[Deck] W/x Parfait (Tax/Rack Control) [Archive] - Page 4

drmarkb

10-02-2021, 04:15 AM

Played Parfait last night.
The red splash worked, and I got to use an Alpha REB vs Miracles to seal a winning play. Made me feel warm inside.
Lost 2-1 to Dragon Stomp and Goblins though. The former was a bit annoying as I was 1-0 up and they went all in after a mull to 5 to drop a t1 Chandra when I was holding Swords, and then repeated the trick g3 with fireflux squad, when I was holding needle. Saga was outstanding when I played it. It makes E tutor better too.

I will stick with red, but need to work on the board. Just bringing in more 4cc stuff- extra Wrath or Humility seems a bit slow for the critter side of my meta. I would generally have been better off boarding simian spirit guides or lightning bolts in those matches, which kind of says something. I feel I have game against fair blue decks, both control and tempo, even bant with its removal suite. Uch more so than green splash.
The d n t and maverick decks are fine.
Depths makes me shiver a bit still, lands is better, and I can forget doomsday even with a 5 blast board and some hate pieces, there will always be some weak matches, but I do need to shore up others because I have been losing a lot of matches 2-1. My karn board is light, but I think it can be lighter. Lattice, helm, Torpor orb, Zuran orb and needle seem to be the only thing U fetch nowadays.

drmarkb

02-19-2022, 08:41 AM

Looking at March of Otherworldly light. First glance it looks....bad, but we don't get brilliant prismatic endings, at least not vs blood Moon, Chalice can be a bummer and March deals with both at instant speed. Often get dead cards when LT and Scrack is operating, and I like the ability to nerf saga at instant speed. Exile is relevant too.
Might try it in a flex slot. I was once a fan of Unexpectedly absent, but found ww to be a challenge as I tried more sol lands, this is better than that, for sure.

Weapon X

05-16-2022, 06:29 PM

Well looks like we have a group starting to form again so back to perfection for me. That said I think I may finally try out something I’ve been theory crafting for some time. Not sure when we are going to start up so as a result I’m not sure if I’ll post a list before or after pressure testing. Regardless something new may be on the horizon.

aedemiel

05-17-2022, 08:02 AM

Well looks like we have a group starting to form again .
Where? On Discord? Link?

Something new may be on the horizon.
Because, we now have access to March of Otherworldly Light and The Wandering Emperor?

Also, the Meta looks quite predatory towards us, and everything we do can be hit by the latests answers (Prismatic Ending and Boseiju, Who Endures to name a few).

Weapon X

05-17-2022, 10:24 AM

drmarkb

05-29-2022, 01:23 PM

Sorry. Meant locally. I’m a paper player since I can’t justify buying cards I already own.

Honestly haven’t really been looking at magic the last while with band stuff taking over. May have to look at the newer sets to fill in holes I wasn’t sure how to.

Me too- paper for me! Nice to see you back.
Serenity is everywhere too in boards as well as meltdown.

With my current list I have gone back to basics- not literally.
I have gone 4 lightning bolt, 4 swords, march of otherworldly. Saga targets include Cursed Scroll. Lots of saga wins, fewer combo wins. 5 pyroblast effects in the board, I have beta red blasts now.

No moat/humility shenanigans- it really hurts to remove moat back to a bank safe. 4cc for a solitary Nahiri, and karns, and the helm, with lots of uncounterable (bar stifle effects) Eiganjo action in there for a smooth mana base or removal. Locking a board up with combos that don't win the game is much less good than it was, so its all grindy removal with as high a card quality as possible (hence bolt), knowing that either scroll rack/land tax will take off or one of the karn combo/RIP combo will stick sooner or later.

aedemiel

05-30-2022, 01:39 PM

Punishingwaterfalls recently played a Wish version of Parfait.
(https://youtu.be/hq6WflRESRU?t=18510)

@Cpt-Qc I assume it's yours?

Fox

05-30-2022, 03:04 PM

Punishingwaterfalls recently played a Wish version of Parfait.
(https://youtu.be/hq6WflRESRU?t=18510)

@Cpt-Qc I assume it's yours?

I made it for Cpt_Qc. It was a fun dono league b/c if PunishingWaterfalls went worse than 3-2 he would get a bonus. :laugh:

A huge problem on mtgo (i.e. fake legacy) is that you have to play trash like Retrofitter when Currency Converter is the Scroll Rack you should be running (one copy is 4 copies with Saga). It was a fun league, which had a shot of being a 4-1. The round 2 opponent deterministically loses g2 if Cosmic is used correctly with Wasteland, which would lead to a game 3...where a Pact-donating deck has an exceedingly poor matchup against a deck that can easily hit color reqs to pay with 5x Lotus Field (1x actual, 3x Saga, and 1x Map).

26 Land:
5x Plains
5x Snow Plains
4x Flagstones
3x Wasteland
3x Saga
1x Lotus Field
1x Karakas
1x Heliods
1x Castle Ardenvale
1x Plateau
1x Mesa

8 Dudes:
4x Timeless
4x Soli'dude

3 PW:
3x Karn

2 Enchant:
1x Humility
1x Land Tax

6x Artifact:
1x Lodestone Bauble
1x Zuran Orb
1x Expedition Map
1x Relic
1x Scroll Rack
1x Currency Converter (in real legacy, so swapped to bad card Retrofitter)

15 Spells:
2x Plow
3x March
2x Cataclysm
2x B Wish
2x Cosmic Intervention
2x E Tutor
1x Restore Balance
1x Sevinne's

singleton SB:
Overmaster
From the Ashes
Cataclysm
Thought Distortion
---
Porphyry Nodes (He swapped out for Lattice)
---
Tormod's
Relic
Liquimetal
Ethersworn
Angel of Ruins
Crucible
Scroll Rack
Hex Parasite
Cursed Scroll
Powder Keg
Cataclysm

A few good things to learn from the league:
-Lattice is a wasted SB slot. This deck has 4 slots of maindeck Cataclysm (2x actual, 2x Wish), so Lattice is overkill vs already deterministically dead opponents. Lattice is also quite poor without Sol Lands. This is a concept people really struggle with. While we did not roll Delver, I absolutely want 2x E Tutors pointed at Nodes. I also am very interested in Cosmic on upkeep -> last dude dies to Nodes -> Nodes to exile -> end step Nodes to play -> Nodes back to exile -> you can't play any dudes on your next turn oppo -> your end step Nodes is back.
-Shadowspear is not a good magic card here, but Zuran Orb is. Note that Zuran Orb is variance negative: it thins the deck with Flagstones and Land Tax, whereas Shadowspear cannot decrease the odds of dead topdecks. There is to say nothing of the Cosmic + Zuran Orb super-life lines of +4 life per land in play, losing zero lands.
-Lodestone Bauble at worst requires 0 targets to just replace itself. It is however harder to understand the role it plays when Currency Converter is not available. This is a high floor on Bauble, which can very easily combo rather nastily with Land Tax to re-up the "draw 3 each turn" lines later.
-As PunishingWaterfalls pointed out, you can opt for Ruination over From the Ashes...but given that this deck is quad-Cataclysm, I generally prefer to reduce variance by ripping dead topdecks out of my deck with FTA.
-There are effectively 5x Lotus Fields in this deck, you can cast Thought Distortion. Don't play Burning Wish in this format if you can't tutor out uncounterables.
-Don't play Moat; this card was only ever okay'ish when Oko was legal. Watch the league, see the battlefield superiority. These pillow forts were never needed, and would have impeded our ability to win the game.

aedemiel

05-31-2022, 03:13 AM

I see. Perfect deckbuilding indeed.
I'll have to test it myself, but how does the deck fare when you don't draw your engine cards?

Fox

05-31-2022, 04:45 AM

I see. Perfect deckbuilding indeed.
I'll have to test it myself, but how does the deck fare when you don't draw your engine cards?

The engine is getting lands out of the deck to reduce variance. You've got 3x effective copies of Land Tax with E Tutor, Zuran/Flagstones, Timeless, and Cosmic + Fetch/2nd Flagstones/dying Saga finding Map with mana up. You also have (in paper) the ability to flush lands from hand with Currency Converter. Getting hit by enemy Boseju is also highly beneficial to the engine.

The deckbuilding error people make with cards like Land Tax is that although they recognize it as a card that can take over games by itself, kind of like Library of Alexandria, they forget how bad it is to ever contaminate their topdeck with the second copy at any point after that [variance positive]. This is a lot of how decks like these lose to their own construction. Land Tax-based decks are notorious for building A+B+C towers where piece A is Land Tax, piece B is Scroll Rack, and piece C is Mox Diamond. None of these cards are doing you favors when multiple are in play, and they're all rather poor topdecks down the stretch. Add on hostile Prismatic Ending target Land Tax, on top of all the Force effects (FoW, FoV, FoN), and that A+B+C tower is never getting built in this format...and you will always lose b/c you're trying to avoid drawing useless Mox Diamonds and Scroll Racks without the help of cantrips.

^all this is really bad, and adding nonsense like Moat or E-Bridge on top is just backbreaking. These are about the least trustworthy cards in legacy; they will never protect you b/c you can't defend them. It's all just more duds you have to draw through once the Land Tax all-in doesn't work.

The engine is the same as Standstill: variance reduction targeting our own mana. Pursue said engine with highly uninteractive endpoint [basic lands], and ensure all surrounding pieces work towards the engine synergistically - that way there's nothing to disrupt, so you're always making progress. The fun part about this being built to constantly spike the game with Cataclysm effects, because there's nothing quite as satisfying as choosing to keep a Lotus Field as our one land after it resolves. The kicker is that we don't actually care if Cataclysm resolves - it's all about forcing the opponent to bleed resources every single turn b/c...well...we've got better things to do than losing turns because we drew land.

As you watch the VoD or play the deck, just recognize that you don't need to do one specific thing to win. It really doesn't matter if it was a Land Tax game or a Cataclysm into the ground game or a Restore Balance/Cosmic game or a Karn game or a death by Saga/Timeless combat game...they're all the same thing, and their pieces all work towards the end you need. Figure out the opponent's deck and the gamestate, then identify the prison they can't escape and build that prison piece by piece in a modular fashion.

kombatkiwi

06-02-2022, 10:27 AM

I don't even disagree with the direction of building that list from a competitive standpoint (except maybe the Burning Wish part) I just think it's funny that optimizing "land tax deck" meant stripping out 90% of the land tax parts and just turning it into generic monoW + Saga/Karn

aedemiel

07-23-2022, 06:42 AM

I was wondering if you could elaborate a bit more about the Burning Wish building and choices? The WishBoard takes a lot of space in the SB (the KarnBoard too) and I often find myself in situations where I almost don't board at all.

I've been tinkering with a green splash for a few weeks now. It gives us Loam and Living Wish of course but also Sylvan Library and even Crop Rotation to some extend (more utility lands of course, but also more land filtering with Flagstones).

Living Wish package gives us:
— Utility lands like Bojuka Bog, Karakas, I can even see the Lotus Field or Wasteland in the board or something cute like Mistveil Plains...
— Anti grave creatures: Faerie Macabre, Remorseful Cleric, Endurance...
— Anti combo creatures: Canonist obviously, Reclamation Sage or Cathar Commando (since Ouphe is pretty bad for us...), Eidolon of Rhetoric and Archon of Emeria.

Fox

07-23-2022, 10:58 AM

On of the keys to playing Burning Wish effectively is dictating how your opponent must play; they don't get to use skill, they don't get to have agency. The thing that makes that possible with Burning Wish is turning into a "must-counter...or else" card b/c it can threaten to find an uncounterable card. Things with keyword storm (Tendrils, Relay, Grape Shot), cycling (Decree), uncounterable (Verdict, Thought Distortion), etc... After that the targets should be game-ending effects, which again say "must-counter...or else." Now the way the deck is built, it plays 4 Cataclysm (2 actual, 2 Wish targeting 1x SB Cataclysm); but instead of flooding out on pointless extra copies of Cataclysm, the deck goes up on 2 mana plays. More than that, this is a 2 mana play you don't actually care about - your opponent is allowed to Daze it...and if they don't, you grab a Daze-proof Overmaster (you already have 2 lands to cast B Wish) and draw towards even more land drops to turn off Daze for the rest of the game.

^More than anything else, these two things are why non-blue decks will fail: they massacre themselves on Daze (particularly with their 2 mana play) and they can't clear the way for the spell they need to resolve.

The big picture here is playing as many Cataclysms as you can, without ever losing to the internal variance it introduces. At the same time Cataclysm needs to resolve, so you have to be vindicating blue cards from their hand at every point leading up to Cataclysm, and you need to maintain that level of forced trading as long as you can. The way to accomplish this is to attack the lands in your own deck so you don't topdeck them; ripping them out with Land Tax, Timeless, Flagstones, Map, Currency Converter, Mesa/Cosmic, and the SB From the Ashes/Angel of Ruins. This is the Standstill variance reduction mana engine, only this time the asymmetry is called Cataclysm rather than Standstill. The focus on uninteractive basic lands is the key to the strategy working.

On the green stuff, the most the color could have offered was the FoV/Kaheera exploit but unfortunately that doesn't work with creature type dragon. On Living Wish: we already can tutor lands with 3x Saga pointed at Map, and using a Wish to grab a land in the mid-to-late game doesn't really progress the game state or add pressure (it can't vindicate blue cards from hand). The only creature worth grabbing is Ethersworn (which Karn already gets); like Remorseful Cleric is fine, but again Karn and Saga already grab faster grave hate (which also cantrips). Ouphe will never live against this deck; it has 4x Solitude, 3x March, 2x Plow...and even if they have Mother of Runes + Ouphe, they won't have it after a Cataclysm. Ouphe is so bad that we actively want our opponents to lose a card and 2 mana on that Ouphe.

On Loam: more lands is not what we need, b/c the deck is so focused on ripping them out of deck. We're much happier going from mana development to Karn -> Crucible -> play Flagstones into Flagstones. We end up at the same place with Loam and Karn, except Loam can't vindicate blue cards from hand. Karn will however b/c it represents dead basic lands, and even if they deal with it, their basics are still living on borrowed time vs Liquimetal and March. Loam is also pretty questionable with so few Fetchlands.

On Crop Rot: kinda like Living Wish in terms of not progressing the game state enough, while also losing too much momentum when it does vindicate blue cards. You also have to be careful about not advancing the mana total in a deck with Saga and Lotus; like you can't cast that 1 mana spell until turn 3 at the earliest. You're not going to fix that green mana and have a Flagstones in play to sacrifice early on. The cost of that green mana, particularly early on is Savannah...which loses to Wasteland...which loses to the Daze we were trying to beat.

If you're running to Mox Diamond for green, you've added what might be the single worst topdeck in legacy at the price of $650 per copy. This also leads to regressive deckbuilding where people run 10-12 slots full of Mox/Tax/Rack, and they lose b/c it's too many pieces that do nothing in multiple and combinations like Mox/Rack is self-defeating. I understand the temptation to go turn 1 Mox -> Land Tax, but you are turbodead to the Ending you can't stop...and even more turbodead to FoV. You can't trash your hand size into trades like that, and also risk flooding out on garbage topdecks like Mox/Rack (not to mention the risk of being stranded with Saga as your only land). Mox Diamond is one of the most expensive ways to play a completely ineffective strategy.

On Sylvan Library: it's a very good card, even though you have to untap with it. The issue is that it requires Fetchland shuffles, and it requires quick access to green mana. We're already accomplishing the Sylvan Library thing decentralizing it across E Tutor/Land Tax and Currency Converter (off Saga). Fetchlands and Land Tax are not best friends, and again Wasteland problems with Savannah (which you need card type Plains for Timeless) leads to losses to Daze.

To begin considering green, they would need to print Torpor Orb on a land to balance Thassa; and honestly this card will probably be printed. At that point however, you would take green's ability to find Torpor-land and add blue + Dreadnought. The other scenario is that they might print keyword Plains on Torpor-land (which would be a really stupid idea), and so you'd just find it with Timeless, and keep not playing green.

aedemiel

07-24-2022, 06:55 AM

Alright then.
Do you have a SB map?
At least for ANT and DoomsDay. The later seem near unwinable.

Fox

07-24-2022, 12:34 PM

Alright then.
Do you have a SB map?
At least for ANT and DoomsDay. The later seem near unwinable.

Against ANT you bring in Canonist, Relic, Keg, and probably Scroll Rack. Can leave crypt in the SB for Karn. -2 Plow, -2 Solitude. Can bring out another Solitude and bring in Liquimetal to turn March into Sinkhole.

The deck is not designed to beat Thassa, you'd only be bringing in Canonist, Relic, and option to bring in Liquimetal and Keg (just as with March, so too is Keg LD with Liquimetal). Similar boarding to ANT. Your gameplan will mostly be LD.

This deck is not built for combo speedrun settings (leagues); it is a $1200 entry point to the format which aims to minimize wasting money by building into UWr Standstill/Landstill while also teaching Standstill-relevant play patterns. If you're trying to build into a local meta infested by Thassa, you would start at Dreadstill ($2000) to hate them off the face of the format before picking up the UWr Landstill/Standstill pieces, and then spend about $400 to complete Parfait (Plateau is picked up for UWr, so you're mostly looking at Solitudes, Land Tax, and the brick of Cataclysms).

While the deck is built to stand on it's own, it's exists mostly as an interesting Standstill/Landstill sidestep. By itself this Parfait build is made to crush Uro midrange/FoW, Reanimator, Chalice/artifacts, DnT, anything with the card Dark Depths, Maverick/fair, Delver/Shadow/Daze, Elves (probably), SnT, discard spammers, Saga, nonbasics, PWs, Burn, mana denial, and some others. So while the coverage is like reasonable on its own, you do need to be able to build to efficiently into other decks to cover the gaps (mostly Thassa, since MindTwisters are going to get banned).

The purest use of this $400 Standstill/Landstill detour is to obliterate Post, Blood Sun (Lotus Field), BridgeWalker, and punishing people for meme'ing with Jokulhaups (Cosmic into nice PW backup plan -> Cataclysm). It's a cheap way to send an unequivocal message that such things are not allowed in this room.

It should be noted that Scroll Rack in the main had been updated to Currency #2.

FTW

07-25-2022, 04:45 PM

I watched the video. The deck looks fairly strong (Round 2 Wasteland punt was unfortunate when opponent ended up winning by exactly 1 mana, 1 turn before dead). I think PunishingWaterfalls also missed how strong the Saga -> Map -> Heliod -> Saga line is. There were a couple times Map did little when it could have ensured inevitability through Wastelands and Meltdowns, especially with Sevinne backup.

I agree redundant Land Taxes are annoying. It was one of the things I liked least playing Land Tax decks, preferring to run few Land Tax and make up for it with Tutors. Scroll Rack at least has a built-in engine to mitigate drawing multiples, although it's card disadvantage alone (needs Land Tax or Counterbalance).

I think Fox has the right idea. As long as the format is full of Prismatic Ending and Force of Negation and Force of Vigor and Meltdown, you can't rely on artifact/enchantment engines staying on the board forever like they used to. In the Oko meta you could keep enchantments reliably. Since MH2 you can't. The sensible way forward is to expect them to trade, building in a way that you can trade profitably, recover, and eventually grind out an advantage. Minimizing redundant draws, cutting card disadvantage, hiding bad draws in the SB, thinning lands, and playing tech like Sevinne's and Cosmic Intervention all make sense. Steady grind forwards. Even if you can't use the namesake engine as much, at least you're not constantly losing to fair disruption while durdling the clock on Tax/Rack activations.

That's all fine vs fair decks. But what about unfair decks? Even the Jund MadVine matchup looked unfavorable and got lucky from opponent playing slowly. Is the deck overboarded for a fair meta? There must be at least 1 toolbox slot that's relevant less often than you'd play a combo deck.

Would a 3rd ETutor in the SB help vs Storm? +1 Deafening Silence? +1 Nevermore (more versatile for Thassa, random things like Sudden Substitution)? Without more hate (or tutor for hate) you have no agency in those games. Durdling with LD combos is not much of a plan, because they have plenty of time to draw more mana and win.

aedemiel

07-26-2022, 01:47 AM

Would a 3rd ETutor in the SB help vs Storm? +1 Deafening Silence? +1 Nevermore (more versatile for Thassa, random things like Sudden Substitution)? Without more hate (or tutor for hate) you have no agency in those games. Durdling with LD combos is not much of a plan, because they have plenty of time to draw more mana and win.

My thought exactly. Although I think a 3rd Tutor is probably too slow. I would lean toward several Deafening Silence and mulligan agressively towards them.

Fox

07-26-2022, 07:02 AM

Nevermore isn't going to resolve, or you'll lose before the 3rd mana. Deafening Silence is relevant vs very few decks as compared to Canonist. In either case it's a -1 SB size penalty. The matchup would still be bad, and mulling aggressively into discard won't help the winrate.

The matchup will continue to be bad without blue cards, until they print Torpor Orb on a land - for everyone in legacy without blue. Even if you add 4x Angel's Grace, they're going to discard it. If you combine removal with SB Noxious they'll discard or counter it. You'd be better off with throwing at most 1x slot either on Torpor Orb or something narrow like Wheel of Sun and Moon...but again, it's not a matchup that is going to be winnable....and trying to make it winnable will cost you winrate against the entire rest of the format.

aedemiel

08-18-2022, 08:29 AM

Brian Coval played a Mono White version of Parfait Here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjAnHGxyNc0). The Deck Building is completely outdated and he made some mistakes here and there.

I've been testing the latest version that was posted in this thread. I really liked the "land epuration" playstyle. However, I have to say the wishboard felt EXTREMELY lackluster. Most of the time Burning Wish was a dead card.

Fox

08-18-2022, 09:15 AM

The thing is, B Wish is both a 2 mana play and counts as copies 3 and 4 of Cataclysm without having to flood out on 4 maindeck copies...which is otherwise a rather large problem since Cataclysm makes the next one uncastable for a lengthy amount of time (on top of contaminating opening hands with a spell that is so many land drops away).

When you're saying B Wish was a dead card, how many times were you saying it b/c the opponent had already died to a resolved Cataclysm? The point of B Wish is more about making sure a single game-ending Cataclysm resolves, rather than overkilling an opponent who has completely failed to stop you (Karn/Liquimetal is that overkill).

FTW

08-18-2022, 09:40 AM

I've been testing the latest version that was posted in this thread. I really liked the "land epuration" playstyle. However, I have to say the wishboard felt EXTREMELY lackluster. Most of the time Burning Wish was a dead card.

I've found that with Fox's other Burning Wishboards too (UWr Landstill). I think you want 1 Sevinne's Reclamation or Council's Judgment/Prismatic Ending in the Wishboard so that you always have a live target, even when you don't want big haymakers like Cataclysm or Thought Distortion. Sometimes you're just in a grindy low-resource state and want to convert that Wish into a trade. I felt a lot better drawing Wishes in Landstill with that SB "fair" option.

You could also consider Gift of Estates (aka Wish for Land Tax, if you're in a low resource state where Wishing for Cataclysm doesn't make sense), but that may be too cute.

Fox

08-18-2022, 09:52 AM

Watching some of the Bosh'n'Roll league, it is a pretty good example of every problem classic builds have. Such builds are reduced to hoping to roll combo that can't interact with the hate pieces. Otherwise you're just floundering without a proactive wincon nor do you have a valuable resource to attack...so you just sit there while your variance (dead & redundant cards) locks you out of a chance of winning. The deck also showcased the inability to handle Ouphe, Ending, and FoV.

Making 1 change to the SB for B Wish is fine, but it would likely cost you access to Ruination/FTA.

Weapon X

08-18-2022, 11:26 AM

I would not call that a classic build. I’ve played the same list since the unbanning of tax with only minor sideboard changes. I’ve very much been in the “nothings broken so I don’t know what people are trying to fix” state of mind. Honestly I would expect cataclysm to be its own archetype as it’s the card you are trying to abuse.

Fox

08-18-2022, 09:16 PM

The classic build is around 10 slots burned on Mox Diamond, Land Tax, and Scroll Rack. The rest of the deck doesn't really matter when you're self-sabotaging with this much variance. None of these get better in multiples, and they aren't particularly impressive in combinations of two; i.e. Mox and Scroll Rack is actively bad, Land Tax and Scroll Rack don't work so well without Mox enabling Tax triggers, and Mox with Land Tax goes horribly wrong vs any interaction (and if it's FoV, you lose the whole game).

It's one thing to do the classic in premodern, but in legacy you don't get the benefit of assembling the megazord [Scroll, Mox, Tax] vs Decay/Trophy, Ending, Kcomm/K'saga, FoV/GSZ for Ouphe, Karn - see previous paragraph about what happens when you can only assemble 2/3 of the contraption. Moreover, in premodern they have time to sit there drawing bricks (redundant copies of Mox/Tax/Scroll), whereas in legacy you can't be sitting around drawing duds while 1-card combos like Uro or PWs accrue irreparable value on the other side of the table.

The RiP/Helm, Isochron/Chant, and Ghostly Prison stuff is just window dressing. The building is on fire...a building built on Mox/Tax/Scroll - the classic.

The relaunch I made for this archetype with the Standstill mana consistency engine is the same deck as old Parfait, just with decisions that incidentally increased power while eradicating variance with synergy. Wrath of God and Geddon are the wrong spells, you play Cataclysm and Humility now...and can Burning Wish for an asymmetric Geddon [Ruination/FTA]. Cataclysm is Geddon and Wrath in 1 card (that also kills PWs), and you really don't care about the leftovers with Karn, Solitude, and Lotus Field all there waiting to finish the job.

FTW

08-18-2022, 09:42 PM

I’ve very much been in the “nothings broken so I don’t know what people are trying to fix” state of mind. Honestly I would expect cataclysm to be its own archetype as it’s the card you are trying to abuse.

Are you still getting a high win rate in Legacy with the old list? What's your list?

Like other enchantment/artifact-based prison & control decks, Parfait relied on the Legacy format running very few maindeck answers to artifacts and enchantments and many answers to creatures. If you only have to navigate around FoW and soft counters and a SB disenchant, it's not hard to assemble the pieces and take over the game. You could go quadlaser to overload their limited 1-for-1s while they draw dead removal and stare dumbly at noncreature permanents. That worked for a long time.

Now the format has shifted.
Prismatic Ending
Force of Vigor
Force of Negation
Meltdown
Collector Ouphe
Hidetsugu Consumes All

You can't just play an enchantment and expect it to survive many turns. For the same reasons, you don't see Solitary Confinement or RiP+Field locking down games anymore. Meanwhile aggressive decks got more explosive to punish you when you stumble. The old plan is just weaker in the current format. Adjusting the plan makes sense.

Purple Blood

08-18-2022, 09:51 PM

Fox

08-18-2022, 10:00 PM

I watched Bosh's video. His build should have added Urza's Saga and include Zuran Orb and Shriekhorn in the package. Saga and Orb can guarantee you trigger Land Tax. Horn can mill your crappy cards off the top when you Rack. There could be something even better than Horn in that slot but I'm too lazy to look.

He also had a lot of pointless cards in the deck like Scepter and Ghostly Prison.

It doesn't matter if you're still in the abyss that is 10 slots of death by variance. You cannot play Mox Diamond any more here. Scroll Rack is dropped to a 2x called Currency Converter. Land Tax is no longer allowed to be a dead topdeck, you have to use E Tutor to act as the virtual 2nd and 3rd copy of Tax.

You can't tune your way out of the burning house. You have to address to 800 pound gorilla that is Mox/Tax/Scroll. It's as regressive as it is costly (Mox is what 600, Tax is 40)

Weapon X

08-18-2022, 10:11 PM

4 Land Tax
3 Scroll Rack
3 Wrath Of God
4 Orim’s Chant
3 Oblivion Ring
4 Path to Exile
4 Enlightened Tutor
1 Solitary Confinement
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Zuran Orb
1 Humility
1 Blood Moon
1 Trinisphere
1 Ivory Tower
1 Pithing Needle
3 Mox Diamond
1 Mox Opal

2 Rest In Peace
2 Helm of Obedience
1 Goblin Charbelcher

2 Mountain
16 Plains

Sideboard
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 Timely Reinforcements
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Aura of Silence
1 Rest in Peace
2 Ethersworn Cannonist
1 Nahiri, the Harbinger
1 Council's Judgement

That’s the list I have posted on salvation. I swear I lost the opal for another mountain. To be fair I haven’t played much since COVID and the band taking off. I otherwise continue to stay the course. Blank opponents cards and have a toolbox that beats my opponents. Tax/rack is the recovery engine that combats the 2:1 I’m doing. If that goes on early great. In the end the longer the game goes the more assured you are of winning. Things don’t need to survive indefinitely, just long enough.

Fox

08-18-2022, 10:24 PM

Your opponent has a Karn. You lose.

Weapon X

08-18-2022, 11:18 PM

I don’t. But good try?

Fox

08-18-2022, 11:27 PM

I don’t. But good try?

No you do. Your entire deck in the face of 1 Karn is reduced to three copies maybe-removal spell. Meanwhile they have their entire deck to stop you from getting an O-Ring...or just killing it to instantly re-up the Karn. With that Karn passive in play the entire rest of your deck does nothing...no wincon...nothing. They don't even need to activate the Karn.

Now that's just the raging autoloss flaw, on top of all of the other things that break up your ability to assemble a megazord. You still have unacceptable death by variance from Mox/Tax/Scroll flood.

FTW

08-18-2022, 11:33 PM

To be fair I haven’t played much since COVID and the band taking off.

Enchant/artifact strategies dropped since pre-COVID. The Legacy format changed a lot. Your traditional list looks a lot better in a ~2018 meta.

You can't even count on things surviving "long enough". Opponent will Prismatic Ending, Force of Vigor, Meltdown, GSZ for Ouphe etc. before you untap. The format was forced to shift to more answers to deal with rampant Urza's Saga decks and Emry/Karn decks. Enchantment/artifact control suffered as a consequence.

Edit: BoshNRoll's video proved that. Mox often got 2-for-1d early. He never successfully assembled Land Tax & Scroll Rack and ran into a ton of dead topdecks (Plains flood, Mox, Scroll Rack #3). Bad draws meant losing every match vs fair disruptive decks, only beating storm. But Storm autoloses to 4x Orim's Chant + 2x Deafening Silence + 2x Ethersworn Canonist + 3x ETutor + 4x RiP + 3x Karn + 20x Squire... the Parfait part didn't do anything.

Purple Blood

08-19-2022, 01:49 AM

It doesn't matter if you're still in the abyss that is 10 slots of death by variance. You cannot play Mox Diamond any more here. Scroll Rack is dropped to a 2x called Currency Converter. Land Tax is no longer allowed to be a dead topdeck, you have to use E Tutor to act as the virtual 2nd and 3rd copy of Tax.

You can't tune your way out of the burning house. You have to address to 800 pound gorilla that is Mox/Tax/Scroll. It's as regressive as it is costly (Mox is what 600, Tax is 40)

Don't get me wrong, its not like its suddenly a competitive deck with those changes but if you're going to play Scroll/Tax you may as well optimize the list. To be fair to Bosh, he plays what the viewers pay him to play so its not surprising he frequently plays lists that are suboptimal.

Fox

08-19-2022, 07:58 AM

Don't get me wrong, its not like its suddenly a competitive deck with those changes but if you're going to play Scroll/Tax you may as well optimize the list. To be fair to Bosh, he plays what the viewers pay him to play so its not surprising he frequently plays lists that are suboptimal.

You cannot optimize your way out of losing b/c you ran 10 slots of self-sabotage with Mox/Tax/Scroll. If you fail to address those 10 slots you cannot compete in this format.

It is so bad that you can cover up the other 50 slots, because they can not dig you out of the hole you've made for yourself with Mox/Tax/Loam. There is no amount of tuning or experience or player skill that can overcome a deckbuilding error that profound.

If you want to play the classic, there's only one competitive choice you can make: only play it in Premodern.

FTW

08-19-2022, 11:12 AM

To be fair to Bosh, he plays what the viewers pay him to play so its not surprising he frequently plays lists that are suboptimal.

True, although in this case the Mox/Tax/Rack was the suboptimal part. He lost to never assembling Parfait in any game, getting pieces removed early, getting 2-for-1d on Mox, Scroll Rack locking himself without shuffle effects, Land Tax without ways to force it to trigger, dead drawing redundant copies, or flooding on basic Plains.

Fox's build addresses all of those problems. It doesn't assemble Tax+Rack as often, but it also doesn't get blown out by fair decks in those ways. Thinning plains is big too.

Purple Blood

08-20-2022, 01:38 AM

Fox

08-20-2022, 08:50 AM

So at what point in moving away from Scroll/Tax/Mox are you just better off building Mono White Stompy? Chalice isn't as good as it was pre P-Ending but its better than the 1 drops in Fox's list, wouldn't you say?

Chalice isn't a good or reliable card (except vs decks where x=0 has text), and it leads to poor deck construction that gets hit by Wasteland...which traps you in the lose to Daze abyss. It's also not a combo to play Chalice and be drawing the 1 drops for Saga.

There's a previous post where I also explain how putting permanents into play that can't trade profitably vs FoV/Meltdown/Seeds/Serenity by recouping CA (i.e. sacrifice to draw) isn't effective. Super-Nuke the artifacts is a majority sideboarding strategy in legacy, that is probably only surpassed by super-nuke the GY and Surgical....so if you put out a Chalice, you are done playing permanent type artifact and enchantment...so now you're soldier stompy (tier 2, if we're being generous) or BridgeWalker (white here is worse than mono-red stompy shells). If you choose sorcery/instant, you now are a UW deck with Tomb & Chalice, that can't play 1-drops...and UW already has a massive problem with access to playable lifegain before adding Tomb.

In legacy if you're not playing an absolute diversity killer [Goyf-types, total hand destruction, or FIRE], it's a lot more important to pay attention to the bad things that can happen to you. Those bad things are going to come from meta netdecks, which means you know exactly this story ends. So we could play into blowouts/known strategies and also lose turns each time we drew redundant do-nothings like Chalice...or we could notice that all of the diversity killing clown cards don't work if they don't have mana...and when Cataclysm is the card denying the mana, they don't get to keep their PWs, and any dude they have left is already dead to spot removal, and March is able to mop up the rest.

^it's much more important to me that the opponent has to hemorrhage counterspells, every time I offer the trade. Chalice is not a must-counter, which means it is the reason my Cataclysm later on didn't resolve. If you're not on a tier 0, 1, or 1.5 deck you don't have the luxury of attacking irrelevant resources, especially if you also drive up your variance while doing that (redundant Chalice dead draws).

There's also the financial aspect of entry cost to legacy, and that concept extends to minimizing waste by building into an end-stage legacy deck while also developing familiarity with play patterns of that end-stage deck uses. Stompy deck pieces are expensive, they don't build into other decks, and you certainly don't develop non-Stompy player skill.

It is very challenging to auto-lose with this deck b/c your opponent needs to own 4x Usea and be on Thassa. People who play non-Doomsday Thassa cannot succeed in paper weeklies b/c other players Leyline-rage them out of the room for you. The only other thing this deck cares about is banned cards Mind Twist and Timetwister, so we already know what's going to happen to Day's and Echo. Outside of those things, it's very hard to not cash with this deck. Also, this deck murders budget legacy. You do not want to play DnT, Shadow, Stompy, fair dudes, discard tribal, Reanimator, SnT, Depths, Lands, Post, Elves, Delver, Uro, etc anywhere near this deck.

FTW

08-20-2022, 03:22 PM

So at what point in moving away from Scroll/Tax/Mox are you just better off building Mono White Stompy? Chalice isn't as good as it was pre P-Ending but its better than the 1 drops in Fox's list, wouldn't you say?

There are a lot of good 1s to give up:
Swords to Plowshares - Must go up to 4x March 4x Solitude and still lose 1 mana 1-for-1 vs big stuff like Murktide

Enlightened Tutor toolbox

Expedition Map toolbox (no Lotus Field -> cut Cataclysm too?)

Urza's Saga toolbox (can't reliably run many 1s and 0s with Chalice, maybe 2 targets total)

Land Tax - Even though there's only 1 copy, ETutor makes 3 virtual copies when you need it. There's also 1 Scroll MD + 3 virtual Scroll SB (Karn). Chalice means 0 Land Tax and then 0 Scroll, so you are fully off Parfait and have no late game card advantage.

Losing 3 tutor toolboxes means much more draw variance (already a problem with Stompy). Going down to 0 Land Tax + 0 Scroll means even less card selection and no card advantage. Then more variance by adding Ancient Tomb (which probably means cutting red and Burning Wish). That's a lot to lose just to gain Chalice @ 1 in less than 50% of games.

That's just goldfishing too. Against real players, like Fox said, it walks harder into the artifact hate everyone already has to run. I tried to Brainstorm what this deck might look like, but struggled. More fragile and higher variance.

//Lands: 26
10 Plains
4 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Urza's Saga
3 Wasteland
1 Karakas

//Creatures: 12
4 White Plume Adventurer
4 Solitude
4 Timeless Dragon

//Planeswalkers: 4
4 Karn, the Great Creator

//Artifact: 7
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Zuran Orb
1 Currency Converter
1 Crucible of Worlds

//Spells: 11
4 March of Otherworldly Light
1 Sevinne's Reclamation
2 Cosmic Intervention
3 Cataclysm
1 Restore Balance

//Sideboard: 15
1 Liquimetal Coating
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Angel of the Ruins
1 Powder Keg
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Lion Sash
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Torpor Orb
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Archon of Emeria
2 Spirit of the Labyrinth

White Plume gets Plains. Even if it dies you're up on cards. Seems decent.
I increased numbers on Saga and Crucible because 4x Tomb makes the Saga beatdown plan a bit stronger.
Unsure about Cataclysm vs Wrath, without Lotus Field to abuse the asymmetry. But with the higher creature count and the land recursion effects, Cataclysm might still work. Worst case it pitches.
The SB needed some tweaks to have fewer 1s and more redundancy, because you can't ETutor for them. There are more hate pieces to bring in against combo, but many are creatures so they're playable against fair decks too.

But Fox's version gains significantly more card selection, tech, and variance reduction without Chalice

//Lands: 26
10 Plains
4 Flagstones of Trokair
3 Urza's Saga
3 Wasteland
1 Karakas

1 Castle Ardenvale
1 Plateau
1 Arid Mesa
1 Lotus Field
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity

//Creatures: 8
4 Solitude
4 Timeless Dragon

//Planeswalkers: 3
3 Karn, the Great Creator

//Artifact: 6
1 Zuran Orb
2 Currency Converter

1 Lodestone Bauble
1 Expedition Map
1 Relic of Progenitus

//Spells: 15
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Burning Wish

3 March of Otherworldly Light
1 Sevinne's Reclamation
2 Cosmic Intervention
2 Cataclysm
1 Restore Balance

//Enchantments: 2
1 Land Tax
1 Humility

//Sideboard: 15
1 Liquimetal Coating
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Angel of the Ruins
1 Powder Keg
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Ethersworn Canonist

1 Scroll Rack
1 Cursed Scroll
1 Hex Parasite
1 Porphyry Nodes
1 Overmaster
1 Cataclysm
1 Ruination
1 Thought Distortion

Fox

08-20-2022, 03:45 PM

I'm currently down to 1x Scroll Rack in SB only. A second Currency Converter main does more (and in multiples I like activating one to put the discard exiled under the second untapped Converter); also it drops the mana curve while still turning lands from Tax into spells.

On the SB, the only decent sorceries I can find which are either uncounterable or pitch to Solitude/March or have value are Decree of Justice (better with Standstill) and Thrilling Discovery...but the latter has issue with Day's and Echo being legal and saying "draw" on my turn (in mid to late game) vs a format overloaded with Leo/Narset/Labyrinth passives. A SB Sevinne's is fine except everyone I play against sides in yard hate, so it only works well in game 1 - like I don't know what it is but like even back before 3cmc Teferi on UW Standstill I had like 2x SCM and always the yard hate came in from opponents, like clockwork. This represents a profound problem in their SB mapping rather than everyone being that bad at legacy - expect this boarding pattern when selecting Wish targets.

FTW

08-20-2022, 04:05 PM

On the SB, the only decent sorceries I can find which are either uncounterable or pitch to Solitude/March or have value are Decree of Justice (better with Standstill) and Thrilling Discovery...but the latter has issue with Day's and Echo being legal and saying "draw" on my turn (in mid to late game) vs a format overloaded with Leo/Narset/Labyrinth passives. A SB Sevinne's is fine except everyone I play against sides in yard hate, so it only works well in game 1 - like I don't know what it is but like even back before 3cmc Teferi on UW Standstill I had like 2x SCM and always the yard hate came in from opponents, like clockwork. This represents a profound problem in their SB mapping rather than everyone being that bad at legacy - expect this boarding pattern when selecting Wish targets.

Your local meta must know how much you like cards like Timeless Dragon, Sevinne's, and the Heliod tech. Either that or they assume you're playing a worse Sharkstill with 4x Shark and Replenish, accidentally boarding against your other GY tech, lol.

What about Gift of Estates then? Pitches to Solitude/March, thins Plains, and ramps you when you can't cast the big stuff.

Otherwise 1 Prismatic Ending may not be the worst? If you're Wishing, you have at least 2 colors. Lotus Field makes a 3rd.

Fox

08-20-2022, 06:48 PM

Gift of the Estates isn't really going to generate velocity in a board stall. My next turns will all be better b/c I have less odds of drawing a brick, but it doesn't help in that moment. As such the opponent is going to let it resolve and they're still going to have permission for the next spell that matters. It's kinda like RUG Delver bringing in Loam vs a deck with majority basic lands; it doesn't really do anything except cost them time and risk falling behind. You always need something else to capitalize on effects like these, and that's a bad gamble to add to a game of chance.

Ending kinda tops out at 2, unless magical Christmas happens and there's a mix of Lotus/Plateau/Petals (Currency Converter). Just like with Gift of the Estates, I need more things I can't count on to go right.

While CJ would make more sense, it's not uncouterable, doesn't create CA, and doesn't represent a game-ending effect. The chances are whatever I was going to try and CJ would get wiped by spot removal or invalidated by Humility or sacrificed to Cataclysm or not be a castable card b/c I've nuked their mana into the ground. If they errata CJ to kill a PW emblem, suddenly we have something to talk about. As it is, I can animate a Kaldra and either Karakas or Plow it or chump and lock it out with Karn passive or straight up exile with a full-7 March.

Those effects kinda lead to "but why wouldn't I just make that a Lattice"...and the reason I don't run Lattice is b/c it only wins games I've already won. I don't need to risk all-ins to steal games, I just need to restart the engine, and if I do that, any progress that CJ might have stopped probably isn't going to remain relevant if I keep throwing Cataclysms at them till they fall apart.

Kinda the last card that in all of the format that I sort of have an issue with is Progenitus, but even there I can Humility or easily buy a ton of draw steps with Zuran/Cosmic +/- Solitude lifelink. About the only thing I might want is the cheaper Tariff (moreso if it could hit any permanent I hit with Coating - a card that probably survives a game stall). I just don't feel the need to super overkill Progenitus/Murktide/Reanimator & SnT dudes, since I'm overboarded with maindeck ways to stop them.

The jankier thing than Thrilling Discovery would be Leave // Chance. I guess I could super overkill Kaldra with Dust to Dust. It's just very hard to find a card worth answering as compared to restarting the engine. Wreak Havoc is close to what I'd need to see in a card.

FTW

08-22-2022, 05:10 PM

While CJ would make more sense, it's not uncouterable, doesn't create CA, and doesn't represent a game-ending effect.

But you already have uncounterable and game-ending effects to Wish for? (Cataclysm, Ruination & Thought Distortion)

The point of that extra wish slot was to have something useful for when you don't have the mana or position to use big mana game-ending effects. When you have 4+ mana and a board stall, Cataclysm is better.

But there are times when you cannot cast Cataclysm or Wishing for Cataclysm is too slow (e.g. not enough lands or losing to 1 permanent that would survive). You still want to be able to convert that Burning Wish, instead of having it be a dead card in hand. I assume that's how aedemiel found Wish to be dead. In that scenario, it's nice to have 1 Wish target that's castable under low resources and does something relevant. That's where I valued having the SB Ending/Sevinne's in Landstill. Even if not game-ending, it beats having a dead Wish in hand while losing. You could get Overmaster, but spending 1RR over 2 turns just to cycle is bad (unless you have the mana & cards to follow it up with Cataclysm).

Council's Judgment is probably the best option. It's the most likely to do something relevant when you can't afford to play Draw-Go until 4+ lands (opponent has played a must-answer). The only downside is mana cost. If you don't have 3 lands, or you need to play around Daze, or you have 3-4 lands but can't afford to pass the turn, then CJ is too slow. In that case, a 2-mana effect would still do something. That was my rationale for something other than CJ.

Prismatic Ending for WR should be enough in that scenario. It's not game-ending. It won't bail you out against high CMC problems. But if you're at risk of losing when you're low on mana, the thing you need to remove is probably 0-2 cmc, and costing less than CJ is better tempo. Tariff would be better against big creatures (Murktide, Griselbrand) but fails against low CMC problems (LED, Wishclaw, 1-2 mana threat, 1-2 mana hate piece), so it depends what are the biggest threats of fast losses.

Gift of Estates was to ramp from 2 to 5, if you already have good effects in hand but lack the mana to use them fast enough. Then it not only thins to improve draws but also ramps you out of manascrew. Again, it was to address the low resource situation where Wishing for the big mana game-enders is too slow to save you.

Thrilling Discovery could also work as a 2-mana hail mary. You can hope to randomly draw into mana and answers. It works even if you don't have fewer lands. However it requires red mana (pass-the-turn because your red source tapped to cast Wish). It also leaves you with fewer cards and more dependence on random draws vs your position after casting Gift.

Leave // Chance could also dig you out of a bad position, but costs much more mana to do so. At that point you could afford the big spells instead.

jerotas

09-15-2022, 01:16 PM

There are a lot of good 1s to give up:
Swords to Plowshares - Must go up to 4x March 4x Solitude and still lose 1 mana 1-for-1 vs big stuff like Murktide

Enlightened Tutor toolbox

Expedition Map toolbox (no Lotus Field -> cut Cataclysm too?)

Urza's Saga toolbox (can't reliably run many 1s and 0s with Chalice, maybe 2 targets total)

Land Tax - Even though there's only 1 copy, ETutor makes 3 virtual copies when you need it. There's also 1 Scroll MD + 3 virtual Scroll SB (Karn). Chalice means 0 Land Tax and then 0 Scroll, so you are fully off Parfait and have no late game card advantage.

Losing 3 tutor toolboxes means much more draw variance (already a problem with Stompy). Going down to 0 Land Tax + 0 Scroll means even less card selection and no card advantage. Then more variance by adding Ancient Tomb (which probably means cutting red and Burning Wish). That's a lot to lose just to gain Chalice @ 1 in less than 50% of games.

That's just goldfishing too. Against real players, like Fox said, it walks harder into the artifact hate everyone already has to run. I tried to Brainstorm what this deck might look like, but struggled. More fragile and higher variance.

//Lands: 26
10 Plains
4 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Urza's Saga
3 Wasteland
1 Karakas

//Creatures: 12
4 White Plume Adventurer
4 Solitude
4 Timeless Dragon

//Planeswalkers: 4
4 Karn, the Great Creator

//Artifact: 7
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Zuran Orb
1 Currency Converter
1 Crucible of Worlds

//Spells: 11
4 March of Otherworldly Light
1 Sevinne's Reclamation
2 Cosmic Intervention
3 Cataclysm
1 Restore Balance

//Sideboard: 15
1 Liquimetal Coating
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Angel of the Ruins
1 Powder Keg
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Lion Sash
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Torpor Orb
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Archon of Emeria
2 Spirit of the Labyrinth

White Plume gets Plains. Even if it dies you're up on cards. Seems decent.
I increased numbers on Saga and Crucible because 4x Tomb makes the Saga beatdown plan a bit stronger.
Unsure about Cataclysm vs Wrath, without Lotus Field to abuse the asymmetry. But with the higher creature count and the land recursion effects, Cataclysm might still work. Worst case it pitches.
The SB needed some tweaks to have fewer 1s and more redundancy, because you can't ETutor for them. There are more hate pieces to bring in against combo, but many are creatures so they're playable against fair decks too.

But Fox's version gains significantly more card selection, tech, and variance reduction without Chalice

//Lands: 26
10 Plains
4 Flagstones of Trokair
3 Urza's Saga
3 Wasteland
1 Karakas

1 Castle Ardenvale
1 Plateau
1 Arid Mesa
1 Lotus Field
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity

//Creatures: 8
4 Solitude
4 Timeless Dragon

//Planeswalkers: 3
3 Karn, the Great Creator

//Artifact: 6
1 Zuran Orb
2 Currency Converter

1 Lodestone Bauble
1 Expedition Map
1 Relic of Progenitus

//Spells: 15
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Burning Wish

3 March of Otherworldly Light
1 Sevinne's Reclamation
2 Cosmic Intervention
2 Cataclysm
1 Restore Balance

//Enchantments: 2
1 Land Tax
1 Humility

//Sideboard: 15
1 Liquimetal Coating
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Angel of the Ruins
1 Powder Keg
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Ethersworn Canonist

1 Scroll Rack
1 Cursed Scroll
1 Hex Parasite
1 Porphyry Nodes
1 Overmaster
1 Cataclysm
1 Ruination
1 Thought Distortion

I like the last list. I'm going without any creatures though, for now (old school parfait player). I'm also doing 3 Mox Diamonds and just added in 1 [[Karn's Sylex]] which Karn can of course re-fetch if he's not killed by it.

FFreak

09-19-2022, 05:33 AM

https://static.cardmarket.com/img/d9ab88d2bcae3842fcaf7df781d558f9/items/1/40K/675710.jpg

Wouldn't thazt guy be kinda cute in a W or UW shell with scroll rack ?

rufus

09-20-2022, 09:10 AM

https://static.cardmarket.com/img/d9ab88d2bcae3842fcaf7df781d558f9/items/1/40K/675710.jpg

Wouldn't thazt guy be kinda cute in a W or UW shell with scroll rack ?

Do you think that it's a good deal to spend :2: on scroll rack and another :1: on activating it to get a :2: + :1: = :3: discount on casting a spell?

Weapon X

09-20-2022, 11:12 AM

I play baneslayer. Evasion is good. Rack with miracles is a trap.

Cpt-Qc

10-16-2022, 06:06 PM

Has someone tried doomskar to replace wraths? I'm interested to try it.

Kagehisa

10-27-2022, 03:43 PM

4 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Batterskull
1 Kaldra Compleat
4 Triumph of Saint Katherine

4 Solitude
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Prismatic Ending

3 Armageddon
1 Bloodmoon

4 Tithe
4 Land Tax
4 Enlightened Tutor

4 Scroll Rack
4 Mox Diamond
3 Crucible of Worlds
1 Zuran Orb

4 Ghost Quarter
4 Wasteland
4 Horizon Canopy
4 Silent Clearing
4 Sunbaked Canyon
1 Plateau
1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
1 Mountain
9 Plains

Sideboard
1 Yorion, Sky Nomad
4 Deafening Silence
3 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Null Rod
1 Stony Silence
4 Rest in Peace
1 Helm of Obedience

My believe is that we need to control the number of our lands by using Mox Diamond and the Horizon Canopy, Silent Clearing and Sunbaked Canyon to get Land Tax activation or Tithe bonus land. We can sacrifice them to control the number of lands we control. Same with Wasteland and Ghost Quarter and we add Crucible of Worlds to get the lock or a way to draw cards with the Canopy and its friends. Zuran Orb gives us the possibility of sacrificing every other land for the same purpose.

That's why it is a Yorion deck. I wanted all that. I splashed red for a single Bloodmoon. The multicolor manabase (don't forget Mox Diamond) let us play Prismatic Ending in a monowhite deck if it works ! And because we are mono white, we can play 4 Solitude (Yorion pitches here), I believe.

4 Swords to Plowshares, 4 Prismatic Ending and 4 Solitude in the same deck !

The creatures have lifelink because we play a ton of painlands.

I tried to make room for 4 Urza's Saga + 1 Shadowspear to add more lifelinker and another way to tutor for Zuran Orb but I can't find how.

The sideboard is there to have a chance against combo to which we lose game 1.

The plan is removals, attacks, 8 wastelands, Armaggedon, reload, repeat and win hopefully. Bloodmoon is here as a better Winter Orb.

Thank you for reading my long post.

Fox

10-27-2022, 09:42 PM

Basic competitive concepts:
-if we see Crucible in the main, there is a 99.99% chance that it should be a Karn, and that there should be exactly 1x Crucible living in a SB slot, if you wanted this effect.
-Scroll Rack had been replaced by Currency Converter in the main. You play Saga, so play the tutorable lands-to-cards artifact. You have added Karn, so you can play a Scroll Rack in the wishboard.
-You will never put Blood Moon in a 4x Saga deck.
-Tithe is always Timeless Dragon.
-You will not use artifacts and play a symmetrical Null Rod effect. This is Karn.
-We play March over Ending in 1c and 2c decks...especially b/c Karn wishes Liquimetal, which makes their lands into artifacts, which March can target (Ending can't).

So many other problems, but these changes above are mandatory. Also have actual tutor targets for Saga - you literally only have Mox and a Zuran Orb.

FTW

10-28-2022, 02:59 PM

Agree with Fox.

Karn, the Great Creator main is better than Null Rod SB. 1-sided hate and artifact tutor. Then you can move Crucible to the SB as a 1-of (or 1 main 1 SB), to avoid that awkward scenario where you draw redundant Crucibles. You already play ETutor so you can get value from a few 1-of silver bullet artifacts. For example, Karn & ETutor both get Canonist against Storm.

The best self-sacrificing land is Urza's Saga! If you want sacrificing lands to control land count, start with 4 Saga. Saga into Zuran Orb then gives perfect control of land count. Saga into Currency Converter converts extra lands into cards. Saga also makes creatures. Saga is one of the best lands to replay with Crucible. Overall Saga is much more value than you get from Horizon Canopy.

If you're playing stuff like Armageddon and Saga -> Zuran Orb, 3-4 Flagstones of Trokair is free value. Also Cosmic Intervention.

Alpine Moon is more 1-sided than Blood Moon once you're playing so many utility lands. Otherwise Blood Moon hurts you too. Blood Moon also has this small problem about turning enemy Dark Depths into Marit Lage.

CRich3

11-02-2022, 10:14 AM

drmarkb

11-02-2022, 02:48 PM

I’ve been going through some of these posts and I have a few questions?

1. Is enlightened tutor playable in legacy right now?

2. Has anyone tried lotus field? (Got the idea from aspiringspike RW Nahiri/Blink Deck.)

3. What about Fable of the Mirror Breaker and Nettlecyst?

4. As a fun of, how about Reconstruct History? Seems like a draw 5 for 4 in this deck.

I have been playing with fable. It's good, but unless you commit to more dudes, the last bit is so so. It is a grindy card that does a chunk, buying and bolt and more vs Delver. It is better with sol lands, of course.

Been thinking long and hard about E tutor. Trouble is the deck in g2 needs E tutor effects, especially if you want to go to g2 and 3 and tutor for cards like deafening silence, torpor orb or whatever, but in a world of removal, it is really bad disadvantage. Back in the day more often than not you tutored for a something that got forced. 3ball, half the rip helm combo, whatever. Maybe the shuffle bought you out ahead, after a forcing, but by and large the stuff you tutored for either got countered or it resolved. Tutoring now for most of the deck results in P ending and thus disadvantage- in a world of Uro and EI. With most decks packing the removal they now have, I think tutor's place is questionable.

The other huge, huge issue is meltdown is everywhere due to saga,and that leaves the deck hugely vulnerable.
I degenerated the deck to run bolt and swords, in a pretty standard walker shell. Really the best reason to splash red is 4 or 5 bolt effects in the board, but I feel like I am.playing an inferior painter.

I don't see a huge future for the deck right now unless it can get better versions of cards like the music box, etc. With white getting more EDH love it us possible we can see something in future but so many cards are bloody combat and creature centric , and in Parfait if I am attacking I have probably won already.

I have been mucking about with Court of Grace, which I good vs certain decks.

FTW

11-02-2022, 03:52 PM

1. Is enlightened tutor playable in legacy right now?

2. Has anyone tried lotus field? (Got the idea from aspiringspike RW Nahiri/Blink Deck.)

3. What about Fable of the Mirror Breaker and Nettlecyst?

4. As a fun of, how about Reconstruct History? Seems like a draw 5 for 4 in this deck.

1. Good question. I've seen this hotly debated. Enlightened Tutor is bad against fair blue (card disadvantage) but strong at pulling silver bullets against unfair decks and fair non-blue. Otherwise the deck lacks card selection and must run an inefficient SB and redundant copies of maindeck cards to ever see them. Fox's Parfait runs 2 ETutor. I've had success with 2-3 in other decks. 4 is too much card disadvantage. Its power depends on how much you abuse it to free up the SB and do broken things. It seems weak getting 7x Deafening Silence 4x Rest in Peace. The card disadvantage hurts even more with 4 ETutor 4 Scroll Rack 4 Mox. When talking about losing to Prismatic and Force of Vigor and Meltdown, imho it may be worth attacking those other sources of card disadvantage first before cutting ETutor.

2. Fox's build abuses Lotus Field + Cataclysm. You get perfect mana, opponent loses board. Saga into Expedition Map gets Lotus Field. Burning Wish gets Cataclysm.
I've tried the tech in both Fox's Parfait build and in UWr Landstill. I find it situational but very high power. It's game-ending when it works. The tutor packages do reduce the variance. Lotus Field is useful for many other reasons too.

3. Those may work in the Stoneforge build above, but don't fit in the low-creature builds. It's a more aggressive less-controlling direction to take the deck.

Re Meltdown: Fox's build addresses this problem, cutting down to 6 artifacts main and hiding the rest in the SB (Karn). Of those 6 artifacts, 3 cycle in response to removal (Relic, Map, Bauble). 0x Mox Diamond. 0 Scroll Racks main, replaced by 2 Currency Converter (replaces itself more easily) and 1 SB Rack (Karn). The artifacts can be tutored for (Urza's Saga, ETutor, Karn) but you're never getting flooded with artifacts or blown out by removal. It's a radical departure from traditional Parfait, but also stands a chance at winning games in this meta hostile to artifacts.

drmarkb

11-04-2022, 08:26 PM

Fable is honestly fine in any saga deck, I would not say don't run it in a low creature deck- it doesn't need cards like solitude etc. to support it, it is just that the last 2/2 is not gamebreaking/underwhelming/only so-so without cards to copy, but at it's heart, the card is 2/2s x2 plus a discard and draw 2, for 3 mana, which goes some way to getting back card disadvantage lost to Mox D or E tutor or whatever you run- and especially the discard/draw is really nice selection. It is just solid value in any deck. If you are running multiples of cards or situational cards it smooths the way. The opponent will spend resources nerfing the saga tokens etc and casting g2 meltdowns and countering the combo cards/walkers/key cards or whatever, and quite often it is nibbles from the 2/2 that actually finish it, again rather reminiscent of painter.
It was the experimental inclusion of fable that lead to me dropping E tutor- I kept noticing that I often cycled the tutor on II as I did not want the disadvantage against most of the format, and with a couple of Orim's main and a reasonable sideboard selection of REB effects alongside Deafening Silence, Damping Sphere, etc.I found there was just about enough to not need the tutor in the unfair matches.

FTW

11-05-2022, 10:27 AM

Fox

11-05-2022, 11:01 AM

Cycling E-Tutor assumes that you are finding a thing that cantrips and has some other effect on the game. Astrolabe was the previous best card to cycle E-Tutor with (b/c it turns into Gush with Teferi downtick), but cards like Shark Typhoon, Relic-types, and Currency Converter are pretty close. The E-Tutor cycling strategy works very well with "sac to draw" effects with Cosmic Intervention - this works b/c it is equivalent to picking up Astro with Teferi.

^notice how we go from simple cycling into frank CA combo. This is how E-Tutor is played effectively in this format. Despite the fact that cards are being combo'd together, we're not playing individually bad effects (i.e. opponents cannot 2-for-1, rather they have to engage in two 1-for-1s).

Now contrast this to a much more expensive Kikki's Saga, which plays real heavy into Daze, is much slower at requiring opponents to trade, threatens your mana security (needs more duals and/or not-white sources...in a deck that should be playing Saga), and drives you towards Fetchlands (aka away from Land Tax).

^all these problems, and you're going down on impactful early game plays (i.e. problems vs combo), down on the ability to uninteractively cash in turn 2's mana (i.e. problems vs Daze...which is problems vs Murktide...which is problems vs Delver), and going up on getting blown out by FoV. The number of tier 0 to tier 1.5 strategies you can hang with is rapidly disappearing as you're playing into their known interactions.

This is "good card, wrong deck" syndrome...and it needs to be pointed out that looting twice isn't CA...and you want to do all this to cover for something you shouldn't be doing: going all-in on Land Tax.

When you all-in on Tax/Rack/Mox, you end up on a deck cannot compete b/c it can't overcome its internal variance *and* then gets blown out by what everyone else is already doing (and going to continue doing). There is no magical fix to this deckbuilding flaw; it cannot be overcome by slapping on more jank like Kikki's Saga

---

We already have everything Kikki's Saga could add. Want some treasures? Currency Converter. Want to draw-discard? We have Timeless Dragon and Currency Converter. Want to make a 2/2? We can do that with Currency Converter, multiplied in speed by Timeless. Want to copy an evoke elemental? We're going to evoke Solitude, let it resolve, then put Cosmic on the stack.

We have all of the essential functions of Kikki's Saga...in our color...at more aggressive mana costs...with more synergy...with better mana...with less ways for opponents to interact...with more reliability (Urza's Saga 3rd age trigger).

drmarkb

11-05-2022, 01:18 PM

If you're not taking advantage of the Kiki mode, then isn't Urza's Saga into Currency Converter just better at making free bodies and filtering your hand into better cards?

Fable is a strong card in general, especially monored. But being in the splash color seems like a big drawback. What does your manabase look like? Do you have to limit utility lands to have enough stable red sources? Do you rely on Land Tax surviving for fixing?

I run 2 mnt, 2 plateau, 2 fetch, plus 4 mox d. Sometimes LT fixes the mana, rarely scroll rack but really isn't that often. I do run 2 sol lands to get to 4cc. With mox I generally want to cast bolt there and then. I have toyed with the extra red source to 7 plus 4 mox d, and my utility lands are saga and karakas, so perhaps a bit lower. I sometimes run maze.I do often fetch up mox d off saga.

I run 4 bolt, fable x3, and the 3rd karn slot sometimes as Nahiri, as I am main deck RIP x3.

I also run white staxy decks from time to time- if you want to run geddon/cataclysm/ timeless dragon they work brilliantly in a traditional stompy stax shell alongside Archon of Emeria, Announced Peacekeeper, 3 ball and Chalice , better than in any Parfait esqe deck with 1cc cards. Chalice and 3ball are weaker than back in the days of them walking away with a game on their own, but still strong enough when placed alongside land kill Geddon/Cataclysm effects and the latest 3cc hatebears which add a whole new dimension in themselves.
I don't want to run Parfait as anything other than 4 LTax and some scroll rack with RIP main deck in numbers because I play other decks. I am not saying those other strategies are bad in a Parfait ish shell, I am saying I akready have very good well established homes for those strategies as the main focus, homes that I have played for a long while and do well against top decks. For comp REL I have never played Parfait, I dig it out for local events like FNM.

It is certainly true that lots of meltdown effects exist, I try and play around them. If you are taxing and scroll racking they are survivable by not over committing to artifacts.
Court of grace has been solid for me, ditto the Kiki. Filtering is often what the deck needs.The CA is the tax and scroll rack.

I have a really good delver match up, btw. Running 3 RIP main helps, but when your removal suite is 4 bolt 4 swords et al (including a cursed scroll), and you have searchable zuran orb e.g. off karn, plus 5 REB/Pyrobkast effects to bring in, you tend to do well against it.

Fox

11-05-2022, 02:37 PM

drmarkb

11-06-2022, 10:26 AM

So white stax isn't a competitive deck. Your lock pieces are highly unreliable when it comes to surviving and avoiding blowouts (Ending, Boseju, FoV, mass artifact kill)...but the deck is very very reliable at getting massacred by Wasteland and Murktide in particular. High variance, low reward...and not well-equipped to recover from its own Geddon or Cataclysm. Also particularly susceptible to countermagic as it detonates its own hand size with a combination of mulligan and Mox-types.

You can still meme with Ancient Tomb in Stax and just move a few cards to present a competitive Land Tax deck.

What you have identified is a very common theme among Land Tax players: the magical christmasland winmore scenario where Land Tax and Scroll Rack are popping off (which is not going to happen in today's legacy), followed by crazy levels of trying to keep down your land count (for a Land Tax you aren't going to untap with)...despite the fact that you can get lower land totals than your opponents by hitting your land drops thanks to Saga and Lotus.

Now let this sink in: you can do literally anything with that mana and still effortlessly meet the condition of Land Tax. You do not have to auto-lose to FoV your Mox and Land Tax. You don't need to invest more into a Land Tax plan; you can play 1x Land Tax boosted by 1x virtual copy per E-Tutor...and have a deck that has a coherent plan whether or not it does the Land Tax thing...and you don't die to flooding out on 12 slots of Mox/Tax/Rack.

---

As we look at the rest of your deck, you're playing too much red, and the Bolt stuff on top of Plow is particularly suspect...but let's just look at the mana. Now my build plays exactly 2x red cards. My access to red mana is: 1x Plateau, 1x Mountain, 1x Mesa, 4x Timeless, 1x Map/2x Currency, 3x Saga finding these, 2x E-Tutor finding these, Lotus Field, and Land Tax. 17/60 slots. Zero inta-death to Mox blowouts and Mox dead topdecks.

Of all those 17 slots, only the basic Mountain is there to explicitly provide red and nothing else by itself; and I've only dedicated 3 slots out of 60 (Mountain and 2x B Wish). The odds are overwhelmingly in my favor to not trip myself up with the splash...and that Mountain pumps its resources directly into Timeless, Map, Lotus, and Currency...which all fix access to white...and when it's the red mana for Wish, the red is finding payoffs for the white mana.

^this mana engine that seamlessly and uninteractively rips lands out of the deck to relentlessly increase odds of topdeck action is the point of Parfait. It has always been the point of Parfait. The only difference is that now we don't have to play horrible high variance tools (quad-Tax/Scroll/Mox) to most efficiently achieve the goal.

The time of Mox is gone. Scroll Rack is a benchwarmer, grabbed by Karn. Land Tax is played optimally at 1x slot, expanded by E-Tutor; it is not the centerpiece, it's just a cog in the machine.

When I run white stax/angel stompy [though it doesn't run angels] call it what you will, it does well, and it is not up for discussion. The stuff I have highlighted, is, and there is no polite way to put this- utter bollocks. I run the deck events where I know the field reasonably well and it runs with a positive match win percentage- it is much, much more reliable than it once was thanks to Timeless' plaincycling- obviously no deck is as reliable as a brainstorm/cantrip deck, that goes without saying, but it reliably presents 3 mana t2, and if it has 3 mana t1 nearly always has something to drop with it. You don't get blown out by Force decks; the whole deck presents things force deck do not want resolving t1- 3ball, archon, annointed, chalice, sylex, and geddon is lethal nearly at any point. The timeless tokens and saga circumcent force, and those decks are easier matches, not the hardest, it certainly does not get massacred by wasteland and murktide, end of- it actually crucible locks opponents with wastelands. I don't run it at larger COMP REL, in larger events as the deck gets worse if you do not know the field and I don't enjoy it over 7-8-9 rounds. Telling me my white stompy deck is vulnerable to wasteland and force without seeing the list makes me wonder about what you are saying about your own deck. It is a perfectly "competetive" fringe srategy, more so than anyone's Parfait. T1 3 ball or sylex gets more free wins than anything we do here.

As I said, I want to play parfait, you are correct that there are inherent problems with classic parfait, but I get the impression you want everyone to play your pet deck, and anyone who want to play other decks is going to be told their deck is wrong without even seeing the list, even extending to other archetypes, apparently. You can point out that classic parfait has a lot of mox/LT slots, but cyou an't say "playing too much red"- lightning bolt is actually a really good card, btw, and so is red elemental blast/pyroblast-it's the best board card in the format- all this when you haven't seen the list!!!!!!!!!! You could say I need more red sources than I listed- fair enough- but my deck operates as a RW midrange deck as much as anything- with a RIP helm combo to finish. You seem to think that everyone is running 17 land, when in fact I am running 24 including saga.
You can't "look at the rest of your deck" as you say, because I haven't listed a red splash parfait here in donkey's years, probably 3 plus years ago. This is not constructive- if you were serious you would never attempt a deconstruction of a deck without looking at a list, and didn't bother to ask for it. I own over enough legacy decks to have to visit them under lock and key- I don't want to play your deck, and the last I looked you had humility, a card whose time has sadly passed- in the same list as timeless dragon. I do accept that saga and lotus field reduce counts naturally- I run 4 saga and city of traitors, fwiw.
I think you will kill the thread if you criticise every deck without seeing it. More so if you contributions are about things outside of Parfait.
FWIW- I think you are using enlightend tutor- which is probably wrong, and not running RIP/helm, which is kind odd as it is a much better wincon than blowing up lands. The correct number of saga is 4, as well, for me at least- but then I am playing mox diamonds. I don't think it is worth continuing this, but suggest that it is contrubitions like yours that are pushing people towards discords- where people are far more co-operative.

Fox

11-06-2022, 11:21 PM

There are a lot of blatantly competitive concepts you have not recognized. You're just going to have to trust that Crucible should always lose its slot to Karn...that you *will* play Saga with Land Tax b/c it lets you meet the Land Tax condition by playing lands, and that you will cut the Scroll Racks b/c Saga finds a better card called Currency Converter...that you're only allowed to play E-Tutor if you can roll it into a target that effectively cycles it, and then combos into frank CA...and many others discussed in this thread.
---
Looking beyond recognizing frankly competitive rules of widely-applicable deckbuilding, it really doesn't matter if we're not going to address the rotten core of this specific deck: flooding out on Tax/Scroll/Mox. It is the 800 pound gorilla. It's like trying to stop the titanic from sinking while it's sitting on the bottom of the ocean. No combination of cards that exist today could be in a list that overcome this flaw and lead to an optimal, most-winning version of Parfait featuring Mox/Tax/Scroll.

You're not allowed to claim you've created a competitive deck whose god hands [Mox into Land Tax] just lose the whole effing game to FoV...nevermind the futility of opening like that into Ending target Tax.
---
As you play the deck, it should become rapidly apparent that all that anyone needs to hear is that the list has ~12 slots of Tax/Mox/Scroll to know exactly how poorly that version will go. We honestly don't even need to hear about the other 48 - it truly doesn't matter.
---
As far as my rebuild of the archetype goes, you kinda have to follow most of that script. There are certainly some different decision forks where tuning can happen...but it needs to be understood that all progress with Parfait is going to be tied intimately to getting lands out of the deck, into the hand, and replacing them with cards off the top of a now land-depleted deck. The only winning way to do this is decentralizing away from outdated, doomed-to-fail jank engines .

Really try to understand the level of dedication to ripping Plains out of the deck you need to attain to compete with Parfait. Like when you see Cataclysm, understand that it's still an engine card killing a Flagstones and ripping out that Plains...and I know the opponents need to turn that ever-lurking 1x Land Tax back on for me after a Cataclysm b/c they are not designed to win off 1 land...leading to even more ripping of Plains out of deck. Timeless also ripping those Plains. Saga and the option of tutoring Zuran sac Flagstones or Map search Wasteland or Fetch for Cosmic - again rip out those Plains. Burning Wish for a From the Ashes -> rip out those Plains. Trade them into topdecks off Saga/Currency, Karn wish Scroll. Need more Plains to rip out? Put them back in with Bauble...then keep doing it by rebuying that Bauble.

^I don't care what my opponent is on, I'm gonna keep smashing the Plains button...and the Cosmic button...and the Saga button...and the Cataclysm button...and the Karn button. The order hardly matters. That's the big difference between building optimally versus stranding yourself of a highly sequence-dependent [read easy to stop] Tax/Scroll all-in. Notice how it does not matter what the opponent chooses to trade against, and contrast that to the Tax/Scroll/Mox experience.

Do you need to play my specific list? Well no...but for everything you change you better maintain the same fanatical devotion to ripping out & trading Plains and resetting the board. Following a competitive deckbuilding decision tree for Parfait almost certainly leads to the cluster of Cosmic/Solitude/Flagstones/Lotus/B Wish/Cataclysm...but like sure, some other cluster of cards could come together to do something on par - but it definitely does not include mass-Tax/Scroll/Mox, that's for sure.
---
As far as the playability of the deck goes, it costs $1100...and uh, it's gonna smash pretty much anything people can do in legacy outside of Thassa (while we wait for wotc to print Torpor Orb on a land) or abuse banned cards Timetwister with Mind Twist (known as Echo and Day's). I mean it is beyond effortless to massacre any non-Thassa with Daze [including Delver], anything with Depths, Field of the Dead, anything with Chalice, any non-Thassa GY combo, DnT, Maverick, Goblins, SnT, Reanimator, discard, Post, anything non-Thassa with too many duals, Saga, Burn, Uro, and the list goes on. I also doubt this would feel winnable for opponents on Elves or Painter.

If you're not exploiting Thassa or banned cards, you better be on a lightning fast spell-based combo deck, produce a turn 0-2 Karn, or put down a turn 0 Minsc (and then [I]start getting lucky), if you want to feel confident in a matchup vs properly constructed Parfait. Outside of that, an opponent needs to be on one of a very small list of tier 2 decks...and even then, most of the list of things they could choose from that list have no game vs tier 0 to tier 1.5.

Understand the floor of Parfait: properly constructed and played well, the deck will win most of the time vs that laundry list. It won't just win though, it will demoralize. This decentralized Plains-to-hand-to-cards engine is highly uninteractive, and the stuff it's going to cast isn't sequence-based. That means the best an opponent can hope to do is trade on-rate...and the moment they can't make a trade, it's over.

We aren't on a competitive forum to hand out free lunches to opponents with their FoV and Ending and all that stuff inevitably breaking up Tax/Scroll/Mox. To put this into perspective: Tax/Scroll/Mox truthing is like advocating for Werebear and Frenetic Efreet when DRC and Murktide exist.

FTW

11-07-2022, 01:28 AM

I run 2 mnt, 2 plateau, 2 fetch, plus 4 mox d. Sometimes LT fixes the mana, rarely scroll rack but really isn't that often. I do run 2 sol lands to get to 4cc. With mox I generally want to cast bolt there and then. I have toyed with the extra red source to 7 plus 4 mox d, and my utility lands are saga and karakas, so perhaps a bit lower. I sometimes run maze.I do often fetch up mox d off saga.

I run 4 bolt, fable x3, and the 3rd karn slot sometimes as Nahiri, as I am main deck RIP x3.

Interesting. Ok this explains a lot. So you're heavier into red than most Parfait decks. You also have ample early interaction (StP, Bolt, Pyroblast... and maindeck Chants?). Then spending 2R on a slow filter is not as big a deal vs tempo decks, compared to the other builds with less early interaction.

It sounds like you're also largely a 1-for-1 deck (4 Bolt, 4 StP, 5 Pyroblast). 1-for-1 decks really struggle to absorb ETutor's card disadvantage. The problem is compounded when you're quadlaser on Parfait pieces that are card disadvantage when Voltron is not assembled (4 Mox, 4 LT... 4 Scroll too?). So I can see why ETutor becomes awkward in your build and why you'd prefer slots that can trade better than 1-for-1.

Do you find your access to red suffers if your turn 1 Mox/LT eats Prismatic Ending? For a 4 Bolt 5 Pyroblast deck you have limited access to turn 1 red through lands (6 sources). Just wondering how that plays out. Does it affect your mana stability or boarding strategy? Do you sandbag Mox if you may need red later?

Have you ever tried ETutor just in the SB as a way to condense space vs combo? I found that trick effective in Landstill. You get all the benefits of an ETutor SB for G2 and G3, without having the G1 card disadvantage vs all the fair blue stuff that punishes it.

For example
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Deafening Silence
1 Rest in Peace

Vs combo you effectively have 3x Deafening Silence 3x Rest in Peace, except you used 4 SB slots instead of 6. +2 SB slots gained. That creates room for more silver bullets: Torpor Orb, Ethersworn Canonist, Relic of Progenitus, Pithing Needle, Crucible of Worlds, Ensnaring Bridge, etc. (Canonist + Relic bring it to 4x grave hate 4x storm hate while diversifying answers, e.g. you get 3x Canonist vs Elves). If the toolbox is artifacts, they are also tutorable by Karn in G1 and possibly Saga postboard, so you are able to see a 1-of fairly often without it consuming much SB space. Yet you still see ETutor 0 times vs stuff like Delver and Uro Midrange.

drmarkb

11-07-2022, 11:31 AM

drmarkb

11-07-2022, 12:08 PM

Interesting. Ok this explains a lot. So you're heavier into red than most Parfait decks. You also have ample early interaction (StP, Bolt, Pyroblast... and maindeck Chants?). Then spending 2R on a slow filter is not as big a deal vs tempo decks, compared to the other builds with less early interaction.

It sounds like you're also largely a 1-for-1 deck (4 Bolt, 4 StP, 5 Pyroblast). 1-for-1 decks really struggle to absorb ETutor's card disadvantage. The problem is compounded when you're quadlaser on Parfait pieces that are card disadvantage when Voltron is not assembled (4 Mox, 4 LT... 4 Scroll too?). So I can see why ETutor becomes awkward in your build and why you'd prefer slots that can trade better than 1-for-1.

Do you find your access to red suffers if your turn 1 Mox/LT eats Prismatic Ending? For a 4 Bolt 5 Pyroblast deck you have limited access to turn 1 red through lands (6 sources). Just wondering how that plays out. Does it affect your mana stability or boarding strategy? Do you sandbag Mox if you may need red later?

Have you ever tried ETutor just in the SB as a way to condense space vs combo? I found that trick effective in Landstill. You get all the benefits of an ETutor SB for G2 and G3, without having the G1 card disadvantage vs all the fair blue stuff that punishes it.

For example
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Deafening Silence
1 Rest in Peace

Vs combo you effectively have 3x Deafening Silence 3x Rest in Peace, except you used 4 SB slots instead of 6. +2 SB slots gained. That creates room for more silver bullets: Torpor Orb, Ethersworn Canonist, Relic of Progenitus, Pithing Needle, Crucible of Worlds, Ensnaring Bridge, etc. (Canonist + Relic bring it to 4x grave hate 4x storm hate while diversifying answers, e.g. you get 3x Canonist vs Elves). If the toolbox is artifacts, they are also tutorable by Karn in G1 and possibly Saga postboard, so you are able to see a 1-of fairly often without it consuming much SB space. Yet you still see ETutor 0 times vs stuff like Delver and Uro Midrange.

Yes, I am a one for one deck, the only sources of advantage are walkers and permanent repeated removal off Cursed Scroll against one or two decks, plus every now and then I get scroll/LT mid game. I have mucked about with a wrath effect main too, btw.
I have considered ET in the board.
My board is currently
5 REB/Pyroblast
Torpor Orb
Canonist
Damping sphere
Needle
Meekstone
helm
lattice
deafening silence
zuran orb
Peacekeeper

Obviously it is a karn board

Vs spellbased combo storm e.g. TES, ANT + 1 canonist,+1 deafening silence + 1 damping sphere (and the blast effects depending on) depending and I run 2 orim's main. I do not need relic as I am main deck RIP, and crucible is a nonbo for me, but yeah, it is correct to say I can run 1 x ET board.

I do sandbag the mox D sometimes- if I need red and hold the pyroblast I will often bait the first prismatic with the LT, holding back mox, often vs e.g. uro piles it is better for me to resolve RIP. I do sometimes reverse that. I really need to get more red in there. I often search for mox off saga too.

Weapon X

03-11-2023, 07:16 PM

Well I have yet to get my green splash tested, but I’m aiming to parfait this weekend and think I may make another change. I want abeyance and sceptre access. Combo has always been my worst matchup so I think I may try to be proactive finally

Weapon X

03-13-2023, 12:12 AM

Well considering it’s been years since I’ve played paper magic I can’t complain that much. Should have shuffled better, probably would have helped to not get flooded and screwed in my first round against a creature deck that should have been an auto win. Did squeeze in 2 abeyance; the card draw was a definite plus. Finally starting to think about Karn more so as a hate piece then anything. Ended up 2-2 and got to beat pro white with sad belcher activations.

Bottom line, deck still has legs even with minor changes in spite of changes people seem to complain about.

drmarkb

05-28-2023, 07:06 PM

Been having fun with red still.
Unsurprisingly I have added staff of the story teller to fable and saga. They are just great together and give a good beat down and draw package. Fable's filtering is just what the deck needs and card advantage potential of storyteller is obvious.

Reckoner bank buster is under consideration for me, as is a red den, I am up to 4 fetch, 3 mountain 2 plateau, 1 den.

As usual the downsides of the whole deck are force of v, serenity etc., but there is enough draw and filtering to keep up with many decks under the thumb.

Been fetching up hex parasite in the saga package. Surprisingly good on saga and fable as well as nerfing walkers.
Fast combo is a g1 loss as ever.

Weapon X

05-29-2023, 10:28 AM

drmarkb

06-14-2023, 04:09 AM

Hex parasite was my tech for my paintnought list. It lifts quite a bit.

With combo being the main issue that’s where my changes are coming in. The deck is already amazing against fair decks. Trying to up the combo match game one is what I’ve been working on. It’s why I added 2 abeyance for instance. If anything my philosophy is the real change that I suspect I’ll see in my new list. A lot of choices were made to make my opponent play the game I wanted which was fine for making ok cards all stars. I’d like to get it more where every card is a heavy lifter and the engine can be present without being necessary. That was the biggest problem, the engine was required to negate all the card disadvantage. Unfortunately I have a local legacy league going and have been just having fun exploring old decks and ideas I’ve had over the years… I’m going to play a battle of wits enchantress list soon for example… but after that I’ll be back to the way of perfection.

Hehe.
I think the main issue is the lack of generically good anti combo cards. I use saga, staff and fable, which are solid by themselves, and plenty of A+ cards that give control like STP and bolt, and a scroll rack/land tax engine is really strong when it works (albeit the power level of each in isolation isn't good). Karn is pretty good by itself, and whilst RIP isn't it can be amazing in some matches. Cards like curse of silence, battles like the white invasion of g just are too short of power to fill in those last few slots. Orim's is also a big bust in the non storm matches, a one shot no attack for 2 mana is ok but it isn't stopping Thoracle decks. A generically good swiss army knife is needed- a 2 mana angel's grace/feldon's cane/mini surge of salvation/one shot critter/walker stifle type thing (with split second) is the sort of utility we need- the "I don't lose this turn (or when it passes to the next) no matter whether you mill me, combo to thoracle, hit me for 20, or storm" type card.

Weapon X

06-23-2023, 08:13 PM

Well I seem to have gotten a hold of some cards now that I was thinking of using but couldn’t get past my hang ups. Now that I have them and started thinking, I think I’m past my road block finally. The juices are flowing. Parfait revival is officially in the works.

Weapon X

07-02-2023, 01:59 PM

Have a “list” together now that looks ok on paper. Will need to play with it for a bit still to see how it feels. Otherwise straying from the traditional idea was hard, and I may still touch back to it, but I think there’s potential here. List to be posted eventually.

FTW

07-02-2023, 02:10 PM

Weapon X

07-06-2023, 07:36 PM

Well the tentative list is looking like this right now.

3 karn
1 elspeth knight errant
3 staff of the storyteller
1 helm of obedience
3 rest in peace
2 enlightened tutor
4 orims chant
2 abeyance
4 swords to plowshares
1 oblivion ring
1 portable hole
1 pithing needle
1 ivory tower
1 humility
1 wrath of god
3 Mox diamond
1 liquimetal Torque
1 Library of leng
3 The one ring

4 Urza’s saga
3 ancient tomb
3 wasteland
7 Plains
6 fetches

FTW

07-06-2023, 11:40 PM

Ivory Tower (Saga) + One Ring looks strong! That's probably a superior card engine to the original Scroll+Tax. Staff too.

With Staff in the deck, do you want 1 Castle Ardenvale in the manabase? It's basically free to run and can turn into free bodies and cards.

Since you're heavier on the artifact plan you're weak to artifact hate. You've got a ton of answers for Collector Ouphe but what about stuff like SB Null Rod or Stony Silence? Or maindeck Karns? How do you remove noncreature permanents? Do you want some March of Otherworldly Light main?

You could probably shave some of the conditonal singleton artifacts and move them to the SB (Karn, Etutor).

Weapon X

07-07-2023, 07:52 AM

I still feel artifact light which is funny as I’m still on the fence with how hard to push them. That said main deck there is portable hole and oring already. I do appreciate saga being able to put hole into play and that it should answer most things, but obviously it can’t get everything so o ring is a concession there. I’m still unsure of the mana base because there is a lot more card draw available now but the curve sits in an odd spot by being almost 1’s then 4’s. I’m expecting to get to 6 sol lands. The Mox choice could change, I honestly want to play the suspend one and I think opal forces me into artifact lands. The biggest change is cards feel individually more powerful.

I still find it comical that library of leng makes sense to me here even as a way to beat my own Rest In Peace.

PirateKing

07-07-2023, 08:42 AM

Just as a note, you cannot get Portable Hole with the last chapter of Urza's Saga. Still like everything I see though, interested in seeing further development.

FTW

07-07-2023, 08:59 AM

Yeah unfortunately Saga into Portable Hole doesn't work. You could get Haywire Mite, but then you need a green source.

Etutor into O-Ring is a good catch all. But that's pre-2020 tech. I think the meta has evolved to the point where the single O-Ring/disenchant effect is no longer enough outs to noncreature permanents (like the 1-of Rec Sage in older GSZ decks). Especially since control mirrors will jam 4 One Ring. Most control & midrange decks run more answers to noncreatures: Prismatic Ending, counters, Trophy, multiple SB Force of Vigor, Leyline Binding, or something else. Monowhite's best tool is probably March. There's also stuff like Serenity and Powder Keg, but symmetrical effects would punish you too much. Maybe there's something else more synergistic, or maybe you can run more answers SB. The 1-of O-Ring and Portable Hole just seems a bit light.

Weapon X

07-07-2023, 09:18 AM

Oh yeah. Remembering short text still kills me, good thing that hasn’t come up. To be fair I want to play council’s judgment as I’ve always liked it and o ring was more of a nod to the enlightened tutors… but yeah a lot of ideas running in my head. I think I have dragons on my radar as another example. I’m certainly trying a lot of things to see what sticks

Weapon X

07-17-2023, 09:53 PM

Ok punted hard in our league final so back to parfait. That said I think I’m going to commit harder to the ring plan right now so manifold key is making its way in. That said I should finally get some games in with it which will help sort my ideas out. The wildest one right now is reprieve.

FTW

07-18-2023, 12:48 AM

The One Ring seems very strong here!

I'd be cautious about cramming too many fun-of artifacts like Manifold Key, Library of Leng, etc. In this meta you may just walk into Meltdown or Collector Ouphe and struggle to recover. Cheap artifacts should be able to convert into a card at least, so you don't fall behind on cards or get punished by artifact hate. Everyone has artifact hate now due to Urza's Saga decks.

Examples of safer artifacts: Relic of Progenitus, Currency Converter, Expedition Map, Staff of the Storyteller, Mishra's Bauble. They can convert into a card in response to removal. Artifacts like that are safer to play out because you can always cash them in to avoid falling behind to artifact hate.

Currency Converter is the better version of Library of Leng. It also fights discard, just in a different way (those cards turn into 2/2s instead of going on top). Plus it can dig and fix mana. Great 1-of target for Saga.

You shouldn't need Manifold Key for The One Ring. The One Ring already swings control matchups on its own without support. Especially if you're already backing it up with Orim's Chant to stall more.

Weapon X

07-18-2023, 01:05 PM

Converter doesn’t play the same way with Rest In Peace… which was the only reason I even remembered library of leng. Regardless, still a lot of ideas to sort through before I see what sticks.

Cpt-Qc

07-19-2023, 09:29 PM

For anyone interested, this is the list I came to after some thinkering. Have been trying it out for a while (both pre and post staff) and it's doing well so far even if I can see it being refined. Most of my losses were due to misplays because the deck is very hard to pilot (I'm not the best at playing control) or to mana screw (recently added more lands to hopefully fix that for good).

2x Abeyance
1x Blood Moon
1x Castle Ardenvale
2x Cosmic Intervention
2x Currency Converter
2x Doomskar
2x Enlightened Tutor
1x Expedition Map
1x Flagstones of Trokair
1x Helm of Obedience
1x Humility
1x Isochron Scepter
3x Karn, the Great Creator
1x Land Tax
1x Lotus Field
2x March of Otherworldly Light
1x Mountain
4x Orim's Chant
17x Plains
1x Porphyry Nodes
1x Relic of Progenitus
1x Rest in Peace
3x Staff of the Storyteller
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Urza's Saga
1x Zuran Orb

2x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Helm of Obedience
3x Leyline of Sanctity
1x Liquimetal Coating
1x Nahiri, the Harbinger
1x Pithing Needle
1x Sacred Mesa
1x Seal of Cleansing
2x Spirit of the Labyrinth
1x Staff of the Storyteller
1x Tormod's Crypt

Limiting the number of RIP to 1 makes the converter-nonbo almost non-existant while keeping the 1 shot kill experience. With Orim's chant, etutor and so much card draw thanks to staff, you don't need the extra copies anyway. Note that converter also works perfectly with eachother OR Nahiri postboard. I am unsure if the red splash is still worth it but since it's very light it shouldn't be an issue. On a side note, I have been looking at other colors for the light splash but no other looks appealing to me. At least moon still prevents some decks from functioning.

Also, I am almost 100% convinced the Ring + Karn makes way too many 4 drops since they both require additional casting after resolved. You would need to chose either one if you want to be casting spells before you are dead. At it's core, this version of parfait is a control deck so, unlike similar combo decks, you need early interaction to open the way to the lategame with a steady supply of land drops. The days of locking someone out of the game with prison elements in the early game are far behind as threats are much stronger. This means a lot of efficient 1 for 1 / incremental card advantage is necessary.

In today's meta, you can't trust that 2-permanents combos will stick to generate value so I've reduced them to the minimum. Cards need some usefulness by themselves (or in conjunction with most of the deck) so you don't depend on hitting the right cards at the right time to do anything. Cards like Key or Leng are not what you want unless you go all-in in a combo deck building (and I would argue with today's removal your chances of making it are slim to none). Scepter is still good because it can be used with so many different cards or as an empty threat when you know it won't resolve (stp, tutor, abeyance, ochant, otherworldy for lands destruction after karn has been killed :cool:)

I have tried bauble and it was so bad I would stay away! unless the card has a clear purpose, it needs to generate incremental advantage and act as a redraw in the worst case scenario. That's why I have replaced it with relic as it can both help alleviate the graveyard decks issue (think uro or gy combo decks) while also offering a redraw off of saga in a pinch.

Edit: Slightly altered sideboard as I had forgotten to put in a needle.

Weapon X

07-22-2023, 12:17 PM

Deck is goldfishing weird, mainly as a mana concern. Sol lands and the need for white mana makes things awkward. Already looks like 4 drops are getting cut or moved to board. Also looks like I’m going to play harder into saga. I seemingly can’t draw a ring so far, but there does seem to be a lot of card draw which is nice. Finally trying build a lotus as well since “splash colour” is in the back of my mind. Card quality is easily higher then my bdi list and there is much less card disadvantage.

FTW

07-22-2023, 12:32 PM

If there are mana issues (either color or quantity), Timeless Dragon??

Weapon X

07-22-2023, 02:33 PM

I am looking back into that as it was colour. It’s wild what a bunch of goldfishing seems to do for me. At this point it’s been jam all ideas in, focus on something, lather rinse repeat. The stuff that sticks consistently has been the correct answers so far… but the other angle I’m considering goes wide in a big direction. Sadly that may be the right answer but I’m not sold on it.

Fox

07-22-2023, 02:40 PM

FTW

07-22-2023, 03:33 PM

That's certainly 1 viable direction for Parfait. Your last list looked strong.

Others might be wondering if there are other viable ways to build. Captain QC's build looks good.

The One Ring would be a very strong engine if there's a way to make room. That might involve cutting other top end, playing Ancient Tomb, or running more ramp (Timeless Dragon, Sevinne's). You could play just 1 copy in the Karnboard, but then you lose the big benefit of legend ruling them to save life. Seems better at 3-4 copies.

Staff of the Storyteller makes a good draw engine too. Staff plays well with Saga, Currency Converter, Castle Ardenvale, even Timeless Dragon.

If not on Cataclysm, is Doomskar better than regular Wrath?

Is The One Ring playable with 1-of Peace of Mind, discarding extra cards to offset lifeloss & trigger Currency Converter? Is there a better life engine? Maybe just Zuran Orb + Cosmic Intervention?

Weapon X

07-22-2023, 09:39 PM

To be fair I’ll more then likely focus on that first pseudo list for a while. I agree I felt strong, it’s just getting the right pieces together that I find takes time. Even when I made my bdi list that started as an almost carbon copy of vintage parfait. Feeling out the format is the bigger problem since I need to know where I sit and that defines choices. Still a long road ahead.

Cpt-Qc

07-23-2023, 08:50 AM

If not on Cataclysm, is Doomskar better than regular Wrath?

I think so yes. You might be running your 4 drop removal into daze when under pressure and a board reset can be quite the pivotal moment. Imagine you spent 3 turns just saving that plow because you had a wrath in hand and it gets dazed. You took several turns of 2+ creature damage for nothing. It happened to me more times than I'd like and it felt awful.

Also, the list I play has a pretty lackluster turn 2 so setting up for later with foretell feels like a good way to use that downtime. You can then decide if you want to jam it for 3 or use an orim's chant to resolve it, lowering your card advantage but ensuring the game goes longer.

FTW

07-24-2023, 09:41 PM

Good points.

Has anyone tried playing 80-card Yorion Parfait?

80-card goes against the fundamental idea of variance reduction via deck-thinning. On the other hand, Yorion has good synergy with a lot of the newer card advantage engines with ETBs, is a win condition, and pitches to Solitude/March.

I think this makes The One Ring work...

//Companion: 1
1 Yorion, Sky Nomad

//Lands: 32
3 Wasteland
4 Urza's Saga
4 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Arid Mesa
1 Prismatic Vista
1 Flooded Strand
11 Plains
2 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
2 Karakas
1 Castle Ardenvale
2 Emeria's Call

//Spells: 18
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 March of Otherworldly Light
3 Abeyance
3 Doomskar
2 Sevinne's Reclamation
2 Cosmic Intervention

//Creatures: 11
3 Samwise the Stouthearted
4 Timeless Dragon
4 Solitude

//Enchantments: 1
1 Land Tax

//Artifacts: 14
1 Zuran Orb
1 Soul-Guide Lantern
2 Expedition Map
2 Currency Converter
4 Staff of the Storyteller
4 The One Ring

//Planeswalkers: 4
4 Karn, the Great Creator

//Sideboard: 14
1 Liquimetal Coating
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Isochron Scepter
1 Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Deafening Silence
1 Serenity
1 Humility
2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Orim's Chant

Yorion is profitable with Staff, Solitude, The One Ring, Karn, Samwise. It also pitches to March & Solitude.

Staff works with Saga, Currency Converter, Timeless Dragon, Castle Ardenvale, Emeria's Call, other Staffs, Yorion.

Cosmic Intervention is profitable with all sorts of interactions: Wasteland, fetchlands, Expedition Map, Soul-Guide Lantern, Zuran Orb + Flagstones, evoke Solitude, Doomskar, Ratchet Bomb, something dying

Samwise + Karakas creates lategame loops with Wasteland, fetchlands, Urza's Saga, Soul-Guide, Expedition Map, other Samwise, evoke Solitude, 2x The One Ring (legend rule each other), Ratchet Bomb, Serenity

Karn/Etutor -> Scepter can imprint Abeyance (to lock out spell-based decks) or StP (to lock out creature-based decks) or Chant post-board.

I like the possibility of multiple card advantage engines instead of relying on one to work. There is a lot of graveyard dependence, which could get hated out post-board, but you also have the option to board out some of those slots for ETutor + silver bullets.

Needs testing. The 80-card plan might be too clunky. The SB (and combo in general) certainly get worse with 80 cards vs 60. Doomsday is basically a write-off. Could not find a way to make that matchup playable: 1-of Torpor Orb isn't enough to win and too much anti-synergy with the rest of the deck. Other combo can be disrupted with Deafening Silence/Canonist, grave hate, Karn, Abeyance, Isochron Scepter.

Edit: There are 30 cards with a 4cmc+ mode, but only 8 of them must be cast for that much mana (or risk being dead in hand)! The other 22 have alternate modes on 3 or fewer lands. I find this flexibility appealing. Lategame you have expensive tools to spend mana on, but early game there are still plenty of actions to take.

Cpt-Qc

07-24-2023, 10:57 PM

FTW

07-25-2023, 12:09 AM

I don't like 80 cards list. Not only is it ever so slightly more variance, land tax does even less as taking 3 lands out of the deck barely make your draws better. It seems like a poor strategy for a control deck that wants to streamline their draws.

Once again, the ring seems to be pushing you towards more of a combo shell. I'm not saying it's worse but it's getting further away from the spirit of the deck imo.

Good points.

Perhaps it could be trimmed down to 60 cards:

//Lands: 22
3 Urza's Saga
4 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Arid Mesa
10 Plains
1 Karakas
1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
1 Castle Ardenvale
1 Wasteland

//Spells: 15
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 March of Otherworldly Light
2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Abeyance
2 Cosmic Intervention
2 Doomskar

//Creatures: 10
2 Samwise the Stouthearted
4 Timeless Dragon
4 Solitude

//Enchantments: 1
1 Land Tax

//Artifacts: 10
1 Zuran Orb
1 Soul-Guide Lantern
1 Expedition Map
1 Currency Converter
3 Staff of the Storyteller
3 The One Ring

//Planeswalkers: 2
2 Karn, the Great Creator

//Sideboard: 15
1 Liquimetal Coating
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Pithing Needle
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Isochron Scepter
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Deafening Silence
1 Serenity
1 Humility
1 Porphyry Nodes
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Wasteland
3 Orim's Chant

Karn is less necessary without the RiP+Helm combo. With both Karn & The One Ring that's 5 4cmc cards, but every other card in the deck has a mode at 2-mana or less.

The deck-thinning is still in tact: Land Tax, Timeless Dragon, Expedition Map loops, Flagstones + Zuran Orb, fetch + Cosmic/Samwise...

The same card advantage engines are present, just in lower numbers and without Yorion interaction.

Weapon X

07-28-2023, 08:08 PM

FTW

07-28-2023, 09:32 PM

Well I’m officially at a crossroads. While I have been enjoying the path I’m currently on, the back of my mind keeps telling me that I can be a chalice/3 sphere deck and the changes that does may actually make a stronger, more streamlined plan. The problem is that focus will up dead draws, but the card draw ceiling should still remain high so I don’t know if that’s actually an issue. It was a gut feeling, and they do tend to be correct.

You might be onto something.

The Chalice/3sphere plan used to be too high variance with bad draws, historically. That was before multiple new developments:
- The One Ring / Karn as powerful card engines
- Initiative & Monarch mechanics
- MDFC and utility lands reducing variance from topdecking mana sources
- Pitch elementals like Solitude
- Timeless Dragon to turn Sol mana into basic Plains

A white stompy shell can be quite consistent now. The recent Mono W Initiative deck proved it. Moon Stompy is now Tier 1 too. So you might find a viable white control shell there too. Sol mana would help accelerate into big plays like Karn and The One Ring.

Weapon X

07-29-2023, 12:42 AM

And I was already trying to do the big plays with efficient white spells and sol lands. Cutting the efficient white means the sol lands will hurt much less which is where my main issue was coming from. Starting with a colourless shell feels like the answer

Cpt-Qc

10-04-2023, 02:11 PM

I'll be trying a list with slight variations this month.

1 Helm of Obedience
1 Zuran Orb
1 Isochron Scepter
2 Currency Converter
1 Expedition Map
4 Staff of the Storyteller
1 Phyrexian Furnace

1 Land Tax
1 Rest in Peace
1 Humility
1 Ghostly Prison

4 Orim's Chant
2 Enlightened Tutor
3 March of Otherworldly Light
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Abeyance
2 Cosmic Intervention

2 Doomskar

3 Karn, the Great Creator

13 Plains
3 Urza's Saga
4 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Castle Ardenvale
1 Lotus Field
1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire

1 Liquimetal Coating
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Pithing Needle
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Spirit of the Labyrinth
3 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Seal of Cleansing
2 Skrelv's Hive
1 Sevinne's Reclamation

I feel that adding 4x staves maindeck has helped stabilize mana quite a bit but I might be too light on "threats" now. I guess I need to test in real games to be certain. Either way I'm not sure there currently is many 3-4 drops that would make opponents snap-force and would fit in the main.

The first notable change is Skrelv in the sideboard. I'm interested to see how it does with Staff against control decks as it seems hard to match the pressure and card advantage. Unlike Bitterblossom, this only needs to deal 10 damage so stp does not become a liability.

The second is abandoning the red splash. I didn't feel like T3 moon had much utility in my local meta anymore. It might still be okay but I feel like T3 (at best) moon is a little slow and doesn't seem to punish as well as it used to. This allowed me to streamline the list so it sees less variance.

Cpt-Qc

02-08-2024, 08:17 PM

// 60 Maindeck
// 11 Artifact
2 Currency Converter
1 Expedition Map
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Isochron Scepter
4 Staff of the Storyteller
1 Zuran Orb
1 Phyrexian Furnace

// 2 Creature
2 Timeless Dragon

// 5 Enchantment
1 Humility
1 Land Tax
1 Rest in Peace
2 Touch the Spirit Realm

// 13 Instant
2 Enlightened Tutor
3 March of Otherworldly Light
4 Orim's Chant
4 Swords to Plowshares

// 23 Land
1 Castle Ardenvale
1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
4 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Lotus Field
12 Plains
3 Urza's Saga
1 Karakas

// 3 Planeswalker
3 Karn, the Great Creator

// 3 Sorcery
2 Doomskar
1 Sevinne's Reclamation

// 15 Sideboard
// 4 Artifact
SB: 1 Helm of Obedience
SB: 1 Liquimetal Coating
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Pithing Needle

// 4 Creature
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 Spirit of the Labyrinth

// 7 Enchantment
SB: 3 Leyline of Sanctity
SB: 2 Skrelv's Hive
SB: 1 Sacred Mesa
SB: 1 Deafening Silence

This is the latest list I've been testing. I'm liking it so far even if mana can be a little sketchy.

I am really loving Touch the spirit realm and Timeless Dragon with converters. They also work really well for mana efficiency.

Weapon X

05-23-2024, 11:49 PM

Hoping to get back to this soon. I think the run I’ve been having of a different deck every week is going to help me get over the hang ups I’ve been having on build. Hopefully I’ll have something to report soon.

Cpt-Qc

07-02-2024, 05:07 AM

I think I'm reaching critical mass where the list is very fine-tuned but I just lack the experience and talent to pilot the deck. I've made several changes after trying stuff and I really like my list atm. I'm currently testing 2x surgicals because the only thing I don't have much of a shot against are T1 decks on the draw. If I have both surgicals and leylines I feel like that would be fixed.

My most recent addition is Hall of Heliod's Generosity. Bringing back Urza's Saga every time it dies is incredibly powerful. Not only does it apply great pressure with 2x bodies, it gets me the engine pieces I need to keep going. It also allows me to jam a humility into a force of will and still bring it back a few turns later. It's an absolute menace and I'm surprised nobody has been doing it so far. I was just looking for a new utility land and accidentally saw that and didn't realize until a few hours what it enabled.

// Parfait 2.0

// 60 Maindeck
// 11 Artifact
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Isochron Scepter
2 Currency Converter
1 Expedition Map
3 Staff of the Storyteller
1 Phyrexian Furnace
1 Zuran Orb
1 Vexing Bauble

// 3 Creature
3 Timeless Dragon

// 5 Enchantment
1 Rest in Peace
1 Humility
2 Touch the Spirit Realm
1 Land Tax

// 13 Instant
4 Orim's Chant
2 Enlightened Tutor
3 March of Otherworldly Light
4 Swords to Plowshares

// 23 Land
12 Plains
3 Urza's Saga
4 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Castle Ardenvale
1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
1 Karakas
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity

// 2 Planeswalker
2 Karn, the Great Creator

// 3 Sorcery
2 Doomskar
1 Sevinne's Reclamation

// 15 Sideboard
// 4 Artifact
SB: 1 Liquimetal Coating
SB: 1 Helm of Obedience
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Staff of the Storyteller

// 4 Creature
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 Spirit of the Labyrinth

// 5 Enchantment
SB: 3 Leyline of Sanctity
SB: 1 Sacred Mesa
SB: 1 Deafening Silence

// 2 Instant
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction

FTW

07-02-2024, 09:43 AM

Hall is strong.

I've been playing Hall + Saga in UWx Landstill for a while. The interaction is very strong late game in a control deck (especially with other enchantments to return like Standstill and Shark Typhoon). Guess I never thought of it for Parfait above. It should be good here too. Getting back Touch the Spirit Realm or Land Tax or Humility seems strong.

Hall recovers Sacred Mesa if you get stuck missing an upkeep.

Hall is cute with a SB 1-of Serenity. You can ETutor it against 8cast and have a recurring 2 mana board wipe. Unless they Force of Negation it, they can't beat that.

the Thin White Duke

07-02-2024, 10:08 AM

@Cpt-qc, You had me at Zuran Orb. God bless you.

Cpt-Qc

07-02-2024, 03:51 PM

@Cpt-qc, You had me at Zuran Orb. God bless you.

The card may look cute, but it is everything we need to survive just a little longer, especially against decks like burn. I've even considered running nyx-fleeced ram as a few life points matter a lot for a deck that needs to make several land drops.

Often times you end up with 6 lands and run short on time so both orb and orim's chant buy you a few turns.

Hall is strong.

I've been playing Hall + Saga in UWx Landstill for a while. The interaction is very strong late game in a control deck (especially with other enchantments to return like Standstill and Shark Typhoon). Guess I never thought of it for Parfait above. It should be good here too. Getting back Touch the Spirit Realm or Land Tax or Humility seems strong.

Hall recovers Sacred Mesa if you get stuck missing an upkeep.

Hall is cute with a SB 1-of Serenity. You can ETutor it against 8cast and have a recurring 2 mana board wipe. Unless they Force of Negation it, they can't beat that.

And since I play expedition map, saga is a self-sustaining engine (saga->map->hall->repeat). If I drew hall, I can also etutor for saga to start the chain.

I was considering Serenity but ended up with 2x surgicals instead as I already have 5 maindeck artifact removal + 2 karns. These usually let me control artifact decks pretty easily already by blowing up their lands/petals (liquimetal with karn and scepter with march).

FTW

07-03-2024, 11:01 PM

And since I play expedition map, saga is a self-sustaining engine (saga->map->hall->repeat). If I drew hall, I can also etutor for saga to start the chain.

Yeah, the Saga + Hall + Map + ETutor package is a great lategame engine.

Saga -> Map -> Hall -> replay Saga -> Currency Converter -> value mana sinks for the rest of the game & out draw opponent

I ran that package with Map, ETutor, Currency Converter, and Sevinne's Reclamation in Landstill and tried it over many games. There was more discussion on it a while back on the UWx Landstill thread. Fox has played it too. The engine's strong with Standstill (doesn't cast any spells! Hall returns Standstill). It should be good in Parfait too, with Hall returning Land Tax and Saga finding Zuran Orb.

It's an elegant package. It doesn't take much space. It's easy to assemble. I like that it's a lategame inevitability engine using low CMC pieces that aren't dead early. Sevinne's Reclamation makes it resilient to removal/Wasteland. Many different play patterns possible.

The ETutors + Sagas also allow a toolbox package of 0-1 cmc artifacts. High consistency finding stuff like Soul-Guide Lantern or Pithing Needle, especially with Karn too!

In Parfait, Zuran Orb can sac Saga in response to the Chapter 3 trigger. Free 2 life, and you still get the tutor & 2nd construct.
There's also a play pattern where you make 2nd Construct on upkeep, sac Saga, put it on top with Hall, draw it, then replay Saga that turn. You miss the tutor but jump ahead a turn on constructs.

I've experimented with Court of Ardenvale. Like Sevinne's Reclamation, it returns so many key pieces (Wasteland for Wastelock, Saga, Map, Hall, Currency Converter, Land Tax, Scroll Rack, Staff, Zuran Orb..). Sevinne's is better tempo. Court's obviously slower and depends on protecting the monarch, but insane value if it sticks. I like that the failcase still returns the card to your hand. Unlike some of the other Courts, you can still use it to come back and regain the Monarch. Returning your best 0-3 cmc permanent is a lot better than making a 1/1 token!

Cpt-Qc

07-03-2024, 11:59 PM

In Parfait, Zuran Orb can sac Saga in response to the Chapter 3 trigger. Free 2 life, and you still get the tutor & 2nd construct.
There's also a play pattern where you make 2nd Construct on upkeep, sac Saga, put it on top with Hall, draw it, then replay Saga that turn. You miss the tutor but jump ahead a turn on constructs.

I hadn't even realized the sacrifice effect wasn't part of the trigger. It's only the saga ability that forces sacrificing so the trigger can still search even if you don't control it anymore. Neet!

Weapon X

07-29-2024, 03:28 PM

Well I put this off for too long. I opted to try my rebuild and forgot most of what I was planning. That said data collection happened by playing the pile I brought.

4 orim’s chant
3 silence
2 karn, the great creator
2 elspeth, knight-errant
1 the wandering emperor
1 helm of obedience
2 Rest In Peace
1 solitary confinement
4 swords to plowshares
4 reprieve
2 march of otherworldly light
3 staff of the storyteller
3 the one ring
1 enlightened tutor
1 zuran orb
1 ivory tower
1 mox opal
2 mox diamond

4 ancient tomb
2 city of traitors
2 ancient den
4 Urza’s saga
4 prismatic vista
6 plains

Sideboard
2 wrath of god
2 vexing bauble
1 expedition map
1 the one ring
1 humility
1 mycosynth lattice
1 ensnaring bridge
1 grafdiggers cage
1 haywire mite
1 pithing needle
1 liquimetal coating
1 helm of obedience
1 trinisphere

Definitely feels like the right track. For sure need to play around with numbers.
I would like abeyance back and then scepter becomes more attractive.
More marches.
I don’t need the prison angle, but blanking cards is still very strong.
Saga does a lot, that’s where the packages should go. Also want to up the artifact count. Ivory tower is great when you stack one ring triggers as I suspected.
Rip still just good against random decks.
A surprising amount of card draw now compared to the actual parfait engine, ring fills that role on its own.
Would like to up sol lands/rocks to get to 3 mana. Trinisphere is still one of the best hate options available.

Enough random thoughts. Parfait has changed. The engine is just the one ring.

FTW

07-29-2024, 05:30 PM

Have you considered going 4 Vexing Bauble maindeck? T1 Bauble is very strong against Scaminator and artifact-based combo. You have very few 0s and can always cycle Bauble when it's bad.

Otherwise, agree. Staff + 3 One Ring + Karn (with 4th Ring in SB) is a strong draw engine. Ivory Tower is a cute combo with The One Ring.

Because of the Zuran Orb, are 4 Flagstones of Trokair better than 4 Prismatic Vista?

Weapon X

07-29-2024, 07:56 PM

I’m sure as I play I’ll find more holes.

At a minimum I would maindeck 1 bauble now. I think that is the package that should be present foremost. Enlightened tutor was my go to, but I also don’t need to piece specific cards together now. Having access to one e tutor is great I don’t think I’ll need more. And now we get to zuran orb… I think it may just be a relic from my old list now. More testing on that front is needed. It does add value to cards and helps to get through ancient tomb and ring activations. I don’t think “building around it” is needed.

Cpt-Qc

11-19-2024, 03:02 AM

At a minimum I would maindeck 1 bauble now.

1 bauble is perfect. It still has a downside if playing scepter in that you have to pay a kicker/additional cost but you can sac if it becomes an issue. It actually happened to me since I had stp on a staff but the simple thought of being sworded made my opponent loot away creatures looking for answers. Otherwise we're using it as a defensive tool to protect our costly pieces more than disrupt the opponent. It's fine if it comes down latter through saga tutoring, I don't feel like I need it on the first few turns.

The only card I haven't been liking in all my testing is the 1of Land Tax. It has rarely come online and, when it did, I didn't even win the games. Was thinking of replacing it with the 3rd Touch the Spirit Realm which has been legit insane. The channel is so good at protecting your engine: Decay your converter -> Channel touch targetting converter, triggered ability of converter on top exiles touch, make a token, uncounterable converter removal protection. Or simply flickering staff at the end of opponent's second combat phase for the extra body and draw. Or even just accelerating the rate of graveyard consumption of Furnace if it matters. Then Sevinne or Hall can bring it back if necessary during the later stages of the game.

I'm still reluctant to cutting tax precisely because our best way to survive is Zuran orb but I may be focusing too much on the fast burn type decks.

Cpt-Qc

12-19-2024, 06:52 AM

Bauble died for forge's sins! It's a real shame since it worked so well with the slow saga plan.

At least I didnt have to cut tax.

Cpt-Qc

06-10-2025, 01:10 AM

I am unsure if anyone can see this as the site shows no thread in this category but this is the list I'm currently testing. It changed a bit since last time, mostly fine tuning numbers and dropping cute/dead cards. the FF set has something really good for me at the very least.

1 Isochron Scepter
2 Currency Converter
1 Expedition Map
3 Staff of the Storyteller
1 Phyrexian Furnace

3 Timeless Dragon

1 Rest in Peace
1 Humility
3 Touch the Spirit Realm

4 Orim's Chant
2 Enlightened Tutor
3 March of Otherworldly Light
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Battle Menu

12 Plains
3 Urza's Saga
4 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Castle Ardenvale
1 Karakas
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity
1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire

3 Karn, the Great

2 Doomskar
1 Sevinne's Reclamation

1 Liquimetal Coating
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Staff of the Storyteller
1 Pithing Needle
1 Portable Hole
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Deafening Silence
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Sacred Mesa

colo

06-10-2025, 04:38 AM

I am unsure if anyone can see this as the site shows no thread in this category

Thanks for posting your list, and also for raising this issue - that's an unfortunate consequence of the board software's default "daysprune" setting. I've set that value to "display threads from the beginning" for all existing members to fix the issue for logged-in users at least.

PirateKing

06-10-2025, 07:33 AM

Why Phyrexian Furnace? Seems like you have to walk past a lot of 1 mana graveyard removal with more utility before you get to that one.

FTW

06-11-2025, 02:24 PM

Why Phyrexian Furnace? Seems like you have to walk past a lot of 1 mana graveyard removal with more utility before you get to that one.

Phyrexian Furnace can be decent maindeckable Saga target in slow grindy control, like Parfait or Standstill.

It has a few useful modes for control:
- proactive chipping away at opponent's graveyard in long games (while +1 to Construct)
- cantrips
- exiles a target at instant speed vs combo

The first two modes are useful when you draw it in fair matchups, especially if they have GY dependence (Murktide, Uro, Goyfs). As a proactive control element, it will often draw removal spell (otherwise their topdeck threats are worse). Then you cantrip in response: 2-for-1! Hate without those modes doesn't draw the 2-for-1.

Compare to other common choices:

Soul-Guide Lantern - can't exile & cantrip together. Reactive 1-time use. It's fine in tempo but can be a clunky draw in long fair games, just cycling or nuking their yard once. Furnace can do more in those games.

Tormod's Crypt - no cantrip or proactive modes

Nihil Spellbomb - needs black mana

Grafdigger's Cage - fills a different role, not maindeckable, possible SB card

Relic of Progenitus - This one is usually better. It has all the relevant modes. But it's symmetrical. If you need your own GY, Furnace can be a decent replacement for Relic. Hall of Heliod's Generosity combos may be why he doesn't play Relic.

Furnace is weak combo hate but maindeckable for flexibility. I played Soul-Guide Lantern for a long time, but it is underwhelming often. Postboard you can bring in better hate (4 Leylines). The maindeck slot is about what's least dead in fair games.