[Deck] Death and Taxes

[Secretly.A.Bee]

@rostov That's cool, sounds like he's having a good time! I'll never be able to bring myself to value Shalai #1 over Flickerwisp #4 for myself, but it's about what you are comfortable with at the time. If I played Shalai these days, it would definitely be in the sideboard. Now can probably feel like a hard time to play legacy with the meta left quaking from the bans, I think.

I play 2md/1sb Brightling. Feels perfect, sometimes it's important to draw it and that's why I like 3 vs. burn and miracles so far. I'm toying with the idea of putting SoWP in the main and relegating Batterskull to the board. I really want to, but thus far I'm just too chicken. I don't really know how Batterskull will match up against certain archetypes. RUG Delver and goblins, for instance.

[zhandro]

@rostov That's cool, sounds like he's having a good time! I'll never be able to bring myself to value Shalai #1 over Flickerwisp #4 for myself, but it's about what you are comfortable with at the time. If I played Shalai these days, it would definitely be in the sideboard. Now can probably feel like a hard time to play legacy with the meta left quaking from the bans, I think.

I play 2md/1sb Brightling. Feels perfect, sometimes it's important to draw it and that's why I like 3 vs. burn and miracles so far. I'm toying with the idea of putting SoWP in the main and relegating Batterskull to the board. I really want to, but thus far I'm just too chicken. I don't really know how Batterskull will match up against certain archetypes. RUG Delver and goblins, for instance.

Wait, Brightling is good against Burn? That can't be right...I feel like by turn 4 if you don't have a Thalia or something disruptive, you're just dead. I suppose Batterskull can attack no earlier than Brightling... still, I'm just a bit surprised, since I always hear about Brightling's success against miracles and never about Burn. I've been looking to improve my matchup versus Burn, as I feel I've lost to that deck more than I should be.

[Tyres]

Yeah Brightling isnt the allmighty savior against Burn. He's somehow the same as Batterskull and Jitte. If you manage to fetch Skull with SfM on Turn 2 and the SfM survives, then you will win G1. Jitte is even harder to get connected. Brightling is at least 1 turn slower and on the play he often saves you, but if you're on the draw its often "ohh hopefully my opponents bricks for 1-2 turns so I can take over this game".
I myself am not worrying to much about this match up because:

#1 not many good players are playing Burn and if youre playing tight and right you will find youre open windows to overcome the average Burn player.
#2 Its just not that relevant in the meta. If it would be you could easily upgrade this specific match up with a lot of cards (pure lifegain or flexible cards like Blessed Alliance)
#3 It's just one of those match up's you have to fight through and often it's decided by 1-2 draws or 1-2 life.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I was simply expressing what it has helped me with so far in a way that any other creature currently up for consideration in Death and Taxes would not have been able to. The lifelink was critical for it in my opinion during the 3 games we played.

Were there play errors? Was the burn player making perfect decisions, did they understand how to approach the matchup? Was my opponent good at piloting the list?

I don't know, but in my opinion a Brightling won me two games vs. burn. That's all the data I have.

[BigFatJiJi]

1) I will sooner trust my own experiences and thoughts on the matchup as well as the opinions of those around me who I respect above all in terms of magic before any “competent pilot”
2) those cards are obviously not staples. The sheer fact that RW Dnt exists proves they aren’t. Cause that deck doesn’t play those cards... hence not a staple of a dnt strategy. Also you only have to go back to the era of dig through time to see the disappearance of Mirran crusader in favor of wingmare. Something you never do to a staple of a deck. A beater is not a staple in this deck. And acting like it is shows a fundamental lack of understanding as to what this deck is all about.
3) yes. It’s good. It’s an option. So is palace jailer. So is mirran crusader. So is Serra avenger. Don’t assert this card that has had literally a month of time spottily showing up in decklists and being a point of deckbuilding contention in the “community” as this godsend staple. It’s a manasink in a deck that didn’t want one and a card that requires you to cut utility lands. Card is good. I own them. But it has drawbacks.
4) Good fair card is good vs good fair decks. I said in the past if you expect a field of Miracles (which many of you do and I don’t) play brightling. It is great in that matchup and totally worth a slot in the deck. But Crusader is just as good if not outright better against RUG Delver. Blocks Mongoose and goyf. I guess I get hosed by their miser true name but there’s countless other ways to deal with that issue. Also people are also concerned about Revoker more than any other card in our deck! Also BUG players are more concerned about Mirran Crusader than any other card in our deck! There are a lot of cards DNT can play that people are really scared of depending on the deck they are playing. Sanctum Prelate is good from a combo players perspective and some people aren’t even playing that guy for some reason. Point being: we’ve had one event and we don’t even know how the format will really shake out. I look at this event and see a combo mirror in the finals and figure people will realize they have a green light to play their degenerate combo decks again. How we interpret this information may be different. Totally fine. But how we build our decks from here is not clear, and the sheer fact that the “community” is so divided on brightling shows that this idea that it’s a staple and we all are throwing two in our deck is just a false one.

Seems like a lot of confusion about a sideboard option card being called a staple. Barely fits into the deck as it does not contribute to the prison plan as well as being not tutorable, making,it a mana hungry beater that you have no selection for in a deck wanting to use its lands for mana denial. And I agree all the "competent" magic players around me hate the card. Only knuckle draggers at fmn are champions of blightning.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Seems like a lot of confusion about a sideboard option card being called a staple. Barely fits into the deck as it does not contribute to the prison plan as well as being not tutorable, making,it a mana hungry beater that you have no selection for in a deck wanting to use its lands for mana denial. And I agree all the "competent" magic players around me hate the card. Only knuckle draggers at fmn are champions of blightning.

Thanks for your opinion. You mono white aggro players crack me up.

[Lord Darkview]

In general, it's a good idea to ignore the comments of someone who makes an account just to lob a baseless insult at a group of people he disagrees with. In fact, just ignore anyone who substitutes pejoratives for both evidence and theory-craft.

Fact: Most people who have tested Brightling have positive things to say about the card.
Fact: Most people who are critical of Brightling seem to have dismissed it without testing it.
Fact: We now have results indicating that competant DnT pilots can do quite well in the current meta. Some builds included Brightling, others did not.

Conclusion: Brightling is a perfectly acceptable beater in the deck, but may not be strictly ideal (let alone necessary) for all environments.

[TokenMaster]

It seems silly to pit Brightling into extremes by declaring it as either hot garbage ir a staple when in reality it's in the beater flex slot of the deck.

I also think trusting solely your personal experiences isn't an ideal way to go about testing a card when 1) You want a large sample size played in a variety of contexts to avoid bias, and 2) other players may very well be taking different lines/making different decisions to make a card work. At cmc 3 Brightling is a card that punishes you heavily for misplaying it or if some things don't come together but being able to vial it in or decide when it's fine to jam it can be heavily rewarding. Time will tell when it's a great choice in the long run but that a large number of players have had success with it lately shouldn't be ignored.

Sent from my SM-G892U using Tapatalk

[jwl3gg]

Seems like a lot of confusion about a sideboard option card being called a staple. Barely fits into the deck as it does not contribute to the prison plan as well as being not tutorable, making,it a mana hungry beater that you have no selection for in a deck wanting to use its lands for mana denial. And I agree all the "competent" magic players around me hate the card. Only knuckle draggers at fmn are champions of blightning.

Yeah, name calling is a great sign of a good argument. 😒

[rostov]

I'm toying with the idea of putting SoWP in the main and relegating Batterskull to the board. I really want to, but thus far I'm just too chicken. I don't really know how Batterskull will match up against certain archetypes. RUG Delver and goblins, for instance.

This was tested with moderate success (55% game win rate) taking out batterskull altogether and putting sowap in the main, against a local meta (2 months worth) that had mirror dnt and burn as well, during the previous win-a-dual 7 weeks ago (well before the ban). However in another LGS he had a better win rate (66% game win rate) -- key match was against another fellow DnT:

Opponent: aether vial in SFM tutors jitte.
son: aether vial in SFM tutors jitte
<later>
Opponent: equips jitte to SFM, attacks
son: taps SFM to bring batterskull (was in hand the whole time), blocks.

3-1 that night. Only loss to ANT with probe (just 2-3 days before ban); build was WW, decklist with 2 revokers 4 mirran's 2 shalai no serras. . Just sometimes there are cute scenarios where old school batterskull comes in nicely; in light of DnT getting more popular it'll stay for now while trying to race burn with 2 brighlings and/or 1 shalai while gambling with 23 lands.


Talking about goblins I was quite on board to get some holy lights, but son's suggesting something more radical: planar collapse. Argument: so what if we lose our creatures: we lose less than goblins for board state. Recently he's taken out cataclysm so I think that's where his planar collapse is going to fit in if the meta turns out to be fast creatures. Second opinion appreciated on this.

[RobNC]

D&T won a local Eternal Weekend Trial yesterday with 15 players.

I was playing Maverick and he beat me down with a Brightling I couldn't answer (especially once he got a SoWaP on it and I drew three STP in a row!). Remorseful Cleric is also great against Maverick.

Semifinals were against a BUG control deck that normally eats D&T for breakfast, but it can't handle Brightling. D&T with Brightling was the BUG deck's only loss in 5 rounds of swiss and lost to it again in the finals. The D&T winner was undefeated the whole day.

Brightling is real. Still don't know if I want more than two but it's freaking great. I personally replaced Avengers with them, but now I'm trying to find space for Clerics too.

[kombatkiwi]

Talking about goblins I was quite on board to get some holy lights, but son's suggesting something more radical: planar collapse. Argument: so what if we lose our creatures: we lose less than goblins for board state. Recently he's taken out cataclysm so I think that's where his planar collapse is going to fit in if the meta turns out to be fast creatures. Second opinion appreciated on this.

Goblins doesn't lose to removal, it loses to moat
1 Mother of Runes is worth more than a Matron and 2 Ringleaders or whatever

In the equipment/vial deck moat = Kor Firewalker

[non-inflammable]

Brightling is real. Still don't know if I want more than two but it's freaking great. I personally replaced Avengers with them, but now I'm trying to find space for Clerics too.

I played two MD brightling last night and went 3-1 losing only to grixis delver as my final opponent.
opponents were in order: eldrazi 12 post, BW vampires, green stompy and grixis delver.
I mostly played the list posted by redtwister on page 490. thanx!

2 Brightling main and 1 foil brightling in my SB was solid but it does become a huge mana sink; optimally, brightling should be vialed in.
1 remorseful cleric main and 6 other graveyard hosers in my SB but I didn't see any real GY strategies (just goyfs and bloodghasts).

Fun play with exact mana: recruiter to SFM, vial in SFM, jitte, cast jitte, equip to mom and attack! (mom was pithing needled) and start machine-gunning the board.
I even got to live the dream against eldrazi 12 post: mangara, aether vial and a karakas by turn three. He had no permanents in play by end.
Bad beats against grixis delver: he eventually gets to three mana and casts his one sulfur elemental.

D&T has lots of answers to the coming meta and I'd bet it's gonna be a DTB for a long time.
Start preparing for the mirror, lol...

[geneyquakes]

Hey everyone, I took 1st place at a seven-round plus t8 tournament at Hareruya today, good for a shiny judge Flusterstorm for first place.

I wrote up a report over on reddit, which you can see here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/c...rm_legacy_cup/

Here is a decklist:
https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/15-0...?cb=1531663321

Here is a photo I took of the deck, with the prize smashed in the middle:
https://imgur.com/VNqSZHi

Deck is great, was super fun and felt really good all day. Have some tweaking to do but I like where it is at.

[Umezete]

Went 4/2 at a local win a dual event. My losses were mostly due to horrendous luck one match (literally never drew a land outside my opener in 2 games that lasted 8+ turns) and playing like a complete moron match 1 against a good miracles player because I haven't had much time to play lately and was way rusty.

Brighting did great, but I played against 2 bridge players so that is kinda just stating the obvious. I also played some MD prelates which I was a fan of.

Anyway, games went like this

Round 1 Miracles 0/2

G1 I kept a vial and double mom hand and drew very little relevant cards for this matchup. That said, I was also playing sloppy and forgot vendillion was legendary leading to a blowout with them karakasing to save it from a StoP. I died to a an entreat the angels after finally starting to get kinda back into the game.

G2 Was similiar only I also had to mulligan, I played a bit better and drew less dead cards, but I also failed to draw anything but lands this game and ended up with like 8 or 9 lands by turn 7. Just kinda rolled over and died.


Round 2 Bye

Round 3 Pox 2/0

G1 I knew this would be an interesting match when he turn 1 raven's crime, turn 2 cursed scroll. They dropped a completely useless chains of Mephistopheles as well as some bridged. I dropped a thalia, stoneforge/SOFI (Prob should've grabbed jitte but cursed scroll made me paranoid), and a prelate on 1. Prelate on 1 ends up being really good against his hand and he fails to be able to empty for bridge. Just when things were already looking grim for him a brightling sealed the deal.

G2 I kept a very solid hand with a bunch of dorks including a thalia and revoker (naming scroll). I also get stoneforge and revoker blind call LotV. Opponent's end is a lot of nothing, raven's crime, collective brutality to kill thalia, thought-seized my tutored equipment, and sadly also draws lili shortly after my revoker came down naming it. However, a shrieking affliction and going down to 0 cards on his part almost kills me. A few turns of this actually leave me in danger of dying but a topdecked disenchant goes the distance.

Round 4 Eldrazi 0/2

G1 Keep a 2 lander with a vial. Literally never ever draw another land and end up so glutted on 3 drops I couldn't come back. On his end he got turn 2 Reshaper, turn 3 thought-knot, turn 4 smasher, turn 5 karn and token, turn 6 setting up with vesuvas and cloudposts for turn 7 eye and 2nd smasher. Being so gated on mana with my mono 3 drop hand of recruiters, wisps, and prelates kept me out of the game.

G2 I keep a prob risky hand of vial and one land. I literally never draw a 2nd land, vial almost is enough with the relic warder, revoker, and flickerwisps I got to play but I ended up losing to thought-knot into smasher into karn.

(I feel like this matchup is decently reasonable, just completely fucked on mana)

Round 5 Thopter combo

G1 Had an early thalia for disruption he collective brutatlitied. He chalices for 1 and I prelate at 2 guessing both he was on thopter/sword and saw brutalities. Another prelate at 4 just in case of JTMS or Tez comes down when he gets bridge online. Eventually he dies to brightling being able to swing under bridge.

G2 Kept a hand with double council's judgement and enough land to cast them + Stoneforge. Get down stoneforge and jitte early but he get's down thopter combo. I play brightling, next turn equip and swing. He tries to race brightling with his thopter combo and a million mana and loses that race. I eventually manage to council's judgement a combopiece adn his board is quickly wiped out by jitte counters. In this game brightling did alot of work, gaining me way way too much life (gained me 20 something that game) while being impossible to effectively kill.

Round 6 Grixis delver

G1 he gets the dream on the play draw again't a slowish hand of mine, turn 1 delver, turn 2 ponder, fetch, daze. Turn 3 swiftspear+ cantrip, turn 4 bolt my blocker, turn 5 kill.

G2 I keep a hand of alot of removal but still get a StoP spell pierced. Still, have enough removal for his delver and gurmag. Turn 4 down comes brightling. he tries to diabolic edict it and I bounce brightling and get it next turn. was down to fumes at that point and died really quickly.

G3 He keeps a hand with delver, cantrip, but only one land. I kill delver, drop stoneforge, then wasteland him and get out a jitte and go to town. He misses his landrop and concedes.

My takeaways:

Didn't come up in matches but RB reanimator was popular at the tourney, remorseful cleric is probably a staple.

Bridge is popular in Japan, and so is box. Therefore I fully expect brightling to be a staple for me going forward.

Brightling is very good, not the end all be all, but when she's good she's VERY good. However the card is still a resource hog.

I need to work though my rust and learn how to SB again while I"m at it, haven't played in a legacy event in almost a year.

[rostov]

Not very sample strong for day 2 metagame SCG team trios but reanimator is somehow missing



Legacy

Temur Delver – 5

Death and Taxes – 4

Sneak and Show – 3

Lands – 2

Miracles – 2

Grixis Delver – 2

Storm – 1

Infect – 1

Jeskai Delver – 1

Grixis Control – 1

U/W Stoneblade – 1

Grixis Tezzeret – 1

Sultai Control – 1

Mono-Red Prison – 1

[redtwister]

@rostov
Yeah, not sure what to make of that. I think it will be important to see deck lists. I know the BUG Control was on Leovold 1/1 main/side, but I don't think any other deck can even run it.

Temur-DnT-Sneak-Lands-Miracles is kind of what I would expect as the top decks, but Grixis Delver at 2 is interesting. Noah Walker was playing was 4 Bomat Courier + some more draw and another Forked Bolt build. Seems ok, but not great against us.

Then again, bad Legacy decks can still make it if the Standard and Modern players on your team carry you. I would like to see Team W/L records.

I did see TNN in a lot of decks (Temur and Grixis Delver, BUG Control, Stoneblade, Grixis Control, etc.), which may also change things up a bit.

Legacy Classic might be of more value than the Team event in some ways.

My only question at the moment is 2 Mirran Crusader/1 Remorseful Cleric/1 Prelate main or 1 Mirran Crusader/2 Remorseful Cleric/1 Prelate or 2 Mirran Crusader/2 Remorseful Cleric? Otherwise I feel kind of locked in except for sideboard.

2 Gideon
2 Containment Priest
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Council's Judgment
2 RiP
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Recruiter
1 Relic-Warder
1 Surgical
1 Manriki-Gusari

I do feel good about Manriki-Gusari, but I am not sure if I like it better than Sword of War and Peace, which is also very good against Miracles.

Recruiter and prelate feel good for various matches. Recruiter where finding answers if just important. Prelate #2, if I even want 2, where really shutting down a CMC is critical and two are very strong. For example, with BUG Control, if you had Prelate on 1 and 2, I think they are done short of Liliana or a sweeper (and if you have a Mom out, it is probably 1 and 3 and let Mom manage Abrupt Decay.)

[Medea_]

So about those exhibition matches... https://youtu.be/cG8tpj3IxZM

[Adan]

Is anyone running into more goblins? I'm thinking about a big Thalia (or main in place of second Mirran Crusader) in the board to help against Warchief/Chieftain draws against goblins, and it's splash damage against Sneak Attack, Bizarro Stormy and co.

Btw, I'm playing 2 Remorseful Cleric main. Anyone else using it differently right now?

Goblins is not an issue, I found the matchup to be very good. I played against it at a local FNM last week and felt pretty good about the matchup, once you get the swiss army knife going it's usually smooth sailing. You basically set your Revokers on Gempalm Incinerator in the dark and then usually on Goblin Trashmaster because he deals with your weaponry. In one game however I got completely obliterated an unexpected Goblin Chainwhirler that killed a Thalia, Revoker (making Incinerator live again) and Flickerwisp, so that is definitely a card you should have on your radar.

Remorseful Cleric is a card that I don't understand. It's too slow as graveyard hate and the 2/1 flyer body isn't much of an upside actually. I'm pretty sure we are at a point where toughness-1 critters will become more of a liability in the future as Death & Taxes is - in my humble opinion - the best proactive deck right know and performing fairly well, so we have to mentally prepare for more Sulfur Elementals and Dread of Nights. Ansother reason why Serra Avenger has its place in DnT is that it doesn't drop dead so easily to these cards and is a littlebit more resilient to Punishing Fire. That being said I still want to try Brightling. But I don't see myself spending 50 tix on MODO to do that. I would probably start with 1 Brightling in my sideboard (instead of a 2nd Gideon perhaps) and start from there to get a feeling how the card itself plays out, how clunky it is etc.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Ok. I am slotting either Revoker #3 or Needle #1 into my board. SnS got arcane artisan and it's price is rocketing. Seems as much like the real deal for them that Brightling is here.