I am disappointed.
Painter has lacked results in any decent size tournament as of late. I have noticed a distinct downturn of performance since the infamous blue delve spells have been printed, largely this amounted to a rise in UR delver and now OMNI. While a lot of these matchups are not unwinnable I feel that over the course of 7+ rounds we just run into to many close but lost matches due to the diverse field. Many people have been having successes at home, mainly in 5-6 round tournaments which is great, I just get sad when we have three large Legacy events (one SCG and two GP's) and only 1 RW painter deck makes day Two.
Well, that just means it's time to innovate.
I will start by saying I like what people are doing with the third color splash. Slaughter games seems like a strong addition. I've been playing the black splash on MTGO some and so far I like it in general. I've also been testing some other black cards in the board just to see how they would work. This is what I've found so far...
a. The black splash really only seems to be good against combo or control match-ups where you either aren't worried about landing a blood moon (most combo) or you have time to find petals and use them as needed (control). I've tried cards like engineered plague, illness in the ranks and toxic deluge, and they have either not impacted the game enough, are too corner case, or you can't get them down in a reasonable fashion due to blood moon, getting white into black mana, etc.. Of all of them I think E.Plague has the strongest potential. But I used it in a couple delver MUs and just wished it was a pyroclasm.
b. slaughter games is good in the right MUs and I think could come in against Miracles. If you can remove their few win cons it makes it hard for them to win.
c. I think other black SB cards could be considered. So far I've tried Chains of Mephistopheles as a one of and liked it quite a bit. I've considered a few other cards as well, which has brought me to my real point. Are there other cards that are worth evaluating as we open up into a third splash color? Is black the best splash color?
Here are a few cards I've considered so far: Dark Confidant, Bitterblossom, Recurring Nightmare, Perish (the one anti-aggro card that I would consider wanting over Blood Moon in certain MUs), thoughtseize
I guess I'm wondering if we could just expand on the idea of a splash, as that seems to be the best way to combat Omni-tell and possibly Miracles. And if people think that cards like Engineered Plague are also viable, I'm interested to hear your perspective as well. Obviously it would shine in tribal MUs and against token decks. I would be willing to play it in paper over Sphere of Law, but there are just still too many burn players on MTGO for me to take it out yet.
A couple other main deck changes that I've made that I've really liked so far include 3 magma jet against creature strategies (particularly delver, stoneforge and deathrite). It kills some of our worst enemies (such as opposing revokers) and helps us dig for combo pieces, so it's never dead. I also swapped out one of my welders (now down to 2 again) for a spellskite. I've been seeing a lot of infect in my local meta and this card is quite good against that deck and generally sucks up a lot of opponent's hate. I also like that it can survive a lightning bolt and protects painter against swords, which welder often can't do.
I did try Hanna's Custody as a one-of in the board and didn't love it. The biggest problem is that it shut off welders and spellskite and protected opponent's artifacts such as needles, revokers, equipment, and worst of all, null rod.
I'm mostly just trying to renew some interest in the deck. I've actually had some success with some of these changes. My favorite aspect of this deck is that it always has the potential to be viable. And as a former Dredge player, I can tell you that that's not always the case.
I played 1 Engineered Plague in the SB at Lille. It did its work against elves and merfolk, getting rid of TNN was really nice. I also believe it's kill against DnT, alas I never got to meet one.. It might also be worth siding in against Young Pyro.
Being able to tutor it makes it so king, and with 4 petals, black and white mana was no problem early!
Engineered Plague seems fine, although you lose utility against goblins tokens out of TES, as it is not a guaranteed turn 1-2 card, meaning like Illness, I wouldn't run it without also running EE. Thoughtseize or Duress might be worth a try in some SB number over some other answer cards, though not necessarily good.
I like slaughter games, but I'm not sure going deeper into black is the way to go. Most of the SB options aren't huge trumps against terrible matchups the way that slaughter games or Engineered Plague might be, so probably aren't as good as staying mostly white/red and maxing out on REB as vindicate/counterspell.
For a black splash, what about Cabal Therapy? I'm not sure if it would be worth the space but Therapy then casting a Recruiter to grab Painter and sacing the recruiter to grab removal spells and counters allows you to go off alot easier. It also grants you valuable info on what is in their hand and if you should be dedicating resources on going off quickly or developing a solid boardstate. Just a thought.
For people playing Slaughter Games goes how many are you playing?
Cabal therapy actually seems a great idea of the discard spells to me too because it can be milled and flashed back while you have blood moon.
My sideboard atm looks like this:
2 Slaughter Games
1 E. Plague
1 EE
2 Sudden Shock
1 Firebolt
1 REB
1 Koth
+the usual grave/storm hate.
While Therapy sounds nice, it just doesn't fit with what we're doing. Sure, it can be milled and flashed, but we have no other means for looking at their hand beforehand, and it doesn't shut down all copies like Slaughter Games.
It goes for all discard, really.. we'd need to rework too much to add disruptive elements.
However, I do think Surgical Extraction could've been an option instead so we don't need the addition of black like Slaughter Games.
I don't like surgical because it can a) be countered and b) be fizzled by dig through time and c) relies on neither a or b happening while also requiring you to counter a show and tell or whatever the target may be first.
I also don't know about cabal therapy either, and while it certainly would come in against combo decks, I think it would be better against removal spells from fair decks where recruiter gets you a painter, and then therapy lets you strip their hand of whatever your painter will die to.
Someone should test it out, might be worth a couple slots somewhere, though I have my doubts.
Hey, long time follower of this thread. I have been playing painter (paper) for over a year now. I keep switching from mono red to the Rw. I recently started playing on mtgo. I have a noob question for mtgo. For some reason I can't weld out the grindstone for the painter with the grindstone activation on the stack. It does not let me hold priority. The only time that trick worked for me was when in response to my activation of the grindstone my opponent spun his top and then I was able to weld it out with the activation on the stack. Am I missing something? I kept right clicking and choosing stack all abilities and yield to all, but nothing works. It has cost me a few matches.
Keep up the good work with this primer. I've pretty much read it from front to back.
Thanks you. I was going crazy. Has anyone considered trying quarem trench gnomes in the sideboard? I've had it in for a bunch of matches but never got to cast it. I would bring it in against miracles and possibly dnt. Miracles game 2 and 3 I always find myself shaving a moon or two and I would bring him in to in theory make the opponents tundras and plains produce colorless. I figured it would stall hem from double blue and double white. Any thoughts?
The problem with surgical is that we aren't playing discard so we have to hope to counter the card we want to remove and then remove it with surgical, hoping surgical doesn't get countered.
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Miracles has ways to deal with that easily. And for 4 mana, it should be immediate must deal with permanent, like Koth. At 4 mana you really don't want to be trying to deny mana at that point in the game.
I don't like surgical all that much either, but with grindstone it could be ok. Slaughter Games just seems better because of uncounterability and chance to look at their deck and hand, and to grab stuff even if it isn't in the grave.
Has anyone tried to put in mentor? Trying to get better clock on the table perhaps versus miracles or omni? Haven't read any test plays with it, but it may not be good enough or perhaps that's the direction we need to be heading.
I don't think that Painter supports Monastery Mentor as well as other decks do since we don't play cheap cantrips and have to be much more selective about when we cast our non-creature spells.
I have two ideas when it comes to Omni, one very unconventional that I don't want to share quite yet, mostly because I want to test it before I talk about it. The second more conventional answer has to do with a new card that might have good value against Omni and Miracles. Scab-Clan Berserker: seems like it can help close the game out fast.
Pros
Has Haste (likely becomes renowned the turn you play it)
Is a Tutor Target that "levels up" to a 3/3
If it's not dealt before it becomes renowned it becomes a significant threat to decks that cast a lot non-creature spells.
"Forces" them to burn a STP or flash creature, or risk it becoming renowned.
Cons
Pretty weak if not renowned
It might be too slow for Omnitell
Might only net you two life if they choose to use a STP on it.
Having it trade with a flash creature is weak.
This card seems meh on the surface, but when you consider that it's very possible that it's can act like a one sided eidolon of the great revel in the right match-ups. Worth looking at IMO.
I just want to remind people that delver decks with counter spells lose to Omni-tell all the time. Trying to beat them with a "fast clock" by adding a couple beaters to the SB is not the way to go, unless those creatures also mess with their game plan (see Canonist, Thalia, Lodestone Golem).
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A valid point.
I suggested Scab-Clan Berserker becuase it basically takes the actions that Omni-tell does as part of it's gameplan and make them part of our gameplan. Is this good enough... prob not.
A couple things to note.
I saw more verity in both Omni-tell and Miracles at GP lille,
Miracles: Two varriants one that plays Entreat the Angels, and one that plays Monastery Mentor. I don't think this changes things for us much though...
Omni-Tell: Two varriants one that plays Release the Ants, and one that skips that entirely and uses the usually backup method of eladamri's call into Emrakrul to win 100% of it's games. The second one seems way better for us, as two Ensnaring Bridges often will often make it impossible for them to win, but it does make cards like Canonist, Thalia, and Lodestone Golem marginally worse since it takes less spells for them to win the game.
The miracles deck innovation was the top miracle decks were running daze! They knew that many matchups were going to be mirror's/other blue deck and the best way to land t2 counterbalance is to have your opponent force and you the proceed to daze. Getting their best card on the table as well as 2 for 1 -ing your opponent. So beware that miracle list may be experimenting with this at your next tourneys. I certainly would never have played around it coming from miracles.
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