I also think ethersworn canonist in the board might be a decent anti-combo card as well. I'm not sure if more anti-combo past halo, chant, and abeyance are needed, but it seemed pretty good to cut them off for most of the game (Since most combo doesn't run creature removal).
I haven't found combo to be that difficult a matchup, generally, except for Solidarity of course, but who plays that deck? Fetchland Tendrils is mildly problematic, but 3x Runed Halo on top of all the Chant-effects is pretty good against them.
I'm top 4 on a MTGSal tournament, somehow. This isn't the list I'm using but it's the list I would use and probably will use Saturday, if I can get some of the cards.
// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)
// Lands
18 [IA] Snow-Covered Plains
4 [CS] Scrying Sheets
// Creatures
3 [SC] Eternal Dragon
2 [SHM] Painter's Servant
// Spells
4 [PS] Orim's Chant
1 [TSB] Sacred Mesa
3 [ARE] Enlightened Tutor
3 [WL] Abeyance
4 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [LRW] Oblivion Ring
4 [IA] Swords to Plowshares
2 [MR] Isochron Scepter
3 [10E] Wrath of God
3 [SHM] Runed Halo
1 [LG] Moat
2 [TE] Grindstone
// Sideboard
SB: 2 [MR] Goblin Charbelcher
SB: 2 [EVE] Endless Horizons
SB: 2 [NE] Seal of Cleansing
SB: 2 [FNM] Aura of Silence
SB: 2 [FNM] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [SH] Sacred Ground
SB: 2 [8E] Story Circle
You could run Charbelcher Horizons main, but it's worse against everything but Counterbalance and Chalice, and the 3x maindeck O-Rings and 4x Seal effects in the side aim to deal with that weakness. If you ran Charbelcher Horizons you could also run Humility instead of Moat, but generally Moat's still actually better. Especially with Dragons. There's no doubt that Moat and Grindstones are more expensive, however.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Is it really true that Servant/Grindstone is actually better than Horizons/Belcher? I mean Horizons and Belcher are both fine cards to have on the table, unlike Grindstone and to lesser extent Painter's Servant which suck quite a bit if they don't get paired up. Also, Servant all of a sudden makes creaturehate in the other players deck count, which otherwise would just be dead cards. It's also better against Chalice, EE and Counterbalance.
I can see the advantages of Servant/Stone however, it is much faster and Servant can block small creatures for a while giving you time to find Stone. I'm thinking of picking up this deck myself but with the Belcher/Horizons combo due to the high amount of Dragon Stompy and thus Chalice here. I really need to pick up a Moat somehow though.
Anyway, I would love to see the decks matchups. For the large part the matchups look very good in theory, actually it looks favorable against any deck but Landstill. I can also see the deck having some issues with Goblins if you can't get Chant/Scepter up fast enough. How is the matchup against Aggro Loam, Ichorid, Threshold and Dragon Stompy?
I don't have access to Grindstones, so I've actually been trying out Horizon's Belcher. It's kinda clunky and weird, but resolving a Belcher is really amazing.Originally Posted by Mantis
I haven't played the deck much, but I have tested against Goblins and Dreadstill. Dreadstill wasn't actually that hard because you have many answers to their very few creatures, and the 7 MD chant effects are great for forcing through removal. Goblins was actually pretty easy too because of all the removal you have. Don't forget you can always chant/abeyance early on to hinder their progress and really screw up their curve.
I've got a playtesting gauntlet in the making. We're going to meet up every Thursday now to try out these decks, and I have Ichorid, Threshold, and Dragon Stompy already built (or proxied at least), so I'll let you know how those go as well.
Ok awesome! I might start building the deck in the following weeks, it doesn't seem that hard to pull off bare the Moat which is going to be hard to get my hands on.
So you run 3 Belchers and 2 Horizons? I don't own Grindstones myself as well, and I just have motivational problems to go get a card that is so bad in the abstract but costs such a lot of money. But I'm trying to objectively determine which combo is better suited for this deck in my metagame.
Against Goblins, depending on the situation you could also use the Chants as Fog effects, that way you leave yourself a window to dig for the Scepter. I tend to never underestimate Goblins, as it always seems like you should win that match but yet it's always a difficult one as even with all the removal they are so consistent and the deck is just so well constructed it's always hard to beat. Same goes for Threshold.
In other news, I didn't expect the Dreadstill matchup to be so good, good news although there's no Dreadstill at all in my metagame.
Against what comes Aura of Silence and Sacred Ground in? Is there a lot of Stax in your metagame IBA? Or do you side the Aura of Silence in against Landstill or Dreadstill?
Aura of silence comes in for the same things as seal of cleansing, I assume. It's good against dreadnaught, counterbalance, chalice (stompy), stax (Really good against stax). To a certain extent you could also bring it in against some combo, because their artifact mana is really going to hurt them. I think part of the reason for 2/2 is to dodge pithing needle, and sometimes the extra mana aura costs, you just want to tutor for the seal.
Sacred ground comes in against aggro loam and armageddon stax (I think). Universal LD really hurts us, so we have to make sure that doesn't get resolved. You could also use it against sinkhole/vindicates, but I'd say that's less common.
Against goblins you generally can't use chant as fog, because you'd need a second one in order to get scepter-lock down. The real trick is just slowing down their tempo enough until you get down a moat or scepter-lock. Both will usually let you have enough time to find the necessary pieces to win.
Also, how good have you found eternal dragon? Because honestly...When you're running a combo, it hardly seems like you're going to use him as a win condition, and paying 2 to get a land isn't always the best thing for this deck to do. I know you can shuffle with top, but eh...E. dragon has always felt weak to me to run very many.
Aura/Seal and Charbelcher/Horizon are for Counterbalance and Chalice, which are the deck's biggest weakness, probably. Sacred Ground is for anything that targets lands a lot, which is probably your next biggest weakness. Story Circle is for burn primarily, but is pretty flexible. Those cover pretty much all your weakpoints; Crypt is just for the extra kick against como, Ichorid and Loam. It's probably the least necessary sideboard slot.
While Belcher-Horizons is better in terms of function, it costs a whopping 11 mana to pull off, vs. 6 for Painter-Grindstone. It's a lot easier to go Chant-Combo with the latter than the former. That's why I consider it better maindeck.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
I tested this deck just a little bit and I can say I truly wanted the Belcher combo to be good but it's just inferior to Painter/Grindstone. I had one game where I had the combo on the table but I flipped over my Scrying Sheets and only did 8 dmg, next turn he destroyed my Belcher and proceeded to beat me to death. I would have won with Painter/Stone and I can see flipping over the Sheets and then losing occuring a lot more. The abillity to just go off soon also has a huge advantage that Painter/Stone has.
Yeah, that too. Unless you're facing a meta full of WhateverStompy or ThreshThreshThreshThreshThresh, I don't think it's worth running the Charbelcher-Horizons kill maindeck. The only real argument I could see for it is if you desperately needed the sideboard slots, but I don't think you do. The only deck I kind of worry about that I don't currently have a good sideboard plan for would be Landstill or something random like TrainWreck. But I don't usually sideboard for the control-on-control matchup because, hi, 50 minute rounds?
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Won the MTGSal tournament, which was 50 people (counting only those who were still in as of the second round). So if I top 8 this Saturday, I think that meets current requirements for a DtW.
Would've done better with the above version, though. I don't think I even ever saw the maindeck Argivian Find, and Wing Shards wasn't too helpful. Could've used more Chalice hate in the board.
I'll get a report up in a little bit.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Congrats on the finish Jack. It's refreshing to see a MWC deck do pretty well in a varied metagame. I think this deck qualifies as DTW status. The Mighty Quinn has strong matchups across the board and the deck is consistent. Reminds me of the good old days.
Team Hammafist!
4 sensei's is too much, I think you may want to play, in the course of a long game up to 2 top, so you just have to tutor it if you really need it. The longer the game, the more chance I got to draw a unnecessary copy of sensei's: with as much as 4, they get in your hand and become dead. You might wanna try -1 top + 1 oblivion ring for his vindicating tendencies.
I'm much, much, much more likely to lose a game for want of a Top early than for having an excess Top late, especially since you rarely have to draw the extra Top if you have one active. 4 is emphatically the correct number, I haven't regretted adding the fourth once.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Grats on the finish. Can't wait for the report!
So more Seal of Cleansing / Disenchant in the board for Chalice, and a drop in Wing Shards count?
Hey, cool deck! but i dont understand... Ur saying that if you go t8 in your tournament on saturday this deck will be DtW. But i looked in the top8 thread 2008 and i couldnt find it , not even once. can u tell me where to look or give links? :)
~Maarten
TES raped this deck hardcore, though IDK whether it was just his luck to get 2 chants 2 dark rits and 1 LED in an opening hand or what... My current SB had no hate for it, even though it seems like combo is one of the decks this one has a hard time against.
Ad Nauseam > Runed Halo naming anything
I did about 10 games vs. Dragon Stompy tonight. Just thought I'd say that they're pretty cold to all of your spells, but Chalice @ 1 really does hurt the deck immensely. I remember one game I had 6 1CC cards in my hand when he chaliced. Not fun, especially since I was running Painter/Grindstone combo. Oblivion Ring did great, and so did Runed Halo.
What about going to Classic Style?
Following Build can Win against almost the whole Meta (except Solidarity) and does not have Combo Pieces that are useless alone...
http://www.mercadia.de/home/page.php.../deck&id=69141
mfG, Marius Hausmann
I still had one unintentional draw, and that was with the combo. If there weren't 50-minute time limits, DoJ might be better than Painter's Grindstone, but there is.
I went 4-2-1 at the Source tourney with the list above. The differences were;
-1 Scrying Sheet, +1 Snow-Covered Plains. I wanted to make the alternate kill a bit better. I ran a new-border SC-Plains in place of the 4th sheets, and don't remember seeing it any games where I really wanted a Sheets and didn't have one, but it's hard to tell. I only killed one all tournament with the altnernate kill, though (although I made an opponent scoop another by just killing all his creatures with Belcher, and Endless Horizons was actually useful by itself another).
-1 Grindstone, +1 Decree of Justice. I couldn't find another Grindstone. DoJ was occasionally useful for blockers, but I never won with it, and several times I think I might've been able to win through comboing out with Grindstone.
More details later, although I lost my notesheet.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
So, I'm hoping to take a version of this deck to a fairly large tournament in a couple weeks. Money is somewhat of an issue (I'm just cheap), so there's quite a few things that I won't be doing. If something would really help out the deck and not be too much I'd consider getting it though. This is what I'm thinking of taking right now:
// Lands
1 [DS] Darksteel Citadel
21 [ALA] Plains
// Creatures
1 [PR] Eternal Dragon
// Spells
3 [SHM] Runed Halo
4 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [AT] Sacred Mesa
1 [SC] Decree of Justice
2 [SH] Ensnaring Bridge
4 [PS] Orim's Chant
4 [FNM] Swords to Plowshares
2 [MR] Isochron Scepter
4 [MI] Enlightened Tutor
3 [LRW] Oblivion Ring
3 [WL] Abeyance
1 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
3 [6E] Wrath of God
// Sideboard
SB: 1 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 1 [FNM] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [9E] Sacred Ground
SB: 1 [TE] Hanna's Custody
SB: 1 [IA] Jester's Cap
SB: 3 [WL] Aura of Silence
SB: 1 [UD] Powder Keg
SB: 1 [MM] Ivory Mask
SB: 1 [10E] Pithing Needle
SB: 2 [MM] Story Circle
A few questions I have:
1) How good is the snow engine? I don't actually have all the cards for it, so I'm wondering if it's worth investing in.
2) No painter/grindstone because of money. Is horizons/belcher a better replacement over sacred mesa/decree? Should I get them for the board?
3) No moat because of money either. Is ensnaring bridge worth running? I've played with it a little bit and I've always liked it.
4) Run more/any dragons?
MD inclusions
--I like 4 tutors, and with bridge it's a good way to clear my hand. I also like it with my board, which will probably be a little more toolboxy.
--1 decree for an alternate out (under counters as well), though I haven't necessary found it as amazing as I'd hoped.
--1 relic because I think graveyards are relevant enough in the metagame. This can be a long term answer to graveyard based decks, but can also buy me some time without slowing me down a ton.
Board inclusions
I honestly don't know what to do with the board. THe metagame is going to be open, so I can't really predict what to face. I except there to be quite a few thresh and loam, but other than that I have no idea.
My only experience with this deck has been on workstation, which hardly counts as real matches. I've been thinking about a mono-white deck for a long time though, but because of that I can only guess at what might work well.
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