R/W/B aggro again

[SpoCk0nd0pe]

I've worked on a R/W/B aggro control list some time ago. With plated geopede and steppe lynx the deck has gotten more aggro options. So here is a new list:

// Lands
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Plains
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Scrubland
2 Badlands
3 Plateau
4 Arid Mesa
4 Marsh Flats

// Creatures
4 Steppe Lynx
2 Tombstalker
3 Jotun Grunt
4 Mother of Runes
4 Dark Confidant
4 Plated Geopede

// Spells
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Vindicate
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Helix
2 Rift Bolt

// Sideboard
SB: 3 Faerie Macabre
SB: 4 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 Perish
SB: 4 Sadistic Sacrament


About the card Choices: I played a little with landfall sligh and thought that their creatures, mainly lynx and geopede could keep up with zoo creatures with a trade of inconsistency vs tempo. The black splash is mostly for confidant, he greatly helps with consistency and does great with burn. Grunt and stalker are the best aggro creatures R/W/B have in power/mana ratio so I wanted to pack as many as possible. Mother of runes tries to fill the gap in first turn drops and helps a lot with target removal. The basic deck idea is to swap green for black in a zoo type of strategy.
I thought about including a pair of tops, the confidant very rarely sees a stalker so decided to pack more burn (top may be a good alternative because of the 14 fetchlands).
14 burn spells and 4 vindicate mostly are spot removal enough, so I decided not to pack path or swords witch may be dead cards against many decks.
Discard is a matter of deck strategy. Hymn/thoughtseize slow the deck. I even tested tidehollow sculler. Most of the time I wished to had drawn burn so I decided to remove the discard spells.


I've tested this version on MWS and had fairly good results, I did not do extensive testing yet.
Zoo preboard: slightly unfavourible
Zoo postboard: favourible
Combo: just bad
Pox: favourible
Tribal: favourible
What do you think?

[daPaule]

Nice card choice explanations.
Why mother, why tombstalker & confi without top, why no spot removal in form of swords/path?

Also the SB: Sadistic Sacrament, why ? 4 Lands producing b, including the fact that you won't need b on your first turn, doesn't look too promising that you will even drop it T3, besides: when do you want to play it on T3 ? Vs combo it's too slow and vs progenitus or such you are also playing perish so i don't get the reasoning.

Why no discard at all? It would at least give a shot vs combo when going first and their hand isn't optimal.

What decks did you play against getting the "fairly good results" ?

A little bit more than just a decklist would be appreciated.

[Grollub]

Nice card choice explanations.
I'll take my chances and respond here..


Why mother, why tombstalker & confi without top, why no spot removal in form of swords/path?
Mother of Runes is a fantastic creature, it singlehandedly turns combat greatly in your favor and can chumpblock forever. There's only 2 Tombstalkers in the list, the gambit is well worth it as Top is just horrible slow in a deck this aggresive. All the burn coupled with the creature base makes Swords and Paths less powerful, in a pinch Vindicate can handle what burn cannot. All the creatures you want to remove with Plow/Path instead of burn got shroud anyway.

On to the deck!

Nearly all your creatures cost 2, have Aether Vial or Chrome Mox been tried?

Ethersworn Canonist in the SB seems alot better than Sacrament for a couple of reasons:
1) Combined with Mother, you have just defeated combo at turn 2.
2) It can turn sideways.

7 graveyard haters seem like too much, I'd swap to a configuration of 3 Macabre, 2 Crypt and 2 Boiling Seas. Boiling Seas is a beating against anything with Blue and the 5 'yard haters should be plenty to fight Reanimator and dredge.

[SpoCk0nd0pe]

Sadistic sacrament was a desperate attempt to improve the combo matchup. It should help against enchantress too (probably a bad matchup too)
[edit]just saw grollrubs post: Thanks, I did not think about canonist yet, it is indeed a way better sb option. Like I said the deck is poorly tested but I think it might have some potential so I posted it here.
Nearly all is a bit too much I think, there are 8 for 1 and 11 for 2 (not counting stalker for he wont show up on turn 2)
Vial probably won't be strong enough for I only draw 3 creatures until turn 3, it would mostly vial 1 or 2 creatures and might collide with turn 1 lynx or mother. I think it would reduce the tempo (mostly same reason zoo does not play vial). It could help bring the landfall creatures past sorcery speed removal though.
Chrome mox could do good, only testing will show if the tempo compensates for the card disadvantage.

[Vacrix]

I wouldn't play a Tombstalker/Confidant configuration without Top. Too risky IMO.

At first glance, your list looks like a bad version of zoo. You have smaller creatures (KoTR > Tombstalker, as an example) and lack great removal like STP/PtE and opt for more reach via Burn. You do have a card advantage engine via Dark Confidant, but I think Zoo does just fine with x2 Sylvan Library's. You also lack equipment.

What do your aggro control and control matchups look like?

[Combo Winter]

You def wanna play more one drops i cant see how you would exclude lavamancer from a list like this. Also i see no reason to play tombstalker over smaller guys because it is basically a dead card in your opening hand. Also i would add fulmentor mage and wasteland as that gives you an ld plan to set your self apart from zoo which is by far the better pure aggro deck.

[SpoCk0nd0pe]

I wouldn't play a Tombstalker/Confidant configuration without Top. Too risky IMO.

At first glance, your list looks like a bad version of zoo. You have smaller creatures (KoTR > Tombstalker, as an example) and lack great removal like STP/PtE and opt for more reach via Burn. You do have a card advantage engine via Dark Confidant, but I think Zoo does just fine with x2 Sylvan Library's. You also lack equipment.

What do your aggro control and control matchups look like?
Most zoo list I played against do not play equipment and STP/PtE MD as well because burn mostly does the trick. Most equipment is too slow (same reason as zoo). It's only 2 stalkers, the probability of showing a stalker is pretty low.

You def wanna play more one drops i cant see how you would exclude lavamancer from a list like this. Also i see no reason to play tombstalker over smaller guys because it is basically a dead card in your opening hand. Also i would add fulmentor mage and wasteland as that gives you an ld plan to set your self apart from zoo which is by far the better pure aggro deck.
Lavamancer collides with grunt and stalker, imho better options. That kind of land destruction plan would severely slow the deck and lower it's aggro powers.

On paper this deck is not necessarily weaker then zoo, lynx often attack for 4, geopede for 5, grunt+stalker kill goyf, you can get card advantage with confidant (great synergy with lightning helix here) and you got some nice sb options with black (perish, maybe extirpate). Lynx and geopede are inconsistent though and the pridemage is pretty powerful, this deck cannot provide as many turn 1 drops (good turn 1 drops are mostly green). This deck surely has it's drawbacks, that's why I posted it here, to get help in finding out how powerful this deckplan is or how powerful it could be made.