Hi Reepl,
I love what you're doing with the deck and I'm going to pick this deck up and have some fun.
Drawing into Splendor (and in a certain way Cruel Reality) seems a bit odd.
Did you consider testing something like Scroll Rack?
I know the deck would need to up the numbers of shuffle effects, so playing sub-par cards just for the shuffle should not be the answer.
Or is topdecking into a dead card something you have to accept when playing the deck?
Love to hear someone who is interested in the deck. A 1 card combo is way better than a 2 card combo in a list w/o cantrips, and is one of the reasons for this deck's strength. You have 4 ways to get rid of dead cards (chrome mox) and with the London mulligan you can often put them on the bottom of your library.
I tried scroll rack. It was really really slow, the fetches' life loss added up, and if you didn't have any targets stuck in hand it felt like a dead card. Running bad cards to help get rid of bad cards is rough. Collective brutality is better but still not a legacy playable card imo.
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In other news, even though I dropped at 4-2 since I couldn't get top8, I still got top 32 in yesterday's challenge. The only chalice deck too:
If you are worried more about it making curse of misfortunes bad rather than the dead card aspect, generally any 2 of the 3 targets are sufficient to beat most legacy decks. Drawing more than 1 of your targets is unlikely unless it is a really long game.
If you really want something to do with dead targets the best option imo is chrome mox #5 essentially: Gemstone Caverns as an extra land.
Hi Reepl,
I love your deck. I have always wanted to build a viable black Helmline deck. Since the printing of Karn and Curse of Misfortune, this deck has finally become viable.
Have you thought about replacing Eliminate with Rhystic Tutor and turn the deck even more into a combo deck?
In this shell it often feels like Demonic Tutor. It can get Karakas against Turbo Depths, protection when you already have Karn/Curse of Misfortunes in hand and one of the latter two when you already have protection.
Other cards to consider:
Thought-Knot Seer as disruption and a beater
Parallax Nexus: I imagine scenarios in which you clear the way by exiling 3/4 cards for Curse of Misfortunes or Karn into Sundial of the Infinite that prevents the exiled cards from returning to their owner's hand. But maybe that only happens in Magic Christmas Land.
Rhystic Tutor could be a very good addition though ;)
My suggestion would be:
-3 Eliminate, +3 Rhystic Tutor
Good suggestions! My initial thoughts are:
TKS without eldrazi temple or eye of ugin needs to be compared to other 4 drops. Compared to helm or Karn it won't win the game by itself; we have no other beaters. It also cuts your black count dangerously low for chrome mox. There are more aggressive lists other people have tried in monoB, but this deck is a very focused "go big" deck and so the body is not as relevant. I am not running Rotting Regisaur for the same reason.
This deck is closer in style to Moon stompy than ANT. I have not tried rhystic tutor but wishclaw talisman was quite cuttable for me. Tutors make the deck even worse against fow; instead of being set back 5 mana now you are being set back 8 mana. Generally the deck only has 3 types of cards: acceleration, disruption & expensive "win the game" cards. Pelakka Predation serves the smoothing role more efficiently as it only costs 1 mana more than equivalent cards instead of 3 mana more.
If you want a tutor based mono black helm deck you should check out DETH; transwidden is an excellent brewer/pilot. Tutors pair much more naturally with LED than with 3ball.
Parallax Nexus could definitely be considered in the sideboard disruption slots over dreamstealer/hymn etc. 2B is a nice mana cost for the deck.
Last edited by Reeplcheep; 10-18-2020 at 11:08 PM. Reason: list posted
Parallax Nexus sucked during testing, Rhystic Tutor was nice though. Postboard it can also fetch Thought Distortion against control decks :)
Rhystic Tutor fetching Karakas also helps a lot with the Turbo Depth matchup.
Here's the list that I'm testing right now:
7 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Castle Locthwain
1 Karakas
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
3 Pelakka Predation // Pelakka Caverns
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
4 Karn, the Great Creator
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Cruel Reality
1 Overwhelming Splendor
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Curse of Misfortunes
3 Helm of Obedience
3 Rhystic Tutor
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Mycosynth Lattice
1 Liquimetal Coating
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Vault of Whispers
2 Murderous Rider // Swift End
4 Plague Engineer
1 Necromentia
1 Dystopia
1 Thought Distortion
That build isn't too crazy, and I really like it vs snoko. I tried out Read the Bones in the past, which is not that different a card from rhystic study, and it wasn't horrible. But replacing all your removal with expensive tutors seems really, really bad vs daze decks imo. Feel free to test it out and give me some examples of how it plays out. Especially vs rug.
Congrats on the flawless finish!
I'm curious about how the Ashiok package turn out?
Tested Scroll Rack, in the current list;
Doesn't work. The times I drew Scroll Rack, it's basically a once per game use which let me swap only 2-3 cards in hand. Then you're just drawing back your old cards.
Tested Scroll Rack in a different list with some added shuffle effect. It's playing subpar cards only to make Scroll Rack more viable.
The deck loses it's strength.
(Sideboard) Maze of Ith pops into my mind when talking about an answer to Delver. Uncounterable but subject to Wasteland.
But in all honesty doesn't look very promising. Would require to run multiples and/or Crucible of Worlds.
Spot removal would most probably better.
Ashiok was never boarded in since I only played vs fair creature decks. But skyclave shade was horrible.
Glad to see your experience was similar to mine with scroll rack and I am not crazy.
"Wastelanding" yourself in a 5 drop deck against a daze deck seems very suspect.
How does your deck fare against Elves and D&T? There was a strong presence of both in the latest big online event, less blue. Are you running more than 1 SB Dystopia right now? Plague Engineer?
Eliminate seems way too good to cut. It stabilizes your early game, which is what you need to bridge to the point where the expensive cards win. Rhystic Tutor could also be bad in other blue matchups (Snoko) if they just leave up 2 mana to play counters and instants anyway.
In general d&t and elves are quite favoured. Postboard, they just can't deal with 9 plague engineers (4 real ones, 4 curse of misfortunes, 1 deaths hold).
Additionally due to new printings (apparition/shepard) they have cut most of their true enchantment removal (c.judgment/reclamation sage). They usually don't have any outs to a resolved curse anymore.
After dying to 1 too many karns/jaces/delvers, I am considering replacing dystopia with murderous riders. Dystopia is still great but I may want something a bit more flexible.
My big thought FTW is that eliminate while powerful can be a real drag to draw 2 of in mus where it is dead (depths/doomsday/hard blue control/eldrazi/12post/lands etc...).
I definitely want 4 in the 75 however; I am just wondering if I want a few more flexible removal cards MD. I agree that cutting all md removal will make all aggro mu's horrible, I want at least 4.
Thoughts on going from 4 eliminate MB 2 Murderous Rider SB to 2 eliminate + 2 rider MB 2 more eliminates SB?
It would slightly decrease my g1 against thalia & delver decks, but improve g1 vs everything else. g2 & g3 should be the same (since its the same 75).
The 2/2 split seems worth testing.
How stable is your manabase now with Pelakka? Can you consistently hit 1BB early, or is that cost still a liability? (If I remember correctly, I think that's why you didn't run MD Rider earlier). Between RUG Delver and the recent rise of D&T, there's a lot of Wasteland out there.
If the color requirement is tough, what about 2 Plague Engineer instead? Easier mana cost. It still answers Thalia and other early creatures, can trade on defense, and isn't dead in other matchups. It's probably worse against Oko, Jace and Karn though.
Predation replaced 2 B utility lands and 2 flex slot spells compared to prior lists. Thus (assuming you are using the land side) we went up from 16 to 18 B sources which is the recommended minimum for 1BB spells. Plague engineer seems fine but I really want 4-5 things MD that deal with oko; I would probably run soul shatter if the BB is a problem.
Furthermore, as said above 2x Eliminate hands can be a drag; splitting means 2x eliminate or 2x rider hands will happen only a third of the time as 4x eliminate. Normally 1 eliminate & 1 rider will be better.
In other news, another discord user 5-0'd, which is an important step on the journey from brew to tier 2.
Went 4-2 in the challenge, which was good enough for 12th/54.
2-1 UR delver
2-0 JPA93 on snowko
1-2 doomsday
0-2 lands
2-1 12post
2-0 d&T
Tried out 3 chains in the SB, it did work vs JPA. Overall the losses felt due to non-optimal play or the opponents having the nuts.
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
4 Trinisphere
4 Karn, the Great Creator
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Curse of Death's Hold
4 Ancient Tomb
1 Cruel Reality
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Overwhelming Splendor
4 Curse of Misfortunes
4 City of Traitors
4 Dark Ritual
4 Chrome Mox
2 Eliminate
4 Pelakka Predation
8 Swamp
2 Helm of Obedience
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Murderous Rider
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Mycosynth Lattice
1 Liquimetal Coating
1 Helm of Obedience
2 Eliminate
3 Chains of Mephistopheles
4 Plague Engineer
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Vault of Whispers
Flipped the SB riders with 2 MD eliminates to be more flexible in G1, but that was pretty minor.
Opposition Agent
2B -Rare
Human Rogue
----
Flash
You control your opponents while they are searching their libraries
While an opponent is searching their library, they exile each card they find. You may play those cards for as long as they remain exiled, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast them
---
Absolutely dirty card spoiled. This is a plague engineer for a lot of non-creature decks, hosing depths, doomsday, maverick and more.
On a fundemental level this is a magus of the moon the deck wanted, with tons of upside. Definite sideboard material, possibly maindeck 4 of.
Comboes with field of ruin, scheming symmetry, ghost quarter and assasin's trophy, although we can really only play the first of those effects.
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