Van Dyke Brown

[bruizar]

The favorite colour of Bob Ross, Van Dyke Brown is a staple paint supply made out of red and green pigments. Sleeve this up, and experience the Joy of Painting.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e6/73/5c/e6735cd20aa6474d7e01529349834faa.jpg

Van Dyke Brown

Maindeck:
2x Faithless Looting
3x Goblin Engineer
4x Painter’s Servant
3x Grindstone
4x Karn, the Great Creator
4x Pyroblast
4x Veil of Summer
3x Punishing Fire
4x Wrenn and Six
4x Mox Diamond
1x Lion’s Eye Diamond
4x Wasteland
2x Ancient Tomb
4x Grove of the Burnwillows
4x Taiga
3x Stomping Ground
4x Wooded Foothills
2x Forest
2x Great Furnace

Sideboard:
2x Ancient Grudge
1x Tireless Tracker
1x Giant Solifuge
1x Magmatic Sinkhole
1x Red Elemental Blast
1x Liquimetal Coating
1x Mycosynth Lattice
3x Tormod's Crypt
1x Zuran Orb
1x Grindstone
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Ensnaring Bridge



For the sake of the discussion, here is a semi-comprehensive list of sideboard options and card choices:




Utility Creatures

Goblin Welder
Efficient way to get unresolved combo pieces back in play, and gives you something to do on turn 1 if you don't hit a Mox Diamond.

Goblin Engineer
Stoneforge Welder, tutors either part of the combo and gets it into play, but it is slower and makes you more vulnerable to Surgical Extraction.

Orcish Lumberjack
Functions as a LED that only requires you to ditch 1 land instead of your entire hand. Works great in conjunction with Wren & Six

Control

Red Elemental Blast
Number 5-8.

Sylvan Library
Card quality and card advantage to help you draw into Veil of Summer, Blasts, removal and your combo.

Beaters

Giant Solifuge:
Useful against Planeswalkers. Limited use as a hard control counter due to flash creatures/snapcaster.

Hexdrinker
Another beater that can quickly become invincible.

Tireless Tracker
Beatstick that draws vs control.

Sunder Shaman
A beatstick that can repeatedly get rid of Counterbalance and which cannot die in combat against Miracles because he is stronger than any other creature miracles runs. A very fat Trygon Predator. Weak to Jace/Teferi bounce.

Prevention

Ensnaring Bridge
Sideboard 2 so you can get access with Goblin Engineer and Karn.

Spellskite
Pull this in with Karn to protect your combo. Use Mox Diamond to tap for blue, so you don't have to pay life.

Zuran Orb
You could use this with Karn against Burn. Wrenn & Six can get the land back, and you can dodge a gigantic Price of Progress with it. If your opponent uses his burn on Wrenn & Six or Painter's Servant that's good too.

Graveyard Hate

Tormod's Crypt
You want to be able to drop a Karn and crypt immediately, so your hate needs to come down early. Can be recycled with Goblin repeatedly (Weld out Great Furnace, return Furnace with Wrenn & Six).

Grafdigger's Cage
Can be Engineered and Karn'd. Stops Bridge from Below, Green Sun's Zenith and Reanimate.

Surgical Extraction
This card is insane with Wrenn & Six's ultimate, you will be able to extract all their win conditions / their entire deck very quickly.

Leyline of the Void
At least 3 must be played. Only way to play these is with double Mox Diamond.

Artifact Hate

Ancient Grudge
Best artifact removal of the format

Fiery Confluence
Artifact removal that doubles as a sweeper sometimes. The reach isn't too useful though.

Force of Vigor
Also hits enchantments, which is great.

Cindervines
Storm + Artifact + Enchantment hate in one card.

Shenanigans
Repeatable artifact removal.

Krosan Grip
Uncounterable artifact & enchantment removal. The original answer against Counterbalance.

Removal

Magmatic Sinkhole
Planeswalker removal and Gurmag Angler removal

Abrade / Reckless Air Strike
Versatile artifact removal that doubles as creature removal. Reckless Air Strike only if meta is delver invested.

Lock Pieces

Liquimetal Coating / Mycosynth Lattice
Karn combo cards

Choke
Useful against control, can act as redundant land hate card in conjunction with Wrenn & Six Wasteland lock and Karn & Liquimetal Coating lock. It's not as good as Blood Moon usually.

Blood Moon
Premier sideboard hate. We have fetchlands for basic forests and Mox Diamonds to make sure we can produce :G:.

Chalice of the Void
Your deck can still operate under a chalice for 1 with Goblin Engineer.

Trinisphere
Storm hate, hurts you too, but shuts down your opponent harder

Damping Sphere
Something against Eldrazi and Storm

Ayula's Influence / Seismic Assault
Great with Life from the Loam if you wish to play that, but also provides more controlling functionality to Wrenn & Six.

Life from the Loam
A back up that's a little bit more explosive than Wrenn & Six's +1. Good to fuel the emblem.

Green Painter cards

Natural Order
You could Natural Order your painter's servant if you are running into Null Rod's, Pithing Needle, Collector Ouphe or Karn, or to just have an alternative win condition with a Progenitus

Reap
I would only sideboard this against a meta where this is good without Painter's Servant

Lifeforce
Interesting sideboard option against Vampire Hexmage and discard spells.

Seedtime
I believe there is already enough hate against blue with Blasts, plus this deck cannot not take advantage of the turns as much as decks with an aggro plan.

Compost
Probably better than Reap but too reliant on Painter's Servant.




Match ups:


U/W Miracle Control
Todo



Death & Taxes
Todo



UWx Stoneblade
Todo



Grixis Stoneblade
Todo



U/R Delver
Todo


Eldrazi Stompy
Todo
[/TR]
[/TR]



Happy Painting

[Mr. Safety]

Firstly: that deck name is 'outta sight' good. Secondly: any consideration on the new Goblin Engineer? Obviously Welder is more efficient, however Engineer has a built in Entomb.

[bruizar]

Firstly: that deck name is 'outta sight' good. Secondly: any consideration on the new Goblin Engineer? Obviously Welder is more efficient, however Engineer has a built in Entomb.

I'm on board the Goblin Engineer plan. Also to have even better access to artifact based sideboard hate cards, like Ensnaring Bridge. It's also a natural foil to Chalice for 1, so I really like it. I will have to test it (don't have them yet) but it looks very promising.

[bruizar]

Still didn’t get around to testing Engineer but I’m loving the deck. W6, pufi, veil and blast make for such a nice shell.

[Mirrislegend]

As a Painter player, this is FANTASTIC in concept but unfortunate in reality.

Van Dyke has no way to race, few ways to disrupt combo, and no ways to beat other flavors of unfair decks.

Regarding racing: Different Painter shells handle this in different ways. None of these are available to Van Dyke. The only things available to abuse are mana sources and Karn. -1 MD Painter's Servant, +1 SB Painter's Servant allows Karn to tutor for both halves of the combo. On paper, you're playing 7 Painters and 7 Grindstones. Now we need Karn online fast. Mox Diamond is an advantage that other Painter shells lack. But playing few Sol lands in a Karn deck is a crime that even gaining access to Wasteland recursion cannot erase. From the list in the opening post, I'd cut 3x Stomping Ground and 1x Wasteland for 1x Ancient Tomb and 3x City of Traitors.

Disrupting many-spells combo: Trimming Blasts is unfortunate (though in my opinion justified, which I'll get to later) as those help in this arena. Other than that, you're stuck racing to Karn, hoping to shut of Petals and LEDs. Again, Mox Diamond should help.

Beating few-spells combo aka unfair decks: Fitting Ensnaring Bridge in the MD and in the SB is the first step. Next step is fitting Blood Moon into the SB and maybe into the MD. You'll have to make your own choices on how to do that.

Other considerations:

Veil of Summer is genius, as the Blasts often get relegated to defeating counterspells or removal, only for more countermagic or removal to be cast later. Also, replacing itself is important.
Faithless Looting is a good call. Filtering and selection is important in all Legacy decks and W6 doesn't magically do that on his own.
Faithless Looting is not enough selection. Without volume of cantrips nor any tutors, other selection is needed. I recommend 2 more Faithless Looting and some number of Canopy lands or Cycling lands.
PunFire package is pretty slow. With no combo pressure and no prison elements, I highly doubt Van Dyke can afford to play something that slow.


Hope that helps!

[Darklingske]

Just spitting out idea's but as Mirri's Legend stated, Looting alone is not enough as card selection. What about Ancient Stirrings? It let's you dig for Karn or another piece of the combo. Could be nice to include.

[H]

Just spitting out idea's but as Mirri's Legend stated, Looting alone is not enough as card selection. What about Ancient Stirrings? It let's you dig for Karn or another piece of the combo. Could be nice to include.

The only problem being that once Painter is out, Stirrings doesn't do anything.

[bruizar]

As a Painter player, this is FANTASTIC in concept but unfortunate in reality.

Van Dyke has no way to race, few ways to disrupt combo, and no ways to beat other flavors of unfair decks.

Regarding racing: Different Painter shells handle this in different ways. None of these are available to Van Dyke. The only things available to abuse are mana sources and Karn. -1 MD Painter's Servant, +1 SB Painter's Servant allows Karn to tutor for both halves of the combo. On paper, you're playing 7 Painters and 7 Grindstones. Now we need Karn online fast. Mox Diamond is an advantage that other Painter shells lack. But playing few Sol lands in a Karn deck is a crime that even gaining access to Wasteland recursion cannot erase. From the list in the opening post, I'd cut 3x Stomping Ground and 1x Wasteland for 1x Ancient Tomb and 3x City of Traitors.

Disrupting many-spells combo: Trimming Blasts is unfortunate (though in my opinion justified, which I'll get to later) as those help in this arena. Other than that, you're stuck racing to Karn, hoping to shut of Petals and LEDs. Again, Mox Diamond should help.

Beating few-spells combo aka unfair decks: Fitting Ensnaring Bridge in the MD and in the SB is the first step. Next step is fitting Blood Moon into the SB and maybe into the MD. You'll have to make your own choices on how to do that.

Other considerations:

Veil of Summer is genius, as the Blasts often get relegated to defeating counterspells or removal, only for more countermagic or removal to be cast later. Also, replacing itself is important.
Faithless Looting is a good call. Filtering and selection is important in all Legacy decks and W6 doesn't magically do that on his own.
Faithless Looting is not enough selection. Without volume of cantrips nor any tutors, other selection is needed. I recommend 2 more Faithless Looting and some number of Canopy lands or Cycling lands.
PunFire package is pretty slow. With no combo pressure and no prison elements, I highly doubt Van Dyke can afford to play something that slow.


Hope that helps!

Thanks for the great pointers. It will take some time for me to integrate those insights into the list. The Stomping Grounds in particular are an interesting remark as they were originally intended actually for running Orcish Lumberjack as a way to emulate playing with 5x lotus (and getting the land back with wren and six). Unfortunately i ran out of space in the deck so i had to cut them.

If I were absolutely forced to cut cards I would consider:
1 land (not counting replacing lands for other lands)
3 goblins
1 punishing fire (to sideboard)

I believe running 4 painters is optimal. I thought long and hard about putting one in the side. You dont want to spend 6 mana and resolve two spells before your veil of summer and pyroblasts are live. Karn is actually not that great of a card, it’s more the inevitability, threat diversification and utility. Drawing 2 painters is better than drawing 2 grindstones. And i find myself grabbing liquimetal coating or spellskite most of the times. Lattice is too expensive and grindstone is only relevant with painter out. Liquimetal coating and karn plus wasteland and wren give a lot of ways to grind out manabases.

As for lands, I would probably opt for a cycling land over a horizon land because the RG horizon land isnt printed yet and cycling land plays a little nicer with wren and six. Sheltered Thicket is kind of interesting since it can be cut with an orc while also providing both colors and cycling, but I think the 1cc mono color cyclers are superior if there are no orcs.

I think the list also needs:
-1 punishing fires
+1 faithless looting
It is better to dig for a pufi then to draw one, as you can recur it anyways and multiples are less good. Faithless looting also digs into the combo and sets up welder and wrenand six so this deck can really take advantage of turning the discard into a positive. Not sure which other card to cut for the fourth looting though. If i really see no other way then MAYBE push a painter to the side, but not because i think that is better but because there is little else to cut :-)

[bruizar]

I've made a few changes to my tentative list. I threw out Karn because he is just too slow and unfocused. My creature roster is now: 2x Goblin Engineer 3x Orcish Lumberjack. Karn still makes the deck prone to artifact hate, whether you hate out Liquimetal/Lattice or Painter/Grindstone and it took op a third of my sideboard.

Goblin Engineer replaces the function of Karn. He comes down as quick as turn 1, and also grabs me part of the combo without diluting my sideboard and in addition it provides me the resilience against discard, counters and artifact hate that Goblin Welder does.

Orcish Lumberjack gives me new ways to combo out on the second turn
T1: Taiga, Orc
T2: Ancient Tomb, Grindstone+Painter+Activation.

It's as if I play with 4 Lion's Eye Diamonds without the downside of discarding my hand, and Wrenn & Six gives me the land back anyway.

-4 Karn (0)
-1 Punishing Fire (2)
-3 Goblin Welder (0)
+1 Faithless Looting (3)
+3 Orcish Lumberjack (3)
+2 Goblin Engineer (2)
+1 Grindstone (4)
+1 Flexslots
[Currently Ensnaring Bridge and Faithless Looting]

I'm still testing the 4th Faithless Looting for the flex slot. With Goblin Engineer, a maindeck Ensnaring Bridge may well be correct.

There are 2 creatures I am considering either maindeck or sideboard against artifact hate. Titania, Protector of Argoth and Hexdrinker. Hexdrinker and Orcish Lumberjack level up really fast, and once you hit the protection from instants it's easy to win with it. The problem is sorcery speed leveling up. Titania is only good if you hit 5 mana, so you really need Orcish Lumberjack to accelerate meaningfully.

Sideboard:
-1x Liquimetal Coating
-1x Mycosynth Lattice
-1x Zuran Orb
-1x Grindstone
-3x Tormod's Crypt
+1 Grafdigger's Cage
+1 Nihil Spellbomb
+5 Flex sideboard slots.


I'm now on this:

Van Dyke Brown

Maindeck:
4x Faithless Looting
2x Goblin Engineer
3x Orcish Lumberjack
4x Painter’s Servant
4x Grindstone
4x Pyroblast
4x Veil of Summer
2x Punishing Fire
4x Wrenn and Six
4x Mox Diamond
1x Lion’s Eye Diamond
4x Wasteland
3x Ancient Tomb
4x Grove of the Burnwillows
4x Taiga
1x Stomping Ground
4x Wooded Foothills
1x Verdant Catacombs
2x Forest
2x Great Furnace

Sideboard:
2x Ancient Grudge
1x Tireless Tracker
1x Giant Solifuge
1x Magmatic Sinkhole
1x Red Elemental Blast
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Ensnaring Bridge
2x Blood Moon
1x Sulfur Elemental
1x Trinisphere / Thorn of Amethyst / Sphere of Resistance
1x Flex


I'm also considering 2x Abrupt Decay 1x Kolaghan's Command and replacing the Sulfur Elemental for a Plague Engineer in the sideboard by splashing a Bayou or Badlands and cutting the stomping ground.

[bruizar]

This was my final list which I wanted to bring to Eternal Weekend, but, Wrenn & Six got banned, so the deck is now dead. The list was tested intensively. Gilded Goose replaced Lumberjack because you need to have enough artifacts in play to weld out with Engineer, and it gives you a lot of game against Burn decks. Living Plane was devastating with Wrenn & Six -1 for shooting down basics and with Punishing Fire. The Angrath's Rampage was to get rid of opposing Wrenn & Six, Oko, Thief of Crowns, Karn the Great Creator, as well as doubling as an answer against True Name Nemesis. I had an extra Angrath's Rampage in the sideboard and an Oko, Thief of Crowns of my self as well. The sideboard Ensnaring Bridge and Grafdigger's Cage were utility slots with 4 Goblin Engineer to look for them and weld them into play. The maindeck Sorcerous Spyglass was primarily to get rid of Planeswalkers and Thespian Stage while being a catch all that can randomly help in the mana denial plan by locking out a heavy Fetchland opener. The Mana Denial plan and REBs bought enough time to assemble the combo, while the opponent was busy trying to get rid other things. I was very satisfied with how the deck turned out.

Van Dyke Brown

Maindeck: (60)
3x Faithless Looting
4x Goblin Engineer
3x Gilded Goose
4x Painter’s Servant
4x Grindstone
4x Pyroblast
1x Red Elemental Blast
1x Angrath's Rampage
1x Living Plane
2x Punishing Fire
1x Sorcerous Spyglass
4x Wrenn and Six
4x Mox Diamond
4x Wasteland
2x Ancient Tomb
4x Grove of the Burnwillows
4x Taiga
1x Bayou
4x Wooded Foothills
1x Verdant Catacombs
2x Forest
2x Great Furnace


Sideboard: (15)
2x Blood Moon
1x Ancient Grudge
1x Return to Nature
2x Faerie Macabre
1x Grafdigger’s Cage
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Damping sphere
1x Thorn of amethyst
1x Red Elemental Blast
1x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Veil of Summer
1x Angrath’s Rampage
1x Oko, Thief of Crowns