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Thread: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

  1. #4461
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    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    I don’t know how effective this Heavenly Whale will be, it’s sorcery speed (so you’re getting nothing vs Oko) and probably not better than Dreadhorde...like it’s better with Stifle, but a lot more preconditions for casting. I think I’d still run Snapcaster over either of them in the value department (though you’d need more lands). You’re still dying to Goyf with this card, and you’ve got substantial questions vs Oko and Uro. I don’t see having no Scroll as resulting in a more winning deck, the card is just absurdly powerful. You give the Whale haste or flash and maybe I’d change assessment.

    I think the cycling-turtle and shark’nado are closer to hits, though probably not going to work in a Dreadnought shell due to lack of slots (like 1x Shark’nado would be playable). Nesting Grounds is quite good as a novel anti-Chalice/anti-Vial card (though we’d need charge counter cards). Boon of the Wish-Giver is playable, but pointless. Call of the Death-Dweller can cheat in a Dreadnought with 2 in the yard (But worse than a PW or Scroll at cmc3). Keep Safe is not entirely unreasonable.

    Nothing really there for Dreadnought yet, but I’d pick up cycle-Turtle if below $5, 2x Shark’nado if $1, 2x Nesting Grounds $2 or less. Heavenly Whale is better than complete whiffs like Pteramander and Vantress, but I think it lives in the Tasigur/JVP/Stratus Dancer/Fathom Seer/Thing in the Ice/etc. bracket; like it’s fine, but you need to have a whole bunch of other things going on b/c these cards don’t answer questions posed by the legacy format.

    As far as the rest of the format goes, due to the effortlessness of using Dreadhorde I think this Whale will probably be a flop; which is at least fitting for a fish.

  2. #4462
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    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Quote Originally Posted by Fox View Post
    I don’t know how effective this Heavenly Whale will be.
    To clarify, I'm not excited because it's exactly super busted but rather because I consider it highly playable, interesting and well-balanced play design. Having said that, I think you're overly pessimistic since you're looking through the Standstill lens. If Standstill's (extremely play/draw-dependent) ceiling is 1U: draw 3, Whale's is UU: draw 4 spells, get a 3/3 flyer. I get that, realistically, it'll be more like 2-3 spells and it won't often come down before T3. (even tho T1 fetch > Stifle, Force their Force, T2 fetch > Whale is a line that can happen).

    Arcanist is a stronger card in general but, as Rich Cali has been pointing out, it comes with the very real deck building cost of filling yr deck with air (2-3 Preordains) and it disincentivizes holding up mana. The Whale synergizes perfectly with Stifle at a much higher power level than JVP. (This is not close: it's a 3/3 flying JVP that doesn't loot once or twice). Buying back an early Daze or a mid-game FoN is huge, not to mention reusing Stifle for hardcasting 12/12. All of these value creatures (except for Snap, who is for a different deck as you pointed out) need to untap to do their thing, and you could honestly do worse than having your 2-drop 3/3 Elked.

    You know I've been jamming Scrolls in a UB tempo list with no Standstills, so for me the question is whether this turns out to be better than that, and I think that's a very open question.

  3. #4463
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    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    The sorcery speed, wait a turn for maybe-value cards are always a tough sell. Confidant scores some points b/c you have this built-in mechanism that punishes opponents for giving you life with Plow. You look at the Whale and those Plows are going to slow down your delving, and you’re going to get into a prolonged game where you’re trying to beat Uro with a delayed 3/3. There’s other things in the format, but half-ish of the Oko/Uro decks will be StP-users ~ may as well plan around worst case scenario.

    This card should should probably just be an Uro (which would screw up your colors, so you can’t really do that), or at least match up well against it. It feels like the speed of this card signs you up for a long game your deck isn’t meant to play (Probably not casting this reliably until turn 4). Coming down so late is going to walk into Daze-proof Snapcasters & Ice-Fangs instead of pressuring early removal sources (like Confidant does). I suspect this card leads to a mismatch of timings where it hurts the Daze/Wasteland/Stifle plan, and then comes down solo (no support from the mana denial package). For the rest of legacy I can’t really think of a deck playing at the slower speeds which would choose this over a PW/Uro.

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    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Quote Originally Posted by Fox View Post
    I suspect this card leads to a mismatch of timings where it hurts the Daze/Wasteland/Stifle plan, and then comes down solo (no support from the mana denial package). For the rest of legacy I can’t really think of a deck playing at the slower speeds which would choose this over a PW/Uro.
    Um, that deck is tempo / Delver? Look at the whale as a weird chimera of Delver, Arcanist and Hooting Mandrills. I respectfully disagree that it doesn't gel with our mana denial. I was coming at the card from the UR Delver angle, where the 3/3 evasive body is a real asset among all those 2/1s, 1/3s, and 3/1s, and then I realized that buying back Stifles allows us up to include a couple or more Dreadnoughts. Again: buying back reactive spells is a big upgrade over what Bob and Arcanist do. It's what made JVP borderline playable in the first place. For Uro and Oko there are other answers: red blasts, Submerges, etc.

    Let's just try it out and see.

  5. #4465
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    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    I don't think Heavenly Whale is playable, because it's a 3/3. I think it falls into the category of Pteramander and Cryptic Serpent: close, but not reliable enough to make it long term in legacy. People will try it, it will win some games, but I don't think it's enough. Arcanist and Confidant are both still better than this. All die to bolt, some have significantly more potential if protected.

    At 4/4 its playable, maybe even as a 3/4. Delver is more efficient, True Name has better text. I feel the wisdom of Admiral Ackbar is appropriate here.
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  6. #4466
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    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    The issue with comparing Whale to Mandrils and other [RUG] Delver staples is that their deck gets ahead in a very aggressive way, to the point that it lacks a comeback mechanism. Dreadnought steps back on the aggression and says “I can create this tempo bubble wherein atypical magic can happen, and this can be done b/c a 1 mana 12/12 is a tempo reservoir.” This Whale exists outside that bubble, meaning you’re not really going to reliably be able to do the mana denial/count to 20 combo, having Whale come in on time and then bridging the transition to Dreadnought (rebuying Stifle). It’s more likely that you’re forcing yourself to play sorc-speed Dreadnoughts before you can play the Whale, and you’re left with a 3/3 on turn 4 just isn’t gonna get there (Oko and Uro are already gaining 3 per turn, so now you can’t even get bailed out by following Dreadnoughts).

    Delver isn’t winning games by playing 6-8 wincon cards they can’t deploy from hand early. It’s fine to test things, but I don’t think this Whale will lead to advantageous timing windows/threat sequencing. It’s a card I wouldn’t buy if it cost over $2. It feels a little too much like playing Dreadnought and Strix, then justifying the value trigger by using Soul Flayer (4/4 flying deathtouch trample).

    Edit: the other thing about RUG Delver is that their answer to dying to Goyf is the nuclear option (Goyf + Bolt, to win the mirror fight). Whale still has significant "I'm dying to Goyf" issues it hasn't answered.

  7. #4467
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    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Look, folks: It's a new toy. Sultai Scavenger with inbuilt CA. Most people's immediate reference point seems to be Arcanist, the single most impactful addition to Delver in the past few years and now widely regarded to be the best creature in those decks. (The latest RUG renaissance is only a couple of weeks old at this point, and @Fox your points about Delver don't really apply to UR and Grixis with Arcanist and Bedlam.) Whale is not quite on par with DHA, but synergizes with Stifle. Basic math also shows that the it's more powerful/less situational than Pteramander, Gargoyle, JVP, Cryptic Serpent. My estimation is that if we have any early plays at all, it can come down T3 more often than T4. (just think of any of those Delver openings involving Daze, Wasteland, Bolt/Stifle/cantrip/Force.) But as complex and contingent as this game is, play patterns / sequencing / etc. is all just hypothetical at this point. Based on that kind of thinking Arcanist was slept on at first too. Then he just transformed those patterns and here we are.

  8. #4468
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    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Thoughts of Yidaro, Wandering Monster in this deck? It gives us another way to abuse people trying to sit under a Standstill by just cantripping this guy and letting him shuffle back in. I could see this card being very good for us here.
    UR Dreadstill creator and BRx WGD Combo Pioneer
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    EDIT: and Roodmistah. If Dreadstill sucks then he's been mopping up the East Coast with a "crap" deck and making you all look bad.
    Quote Originally Posted by Rabbi View Post
    "Protection from player" is like a joke ability from Unglued. Ban this crap from legacy asap.

  9. #4469
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    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Yidaro has some issues with timing which Standstill can‘t overcome, namely that you need the ability to race an otherwise poor matchup. It is technically fine in UR, but you need the tempo plan to be online, otherwise by the time you make him opponents will have a hand full of removal (Delvers need to be discarding removal spells). The real issue is that you have to keep the Dreadnought stuff going, or you‘re going to lose to Standstill‘s traditionally bad matchups (Vial, yard combos, Post, Burn/counterburn). So knowing that you need the tempo slots for Delver, and you still need the Dreadnought side, you won‘t have room for enough copies of this guy to hit the battlefield (very hard to draw a 1-2x copies four times in a game).

    The fix to all this is playing UWr for Teferi, Karakas, and better removal (StP and true Wrath-effects). Once you have Teferi, you no longer care how many removal spells an opponent has in hand b/c they can‘t ever cast them (Teferi passive), and you can bounce him back to hand to repeat attacks with Teferi [-3] or Karakas. Now that you don‘t care about them having removal you don‘t need Delver as Duress...which now leads to not needing Daze (and not wanting to cast Daze b/c you‘re trying to cast a 3-dop) <- this is convenient b/c we already dropped Bolt for Plow and are interested in Wrath.

    Running 3c is highly dubious with any Dreadnought strategy, and we‘re putting a high quality wincon [cycle-turtle] on a minority color. Can‘t really afford to run a basic Mountain, and Volc is gonna be a significant source of losing to Wasteland. Now it‘s possible to work around having Volc with Astrolabe singleton w/ E-Tutor trick (playing 3-4x Astrolabe without Oko will never compete in legacy; loss of slots is too high). You get 2x E-Tutor and it can give you the Astrolabe (with a 1x being effective 3x) while staying slot-neutral; as you‘re able to trim artifact/enchants without noticing much of a difference.

    So we know the colors, how to secure the mana, and assembled a coherent & high quality late-game wincon. The issue is still the bit about getting to that point. I‘ve played a ton of UW Standstill, and the things that deck can‘t overcome are Oko and Burn/counterburn. Budget Delver (UR) is not a good Delver deck compared to Delver decks that had DRS, and it‘s that banning which lets them exist as more than a meme. The extra Bolts they have are a real problem b/c sitting behind a Standstill can‘t beat draw/discarding into a hand full of burn. Between UR Delver and Oko, the no-Dreadnought UW Standstill deck cannot be considered competitive at this time; adding some red for the cycle-turle doesn‘t fix this fundamental structural flaw.

    Whether UWr or UR, both strategies still need the Dreadnought stuff, so we don‘t really have the time nor slots to engage in cycling for an 8/8. In a match where we could get away with that, we could just have brought in a 1x from the SB: 13/13 Emrakul, 6cmc Ugin, 6cmc Chandra, etc.

    The UWr cycle-turtle is really close to being a finished list, but it needs to see Oko banned and DRS unbanned (DRS would never be able to pressure under a Standstill b/c tapping down would result in a response 8/8). Barring that, it needs cards that don‘t exist yet.

  10. #4470
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    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Quote Originally Posted by Fox View Post
    Yidaro has some issues with timing which Standstill can‘t overcome, namely that you need the ability to race an otherwise poor matchup. It is technically fine in UR, but you need the tempo plan to be online, otherwise by the time you make him opponents will have a hand full of removal (Delvers need to be discarding removal spells). The real issue is that you have to keep the Dreadnought stuff going, or you‘re going to lose to Standstill‘s traditionally bad matchups (Vial, yard combos, Post, Burn/counterburn). So knowing that you need the tempo slots for Delver, and you still need the Dreadnought side, you won‘t have room for enough copies of this guy to hit the battlefield (very hard to draw a 1-2x copies four times in a game).

    The fix to all this is playing UWr for Teferi, Karakas, and better removal (StP and true Wrath-effects). Once you have Teferi, you no longer care how many removal spells an opponent has in hand b/c they can‘t ever cast them (Teferi passive), and you can bounce him back to hand to repeat attacks with Teferi [-3] or Karakas. Now that you don‘t care about them having removal you don‘t need Delver as Duress...which now leads to not needing Daze (and not wanting to cast Daze b/c you‘re trying to cast a 3-dop) <- this is convenient b/c we already dropped Bolt for Plow and are interested in Wrath.

    Running 3c is highly dubious with any Dreadnought strategy, and we‘re putting a high quality wincon [cycle-turtle] on a minority color. Can‘t really afford to run a basic Mountain, and Volc is gonna be a significant source of losing to Wasteland. Now it‘s possible to work around having Volc with Astrolabe singleton w/ E-Tutor trick (playing 3-4x Astrolabe without Oko will never compete in legacy; loss of slots is too high). You get 2x E-Tutor and it can give you the Astrolabe (with a 1x being effective 3x) while staying slot-neutral; as you‘re able to trim artifact/enchants without noticing much of a difference.

    So we know the colors, how to secure the mana, and assembled a coherent & high quality late-game wincon. The issue is still the bit about getting to that point. I‘ve played a ton of UW Standstill, and the things that deck can‘t overcome are Oko and Burn/counterburn. Budget Delver (UR) is not a good Delver deck compared to Delver decks that had DRS, and it‘s that banning which lets them exist as more than a meme. The extra Bolts they have are a real problem b/c sitting behind a Standstill can‘t beat draw/discarding into a hand full of burn. Between UR Delver and Oko, the no-Dreadnought UW Standstill deck cannot be considered competitive at this time; adding some red for the cycle-turle doesn‘t fix this fundamental structural flaw.

    Whether UWr or UR, both strategies still need the Dreadnought stuff, so we don‘t really have the time nor slots to engage in cycling for an 8/8. In a match where we could get away with that, we could just have brought in a 1x from the SB: 13/13 Emrakul, 6cmc Ugin, 6cmc Chandra, etc.

    The UWr cycle-turtle is really close to being a finished list, but it needs to see Oko banned and DRS unbanned (DRS would never be able to pressure under a Standstill b/c tapping down would result in a response 8/8). Barring that, it needs cards that don‘t exist yet.
    How crazy would it be to run UB? I've been having fun running black on mtgo.

  11. #4471

    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    I agree with Tobitzki
    I think the new Whale is extremely good. She makes fast pressure, as Delver does too.
    The Whale could be a MUST KILL creature for our opponent to provide us from making card advantage.
    Having 8 of those creatures could clear the way for Phyrexian Dreadnought.

    Also this creature could be a "must kill"



    That's my idea

    8 Fetchlands
    3 Island
    2 Volcanic Island
    1 Fiery Islet
    4 Wasteland

    2 Brazen Borrower
    4 Delver of Secrets
    4 Heavenly Whale
    2 Sea-Dasher Octopus
    3 Phyrexian Dreadnought

    1 Preordain
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    2 Thought Scour
    4 Stifle
    1 Vision Charm
    4 Daze
    4 Force of Will
    3 Lightning Bolt

  12. #4472
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    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    The whale isn't that good compared to that Cycling guy that Rood suggested that plays around standstill

    Now you have 8 cards to burn standstill with

  13. #4473
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    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Quote Originally Posted by Fallen_Empire View Post
    How crazy would it be to run UB? I've been having fun running black on mtgo.
    I don’t know that UB really gains much by running Dreadnought. They aren’t really winning with combat damage, and it’s already in their interest to run Karn (the only profitable way for them to kill a Chalice). At most they’d have 1x Scroll main and a 1x Dreadnought in the board, b/c that’s all they’d really need.

    Having access to Drown in the Loch relieves a lot of pressure on their life total, and Murderous Rider fixes any PW problem while also offering life gain. Stay off board and spam some Innocent Blood and they should be doing just fine.

  14. #4474
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    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    @Fox All that matters is that UB (like UW) gets access to Sideboard Cat. This whole mechanic is incredibly dumb, overpowered and unfortunate. I anticipate a looming meta of Cat Storm; Cat Grixis Delver, Fox Bomber variants plus the Oko piles. But in any case, they printed it, so... the cat fits better into UW (losing MD PWs and Scroll) and UR (losing TNN & Scroll) here, right? It's not clear that these exchanges will turn out to be worth it, but they should be tested. Cat buys back all the things, incl. Standstill, buys time, and in itself helps offset Dreadnought's card disadvantage.

    As for (non-Standstill) UB Stiflenought, I'm looking at a threat suit of 4 Delver | 4 Dreadnoughts | 2-3 Bobs | 1-3 Bitterblossom/Lazav/JVP to accompany the stupid cat.

    One way of looking at it is you're starting every game with a Brazen Borrower-type dude out on an adventure. I really hope that I'm wrong here, but it's a free extra card every fucking game. There's a reason Brazen Boi turned Disperse into a MD Legacy staple: It's free.

    I stand by my love for the flying Whale, btw, but whether or not it's this much better or worse than Arcanist, Mandrills, JVP, etc. doesn't really matter as long as other decks get to start with 8 cards in hand.

  15. #4475

    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Quote Originally Posted by Tobitzki View Post
    This whole mechanic is incredibly dumb, overpowered and unfortunate.
    I don't have anything to add to discussing the deck, just want to say that this is how I feel about Companion too. It sets an awful precedent. But unfortunately, as you say, this is where things are now, so...

  16. #4476
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    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Companion either needs to be re-looked at or revisited somehow. I can't see them not addressing this mechanic going forward (seems terrible constructed and horridly balanced). Lets all hope they figure it out.
    UR Dreadstill creator and BRx WGD Combo Pioneer
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    EDIT: and Roodmistah. If Dreadstill sucks then he's been mopping up the East Coast with a "crap" deck and making you all look bad.
    Quote Originally Posted by Rabbi View Post
    "Protection from player" is like a joke ability from Unglued. Ban this crap from legacy asap.

  17. #4477
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    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    @Tobitzki companion cat not the best in UW. We can‘t run it from SB since we‘d lose our best cards (PWs/Scroll). Even though I have Karakas, it would eat removal if it was in the maindeck (there is nothing else to clear that out of their hand). As far as white decks go, the cat should be a maindeck DnT staple (Karakas, tutors, Mother, Vial, etc...).

    Probably better in UB, but I think you‘re probably playing Petal + Delver/Confidant. If you‘re running it as a companion, you‘re going to have a hard time vs Chalice and will have to rely on Torpor Orb and/or Mask in the main (possibly 1x LDV to find them). The cat would be fine in such a maindeck as a 1-2x. It‘s the same idea as Tasigur, but less life loss of Confidant flips and the lifelink to go up on life. Not a huge amount of things to buy back if your guys are getting exiled, which kinda pushes you to Petal. The deck won‘t have room for Standstill. Petals will push Confidant up to either a 3x or 4x.

  18. #4478
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    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Quote Originally Posted by Fox View Post
    Probably better in UB, but I think you‘re probably playing Petal + Delver/Confidant.
    I never really thought Petals were playable in a Dreadnought deck, that happened way before my time (and before Push and Decay). I mostly played UB from 2018 and throughout the W&6 meta, without Bobs. (fwiw, I've also never liked Standstill in UB.) With the Cat I think you're right, tho, Petals become a viable option again (but do not ever maindeck the companion!)

    Couple more things: Not worried about Chalice, not adding any 1drops here. And yeam Mask is back on the menu (if I only owned one), as is Lazav.

    EDIT: correction: Torpor Orb obviously does work here, too
    Last edited by Tobitzki; 04-10-2020 at 10:41 AM.

  19. #4479
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    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Pretty sure Torpor Orb works just fine with the companion cat since it‘s cmc=2.

    Can‘t link from twitch with tablet, but Card Kingdom had a stream last night of BUG Dreadnought. Lots of structural flaws in construction though: Daze w/o Wasteland in a deck trying to spam 3-drops, Oko and Standstill without removal, and Delver stranded by himself and struggling to flip. Pilot was able to dodge Delver, 4c Oko, Vial, Goyf, and Hymn/CB; ended up 4-1 vs RW Painter, Aluren (this was a loss, except that oppo ran out of clock), OkoLands (loss), Belcher, SnT. All pretty favourable matchups which failed to pressure early to exploit construction errors, so at 4-1 to 5-0 result is what we‘d expect vs that lineup. Despite the parade of good matchups and lack of punishing the construction, it‘s a good series to watch as a number of different/better lines of play often present. The series also begins by reinforcing one of the most important rules: get basic Island first. This opening game is the highest yield as you get to see how things fall apart when you open with incorrect land sequencing and follow up with an incorrect FoW pitch. The pilot ends up winning that game iirc, but it‘s way more of a struggle than it had to be. The pilot understands the format, but often gets a little lost in sideboarding. Looking at what is in the sideboard and asking yourself what you‘d add/cut in these matches is also worthwhile (get to see 5 different decks rather than the single 4c Oko fair soup deck).

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    Re: [Deck] Dreadstill - Enter the Fist

    Quote Originally Posted by Fox View Post
    Pretty sure Torpor Orb works just fine with the companion cat since it‘s cmc=2.
    my apologies, of course you're right. I was too deep into Fox brewing mode...

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