Hey folks! Back with a new brew I've been working on. It's been play-testing very well and I was hoping to get some additional opinions on the deck as a whole. I decided to deviate away form the traditional Esper variant to get better matchups against the "Fair decks" and control. The black still offers some protection against combo and sideboard helps too. This way I feel the deck could potentially be more well-rounded than its Esper cousin, given the time and effort perfecting the build.
The 2 main flexi-spots are the rabblemasters and the 1 mainboard anguished unmaking. A turn 2 rabblemaster from a deathrite shaman can be quite scary and even if I can curve it after a stoneforge or something, there's a good chance of it sticking and taking over the game. The anguished unmaking is just a fantastic catch-all spell that deals with pesky equipment or artifacts more often than not. Against other deathblade/stoneblade/stoneforge-based decks there is often a race for Jitte. If I can just destroy their Jitte, the game is tipped very very heavily in my favour....
Overall I love this deck. It feels like I'm playing red over blue for valid reasons and that it isn't just a strictly worse version of the esper variant. Would love to hear what you folks think!
Cheers!
Land (22)
3x Arid Mesa
1x Badlands
2x Bloodstained Mire
1x Karakas
3x Marsh Flats
1x Mountain
1x Plains
2x Plateau
1x Savannah
2x Scrubland
1x Swamp
1x Shambling Vent
3x Wasteland
Creature (15)
3x Dark Confidant
4x Deathrite Shaman
2x Goblin Rabblemaster
2x Grim Lavamancer
4x Stoneforge Mystic
1x Stormbreath dragon
Instant (9)
1x Anguished Unmaking
3x Lightning Bolt
4x Swords to Plowshares
Artifact (3)
1x Batterskull
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Umezawa's Jitte
Sorcery (9)
4x Lingering Souls
3x Thoughtseize
2x Vindicate
2x Nahiri, the Harbinger
Sideboard (15)
1x Council's Judgment
2x Duress
2x Abrupt Decay
3x Leyline of the Void
2x Zealous persecution
1x Pithing Needle
2x Pyroblast
1x electrickery
1x Rakdos charm
FYI, there's a Team Italia thread to discuss this deck in "Established Decks" but its pretty inactive.
Nahiri is an interesting new addition to this color combination's options, but I'm not sure she's is worth it without a real bomb like Emrakul to ultimate for. I'd rather play Elspeth, Sorin, or even Ajani Vengeant. There might be some way to build a more Nahiri-centric Dega deck but its not something I've explored.
I'm not sure why the Electrickery in the SB isn't the third ZP. Sure, ZP can't kill something for 1 mana, but its a substantially stronger card overall.
I'm also a huge fan of Blood Moon in the SB of this style of deck.
This isn't team italia. I don't go as heavy on the hand-attack as they do. I class this as a Deathblade variant. Nahiri is a versatile walker that offers enough to warrant a spot in the deck. Ideally. i'd like to combine her with some number of Liliana of the Veil but my current financial situation doesn't allow for it. However, the testing with this deck has proven to be rather successful against a number of different archetypes.
So far I have tested against Esper Deathblade, Food chain, Reanimator, manaless dredge, combo elves and death and taxes.
As expected, game 1 against manaless dredge and reanimator was not too great. However, post sideboard the matchups seemed absolutely fine.
Death and Taxes felt a little rough but ultimately came down to rushing for Jitte. Often they would win this race by wastelanding/porting my lands. Fortunately the mainboard vindicates and anguished unmaking meant i could just destroy/exile their Jitte and push the matchup highly in my favour.
Combo Elves, Esper deathblade and Food chain actually felt pretty favorable and would get siginificantly better after sideboarding.
Pretty happ ywith the decks performance thus far but I am still rather new to legacy and still learning. Hoping to play against shardless BUG and Miracles this week.
Blood moon has been suggested before and I love the idea. How many do you think I should try in the side and what matchups do you think I should side it in against? Electrickery was a friends suggestion as it can be used as a 1 damage ping against infect creatures, or a one sided boardwipe. There's probably a better option for the sideboard slot though.
Is Queen Marchessa playable? It seems really solid in a mardu deck
Hi all :)
I'm an old fashioned player, who has almost always played Legacy BWx combinations.
I often read this forum, but never really wrote, since I have not played for a year or so due to time constraints, but hey, I'm going to return this Sunday over Magic and, say what, I'm gonna re-brew my beloved Mardu list :) so, whan I saw someone is still trying to build...
I played it in a number of ways in the past, but this is the most difficult time I have with this combinations of colors, due to the main title contenders: Miracles and Eldrazi.
The former is obviously a horrible matchup for us: we fit their counterbalance curve, and we strongly rely on creatures to win. Our best weapons are the 3 drops (even if a lot of lists now manage them pretty well). I personally have a lot of very beautiful matches against miracles, but a terrible win/loss ratio (most of the times I gain advantage, then a timely combination of terminus and jace flip the match. Never had a mentor match since I don't play since a year or so).
The latter is simply way faster than us: if we don't manage to contain them, they simply seamlessly overrun before we start controlling. Their chalices are tedious and while we may be dealing with them with our vindicate effects to free the plowshares stuck in our hands, we risk to be overwhelmed by monsters. If they start with a lot of double lands and then start to bring wastelands to the table, also, we usually don't recover.
That said, my personal opinions on the deck:
Finishers
- Goblin Rabblemaster is a nice choice, better if we play cabal but it's ok since we use equip. Also, we usually tend to clear the field against non-swarm decks, so if we land him it means we're trying to finish off
- Butcher of the horde has been lately one of my favorite for our 4-mana slots: he fits well with our token generations, or to get rid of a confidant, can gain life, resists to bolt, and let's say it is pretty unexpected when we put him down with haste
- Planewalkers: I used to run one or two Elspeth, Knight Errant, mostly to try to battle with Miracle's ability to get rid of normal creatures. I love her, but she is simply too slow nowadays.
Discard
I agree on not going too heavy on hand disruption, since there are decks that seem to gain more advantage from THymn to tourachT than us. I've been happy since now with 4 Thoughtseize and 1 Duress (we usually deal well with creatures and Inquisition of Kozilek can't handle Jace). Momentary fortune with Tidehollow Sculler, used when my metagame told me to try to finish off sooner.
Equips
I'd say the three stronger equips forthis kind of list are implied.
Card advantage
Confidant is a must in, in 3 or 4 copies. I tried to gain advantage on Asylum visitor but only with very aggressive builds. I'd love to have 2 copies of Sensei's divining top, that give most with with 8 fetches, but didn't manage to fit them anymore,
My usual list looks like:
// Land (21-23)
4 Marsh Flats
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Karakas
4 Scrubland
3 Badlands
1 Plateau
3-4 Wasteland
1-2 Swamp
1-2 Plains
0-1 Mountains
// Creature
4 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
3-4 Stoneforge Mystic
0-2 Goblin Rabblemaster
0-2 Butcher of the Horde
0-2 Jotun Grunt
// Instant
2-4 Lightning Bolt
4 Swords to Plowshares
// Artifact
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
// Sorcery
3-4 Lingering Souls
4 Thoughtseize
0-1 Duress
1-2 Vindicate
0-2 Council's Judgement
// Planeswalkers
2 Liliana of the Veil
// Sideboard
// This is strongly meta-dependant, of course, but a generic one may be
// more ways to deal with creatures or strange permanents, depending on the initial count
1 Council's Judgment
// combo helper
1-2 Duress
// combo helper
3 Thalia, guardian of thraben
// I prefer them to leylines, but it's because of my usual luck :P
2 Rest in peace
// I don't use them a lot anymore, but the used to do their work
0-2 Extirpate/Surgical extraction
// sometimes played maindeck, when going more on tokens
2 Zealous persecution
// generic utility against blue, miracles, delver decks etc
3 Red elemental blast
// Again, utility for strange kind of creatures
1 Diabolic edict
// Other possible sideboard cards (incomplete)
// Lands-based like post
Crumble to Dust
// Combo pieces or terminus
Slaughter Games
// Burn
Kor Firewalker
// D&T, Mentor tokens
Sulfur elemental
So, this is my usual kind of list. However, I'd say right now this is absolutely not enough to compete in the current meta. I always feel a step behind, in card quality, quantity and selection.
The most matches I win are the ones where confidant manages to stay on the field at his next upkeep: when it does (perfect curve: T1 shaman, T2 discard + confidant), it means we survived the first turns, and we can start to accumulate resources to manage mid-game threats while going for the close.
I don't have an immediate solution for this, but I hope this will start a little discussion :) I'll bring BWr, no matter what :P
Last edited by zoten; 11-17-2016 at 10:50 AM.
I did 4-color-lite with Groves as a red-source that casts DRS and helps fill the green-gap, and then added PFire.
My entire issue with the deck was it has an atrocious game against D&T despite sweepers, PFire, Goyfs, and whatever else. The ability to pick apart my manabase or just be a turn faster kept me from continuing it.
The point I'm getting to is that aside from D&T; Rabblemaster was quite good. His ridiculous clock was part of why I was experimenting. I'd consider a few Mother of Runes to help get damage to D&T's side of the board, and consider the PFire gameplan. Deck had no issue with Delvers or Shardless, as you can imagine, and had the usual Discard/Tutor/Hatebears against combo; so it did reasonably well (I think it was beating Reanimator, Dredge, and S&T just fine in testing; with the usual problem that Storm can just get ya.)
Btw, I replaced my wastelands with the Groves, so it wasn't as bad as it sounds. Still; those experiments eventually just pushed me to blue so I could interact and have reliability. Obnoxious.
Originally Posted by Nestalim
Aye, I agree with that.
I also get that adding green simply makes the Miracle matchup a lot simpler thanks to Decay, but what I as trying was to get it work 3-coloured. This way I've been able to play magus of the moon/blood moon as a main/side bomb in some meta without getting screwed by myself, and to maindeck hate cemeteries with shaman/grunt without bothering of my own goyfs.
This seems an unpractical way at the current state of the art, tho' :(
I have been playing around with different styles of this deck but I can't seem to get any of them to work consistently. Seems like all the synergies with mardu colors cost 3 mana. I've been having a lot of success with Thalia though. Might try some kind of tempo/aggro deck next.
I see 2 options. Discard and hatebears. Hymn to tourach can fill the hole in the cmc2 Slot. The other plan is hatebears like death and taxes. with revoker and Spirit of the Labyrinth. I guess the Spirit will help a lot. A combination would work too. Discard and Spirit gives much time to get enough mana.
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#abolishthereservedlist
List I found online, any thoughts?
22 LANDS
2 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Marsh Flats
1 Plains
1 Plateau
1 Savannah
2 Scrubland
1 Swamp
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
14 CREATURES
4 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Liliana, Heretical Healer
4 Stoneforge Mystic
24 SPELLS
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Thoughtseize
1 Vindicate
1 Batterskull
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Umezawa's Jitte
SIDEBOARD
2 Council's Judgment
1 Electrickery
2 Oblivion Ring
1 Pithing Needle
2 Pyroblast
1 Rakdos Charm
3 Rest in Peace
1 Sudden Shock
2 Wear / Tear
I don't know if it greedy but I would like to have a land that could tap for Green mana. It can be good to activate Deathrite Shamans life gain ability.
It has a Savannah, so that's covered
deck feels like a bad version of jund... i feel like you need more ways to actively get card advantage in order to constantly trade 1 for 1 (other than bob). i'd probably go with 1 painful truths main/ 1 side or sth like that.
also, i feel like you should play more black lands.. plains and plateau can be odd as ur running double black on lili/ hymn. deathrite might make up for this tho, but dont see any reason to not just play further scrublands/ badlands.
i'd definitely play 2 green duals (maybe bayou/savannah) and play 3 abrupt decays in the board - helps vs miracles and chalice decks in general, dont think kolaghan's command/rakdos charm/ o-ring are good answers, especially as rakdos charm is too narrow/ o-ring to expensive.
i think 1 gurmag angler is reasonable as well. i feel like that deck could use 1-2 brutal beaters to close matches more quickly, you dont really play anything besides batterskull that can help close out games. losing 7 to bob hurts tho, but i still think its necessary.
2 kolaghans commands seem pretty strong. loving it.
you might wanna consider cutting 1 bolt for 1 dismember. dismember helps a lot in the eldrazi matchup and also gets bigger creatures.
regarding the sideboard, i think going up to 3 pyroblasts is reasonable. i would replace rest in peace with surgical extraction, as deathrite is key in your deck and you dont wanna shut it down. grim lavamancer is a good sideboard card as well. sudden shock seems good, might wanna up it to 2.
my list would probably look like that:
Lands (22)
3x Scrubland
3x Badlands
1x Bayou
1x Savannah
1x Swamp
4x Wasteland
4x verdant catacombs
4x marsh flats
1x bloodstained mire
creatures (13)
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Dark Confidant
4x Stoneforge Mystic
1x Gurmag Angler
Spells (35)
3x Liliana OTV
4x Thoughtseize
4x Hymn
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Lightning Bolt
1x Dismember
2x Kolaghan's Command
1x Vindicate
1x Painful Truths
1x Batterskull
1x Umezawa's jitte
sideboard (15)
2x Surgical Extraction
3x Abrupt Decay
3x Pyroblast
2x Sudden Shock
1x Elecktrickery
2x Pithing Needle
2x Painful Truths
I have been working on a version with Nahiri and more graveyard based. The version I posted before worked pretty well but it plays exactly like Esper Deathblade without the counters. If they destroy the equipment I couldn't win.
Testing results:
-I left out all of the rouge decks I played against.
-Also left out death and taxes because they people I played against didn't play them to well.
-Played shardless a whole lot more than 2 matches but just about every game with 1-2.
Jund style version:
Show and Tell (2-4) - With enough discard I am able to win some games. Lost more to sneak attack than show and tell.
Storm (1-4) - Turn 1 thoughtseize and turn 2 hymn. They were still able to kill me before I could kill them.
Jund (2-4) - Game usually comes to Tarmogoyf vs Gurmag Angler. Liliana, Heretical Healer also did pretty good here. Couldn't beat Punishing fire.
Shardless (2-4) - Very similar to Jund, they usually just outdraw me.
Eldrazi (1-4) - Usually get stuck with a bunch of dead 1 drops in my hand.
Miracles (1-4) - Only game I won he didn't draw counterbalance.
Nahiri version:
Show and Tell (1-4) - Same as previous,
Storm (0-4) - Just have bad luck vs storm. Turn 1 thoughtseize (infernal tutor), turn 2 rest in peace and he still goes off turn 2 and gets 16 goblins.
Jund (4-2) - No Gurmag angler in this list. Was better off with 2 SB rest in peace, just kill him before he finds an answer.
Shardless (2-4) - Similar to jund but more likely to find answer to rest in peace.
Eldrazi (3-3) - Nahiri with lingering souls are usually enough with wastelands. Unable to beat turn 2 thought knot seer.
Miracles (2-4) - Nahiri again with the reason for these wins if I am able to remove his counters.
Note:
Jund style version is more grindy and most non combo decks came down to who drew best. This deck, with some tweaking, feels like it will have more evenly matched games but no real good match-ups. Everyone is either slightly faster or slightly more powerful.
Nahiri version feels like I give up my early game for a better late game. This deck feels like I have more room for improvement. I think adding blood moons will improve most of my match-ups.
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