You're definitely the ideal advocate in this thread for Karn than. On a side note though, I do like seeing Board the Weatherlight actually seeing competitive play, as I think it's definitely the most charming card that's come up in this thread.Originally Posted by f7eleven
Congrats!
I can never claim to pilot anything perfectly, so I can't completely discount the "I'm not using Karn apprioriately" argument. I have used him a fair bit to success however, as has Kaono, and while I can't speak for him I do understand that his primary draw is a big dumb beater factory. I have won several games going T1 Chalice into T2 Karn, make a 4/4. T3 Make a 5/5, Opponent Scoops.
So I do not suspect my issues with running 4 of him maindeck are because I'm simply to hesitant to have him crank out the constructs, and at least based on the sound of it that's not Kaono's (or even cosmiccoil's a few pages back) either.
This is two issues, so let's break them apart, and first deal with "consistency".
"Consistency" is a bit of a vague concept we like to throw around without rigorously defining, obviously. Consistently ... do what? Clearly by having all 4-of's you'll more consistently have them in hand. On the other hand my 4x Grindstone, Painter, Splinter Twin, Deceiver Exarch, Lightning Bolt, Lava Spike deck with no draw or tutors obviously meets our definition of "inconsistent", so it's more than just reducing the names on the table of cards we could draw, it's also the combinatorics of how those cards come together.
So here is how I see Karn (in his role as a downtick engine - he can also uptick, but as you stated that's not 'what you're using him for').
He's a huge slab of muscle. He's going to take some games you were going to lose on the margins to card quality, and turn them into wins. He's also going to take some games that were going to be close, and turn them into huge shut-outs in your favor. He often represents a pair of slow Reality Smashers, or better. No one here is calling him a "bad card" (again, except for maybe cosmiccoil a few pages back, but even that doesn't strike me as fair representation).
But when it comes to consistency, here is how I also see Karn - In this context, he's the 8th 4-Drop in a deck very susceptible to Wasteland / Mana Denial. He's Legendary. And on a hand without critical mass of Artifacts, those Masters of Etherium he's dropping can look much, much less impressive, assuming he even gets to survive to make the 2nd.
I'm not denying he's powerful, the "thing he does" is great; but simultaneously, I don't think there's a lot of question that with respect to how consistently Karn is able to perform "at his best", with just the variable nature of what else is there to back him up, I think the shorthand for Karn's effect on the deck is quite clearly +Power (Fair) - Consistency. There are more "bad hands" that you can put Karn in to make him look like a waste of a card than most other cards in the deck; there's just a quantifiably greater number of things you need to plug into him to get that output.
So, I think calling a 4x Karn build more "inconsistent" than other options is a fair assessment. That doesn't automatically make it worse (I'd rather have a tank 30% of the time than two twigs at 60% in most instances), but as to not "understanding how a deck of all 4-of's" can be seen as less consistent than something else, I don't think that's actually that hard to see, particularly when you're comparing them to tutors.
Okay, so now let's talk about "Counterability".
A basic reality about this deck is that it's a lot of air and a key selection of Critical Threats. Because of Cavern of Souls, sometimes your opponent is unable to trade their counterspell for your Critical Threat. Because he's not a Human, Karn simply increases the opportunities your opponent has to do this.
... That's it. It's not a deal-breaker, but I think it's a pretty simple criticism, so I don't really understand how you're failing to see this as a dimension of the card.
Leaning so heavily on Karn simply is making the deck more inconsistent and more susceptible to counter-magic. Again, that's not all it's doing, you are getting rewarded as well, but even if you think it's a worthwhile trade I believe you should recognize this, as your statement above wasn't an argument for his strengths, but simply a claim not to recognize his drawbacks.
Let's go back to context here.
The argument was not "Oh man, Moon Stompy is a pushover if you do this". The argument was simply that running the Mono-White Karn List did not represent a notable improvement, as I was searching for the incentives to play Mono-White Karn in light of its drawbacks.
Based on the post above (You'll forgive me for not taking the time to go back to your stream archive to get your exact current list), you're on 3 Disenchant Effects, and 1 Plains. That's 3 answers to a Chalice on 0, and only 1 extra source of the mana to cast them under a Blood Moon. If I'm boarding in at least 2 Vandals and 1 answer off of Trinket Mage (a repeatable one, no less), than including tutors I'm running 7 answers to a Chalice on 0, most of which are completely unaffected by a Blood Moon.
Yes, you are putting yourself in a position to be significantly worse at answering an opposing Chalice. In fact, your density of Chalice answers is less than the opponent's presumable density of Chalice, and I'm representing more than double the density of answers that you are.
Again, this doesn't mean that you're list is "wrong" in the big picture, but the question at hand that you are addressing was me failing to find a Moon Stompy based incentive to run the 4-Karn build. I think that still stands, I think the build I'm running compared to the 4-Karn builds to is simply better at answering Chalice of the Void, and despite the fact "I can't convince you", I don't think that's a very hard defense to make.
I'm not saying it's a great match-up, but yes, I'd rather have 7 answers and a bunch of Red Beaters - some of which are not stopped by an opposing Ensnaring Bridge, than a Plains, 3 Disenchants, and 4 Karn producing tokens quite easily stopped by a Bridge. You're right, Fiery Confluence is still a wrecking ball against me; frankly, I think it's a pretty big wrecking ball period, but I'm not evaluating the match-up as a whole. I'm just trying to identify the incentives of playing the 4x Karn Caleb style list, and judging these topics in isolation to find them.
And I stand by the conclusion that the 4x Karn List is all the things you're saying you don't recognize. It's less consistent, it's more vulnerable to counterspells, and it is weaker against many of its bad matchups, such as Moon Stompy.
This doesn't mean it's worse; I can name strengths as well. You know what Disenchant is great against that Humans with ETB effects are not? The card Humility. Also Karn - still a powerhouse.
My skepticism comes from this - At a basic level, I feel like the 4x Karn lists are trying to be a Better Eldrazi deck (not than Eldrazi, I mean than the other Bomberman lists); it's trying to out-muscle a lot of the other decks. Trying to find the best way to do that is valid choice, and you'll definitely win some games you would have otherwise lost, but at the same time, devoting more of the deck to expensive, legendary Eldrazi-Factories comes with some very real drawbacks (obviously, otherwise decks list Eldrazi Stompy would be far more prevalent).
I think running Karn maindeck is justifiable. It's not what I currently do, but depending on which games you're trying to win at the cost of which other games, I think it's easy to make the argument for it. If all the games you might play exist on a 2 dimensional plane, adding Karn, much like any other card, is just saying I want to improve my numbers with the games over here in this corner, at the cost of making me weaker in these other games over here. My skepticism comes from the fact that I see the drawbacks that it presents as clear enough that when you're, let's say, at 2x or 3x Karn maindeck, and you say "What I need is more Karn. I really, really want to overpower and win these games over here", that the marginal returns you're getting seem to get more overshadowed by the points of weakness you're letting become more and more prominent that you might not be seeing.
What then fails to alleviate my skepticism however is not your profession of love for Karn (the card is clearly powerful), or your results (as stated earlier, we're all talking about the same Core deck here which is good, and you simply being a good player and playing well will often overshadow the small nuances of the last dozen spell slots in the deck as long as those choices are reasonable), but the fact that when the topic is put to you, rather than talking up the value of Karn's strengths, or contextualizing the drawbacks as minimal, you effectively state that you don't see the drawbacks or "understand" how people could claim they are there. ... which is exactly the scenario my skepticism is resting in.
So I thank you for your defense (and I love hearing that you're running a Board the Weatherlight), but respectfully I don't really think you really addressed any of Karn's strengths or weaknesses in any real detail, or did a lot to alleviate the Karnskepticism.
EDIT: However, I admittedly don't want to actually convince you as much as encourage a more rigorous defense, because I don't want you stop playing a Board the Weatherlight and making Historic a real characteristic in Legacy, which remains awesome.
I don't know when he'll log on next, but f7eleven streams on Twitch under the same name, so you could always just go check out his archived footage if you're looking for how he runs his list.
I can see how I came off dickish without any real "meat" behind my claims, other than the fact that I've been on a heater with my version of the deck.
Sorry.
Also, it's really cool you've noticed the stream. I just started doing that, mostly because I wanted people to point out my mistakes (which has happened and I am glad for it). I don't think I'm setup for archives, unless that happens automatically, but I'll look into it.
Why I love Karn:
Karn doesn't just make slow beaters... he makes the biggest beaters. Constructs that out class Gurmag Angler and Goyf in combat. The more you -2 Karn, the better all the Constructs become because they all pump each other. When I'm on the Karn -2 plan I stop cracking baubles, I prioritize playing Ancient Dens over other lands, I go -2/-2 with a Karn then legend rule him and go -2 again.
Constructs eat Terminus's, Abrupt Decays, StP's, Ancient Grudges, Fatal Pushes, Disenchants.. all things that don't actually deal with Karn himself. Karn still gets to dig for value/combo pieces and/or make more Constructs.
Karn replaced Dark Confidant 1-for-1 and the manabase was updated accordingly, so Dark Confidant is what I am comparing Karn to in my head. Dark Confidant was AMAZING in the deck - your opponents (especially those unfamiliar with the list) would tilt themselves as you took 0 after 0 from his flips. But he ate those same Decays, StP's and Pushes while only chipping in for a little bit of damage... An untouched Bob certainly contributed to winning the game, finding missing combo pieces or fuel for Mentor, but an untouched Bob was rare, and he certainly never won games singlehandedly - the way Karn can/does.
Have you ever top decked a Karn and -1'd and cracked LED, using the WWW to cast a previously exiled Salvagers for the win? It feels so good!! It might never happen again, but casting stuff under Karn WITH Lion's Eye Diamond isn't too uncommon and neither is the opponent choosing to exile Salvagers on a Karn +1. I, of course, will also top deck Karn more often than those on less than 4x.
You know what Karn's +1 is really the best at though? A: Finding lands. So being a deck so susceptible to Wasteland makes Karn better, not worse, right?
Reasons to not love Karn, I suppose:
You side him out vs unfair matchups. If we were playing vs more unfair matchups than fair, we'd probably rather have Dark Confidants (or Tangle Wire!). He comes out vs fair decks too if they're going wide - Constructs can be pretty lousy vs Elves, for instance.
It was lost on me that your Chalice answers are playable through Chalice + Moon. But if I'm facing a lot of Chalice + Moon then I'm putting this deck down until that stops happening. That said, my out to Chalice + Moon (other than the single basic) is, wait for it... Karn, lol.
Every non-Karn, non-Chalice spell in the deck is either likely never to be targeted with a counterspell (baubles/mana), or is a creature potentially unable to be countered due to Cavern. This means Karn is going to be countered more than the other spells in the deck. Cool. I mitigate this by playing the full set of Karn rather than replacing Karn with more potentially uncounterable spells. I'm arguing more for people to go up on Karns, not to add them to a deck that isn't playing any.
Board the Weatherlight is fun. But I still advocate a Lodestone Bauble over it when playing in paper.
No worries; it's all cool.
I think it does? Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.
Alright, here's the meat! You're saying Karn is resilient. That makes sense to me.
Karn doesn't die to plow, Confidant does (assuming no Chalice). They both die to bolt, but Karn gets value before that happens (again, no Chalice). Karn dies more often to Countermagic, but Confidant does sometimes too depending on the draw. Karn dies to pressure, but again, that's a sometimes and even then he gets value before he does. Karn gets to chuckle at an Abrupt Decay.
This is a good point in his favor.
No, but I did cast a Sanctum Prelate off of Karn + LED against Greg Mitchell on Bizarro Storm, so I've seen him turn on an LED similar to how the tutors do. It is a good synergy.
Mmmm ... no. I think he's worse than Confidant in dealing with mana problems, for a couple reasons, so this argument I'm pretty sure you know this argument is a stretch. The resiliency one is still good though.You know what Karn's +1 is really the best at though? A: Finding lands. So being a deck so susceptible to Wasteland makes Karn better, not worse, right?
Well yeah, I wasn't so much talking myself up in the matchup as trying to eliminate the possible Karn incentives, and "against Blood Moon" is the traditional argument for making a deck mono-color.
I don't think Karn-structs are where you really want to be against an Ensnaring Bridge, though.
Yeah, I picked up on the fact you specifically noted it as an MTGO replacement, which is almost certainly right, but a bit of a shame.
--
Anyways, highlighting Karn's resiliency did slightly lessen my Karn-skepticism, so thank you for that. It's not entirely gone, but you're giving acclaim to an aspect of Karn I could easily believe I'm under-valuing.
Also, this all was started by Monroe's claim on the last page that Caleb Durward was "deadset" on Mono-White, and sussing out what was so critically important about the choice. Given that as I write this, Caleb Durward is streaming with a UW build that at first glance seems to look much like Sean Brown's Blue Sai list, I'm currently reading that assertion as actually more Monroe's characterization than Caleb's.
This is pretty awesome that he is doing U/W. Maybe he changed his mind!
Once you go Legacy...
Possibly.
Alternatively, he could just be continuing to experiment with what amounts to the cards outside the core of an archetype that does not have a plethora of data in a currently still adapting metagame.
I don't have a guide for multiple matchups, just some common sense things I've been doing:
- Karn comes out vs unfair decks and the appropriate hate comes in.
- Ballista gets shaved (when I say "shave" I mean cutting one or two copies) when he's not good on his own, like vs Miracles.
- Chalice comes out vs other Chalice decks, obv.
- I'll shave Urza's Baubles when I need to find room.
- I'll cut a land when I need to find room and they don't have Wastelands - a Karakas or Cavern if one is not relevant in the matchup.
- I almost never cut Lodestone Bauble since anyone can bring in Surgical or Needles.
- I don't shave Chalices vs decks you might not think they're great against (BUG w/ Decays, Grixis w/ KCommands) because they'll be bringing in Surgical/Needle for sure.
- I don't like having Chalice in my deck vs D&T. They don't have cantrips or Snapcasters, and I'd rather work my way through/around their StP's than let them flicker a Chalice.
- When I bring in Bridges vs Reanimator/Show and Tell, I prioritize Chalice on 2 for their Abrades, Echoing Truths, Wear//Tear (Tidespout Tyrant hoses this, but they have 8 2-drop reanimation spells and 4 1-drop reanimation spells).
- On MTGO only, I'll cut the Salvagers and LED's when they've not scooped to the combo in earlier games and I don't have the time on my clock to click through another combo kill.
I've been thinking about cutting Mentors vs RUG Delver - 2x Sulfur Elemental is becoming the standard. I'll be trying it next time I play the matchup
I've been boarding very little vs Miracles, but have noticed this matchup is more dependant on the skill of the Miracles player. A very good Miracles player is hard to beat. I'm going to try 1-2 Winter Orbs in the board next league. I also want to test bringing in all the Ethersworn Canonists vs them. I don't know if that's good or not, but I'll find out.
Do you always side in seal of cleaning/disenchant in 2/3 match ? I saw you use 4 cannonists in sb. They are good only in storm/elf meta, right ?
Disenchants don't always come in, no. I don't like them vs Sneak and Show for instance. They're for Chalices, Needle effects, and Equipment.
Storm is more popular online than IRL, but it's not a good matchup. You need to have SOMETHING to slow them down (Chalice or Canonist) and then win quickly. If you're on Prelate, that's also good vs them, but harder to cast turn-1. The Tormod's Crypts can come in vs ANT (for PiF and Cabal Ritual) but they're worthless vs TES. I have played my own Chalice on 0 vs Storm at least a few times - not something I'd recommend defaulting to, but look for situations where you can get away with it.
As I mentioned, I'm going to try out bringing in the Canonists vs Miracles and try to figure out if they have enough impact vs Snapcaster.
I'll stream a league run tonight at 7pm EDT if you anyone wants to come point out my misplays!
Okay, I've been doing a lot of itterration with the sideboard since the banning and I'm finally hitting something that's feeling really good again.
4x Monastery Mentor
4x Auriok Salvager
4x Dark Confidant
2x Imperial Recruiter
2x Trinket Mage
1x Walking Ballista
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Mox Opal
4x Lotus Petal
4x Urza's Bauble
3x Mishra's Bauble
1x Lodestone Bauble
4x Unclaimed Territory
4x Cavern of Souls
4x Ancient Tomb
3x City of Traitors
2x Remote Farm
1x Spire of Industry
1x Inventors' Fair
SB:
3x Quicksmith Rebel
2x Sanctum Prelate
2x Manic Vandal
2x Warping Wail
1x Venser, Shaper Savant
1x Containment Priest
1x Tormod's Crypt
1x Sorcerous Spyglass
1x Surge Node
1x Karn, Scion of Urza
2x Warping Wail
Warping Wail has seemed fantastic. It kills Thalia and Revoker. It counters Show and Tell and exiles Arcane Artisan. It answers Terminus and Infernal Tutor. It's good against Reanimator, Infect, the list goes on. It's incredibly easy to cast and it gives us access to a whole category of effect that the opponent previously did not have to respect. It can even deny a Ponder or a Preordain when that's the best line. It hits the match-ups we want to hit, gains extra points in many other popular match-ups entirely outside of what it's included for, and even has an additional mode I've yet to even use if we want to get creative with our lines or pump some monks and make a body.
Card is great.
1x Venser, Shaper Savant
Venser is actually an old inclusion from an earlier version of the list. His primary motivation for inclusion is that he's an easily tutorable answer that is amazingly flexible in the Reanimator / Show and tell matchups, but he's all around a great card. He let's us (regularly uncounterably) interact with whatever we want on a critical turn. He adds resilience to almost every deck-drawing combo turn, not only be holding him on hand on the opponent's last remaining turn, but if necessary we can even put our 48 upkeep draw triggers on the stack, sack the LED we combo'd with for blue mana, draw into him, cast him off the floating mana + 1 (or a 2nd LED) and bounce a permanent while also clogging up the board. Hypothetically you could even bounce a Tutor, hold priority, sack LED, play the tutor exactly off the LED mana and use him to transform an LED into the other card of your choice, but I've never actually done that one.
The reason it's taken me so long to include him again is that reasonably speaking he's taking the place of War Priest of Thune in this sideboard plan. The problem with War Priest of Thune has been that it's usually coming in against decks that might not land the relevant enchantment you're afraid of, or are playing with the types of enchantments that War Priest just isn't going to be doing enough against. (RIP/Helm decks with Back to Basics, etc).
Adding the increased presence of Sneak/Show and how powerful Venser is in that matchup, War Priest is out and Venser is in.
Still suspicious of Surge Node and there's a small chance that Karn should be a 3rd Sanctum Prelate, but as it stands I'm really liking the current 15.
I tried out Warping Wail in my sideboard last weekend. I've always liked the card, but it's power level was a bit underwhelming for me, despite its versatility. Also had some issues with colorless mana sources (monoW only plays 11-12). I'm actually cutting the 4th City and 4th Cavern for two more white sources.
Although I never thought Karn was a poor decision, I think its stock has improved greatly with the uptick in DnT. My primary problem with it is that it helps us play a "fair" game, which I didn't think was that big of a problem in the former, Grixis-delver dominated meta. Now that DnT is around to disrupt not only our combo, but also our fair game with cards like Jitte (which is pretty effective at killing Mentor), I find it to be much more important to have another must-answer threat that can clog up the ground. I am currently running two and going up to three. I think a counterable four-drop that isn't fantastic in multiples diminishes the incentive to run a playset.
@cosmiccoil
I've always seen Karn as a viable option in some amount, but I'm also with you on being more open to 2 - 3 Karn than 4 on those types of lists - although I'm open to being wrong. As far as D&T goes, that was the incentive I took in going up to 3 Quicksmith Rebels, as they can also machine-gun down every single creature in that deck Mom or no and are harder than most to pin down under a Revoker (admittedly not the Batterskull token, but I'm categorizing that as a job for Artifact removal rather than Creature). It's really just game 1 that I feel noticeably unfavored against. I'm not running any main-board Vandals, Chalice becomes an enormous liability in the face of Flickerwisp, and comboing under a Thalia that has not been killed is mana-neutral meaning that Monks are the only spout that remain infinite. Overall I'm feeling (Weak)(Strong)(Strong) against the deck, which feels good enough to me and has usually fell in my favor, but I have certainly lost the match at least once to some unmeasured ratio of better-player/variance before so I could easily see people moving more towards lists like Kaono's as a rational choice if they're in the market for optimizing their pre-board matchup against D&T.
Just gauging opinions here, post banning I feel very strongly that our best matchup is essentially gone and also that our worst matchups are beginning to resurface more. More fast combo, more show and tell and more graveyard strategies and hate have been giving me a really hard time as of late. What do you all think?
Once you go Legacy...
I don't generally consider combo to be bad matchups on my current build (list above -Karn +Prelate); I'm usually happy to see them. I played against a lot of Storm yesterday, and playing "11-Chalice" (3 Prelate, 4 Chalice, 2 Recruiter, 2 Trinket) plus 2x Warping Wail was fine. Not particularly worried about S&S either, especially with Venser. Reanimator is a little harder, but Containment Priest + Prelate / Chalice on 2 tends to get there. You're also a fast combo deck yourself, unless you're focusing more on the fair plan than the combo plan. Belcher would be bad in theory, but honestly I'm never really running into that.
Is it possible you're just on a build where you're cutting consistency and card velocity for fair powerhouses like Karn, and having trouble getting the sideboard to function well in this context?
I am certainly not advocating turning bomberman into "Karn Stompy." Its another threat, of which there can be many other different threats.
I don't feel like DnT is especially unfavored, but its certainly not a great matchup, which concerns me given its likely prevalence in paper events going forward. I plan to play U/W at GPRichmond and expect to play DnT at least three times on the first day because of a variety of factors (it's tier-1, price, porting from modern, et cetera). I am sure with a bunch more interaction like Quicksmith Rebels the matchup turns considerably, but it's not an option in my current color choices.
I agree on the first count (that we lost one of our best matchups) but not on the second (weakness to combo). There is always a trade-off between being "fair" and being a combo deck ourselves. Karn makes us fairer, while a bunch of tutors help against combo. You just need to choose what you want to lose to.
Because we are already a fairly good "fair" deck with Salvagers, I think it is worth allocating almost everything in your board to fighting combo.
How has the Sai been working out for you in UW, or are you not running him?
Wonderfully--as a two-of. Flying blockers buy a bunch of time to combo off. It's also a good reminder of how good flying is in general in the format. The fact that it triggers off of casting any artifact is awesome, because it means that even putting ballista into play helps. Plus the colorless-nature of the thopters helps a bunch against DnT. Sai + Karnstructs makes for some very hefty tokens. It also means Marit Lage decks are way easier to handle. So, yeah, he's been great.
The 8th Bauble is beginning to feel like too much air. Experimenting with replacing it with a 3rd Recruiter.
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