By 'meaningful' you mean MTGO or tournament results, that will be quite far into the future. I only own a standard mono white DnT and only test this Mardu version on cockatrice/ xmage. The reasons are obvious since (a) no need to financially invest hundreds for experiments, (b) allows quicker changes to the deck, and (c) can test a greater variety of match-ups.Originally Posted by Medea_
Which portion of the deck are you skeptical about? Any concerns about the design can be valuable. Of course the most valuable feedback is from someone who tested it but I doubt anyone cares enough to test it.
I feel a deck that has cut rishadan port and wasteland is no longer death and taxes (though honestly, Flickerwisp feels almost as integral to a seasoned DnT player). One of our core advantages is having a rock-solid manabase while at the same time being able to leverage the additional lands we draw into utility. Without the ability to filter your draw meaningfully (if you either do not have a Bob, or they have removal for an x/1), I feel you will flood out on unstable mana. I'm also not sure how you are reliably casting Bob or Pontiff when you have Magus in your deck. I think you may be stretching too far, but I wish you luck.
Nonbo with Mother of Runes
Good vs TNN, though. I suspect that card would be pretty strong.
@greyryker
I'm not going to beat around the bush here. I'm going to give you my opinion on a couple of things in the hope that this helps you improve as a player and deckbuilder. This is meant to be constructive criticism.
I thought this deck might be a Cockatrice special when I saw it... I'm sure you are aware by now, but the average Legacy player on Cockatrice is extremely unskilled at whatever deck they are playing. Since card availability and finance is removed from the equation, people try out all sorts of stuff. That means players have less experience with each individual deck on average, and it means that people are not going to be familiar with all the intricacies and interactions that are important to any given matchup. You (probably) aren't getting good playtesting data from it, and you're actually (probably) forming bad habits. People also don't know how Magic rules work, so constantly having to explain things like Port and Flickerwisp to your opponents isn't worth your time. People also preemptively concede too much on there. I had a very inflated sense of how good I was back when I tested on Cockatrice 5 or so years ago. If you are going to continue testing on Cockatrice, I encourage you to find skilled players and exclusively test against them. Preferably people you know irl so that you can Skype or something to go over lines while you play.
Your deck is fighting itself a ton since you are trying to do so many things. Let me explain:
You are damaging yourself more with Ancient Tomb and Fetch lands, while also taking away one of your best life gain option (Batterskull) and your best removal spell (StP). If your opponent actually sticks a threat, you have very few ways to actually remove it. You are forced to either try and wall it out, or push through with equipment.
Your manabase is, uh, ambitious. With Warping Wail in the board, you are effectively trying to play a four color deck. Your deck would love to sequence something like Mom into Dark Confidant into Magus of the Moon. That sort of thing can be very tricky, and it's going to be a real thing that your own Magus locks you or sets you back a mana out from time to time. City of Traitors is also a pretty loose choice in a deck that wants to keep hitting lands drops like D&T. Without Port and Wasteland, you've lost your primary way of interacting with some otherwise tricky matchups as well.
One of the advantages of playing a splash build has always been utility, yet your version doesn't run Recruiter of the Guard. Having extra virtual copies of things like Magus, Pontiff, and Prelate as silver bullets was one of the big reasons people were so keen on the splash builds, and your version eschews that. You have also given up the opportunity for creature based removal that is tutorable; that's especially important if you aren't going to have StP in your deck.
Your deck does not have Flickerwisp. If you've been playing D&T for long enough, you should realize how big of a problem that is. You've lost your best piece of protection and general meddling. A good portion of your trickery and interaction is gone.
Also, if you are trying to empty your hand quickly via sol lands, Aether Vial does lose some stock. Vial is also noticeably worse without Flickerwisp around.
In terms of being a lock deck, this sort of thing is probably just going to be inferior to the Red Prison decks that have been popping up.
Now, I'm not saying your approach has no merit; however, in order to keep playing something like it seriously, you have to genuinely believe that the upside to your version beats out all of the potential downsides. Good luck!
Disclaimer: long long text. Sorry all.
Thank you for your commentI mostly test on xmage for reasons you listed on cockatrice, as things are more streamlined and there is a noticeable difference in skill level. However, my reasons for working on this deck isn't because of inflated win/loss ratio. It's because when you're playing the deck, you can see the strengths and weaknesses regardless of whether you are winning or losing.
On the lifeloss, this has not been an issue over 30+ games in testing. I can't really formulate a verbal argument on this as it's a purely empirical observation. If anything, being able to equip 1-2 turns earlier and get around Daze have been more critical in my success. The matches I lose comes down to boardstate most of the time, rather than a race.
The deck loses Swords to Plowshares but I'm considering what I gain in return. Yes you lack reactive answers in the mid-late game and this becomes more obvious on the draw. But look at what Chalice of the Void gets you. It gets you a very strong turn 1-2 interaction vs half the Legacy decks and turns off 30+ cards in the Delver match-up where Swords to Plowshare is at its best. Of course a card like Swords to Plowshares is probably better in the mirror but even there it's a potential dead card because of Mother of Runes.
You may be right about warping wail. I run 9 colorless lands but maybe this is not consistent enough. I replaced one with Ratchet Bomb which have been a superb sideboard card so far. Warping wail is also strangely better than Swords to Plowshares in the mirror - at least, against most threats.
But I want to emphasize again that you are misunderstanding this deck as a 3-color deck. 4 Cavern of Souls and 4 Aether vials allow this deck to keep a very mono white template. This deck does not want to curve into Confidant into a turn 3 Magus - this would be both unrealistic and not an ideal curve! Nor does this deck go all in on the Magus plan. It's simply a late game auto-win card against decks like Lands and Delver (which almost never run basics).
Not every build runs tutorable creature based removals like Banisher of the Priest. I do not think this is a good criticism of the deck. I agree with you Recruiter seems like a very appealing choice. I ran 2 in previous builds and currently testing 0. Sometimes it's too slow even in this deck, where I can play it on turn 2.
I don't want to understate the power of Flickerwisp. But as I have explained before, losing Flickerwisp is in align with the design philosophy of not being overly dependent on a turn 1 Aether Vial. As I play (and watch) DnT gameplays, I am keeping track of the relevance of Port and Wasteland without a vial in play. My view is this deck is not great at denying mana like Goblins (which has 8 ways to cheat creatures) or Delver (which can operate on 1 mana, play cantrips to find lands, and use Stilfe/Wasteland to deny mana better). A typical (and not ideal) DnT line is playing Wasteland/ Port around turn 3+ after deploying your 2-cmc and 3-cmc threats, but by then they lose most of their effectiveness (i.e straining mana). To compensate for the lack of mana denial, this is why the deck is running 4 Chalice, more disruptive 3-drops, and Magus of the Moon.
I'm not necessarily trying to empty my hand quickly. Again, I think you are viewing this as a traditional stompy deck or a blood moon deck! The Sol Lands are there for these key functions: allowing turn 1 chalice, allowing key plays around Daze (turn 1 vial, turn 2 creature), allowing turn 2 curve into Thalia 2.0 & Wingmare, allowing turn 1 revoker, and being able to afford equipments faster (SoFaI equipped by turn 3 for example). Experiencing these benefits have eliminated my fear of the lifeloss entirely. This deck does not want to keep hitting land drops after a certain point because you're not using Wasteland or Ports, which both leave you mana hungry. Hence, the City of Traitors is actually quite good.
Now maybe you could argue that this deck is trying to do too much. I don't think this is the case because the new additions (Ancient tomb, Cavern of Souls, etc.) have a ton of different utility. Perhaps the Magus can be a 1-of and instead, I should focus more on the Dark Confidants and Recruiter of the Guard. Getting the proportions right is definitely the hardest part.
I expect this deck to be worse against Burn and the mirror, but better across (most) of the board. I'm using the words 'expect' because I've gone 2-0 against Burn and 2-1 against mirror so far but this is probably just variance.
Again, I really appreciate your extensive feedback. I don't mind the skeptical tone. I think even if people view this deck as garbage, it is productive to consider different possibilities.
Thank you for the response. Yes as a mono white DnT player, I understand Port and Wasteland are some of the most iconic key parts of the deck. You can read the second half of my response above for why I am experimenting with a no-Port/Wasteland build.
I'm not sure what you mean by filtering. Sure if we flood on lands, Port/ Wasteland can serve as 'additional' spells but half the times they make no impact on the game. We should also consider the unfavorable cases, where you're stuck on 2-3 lands and you need all the mana you can get to cast your threats without vial. Now let me ask this: if Flickerwisp and Serra Avenger were human type, would we not all play 4 Cavern of Souls? I only ask this to point out that a basic heavy land base is not always important. And maybe it's a bit ironic but I do occasionally struggle to cast a double white spell even on mono white DnT.
It's hard to cast Bob/ Pontiff without vial and with Magus in play, but this is why Magus is a late game card. This deck does not want to curve into a turn 3 Magus usually. I use it the same way Imperial Taxes used the card.
Thoughts on Prelate vs Czech Pile in post sideboard games?
Prelate seems alright, but certainly not a star. Early enough on 1 it can stop them from finding the 3 drops that really kill you, or if you can protect it 3 can be ok. The matchup seems hard to evaluate, but Serra Avenger seems awful. Is RIP worth bringing in? It turns off Snapcaster and Deathrite, which both seem to be what usually kills me.
Yeah, I bring in Rip x2, SoLaS, and Gideon x2. Usually board out 4x StP and one random card I feel like is bad at that given moment.
I've been boarding a little differently, taking in CJ as well and boarding out some number of Revokers or Serra Avengers, and also bringing in Prelate. If I leave in Avenger, I leave in a couple plows. Revoker being 1 toughness and an artifact make him a bit of a liability
So the only real reasonable CJ target they have is Jace, right? You can snag other things, but largely I'm not sure that is going to be worth the mana investment. I'm not sure I'm sold on that part of your plan.
I was under the impression that Czech pile played some number of TNN. Is that not the case?
Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk
Some of the lists do but not all of them and even then it's usually as a 1 of.
Because of that color combination they have a chance of playing something weird that you need to be able to deal with, be it a Dread of Night, Null Rod, Garruk Relentless, Liliana of the Veil or something else. The games also typically go long and come down to a race, and having the option to remove a blocker for a lethal attack is nice to have, and the mana cost typically becomes less noticeable when you're drawing one card a turn and playing it because you don't really gain much by not.
Played against it a few times over the weekend. I think Judgment is a necessary evil in the matchup. Czech Pile has so much removal for our creatures that a resolved Jace is actually difficult to kill. Leovold is also kind of an issue cause he makes our mana denial plan a lot worse so Judgment not targeting is relevant.
Sword of light and shadow are great here, for obvious reasons. Since they have a diverse range of cmc, neither chalice nor sanctum prelate locks the game out but you generally want to call 1, 2, and 3 in that order, though adjust accordingly to boardstate. Magus of the moon can lock the game out if you play any.
The key to winning here from my experience is getting an equipment to stick. They are not heavy on counterspells and play like a removal heavy Modern deck. But instead, they have 4 artifact hate and 2-3 more in the sideboard. This makes it difficult to gain any sort of advantage. I think theoretically speaking, apostle's blessing is great against planeswalkers, baleful strix, and protecting our artifacts. Combine this with your other protectors like mother of runes and chalice. I never tried it but it seems like a reasonable sideboard card considering everyone brings in artifact hate.
I've been running SoLaS and it's been running into the problem that I thought it would have. In the matchup, typically I struggle to make any creature stick. SoLaS does not help you if you have nothing to put it on. I'm thinking that I want something that goes wide. To start brainstorming, I was thinking something like Raise the Alarm. Obviously that card isn't good, but is there a white creature CMC 2 or 3 that makes a second creature? Brimaz kind of works, but he's slow. He does dodge a lot of their removal so I may give him a whorl. Something like a Mog War Marshall might be the ticket, but I don't think one exists.
Brimaz seems a bit worse than Crusader. Both of them can be answered but the difference is Crusader can attack through Baleful Strix and the extra cat token doesn't get blocked by something like Deathrite Shaman and die.
Sure there are many options. Blade splicer, raise the alarm, and if you are willing to do some black splashes you can go wide with Lingering Souls or Bitterblossom. Out of those, blade splicer is the most relevant in a standard DnT shell. Combine it with Flickerwisp or Restoration Angel for value.
Chalice of the Void is great here because it serves as additional copies of Mother of Runes (kind of) against all the 1-mana removals. Abrupt decay, Kolaghan's Command, and Ancient Grudge are all answers that Czech Pile runs so winning the match comes down to timing. There are a number of protection spells available: spellskite, apostle's blessing, and sanctum prelate.
Lots of new content 5 new primers and my thoughts on SoLaS.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote