But isn’t that the appeal of running Karn? That’s four options to kill it, and since Chalice chops up a huge portion of the deck, wouldn’t four Karns be fine to deal with Chalice on the spot? It’s such a deal-breaker that regardless of Karn’s target if he can kill it, that’s what matters.
I mean, he’s ticking up to do to six loyalty...
What do you think about maindecking 1 EE to grab with goblin engineer even under chalice in case you can't find Karn or if he ends up eaten by a TKS? Also, with the new goblin welder's cousin in mind, can we start considering something like lightning greaves?
With engineer, I would probably switch to ratchet bomb. That way you won't have to pay any Mana to use it to kill chalice and you can still tick it up to kill other things as needed. E.e. will always be stuck at 0 from the yard.
Speaking of engineer, looking for a good replacement for ballista once engineer comes out. Would want something to shoot creatures that survives the yard. Any thoughts? Cursed scroll seems okay but less than ideal. Trisk functions or of the yard but can't be recurred with engineer.
@mirrislegend: 4 Karn + 4 recruiter + cratermaker gives you 9 maindeck ways to answer a chalice. And as Keller said, you are ticking the Karn up to kill the chalice so it should be difficult for opponent to kill Karn even without protection. Don't think you will find e.tutor into ee that helpful, as it will likely only work on the play and only if you have a potential white source plus tutor in your opener. Very conditional.
Played in LGS last night and split the finals. Beat grixis control twice and stoneblade and i.d'd with s&s. Karn was sick all night. I do think I will be moving a painter to the board once engineer becomes legal. There were two separate occasions where Karn into painter would have won on the spot.
Not a huge fan of coating/shaman combo as shaman seems bad without coating and coating is mediocre without shaman or Karn (but at least can make you welder fodder). However, I can see the usefulness of a coating in the SB as a Karn target. Might test it against the control MUs. May also be useful with abrades in creature removal slots.... vindicates 7-9.
@ Karn- Outside of chalice into Thought Knot, I have found Karn to be a fantastic answer to Chalice. Often times you dont need to remove the Chalice immediately. Likely you should be protecting Karn either through Bridge or ensuring dudes so you can untap with him in play. Bridge is great in this match up and should likely be the first tutor with Karn, although if you are tapping out adding one to Karn first turn is likely what you need to do. Reality Smasher is a serious threat which is why Bridge is so important. Often times if you can untap with Karn in play against Eldrazi you should be in great shape.
@Drude- I have the same feelings about Mox Monkey. In theory I love the card but on its own it does so little. We are fighting for space in the deck, that it is really tough to fight in everything we need. If we are cutting Lavaman, I can't see a spot or Mox Monkey which is even more situational. So while the combo has a nice potential, I worry that the individual pieces do so little to impact the board. Currently our least impactful creature may be Goblin Welder, as he often times does nothing but is a huge threat as the game goes long. Just the natural attrition makes him extremely helpful. One in the board is interesting, although through sequencing I am not sure how it goes. It is fairly slow to resolve Karn, tutor Coating, then next turn resolve Coating and nuke a land. Likely you spent 6 plus mana and two turns to stone rain them. All this while they are setting up and can potentially resolve Mentor or Councils Judgement. Those two cards along with Snapcaster can really throw a wrench n that sequence. I like the idea of mana denial, I am just not sure its the best thing we could be doing.
I think Ballista still lives in the board for the deck. Its likely the best 187 creature we can run and his ability to grow adds nice reach. He may not be able to be welded but Relic and Karn form a nice recursion loop for you.
@mirrislegend- While Karn is our best answer, we do have some amazing ways to also interact with Chalice. The new Goblin Engineer is a fantastic answer to Chalice. I do think EE should remain part of our board and you would side it in games 2 and 3 against Chalice decks. Outside of the previously mentioned sequence of Chalice into Thoughtknot I have found the inclusion of Karn to really make fighting Chalice decks better. In general I would recommend getting in more reps with the deck. While I understand some of the issues you are having, I think with improved mulling, match up and threat awareness and evaluation, and improved sequencing you will stop having some of those issues. We are still testing the 19/20 land split and it may very well end up being 19 lands with 6 fast mana and an LED that we settle on. But so far, the fast mana has felt really good. I would nee dto see what board you are running these days to judge that part. Currently the board is really tight and I think should help in a many match ups. Jack is currently working on Sulfur Elemental, and he is likely changing my mind to use it over Pyroclasm moving forward. But the other 12 cards should be able to cover you across many of the top decks you are likely to see. Post what you are running and I am happy to give some pointers. I did say that I would post some match up insights and sideboarding tips, but with the Engineer on the horizon, I am going to hold off till that testing is done.
@Cratermaker- Initially when Engineer was spoiled I initially moved to cut the card. I think in general I think the goblin is better bc it has higher upside and deals with Chalice. But there are still corner cases that Crtatermaker does a better job with, one of which is Karn. I think we need to keep the card in consideration as the new lists shake out. Until we see who is using Karn and how, we will struggle to develop the proper answer. I personally have not worried about that as I was working on other aspects of the deck, but it is something we will eventually need to address. Cratermaker is one solid answer to the card.
Free Ned Leeds, keep painting, and I guess Wizards sucks a little less this week... but rosewater still blows
Seth
Last edited by sroncor1; 05-29-2019 at 09:06 AM.
…no matter how much you think you love somebody, you’ll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.
Outside of Ratchet Bomb your best option for killing a creature is probably Pyrite Spellbomb. I think there are some janky equipment from older sets that allow you to ping creatures as well but those aren't ideal. I'm keeping a copy in my sideboard for sure. I think it's my 3rd most fetched for card with karn, only beaten by bridge and grindstone. I've also thought about putting a painter in the board but before engineer I don't think there was a good enough card for that spot.
e: The coating/shaman combo seems really really good against control decks since you are playing way more bombs in your deck that they have to deal with. I really have no idea how that kind of list beats delver. I guess nuking their lands while they kill you with delver and company is a personal victory.
@Mirrislegend-currently I am on a 19 lands, 6 fast mana, and 1 LED main plan. I have thought about a 20 land, 5 fast mana, and 1 LED. Both feel ok to me to be honest. But it would be one of those 2 configurations. With Karn you needed to add an additional mana source to the deck. I do think in either configuration you have some options for what that 20th land or 6th fast mana is. For the lands slot it could be the 4th CoT, 2nd Great Furnace, or even a basic Mountain. For the 6 fast mana configuration it should likely be the 2nd SSG, but recently I have considered adding an additional LED, although that is untested and likely not correct.
However, 24 total mana source is likely too few. And yes I am running 3 Copter and 3 Karn. Copter continues to be basically our best first turn play, and I would run 4 if I had the space as I always love it. The Karn count may go up in the end, but I am hesitant to do that at this time. While an amazing card, he sometimes is clunky and you never want two in hand. Also our deck is still designed to operate on 3 mana and getting that or a one time five mana is how the mana base was built. Karn stretches this enough that upping the count to four would likely need a more involved reworking of the man base than we did with the integration of 3 Karn.
Seth
…no matter how much you think you love somebody, you’ll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.
I’m not saying I haven’t. But I’ve deep-dicked Delver more in the last eleven years playing the deck than I’ve been deep-dicked.
It’s not great, but it’s certainly easier. The blue dynamic opens up Blasts as spot removal. The saturation of burn spells isn’t as potent, and playing cards like Zuran Orb help out of the board.Also, UR Delver is just as bad a matchup as Burn, if not worse.
I've been half writing a post for a bit and then deleting it, trying to talk more about the philosophy of the deck, trying to understand its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, to get a bit more controlled about what we're trying to achieve, how, (with the deck), and why we're making changes to the deck. If we look at it like that, and share that, it'd be a lot easier to understand each other and work together.
.. but for now, my cents after some reps:
I'm liking that the Liquimetal Gorilla Package follows the line of the deck in being low cost, tutorable, and often must answer targets. Allows you to be flexible and exchange with welder if necessary (Gorilla will probably die somewhere at some point by itself).
Still, it feels like one of the core strengths of Shortcake is the 3 Enlightened Tutor - whether we'd tutor for the other half of Painter/Grindstone, the Liquimetal Coating, a Blood Moon, a Furnace or a Canonist. There are few targets, but the deck is a complex toolbox. Taking the list that Michael had, I'd definitely add a copter, an enlightened tutor, and probably cut a blast / fast mana. Having the tutor, even by cutting fast mana, made me feel the deck's faster, and the copter feels like a must-answer target, limited by the number of creatures we play, and how much grease and pressure we need in lieu of having the combo ready.
Part of the problem I've seen with Shortcake is the inherent amount of Tutors since Karn was printed. I mean, between Karn, Imperial Recruiter and Enlightened Tutor, that's a truckload of tutors. I think this is why you're seeing people, at least in passing, mention cutting one E-Tutor, 0-1 Imperial Recruiter, etc.
When you think about it though that's about as many tutors as blue decks play cantrips. Obviously it's not quite the same, but it's around the same plan of basically add consistency or try to find the right card in the right situation. And in our case our cards actually in a way do that better
I'm almost positive in the "new" Legacy metagame that's shaping up with Flashback Timetwister, Blasts are going to be stronger the first month or so. I think keeping the count at six would be ideal, at least for the foreseeable future. Consider a seventh in the sideboard.
It looks like LEDs, as an aside, shot up in price overnight and are likely going to continue to climb.
I agree with Hollywood that the six blast, seventh in the board is likely the way to go. Jack and I have been on the six maindeck since the first round of testing with Karn and adding the seventh to the board was an easy addition due to the current meta. It will be interesting to see where the new Timetwister takes storm in the coming months. It likely does little to address the hate but it does seem like a better draw engine against non blue decks. I don't play storm so further speculation on my end would be too difficult. Luckily for us, I doubt the match up changes much as our hate remains the same and now our blasts naturally counter there draw engine instead of being worthless against Ad Nauseum without a Painter in play. The match up may change due to the protection they play though, as things like Flusterstorm and FoW may be better as there blue counts rise. All speculation on my end.
@ tutors- I do think we are probably using too much short hand in discussing the tutors. While all of them help improve card selection, they are all "tutors" of various strength and utility. Recruiter remains the only true "tutor" in the deck, and until Karn, the only card advantage in a deck that really wants it. Its' ability to leave a body on the field is only MORE important now after the addition of Copter and Karn to the deck. E tutor allows for us to control our next draw for selective cards all at instant speed. Engineer allows for Entomb like availability of select cards while providing future utility on a body. However, while Recruiter still remains the strongest of the "tutors". He, like all the others, still has downsides and restrictions. That is why each is a boon to us, but none really negate the others. So their additions help the deck but none really serve as replacements. They help improve consistency and reach with more options. I still maintain 4 Recruiters is the correct number and I have a hard time imagining a world where that statement ever changes. Engineer does little to change the importance or utility of E tutor. Engineer serves to help support already existing strategies. But we need to remember that grave hate exists. The beauty of the deck has always been that people needed to respect Welder. they would bring in grave hate and yet it rarely affected us bc while we loved Welder, the graveyard was only a small part of our plan. The inclusion of Engineer adds so many options to our deck, but it does open us to grave hate in a way we really never feared before. Our ability to toe this line allows us to shake off hate. Engineer is a great tool, but he does make us more vulnerable. Something to keep in mind.
But in general, the closer we can come to a xerox shell, the better the deck should perform as we are further reducing variance while not sacrificing power.
Seth
…no matter how much you think you love somebody, you’ll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.
I'm just throwing this out there - as it's completely untested. I was thinking about the mana base (my construction, anyhow), existing artifacts and Karn, holistically.
Then I came across an interesting interaction that, based on my research, hasn't been identified in any forum or anywhere else I could find:
So, with all of the one drops in play, Lotus Petals, and Karn being able to animate things like Grindstone - in addition to the synergy with Liquimetal Coating, which turns things into artifacts and then creatures by Karn - City of Shadows becomes a serious proposition. Not only are you exiling a creature with it that could be out the door, but you're also able to get back that artifact that you've exiled from City of Shadows that was animated by Karn by using Karn's second ability, and you can do it again. And again. And again.
And the cool thing is, the artifact creature that was animated by Karn stays that way until the next turn. So you could just tap the City in their end step and ramp.
Something to think about. Swing in some proliferate and the card could get up to three or four mana really easily. I'm not saying it's good, but the exile, retrieve, exile synergy with Karn and City hasn't been noticed. At least no place anywhere on the interweb I can find.
It won’t work well where I tend to play, since wasteland is very real, but it might work? I don’t have any lands to test tho.
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Legacy decks: mono U painter, strawberry shortcake, imperial painter, solidarity, burn
EDH decks: zedruu voltron, rakdos the defiler, persistent petitioners, blind seer
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