[Deck] Crazy 88's - Mono-white control

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

So, here's the decklist for my Monowhite control.

Land:
24x Plains 3 (Revised/Unlimited)

Creatures:
4x Eternal Dragon

Spells:
3x Chalice of the Void
4x Skullclamp
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Raise the Alarm
2x Vengeful Dreams
3x Extraplanar Lens
2x Mobilization
4x Tanglewire
3x Wrath of God
1x Worship
3x Decree of Justice

Sideboard:
2x Karmic Justice
2x Ivory Mask
2x Story Circle
2x Circle of Protection: Red
2x Rule of Law
1x Karma
1x Circle of Protection: Green
3x Nevinyrral's Disk

The sideboard isn't as good as I'd like to be. I think my brother, who plays Enchantress, went out of his way to hide or steal all our Disenchant effects. I haven't been able to find any Disenchant, Abolishes, or Seals of Cleansing, and he took all the Auras of Silence.

I was going to review what happened during the tournament, but I remembered that I have the worst memory in existence. So a really lazy and incomplete review would be;

Round 1, Me vs. Gigantor, who was playing Sui Black. No first turn Dark Rituals. I was able to Swords, Wrath, or Tanglewire his stuff long enough to get out a kill both games. First game got out Lens to unleash a bunch of 1/1s and Angels, second game I played Karma and stalled his stuff the rest of the game until that finished him off.

Round 2, Me vs. My brother, playing W/G/R Enchantress (splashing red for Words of War). Game 1 went about as well as could be expected. I went first and got a second turn Chalice for 1, with a Clamp in play, to stop Wild Growth/Exploration/Elephant Grass and such nonsense. Double Tanglewires, stall long enough to get out 3 4/4s, swing to the dome. Lost next turn as he went off with the Words of War. Le sigh. Game two, ditched all forms of creature control for minor irritants like Ivory Mask and CoP: Red. He gets a third turn Aura of Silence and I'm unable to play anything else the rest of the game.

Round 3: Oh my... Me vs. Dylan Grandon, who is playing U/G Faeries.deck. First game I actually come closing to losing because I had trouble drawing a Wrath. I did however eventually get out Worship, and he scoops as he apparently has no answers in the main. Second game I get a Chalice for 1, followed by a Chalice for 2. Story Circle naming Blue hits play, and then the 4/4 angels start appearing. Obviously a fun deck. Although I wouldn't have been playing the Willow Faeries.

Round 4: Me vs. Anwar, playing GayFish. First game Tanglewires and Swords to Plowshares are unable to stall the horde of tiny little men coming my way. Second game I'm unable to resolve two different Skullclamps, but his Standstill ends up working in my favor as I get every plains in my library out with Eternal Dragon. Couldn't draw into a Decree, so I ended up giving him the three cards, but I won anyway with Dragons and a Storycircle. The third game Has a similar mid game, but this time he gets manlands out a lot quicker and I'm forced to break Standstill to try and kill his creatures. I end up staring down two Factories with three plains in hand, and two life, and topdeck... a Vengeful Dreams. Knowing that he only has one FoW left in his deck. I'm able to kill the Factories, then start putting out the Eternal Dragons out to act as blockers/attackers. I recover from the edge of the abyss to pull a victory. I go to the Top 8 with 3-1-0, out of 26 people in the tournament.

First (and last) match in the top 8 is Me vs. Matt Carl, playing Landstill. First game the only removal I see is Wrath of God, and if you count the Raise the Alarm that killed a Mishra's Factory. Sensing that desperate action is needed, I go to the car to grab Mr. Failure, and thrust him in Matt's face, screaming "Failure!" He is suitably impressed. Second match I get out a Worship-Karmic Justice combo fairly early, to counteract his Disk. Win with Dragons. Third Match is eerily familiar as an early Standstill leaves me thinning out Plains from my library with Dragon. Get out a clamp, create some soldiers, draw half my library, swamp him with Tokens for the win.

Final four have to split because Colosso (FCG) has to go home early.


Right now the main change I'm thinking of making to the maindeck is to add either Disenchant or Abolish. Not sure what to replace- Chalice is a consideration, maybe move it to sideboard. Maybe Leonin Abunas or Fountain Watch as a sideboard consideration. Nova Cleric could also be quite good in the sideboard, comboing quite well with Skullclamp.



Edited By TheInfamousBearAssasin on 1084173247

[Obfuscate Freely]

I like the strategy behind this deck. Skullclamp/soldier tokens is an impressive draw engine. If I were to create a test version I think it would look something like this:

4x Skullclamp
4x Raise the Alarm
4x Decree of Justice
2x Mobilization
4x Eternal Dragon
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Humility
3x Wrath of God
3x Smokestack
3x Chalice of the Void
3x Extraplanar Lens
22x Plains
2x Kjeldoran Outpost

Sideboard:
4x Mindslaver
3x Argivian Find
2x Worship
3x Abolish
3x Tormod's Crypt

Mindslaver is the best bomb I can think of to bring in vs. control. You should be able to power it out eventually (just like in T2!). The Finds can recur everything important, from Slavers to Skullclamps to Smokestacks.

Smokestacks, btw, are nuts with token producers. Much better than Tangle Wire.

Outpost is another token generator. If they prove unnecessary, or if they are too much of a liability with Lens (which I am not sold on yet, anyway), they could go.

Humility is a natural fit for a soldier deck. Seriously. It's nuts. Better than maindeck Worship, IMHO. It does screw over Dragon, though.

What about Armageddon? Could it work as a SB card, or not? It would require careful planning and probably extensive Dragon cycling, but it could be worth considering. After all, you have a lot of cards to side out against control decks.

I'm interested in knowing what sort of sideboard you would have run if you had the cards you wanted. Were the Disks necessary? The CoPs?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I like the strategy behind this deck. Skullclamp/soldier tokens is an impressive draw engine. If I were to create a test version I think it would look something like this:

4x Skullclamp
4x Raise the Alarm
4x Decree of Justice
2x Mobilization
4x Eternal Dragon
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Humility
3x Wrath of God
3x Smokestack
3x Chalice of the Void
3x Extraplanar Lens
22x Plains
2x Kjeldoran Outpost

Sideboard:
4x Mindslaver
3x Argivian Find
2x Worship
3x Abolish
3x Tormod's Crypt

Mindslaver is the best bomb I can think of to bring in vs. control. You should be able to power it out eventually (just like in T2!). The Finds can recur everything important, from Slavers to Skullclamps to Smokestacks.

Smokestacks, btw, are nuts with token producers. Much better than Tangle Wire.

Outpost is another token generator. If they prove unnecessary, or if they are too much of a liability with Lens (which I am not sold on yet, anyway), they could go.

Humility is a natural fit for a soldier deck. Seriously. It's nuts. Better than maindeck Worship, IMHO. It does screw over Dragon, though.

What about Armageddon? Could it work as a SB card, or not? It would require careful planning and probably extensive Dragon cycling, but it could be worth considering. After all, you have a lot of cards to side out against control decks.

I'm interested in knowing what sort of sideboard you would have run if you had the cards you wanted. Were the Disks necessary? The CoPs?
I probably should be running Humilities instead of Worships, yeah. Yeah.... can't think of any good reason why not.

Armageddon I'm not crazy about. The deck can survive Armageddon, especially with Lens in play, but going out of it's way to cause the Geddon seems unnecessary. If anything, I'd rather run Catastrophe. If I'm in a position that Geddon seems profitable (i.e., I have Lens in play), I could almost certainly afford the Catastrophe anyway. And in the meantime it'd serve as addition WoGs.

Outpost might be really good, and I could probably afford to run 2x. One of my biggest complaints this Saturday was that I often didn't have as many soldiers to kill as I would've liked.

Smokestack is definitely worth considering. If I added Smokestacks, though, I'd want to up the Mobilizations to 3.

Mindslaver I don't think is that hot in general, although it would certainly be an autowin against all the Enchantress decks running around (all two of them) if it got out.


The ideal sideboard I was imagining before Saturday's game was 4x Abolish, 4x Disenchant, 4x Aura of Silence and 3x Seal of Cleansing. Now I'm not as sure I really hate Artifacts and Enchantments that much. Argivian Find would be useful, as would Orim's Chant. Leonin Abunas. I think I'd ditch the Disk, as I'm almost always running more non-land, non-creature permanents (I got tired of saying Artifacts and Enchantments) than my opponent.

Another card my brother and I were talking about was Ivory Gargole. It could be Clamped Every turn, serve as defense, and would be a hard to remove kill condition.

[Obfuscate Freely]

Yeah, you're probably right about geddon. Catastrophe sounds interesting though.

Mindslaver I think is awesome as a sideboard card against control. Mid to late in the game it will almost always wreck them if it resolves, as you can use up anything they have in hand and many times do stupid things with their board as well. Against Tog, for example, Psychatog eats their entire hand and graveyard. Against Landstill, Standstills draw you cards and Dustbowls and Wastelands eat their own manabase. I think you are underestimating the slaver.

Argivian Find is superior to Abunas, since it counteracts countermagic and sweepers and because it isn't a 4cc creature. Find is so efficient at "protecting" your permanents that it could even go in the maindeck.

Ivory Gargoyle + 2 Skullclamps is pretty amazing, but how quickly would it come together? The Gargoyle is real weak by itself, too. More soldier factories would be better.

Are you going to run Steelshaper's Gift (isn't that the equipment tutor?) when it becomes legal? That should help make this deck much more consistent.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I was thinking of running one (possibly two) in the maindeck, yes.

[Peter_Rotten]

This deck seems pretty interesting. Do you guys have any more testing against the supposed tier one decks? I'm not sure that it would have a pretty match up with those.

vs. Dragon
Chalice and StP are the only cards worth noting. Duress and FoW will take care of that.

vs. FCG
Does the deck get quickly overrun?

vs. UW control
Scoops to Chant on a stick.

vs. LandStill
Unsure.

[Lord McCaffrey]

I think the addition of 4 Find MD as well as either 4 Seal of Cleansing or 4 Scepter+4 Disenchant and maybe Chant would shore up alot of the deck's weaknesses, You might have to cut a soldier engine or 2 and the mana denial and super production effects for the second plan, but i think the additional protection and CA vs control as well as a stronger Dragon game would make up for it.

I think that with 4 STP, Decree, Raise, and Wrath, this deck isn't really in danger of being overrun in the first few turns. However, FCG could still combo you out. Thats another reason to suggest Chant. A well timed Chant combined with a Wrath next turn would knock them out of the game. More MD also strengthens the FCG game.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

This deck seems pretty interesting. Do you guys have any more testing against the supposed tier one decks? I'm not sure that it would have a pretty match up with those.

vs. Dragon
Chalice and StP are the only cards worth noting. Duress and FoW will take care of that.

vs. FCG
Does the deck get quickly overrun?

vs. UW control
Scoops to Chant on a stick.

vs. LandStill
Unsure.
Dragon I haven't playtested against, although I suspect it's much as you say. Longing for those Abolishes for this matchup.

FCG I've played three games against. Lost once when he got the Food Chain out, lost once when he didn't, won once when he did get Food Chain out, with a Vengefel Dreams removing everything to be afraid of. It's a really close matchup, in my experience, a bit favored to FCG. This matchup is actually one of the reasons that I want to run 4x Orim's Chant in the side. If they don't get the Food Chain, I think I'll usually win.

UW Control/Stick Control... Orim's Chant on a stick doesn't shut the deck down at all. I can still spend all day getting out all the plains in my library, and cast Raise the Alarm/Cycle Decree of Justice at the end of their turn. Actually, in my experience counter-decks are my best matchup.

Landstill... well, all my recent playtesting shows that a Standstill on the board actually doesn't hurt me, and I have enough removal/card drawing that I can usually get something through to kill their manlands. I'm much more afraid of the Conclave than the Factory, since I can produce many 1/1 blockers to take the Factory down. Still, I think the matchup is in my favor. Although possibly a reason to consider Wing Shards for the sideboard (that and FCG).

[Lord McCaffrey]

UW Control/Stick Control... Orim's Chant on a stick doesn't shut the deck down at all. I can still spend all day getting out all the plains in my library, and cast Raise the Alarm/Cycle Decree of Justice at the end of their turn. Actually, in my experience counter-decks are my best matchup.


Good news/Bad news.

Good news-4 MD Decree and Clamps are cool vs control

Bad news- They can pay kicker with The Stick. Yeah, beginning wincing anytime now. Thats why you really need MD Disenchants of some form.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Ouch. Shit. I always, always forget about that.


Yeah. I really do want 4 maindeck Abolishes. Like I said, my brother has apparently gone out of his way to hide the things.

[98-1083165392]

is the soldier/clamp engine really better than the Land Tax/Scroll Rack draw of Parfait? I think testing could warrant the latter more powerful.

bhmilo

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

is the soldier/clamp engine really better than the Land Tax/Scroll Rack draw of Parfait? I think testing could warrant the latter more powerful.

bhmilo
My experience is that it's vastly, vastly superior to LandTax/Scroll Rack. For one thing, no one ever killed an opponent with Land Tax. Well, Seismic Assault nonwithstanding.

[Peter_Rotten]

After playing against this at Amrod's, I believe that the deck warrants some more serious attention. It has a good match against the top deck (Landstill) and seems like it could have the tools to contend with Dragon and FCG. Any thoughts?

One problem I did notice is that it is sloooow. Time may be a consideration if you play this at a tourney.

[Garvman]

I, too, belive that the deck is better than a lot of people think... As far as I can see, you have a LOT of hate against the big 3 (humility = bad for FCG and Dragon). I noticed that you did not have tangelwire or chalice at amrods... I thank you for that, but I think at least one of the 2 should be put back in (tanglewire, probably, with chalice in the side). Extraplanar lens gives you insane amounts of mana to create dorks/clamp them with, but it can be a beating if it is disenchanted early on. Nevertheless, I think it has to stay.. I noticed you were playing with Illuminate on Sat, which went a little somthing like this:

Me: "Rancor my troll"
You: "Illuminate it"
Me: "Say what?....*reads card*.. BALLS!"

I think that disenchant is strictly better (except against rancor, of course), you were running both in your main, I think, and given your local metagame with enchantress all over, I don't blame you one bit. Hell, I run 3 Zealots main and 3 naturalize side, and I was having issues with massive amounts of enchantments on the board. I still think Illuminate can be dropped though, and run in the side... In your meta, though, I would REALLY, REALLY want to run Aura of silence.

As for your draw engine: I liked it, your draw engine swings, and it really is a beating to landstill, it just seemed a little bit slow to me as far as dealing with early threats.. is there any way that you could maybe play raise the alarm or somthing for some early, 2 - 3 turn creatures to clamp?

Also, I know I mentioned this Sat, but Exulted angel would be an awsome SB card, and so would Pulse of the Fields.

BTW: If Acadamy Rector had an ass of 1 and not 2, she would be the greatest clamp target EVER!

-Garv

[Carlos El Salvador]

A splash of any color would maybe be benificial, but I was peronsally leaning mroe to Blue or Red for a splash color. Hosing Nonbasics is savage, especailly VS enchantress. Remeber, Eternal Dragon CAN get duals, so you just play a couple duals. They also give you access to kickass cards such as BEB/REB and gang.

[Peter_Rotten]

Well, that would stop the extra trickeyness of Lens and Snow-covered Plains

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I, too, belive that the deck is better than a lot of people think... As far as I can see, you have a LOT of hate against the big 3 (humility = bad for FCG and Dragon). I noticed that you did not have tangelwire or chalice at amrods... I thank you for that, but I think at least one of the 2 should be put back in (tanglewire, probably, with chalice in the side). Extraplanar lens gives you insane amounts of mana to create dorks/clamp them with, but it can be a beating if it is disenchanted early on. Nevertheless, I think it has to stay.. I noticed you were playing with Illuminate on Sat, which went a little somthing like this:

Me: "Rancor my troll"
You: "Illuminate it"
Me: "Say what?....*reads card*.. BALLS!"

I think that disenchant is strictly better (except against rancor, of course), you were running both in your main, I think, and given your local metagame with enchantress all over, I don't blame you one bit. Hell, I run 3 Zealots main and 3 naturalize side, and I was having issues with massive amounts of enchantments on the board. I still think Illuminate can be dropped though, and run in the side... In your meta, though, I would REALLY, REALLY want to run Aura of silence.

As for your draw engine: I liked it, your draw engine swings, and it really is a beating to landstill, it just seemed a little bit slow to me as far as dealing with early threats.. is there any way that you could maybe play raise the alarm or somthing for some early, 2 - 3 turn creatures to clamp?

Also, I know I mentioned this Sat, but Exulted angel would be an awsome SB card, and so would Pulse of the Fields.

BTW: If Acadamy Rector had an ass of 1 and not 2, she would be the greatest clamp target EVER!

-Garv
Yeah, Tanglewire always seemed to give me the time I needed to find a way to deal with early game threats, and in it's absence I'm finding myself hoping for them to walk into Wing Shards. I disagree that Disenchant is better than Illuminate given the enviroment. A list of some of the most played enchantments and artifacts would include; Standstill, Mindslaver, Food Chain, Survival of the Fittest, Rancor, and in the less likely but still plausible area, Sundering Titan, Darksteel Colossus, Alluren, Seismic Assault, and Pernicious Deed. In all of these cases, it's healthier for the card never to hit play. I do think that I went overboard Sunday, with 4 maindeck Illuminates. On thinking about it, I now think the ideal would be for me to play 3 maindeck Illuminations and 3 maindeck Auras of Silence (Abolish's speed only really seems to prove useful in a handful of matchups, so I'll save it for the side), as there are times that someone drops a Disk on the board while I'm tapped out, and I look at half my deck on the board and a pair of Illuminates in my hand the next turn.


On the Raise the Alarm issue; I used to run 4 Raise the Alarms and no Outposts, and on OF's suggestions I tried the Kjeldoran Outpost. I really liked the Outposts, and by running two of them I got the same consistency as when I was running 4 RtA, so I went with the Outposts. Unfortunately, then the realization came that everyone is maindecking twice as many Wastelands as I'm running Outposts, moving from the previous situation (where Wasteland was strictly worse against me than Blasted Landscape), to a new one, where Wasteland spelled 2-for-1 card advantage on their side. Between that and Lens that got Naturalized, I seem to be taking too much of a beating on my mana base. So I think I'm going to have to move back to RtA as you say, both because it often works as early game removal, and because at worst it's going to trade 1-for-1. It'll also give me back my ideal play against most deck, which is first turn Clamp, second turn Alarm, third turn draw two or four cards.

Angel is amazing, but I'm really hesitant to run it with 4 maindeck Humility. Pulse I do want to try out. I know that the deck needs some sort of life gain, either in the maindeck or the side- it's really embaressing to get a Humility on the field and then get killed by a bunch of 1/1 Masticores and Serendib Efreets.

RE, Academy Rector: Yes. Yes she would.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

A splash of any color would maybe be benificial, but I was peronsally leaning mroe to Blue or Red for a splash color. Hosing Nonbasics is savage, especailly VS enchantress. Remeber, Eternal Dragon CAN get duals, so you just play a couple duals. They also give you access to kickass cards such as BEB/REB and gang.
We had a long conversation on this on the way back down here. Here's what it comes down to; the mana acceleration is not just for show. If I go multiple colors, Lens won't work anymore. That means I need to splash green for Mirari's Wake. The main cards I would want from green would be Moment's Peace and maybe Bind in the sideboard. That's about it. So it wouldn't be a very strong splash. Now, Red would be powerful for Blood Moon, but I don't think I can run a W/R/G deck that uses Blood Moon very effectively. Other than that, I only really want Starstorm from Red. Blue would give me Annul instead of Illumination, obviously, and Force of Will, and maybe Brainstorm. Those are pretty much the only cards I want from Blue, except Back to Basics, and again- W/U/G. So, that raises three questions. 1) Can you play FoW with only eight other blue cards? I really don't think so. 2) Does the extra point in casting cost really make Annul worth splashing for over White? Given that I've several times cast a Humility, with two already on the board, just to Illuminate it in order to live through the next turn, I would say that it's not. 3) Is blue worth splashing for Brainstorm as your only card? I really don't think so. So that leaves Black, which actually looks very strong- I could get Diabolic/Chainer's Edict, and Duress, and possibly even Decree of Pain. So W/B/G looks like it's worth testing out, but I'm not remotely sure that straight Mono-White isn't better.

And as all of the splashes involve using Wake, that raises another point- Wake shuts down my draw engine, short of having two Clamps on the board, or dropping a second Humility. Those situations aren't horrendously unlikely, but they're a little extraneous.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

So, here's what looks like the new build for the deck, assuming it stays MW, which seems like a fair bet.

Land (23):
23x Snow-Covered Plains

Creatures (3):
3x Eternal Dragon

Other Spells (35):
4x Skullclamp
3x Decree of Justice
2x Mobilization
2x Raise the Alarm
3x Extraplanar Lens
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Wing Shards
2x Wrath of God
3x Humility
3x Illumination
3x Aura of Silence
2x Solitary Confinement

Sideboard:
1x Aura of Silence
2x Wrath of God
3x Pulse of the Fields
3x Chalice of the Void
3x Abolish
3x Tormod's Crypt



Rundown:

Snow-Covered Plains: These produce mana. They also work well with the Lens.

Eternal Dragon: By far the best white creature ever made. This thing is a Plains-fetching machine. With a Humility on the board, he's the best creature in the game.

Skullclamp: This thing was banned in Standard for a reason. Repeatable, powerful card advantage that lets me draw into every answer in my deck.

Raise the Alarm: Occasional early game removal, and a secondary source of card drawing. Faster than the other two soldier producers, and lets me draw into them with a Clamp on the board.

Mobilization: 3W: Draw two cards. And the fact that it's Vigilance-granting ability continue to work with Humility on the field is actually quite powerful a lot of the time. Better than Sacred Mesa for that, and because sometimes I just want to drop a third turn Mobilization and then forget about it for a few turns.

Decree of Justice: Very much anti-Landstill. Hard for control to deal with, and when I'm sitting there on the third turn needing to draw into a fourth turn answer, cycling it for zero is still really useful.

Extraplanar Lens: Gives me a lot of mana to work with, which is usually very important for establishing late-game dominance.

Swords to Plowshares: Best targeted removal in the game.

Wing Shards: Best non-targeted removal in the game, at least against attacking creatures. The fact that it kills Troll Ascetics is very important.

Wrath of God: Even as 1/1s, sometimes those creatures need to be swept away. This also kills Troll Ascetics.

Humility: A Wrath of God that stays there. Anti-Dragon, Anti-Goblins, Anti-Mud, Anti-ATS, Anti-Landstill. Anti-Everything, really. Anti-Garv.dec. Did I mention it makes it so that Swords can kill Troll Ascetic?

Illumination: Like I said, some Enchantments and Artifacts just can't be dealt with by Disenchant. And no one ever expects the White counterspell.

Aura of Silence: The best actual Disenchant effect in the game, I think. Slows them down, and makes them really wonder whether it's even worth paying six mana to drop a Disk that'll be blowed up before they can set it off.

Solitary Confinement: With a card drawing engine in place, and this on the board, very few decks in the format can win. I can theoretically also keep it up with a Dragon in the yard and five lands, but that's extremely dangerous unless I know for a fact they have no answers in their deck to the Confinement (in other words, basically just FCG and bad jank decks, at least pre-sideboard). However, with the entire card drawing engine on the board and a Humility in play, Solitary Confinement is game over. And at the very least, it's often a Seal of Fogging.

[Carlos El Salvador]

I think playing 1 to two plateaus does not "Dilute" the deck, especially when your just trying to use them to power out blood moon, which would just make your matchups VS the big Four (Aside from FCG) A lot easier. I don't even recommend fetchlands, as the deck wants to stay close to mono white. That is why I just say two Plateaus for blood moons. I know you might not agree, but it dosn't hurt the deck.

[Eclipt1c]

What about something like a Dust Bowl to help out when you need some non basic LD?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Adding Dust Bowl or Plateaus would suddenly make Lens start sucking majorly. And if I wanted non-basic land removal, I would just run Wastelands before I added Dust Bowl.


To be more detailed; I need at least four lands out before I'm going to think about casting Lens, give or take a couple specific and weird situations (Like I don't see a fourth land, and if I don't Wrath or Humility the next turn I'll die, for instance), for fear of getting land-fucked if they destroy the Lens, or of being tapped out with an Illuminate or Swords in hand when Dragon or FCG tries to go off. Now, if one of those lands is a non-basic, I'm still not going to want to really do the Lens, since I only net one mana off of this for investing two cards (After imprinting one Plains, the remaining two will produce a total of four mana, versus the three of them remaining there). The more nonbasics I have on the field, the longer I have to wait before I can drop the Lens, and the less and less it looks like actual, y'know, acceleration.

[overlord95]

in your list what is the point of running story circle and cop:red ?
also cant some one call you on playing snow-covered lands ?
i also like the smoke stacks in freely's list it would seem like it would be really in the conrol match up sence you can generate more mana with less land with lense

[ns2973]

first off, snow covereds are basics. Second how is a four casting cost artifact helpful against the control match when they'll just counter it?

[Peter_Rotten]

Well using that logic, how is anything helpful when control will just counter it? Control won't always have a counter.

[ns2973]

You honestly believe that any control deck won't have SOMETHING to counter a 4 cc permantent? I mean you can assume they'll have something in mid game can't you?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I played against six Landstill decks this weekend, and I think I had a Lens countered once, and it's come into play ability Stifled once. I think I won both games. It's not the best counter target at all in this deck; it's much more important for them to counter Humility, or Mobilization, not to mention my control cards.

[overlord95]

what aare some of this decks weakers match ups ?

[Eclipt1c]

what aare some of this decks weakers match ups ? Obfuscate Freely beat it today with my Parallax Tide deck. It's rather hard to win when you have no land.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Errr. Yes. That's true. It's vulnerable to early game hand disruption, and mass (or serial) land destruction. The good news is that those are strategies pursued almost exclusively by bad decks (I'm looking at you, Tide-Control). It's also very spotty against Enchantress, depending upon dealing with the Enchantress effects as soon as possible, and then trying to go straight to the dome before a Replenish shows up. Not the best strategy, really. Maybe 4x Aura of Silence and the Tormod's Crypts in the side'd help that matchup. It's also surprisingly bad against Alluren, for some reason.

The deck's biggest weakness that I've noticed is that it's a deck against which there is no bad opening hand. You can keep an all land hand, and you will draw into whatever you need before I can reasonably hope to kill you.

[T is for TOOL]

Have you considered SB Akroma's Vengeance against Enchantress?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I have. I've also considered Tempest of Light. The thing is, neither seems like it would do enough by itself to help me. I'm considering just accepting losing against Enchantress and focusing on beating other decks. Alternately, I could go Enchantress hate, with a sb of something like 3x Tormod's Crypt, 2x Phyrexian Furnace, 3x Tempest of Light, 2x Akroma's Vengeance, 1x Illumination, 4x Aura of Silence, but I'm questioning how useful that would be against most decks.

[SpikeyMikey]

Now, don't laugh at me, because this is kind of a bad suggestion, but depending on how bad the enchantress matchup is, and how often you see it....

If you're running catastrophe, why not consider splashing just a touch of green for SB harmonic convergance? If you cast convergance EoT and then untap and catastrophe lands, enchantress scoops. I've never tried it, but then again, I've never run catastrophe either. It might be worth looking into. Or it might just be 1am and I'm tired. Either way, good luck with the deck, it looks fun.

Edit: Also, why are you not running winter orb? As far as symmetrical effects go, in a deck where each land taps for 2, and where you've got plenty of soldiers to port down with tangle wire, wire/orb is too good not to run. It will shut down a lot of decks for several turns, while leaving you free to continue casting spells and drawing cards. The first turn you have to tap, you're tapping 3 things, which could easily be the lens and the two tokens from an RtA. With lens, you can do a lot more under Orb, and with 1.5 having no artifact mana to speak of... Well, let's just say that resolving winter orb followed by tangle wire will make landstill very very unhappy.

[tathtaniel]

Been playing around with this deck and like it so far. I play in a more aggro meta, so i've chosen to play pulse MD, and it seems to work fairly well.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Now, don't laugh at me, because this is kind of a bad suggestion, but depending on how bad the enchantress matchup is, and how often you see it....

If you're running catastrophe, why not consider splashing just a touch of green for SB harmonic convergance? If you cast convergance EoT and then untap and catastrophe lands, enchantress scoops. I've never tried it, but then again, I've never run catastrophe either. It might be worth looking into. Or it might just be 1am and I'm tired. Either way, good luck with the deck, it looks fun.

Edit: Also, why are you not running winter orb? As far as symmetrical effects go, in a deck where each land taps for 2, and where you've got plenty of soldiers to port down with tangle wire, wire/orb is too good not to run. It will shut down a lot of decks for several turns, while leaving you free to continue casting spells and drawing cards. The first turn you have to tap, you're tapping 3 things, which could easily be the lens and the two tokens from an RtA. With lens, you can do a lot more under Orb, and with 1.5 having no artifact mana to speak of... Well, let's just say that resolving winter orb followed by tangle wire will make landstill very very unhappy.
It's actually a thought, but two things impede it;

1) I've decided not to run Catastrophes, opting for Akroma's Vengeance instead. I just don't think there will be enough matchups aside from Landstill where it will be useful, and I don't want to have it in the SB just for Landstill because a) I need a Lens out before I can really gain from casting it, b) Either it or the Lens I need to cast it will get countered, and c) I already beat Landstill anyway, so I'd rather focus on the hundred randomy scrubby rogue decks that whale on me.

2) It might also be somewhat useful against Enchantress, but more likely a) They'll get Karmic Justice in play first, or b) By the time I can bring it down, they'll have another two lands in hand that they can bring down next turn, and quickly set back up. Now, they'll have probably lost half the land in their deck, but it won't take them that long to get the other half in play. It's two turns too slow compared to Armageddon to have the same effect on them, I think.



3) On Winter Orb... I agree that it has good synergy with Tangle Wire and Raise the Alarm. However, I'm not currently running either card. If you were experimenting with a version that did run them both, however, and you found it to work well, I'd be interested in a decklist. While I'm approaching what I believe to be the optimal final decklist, it may be that a totally different direction might be better.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Been playing around with this deck and like it so far. I play in a more aggro meta, so i've chosen to play pulse MD, and it seems to work fairly well.
Excellent. I still want to try the Pulses, but I'm having a Hell of a time finding them around here.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Since I haven't posted the deck in a while, here's the current build I'm working with.


Mana:
22x Snow-Covered Plains
3x Extraplanar Lens
4x Mindstone
See also: Eternal Dragon


Card Drawing:
4x Skullclamp
See also: Decree of Justice, Mindstone, Eternal Dragon


Creatures:
3x Eternal Dragon
2x Mobilization
4x Decree of Justice


Control:
2x Solitary Confinement
3x Humility
2x Disenchant
3x Illumination
3x Wrath of God
3x Wing Shards
3x Chalice of the Void


Sideboard:
1x Disenchant
2x Jester's Cap
2x Pulse of the Fields
3x Scars of the Veteran
3x Karmic Justice
4x Swords to Plowshares

Anti-Control:
See also: Wing Shards, Eternal Dragon, Decree of Justice

Rundown of the cards, and their various functions:


Snow-Covered Plains: Baits out an Armageddon, with more of them in your hand.

Extraplanr Lens: Helps recover from an Armageddon.

Mind Stone: Helps recover from an Armageddon.

Eternal Dragon: Gets more land to help you recover from Armageddon. Also, blocks Troll Ascetic.

Solitary Confinement: Stops Troll Ascetic from hurting you.

Humility: Makes Troll Ascetic less good.

Wrath of God: Makes Troll Ascetic dead.

Wing Shards: Can kill Troll Ascetic

Illumination: Counters a Rancor that would go onto Troll Ascetic.

Disenchant: Destroys Ancestral Mask that would go onto Troll Ascetic.

Chalice of the Void: Can be named for 3 or 4 to stop Armageddon or Troll Ascetic.

Decree of Justice: Produces Soldiers/Angels. The former can kill a Troll Ascetic with the help of Humility, the latter can block Troll Ascetics whose Rancors have been Illuminated.

Mobilization: See Decree of Justice.

Skullclamp: In conjunction with Decree of Justice and Mobilization, allows me to draw the rest of my cards in order to recover from Armageddons and deal with Troll Ascetics.

[bigguyinblack]

Out of curiosity how does your deck deal with Troll Ascetic? lol. Is it possible to run this without Humility? I think I all the cards otherwise.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Humility is like a Wrath of God as a stated based effect. It's just ridiculously good. Game over against so many decks.

[Jander78]

Wouldn't you rather have the board removal in Disenchant/Seal of Cleansing instead of a narrow counterspell like Illumination? It's cute and all, but not a very good top deck after something has already resolved.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Wouldn't you rather have the board removal in Disenchant/Seal of Cleansing instead of a narrow counterspell like Illumination? It's cute and all, but not a very good top deck after something has already resolved.
Suspicious advice from the guy playing Sundering Titans and Mindslaver.


Seriously, though, I think the combination of 3 Illuminations and 2 Disenchants gives the deck the versatility it wants. There are just too damned many Artifacts and Enchantments that are much better off never getting on the board.

[tathtaniel]

Ya, I started with no Illums, but I've put some in now. I'd just prefer several spells not hit the table in the first place. (standstill, masticore, survival, etc)

[Di]

I really question your maindeck Wrath of God over maindeck Swords to Plowshares. There are chunk of decks that Wrath will be an empty card against(hint LandStill hint), but Swords will still have a good use against them. Although it doesn't touch Troll, it touches everything else, for saving a handful of mana.

[gaypron]

why dont you run stp mainboard and wingshards sideboard

[tathtaniel]

Well, I got crushed by mono red Ld yesterday. Wasn't exactly a deck I was expecting to see, heh.

[T0G]

Hi I'm playing in a 1.5 tournament soon and I was looking through these forums and saw this deck. I really thought it looked good for a mostly aggro metagame but I'm a bit concerned with the Landstill matchup. Here's my list (it's not mine, it's one of the lists that was posted earlier in this thread with a FEW minor changes, thanks to whoever was posting those):

Land (23):
23x Plains

Creatures (3):
3x Eternal Dragon

Other Spells (35):
4x Skullclamp
3x Decree of Justice
2x Mobilization
4x Raise the Alarm
3x Extraplanar Lens
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Wing Shards
2x Wrath of God
3x Humility
2x Disechant/Seal of Cleansing
3x Aura of Silence
2x Solitary Confinement
SB:
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Abeyance
3 Seal of Cleansing
4 XXX

Can this list handle Aggro AND Lanstill?
Thanks guys !

[Banzai552]

It's funny, from my testing, this deck actually handles LandStill a lot better than it handles aggro decks.

But im curious, Infamous, how did this deck do at the 7/10 tournament? Are you planning on posting a Tournament Report?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

My decklist on Saturday was;

Land:
23x Snow-Covered Plains

Creatures:
3x Eternal Dragon

Spells:
4x Skullclamp
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Disenchant
3x Raise the Alarm
3x Illumination
3x Wing Shards
2x Mobilization
2x Solitary Confinement
3x Extraplanar Lens
3x Humility
3x Smokestack
3x Decree of Justice

Sideboard:
4x Tormod's Crypt
3x Pulse of the Fields
3x Karmic Justice
3x Wrath of God
2x Beacon of Immortality


I do feel that this is about as good as the deck can get in the current enviroment. I think I'm personally going to put it on the shelf for now, though, as it does do very well against Control, but has too many random weaknesses. It loses too often to bad decks, has a lot of autolosses against many combo decks, and has a lot of trouble with drawing the wrong answers at the wrong time against decks it should beat on paper. Anyone else that wants to run with the deck, and find a way to patch up it's weak points, feel free to do so with my blessing, though.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Tournament Reports:

Round 1: Big Red, almost completely Type 2. Swords and Wing Shards keep his offensive down, and then Confinement comes out to say GG. After sideboard, five life gain effects, including 3 Pulse, make this game over.

Round 2: Survival-Pebbles. Illumination and Disenchant stop the comboliciousness dead in it's tracks, and Humility comes down to make his creatures 1/1 nothings (except for Rector, apparently, grrr...). This happens both games. I lose 0-2 because I'm unable to draw any Soldier generators at all either game, though.

Round 3: Enchantress (Jesse Hatfield). I win the first game due to his landscrew, a Disenchanted WildGrowth, and my Smokestack. This is the first game I've ever won with the 88's against Enchantress. I proceed to lose the next two games, but it still went about as well as could be expected. In retrospect, I shouldn't have scooped the second game, as a draw due to time is the closest thing to a win I can hope for in this matchup.

Round 4: I literally cannot remember what happened this round. This is why I shouldn't do tournament reports. I know I won, though.

Round 5: U/W Control. For the love of all things holy, he goes aggro on me. The first game he has all the answers to stop my deck dead in it's tracks. I should've brought Smokestack, since he runs DoJ, but I didn't. That hardly matters the second game, though. I manage to get out Solitary Confinement, with two Dragons in the yard. My only other permanent is a Plains. I end up ditching my entire hand to get to the point where I have ten plains, proceeding to get out literally every Plains in my deck. He has enough Angels sitting on the other side to kill me, and presumable at least one counter in hand. I bring out one Dragon, Clamp it, and at the end of my turn, he Intuitions for three StPs, removing the first dragon. I now have to decide between bringing my other Dragon into play, assuming he doesn't have the fourth Swords in hand, and swinging, or simply keeping up Confinement and decking him, assuming he doesn't have any answers to it in his deck. I go with the second path, and with two cards left in his library... he uses the Boomerang he replaced his 4th StP with to return Confinement to my hand, and swings for the kill.

Round 6: Ankh-Sligh. After letting my opponent take back several misplays, including letting him respond to blockers when I would've blocked his Goblin Cadet with my Clamp in play, he makes me mana burn myself during my upkeep with a Confinement in play, as I had accidentally left land tapped from the previous turn's Dragon-returning and said go. The next two games I smash him in the face, and third game let him die to his own Sulfuric Vortex. Suck on that and enjoy it's minty taste.

Round 7: W/U/B Angel Control (McCaffrey). After two ridiculously long games, which I end up losing, he gives me the win, since he's essentially out of the top 16. Yay for hollow victories.

[LordMyst]

Here is my built for the deck:

4x Humility
3x Mobilization
2x Solitary Confinement

4x Wrath of God
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Raise the Alarm
3x Disenchant
2x Steelshaper's Gift (to search for the Clamp)

4X Academy Rector (to search for the Enchantments)

4X Skullclamp
3x Extraplanar Lens

2x Kjeldoran Outpost
21x Plains

sideboard
3x Circle of Protection: Red
3x Ivory Mask
3x Wing Shards
3x Smokestack
2x Replenish
1x Disenchant

Opinions?

[gaypron]

how are you going to win? why no eternal dragon?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I really don't like cutting Decree of Justice. That card basically is half your game against Landstill. Also, without Dragon, you cut the number of ways you can support Confinement in half, making that card signifcantly less good.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I am such a big fat liar. Here's my build for the 8/8 VA tourney.

23x Snow Covered Plains

3x Eternal Dragon

4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Disenchant
3x Raise the Alarm
3x Wing Shards
3x Pulse of the Fields
2x Beacon of Immortality
3x Decree of Justice
2x Solitary Confinement
2x Mobilization
3x Humility
4x Skullclamp
2x Extraplanar Lens (I was trying running one less of these, since I never like to see them in multiples. However, I think I need to go back to three, since I almost never saw them the entire day)
1x Jayemdae Tome (Just a random 1x to get to lucky 61- however, this card proved itself amazing in all my control matchups, so I'll probably bump it to 2x)

SB:
4x Illumination
3x Wrath of God
2x Tormod's Crypt
2x Story Circle
1x Mobilization
1x Pulse of the Fields
1x Beacon of Immortality
1x Circle of Protection: Red

Please keep all tourney reports in the Tournament forum.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Fair enough.


I like the maindeck life-gain in this deck (although now I'm probably going to have 4x Pulse, ditch both Beacons, and place a third Lens back in) gives it the final push the deck needed to solidly beat most aggro. Whereas before I would get the game nearly under control and then die to a Bolt, or have a Humilified group of scrubby creatuers slowly beat me for the win, Pulse fends off such nonsense with it's ridiculous timebuying skills. The card isn't life gain, it's Time Walk on a stick. I am interested in Banzai's list, which I know didn't have maindeck life gain or RtA, but was running maindeck more Disenchant effects, and Chalice of the Void.

[DI419]

It seems like the main troubles for this deck that keep it from being great are combo and Mud. I dunno what to do about Mud, but could Sphere of Resistance or Trinisphere give this deck the help it needs vs. combo? It seems like just the thing that it needs to stop Solidarity and Enchantress.

My second realization was about the mana acceleration. I really don't like Extraplanar Lens; it seems like a "win more" card to me. I was thinking about Mind Stone, but then I starting considering the Mirrodin Talismans. Why? The sideboard. All of a sudden, you have a splashable color in your deck. I have no idea of the feasability of this, but it *might* work. So a list like:


21 Plains

3 Disenchant
3 Illumination

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Wing Shards

4 Humility
3 Solitary Confinement

3 Decree of Justice
3 Mobilization
3 Eternal Dragon
3 Pulse of the Fields

4 Talisman of Impulse
4 Talisman of Indulgence

This gives you great SB options:
4 REB
4 Blood Moon
3 Sacred Ground
4 Tormod's Crypt

It also accelerates the all-important Humility to turn 3, or w/e else you need to do. Maybe Blood Moon could even be MD'ed. This is just random spouting, but it could work for certain matchups.

[Banzai552]

It seems like the main troubles for this deck that keep it from being great are combo and Mud. I dunno what to do about Mud, but could Sphere of Resistance or Trinisphere give this deck the help it needs vs. combo? It seems like just the thing that it needs to stop Solidarity and Enchantress.

edit: My second realization was about the mana acceleration. I really don't like Extraplanar Lens; it seems like a "win more" card to me. I was thinking about Mind Stone, but then I starting considering the Mirrodin Talismans. Why? The sideboard. All of a sudden, you have a splashable color in your deck. I have no idea of the feasability of this, but it *might* work.
That reasoning doesnt make any sense. If you take out the lenses, then you arent forced to play nothing but plains, and you can splash colors anyway...

[DI419]

It seems like the main troubles for this deck that keep it from being great are combo and Mud. I dunno what to do about Mud, but could Sphere of Resistance or Trinisphere give this deck the help it needs vs. combo? It seems like just the thing that it needs to stop Solidarity and Enchantress.

edit: My second realization was about the mana acceleration. I really don't like Extraplanar Lens; it seems like a "win more" card to me. I was thinking about Mind Stone, but then I starting considering the Mirrodin Talismans. Why? The sideboard. All of a sudden, you have a splashable color in your deck. I have no idea of the feasability of this, but it *might* work.
That reasoning doesnt make any sense. If you take out the lenses, then you arent forced to play nothing but plains, and you can splash colors anyway...
The thing with this is that you open yourself to the silliness of the current environment with Crucible. You still keep the strength of mono-colored's automatic defense from Wasteland while using the splash anyway.

[Zilla]

The thing with this is that you open yourself to the silliness of the current environment with Crucible.
This is a myth. Aside from MUD, Crucible is almost non-existent in this format, unlike T1. This doesn't mean I'm advocating a splash, only that Crucible is hardly a consideration in the matter right now.

[Lord McCaffrey]

I kno you want to keep the number of nonbasics to 0, but the Talismans really shine with City of Traitors/Tomb. That allows you to speed up important spells liek confinement, Humility or Blood Moon to turn 2, while still keeping your mana base fairly stable. At least give it a thought.

[Mad Zur]

If you're going to splash, shouldn't there be at least one Plateau so as to get red mana with Eternal Dragon? Just one would boost your red sources from eight to twelve...

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I think splashing another color entirely changes the deck. Also, in my experience, Extraplanar Lens acts less like a "Win More" card and more like a "Win in Time" card. It allows me to churn out a lot of soldiers fairly quickly, establish mid-to-late game dominance quickly, play many spells a turn, and generally get things done while my opponent is still digging for an answer to Humility or Pulse of the Fields. I think taking Lens away generally makes the deck as is too slow to work. It also eliminates any reason to go mono color, so at that point you're probably going to end up with either a slightly different build of Wake or U/W Control.

[Helix.]

imo Jack i always thought the slot should've gone for a more suited accelerant/decelerant. With the resurgance of artifacts in general, it seems like a card you have to board out in almost every matchup... I'm sure dan would tell you to cut it... btw, how's your brother?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I wish people would stop playing the "I'm a mysterious person from the frog" card.


And you'd think so, but I find the deck has the built in defense against Disenchant effects in that most decks only have a total of 3-4 Disenchants in the entire deck + sideboard, and I have a kajillion targets for it. A third turn Extraplanar Lens people go after, but if I hold off to drop it til the fourth or fifth turn, they'll usually prefer to go after a Clamp, or Humility, or Confinement, or Mobilization. And if they do target the Lens then... I'm okay with it, because I still have a Humility, or a Confinement, or a Mobilization.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

R.I.P, Crazy 88's

May 4th, 2004 - September 20th, 2004

We hardly knew ye.
Your demise may go unnoticed in the death of much more popular decks, but to me, you will always be, "That stack of cards that gave me a reason to steal Alix's Snow-Covered Plains".

[Banzai552]

For me it shall be know as "That stack of cards that i decided it would be better to play basic plains in on account of Jack plays snow-covered's and the mirror would be god awful if it was a battle of lenses"

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

You were just too lazy to dig up 23 Snow-Covered Plains.

[Banzai552]

shhhhhh. You're not supposed to know that :(

Is there absolutly no way to replace skullclamp in this deck?

[Mad Zur]

Well, not Tax/Rack anyway. :angry:

Umm... splash blue for FoF?

[DI419]

Shit. Shit Shit Shit.

That is all.

[Banzai552]

Shit. Shit Shit Shit.

That is all.
Quoted for truth.

[DI419]

Second thoughts...the loss of any draw hurts a LOT, but enlightened tutor could help bridge the gap a bit. Also, is Isochron Scepter a possibility? Between Raise the Alarm, StP, Enlightened Tutor, and Disenchant, there are quite a few targets. Skullclamp hurts, but in the crazy metagame that we're about to enter, any deck with this many disenchant effects for combo as well as a good aggro game. The biggest problem I can see is that it just kinda cries against Solidarity.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Without Skullclamp, your soldier Generators become only a win condition, not a win condition and a draw engine. Without the double utility, they're not really strong enough to play. If you cut down on the soldier generators, there's no reason not to cut Humility, especially with FCG, Dragon, and 7/10 gone, and run some other powerful White creatures, most notably Exalted Angel. Without the soldier generators, you have no reason to run Lens. Without Lens, you have no reason to run monocolor.

Now you're talking about an entirely different deck.

[Zilla]

Archived. -Zilla