TkDodo
06-02-2011, 02:25 PM
I have been tinkering around lately with a deck suited for the current metagame. The three most popular decks right now are merfolk, landstill and team america (or bug control).
The one thing they all have in comon is obv. that they play blue, and further, a lot of decks play Jace. Mental Misstep leading to the format being slower really pushed Jace over the edge, and I think it is now THE card to beat.
So what can we do against Jace and blue and, at the same time, not get overrun by aggro?
First of all, we can play blue ourselves. Having access to our own Jaces should be reason enough. I've heard Countermagic should be good too, so yeah, why not.
Second, I think the best answer to blue is: red. REB is a very good weapon against blue mages. Further, Lightning bolt is a very versatile card right now. I know, it costs 1, so it can be misstepped, but: It kills Jace. This can't be emphasized enough, so again: it turnes Jace into an unimpressive 2UU Brainstorm most of the time. It also kills almost every creature, especially those who come down early (except Goyf and Tombstalker, which is a downside). Against aggro, red further gives us the option to play grim lavamancer as a recurring removal. He is pretty much the nuts against merfolk and also good against other aggro strategies.
Blue is also pretty good at drawing cards. Standstill is one of the best drawing engines in a somewhat slowed-down format. We also already have a lot of answers to our opponents T1 plays in the form of counters (MM, FoW, Spell Snare) and removal (Bolt and Mancer), so resolving an early Standstill shouldn't be a big problem.
So now we have something to kill Jace, control aggro until we get to our late-game and draw lots of cards. So how do we actually win?
This is where it gets tricky. Of course, Jace wins us some games, and Mishra and Lavamancer beatdown might win some others, but that does not seem to be enough. So here's why I decided to include the painter-stone combo:
1) It's an excuse to play REB maindeck, so I can really beat Jace and Merfolk and other blue decks (Yes, I think it's _that_ important). With Painter, it's also not completely dead against other decks as an instant vindicate.
2) It allows me to include a Trinket Mage Toolbox. This solves a lot of problems, especially postboard, where I can bring in Needle when neccessary and Meekstone against Goyfs, Tombstalkers and the like. Maindecked, I have EE as a sweeper against aggro and SD.Top, which is pulls you ahead in the midgame.
Now, you could just replace Painter with Stifle and Grindstone with Phyrexian Dreadnought, and you would have a pretty straight forward U/r Dreadstill deck. But in my opinion, there's a pretty big difference between comboing into a 12/12 creature which needs to be able to attack twice or comboing into ... oops, I win. You could argue that Painter does less on himself than Stifle, but in this deck, I don't even think so. Stifle is primarily a tempo card. I don't see a lot of sense in stifling a fetch and then dropping ... Standstill. Apart from killing lands, stifle doesn't do much. Stifling Jace's ultimate is good, but if you let it come that far, something went wrong in the first place. Painter also has a good defensive body, can't be misstepped, turns on REB and turns off every "Sword of A and B" (which is one of my favourite moves).
A lot of the value of this deck comes from people playing badly against it. People play bad against Standstill, we already know that. Like, cracking it in their mainphase after 3-4 turns of doing nothing and so on. But they also tend to play bad against Painter (at least in this build), tending to fight pretty hard to get that Painter sworded, only to realise that I don't really need him to win. I think that's the real beauty with this deck - it's not at all dependent on the combo. In fact, I sided it out a couple of times (especially against SnT).
Why even include it then if it is not really needed? First, 1) and 2) from above (especially 1) are good reasons to do so. Second, in situations where you cannot handle a threat that slipped through your Countermagic and removal, it helps to know that you can still win by getting the combo out in the next couple of turns. It is also one of the best ways to assemble the "perfect hand" while people try to sit out Standstill to crack it on your endstep. Draw 3, discard the unnecessary, let them play their goyfs/bobs/stoneforges or whatever they believe is good right now and just kill them. The other perfect hand includes just Jace and a ton of counters, but I definitely prefer the first one. In fact, there is still a lot that can go wrong with a Jace in play, and people tend to scoop way too often in these spots (but that's another issue).
So, for reference, here is the list I've been testing lately with quite some success. Team America is still probably the better choice, because everything they have is essentially a bomb, while some cards in my build are very situational (like, it sucks top-decking a Painter at the wrong time). But if you have fun frying some fish and surprising the control player with an unusual build, I suggest you give the following list a try:
2 Island
1 Mountain
4 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
3 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins
4 Painter's Servant
3 Grim Lavamancer
2 Trinket Mage
1 Grindstone
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
4 Brainstorm
3 Spell Snare
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Red Elemental Blast
4 Standstill
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
I would be happy to get some constructive feedback from the community.
Thanks,
TkDodo
The one thing they all have in comon is obv. that they play blue, and further, a lot of decks play Jace. Mental Misstep leading to the format being slower really pushed Jace over the edge, and I think it is now THE card to beat.
So what can we do against Jace and blue and, at the same time, not get overrun by aggro?
First of all, we can play blue ourselves. Having access to our own Jaces should be reason enough. I've heard Countermagic should be good too, so yeah, why not.
Second, I think the best answer to blue is: red. REB is a very good weapon against blue mages. Further, Lightning bolt is a very versatile card right now. I know, it costs 1, so it can be misstepped, but: It kills Jace. This can't be emphasized enough, so again: it turnes Jace into an unimpressive 2UU Brainstorm most of the time. It also kills almost every creature, especially those who come down early (except Goyf and Tombstalker, which is a downside). Against aggro, red further gives us the option to play grim lavamancer as a recurring removal. He is pretty much the nuts against merfolk and also good against other aggro strategies.
Blue is also pretty good at drawing cards. Standstill is one of the best drawing engines in a somewhat slowed-down format. We also already have a lot of answers to our opponents T1 plays in the form of counters (MM, FoW, Spell Snare) and removal (Bolt and Mancer), so resolving an early Standstill shouldn't be a big problem.
So now we have something to kill Jace, control aggro until we get to our late-game and draw lots of cards. So how do we actually win?
This is where it gets tricky. Of course, Jace wins us some games, and Mishra and Lavamancer beatdown might win some others, but that does not seem to be enough. So here's why I decided to include the painter-stone combo:
1) It's an excuse to play REB maindeck, so I can really beat Jace and Merfolk and other blue decks (Yes, I think it's _that_ important). With Painter, it's also not completely dead against other decks as an instant vindicate.
2) It allows me to include a Trinket Mage Toolbox. This solves a lot of problems, especially postboard, where I can bring in Needle when neccessary and Meekstone against Goyfs, Tombstalkers and the like. Maindecked, I have EE as a sweeper against aggro and SD.Top, which is pulls you ahead in the midgame.
Now, you could just replace Painter with Stifle and Grindstone with Phyrexian Dreadnought, and you would have a pretty straight forward U/r Dreadstill deck. But in my opinion, there's a pretty big difference between comboing into a 12/12 creature which needs to be able to attack twice or comboing into ... oops, I win. You could argue that Painter does less on himself than Stifle, but in this deck, I don't even think so. Stifle is primarily a tempo card. I don't see a lot of sense in stifling a fetch and then dropping ... Standstill. Apart from killing lands, stifle doesn't do much. Stifling Jace's ultimate is good, but if you let it come that far, something went wrong in the first place. Painter also has a good defensive body, can't be misstepped, turns on REB and turns off every "Sword of A and B" (which is one of my favourite moves).
A lot of the value of this deck comes from people playing badly against it. People play bad against Standstill, we already know that. Like, cracking it in their mainphase after 3-4 turns of doing nothing and so on. But they also tend to play bad against Painter (at least in this build), tending to fight pretty hard to get that Painter sworded, only to realise that I don't really need him to win. I think that's the real beauty with this deck - it's not at all dependent on the combo. In fact, I sided it out a couple of times (especially against SnT).
Why even include it then if it is not really needed? First, 1) and 2) from above (especially 1) are good reasons to do so. Second, in situations where you cannot handle a threat that slipped through your Countermagic and removal, it helps to know that you can still win by getting the combo out in the next couple of turns. It is also one of the best ways to assemble the "perfect hand" while people try to sit out Standstill to crack it on your endstep. Draw 3, discard the unnecessary, let them play their goyfs/bobs/stoneforges or whatever they believe is good right now and just kill them. The other perfect hand includes just Jace and a ton of counters, but I definitely prefer the first one. In fact, there is still a lot that can go wrong with a Jace in play, and people tend to scoop way too often in these spots (but that's another issue).
So, for reference, here is the list I've been testing lately with quite some success. Team America is still probably the better choice, because everything they have is essentially a bomb, while some cards in my build are very situational (like, it sucks top-decking a Painter at the wrong time). But if you have fun frying some fish and surprising the control player with an unusual build, I suggest you give the following list a try:
2 Island
1 Mountain
4 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
3 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins
4 Painter's Servant
3 Grim Lavamancer
2 Trinket Mage
1 Grindstone
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
4 Brainstorm
3 Spell Snare
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Red Elemental Blast
4 Standstill
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
I would be happy to get some constructive feedback from the community.
Thanks,
TkDodo