I would recommend to never cut the 4th Recruiter. Its still or demonic tutor of sorts in the deck.
I think having the LED in the main is really important. The ability to leverage E. tutor for fast wins is really important. Adding a second to the board is a nice idea also. Using a Karn activation to set up an easy next turn Lattice is a sound idea. Overall LED has continued to be very nice in the deck.
@Karn count- I am still on 3. I am not sure that 4 is the best number. It may be, but it does raise the curve. If you are on the 4 Karn I would suggest that you do add the 4th land. Sometimes the mana is tough as is, so we need to balance that moving forward.
@3 Goblin Engineers- I am also struggling to find out what to cut. The first one is easy as it is just better than Cratermaker. I am thinking that dropping the Canonist count is reasonable. Storm is very low right now and adding another high value creature would likely still be good. It's getting the 3rd one in that has been difficult. I had thought about moving a Painter to the board, but that would slow us down and I am not sure that is the correct play. It is worth testing as the ability to find him would be huge, but our current speed is really nice. I had also thought about only 5 blasts main with 2 in the board. That may be something to consider. The other areas to evaluate would be e tutor and Copter. E tutor allows us to leverage so much of the deck, that i am very hesitant to cut them. Maybe the correct answer is to drop the Copter count. That bothers me as a turn one copter is just so good, although we now have efficient tutors to more reliably have copters with the engineer so that may balance out.
No matter what it should be an interesting June.
Now I just need to find time between Old School to play more legacy. That and get a 3 summer Plateaus....
Seth
…no matter how much you think you love somebody, you’ll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.
If you are choked on mana it seems like it would be reasonable to get LED with the first activation and then whatever else you need with the 2nd.
LED is insane and I have 0 idea why people dislike it.
I think that i'm going to cut a canonist and probably the removal spell (WB/lavaman/cm) for 2 of them while still keeping 1 canonist in the main (it gives some random utility outside of combo matchups vs xerox and removal heavy decks).
There’s way better options to get than LED out of the sideboard; it seems bad. If you’re spending one activation (at a minimum of four available mana to cast Karn, unless he was powered out otherwise with SSG or Petal) then getting it really isn’t giving you full value because he has to survive and activate again the next turn. You’re dumping your hand to go all-in on Lattice, really - that to me is really the only reason to run it in the board.
I think LED is better main. Relegating a sideboard slot to it just feels and seems wrong.
I've had so many games now where I turn 2 or 3 Karn off of a petal or two, get LED and on turn 3-4 play lattice Lock. I currently am playing one LED main for e.tutor (and will get much better with engineer) and one in board for Karn. The other thing you can do if you have 1 combo piece is get LED with first Karn activation and get second combo piece and win on the spot without even worrying if Karn lives or not. I would say that I have probably wished for LED off Karn more than any other card so far.
@sroncor: Karn had me at hello and I don't think I can go lower than the full play set at this point. This might mainly be because the best defense against Karn is your own Karn. I will agree that the 20th land is probably right in this case. Now it's just a matter of finding the space.
I would recommend that everyone put a few proxies of engineer in the deck and gold-fish with it for a while. I think at least one copter is worth being in the deck just because you can grab it with the engineer. But I would definitely value engineer over copter at this point.
I’d probably play just one. But remember: including Engineer should make one reconsider the Furnace count.
For me personally, I can’t bring myself to getting LED with Karn. If I’m light on mana, I get Coating and Strip Mine their lands.
In the latest games i played the karn-lattice combo felt kinda weak... i mean, against decks like miracles it could work well, but when you're facing a battlefield filled with creatures karn will end up being killed by simple attacks unless you have a very effective ensnaring bridge into play as well. Talking about ensnaring bridge, is the 1x maindeck enough? I tried upping it to 2 and it was good, it helped me to survive till late game (but maybe i'm playing this deck wrong since i'm very conservative and if i have the opportunity - see no high pressure from opponents - i tend to play my key pieces only when i have some countermeasures rather than risking going for the kill in early turns)
@ Davek- I think you may be leaning too hard on the combo. While the testing is too early to hang on numbers at this time, I would say I go for the combo with Lattice less than 30% of the time I even resolve Karn. You need to be in a situation where spending 6 mana wins you the game, and you are correct, there are many decks and board states where this just isnt a good idea. Luckily he can grab Bridges, Grindstones, EE, Ballista, or just crew a Copter, which gives him a great floor.
@Drude1- I agree I have loved Karn since testing. His ability to just dominate the game and provide value is very remarkable. I am still not sure we want 4, although I am open to the idea of it. 4 mana is still a big ask and to truly use 4 of them consistently, we likely need to up the permanent mana sources in the deck.
I do think the Copter and the Engineer are different. He doesn't replace E tutor as there is downside to not getting the card in hand. Needing to untap with a guy that dies to every piece of removal in the format is a real issue. So while adding redundancies of these dudes while increasing their utility, we still need to remember that downside. Welders always have had a huge target on their back, and this may only increase that. Copter helps to filter, which gives us the chance to cast the spell, which is important, while also making welder and the Engineer better by feeding them. By putting pressure on their life total, easily killing planeswalkers, and serving as another most remove threat are all things that help make the Welder/Engineer plan stronger. Not to mention Copter and Karn form a nice tandem. To be fair, it feels bad reducing the copter count to 3.
@LED- I agree with a lot of what you all are saying. LED, with E tutor, just has so much upside in the current lists. I can see sequences where getting LED on the first Karn activation is really good. Board space is tight, but I do think we want a mana source in the board. I was speaking with Jack about a Great Furnace potentially, but maybe the second LED is the choice. I do think though the artifact land is a nice side in during games 2 and 3 when we are facing Wastelands. Something to think about, but in general I do like the idea of mana in the board that can be found on demand.
Seth
…no matter how much you think you love somebody, you’ll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.
Thoughts on a singleton Grim Monolith?
I assume in the mb - when you're at 4 mana for Karn you want to immediately impact the board state. This is why I think wishing for led, or monolith, wouldn't make much sense to me.
But it's a bit too easy to ask for opinions without adding some thoughts in why you think it'd be worth considering, Michael.. I see them in other versions of painter, but usually as 3-4 of. I'm not even sure about the singleton led as it's either a dead top-deck, or a happy little surprise - not exactly the king of consistency.
Within that, the goal of the deck should be clear. You seem to aim more at painter shenanigans & related synergies, while as per the primer of shortcakes, the aim is consistency in getting the combo off. Both are RW and both play painter and grindstone, but it's not the same.
Looking forward to _your_ elaboration ;-).
I just think the card is broken like LED. And while it certainly has merits, it enables turn two wins without needing to dump your hand and frees up a red source to cast Karn turn two with Blast backup.
Grim Monolith is an interesting card. I have to agree with Hollywood, that the card is incredibly strong and I really like how we are really exploring a lot of avenues and options.
The card is a lot different than LED though. It isn't as explosive as LED, but it does allow for explosive turns. LED works best with tutors to deploy the threat THAT turn vs the typical set up turn on Grim Monolith. I think its the set up turn that makes the card hard for us to really use. While we have sol lands, you often want to be dropping Copter or Painter or Karn then exploding. The Monolith takes taht turn but does allow for a ton of mana the next turn to do the same thing. The issue is that Painter/Copter/Karn often lose a little bit of value if you want to resolve them. So we need to work through that. I dont think we want to wish for the Monolith just bc we cant really cast it the same turn. But we likely should test it. Currently i am thinking about either an LED or a Great Furnace in the board. Recently I have had more than a couple games where I really wanted just a mana source with Karn active.
It could be that we need to be a big mana deck to really abuse the Grim Monolith. I wouldn't know really where to start with that, but it might makes us closer to a mono brown shell.
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 also starting to wonder if Goblin Engineer is actually more broken than Welder. The fact that it Entombs is ridiculous, and the more and more I think about it, this card may wind up being a lot better than advertised. It's already changing the Modern landscape, and while Legacy is a completely different beast, being able to have this and Welder on the table at the same time is ludicrous (turn one Welder off Furnace into turn two Engineer and Weld something into play is fantastic).
Grim Monolith is great because you can dump it to the Engineer after a single use if you want to. Think about a theoretical turn like this:
1. Tomb, Monolith, Petal (or SSG in hand), go.
2. Mountain/Furnace, Tomb+Monolith, Karn, REB/Pyroblast off Petal, Mountain/Furnace or SSG.
When used in multiples (Monolith), I almost wonder if having Voltaic Key out of the sideboard would be good, too.
I do think that Engineer opens the deck up to ridiculous possibilities. I still think white as a splash is good for Tutor and Canonist, etc., but the entire fabric of the deck has been altered by these last two sets. It's like the deck got nothing for years, then a ton of shit in two sets.
On Grim Monolith--in my very limited experience playing with this deck, and in the Karn-meta, it felt great when my post-opponent cast monolith and I cast Karn. Obviously all artifacts don't like opposing Karns, but LED is still free to cast so you can Welder-Tinker back something nice? With Engineer allowing for Entomb, sideing in Wurmcoil (or Spine of Ish Sah) as "answers" to opposing null Rod effects could be nice.
So, the LED main I think is mostly used as an e.tutor target. If you have other combo pieces in hand you can e.tutor for a fast win. Otherwise yes, I agree that it is sometimes awkward.
However, once engineer becomes legal then the LED main gets much better. I was so impressed with engineer gold-fishing that I did a little experiment yesterday. I gold-fished 50 games where I would see if I could combo off by turn 4. For the purpose of this exercise "combo off" meant actual combo or Karn + lattice on board by turn 4. With 1 LED main and 1 in SB along with 1 each of other combo pieces in SB I had a "win rate" of 80%. So 4/5 games I was able to win by turn 4 and a lot of this had to do with access to LED either in board or main. Obviously this little experiment doesn't necessarily translate to real wins but the explosiveness of the deck can really be impacted by these kinds of inclusions.
Regarding monolith I would agree with Seth that the concern would be the need for an extra set-up turn. I don't want to power out a turn 2 Karn only to get a monolith to play turn 3 and then lattice turn 4. You should be able to lattice Lock the next turn.
With new engineer now is there any thought to bringing in Daretti? More ways to get stuff out of the yard is good. Might just be worse than welder/engineer, but it also gives some more looting too to get stuff in the yard to turn on the two goblins. Also is there an argument for Cavern of Souls now? Maybe that's more strictly for mono red
I almost mever leave comments here, but i play painter occasionally and it's hard to not get excited with new karn and goblin engineer being printed in back to back sets. I think painter now has really the potential o become tier one.
With that in mind, though, i think we should consider that one of the strengths of this deck has always been its versatility. Meaning that we are a combo deck that can also play prison, control or sometimes aggro. If we start playing too many welders/engineers and up the great furnaces count to 4, we become extremely vulnerable to graveyard hate and stuff like null rod. The same goes for cutting enlightened tutor and blood moon with it : i don't think it's wise to completely lose the angle of attack of "slam blood moon win the game".
It will be a challenge to find the right build with so many tutors at our disposal. We just need to not go too "all-in" on some stuff i think.
I totally agree and in fact, I am currently playing 3 blood moon main in my list as I think it is much better against all the other Sol land and post decks running around lately. Our fast Mana gives us the advantage with a moon out.
LED honestly doesn't feel that "all-in" to me with this deck because a) most of your hand is depleted by the time you crack the LED anyway and b) we have welders/engineers to recover things in the graveyard. There are certainly going to be games where we want to slow things down and play more methodically (against control) but there are other games against aggro or other combo where we just need to be faster than our opponent.
Yes, this is also what makes lesser masticore interesting for me, resilience. Tbh I'm less interested in how fast we can combo, and more interested in must-answer-cards, working under protection as well as resilience. This resilience and protection feels like two of the reasons painter doesn't "brick" easily, making the deck pretty difficult to beat. Karn is an amazing example of a card that is a must answer. So is painter, welder, and probably engineer also falls into that category. Against the right decks, same for ethersworn Canonist and blood moon. How about e. Tutor? (Sorry for beating a - probably dead by now - horse, but engineer feels so much more threatening. That summoning sickness though got me thinking of daretti as well, megadeus.
Edit: Seems like I'm echoing some things already mentioned above. So yes, I agree avoiding too narrow a line of play. This makes me feel copter becomes more important again: you want those 8~ welders and they're great for threat & crewing, but you'd need to be able to filter them out for better.
Also realised that if you're afraid of in-response gy removal, having a welder & engineer active helps a ton in that.
Dudes, the way we're taking about it makes it seem like either we feel the risk of getting carried away, or we're thinking more in terms of an artifacts shenanigans deck with the painter+grindstone combo :'-)
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