This deck is directly inspired by EPIC painter, NLU Nassif, and NLU Probasco. My design goal was to have a good game against good decks in the format as well as every random deck. The trade-off would be that I wouldn't have any great matchups just a good fighting chance. Furthermore, the really good decks that are designed to beat other really good decks (like TA) don't work in my metagame. People play Burn, Astral Slide, Random Aggro, Homebrew Counter/Top, Tribal, etc. so I needed something less optimized for a field of CB/Top+Tarmogoyf. I was further inspired to work on this deck after Probasco said in his interview that Painter/Grind ignores aggro and that his deck initially had a Painter/Grind slant.
This started from EPIC painter. My biggest issue with EPIC painter was, I needed to stop being beaten down and comboing out wasn't always fast enough (Especially now that everyone and their brother are playing Grip. Thus I put in Goyf and Shackles MD. We learned from the GP that 4/4 CB/Top was tech even with trinket mages so the top count was upped.
In my experience the CA provided by CB/Top was so dominant, and the fact that I always wanted an extra land or 2 made me decide to push up the land count to 20 and it has been working fine.
I kept it 3 colors so I can support 4 basic lands. More testing may show that I can cut a Sea and/or a Tropical to sneak in a Volcanic (like Probasco did) to play Firespout from the board and REB for that matter.
As you can imagine a pile of good cards can often win and I often feel frustrated with a painter or grindstone on their own so I'm not sure if playing 4 of each is correct because a Tarmogoyf kills pretty quick too.
The biggest issue you all should immediately notice is that there is no spot removal (well swords because that is really the only thing worth running anymore, except for maybe Snuff Out).
You can play this 1 of two ways you can just be wreckless and drop Tarmogoyf, Confidant, Painter and Grindstone onto the field and basically try to out threat your opponent, combo out or play a bit more conservatively and try to protect your combo with CB out.
The board is in a serious state of Flux right now but if you have any unique suggestions that would be cool.
Lastly, I realize this deck is very few cards off from a lot of decks so if a mod wants to stick it in NLU, or ITF,UGb Thresh or EPIC Painter I understand but please just don't troll up the thread telling me this.
// Lands
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
3 [A] Tropical Island
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [A] Underground Sea
5 [5E] Island (3)
// Creatures
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
4 [SHM] Painter's Servant
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
3 [FD] Trinket Mage
// Spells
3 [TE] Grindstone
3 [LRW] Ponder
4 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
2 [FD] Vedalken Shackles
4 [AL] Force of Will
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [CS] Counterbalance
// Sideboard
SB: 2 [BOK] Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
SB: 4 [4E] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 1 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 3 [FNM] Duress
SB: 2 [FNM] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 [10E] Pithing Needle
Last edited by jazzykat; 03-27-2009 at 12:05 AM. Reason: Newest Decklist. Enjoy.
In all honesty, the list looks pretty good. I'd probably cut a Grindstone for a third Ponder, or an Executioner's Capsule, though.
In the board, what are you bouncing with ETruth that isn't handled by Grip or by EE? It seems like a wasted slot.
I'd actually replace one with a Needle.Originally Posted by Nightmare
-
Also SB: -2 Truth, +1 Grip, +1 BEB.
...
or -3 BEB
+3 Plague?
What does make Executioner's Capsule superior to EE?
Third Ponder sounds good though.
Consider Llawan, Cephalid Empress as sideboard option foremost against Merfolk, but with Painter it comes handy against many decks.
No counterspell beside FoW makes me cry a little, besides this props on the list. If you want to test drop a pm.
BBB
It doesn't blow up your stuff, and still kills Goyf.
I was always uncomfortable with so many Grindstones main,thus the ponder/Grind Substitute sounds really good as this deck would love to find CB/Top ASAP. Pithing needle may be right also.
I think that Executioner's Capsule is cool but it only hits 1 really big problem dude: Tarmogoyf (some would say this is enough), the other 2 guys Confidant (Seeing even more play lately) and Tombstalker are not hittable. In a perfect meta I think this would be the right call because you can hit it easily or shuffle it away almost as easily.
WRT Capsule vs. EE: Nightmare hit the nail directly on the head. Since you play a ton of 2 and even some 1 drops it is almost certain that you are going to lose something.
However, I <3 enginerred explosives.
This needs to be tested, or perhaps a metagame audible? For me, given the number of wastelands and vials I am partial to the needle.
Echoing Truth: It's just a catch all that answers a fast tombstalker. Submerges may be better. I'm really open to suggestion in the board.
@ Llawan, Cephalid Empress: I had to look this card up. This shit is LOL funny with painter and if you get up to 4 mana vs. merfolk they should effectively shit themselves.
@SB Plagues: I would love to fit them, but I REALLY need to have BEBs vs. all the red.
Edit: Does anyone see a way to shave a dual land out for either a Volcanic or another Island?
Last edited by jazzykat; 03-26-2009 at 02:28 PM. Reason: Manabase
I would cut the ETruths for more blasts. Painter on Red, dude. Painter on Red.
Lim-Dul's Vault? It works amazing at finding the missing piece, it is a hard counter with Counterbalance (usually), and it fits your colors.
@Moar Blasts: I dig it. What would be helluva funny would be to splash red and play REBs too.
@Lim Dul's Vault: Part of EPIC painter and truly useful, sorta, didn't like it...
My feelings are mixed. Sometimes I'm like hey this is RAD. Other times I'm like wow, where's my FOW to pitch this crap to. With 4 CB and Confidant, it could save a lot of pain and suffering.
I'm wanting to enter the cool things zone so badly by cutting the swamp and adding a volcanic, and 1 Reb Main. With painter it is the 1 mana answer to anything without split second MB.
When I play this deck, I can't help but think how irrelevant having removal is when I'm just winning.
Remember, you can name colors that aren't blue. There's no reason to splash red for REB if you just name red with Painter, and MD BEB. Blowing up Goyfs with Blue Blast is some good, by the way.
I know this is called painter, but the 2 slot is so clogged in this deck, I'm seriously considering putting 1 in the board... any thoughts?
But if you name blue, you can do stupid things like play Merchant Scroll to grab REB, and Pitch Painter #2 to Force of Will...
(yes, I've tried this, no, you shouldn't play Merchant Scroll in Legacy)
Hi, I'm working on a similar list since a few days. It startet when I added Painter+Grindstone to my Cephalid Breakfast and kicked Cephalid out because it was too vulnerable.
My list:
Creatures
3 Looter il-Kor
3 Trygon Predator
4 Painter's Servant
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Trinket Mage
Spells
1 Fabricate
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterbalance
2 Grindstone
4 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Vedalken Shackles
2 Umezawa's Jitte
Lands
2 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
9 Island
1 Forest
4 Tropical Island
2 Flooded Strand
SB
1 Relic of Progenitus
3 Back to Basics
1 Pithing Needle
2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
2 Primeval Light
2 Krosan Grip
4 Daze
- I don't like making the manabase more vulnerable for Dark Confidant, after all, it's just a 2/1 that draws some cards and steals your lifepoints. Losing lifepoints will make the game end faster and decrease your chance to assemble the combo. At the moment I'm trying Looter-il Kor, he can discard all the cards you only need 1 time in the early game and lands in the lategame. And he is great with Jitte.
- Jitte: It's good with evasion creatures and makes all these half-vanilla creatures like Servant and Trinket acutally put some pressure on the opponent.
- Trygon Predator: Eats Pithing Needle on Grindstone .. and the opponents Counterbalance
- Basic to Basics: Maybe this should even be maindeck. replace 2 Tropicals with Islands?
- Daze: I added it for the combo-matchup, but maybe 2 are enough or Mana Maze could be better in this slot.
@Moczoc: I respectfully disagree about the manabase and confidant. If confidant comes down you normally overwhelm your opponent. The life you lose to confidant is often far outweighed by the fact that you are outdrawing your opponent 2:1.
Also, I think there is a fairly strong consensus on playing 8 fetches to maximize the power of top.
I have also wanted to put Jitte in,but haven't seen a slot.
Just an update. I've been testing online and have so far been undefeated in matches. Has anyone else had such positive results? If not, what have been your problem cards/matchups?
Isn't it worth running -1 Island, +1 Seat of the Synod in case you need to grab mana off of Trinket Mage?
No.
This looks really close to the list someone won (well, split with me) a local event with last weekend. Only difference I can see are slightly different mana and I don't recall seeing Ponder. Otherwise, it's about the same. It seemed good enough with only 4 counters; I had 12 post-SB (in the Swiss) and still got comboed out on turn 4. So, yeah.
So I've updated the top of the thread with my newest list. I've looked at some of the SB suggestions that Moczoc has and they are really cool...mana maze... Primeval Light (Probably the coolest card I've seen in a long time).
Having 4 Painter in the deck continues to be somewhat annoying but the Ponder makes for not drawing a million of them and also finding the missing Grindstone.
My SB is really still up in the air. I really think it has to reflect your metagame, but the echoing truths definitely needed to be cut. I'm not really sure if the BEB's should be a 4 of, but I feel that you are more than justified for bringing them in against anything with a splash of red because with a Painter out you just own them.
The Kiras are experimental right now because I think the card is incredible but in practice I haven't got it to fit right. I've also been playing around with Sower in case I run into goyf.
In conclusion I think the deck's success in testing is that every single creature that you drop has to be answered NOW (with the exception of trinket mage, but he does get Grindstone, or Top, or....).
Goyf stalls the ground, and can even go on the attack.
Confidant burries your opponent in real CA
Painter makes it so that any time you have a main phase and 4 mana up you can drop a grindstone and win. -Strangely, he also blocks a lot of strange things in a race.
While I'm flattered that so many people are telling me how cool the deck is, I'm more concerned with if there are any weak cards and what matchups need shoring up.
I 5-0'ed a local tourney. I finally lost a game in the finals. Report to follow tomorrow.
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