Actually if your opponent has notting to say you are right.Originally Posted by Mr. Safety
But you usually don't goldfish against an opponent
The fact is that back 9 years ago this deck was awesome (especially piloted by M.Hausmann)
http://www.tcdecks.net/results.php?t...ide=&strict=on
Since then all other decks are evolved. As you are playing it, you are nearly only leaving the counterbalance soft lock for Delver, so that you have more chance to drop a standstill, comparing the list with the 2009s. But it is not enoght. You should at least consider some new mechanics to increase the power level of the deck.
Some player few years ago were playing Punishing Fire for example.
Whir costs UUU, at some point you do have to make direct mana comparisons to mana positive Vial which also taps to improvise. Aether Vial actually does the Dreadnought trick (cast Dreadnought, it resolves b/c opponent isn't going to counter it, trigger on stack Vial in Dreadnought #2, sac Dreadnought #1) - so note that here we have combined Reverse Engineer's CA/mana shortcutting idea with a piece of Dreadnought tech that also taps for improvise. There is now also this option to stack Standstill on top of all of this because turn 1 Vial plays really nicely with Standstill. The main thing holding this idea back is the amount of slots (for simplicity assume 4x Factory, 4x Dreadnought, 4x Vial, 4x Reverse Engineer, 4x Standstill, 12x FoW/Bstorm/Stifle), there is no longer creative space to have adequate threat density, disruption, and more 0-1 cmc artifacts for improvise + all the lands you still need to add.
Based on identifying the most efficient Whir of Invention analogue (and yes I know Vial is different-ish, but it's still just the better card/better direction for the deck you've described), you just count the slots left to know not only that there isn't really space to complete the idea, and even less to pack in a completely separate strategy. Your list doesn't have Standstill/Factory (and the land total needed for Standstill), but that holy triangle of Vial/Standstill/Reverse Engineer is the level of favorable interactions you need to have if you want to compete with Dreadnought.
So we know why that deck can't exist (slots) and that is an issue you tackle by immediate rotation of the deck idea to: Reverse Engineer/Ancient Tomb/Walking Ballista [this is now a Chalice deck]. Theory by itself is probably good enough to reach the conclusion that:
-Painter and Dreadnought aren't really Sol Land/Chalice decks
-They are two non-overlapping strategies, such that mashing them up is just losing to variance.
This conclusion is something we should arrive at before having a serious discussion about Whir vs Vial. Dreadnought has an incredibly high demand for parallel synergy, and that generally means it can be the only columnar (A + B or A then B) element in a deck. Dreadnought + Standstill works in UR b/c each columnar element is actually just about using creatures to Duress removal spells as we count to 20. Dreadnought + Reanimator works because both columnar strategies really intersect around Vision Charm, JVP, and Lotus Petal; unlike UR variance here is higher because we've chosen to do two distinctly powerful things with tools that have text for both strategies. Dreadnought and Painter/Stone just don't share tech, and as far as Dreadnought is concerned it's always going to choose Cursed Scroll over Grindstone as a random 1 mana artifact element (because that is easier to turn on if you're tossing down Dreadnoughts; do note that Cursed Scroll does hurt Delver plan). I think the same can be said of Painter (Cursed Scroll would be better than Dreadnought), but you're still probably better off with Thopter/Sword + Transmute Artifact and/or Welder.
As far as your most recent post, [non-UR] Dreadnought is constantly evolving and able to incorporate new cards to incredibly high degrees. Most decks in legacy are actually dead, simply waiting for something strictly better to fill a set role [sorry but dropping Disfigure for Fatal Push isn't innovative] - these decks will never adapt to hijack mechanics because the tools they use are mechanically simple/linear independently-functioning 1-offs. Dreadnought evolves on coherent and comprehensive ideas, not the printing of individually better cards.
Search for Azcanta has been fantastic. I highly recommend anyone that has a flex slot to try SfA. It's essentially another copy of Standstill, but much better in the late game. I might even play 2 copies once I get my set of Forces.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
Having tested the Shadow matchup a ton and beating it 3 times in tournament and a bunch online I can safely say the matchup is pretty good for us. Dreadnought is actually fairly decent against them since they have to burn removal on Delvers. Dismember should be at a 3 of I think SB for this matchup as it's absolutely insane at killing every single threat they play. Very good results so far in this MU. Board plan went something like
-3 Snare
-1 Trickbind
-2 Daze (draw)
-1 Dreadnought
+3 Pierce
+2-3 Dismember
+2 Misdrection (Alot of builds randomly board Hymn)
UR Dreadstill creator and BRx WGD Combo Pioneer
I'm still working on getting forces, but I played last Friday and went 1-3. I've been getting the good matchups or bad players and now I'm learning how to grind through bad matchups and good players. Lost to Miracles, Grixis Control, and BW Taxes. Won against Death's Shadow.
I'm trying to figure out how to optimize a mono-blue list. I figured getting Standstills in the grindy matchups would be slam-dunks for giving me an edge, and instead my opponents ended up playing more lands than me and pulling ahead anyways. Really, really need a threat before landing Standstill in some matches. I felt, generally, that I didn't have enough high-impact threats. Factory is great in multiples, Dreadnought (If I can keep it around for a turn) is super fast, but Delver isn't enough. Back to 2x Nimble Obstructionist. Vapor Snag has also been fairly underwhelming. The games where I can play tempo are fewer than I'd like, much more reliant on the die roll. I need to be able to play both tempo and a slower control game. Vapor Snag out, 3rd Dismember and 2x Ratchet Bomb main.
Here is my updated list, tested a few games and it feels better. Depending on how the metagame shapes up locally I'll keep the Vapor Snags in reserve.
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Phyrexian Dreadnought
2x Nimble Obstructionist
4x Brainstorm
4x Stifle
4x Daze
2x Spell Pierce
1x Spell Snare
2x Counterspell
1x Force of Will
4x Standstill
1x Torpor Orb
1x Trickbind
2x Ratchet Bomb
3x Dismember
4x Flooded Strand
3x Scalding Tarn
6x Island
4x Wasteland
4x Mishra's Factory
Sideboard
2x Dispel
4x Misdirection
2x Sower of Temptation
1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2x Echoing Truth
2x Phyrexian Revoker
2x Surgical Extraction
Jace and Dispel are for grindier blue-based control matchups. Against Miracles, I think landing a Jace would have been excellent. Search for Azcanta was pretty good, but not impactful enough. I thought it would be a Standstill that would be good from behind, and it didn't do enough. When I get behind I think it's better to prioritize getting a Dreadnought down to stabilize or race. Sower does a good job of stabilizing as well, if I can stall long enough. Testing Spell Pierce in the maindeck, I think it might need to be switched with Spell Snare.
Some other cards I'm considering:
Gigadrowse
Aetherize
Whir of Invention
Piracy Charm
Vendilion Clique
Spellstutter Sprite + Mutavault
2nd Torpor Orb, maybe even 3
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
Id cut Obstructionist from this deck at this point. Even if you arent splashing True Name, Snapcaster Mage, and Trinket Mage are all better options right now. Personally True Name is where our edge surges vs control. I like Dispel alot 4 Misdirections may be too many...3 might be good. Why no Back to Basics?? In the matchups we use them the fact they tapdown our factories is very irrelevent.
UR Dreadstill creator and BRx WGD Combo Pioneer
I'm trying this list from a couple of weeks
4 Delver of Secrets
2 Phyrexian Dreadnought
3 True-Name Nemesis
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
4 Stifle
2 Dismember
2 Set Adrift
2 Psionic Blast
2 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
6 Island
///side///
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Pithing Needle
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Marrow Shards
1 Counterspell
1 Mana Leak
1 Miscalculation
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Walking Ballista
I works very good vs Jace decks but suffers delver decks.
I'm not happy with the 4 "remouvals" Dismember (good only on turn 1/2) and Set Adrift (too slow) which should be lightning bolts or fatal pushes.
Vendilion Clique is very good and better than Nimble Obstructionist.
To play Standstill you need 4 Force of Will to my view. Without 4 Force of Will I would not play Standstills' lists.
Yes, I am painfully aware that I need 4x Force of Will.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
I've been thinking long and hard about a splash color for this deck, and I have the ability to likely splash white (I could afford a tundra, not a volcanic or usea.) White offers some incredible upgrades in the event of a control-heavy metagame with Myth Realized. The removal of Swords to Plowshares seems very good, and white has some very good sideboard cards (Disenchant, Supreme Verdict, Council's Judgment, Rest in Peace, Containment Priest.) I could easily go between Dreadstill or Uw Landstill variants depending on metagame shifts, or just have a transformative sideboard that boards out Dreadnoughts for sweepers. This also opens up UW Stoneblade for me, because I have the SFM/BSkull/Jitte package already.
However, this is not the main reason for posting. I have been thinking a lot about the Miracles and Grixis Control matchup. Grixis control I can attack with Wasteland, but Miracles has probably the most resilient 2 color mana-base in legacy. How do I approach this matchup? Standstill is great if I can get pressure in underneath it (Factory, early uncountered Delver) but Dreadnought is likely correct to board out. Currently I'm boarding a Jace to deal with Control matchups. Factory is also key in that matchup, so maybe boarding 1-2 Mutavaults is correct? It's pretty important to maintain land drops when Standstill is on the table so increasing land count seems good, along with additional cheap threats for pressure. Alternatives are Retrofitter's Foundry and Chimeric Mass, both of which can dodge removal and are easier to protect than Dreadnought. Foundry is very resilient, making 1/1's under standstill and sometimes doing more if I get the opportunity to upgrade.
TL;DR - how do I approach the Miracles and Grixis Control matchups? I feel like there is enough of a presence at my LGS that I need to plan accordingly in my sideboard.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
UW/x Stoneblade is competitive, but at the end of the day it's just a less-winning version of either miracles or Grixis Jammy Jams. UW Landstill is quite good against the field, but auto-loses to Counterbalance; so again bad miracles. I'd avoid playing UW Dreadnought if your plan is to play normal magic, because it's just a worse idea than Terminus w/ ~3x SCM and ~2x Mentor.
It's not really worth trying to beat Counterbalance, so don't ruin your deck trying (you'll stop winning games against the field). If miracles runs REB you need to bring in RiP or prevent any red source from ever casting >1 red blast effect. If CB isn't there, you Surgical StP and get 2x Factory on board (no SCM block and trade) - at this point it doesn't really matter if they have Jace on board, they're drawing to nothing if you have white cards to deal with their Mentor.
If you want to beat Grixis Jammy Jams, play Leyline of the Void or RiP (add on Misdirection effects if you want).
Against both, Desert is actually quite good (not that anyone has SB slots for a few of these). Trying to run REB'able PWs against them is fairly worthless; the best bet is Chandra, ToD. After that...maybe Karn and Desert to protect? These aren't really winnable matchups either way; the best chance is the UR approach of burning them out unfortunately.
My thought was that man-lands are excellent against them. I found myself beating them down with Factory under Standstill to be a winning line, which is why I was thinking Mutavault or Foundry is good against them (Foundry is a colorless Bitterblossom, even if it isn't anywhere near it in power level, and Bitterblossom is incredible against Miracles.)
I wouldn't play Desert before Maze of Ith. Honestly, I was seriously looking at Silent Arbiter + Maze of Ith. Pairing it with Dreadnought, Delver, or Factory seems very good, especially when my removal is Dismember.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
Is it blasphemy to consider cutting Standstill, or putting it to the sideboard? I find that it can be a liability in many games where I need to have interaction but I don't. It's also terrible when I am already behind on board and Standstill is dead in hand, or my opponent is getting ahead on land drops while I sit and do nothing with a Standstill in play(no factories.) I was wondering if it would be better to just use Search for Azcanta? I've wanted Ponder a bunch of times as well, which could have dug me into a combo when I needed it.
The other alternative is to simply not play 4 copies of Standstill, cutting down to 2-3. I also think that the Ancestral Knowledge package that Miracles is using is pretty good, too. Thoughts to chew on.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
I don't like Accumulated Knowledge. I prefere impulse for card selection or predict for card advantage speeking of cc2 spells.
Maybe you could try
4 flooded strand
3 scalding tarn
3 wasteland
3 mishra's factory
6 island
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
2 portent
3 predict
Predict takes considerable setup, as you prove, with tons of cantrips. I don't have space. The real question is whether the raw 3 cards drawn from Standstill (which is conditional) is better than just filtering 3 cards with Ponder. Ponder has no qualifying aspects to make it good. Same with Search for Azcanta, although it's slow. Once I get 4x Force of Will I'm sure I'll go back to 4x Standstill, because it's great fodder for free Forces when it's dead in hand.
For now, I'm going to just trim down to 3x Standstill and play a Ponder. This should reduce the frequency that multiples are dead in hand while giving me another way to set up Delver flips and feed me relevant cards.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
Guilds of Ravnica stuff:
Expansion actually playable and $1; would buy a playset at least. Would expect standard to ramp up the price; it's effectively counterspell for.
Risk Factor not great, but playable I guess.
Assassin's Trophy not that we play BG with Dreadnought, but punishes fetching around Wasteland to some degree. Doubt I'd pay above $10 for this card though.
Bad anti-CB stuff:
Unmoored Ego
Drowned Secrets
Misses:
Quasiduplicate doesn't really work, but it's kinda close.
Lazav, the Multifarious bad Torpor Orb, Ill. Mask, Sundial, or even Eldrazi Mimic. Also unable to compete for a slot vs Delver, Confidant, JVP, Tasigur/Gurmag...or a PW.
Not a huge amount in this set; and certainly nothing that healthy when you read Trophy + Ego together in terms of overall game design, particularly with Snapcaster. Expansion is interesting as it can bounce back Kcomm and Duress, but still it's kinda worse than Psychic Rebuttal; the backside value+burn is unique though. There is some world where you run into Blood Moon + Chalice and need to use Expansion to resolve a 1cmc spell (as a copy); but probably hold out for an enemy Fiery Confluence. At worst, you're probably copying an enemy cantrip. Chandra, ToD is still the better card if you're UR, but non-red builds could run this if they wanted to.
---
If you're going to play UW Dreadnought right now, you probably need to find a 2-mana, non-blue, value positive enchantment. As unconventional as my UW build was, Grixis Jammy Jams style decks are woefully under-equipped to deal with Mastery of the Unseen, and I haven't seen a better card that fits the bill in UW and redefines value to a zone discard can't touch. Standstill would check all the boxes, but dedicated UW Standstill without Dreadnoughts would be the better build, and that's bad miracles. Non-blue (white in this case) PWs that work with Dreadnought don't exist, but that is the other card type that has a chance vs Snap/Kcomm/Hymn; as it stands, Gideon of the 2/2s would be a worse fit than the unplayable Urza's Factory (or if no Standstill, Kjeldoran Outpost analogs).
I am testing UW. Zero standstill, 5 card stoneforge package, 2x search for azcanta, 4x ponder, 0 delvers. I play the cantrip game, swords for removal, land a dreadnought/sfm/jace to win. Still trying to jam some factories, but so far so good.
In testing, ponder has been better than standstill in almost every instance. It doesn't provide card advantage, but it gets you land drops and filters into the right cards (like a stifle + dreadnought) without any drawbacks (like not playing spells.)
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
I've been experimenting a lot with different dreadnought decks. Took a red/white list to a 1k and went 3 - 4 on the day. I won't lie the deck wasn't good, but I learned a lot. Torpor Orb is surprisingly great. It turns off snap casters's, stoneforge mystic's tutor, strix draws, flickerwisp bounces. I also really liked running 4x ethersworn canonist in the main + mentor and tocatli.
Mentor is the best white wincon in the game, but it gets worse with each creature you run beside it. It's definitely more restrictive than Delver (which doesn't really allow for >15-16 total creatures), and Mentor doesn't get really get better in multiples. The Mentor numbers aren't generically solved, but I would roughly guess that every Mentor beyond the second decreases win percentage (generally competing with a cantrip). In terms of *other* creatures you can profitably run beside those 2x Mentors, I think you definitely need to be 10x or below. This is probably the highest yield area of improvement in your strategy (in terms of playing not-blue, and continuing to stay not-blue).
I've been playing a deck with "Lazav, the Multifarious" and it's been super powerful.
Has anyone tried this card out in this style deck yet?
Do you have a list? I'm interested
Don't recall, Don't imagine, Don't think, Don't examine, Don't control, Rest
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