I think the removal can be adjusted for the meta, and mono red lists running lightning bolt main and no firebolt have been successful in the past.
Firebolt is cool and all because we have sol lands and it's viable to flashback, but it's primarily there for death and taxes, and I wonder if you could just get more immediate value running forked bolt in the side for that matchup. Yeah you can get a two-for-one on two 2 toughness creatures with firebolt, but it's considerably slower and harder to pull off without screwing yourself tempo-wise. Plus, what we care about, thalia, mom, and revoker, are all 1 toughness anyway. Beaters can be ignored, and their best beater against us, serra avenger, is 3 toughness anyway. If card advantage + board control is your goal, forked bolt seems faster and therefore more efficient.
Last edited by pinkfrosting; 10-14-2014 at 06:20 PM.
Firebolt is for almost every single creature deck that currently exists in the format, not just death and taxes. It is debatable whether forked bolt is better for dnt and maybe elves, but I still prefer the card advantage for all the various deathrite and stoneforge flavors. And flashing back is still very real and happens often.
@Calculoso
As for Sword, now that treasure cruise exists it is not needed as much. It was a hedge against the thoughtseize/hymn/liliana decks pre-khans to recoup some card disadvantage while also being a decent, although expensive, impact card against burn and control. I'm leaning toward ratchet bomb as a catch all still as the 14th card and the mystery card as 15.
By Curio GPT do you mean Curio Cavern?
Strawberry Shortcake
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...erry-Shortcake
What a brainstorm do? Draw card and activate on draw effects fix hand, removing woods
#FreeNedleeds
Strawberry Shortcake
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...erry-Shortcake
What a brainstorm do? Draw card and activate on draw effects fix hand, removing woods
#FreeNedleeds
I am liking firebolt more and more as I play this deck. There seems to be a shift towards quick fast creature esp after Khan. that makes firebolt even more useful and a card advantage esp if you get one off early in the game. I have also been experimenting with 1 cage as I feel it works very well against reanimator and elves. I am in favour of having 8 blast effects. Even 7 MB makes sense. The delver decks are back with a vengence. Many blue decks are are playing dig or cruise. Even more decks are incorporating brainstorm and cruise.
Please do continue to record your games. Your play time is just not right for me to join in. But I do like seeing your play in real life. I have to say, Even after playing painter for almost 6 months, I still learn that I would not make some of the plays you did. And you are usually right! As they say, you make your own luck!
Hey guys, I'm newish to the deck but I'm loving it. I was wondering though does anybody have suggestions for either the burn or u/r delver matchup as both decks seem to be big lately. I'm playing the splash white version. My friend suggested in the board I could run copper gnomes because of goblin welder or elixir of immortality. Thoughts?
I'm personally running Sphere of Law in the board. Other people like Circle of Protection: Red and Warmth, too each their own.
So I played the R/W version yesterday to a 2-4 record... Shit, it gets more complicated, when you have Enlightened Tutor in the deck :D
But it's awesome to have a more silver bullet'ed SB :D
The trick is to just paint like mono red and know your match up well enough when to e-tutor for silver bullets. The tools are there for sure.
I've been tuning mono red for treasure cruise burn and u/r, as well as u/w/r delver in the last couple weeks, in a fairly diverse field that now includes these types of decks.
If anyone is curious, here's what I'm running within a card or two:
4 Painter's Servant
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Imperial Recruiter
1 Magus of the Moon
2 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Goblin Welder
1 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
4 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
4 Grindstone
4 Blood Moon
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Lightning Bolt
7 Mountain
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Great Furnace
SB: 3 Thorn of Amethyst
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 3 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Manic Vandal
SB: 2 Lightning Bolt
SB: 1 Koth of the Hammer
SB: 4 Dragon's Claw
Some choices: I'm liking Lightning Bolt over Firebolt in testing because Swiftspear can be very threatening, sometimes even under Ensnaring Bridge, and like someone here previously mentioned, is not particularly susceptible to Firebolt. Lightning Bolt gives you the chance to have them burn cantrips/burn etc. at otherwise suboptimal moments while killing Swiftspear. This isn't new to mono-red lists in the MD or SB, but I was running Firebolts only in the SB before, but having removal MD against more aggressive strategies has been helpful.
- No Magus of the Moon in the SB: Magus dies to Lightning Bolt, and while is helpful against BUG and some other decks, that match up is already very positive. 5 Blood Moon effects seems just fine, especially since some of the more popular decks around right now aren't particularly susceptible to it. The one copy in the MD is one of the things I SB out most frequently, so I cut it in the board, and a few other tutor targets that were moved to the MD for:
- Dragon's Claw. This card looks stupid, but was recommended for me to test by Rich Shay, who's an occasional fellow painter enthusiast with a lot of eternal experience. So far, it seems like the real deal in the U/R Delver match up, and does reasonably well against burn. I've never landed more than one, interestingly enough, but it's powerful enough to actually steal games 2 and 3 on it's own, and often gives you back upwards of 15 life throughout the match. I'll often name Red with painter if this is boarded in, though the issue with that is not being able to counter Smash to Smithereens, which definitely is brought in against painter. It takes up a lot of space in the board, and while I think it fixes U/R and burn reasonably well, I can understand conceding that those match ups are pretty bad and not boarding for them as heavily.
- Thorn/Crypt: As usual, saving your ass against Dredge/Reanimator/Storm/etc., and with Claws in the board, the deck has fairly positive G2s and G3s against Combo and Burn.
- Bloodfire Dwarf - I want to squeeze a copy of this in the board somewhere, as I've tried it out against TES for EtW kills, Elves, D&T, and Young Pyro decks, and it can be the nut, as well as the cheapest tutorable way to sweep 1/1s in Mono-Red, but I haven't figured out if I want to move Koth to the MD or not.
If you're not running as many SB artifacts, I think the 3rd Goblin Welder could certainly be moved to the board, or cut entirely, but I really like that card in virtually any match up, and he improves many of the SB cards I'm using at the moment.
This list has helped me do really well in 2 GPTs in the Pittsburgh area recently, with a 5-2-1 record losing to D&T (which I played against 3 times) and U/R Delver (no Dragon's Claws) in top 8 in a ~35-40 person GPT, and going 5-1 in a smaller event, losing only to Sneak and Show in close games in top 4, and beating BUG Delver/Infect/BlueRedDelver/LoamPox/UWR Delver.
Sphere of Law sounds pretty appealing to me, bit more mana, but bricks every Red card in the UR Delver deck, great against Burn including Sulfuric Vortex, might try it in one of the flex slots in the sideboard. I'm also tempted to run Ajani Vengeant that was mentioned as a fringe 'walker to play, again some more life gain and blows up creatures, stylistically feels better for me. I'm really worried about droves of burn in the first few rounds of GP NJ.
I was sleeving up the deck and upon closer inspection I never actually owned Phrexian Revokers. I was going to take the deck to a weekly this Saturday but without the Revokers is it even worth using? I could use pithing needles but then it's not longer tutorable with Recruiter. My other thought was to include lotus petals to try to speed up the combo as well or add another welder. I'm on the fence going R/W due to the meta my shop has. I'm also trying out lightning bolt over firebolt due to Swiftspear is being put in a lot of lists.
2 Goblin Welder
2 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Painter's Servant
1 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
1 Magus of the Moon
4 Imperial Recruiter
4 Simian Spirit Guide
Spells (23)
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Red Elemental Blast
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Grindstone
4 Pyroblast
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Blood Moon
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
Lands (19)
1 Great Furnace
3 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Wooded Foothills
7 Mountain
Sideboard (15)
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Firebolt
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Dragon's Claw
2 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Manic Vandal
2 Trinisphere
2 Koth of the Hammer
I agree with nuke. I think lightning bolt over fire bolt is correct at this moment due to Taylor Swift spear, at least if you expect it.
Another thing I'm debating is relic over crypt. You have the benefit of keeping them off delve over time as well as dredge, eldrazi, DRS interaction.
I'm not going to push anyone to play my list or my card choices directly. I've always subscribed to the theory of playing what you are most comfortable with and knowing how changes affect board plans and sequencing and whatnot. I admit I would not be good at playing relic, but to a player who definitely knows what they are doing with it then by all means play it over crypt. Same goes for other stuff like Chandra pyromaster. But directly saying L bolt is correct over f bolt isn't the whole story. I just recommend sticking with whichever you prefer and practicing a lot.
Strawberry Shortcake
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...erry-Shortcake
What a brainstorm do? Draw card and activate on draw effects fix hand, removing woods
#FreeNedleeds
Revoker is pretty important in my opinion (based on a bit of experience.) He interacts very well with welder, he's tutorable, and he's an important tool in some bad/average matchups. He's won me the game against re-animator, sneak and show, and death and taxes multiple times. He's castable off a single sol land so he can affect the game as early as turn 1.
Lots of talking and some original thoughts which is awesome. I had no idea Shay played Painter and I def respect his opinion. The problem with that is that your sideboard is rough against dredge, especially the manaless builds. I will always stick by my claim that you need 6 graveyard hate to cover your ass and I stick to that even in vintage these days. It is an interesting card for sure though and may warrant testing. The problem will be space as I think you will have a hard time beating show and tell variants and even some Reanimator lists games 2-3 with that configuration. Now that may be the proper meta choice moving forward as show and tell seems like a real dog to the treasure cruise/delver decks. I stress those cards Bc they are still the most problematic. While the swiftspear can really fucking hit swapping out Firebolt for lightning bolt seems bad for me. Firebolt was picked a long time ago due to its favorable interaction with delver, stoneforge, clique, bob, deathrite, and snapcaster. It was a way to leverage advantage against these decks to tie up their cards to buy you time to combo. It did it better than lightning bolt and still does. While swiftpear is the hot new thing all those cards are still stronger than it. And you will die to a resolved deathrite or bob. They never have to attack and their value isn't generated from combat. It's like goyf, you never die Bc of it, you die Bc of the cards like fow, burn, or STP that stop you from combining. The finisher could be anything and wearbear(who is infinitely cooler) would get the job done just as well. I think fearing this card is a little premature at this time. I'm not even sure the u/r shell is the best delver list as my gut still tells me in an open meta wur still feels the strongest and can actually beat miracles.
Either way I've been talking with jack and will be dropping my updated list this weekend before champs next weekend. Not much has changed. The one thing I want to remind people is that EE exists and is largely better than lightning bolt still, especially against swiftpear and especially in 3 goblin welder sets.
Seth
…no matter how much you think you love somebody, you’ll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.
So now that everyone and their grandma are playing the blue/red swiftspear list online and many other lists are adopting treasure cruise, I would definitely say that treasure cruise is more concerning than swiftspear. Swiftspear is basically goblin guide. Treasure cruise can refuel a hand that you may have already worked through. Thus, I would agree that relic may be the way to go. The crypt isn't terrible either if you have welder to reset it every once in a while, but keeping an opponent's graveyard sidled down is now more important than ever. On the other hand, it sucks that relic is just a one time shot for complete graveyard removal and I don't love that it removes both graveyards, making our welders less effective. As of right now, I think crypt still has the nod, as if you can use it early even once it might slow down the treasure cruise down enough.
That being said, I really want to fit in one main deck piece of graveyard hate. If you only had one piece, which would you choose? The best thing about relic in this case is that it is at least a cantrip in case it has no other effect in the game. Crypt though has value as an easy artifact to bin in order to use your Welders for shenanigans. Question 2, what do you take out? I basically play Jack's main deck list with Chandra in for a welder. sadly, I'm actually considering taking out a recruiter. I know that seems insane, but the recruiter seems overly redundant and I can't find anything else I am comfortable removing. Choice number two would probably be a blood moon, but that card is more important to have turn one. Just wondering what people's opinions are, besides the obvious answer of "don't add the graveyard hate".
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The way to fight treasure cruise is to counter it after they delve. Using suboptimal grave hate to slow it down is just a bad strategy. Even with three cards in the yard they can fire it off refill their hand and dominate. Much like vintage you stop the recall at all costs. Add additional blast effects of you are that concerned with the blue spell. That way the card still has great value against the field.
Seth
…no matter how much you think you love somebody, you’ll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.
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