Stratus dancer is a pretty neat idea...not sure if it's even remotely better then Delver though...maybe in your list since you aren't playing with Standstill I could see it. In traditional SS lists Delver all day...not even a contest. I do like Stratus dancer interaction...neat. Gratz on the 5-0. Make us proud lol. I have my next monthly coming up in September I fully intend to play a list with 3 or 4 Scrolls in it.
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
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Is Gut Shot a playable card? I am trying to keep my list mono-blue.
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
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
I'm already on Dismember, just trying to explore all options for the sideboard. I'm on a 3/3 Vapor Snag/Dismember split in the maindeck right now. Good point about 1-toughness already being suppressed by W&6.
The other thing I'm debating is whether to play Standstill in the sideboard or something like Winter Orb. I am convinced, after several attempts, that adding Ponder + Preordain is a less risky line than Standstill. Take out standstill and then I don't need Factories, which opens up other options like Back to Basics in the sideboard.
TL;DR: I think Xerox is better than Standstill for digging into combo pieces and going fast, trying to keep it mono-blue and exploring all removal options.
Current list:
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Phyrexian Dreadnought
3x Pteramander
1x Vendiliion Clique
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
2x Preordain
4x Stifle
4x Daze
4x Force of Will
3x Vapor Snag
3x Dismember
1x Spell Snare
1x Spell Pierce
4x Flooded Strand
3x Misty Rainforest
7x Island
4x Wasteland
Pteramander will become some number of Scroll of Fate once I acquire them.
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 love Winter Orb. Like, it's nearly one of my children.
But I feel like Winter Orb is vastly over-boarded right now, it's really too symmetrical in the decks that are trying to use it now. Unless your meta has a ton of Post-Ramp decks, or big mana Eldrazi, I would not be packing it right now, personally. Standstill is probably just better, if it's between those two cards.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
I wouldn't cut SS from this deck as I think the card gives us aspects that are very hard to play around. Like on a normal delver shell with BS/Ponder etc that's all fine but you become a lot weaker to chalice strategies and stuff like Miracles.
I think you can play without Standstill, but you'd need to replace it with CA. It makes sense why mono-U can't play it [Standstill] because they have no removal, which leads to can't play Delver, which leads back to no Standstill...but, when you're going all in on Scroll [like the mono-U list does] you kinda need enough lands to consistently hit first three land drops. They've got all these cantrips to find the land drops, but the CA is on Dancer which needs the Scroll to come down to work. It's a bit of a structural weakness (A then B) which can also be negated by astute SCM flash-blocks (can't be countered by Stratus). Since they're already doing the A then B style, a couple of Fathom Seers would probably be less awkward for them as he grows hands by 4 cards [Island bouncing] when you flip him.
Always have to keep in mind that Bolt is part of UR’s “combo” of all cards pointing at reducing life total by 20. It just has a bonus mode (removal). Cards like Dismember, Push, etc. all take their decks away from the plan.
Great responses all, I appreciate it. I found I was sideboarding out Standstill in quite a few of my matchups, there is a lot of D&T in my local metagame (I play against it at least once in every weekly event and usually at least twice in 1k's.) Miracles, and other big decks, I don't run into very often. That's why I feel Standstill can become a sideboard card.
Winter Orb, once the Factories are dropped, actually seems quite good. The other option is Back to Basics, which I think is also an option. I like the efficiency of Orb more, and the fact that it does work against decks with a lot of basics.
I know it's heresy to consider dropping Standstill/Factory, but I feel that it doesn't do enough against the majority of the metagame. I'd rather just jam Delvers/Dreadnoughts and protect them with blue cards. Dig like crazy with Xerox and be a consistent deck that doesn't lean on {EDIT}: Standstill so hard.
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
Against D&T, if you have Mishra's Factory in your manabase, I suggest 1 (or 2) Teferi's Response in the sideboard because they have
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port (targets also Islands)
that target your lands ... and even other cards like Umezawa's Jitte or Flickerwisp sometimes.
(you can sideboard out Standstill still having some card advantage spells in g2 or g3)
On Gut Shot:
If you want more flexible cards that do the same thing: Walking Ballista is great against D&T.
(and they cannot protect a creature with Mother of Runes from him, while from Gut Shot they can)
and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is not relevant being a creature.
Walking Ballista is also good against Baleful Strixs, Young Pyromancers, Snapcaster Mages, Delver of Secrets that are played in decks who run spells like Spell Pierce or Flusterstorm. So it is better than Gut Shot to my view but it is not in alternative card to Dismember, more likey an addition or a sideboard card.
On the other side, If you are not running Mishra's Factory, also Tsabo's Web is a good card that shuts down 11/12 of their lands (Karakas too) and it cantrips. It is also good against Dark Depths' lands.
With Standstill, I would try this:
3 Mishra's Factory + 3 Wasteland
6 Snow-Covered Island + 7 Fetchlands (tot 19 lands)
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
2 True-Name Nemesis
1 Walking Ballista
2 Scroll of Fait
3 Standstill
4 Brainstorm + 4 Ponder
3 Daze
4 Force of Will + 1 Misdirection
4 Stifle + 1 Vision Charm
1 Vapor Snag + 1 Snap
1 Dismember + 1 Psionic Blast
Sideboard (14)
1 Teferi's Response + 1 Snapcaster Mage + 1 Trinket Mage
1 Hex Parasite + 1 Relic of Progenitus + 1 Pithing Needle
1 Contentious Plan + 1 Teferi's Realm + 1 Powder Keg
2 Faerie Macabre + 1 Surgical Extraction
1 Divert + 1 Echoing Truth
Probably a few too many creatures to run Delver in that list (35 non-flippers). Conventional Dreadstill gets up to those numbers, but Delver is still part of the Duress your removal/get some damage in plan (easier to assemble incremental damage with cards like Bolt/SCM/Lavamancer). Without reach, and draws that put you further away from winning (Snag/Snap/Dismember), you put much more pressure on Delver flipping and staying alive. You need ~3 connects just to gain access to plays that aren't the predictable line of needing to make a Dreadnought and hitting 2x. You end up with Delver having significant trouble flipping into cutting down to 2x Scroll while simultaneously needing to rely on Dreadnought more (again, due to the Delver issue).
The construction is otherwise fine; just that it's a bit high variance. When you start talking about Standstill in a color that will have to more aggressively Daze [as removal] away from Standstill mana, that's where a good amount of the variance is. With Scroll you have the ability to get more raw power per unit of variance with creatures like Fathom Seer/Stratus Dancer/Thing in the Ice. It's certainly more one-dimensional than Standstill/Factory/Delver, but I think this second angle has dubious winning power in mono-U.
Have you considered running Counterbalance as a convenient one-time investment to dodge common removal and provide virtual CA? Given the amount of Cantrips in DNSolver's list, this ought to be feasible. All while multiples get scrolled into 2/2s. Seems worth a try to me.
I'd look back in the thread to see what was going on with classic Dreadstill @colo. You would end up doing thing A [CB] and then doing thing B [Dreadnought]. Playing those two cards together ended with the printing of Abrupt Decay. While most players in legacy think Decay killed Dreadnought, it would be more precise to say that Decay killed the practice of lightly dabbling in Counterbalance [which is where classic Dreadstill got its wins from]. Even before Abrupt Decay, there were the printings of Snapcaster followed closely by Terminus and Entreat, which was what really killed the practice of playing CB (this also cost us all our pilots, who were only here for CB/SDT).
If this effect of locking out 1-drops was wanted, Sol Land/Chalice would be a much better starting point.
3-0 today with Manifest Destiny.
R1 vs ANT (2-0): g1 he can't go off in time, Karn killing LEDs wins. G2 he has too many hate pieces to get through with discard, breaks Standstill with Veil of Summer (no discard), Stifle hits Tendrils and RiP exiles it.
R2 vs Bomberman (2-0): g1 he get locked off Tombs and Forge activations by a Dreadnought hit, is able to generate a Mentor and 5 monks but can't stop trample on 1 life. G2 let two Chalice resolve (x=1), and end up clearing the board with Ratchet. Loses over time to Karn despite having Forge on board most of the game. Forge and the value it generates don't accomplish much in either game as Karn gets countered and Aurioks are Plow'd. (g1 is the only Dreadnought I actually made the hard way today, i.e. with Stifle, so deck is working as intended)
R3 vs Lumberjack (2-1): g1 his hand goes to hellbent with land drop, Mox x2, Birds, and Sylvan. His top 3 are bad and he gets Stifle'd out of shuffles and runs a Depths/Stage into Plow turn 2; Karn arrives and game is over (Moxen dead, wish for Liquimetal). G2 I have to mull, but have an interesting choice to make with E-Tutor (Scroll vs Porphyry Nodes, I chose Scroll), get close to winning but run out of time as no wrath or 12/12 arrive off the top. G3 his opener is Birds of Paradise so I Standstill and FoW his followup Wrenn. Over next 7 turns or so, I assemble a prison he can't escape with Teferi and Karn and eventually kill with a pair of 12/12s.
R3 opponent's deck was some mana dudes, Moxen, Wrenn, Lumberjack, GSZ, P-Fire, and white for some Plow/KotR/Depths-Stage-Maze.
List is still not set, but played with:
Dreadnought x4
JVP x2
Teferi x3
Karn x2
Standstill x2
Scroll x1
Azcanta x1
Arcum's Astrolabe x1
FoW x4
BS x4
StP x4
Stifle x4
FoN x2
E Tutor x2
Verdict x2
Noxious x1
Spell Snare x1
Strand x4
Vista x3
Snow Island x3
Snow Plains x2
Tundra x1 (almost a snow land, apparently having caribou and permafrost doesn't count)
Karakas x1
Wasteland x3
Factory x3
SB was 15x 1-ofs with classic Karn wish targets of Crypt, Cursed Scroll, Liquimetal, Torpor, Keg, Ratchet, Canonist, Scroll of Fate, and Crucible. The rest was mostly the classic zero-skill, non-game, derpy 2cmc white cards that win games by themselves. White is still the dumbest color in the game, so you just ride that cheese train with E Tutor at the wheel. I did have to shift Porphyry Nodes to sb due to space constrictions sadly, and dropped Snare down to 1x to make room for another Standstill. JVP was the poorest performing card today, but I don't see any reason to cut him yet for a 3rd Standstill or something like Fathom Seer or if I'm feeling spicy, something a bit more outrageous like Hanna.
Welding Jar is the most criminally underrated sideboard card that Karn has access to.
I think the question would be why Welding Jar? Properly constructed Nought decks don't really care if Nought dies, it's merely something the deck can do, not something it has to.
When you read Welding Jar, we're looking at a cost artifact that doesn't have to tap to activate (similar to LED). If we're ever playing this card, the deck is built to house Metallic Rebuke, Reverse Engineer, Thoughtcast, and probably Ballista. The issue you run into is drop artifacts don't have a deep bench, and they lose to x=0 Chalice. So you don't want that many, and the best artifacts to ramp up with generally live at cmc (more than happy to tap down Astrolabe, Needle, and others). Lots of conflict since artifact power comes from Sol Land/Chalice, and while it's cool to tap down Chalice for improvise, there are some notable issues: Dreadnought costs 1 (kinda solved by Cavern and/or Scroll) and most importantly you still need to play cards maindeck that can kill Revoker, Narset, and x=0 Chalice.
Regen is fine and all, but it's not that hard to find ways to necro something a regen would have saved with a Karn wish.
Edit: we can also give an honorable mention to Paradoxical Outcome, as it also plays nicely with cards like Astro.
Sadly legacy did not fire today, even though last weekend was the holiday weekend. I did get to jam a few games against R/G Lands though. Pre-board 1-0, post-board 3-1. The face-down stuff is pretty funny against Blast Zone (face-down threat allows quadruple Strip Mine for you and fun lines for their Stage); and in the last game I quite enjoyed turning Ashiok into an artifact, bouncing with Teferi, and recasting to reset loyalty. Also got to do the whole Wrenn becomes artifact, animate Wrenn, and Plow Wrenn. This matchup felt fairly difficult to lose whether or not I was making Dreadnoughts. Luck aside, this deck has all the tools to either hard-lock Lands or tempo them out, and it's really having access to both (with correct navigation) at the same time that makes the difference.
Astrolabe x1 continues to perform as anticipated, and Dreadnought was perfectly fine being deployed or not. Even un-flipped Azcanta was doing work. As with previous games, JVP was consistently the worst card (they had Karakas and P-Fire), but that simply meant he sat in hand getting pitched to FoW/FoN...so he never really held me back either. As always against Lands, the matchups were incredibly intricate and precise for both players - if you're trying to get experienced with UW-Nought this matchup is still the quickest learning curve. Every hour vs Lands is worth 5-10 hours vs others in the areas of interaction possibilities, card evaluation, and sequencing. Each of these hours vs Lands probably end up around 25 times more valuable when it comes to role evaluation.
On the Lands side of things, Field of the Dead seemed amazing (as in they couldn't win without it) but I think this card generally costs them -1 Barb Ring afaik. They also have 2x Wrenn eating slots, so I don't see much access to ways forward for them when they're grabbing Bog and/or Karakas and Tabernacle and/or Zone. I'm fairly certain Maze has borne the brunt of these changes, and we are way better off for it with Dreadnought. This is a [currently] tier one deck that has some pretty significant weaknesses we seem uniquely fitted to exploit. It's one matchup Lands will never face, but maybe Burgeoning is a card they really need to look at as the 5th Exploration more seriously during this Wrenn experimentation time. It would be a fairly fundamental change for sure (towards Crucible-like effects), but if it the price falls back down to ~$5 (from $11), I think I'd seriously look at picking up 2x. That said, this is definitely Teferi + Scroll-based bias b/c Lands is never winning if they discard Grip vs us.
Anyways here's a shot of what playing Dreadnought lets you get away with:
https://imgur.com/jrDy5PN
SB was -1 Standstill, -1 Plow, -1 Verdict, -1 JVP
+1 Crucible, +1 RiP, +1 Ashiok, +1 Ratchet
I’m coming at it from a Painter perspective. Landing Karn with a -2 activation puts more pressure on proper boarding when you’re tapped out and expecting Karn to potentially die to Bolt. This makes zero mana artifacts far more appealing. I don’t know about Dreadstill, but having Jar seems fine to regenerate a Dreadnought or regenerate your Factory from a Wasteland in a pinch.
@Michael Keller the more threatening deck uses Plow [Counterbalance combo], and the less threatening uses Grudge [Delver]. Grudge isn't really what the game is about, since I'm just gonna murder their board into trying to win eventually via more impactful effects. Baleful Strix is gone, and Decay has never mattered to Dreadnought outside of disallowing classic builds (Counterbalance into anything; which these builds already died to the printing of a better CB deck ~6months before Decay even existed). There's also the issue with using a 4 mana play to get access to regenerate into JTMS mana.
This deck merely has Dreadnoughts in it, they're not really the wincon and it's fairly rare that I try to protect them. All that removal is feeding into recursion loops anyhow, so I'd be re-investing into something that's already redundant/accounted for. It's also pretty hard to kill Noughts with Teferi around and a policy of preferentially keeping them face-down vs suspected interaction (a form that can't be regen'd by Jar). The effect is probably better achieved by Vision Charm in the main, and a greedy Isochron in the board.
Legacy has only ever had two cards (propped up by Snapcaster) that can ever be tier 0: CB and Hymn. Both of them are mostly gone at the moment, unable to compete with on-board value engines Wrenn and Dreadhorde. Even so, I'm only ever using SB slots to further Dreadnought plans if that card can in some way cripple both of them. There's much more to be gained from Surgical, Ashiok, or Relic vs their brand of degeneracy.
Edit: technically, pre-SCM Goyf could be added to the tier 0 list; what a horribly designed card. Effectively protection from red, and so good you basically had to run it to beat it, and the dumbest part was it couldn't even trade with itself in combat. Really though wtf, why was this card not */* or 1+*/*.
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