Yeah, looks like they're playing it main now, which is a testament to how bad the matchup is for them. I actually played against this deck twice yesterday, in both cases they had Fiery Confluence, one game he didn't have the mana to actually cast it, the other game he was too far behind for it to matter.
I mean, you can lose to that card for sure. But I'm way more scared when a deck like Painter casts it, because it typically goes 'I'm a little bit ahead' -> 'now they just combo me out' whereas with these Stompy guys it goes 'I'm way ahead' -> 'now I'm just a little bit ahead'.
Yeah, I 100% set Prelate on 4 in those matchups, especially if you aren't sure which build they are on. 4 stops Confluence, Sneak Attack, and Chandra. Our typical disruption suite lines up really well against their deck. In the games where they don't just get way ahead before your turn two, you're pretty favored. It's often very easy to attack their mana, which is surprisingly fragile.
Generically, I feel favored against the various Big Red decks, but their sideboards can be brutal. One version that was running around had 4x Firebolt and 4x Sulfur Elemental, which was rough. Pyrokinesis and Anarchy also aren't unheard of.
Thanks for the insights. However with 8 bloodmoon effects, I find it hard to disrupt effectively their manabase.
I play the regular 3 phyrexians 1 prelate main, and if I get ahead early I rarely suffer a set back, but quite often they will land a t1 blood moon and then things get tough for me.
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Hello, I hope I'm in the right place for this. I started legacy a little while ago and have been jumping around from one deck to another without finding one that I really like much. I think Death and Taxes with a red splash might be what I want to play, however, as it runs a lot of cards I like to play, is my favourite colour combination, and is based on an archetype that is obviously rather competitive.
I'm having a couple of issues though, one being that I find myself a bit starved for white with a traditional manabase, and Magus of the Moon isn't helping that. Second, my creatures feel a touch small. I was thinking of solving the first by dropping the number of Rishadan Ports, which never feel as good to me as I know they are supposed to be. I must be doing something wrong but having to keep 2 of my lands tapped down to lock down one of theirs just seems like a disadvantage. I might want to run between 0-2. For the second I was looking at some number of Thalia's Lieutenant, probably 2-3, as the red splash leans more on humans, it can be Flickerwisp-ed if I want to pump the board again, and it represents a threat in and of itself. I know for a fact Thalia's Lieutenant has been discussed somewhere in this thread but can't seem to track down where, so I don't know if it's ever been talked about in this particular shell.
I'm assuming this is all just coming from inexperience with the deck and the format in general, but it also can't hurt too much to ask about this right?
@ AteValve
I am on this RW list for 2 month now
//NAME:
3 Plains
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
2 Plateau
3 Karakas
3 Cavern of Souls
2 Flooded Strand
2 Windswept Heath
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Flickerwisp
3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Mother of Runes
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Mirran Crusader
3 Magus of the Moon
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Aether Vial
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Body and Mind
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
//Sideboard
SB: 2 Faerie Macabre
SB: 1 Rest in Peace
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Batterskull
SB: 2 Council's Judgment
SB: 2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
SB: 1 Containment Priest
SB: 1 Orzhov Pontiff
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Sudden Demise
SB: 1 Leonin Relic-Warder
Itīs a beast against BUG decks.
For me usually Mirran Crusader is enough to close the games. If you donīt like Sword of Body and Mind you can switch to Sword of War and Peace like a lot of DNT pilots did. In my opinion it is meta dependend if you expect a lot of BUG, Body and Mind, a lot of Miracles, War and peace.
A new threat could be 4c control with 4 Snapcaster and a lot of removal and counter magic, feels like the Jund matchup but worse.
A good card vs Sulfur Elementals and Dread of Nights is Pia and Kiran Nalaar. Pia and Kia is also very good vs BUG decks too.
@AteValve
Welcome to the forums!
It's not that Port is amazing on its own. It's amazing when paired with something else. An Aether Vial start means you can go all in on mana denial without having to play any other spells. Similarly, your opponent might flounder around and do nothing if you Thalia and lock them down with Ports. While the card is slightly less powerful in the red shell due to your own Magus, it's still great. It may actually be that you aren't using Port at the right times; maybe it would be helpful to have another pilot watch a few of your games.
@H
I mapped out a bunch of decision trees after writing the article, and I decided I should have played Canonist. One line I didn't initially consider was Fatal Push into going off, which wouldn't require my opponent to have any extra lands. That is what pushed my decision a little further down that direction.
Honestly, I am the least cerebral player on Earth in all probability. My intuition was to just jam the Canonist and so I think my post was me mainly seeing if there was actually a rational reason to do so. While I've never seen Push out of an ANT deck, I did fail to consider the full implications of Chain of Vapor, which is an absolute blowout for you in really both cases (I think) anyway, so it probably doesn't really matter.Originally Posted by Medea_
I think that we can spill so many words about it means it is all real close in the end.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Port is busted because it lets you cast spells *and* gives you a mana sink throughout the game. It might seem inefficient compared to Wasteland's one for one mana denial, but the actual inefficient cards on board are the extra Plains you have sitting around doing nothing once you've dumped your hand. All they do is let you cast spells.
Porting properly is probably the hardest thing to do with DnT and where new players make the most mistakes. (That + thinking that we're a 'get a Batterskull into play' combo deck.) There are a lot of subtle mistakes or situations that are really judgment calls. Early in the game you have to make the decision between deploying threats and ramping up your soft disruption, later in the game you have to figure out the potential threats in their deck, random sideboard cards, etc. and try to cut them off them.
One thing about this deck is that you often don't see the ways that your soft disruption made your opponent lose the game (unless they actually tell you after the match.) So it might not seem like Port is doing much, I mean they still cast a spell that turn - they just didn't cast 2.
Ok, so I'm just playing Rishadan Port wrong or not seeing it do anything and so assuming it didn't. Good to know. I did see someone on here running 3 though, would that solely be for budgetary reasons then? Or do some people genuinely not run a full playset?
@gh0st_b1rd
Is the 4 drop really worth it? It seems like Pia Nalaar might be easier to run as we can still vial her in on 3 and she doesn't cost double red. She's clearly not as good utility, but I'd hate to be stuck with Pia and Kiran in hand on one red and I can't see myself ever ticking up vial to 4.
I've played 3 before with a splash when I wanted to go heavy on Caverns. It's easiest to justify it with the red splash, because you have more powerful mana denial, and it's easiest to justify replacing them with Cavern, because both cards are strong versus control. Mono-W should always play 4.
I've never actually played Pia Nalaar, I don't suspect it's strong enough to be worth it. Basically you want your splash card to be game-winning, not just a nice value play. A resolved Pia Nalaar doesn't make your opponent go 'Oh shit, how am I beating that'. Pia/Kiran is an 'Oh shit' moment and worth burning your Vial on 4 (especially with a Karakas up). Most fair decks just don't have a way to deal with infinite copies of lingering souls + unlimited amounts of direct damage.
Quoting for truth. Most new players autosearch batterskull and it's rarely correct.
My next article is going to be on Rishadan Port. It's something I've been wanting to write about for a long time, and many of the Port uses aren't really intuitive. I'm happy to take suggestions for things to talk about.
Important topic. Off the top of my head:
-land sequencing (ie leading on port/plains/waste)
-deploying threats vs porting
-Using two ports in upkeep/draw.
-Porting fetch lands.
-Porting EOT vs draw step.
-port on port battles.
Pia and Kiran Nalaar can also be naturally cast with 4 lands in play provided you have tricks off Vial and/or an untapped Mom or Karakas. I have played Pia and Kia far more often like this than I have Vialed into play.
I tend to burn my Vial up to four counters during topdeck wars but refrain from doing so if I cast the P+K and have a hand full of 3 cmc gas.
Minor things:
When you have Thalia and Port out against Burn, you let them pay mana for a Rift Bolt coming off of Suspend before Porting them.
Same as above except with Shardless BUG and Ancestral Vision.
Port a Maze of Ith pre-combat so your opponent can't remove your attackers from combat. Especially important for G1 versus Lands where you don't have access to Pithing Needle.
Against Infect, wait for your opponent to activate Inkmoth Nexus first before activating your Ports. Helps play around Vines of Vastwood and, in my experience, puts further stress on their mana base.
Same as above except with Merfolk and Mutavault.
Almost never comes up nowadays, but Porting a City of Brass deals your opponent 1 damage.
Image of the day. Also, this is game 1.
Against Miracles: Porting fetchlands in response to a top flip which indicates a miracle spell and they have 0 (Terminus) or only 1 (Entreat) white sources without activating the fetchland.
Here is my new brew: Death & Taxes & Quarters
Creatures:26
4 Mother of Runes
2 Kor Skyfisher
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Flickerwisp
4 Renegade Rallier
Spells:11
4 AEther Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull
Lands:23
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Horizon Canopy
2 Karakas
3 Plains
2 Savannah
4 Wasteland
5 Fetch
Sideboard:15
2 Containment Priest
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Qasali Pridemage
3 Chrome Mox
2 Path to Exile
2 Surgical Extraction
I played this aproximate list 4W 0L 1D yesterday.
1-1 vs Merfolk: Tight games where I had equipment and he had TNN
2-0 vs Miracles: Pretty easy wins with my D&T cards.
2-1 vs Miracles: He landed entreat in all games, but it was only enough for him to win one of them. The last game he made 4 angels and had Moat out. I Flickered 1 EOT. He attacked with 3 angels. Next turn I flickered the Moat and attacked with all my creatures for the win.
2-0 vs some Grixis deck: I had greedy grixis and BUG decks n mind when building this deck. He did not get into the game. My 4 revokers stopped his Deathrites. My Ghost Quarters, Renegade Ralliers and Flickerwisps keept him from ever reaching 3 mana.
Deck considerations:
4 Renegade Rallier: A strong toolbox card. Can resurrect Wasteland/Ghost Quarter or a hate bear.
4 Phyrexian Revokers: The deck can use a strong mana denial strategy against decks with non-basics, which is better when turning off Deathrite. Deathrite also stops Renegade Rallier. Renegade Rallier can resurrect a falllen Revoker. All these factors make Revoker extra strong in this deck
4 Ghost Quarter: Works as strip mine against half the field. Triggers revolt. Makes for a really strong mana denial plan against non-basic decks with Renegade Rallier, Flickerwisp and even Kor Skyfisher.
2 Kor Skyfisher (flex spots): Instead of Recruiter and Flickerwisps to put recurring threats on the table I use the Renegade Rallier + Kor Skyfisher interaction to keep putting new threats on the table. I can resurrect Kor Skyfisher every turn (the turns that revolt triggers) and get Renegade Rallier back into my hand. Works through Counterbalance with Cavern set on Human. These "flex spots" were a Spirit of the Labyrinth and a Recruiter of the Guard yesterday, but I realized tonight when browsing cards that Kor Skyfisher is strong both for reusing Rallier and getting reused multiple times by Rallier.
3 Chrome Mox: This is for when I need to race. This is against many of the decks that play basics: Burn, UR Delver, Sneak and Show.
@autonom
I'm not sure if that list is good, but I guarantee you that I'll be trying it next week. That looks like a blast.
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