[Deck] Foretold Stompy

[Mackan]

Yesterday I put something together that I haven't seen before. There is probably a very good reason for that but let me explain why I didn't listen to logic:

After playing a bunch with As Foretold and suspend cards in modern I figured it's at least worth it to consider the shell for legacy play. It's just a super-fun card to play!
I saw a list with Hypergenesis, and while that is indeed powerful, I am not really in the business for creatures. All I knew was that I wanted Ancestral Vision to go with my As Foretold.

The go-to Ancestral Vision deck of choice is of course UR Stasis and I was excited to try As Foretold in it. It turns out that casting spells for free is pretty nice when neither player has access to mana!
It wasn't great. I then built another version more like Blue Moon but it lacked power and couldn't deal with the board.
I haven't fully explored these decks but I figured that As Foretold would be even more "playable" with Sol-lands and mana-acceleration. So I put Stasis on hold (heh) and started thinking about a Stompy shell instead. I despise anyone registering a deck with Chalice of the void in it but the love for As Foretold took over.

So... how do we break As Foretold with a bunch of mana-acceleration? Can we somehow turn the downside of wasting cards just to cast other cards ahead of schedule into something great? Without the cantrip cartel (Ponder/Brainstorm), I really needed a lot of power to compensate for the total lack of consistency. Enter Restore Balance. This card is what gave me the confidence to ask my fellow friends in the Miracle-Cabal to lend me the missing stompy cards. They surely lost the little respect they had left but it could not be helped.

So now the mission was to make the best Restore Balance deck in the history of Legacy (?). I don't really like creatures in the first place so of course I wouldn't include any (unless they are Spirit guides) in a list with Restore Balance. I do like me some value though so I would try to maximize the number of permanents in play (that Restore Balance would ignore) to have Restore Balance become a full one-sided Mind Twist! Wrath of God and Mind Twist your hand for 0 mana is fine and all, but I also wanted to blow up some lands...without hindering my own mana-development. One of the worst value-cards in the history of Magic is chrome mox. A straight up 1-2 land with some additional downsides to a land. It could not be helped. I had to make Restore Balance the greatest spell ever cast. So now we are looking at As Foretold, Ancestral Vision, Restore Balance and the usual suspects in a stompy Shell.

After building 99% of any deck I ask myself, how does it win? Usually it doesn't... And I don't mean because the deck is bad. There's simply nothing except my opponents boredom that would make them sign the result slip.
Restore Balance once again pointed me in a direction. I can either play a combo finish with Artifacts/Enchantments or I can go for some kind of Planeswalker ultimate. Being locked under a Chalice of the Void is a miserable experience so winning on the spot is out of the question. I love me some Jace and I having access to brainstorm in a deck like this is worth a ton. Easy inclusion. From here I could take a few different routes. I could stay mono-blue or splash another color. Red was the lazy choice as I already knew how powerful Chandra, Torch of Defiance was with As Foretold (that's at least something I can thank modern for). And Blood Moon + Simian Spirit guide is an old proven plan of making opponents cringe in their seats.

Now the deck was almost ready. I thought about Force of Will but it was hard to get a decent blue Count (switching blood moon for back to basics would do it, but that was something I didn't really want with my already "optimistic" mana-base). I put them in the board together with some other stuff that I spent about 30 seconds considering. I wanted to jam some games!

Lands
4 ancient tomb
4 volcanic island
4 scalding tarn
8 island

More mana
4 Simian Spirit guide
4 chrome mox

As foretold package
4 As foretold
4 ancestral vision
4 restore balance

Stax
4 ensnaring bridge
4 chalice of the void
4 blood moon

Walkers
4 chandra, torch of defiance
4 jace, the mind sculptor

Sideboard
4 leyline of the void
3 pyroclasm
4 flusterstorm
4 force of will

I streamed some matches www.twitch.tv/truckis123 yesterday. Punts and bad luck aside I was undefeated!

I need to look closer at the manabase. A mountain should be added. Maybe City of Traitors.

Any input appreciated.

----reserved for----

other "playable cards"

matchups

strategy

[Dillsdells]

This looks really fun, interested to see more results with it! Have you considered lotus bloom? Perhaps in place of simian, does this seem too greedy/all in on as fortold?

[TLK]

This looks legitimately awesome. You may be able to fit in Trinisphere somewhere in the 75. It's a staple of most stompy lists. Love the idea and can't wait to watch the videos.

[Jsang]

This looks legitimately awesome. You may be able to fit in Trinisphere somewhere in the 75. It's a staple of most stompy lists. Love the idea and can't wait to watch the videos.

Trinisphere is a nonbo with As Foretold, it may be a legit choice from the board in some match up where As Foretold is too slow and would be side out.

[Mackan]

Just 5-0:ed a league =D



http://imgur.com/a/B4HBs (Someone pls fix this link!)

To be fair I had some really good matchups and the stompy cards did most of the lifting.
I did have a few scenarios where the cardadvantage from my walkers was crucial and I also had a few wins on the back of As foretold into Balance.

As you can see I put a mountain in the maindeck (I cut an Ancient tomb for it). I still have no clue how much manaacceleration I can get away with just running 20 lands.
The sideboard was pretty good. Fow overperformed and I actually really liked it as a sideboard card. There are allready plenty of really bad draws and having fow makes it even worse... In the fair games atleast.
Take Possession is there to steal games vs Jace going ultimate. Probably not worth the slot.
Dack Fayden was pretty good vs DnT. He helps dealing with Aether Vial and revoker as well as helping me dig for critical pieces (while making sure I don't have uncastable spells and a Bridge in play!).
I think I want some number of engineered explosives to mop up elves and such but I didn't have them for the league.

Deck is fun!

[Michael Keller]

I've been play-testing a list similar to this over the course of the last few weeks. One card you may want to consider is Zuran Orb - especially when you're playing Restore Balance and Moxen.

[Mackan]

I considered Lotus Bloom but it's a bit weird in this list. The main purpose with it is to accelerate and either I allready have As foretold (and don't need it as much) or I have to suspend it which is very slow "acceleration".

Trinisphere Is a bit akward with AF/fow so I don't think I want it in this build.

Zuran Orb is an excellent idea! Would be great with land-recursion, any idea? I think Crucible of worlds is bad without wasteland/active fetches (blood moon).

Keep the ideas coming! :)

[Barook]

Have you considered Izzet Signet for acceleration + mana fixing? The double color requirement for your walkers seem pretty step.

Also, how viable would a Keranos be as an alternate wincon? Doesn't get hit by Restore Balance as long as it isn't a creature.

Could Burning Wish make the deck more consistent? Question is if there are any game-winning sorceries that fit the deck.

[Mackan]

Have you considered Izzet Signet for acceleration + mana fixing? The double color requirement for your walkers seem pretty step.

Also, how viable would a Keranos be as an alternate wincon? Doesn't get hit by Restore Balance as long as it isn't a creature.

Could Burning Wish make the deck more consistent? Question is if there are any game-winning sorceries that fit the deck.

Izzet signet is pretty good with my walkers but it doesn't accelerate the stompy pieces or As Foretold. As much as I hate chrome mox I think it's better for this deck. Maybe there's room for Izzet Signet on top of what I have but I don't know what to cut.

Keranos is a spicy one but I think chandra/jace are better as they have board-pressence right away. I was considering Tezzeret the Seeker too but Jace/Chandra feels like a league above everything else at 4+ Mana.

Burning Wish is very intresting... I like a toolbox. What would we search for?:)

Speaking of toolbox... A friend suggested Tolaria West. It can grab Cotv, Ancestral Vis, Balance aswell as sideboard cards (like Zuran Orb and Engineered Explosives). Maybe a Walking Ballista too :)

[mistercakes]

i like that you can run some pretty cool sorceries like jokulhaups, cruel ultimatum, vindicate, supreme verdict (or other wrath), armageddon etc.

[kombatkiwi]

You posted a similar list in the stasis thread, where I replied (here is just the mostly relevant part because your list there was slightly different)

Turn 1s like Tomb + Mox + Foretold + Balance on turn 1 are obviously great but not consistent enough to be better than decks that just focus on turn 1 moon or turn 1 chalice imo

I was curious to see how this compared to the list that I tried so I watched the replay you uploaded. (At first I thought the no-audio communicate-by-typing-in-notepad style was weird but it does make the matches easier to watch at 2x speed, maybe it would be better to type in twitch chat instead but I guess that is harder depending on your physical computer setup, ie. if you only have 1 monitor)

(TLDR at the end)

Match 1
G1
You play chalice @2 against lands but eventually lose because you get wasted and can't cast anything(hand is full of 3+ cmc)
G2
Fast jace off of ATomb then into chandra/moon/ensnaring
G3
Turn 1 Moon off of SSG+Mox
Opponent cant do anything and eventually you play chandra on like turn 7 or something
Visions gets turned off by your own chalice @0
Later you play 1 As Foretold but you can't cast anything with it because of the chalice
2-1

Match 2
G1
Turn 1 Moon (Tomb/SSG) gets forced vs trop/hierarch start
Opp has turn 2 TNN
Your turn 2 hand is 4 lands and 2 chrome mox
Topdeck one more land
Opponent plays SFM and another Hierarch
Topdeck: SSG
G2
Mull to 6 (shipping 1 lander)
Turn 1 Chalice for 1 (Mox imprinting pyroclasm) leaving behind as foretold + Moon
Next topdeck is flusterstorm which is blanked by your chalice @1
Next topdeck is SSG, exile SSG to cast Moon, gets forced
Opp plays containment preist (thinks you are sneak and show? nice lol) and TNN
You draw land so you can play As Foretold
You draw another as Foretold
You draw a land
Your opponent kills you and you reveal your next 2 draws to be another As Foretold and another Flusterstorm
0-2
You boarded out 1 Restore Balance here, I think if you are boarding out Restore Balance against TNN decks then you shouldn't be maindecking 4

Match 3
G1
Turn 1 Volc + SSG into chalice @1 keeping As Foretold, Bridge, SSG, Chandra
Opponent plays temple + SSG into 3/3 endless
Your turn 2 = nothing
Opponent plays TKS taking As Foretold (you have multiple bridge in hand now so no point taking that)
Opponent plays smasher and now even topdecking tomb to play bridge, your hand will not be small enough to live
G2
Mulligan the 7 (3 Ancestral 2 Tomb 1 Volc 1 Balance)
Mulligan the 6 (4 Island 1 SSG 1 Jace)
Mulligan the 5 (2 Moon 1 SSG 1 Bridge 1 Vision)
Mulligan the 4 (1 Vision 1 SSG 2 Chandra)
Keep the 3 (1 Island 1 Force 1 Mox)
Opponent has turn 2 TKS for the Ensnaring Bridge you scried to the top
You draw another Bridge but you have no mana and the opponent has another TKS
0-2

Match 4
G1
Keep (Fetch Island Volc Chalice Mox SSG Moon)
Both players land, go (Chat calls you out for not imprinting SSG and playing chalice turn1)
Turn 2 Chalice @1
Opponent plays lotus petal
Turn 3 Moon, opp uses only land to fetch in response for basic swamp, then concedes
G2
Keep LeylineOTV 2 Island 2 Ancestral 1 Chalice 1 Jace
Opponent concedes instantly
2-0

Match 5
G1
Keep (Island Fetch Mox Chalice Bridge Balance Jace)
Imprint Balance play Chalice for 1
Opponent plays Tranquil thicket
Turn 2 land, Bridge
Turn 3 Exile SSG, Chalice for 2
Opponent concedes
G2 Keep (Jace Mox Bridge Island Chalice SSG Moon)
Draw Volc
Turn 1 Moon imprinting Jace
Turn 2 Ensnaring Bridge (Opponent Grips your Moon off basic forest and wastes volc)
Durdle time
You topdeck moon and then SSG but your opponent grips it again
Now you have 4 mana but are against double port
Your opponent starts looping ghost quarters and you concede
Note: you ask your chat here "I can only play chalice for 0 with As Foretold, right? Unless double Sphere is in play" You can only play chalice for 0 with As Foretold even with 2x sphere, just because it's a colorless X spell doesn't mean it works like Engineered Explosives.
I also think bridges are more important in this M/U than Restore Balances
G3 Keep (Moon SSG Volc Tomb Jace Foretold Balance)
Turn 1 Moon (Some tension between turn 1 moon vs turn 1 Foretold)
Turn 2 draw chalice, chalice @1
You draw a 3rd land but it's a fetch so you can't cast anything
Opponent grips your chalice (has mox to play around moon somewhat)
You draw bridge and play that
Durdle some more
You draw a 4th land which is also a fetch
You have RRRR mana and your hand is Jace, Foretold, Balance, Visions x2, Leyline of the Void x2
Opponent kills your moon finally but now you are apparently stuck under ports again
You topdeck Tomb so can play Foretold, Balance
Opponent keeps Taiga, Depths, Stage
Makes Lage eot
Untap Land, Grip Bridge
You are dead
1-2

Match 6
G1
Keep Jace, Mox, Balance x2, Volc, Fetch, Tomb
Opp Island, Ponder
Topdeck mox
Imprint balance, suspend balance
Opponent Island, go
You play jace into counterspell
You imprint Moon onto 2nd Mox to play Chandra, which gets hit by counterspell
You play chalice for 2, opponent Snapcaster counterspell
Your balance comes off suspend, opponent responds with brainstorm > Predict > force
You draw jace but your opponent had already played a mentor and snap-counters your jace anyway
You topdeck bridge but your opponent has hardcast fow
I pretty much agree with how you SB here
G2
Mull once (4 Lands 2 Chandra 1 Bridge)
You keep Tomb x2, Vision x2, Bridge, Mox
Scry mox to the bottom
Play tomb, Mox imprint vision, suspend the other vision
Opponent cantrips, your bridge resolves
When your Ancestral comes off suspend your opponent has double mentor and forces it
Your opponent plays Surgical on your ancestral and in response you use your last card (FoW)
Opponent snaps off disenchant for your Bridge in response and you die to Monk army
0-2

Match 7
G1
Keep Tomb, 2x Island, 2x Chalice, Foretold, Visions on the draw
Opponent land, go
Turn 1 Chalice off tomb
Turn 2 Foretold, play ancestral
Opponent didn't play a spell on 1 or a 2 and didn't play a 3rd land
Turn 3 Chandra prompts the concession
G2
Keep Chandra x2, FoW, SSG, Volc, Chalice, Jace
Draw island
Turn 1 Chalice gets Forced
You force back Pitching jace (hand is volc + 2 chandra)
Draw As Foretold
Draw Tomb
Play as Foretold
Draw SSG, exile SSG to play Chandra
Opponent unexpectedly absents your Chalice for 0 then Brainstorms in response
Chandra resolves
Oppponent plays Portent and Brainstorm
You draw chalice and play chalice for 2
In response opp Disenchants your Foretold
Opp casts snap ino your chalice
You play another Foretold off a chandra plus and opponent concedes
2-0

Match 8
G1
Bridge, Mox, 2x Chandra, 3x Island (Keep on the draw)
Opponent turn 1 Probe, Delver
Topdeck chalice
Imprint Chandra, play chalice, gets dazed
Next turn your bridge resolves
You draw balance, you have 4 mana but only R from chrome mox so you can't cast Chandra
Next turn draw Volc play chandra, delver can't attack you now (at 11 life)
Opp plays Bedlam Reveler
You keep ticking up Chandra
Opponent plays 2 swiftspears and then probe to try and hit chandra for 4 but one of your last 2 cards is a SSG so bridge can still hold them back
You draw mox to imprint your last card (balance)
(3 in a row plussing your chandra reveals a 2nd chandra, mox, and ancestral)
You draw As foretold but you have like a million mana anyway and no cards in hand
As a last gasp effort your opponent miracles thunderous wrath and chain lightnings your face for 8 damage but you are on 11 and your opponent is at 2
G2
Keep Foretold, Balance x2, Ancestral, Fluster, Mox, Island
Opponent probe, land
Draw jace
Imprint balance
Suspend Visions
Opponent plays swiftspear
You draw another jace
Opponent plays 3rd land and tries Smash to Smithereens on your mox
You fluster
Opponent Dazes but you can still pay 1 with untapped mox (Yee #1)
You draw another ancestral and suspend that
Opponent plays Pithing Needle on Chrome Mox (Yee #2)
Your opponent plays Sulfuric Vortex and Forces your first ancestral
You draw a 3rd land and play As Foretold and Balance
Your opponent loses 1 Volcanic island and the Swiftspear, you discard 2 Jaces keeping chandra, at 9, your opp is at 12 you only have 2 mana and the opponent still has vortex.
Your opponent plays Delver
You draw tomb, concede
G3
Keep (FoW x2, Jace Island Fetch Chalice Mox)
Turn 1 Chalice Imprint FoW
Turn 2 As foretold gets hit by FoW
Opponent attempts a Smash on chalice but you Fow
You cast Simian
Opponent cast Vortex
You keep play tombs with nothing to cast with them which is questionable against PoP (nevermind your chat also points this out)
You play another Simian
Opponent dies to Monkeys + Vortex
2-1

TLDR:
M1 (Lands)
G1: Chalice not good enough (L)
G2: PW + Moon good enough (W)
G3: Moon good enough (W)

M2 (Bant Blade)
G1: Moon gets Countered (L)
G2: Chalice not enough, moon countered (L)

M3 (Eldrazi)
G1: Chalice not enough (L)
G2: Mulligan to oblivion (L)

M4 (BR? Reanimator)
G1: Chalice + Moon good enough (W)
G2: Leyline of the Void is GG (W)

M5 (Lands)
G1: Chalice + Bridge good enough (W)
G2: Double moon gets gripped and you get wastelocked with a bridge down (L)
G3: Opponent has time to cast Grip x3 and kills you with Marit Lage through a Balance (L)

M6 (UW Miracle)
G1: No lockpieces in sight and opponent counters all of your threats (L)
G2: Bridge gets killed and you die to mentor (L)

M7 (UW Miracle)
G1: Fast chalice into PW is good enough (W)
G2: Chalice countered but Chandra still good enough (W)

M8 (UR Delver)
G1: Chalice countered, win with Bridge + Chandra (W)
G2: Your opponent punts all over the place and you Foretold > Balance but it doesn't do enough(L)
G3: Chalice good enough (W)

4-4 Record

In 8 Matches (19 games):
- You played Balance twice with as Foretold
- Both games this happened you still lost
- You played Ancestral off of As Foretold only once (Not counting the time you cast it into your own chalice-0 to trigger your chandra emblem)
- You cast a suspended ancestral twice and it got countered both times
- You cast a suspended balance once (quite impressive seeing as your only way to make white mana is to use Chrome mox imprinting another balance) and that got countered as well
- You never cast any other spell with As Foretold (anything costing more than 0)

The deck is not absolutely terrible but this is just a function of how powerful certain cards are (Google 'Jacob Wilson Legacy Pirate Cruise' for an entertaining demonstration of this). The As Foretold package (As Foretold + Suspend cards) seems too hard to assemble without library manipulation and even when it does come together it doesn't do enough. All of your wins came from Chalice/Bridge/Moon. Multiple times there were dead As Foretolds in your hand (i.e. No spell to cast with them) or you were colorscrewed (Chandra stranded by all islands or Jace/Foretold turned off by Moon), I'm pretty sure this is just strictly worse than normal Dragon Stompy.

[TLK]

Looks like someone else 5-0'd with your list too.

[Philipp2293]

Looks like someone else 5-0'd with your list too.

Not just someone, this is Hall of Famer Kenji Tsumura. Seems like he copied the exact list, hope he runs it back so we can see his adjustments.

[Whitefaces]

I top 8d our monthly in London with the deck.

2-1 Sneak and Show
2-0 Esper Stoneblade
2-1 Punishing Thieves
2-1 DnT
ID
ID

Quarters
1-2 DnT

Flickerwisp on Chalice setting it to 0 is a real beating, need to figure something out for that. The deck has been really impressive though! Not all the wins were off the back of quick Chalice/Moons, Balance is a really messed up card, and the PWers are obviously super powerful when powered out and protected by bridges.

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
2 Dack Fayden

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Blood Moon
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Chrome Mox
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 As Fortold
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Restore Balance

4 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Ancient Tomb
7 Island
1 Mountain

SB:
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Pyroclasm
1 Kozilek's Return
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Force of Will
2 Mindbreak Trap

[Mackan]

@kombatkiwi

thanks for the lenghty analysis! I'm not going over all of the games but let's discuss your conclusion about the manabase and comparsion to dragon stompy.

Manabase:
This is something that I need to work on for sure. RR and UU spells in a stompy Shell is not exactly and upgrade from Monored. It seems bad but it really hasn't been _that_ awful. Sometimes I establish a red manabase and draw my blue cards so maybe I need Cascade bluffs, I'm not exactly sure. It doesn't fix anything if I have a blood moon in play.
The total number of lands can be questioned aswell and I tried one League with 22 lands (cutting 2 ensnaring bridge for 2 mountains) but it's hard to come to any conclusion from just one league. It's a delicate balance between colored manasources/acceleration/number of manaproducing permanents. I think the priority is to figure out the minimum number of manaproducing permanents because I can't brainstorm any excessive lands back as easy as the other blue decks can. I need a lot more data to know for sure. Basic mountain has helped a ton atleast. Figuring out which hands to keep is also very important and during that very first stream I Think I kept some questionable hands.

spells:
The first 70% or so is similar and while I Think that the similarities are the best cards in either deck I Think my version offer some advantages.
The dragon-stompy Shell typically plays Magus of the Moon, Fiery confluence, Sin prodder and Trinisphere where I have Restore balance, Ancestral Vision, As foretold and Jace.
Dragon stompy has a better manabase and more early plays but it's fragile to creature-removal and IMO more of a one-trick-pony. It can't really play the attritionbased games so if your 4c-Pile opponent force of will your first play and fetch a basic plains to swords to plowshares your followup there's not much left to do. What I like to do in these matchups is to lead on basic Island and suspend an ancetral vision T1. The idea is that Everything I cast is a must-counter so this will leave both players low on Resources and that's where Ancestral Vision thrives. Your opponent will skip a turn to hold up spell pierce etc. Before AV comes off of suspend I will hopefully jam enough bombs to overcome whatever disruption my opponent has. And if not then we aren't really looking at any preassure, right? I will hopefully buy enough time to land a Jace which is then a clear upgrade to Sin Prodder and so on. Normally the stompy decks want to Close the game asap but with these cards I don't think it's needed, atleast not in these grindy games. Similar to Tezzerator. It is true that Restore Balance is terrible on it's own (chrome mox fodder, mostly) and that As foretold is just "fine". The power of playing them together, while very random, is through the roof good (see thopter/sword for a similar combo). Some games are simply over once you have both of these cards. After all, this is just not a stompy deck but also planeswalker Control and that's only possible because of restore balance. It's not uncommon for me to have an as foretold in play and 2-3 turns Before I'm dead. with 8 Walkers 4 ensnaring bridge and 8 powerful suspendcards I still have some outs to not only crawl back into the game but to completly turn them around.

TL;DR Dragonstompy is a more consistent stompy-deck but lacks the Control-angle whoch lets you grind win grindy games and come back from behind vs aggro. With pyroclasm and force of will in the sideboard I get access to more angles of attack and I like to have options, even in a deck without brainstorm.

I still don't Think the deck is particullary good but it's fun and I like to see how far we can push it.

Since I 5-0:ed that Daily I have made some minor adjustments. I want Defense Grid in the sideboard for sure but I don't know what to cut. Flusterstorm seems easy to get rid of but I want to keep the number of blue cards up to atleast 18 for force of will. It's possible I shouldn't be playing Force of will but I think it's a must. We can't really protect ourselves from a hurkyll's recall/echoing truth/whatever and without a clock any combo-deck can just kill us eventually.

I read on Twitter that Andrea Mengucci has played the deck through a League and hopefully we'll see the videos later this week :D

[Karhumies]

Why AoE creature removal (Restore Balance) has a niche slot in the current Legacy metagame:

With the banning of Top, Terminus has disappeared from the metagame. We now see more "all-in"/creature swarm strategies than before. This has pushed monored stompy players from the aggro/beatdown role into the control/wipe-the-board role. A practical problem in taking up this control role using "traditional" monored stompy lists has been protection from red (Mother of Runes, SoFI, TNN, SB Absolute Law) and MD Phyrexian Revoker/SB Pithing Needle shutting down Chandra. Restore Balance is a creature wipe (primarily), hand disruption (secondarily) and semi-armageddon (tertiarily) all in one neat package. Against a typical monored stompy list, D&T player landing a Sanctum Prelate on 4 will typically shut off all forms of monored stompy's win conditions and Fiery Cnfluence removal, and if the prelate is backed up by a Mother of Runes to protect it from SB Pyrokinesis/Fiery Confluence, this can be game. Running Restore Balance gets around this problem.

let's discuss your conclusion about the manabase and comparsion to dragon stompy.

About playing the attrition game: some monored stompy builds have lately become Monored Prison/Stax decks with 4x MD Smokestack to generate card advantage (Goblin Rabblemaster provides sacrificeable permanents) + 4x Avaricious Dragon (essentially run in the same slot where you are running Jace TMS) for card draw which simultaneously ensures that your hand stays empty for the Ensnaring Bridge. Sample list:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...=1#post1012112

[kombatkiwi]

I agree that being able to build your deck in a way that dodges creature removal is a plus, which is something that typical builds of Dragon Stompy do not do, but there's no way a deck with x4 Chrome Mox x4 Simian x8-12 redundant lockpiece x4 0-cmc-enabler can play an 'attrition game'; you have so much air in your deck and without any counterspells or discard (a la Shardless) you have no way to protect an Ancestral on the stack which was seen in the VoD when you only resolved it once. This is why I summarized so many of your games as like "Moon countered. Lose" you are still very much this kind of 'one-trick pony'.

I don't have a massive problem with the R(u) stompy shell because it clearly has the ability to win you some games but you are essentially only using As Foretold as a Show and Tell for A) x4 Concentrate or B) x4 Wrath of God. What if you just cut x4 As Foretold x4 Visions x4 Balance for x4 Show and Tell x8 Huge Wincon? Of course you can't play Emrakul/Grisel because it's a nonbo with Ensnaring Bridge but you could always use Form of the Dragon or Staff of Nin or some other similar big dumb thing (and in the late game these are also potentially still castable).

I think an even better way to increase your win percentage would be to cut Balance and Ancestral and As Foretold and Jace, switch to a mono red manabase and add 16 Chandras but of course that's not allowed. There are other options that exist (e.g. Outpost Siege, Koth, Goblin Assault?, Red Sweepers, Aether Grid) but Dragon Stompy players have obviously still think Sin Prodder / Rabble / Thunder Regent are worth playing so maybe I'm wrong. Looking at this list for example:

(I just found this currently on the 3rd-to-last page of the DS thread, it top4 a 60-player event recently)

18 LANDS
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
10 Mountain

14 CREATURES
4 Magus of the Moon
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Quicksmith Rebel
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Sin Prodder

4 INSTANTS and SORC.
4 Fiery Confluence

24 OTHER SPELLS
4 Blood Moon
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
4 Chrome Mox
4 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Koth of the Hammer
3 Trinisphere

SIDEBOARD
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Sudden Shock
4 Sulfur Elemental
4 Sun Droplet
1 Trinisphere

Once you decide that having the 4-8th Moons is worth it (which seems reasonable, you do win many games where you stick that card) then cutting all creatures becomes impossible so the opportunity cost of adding Sin Prodders (card advantage / wincon even under Bridge) is much lower. You have additional means to protect your creatures with Trinisphere, and more sol lands for acceleration because you don't need a second color for anything (2-4 fewer lands total = more gas). This deck still includes all the ways the UR deck wins games and then just cuts all the bad cards. Yes Jace > Koth but that probably isn't worth the massive loss of consistency you get from trying to play both UU and RR spells with Ancient Tomb and Blood Moon.

Edit: The post above got added as I was typing, if Prelate/Mom is a big issue you can put Kozilek's return in your SB (or x4 Sulfur Elemental like this list). Avaricious Dragon sounds like an okay idea.

[Whitefaces]

Balance is nothing like Wrath of God, it's a ridiculously broken card.

You play the attrition game with a higher number of 'must answers' (same lock pieces, plus more walkers and the suspend cards), card advantage (AV, walkers) and filtering (walkers).

[mistercakes]

Would izzet signet help this deck out?

[Karhumies]

I agree that being able to build your deck in a way that dodges creature removal is a plus, which is something that typical builds of Dragon Stompy do not do, but there's no way a deck with x4 Chrome Mox x4 Simian x8-12 redundant lockpiece x4 0-cmc-enabler can play an 'attrition game' ...

A big difference between monored stompy and As Foretold decks:

When monored stompy gets way behind on the board against a creature deck, the only thing holding the pillow fortress together is post SB Ensnaring Bridge (Chalice and Moon effects only slow creature decks down, they don't completely stop them unless they run 0 basics). Post sb with artifact hate thrown in, that pillow fortress is not very sturdy, especially on the draw when the opponent has fetched a basic on t1. In other words, keeping Chandra alive versus a bunch of creatures is not a simple task to accomplish.

As Foretold into Restore Balance allows climbing back into the game against a creature deck from pretty much any board situation, regardless of how many non-counter cards they are holding back in their hand. Those get taken away as well. If it's a Planeswalker into Restore Balance, that can get very ugly very fast.