[Deck] Death and Taxes

[Medea_]

with the up-tick in storm, is it worth considering 1-2 thorn of amethyst or extra Vryn in the board? possibly in place of 1 gideon (I've been on the RW build with 1 in the board) seems strong to me and worst case scenario they have to decide whether their artifact removal is better used on our equipment or the thorn. yes, i know its not tutorable, and ive only been playing this deck on and off for a few months so take this with a grain of salt. just want to flesh out an idea.

People are leaning towards running 2 more Spirit/Canonist in the main to adapt against the uptick in combo. Thorn is plenty annoying, but it costs an extra with Thalia and doesn't get Vialed in.

[ZEROorDIE]

People are leaning towards running 2 more Spirit/Canonist in the main to adapt against the uptick in combo. Thorn is plenty annoying, but it costs an extra with Thalia and doesn't get Vialed in.

I always forget how many applications canonist has, that is a much smoother solution with recruiter.

[RobNC]

Ethersworn Canonist also survives a single Dread of Night, whereas Vryn Wingmare does not.

[Fry]

Yeah, I have tried all the pingers at this point. Sharpshooter is a very powerful card for 3 mana but the surprise factor of Sparkmage is worth a lot and...it's human. I also like Fireslinger quite a bit, I think Sparkmage is marginally better but not drastically better.

One thing that nobody has been doing (that seems reasonable for our new meta) is playing multiple copies of pingers. Like if 2-3 Sudden Demises is justifiable, 2-3 Sparkmages should be too, or perhaps a mix.

In my board I do a 1/1 split of Demise and Sparkmage. I think Demise has more raw power, but the Sparkmage being tutorable and Vialable is crazy good too.

[Mrplow25]

Would two caverns and the aether vials be enough to cast 1 orzhov pontiff from the sideboard in rw taxes

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[gh0st_b1rd]

Would two caverns and the aether vials be enough to cast 1 orzhov pontiff from the sideboard in rw taxes

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Yes. Many Monowhite decks have done this. I would still stick with Cunning Sparkmage if you can. If TNN is the primary concern I would recommend that you find answers for theit equipment instead.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Pontiff is actually good against elves, the mirror, and storm, who have been actively moving to the EtW plan afaik.

I'm going to also try a Pontiff in RW Taxes board, probably in addition to the Cunning Sparkmage.

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[hill_giant]

Iatee has played Cunning Sparkmage and Fireslinger in the past, I believe. I conceptually like Sharpshooter (the idea of wiping the opposing board is really appealing), though it is a touch slower than other options, and not a human if you are on a Cavern build. The real question is whether pingers are better than Sudden Demise.

Edit: Someone tried Quietus Spike on MTGS once. It didn't perform well and we didn't hear much about it.

I have played sharpshooter in the past. He sounds great in theory, but he's incredibly slow, as he costs three and does nothing when he hits play. I would never play him over cunning sparkmage, as exciting as the "kill your board" line sounds.

[IRS]

Hello,

I played in a legacy qualifier today for GP Vegas with DisgruntledElk's Red Dead Taxes with -1 Sudden demise and +1 Canonist in the SB because I could not get the 3rd demise. Here is the list:

Red Dead Taxes:
26 Creatures:
4 Mom
4 Thalia
4 SFM
2 Revoker
2 Spirit of the Labyrinth
3 Flickerwisp
2 Recruiter of the Guard
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Sanctum Prelate
3 Magus of the Moon

Spells:11
4 Vial
4 STP
1 Jitte
1 SoFI
1 Batterskull

Land: 23
2 Cavern of Souls
3 Plains
2 Plateau
4 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
3 Karakas
4 Wasteland
4 Port

SB: 15
1 Path
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Sudden Demise
2 Canonist
1 Containment Priest
1 RIP
1 Manriki-Gusari
1 Council's Judgment
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar

Game 1 1-2 vs classic DT [0-1]: I beat him the first game with a quick jitte equip. The second and third games he managed to equip the jitte and remove mine with Council's judgement for the win. I played very badly as it was my first time with non-monowhite DT and my opponent is excellent at playing his deck and I have little experience with the mirror (previously I managed to win a bunch using SoWaP main). Overall I feel this matchup is harder than the monowhite version for the mirror, especially because Magus is not good against them.

Game 2 2-0 vs ANT [1-1]: This game was interesting. First game I don't know what he's on, I play a SFM opening and he tries to go off, fails and concedes. Game 2 -4 StP -SoFaI -3 Flickerwisp +2 Canonist +2 Surgical Extraction+1 RiP +1 Prelate +1 Macabre. For the second game I have a good hand with prelate, RiP and thalia, plains and Port. I play T2, followed into T3 Prelate on 4. He plays ad nauseam and gets down to 2, thinks for a long a time, and then conceeds since I had lethal on board with the lone prelate.

Game 3 1-2 vs Shardless BUG Leovold [2-1]: The first game I keep a greedy hand with a single land and a vial because it had a great progression of cards. Sadly, he plays Deathrite and destroys the vial before I can put it to use, I do not draw any lands for 4 turns and he kills me with +Leovold and 2 Goyfs and Shardless Agent. He does not get to see any of my cards and I knew exactly what he had. Game 2: +1 Path +2 Sudden Demise +1 RiP +1 Mirran Crusader +1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar -2 revoker -3 flickerwisp -1 prelate. Game 2 I have a karakas, a fetchland, mom, magus and StP. I play karakas and StP his deathrite and next turn I play a wasteland and mom in order to hide my fetch and keep the guise of playing DT. He plays a Strix and passes and then I fetch for Plateau and Magus him. He inmediately goes silent and is pissed about the presence of Magus on the board. Having him locked down, it goes into a long grindy game where he had the strix and the Deathrite plus a shardless agent to block until I found mom and Recruiter, and searched for P+K to try them out since it gave me board control to get rid of pesky strix and other small critter with fliers to get through damage, it felt good but also it was kind of a win more situation as he was locked up by Magus, which esentially won the game. Game 3 I have Magus and manage to draw into 2 crusaders. I T3 magus him with 2 plains on board, leading to double crusaders, he has 2 goyfs but the unblockable damage from the crusaders is too much for him to handle and he concedes.

Game 4 0-2 vs ANT [2-2]: The first game kills me T2 tendrils combo, I have no interaction and I die. I SB in the same way as G2, and I have a very good draw with RiP, Thalia, canonist, port and some lands. I play Thalia followed by Canonist and begin to chip damage, drawing into extraction and macabre, but with RiP in play they were essentially dead draws. I do draw a second port that allows me to double port me so he cant really do anything, until he finds Fatal Push and kills my Canonist. Eventually, he is at 5 life and I play a flickerwisp in order to have lethal on board and flicker my land to double port him. On his turn he unfortunately plays DoN, killing my creatures, and he follows this up with a second DoN, my only out is Council's judgement, which I did not board;he makes a ton of goblins off empty the warrens and kills me. Overall, I was 1 turn away from victory and it was very close. However I feel double Dread of Night is hard to beat. I wonder if its worth boarding in Council's judgement in this matchup because of DoN? because it is a dead draw otherwise.

Game 5 2-1 vs Elves [3-2]: The first game I play vial into mom into SFM searching for jitte, he GSZ for reclamation sage, kills Jitte and then proceeds to Natural Order the behemoth for the kill. Game 2 -4 Thalia -3 Flickerwisp -batterskull +2 Canonist +1 Containment priest +1 path +2 Sudden Demise +1crusaders +1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar. I draw into canonist, a plateau, wasteland and Sudden demise. I play the canonist and wasteland his first cradle, although he gets a few elves out and he gets rid of canonist via reclamation sage. He has 2 dryad arbors, symbiote, visionary and deahrite shaman when I Path Symbiote and then Sudden Demise on their heads, they all die and he conceeds. Game 3 I vial in a mom and canonist into crusader to begin pushing damage through, but I only have plains and plateau. in the meantime I also Magus him since I do not need the second W due to using vial but it does not appear to be too relevant since he has basic forests out, but I put it down just to turn off potential cradles. I draw into recruiter and vial it in to find Containment priest. He probably forgets what he does since he proceeds to play Natural Order and I flash in Containment priest in response. Nothing happens, he plays some nettle sentinels, I revoker the elf dude who taps 3 elves to make 3 green mana, he calls a judge because he forgets it is not pithing needle. This breaks his back and crusader takes it in for the win.

Overall, I feel quite pleased with the power level of the deck. I feel the BUG matchup is very strong given how powerful magus and crusader are, especially Magus in combination with vial. I feel sudden demise is fantastic in the elves matchup, completely tilting it in our favor. This deck takes some time to get accustomed to because of the Magus/land interactions that are not intuitive if you only have experience with monowhite DT, so I made a ton of mistakes in this area. I feel that the potential is very high if played correctly. I do feel that the matchup vs monowhite DT is weaker, given that they are not really susceptible to Magus, but overall its still a game of getting Jitte online first.

Also, I played Pia and Kiran, but I have seen people attempting to mainboard it, and I cannot understand why it is so powerful. I felt that the combination of Magus and this is not good given that it negates the Karakas/Vial combo and I feel this combo is what makes it stand out. What am I missing here?

Thanks for reading.

[OopsMissedTrigger]

DnT won the GP Trial Vegas @ SpellholdGames (6 rounds.. 60+ players I think they said). Video is on twitch (warning you that it isn't pretty )

Decked looked like a toolbox build with stuff like Sparkmage, Magus of the Moon and Moat(!), Kambal etc. He even found room for new Thalia. Not sure if we get decklists for that tournament, but after watching the stream I am left with an impression that this tournament wasn't that high level (amount of misplays and errors were quite higher than what I am used to seeing at my LGS), so the results may not give the best take on the meta.

[Ayiluss]

DnT won the GP Trial Vegas @ SpellholdGames (6 rounds.. 60+ players I think they said). Video is on twitch (warning you that it isn't pretty )

Decked looked like a toolbox build with stuff like Sparkmage, Magus of the Moon and Moat(!), Kambal etc. He even found room for new Thalia. Not sure if we get decklists for that tournament, but after watching the stream I am left with an impression that this tournament wasn't that high level (amount of misplays and errors were quite higher than what I am used to seeing at my LGS), so the results may not give the best take on the meta.

Do you have a link?

[OopsMissedTrigger]

Do you have a link?

https://www.twitch.tv/spellholdgames/videos/all

Not sure how long they stay up.

[Ayiluss]

https://www.twitch.tv/spellholdgames/videos/all

Not sure how long they stay up.

Thanks!

[a tribe called trest]

petal death and taxes

lands 22

Karakas 3x
Rishadan Port 4x
Wasteland 4x
Ghost Quarter 1x
Plains 10x


Creatures 23

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 4x
Thalia, Heretic Cathar 3x
Stoneforge Mystic 4x
Mother of Runes 4x
Serra Avenger 4x
Flickerwisp 4x


Artifacts 11

Aether Vial x4
Lotus Petal x4
Batterskull x1
Umezawa's Jitte x1
Sword of Fire and Ice x1


Instant/sorcery 4

Swords to Plowshares x4


SB 15

Moat x1
Baneslayer Angel x1
Rest in Peace x3
Path to Exile x2
Council's Judgement x1
Disenchant x1
Ethersworn Canonist x3
Containment Priest x3




Spent some time exploring Lotus Petal and it felt very reasonable in the new meta. The initial reason for testing was to make the elves matchup a semi-reasonable one for the mono white build(by turboing out Thalia 2.0 and canonist/priests). The secondary reason was without Miracles slowing down the format, mono white feels like it needs to become more opening hand dependent than in the past. I considered Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond to be non starters since without recruiter, I can't overcome the card disadvantage. Ancient tomb is an interesting idea, but unlike petal it doesn't actually help for turn 1 interaction as its colorless mana. It's possible the deck should just become thalia stompy, but I'd still prefer the power of aether vial/mother of runes/rishadan port/swords to plowshares over chalice of the void.

The rest of the list is loosely based off the "stock" DnT builds Medea posted in the past with 4 Serra Avengers and 3 Mirran Crusaders. Instead I swap the crusaders for Thalias and the Revokers for petals. If greedy mana bases are gonna become the flavor, I'd rather be racing with Thalia 2.0 than revoker on DRS. Havent tested extensively, but so far I've only missed the revoker in the mirror, which admittedly this version is a heavy dog too. Considering an Eldrazi Displacer to help with that in tandem with the containment priests. Serra Avenger is the better beater for this deck over Mirran Crusader because with only 22 actual lands, there are times you turbo out a thalia early and are stuck on only 2 lands later. Certainly possible I should have them in the 75 though. Moat and Baneslayer are just tests against elves and true name nemesis. Preferred it to be a gisela, but went with baneslayer since its at least a hail mary in the mirror. Without revokers, those could easily be holy light or other narrow hate like that.

Pros - things like turn 1 stp your drs, play petal aether vial are game breaking. As is turn 1 Thalia against a large swath of the field. Post board turn 1 rip and canonist is a treat.
Cons - going down to 22 lands with 4 petals gives me 26 virtual land sources. so unless i need a land in the late game, I've increased the amount of dead top decks over traditional lists by 3. This has occasionally been frustrating.


By no means have I done heavy testing with this, but for the most part its shown promise. Maybe nothing significant happens to the meta and this is all irrelevant, but it seems pretty likely we are going to need to speed up as mono white. If I was showing up to a major tournament today, I'd just sleeve up whatever red splash Iatee is on since that seems better positioned. If I was set on running a mono white list, I'd give something out of the ordinary like this a shot.

[WashableWater1]

petal death and taxes

lands 22

Karakas 3x
Rishadan Port 4x
Wasteland 4x
Ghost Quarter 1x
Plains 10x


Creatures 23

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 4x
Thalia, Heretic Cathar 3x
Stoneforge Mystic 4x
Mother of Runes 4x
Serra Avenger 4x
Flickerwisp 4x


Artifacts 11

Aether Vial x4
Lotus Petal x4
Batterskull x1
Umezawa's Jitte x1
Sword of Fire and Ice x1


Instant/sorcery 4

Swords to Plowshares x4


SB 15

Moat x1
Baneslayer Angel x1
Rest in Peace x3
Path to Exile x2
Council's Judgement x1
Disenchant x1
Ethersworn Canonist x3
Containment Priest x3




Spent some time exploring Lotus Petal and it felt very reasonable in the new meta. The initial reason for testing was to make the elves matchup a semi-reasonable one for the mono white build(by turboing out Thalia 2.0 and canonist/priests). The secondary reason was without Miracles slowing down the format, mono white feels like it needs to become more opening hand dependent than in the past. I considered Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond to be non starters since without recruiter, I can't overcome the card disadvantage. Ancient tomb is an interesting idea, but unlike petal it doesn't actually help for turn 1 interaction as its colorless mana. It's possible the deck should just become thalia stompy, but I'd still prefer the power of aether vial/mother of runes/rishadan port/swords to plowshares over chalice of the void.

The rest of the list is loosely based off the "stock" DnT builds Medea posted in the past with 4 Serra Avengers and 3 Mirran Crusaders. Instead I swap the crusaders for Thalias and the Revokers for petals. If greedy mana bases are gonna become the flavor, I'd rather be racing with Thalia 2.0 than revoker on DRS. Havent tested extensively, but so far I've only missed the revoker in the mirror, which admittedly this version is a heavy dog too. Considering an Eldrazi Displacer to help with that in tandem with the containment priests. Serra Avenger is the better beater for this deck over Mirran Crusader because with only 22 actual lands, there are times you turbo out a thalia early and are stuck on only 2 lands later. Certainly possible I should have them in the 75 though. Moat and Baneslayer are just tests against elves and true name nemesis. Preferred it to be a gisela, but went with baneslayer since its at least a hail mary in the mirror. Without revokers, those could easily be holy light or other narrow hate like that.

Pros - things like turn 1 stp your drs, play petal aether vial are game breaking. As is turn 1 Thalia against a large swath of the field. Post board turn 1 rip and canonist is a treat.
Cons - going down to 22 lands with 4 petals gives me 26 virtual land sources. so unless i need a land in the late game, I've increased the amount of dead top decks over traditional lists by 3. This has occasionally been frustrating.


By no means have I done heavy testing with this, but for the most part its shown promise. Maybe nothing significant happens to the meta and this is all irrelevant, but it seems pretty likely we are going to need to speed up as mono white. If I was showing up to a major tournament today, I'd just sleeve up whatever red splash Iatee is on since that seems better positioned. If I was set on running a mono white list, I'd give something out of the ordinary like this a shot.

In my experience, fast mana is a sideboard card. Burning a card to get one turn ahead is only really valuable against combo, where you are looking to lock them out rather than grinding them out. When I'm in a combo heavy meta, I tend to run 2 petal 2 Chrome Mox off the sideboard. Getting lock pieces out turn one is often good enough

[Bosque]

In a combo heavy meta I prefer the spirit guides, since in the red or green splashes they are still creatures you can cast and not 100% dead cards later in the game.

[Kami]

Long-time reader, but I rarely write anything

I think that monoW is still possible, even better in some metas (probably we'll have a mix of monoW, red splash and black splash further on).

The card that is impressing me right now is canonist. I'm using 2 main, 2 sb, and it really changes a lot of matchups simply by existing in your MD game 1.


My base list:

12 plains (eventually 1 horizon canopy in place of 1 plains)
4 waste
4 port
3 kakas

4 mother
4 thalia
4 stoneforge
4 flickerwisp
2 canonist
2 revoker
2 recruiter
2 mirran crusader
2 serra avenger (flex, I'll try different things in this slots)

4 stp
4 vial
3 equip (jitte, SoFI, batterskull)



Side
2 containment (i think 2 is the right number now, 1 is too low)
2 canonist
1 revoker
1 leonin relic warder
1 path to exile
1 pithing needle
2 council
2 faerie macabre
1 rest in peace (maybe -1 macabre + 1 RiP)
1 surgical extraction
1 prelate (still useful?)



PS: sorry by my really poor english... I'm trying

[vtml1984]

I looked at the MKM Frankfort and Death and Taxes was played the second most, and no Top 8 showings. I know it is a sample size of one, and that they could have just been paired against Elves every round. I just thought it was interesting. When I looked they didn't have anything outside the Top so it could have just been breakers.

Everything, except Elves, that was in the Top 8 seemed like decks we should have game against (even the mono-white version). This is why I was surprised, but again only one event.

[vtml1984]

Long-time reader, but I rarely write anything

I think that monoW is still possible, even better in some metas (probably we'll have a mix of monoW, red splash and black splash further on).

The card that is impressing me right now is canonist. I'm using 2 main, 2 sb, and it really changes a lot of matchups simply by existing in your MD game 1.


My base list:

12 plains (eventually 1 horizon canopy in place of 1 plains)
4 waste
4 port
3 kakas

4 mother
4 thalia
4 stoneforge
4 flickerwisp
2 canonist
2 revoker
2 recruiter
2 mirran crusader
2 serra avenger (flex, I'll try different things in this slots)

4 stp
4 vial
3 equip (jitte, SoFI, batterskull)



Side
2 containment (i think 2 is the right number now, 1 is too low)
2 canonist
1 revoker
1 leonin relic warder
1 path to exile
1 pithing needle
2 council
2 faerie macabre
1 rest in peace (maybe -1 macabre + 1 RiP)
1 surgical extraction
1 prelate (still useful?)



PS: sorry by my really poor english... I'm trying

Why didn't you like Sanctum Prelate?

Why no anti-hate for Dread of Night?

Edit: I like the list overall, but I would trade a Serra Avenger for a Prelate in the Main.

[Marungo]

Long-time reader, but I rarely write anything

I think that monoW is still possible, even better in some metas (probably we'll have a mix of monoW, red splash and black splash further on).

The card that is impressing me right now is canonist. I'm using 2 main, 2 sb, and it really changes a lot of matchups simply by existing in your MD game 1.


My base list:

12 plains (eventually 1 horizon canopy in place of 1 plains)
4 waste
4 port
3 kakas

4 mother
4 thalia
4 stoneforge
4 flickerwisp
2 canonist
2 revoker
2 recruiter
2 mirran crusader
2 serra avenger (flex, I'll try different things in this slots)

4 stp
4 vial
3 equip (jitte, SoFI, batterskull)



Side
2 containment (i think 2 is the right number now, 1 is too low)
2 canonist
1 revoker
1 leonin relic warder
1 path to exile
1 pithing needle
2 council
2 faerie macabre
1 rest in peace (maybe -1 macabre + 1 RiP)
1 surgical extraction
1 prelate (still useful?)



PS: sorry by my really poor english... I'm trying

Your English is fantastic. Better than that of plenty of people I've seen type. As for your list it's actually pretty close to the one I've posted a page or two back. Only difference is -1 avenger and -1 canonist for +1 revoker +1 spirit of the labyrinth. At least in the main that is. Side is different in a few spots. I think mono white is still quite good and if enough combo arises I'll likely cut the spirit for a second canonist. Spirit is better vs more decks in a general field though and still combo applicable so I like one right now.