So, here's the decklist for my Monowhite control.
Land:
24x Plains 3 (Revised/Unlimited)
Creatures:
4x Eternal Dragon
Spells:
3x Chalice of the Void
4x Skullclamp
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Raise the Alarm
2x Vengeful Dreams
3x Extraplanar Lens
2x Mobilization
4x Tanglewire
3x Wrath of God
1x Worship
3x Decree of Justice
Sideboard:
2x Karmic Justice
2x Ivory Mask
2x Story Circle
2x Circle of Protection: Red
2x Rule of Law
1x Karma
1x Circle of Protection: Green
3x Nevinyrral's Disk
The sideboard isn't as good as I'd like to be. I think my brother, who plays Enchantress, went out of his way to hide or steal all our Disenchant effects. I haven't been able to find any Disenchant, Abolishes, or Seals of Cleansing, and he took all the Auras of Silence.
I was going to review what happened during the tournament, but I remembered that I have the worst memory in existence. So a really lazy and incomplete review would be;
Round 1, Me vs. Gigantor, who was playing Sui Black. No first turn Dark Rituals. I was able to Swords, Wrath, or Tanglewire his stuff long enough to get out a kill both games. First game got out Lens to unleash a bunch of 1/1s and Angels, second game I played Karma and stalled his stuff the rest of the game until that finished him off.
Round 2, Me vs. My brother, playing W/G/R Enchantress (splashing red for Words of War). Game 1 went about as well as could be expected. I went first and got a second turn Chalice for 1, with a Clamp in play, to stop Wild Growth/Exploration/Elephant Grass and such nonsense. Double Tanglewires, stall long enough to get out 3 4/4s, swing to the dome. Lost next turn as he went off with the Words of War. Le sigh. Game two, ditched all forms of creature control for minor irritants like Ivory Mask and CoP: Red. He gets a third turn Aura of Silence and I'm unable to play anything else the rest of the game.
Round 3: Oh my... Me vs. Dylan Grandon, who is playing U/G Faeries.deck. First game I actually come closing to losing because I had trouble drawing a Wrath. I did however eventually get out Worship, and he scoops as he apparently has no answers in the main. Second game I get a Chalice for 1, followed by a Chalice for 2. Story Circle naming Blue hits play, and then the 4/4 angels start appearing. Obviously a fun deck. Although I wouldn't have been playing the Willow Faeries.
Round 4: Me vs. Anwar, playing GayFish. First game Tanglewires and Swords to Plowshares are unable to stall the horde of tiny little men coming my way. Second game I'm unable to resolve two different Skullclamps, but his Standstill ends up working in my favor as I get every plains in my library out with Eternal Dragon. Couldn't draw into a Decree, so I ended up giving him the three cards, but I won anyway with Dragons and a Storycircle. The third game Has a similar mid game, but this time he gets manlands out a lot quicker and I'm forced to break Standstill to try and kill his creatures. I end up staring down two Factories with three plains in hand, and two life, and topdeck... a Vengeful Dreams. Knowing that he only has one FoW left in his deck. I'm able to kill the Factories, then start putting out the Eternal Dragons out to act as blockers/attackers. I recover from the edge of the abyss to pull a victory. I go to the Top 8 with 3-1-0, out of 26 people in the tournament.
First (and last) match in the top 8 is Me vs. Matt Carl, playing Landstill. First game the only removal I see is Wrath of God, and if you count the Raise the Alarm that killed a Mishra's Factory. Sensing that desperate action is needed, I go to the car to grab Mr. Failure, and thrust him in Matt's face, screaming "Failure!" He is suitably impressed. Second match I get out a Worship-Karmic Justice combo fairly early, to counteract his Disk. Win with Dragons. Third Match is eerily familiar as an early Standstill leaves me thinning out Plains from my library with Dragon. Get out a clamp, create some soldiers, draw half my library, swamp him with Tokens for the win.
Final four have to split because Colosso (FCG) has to go home early.
Right now the main change I'm thinking of making to the maindeck is to add either Disenchant or Abolish. Not sure what to replace- Chalice is a consideration, maybe move it to sideboard. Maybe Leonin Abunas or Fountain Watch as a sideboard consideration. Nova Cleric could also be quite good in the sideboard, comboing quite well with Skullclamp.
Edited By TheInfamousBearAssasin on 1084173247
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
I like the strategy behind this deck. Skullclamp/soldier tokens is an impressive draw engine. If I were to create a test version I think it would look something like this:
4x Skullclamp
4x Raise the Alarm
4x Decree of Justice
2x Mobilization
4x Eternal Dragon
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Humility
3x Wrath of God
3x Smokestack
3x Chalice of the Void
3x Extraplanar Lens
22x Plains
2x Kjeldoran Outpost
Sideboard:
4x Mindslaver
3x Argivian Find
2x Worship
3x Abolish
3x Tormod's Crypt
Mindslaver is the best bomb I can think of to bring in vs. control. You should be able to power it out eventually (just like in T2!). The Finds can recur everything important, from Slavers to Skullclamps to Smokestacks.
Smokestacks, btw, are nuts with token producers. Much better than Tangle Wire.
Outpost is another token generator. If they prove unnecessary, or if they are too much of a liability with Lens (which I am not sold on yet, anyway), they could go.
Humility is a natural fit for a soldier deck. Seriously. It's nuts. Better than maindeck Worship, IMHO. It does screw over Dragon, though.
What about Armageddon? Could it work as a SB card, or not? It would require careful planning and probably extensive Dragon cycling, but it could be worth considering. After all, you have a lot of cards to side out against control decks.
I'm interested in knowing what sort of sideboard you would have run if you had the cards you wanted. Were the Disks necessary? The CoPs?
Originally Posted by nitewolf9
I probably should be running Humilities instead of Worships, yeah. Yeah.... can't think of any good reason why not.
Armageddon I'm not crazy about. The deck can survive Armageddon, especially with Lens in play, but going out of it's way to cause the Geddon seems unnecessary. If anything, I'd rather run Catastrophe. If I'm in a position that Geddon seems profitable (i.e., I have Lens in play), I could almost certainly afford the Catastrophe anyway. And in the meantime it'd serve as addition WoGs.
Outpost might be really good, and I could probably afford to run 2x. One of my biggest complaints this Saturday was that I often didn't have as many soldiers to kill as I would've liked.
Smokestack is definitely worth considering. If I added Smokestacks, though, I'd want to up the Mobilizations to 3.
Mindslaver I don't think is that hot in general, although it would certainly be an autowin against all the Enchantress decks running around (all two of them) if it got out.
The ideal sideboard I was imagining before Saturday's game was 4x Abolish, 4x Disenchant, 4x Aura of Silence and 3x Seal of Cleansing. Now I'm not as sure I really hate Artifacts and Enchantments that much. Argivian Find would be useful, as would Orim's Chant. Leonin Abunas. I think I'd ditch the Disk, as I'm almost always running more non-land, non-creature permanents (I got tired of saying Artifacts and Enchantments) than my opponent.
Another card my brother and I were talking about was Ivory Gargole. It could be Clamped Every turn, serve as defense, and would be a hard to remove kill condition.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Yeah, you're probably right about geddon. Catastrophe sounds interesting though.
Mindslaver I think is awesome as a sideboard card against control. Mid to late in the game it will almost always wreck them if it resolves, as you can use up anything they have in hand and many times do stupid things with their board as well. Against Tog, for example, Psychatog eats their entire hand and graveyard. Against Landstill, Standstills draw you cards and Dustbowls and Wastelands eat their own manabase. I think you are underestimating the slaver.
Argivian Find is superior to Abunas, since it counteracts countermagic and sweepers and because it isn't a 4cc creature. Find is so efficient at "protecting" your permanents that it could even go in the maindeck.
Ivory Gargoyle + 2 Skullclamps is pretty amazing, but how quickly would it come together? The Gargoyle is real weak by itself, too. More soldier factories would be better.
Are you going to run Steelshaper's Gift (isn't that the equipment tutor?) when it becomes legal? That should help make this deck much more consistent.
I was thinking of running one (possibly two) in the maindeck, yes.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
This deck seems pretty interesting. Do you guys have any more testing against the supposed tier one decks? I'm not sure that it would have a pretty match up with those.
vs. Dragon
Chalice and StP are the only cards worth noting. Duress and FoW will take care of that.
vs. FCG
Does the deck get quickly overrun?
vs. UW control
Scoops to Chant on a stick.
vs. LandStill
Unsure.
I think the addition of 4 Find MD as well as either 4 Seal of Cleansing or 4 Scepter+4 Disenchant and maybe Chant would shore up alot of the deck's weaknesses, You might have to cut a soldier engine or 2 and the mana denial and super production effects for the second plan, but i think the additional protection and CA vs control as well as a stronger Dragon game would make up for it.
I think that with 4 STP, Decree, Raise, and Wrath, this deck isn't really in danger of being overrun in the first few turns. However, FCG could still combo you out. Thats another reason to suggest Chant. A well timed Chant combined with a Wrath next turn would knock them out of the game. More MD also strengthens the FCG game.
PhyrexianToad : Sui black decks could always run Withered Wretch without affecting their win/loss ratios too much. Then again, Sui black decks could run plague wind, last laugh, and ostracize and not effect their win/loss ratios too much.
Dragon I haven't playtested against, although I suspect it's much as you say. Longing for those Abolishes for this matchup.
FCG I've played three games against. Lost once when he got the Food Chain out, lost once when he didn't, won once when he did get Food Chain out, with a Vengefel Dreams removing everything to be afraid of. It's a really close matchup, in my experience, a bit favored to FCG. This matchup is actually one of the reasons that I want to run 4x Orim's Chant in the side. If they don't get the Food Chain, I think I'll usually win.
UW Control/Stick Control... Orim's Chant on a stick doesn't shut the deck down at all. I can still spend all day getting out all the plains in my library, and cast Raise the Alarm/Cycle Decree of Justice at the end of their turn. Actually, in my experience counter-decks are my best matchup.
Landstill... well, all my recent playtesting shows that a Standstill on the board actually doesn't hurt me, and I have enough removal/card drawing that I can usually get something through to kill their manlands. I'm much more afraid of the Conclave than the Factory, since I can produce many 1/1 blockers to take the Factory down. Still, I think the matchup is in my favor. Although possibly a reason to consider Wing Shards for the sideboard (that and FCG).
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Good news/Bad news.UW Control/Stick Control... Orim's Chant on a stick doesn't shut the deck down at all. I can still spend all day getting out all the plains in my library, and cast Raise the Alarm/Cycle Decree of Justice at the end of their turn. Actually, in my experience counter-decks are my best matchup.
Good news-4 MD Decree and Clamps are cool vs control
Bad news- They can pay kicker with The Stick. Yeah, beginning wincing anytime now. Thats why you really need MD Disenchants of some form.
PhyrexianToad : Sui black decks could always run Withered Wretch without affecting their win/loss ratios too much. Then again, Sui black decks could run plague wind, last laugh, and ostracize and not effect their win/loss ratios too much.
Ouch. Shit. I always, always forget about that.
Yeah. I really do want 4 maindeck Abolishes. Like I said, my brother has apparently gone out of his way to hide the things.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
is the soldier/clamp engine really better than the Land Tax/Scroll Rack draw of Parfait? I think testing could warrant the latter more powerful.
bhmilo
My experience is that it's vastly, vastly superior to LandTax/Scroll Rack. For one thing, no one ever killed an opponent with Land Tax. Well, Seismic Assault nonwithstanding.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
After playing against this at Amrod's, I believe that the deck warrants some more serious attention. It has a good match against the top deck (Landstill) and seems like it could have the tools to contend with Dragon and FCG. Any thoughts?
One problem I did notice is that it is sloooow. Time may be a consideration if you play this at a tourney.
I, too, belive that the deck is better than a lot of people think... As far as I can see, you have a LOT of hate against the big 3 (humility = bad for FCG and Dragon). I noticed that you did not have tangelwire or chalice at amrods... I thank you for that, but I think at least one of the 2 should be put back in (tanglewire, probably, with chalice in the side). Extraplanar lens gives you insane amounts of mana to create dorks/clamp them with, but it can be a beating if it is disenchanted early on. Nevertheless, I think it has to stay.. I noticed you were playing with Illuminate on Sat, which went a little somthing like this:
Me: "Rancor my troll"
You: "Illuminate it"
Me: "Say what?....*reads card*.. BALLS!"
I think that disenchant is strictly better (except against rancor, of course), you were running both in your main, I think, and given your local metagame with enchantress all over, I don't blame you one bit. Hell, I run 3 Zealots main and 3 naturalize side, and I was having issues with massive amounts of enchantments on the board. I still think Illuminate can be dropped though, and run in the side... In your meta, though, I would REALLY, REALLY want to run Aura of silence.
As for your draw engine: I liked it, your draw engine swings, and it really is a beating to landstill, it just seemed a little bit slow to me as far as dealing with early threats.. is there any way that you could maybe play raise the alarm or somthing for some early, 2 - 3 turn creatures to clamp?
Also, I know I mentioned this Sat, but Exulted angel would be an awsome SB card, and so would Pulse of the Fields.
BTW: If Acadamy Rector had an ass of 1 and not 2, she would be the greatest clamp target EVER!
-Garv
\"Though I haven\'t meet anyone that calls Extended Type 1.x. If someone did I would look at them funny and assume they took the tiny bus to Stupidtown.\" - Ewokslayer
\"A casual stasis deck? You must not really like your friends. Do you play it before or after you pull the wings off of flys and microwave the neighbor\'s cat?\" - EwokSlayer again
HappyGilmore: Someone has a stick up their ass.
Peter Rotten: Yup, me. BTW, \"someone\" is singular. \"Their\" is plural. A singular an
A splash of any color would maybe be benificial, but I was peronsally leaning mroe to Blue or Red for a splash color. Hosing Nonbasics is savage, especailly VS enchantress. Remeber, Eternal Dragon CAN get duals, so you just play a couple duals. They also give you access to kickass cards such as BEB/REB and gang.
Still kickin' it combo school.
Well, that would stop the extra trickeyness of Lens and Snow-covered Plains
Yeah, Tanglewire always seemed to give me the time I needed to find a way to deal with early game threats, and in it's absence I'm finding myself hoping for them to walk into Wing Shards. I disagree that Disenchant is better than Illuminate given the enviroment. A list of some of the most played enchantments and artifacts would include; Standstill, Mindslaver, Food Chain, Survival of the Fittest, Rancor, and in the less likely but still plausible area, Sundering Titan, Darksteel Colossus, Alluren, Seismic Assault, and Pernicious Deed. In all of these cases, it's healthier for the card never to hit play. I do think that I went overboard Sunday, with 4 maindeck Illuminates. On thinking about it, I now think the ideal would be for me to play 3 maindeck Illuminations and 3 maindeck Auras of Silence (Abolish's speed only really seems to prove useful in a handful of matchups, so I'll save it for the side), as there are times that someone drops a Disk on the board while I'm tapped out, and I look at half my deck on the board and a pair of Illuminates in my hand the next turn.
On the Raise the Alarm issue; I used to run 4 Raise the Alarms and no Outposts, and on OF's suggestions I tried the Kjeldoran Outpost. I really liked the Outposts, and by running two of them I got the same consistency as when I was running 4 RtA, so I went with the Outposts. Unfortunately, then the realization came that everyone is maindecking twice as many Wastelands as I'm running Outposts, moving from the previous situation (where Wasteland was strictly worse against me than Blasted Landscape), to a new one, where Wasteland spelled 2-for-1 card advantage on their side. Between that and Lens that got Naturalized, I seem to be taking too much of a beating on my mana base. So I think I'm going to have to move back to RtA as you say, both because it often works as early game removal, and because at worst it's going to trade 1-for-1. It'll also give me back my ideal play against most deck, which is first turn Clamp, second turn Alarm, third turn draw two or four cards.
Angel is amazing, but I'm really hesitant to run it with 4 maindeck Humility. Pulse I do want to try out. I know that the deck needs some sort of life gain, either in the maindeck or the side- it's really embaressing to get a Humility on the field and then get killed by a bunch of 1/1 Masticores and Serendib Efreets.
RE, Academy Rector: Yes. Yes she would.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
We had a long conversation on this on the way back down here. Here's what it comes down to; the mana acceleration is not just for show. If I go multiple colors, Lens won't work anymore. That means I need to splash green for Mirari's Wake. The main cards I would want from green would be Moment's Peace and maybe Bind in the sideboard. That's about it. So it wouldn't be a very strong splash. Now, Red would be powerful for Blood Moon, but I don't think I can run a W/R/G deck that uses Blood Moon very effectively. Other than that, I only really want Starstorm from Red. Blue would give me Annul instead of Illumination, obviously, and Force of Will, and maybe Brainstorm. Those are pretty much the only cards I want from Blue, except Back to Basics, and again- W/U/G. So, that raises three questions. 1) Can you play FoW with only eight other blue cards? I really don't think so. 2) Does the extra point in casting cost really make Annul worth splashing for over White? Given that I've several times cast a Humility, with two already on the board, just to Illuminate it in order to live through the next turn, I would say that it's not. 3) Is blue worth splashing for Brainstorm as your only card? I really don't think so. So that leaves Black, which actually looks very strong- I could get Diabolic/Chainer's Edict, and Duress, and possibly even Decree of Pain. So W/B/G looks like it's worth testing out, but I'm not remotely sure that straight Mono-White isn't better.
And as all of the splashes involve using Wake, that raises another point- Wake shuts down my draw engine, short of having two Clamps on the board, or dropping a second Humility. Those situations aren't horrendously unlikely, but they're a little extraneous.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
So, here's what looks like the new build for the deck, assuming it stays MW, which seems like a fair bet.
Land (23):
23x Snow-Covered Plains
Creatures (3):
3x Eternal Dragon
Other Spells (35):
4x Skullclamp
3x Decree of Justice
2x Mobilization
2x Raise the Alarm
3x Extraplanar Lens
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Wing Shards
2x Wrath of God
3x Humility
3x Illumination
3x Aura of Silence
2x Solitary Confinement
Sideboard:
1x Aura of Silence
2x Wrath of God
3x Pulse of the Fields
3x Chalice of the Void
3x Abolish
3x Tormod's Crypt
Rundown:
Snow-Covered Plains: These produce mana. They also work well with the Lens.
Eternal Dragon: By far the best white creature ever made. This thing is a Plains-fetching machine. With a Humility on the board, he's the best creature in the game.
Skullclamp: This thing was banned in Standard for a reason. Repeatable, powerful card advantage that lets me draw into every answer in my deck.
Raise the Alarm: Occasional early game removal, and a secondary source of card drawing. Faster than the other two soldier producers, and lets me draw into them with a Clamp on the board.
Mobilization: 3W: Draw two cards. And the fact that it's Vigilance-granting ability continue to work with Humility on the field is actually quite powerful a lot of the time. Better than Sacred Mesa for that, and because sometimes I just want to drop a third turn Mobilization and then forget about it for a few turns.
Decree of Justice: Very much anti-Landstill. Hard for control to deal with, and when I'm sitting there on the third turn needing to draw into a fourth turn answer, cycling it for zero is still really useful.
Extraplanar Lens: Gives me a lot of mana to work with, which is usually very important for establishing late-game dominance.
Swords to Plowshares: Best targeted removal in the game.
Wing Shards: Best non-targeted removal in the game, at least against attacking creatures. The fact that it kills Troll Ascetics is very important.
Wrath of God: Even as 1/1s, sometimes those creatures need to be swept away. This also kills Troll Ascetics.
Humility: A Wrath of God that stays there. Anti-Dragon, Anti-Goblins, Anti-Mud, Anti-ATS, Anti-Landstill. Anti-Everything, really. Anti-Garv.dec. Did I mention it makes it so that Swords can kill Troll Ascetic?
Illumination: Like I said, some Enchantments and Artifacts just can't be dealt with by Disenchant. And no one ever expects the White counterspell.
Aura of Silence: The best actual Disenchant effect in the game, I think. Slows them down, and makes them really wonder whether it's even worth paying six mana to drop a Disk that'll be blowed up before they can set it off.
Solitary Confinement: With a card drawing engine in place, and this on the board, very few decks in the format can win. I can theoretically also keep it up with a Dragon in the yard and five lands, but that's extremely dangerous unless I know for a fact they have no answers in their deck to the Confinement (in other words, basically just FCG and bad jank decks, at least pre-sideboard). However, with the entire card drawing engine on the board and a Humility in play, Solitary Confinement is game over. And at the very least, it's often a Seal of Fogging.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
I think playing 1 to two plateaus does not "Dilute" the deck, especially when your just trying to use them to power out blood moon, which would just make your matchups VS the big Four (Aside from FCG) A lot easier. I don't even recommend fetchlands, as the deck wants to stay close to mono white. That is why I just say two Plateaus for blood moons. I know you might not agree, but it dosn't hurt the deck.
Still kickin' it combo school.
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