Page 4 of 18 FirstFirst 1234567814 ... LastLast
Results 61 to 80 of 359

Thread: [Deck] The Servant's Stone

  1. #61

    Re: The Servant's Stone

    Why not try to abuse the Painter for its own protection and use ALL blasts available. 50% of the blast are strong anyway as most of the metagame either play red or blue spells.

    You can also use ponder/brainstorm to manipulate your library to find only the proper blast until you resolve of or your 8 painter servants (plus ponder/brainstorm) in your deck.

    As soon as the Servant enters the game you can be the control deck for one turn. As soon as you untap you should be able to resolve the second combo part and either wait another turn or combo out immeditately depending on the matchup/situation. 20 counters and/or 16 instant "destroy target permanent" spells for one mana should be sufficient to protect your combo.

    I donīt know if you will improve the deck when you "waste" slots to cards like CB/SDT/Trinket Mage/Fabricate...

    This is I would try first:

    "The Paint Shop" by MMD
    4 Painterīs Servant
    4 Grindstone
    4 Ponder
    4 Force of Will
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Blue Elemental Blast
    4 Pyroblast
    4 Red Elemental Blast
    4 Pyroblast
    4 Enlightened Tutor

    4 Volcanic Island
    2 Tundra
    1 Plateau
    3 Polluted Delta
    4 Flooded Strand
    2 Island
    4 Ancient Tomb

    You should be able to combo out on turn 4 constantly.

    Turn 1: Enlightend Tutor/Ponder
    Turn 2: Brainstorm/Grindstone/Ponder/Enlightend Tutor
    Turn 3: Painter`s Servant/1-2 Blast
    Turn 4: Activate Grinstone/1-2 Blast

    You can certainly combo out on Turn 3 (even Turn 2) but this is neither realistic nor safe.

    I am not 100% sure if the 8 Blue Blasts are really good enough and needs to be tested but I always wanted to build a deck around them and the Servant really abuses them best. Perhaps a combination of Orimīs Chant/Thoughtseize/Daze will stabilize/improve the deck. But I will definitely try the 16 Blast version first.

  2. #62
    Legacy Inept

    Join Date

    Oct 2005
    Location

    France
    Posts

    1,956

    Re: The Servant's Stone

    You may want to play Flash Flood instead of splashing R and being able to counterspell/destroy only a part of spells.

    Anyway, this approach looks bad because you are too much dependent on having Painter into play.

  3. #63

    Re: The Servant's Stone

    Quote Originally Posted by Clark Kant View Post
    Vision Charm is especially impressive because not only does it combo with Phyrexian Dreadnought, but when you have only one of your combo pieces in play, you can phase it out in reponse to a Naturalize or Oblivion Ring to protect the artifact until you can cast the second combo piece next turn.
    Vision Charm could also be hilarious if you Anarchy and phase Dreadnought out.

  4. #64

    Re: The Servant's Stone

    I donīt think that it will be a big issue to find/resolve/protect the Painter with my list. As soon as you have a Painter in play you can switch to control mode until you find one Grindstone.

    I need to test if the eight blue blasts need to be substituted by any combination of Orimīs Chant/Spell Snare/Daze/Counterbalance+Top (or even Duress/Thoughtseize).

    I donīt see a problem to "splash" red as the average CC is 1, so Wastelands donīt hurt that much. Also my Meta is full of Landstill and Threshold were red blasts really shine.

    I personally donīt think that Flash Flood is superior to any Blast as it does not help to keep the Painter in play nor to counter other non-permanent threads. In the same way cards like Guttural Response and Active Volcano are less attractive for me as well.

    I donīt think it is unlikely to have a Painter in you hand on turn 2-3:
    1-4 out of 60 in your opening hand: 40% (Painter)
    1-8 out of 60 in your opening hand: 65% (Painter/Enlightened)
    1-16 out of 60 in your opening hand: 90% (Painter/Enlightened/BS/Ponder)

    If you also add the Brainstorm(Ponder)/Fetchland "combo" and 1-3 draw phases (as you donīt want to cast the painter before turn 2-3) your chances of having a painter on turn 3-4 isnīt that bad.

  5. #65
    Sushi or Meat and Eggs
    Cire's Avatar
    Join Date

    Apr 2007
    Posts

    2,252

    Re: The Servant's Stone

    I have a question: let's say they have a couple of gaea's blessing in their deck, and you do the painter combo on them (not knowing they have the blessings and thus not holding stifle in your hand to counter the blessing effect)...would this be a tie if you continue doing the ability? i mean if some one accuses you of wasting time because the grindstone is a may ability, can't you just say your going to keep grinding till the blessing is one of the last 2 cards?

  6. #66
    Legacy Inept

    Join Date

    Oct 2005
    Location

    France
    Posts

    1,956

    Re: The Servant's Stone

    It works like this:
    All the library goes to the yard as an effect of the grindstone.
    The trigger of the gaea's blessing(s) is(are) put on the stack.
    You'd better stifle, make your opponent draw or do something or your combo is screwed up. My solution to that is to activate tormod crypt in resp.
    The yard is shuffled into the library.

  7. #67
    Loves the anus
    Jaiminho's Avatar
    Join Date

    Dec 2007
    Location

    Rio de Janeiro, RJ - Brasil
    Posts

    544

    Re: The Servant's Stone

    If you go to Dreadnought as a plan B, you have Stifles maindeck. These should be enough to stop any Gaea's Blessings or Feldon's Cane (wtf!) or whatever.
    Keep moon-walking.

  8. #68
    Member
    Willoe's Avatar
    Join Date

    Nov 2007
    Location

    Denmark
    Posts

    507

    Re: The Servant's Stone

    Did anyone try anything out other than a dreadstill shell?

    I think it could do in survival or something. Trinket Mage to fetch grindstone and everything else to fetch Servant. And it's UG, which color you all love. Think FoW, Brainstorm, Intuition, Tradewind Rider etc. etc. etc.
    "You're English is terrible and inconsistent."

    -DownSyndromeKarl

  9. #69
    Sweet Sixteenth
    Happy Gilmore's Avatar
    Join Date

    Jul 2004
    Location

    Fairfax City, VA
    Posts

    1,497

    Re: The Servant's Stone

    Quote Originally Posted by Jaiminho View Post
    If you go to Dreadnought as a plan B, you have Stifles maindeck. These should be enough to stop any Gaea's Blessings or Feldon's Cane (wtf!) or whatever.

    Because of how Grindstone works, one of Crypt maindeck answers both Cane and any number of blessings.

    The repeating process is all one resolution, so if you have crypt in play you can respond to all of the blessing triggers at once with one activation.
    Quote Originally Posted by Krieger View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Getsickanddie View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Parcher View Post
    Looks like Team Unicorn has about sixteen coming to this.

    What's the term for a plural group of Unicorns? Y'know, like a murder of crows. Well that's what's on it's way.
    ******s?
    While this is close it's still wrong. Every one knows it's an orgy of unicorns.
    Team Unicorn is too hetero for me.
    TeaM NOVA for life.

  10. #70
    Banned
    Cavius The Great's Avatar
    Join Date

    Mar 2006
    Location

    Lake Of Fire and Brimstone
    Posts

    5

    Re: The Servant's Stone

    Quote Originally Posted by Jaiminho View Post
    If you go to Dreadnought as a plan B, you have Stifles maindeck. These should be enough to stop any Gaea's Blessings or Feldon's Cane (wtf!) or whatever.
    Extract or Jester's Cap can get rid of Blessing if you're that concerned about it. I don't have a doubt in my mind that Jester's Cap deserves atleast a couple SB slots.

  11. #71
    "Catches Bullets With His Teeth?"
    Gambit's Avatar
    Join Date

    Apr 2007
    Posts

    166

    Re: The Servant's Stone

    This is a different route: I posted in the Stax thread as well, but am interested in everyone's thoughts:
    Bare with me for a minute; this may be terrible and I haven't done any testing yet. But a stax shell with a combo win may be good.
    This combines the broken openings of stax with the painters grindstone combo. I pulled the chalices as they are quite dis-synergistic with the e-tutors and grindstones. This also, allows e-tutors which can in fact find you important lock pieces. The obvious problem being painter and grindstone being bad on there own. Thoughts?

    4 Trinisphere
    3 Crucible of Worlds
    4 Enlightened Tutor
    3 Smokestack
    4 Mox Diamond
    3 Ghostly Prison
    4 Armageddon
    3 Painter's Servant
    3 Grindstone
    4 Magus of the Tabernacle
    4 Flagstones of Trokair
    4 City of Traitors
    4 Ancient Tomb
    3 Mishra's Factory
    2 Wasteland
    1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
    8 Plains

  12. #72
    Sweet Sixteenth
    Happy Gilmore's Avatar
    Join Date

    Jul 2004
    Location

    Fairfax City, VA
    Posts

    1,497

    Re: The Servant's Stone

    Quote Originally Posted by willoe View Post
    Did anyone try anything out other than a dreadstill shell?

    I think it could do in survival or something. Trinket Mage to fetch grindstone and everything else to fetch Servant. And it's UG, which color you all love. Think FoW, Brainstorm, Intuition, Tradewind Rider etc. etc. etc.
    Could be good, but you would probably still use CB in the deck along side Survival.

    To answer the Blessing/staff questions: One crypt answers both of them. For the reason I stated earlier.
    Quote Originally Posted by Krieger View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Getsickanddie View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Parcher View Post
    Looks like Team Unicorn has about sixteen coming to this.

    What's the term for a plural group of Unicorns? Y'know, like a murder of crows. Well that's what's on it's way.
    ******s?
    While this is close it's still wrong. Every one knows it's an orgy of unicorns.
    Team Unicorn is too hetero for me.
    TeaM NOVA for life.

  13. #73
    Loves the anus
    Jaiminho's Avatar
    Join Date

    Dec 2007
    Location

    Rio de Janeiro, RJ - Brasil
    Posts

    544

    Re: The Servant's Stone

    Quote Originally Posted by Happy Gilmore View Post
    Because of how Grindstone works, one of Crypt maindeck answers both Cane and any number of blessings.

    The repeating process is all one resolution, so if you have crypt in play you can respond to all of the blessing triggers at once with one activation.
    Yes, there are lots and lots of different answers to grave shuffling. I'm just saying that having them maindecked leaves more sideboard slots for answers to real issues this deck would have. Yeah, I know... Tormod may already fit in some slots, since it can be fetched by Trinket Mage.
    Keep moon-walking.

  14. #74
    Clay Aiken
    URABAHN's Avatar
    Join Date

    Jun 2005
    Location

    Mooshie's Grove
    Posts

    1,850

    Re: The Servant's Stone

    Quote Originally Posted by Nihil View Post
    Nope; Gaea's Blessing has a triggered ability. After Grindstone's ability has milled all your library (including Blessing) into the graveyard, and only then, will Blessing's ability go on the stack and resolve, shuffling your graveyard back in your library.

    So Blessing disrupts this combo, but does not cause a draw.
    In response to the Blessing trigger, activate Tormod's Crypt.
    Quote Originally Posted by Lifeless View Post
    Your Source for Hurt Feelings and Naming Cats.

  15. #75
    Meh.
    whienot's Avatar
    Join Date

    Aug 2006
    Location

    Atlanta, Ga
    Posts

    447

    Re: The Servant's Stone

    Quote Originally Posted by Happy Gilmore View Post
    Could be good, but you would probably still use CB in the deck along side Survival.
    Survival looks good. With Trinket Mage you can tutor up all the pieces.

    Gifts also works, though it's probably a little slow.
    Tusk up.

    Quote Originally Posted by Finn View Post
    Just fucking ban the 600 pound gorilla and be done with it. FFS

  16. #76
    Member

    Join Date

    Sep 2005
    Location

    Cape cod, Massachusetts
    Posts

    60

    Re: The Servant's Stone

    Absolute Law > Painter's servant
    Painter can at no point be touched by kill spells then all you need to worry about is counter.

  17. #77

    Re: The Servant's Stone

    what about llawan + painter's servant to wait the kill grindstone?

  18. #78
    Look, it's a picture of Daze!
    georgjorge's Avatar
    Join Date

    Jan 2007
    Location

    Vienna, Austria
    Posts

    560

    Re: The Servant's Stone

    Quote Originally Posted by Clark Kant View Post
    But at the end of the day, I think the best route for this combo is in a Uw controllish shell running...

    Fetchlands + Duals + Basics
    4 Brainstorm
    4 FoW
    X Spell Snare
    X Daze

    4 Enlightened Tutor
    X Fabricate
    X Servant
    X Millstone

    The main thing we need to figure out right now is which of the below cards to include in the deck...

    Sensei's Divining Top
    Counterbalance
    Standstill
    One Ofs: EE, Pithing Needle, Tormod's Crypt
    Mishra's Factory
    Academy Ruins
    Wasteland
    Phyrexian Dreadnought
    Vision Charm/Stifle/Trickbind
    Swords to Plowshares/Oblivion Ring
    I second the Uw control shell route...I've done some testing and came to some conclusions:

    CBalance + Top is pretty much a given - against various decks (Thresh, Homebrew, Burn, combo etc) you are better off tutoring for CBalance instead of a combo piece. But against those matchup where CBalance usually sucks (Stax, Rock variants) you can go for the combo, so you can maximize your tutoring power and essentially play two different combos, each of which are useful against different decks.

    The red splash is very powerful, I'm currently running seven Blasts maindeck. Basically, if they want to disrupt the combo with counters OR removal, Blast will always be useful (plus, every second deck seems to run blue). It only isn't good when you're dealing with discard...so maybe go down to five or six. A green splash for Reap would also look very attractive, but it does nothing if they counter your Painter (for the same reason, running 16 Blasts seems not so hot, because the Blue Blasts can't force it through counterspells).

    Fabricate is pretty much worse than Intuition, and I'm not sure either one is worth running unless you play more than five two-mana-lands.

    I think both Snare and Daze don't belong here, the first one is just not needed that much, the second one because a controllish deck can't use Daze very well.

    Chalice@1 kills the deck if you don't manage to get out your Grindstone before it, since you can't even tutor for an answer then. This makes a case for expensive tutors (Intuition), or at least some Serenities/Explosives in the side.

    Meddling Mage probably belongs in the sideboard, naming Grip, Extirpate, or just Swords to Plowshares.
    georgjorge
    Geistreich sind schon die anderen.

  19. #79
    Source Random
    revenge_inc's Avatar
    Join Date

    Aug 2006
    Location

    Ottawa, Canada
    Posts

    442

    Re: The Servant's Stone

    Quote Originally Posted by vanele View Post
    Absolute Law > Painter's servant
    Painter can at no point be touched by kill spells then all you need to worry about is counter.
    I don't get why you would play Absolute Law. Please elaborate.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cavius The Great View Post
    Extract or Jester's Cap can get rid of Blessing if you're that concerned about it. I don't have a doubt in my mind that Jester's Cap deserves atleast a couple SB slots.
    The problem is Gaea's Blessing. Remember that thread about why people hate you? I don't think people hate you but many don't take you seriously as a deck designer. Ever think it has something to do with the fact that you're wasting time advocating Jester's Cap, an artifact that cost to play and to activate, when in fact good ol' Tormod's Crypt will do the job for ? Just something to think about.
    Quote Originally Posted by Bovinious View Post
    This thread disgusts me. Carry on.

  20. #80

    Re: The Servant's Stone

    Quote Originally Posted by revenge_inc View Post
    I don't get why you would play Absolute Law. Please elaborate
    You set Painter to red and play Absolute Law to give it protection from everything.

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)