Wassergurke
11-22-2014, 06:46 PM
Bloody Taxes
Or the reveling tax collector.
Hi I’d like to present to you „Bloody Taxes“. Death and Taxes’ red brother.
One day I asked myself if white could be the only viable color for Death and Taxes and so I tried to make decks with the same concept but in other colors.
Surprisingly red seemed extremely powerful.
Let me start with the decklist:
Hate:
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
4 Magus of the Moon
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Chalice of the void
1 Spellskite
Beater:
2 Kruin Outlaw / Countryside Crusher / Prophetic Flamespeaker
4 Tarmogoyf
Removal:
3 Punishing Fire
2 Sudden Shock
1 Pillage
Value:
4 AEther Vial
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Sylvan library
Lands:
4 Rishadan Port
1 Forest
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Mountain
1 Taiga
4 Wasteland
4 wooded foothills
Cardchoices:
Wasteland, Rishadan Port, Aether vial :
Stopping your opponent while developing your own board. I consider this as the backbone of DnT.
Magus of the Moon
Red Thalia but with an even stronger effect. Shuts down whole decks on his own. Plus he gets to attack. He is the best red hatebear and one of the strongest reasons to play this deck.
Eidolon of the great revel
Powerful red hatebear. Punishes cantripping and therefore opposing gameplans. We can one-side the effect with aether vial.
Second best red hatebear, but still very powerful against certain strategies (Storm, Elves, Ur Delver...).
Phyrexian Revoker
Versatile hatebear with great mana cost (colorless). Efficient enough to be a 4-of in DnT as well.
Simian Spirit Guide
Acceleration in the early turns. T1 Chalice of the void or Eidolon, Turn two Magus of the Moon, Daze-surprise etc.
He also helps to enable double red with that many colourless lands.
And in the lategame he is still a little beater.
Chalice of the void
Extremely polarizing and powerful card, that never really found a home besides MUD or 8-Tezz.
Often people look at this card like: I power it out on turn one and then I steal the game with it hoping it is able to control the game all on it’s own. That’s rarely possible.
The basic concept of this deck is different. We don’t want to speed our game up and run higher cmc-spells (like MUD) but want to speed the opposing game down while basically keeping a legacy typical curve. (like DnT) like this we don’t run into the same consistency issues as MUD but Chalice still fits perfectly into our gameplan. He is just one of many disruptive elements.
Plus he protects our creatures against bolt and plow (compensating the missing of Mother of runes)
Punishing fire
Well we can’t run bolts because of Chalice and want to be controlish and grindy while playing red – perfect home for punishing fire.
This two card combo is very strong in every fair matchup. It shines against creature decks and even against control it can be great.
Tarmogoyf
We are already playing 4 Aether vial and 4 Groves, going a little bit wider into green is easily supportable. We are still missing a beater and an answer to opposing Goyfs and he fit’s this role still the best.
Kruin Outlaw
Could fit well into this deck. Our whole gameplan is to stop our opponent from casting spells and then he is a pretty efficient beater. But maybe another thread would be better.
Spellskite
To not just trade one for one until we are out of gas (one of the biggest danger I see for this deck) there’s Spellskite to function as this decks Mother of Runes. Additionally he can protect our Aether vial and Chalice as well.
Pillage
Mostly for Batterskull, ensnaring bridge and random stuff and for the one off basic that many decks like to have.
Sylvan Library
Great one or two off. Filters your draws in the lategame.
That’s the Maindeck.
Synergies:
Aether Vial + Wasteland and Rishadan Port use your lands to destroy theirs but still deploy creatures with aether vial.
Chalice of the void + Wasteland/Rishadan Port
They can’t play one drops but don’t really get to more mana.
Eidolon + Wasteland/Rishadan Port
They won’t get ouf of Shock reach. (even if not many decks actually aim for spells with cmc bigger than three)
Aether Vial + Eidolon of the great revel
One side this powerful effect.
Magus of the moon / Chalice of the void + Kruin Outlaw
lock them and attack very quickly for big amounts of damage.
Disynergies:
Concerning Chalice and Aether vial. Both like to be cast in the first turn and both are less powerful when played lategame. From my experience playtesting this deck it’s extremly rare that you have to choose between chalice and aether vial on turn one. Although there is some dyssinergy here in reality you are rarely affected by it. (And t1 aether vial into t2 chalice into t3 Magus and goyf is sick)
Concerning blood moon and our non basic lands. Normally when you have them locked under Magus of the moon, you don’t care about Wasteland and Rishadan port being mountains. These three cards basically try to accomplish the same thing. It’s sad that we loose Grove to it but again the situation where you have 1. Grove 2. Magus of the Moon 3. Punishing fire and 4. Things you really care to destroy shouldn’t come up to often. And if you are in this situation you can always just hold the Blood Moon for couple of turns, burn their stuff and lock them afterwards before they can play more.
Now I talked alot about the original Death and Taxes and all the dissynergies in this deck, so why would you want to play it?
1. you have a very neat gameplan. Deploying your board, wasting their lands and slowly put them to zero while they struggle to find into the game.
2. The powerlevel of most cards is very high. Blood Moon is still a beating. Chalice of Void wrecks whole decks, and Punishing + Grove can lock opponents easily. You play the best beater in Tarmogoyf and have one oft he strongest if not the strongest manadenial plan of all decks.
The matchups are different if you compare them with the ones from Death and taxes.
For exemple Sneak and Show goes from a good matchup to nearly unwinnable but for Elves it’s the other way around.
Comparison with Death and Taxes
Death and Taxes doesn't let them cast by:
4 Wasteland, 4 Rishadan Port, 4 Thalia
Bloody Taxes doesn't let them cast by:
4 Wasteland, 4 Rishandan Port, 4 Magus of the Moon
Death and Taxes has as beater:
4 Stoneforge, 4 Serra Avenger, 2 Mirran Crusader
Bloody Taxes has as beater:
4 Goyf, 2 Kruin Outlaw
Death and Taxes has as additional disruption:
4 Revoker, 4 Flickerwisp, 4 Karakas
Bloody Taxes has as additional disruption:
4Revoker, 4 Eidolon of the great revel
Death and Taxes has as removal:
4 Swords to plowshares
Bloody Taxes has as removal:
3 Punishing Fire, 2 Sudden Shock, 1 Pillage
Death and Taxes has as protection:
4 Mother of Runes, 4 Karakas
Bloody Taxes has as protection:
4 Chalice of the void, 1 Spellskite
Death and Taxes has as special mana source:
4 Aether Vial
Bloody Taxes has as special mana source:
4 Aether Vial, 4 Spirit Guide
While all the cards in Death and Taxes work really well together some of them are missing some raw power. I think if we are able to tune Bloody taxes then we could get a deck whichs raw power is just a bit higher but is neither missing synergies nor a neat gameplan.
Comparison with Stompy decks:
I see the Problem with Stompy.dec in 3 things:
1. There aren’t enough two mana lands. With just 8 two mana lands you can’t be consistently above a typical legacy curve. >50% of your lands don’t fulfill their role adequatly in a stompy deck, because they produce only one mana. That means if you still try to have a higher curve you are either really inconsistent by hoping to draw the right land or you have to play additional Mana accelerator which means inconsistency as well when you draw them but actually don’t need them.
2. Higher cmc cards aren’t exponentially better. That means a two cmc card isn’t twice as good as a one cmc card. There isn’t a good enough two mana Brainstorm or Swords to Plowshares or Aether vial or 100 other things. So the whole power level of your deck doesn’t increase that much with a higher curve (see Nicfit). You challenge your manabase unnecessarily.
3. Now you have a deck that plays inconsistent lands and if forced to play additional mana accelerators. A big part of your deck is now already used. If too much of your deck is either Mana producing or locking the opponent out of the game then it’s diffcult to find the remaining cards that actually kill him without draw filtering.
In this deck we
1. don’t play two mana lands so we know what we can expect from our lands, because we will allways have the same result (one mana) and therefore we can streamline our deck more consistently. (But we loose some speed to this commitment.)
2. Our lock pieces get to actually attack our opponent, they fulfill two roles in one (besides chalice)
3. Have a much more stable mana base.
4. Even the additional mana accelerator gets to attack (Drs is good because it’s not only an elfish mystic but has other puposes as well. )
tl;dr:
This deck tries to function similar to Death and Taxes. While in different colors their gameplan is alike. Playing a bunch of disruptive dudes, stopping the opponent from playing their game and eventually win with them.
In this deck you have extremly strong lock pieces, recurring removal and a much more consistent prison style deck.
Or the reveling tax collector.
Hi I’d like to present to you „Bloody Taxes“. Death and Taxes’ red brother.
One day I asked myself if white could be the only viable color for Death and Taxes and so I tried to make decks with the same concept but in other colors.
Surprisingly red seemed extremely powerful.
Let me start with the decklist:
Hate:
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
4 Magus of the Moon
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Chalice of the void
1 Spellskite
Beater:
2 Kruin Outlaw / Countryside Crusher / Prophetic Flamespeaker
4 Tarmogoyf
Removal:
3 Punishing Fire
2 Sudden Shock
1 Pillage
Value:
4 AEther Vial
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Sylvan library
Lands:
4 Rishadan Port
1 Forest
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Mountain
1 Taiga
4 Wasteland
4 wooded foothills
Cardchoices:
Wasteland, Rishadan Port, Aether vial :
Stopping your opponent while developing your own board. I consider this as the backbone of DnT.
Magus of the Moon
Red Thalia but with an even stronger effect. Shuts down whole decks on his own. Plus he gets to attack. He is the best red hatebear and one of the strongest reasons to play this deck.
Eidolon of the great revel
Powerful red hatebear. Punishes cantripping and therefore opposing gameplans. We can one-side the effect with aether vial.
Second best red hatebear, but still very powerful against certain strategies (Storm, Elves, Ur Delver...).
Phyrexian Revoker
Versatile hatebear with great mana cost (colorless). Efficient enough to be a 4-of in DnT as well.
Simian Spirit Guide
Acceleration in the early turns. T1 Chalice of the void or Eidolon, Turn two Magus of the Moon, Daze-surprise etc.
He also helps to enable double red with that many colourless lands.
And in the lategame he is still a little beater.
Chalice of the void
Extremely polarizing and powerful card, that never really found a home besides MUD or 8-Tezz.
Often people look at this card like: I power it out on turn one and then I steal the game with it hoping it is able to control the game all on it’s own. That’s rarely possible.
The basic concept of this deck is different. We don’t want to speed our game up and run higher cmc-spells (like MUD) but want to speed the opposing game down while basically keeping a legacy typical curve. (like DnT) like this we don’t run into the same consistency issues as MUD but Chalice still fits perfectly into our gameplan. He is just one of many disruptive elements.
Plus he protects our creatures against bolt and plow (compensating the missing of Mother of runes)
Punishing fire
Well we can’t run bolts because of Chalice and want to be controlish and grindy while playing red – perfect home for punishing fire.
This two card combo is very strong in every fair matchup. It shines against creature decks and even against control it can be great.
Tarmogoyf
We are already playing 4 Aether vial and 4 Groves, going a little bit wider into green is easily supportable. We are still missing a beater and an answer to opposing Goyfs and he fit’s this role still the best.
Kruin Outlaw
Could fit well into this deck. Our whole gameplan is to stop our opponent from casting spells and then he is a pretty efficient beater. But maybe another thread would be better.
Spellskite
To not just trade one for one until we are out of gas (one of the biggest danger I see for this deck) there’s Spellskite to function as this decks Mother of Runes. Additionally he can protect our Aether vial and Chalice as well.
Pillage
Mostly for Batterskull, ensnaring bridge and random stuff and for the one off basic that many decks like to have.
Sylvan Library
Great one or two off. Filters your draws in the lategame.
That’s the Maindeck.
Synergies:
Aether Vial + Wasteland and Rishadan Port use your lands to destroy theirs but still deploy creatures with aether vial.
Chalice of the void + Wasteland/Rishadan Port
They can’t play one drops but don’t really get to more mana.
Eidolon + Wasteland/Rishadan Port
They won’t get ouf of Shock reach. (even if not many decks actually aim for spells with cmc bigger than three)
Aether Vial + Eidolon of the great revel
One side this powerful effect.
Magus of the moon / Chalice of the void + Kruin Outlaw
lock them and attack very quickly for big amounts of damage.
Disynergies:
Concerning Chalice and Aether vial. Both like to be cast in the first turn and both are less powerful when played lategame. From my experience playtesting this deck it’s extremly rare that you have to choose between chalice and aether vial on turn one. Although there is some dyssinergy here in reality you are rarely affected by it. (And t1 aether vial into t2 chalice into t3 Magus and goyf is sick)
Concerning blood moon and our non basic lands. Normally when you have them locked under Magus of the moon, you don’t care about Wasteland and Rishadan port being mountains. These three cards basically try to accomplish the same thing. It’s sad that we loose Grove to it but again the situation where you have 1. Grove 2. Magus of the Moon 3. Punishing fire and 4. Things you really care to destroy shouldn’t come up to often. And if you are in this situation you can always just hold the Blood Moon for couple of turns, burn their stuff and lock them afterwards before they can play more.
Now I talked alot about the original Death and Taxes and all the dissynergies in this deck, so why would you want to play it?
1. you have a very neat gameplan. Deploying your board, wasting their lands and slowly put them to zero while they struggle to find into the game.
2. The powerlevel of most cards is very high. Blood Moon is still a beating. Chalice of Void wrecks whole decks, and Punishing + Grove can lock opponents easily. You play the best beater in Tarmogoyf and have one oft he strongest if not the strongest manadenial plan of all decks.
The matchups are different if you compare them with the ones from Death and taxes.
For exemple Sneak and Show goes from a good matchup to nearly unwinnable but for Elves it’s the other way around.
Comparison with Death and Taxes
Death and Taxes doesn't let them cast by:
4 Wasteland, 4 Rishadan Port, 4 Thalia
Bloody Taxes doesn't let them cast by:
4 Wasteland, 4 Rishandan Port, 4 Magus of the Moon
Death and Taxes has as beater:
4 Stoneforge, 4 Serra Avenger, 2 Mirran Crusader
Bloody Taxes has as beater:
4 Goyf, 2 Kruin Outlaw
Death and Taxes has as additional disruption:
4 Revoker, 4 Flickerwisp, 4 Karakas
Bloody Taxes has as additional disruption:
4Revoker, 4 Eidolon of the great revel
Death and Taxes has as removal:
4 Swords to plowshares
Bloody Taxes has as removal:
3 Punishing Fire, 2 Sudden Shock, 1 Pillage
Death and Taxes has as protection:
4 Mother of Runes, 4 Karakas
Bloody Taxes has as protection:
4 Chalice of the void, 1 Spellskite
Death and Taxes has as special mana source:
4 Aether Vial
Bloody Taxes has as special mana source:
4 Aether Vial, 4 Spirit Guide
While all the cards in Death and Taxes work really well together some of them are missing some raw power. I think if we are able to tune Bloody taxes then we could get a deck whichs raw power is just a bit higher but is neither missing synergies nor a neat gameplan.
Comparison with Stompy decks:
I see the Problem with Stompy.dec in 3 things:
1. There aren’t enough two mana lands. With just 8 two mana lands you can’t be consistently above a typical legacy curve. >50% of your lands don’t fulfill their role adequatly in a stompy deck, because they produce only one mana. That means if you still try to have a higher curve you are either really inconsistent by hoping to draw the right land or you have to play additional Mana accelerator which means inconsistency as well when you draw them but actually don’t need them.
2. Higher cmc cards aren’t exponentially better. That means a two cmc card isn’t twice as good as a one cmc card. There isn’t a good enough two mana Brainstorm or Swords to Plowshares or Aether vial or 100 other things. So the whole power level of your deck doesn’t increase that much with a higher curve (see Nicfit). You challenge your manabase unnecessarily.
3. Now you have a deck that plays inconsistent lands and if forced to play additional mana accelerators. A big part of your deck is now already used. If too much of your deck is either Mana producing or locking the opponent out of the game then it’s diffcult to find the remaining cards that actually kill him without draw filtering.
In this deck we
1. don’t play two mana lands so we know what we can expect from our lands, because we will allways have the same result (one mana) and therefore we can streamline our deck more consistently. (But we loose some speed to this commitment.)
2. Our lock pieces get to actually attack our opponent, they fulfill two roles in one (besides chalice)
3. Have a much more stable mana base.
4. Even the additional mana accelerator gets to attack (Drs is good because it’s not only an elfish mystic but has other puposes as well. )
tl;dr:
This deck tries to function similar to Death and Taxes. While in different colors their gameplan is alike. Playing a bunch of disruptive dudes, stopping the opponent from playing their game and eventually win with them.
In this deck you have extremly strong lock pieces, recurring removal and a much more consistent prison style deck.