Just came back from vacation, fired up the Shortcake for a league. Another solid 4-1. Beat ANT with a turn 2 canonist scoop game 1, and had a welder juggling 3 canonists and a crypt game 2. Beat Grixis Delver game 2 on the play with Blood Moon turn 2 or 3 (sided in for more of the canonists) and reversed it for game 3. Ended up getting a painter and canonist into play, with a needle on my grindstone. I had the blast and mana so it was just a matter of beating down and waiting for him to cast any spell and respond with the win. Beat Elves pretty handily, Grim Lavamancer did a ton of work. Lastly, beat Miracles just through general grinding. With all the redundant canonists, they basically have to answer each of them or else their durdle idiocy is a major liability. The wins just came through playing patiently knowing that at some point we have too much stuff pressuring their life total to handle it all. Only loss was to ANT, game 1 got stormed off on turn 2, game 2 kept a 6 that didn't have colored mana for my copter into canonist line and never drew one.
That's my quick little writeup. The list continues to feel very good. If any of you haven't tried Karn yet, do it asap. He is a fucking monster.
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
Took 4 canonist 1 moon list to the weekly today. 1-2 overall, winning against Aluren, losing to Grixis Pyromancer and to Esper Blade. Some losses I think were to misplays (not playing Bridge when i had the chance, or using tutors oddly), but also there were a lot of mulligans and the deck felt like it lost steam easily.
Gonna keep practicing with it. So many small things. Welder is a powerhouse, gotta stop being scared of removal and just jam him in more games.
People are scared of Moons even if we don't have them, which is a cool psychological edge.
Keep on paintin' my friends
Don't recall, Don't imagine, Don't think, Don't examine, Don't control, Rest
Originally Posted by Kap'n Cook
Nice, yeah I'm loving the canonists too. You can see me in action 56 mins into the video: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/256382614
What did you do at this tornament? Others match up? Witch list?
I took Kap’n Cook’s list to a weekly last week and went 3-1. The weekly meta at that shop is super degenerate so the canonists put in a ton of work. I beat spanish inquisition (pyroblasted his slithermuse for the win in one game), BR reanimator (REB’ed his griselbrand), and reanimator depths (he didn’t have/couldn’t find and answer to bridge) then lost to goblins. This deck is a blast and I underestimated a lot of card choices (copter and main canonist specifically) but it felt pretty good. I’ll probably run it back this week.
Can you explain why karn is so good ?
Regards
Well for starters, the only thing with an ass fatter than Karn is Kim Kardashian.
Phyrexia is also infinitely more pimp than Jace's eldrazi tentacle porn or Liliana's necrophiliac demon fetish or whatever else the magic writers are trying to pass off as a story these days.
Basically just compare a story like Barrin's to what we get now: http://www.phyrexia.com/continuity/Barrin.shtml
As for the actual card, in most scenarios, the bare minimum will be that he draws you two cards and gains you 5 life. The other synergy of making a dude for Welder fodder or for offense/defense crewing is very strong as well. I have gotten lucky as well and lived the dream of turn 1 copter into turn 2 karn. I've also had a few games too where he is basically a one man army. We sometimes have trouble closing out matches against the shuffle-Eldrazi decks, be it Omni/Sneak/12-post/etc, and going double -2 gives you at worst two 2/2s, but given our artifact density these will probably be 4/4 or 5/5. He's probably overperformed so far to be honest, but given how well we can protect him, I really don't see how he can be bad. I've been boarding him in whenever I am short on cards i want for a given matchup, since we do run a bunch of dead stuff. I'm only on two copies, but could see the argument for more, although I still think playing the most relevant stuff possible and then filling out with good value things like Karn is the best way to go. It ensures that we are keeping our curve low and not transforming into a bad bridge-stompy deck against decks we aren't adequately prepared to play that role, like ctrl+c/ctrl-v delver or elves.
Whenever we have run planeswalkers historically, it has either been as a solo win condition, or for continued board presence and value. The main ones being:
Koth: his first two abilities weren't really that great, but given the meta at the time, his Death by Mountains ultimate was worth playing him.
Ajani: Mainly for Armageddon in the miracles matchup, but had splash value against creature decks with the helix and the tiniest bit of board control with the +1.
Chandra: Very good card, but more so in a bridge setup since you want to be +1-ing for burn/draw and then to the ultimate and then kill through sensei top tricks.
I could go way more in depth about why each of these could still be good, but don't feel like it. Bottom line is that the double colored mana made it hard to protect with blast backup a lot of the time, and I have really liked Karn's more favorable mana cost and higher loyalty, as it gives him a much better chance of sticking around. All three abilities synergize extremely well with the deck. His card drawing at least puts it into your hand if you aren't casting it vs Chandra's exile, which is important when we are running stuff that we want to cast on our opponents turn like e-tutor or blasts, or even just casting something to fill the yard for lavaman. Chandra might be better than Karn in a deck like mono-red painter, who knows.
Anyways, that's my take. He's just been a 'good' card, which is welcome since we are a deck without brainstorm and we run a lot of horrendously bad cards in a vacuum.
Played my 4th league last night with the 75 I've been writing about recently. They have all been 4-1. Only loss was to Miracles, I made some misplays navigating through a counterbalance, haven't had to deal with that piece of shit in a long time and it showed through my inability to play around it. Other games were against DnT, double RB reanimator, and Aluren. Funnily enough against Aluren I got baited and punished for being greedy responding to a deathrite with double painter and then trying to get my recruiter into canonist. He just responded with a recruiter of his own to win, but having 4 canonists made game 2 and three a breeze. Canonist also at least gives us a chance against reanimator. I powered it out turn 1 twice in the 5 games against it, winning both since it bought me a turn to get painter/blast setup, and limited the griselbrand into infinite discard, ritual into tidespout/iona crap they usually pull. Very impressed with how helpful it was considering how bad of a matchup it is, and has made the cuts down to 1 crypt and 1 RIP in the board passable for the time being.
It's a fun time to be bringing Shortcake back, just want to end with everyone should keep testing shit out as I'm sure there is always a better 75 we can run.
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
It was just a friendly 4 round weekly. I played against 3 different bizzaro storm decks and burn, go figure. I've been continually brewing but think 4 canionist main is the correct call. I was trying to get a few lavaman activations in to get him below 14 while I waited to draw into more land. I'm on 20 lands and running maindeck plains and it feels right to me. I still want access to white mana if a moon is coming down. Cut Inferno Titan down to 1 main lol, back on 3 enlighten tutor. Looking forward to brewing the sb. Can't wait to bring in Ali from Cario off of an imperial recruiter against the likes of elves or turbo depths when their only removal is decay. I'll also run a COP - Red for burn in the sb. This deck is so much fun! #funpolice
So I watched the match, here are some things I noticed. That hand is pretty sketch to keep and is pretty top heavy with only the one land and a petal. Also I'm not sure why you are e-tutoring and lavaman-ing at sorcery speed, since by tutoring you know you won't have a 2nd mana the next turn anyways. No reason to simplify the match for the opponent and let him know what he needs to be playing around/letting him know he has to go for it. Also, tutoring for the canonist in that spot doesn't really make sense since you only had the lotus petal out, you take away your outs of ripping the canonist naturally, open yourself up to getting it discarded, and you would still need to draw another white source to be able to play it anyways. By waiting to draw source #2, you still get canonist out the next turn, but you probably get to keep the petal (assuming white #2 is a land, not another petal)
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
Ali is really fun, but it won't do anything against elves, not more than a wordship would. Even if you have it in your SB I would advise you not to bring it in agaiste elves.
Agreed, Ali isn't going to stop DRS, so you'll just get smashed down to 1 life and then drained.
Can you go over which matchups you bring Karn in for?
All fair points thanks for the tips. You should record your mtgo streams and upload them to youtube. You've been playing this deck for 10 years that makes you the Bob Ross of painter.
Ha I've only since 2012, so if I'm Bob Ross then Seth is like picasso just doing random shit back in the old days of painter. I probably will hop back onto the stream game at some point in the coming month, just gotta actually get around to setting up some monitors and stuff.
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
Hello all
Ive been playing this list
Land (19)
4x Ancient Tomb
3x Arid Mesa
1x Bloodstained Mire
3x City of Traitors
1x Great Furnace
4x Mountain
2x Plateau
1x Wooded Foothills
Instant (8)
3x Enlightened Tutor
4x Pyroblast
1x Red Elemental Blast
Creature (18)
3x Ethersworn Canonist
3x Goblin Welder
1x Grim Lavamancer
4x Imperial Recruiter
4x Painter's Servant
2x Simian Spirit Guide
1x Viashino Heretic
Artifact (14)
1x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Grindstone
4x Lotus Petal
1x Relic of Progenitus
4x Smuggler's Copter
Enchantment (1)
1x Blood Moon
Sideboard (15)
2x Abrade
3x Blood Moon
1x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Grim Lavamancer
2x Karn, Scion of Urza
2x Pyroclasm
1x Rest in Peace
2x Tormod's Crypt
What do you guys think of it?
One of the biggest problems im having with this deck is awkward mana hand, no colored mana, no white mana etc. I keep thinking about having a basic plains in the deck. Ive locked myself out of tutoring so many times. have you guys started mainboarding Karn yet?
I’m glad so many people are trying their he deck these days. Sorry I’ve been away as a new job has been kicking my ass. I hope to get some playing in this weekend.
@plains-I still see no need for the card and in the deck. The deck is already very short on colored mana sources and I he need to have red is so high that any land that doesn’t give you red needs to be amazed by. Luckily sol lands are just that. Any hand which starts with a plains as your permenant colored mana source should be mulliganed. There are some corner cases where that I don’t the case, but in general it’s a solid rule of thumb. It’s for that reason that Plains shouldn’t make the cut. If you are really struggling to have white mana it will s most likely s condary to poor mulling decisions or sub optimal sequencing by of plays. Yes there are times when you have white cards and no white mana but the deck was designed to minimize the negative impact with Copter and Welder. I highly recommend playing the deck 150-200 times before changing the mana base. I promise you it was over years that we worked on this as a group. The real issue is the final land. I think and artifact mana is important. But I can see arguments for another mountain, fetch, or the 4th city.
About the video. Thank you for sharing. I think it is an amazing teaching point for everyone on this trip bread. And magic in general. Now the rest of what I say may come of as being very negative but I’m trying to be as blunt and constructive as possible.
1. The announcers were dog shit. Just goes to show how little those who make magic their life or try to profit from it actually understand the game. Keep that in mind when you read articles and watch commentary. They just blew.
2. Basically every play made by the painter player after land, lavaman, lotus petal in game one was either wrong or improperly timed. I encourage everyone to watch it and Think about every decision and how that play could be improved either through timing or sequencing or decision making. Many of the lines only become evident after 100s of games. That is why I still advocate everyone just slings one of the stick lists for the next 2-3 months just to feel comfortable with what the deck does. Then we can all work to improve it. I feel comfortable that the stock lists are good enough to let you win more than you lose. Jack and I will continue to tinker to make them better, but I encourage others to focus on just getting comfortable and understanding the deck.
3. The fact that painter won this match tells us little about the deck or match up but a ton about how to interpret results and outcomes. So often weird shit happens. This is why the pilot of the deck is probably more important that the final ranking in taking anything from results. The reason this is important is that it makes it harder f us to sort through the data to find the signal from the noise. But it’s critical we do this so that we don’t fall down the trap and miss vital ways to advance the deck.
4. Most of us are bad at this game, myself included. Just keep practicing as the muscle memory and experience helps safe us from our bad play and poor decision making.
Free nedleeds, fuck Donald trump, and fuck Mark rose water for giving me the worst possible Jaya planeswalker. Fuckkng dick.
Seth
Ps this was done on my phone on the subway. I apologize for grammar, spelling, or general weird word choices.
…no matter how much you think you love somebody, you’ll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.
Played at my LGS last night. Went 2-2. They were all pretty close games except the last round where I lost in 2. NormalGuy is right though. This deck is really Grindy and practically all rounds just about went to time. The mental fatigue would definitely be a factor at a larger event.
3 plateau
3 mountain
4 ancient tomb
3 city of traitors
4 arid mesa
1 scalding tarn
1 great furnace
4 painter’s servant
4 ethersworn canonist
4 imperial recruiter
2 goblin welder
2 grim lavamancer
1 viashino heretic
1 simian spirit guide
4 grindstone
4 lotus petal
4 smuggler’s copter
4 pyroblast
2 red elemental blast
3 enlightened tutor
1 ensnaring bridge
1 blood moon
Sideboard:
4 leyline of the void
1 helm of obedience
2 abrade
2 kozilek’s return
1 pyroclasm
3 blood moon
1 phyrexian revoker
1 ensnaring bridge
I have not gotten my Karn’s yet so my board probably would have been different had I picked them up. The maindeck blood moon was sided out in all the matchups I faced. Leyline of the void in my testing has definitely been better for me than Rest In Peace. Leyline is better than Rest In Peace in that it doesn’t shut off our welders or lavamancers. It also does not die to abrupt decay. Yes it has to be in your opening hand to matter, but if it’s not then I guess you can just discard it with copter rather than having it stuck in your hand. The following are just the highlights of what I remember:
Round 1: B/r reanimator
I actually built and brought the deck for a friend. I probably won because he is not too familiar with it. He didn’t have an explosive turn one play at all during our matches so he definitely kept sketchy opening hands as well as drew terribly. Game 1 I’m on the draw. He collective brutality pitching a fatty off a badlands and a petal to grab a pyroblast and passes the turn. I play copter off tomb into his chancellor. I play a petal and pass. He plays a scrub land and passes. I end of turn enlightened tutor for blood moon and play it on my turn. He never fetched a basic and I know that he only has two swamps and three more petals to make black since I built the deck. I go dork beat down for the win. Game 2 is pretty grindy. I am able to land a couple of canonists and a bridge but he is able to wear tear and bounce via tidesout. Game 3 I get a turn 0 leyline and turn 1 painter with a stone in hand. He thought seizes my grindstone. I draw another one and he wear the painter with the stone on the stack. I eot enlightened tutor for a painter. Cast it on my turn and pass. He scoops.
Round 2: Food Chain.
Not having the karns available is what made me play a revoker in the board and it definitely saved my ass. Game 1 I lead with turn 1 welder. He counters my painter and my grindstone. He has a board of leovold, scourge, strix, and maybe azcanta? He wasted all his resources forcing my painter and stones. He decays a painter and I pyroblast a his underground sea to make sure that doesn’t happen again. I am able to get another stone and with him tapped out I activate stone welding it out for painter. He told he didn’t realize I could do that. Game 2 he forces and surgicals my turn 1 grindstone. Looks like I’m on the beat down plan. I get him down pretty low. I recruit for revoker naming food chain and the beats commence. He is able to find ballista to shoot my lavamancer and revoker and starts playing Griffens and scourges to win. Game 3 I play a turn 1 copter and he plays a needle On grindstone. I eot tutor for canonist and begin beating for five a turn with copter crewed by recruiter and canonist. He casts a scourge and I counter it with my painter on blue. I naturally draw a revoker to name deathrite shaman and he has no more cards left in hand for the painter beatdown win.
Round 3: UW stoneblade
He is playing around moon way too carefully. Game 1 I get beaten with a stoneforxe equipped with sofi. He countered and revived everything I had that was relevant. Game 2 I end up with a board of sol land, petal, plateau, plateau painter. He has a single plains untapped for swords. He let the stone come into play. I pyroblast his plains. He goes to stp and I activate grindstone for the win. Game 3 he is stuck on two island for 5 turns while I draw lands for five straight turns after having a pretty land heavy opener. I beat Him down a little with heretic until he finally finds his white source and is able to remove him and play stoneforge. He counters everthing else relevant and I die to a stone forge equipped with jitte and a true name nemesis.
Round 4: Miracles
He starts off with turn one portent. Here we go I think to myself. Gonna be a grind fest. I start the recruiter chains and beat him down with dorks until he terminuses and I start the chain again. So many turns were draw go as I was saving my red mana to blast his cantrips and Jace. He draws a natural miracle entreat the angels for 5 tokens. I have a bridge in hand but I can’t empty my hand down to three cards. Game 2 he surgicals my pyroblasts. I Have a turn zero Leyline and lead with turn one grindstone. I am stuck on one land for the next few turns and the game goes well over 10 turns with me only having 2 mountains and a plateau in play. I beat him down with copter and ping him down to 4 life with lavamancer. He gets a needle on lavamancer and stp the copter. I eot enlightened tutor for another better never get to play it as I need to stop the mentors from getting out of control by playing my canonists turn after turn. He is able to remove them and swings for lethal. He had 17 cards left in his library at the end of the game. Would have been seven grindstone activations to naturally completely mill him. Do you think we should be doing this instead with our mana rather than playing threats? I mean granted he probably wouldn’t cantrip as much but I wonder what would have happened if I played it that way.
All in all it was a much better showing than the last time I went there with the deck running four blood moons main. I hate the idea of playing so many canonists but it has worked better than blood moon. I was also fortunate to not run into any wastelands.
Nice job SDBob! 2-2 aint too bad, I'll take it.
Lent the deck to a buddy (pretty damn good player tho, and he'd played painter in the top days). He took it to 3-1 tonight. Last game was a deep tragedy, he was on the aggro plan, did a recruiter chain, and the turn before the win he gets deluged :( his opponent wins at 1 life
He liked the deck a lot, his comment was that we need some kind of midrange threat. Karn is our boy (he was playing Karnless). in fact I think I will probably go 1-2 Karn in the MD as I am liking the card a lot lately.
I'm excited to play the deck more. I think (as SDBob mentioned above) people play around blood moon a lot once they see sol lands and red. That psychological edge should be worth something.
Anyway, keep on painting y'all
Last edited by aslidsiksoraksi; 05-08-2018 at 02:16 PM.
Don't recall, Don't imagine, Don't think, Don't examine, Don't control, Rest
Thank you Slid. The aggro plan is definitely 100 times better than it was in the top days if one of our combo pieces gets surgicaled. What do you think you will end up cutting for the 1-2 Karns maindeck?
Also is the general plan for new miracles still to grind out recruiter chains and go beatdown with the threat of combo?
was thinking maybe something like
4 painter
4 recruiter
3 canonist
2 lavaman
2 welder
1 heretic
4 grindstone
4 petal
4 copter
1 bridge
1 moon
3 tutor
4 pyroblast
1 REB
2 Karn
3 city
4 tomb
2 plateau
6 fetch
3 mountain
+1 other creature (4th canonist, 3rd lavaman, 3rd welder?)
thoughts?
I do think Karn is maindeckable, he can crew thopter as well, and gives us that much more reach. ideally our midrange monster would be recruitable/tutorable, but I feel like he's good enough to be worth it without that
Don't recall, Don't imagine, Don't think, Don't examine, Don't control, Rest
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote