Legacy decks: mono U painter, strawberry shortcake, imperial painter, solidarity, burn
EDH decks: zedruu voltron, rakdos the defiler, persistent petitioners, blind seer
I will not lie, I had no idea what Solar Blaze was. But after seeing it, it seems super weak. Four mana, across two colors is a heavy ask. And Hollywood summed it up well. Bridge and Pyroclasm just do the work more efficiently and cheaper.
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 playing your list, but with Ballista in the 3rd Pyroclasm slot, as part of the Wishboard. I like have access to both Lavaman/Ballista in the 75. The trade off is the efficiency of Pyroclasm vs. the flexibility of Lavaman/Ballista, which I think is worth it.
I'm also trying to figure out a way to add in Jaya as a Recruitable discard outlet to turn on Welder in the event I don't have Copter. It will probably be the LED slot, since I had never been too impressed with it in Painter, but am willing to give LED a chance before dismissing it.
Finally the stars have aligned and I get to play Legacy again. As I finally start laying cardboard against real opponents, my biggest takeaway is: mulligans suck. Do we have a sideboarding guide anywhere? Or even guidelines?
Things I ran into: How slow is too slow? Do I keep a very slow 6 or go to 5? Do I keep a 1 land, 0 fast-mana 5 or go to 4? Do I mull a hand of mostly fast mana (such that I can make one or two plays and then have no more resources)? How hard do I mulligan for hate?
There really aren't any guidelines outside of some of the more obvious ones i.e. don't keep hands with sol lands + only red/white cards, don't keep no landers, etc. Basically just ask yourself "what does this hand actually do?" and if the answer is "not much", than ship it. There is no thing as too slow unless you are playing vs a combo deck, in which case you can mulligan more aggressively to either the combo, painter + blasts or hate pieces for that combo. 1 landers kind of depend on what your opening hand is, if the hand is good but just needs 1-2 more lands i'll tend to keep it. If you have a turn 1 moon and no other lands i'd keep it since a turn 1 moon can end the game on the spot vs certain matchups.
Regarding Solar Blaze, I was just throwing it out there. Again, as I originally said, it's probably over-costed. I also agree that I don't like the fact that it is sorcery speed, but so is pyroclasm. However, I certainly wouldn't say that it is "weak", especially compared to pyroclasm. What Solar Blaze does that pyroclasm doesn't:
1. kills TNN
2. kills a creature that has a jitte with counters on it. Also kills batterskull token.
3. kills mentor and it's tokens, no matter how much they get powered up
4. kills revoker, even if they have a mom on board.
5. kills pteromander after it is pumped up
6. kills other fatties like death's shadow, angler, tombstalker, Leovold, thought-knot and other eldrazi. Even kills Emrakul although I don't think I would be bringing it in in the S&S MU
7. Still doesn't kill painter
I'm not saying I would replace bridge at all. But there are times you don't have bridge or they kill bridge and you need a board sweep. It's obviously slower against elves and goblins, and that's where the biggest problem I see is. I just think it would be worth testing is all.
Secondly, Mirrislegend brings up a good point in asking the question about fast mana. Now that we aren't really concentrating on blood moon, what is the benefit of playing 5 x 1 time fast mana? I know I've talked about this before, but it seems that at this point with karn we are trying to accelerate to four mana vs 3 mana, so wouldn't something like boros signet be better? You drop that off your sol land on turn one and can play karn on turn 2 with another land? I've been testing them some and I think they are pretty good. I will say that you have to think about your plays ahead of time and plan accordingly to use the colored mana. But it's nice to have that mana stick around through multiple turns, especially when you might be going karn into lattice or wurmcoil. One time mana just isn't great in those situations. It's also nice that you can animate it with karn and get in some 2/2 beats or have a blocker if absolutely necessary. LED of course is a different beast all together and I am not referring to that. It has been really good lately and it turns on so many more turn 2-3 wins when you can tutor for the LED.
As for the 3 card combo of karn + ballista + relic, that feels like a stretch. I'm not saying it doesn't work but if I have relic I'm probably just going to kill them the old fashioned way with painter + grindstone. The lavaman combo seems more relevant. Having said that, I have personally been playing with ballista more because it feels less fragile, can be tutored for using all of our tutors and you can start using it the turn you play it, which has come up quite a bit. Also the fact that it is colorless damage is helpful sometimes.
Anyway, those are my rantings for the time being.
Signet sounds really good to me. I'll definitely keep it in mind going forward.
When I look at the Relic loops, I see EE re-use as the most appealing option. However Ballista is so powerful and flexible that any potential abuses of it, such as re-using it with this loop, should always be considered.
Guys, some interesting thoughts...
@ Mirrislegend- That is an interesting ask. The real issue is that we do not know yet. I will be honest I think I have finally gotten over 50 games with teh new build on MTGO. So enough to have a feel for the deck and some sequencing, but its different enough from prior builds, that while I can sort of make gut decisions in match ups (ie, what game it is, what the deck is, am I on the play or draw, what I think my opp. kept) translating all that is a lot harder at this time as we work through it. I would imagine we could come up with something in a couple weeks, but even then we rarely have lines where its a card and you snap keep. So its a complicated and nuanced part of playing the deck. Honestly, you will be best served trying to make the decisions, seeing how they play out, going over why that happened and then assess if you made the optimal choice on the keep and the sequence. So its hard in general, wish I could just give you an easy list. In general though, outside of storm or Dredge, you likely don't want to be too aggressive with your mulling in games.
@Drude1- they both synergize well with Karn. I have tried to lay out the case for both of them as I really believe they both deserve consideration. while the sequence I mentioned is sort of that its an outlier, but something you may need to do. Last I played, MTGO was still bugged and Painter doesn't work with Lattice out. And maybe I am wrong, but the timestamp should allow a Painter after Lattice to turn the world blue or black. I really like Lavaman, and will likely use him due to the curve, but it would have been short sighted of me to not mention the other synergies that Ballista has with Karn.
Solar Blaze is a thing and it does do all that. My issue is more the why do you want to do any of that? Bridge can handle most of that, and EE, and blast effects sort of clean up the rest. The reason you run Pyroclasm is due to needing a two mana answer to Elves and Death and Taxes that also happens to kill Delvers and other utility creatures. Its not a Wrath for us so much as a speed bump to buy us time.
I think the 5 fast mana and LED are better now than ever before to be honest. Instead of 3 mana on turn one we are looking for 3 and 4 mana on turn 2. You need to see that Lotus Petal, while acceleration, is so much more than that in the deck. Its color fixing, Welder food, and a means to use and abuse Karn even more. SSG is a similar card in the fact that he is almost a land and almost a creature and while he is really weak versions of both of them, the power of filling the needed role improves the decks flexibility and increases options as the game goes long. The fast mana also is critical to resolving Lattice, which while not always happening, is a nice trick for your back pocket. And yes LED is insane. We have our own version of Burning Wish. And it can occasionally give you a first turn on the play win. True story, in the league this weekend I finally did that . In the past 12 plus years playing the deck I have never had that happen. It def felt cool.
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’ve been pretty happy with staying with 19 lands and playing 4 petal and 2 ssg. Does the deck definitely need the 20th land now? And if so I feel like the furnace, city, or even the 4th plateau are all viable options. I like the extra ssg because:
1. Monkey Blast/poor man’s force of will
2. Not affected by trinisphere
3. Sneaky grindstone activation
4. Grey ogre when needed
5. Can crew copter
6. Can power out Karn in the early game
I’m probably going to try the 3 pyroclasm in the board because a lot of people seem to be having success with it, but do you bring in a number of them to deal with mentor? It doesn’t seem that it can reliably kill mentor or even its tokens for that matter which is why I went with 3 sudden shocks instead and was thinking of maybe even going up to 4 in the board.
Anyone have update mono red list with the new karn?
@ Monored- Most likely the old thread will be able to help you there I imagine. I know some people had been tinkering with things last I checked, although that thread may have switched to more Moms at this time. Unfortunately Jack and I have been off that variant for years now so I wouldn't know where to even start anymore. The lack of E tutor and specific hate pieces does really change the sequencing though.
@ fast mana- I think those are some really cool ideas. Thanks to MTGO being weird, we can test frequency of cards very easy by running different version of CoT. While Jack and I though the extra land was key for Karn, I think it could easily be a SSG. Often times I have found that CoT to be a two shot sol ring for the deck. Which is very good, but also a liability at times. SSG offers similar upside while also being a body which is really important once the game goes long. The testing will be important bc we do now want 6 mana at some point in the game bc Lattice is just that strong. Getting there is something that we should be questioning and testing. I actually think I will try that in my next round of testing, to see how it feels.
Some other minor tweeks are likely coming in the next couple weeks. While I have mainly playing Old School these days I am excited enough about the deck that I am looking for a larger legacy event to give Painter a go. So we will see...
Seth
…no matter how much you think you love somebody, you’ll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.
So some quick thoughts:
Miracles- This match up seems favorable. Karn's ability to just out value them is really incredible. We now have so many threats against their deck that using FoW against us is a real liability in the match ups. I am still trying to evaluate the strength of our individual cards in this match up, but as most of you can guess, Karn is just a house. I often find myself trading threats knowing that Karn is the trump card here. Save your blast effects to counter Snapcasters and JTMS. But it feels good for us.
Storm- While there are lots of variables here, this also feels favorable. Your mileage will depend on the amount of Canonist you are running. Karn's ability to turn off the LED and Lotus Petal is so nice.
Elves- This match up has gotten slightly harder due to less maindeck Canonist. The Pyroclams in the board will help, but game one can be really tough.
Dark Depths lists- Lands match ups in general seem to be improving. Karn is now making our Moon effects better, while giving us another way to lock them out. I def. need to test more against the various lists, but this feels favorable now.
Death and Taxes- I go back and forth with this list. Karn and Pyroclasm are really strong, but sometimes they just have the correct hate pieces. I think its the variance in a small sample size that has made it hard to differentiate what role we should play here. Clearly more testing needs to happen, but it feels like a 50/50 match ups where some play skill and understanding of how to deploy resources should help.
Eldrazi- Again small sample sizes, but it feels like I have lost to a bunch of first turn Chalice, second turn Thought knot. To be fair that likely wins 70% of the time, but it has felt hard to judge. I want to say it is slightly unfavorable, but I think sequencing and valuing how we get and resolve bridge may change that.
Grixis- No updates here. For all my games online, I have found Grixis match ups hard to come by. I would like to think that Karn serves much the same role as in the Miracles match up, but that is only theory, I still need to get in more games.
Show and Tell- Nothing to report here.
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 teetering now back towards Shortcake, but my take is of course a little different. I'll post a list in a bit. I've been grinding dozens and dozens of games with the mono red iteration, and something seems off about it.
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