a card advantage engine? Fetches out that basic Plains through Moon if you run one, and potentially draws a lot of cards with Welder...

sroncor1
04-16-2018, 10:38 AM
@ Solemn- a awesome card but I think its more the danger of cool things. I would love for him to be viable in the deck, but right now I don't know if he is something we want to run. The key would be to figure out what to cut for him. I d not think there are many situations where you would get him with Imperial Recruiter. So that means you really are looking to just draw him. While his effect are really strong, I think he is having a rough tough time competing at 4 mana. The new Karn just seems better for the mana. But this could change if the meta switches today.

@Lavaman- I think the biggest issue is managing expectations. He works as a dude that is on curve, can easily crew, draw removal like a champ, and can fairly consistently shoot a dude before turn 3. While he has a much greater upside as the game goes long, that is how I see his floor, and its great for what the deck needs. His ability to kill a DRS, Delver, SFM, Pyromancer, or random elf is enormous. Usually you will only need one activation to open the window to win. Hopefully you are able to have this happen. When I was doing the bulk of the testing I was running 3 and loved it. He was sort of dead against Show and Tell, Storm, and Reanimator lists, but was fantastic against the rest of the field. Unfortunately space was tight and only 5 one drops could fit and the Welder is slightly stronger in general. Now his place in the deck may shift later today. I would also not argue with changing one Lavaman into a Walking Ballista.

Seth

CptHaddock
04-16-2018, 02:22 PM
@CptHaddock: a card I'm currently testing in my very different build is Hangarback Walker. It has much better synergy in my list, for different reasons, but why I would even suggest it here is because it's a pretty nice follow up to a t1 Copter. If the opponent destroys it you'll still get a token to crew the Copter with, it's also playable with the same land as the Copter. [edit: probably the opponent would rather destroy the Copter, if they can, but I still thought it worth suggesting.] And if you draw it in such a standoff as you describe you get to grow it +1/+1 each turn which is relevant. You also have Welder to set it off if you need the tokens to get under Bridge or whatever.

This is a very intriguing card. The affinity stompy deck can afford to play this card because you can put mass counters it on relatively quickly through either Steel Overseer or Arcbound Ravager and then sac it to Arcbound Ravager for the tokens. Seems like a lot has to go right to get a big one, or a bunch of tokens with Painter and if those conditions are going right it seems like you should be winning anyways?


I don't think I would ever drop the 1 furnace, because sometimes you need to e-tutor for it if you are light on land. I think lotus petal is actually an all-star for feeding lavaman. You can do things like crack petal, weld something to get petal back and crack it again to get 2 cards in your graveyard. You also have copter, and you can grindstone yourself for fuel, or even pyroblast random things just to get more cards in the yard if you really need to.

In the case of stalled board, I usually just recruit more recruiters, and sometimes suicide them into the enemy to fuel lavaman. I'm not against the idea of more tutor targets, but I'm not too keen on Pia and Kiran or Daredevil. I would probably personally look towards something that will let you dig more, like Mad Prophet for instance. Post-board peacekeeper is a common target for me, I've won a few games I had no business winning by just casting a peacekeeper and doing nothing for 10 turns waiting to draw a blast or wincon.

I think you are missing the point of my original complaint with lavamancer. I'm more than happy with him in the mid to late game phase since you have plenty of fuel by those points. What i'm saying is that I would like to make him better in the early games, i'm fine with wasting a blast on a cantrip or something to get him active especially if I can kill a critter + blast a cantrip at the same time. There have been plenty of times early on in the game where I just don't have enough fuel for him and I would like to remedy to some extent.

You don't think that P&K are good but actively like a bad 4 mana looter? :really:

NormalGuy
04-16-2018, 03:34 PM
You don't think that P&K are good but actively like a bad 4 mana looter? :really:

The bad looter is more on par with your Palace Sentinel suggestion, but more on color and can't backfire and draw your opponent a bunch of free cards. I don't think P&K is an effect I would want in this deck. I would rather just draw a grindstone and win than spend a ton of mana for 2 1/1 flyers. I would prefer Jaya Ballard to P&K even.

sroncor1
04-16-2018, 05:26 PM
Four mana for that looting effect is a rough price to pay. Isn't there a 3 mana red looter with the same wording that was 1/1. He is from a recent set, although his name escapes me at this point. Since the power doesn't really matter that would probably be a better starting point for you I would think.

@ Cpt- I understand your concerns and I have to agree that sometimes he doesn't have fuel. But I do think that cutting the artifact mana is not where you want to be. As mentioned previously, having an uncounterable artifact that happens to be an easily searchable consistent mana source has a lot of upside. I would suggest just cutting a mountain to add an additional fetch land. while normally this would be a fairly low land count, I think Blood Moon's ability to turn fetch lands into mountains may make it ok. You could also cut a SSG for the fourth petal to help fuel the yard. Your creature count is probably ok in general, although personally I would rather have the dude in the deck than the artifact mana.

@Hangerback- He is an intriguing card. I think with DRS not getting banned, removal is just better than the ability to go wide. With that in mind Ballista is a reasonable card to try out. The issue would be in what match up is Hangerback best? What situations would you rather have Hangerback over the versatile removal of Ballista. I do agree that Hangerback grows easier, but does that and the bodies it leave behind mean more than colorless pinpoint removal? And none of these are rhetorical, I am really asking bc I want to know if I am missing anything, or we should be considering different things.

Seth

NormalGuy
04-16-2018, 06:15 PM
Four mana for that looting effect is a rough price to pay. Isn't there a 3 mana red looter with the same wording that was 1/1. He is from a recent set, although his name escapes me at this point. Since the power doesn't really matter that would probably be a better starting point for you I would think.

You are thinking of Rummaging Goblin, he doesn't have haste though. Etched Champion is another possibility if you want a hard to deal with body that can't be blocked.

pettdan
04-16-2018, 06:20 PM
@Hangerback- He is an intriguing card. I think with DRS not getting banned, removal is just better than the ability to go wide. With that in mind Ballista is a reasonable card to try out. The issue would be in what match up is Hangerback best? What situations would you rather have Hangerback over the versatile removal of Ballista. I do agree that Hangerback grows easier, but does that and the bodies it leave behind mean more than colorless pinpoint removal? And none of these are rhetorical, I am really asking bc I want to know if I am missing anything, or we should be considering different things.

This is just theorycrafting, and it probably won't quite fit. I was thinking that Ballista has some overlap with Lavamancer, while being perhaps too inefficient in comparison. With Ballista it costs you 6 mana, or 8 if you need to pump it, to destroy a Deathrite and still have the Ballista around. It seems potentially too inefficient. But in a board stall it is still very very good, of course. And as a t1 play vs Infect, DnT or other decks with creatures you need to interact with quickly. What seemed to be the upside of Hangarback was that it helps crew the 4 Copters. If you are having problems with crewing Copters and with late game board stalls, then just maybe Hangarback Walker could be worth testing.

In what matchups is Hangarback better? I'm thinking that it should be better vs Pile, since it is likely to soak up more of their removal, trade with more of their Strixes and Snapcasters, pressure their planeswalkers slightly better (I'd like to think it does, not sure). And I guess it may be better vs any deck trying to keep Copters from being crewed. It's a support card for Copter that can be good in a board stall.

sroncor1
04-16-2018, 06:49 PM
@Dan- Thanks that was a perfect start. I really do agree that the Hangerback probably is an all star in the grindy match ups. I think the testing would be in those match ups is he just better than the typical Recruiter Chain for value that we do. I think if you can get him with 2 counters to start, that would probably be better. He also does have some cool interactions hiding behind the Bridge against Show and Tell decks. His ability to just give you ten dudes will be able to stomp over Eldrazi, but still loses to Bargain on a stick.

I have weakly tried out the Ballista in the spot of Lavaman, with mixed results. I think having some artifact that grows in the deck is reasonable as there are times when I wish E tutor just could get me a dude that does more than Painter. I do think that will be something we need to really test out now that we know the meta is going to be unchanged for the next couple months.

Seth

pinkfrosting
04-16-2018, 11:38 PM
You are thinking of Rummaging Goblin, he doesn't have haste though. Etched Champion is another possibility if you want a hard to deal with body that can't be blocked.

If you are going to run a looter as an Imperial Recruiter target, Deal Broker (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=382246) is 3 CMC also, colorless, a 2/3, and an artifact for welder.

Kap'n Cook
04-17-2018, 12:01 AM
I was brainstorming an idea tonight and threw together a very rough list. I jammed some matches and it was only 3-2, but I think that it was working well enough and has the potential to really work well enough that it is worth posting about. So the idea was to jam a full playset of Ethersworn Canonist into the maindeck. Why? It is the best hatebear we have access to, and resets the game towards a standstill for these cantrip decks. Canonist demands removal as well, otherwise it severely hinders almost every deck while being at most a minor nuisance to some recruiter chains. It's also probably makes us an insane favorite vs Storm and Omnitell game 1. Lastly, it obviously fits into our Copter plan and is a weldable artifact creature.

The biggest upside is certainly its cantrip tax and is part of the reason I started thinking down the canonist path. Magus of the Moon was by far the best creature we could power out, which is why mono-red back in the day was running something like a 4 Magus to 0-4 Blood Moon. As the meta shifted, Blood Moon became the premier hate piece, which is also why shifting Imperial Painter towards Shortcake became a much better idea. With how much Deathrite is around fixing mana and how much everyone knows to play around Blood Moon, I really can't remember the last time it just outright won the game by itself. It is still very powerful for sure, but I think that Canonist has surpassed Blood Moon as of right now for what we might want to be doing.

The list I ran was this:

4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
2 Plateau
1 Great Furnace
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Mountain

3 Lotus Petal
2 Simian Spirit Guide

4 Imperial Recruiter
4 Painter's Servant
4 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Goblin Welder
2 Grim Lavamancer

4 Grindstone
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Smuggler's Copter

3 Blood Moon
3 Enlightened Tutor
4 Pyroblast

Sideboard:
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Goblin Welder
2 Rest in Peace
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Abrade
2 Pyroclasm
1 Viashino Heretic
1 Blood Moon
1 Magus of the Moon
2 Red Elemental Blast
Something




That was my starting point. I also want to bring up this list because I was talking with Seth after finishing up my quick set of games and I think that Karn could be very good with the presence of Copters and Canonist. Turn 1 Copter into Turn 2 Karn is already a beating, especially considering the tokens he makes will keep growing and crewing as he creates more, and canonist already contributes to the artifact count in a significant way.

I think we should also look at Karn vs Chandra. When we had tops, I definitely think the 1 of Chandra was a great tool to have for any game that stalled out as she was a guaranteed win and we had the means to find her reliably with grindstone/top/fetches/etc. Considering her in Shortcake, I think the abilities are not synergistic enough with what we want to be doing. Her +1 abilities force us to be casting the exiled spell right away, which many times isn't as ideal as we would like and the two mana being double red having to spend right away is slightly weird as well. We aren't trying to hide behind a bridge as much as something like mono-red is, so i feel that chandra is just a weird spot we probably don't really want to be at. Compare all of this to Karn. He puts the Tutors/Blasts/Lands into our hand, which also helps out Lavamancer vs Chandra's exile. I think he'll be very good and will probably try 2 out in the board when he becomes legal. That leads me to this proposed list:

4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
2 Plateau
1 Great Furnace
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire
4 Mountain

4 Lotus Petal
1 Simian's Spirit Guide

4 Imperial Recruiter
4 Painter's Servant
4 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Goblin Welder
2 Grim Lavamancer
1 Viashino Heretic

4 Grindstone
4 Smuggler's Copter
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Blood Moon

3 Enlightened Tutor
4 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast

Sideboard:
1 Goblin Welder
1 Walking Ballista
3 Grave Hate
2 Pyroclasm
2 Abrade
3 Blood Moon
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Karn, Scion of Urza



Some additional thoughts. Canonist really slants the stack back towards our favor. Having Canonist+Painter+Blast means that we fully control the stack and can maneuver the combo worry free from this position, so maybe finding room for the 6th blast could be optimal. Blood Moon being a 1 of in the main is also completely uncharted but makes it a more a turn 3 play usually to be made with backup if possible. The hope is that Blood Moon isn't really winning as many games as it has before, and this style of build would best minimize the potential deadness running multiples did before. This could all be horribly wrong as well.

Thoughts on some of the other card choices are the Walking Ballista in the board over the 3rd Lavaman as it is more versatile probably and plus I think having additional artifacts for Karn can't hurt most likely. 4th petal for the extra white mana with canonists vs the 2nd simian for copter should be watched as well. Maybe 3rd Plateau as well. 4 Enlightened Tutors also has to be tested with the easier access to white mana we'll have and eot t1 e-tutor is still a really strong play. With Heretic and EE main, I think it is a big statement that we should try to be ready to beat chalices if we want to advance in tournaments and having those two gives us 3 E-tutors and 4 recruiters to go find them. Having the 3 moons sideboard at least lets you get a game on the play with 4 where it's good.

Take all of this with a grain of salt as none of this is tested. I just really liked the idea and wanted to get it out there. Maybe some of you guys will like it and want to explore it further.

Bichon_Blitz
04-17-2018, 12:03 AM
Anyone test Dire Fleet Daredevil? Seems like he would put in work against a lot of decks.

aslidsiksoraksi
04-17-2018, 01:18 AM
so I built the deck (took a list more or less straight from the primer) and took it to our little weekly. went 2-1 overall, beating Grixis Delver and Storm, losing to Omnishow. took a game off Omnishow due to him forgetting Emrakul, and a game off Delver thanks to him forgetting to DRS my Painter when I welded it. But still, wins are wins. I'd never played a painter deck before this, so i feel pretty good. the deck requires you to think a lot in advance and do a lot of tricky maneuvering while managing limited resources, which is the kind of magic i'm into.

I actually really like the canonist plan mentioned above. MD canonist already won me a game against storm, and it is a beating against all the cantrip bois. Moon isn't the house it once was, but I'm a little hesitant to go all the way down to 1 in the MD. I think I'd run something closer to your first list, with 4 petals and 1 SSG to better ensure white mana is available.

Also excited for Karn, will definitely be picking up a pair of them for this and other decks.

@direfleet daredevil - i picked up a copy. might be worth messing with. seems maybe just too cute; what do you want to steal with him? tutoring him up to snag a brainstorm seems week, and just playing him as a value creature seems mediocre when you could be doing other things... worth trying I guess, and of course I'm super new to the deck so take what I say with some salt.

Cyanhur
04-17-2018, 06:23 AM
Kap'n Cook : i think more cannoniste is not a bad idea. Just change some gameplay. The new Karn will offer an other option because the token can easy a 4/4 or 5/5. I am really curious to test it.

I will not playing painter for the main event at Birmingham, but i will play the deck for the side event. I will probably try to play Karn.

Bichon_Blitz
04-17-2018, 10:17 AM
@direfleet daredevil - i picked up a copy. might be worth messing with. seems maybe just too cute; what do you want to steal with him? tutoring him up to snag a brainstorm seems week, and just playing him as a value creature seems mediocre when you could be doing other things... worth trying I guess, and of course I'm super new to the deck so take what I say with some salt.

Yea I just built it and am new to painter stone so i never played with SDT, but it does seem to be lacking consistency when i play it i feel. It also mulls really bad, at least in my limited experience with the deck. Some way to fix that and smooht out the draws would definitely raise this deck though, I feel.

As far as the new Karn, I feel like he's going to be way too slow for card advantage.

Michael Keller
04-17-2018, 11:13 AM
I'm going all-in.

Thoughts?:

4 Painter's Servant
2 Goblin Welder

4 Pyroblast
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Enlightened Tutor
1 Armageddon

2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance

3 Blood Moon
2 Land Tax
1 Humility
1 Equipoise

3 Mox Diamond
2 Grindstone
2 Scroll Rack
1 Sands of Time
1 Black Vise
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Zuran Orb
1 Trinispere
1 Ghostly Prison

5 Snow-Covered Mountain
3 Arid Mesa
3 Snow-Covered Plains
3 Ancient Tomb
2 Great Furnace
1 City of Traitors
1 Plateau
1 Karakas
1 Flagstones of Trokair

//Sideboard
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Pithing Needle
1 Aura of Silence
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Blood Moon
1 Smokestack
1 Armageddon
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Jester's Cap

sroncor1
04-17-2018, 11:24 AM
Hollywood- I have no idea how to judge that but any deck that tries to run Sands of Time and Equipoise is really interesting to me. (Mirage block sands of time is my favorite block deck of all time and I usually play it in all our block party events) How has testing been? I would be concerned that the large toolbox might make consistency hard to achieve. And maybe go all in on the E tutor with 4 maindeck to really maximize your tool box.

Seth

Kap'n Cook
04-17-2018, 12:38 PM
Yea I just built it and am new to painter stone so i never played with SDT, but it does seem to be lacking consistency when i play it i feel. It also mulls really bad, at least in my limited experience with the deck. Some way to fix that and smooht out the draws would definitely raise this deck though, I feel.

As far as the new Karn, I feel like he's going to be way too slow for card advantage.


This is to be expected if you are new to the deck. Not having crutchstorm to lean on in your opening hands makes everything harder and the only way to overcome this handicap is to play the deck a ton, read old threads, and just absorb as much content as possible. It mulls poorly if you don't know what you are looking for and aren't yet versed in how hands will play out based on probabilities of finding what is left in your deck. The Smuggler's Copters are there for the dual purpose of pressuring the opponents life totals while also helping to filter. We already run a lot of bad creatures, and Copter has really helped to elevate our creature floor. We are all still figuring out the best configuration of Shortcake to ensure it is the most consistent it can be, which could take some time.

As for Karn, he is the fastest planeswalker we have ever had access too. Everything else we have played beyond the testing phase has had two colored mana symbols, making it usually a turn 3 play assuming no fast mana of course. We are also not usually looking for raw card advantage from a walker (see Koth/Ajani/Chandra), rather just a broad board impact. My initial take is that Karn will have to be answered, otherwise he will be too hard to take out in one turn given that he starts with an ass of 5 and can create crewable artifact dudes.

aslidsiksoraksi
04-18-2018, 02:27 AM
Took the deck to another weekly, this time with 2 MD Canonist (would have done more but the shop was out). They performed well, winning counter wars and just beating face. Went 3-1 in all, beating Death and Taxes, Infect, and BUG Control, and losing to Jeskai blade. Death and Taxes was a cool matchup - lost game 1 to triple mom and double revoker :cry::cry: but the other games were also intricate and interesting. played some more games against Infect and just won all of them kind of easily (one game was a little close); 4-0 in all. Everything in our deck is good against them - moons, lavamancers, canonist, and they have to counter the combo as well cuz it's just as fast as they are. The BUG games were closer and tbh i think I should have lost but it was the last match and we were pretty casual with it, having already decided to split the prize. There were a couple occasions where it was hard to find white, so if we go harder on canonist i think i'd like the 4th petal for sure, and maybe up to 6 fetches or a 3rd plateau.

So far I'm 12-6 in games with the deck, not a bad showing, and makes me feel like this deck has legs

Some questions for the more experienced players:

1 - more advice on how to evaluate hands would be nice? I often open hands with all the mojo but only 1 sol land (ex: painter, stone, city, copter, pyro, tutor, lavaman)... or with tutors and a copter and nothing else... or with a turn 2 win but no protection (ex: 2 sol lands, 3 mountains, painter, grindstone)... i know it's hard to say since so matchup dependent and so much of it is just learning to play, but a little advice on this would be helpful

2 - sideboarding, what do we take out? I've been subbing out welders against decks with swords and DRS decks, but that's virtually every fair deck. do we take out lavamancer in control matchups, or keep him to snipe a few creatures and be an alternative threat? i've been taking out moons against decks with basics, at least on the draw, but maybe i should try to be more aggressive with them. more general advice, maybe a worst cards/best cards for common matchups would be also helpful (though to some extent that's already in the primer).

on the whole i'm loving the deck and can't wait to play more. copter is really sweet, and the deck attacks from a lot of angles. I've won a good number of games where I just beat them down with flying 3/3 filterboxes, but then when they revoker copter I drop grindstone and win. maindeck pyroblast is also delicious. Viashino Heretic, however, I don't understand. He seems so slow and has to survive to get value. I definitely will switch to Maniac Vandal when I have a chance. EE in the deck would be a nice random out as well.


kinda wanna say free ned leeds since that seems to be the thing here but to be honest I have no clue who he is. so i'll just say keep on painting!
- 'slid

CptHaddock
04-18-2018, 07:45 AM
1 - more advice on how to evaluate hands would be nice? I often open hands with all the mojo but only 1 sol land (ex: painter, stone, city, copter, pyro, tutor, lavaman)... or with tutors and a copter and nothing else... or with a turn 2 win but no protection (ex: 2 sol lands, 3 mountains, painter, grindstone)... i know it's hard to say since so matchup dependent and so much of it is just learning to play, but a little advice on this would be helpful


I almost will never mulligan barring either 2 things: a no lander or a hand with all red spells and a sol land. In the dark i'd always keep a turn 2 combo hand. I think the hand you gave as an example is very much keepable, it's basically 1 sol land away from killing your opponent and even if you don't draw it you have the option of looting with the copter. Sometimes you gamble and don't end up drawing the red source or other sol land that you need, but that is bound to happen given that we have no cantrips to smooth out our draws.



2 - sideboarding, what do we take out? I've been subbing out welders against decks with swords and DRS decks, but that's virtually every fair deck. do we take out lavamancer in control matchups, or keep him to snipe a few creatures and be an alternative threat? i've been taking out moons against decks with basics, at least on the draw, but maybe i should try to be more aggressive with them. more general advice, maybe a worst cards/best cards for common matchups would be also helpful (though to some extent that's already in the primer).


This is very matchup/personality dependent. Normally the first thing to go in fair matchups is usually enlightened tutor (especially against delver). Past that it's boarding out the bad cards and putting in good ones. I wouldn't take out welder vs swords deck with the exception of D&T since they play revokers. Welder is a very good way to negate counterspells.

Kap'n Cook
04-18-2018, 10:28 AM
Went 4-1 last night missing out on the 5-0 to a topdecked Force of Will g3 against Pile. Beat Lands, 4c Loam?, Maverick, Red Stompy (hoogland)

I was running 4 MD canonists like the list I posted above (No Ballista/Karn yet obviously), but slotted the 6th blast in over the MD Heretic. I dropped the Heretic back to the side just so I could get a feel for having more blasts around and how often I would set up Canonist-Painter-Blast. Moving forward I'm not sure this is the best since EE by itself probably isn't enough to beat Chalice and there are still plenty of matchups where Canonist isn't great. Back when we had top there was a good chance that we would have Welder/Grindstone/Top/Tutor in our opener to be able to mitigate chalice or dig out of it with Top to find the explosives naturally. Now, while we still have Stone/Welder/Tutor, we can't find EE as reliably, which leans me towards wanting to have EE in the main as a catch-all as well as a tutorable artifact piece. I think if you want both, then you can run Heretic as the compliment to EE. Explosives could very well be in the side as well with just a artifact bear in the main but I want to see how EE performs still and I think if you go with just the solitary dude then you probably would want it to be a comes into play guy so that you for sure get the chalice.

Second, with a few more games played, I think Canonist and Blood Moon fall on the same spectrum of what numbers we want. I think I am comfortable with having all 8 copies in the 75, with some combination of 5 main 3 side based on metagame preference. Finding the solitary maindeck moon wasn't really that big of a problem with the tutors, and it was certainly dead at times in the matchups I've had, but Canonist has been partly as well. And while moon is nowhere near game over anymore in a lot of matches (almost died to 2 pyromancers and tokens after t1 moon on the play against pile), having a backup copy probably makes the most sense for game 1.

Lastly, I really wish I could play more blasts main, but I think our new deck constraints make them worse. Shortcake before was running I think only 11 or 12 creatures by the end, whereas we should be running around 16 to adequately fuel copter. I would like the 6th, but I don't know what I would cut. Canonist will also help make the blasts higher impact.

That leads me to this list which I will start jamming a lot more games with. I don't think anything will pop out as much as quick as it did like the Canonist-Moon split or the artifact hate, so getting a feel for the list will be more my goal. Still, things I am paying extra close attention to are: 1) 4th Mountain vs 3rd Plateau, 2) 4th petal vs 2nd Monkey, and 3) Where to fit the 6th blast/if we want it


Shortcake

4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
2 Plateau
1 Great Furnace
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire
4 Mountain

4 Lotus Petal
1 Simian Spirit Guide

4 Imperial Recruiter
4 Painter's Servant
3 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Goblin Welder
2 Grim Lavamancer
1 Viashino Heretic

4 Grindstone
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Smuggler's Copter

2 Blood Moon

4 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
3 Enlightened Tutor

Sideboard:
2 Blood Moon
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Goblin Welder
1 Grim Lavamancer (Ballista?)
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Abrade
2 Pyroclasm
2 Rest in Peace
1 Tormod's Crypt


That's 74 right now. More games will reveal what is safe to chop for the 2 Karns I want to test out.

Fallen_Empire
04-18-2018, 10:54 AM
Why so many fetchlands, is it to feed lavaman? It's not like we are using them in conjunction with brainstorm. Seems like auto 4x plateau would be ideal. This deck seems sweet I look forward to playing this soon. I will definitely be doing some brewing.

Kap'n Cook
04-18-2018, 11:18 AM
Why so many fetchlands, is it to feed lavaman? It's not like we are using them in conjunction with brainstorm. Seems like auto 4x plateau would be ideal. This deck seems sweet I look forward to playing this soon. I will definitely be doing some brewing.

Don't really have a great answer as to why, mainly it was the old manabase we used a lot and it's always felt very solid. Yes, fetches have noticeably helped fuel lavaman but they also help with stuff like wasteland protection until you need the plateau or even smaller things like shuffling after a jace fateseal. Obviously the tradeoff is extra lands for deathrite, stifle, and life loss. The fetch/plateau/mountain split could certainly be looked at in more detail, I've just always been comfortable with it and wanted to worry about the other 56 cards first




kinda wanna say free ned leeds since that seems to be the thing here but to be honest I have no clue who he is. so i'll just say keep on painting!
- 'slid

Always. Always, friend

sroncor1
04-18-2018, 12:00 PM
The fetch land count sort of came out of testing to have one white mana when you needed it while also decreases exposure to wasteland. That was why we never ran a full playset of Rw duals. With the increased amount of Canonist it may be worth looking at increasing the count. Although I think that by cutting down the Moons you are going to basically fetch more, making the 3 dual lands easier to find in general. Along with making Lavaman a tad bit stronger.

@ 3-4 Canonist main- I think this is a very viable idea. I have been a huge fan of the card for a while now. It's ability to positively interact with most of the format now is really nice. Along with adding disruption in the form of a body that can crew I think may be playing more to the strong points of the current build of Shortcake. When we were skyping through that league the card continued to perform well across all the games you drew it.

I have routinely been slow rolling or not playing Blood Moon early as the risk of a FoW could be a real blow out. With its decreased ability to affect Miracles, and Lands anymore I do think we should continue to evaluate how Blood Moon fits into the deck moving forward.

With respect to sideboard, I think we will have a list and framework up in maybe two weeks. I had a rough sketch that was held up due to the possibility of a banning along with the general newness of the deck. I plan on running a list with 3-4 Canonist for the next week and taking notes. From there I think we should have a general sense of what the optimal maindeck configuration should be. From there the rest os fairly easy as a lot of previous side boarding strategies can just be ported over. Sample hands are a lot harder to map out. In general a hand that can start crewing on turn 2 or a turn 2 combo are the best. In general I probably go for the crewing over the combo against a blind opponent, bc it has a higher floor for sequencing. It's usually better to combo with protection or after fighting a war of attrition. Most decks play at least 6-8 removal spells, that coupled with FoW make a fairly good chance your first attempt will be disrupted somehow. SI have found hands that play into the longer game to be stronger in general. While the format is faster now than in the past, cantrips have sort of also made it more grindy. Much like Vault/Key in Vintage, we have an incredibly easy to cast, mana efficient combo that can just win the game on the spot. The key is setting up when to activate it, and often times that is not on turn 2 but more turn five.

Overall its nice to see the input. I hope others are testing the deck and I would love to get some more input. I do think that it will take a lot of games(>50 games) to get a feel to what the deck should feel like.

Seth

NormalGuy
04-18-2018, 03:26 PM
I'm glad to see you guys are willing to test with less than 4 moons now after advising against it. I've been running 1 moon/1 magus for a few weeks now and been perfectly happy with it, with the 3 additional moons in the board. Instead of going up to 3 cononists I've been running an extra lavaman and a relic of progenitus. I think 3 canonist is probably a better plan though.

sroncor1
04-18-2018, 03:46 PM
@Normalguy- Yeah I mean I think it is a couple factors that led to considering less moons. First we really had to be comfortable with the way Copter worked within the deck. Then it was a matter of looking at the meta and how the deck worked. I would say that the switch back could happen again, but at this point I think for shortcake at least, it is very reasonable to consider dropping the total Moon count.

Seth

aslidsiksoraksi
04-18-2018, 04:05 PM
just some a general observations on the idea with lowering moon count...

@normalguy - i like the idea of including magus, that way you're running an effective 9 moons, if you count tutors. though as usual in important moon matches you want it turn 1, and really you only have 2 ways to do that. of course, the matches where moon is that important are fewer these days, and I think that's why overall going down a bit has been good

more overall, it's interesting that this iteration is so much less focused on the lock pieces. imperial painter and even the shortcake lists of old seemed to always include 2-4 bridge and 4 moon, plus some number of magus. but we're down to, in some cases, 1 of each. i think this speaks a lot to how different this deck is vs imperial painter (and, to some extent, better - if moon is the worst lock piece, chalice is probably the best lock piece in big red's arsenal, and imperial painter has to give that up for the combo). without the emphasis on locking people, it's all about assembling the combo and navigating the game to make it work, with the backup plan of beating down or tutoring for silver bullets/lock pieces (could we even run our own 1x Chalice? we have welder to get around it...). i feel like we're a lot better at playing the aggro game than previous versions (and current monored versions) thanks to copter and the higher creature count. a decent chunk of games seem to play out with them expending a lot of resources to stop me from comboing out and then me just attacking while i lavamancer/pyroblast the last few things they have. anyway just some thoughts.

Other random ideas -

anyone tried fiery confluence? I had 1x in the board these last few matches and every time i drew it was very happy. it's like Abrade but bigger, with an additional Pyroclasm mode. also radically changes the clock if we find ourselves in beatdown mode. mana to cast it wasn't too big a deal. might be worth trying a 1-1 abrade/confluence split, or maybe 1 pryoclasm, 2 confluence, 1 abrade in the board.

also I'm sure this is an old idea but what are our thoughts on Jitte? we play enough creatures, and we have a tutor for it. it's an absolute house against a ton of decks. it may be just another version of lavamancer, but the life gain is nice too and it's colorless so can kill mom. maybe on the board, but i was also thinking it would be good to have an enlightened tutor target in the MD for when we are switching gears away from the combo to just trying to beat them down (ideally something that does both would be great; maybe Ballista since we can play it as a 2/2 and just keep making it bigger if the game is stalled).

sroncor1
04-18-2018, 05:27 PM
@aslidsiksoraksi-Shortcake always sort of focused on two things, those being finding the combo, and/or using Blood Moon. But even in that situation you still had to actually win once Moon resolved, which sometimes involved beating down, but you still wanted to combo as fast as possible in an ideal world. In the past Blood Moon was just stronger against the field, and much better against earlier Lands lists. The Bridge count was more a hedge against a meta where Show and Tell approached close to 20 percent, and the count came down. I think as best I can tell we were running a singleton in the deck at the time of the SDT banning, with an additional 1 in the board. Now the mono red list ran more bc they lacked the card selection that E tutor provided. After the SDT banning Mono red has really taken on more cards from Dragon Stompy lists. While I think this helped them, in the end it was sort of not enough I think. The issue is two fold, one the mana needs to be reworked and two, without using Chalice the end cards or Chandra, Bridge, and Conflux arent as good. I think this does allow that deck to combat the meta a little better, but probably plays worse at all those aspects, which could cause some real problems.

What Jack realized was that Canonist may very well be better as a speed bump in the current meta than Blood Moon is. Again the key is to not think of it as a lock piece but a tempo play buying you time, whether that is eating a removal spell, slowing down the cantrip chain, or crewing a copter, which allows you to successfully assemble and activate the combo.

Fiery Conflux and 4 mana spells in general are really not where we want to be. (I say this without testing the new Karn, but he is cast able off 2 sol lands which is a totally different situation) Our deck is designed to operate on one red mana and adding too many cards that violate that will make it less consistent. In what match ups was the Conflux really strong? What did you cut from your board to fit it in? In general I would say that if you are paying 4 mana for a spell you want it to basically win the game like JTMS does. Karn may be that power level, but removal probably isnt there. I know against Elves and Death and Taxes its a tad slow as they are either putting more pressure on you(Elves), or messing with your mana(D and T). Pyroclasm and Abrade just are better here bc they allow you to interact with your opponents board on a more efficient mana ratio while also allowing you to develop your board on the same turn.

Jitte is similar I think. I mean in the grindy match ups it probably is pretty good. The issue comes in the general space category. We can't adjust the creature count much lower, you want combo pieces in those match ups, and I think just ensuring the looting every turn is just better as the card selection really helps you keep up with cantrips. The earliest you can reasonably hit with the jitte is turn 3.

I would advise against ever keeping a hand that from the start just wants to beat down. Yes you want to be crewing and attacking with Copter, but that is more about card selection and resource denial(life). So while the Copter allows for easier wins through the red zone that should really not be your focus. It should be develop board and improve hand leading to eventual combo. If you do that you will find that the development of board and hand will sometimes kill the opponent as they have to interact now with this phase of your plan or ensure they can disrupt the combo.

Seth

drude1
04-19-2018, 01:44 PM
I started testing something very similar to Jack's new version of the list. I would say this...

a. LOVE the idea of increasing the canonist count. It does so much against a lot of our bad match-ups (storm, elves, Aluren, even burn). It also interacts very well against all the attrition decks running around. Snapcaster is just bad against it. And if you have a blast in hand or welder on the table, canonist protects the combo amazingly well. I always played canonist in my shortcake list when I was playing it and always loved it. Having said that, I also agree that 3 is probably the right number in the main.

b. I'm also okay with cutting down the blood moon count. Unless you are playing 8 of them (magus) and can consistently drop one on turn one, it definitely has diminishing returns. However, this creates a couple challenges in deck construction. First, I think adding a magus is probably right. It crews copter and it's searchable with recruiter. Second, I think you need to reconsider your mana base. 19 lands with no cantrips is probably not enough. The fast mana was to turn one a blood moon more consistently. I would recommend going up on the land count and cut 1-2 fast mana. Out of all the games that I test my biggest problem was getting land screwed, by far.

c. I really think you need at least 6 blasts in the main. it's part of what really makes canonists good. And blue is still pretty popular in the format. :tongue:

d. lavaman has not been that impressive to me. This might be because I was only running one copy and it always died before I could activate it. in the dozen or so games I played. I didn't actually activate it once. Part of the problem is that it suffers from the same issue as Jaya and heretic for that matter, and that's summoning sickness. Not saying either of these are absolutely wrong, but I was just hoping for more. This might be one situation where having this effect on legs isn't worth it. I've actually been playing cursed scroll in my grixis build and it's been surprisingly good. Just a thought.

e. as for confluence, I would agree with Seth. I LOVE confluence as a card and tried it a little in my version. It's so powerful and against D&T in particular it just wrecks. However, in this deck, it has just felt too slow. I think the combo of abrade and pyroclasm is probably the way to go.

Anyway, kudos Jack for the canonist innovation. I think it will be pay off in spades. Also interested in how Karn will look in the deck.

NormalGuy
04-19-2018, 02:45 PM
As far as mana base changes are concerned, I've been thinking about moving from petals to Mox diamonds. It gives you repeatable white mana that is immune to blood moon and wasteland. It's also a good way to use multiple city's more effectively. I am a little worried about 20 lands not being enough to support diamond though.

CptHaddock
04-19-2018, 03:03 PM
As far as mana base changes are concerned, I've been thinking about moving from petals to Mox diamonds. It gives you repeatable white mana that is immune to blood moon and wasteland. It's also a good way to use multiple city's more effectively. I am a little worried about 20 lands not being enough to support diamond though.

You want atleast 23-24 lands to support mox diamond and that is probably cutting it close. In general mox diamonds are used for fixing mana, so they can be thought of as supplementing lands rather than replacing them. What problems are you having with petals? You really don't need a repeatably white source unless you are playing any of the Rw walkers in my experience in which you might just be better off playing a basic Plains and 4 Arid Mesas.

drude1
04-19-2018, 04:34 PM
You want atleast 23-24 lands to support mox diamond and that is probably cutting it close. In general mox diamonds are used for fixing mana, so they can be thought of as supplementing lands rather than replacing them. What problems are you having with petals? You really don't need a repeatably white source unless you are playing any of the Rw walkers in my experience in which you might just be better off playing a basic Plains and 4 Arid Mesas.Well, in a list with at least 6 white spells I agree that petals might not be enough. If going to 20 lands, I would definitely play a plains. I agree though about mox diamond. Not enough lands. Maybe one chrome mox would be reasonable. I think I would just play 20-21 land and 4 fast Mana.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

CptHaddock
04-19-2018, 06:55 PM
Well, in a list with at least 6 white spells I agree that petals might not be enough. If going to 20 lands, I would definitely play a plains. I agree though about mox diamond. Not enough lands. Maybe one chrome mox would be reasonable. I think I would just play 20-21 land and 4 fast Mana.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

Ah whoops, my bad. Still not used to thinking about a 4 canonist version of this deck. Either way I wouldn't recommend mox diamond.

sroncor1
04-20-2018, 12:51 PM
That is an interesting thought of reworking the mana base with the transition away from Blood Moon turn one. I think in doing so we should consider a few points:

1. You are still looking to maximize the amount of games that you have 2 mana turn one, 4 mana turn two, with a potential for 5+ on turn three. With this in mind, fast mana still plays a huge role in completing this. Although this does lead to some consistency issues.

2. While in the past mountain into SDT, go was a viable play, now we really need two mana on the first turn due to the requirements of Copter. While Ancient Tomb does this the best, I will routine blow a petal or SSG to get a Copter on turn one. SO while we may not need 3 as often on the first turn, we basically always want at least 2 on the first turn, which I think is important to keep in mind.

3. Ensuring high cheap artifact count is always a critical issue to ensure that Welder is as strong as he possibly can be

4. The requirement for colored mana sources is still fairly low per turn and per game basis. The deck was designed to be close to colorless. This allows us to look at other lands that can produce mana, sometimes with upside. Something like Crystal Vein as a singleton may be what you need. I haven't tested it, but its ability to be an additional land while also giving you a ramp on demand is interesting.

5. Due to being a Stompy mana base, and not blue, we have to accept some variance and difficulty with colored mana stability to increase the explosiveness to justify the weakness of the core of the deck.

6. Mox Diamond as a 3 of probably is not correct as our land count is too low in general. However I could see a one of in the deck sort of the way some Faerie Stompy lists run. This may be worth looking at. Also in this vein, we may want to look at a singleton Chrome Mox. I have a hard time seeing more than one of these working as the card disadvantage is brutal, but as a singleton it can give repeatable colored mana, and due to the exile effect, it is rarely countered making it a great fodder for Welder as the game goes on.

With that all being said I do think looking at the mana base in the future will be something we need to do. I was talking with Jack as to how to go through moving the deck forward. I love all the ideas and testing and I do really like the Canonist increase and have been doing well with it online. One thing we need to be mindful of is that too many changes at once can make it hard to find the signal from the noise in testing. I have switched over to also working on the maindeck again, looking at counts of Canonist and Blood Moon. I am leaning towards a 4/1 split as that is what I have been testing, but transitioning to 3/2 may be correct. Since that is the case, looking at fine tuning the board will have to wait a bit. Likewise, I would hold off on working on the mana base too much in the short term just to reduce the new information.

Seth

Kap'n Cook
04-20-2018, 03:01 PM
Just some more general thoughts I had about potential choices:

Expanding on what Seth and Dan said regarding the lower blood moon count, if testing ends up finding that 2 moon effects maindeck are the right call then I definitely think exploring a 1-1 split of Magus and Blood Moon could be very good. Obviously the main appeal of magus is how it expands our toolbox and synergizes with copters. I'm still not sure if 4-1 Canonist/Moon just ends up being better than a 3-2 or a 3-1-1 split, mainly because of how much stuff Magus ends up having to deal with, be it push/bolt/stp/k-command/term etc. The tradeoff we have to explore is whether having Recruiter being being able to find a crewable moon is worth having those removal spells gain value. If we are examining it purely from a 'my non-combo piece ate some removal', then yes, Magus is surely the play over the 2nd Moon. Another important factor to consider is how much value/impact we expect to get from this Moon spot. That is where I think the answer is less clear, as Blood Moon is vastly superior to Magus in most matchups, even if the 2nd copy isn't recruitable. I mean at the end of the day, weren't a lot of us just not even playing Magus at all in the 75? I'm just not convinced yet (but could be) that just because playing 2 moon effects main is the path we choose that we should make one of those a magus. The extra sideboard slot would also need to be considered here, as I still think the 4th copy of Blood Moon in the 75 is still better than the 1st copy of Magus. Good thoughts though.

Another comment about the manabase and fast mana. 19 lands is very low still yes, and we don't have top to help. That said, Copter has been showing up enough to help out a bit, so I'm not ready to start adding lands at the expense of fast mana. Part of that is how I am going about playing the deck now. In the very few games so far that I have been playing Canonist, I've been viewing it a lot like I would Blood moon in prior builds, powering it out early and on turn 1 if the opportunity is there (very situation dependent as in the dark going copter is still probably the better line). Besides auto winning vs storm, dropping it turn 1 blind still completely screws up all the decks playing probe. Second, having the 4 petals greatly increases the chance of playing out something relevant like a stone/welder while keeping up etutor for whatever we need to grab end of opponent's turn. The numbers could certainly be changed based on how you view the deck playing out, be it adding a land etc, just know that the deck will be ever so slightly slower and ever so slightly different, which should always be kept in mind with boarding. If Canonists end up being as good as they have so far and we keep 3-4 main, I don't think any number of Chrome Mox is playable since its an artifact. Mox Diamond can probably work, but I would transition more towards the 20-21 land ideas other have briefly mentioned and trying to figure out the numbers there.

sroncor1
04-21-2018, 10:00 AM
I have done more testing with the increased Canonist count. I have really liked 4/1 split with Blood Moon. Right now I would think that is where we need to be as the card is so rarely dead. The increased ability to crew is also really nice and it is a great way to increase the dude count overall in the deck. I want to get another 20 matches or so, but I think we are in a great place with the main deck. I still need to test Grixis delver, but I think at this point the main deck is really well positioned against BUG, Miracles, Elves, Various Pile lists, and Tendrils right now. Grixis Delver has been favorable I think, although its a small sample size with the dropping Blood Moon counts.

Things to work on moving forward:

1. Adjusting the side board to address the rest of the meta once the main deck and its match ups are decided
2. Evaluating the mana base. I think we should hold off on this to reduce the confusion in to many things going on in the testing. It should be re evaluated although I think it will be a small change of probably a land or type of fast mana, so doubtful it will be drastic.
3. Evaluation of the foils to the meta we use. With reworked mana base and decreased reliance on Blood Moon having overlapping and different answers to problems will be important. Things like a singleton Peacekeeper and the like should probably be re evaluated now.
4. Evaluation of the final 2 utility spots in the main deck. Currently artifact hate that Recruiter can grab is sort of a must so we will remove that from the discussion. With that in mind, it is really Ensnaring Bridge, the sixth blast, EE, or possibly the 4th E tutor to fill these last 2 spots. There also could be other cards that we have not thought of.
5. Testing Karn. He seems really strong. Def a great card against all the fair decks and Miracles in the format. I think we will need to first see if he does play as well as he appears. After that we will need to figure out if he is a win more card in most match ups, meaning he is a side board card, or if he functions as a more critical win condition, that can add to the increased cards we see in a given game, making him strong enough to start in the maindeck.

That is sort of where I am thinking I will be focusing my attention on over the next week or so.

I am also thinking about streaming the deck in the next couple days. Its doubtful I will get my shit together and pick up Karns online just yet, but I could do something Sunday night and maybe Monday night. Would that be something people would want, maybe blow through a league.

Seth

sroncor1
04-21-2018, 10:04 AM
Sorry for the double post, but I do think we need to seriously consider not having Magus of the Moon in the 75. He is awesome against BUG, but most of the other decks where you want a moon effect now run red removal. BUG is already a very favorable match up, and with the increase in Punishing Fire throughout the meta makes using him really dicey.

Seth

Cyanhur
04-21-2018, 10:49 AM
I played jack list. Just amazing
I think i Want to play 2 new karn i did it turn 2 vs bug 2 clock token then he conced.
Cannoniste main deck is really fine.
I just cut one mountain for one plain and cut 3 feitch for 3 arid Mesa
Every match i was enjoy to play canoniste and keep a blast Back up for painter

I will play your list for birmingham.

I played vs br rea, bug control, grixis, infect

SDBobPlissken
04-21-2018, 01:48 PM
If you do end up streaming what is your twitch handle?


I have done more testing with the increased Canonist count. I have really liked 4/1 split with Blood Moon. Right now I would think that is where we need to be as the card is so rarely dead. The increased ability to crew is also really nice and it is a great way to increase the dude count overall in the deck. I want to get another 20 matches or so, but I think we are in a great place with the main deck. I still need to test Grixis delver, but I think at this point the main deck is really well positioned against BUG, Miracles, Elves, Various Pile lists, and Tendrils right now. Grixis Delver has been favorable I think, although its a small sample size with the dropping Blood Moon counts.

Things to work on moving forward:

1. Adjusting the side board to address the rest of the meta once the main deck and its match ups are decided
2. Evaluating the mana base. I think we should hold off on this to reduce the confusion in to many things going on in the testing. It should be re evaluated although I think it will be a small change of probably a land or type of fast mana, so doubtful it will be drastic.
3. Evaluation of the foils to the meta we use. With reworked mana base and decreased reliance on Blood Moon having overlapping and different answers to problems will be important. Things like a singleton Peacekeeper and the like should probably be re evaluated now.
4. Evaluation of the final 2 utility spots in the main deck. Currently artifact hate that Recruiter can grab is sort of a must so we will remove that from the discussion. With that in mind, it is really Ensnaring Bridge, the sixth blast, EE, or possibly the 4th E tutor to fill these last 2 spots. There also could be other cards that we have not thought of.
5. Testing Karn. He seems really strong. Def a great card against all the fair decks and Miracles in the format. I think we will need to first see if he does play as well as he appears. After that we will need to figure out if he is a win more card in most match ups, meaning he is a side board card, or if he functions as a more critical win condition, that can add to the increased cards we see in a given game, making him strong enough to start in the maindeck.

That is sort of where I am thinking I will be focusing my attention on over the next week or so.

I am also thinking about streaming the deck in the next couple days. Its doubtful I will get my shit together and pick up Karns online just yet, but I could do something Sunday night and maybe Monday night. Would that be something people would want, maybe blow through a league.

Seth

aslidsiksoraksi
04-21-2018, 02:58 PM
I played jack list. Just amazing
I think i Want to play 2 new karn i did it turn 2 vs bug 2 clock token then he conced.
Cannoniste main deck is really fine.
I just cut one mountain for one plain and cut 3 feitch for 3 arid Mesa
Every match i was enjoy to play canoniste and keep a blast Back up for painter

I will play your list for birmingham.

I played vs br rea, bug control, grixis, infect

Good luck in Birmingham! If you have the time for a tourney report please do send one, i for one love those things :tongue:

@Seth - if you stream do share your twitch handle and ideally upload a video for non-live viewing, would love to watch a master at work. no pressure though, i know it's a bit of a thing to set it all up.

sroncor1
04-21-2018, 09:35 PM
Ok so I have never streamed before but I am working on setting it up so that can have a trial run. May be rough, but its a start.

handle is the same as my mtgo account: goblinmutant141

I will post more Sunday am, I will try either Sunday or Monday.

Seth

sroncor1
04-22-2018, 11:08 AM
Ok. So I tried to set up twitch. Apparently it’s tough on a laptop. If anyone can help that would be awesome as I am just not that good with computers anymore. I have an hp laptop if that helps.

Seth

Cyanhur
04-22-2018, 12:40 PM
Good luck in Birmingham! If you have the time for a tourney report please do send one, i for one love those things :tongue:

@Seth - if you stream do share your twitch handle and ideally upload a video for non-live viewing, would love to watch a master at work. no pressure though, i know it's a bit of a thing to set it all up.

Thanks:! Yes i will make a report.

CptHaddock
04-22-2018, 01:18 PM
Ok. So I tried to set up twitch. Apparently it’s tough on a laptop. If anyone can help that would be awesome as I am just not that good with computers anymore. I have an hp laptop if that helps.

Seth

Unless you have an older computer, you should be able to stream MTGO. When I streamed for a while I used Darkest_Mage's guide (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URy_tTxVfhA) on setting it up initially and didn't play with it much past that. I don't know if any of it got deprecated but it might help.

drude1
04-22-2018, 02:07 PM
Ok. So I tried to set up twitch. Apparently it’s tough on a laptop. If anyone can help that would be awesome as I am just not that good with computers anymore. I have an hp laptop if that helps.

Seth

Are you using xSplit? That's what I've been using and I'm pretty sure that's what Jack used to use. It saves all the settings for you so you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time. It also manages the twitch interaction for you. And it's FREE!!!

matfow
04-22-2018, 09:13 PM
Hi there,

I'm rather new to "current Magic" as I haven't played for about 10 years. I was just wondering and sorry if this question has already been asked but do you recommend a deck like this in whatever build you have already mentioned for a new player to Legacy? I tried to play a R/W Painter deck recently that I found online but had to take the Tops out as I didn't realise they were banned. It's only for FNM so I'm allowed to proxy for now until I get more cards.

Really enjoying all these posts on this great deck. Do I need to ask permission to use any of the above mentioned decks or shall I just let you know how the deck went.

Thanks
:)

aslidsiksoraksi
04-22-2018, 09:19 PM
Hi Matfow, welcome to Legacy! I don't think you need to ask for permission, and I'm pretty sure the people here would love to hear your thoughts on the deck and any experiences or insights you might have as you play it

Is it good for new players? It's a combo deck, but once you figure out the combo it's pretty straightforward. You have to be aware of your opponent's possible cards a lot though, since much of the gameplay is playing around what they might have. So on that front it might be a bit difficult to play well if you're brand new to the format. At the same time, since all you have to do is put two cards together to win, you will get some 'free wins' by just playing the combo and your opponent not being able to stop you.

Hopefully that helps? Let us know if you have any further questions. I'm no expert but I'm happy to help and some people here have been playing the deck for many years.

NormalGuy
04-22-2018, 11:17 PM
I'm kind of curious, what matchups do you guys think you really want Blood Moon for? The reason I ask is that I find that I mostly want it against decks with Dark Depths, and it sometimes can be a liability with the recent rule change. I am considering weather Deflecting Palm would be a superior card to fight Marit Lage. It can also possibly do some work against Emrakul and Griselbrand.

This is the list I came up with where I really want blood moon currently: Turbo Depths, Lands, Eldrazi, Grixis Delver, Maverick

Kap'n Cook
04-23-2018, 12:28 PM
Notched another 4-1 last night. Canonist continues to overperform, while Moon continues to be underwhelming. I had just posted about going to a 3-2 split and exploring that further, but I have flipped back and think having all 4 canonists is better right now. I did a little finagling of the numbers, leading me to this next version. Comments after.

4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
2 Plateau
1 Great Furnace
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire
4 Mountain

4 Lotus Petal
1 Simian Spirit Guide

4 Imperial Recruiter
4 Painter's Servant
4 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Goblin Welder
2 Grim Lavamancer
1 Viashino Heretic

4 Grindstone
4 Smuggler's Copter
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Blood Moon

4 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
3 Enlightened Tutor

Sideboard:
3 Blood Moon
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Rest in Peace
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Goblin Welder
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Ensnaring Bridge/Peacekeeper
2 Abrade
2 Pyroclasm
2 Karn, Scion of Urza


White count: I only have 2 plateau right now, Seth is already running 3. If Wasteland pressure/Ghost quarter concerns turn out to be low, then I will certainly add the extra plateau. The canonsists also ease the creature count worries, lessening the need for Monkeys, hence the bump up to 4 petals. I moved EE to the board since we can't really find it if chalice is already in play, and while it is the best removal spell for random things that might pop up, it is actively bad a lot of the time. Heretic is slow, but still has favorable combat stats that lessen his drawback in non-artifact decks. That gave me the room to squeeze in the 6th blast, which will surely be great with the maxed canonists.

For the board, the 2 karns are the flex spots for now. These otherwise would be my 3rd grave hate of some kind and the 7th blast or something along those lines. Other thoughts are that lavamancers die fast enough in the matchups you want him that the 3rd copy (vs ballista) is still pretty good. I have not yet tried the Ballista. The other ensnaring bridge might also become a peacekeeper for some interesting overlap between the two cards. I'm looking at RB reanimator as a horrible matchup and Dredge as not seen enough (despite it being crazy OP right now) that I am comfortable enough shaving the extra grave effect to get the other things like pyroclasm/abrade in. Seth is on the RIP/Helm package, which nicely overlaps into the walker/alt-win con/CA spots, and really shores up the random graveyard matchups. I think he is also testing out the 4th E-tutor, as that becomes much much better when all you really need to find is the 1-off Helm. Basically it becomes what do you want to hedge against. RIP/Helm covers probably all of the random shit you might encounter in legacy.


Overall this is just a quick update but I really like how the list has taken shape and how much better it has been (compared to blood moons) vs the blue copy/paste environment we currently reside in. I would really encourage everyone to keep messing around with the 4 canonists main and look to power it out early to see how it fares. I'm still heavily in the collecting data realm, so outside opinions are certainly welcome and will help to bounce ideas around more.

JackaBo
04-23-2018, 02:53 PM
What do you guys think of playing vial and mother of runes?
Something like this?

Creatures:24
4 Goblin Welder
1 Grim Lavamancer
4 Mother of Runes
4 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Painter's Servant
1 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Imperial Recruiter
1 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
1 Magus of the Moon

Spells:17
4 AEther Vial
4 Grindstone
3 Pyroblast
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Smuggler's Copter

Lands:19
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Arid Mesa
3 Mountain
3 Plains
2 Plateau
4 Scalding Tarn

A card that us really good with Canonist is Spellqueller. Iffy on splashing a third color though.

Kap'n Cook
04-23-2018, 03:03 PM
Seems like a bad combination of DnT/Shortcake where you a) lack their prison elements b) lack our ability to find grindstone without enlightened tutors c) can't combo fast enough with the chopping of all fast mana and most sol lands

CptHaddock
04-23-2018, 03:22 PM
Out of curiosity besides combo what matchups have you been finding canonist to be better than blood moon? Blood moon is kind of weird against both Grixis Delver and Czech Pile. If landed early you can usually buy yourself enough time to take over the game but sometimes they have draws which just beat the card.

SDBobPlissken
04-24-2018, 12:35 AM
Took the version with 4 blood moons main to my LGS tonight. Fun time playing the deck but lost 3 of 4 rounds and had a round 3 bye. Played against some decks that I rarely play against so some sideboarding help with the matchups would be helpful. All in all I don’t think my board was really geared towards any of the matches I played.

3 mountain
3 plateau
3 city of traitors
3 arid Mesa
2 scalding tarn
4 ancient tomb
1 great furnace

4 painter’s servant
4 imperial recruiter
3 goblin welder
2 grim lavamancer
2 simian spirit guide
1 ethersworn canonist
1 viashino heretic

4 smugglers copter
4 grindstone
4 pyroblast
3 enlightened tutor
1 red elemental blast
1 ensnaring bridge
3 lotus petals
4 blood moon

Sideboard:

1 magus of the moon
1 engineered explosives
4 Rest In Peace
1 helm of obedience
2 abrade
2 kozileks return
2 ethersworn canonist
1 duergar hedgemage

Round 1: took game 1 vs turbo depths with fast combo via enlightened tutor. Games 2 and 3 he had early thoughtseizes and was able to Marit lage me before I could do anything worthwhile. I think I boarded in magus of the moon and a Rest In Peace and helm and took out A lavamancer, canonist, and heretic.

Round 2: lost in 2 to Food chain with Emrakul. Boarded in the Rest In Peace helm combo and canonists. Blood moon wasn’t able to slow them down enough and in game 1 I drew lands for 4 straight turns.

Round 3: bye

Round 4: lost in 2 to Academy Rector and overwhelming splendor. And there was also an omniscience and emrakul in there. Pretty interesting deck. The only blue card was omniscience that I saw and no islands. Lots of basics. Game 1 we both have really slow hands and he is able to get an overwhelming splendor into play. I wasn’t sure about how that interacts with painter since the new rule change. Did we get nerfed on that too? Judge call said that I don’t get to choose a color, which kinda sucked because I could end of turn enlightened tutor for painter and I had a blast in hand while he was tapped out. Wizards must really hate our deck. First the top ban, then the blood moon rule change and the painter rule change (if that is correct). Anyway, I scooped to the splendor as I had to way to remove it. Game 2 goes pretty long to. He blows up most of the board with pernicious deed and I am able to get him reasonably low life. He cabal therapies naming helm of obedience in the dark. (Maybe I need to conceal my cards better) next turn would have drawn Rest In Peace with enough mana to cast and activate helm. He is able to sac his rector and get an omniscience into play and cast emrakul.

My record online is decent. Probably just need more practice with playing in paper. There was another shortcake player there who did alright. He went with the 4 maindeck canonists. Maybe he’ll share his experience with it on here. I don’t know how I feel about the canonists over blood moon. I don’t think it would have helped me that much in many of my matchups except the food chain one. Still open to it though. Excited for the new Karn as well. Think I’m going to try him out in the maindeck though to start maybe cutting a blood moon and/or lavamancer welder or copter.

JackaBo
04-24-2018, 02:45 AM
Seems like a bad combination of DnT/Shortcake where you a) lack their prison elements b) lack our ability to find grindstone without enlightened tutors c) can't combo fast enough with the chopping of all fast mana and most sol lands

That is probably true.
My thought was that pre board mother is pretty good at protecting painter, leaving your blasts to kill lands and what not. The deck theoretically grinds well with Jaya which can be tutored for. I think I'm gonna test it anyway. :)

SDBobPlissken
04-24-2018, 03:49 AM
So I was able to set up a stream on twitch using xsplit. I got the basics down but I am terrible and doing stuff like this so don’t expect anything fancy. The fanciest I get is having a scrolling “Strawberry Shortcake” on the bottom which I can’t figure out how to change the color of. Gonna hopefully start streaming pretty often but not necessarily leagues. I do a lot of the tournament practice. Username is HeyClutch.

Fallen_Empire
04-24-2018, 11:02 AM
The card that I'm really impressed by is smugglers copter. I'll be honest I thought it would be jank but I bit the bullet and started playing 4 copies. That card puts in work! It gives us another dimension to lean on, and got me thinking. I'm a long time mono-red sneak/breach player. And if there is one thing I've learned it's that the real lynch pin of that deck is actually inferno titan. Your opponent is on the defense with all of their disruption trying to stop your combo, however after a few turns and sol lands later you can usually hard-cast inferno titan for the win. Inferno Titan has won me so many games with big red, and I'm looking at Shortcake's mana base and i'm thinking to myself why not just run a few just for fun as a powerful alt-con. If you get an early copter down and can apply some life pressure, once a titan comes down that's nearly gg even without the mill combo. Current list:

1 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Grindstone
4 Lotus Petal
4 Smuggler's Copter

4 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Goblin Welder
2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Imperial Recruiter
2 Inferno Titan
4 Painter's Servant
1 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Viashino Heretic

1 Blood Moon
2 Enlightened Tutor
4 Pyroblast

4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
4 Plateau
4 Mountain
3 Arid Mesa
1 Plains
1 Great Furnace

---
Sb (still raw):

1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Tormond's Crypt
1 Orcish Settlers
3 Blood Moon
2 Rest in Peace
2 Abrade
1 Disenchant
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Kozilek's Return

Kap'n Cook
04-24-2018, 11:15 AM
Out of curiosity besides combo what matchups have you been finding canonist to be better than blood moon? Blood moon is kind of weird against both Grixis Delver and Czech Pile. If landed early you can usually buy yourself enough time to take over the game but sometimes they have draws which just beat the card.


At this point any deck with blue I would probably rather be operating with a Canonist in play vs a Blood Moon in play. Corner cases aside, unless we are jamming out the Turn 1 Moon, Canonist has just been better, acting as a pseudo silence and just a general nuisance that has to be removed. There have been a bunch of times now where I land a moon and Deathrite just fuels Pyromancer chains through it, makes 1 black for an angler/k-command, or just doesn't even care and they force my relevant follow up play and then we're way behind. Grixis is just too well positioned against Blood Moon after turn 1 to justify running a 'less than all-in' moon plan like Shortcake has been doing. That said, of course Blood Moon is a very powerful card to have access to, it has just felt nicer being able to go tutor it whenever it will do the most damage vs drawing extra dead copies. That's the other part where Canonist has been better, it's better in multiples.

Got my Karns online last night, took my list from above for a test drive. Beat ANT, Death and Taxes, Eldrazi, and something else that I can't remember right now. Only loss was to red stompy in three games. Game 1 I kept a painter, stone, mountain, ssg, double blast hand and never drew another mana source. Game 2 I opened on T1 Copter T2 Karn to his turn 1 chalice. He scooped after my plus 1 on turn 3 revealed Heretic and Pyroclasm. Game 3 was tragic as well. I managed to blast away a chandra after he abraded my grindstone, leaving him on 2 mountains and 1 card in hand. He topdecks a chalice while my hand is e-tutor, welder, lavaman, blast and I am unable to dig out. The Death and Taxes games were literally insane. Games 2 and 3 I think went 20+ turns each. Pyroclasm was the only reason I was able to stay in the match, and was still castable through double port+thalia. Copter managed to close out the game over 4 turns against a Karakas-Thalia after my grindstones were surgicaled. Eldrazi was standard and still seems like an insanely good matchup, as both Painter and Moon completely screw up their mana, and Copter has actually made the matchup better than it was with top. ANT has been a bye so far, as Canonist game 1 is a hard lock. I still can't remember what my 5th match was, but either way, the 5-0 is only a matter of time now, as that's back to back 4-1's.

edit: didn't see the inferno titan post. I agree it is a bomb and maybe it could be good although I think the mana would have to be reworked towards chrome mox or something. An issue I'm sure that we could run into though is that 6 mana is surprisingly a lot for our deck, even though we are running sol lands. Furthermore, and this is a big reason I am hyped on karn, is that for these cards (4+ mana walkers/bombs/whatever you want to call them) we often want to use a blast to get them to resolve through countermagic. Getting triple red (and 5 mana) for something like Chandra or Koth has always been a little difficult. Even getting double red for Jaya at 3 mana was sometimes an issue. With Karn, having to only get one red mana for the blast should be very doable. For Inferno titan, we're now up to 7 mana and triple red if we want the blast as well. I think it might just be too high priced to have a consistent impact vs the red blasts you cut.

sroncor1
04-24-2018, 05:21 PM
Wow some great stuff guys.

Thanks for the info about streaming. I will try some stuff over the next couple days. I will have to be doing a bunch of traveling for work over the next couple months I think so that may mean lost of nights in hotel rooms, so it would be ideal for trying out leagues during those times. So I will hopefully be able to stream weekly at least, at least that is my hope.

I would say in a vacuum, my sideboard probably isn't what you want to be doing. I fully accept that I have been playing Vintage too much and probably fear Dredge more than anyone else. (But can anyone tell why that deck isn't played more in the current meta? DRS and Surgical just seem liks shitty answers to what that deck is doing)

I would love for a Titan to be playable but the double red may be tough. Wurm coil is probably just stronger if you really want a high end finisher.

Jack I am happy to see that Karn was viable. I do think the card has some value in the deck. It is funny that your game was basically living the dream of the potential of the deck with Karn. I feel that hand beats most of teh meta not called Tendrils or Show and Tell.

Seth

Cyanhur
04-25-2018, 07:50 AM
Notched another 4-1 last night. Canonist continues to overperform, while Moon continues to be underwhelming. I had just posted about going to a 3-2 split and exploring that further, but I have flipped back and think having all 4 canonists is better right now. I did a little finagling of the numbers, leading me to this next version. Comments after.

4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
2 Plateau
1 Great Furnace
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Arid Mesa
3 Mountain
1 Plain

4 Lotus Petal
1 Simian Spirit Guide

4 Imperial Recruiter
4 Painter's Servant
4 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Goblin Welder
2 Grim Lavamancer
1 Viashino Heretic

4 Grindstone
4 Smuggler's Copter
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Blood Moon

4 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
3 Enlightened Tutor

Sideboard:
3 Blood Moon
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Rest in Peace
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Goblin Welder
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Abrade
2 Pyroclasm
2 Karn, Scion of Urza



I am playing your list with some change. I don't know if it's better to put 3 plateau and keep 4 mountains.
I confirme i am playing your list on MTGO and i am really enjoy to play it ! I played vs fairedeck and it's fine.

As i said earlier, i am going to Birmingham. I will try to make a side table. I will ask for your help to validate it.

NormalGuy
04-25-2018, 09:57 AM
I am playing your list with some change. I don't know if it's better to put 3 plateau and keep 4 mountains.
I confirme i am playing your list on MTGO and i am really enjoy to play it ! I played vs fairedeck and it's fine.

As i said earlier, i am going to Birmingham. I will try to make a side table. I will ask for your help to validate it.

I've been running 3 mountain, 1 plains, 4 mesa, 2 plateau and I haven't run into any issues getting the mana I needed. Being able to fetch up a plains has actually been a big help against wasteland for me. The rest of my list is exactly what Jack posted
except for a few sideboard tweaks and it's been running really well for me. One thing I did notice it's that most games are getting very grindy and frequently go to time or very close to time. I feel like playing this kind of magic could be very mentally taxing at a large event.

SDBobPlissken
04-26-2018, 11:14 AM
I have been loving having the leyline Rest In Peace combo in the board however I feel that RIP is really slow verse B/R reanimator. I’m usually fine game 2 on the play but it’s just too slow on the draw and if you can’t power it out with fast mana early. Has anyone tried leyline of the void? When I was on dragon stompy I would just mull til I pretty much found it. We can still play a copy of Rest In Peace in the board along with the 4 leylines.

Did three leagues recently going 3-2, 3-2, and 2-3. The first 3-2 was using the 4 blood moons main. The 3-2 and 2-3 were both using 4 maindeck canonists. I’ve noticed that the lands match up is not nearly as good as it used to be. Ghost quarter can be a real pain if they get the loam engine going. I managed to take that round through timely blasts with painter out and one win with the combo the other with damage.

Gonna maybe give the leylines a try in my next league so my board will probably look like

4 leylines
1 Rest In Peace
1 helm of obedience
2 abrade
2 kozileks return
2 pyroclasm
2 ethersworn canonist
1 surgical/ 6th red blast.

Cyanhur
04-26-2018, 03:45 PM
I am not really sure but this is my first idea, Can you help me? tell me if i am wrong or right thanks!

Match UP IN / OUT

Grixis Delver +1EE, +1 Grim, +2 Pyroclasm, +2 Karn -4 lotus Petal, -1 Grindstone, -1Viashino

Death and Taxes +1EE, +1 Grim, +2 Pyroclasm, +1 Bridge, +1 Abrade (+2 karn?) -4 Lotus Petal, -2 Canonist, (-2 canonist for karn)

Dragon Stompy +2 Karn, +1 EE, +1 welder, +1 abdrade, +2pyroclasm ? -4 Lotus Petal, -1 Canonist, -2 REB

Bug Delver +3 Moon, +2 Karn, +1 grim -4 lotus petal, ???

Eldrazi +3 Moon, +1 EE, +1 Abrade, +1Bridge -4 Canonist, -2 lotus Petal

Ur Delver +1 Abrade, +2 Karn, +1EE -1 Moon, -2 Welder, -1 Grim

Burn +2 Karn, +1 EE -1 Moon, -1Bridge, -1 Reb

4C control +3 Moon, +2 Karn, +1EE, +1Grim, +1 Welder -4 Lotus petal, -1 bridge, -1 viashino, -2 grindstone

Miracle +2 karn, +1EE, +1 grim -4 lotus petal

Uw stoneblade +2 karn, +1EE, +1 Abrade -4 Lotus Petal

Lands +3 Moon, +2 RIP, +1Tormod’s, +2 Karn, +1Bridge -4 Lotus Petal, -2 Reb, -3 Canonist

Bug Control +3 Moon, +2 Karn, +1EE, +1Grim, +1 Welder -4 Lotus petal, -1 bridge, -1 viashino, -2 grindstone

Storm +2 Rip, +1 Tormod’s -1 Moon, -1 Bridge, -1 Viashino

Elves +2 Pyroclasm, +1 Abrade, +1 EE, +1Bridge, +1 grim -2 Reb, -1 Moon, -1 Viashino, -2 Copter

Dark dept +1 Bridge, +3 Moon ???

Show and tell +1 Bridge, +1 Rip, +1Tormod’s -1 Moon, -1 Viashino, -1 Welder

Br reanimator +1 Tormod’s, +2 Rip, +1 Bridge -1 Moon, -2 copter

Infect +1 Grim, +1 EE, +1 Abrade, +3 Moon -1 Bridge, -2 welder, -1viashino, -2 Petal

Dredge +2 RIP, +1 Tormod’s, +1Bridge -1Moon, -1 Viashino, -2 Canonist

drude1
04-26-2018, 05:20 PM
I have been loving having the leyline Rest In Peace combo in the board however I feel that RIP is really slow verse B/R reanimator. I’m usually fine game 2 on the play but it’s just too slow on the draw and if you can’t power it out with fast mana early. Has anyone tried leyline of the void? When I was on dragon stompy I would just mull til I pretty much found it. We can still play a copy of Rest In Peace in the board along with the 4 leylines.

Did three leagues recently going 3-2, 3-2, and 2-3. The first 3-2 was using the 4 blood moons main. The 3-2 and 2-3 were both using 4 maindeck canonists. I’ve noticed that the lands match up is not nearly as good as it used to be. Ghost quarter can be a real pain if they get the loam engine going. I managed to take that round through timely blasts with painter out and one win with the combo the other with damage.

Gonna maybe give the leylines a try in my next league so my board will probably look like

4 leylines
1 Rest In Peace
1 helm of obedience
2 abrade
2 kozileks return
2 pyroclasm
2 ethersworn canonist
1 surgical/ 6th red blast.Although I again really like the increase canonist count, I have to agree with SDBob that cutting that low on blood moon has hurt a couple of MUs, particularly lands, turbo-depths, and eldrazi. So the only reason I would advocate a 3/2 split over a 4/1 split is that all of our tutors find canonist. So we essentially have 11 copies of canonist in the deck when running all 4 and only 4 copies moon. Against something like eldrazi, where e.tutors are doing a lot of work trying to find both moons and bridges, the more moons the better. Also, I'm still seeing a decent amount of 4 color Leo and blood moon is basically game over if you can get it to land early enough. I have also been running one main deck plains given the increased white demand.

Re: leylines, if you REALLY like the helm combo then I think it's a good idea. Personally, I don't like running leylines if I can't ever cast them from my hand. Personally, I gave up on that plan in this deck and run 1 Rip, 2 containment priest and 2 surgicals.

This deck has legs again. It's been fun.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

mcbain
04-27-2018, 01:41 AM
Picked up the old girl tonight and went for a spin in the copter.

Felt good. Went 3-1, nearly 4-0 if I had 1 more card...no games were won by blood moon.

Copter did feel like the real deal, on each front. Makes welder feel great. It's like a good faithless looting, that card we always wanted to but couldn't play.

I didn't play Chandra and I wouldn't. Without the redundant bridges the deck feels like painter did back in 2012 before bridge became more standard.

Good work guys. Keep it up.

Sent from my SM-G925W8 using Tapatalk

sroncor1
04-27-2018, 02:00 PM
@Cyanhur - I am not sure I agree with a bunch of those choices. In most cases you keep most of not all the Lotus Petals in the deck. In the grindy match up having a high artifact count is really important to ensure maximum value from Welder.

I think over the next week it may be possible to have a more hard and fast side boarding plan as I think the deck is rounding into shape at this point. That is on my list of things to work on at this time.

With respect to the BR reanimator lists, I was talking with Jack about them. I am not sure how best to approach them or just ignore them and hope for the best. Typically I have found myself losing game 1, winning game 2, and losing game 3. The issue is that they are fairly consistent and fast and they can fairly easily assemble the combo turn one on the play, even easier since by game 3 they know you do not have FoW. Macabre, Surgical, or Leyline are really the only way to interact with that. Of those options, Surgical is probably the best. Surgical also can work against Eldrazi shuffling effects which is nice. Leyline would serve a similar role, but mulling till it is in hand seems like a dicey situation. Surgical doesn't really work against Dredge, but has some utility against the various land variants. I think deciding on the gravehate is a critical thing that we need to address, I am just not sure the best answer at this time. Another alternative may be that our best hope is grave hate mixed with bridge effects as that at least gives us some outs on the draw, although I acknowledge they aren't great.

Thoughts?

Seth

NormalGuy
04-27-2018, 08:53 PM
@Cyanhur - I am not sure I agree with a bunch of those choices. In most cases you keep most of not all the Lotus Petals in the deck. In the grindy match up having a high artifact count is really important to ensure maximum value from Welder.

I think over the next week it may be possible to have a more hard and fast side boarding plan as I think the deck is rounding into shape at this point. That is on my list of things to work on at this time.

With respect to the BR reanimator lists, I was talking with Jack about them. I am not sure how best to approach them or just ignore them and hope for the best. Typically I have found myself losing game 1, winning game 2, and losing game 3. The issue is that they are fairly consistent and fast and they can fairly easily assemble the combo turn one on the play, even easier since by game 3 they know you do not have FoW. Macabre, Surgical, or Leyline are really the only way to interact with that. Of those options, Surgical is probably the best. Surgical also can work against Eldrazi shuffling effects which is nice. Leyline would serve a similar role, but mulling till it is in hand seems like a dicey situation. Surgical doesn't really work against Dredge, but has some utility against the various land variants. I think deciding on the gravehate is a critical thing that we need to address, I am just not sure the best answer at this time. Another alternative may be that our best hope is grave hate mixed with bridge effects as that at least gives us some outs on the draw, although I acknowledge they aren't great.

Thoughts?

Seth

Regarding grave hate, I think having a maindeck Relic of Progenitus is worth considering. It gives you an option against dredge/reanimator game 1, it allows you to grindstone win against S&T and eldrazi, it has some utility against decks that want to cast gurmag angler and use DRS, it also has some utility against lands/maverick/other decks getting utility from the graveyard, and in any matchup where it's dead it can draw you a new card. Obviously games 2 and 3 it's not as good as the other options against super fast reanimator decks.

CptHaddock
04-27-2018, 10:24 PM
Regarding grave hate, I think having a maindeck Relic of Progenitus is worth considering. It gives you an option against dredge/reanimator game 1, it allows you to grindstone win against S&T and eldrazi, it has some utility against decks that want to cast gurmag angler and use DRS, it also has some utility against lands/maverick/other decks getting utility from the graveyard, and in any matchup where it's dead it can draw you a new card. Obviously games 2 and 3 it's not as good as the other options against super fast reanimator decks.

This deck is already super favored against dredge, this is not even talking about the welder + crypt things you can do in postboard games. Br Reanimator is always going to be a matchup about having turn 1 interaction, relic is like the worst type of interaction you can have against them if you don't have it + fast mana you're kind of boned. I think it's fine to have something like that in as a value target since yard hate that also cantrips is at a premium these days, just don't rely on it to win matchups like Br Reanimator. Imo if you want to have game against Br reanimator you absolutely need to start your list off with 2+ surgicals (or some other turn 0 hate) alongside other graveyard hate. If they get a griselbrand into play turn 1 and you don't have anything you may as well concede the game because you're probably not winning.


@Cyanhur - I am not sure I agree with a bunch of those choices. In most cases you keep most of not all the Lotus Petals in the deck. In the grindy match up having a high artifact count is really important to ensure maximum value from Welder.


Yeah what's up with folks cutting welder against BUG decks, that card is basically a red planeswalker against those archetypes.

NormalGuy
04-27-2018, 11:26 PM
This deck is already super favored against dredge, this is not even talking about the welder + crypt things you can do in postboard games. Br Reanimator is always going to be a matchup about having turn 1 interaction, relic is like the worst type of interaction you can have against them if you don't have it + fast mana you're kind of boned. I think it's fine to have something like that in as a value target since yard hate that also cantrips is at a premium these days, just don't rely on it to win matchups like Br Reanimator. Imo if you want to have game against Br reanimator you absolutely need to start your list off with 2+ surgicals (or some other turn 0 hate) alongside other graveyard hate. If they get a griselbrand into play turn 1 and you don't have anything you may as well concede the game because you're probably not winning.


I agree with everything you said. Admittedly I've never played against dredge with this deck, I just brought it up because seth mentioned it. My point was to have relic as a 1-of in the main deck so you at least have some tutorable options pre-board that isn't a dead card. For games 2 and 3 we should shift to some other strategy.

If they get a griselbrand down you can go for relic + ensnaring bridge to stop them from being able to reanimate tidespout tyrant for example.

Kap'n Cook
05-01-2018, 01:44 AM
Just came back from vacation, fired up the Shortcake for a league. Another solid 4-1. Beat ANT with a turn 2 canonist scoop game 1, and had a welder juggling 3 canonists and a crypt game 2. Beat Grixis Delver game 2 on the play with Blood Moon turn 2 or 3 (sided in for more of the canonists) and reversed it for game 3. Ended up getting a painter and canonist into play, with a needle on my grindstone. I had the blast and mana so it was just a matter of beating down and waiting for him to cast any spell and respond with the win. Beat Elves pretty handily, Grim Lavamancer did a ton of work. Lastly, beat Miracles just through general grinding. With all the redundant canonists, they basically have to answer each of them or else their durdle idiocy is a major liability. The wins just came through playing patiently knowing that at some point we have too much stuff pressuring their life total to handle it all. Only loss was to ANT, game 1 got stormed off on turn 2, game 2 kept a 6 that didn't have colored mana for my copter into canonist line and never drew one.


That's my quick little writeup. The list continues to feel very good. If any of you haven't tried Karn yet, do it asap. He is a fucking monster.

aslidsiksoraksi
05-01-2018, 02:18 AM
Took 4 canonist 1 moon list to the weekly today. 1-2 overall, winning against Aluren, losing to Grixis Pyromancer and to Esper Blade. Some losses I think were to misplays (not playing Bridge when i had the chance, or using tutors oddly), but also there were a lot of mulligans and the deck felt like it lost steam easily.

Gonna keep practicing with it. So many small things. Welder is a powerhouse, gotta stop being scared of removal and just jam him in more games.

People are scared of Moons even if we don't have them, which is a cool psychological edge.

Keep on paintin' my friends

Fallen_Empire
05-01-2018, 02:19 AM
Just came back from vacation, fired up the Shortcake for a league. Another solid 4-1. Beat ANT with a turn 2 canonist scoop game 1, and had a welder juggling 3 canonists and a crypt game 2. Beat Grixis Delver game 2 on the play with Blood Moon turn 2 or 3 (sided in for more of the canonists) and reversed it for game 3. Ended up getting a painter and canonist into play, with a needle on my grindstone. I had the blast and mana so it was just a matter of beating down and waiting for him to cast any spell and respond with the win. Beat Elves pretty handily, Grim Lavamancer did a ton of work. Lastly, beat Miracles just through general grinding. With all the redundant canonists, they basically have to answer each of them or else their durdle idiocy is a major liability. The wins just came through playing patiently knowing that at some point we have too much stuff pressuring their life total to handle it all. Only loss was to ANT, game 1 got stormed off on turn 2, game 2 kept a 6 that didn't have colored mana for my copter into canonist line and never drew one.


That's my quick little writeup. The list continues to feel very good. If any of you haven't tried Karn yet, do it asap. He is a fucking monster.


Nice, yeah I'm loving the canonists too. You can see me in action 56 mins into the video: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/256382614

Cyanhur
05-01-2018, 04:17 AM
Nice, yeah I'm loving the canonists too. You can see me in action 56 mins into the video: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/256382614

What did you do at this tornament? Others match up? Witch list?

ottomanottoman
05-01-2018, 12:21 PM
I took Kap’n Cook’s list to a weekly last week and went 3-1. The weekly meta at that shop is super degenerate so the canonists put in a ton of work. I beat spanish inquisition (pyroblasted his slithermuse for the win in one game), BR reanimator (REB’ed his griselbrand), and reanimator depths (he didn’t have/couldn’t find and answer to bridge) then lost to goblins. This deck is a blast and I underestimated a lot of card choices (copter and main canonist specifically) but it felt pretty good. I’ll probably run it back this week.

polski
05-01-2018, 03:39 PM
Can you explain why karn is so good ?
Regards

Kap'n Cook
05-03-2018, 11:53 AM
Well for starters, the only thing with an ass fatter than Karn is Kim Kardashian.

Phyrexia is also infinitely more pimp than Jace's eldrazi tentacle porn or Liliana's necrophiliac demon fetish or whatever else the magic writers are trying to pass off as a story these days.

Basically just compare a story like Barrin's to what we get now: http://www.phyrexia.com/continuity/Barrin.shtml

As for the actual card, in most scenarios, the bare minimum will be that he draws you two cards and gains you 5 life. The other synergy of making a dude for Welder fodder or for offense/defense crewing is very strong as well. I have gotten lucky as well and lived the dream of turn 1 copter into turn 2 karn. I've also had a few games too where he is basically a one man army. We sometimes have trouble closing out matches against the shuffle-Eldrazi decks, be it Omni/Sneak/12-post/etc, and going double -2 gives you at worst two 2/2s, but given our artifact density these will probably be 4/4 or 5/5. He's probably overperformed so far to be honest, but given how well we can protect him, I really don't see how he can be bad. I've been boarding him in whenever I am short on cards i want for a given matchup, since we do run a bunch of dead stuff. I'm only on two copies, but could see the argument for more, although I still think playing the most relevant stuff possible and then filling out with good value things like Karn is the best way to go. It ensures that we are keeping our curve low and not transforming into a bad bridge-stompy deck against decks we aren't adequately prepared to play that role, like ctrl+c/ctrl-v delver or elves.

Whenever we have run planeswalkers historically, it has either been as a solo win condition, or for continued board presence and value. The main ones being:

Koth: his first two abilities weren't really that great, but given the meta at the time, his Death by Mountains ultimate was worth playing him.
Ajani: Mainly for Armageddon in the miracles matchup, but had splash value against creature decks with the helix and the tiniest bit of board control with the +1.
Chandra: Very good card, but more so in a bridge setup since you want to be +1-ing for burn/draw and then to the ultimate and then kill through sensei top tricks.

I could go way more in depth about why each of these could still be good, but don't feel like it. Bottom line is that the double colored mana made it hard to protect with blast backup a lot of the time, and I have really liked Karn's more favorable mana cost and higher loyalty, as it gives him a much better chance of sticking around. All three abilities synergize extremely well with the deck. His card drawing at least puts it into your hand if you aren't casting it vs Chandra's exile, which is important when we are running stuff that we want to cast on our opponents turn like e-tutor or blasts, or even just casting something to fill the yard for lavaman. Chandra might be better than Karn in a deck like mono-red painter, who knows.

Anyways, that's my take. He's just been a 'good' card, which is welcome since we are a deck without brainstorm and we run a lot of horrendously bad cards in a vacuum.

Played my 4th league last night with the 75 I've been writing about recently. They have all been 4-1. Only loss was to Miracles, I made some misplays navigating through a counterbalance, haven't had to deal with that piece of shit in a long time and it showed through my inability to play around it. Other games were against DnT, double RB reanimator, and Aluren. Funnily enough against Aluren I got baited and punished for being greedy responding to a deathrite with double painter and then trying to get my recruiter into canonist. He just responded with a recruiter of his own to win, but having 4 canonists made game 2 and three a breeze. Canonist also at least gives us a chance against reanimator. I powered it out turn 1 twice in the 5 games against it, winning both since it bought me a turn to get painter/blast setup, and limited the griselbrand into infinite discard, ritual into tidespout/iona crap they usually pull. Very impressed with how helpful it was considering how bad of a matchup it is, and has made the cuts down to 1 crypt and 1 RIP in the board passable for the time being.

It's a fun time to be bringing Shortcake back, just want to end with everyone should keep testing shit out as I'm sure there is always a better 75 we can run.

Fallen_Empire
05-03-2018, 11:55 AM
What did you do at this tornament? Others match up? Witch list?

It was just a friendly 4 round weekly. I played against 3 different bizzaro storm decks and burn, go figure. I've been continually brewing but think 4 canionist main is the correct call. I was trying to get a few lavaman activations in to get him below 14 while I waited to draw into more land. I'm on 20 lands and running maindeck plains and it feels right to me. I still want access to white mana if a moon is coming down. Cut Inferno Titan down to 1 main lol, back on 3 enlighten tutor. Looking forward to brewing the sb. Can't wait to bring in Ali from Cario off of an imperial recruiter against the likes of elves or turbo depths when their only removal is decay. I'll also run a COP - Red for burn in the sb. This deck is so much fun! #funpolice

Kap'n Cook
05-03-2018, 04:20 PM
Nice, yeah I'm loving the canonists too. You can see me in action 56 mins into the video: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/256382614

So I watched the match, here are some things I noticed. That hand is pretty sketch to keep and is pretty top heavy with only the one land and a petal. Also I'm not sure why you are e-tutoring and lavaman-ing at sorcery speed, since by tutoring you know you won't have a 2nd mana the next turn anyways. No reason to simplify the match for the opponent and let him know what he needs to be playing around/letting him know he has to go for it. Also, tutoring for the canonist in that spot doesn't really make sense since you only had the lotus petal out, you take away your outs of ripping the canonist naturally, open yourself up to getting it discarded, and you would still need to draw another white source to be able to play it anyways. By waiting to draw source #2, you still get canonist out the next turn, but you probably get to keep the petal (assuming white #2 is a land, not another petal)

dte
05-03-2018, 04:46 PM
Looking forward to brewing the sb. Can't wait to bring in Ali from Cario off of an imperial recruiter against the likes of elves or turbo depths when their only removal is decay. I'll also run a COP - Red for burn in the sb. This deck is so much fun! #funpolice

Ali is really fun, but it won't do anything against elves, not more than a wordship would. Even if you have it in your SB I would advise you not to bring it in agaiste elves.

NormalGuy
05-03-2018, 07:58 PM
Ali is really fun, but it won't do anything against elves, not more than a wordship would. Even if you have it in your SB I would advise you not to bring it in agaiste elves.

Agreed, Ali isn't going to stop DRS, so you'll just get smashed down to 1 life and then drained.

SDBobPlissken
05-04-2018, 03:29 AM
Well for starters, the only thing with an ass fatter than Karn is Kim Kardashian.

Phyrexia is also infinitely more pimp than Jace's eldrazi tentacle porn or Liliana's necrophiliac demon fetish or whatever else the magic writers are trying to pass off as a story these days.

Basically just compare a story like Barrin's to what we get now: http://www.phyrexia.com/continuity/Barrin.shtml

As for the actual card, in most scenarios, the bare minimum will be that he draws you two cards and gains you 5 life. The other synergy of making a dude for Welder fodder or for offense/defense crewing is very strong as well. I have gotten lucky as well and lived the dream of turn 1 copter into turn 2 karn. I've also had a few games too where he is basically a one man army. We sometimes have trouble closing out matches against the shuffle-Eldrazi decks, be it Omni/Sneak/12-post/etc, and going double -2 gives you at worst two 2/2s, but given our artifact density these will probably be 4/4 or 5/5. He's probably overperformed so far to be honest, but given how well we can protect him, I really don't see how he can be bad. I've been boarding him in whenever I am short on cards i want for a given matchup, since we do run a bunch of dead stuff. I'm only on two copies, but could see the argument for more, although I still think playing the most relevant stuff possible and then filling out with good value things like Karn is the best way to go. It ensures that we are keeping our curve low and not transforming into a bad bridge-stompy deck against decks we aren't adequately prepared to play that role, like ctrl+c/ctrl-v delver or elves.

Whenever we have run planeswalkers historically, it has either been as a solo win condition, or for continued board presence and value. The main ones being:

Koth: his first two abilities weren't really that great, but given the meta at the time, his Death by Mountains ultimate was worth playing him.
Ajani: Mainly for Armageddon in the miracles matchup, but had splash value against creature decks with the helix and the tiniest bit of board control with the +1.
Chandra: Very good card, but more so in a bridge setup since you want to be +1-ing for burn/draw and then to the ultimate and then kill through sensei top tricks.

I could go way more in depth about why each of these could still be good, but don't feel like it. Bottom line is that the double colored mana made it hard to protect with blast backup a lot of the time, and I have really liked Karn's more favorable mana cost and higher loyalty, as it gives him a much better chance of sticking around. All three abilities synergize extremely well with the deck. His card drawing at least puts it into your hand if you aren't casting it vs Chandra's exile, which is important when we are running stuff that we want to cast on our opponents turn like e-tutor or blasts, or even just casting something to fill the yard for lavaman. Chandra might be better than Karn in a deck like mono-red painter, who knows.

Anyways, that's my take. He's just been a 'good' card, which is welcome since we are a deck without brainstorm and we run a lot of horrendously bad cards in a vacuum.

Played my 4th league last night with the 75 I've been writing about recently. They have all been 4-1. Only loss was to Miracles, I made some misplays navigating through a counterbalance, haven't had to deal with that piece of shit in a long time and it showed through my inability to play around it. Other games were against DnT, double RB reanimator, and Aluren. Funnily enough against Aluren I got baited and punished for being greedy responding to a deathrite with double painter and then trying to get my recruiter into canonist. He just responded with a recruiter of his own to win, but having 4 canonists made game 2 and three a breeze. Canonist also at least gives us a chance against reanimator. I powered it out turn 1 twice in the 5 games against it, winning both since it bought me a turn to get painter/blast setup, and limited the griselbrand into infinite discard, ritual into tidespout/iona crap they usually pull. Very impressed with how helpful it was considering how bad of a matchup it is, and has made the cuts down to 1 crypt and 1 RIP in the board passable for the time being.

It's a fun time to be bringing Shortcake back, just want to end with everyone should keep testing shit out as I'm sure there is always a better 75 we can run.

Can you go over which matchups you bring Karn in for?

Fallen_Empire
05-04-2018, 03:48 AM
So I watched the match, here are some things I noticed. That hand is pretty sketch to keep and is pretty top heavy with only the one land and a petal. Also I'm not sure why you are e-tutoring and lavaman-ing at sorcery speed, since by tutoring you know you won't have a 2nd mana the next turn anyways. No reason to simplify the match for the opponent and let him know what he needs to be playing around/letting him know he has to go for it. Also, tutoring for the canonist in that spot doesn't really make sense since you only had the lotus petal out, you take away your outs of ripping the canonist naturally, open yourself up to getting it discarded, and you would still need to draw another white source to be able to play it anyways. By waiting to draw source #2, you still get canonist out the next turn, but you probably get to keep the petal (assuming white #2 is a land, not another petal)

All fair points thanks for the tips. You should record your mtgo streams and upload them to youtube. You've been playing this deck for 10 years that makes you the Bob Ross of painter.

Kap'n Cook
05-04-2018, 10:05 AM
All fair points thanks for the tips. You should record your mtgo streams and upload them to youtube. You've been playing this deck for 10 years that makes you the Bob Ross of painter.

Ha I've only since 2012, so if I'm Bob Ross then Seth is like picasso just doing random shit back in the old days of painter. I probably will hop back onto the stream game at some point in the coming month, just gotta actually get around to setting up some monitors and stuff.

James718
05-04-2018, 03:22 PM
Hello all

Ive been playing this list (http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/04-05-18-strawberry-shortcake/)

Land (19)
4x Ancient Tomb
3x Arid Mesa
1x Bloodstained Mire
3x City of Traitors
1x Great Furnace
4x Mountain
2x Plateau
1x Wooded Foothills

Instant (8)
3x Enlightened Tutor
4x Pyroblast
1x Red Elemental Blast

Creature (18)
3x Ethersworn Canonist
3x Goblin Welder
1x Grim Lavamancer
4x Imperial Recruiter
4x Painter's Servant
2x Simian Spirit Guide
1x Viashino Heretic

Artifact (14)
1x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Grindstone
4x Lotus Petal
1x Relic of Progenitus
4x Smuggler's Copter

Enchantment (1)
1x Blood Moon

Sideboard (15)
2x Abrade
3x Blood Moon
1x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Grim Lavamancer
2x Karn, Scion of Urza
2x Pyroclasm
1x Rest in Peace
2x Tormod's Crypt


What do you guys think of it?

One of the biggest problems im having with this deck is awkward mana hand, no colored mana, no white mana etc. I keep thinking about having a basic plains in the deck. Ive locked myself out of tutoring so many times. have you guys started mainboarding Karn yet?

sroncor1
05-04-2018, 08:46 PM
I’m glad so many people are trying their he deck these days. Sorry I’ve been away as a new job has been kicking my ass. I hope to get some playing in this weekend.

@plains-I still see no need for the card and in the deck. The deck is already very short on colored mana sources and I he need to have red is so high that any land that doesn’t give you red needs to be amazed by. Luckily sol lands are just that. Any hand which starts with a plains as your permenant colored mana source should be mulliganed. There are some corner cases where that I don’t the case, but in general it’s a solid rule of thumb. It’s for that reason that Plains shouldn’t make the cut. If you are really struggling to have white mana it will s most likely s condary to poor mulling decisions or sub optimal sequencing by of plays. Yes there are times when you have white cards and no white mana but the deck was designed to minimize the negative impact with Copter and Welder. I highly recommend playing the deck 150-200 times before changing the mana base. I promise you it was over years that we worked on this as a group. The real issue is the final land. I think and artifact mana is important. But I can see arguments for another mountain, fetch, or the 4th city.

About the video. Thank you for sharing. I think it is an amazing teaching point for everyone on this trip bread. And magic in general. Now the rest of what I say may come of as being very negative but I’m trying to be as blunt and constructive as possible.

1. The announcers were dog shit. Just goes to show how little those who make magic their life or try to profit from it actually understand the game. Keep that in mind when you read articles and watch commentary. They just blew.

2. Basically every play made by the painter player after land, lavaman, lotus petal in game one was either wrong or improperly timed. I encourage everyone to watch it and Think about every decision and how that play could be improved either through timing or sequencing or decision making. Many of the lines only become evident after 100s of games. That is why I still advocate everyone just slings one of the stick lists for the next 2-3 months just to feel comfortable with what the deck does. Then we can all work to improve it. I feel comfortable that the stock lists are good enough to let you win more than you lose. Jack and I will continue to tinker to make them better, but I encourage others to focus on just getting comfortable and understanding the deck.

3. The fact that painter won this match tells us little about the deck or match up but a ton about how to interpret results and outcomes. So often weird shit happens. This is why the pilot of the deck is probably more important that the final ranking in taking anything from results. The reason this is important is that it makes it harder f us to sort through the data to find the signal from the noise. But it’s critical we do this so that we don’t fall down the trap and miss vital ways to advance the deck.

4. Most of us are bad at this game, myself included. Just keep practicing as the muscle memory and experience helps safe us from our bad play and poor decision making.

Free nedleeds, fuck Donald trump, and fuck Mark rose water for giving me the worst possible Jaya planeswalker. Fuckkng dick.

Seth

Ps this was done on my phone on the subway. I apologize for grammar, spelling, or general weird word choices.

SDBobPlissken
05-08-2018, 01:42 AM
Played at my LGS last night. Went 2-2. They were all pretty close games except the last round where I lost in 2. NormalGuy is right though. This deck is really Grindy and practically all rounds just about went to time. The mental fatigue would definitely be a factor at a larger event.

3 plateau
3 mountain
4 ancient tomb
3 city of traitors
4 arid mesa
1 scalding tarn
1 great furnace

4 painter’s servant
4 ethersworn canonist
4 imperial recruiter
2 goblin welder
2 grim lavamancer
1 viashino heretic
1 simian spirit guide

4 grindstone
4 lotus petal
4 smuggler’s copter
4 pyroblast
2 red elemental blast
3 enlightened tutor
1 ensnaring bridge
1 blood moon

Sideboard:

4 leyline of the void
1 helm of obedience
2 abrade
2 kozilek’s return
1 pyroclasm
3 blood moon
1 phyrexian revoker
1 ensnaring bridge

I have not gotten my Karn’s yet so my board probably would have been different had I picked them up. The maindeck blood moon was sided out in all the matchups I faced. Leyline of the void in my testing has definitely been better for me than Rest In Peace. Leyline is better than Rest In Peace in that it doesn’t shut off our welders or lavamancers. It also does not die to abrupt decay. Yes it has to be in your opening hand to matter, but if it’s not then I guess you can just discard it with copter rather than having it stuck in your hand. The following are just the highlights of what I remember:

Round 1: B/r reanimator

I actually built and brought the deck for a friend. I probably won because he is not too familiar with it. He didn’t have an explosive turn one play at all during our matches so he definitely kept sketchy opening hands as well as drew terribly. Game 1 I’m on the draw. He collective brutality pitching a fatty off a badlands and a petal to grab a pyroblast and passes the turn. I play copter off tomb into his chancellor. I play a petal and pass. He plays a scrub land and passes. I end of turn enlightened tutor for blood moon and play it on my turn. He never fetched a basic and I know that he only has two swamps and three more petals to make black since I built the deck. I go dork beat down for the win. Game 2 is pretty grindy. I am able to land a couple of canonists and a bridge but he is able to wear tear and bounce via tidesout. Game 3 I get a turn 0 leyline and turn 1 painter with a stone in hand. He thought seizes my grindstone. I draw another one and he wear the painter with the stone on the stack. I eot enlightened tutor for a painter. Cast it on my turn and pass. He scoops.

Round 2: Food Chain.

Not having the karns available is what made me play a revoker in the board and it definitely saved my ass. Game 1 I lead with turn 1 welder. He counters my painter and my grindstone. He has a board of leovold, scourge, strix, and maybe azcanta? He wasted all his resources forcing my painter and stones. He decays a painter and I pyroblast a his underground sea to make sure that doesn’t happen again. I am able to get another stone and with him tapped out I activate stone welding it out for painter. He told he didn’t realize I could do that. Game 2 he forces and surgicals my turn 1 grindstone. Looks like I’m on the beat down plan. I get him down pretty low. I recruit for revoker naming food chain and the beats commence. He is able to find ballista to shoot my lavamancer and revoker and starts playing Griffens and scourges to win. Game 3 I play a turn 1 copter and he plays a needle On grindstone. I eot tutor for canonist and begin beating for five a turn with copter crewed by recruiter and canonist. He casts a scourge and I counter it with my painter on blue. I naturally draw a revoker to name deathrite shaman and he has no more cards left in hand for the painter beatdown win.

Round 3: UW stoneblade

He is playing around moon way too carefully. Game 1 I get beaten with a stoneforxe equipped with sofi. He countered and revived everything I had that was relevant. Game 2 I end up with a board of sol land, petal, plateau, plateau painter. He has a single plains untapped for swords. He let the stone come into play. I pyroblast his plains. He goes to stp and I activate grindstone for the win. Game 3 he is stuck on two island for 5 turns while I draw lands for five straight turns after having a pretty land heavy opener. I beat Him down a little with heretic until he finally finds his white source and is able to remove him and play stoneforge. He counters everthing else relevant and I die to a stone forge equipped with jitte and a true name nemesis.

Round 4: Miracles

He starts off with turn one portent. Here we go I think to myself. Gonna be a grind fest. I start the recruiter chains and beat him down with dorks until he terminuses and I start the chain again. So many turns were draw go as I was saving my red mana to blast his cantrips and Jace. He draws a natural miracle entreat the angels for 5 tokens. I have a bridge in hand but I can’t empty my hand down to three cards. Game 2 he surgicals my pyroblasts. I Have a turn zero Leyline and lead with turn one grindstone. I am stuck on one land for the next few turns and the game goes well over 10 turns with me only having 2 mountains and a plateau in play. I beat him down with copter and ping him down to 4 life with lavamancer. He gets a needle on lavamancer and stp the copter. I eot enlightened tutor for another better never get to play it as I need to stop the mentors from getting out of control by playing my canonists turn after turn. He is able to remove them and swings for lethal. He had 17 cards left in his library at the end of the game. Would have been seven grindstone activations to naturally completely mill him. Do you think we should be doing this instead with our mana rather than playing threats? I mean granted he probably wouldn’t cantrip as much but I wonder what would have happened if I played it that way.

All in all it was a much better showing than the last time I went there with the deck running four blood moons main. I hate the idea of playing so many canonists but it has worked better than blood moon. I was also fortunate to not run into any wastelands.

aslidsiksoraksi
05-08-2018, 03:00 AM
Nice job SDBob! 2-2 aint too bad, I'll take it.


Lent the deck to a buddy (pretty damn good player tho, and he'd played painter in the top days). He took it to 3-1 tonight. Last game was a deep tragedy, he was on the aggro plan, did a recruiter chain, and the turn before the win he gets deluged :( his opponent wins at 1 life

He liked the deck a lot, his comment was that we need some kind of midrange threat. Karn is our boy (he was playing Karnless). in fact I think I will probably go 1-2 Karn in the MD as I am liking the card a lot lately.

I'm excited to play the deck more. I think (as SDBob mentioned above) people play around blood moon a lot once they see sol lands and red. That psychological edge should be worth something.

Anyway, keep on painting y'all

SDBobPlissken
05-08-2018, 09:56 PM
Nice job SDBob! 2-2 aint too bad, I'll take it.


Lent the deck to a buddy (pretty damn good player tho, and he'd played painter in the top days). He took it to 3-1 tonight. Last game was a deep tragedy, he was on the aggro plan, did a recruiter chain, and the turn before the win he gets deluged :( his opponent wins at 1 life

He liked the deck a lot, his comment was that we need some kind of midrange threat. Karn is our boy (he was playing Karnless). in fact I think I will probably go 1-2 Karn in the MD as I am liking the card a lot lately.

I'm excited to play the deck more. I think (as SDBob mentioned above) people play around blood moon a lot once they see sol lands and red. That psychological edge should be worth something.

Anyway, keep on painting y'all

Thank you Slid. The aggro plan is definitely 100 times better than it was in the top days if one of our combo pieces gets surgicaled. What do you think you will end up cutting for the 1-2 Karns maindeck?

Also is the general plan for new miracles still to grind out recruiter chains and go beatdown with the threat of combo?

aslidsiksoraksi
05-09-2018, 12:53 AM
was thinking maybe something like

4 painter
4 recruiter
3 canonist
2 lavaman
2 welder
1 heretic

4 grindstone
4 petal
4 copter
1 bridge

1 moon

3 tutor
4 pyroblast
1 REB

2 Karn

3 city
4 tomb
2 plateau
6 fetch
3 mountain

+1 other creature (4th canonist, 3rd lavaman, 3rd welder?)

thoughts?

I do think Karn is maindeckable, he can crew thopter as well, and gives us that much more reach. ideally our midrange monster would be recruitable/tutorable, but I feel like he's good enough to be worth it without that

SDBobPlissken
05-09-2018, 02:08 AM
was thinking maybe something like

4 painter
4 recruiter
3 canonist
2 lavaman
2 welder
1 heretic

4 grindstone
4 petal
4 copter
1 bridge

1 moon

3 tutor
4 pyroblast
1 REB

2 Karn

3 city
4 tomb
2 plateau
6 fetch
3 mountain

+1 other creature (4th canonist, 3rd lavaman, 3rd welder?)

thoughts?

I do think Karn is maindeckable, he can crew thopter as well, and gives us that much more reach. ideally our midrange monster would be recruitable/tutorable, but I feel like he's good enough to be worth it without that

I think that looks pretty good. Essentially I will just be putting a canonist and a red blast from the maindeck to the board although I think I might switch out the 4tj canonist for a revoker. I think the last creature in your list should be the simian spirit guide. I don’t think I would go lower than 5 fast mana. If it’s not good game 1 you can always take it out for games 2 and 3.

drude1
05-09-2018, 02:02 PM
Just reading the last couple posts, I will say I've been playing a good amount of Karn in eldrazi ramp lately and the card is for real. Also, any Planeswalker is good against miracles so you have that as a bonus.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

SDBobPlissken
05-10-2018, 05:58 AM
Just reading the last couple posts, I will say I've been playing a good amount of Karn in eldrazi ramp lately and the card is for real. Also, any Planeswalker is good against miracles so you have that as a bonus.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

So far I am really liking the new Karn also. All his abilities are great. I was skeptical about the -2 ability but between that and copter the opponent’s life total can get really low really quick. They can’t just be worried about disrupting the combo anymore because the clock is real between Karn’s construct tokens and the looter scooter.

James718
05-11-2018, 11:36 PM
Jeff Hoogland went 4-1 with Shortcake on stream tonight (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siUha0YU2DQ)

aslidsiksoraksi
05-12-2018, 02:19 AM
Jeff Hoogland went 4-1 with Shortcake on stream tonight (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siUha0YU2DQ)

oh dang, and his list is very similar to ours, on the canonist plan, 1 moon, 1 bridge, everything

i do feel like this deck can do stuff, glad to see it getting some traction!

Darklingske
05-14-2018, 05:05 PM
Played a double-up Legacy (3 rounds) side-event on the GP Birmingham with the list. Not so great.

R1 (can't remember what I played against) don't recall the details, but I manage to win rather fast in 2 games.
R2 agains Elves. G1 Double canonist is enough. G2 he could establish Symbiote & Sage and wipes my board before I find a canonist. G3 I mull to 5 and never stand a chance.
R3 against Grixis Delver. G1 (mull to 5) he counters all the relevant stuff and I die to TNN & SCM beats. G2 I manage a rather fast combo. G3 (mull to 5 again) is a repeat of G1.

No doubt I did some misplays, but it was fun. I need more practice and especially what is a keepable hand and what not. The deck is a nice change from turbo depths.

SDBobPlissken
05-17-2018, 12:54 PM
Hey all,

Decided to get breakfast this morning and play a league. Recorded it off my computer using xsplit and the game replay with commentary when I got home.

A few notes:

I definitely had some misplays, some distractions from being at the diner.

Game 2 of My Omni show match wasn’t able to be replayed on the client for whatever reason. I did take games 1 and 2 through beatdown. My opponent got really salty in the chat when he realized he was gonna lose game 2 and thanked me for wasting his time with a tier 6 deck lol. I told him that this matchup should be a cakewalk (pun intended) for him.

I won’t post about the matches since I commented on them as they played in the video, but I was playing four leyline of the void in the board and one helm. I really like the leylines better than rip as they do not turn off our welders or lavamans. They have even been great versus miracles to stop the snapcaster shenanigans.

Get back to me with any comments or feedback. I must say the deck is a real blast to play now with copter. I enjoy it equally as much as I did with top if not more.

www.twitch.tv/heyclutch

James718
05-19-2018, 07:09 AM
I played last night at FNM with the list Hoogland played on stream a few posts up

I won on match against against elves with a quick turn 2 painter, and the beatdown plan game 2. he was kinda mana screwed game 2 and was keeping abrupt decay mana up because of a grindstone and welder on the field.

I lost against mono red sneak attack in game 3 by drawing endless lands. I dont think I should be winning that matchup anyway

I lost against mono red stompy due to them having the most timely of fiery confluences against my Heretic. I could not win through his bridge game one when he had a chalice on 1 and 2. Game 3 I lost after he got a bridge down and 2 confluences absolutely destroyed me. He derped for a while, all while i was top decking lands.

Felt real bad.

How should I be boarding against non blue decks when it comes to cutting pyroblasts?

After seeing how difficult brides (and multiple bridges) really shut us down, Im thinking of adding a shattering spree or a Fiery confluence to the board. Maybe a Koth or Chandra for reach, any thoughts?

Kap'n Cook
05-22-2018, 10:18 AM
@James I wouldn't worry too much about that stompy game, if they get chalice on 1 and 2 and kill the heretic as well just chalk up the loss and go next, nothing else you can do. Also, if they are keeping in bridge then that is a win for us, as the card is pretty dead in the majority of scenarios. For non-blue decks where you need space, dropping a REB is usually safe.

For anyone newer to the deck, the 4th Pyroblast is still better than the 1st REB even with potential Cabal Therapies/Surgicals as pyro can be cast without painter on the field to fuel lavaman or get under a bridge. I would still prefer Karn over Chandra/Koth I think (posted it somewhere earlier in the thread on why, not sure exactly where though) and if you want more artifact hate, additional Abrades probably provide the best meta impact. Between Heretic, EE, and 2 Abrade I think we should be in decent enough shape to handle red chalice decks, but can't fault anyone for wanting more if you really want to dedicate to beating it.

...

Played in the Legacy Challenge on Sunday, ending with a disappointing 2-3 result. I could have played out the last 1-2 rounds for an even record but chose to end the suffering and drop.

Lost vs ANT round 1, nothing spectacular. I had interaction in the form of Canonist and Crypt but he also had interaction in Decay and Chain of Vapor and he had some quick draws. Round 2 was against Mono-red sneak attack which basically seems like a nightmare matchup as they have Worldspine Wurm/Emrakul plus Chalice, not really too concerned about that deck as A) it's rare and B) it is really that horrible of a matchup, as although I didn't see one I assume they are also running Fiery Confluence.

The other loss was to Team America in round 5. Super frustrating game 3, I locked down the board with something like double Welder, Painter, Canonist, Bridge, and a Moon while at 20 life, literally just waiting for a Grindstone. A Deathrite ends up coming down to deal something like 16 to me and when I answer it I can't deal with the Golgari Charm and Abrupt Decay. 30 cards left and didn't see a stone.

Still, I know for sure that I wasn't making optimal plays throughout the event and could have thought through stuff more to maybe get wins like leverage my life total a bit more and better prioritize blast targets. It is still more of an in/out board experimenting phase, and a lot of the event I think can be chalked up to really bad variance in that team america match and also facing big red sneak.

I really do think the maindeck is solid right now, and provides the best combination of current meta hate and deck synergy between the copters, welder/lavaman, and combo. For the board, I chose to add in a 2nd crypt over the rest in peace. RIP has seemed actively bad against most of the meta right now, between being too slow against reanimator, too much splash damage for our welders/lavamans, and too ineffective against stuff like Miracles to really want to bring it in.

Seth and I have been talking a bit about a 4 surgical board and how it would look. For those talking about the 4 leyline board with the helm in there, if you want to go that way I think you will really have to add in a Rest in Peace just so you can have a tutorable/castable way to go for the helm kill at the expense of more board space.

Otherwise, if you are like me and just want to give up on the graveyard decks at the moment, I think going all the way down to a singleton crypt isn't the worst, as it still gives you 3 card combo potential and at least a tutorable line to speedbump graveyard decks. I don't really have any ideas as to what that last board spot should be, maybe just a 7th blast for miracles/entire blue meta or a simple removal spell like firebolt? I could also be convinced to maneuver the board back to 4 firebolts like we did 3-4 years ago, but it would take a lot of reworking the board. Everything else has felt solid and been getting a lot of use so I'm not entirely sure what we should be going with. I think in general the biggest problem is just how different the deck plays out vs how it did with Top, and adjusting accordingly, as I definitely find myself keeping hands now that should be mulled whereas they were easy keeps before.

Anyways, stay painting and free nedleeds

LeoCop 90
05-23-2018, 12:33 PM
Hello guys! I was an avid shortcake player when top was legal, and like many of you i basically stopped playing the deck after top ban. I'm happy to see that there is some discussion going on, but i have to say i'm quite surprised to see how the deck is developing.
Basically i need to be convinced that playing less than 3-4 blood moons is correct, and that canonist is the real deal. As i see it, moon is just an autowin against so many decks that not using it in a nearly monored deck seems crazy. As for canonist, i understand it helps controlling the stack and protecting the combo, but really 4 main deck ? Can anyone explain me some typical scenarios that happen with canonist that make it worth running the full set?


Also, i know it came up before, but i think faithless looting should be explored more. Over time it became one of the cornerstone cards of modern archetypes (mardu pyromancer, hollow one, dredge,) and also showed its power in legacy. Basically it's like a bad brainstorm in that it helps fixing your draws discarding bad cards in a given matchup, so it should shine in a deck like this that runs many cards that are sometimes dead (moon, bridge, redundant grindstones, non active blasts) and also uses the graveyard with welder. It's possible tough that if you're going to run looting you want some more graveyard sinergies, like play black for cabal therapy, lingering souls, stuff like that. But as i see it, running 3/4 lootings in addition to the 3 tutors shortcake tipycally runs could improve the deck.

sroncor1
05-23-2018, 12:44 PM
@Faithless Looting-The issue is that it is a really bad brainstorm. In those modern decks you mentioned they can leverage the discard better than we can. Even with Welder you don’t always have the resources to gain value like those other decks can. E tutor is a stronger card in the deck Bc the selection allows for a couple silver bullets while increasing c Nsistency at the cost of card advantage. Faithless does help increase consistency, but not as much, doesn’t really allow for silver bullets, and the current legacy meta makes flashing it back fairly difficult.

@blood moon- I know on the surface it seems wrong. Blood moon does wreck many decks but I think Legacy as a whole has really changed the last couple years. Players in general fetch smarter, back to basics is now a thing, and it isn’t the stone cold nuts against Lands due to rules changes and more efficient removal across the board. I agree on the play the card has great utility. But in the draw, especially with DRS everywhere, it just feels weak. Now that is for a deck that wants to hit six total mana and combo out. Dragon stompy would be a different beast as they run Chalice and Trinisphere to otherwise ruin people’s day. There is also the fact that Canonist is fantastic against Miracles, Elves, and Tendrils, all decks to beat at this time. Canonist also allows for more creatures to crew with along with increased artifacts for better leveraging of Welder. It is something you have to try, but I do think once you start playing the new version you will see that this is a stronger direction.

Seth

Ceralyst
05-30-2018, 12:25 PM
This Post has been dead for a while, and I wanted to try and liven it back up!

This is a lot of fun for a non-blue deck (at least until painter is out). I have been playing it for a few weeks now, and have played against a large variety of decks; I.E. Elves, Turbo Depths, U/R Delver, Maverick, Death and Taxes, Storm, U/B Mill, Tezzerator, Metalworker MUD, Infect.... I don't have any results from these games to share, as I only play it in paper, and on Friday nights, but I would like tell you my take on the deck so far.

1. This deck is very entertaining. It uses toolbox components to get lock pieces, or combo pieces, and that is right up my alley.
2. It has game against just about every deck in the format.
3. I have won a lot of game 1's, but lose the majority of my matches post sideboard. However, I think my new list will help me overcome this.

Current Deck list, and Individual Card performances:

Creatures:[/B[B]] (17)
2 - Goblin Welder (I had 3 Welders in for a while, but took one out for a main deck Karn. They are very good in getting back what you need from the GY, and perhaps making additional mana when needed)
4 - Painter's Servant (Cornerstone of the deck, and Combo piece)
1 - Spellskite (I recently added this when I saw how it performed in the Steel Stompy decks. It took the place of the 4th canonist and adds extra protection for your combo and hate pieces. Welder is it's best friend)
4 - Imperial Recruiter (Finds your toolbox creatures)
3 - Ethersworn Canonist - (Great inclusion vs combo decks; Storm, Belcher, Elves etc. I feel 3 is enough in the main since we can tutor for them if needed)
1 - Grim Lavamancer (a little underwhelming IMO. I found myself not having enough cards in the bin to use him when I needed him to work,. Which is why I only run 1 Main)
1 - Viashino Heretic (great toolbox creature against chalice decks, and other problem artifacts)
1 - Simian Spirit Guide (basically a 5th Lotus Petal)

Planeswalkers: (1)
1 - Karn, Scion of Urza (This dude is bad-ass when he is out, but can be awkward with too many multiples. Jury is still out on if this should be a 1 or 2 of in my main deck, but def. 2 in the 75)

Enchantments: (1)
1 - Blood Moon - (Tutorable Enchantment - This is Legacy, and Blood Moon can be killer against lot of decks)

Spells: (8)
3 - Enlightened Tutor (search for your tools and combo pieces when needed. Recommended to do so at the end of your Opponents turn, unless you have a way to draw the card you have tutored for (I.E. Looting with copter)
4 - Pyroblast (Pyro is better than REB because it can also be cast on a non-blue spell. This is relevant if you need to drop your hand size for a card like Ensnaring Bridge)
1 - Red Elemental Blast (the 5th Counterspell in your deck)

Artifacts: (14)
1 - Ensnaring Bridge - (It's better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it)
4 - Grindstone (Combo Piece)
1 - Relic of Progenitus (Main deck Graveyard hate, and helps in the Sneak and show matchup to prevent Emrakul from reshuffling the graveyard back into the library)
4 - Lotus Petal (mana fixing when needed, and acceleration)
4 - Smuggler's Copter (A way to increase the clock, and cycle through your deck. A very nice inclusion)

Lands: (19)
4 - Ancient Tomb
3 - City of Traitors
2 - Arid Mesa
1 - Bloodstained Mire
1 - Wooded Foothills
1 - Great Furnace
4 - Mountain
2 - Plateau
1 - Karakas (A recent addition to the deck. I don't know if it is right, and I know we should be staying with red man sources, but the ability to bounce Legends seems to good to pass up against some tougher matchups)

SB: (15)
2 - Abrade - (bring in Against trouble-some creature and artifact decks like Death and Taxes, or Chalice Decks)
3 - Blood Moon - (This is Legacy, and Blood Moon can be killer against lot of decks...Increase your odds of drawing one in your opening 7 against said decks)
1 - Ensnaring Bridge (comes in against decks that mainly beat you by attacking with creatures)
1 - Grim lavamancer (comes in against fair creature machups (Elves, Maverick, Delver, etc.)
1 - Karn, Scion of Urza (bring in against your grindy decks)
2 - Kozileks Return (I like this better than pyroclasm. It is an instant, and is colorless, so gets around protection from colors)
2 - Tormod's Crypt (bring in against graveyard decks, or Sneak and show to stop the Emrakul trigger from reshuffling the GY when you combo)
1 - Phyrexian Revoker (I agree with Jeff Hoogland. He said this deck should have a revoker in the 75, and I concur. It's too good to leave out, and it's an artifact)
1 - Spellskite (More hate will be coming in post board. It's good to have a 2nd one of these, and welder is it's best friend)
1 - Ethersworn Canonist (We are not a blue deck, and do not have access to FOW. Bring in the 4th against combo, or any deck that tends to cast multiple spells per turn)

crowe_1
06-01-2018, 05:48 PM
Has anyone else found the mana base to be shakey? Semi-frequently finding myself put out of the game by a single Wasteland, not having consistent white mana to cast Canonist, or not getting the third mana to combo. It’s not every game, but enough that I have to wonder if anyone else finds the same thing.

And if so, I am going to throw this out: how much do we need fast mana now if we’re no longer trying to power out Blood Moon turn one as a primary gameplan? We have upped the number of white cards maindeck by 3-4 and reduced the curve by dropping Bridges and Moons for less costly cards, but it seems like the manabase is almost the same as it was pre-Top Ban when the only white cards main were the two-three E Tutors splashed. Also, part of the reason the deck could get away with the Sol Lands doing the heavy lifting in terms of mana quantity was because Blood Moon nullified Wasteland, but now a Tomb Petal Mountain hand is often one Waste away from potentially doing nothing all game. All this adds up to what feels like a greedy manabase despite only being 1.5 colours. Now I’m not suggesting removing the Sol Lands, but perhaps taking some of the pressure off them. Would it be worth dropping Simian and/or a couple of Petals for a more stable manabase?

I obviously haven’t put nearly the number of reps in as some of you guys though, so what are your thoughts?

sroncor1
06-04-2018, 07:54 AM
I think the mana base will always be a tough thing to balance. But all stompy mana bases suffer from that. With the power of the sol lands, comes the risk that colored sources may be tough to find. I don't think less than 7 is reasonable in the deck. With respect to colored sources of mana, 5 fetches, 3 duals, 1 artifact land, 3 bascs has felt solid. There are some issues with white as the deck now runs 7 maindeck white spell at this time. But I think the dual lands, and fetches should be good enough. The key is that you still need red so much more than white, and as a result every source of colored mana has to give you red without question.

Turn one Blood Moon was a great play, but I def don't think it was always our best play, let alone our goal. While Blood Moon can be awesome, at Shortcakes heart we are a combo list. Moon shutting off our sol lands was a large downside, making it much harder to combo off. So I think looking back that first turn Blood Moon was our goal is remembering things slightly off. It was a great play, one that won many games, but really our goal is and will always be the fastest mill we can achieve with mild protection. That is why the second turn combo never was the goal of the deck. If anything a first turn Copter is the current goal of the deck in the current meta, as that or Goblin Welder are probably your two best first turn plays. Painter with fast mana and blast would be the best first turn play against storm variants.

At the fast mana, I think that is an interesting point. The argument about fast mana and first turn moon, was more about the fact that mox opal had no place in the deck as it could not power out a first turn moon. While the first turn moon def played into the numbers of fast mana, the old Shortcake lists also had Mountain, SDT, go plays which allowed for mountains to be played first turn and still give us plenty of options turn 2. We no longer have that line, while the first turn blind moon isn't as strong. What we do have though is Smuggler's Copter. And much like SDT, getting it out and online is critical for the deck to function. Ironically while 3 isn't as important turn one, this places a larger importance on 2 mana turn one. You could make the argument that we should increase the chances of this, and as such play another SSG, as getting Copter online is just that good. It is for that reason that I would really caution against cutting a fast source of mana from the deck.

Seth

SDBobPlissken
06-07-2018, 09:12 PM
Almost had my first 5-0 with Shortcake but couldn’t quite get there. Posted replays of the matches on my twitch channel. Kinda sucks that if I play a revoker I can’t replay the game beyond casting the revoker. Anyways check it out if you desire. I played against:

Turbo Depths
Some sort of R/G Depths
Storm
Dredge
Elves

Lost to the little green men in game 3.

A couple of misplays but I feel like this was one of my better showings with the deck. Didn’t play against any force of will decks though.

Get back to me with any thoughts, questions, and or comments.

www.twitch.tv/heyclutch
http://www.twitch.tv/heyclutch

SDBobPlissken
06-12-2018, 01:05 AM
Went 3-0-1 tonight at my LGS

Pretty much played the same list except put a RIP in place of the 6th blast in the board.

4 ancient tomb
3 city of traitors
3 mountain
3 plateau
5 fetch
1 great furnace

4 painter’s servant
4 imperial recruiter
3 ethersworn canonist
3 simian spirit guide
2 goblin welder
2 grim lavamancer
1 viashino heretic

4 grindstone
4 smugglers copter
4 pyroblast
3 enlightened tutor
2 lotus petal
2 Karn, Scion of Urza
1 ensnaring bridge
1 blood moon
1 red elemental blast

Sideboard:

4 Leyline of the Void
3 Blood Moon
2 Abrade
2 Kozileks Return
1 Rest In Peace
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Ensnaring bridge
1 phyrexian revoker

Round 1 vs Storm

Game 1: I land a Turn 2 canonist. He is playing burning wish so he doesn’t scoop. He wishes for some artifact the that makes him sacrifice two mountains in order to cast to destroy all artifacts. He is finally able to cast it but he is at 2 life and facing lethal from a goblin welder and viashino heretic. He isn’t able to combo off and I attack for the win.

In: 4 Leyline, 2 Kozileks return, 1 RIP, 1 Helm, 1 Revoker
Out: 1 blood moon, 2 Karn, 2 lavamans, 1 welder, 1 imperial recruiter, 1 heretic, 1 bridge

Game:2 I keep a turn 0 Leyline with no color mana and two tombs. I am able to cast my copter and grindstone I eventually fetch a plateau and have a board of Leyline, rip, copter, painter, stone, and recruiter. I successfully combo off. He didn’t have much going on aside from cantrippinng and I think he had me discard a blast or two.

Round 1 vs Dragon Stompy

Game 1: I’m on the play and cast a turn one painter off of ancient tomb and a lotus petal. He plays ancient tomb and passes. I fetch a plateau and cast grindstone. He scoops.

I wasn’t sure if he was on red stompy or eldrazi so I boarded:

In: 2 abrade, 1 revoker
Out: 3 canonist

Game 2: he plays a turn one trinisphere off of a chrome mox and I think mountain and guide. I play anancient tomb and pass. I get a heretic down the next turn and he has a second 3ball in play. I am able to blow one up before he confluences my heretic. My painter gets chaos warped for another ancient tomb. I have plateau, 2 tombs, and a city of traitors in play. I eventually land 2 copters, a painter, great furnace and a Karn. Karn takes over the game after I create 2 constructs that are 6+ power and toughness. I’m at 9 from tomb damage. He reveals a confluence off sin prodder and I’m at 5 but he is at 1. He scoops.

Round 3 vs BUG True-Name

Game 1: I end of turn tutor for a blood moon seeing all the nonbasics and it gets forced. I play a few dorks and a copter but he eventually has a board of jace, liliana, deathrite, and strix. How do I beat that? Somehow I managed to get have off the table with a lavamancer after he used it’s minus ability to bounce my welder. He minuses liliana with two counters in it to get rid of one of my creatures. We trade with the copter and strix. I enlightened tutored with the draw on the stack for a bridge. First misplay. Forgot that I am going to get to draw the bridge but then I have to discard it and I don’t have an artifact in play anymore to weld it. He lands a Truename and I get beat down. First loss of the night.

In: 3 blood moon, 2 abrade, 1 ensnaring bridge, 1 revoker
Out: 1 grindstone, 2 Karn, 3 canonist, 1 heretic

Game 2: I keep an opener of 3 blood moon, 2 plateau, 1 abrade, 1 recruiter. A bit risky since he is playing wasteland and I have no fast mana to power out an early moon. I play the plateau and pass. He thoughtsiezes and takes a moon. (Please no surgical please no surgical) he didn’t have it...phew. I am able to cast a blood moon in turn 3 which gets forced. I cast another one next turn with a petal up for blast. It resolves. I start the beats with painter, recruiter and welder while he is hoping to draw a basic land. I put him down to 5 with dork beatdown and play a lavamancer and pass. He scoops.

Game3: he is fetching basic swamps and islands which made me not feel to bad about not having a moon in my opening seven. A very grindy match. I am able to dork beatdown him pretty low and eventually e tutor for the grindstone to win. It pretty much felt like a ran out of resources. I think he won game 1 Cuz he was able to put a lot of pressure on me. Not sure how he boarded but I felt like his needles and discard weren’t good enough. I think some opponents get scared of the combo that they maybe overboard.

Round 4: split. I would have played a regular opponent there who was on Big Eldrazi with the mana rocks. It can be a pain with painter turning everything a color and an all is dust or ugin is cast. Also he has some reshufflers so I was relieved to split. We decided to play a few rounds of old school 93, 94 instead.

I think this was the most comfortable I felt with the deck. Played against some popular decks and it was nice to see Shortcake be able to win. What are other people’s sideboards looking like these days? I’m pretty set on the above one and have been rotating out the rip for either a 6th blast, containment priest, surgical, or maybe even hedgemage. I remember reading about trying 4 surgicals in the sideboard (I think that Seth or Jack brought it up). Has anyone tried that?

Kap'n Cook
06-12-2018, 02:35 PM
So I haven't actually gotten around to testing surgicals in the board, but the idea stemmed from thinking how slow and anti-synergistic Rest in Peace seems to be in the current meta. My thinking was that if it is already much worse than Tormod's Crypt, do we just chop it? I think a miser's crypt should be in everyone's board just because it's the cheapest tutorable hate that enables the 3 card combo, unless you are choosing to dedicate to RIP/Leyline + Helm.

Since I didn't really want to run Leylines, the next question became do we just punt the graveyard matchups and see if Canonists and the crypt can get there or do we go with something like Surgicals, which have more application against a wider set of decks than leylines do. I am currently seeing how the former plays out, since that allows you to squeeze in more chalice hate and still keep all the moons in the board. The surgical idea came up when I was trying to think of a sideboard that covered RB reanimator while still giving game vs other stuff.

I'm tempted to run something like this:

4 Surgical Extraction
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Karn, Scion of Urza
1 Goblin Welder
1 Viashino Heretic
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Blood Moon
3 Pyroclasm
1 Walking Ballista

As I've said before, with our higher white count and the prevalence of Deathrite, moon has been actively bad a lot of times, to the point where even against good moon matchups I'm chopping down the numbers on the draw because it can be so dead/slow. Obviously our lands matchup takes a hit, but that's where surgicals would help out too. Additionally, with this configuration, we should slaughter storm, and make other random combo decks like Show and Tell a tad easier. I assume we would bring in some surgicals vs miracles just because nabbing Swords/Terminus/Force/Balance or even protecting our own stuff against opposing surgicals would be good.

Not sure when I'll get around to trying it out, but I'll report back whenever I do.

Neo900
06-19-2018, 06:07 AM
Hi everybody,
I play from times to times my version of the deck.

Deck: Nahiri Painter (https://deckstats.net/decks/70092/875172-nahiri-painter/de)

//Lands
4 Ancient Tomb (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Ancient+Tomb)
4 Arid Mesa (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Arid+Mesa)
2 City of Traitors (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=City+of+Traitors)
1 Great Furnace (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Great+Furnace)
3 Mountain (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Mountain)
2 Plains (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Plains)
3 Plateau (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Plateau)

//Spells
2 Abrade (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Abrade)
4 Blood Moon (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Blood+Moon)
3 Enlightened Tutor (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Enlightened+Tutor)
2 Ensnaring Bridge (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Ensnaring+Bridge)
3 Grindstone (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Grindstone)
3 Lotus Petal (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Lotus+Petal)
4 Nahiri, the Harbinger (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Nahiri%2C+the+Harbinger)
3 Pyroblast (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Pyroblast)
4 Red Elemental Blast (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Red+Elemental+Blast)
1 Sorcerous Spyglass (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Sorcerous+Spyglass)

//Creatures
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Emrakul%2C+the+Aeons+Torn)
1 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Jaya+Ballard%2C+Task+Mage)
2 Magus of the Moon (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Magus+of+the+Moon)
4 Painter's Servant (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Painter%27s+Servant)
3 Simian Spirit Guide (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Simian+Spirit+Guide)
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Spirit+of+the+Labyrinth)

//Sideboard
1 Boil (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Boil)
3 Leyline of Sanctity (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Leyline+of+Sanctity)
2 Pyroclasm (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Pyroclasm)
2 Relic of Progenitus (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Relic+of+Progenitus)
2 Sphere of Resistance (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Sphere+of+Resistance)
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Spirit+of+the+Labyrinth)
1 Sudden Demise (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Sudden+Demise)
1 Surgical Extraction (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Surgical+Extraction)
2 Wear // Tear (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Wear+%2F%2F+Tear)

Show more (https://deckstats.net/decks/70092/875172-nahiri-painter)

I use Nahiri as card filter and win condition besides the combo. It's technically my Smuggler's copter.
Nahiri works great for me. She exiles permanent rarely. Most of the times I can plus her and fetch emrakul because my opponents underestimate her and don't know about the emrakul. I'm not that agressive like other lists and work more like a prison deck with 6 Blood Moon main, ensnaring bridge, spirit of the labyrinth.

crowe_1
06-20-2018, 03:03 PM
^
Cool list!

What are your thoughts on Nahiri vs. Chandra ToD here? Chandra is better in terms of pure card advantage and maybe easier to cast overall? Doesn’t require Emmy to get the most off the ultimate and is more synergistic with Bridge (due to Emmy end plan). The minus ability of Nahiri is arguably more versatile though, and despite not providing card advantage it is more synergistic with Welder.

Either way, sweet take on the deck!

Neo900
06-20-2018, 03:55 PM
I played Chandra before and I can agree in some points. She creates card advantage, no doubt. most of the times I flip cards with her which I can't cast but probably need. mostly blasts or removal which I want to keep in my hand for a certain amount of time rather exiling it for 2 damage. Óften times I can't control the board state as I want at the time I want because Chandra forces me to cast or lose the card.

I like the cycling ability of Nahiri for the reason I can sculp my hand and have solutions for later problems. This can be antisynagistic with bridge and Emrakul has the same kind of problem with the bridge.
But I can dodge the problem of bridge by searching for a combo piece and I have often times the other one drawn the turns before due to her.
And as I mentioned Nahiri has her own unique rogue factor. My opponents rarely know how to hate her (besides a few people but those are sitting next to me in every top 8 and are better than the average player).

Or maybe I push the deck into the wrong corner by playing it as a control deck rather than an aggro/combo deck what is quite strange because I like playing aggressive but wants to have the style of a control deck.

crowe_1
06-20-2018, 04:39 PM
^
Hey, if it works it works. Do you find it hard to be consistent with no Recruiters?

Neo900
06-21-2018, 02:56 PM
I play 3 Enlightened Tutor to get more consistency but if feels like a stompy deck most of the times. first turn moon effect is half of the win. The filtering of nahiri helps to fix and acts as win condition. just as I described before, nahiri helps me to control the game in my favor.

punda
07-02-2018, 10:19 AM
I went 3-1 in the legacy challenge at SCG ATL

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/cpainter/
(Sorry posting from my phone)

2-0 against cloud post
-I had to explain the all is dust/painter interaction
-5/5 Karn tokens closed the game fast

2-0 against d&t
-welder and copter put in a lot of work
-painter vs sword of fire and ice always catches people

2-0 against dragon Stompy
-welder and canonist beat down game one
-opening hand heretic took game 2 though chalices on 1& 2

0-2 against sneak and show
- have trouble here sine the top ban, always relied on Jaya and bridge in the past
- I need to improve my side board here


Overall deck feels good, especially against fair non-deathrite decks

Kap'n Cook
07-02-2018, 10:58 AM
Well its back to the drawing board for how we need to hate on the new meta

SDBobPlissken
07-02-2018, 11:36 AM
Well its back to the drawing board for how we need to hate on the new meta

Do our blood moons become better now and put back in the main? How bad of a hit does storm take without probe?

Kap'n Cook
07-02-2018, 12:53 PM
Do our blood moons become better now and put back in the main? How bad of a hit does storm take without probe?

We just sit tight and wait to see what happens. Obviously blue will remain tier 1. When we know the top decks we just metagame against them and slot the tutorable hate into our painter/stone/vamptutor/demonic recruiter/blast shell

James718
07-02-2018, 01:56 PM
We just sit tight and wait to see what happens. Obviously blue will remain tier 1. When we know the top decks we just metagame against them and slot the tutorable hate into our painter/stone/vamptutor/demonic recruiter/blast shell

I would try a main deck Tormods Crypt

NormalGuy
07-02-2018, 02:28 PM
We probably need to re-visit lavaman. The main reason for his including was to fight DRS.

Fallen_Empire
07-02-2018, 05:17 PM
Well its back to the drawing board for how we need to hate on the new meta

4x leyline of the Void in the SB seems like a good start...

drude1
07-02-2018, 07:27 PM
Definitely interested in shortcake again with this ban. I do think blood Moon goes up in value. Also agree 4 x leyline is probably a good idea. Wow, this is a big boost for this deck in my opinion.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

SDBobPlissken
07-02-2018, 09:51 PM
Definitely interested in shortcake again with this ban. I do think blood Moon goes up in value. Also agree 4 x leyline is probably a good idea. Wow, this is a big boost for this deck in my opinion.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

4 leyline of the void has been great for me. I’m back and forth between running a Rest In Peace in addition to the leylines but with the anticipated uptick in reanimator I’m probably going to keep it and possibly add a tormods crypt. Also want to get sudden shock back in somehow at least for my local meta as I see death and taxes making a big comeback.

Michael Keller
07-02-2018, 09:57 PM
Definitely interested in shortcake again with this ban. I do think blood Moon goes up in value. Also agree 4 x leyline is probably a good idea. Wow, this is a big boost for this deck in my opinion.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

I'm not so sure of that. Manabases will become more stable now that Deathrite is gone. Before, against the four-color decks, Blood Moon was a slam-dunk. Against Canadian it might be good, but I just don't think its overall value gets better with the ban; I actually think it remains status quo.

Ceralyst
07-03-2018, 10:00 AM
I think a main deck lavamancer is still good. It still answers a lot of fair decks, which may see an uptick an uptick in goblins, D&T, other delver variants. Plus, it can still crew a copter.

aslidsiksoraksi
07-09-2018, 12:18 PM
Alright, which of you lot top8'd the legacy challenge????

Creature (17)4 Ethersworn Canonist (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BEthersworn%5D+%5BCanonist%5D)2 Goblin Welder (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BGoblin%5D+%5BWelder%5D)1 Grim Lavamancer (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BGrim%5D+%5BLavamancer%5D)4 Imperial Recruiter (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BImperial%5D+%5BRecruiter%5D)4 Painter's Servant (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BPainter%5D+%5BServant%5D)1 Simian Spirit Guide (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BSimian%5D+%5BSpirit%5D+%5BGuide%5D)1 Walking Ballista (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BWalking%5D+%5BBallista%5D)
Instant (9)3 Enlightened Tutor (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BEnlightened%5D+%5BTutor%5D)4 Pyroblast (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BPyroblast%5D)2 Red Elemental Blast (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BRed%5D+%5BElemental%5D+%5BBlast%5D)
Artifact (15)1 Great Furnace (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BGreat%5D+%5BFurnace%5D)1 Engineered Explosives (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BEngineered%5D+%5BExplosives%5D)1 Ensnaring Bridge (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BEnsnaring%5D+%5BBridge%5D)4 Grindstone (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BGrindstone%5D)4 Lotus Petal (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BLotus%5D+%5BPetal%5D)4 Smuggler's Copter (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BSmuggler%5D+%5BCopter%5D)
Enchantment (1)1 Blood Moon (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BBlood%5D+%5BMoon%5D)
Land (18)4 Ancient Tomb (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BAncient%5D+%5BTomb%5D)3 Bloodstained Mire (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BBloodstained%5D+%5BMire%5D)3 City of Traitors (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BCity%5D+%5Bof%5D+%5BTraitors%5D)4 Mountain (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BMountain%5D)2 Plateau (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BPlateau%5D)2 Wooded Foothills (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BWooded%5D+%5BFoothills%5D)

Sideboard (15)1 Goblin Welder (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BGoblin%5D+%5BWelder%5D) 1 Blood Moon (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BBlood%5D+%5BMoon%5D)1 Ensnaring Bridge (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BEnsnaring%5D+%5BBridge%5D) 2 Karn, Scion of Urza (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BKarn,%5D+%5BScion%5D+%5Bof%5D+%5BUrza%5D)4 Pyroclasm (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BPyroclasm%5D) 4 Surgical Extraction (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BSurgical%5D+%5BExtraction%5D)1 Tormod's Crypt (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BTormod%5D+%5BCrypt%5D) 1 Viashino Heretic (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BViashino%5D+%5BHeretic%5D)


Pretty amazing! Nice job whoever Utley26 is!

Keep on Painting y'all

jasper
07-09-2018, 12:24 PM
Alright, which of you lot top8'd the legacy challenge????

Pretty amazing! Nice job whoever Utley26 is!

Keep on Painting y'all

I believe it's Kap'n Cook? and yes congrats! any chance of a report? 7-0 in the swiss is a helluva run.

@Michael Keller On a related note, I think that the Blood Moon issue is an interesting one. On the one hand, manabases will need to adapt to the lack of Deathrite and the increased power (and likely presence) of Wasteland, but on the other hand, some of the four colour decks had resilient enough mana with Deathrite to run moons themselves.

I do think that Shortcake gets a boost from this, particularly the new build with Canonist. Looking at the metagame at the moment combined with anecdotal evidence suggests that that might be the case, but I haven't had a chance to play legacy post-banning yet.

Kap'n Cook
07-09-2018, 01:26 PM
Ill be writing something eventually but in the meantime ran through swiss beating:

Infect
Dredge
Death and Taxes
UR delver
Show and Ape
TES
UWR Delver

Got destroyed by Ape and Tell in the top 8

Soldier of Fortune
07-09-2018, 03:04 PM
Ill be writing something eventually but in the meantime ran through swiss beating:

Infect
Dredge
Death and Taxes
UR delver
Show and Ape
TES
UWR Delver

Got destroyed by Ape and Tell in the top 8

Congrats! Looking forward to the report, yours are always the best!

aslidsiksoraksi
07-10-2018, 02:55 AM
interested in the idea that the deck could be better positioned post ban - what makes you think so?

and also very excited for a report :wink:

Whitefaces
07-10-2018, 05:16 AM
Grats Jack, awesome run! Looking forward to a report if you'll do it.

I played a league with your 75 last night and loved it.

2-0 Mono red storm
2-0 Miracles
0-2 Zombardment
1-2 Dredge
2-0 DnT

I've not played Painter since dabbling with it years back when top was still around so was figuring out the mus as we went along. The losses felt like they should be pretty decent, Bridge is great in both and they struggle to interact with the combo but I never got much going.

drude1
07-10-2018, 12:45 PM
Well done Jack.
I would be most interested in how the deck played for you. Any particular card you would put more emphasis on? Particularly bridge or blood moon? How were those two cards? Also, why the one extra welder in the board? When would you bring that in? When do you bring the karn in and is that not good enough for main? Very interested in how you think this deck stacks up against the meta now. I've been seeing a lot of RUG delver online lately which really makes me want to play more blood moon main.

SDBobPlissken
07-10-2018, 01:04 PM
I went 3-0-1 at my LGS last night. Split in the last round. Would have ended up playing rug delver in the last round.

2-0 against Storm (substituted thoughtsieze and preordains for probes)

2-0 vs Zombardment (1 win by grindstone another by helm)

2-1 vs sneak and show.

For the SnS match I ended up bringing in 11 sideboard cards. It went something like +4 leyline of the void, +1 helm, +1 red elemental blast, +2 containment priest, +1 ethersworn canonist, +1 Rest In Peace, +1 ensnaring bridge.

-3 grindstone, -1 blood moon, -1 goblin welder, -1 imperial recruiter, -2 grim lavamancer, -2 Karn, -1 painter’s servant.

Game 1 lost to a show and tell into omniscience . I put in a canonist which he abraded a turn or two later. (Main deck abrade ughh) he eventually draws 7 and gets emrakul into play and I scoop.

Game 2 he mulls to 5 and I blast a show and tell. I get a bunch of dorks and a copter into play. I get a containment priest into play. He is out of cards too decks a pyroclasm. I get another containment priest into play and swing in for the win with copter.

Game 3 I get a turn zero leyline. He kept a sketchy hand with a petal and city of traitors . He tries to brainstorm off the petal and I blast it. I get a copter into play and start the beats. I eventually have an e tutor and I crew the copter with a dork and e tutor with the draw on the stack to get helm and discard it since I have an active welder in play for the win.

@Jack congrats on the top8. Glad to see Shortcake on top again. Looking forward to your report as well. I have a lot of the same questions as Drude, particularly regarding the Karn’s and 3rd welder. Also could you discuss why 4 pyroclasm over any targeted burn (like bolt, abrade, firebolt). Also what was your sideboarding plan vs D&T. Is that a matchup where you would board in the second moon? Do you board out a number of canonists/ REBs, and do you bring in Karn?

Fallen_Empire
07-10-2018, 03:09 PM
interested in the idea that the deck could be better positioned post ban - what makes you think so?

and also very excited for a report :wink:


We can actually use goblin welder to get painter servant back from the graveyard again, instead of having it get exiled by deathrite.

drude1
07-10-2018, 04:07 PM
And blood moon gets better. And I don't agree that people will be playing more stable Mana bases. Yes, they will probably have a couple basics in their deck but turn one or two blood moon is still really good.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

Kap'n Cook
07-11-2018, 04:54 PM
Hoping to get my report posted Thursday night or so. The card that has stood out the most has actually been copter. Small filter value has definitely been appreciated, in addition to many different situations it has seriously inhibited the opponent. I'll try to bring these situations up as well as board stuff in the report also.

GradStudent
07-12-2018, 10:38 AM
Hoping to get my report posted Thursday night or so. The card that has stood out the most has actually been copter. Small filter value has definitely been appreciated, in addition to many different situations it has seriously inhibited the opponent. I'll try to bring these situations up as well as board stuff in the report also.

Cool man saw your list. Hope you start streaming up again soon.
Look forward to reading your report

NormalGuy
07-14-2018, 10:21 PM
I took Jack's list to the local 2k at Top Deck Games, went 4-2 to a 14/47 place finish. I beat S&T, D&T, ANT, and affinity. Lost to burn and UB landstill. UB landstill I bricked on lands one game which really hurt, and in another game a wasteland stopped me from fetching plateau when I had a hand full of white cards. Burn absolutely crushed me, it want even close. I think I might want 1 sphere of law or CoP in the board to be able to tutor up for burn matchups at any moderately sized event. I'm also still on the fence about swapping out a mountain for 1 basic plains in the deck. I think it's probably worth it for me personally.

SDBobPlissken
07-15-2018, 12:29 AM
I took Jack's list to the local 2k at Top Deck Games, went 4-2 to a 14/47 place finish. I beat S&T, D&T, ANT, and affinity. Lost to burn and UB landstill. UB landstill I bricked on lands one game which really hurt, and in another game a wasteland stopped me from fetching plateau when I had a hand full of white cards. Burn absolutely crushed me, it want even close. I think I might want 1 sphere of law or CoP in the board to be able to tutor up for burn matchups at any moderately sized event. I'm also still on the fence about swapping out a mountain for 1 basic plains in the deck. I think it's probably worth it for me personally.

I have to agree with jack and Seth on a basic plains not being viable. I think running 3 plateau might be better. I am gonna take jacks list to Geekeryhq on Monday except I’m gonna run a spirit guide in place of the 4th petal and heretic in place of the ee. In place of heretic in the board I’m gonna run a containment priest.

Still looking forward to jack’s tournament report!

sroncor1
07-15-2018, 05:13 PM
Sorry I have been away with life, work stuff, and medical licensing shit while so much has been happening. I am happy to see that you guys are still moving the deck forward. I know I haven't updated the list I have been playing but Jack and I have been essentially 73/75 for the past 2 months or so. I still feel that the Canonist is as strong as it was the night him and I were talking and decided to switch out the moon effects to go full Canonist in the main. Even with the DRS banning I would probably stay with the same configuration.

I know we also all you all a complete sideboarding guide. Unfortunately the banning upended a lot of that and we will need to start over there. My current sideboard is as follows

4 Surgical Extraction
1 Tormod's Crypt
3 Pyroclasm
1 EE
3 Containment Priest
1 Blast effect
1 undecided at this time, but probably a Welder

A quick note, Karn should probably be in the 75, although I am still not sure where at this point. I bounce back and forth if he is good enough for the main or just certain match ups. I am not testing him at this point as I want to figure out the other pieces at this time. I also think the dude count should be 2/1/1 for Welder/Lavaman/Ballista in the main. I am thinking I will try and make the SCG Philly event this coming weekend, so this would be the configuration I would take to an open tournament.

Some quick thoughts about the sideboard choices. Interaction on turn zero is too important anymore. Surgical is superior to Leyline bc while you want them both in your opening hand, being able to playa drawn one is important for the splash damage the cards provide. While Surgical is slightly weaker against Reanimator and Dredge, it helps make Turbo Lands and Miracles much better. You also need the gravehate to work against any decks running Eldrazi. The notion that you have to either lean on the singleton Crypt or mull to Leyline is a terrible strategy in those match ups. Also it is important to note that if the Reanimator design that becomes more popular, turn zero is less important, and allowing a grave hate that can be played when drawn should actually allow you to fight better over an extended event. The other choices are just general good stuff. I am thinking the Canonists also will help Show and Tell variants while giving us dudes to crew with. They are showing some promise in testing although its early, but I like the way we can add so many hate pieces to the deck in some match ups all while using the Copter to apply pressure and give us psuedo cantrips.

In other news I will soon be writing for a buddies card store website. The first thing they wanted me to come up with was a Painter series. Unsure how many articles it will become but I think I am at 9 pages so far. Nothing earth shattering for you all, but it will include some thoughts on the deck over the next couple months as the format shakes out. I will post a link here when it goes live.

Free Nedleeds, keep painting, and sorry to the international players for the fucktard that is visiting overseas.

Seth

aslidsiksoraksi
07-16-2018, 11:04 AM
Dang a whole article series?? Looking forward to it, glad to see work on the deck is still happening.

3 Containment priest is interesting. The SB seems heavily geared to be Sneak and Show, which makes sense since it seems like a bad matchup and a common one.

I'm probably gonna try the deck out again at a couple weeklies coming up here, will try to report back. Good luck in Philly!

sroncor1
07-16-2018, 07:42 PM
It’s funny you mention the board. Jack and I spoke for like 40 minutes last night going over it. I fully acknowledge that it’s wrong but I want to test out certain match ups and I need the numbers to see the cards frequently enough. In the end Karn will be part of the deck but I’m waiting till the meta shakes out to fit him in. My thoughts on that are that for the next two months or so I imagine the meta may be in flux. So I wanted some answers to decks I know we are weak to or we’re otherwise not hit by the bannning.

Miracles- extra welders and blast are strong here. Hard to say where the deck will go now but I think we are favored. The match up is tough but with good play I think it is positive. The Surgicals also really help here as getting rid of STP and Terminus and stopping those shenanigans is huge.

Elves-Not much changes. They still can swarm fast. Pyroclasm and lavaman are amazingly my here. Containment Priest also does a lot as NO is really how they will beat you quickly. I am pretty sure that it also shuts off zenith, although I can’t check now as I’m on a subway.

Show and Tell- it’s rough. Containment priest should help but this one is a battle. You need the grave hate as winning games without the combo is possible but not very probable, so removing Eldrazi is key.

Tempo-I have no idea how the various rug, bug, and other lists will shake out. Blasts and pyroclasm with EE is generally strong here. Obviously the blast also can provide value.

Reanimator- I will also say that gravehate needs to be castable. I don’t nderstand the argument for leyline, but I will take Surgical as it may be slightly better. It is unclear if faster RB or more consistent UB will win out. In the case of UB, Surgical is probably just better. We also have crypt.

Lands- crypt and surgical allow you to get rid of dark depths. That buys you time. With the new ruling on Blood Moon, the change to more fast mana, trying to shut off their lands can often be a liability as you lose the sol lands.

Storm- Nothing really changes.

I’m on a train. Sorry for the typos.

Seth

SDBobPlissken
07-16-2018, 11:27 PM
Went 2-2 at my LGS tonight. Won against RUG Delver and UWr Stoneblade. Lost to UB reanimator and RUG Delver. Won game 1 vs UB reanimator and could not draw any hate games 2 and 3. Brought in 2 containment priest, 4 surgical, and a tormods crypt.

I won against rug Delver due to him being on one land game 1 and I basically just raced him with a canonist after getting a blood moon down. Game 3 I had to mull to 5 and had a turn 1 blood moon which he had no answer to.

There were 4 reanimator decks, at least 2 SNeak and show, and at least 3 RUG Delver decks running around. If RUG continues to be a problem I think I might go back up on the moon count (currently playing 1 main and 1 side). Also it seems like UB reanimator is the top dog over Br. Maybe Rest In Peace Helm is the way to go as it also gives us time against Goyfs and mongooses while also having the extra combo in helm.

sroncor1
07-17-2018, 08:22 AM
Its nice to see that others are seeing some wins with the deck.

With respect to the sideboard, I would recommend just standing pat at this time. Maybe RiP and Helm over Surgical but otherwise I would just suggest running out there what I threw up. The reason for this is we need at least 2 things before we can fine tune the hate pieces.
1. The meta will run some rehashes of older decks, and at least one or two will emerge or change percentages.
2. This will give decks like Miracles and the tempo shells to adjust and adapt to the proper hate.

Once both of these things happen, we will know which types of Reanimator, Stoneblade, and Tempo shells are the strongest along with knowing where Miracles goes. It will also show us which variants of Show and Tell are the most important. It isn't until we know that can we figure out the best hate pieces. Until then I really think the more generic ones that have a great deal over overlap are the best course moving forward.

Anyone going to Philly this weekend?

Seth

compacta_d
07-17-2018, 11:51 AM
We get that Kap'n Cook tourney report yet or nah? I know people are busy.

Looking to build. Might be picking up Cities tonight and the rest I own or will fall in place easily.

NormalGuy
07-17-2018, 09:13 PM
Anyone going to Philly this weekend?

Seth

I'm going to try to make it to Philly on sunday for the legacy classic.

drynne_
07-20-2018, 03:07 PM
Hey guys! Thinking about putting this together. Is there a Discord for this deck?

drude1
07-20-2018, 09:58 PM
Hey guys! Thinking about putting this together. Is there a Discord for this deck?This is apparently one for all painter variants, split into different archetypes...

https://discord.gg/3u8Ye9f

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

SDBobPlissken
07-21-2018, 04:28 AM
Gonna try to make it to Philly. Just went 4-1 in a league playing with 4 blood moons main. I played against:

UB Landstill 2-1
Grixis Delver 2-0
UR Delver 2-1
SNeak and show 2-1
Some sort of BUG with basics 1-2

I was playing 4 moons main:

4 ancient tomb
2 arid Mesa
1 bloodstained mire
3 city of traitors
3 mountain
3 plateau
1 great furnace
2 scalding tarn

3 lotus petal

3 enlightened tutor
2 goblin welder
4 pyroblast
1 red elemental blast
4 grindstone
1 walking ballista

2 ethersworn canonist
4 painter’s servant
4 smugglers copter

4 blood moon
4 imperial recruiter
2 simian spirit guide
1 viashino heretic
1 ensnaring bridge

1 Karn, Scion on Urza

Sideboard:

2 containment priest
2 ethersworn canonist
4 Rest In Peace
3 pyroclasm
1 tormods crypt
1 ensnaring bridge
1 helm of obedience
1 engineered explosives

Thinking of dropping a canonist in the board for an additional red elemental blast.
Hoping for the meta to stabilize soon. The decks I faced this league, I didn’t face at all last league.

Kap'n Cook
07-21-2018, 06:27 PM
5-0d first league with the updated post-challenge list, it’s prolly posted somewhere and 4-1d the next. Feel the most confident I have in probably 2+ years in the list. Really encourage everyone to pick it up if you haven’t painted in a while. Board right now is the following and I’ll make sure to update the opening post with new info this week

Board

4 pyroclasm
4 surgical
2 priest
1 crypt
1 welder
2 Karn
1 viashino heretic

n0mad
07-23-2018, 01:37 AM
Went 3-0 tonight at a LGS playing Jack's 75. 2-0 vs ANT, 2-0 vs Elves and 2-0 vs DnT. Ethersworn Cannonist turned out to be great, and blood moon was surprisingly good vs Elves. First time playing the deck and really enjoyed how it felt (:

compacta_d
07-23-2018, 10:10 AM
5-0d first league with the updated post-challenge list, it’s prolly posted somewhere and 4-1d the next. Feel the most confident I have in probably 2+ years in the list. Really encourage everyone to pick it up if you haven’t painted in a while. Board right now is the following and I’ll make sure to update the opening post with new info this week

Board

4 pyroclasm
4 surgical
2 priest
1 crypt
1 welder
2 Karn
1 viashino heretic

Mind making it easy for us with an exact list? maindeck?

Kap'n Cook
07-23-2018, 11:06 AM
Mind making it easy for us with an exact list? maindeck?



4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
3 Plateau
3 Mountain
1 Great Furnace
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire

4 Lotus Petal
1 Simian Spirit Guide

4 Imperial Recruiter
4 Painter’s Servant
4 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Goblin Welder
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Walking Ballista

4 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
3 Enlightened Tutor

4 Grindstone
4 Smuggler’s Copter
1 Blood Moon
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Engineered Explosives (Heretic)



Sideboard:

4 Surgical Extraction
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Containment Priest
4 Pyroclasm
1 Goblin Welder
1 Viashino Heretic (EE)
2 Karn, Scion of Urza

compacta_d
07-23-2018, 01:10 PM
you're the best!

McMasterJ
07-24-2018, 01:33 AM
I just finished reading Kap'n Cook tournament report - thanks for the great read.

I bought the missing pieces for this deck after I saw it 7-0 the Legacy Challenge. Played it a little casually with friends, and really liked it. I'm bringing it tomorrow to my weekly legacy event.

Will definitely keep on reading posts here to learn more about the deck.

Gotta make good use of my plateaus after all :)

finksfinksfinks
07-24-2018, 04:32 AM
Has the tournament report been posted/published? Someone post a link if so?

compacta_d
07-24-2018, 09:21 AM
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?32539-Source-Wars-Episode-IV-A-New-Cake

drude1
07-24-2018, 01:55 PM
Hey Kapn'. Just read your tourney report. Hilarious. Well written.
Seems like the canonists are really pulling their weight for you. I am having a really hard time deciding which version of painter to play right now. I've been fiddling with the dark side of brainstorm and force of will for so long that it is now hard to give up. It's like crack. Anyway, maybe your recent success will inspire me to get back on straight shortcake (or maybe back to "Devil's cake" with black splash). My big question is this...you feel like a miser's bloodmoon is still the way to go? Eldrazi and RUG delver seem to be getting real popular. I think I would really want to play more main moons but I also can't argue with your logic. Also, is 4 copters too many? Do you really want to see more than one? It's probably just so important to get one down on the first 1-2 turns though huh? Anyway, keep on painting my friend. I'll go to confession and cleanse my soul and then should be ready to jump back on the wagon.

Kap'n Cook
07-24-2018, 06:13 PM
Good mention on rug and eldrazi, I’ve been waiting to see how much they would rebound. So far it hasn’t been terrible, since copter does trade with mimic, reshaper, goose, and delver. I haven’t faced much lands yet though, so if that’s back big as well then I could see a second in the board. Otherwise, white is pretty important now overall. 4 copters is probably right, since they can pitch each other. every hit replaces the worst card in our hand or abuses welder. legacy is still pretty combat focused right now too, and copter is a huge 3/3.

Welshy
07-24-2018, 11:24 PM
This was a great write up, thank you so much. Would you perhaps be able to go a little more in depth on the aggro loam matchup, A local at my store plays it every week and it gives me alot of trouble, just running your stock list, any help would be appreciated.

Hisa
07-28-2018, 06:34 PM
Hey All,

So I know I'm late to the party, but I've been really glad to see Copter get picked up by the Shortcake and Mono R lists, the card is the stone nuts.

I skimmed the ten pages of this thread, so sorry if I missed the relevant discussion, but what about upping the Welder count? The card super over-performs with Copter. Maybe I just want to make every deck Welder-Control, but the artifact count is already ready high and it becomes another must-answer threat to tax opposing removal.

sroncor1
07-29-2018, 02:18 PM
I am glad you are enjoying the thread.

With respect to Welder, I think 3 is the correct number right now. While he is basically always awesome, we do need some random cards to combat the weird shit that is part of Legacy. I could see a meta shaking out where 4 is what we want, but with elves and delver variants still fairly popular, we need to have some answers for those match ups at this time.

Also, I will post here when the series goes live, but I finally finished the write up on Painter. So I am thinking they will start the roll out of articles this week.

Seth

Fallen_Empire
07-29-2018, 03:48 PM
...with elves and delver variants still fairly popular, we need to have some answers for those match ups at this time.

What do you think of a singleton Ali from Cairo as elf hate? It is decay proof and tutorable with recruiter?

CptHaddock
07-29-2018, 03:56 PM
What do you think of a singleton Ali from Cairo as elf hate? It is decay proof and tutorable with recruiter?

Peacekeeper might be a tad better since it can come in a variety of matchups outside of elves. A card like this is usually very bad against a deck like Delver because it's so easy to remove.

Fallen_Empire
07-29-2018, 04:06 PM
Peacekeeper might be a tad better since it can come in a variety of matchups outside of elves. A card like this is usually very bad against a deck like Delver because it's so easy to remove.

Abrupt Decay can kill Peacekeeper, it can't kill Ali.. I think elves scoops to Ali..

sroncor1
07-30-2018, 10:03 AM
Yeah I mean Ali is tough to beat in general for them. If elves is heavily played there is marginal cost to run a singleton answer to the deck. I feel like there were some lists years ago where I had him in the 75, or at least we joked about playing him.

He isn't the worst card.

Seth

PirateKing
07-30-2018, 10:20 AM
Abrupt Decay can kill Peacekeeper, it can't kill Ali.. I think elves scoops to Ali..

I overheard some talk in the Elfy circles about including some amount of Shaman of the Pack as the non-combat alternative lost with the DRS ban.
Against the Moats and Bridges, where slowly draining them was the backup, now Symbiote bouncing and recasting is the plan.
You might fake them out a game, but after that, you should plan on seeing that come down.
So auto-scoop every time not so much. Just a heads up.

marqueso
07-30-2018, 01:47 PM
How do you guys feel about the Eldrazi Post matchup? I'm running a fairly stock list and I've found the matchup to be basically unwinnable, especially if they're playing multiple titans with the shuffle ability. I've been seeing the deck pop up more and more, especially after 2 people top 8'd Philly with it. Any advice or tech for the matchup?

drude1
07-30-2018, 08:33 PM
How do you guys feel about the Eldrazi Post matchup? I'm running a fairly stock list and I've found the matchup to be basically unwinnable, especially if they're playing multiple titans with the shuffle ability. I've been seeing the deck pop up more and more, especially after 2 people top 8'd Philly with it. Any advice or tech for the matchup?This matchup alone makes me want to go back to the 4 blood moon, 3 bridge version of the deck.



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Megadeus
07-30-2018, 09:09 PM
Even with moon and bridge I feel like they can still ramp into Ulamog to remove either fairly easily? I could be wrong. Grim Monolith and such gives them some inevitability

SDBobPlissken
07-31-2018, 12:00 AM
Even with moon and bridge I feel like they can still ramp into Ulamog to remove either fairly easily? I could be wrong. Grim Monolith and such gives them some inevitability

I agree that it is easy for them to ramp into Ulamog or all is dust. When I was on Moon stompy I played two Null rods in the board specifically for this match up since people at my LGS. Null Rod is a nonbo in painter though.

I think moon is still good for this match up. With copter at least you have a relatively fast clock as opposed to durdling around with little dorks. Maybe if you can get a painter down and blast their mana rocks to keep them from casting their business spells you should be good.

In recent news I went 3-1 at my LGS tonight:

2-1 Tin Fins (beatdown for the win both times)
Storm 2-1
Sneak and Show 0-2 (got absolutely killed)
Eldrazi Stompy 2-0

I played Jack’s latest list exactly except I played a blood moon in the board over the 2nd Karn. I know we’ve discussed how great copter is but it still continues to impress me. In Game 1 vs Eldrazi Stompy I am at 8 life facing down three 3/3 creatures and a chalice on 1. I have a moon and bridge in play and an empty hand. My outs to win are explosives (1 of) to get rid of chalice, ballista (another 1 of) to ping, or draw a copter (which I did) and build to three cards in hand to swing in the air and then play a card to get back down to two cards in hand. I think this is definitely a match up where copter is better than SDT was.

sroncor1
07-31-2018, 12:15 PM
First part is up.

https://www.flipsidegaming.com/blogs/magic-blog/red-white-imperial-painter-in-legacy

I have some additional thoughts I will post tonight here.

Seth

Michael Keller
07-31-2018, 12:38 PM
Attacking an Eldrazi deck's mana with Blood Moon only delays the inevitable.

However, this guy (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=dwarven+miner) changes that a bit. He also has utility (with Blood Moon) in other match-ups using Dark Depths as a win-condition. Keep in mind these lands are still non-basic under Moon.

sroncor1
07-31-2018, 03:16 PM
Hollywood,

You always surprise me in the best ways possible. That card is actually very interesting, and something we should keep in mind. I agree that Moon does little for the variant Eldrazi ramp lists, especially if they run Titans. Permanently destroying the mana is a solid way to attack them. In practice I wonder how this works? Have you tested it out.

If nothing else, the art and flavor is amazing. The guy has a strong pedigree in early Vintage, even if the deck naming from that era was fairly homophobic.

With respect to the deck, I still caution everyone from adding more moons and Bridges. You are taking the deck in a different direction. The key is that for the most part all the cards are there to give us a little window to develop the board and assemble the combo. Running too many Moons and Bridges dilutes the ability to crew, making hard to assembly teh combo, while only marginally buy time. The balance is critical.

The second half of the article will have some more extended thoughts on sideboarding. They are inline with what jack is thinking, with some slight variations as we are constantly tinkering at this time.

Seth

drude1
07-31-2018, 07:48 PM
Dwarven miner would be the same issue I think. Play it on turn 2 to activate on turn 3 while they have already dropped tks or a monolith. I just think blood moon is better than people give it credit for right now, especially since 3 color delver variants are still pretty popular. Turn 1 moon almost shuts down eldrazi stompy and slows down eldrazi post enough. If you can take out our counter their artifact Mana then you are golden. As is, we just get totally wrecked by those decks, and unfortunately they are really ticking up in popularity. And don't get me wrong, I am totally open for any suggestions to fight that deck. I just know that that MU (stompy version) used to practically be a bye with the old list.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

Alexeezay
08-02-2018, 04:23 AM
Is there any video content/coverage with this deck? I'm thinking about buying the missing cards but I'm not sure since the deck is so fringe.
The 4 Canonist/Copter variant seems fairly new and I would love to see it in action.

aslidsiksoraksi
08-02-2018, 03:52 PM
There is a little, but not a ton. Hoogland played the deck to good results: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siUha0YU2DQ

slightly older version but still, in essence its the deck with copters and canonists

What are you missing for it? Aside from Plateaus, the other cards are either relatively cheap or else are Legacy staples (recruiter is $30 i think, but that's about the only high-ticket one). And you could just jam Sacred Foundry for a little while if Plateau was a problem.

It doesn't put up a ton of results, not because it's weak but because very few people play it. Jack took it to 7-1 in the Legacy challenge, undefeated in Swiss, and there's been many 4-1 and 5-0s.... Buddy of mine did 3-1 at a local weekly. It's a solid deck.

compacta_d
08-03-2018, 09:11 AM
copied from the discord

played 5 games with Lands friend last night. 2-3. didn't feel bad with first time with the deck. Game 1 was preboard. games 2-5 post board.
won the first and last
i definitely don't understand the mulligan decisions. But when I was able to consistently put pressure it was good.
some games closer than others. got wasteland locekd a few times as lands is wont to do
felt like a Pithing Needle would have gone a long way though

Hisa
08-03-2018, 11:00 AM
There is a little, but not a ton. Hoogland played the deck to good results: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siUha0YU2DQ

slightly older version but still, in essence its the deck with copters and canonists

What are you missing for it? Aside from Plateaus, the other cards are either relatively cheap or else are Legacy staples (recruiter is $30 i think, but that's about the only high-ticket one). And you could just jam Sacred Foundry for a little while if Plateau was a problem.

It doesn't put up a ton of results, not because it's weak but because very few people play it. Jack took it to 7-1 in the Legacy challenge, undefeated in Swiss, and there's been many 4-1 and 5-0s.... Buddy of mine did 3-1 at a local weekly. It's a solid deck.

You forgot about $50 Ancient Tombs and $300 City of Traitors.

compacta_d
08-03-2018, 05:13 PM
you can get them cheaper.

I just got cities off fb for <200.


WAIT FOR IT...

SDBobPlissken
08-04-2018, 06:48 PM
Went 3-1-1 at my LGS legacy monthly and came in 3/4 in the top 8. Played the following list (pretty much Kapn’s list) 25 players

4 ancient tomb
3 city of traitors
3 mountain
3 plateau
2 scalding tarn
2 arid Mesa
1 wooded foothills
1 great furnace

4 painter’s servant
4 imperial recruiter
4 ethersworn canonist
2 goblin welder
1 grim lavamancer
1 walking ballista
1 spirit guide

4 lotus petal
4 smuggler’s copter
4 grindstone
4 pyroblasts
3 enlightened tutor
2 red elemental blast
1 ensnaring bridge
1 blood moon
1 engineered explosives

Sideboard:

4 surgical extraction
4 pyroclasm
2 containment priest
1 tormods crypt
1 goblin welder
1 blood moon
1 Karn, Scion of Urza
1 Duergar Hedgemage

Round 1. 2-1: RUG Delver
Round 2. 2-1: Aggro Loam
Round 3. 0-2: UWR Delver
Round 4. 2-0: Storm
Round 5. Draw to Top 8:????

Top 8: (7th seed)

Quarterfinals: 2-1 UWR Delver (same round 3 opponent)
Semifinals: 1-2 Sneak and Show (opponent I would have faced in round 5 had we not decided to draw into top 8). Didn’t give myself the best chance in this match. I had a hand of 2 surgicals a spirit guide a priest and a blast with a painter on blue out. (He mulled to 5) I end of turn containment priest and he forces pitching omniscience. I could have fought over it by monkey blasting it but I thought blasting the show and tell or sneak attack was better since I could then cast surgical on it. He show and tells the next turn, I blast and surgical the show and tell. The last two cards in his hand are sneak attack and emrakul. I fail to draw a blast the next turn and he has enough mana to cast and activate. Don’t know if I would have won if I fought over the containment priest Cuz he had answers in the deck and five turns to find them.

All in all deck felt really good. Blood moon didn’t do much for me all day. I think I resolved one once and it was decayed a turn later.

Nekrataal
08-06-2018, 03:22 AM
Is there anything like a sideboard guide available? Tried some games on MTGO yesterday and while it is often clear what to put in, it is not always obvious what to board out. Often blasts and less relevant tutor targets had to go.

Gesendet von meinem SM-G930F mit Tapatalk

drude1
08-07-2018, 03:31 AM
Went 3-1-1 at my LGS legacy monthly and came in 3/4 in the top 8. Played the following list (pretty much Kapn’s list) 25 players

4 ancient tomb
3 city of traitors
3 mountain
3 plateau
2 scalding tarn
2 arid Mesa
1 wooded foothills
1 great furnace

4 painter’s servant
4 imperial recruiter
4 ethersworn canonist
2 goblin welder
1 grim lavamancer
1 walking ballista
1 spirit guide

4 lotus petal
4 smuggler’s copter
4 grindstone
4 pyroblasts
3 enlightened tutor
2 red elemental blast
1 ensnaring bridge
1 blood moon
1 engineered explosives

Sideboard:

4 surgical extraction
4 pyroclasm
2 containment priest
1 tormods crypt
1 goblin welder
1 blood moon
1 Karn, Scion of Urza
1 Duergar Hedgemage

Round 1. 2-1: RUG Delver
Round 2. 2-1: Aggro Loam
Round 3. 0-2: UWR Delver
Round 4. 2-0: Storm
Round 5. Draw to Top 8:????

Top 8: (7th seed)

Quarterfinals: 2-1 UWR Delver (same round 3 opponent)
Semifinals: 1-2 Sneak and Show (opponent I would have faced in round 5 had we not decided to draw into top 8). Didn’t give myself the best chance in this match. I had a hand of 2 surgicals a spirit guide a priest and a blast with a painter on blue out. (He mulled to 5) I end of turn containment priest and he forces pitching omniscience. I could have fought over it by monkey blasting it but I thought blasting the show and tell or sneak attack was better since I could then cast surgical on it. He show and tells the next turn, I blast and surgical the show and tell. The last two cards in his hand are sneak attack and emrakul. I fail to draw a blast the next turn and he has enough mana to cast and activate. Don’t know if I would have won if I fought over the containment priest Cuz he had answers in the deck and five turns to find them.

All in all deck felt really good. Blood moon didn’t do much for me all day. I think I resolved one once and it was decayed a turn later.

I know this post isn't going to be super popular, but I really can't agree with your take on blood moon here. Looking at your report, you played 3 decks where an early blood moon would have been back breaking (the delver lists), and 2 decks where blood moon would be very relevant (STORM and aggro-loam). Only the sneak and show MU would I have taken blood moon out. Given how popular eldrazi and grixis control are (not to mention 3 color delver and shadow lists after the pro tour), I think blood moon's stock is really going up.

Having said that, I brought this list to my LGS tonight...

// Shortcake

// 60 Maindeck
// 12 Artifact
4 Grindstone
1 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Smuggler's Copter
4 Lotus Petal

// 15 Creature
2 Goblin Welder
4 Painter's Servant
4 Imperial Recruiter
3 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
1 Simian Spirit Guide

// 4 Enchantment
4 Blood Moon

// 9 Instant
4 Pyroblast
3 Enlightened Tutor
2 Red Elemental Blast

// 19 Land
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Great Furnace
3 Mountain
3 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
1 Plains
2 Plateau
4 Arid Mesa

// 1 Planeswalker
1 Karn, Scion of Urza


// 15 Sideboard
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Ensnaring Bridge
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Containment Priest
SB: 1 Faerie Macabre
SB: 1 Ghirapur Aether Grid
SB: 1 Sphere of Law
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Abrade
SB: 1 Kozilek's Return
SB: 2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
SB: 1 Pyroclasm

I ended up going 3-1.

Rnd 1: Lands - Game 1 turn 1 blood moon, game 2 didn't see blood moon but a copter plus welder recursion was able to block 20/20 avatar for 3 turns before assembling the combo. 2-0

Rnd 2: U/B Shadow (pro tour list) - had to mull both games due to low land. Never saw blood moon. Did actually assemble combo in both games but painter died to fatal push in response to grindstone activation both games. 0-2

Rnd 3: Mono blue Omni-Show - game 1 actually assembled and activated combo on turn 2 but then saw emrakul. Was able to get canonist down and blasts plus beats got me there. Game 2 was able to get early copter and karn tokens to put on heavy damage fast. Damage plus a couple blasts got there. 2-0

Rnd 4: Mono-red stompy - Game 1 fast combo. Game 2 blew up a couple artifact hate cards (turn 1 chalice with e.e and turn 2 sorcerous spyglass with abrade) early and comboed soon after. 2-0.

So ironically enough blood moon wasn't great in 2 of my MUs but the stompy guy I played round 4 said blood moon got him a few games on the night. Abrade was really good. I know Jaya looks funny these days but I just wanted to try her. Figured she couldn't be any worse than heretic. Karn was really good but would probably move it to the board for either another mana source or e.e main. Sideboard was loose (grid) but was just trying some things out.

Don't get me wrong, I really like where this deck is going, even without the blood moons. Copter is a hell of a card and I've always supported main deck canonist. I know the general consensus is to play a full 4 of these cards but I had to make room for the moons somewhere and I felt like both canonist and copter in multiples were redundant. I think that this deck is quite strong overall and horribly underestimated by most legacy players, and we can use that to our advantage. However, the problem we have is that, with no brainstorm/ponder, we are just naturally going to have more variance than our blue counterparts. We have to make up for that variance with more "must answer" cards in our deck, and blood moon is one of those cards that most decks just have to answer. I certainly do not discredit anyone who wants to run the stock shortcake without 4 x blood moon. At the same time, I don't agree that a 4 x blood moon list should automatically be discarded either.

sroncor1
08-07-2018, 10:24 AM
Drude- I hope nobody is disregarding a 4 Blood Moon list, and if my posts came off as such I am sorry for the confusion. I do think that your recent experience is a perfect example of why it is still unclear. Pre DRS-banning, I think Canonist over Blood Moon was the correct play. Until we really see how the format shakes out, I don’t think we will know so you are correct that we need to keep it in the back of our minds as we go forward.
I do think you hit on an interesting point with respect to combating cantrip shells. I think there are two ways to go about it and you hit on one of them. If every card is a bomb and you just keep casting them, you will beat the Cantrip shell. The issue is that I don’t think Painter can ever get that density of threats going. No combo deck can as we have so many spaces for fast mana, and redundancy in combo pieces. While Welder and Copter help reduce this, drawing extra Lotus Petals and Grindstones as the game wears on makes us fall behind. So eventually the fast mana, dead combo pieces, or lands will have us lose as the game goes past turn 4.
The other way to combat this is to reduce our variance. Smuggler’s Copter addresses this. In many ways it functions as a repeatable cantrip and should be thought of as such. With this in mind, I really think running less than 4 is just wrong. In the current field it is probably better to cut the 4th Grindstone than one of the Copters. This isn’t just due to the Cantrip effect that it provides, but the other ways that it can interact and provide a window to win.
With respect to your Sideboard, I like the trying of various cards. I am personally slowly finalizing the 75 at this time. But I think everything is in flux so it is reasonable to try a bunch of stuff.
With respect to Blood Moon moving forward, I want to see what part of the format ends up on Lightning Bolt. Punishing Fires is a thing, but in the end, it will be Lightning Bolt that determines what form of Moon we play. If RUG doesn’t put up numbers like a lot of people thing, I am sort of feeling like Magus will be the superior Moon effect. This are a few reasons:
1. Both die to Abrupt Decay, and he lives through Grip, which should give him more value against Turbo Depths lists.
2. Fatal Push is a thing, but numbers aren’t looking like it’s a four of in decks. Although Deathshadow lists are running a couple Dismember
3. He crews Copter which helps to improve consistency in all match ups
4. Against Reanimator, BUG, Elves, Stompy lists, and various Eldrazi lists Magus is probably just better as on the play he is still a body.
I think this issue needs to be considered, and in the end I doubt we will have an answer in the short term. There is also the fact that in general more Moon effects make the current Canonist/ E tutor lines more difficult. Canonist has continued to be so strong all the time that I am cautious about removing some of its utility and ease of use. My thoughts on E tutor have been laid out numerous times on this thread so I will save you all from having to read that again.

Seth

drude1
08-07-2018, 12:04 PM
Drude- I hope nobody is disregarding a 4 Blood Moon list, and if my posts came off as such I am sorry for the confusion. I do think that your recent experience is a perfect example of why it is still unclear. Pre DRS-banning, I think Canonist over Blood Moon was the correct play. Until we really see how the format shakes out, I don’t think we will know so you are correct that we need to keep it in the back of our minds as we go forward.
I do think you hit on an interesting point with respect to combating cantrip shells. I think there are two ways to go about it and you hit on one of them. If every card is a bomb and you just keep casting them, you will beat the Cantrip shell. The issue is that I don’t think Painter can ever get that density of threats going. No combo deck can as we have so many spaces for fast mana, and redundancy in combo pieces. While Welder and Copter help reduce this, drawing extra Lotus Petals and Grindstones as the game wears on makes us fall behind. So eventually the fast mana, dead combo pieces, or lands will have us lose as the game goes past turn 4.
The other way to combat this is to reduce our variance. Smuggler’s Copter addresses this. In many ways it functions as a repeatable cantrip and should be thought of as such. With this in mind, I really think running less than 4 is just wrong. In the current field it is probably better to cut the 4th Grindstone than one of the Copters. This isn’t just due to the Cantrip effect that it provides, but the other ways that it can interact and provide a window to win.
With respect to your Sideboard, I like the trying of various cards. I am personally slowly finalizing the 75 at this time. But I think everything is in flux so it is reasonable to try a bunch of stuff.
With respect to Blood Moon moving forward, I want to see what part of the format ends up on Lightning Bolt. Punishing Fires is a thing, but in the end, it will be Lightning Bolt that determines what form of Moon we play. If RUG doesn’t put up numbers like a lot of people thing, I am sort of feeling like Magus will be the superior Moon effect. This are a few reasons:
1.Both die to Abrupt Decay, and he lives through Grip, which should give him more value against Turbo Depths lists.
2.Fatal Push is a thing, but numbers aren’t looking like it’s a four of in decks. Although Deathshadow lists are running a couple Dismember
3.He crews Copter which helps to improve consistency in all match ups
4.Against Reanimator, BUG, Elves, Stompy lists, and various Eldrazi lists Magus is probably just better as on the play he is still a body.
I think this issue needs to be considered, and in the end I doubt we will have an answer in the short term. There is also the fact that in general more Moon effects make the current Canonist/ E tutor lines more difficult. Canonist has continued to be so strong all the time that I am cautious about removing some of its utility and ease of use. My thoughts on E tutor have been laid out numerous times on this thread so I will save you all from having to read that again.

SethTotally agree with all of your points in general. Swapping the 4th grindstone for the 4th copter is a thought. However, as you said, the further we get into a game vs blue decks the worse our odds probably get and I generally want to try to combo off as quickly as possible. I would like to still see the 4th copter in the list somewhere but just not sure how to make the room.
Splitting blood moon and Maggie also has some potential as the crewing factor is real. In general though, I think the only deck that is playing abrupt decay regularly is aggro loam. I don't want to lose to a dark depths into punishing fires. I would say there is a lot more efficient creature removal than enchantment removal in most decks. One plains opens up swords, one swamp opens fatal push and a mountain obviously gets bolt. And like you said, even dismember sees play in a couple decks (particularly eldrazi).
As for MUs and whether blood moon has relevance, the biggest downside of playing blood moon (in multiples) in the current meta is the increase in show and tell decks and the fact that people are still playing Mono red stompy and the splattering of goblins. Having said that, the fact that people are still on mono red stompy (including a bunch of pro tour players) speaks to the fact that blood moon is good right now. The commonly played decks that blood moon is good against? All 3 color delvers, grixis control, eldrazi, lands, aluren, u/b shadow, jeskai control, elves. It's also reasonable against miracles, d&t, and storm (I usually cut 2 copies against these decks). And the thing is, having 3 copters/canonists vs 4 copters/canonists in those MUs (minus the 4th canonist against storm) isn't going to make a ton of difference.
You do make a very good point that blood moon doesn't play well with e.tutor/canonist sometimes, but A. this had always been the case, and B. the 4 x petal helps and it's also why I'm one of the basic plains guys and would potentially advocate for another fetch or maybe even something like a one-of mox opal. The issue has come up a little in my testing, but I can't say I've actually lost a game to it yet. It is also definitely one of the reasons that I cut 1 canonist to make room for the moons. The e.tutors you can usually fire off pre-moon.
You are definitely right that the meta could still shift. I'm just going by what I am currently seeing online and in the pro tour. As grixis and eldrazi become more popular, this deck will need an answer. If I had to play in a large event with this deck tomorrow, I would play it with 4 x blood moon.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

SDBobPlissken
08-07-2018, 12:50 PM
I wasn’t saying that blood moon wouldn’t have been really good in those matchups. I was just trying to say that I went as far as I did without relying on it. The only time I got it into play was against aggro loam on turn 2 when he had a bayou in play. O his next turn he went Mox Diamond basic forest and decayed the moon. The blood moon would have been great against UWR Delver the both times I played it if I had saw one. Against my RUG opponent I think I only saw one in game 2 (which I lost) and it was met with a Counter. I agree with it still being a must answer against a lot of the field. I would like to fit more into the 75 somewhere but I think I’m gonna continue with the 1 main 1 side for a little as I also maybe want to go up to three containment priests on the board. Against Storm I always found blood moon to not be that great especially in game 2 and 3. I actually bored out the main deck moon for games 2 and 3 now. Against storm it’s usually +1 crypt, +2 pyroclasm, +4 surgical, . - 1 bridge, -1 lavamancer, -1 ballista, -1 blood moon, -2 copter, -1 recruiter.


I know this post isn't going to be super popular, but I really can't agree with your take on blood moon here. Looking at your report, you played 3 decks where an early blood moon would have been back breaking (the delver lists), and 2 decks where blood moon would be very relevant (STORM and aggro-loam). Only the sneak and show MU would I have taken blood moon out. Given how popular eldrazi and grixis control are (not to mention 3 color delver and shadow lists after the pro tour), I think blood moon's stock is really going up.

Having said that, I brought this list to my LGS tonight...

// Shortcake

// 60 Maindeck
// 12 Artifact
4 Grindstone
1 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Smuggler's Copter
4 Lotus Petal

// 15 Creature
2 Goblin Welder
4 Painter's Servant
4 Imperial Recruiter
3 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
1 Simian Spirit Guide

// 4 Enchantment
4 Blood Moon

// 9 Instant
4 Pyroblast
3 Enlightened Tutor
2 Red Elemental Blast

// 19 Land
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Great Furnace
3 Mountain
3 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
1 Plains
2 Plateau
4 Arid Mesa

// 1 Planeswalker
1 Karn, Scion of Urza


// 15 Sideboard
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Ensnaring Bridge
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Containment Priest
SB: 1 Faerie Macabre
SB: 1 Ghirapur Aether Grid
SB: 1 Sphere of Law
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Abrade
SB: 1 Kozilek's Return
SB: 2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
SB: 1 Pyroclasm

I ended up going 3-1.

Rnd 1: Lands - Game 1 turn 1 blood moon, game 2 didn't see blood moon but a copter plus welder recursion was able to block 20/20 avatar for 3 turns before assembling the combo. 2-0

Rnd 2: U/B Shadow (pro tour list) - had to mull both games due to low land. Never saw blood moon. Did actually assemble combo in both games but painter died to fatal push in response to grindstone activation both games. 0-2

Rnd 3: Mono blue Omni-Show - game 1 actually assembled and activated combo on turn 2 but then saw emrakul. Was able to get canonist down and blasts plus beats got me there. Game 2 was able to get early copter and karn tokens to put on heavy damage fast. Damage plus a couple blasts got there. 2-0

Rnd 4: Mono-red stompy - Game 1 fast combo. Game 2 blew up a couple artifact hate cards (turn 1 chalice with e.e and turn 2 sorcerous spyglass with abrade) early and comboed soon after. 2-0.

So ironically enough blood moon wasn't great in 2 of my MUs but the stompy guy I played round 4 said blood moon got him a few games on the night. Abrade was really good. I know Jaya looks funny these days but I just wanted to try her. Figured she couldn't be any worse than heretic. Karn was really good but would probably move it to the board for either another mana source or e.e main. Sideboard was loose (grid) but was just trying some things out.

Don't get me wrong, I really like where this deck is going, even without the blood moons. Copter is a hell of a card and I've always supported main deck canonist. I know the general consensus is to play a full 4 of these cards but I had to make room for the moons somewhere and I felt like both canonist and copter in multiples were redundant. I think that this deck is quite strong overall and horribly underestimated by most legacy players, and we can use that to our advantage. However, the problem we have is that, with no brainstorm/ponder, we are just naturally going to have more variance than our blue counterparts. We have to make up for that variance with more "must answer" cards in our deck, and blood moon is one of those cards that most decks just have to answer. I certainly do not discredit anyone who wants to run the stock shortcake without 4 x blood moon. At the same time, I don't agree that a 4 x blood moon list should automatically be discarded either.

Totenbot
08-17-2018, 01:25 PM
Seems like a silly question but I'm really curious. How much does it matter which fetches I use? Do I want to run 4 Tarns and represent a deck I'm not playing or should I just run whatever 5 red fetches I feel like?
Note: not doing the 1-of plains thing currently

SDBobPlissken
08-17-2018, 04:55 PM
I try to run a variety of red fetches in the off chance that my opponent wants to pithing needle or surgical one of them. Chances are it won’t matter as those cards typically come in game 2 against you and there are much better targets for your opponent to use those cards against ex. Grindstone, welder, painter, pyroblast. I use 2 tarn, 2 Mesa, 1 foothills. that’s mainly cuz those are the ones I have that are foil. I think I recall jack mentioning in the old thread that 4 tarns might be ideal since we play tombs and cities and our opponent might mistake us for Sneak and Show. However, I don’t think that all in all it matters. If they are going to surgical or needle a fetch I would probably rather that than one of my spells or combo pieces.
Seems like a silly question but I'm really curious. How much does it matter which fetches I use? Do I want to run 4 Tarns and represent a deck I'm not playing or should I just run whatever 5 red fetches I feel like?
Note: not doing the 1-of plains thing currently

finksfinksfinks
09-05-2018, 01:25 PM
Hey, I know this might not be the best place for budget questions, but given how pricey CofT has gotten, how much does it ultimately hurt to run Crystal Veins instead?

Kap'n Cook
09-05-2018, 04:31 PM
Hey, I know this might not be the best place for budget questions, but given how pricey CofT has gotten, how much does it ultimately hurt to run Crystal Veins instead?

It’s like shocks over duals in tes. Will it ultimately matter? Yea. Will it resemble the real thing most of the time? Sure. You do lose curving out recruiter into painter though

I don’t think the deck is really that much more expensive than it was 5 years ago as well, recruiter and city have essentially flip flopped

SDBobPlissken
09-05-2018, 08:44 PM
Grindstone is bugged on Mtgo. Went to activate two separate times and the game crapped out. Might just be in response to removal on the painter. Not sure exactly, but everyone plan accordingly.

drude1
09-06-2018, 11:39 AM
Grindstone is bugged on Mtgo. Went to activate two separate times and the game crapped out. Might just be in response to removal on the painter. Not sure exactly, but everyone plan accordingly.

Yeah, I already sent a bug report to WoTC about it. Same thing happens to me.

drude1
09-11-2018, 08:22 PM
This is something...https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180912/163d00da8db53956b783eb2b16d9bc00.jpg

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SDBobPlissken
09-11-2018, 10:12 PM
This is something...https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180912/163d00da8db53956b783eb2b16d9bc00.jpg

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

I think he has got a spot on the main and/or the side. What does he take the place of though? I really wouldn’t want to cut ballista. Maybe lavamancer? Engineered explosives to the board and this takes its place? Cut to three canonist or 5 blasts?

Megadeus
09-11-2018, 10:17 PM
I think he has got a spot on the main and/or the side. What does he take the place of though? I really wouldn’t want to cut ballista. Maybe lavamancer? Engineered explosives to the board and this takes its place? Cut to three canonist or 5 blasts?

What does this card do that this deck wants? Just a tutorable somewhat vindicate? I guess it's better than running both Manic Vandal and Fire Imp?

Darklingske
09-12-2018, 11:18 AM
What does this card do that this deck wants? Just a tutorable somewhat vindicate? I guess it's better than running both Manic Vandal and Fire Imp?

The best use I see for him is in the SB for MU like Sneak and Show. If they Show an attack and we land this little guy, they are cut off of playing Emrakul since we can destroy Emmie now. Same for Showing Emmie. It's nice that they forgot the tap, so we essentially have haste on this guy.
Or am I missing something?

pettdan
09-12-2018, 11:25 AM
He can answer both Chalice and Delver, making him kind of an Abrade that can be tutored by Recruiter. Also costing 2 mana and having the third in the activation cost lets you play around daze, when with manic vandal you couldn't. So it at least has some advantages.

Kap'n Cook
09-12-2018, 12:39 PM
Everyone I think is on the right path and I think this dude is awesome for us. Pettdan is right in that it's basically a crewable/recruitable abrade. The EE becomes a bit superfluous since Chalice on 1 shuts down Tutor -> EE line, leaving it mostly there for random value or an out against TES/Belcher goblins. The hope is that canonist can come down early enough in these matchups to make not having EE main matter.

The non-tap non-red activation slots into our curve and gives us a reasonable way to fight chalice while also having utility elsewhere, and I think is the reason it gets the leg up over lavaman. Leaving the Ballista I think is important as it is the 'jaya long game slot'. Plus the gob gives random outs against Show-Emrakul as you guys mentioned, since we can handle Omniscience decently between blasts and canonists. Additionally, this might just be better than heretic. It also lets you sideboard/keep in craterman against creature variants that like to board in the one off pithing needle.

Some initial brainstorming led me to this rough draft:

4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
1 Great Furnace
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Plateau
3 Mountain

4 Lotus Petal
1 Simian Spirit Guide

4 Imperial Recruiter
4 Painter's Servant
4 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Goblin Welder
1 Goblin Cratermaker
1 Walking Ballista

4 Grindstone
4 Smuggler's Copter

4 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
3 Enlightened Tutor

1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Blood Moon


Sideboard:
4 Surgical Extraction
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Containment Priest
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Goblin Cratermaker
4 Pyroclasm
2 Flex spots


If Craterman is good enough, maybe that lets the sweeper clasm count go down for something else. It's just overall random good value, which is basically where we are as a deck anymore anyways. Other things of note are the three maindeck welders again. I was talking with Seth about the craterman and if Assassin's Trophy picks up and makes Bug better again, then having more recursion can only be a good thing, especially when it's ramping us. The seventh blast is a hedge against Miracles being a fucking thing again as expected, and just plays better towards our Painter-Canonist lock.


Am I missing anything?

compacta_d
09-12-2018, 05:27 PM
I still feel like the 4 pyroclasms is overkill and don't really get what we need them for. Hopefully the more I play the deck the more I'll understand.

I'll test out the new goblin as well. Picking them up for goblins anyway too.

Would something like isochron scepter work? I know it's "negative value", but the painter/blast/canonist lock feels real to me a lot of the time, and having it be easily welded anytime we have a hand for it makes it seem good to me. Tutor/blast on repeat seems awesome against a lot of decks. Often opponents have to save removal for the combo and with set up it can be a damned if you do/don't scenario. If double blast back up, they also can't really kill it except abrupt decay.

The mana costs line up well with the mana base as well.

Seems like it slots well.

either way I've talked myself into testing it.

finksfinksfinks
09-13-2018, 01:29 PM
He does nombo a little with painter, but I think it's a small price to pay for having that versatile an answer to some not great matchups

GradStudent
09-18-2018, 11:08 PM
headsup grindstone activation is bugged on modo

drude1
09-19-2018, 02:41 PM
Yeah, for like two weeks now. Sucks.

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CptHaddock
09-19-2018, 03:13 PM
Yeah, for like two weeks now. Sucks.

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Are we taking bets yet as to when it's fixed? I'm going with a year from now.

Kap'n Cook
09-19-2018, 06:43 PM
headsup grindstone activation is bugged on modo

Not the first time wizards has tried to keep us down.

In times like these it’s best to do as Bryant does and say fuck it we’re goin in dry.

I’ll be at bmore so if any other shortcakers are there come holla

Hisa
09-19-2018, 06:57 PM
Are we taking bets yet as to when it's fixed? I'm going with a year from now.


I asked and was told that it was on the list for after GRN release. Take that for what you will.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGO/comments/9fdrs1/painters_servant_grindstone_currently_bugged/

SDBobPlissken
09-19-2018, 08:12 PM
I asked and was told that it was on the list for after GRN release. Take that for what you will.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGO/comments/9fdrs1/painters_servant_grindstone_currently_bugged/

So realistically we are probably looking at the Wednesday after Guilds is released? That would bring us to October 10 right? This is absurd.

Kap'n Cook
09-22-2018, 08:25 PM
7-2, 14th, #freenedleeds

Soldier of Fortune
09-22-2018, 10:13 PM
7-2, 14th, #freenedleeds

Hell yeah! Keep it going tomorrow!

drude1
09-23-2018, 02:14 AM
7-2, 14th, #freenedleedsSweet! Good luck!


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Hisa
09-23-2018, 10:08 AM
Bro is on camera right now. Copter being awesome, as per usual.

Hisa
09-23-2018, 10:16 AM
Bro is on camera right now. Copter being awesome, as per usual.

Good Guys Win!

Kap'n Cook
09-23-2018, 04:56 PM
11-4 to finish. Ended in 14th still.

Hisa
09-23-2018, 06:06 PM
11-4 to finish. Ended in 14th still.


Nice! What'd you lose to? Still on the one Blood Moon plan?

Nouille
09-23-2018, 06:51 PM
11-4 to finish. Ended in 14th still.

Gratz for the run man. Was good to see a Painter on feature table. It's been a long time !

waz
09-23-2018, 08:16 PM
Congrats on the finish, can't wait to see the VOD

drude1
09-23-2018, 08:18 PM
11-4 to finish. Ended in 14th still.Good run. Respectable finish.


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Kap'n Cook
09-23-2018, 10:13 PM
Overall summary:

W: ANT, Eldrazi x2, Aluren, Maverick, Miracles x2, Dnt x2, grix control, 4c loam

L: Dnt, Infect, grix delver, ape and chimp.


Decent number of blowout wins, bunch of close grindy ones. Losses were very close for the most part, with some punts mixed in for good measure

thoughts in a report later prolly

Megadeus
09-24-2018, 07:48 AM
Surgical over something like Tormods (I see the small split) just because being on the draw against reanimator I guess?

Michael Keller
09-24-2018, 08:51 AM
Overall summary:

W: ANT, Eldrazi x2, Aluren, Maverick, Miracles x2, Dnt x2, grix control, 4c loam

L: Dnt, Infect, grix delver, ape and chimp.


Decent number of blowout wins, bunch of close grindy ones. Losses were very close for the most part, with some punts mixed in for good measure

thoughts in a report later prolly

#HomeyNeedsToChill #SealOfCleansingMyAss

:cool:

Kap'n Cook
09-24-2018, 11:21 AM
Surgical over something like Tormods (I see the small split) just because being on the draw against reanimator I guess?

Yea surgicals are there for the turn 0 interaction, and then you hope that buys you enough time to either Recruiter -> Containment Priest or E-tutor -> Crypt. I felt like the split gave the broadest coverage and access from our tutors. Surgicals can help against non-graveyard combo since we have countermagic as well as miracles.



#HomeyNeedsToChill #SealOfCleansingMyAss

:cool:


True, Grindstone > Energy Field. But yea I had no idea that Wizards nerfed us again by changing the Humility rule, so be careful friends lest you end up in a parking lot brawl over an additional starcity pro point

Fallen_Empire
09-24-2018, 09:22 PM
Excellent work Bob!!

Totenbot
09-25-2018, 03:45 PM
What did they change for Humility? Also how much better objectively does this deck get once we have access to some explodey gobbos?



True, Grindstone > Energy Field. But yea I had no idea that Wizards nerfed us again by changing the Humility rule, so be careful friends lest you end up in a parking lot brawl over an additional starcity pro point[/QUOTE]