Fellow Painters,
First time poster, long time reader of the source. I played Strawberry Shortcake at the SCGCON winter 10,000 legacy cube, and figured I would share my deck and results.
Creatures – 17
X3 Goblin Welder
X4 Ethersworn Canonist
X4 Painter Servant
X1 Walking Ballista
X4 Imperial Recruiter
X1 Goblin Cratermaker
Spells – 23
X4 Smugglers Copter
X1 Ensnaring Bridge
X3 Lotus Petal
X4 Grind Stone
X3 Pyroblast
X2 Red Elemental Blast
X2 Enlightened Tutor
X2 Blood Moon
X2 Mox opal
X1 Engineered Explosives
Lands – 19
X4 Ancient Tomb
X2 City of Traitors
X3 Arid Mesa
X2 Wooded Foothills
X3 Great Furnace
X2 Plateau
X2 Mountain
X1 Plains
SB – 15
X2 Tormod’s Crypt
X3 Surgical Extraction
X1 Karn, Scion of Urza
X2 Sulfur Elemental
X1 Warmth
X1 Abrade
X1 Pyroblast
X2 Containment Priest
X1 Ratchet Bomb
X1 Vanshino Heritic
Round #1 - UBW Stoneblade 0-2 loss
Game 1 – I mull to five and never get anything going, rough start. . .
In: Heritic/x2 Sulfer/ Abrade
Out: E.E. /x2 canonist/moon
Game 2, Close game, but I get beat down by True Name Nemesis with Jit after my bridge gets disenchanted
Round #2 – 4 color loam 2-0 win
Game 1 & 2 – assemble a quick combo both games within a few turns. Game 2 I had turn one moon off Furnace, opal, petal, which felt awesome for me, but not my opponent
In: x3 Surgical/Karn/x2 Crypt
Out: x4 Canonist/x2 Copter
Round #3 – Dredge 1 -2 loss
Game 1, loose to a quick swarm of zombies
Game 2, pretty grindy game, but I was able to assemble the combo at 6 life
Game 3, another grindy game, I was able to get my opponent to 4 life, but died the next turn
In game three, I felt like a lost due to my lack of experience against dredge. Opening hand I had a crypt but blew it up to early not getting enough value. Didn’t draw anymore SB hate and couldn’t outrace my opponent.
In: x3 surgical/ x2 crypt
Out: x2 copter/ welder/ballista/cratermaker
Rounds #4 – Storm 2- 0 win
Game 1, Beat down with copter and combo off with opponent at 5 life
Game 2, Opponent makes an army of goblins turn 2 and I top deck E.E. next turn! I land canonist and beat down from there.
In: x3 Surgical/ Pyroblast
Out: Bridge/x2 welder/ Cratermaker
Round #5 Death and Taxes 2- 0 win
Game 1: A little back and forth with creatures and then I assemble the combo
Game 2: I have the nuts draw (Painter, Grindstone, Tomb, Land, Petal, Blast, Recruiter) and combo off turn two
In: Abrade/Heritic/x2 Sulfer/Karn
Out: x4 Canonist/E.E.
Round #6 Grixis Control 2-1 Win
Game 1: Managed to beat down opponent with copter after getting the combo disrupted multiple times with counter magic and K-command
Game 2: Mull to six, back and forth a bit but I can never get anything going and eventually die to Jace ultimate
Game 3: Discard and K-command give me a run for my money, but I eventually assemble the combo.
In: x2 Crypt/Pyroblast/Karn
Out: E.E./Cratermaker/Copter/Canonist
Ended 4-2, which was good enough for 14th place. Granted the tournament was small, around 45 people I think. The deck felt good and was a lot of fun to play.
I played the same build in a challenge the next day going 2-1-1
Beat – D&T (2-0), Eldrazi Post (2-1)
Loss – Grixis Control (0-2)
ID – Grixis Control, (we did play it out, 1-2)
* I’ve been on Shortcake for about a year and a half. Grixis control has been the worst match up for me; K-Command, discard, Snapcaster to cast K-Command again is brutal. I moved to the x2 Blood moon in the main to try and help with this matchup and with Eldrazi.
@turingTested on twitter
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
これは水である。
So where does the wisdom lie on pyroclasm vs sulfur elemental in the sb.
Also, I feel like I don't totally understand the ubiquitousness of Duergar Hedge Mage. I get that it can be fetched and also hits both enchantments and artifacts (in theory) but i wonder how often it actually hits enchantments. I feel like if that part is important i would rather play a different card, and if it isn't i would rather have Heretic/Cratermaker? If the enchantment part is important I might think about multiple wear//tear, or 1 slot for artifacts and 1 for war priest of thune?
Finally, is Karn a must run for the matchups with control decks? It feels very powerful to me, but it isn't always in lists on mtgtop8.
@turingTested on twitter
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
これは水である。
I get the impression that both regarding Pyroclasm/Elemental and Karn, people are going back and forth and testing different things. Hedge-Mage reliably destroys artifacts, is recruitered for and unreliably deals with enchantments, so pick your solution, they all have trade-offs.
@soconnor: That's a very interesting list. I've been considering a basic Plains for a while now.
The card I'm most interested in is Mox Opal. I feel like our artifact density isn't quite there to support it.
How often is it turned on for you?
@merfolkotpt: Duergar Hedge-Mage has been an allstar for me. It's a card I immediately put back in my SB. At worst, it's a Manic Vandal. At best, it's a complete and utter blowout. Most matchups where you actually want to destroy an enchantment, you are free to fetch up your Plateaus anyways.
As for Pyroclasm/Sulfur Elemental, I'm currently on a split. 2 Pyroclasm, 1 Sulfur Elemental. Pyroclasm is more reliable in general, but Sulfur Elemental is better than it seems on the surface.
Karn is definitely powerful in our deck; wish I had room for a 2nd one in the board. I have been considering Chandra, ToD again, though. Karn generally doesn't kill our opponent (although it does happen every now and then), but Chandra is an immediate must answer that gets out of control quickly. The issue is that we are skimping on Bridges as of late and Chandra really wants to sit behind a Bridge, whereas Karn doesn't really need to because he can always make a construct to protect itself.
@8bit9mm - The two opals are something new I was trying out. I was running 3 great furnace main, upping my artifact count to 25 excluding the two opals. They were turned on a fair amount of times, including a turn one moon off opal, petal, furnace, but sometimes they was just cheap fuel for welder. The three furnaces does open the deck up to be more susceptible to wasteland, back to basics, and price of progress but the deck seems a little soft to that anyway. I had in a Pia and Karin Nalaar main which works well with the opals and extra furnaces, but went with the second moon main instead.
Mini write up of KFC Legacy Tuesday w/ RW Painter
Last night I played this list to a 2-2 finish at our local LGS in my first IRL outing with this version of the deck. Not very impressive by me, but both losses involved pretty severe misplays on my part, and I think I need to re-work the sideboard for the local meta, now that I have a better idea what is out there.
Mana
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
3 Plateau
3 Mountain
1 Great Furnace
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire
4 Lotus Petal
1 Simian Spirit Guide
Critters
4 Imperial Recruiter
4 Painter's Servant
3 Goblin Welder
3 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Walking Ballista
1 Goblin Cratermaker
Spells
4 Grindstone
4 Smuggler's Copter
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Blood Moon
3 Enlightened Tutor
4 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
Sideboard
SB: 3 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Sulfur Elemental
SB: 2 Karn, Scion of Urza
SB: 1 Faerie Macabre
SB: 1 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Containment Priest
SB: 1 Duergar Hedge-Mage
SB: 1 Blood Moon
SB: 1 Pyroclasm
Match 1: DnT (2-0)
He didn't know the matchup super well which in my experience is good news for the Painter player. Game 1, assembled the combo with backup relatively quickly after setting up a pretty strong board, and early blowing up his mother of runes with Pyroblast. Game 2 more of the same, with the addition of a blowout with sulfur elemental.
Sideboarding
IN:+1 Hedgemage +1 Pyroclasm +2 Sulfur Elemental
Out: 3 Canonist 1 Reb
Match 2 Omnishow by Frank (0-2)
Punted game 1 by grinding in response to his show and tell instead of waiting to see what he put in and possibly having an answer to ET for (he put in emrakul and i would have had enough to ET > Bridge if i hadn't grinded to see his whole deck). Game 2 was a long drawn out game and I didn't side in karns which in retrospect seemed like a mistake. I also was a little more cautious deploying the first ethersworn canonist than i should have been and he got a few extra cantrips in that might have been important. I also probably should have left in 1 more painter to allow pyroblast to blow up boseiju, or kept in/brought in blood moon, to fight boseiju. Bad matchup, made worse by not knowing how to sideboard, suggestions appreciated.
Match 3 UR Delver by Roger (1-2)
Lost game 1 getting tempo'd out especially with two timely wastelands. Second PUNT of the night, didn't bring in pyroclasm against the delver, young pyro deck, no explanation for that, just didn't notice until chatting after the game. Game 2 won off of Painter + sulfur elemental (not sure if this interaction is worth bringing in elemental or not). Game 3 came down to a fast start by him and me having to spend a sulfur elemental as a flash blocker against a young pyromancer, and then him immediately playing good backup threats. Mana development problems once again hindered me in this case deploying bothPainter and sulfur elemental which would have actually shut out his threats. Close match, could potentially be solved by a better sideboard plan and more cards
Match 4 Maverick (2-1)
Lost game 1 after stumbling on mana got stuck on two lands got, wastelanded, only drew one more land before he assembled thespian stage + DD. I did at one point have both painter and grindstone in play with 2 lands and questioned his play of Knight go get cradle to GSZ for a way to blow up a painter, rather than just waste me out of the game completely. I get that i run sol lands, so it would have given me a turn, but from my seat i felt like i would have lost quicker to wasteland. Post sideboard and bringing in like 6 cards, it mostly came down to fast blood moon + sulfur elemental game 2, which he was not expecting. And then turn 2 blood moon game 3.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I think the deck feels powerful, though i should probably note i beat nonblue decks and lost to brainstorm, which might be troubling. It is possible I should more aggressively red blast especially post board when I have 8? I also think the sideboard would be better with some changes for the local meta. My thinking is to punt rb reanimator a little more and have:
-1 Faerie Macabre -2 Tormod's Crypt +1 Grim Lavamancer +1 Rest In peace +1 Trinisphere.
I also am just not sure about Karn, I only had him in play once, and he was fine, though didn’t feel like he was wholly contributing to either the disruptive or combo game plan too much. That being said, I didn’t play against Control which I imagine would be the place he would shine most. To me karn feels less like a sideboard bullet, and more like a maindeckable card? Unclear.
Finally, I think the deck might want one more land, multiple games 1 wasteland really hindered me a lot, and I think with one more land (likely a fetch land to get a white mana or a utility land of some kind) I would have been happier. Alternatively 1 more piece of reusable artifact mana, maybe even like a boros signet, compared to UR painter with mox opal and monolith it just felt like it was starving for mana a couple times. In terms of what to cut, it seems like EE might be the most likely candidate? Both ballista and cratermaker had some really shining moments, but EE less so.
Note: I have sideboarding notes from the other matches but I left them at home. I will add them in once I head that way later today.
@turingTested on twitter
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
これは水である。
I've got a decent idea of cards to bring in for most matchups, but I'm having a hard time figuring out what to cut.
What cards do you tend to trim out first when sideboarding? When facing a removal heavy deck, do you just assume that the combo cannot fire quickly and sideboard out fast mana sources accordingly? When is Walking Ballista good or bad? Canonist is great for ending/preventing counterspell wars when you go to combo, but seems otherwise useless against Miracles and Grixis Control; is she worth keeping in?
You should never be boarding out the combo outside of maybe 1-2 grindstone vs S&T. There aren't any set rules on how to board but I usually take out some amount of fast mana postboard since matchups tend to slow down a little. Usually some amount of e-tutors for the fairer matchups and then usually some of the silver bullet targets that I am running (if any) that aren't really good in the matchup. Against heavy removal decks you just want to try to go under them or use your walkers to fight them on another axis I think that canonist is worth keeping in vs grixis/miracles since it limits the amount of resources that they can use.
I finally got in some significant reps with the deck this weekend. My most awkward hands/draws were those that were heavy with Imperial Recruiters. Ballista was fairly "meh" until the late game, so I find myself itching for a Recruiter-able beater for the earlier turns. Are there any combat-worthy creatures that could fill that slot?
I suppose another support creature in that slot would be viable too, though less exciting: probably Mother of Runes.
Copter is mainly the path we take to win via combat damage, in my experience.
Obviously, sometimes your band of misfits can just get there on their own, but Copter represents a significant clock and a real threat.
Goblin Rabblemaster/Legion Warboss are both beaters/armies-in-a-can that we can recruit for.
They both synergize with Moon and Bridge as well.
Of course. That's really my point. When a hand is full of Recruiters and we can't draw into the combo or Copters, what can we do? A beater, other than Copter, that we can Recruiter for would be a major boon.
Nice! Much better than my ideas. I think Legion Warboss is the only real choice there, as we don't want to risk our beloved Welder in combat due to Rabblemaster.
P&K has some major benefits. They automatically generates extra bodies (unlike Warboss who has to wait for them) which is especially good for one of our problem matchups (Grixis Control). P&K can throw spare artifacts to the dome to increase the clock. P&K provides spare artifacts for Welder shenanigans. That having been said, double red is rough and at 4 mana I wonder if you may as well play Ballista.
This discussion is making me wonder if my disdain for Ballista is unwarranted. In which matchups does Ballista shine? How often do we get to 4 mana without using Copter to filter for lands while not using Petal/SSG?
What about scab clan berserker as a "beatdown" option? It has some additional awesome to it, in that it makes finding answers more expensive, and it lives through some hate, like pyroclasm and stuff.
@turingTested on twitter
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
これは水である。
I think scab clan suffers from 2 problems. 1 its Mana is tougher in a deck of Sol lands, and 2 if it's just a recruiter Target then that means it's probably a turn 3 or 4 play at the earliest where at that point it's probably difficult for it to actually connect. And at that point the decks against where its ability shines have either killed you or used up a number of their cantrips. I think it's more a card relegated to moon Stompy where it can a bit more reliable cast it fast and play more copies
So another somewhat disappointing 2-2 performance at my local (good enough for 4th place, because my losses were the 1st and 2nd place players). Beat UR delver and ANT and lossed to Elves and Omnitell.
For elves, Game 1 had the one of rec sage turn 2 (no gsz needed) with it's good friend symbiote to just destroy me. Game 2 I felt firmly in control with the combo in hand and a goblin sharpshooter (new testing slot in sb) and he managed to natural order into archon of valor's reach naming artifact, which unless he makes a bad block or something is unbeatable unless i already had a painter in play.
For omnitell, I think this matchup is just miserable, i don't know what to side out, and am considering taking out all of the grindstones. Having Omni as an endboss at my local is really discouraging me from playing something without blue and black in it. Overall, I am 4-4 with the deck across these two weeks, and while I felt like I misplayed my way to a loss or 2 last week, this week, I felt like I probably played correctly for the most part, and it didn't really matter to the matches I lost.
@turingTested on twitter
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
これは水である。
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)