sNOw Painter

[FTW]

After looking at the latest RUG Snow Painter builds and other Oko decks, some thoughts occured to me:

1) Painter's Servant makes Natural Order fetch any creature, including Griselbrand or Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

2) Progenitus is much better in an Oko-heavy meta than Emrakul, Marit Lage or most other threats because it can't be Elked, it can't be Karakased, it can't be stolen, and it can't be chumped. It just has T: destroy target planeswalker. It answers Oko no matter what their board state.

3) Elks make good NO fodder

4) NO fights through a completely different axis than Grindstone. They can have anti-mill, Collector Ouphe, Phyrexian Revoker, or Disenchant and none of that helps against NO.


Shell for a deck:


//Creatures: 20
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Gilded Goose
4 Painter's Servant
4 Ice-Fang Coatl
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Trinket Mage
1 Eternal Witness
1 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
1 Griselbrand
1 Progenitus

//Planeswalkers: 3
3 Oko, Thief of Crowns

//Artifacts: 6
3 Arcum's Astrolabe
3 Grindstone

//Spells: 11
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Brainstorm
3 Natural Order

//Lands: 20
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Prismatic Vista
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
2 Snow-Covered Forest
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Swamp

//Sideboard: 15
4 Force of Will
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Veil of Summer
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Tormod's Crypt


Maybeboard:
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Questing Beast
Tarmogoyf
Ohran Viper
Plague Engineer
Terastodon
Craterhoof Behemoth

[kinda]

Oooh Jakobian went 3-0 with natural order painter into Iona. I definitely recommend iona, it's a lock with painter. I'll see if he's got the list still.

[Fox]

The list is somewhat dubious against Chalice, but new cards have fixed this (green value dudes >1 cmc and Oko +1) enough to where an NO will just beat Chalice - though I’d be wishing out Archon of Valor’s Reach to be sure (cutting down a Progenitus or Grisel). The Trinket Mage is a bit egregious, and I’ve not seen any evidence that this has been a good idea since ~2011; I think it’s likely impossible to demonstrate that it can outperform a Karn (which has the added benefit of giving itself slots by pushing the tutor target to the board). Karn also beats Chalice while Trinket needs to find exactly EE to not play right into it.

Coatl and Uro can stall Delver-types, but you‘re generally going to be playing pretty hard into countermagic. Using Oko [+1] against Delver‘s dudes isn‘t going to fix any problems as you lack the removal backup, so I‘d question the effectiveness of using [+1] on self when behind or [+2] into pass.

You‘re taking the 4c value pile and adding in GSZ, self-discard [mana dorks], and high variance draws [Painter/Grindstone] - so you‘re now losing that matchup. The moment you‘re adding in Painter with green, you kinda need to have 4x Veil main. You‘re cutting Grindstone to 1x main at most, 1x board and having a few Karn grab it. You can clean up the bad drawsteps a little bit by doing this, but you‘re still doing very different things with the green stuff (dorks, NO/GSZ, NO targets), and they won‘t interact all that favorably. You‘re ending up with a hybrid that does both the value thing and the Painter thing worse, without much gained. You‘re also still losing rather decisively to the card SnT, and that‘s not fixable while remaining hybridized.

[Barook]

Painter for green makes it possible to go GSZ --> Trinket Mage --> Grindstone. Kinda nifty.

[FTW]

Painter for green makes it possible to go GSZ --> Trinket Mage --> Grindstone. Kinda nifty.

Yeah if it wasn't clear that was the reason for 1-of Trinket. So I could GSZ/NO into Grindstone. You choose target on resolution, so if they kill Painter in response you can just get something else (you won't need Grindstone then).

Eternal Witness was to GSZ into Natural Order or Oko or Painter (if a previous one was countered/killed).

The idea was to use the 4x GSZ as a tutor for basically anything in the deck, thereby reducing variance, on top of having the usual toolbox.

[kinda]

Sylvan safekeeper I think is worth one spot.

[Fox]

Sylvan safekeeper I think is worth one spot.

Protecting what? There‘s also a pretty big issue with rushing out snow-basics, sacrificing them, and also relying on Ice-Fang as your removal (count to 3 for deathtouch).

[FTW]

Iona seems good. Forgot it's a hard lock with Painter.

I like Karn. Maybe 2-3 copies, have to be careful with the curve. It reduces variance though also reduces explosiveness (no more turn 3 goldfishes), which means I can't race combo and get punished for having FoW in the SB instead of main.

Maybe..

Main:
-3 Grindstone
-1 Trinket
-1 Witness
-1 Grisel
+2 Karn
+1 Iona
+3 Veil

SB:
+1 Archon of Valor's Reach
+1 Grindstone
+1 other Karn target (e.g. Lattice, EE, Coating)
-3 Veil