So, this deck is basically a meme deck. Except, it can kind of win, every once in a while.
Here is a "current list:"
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Castle Locthwain
4 Chrome Mox
4 City of Traitors
8 Snow-Covered Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Dark Ritual
2 Night's Whisper
2 Murderous Rider
2 Plague Engineer
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
2 Helm of Obedience
4 Karn, the Great Creator
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Curse of Death's Hold
4 Curse of Misfortunes
1 Curse of Fool's Wisdom
1 Cruel Reality
1 Overwhelming Splendor
SIDEBOARD
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Vault of Whispers
1 Liquimetal Coating
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Dreamstealer
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Lost Legacy
2 Plague Engineer
2 To the Slaughter
1 Curse of Exhaustion
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Massacre
1 Mycosynth Lattice
You can see Phil @ThabenU go 4-1. Or, while the replay lasts, Arkan @Legacy_Council go 5-0.
Mostly, I think that "fair" Dark Ritual strategies are a little better than we'd likely think, that is to say, solidly T2, maybe even T1.5 if the matchups break your way.
Anyway, I think we are likely to see Arkan's result published come the weekend, so this is a little heads up. Note, this is not my list, but comes from someone named reeplecheep on Twitch.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
The Mono Rat Stompy list I posted here on Chinese New Year got some decent wins against Xerox decks and combo decks, despite being made for lulz. I'm not surprised to see Curse Stompy get some wins too.
The following core of 40 cards is very powerful, especially against certain metas:
//Lands:
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
10 other lands
//Permanents:
4 Chrome Mox
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Karn, the Great Creator
4 Leyline of the Void
Karn is a huge boost to black stompy strategies and makes the HelmLine combo much more viable.
Supplement that with any form of creature control and win conditions and it will win some games. I did it with 4 Pack Rat + a bunch of silly rats. Planeswalkers + tokens + Contamination lock would work. I guess Curses work too.
I would recommend moving 2 Helms to the SB. Helm is a dead draw without the combo, and Stax decks are already weak to bad topdecks. 4x Karn is enough to find it game 1. Game 2 you can board 1-2 in if Karn isn't reliable enough for some matchups. Something like another Plague Engineer or Murderous Rider just seems more interactive. 90% of the time my extra Helms were just used as Pack Rat fodder - I wished it was even Scathe Zombies so it could pitch to Chrome Mox.
I agree in general. The shell there has an ability to just "steal games" on it's own, from Chalice cutting off a CMC to Trinisphere just stopping spells if they didn't draw enough lands.
I think the "upside" here is that Dark Ritual can sometimes accelerate one of those things out, which makes it more likely to actually lock the game. Of course, the inherent tension between Rituals and Chalice/Trini will cost you come games too. Really, as you point out, once you have an effective lock piece in play, you can probably win the game with anything.
The Curses do have the added "bonus" of being immune to Decay, or any creature removal at all, and most decks have few answers to a five-CMC Enchantment. So, in some cases, Ritualing that out, just wins. Of course, they are also super clunky and you will loose to Delver decks when they just do the Turn-1-Delver-Wasteland-I-Drew-Two-Forces-And-A-Daze thing, but that is just life in Legacy.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
It's the combination of the resistors plus a lot of decks depending on graveyard resources. Maindeck Leyline steals games: Reanimator, Dredge, Hogaak, Lands, Breach (before ban), Emry, Salvagers, ANT, Zombardment. It also shuts down value engines in other decks: Dreadhorde Arcanist, Gurmag Angler, Snapcaster, Reclaimer/Knight beatdown, Ramunap Wastelock, KComm, Accumulated Knowledge, Punishing Fire, Echo of Eons, etc. Most decks don't have a way to answer Leyline in game 1.Originally Posted by H
Karn is also a very strong card and can win the game out of nowhere with Mycosynth Lattice or Helm of Obedience. The static ability shuts off mana rocks, which impedes their ability to fight through Trinisphere. It can also fetch singleton tools like Ensnaring Bridge, Sorcerous Spyglass or Liquimetal Coating to bail you out of bad spots.
Even Urborg has a neat ability to help fix for double black costs and stop Ancient Tomb damage, fixing 2 weaknesses of Stompy manabases.
So I wouldn't just say Chalice and 3sphere, but the combination of all those cards together. Adding additional card advantage, creature removal and win conditions rounds out the deck.
In the OP list I'm not so sure about that Night's Whisper. Something like Phyrexian Arena, Liliana of the Veil or even Phyrexian Rager seems better, especially with the Dark Rituals & 3balls.
I've prized a number of times of times locally with md rip/helm or leyline/helm decks. In mono black I think it's the best oko proof way to win (as long as you cast helm with 1 free). The curses might be the second best option. The core protection is obviously very good with chalice/3sphere/2019mtg.
Yeah, I didn't mean that to be an exhaustive list, but just a couple relatively "common" examples. Of course Leyline and Karn can also just seal a game here or there in certain matchups.
Phyrexian Arena is interesting though, as is Liliana, since the deck can have trouble versus a quick Delver. One "neat" thing about Liliana of the Veil is that she can help empty your hand as well, which is good for the Castle and for Bridge (although if you have Bridge, you are likely going to win in any case, but it is possible you draw Curses you can't cast, or something like that).
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Hey Everyone,
Finally made a MTGsource account. Free to take any questions about the list. 5-0'd a league and went 3-0 into 4-5 in the qualifier so I think the deck has real legs as alternative to moon stompy when blood moon is bad and leyline of the void is good (ie now)
If you lose to delver you need two thing; reliable mana to beat soft permission and removal to buy yourself time. You seem to have #1 so just run more riderd, eliminate and deluge/dow in main and board.
Don't have enough snow permanents to run dow. Deluge is good but was wondering if it was too iffy in a tomb deck. Riders are often too slow or you don't have BB, you kill their oko and they just play another one and hit you for 3. Probably more eliminates and snuff outs/fatal push might be good.
You already have 2 Rider + 2 Eliminate main and 2 Eliminate SB. Seems good for removal.
Grid does protect your big plays, but it costs a lot of SB space.
Do you need 4x Plague Engineer? What are the big tribal decks you worry about? If you cut down that could make room for 1-2 Deluge.
Maybe also -1 Castle +1 Swamp to have more stable early mana. Stumbling on early mana will make Delver harder.
Went down to 2 castles, feels better thanks.
4 Plague engineer is for sideboard mapping reasons; you only have lots of cuts vs decks that don't care about 3ball & chalice, and those decks usually die to plague engineer. I don't think I have 6 cards to cut vs blue decks. Vs delver my only bad cards main are the karns, one of which i replace with the sideboard helm so I should really only have 3 things to bring in vs delver.
Comparatively, for moon stompy/loam/goblins i have at least 8-9 bad md cards i would like to cut (3balls/grids/chalice).
Perhaps that is as wrong approach but I think it makes more sense to tune md for blue decks rather than side (since you have few things to cut). Considering grids over removal/4th 3ball main for that reason.
If people are interested in seeing how it plays i just beat jarvis_yu with it on stream. (He was on humans)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/686647778?t=2h53m39s
Makes sense. Just wondering if 2 Plague + 2 Deluge or 3 Plague + 1 Deluge would answer a wider range of decks than 4 Plague? Or is Plague Engineer better for those matches to have a body?
I think cutting 3ball for Grid seems wrong, since 3ball just murders any tempo deck even more than Grid.Perhaps that is as wrong approach but I think it makes more sense to tune md for blue decks rather than side (since you have few things to cut). Considering grids over removal/4th 3ball main for that reason.
Cutting removal for Grid could work if you want to play towards protecting a big threat (Karn, Helm, Curse) instead of disrupting their threats. The only drawback is Oko can break all your resistors, and you need removal for Oko.
How good is the Curse of Fool's Wisdom main?
Have you ever tried Torment of Scarabs? I can't tell if that card is too slow to be impactful vs if killing noncreatures and being hardcastable are worth it.
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