Devil's Cake

[drude1]

This is dedicated to the black splash spin-off of Strawberry Shortcake, the R/W Grindstone-Painter combo. This thread can be open to an R/B/x builds of painter.
To start off, here is a starting list that I have been working on:

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20191013/a30582c564620784adca94ab8b2cc0cd.jpg

Devil's Cake

Land
1 Swamp
2 Mountain
4 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
2 Great Furnace
1 Vault of Whispers
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Badlands
1 Plateau

Creatures
4 Goblin Welder
4 Goblin Engineer
3 Painter's Servant
1 Sundering Titan

Spells
4 Lotus Petal
2 Mox Opal
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Grindstone
4 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Wishclaw Talisman
1 Tangle Wire
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Blood Moon
2 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
4 Karn, the Great Creator

Sideboard
1 Glass Casket
1 Grindstone
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Mycosynth Lattice
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Painter's Servant
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Liquimetal Coating
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Plague Engineer
2 Angrath's Rampage
1 Wurmcoil Engine


This is a starting point. It takes the basic design of R/W Painter, strips away recruiters and instead adds Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast and Wishclaw Talisman as a varying tutor package. It will typically also play the full 4/4 goblin welder/engineer split to fully abuse the graveyard for more explosive early lines of play. Some people will elect to play a straight B/R version of the deck, while others will also try a snow-version of the deck, adding Arcum's Astrolabe and snow lands. These are all reasonable choices. And this thread will explore all options within this basic idea. Looking forward to hearing about some new and interesting ideas regarding this flavor of our favorite 1-2 combo. Paint on!

[Michael Keller]

I’d play Guardian Beast. Not only does it protect Grindstone and other artifacts, it synergizes with Talisman and you can Recruiter for it. (Especially with Liquimetal Coating.)

[Fox]

This feels like more of a pie, for a cake must have layers.

[Weapon X]

I don’t understand the black at all. Classic Daretti just seems better on every front to me. That replaces half of the splash on its own.

Entomb would be a better starting point if you want to force a black splash.

[pettdan]

I think the list is quite interesting. Wishclaw Talisman can be used with Karn in the wishboard to get any card maindeck, not sure if that is worth it... But it actually means you have Karn to stop opponent from using it when you use it. It [running the card at all, md or Karn-board] also opens up for running niche answers to decks that we couldn't run before, I think this will take some time to figure out...

I was adding Recurring Nightmare to my attempt at something similar, and it's actually really nice how WT helps find it. Yup, there's a lot of untapped potential in that card (Talisman). Or well, ET gets it too [not only WT], but you get what I mean..


This feels like more of a pie, for a cake must have layers.

Maybe pumpkin pie, referring to All Hallow's Eve which we however unfortunately do not play [the more relevant reference is to Halloween and bad stuff].


I don’t understand the black at all. Classic Daretti just seems better on every front to me. That replaces half of the splash on its own.

Entomb would be a better starting point if you want to force a black splash.

I've played similar lists before, inspired by Drude1's previous lists. It's easy to start out thinking that Entomb would be great, but it's often the card you end up cutting because it does nothing by itself. Now that Goblin Engineer is around there is probably less reason to run Entomb since you now already have access to the effect. Daretti II is so good at getting rid of opposition and eventually getting a game win through the ultimatum. Coupled with Karn the deck has pretty good PW value engines. I don't know how to balance the effects properly or how to complement them but it has been nice to run in the past... And now with artifact Demonic Tutor and the Welder+Entomb (Engineer), there is a lot of new synergy for building this type of list.

Edit: on the other hand, that's quite few cards for a splash and running Daretti SS to build further on the reanimation theme may seem better, as yo suggest. The thing is, perhaps, that with black you get answers to threats and tutors that give the deck a lot of flexibility in meeting hate and grinding out wins, while without black you focus more on doing what the deck already does, by adding recursion in Daretti SS. I think this is a playstyle question, I always prefer being able to adapt to the interaction my opponent brings and grind out wins rather than trying to ignore the opponent and threaten them with more of the same. The latter makes me feel uncomfortable and just doesn't work as well for me. ;) But that's a different approach that people are already running, typically if you go for monored with Daretti SS you try to maximize payoff from reanimating large creatures and you probably end up with a so called Daretti Spaghetti list. That's nice too. I like how the black list can run one Sundering Titan and still have that strategy (like any painter list with red) while also having Plague Engineer for TNN's and swarm decks and Daretti II for board control and an ET + WT tutor package to get what you want when you want it.

[FTW]

I don’t understand the black at all. Classic Daretti just seems better on every front to me. That replaces half of the splash on its own.

Entomb would be a better starting point if you want to force a black splash.

Plague Engineer and Angrath's Rampage are good effects in black you can't get elsewhere. Also Wishclaw Talisman (i.e. Demonic Tutor, then Weld it away). Interested to see what OP says.

Entomb seems much worse than Goblin Engineer (Entomb can't weld or use the combat step). It's only relevant with a Welder in play, so in general it seems worse than the other tutors (Karn, E Tutor, Talisman).

[H]

I’d play Guardian Beast. Not only does it protect Grindstone and other artifacts, it synergizes with Talisman and you can Recruiter for it. (Especially with Liquimetal Coating.)

Yeah, I think I'd personally cut the Sundering Titan and Enlightened Tutors, (and something else, Tangle Wire?) then put in Recruiters, a Beast, and focus more on trying to abuse Wishclaw as a Grim Tutor of sorts. I'd think that would, at least in theory, make things a little more consistent.

[pettdan]

Yeah, I think I'd personally cut the Sundering Titan and Enlightened Tutors, (and something else, Tangle Wire?) then put in Recruiters, a Beast, and focus more on trying to abuse Wishclaw as a Grim Tutor of sorts. I'd think that would, at least in theory, make things a little more consistent.

Edit: not disagreeing, but to provide some context for these card choices.

It's good to be aware of here that Sundering Titan seems to be used by a couple of Painter players in mono-red builds that seem to be working pretty well, according to discussion, so it's not an isolated suggestion for this version but something that is seeing a small uptick of play or, rather, testing. Also it's a reanimation target that's decent vs control and aggro and ok vs combo decks due to taking their mana and preventing them from going off which can be game-winning [edit: rephrased that], few alternatives have such a wide applicability, I think. Otoh, playing a giant reanimation target is very much optional, have to agree on that..

The argument for keeping some amount of E Tutors is that they are faster and require little setup, also they give you hate-piece t2 which is very important vs some combo decks, most notably Storm variants. I think if you cut E Tutors then it's tempting to add some discard, slowing down the game a bit (if you can't go fast then you try to slow down your opponent). Edit: in addition to this, playing without E Tutor makes Blood Moon as a one off much less useful.

Tangle Wire is something I cut too, or actually I never tested it but I agree there.

[drude1]

@Micheal Keller: totally another way to go with the list. I actually did consider this as I have seen some other people play the wishclaw/guardian beast combo online. For me, it just feels a little clunky. I've kinda moved away from the recruiters in this list because I really wanted the combo to come out swinging. However, if I do ever move back to recruiters in this list, I definitely thing a guardian beast is worth considering. The only other problem is that, if I wanted to play this list on paper, guardian beasts are up to over $400, so I better be sure!

@Weapon X: This list has already gone through some significant iterations. I had started with a pure black/red version of the list, but the problem was that wishclaw on it's own is just way to slow to set up on it's own and is kinda bad without a way to not let your opponent use it. I did try a copy of reanimate (switched to animate dead when I added the e.tutor back). I found it stranded in my hand a good amount of time and eventually it got cut. I have tried entomb in the past as well, but that card was just trash if you didn't have supporting pieces. I've also played with both Darettis as well, and I guess you will just have to trust me that the B/R Daretti is much better. It protects itself.
It kills pretty much anything that gets in your way (and kills literally anything on the board with liquimetal coating. It provides fodder for welder/engineer. It kills the talisman if you have to activate talisman without a goblin active. And it's ultimate usually just wins the game, as your opponent typically doesn't have removal for 3 x painters suddenly in play, etc.

Finally, I added the white back for e.tutors for exactly what pettdan said. Turn 1 e.tutor into turn 2 hate piece (Blood Moon, nihil spellbomb, ensnaring bridge, canonist, etc) is just a necessary evil against other combo heavy decks. And before I put the card back in I was really struggling with those decks. It also opens up the sideboard a little.

Regarding tangle wire, that is definitely a card that could be cut. I've just personally had a lot of success with that card in certain match-ups. I've posted clips in the past of games where it has been amazing. But again, just a personal pet card more than anything. Could easily be anything else (for me would probably be second bridge or canonist main).

p.s. Devil's cake is obviously just a play off of Strawberry Shortcake, and Devil's pie isn't a thing.

[Hisa]

I think there are three Distinct ways to build this deck.
1. A Shortcake / Imperial derivative splashing Black instead of White (or as RBw)
2. A Midrange deck that tries to leverage Planeswalkers / utility creatures / whatever into a game that goes beyond forcing the combo.
3. Something that tries to leverage Welders and Wishclaw into an efficient and fast combo

[FTW]

With only 3 Painters main and zero Recruiters, how good are the 6 blasts? Could 2 be cut to make more room for support (e.g. +1 Wishclaw/E Tutor, +1 Blood Moon)

[drude1]

With only 3 Painters main and zero Recruiters, how good are the 6 blasts? Could 2 be cut to make more room for support (e.g. +1 Wishclaw/E Tutor, +1 Blood Moon)

Yeah, that's where I started. I thought the format in general was less blue so I went down to 4 pyroblasts. Then I started losing all the time to U/W control, which is very popular right now. It's something you can consider though.

Also, I had an epiphany regarding the straight R/B lists. If you don't want to splash white, run 3 x LED's. It interacts very well with wishclaw as you can sac the LED for mana with wishclaw on the stack. This way it's much easier to activate wishclaw to go find something like Karn and then sac LED in response and play Karn so your opponent can't use the wishclaw. I've been having some success with this list:

4 x Tomb
2x City of Traitors
2 x Badlands
4 x Bloodstained Mire
3 x Great Furnace
2 x Mountain
1 x Swamp
1 x Vault of Whispers
3 x LED
4 x Petal
2 x Mox Opal
3 x Grindstone
1 x Nihil Spellbomb
1 x Reanimate
4 x Welder
4 x Pyroblast
3 x Painter
3 x Wishclaw
4 x Engineer
1 x Bridge
3 x Blood Moon
1 x Daretti
3 x Karn
1 x Titan

You could build this in a number of different ways (eg fewer Blood Moon), but I think 3 x LED and 3 x wishclaw actually makes the most sense.

[pettdan]

Sometimes I'm so slow. I just realized my favorite record for the past 21 years is Devil's Pie. That's what I'll call the Rbw version for now.. ;) Not that it matters..
Edit: Ah, it's not the album name, it's the album's "promotional single"..

On the topic of the new list, I was also considering the nice wishclaw interaction with LED, and you can use LED as a discard outlet for welders too. In fact, with active welder you can even use wishclaw to tutor for your one of monster, then crack led to discard it so you can weld it back in. I guess then you need to make sure the opponent doesn't tutor up their answer to the monster with the talisman during their turn.. Which may actually influence which monster to run, you then want domething that creates value immediately or that the opponent cannot deal with.. Hmm if there was an artifact monster that destroyed a permanent or two when it etb's, that would be good.

[drude1]

Sometimes I'm so slow. I just realized my favorite record for the past 21 years is Devil's Pie. That's what I'll call the Rbw version for now.. ;) Not that it matters..
Edit: Ah, it's not the album name, it's the album's "promotional single"..

On the topic of the new list, I was also considering the nice wishclaw interaction with LED, and you can use LED as a discard outlet for welders too. In fact, with active welder you can even use wishclaw to tutor for your one of monster, then crack led to discard it so you can weld it back in. I guess then you need to make sure the opponent doesn't tutor up their answer to the monster with the talisman during their turn.. Which may actually influence which monster to run, you then want domething that creates value immediately or that the opponent cannot deal with.. Hmm if there was an artifact monster that destroyed a permanent or two when it etb's, that would be good.

The only thing I could find was Meteor Golem and Reaper King (with Painters) and those are both pretty bad.

[peko]

@drude1: Thank you for starting this thread. I know most people discussing here are on Discord as well, but this just feels like a much more efficient way to discuss things more in-depth. I have a hard time understanding the popularity of Discord - to me MTG is a game too complex to be seriously discussed in a chat...

I have been testing Devil's Cake (I have also been calling it Burnt Cake) for a few weeks now and I believe the deck has legs. As Hisa mentioned, there are probably a few different approaches, out of which I like the "Shortcake derivative" most. My issue with Shortcake is that it trades card advantage for speed and consistency, i.e. it is not well suited for the long game. I feel black fixes this through Wishclaw Talisman and Daretti, and it surprised me how many times I managed to outgrind the grindiest decks through Welder effects paired with Talisman / Arcum's Astrolabe / Ichor Wellspring. Between Welders, Daretti, Karn and Blood Moon, the deck is very heavy on must-counter threats with little air (I trimmed fast mana to just two Lotus Petals and one LED). The issue with the BR version is that it is the opposite of Shortcake in that it is great for the long game, but it lacks in explosivity. Fast combo decks are the deck's largest weakness.

Because of this, I eventually ended up going back to white same as drude1. Below my current list which I am quite happy with. I like that the deck has both a grindy and a turbo element through the two splashes, and is well-equipped to position itself anywhere between ultra-fast combo to ultra-slow grind depending on the matchup, while also having a strong prison plan in Blood Moon. The largest difference between my list and the others here is that I play the full playset of Arcum's Astrolabe. I see that Drude1's list instead plays Mox Opals and the full playset of Lotus Petals, which is essentially the same approach in that it enables the splashes.

Lands
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
1 Badlands
1 Plateau
5 Snow-Covered Mountain
6 Red Fetchlands

Creatures
3 Goblin Welder
4 Goblin Engineer
3 Painter's Servant
1 Ethersworn Canonist

Spells
4 Arcum's Astrolabe
2 Lotus Petal
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Grindstone
4 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Wishclaw Talisman
1 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Blood Moon
2 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
4 Karn, the Great Creator

Sideboard
1 Grindstone
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Mycosynth Lattice
1 Painter's Servant
1 Liquimetal Coating
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pithing Needle
1 Trinisphere
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Abrade

[FTW]

Hmm if there was an artifact monster that destroyed a permanent or two when it etb's, that would be good.

I can't tell if this is sarcasm, given Sundering Titan is already in the deck. Destroying a few lands seems good.

But why do you need to worry about them tutoring something if you are Goblin Weldering your monster into play? What will they tutor with? The Talisman in your graveyard?

@peko: I like quite a few things about your list.
-More Blood Moons
-4 Arcum's Astrolabe. Seems amazing for a deck with 7 Welders and 2 splash colors, and it stops Blood Moon from screwing you.

[pettdan]

@FTW: Sundering Titan is good, but risky if you give your opponent a one mana demonic tutor next turn in a format with stp in it (and dark ritual and show and tell, etc), so we tried to find a similar threat that would destroy the Talisman upon its arrival on the battlefield.

Ah, read your second question too. In the scenario I described, the goblin welder is tapped so when the opponent untaps with demonic tutor you can't use welder again to protect your monster. Read again, talisman isn't in your graveyard, this was the misunderstanding I think.

The scenario then, a bit more detailed, is that you have active welder, activate talisman searching for monster, put it into your hand. Opponent gets the talisman. Crack LED, put monster into graveyard, activate welder to bring monster back in and random artifact you control out. This scenario was for using talisman and led together for an entomb-effect.

[FTW]

@FTW: Sundering Titan is good, but risky if you give your opponent a one mana demonic tutor next turn in a format with stp in it (and dark ritual and show and tell, etc), so we tried to find a similar threat that would destroy the Talisman upon its arrival on the battlefield.

Ah, read your second question too. In the scenario I described, the goblin welder is tapped so when the opponent untaps with demonic tutor you can't use welder again to protect your monster. Read again, talisman isn't in your graveyard, this was the misunderstanding I think.

Oh you can't Weld the Talisman into the fatty.

I thought the point of Welder + Talisman was to Weld the Talisman before the opponent gets it, but I see in this scenario due to the timing you have to let the opponent get Talisman before the fatty ever enters your graveyard, forcing you to Weld something else. That's awkward. Tutoring Meteor Golem just to kill your own Talisman seems really really bad. You're just durdling instead of really creating a threat.

In that case Goblin Welder/Goblin Engineer + Wishclaw Talisman + LED is MUCH better if you just tutor for Karn:
-Crack LED for 3 mana
-Activate Talisman
-In response, Weld Talisman into LED
-Crack LED again for 3 mana
-Resolve Tutor
-Cast Karn

You could also get any 5 mana spell (with Welder). Or tutor for Grindstone and activate it. Or tutor for Painter's Servant and activate a Grindstone already in play. All of these lines seem much better than making some artifatty and giving opponent the Talisman.

[pettdan]

Oh you can't Weld the Talisman into the fatty.

I thought the point of Welder + Talisman was to Weld the Talisman before the opponent gets it, but I see in this scenario due to the timing you have to let the opponent get Talisman before the fatty ever enters your graveyard, forcing you to Weld something else. That's awkward. Tutoring Meteor Golem just to kill your own Talisman seems really really bad. You're just durdling instead of really creating a threat.

Yes, I think that is what we concluded above, we discussed it without describing the scenario or conclusions with great detail (probably because we are so used working with Welder, LED, etc). IF there had been an artifact creature doing what I asked for, then this could have been another great scenario for Talisman + LED, further motivating playing 3-4 LED's and 3-4 Talismans like Drude1 was trying above. To repeat, if you have an active Goblin Welder and can turn two of your cards into functionally an Entomb, that is a great opportunity for you as a player and deck builder. This doesn't mean that this is what you'll mostly be doing with those two cards, just like you suggest you would often be using welder to get a free demonic tutor every other turn, or whatever. But sometimes there are reasons to do things differently, maybe your opponent plays a fast combo deck and you're afraid that they will go off next turn or something, I didn't spend time considering when you want to do this, just if you could..

[FTW]

further motivating playing 3-4 LED's and 3-4 Talismans like Drude1 was trying above.

But the scenarios I described motivate it too. It's very strong even without the fatty play.


To repeat, if you have an active Goblin Welder and can turn two of your cards into functionally an Entomb, that is a great opportunity for you as a player and deck builder.

No it's not. Even if you could it's awful card disadvantage. You use LED (without using the mana) + some other artifact + Talisman (have to kill it) + discard your hand just to Weld into play a fatty, losing 3+ cards. It'd have to be a hasty Blightsteel/Emrakul to be worth that investment. Why take card disadvantage to turn cards into Entomb when you already have Demonic Tutor + mana?



just like you suggest you would often be using welder to get a free demonic tutor every other turn,

That's possible but unnecessarily slow. I suggested using Welder+LED+Talisman to get a planeswalker or combo piece in play immediately, maybe winning this turn, without even tapping lands for mana. You could be tapped out to cast Talisman or something else. (e.g. as early as T1 Welder, T2 Talisman + LED -> tutor -> Karn -> play an answer from the SB).


But sometimes there are reasons to do things differently, maybe your opponent plays a fast combo deck and you're afraid that they will go off next turn or something, I didn't spend time considering when you want to do this, just if you could..

Welder+LED+Talisman, the same combination of cards you two discussed, lets you tutor and immediately cast any 1-5cc card in your deck without even needing another card as Welder fodder or untapped lands. How often do you need to do things differently than Demonic Tutor + 5 mana? You can already grab and play any card you need to react to the opponent. If they could go off, you tutor for some answer and cast it. If they have a dangerous threat out, get Daretti, play it, and immediately kill the threat.

[pettdan]

@FTW: You're discussing plan A, which is great, we were discussing if plan B exists.

[FTW]

@FTW: You're discussing plan A, which is great, we were discussing if plan B exists.

Yeah I got that. But Demonic Tutor + 5 mana lets you get any plan B, plan C, plan D... There's no need for an Entomb plan B when plan A is to play any card in your deck. I think you're underrating how flexible plan A is (and it uses 1 less card and 1 less mana too). If you need another plan, run a 1-of and tutor for it.

[pettdan]

Yeah I got that. But Demonic Tutor + 5 mana lets you get any plan B, plan C, plan D... There's no need for an Entomb plan B when plan A is to play any card in your deck. I think you're underrating how flexible plan A is (and it uses 1 less card and 1 less mana too). If you need another plan, run a 1-of and tutor for it.

Well, you don't get to play any card in your deck, only any card with CMC <= 3 (I think, maybe I got it wrong). Putting Sundering Titan into play in this scenario, using plan B, is already pretty good in comparison with plan A, and we were merely investigating if there was an even better option.

[FTW]

Well, you don't get to play any card in your deck, only any card with CMC <= 3 (I think, maybe I got it wrong).

Any card with CMC <=5 (without using any lands). Your Entomb scenario needs 1 land to activate Wishclaw, so with that it would be CMC 6. Like I said, I think you're underrating how good plan A is.

Tapped out with Welder, Talisman, and LED in play:
1) Crack LED. Discard your hand. Add BBB.
2) Activate Wishclaw Talisman (paying B). Hold priority.
3) In response, activate Welder. Exchange Wishclaw Talisman for the LED in your GY.
4) Crack LED again with tutor on the stack. Add RRR.
5) Resolve the Wishclaw activation. Find any card in your deck. Nothing to give to opponent. RRRBB floating.

With that 5 mana you could:
- Cast Karn and play a 1 cmc artifact from the SB
- Get Grindstone/Painter's Servant if you have the other, then immediately activate Grindstone FTW
- Cast Daretti to kill something
- Get Blood Moon to land lock them
- Get Ensnaring Bridge with 0 cards in hand
- Get any other corner case answer

Unlike plan B, this works with either Goblin Welder or Goblin Engineer (4 mana floating instead).

Putting Sundering Titan into play with plan B (and giving them Wishclaw) is much worse than plan A (and not giving them Wishclaw).

[pettdan]

Putting Sundering Titan into play with plan B (and giving them Wishclaw) is much worse than plan A (and not giving them Wishclaw).

Yes, I agree with this, and I think that was the premise for the discussion. Is there an alternative to Sundering Titan that would make plan B better than plan A (in cornercase scenarios)? That question couldn't be answered without checking which creatures exist.

I think getting Sundering Titan into play will be the correct choice in some matchups, like in some scenarios vs RUG Delver perhaps, although plan A will generally be the way to go. I think you're right that it's a very good approach, but I never doubted that.

[punda]

As the list moves more LED heavy it makes blast effects less useful. If you crack LED with a karn/talisman trigger on the stack, the blasts are useless for protection. This is the same issue I was having in the painter/bomberman hybrid list. This makes me lean to using some number of discard effects. LED forces you to be proactive vs reactive. Some numbers of blasts is still likely correct but less than a traditional shortcake/imperial list.

[drude1]

@FTW: Yeah, Titan is definitely more for the turn 1 welder, turn 2 engineer hands (or turn 1 welder, turn 2 titan in hand crack and LED sort of hand). I think it's a rarity that you are ever doing anything with Titan if you have wishclaw somehow in the mix. In fact, one could argue that Titan should just be a wurmcoil engine. If you knew you were going to be playing RUG delver all day that's probably what I would do. However, Titan has more game against control and combo decks (particularly something like miracles), so for now I'm staying on 1 x Sundering Titan in the main.

@Punda: Yeah, I'll reiterate what I said in the discord, you are probably right. I have been trying 2 thoughtseize in to replace 2 REB. We'll see how that goes. I again will also say that if you have open mana up and combo + LED out, you can always blast opponent's lands to force a play from them and then combo off in response.

Still messing around with the numbers for this deck. I'm still mostly concentrating on a 2 e.tutor/2 wishclaw deck now with 4 petal, 3 mox opal and 2 LED. Been pretty successful so far but not seeing much RUG delver yet, so vote's still not in. Speaking of which, if anyone has RUG delver built and wants to just jam a bunch of games sometime to test the match-up, let me know.

PA

[Scott]

2peko got a 5-0 with this (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-league-2019-10-19#peko_-) on MTGO this week

// Planeswalker (6)
2 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
4 Karn, the Great Creator

// Creature (11)
1 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Goblin Engineer
3 Goblin Welder
3 Painter's Servant

// Instant (8)
2 Enlightened Tutor
4 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast

// Artifact (12)
4 Arcum's Astrolabe
1 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Grindstone
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
2 Lotus Petal
1 Wishclaw Talisman

// Enchantment (3)
3 Blood Moon

// Land (20)
4 Ancient Tomb
1 Badlands
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 City of Traitors
1 Plateau
2 Scalding Tarn
5 Snow-Covered Mountain
2 Wooded Foothills

// Sideboard
SB: 1 Painter's Servant
SB: 1 Ensnaring Bridge
SB: 1 Grindstone
SB: 2 Abrade
SB: 2 Lightning Bolt
SB: 1 Liquimetal Coating
SB: 1 Mycosynth Lattice
SB: 1 Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Trinisphere

[drude1]

2peko got a 5-0 with this (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-league-2019-10-19#peko_-) on MTGO this week

// Planeswalker (6)
2 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
4 Karn, the Great Creator

// Creature (11)
1 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Goblin Engineer
3 Goblin Welder
3 Painter's Servant

// Instant (8)
2 Enlightened Tutor
4 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast

// Artifact (12)
4 Arcum's Astrolabe
1 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Grindstone
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
2 Lotus Petal
1 Wishclaw Talisman

// Enchantment (3)
3 Blood Moon

// Land (20)
4 Ancient Tomb
1 Badlands
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 City of Traitors
1 Plateau
2 Scalding Tarn
5 Snow-Covered Mountain
2 Wooded Foothills

// Sideboard
SB: 1 Painter's Servant
SB: 1 Ensnaring Bridge
SB: 1 Grindstone
SB: 2 Abrade
SB: 2 Lightning Bolt
SB: 1 Liquimetal Coating
SB: 1 Mycosynth Lattice
SB: 1 Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Trinisphere

Pretty close to what most of us are playing. I'm personally on opals/petals over astrolabes but that's mostly a play style issue. Astrolabes are grindier and opals are more explosive. Depends on your flavor. I do admit that I sometimes feel like I am getting flooded with mana. But I also played astrolabes for quite a while as well and they often got stranded in hand. The biggest issue I have with this list is that he is playing a bunch of blood moons but basically can almost never play one on turn 1. Congrats on the 5-0 though. I'm glad the strategy has legs. Without actually measuring it, it feels like my win percentage is really high right now.
I haven't actually played a league yet with this deck as I'm still tweaking it. Really the 2 slots I have open right now are either 2 thoughtseize, blasts 5-6, or blood moons 2-3. In the practice room I think the thoughtsiezes have been the best as people tend to play a lot of combo and/or basics. But in a league or IRL blood moons are probably better given how popular delver and 4-color control strategies are.

[FTW]

Pretty close to what most of us are playing. I'm personally on opals/petals over astrolabes but that's mostly a play style issue.

I think it's actually a synergy issue more than a playstyle issue. Blood Moon is risky in your own manabase (shuts off white and black), but you only run it as a 1-of so you don't have to play it in games where it hurts you. He can use Astrolabe to filter into white and black post-Moon. A list that's heavy in Blood Moons probably needs the Astrolabes to have consistent mana.

The drawback is he's not casting Moons turn 1, which reduces the win % of Moon hands. But he has only 3 Moons anyway.

[drude1]

I think it's actually a synergy issue more than a playstyle issue. Blood Moon is risky in your own manabase (shuts off white and black), but you only run it as a 1-of so you don't have to play it in games where it hurts you. He can use Astrolabe to filter into white and black post-Moon. A list that's heavy in Blood Moons probably needs the Astrolabes to have consistent mana.

The drawback is he's not casting Moons turn 1, which reduces the win % of Moon hands. But he has only 3 Moons anyway.

Well, with a basic swamp, 3 mox opal and 4 lotus petal, I haven't really had trouble finding my colors, even under a blood moon. He is running 4 astrolabe and 2 petals, so my chances of finding my colors under a blood moon are actually a little better than his. Having said that, the cantrip on the astrolabe is nothing to scoff at.

[peko]

The 5-0 in Scott's post was me. Just a few words on my view of Blood Moon in this deck:

- The list is built to grind. I always had an issue with the all-in nature of shortcake (trading explosivity for mid-game power) and I really like what black brings to the table (Daretti, Wishclaw Talisman, Nihil Spellbomb). The basic idea is to have a high density of must-counter threats with few low-impact cards (the likes of Lotus Petal). Against certain decks (RUG Delver, Death's Shadow, Infect) Blood Moon is a must-counter threat. The idea is not to get free wins through turn 1 Blood Moon - we are not a prison deck but rather a combo-control deck with a prison element.
- Blood Moon is very efficient against some of the unfair decks (at least game 1) like ANT, Depths, Hogaak. We typically have an issue with those as we are not fast enough, and Blood Moon on turns 2-3 while they are setting up for the combo can be quite good.
- The deck generally wants the game to go long, and Blood Moon often "fixes" your own manabase in these cases - 7 sol lands can be quite awkward and in a game that does on for 10+ turns, it is typically better for you to have a Blood Moon out.
- Blood Moon can be quite efficient against snow-control decks. What often happens is that you trade resources (they have a lot of removal for your painters and welders) and eventually stick a Karn. Karn turns off their Astrolabes and you can completely cut them off colored mana with Liquimetal Coating over 2-3 turns.
- The 4 Astrolabes and 4 Goblin Engineers (and additionally Lotus Petals) give you enough access to color-fixing even under Blood Moon. In a long game you are almost certain to get an Astrolabe into play at some point. I would also point out that you only actually need to cast Daretti and Enlightened Tutor from your hand, the other cards (Wishclaw Talisman and Ethersworn Canonist) are more often welder targets. Also in case you are wondering, the whole white splash is there to give you access to shortcake-style fast wins in unfair matchups, but I often fully side it out in fair matchups.

[AngryBacon]

Played at a local with the list yesterday, 32 players.

https://deckbox.org/sets/2487055




4 Ancient Tomb
1 Arid Mesa
1 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 City of Traitors
1 Plateau
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Arcum's Astrolabe
2 Blood Moon
2 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Goblin Engineer
4 Goblin Welder
3 Grindstone
4 Karn, the Great Creator
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
2 Lotus Petal
1 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Painter's Servant
4 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Wishclaw Talisman




1 Chandra, Awakened Inferno
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Goblin Cratermaker
1 Grindstone
1 Guardian Beast
1 Helm of Obedience
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Liquimetal Coating
1 Mycosynth Lattice
1 Painter's Servant
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Walking Ballista




Round 1 UB Death Shadow: 2-1 (sort of)

The matchup ends up being as rough as I first thought. Big creatures with Wasteland and Daze backup are hard to manage when your only way out is a bridge. The 6 blasts definitely helped in those 3 games. Lost the first match, won the second one with Lattice.
The third one took longer and is a grindfest: preventive spellbomb for anglers was cracked and it's probably what won me the game. I have lattice out again, my opponent who allegedly took 80% of the clock refuses to concede. The next turn I drop Karn + Wishclaw, still refuses to concede. My next turn is the last additional turn, I can resolve my combo but the combo by itself doesn't win so the final score is a draw.

Round 2 RUG Delver: 0-2

I know by experience with this kind of decks that a one-land'er is a no-go and that the London mulligan is definitely a better route than a hopeful 7. Especially against an opponent known to play a Delver variant, not that it's actually relevant when I keep my hands. So I mulligan. Now presented a hand that does next to nothing, but has 2 lands and is slowly playable. Unsurprisingly, Wasteland takes care of my Sol land, which forces me to drop threats without being Daze-proof. Wrenn, behind a huge Tarmogoyf takes care of the rest by not allowing me to establish more mana.
Second game goes a bit slower where they fail to find a quick threat. This indicates me that I should present my Daretti as soon as possible, pierce-proof that is, but even color requirement is tough to reach and the mulligan didn't help. I end up unable to re-establish my game plan with bolts taking care of the 2 goblins I resolved.

Round 3 Eldrazi Aggro: 2-1

I get roflstomped in game 1, hard. My opponent on the play goes T1 Chalice, T2 Smasher, T3 Wasteland. On my side of things, a miraculous bridge appears in my hand, but I'm unable to empty my hand fast enough.
Second game is the complete opposite where I resolve a T1 Daretti. I proceed to ride that Daretti and its unhealthy ammount of generated CA to victory and putting 3 tokens of Painter's Servant into play.
Third game is also easy, T2 Blood Moon in front of a Chalice and a Mimic. I have Daretti in hand but no black mana. "Draw go". I reach 6 lands and slam Chandra. I put 2 emblems while her 2 Ratchet Bombs slowly reach 3 counters. She explodes one to get rid of Blood Moon, resolve 2 smashers who go molest my Chandra. I take my turn, I have something like 10 mana myself and proceed to vomit my hand on the battlefield. Karn + Daretti, then -2 to reach for a bridge that I resolve. Chandra emblems are still ticking but they aren't enough so I make the risky play of destroying the Chalice instead of one of the smasher to kill the next turn off Painter's Servant + Grindstone. It pays off.

Round 4 UB Death Shadow: 2-1

I lose the first game after a slow mulligan that doesn't recover from a Wasteland on one of the 2 lands I drew that game. There actually would have been a (small) chance if I had a Great Furnace in my deck.
Game 2 my opponents doesn't find a second land after I blast his 2 cantrips and the flipped Delver that was pressuring me, let's just call it a calculated risk. I finally find more mana myself but my opponent concedes as he knows my hand.
Game 3 we both get our mana, sort of. A timely Wasteland prevents a Ballista for 2 supposedly taking care of the flipped Delver. I have LED, Tormod's Crypt, Astrolabe, Spellbomb, double Goblin Welder both active, Canonist and a Ballista on 1. Very nasty CA to come. I finally find a third land to resolve a Blood Moon, in response they Snuff Out targeting the Ballista which I think is a mistake, especially since they showed me the Snuff Out 3 turns earlier to flip the Delver. I make 9 mana with the 1 LED and they concede.

[pettdan]

Not much posting here, I'll add my short report from 2 weeks ago (Aug 23 [edit: err, too much stress, it's Oct 23 of course]):

---

Here's a short report from the local weekly event. Had one bye and the following..

Played this list:

3 Great Furnace
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
3 Mox Opal
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 City of Traitors
2 Mountain
1 Plateau
1 Swamp
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Enlightened Tutor
3 Goblin Welder
4 Pyroblast
3 Grindstone
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Wishclaw Talisman
4 Goblin Engineer
3 Painter's Servant
1 Ichor Wellspring
1 Recurring Nightmare
2 Imperial Recruiter
1 Blood Moon
1 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
1 Auriok Salvagers
4 Karn, the Great Creator
1 Sundering Titan

Sb:
1 Walking Ballista
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Thoughtseize
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Grindstone
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Painter's Servant
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Plague Engineer
1 Blood Moon
1 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Leyline of the Void
1 Mycosynth Lattice

R1: UW stoneblade
G1: opponent mulligans to 6 and starts. Great hand with 2 welder, 2 engineer, 2 recruiter, furnace, plateau (after first draw, doubled up on a creature). I'm so glad, this will be Titan t2 or t3 most likely. But oh no, he fows t2 engineer, teferi bounces welder, then jitte connects and kills everything.
G2: think I have Thoughtseize and Daretti in my starting hand and don't draw any black source until I'm at 4 life. Get some welders into play and forget what else but opponent gets Mystic into Sword of F&I and take my Welders while drawing extra cards..
Results: 0-2

R2: Goblins
Get Trashmastered one game, manage to Weld Titan one game and combo out the third. Opponent misboarded, she's still a bit new to Legacy and thought Thorn and Chalice on zero were good vs me since I showed mox opals and the petal in game1.
Results: 2-1

R3: Lands
G1: Early Loam + Wasteland lock me out.
G2: I get out Karn and can go for combo or Bridge the same turn that opponent can make Marit Lage but opponent had Krosan Grip so it doesn't matter which route I go, die both ways..

Too early to figure out if this motivates any changes. Maybe add basics and astrolabes, hmm..

[drude1]

Well, things have changed quite a bit with the banning of Wrenn & Six in legacy. I think most people were starting to move away from welder a little because of that nasty Planeswalker, but with the recent banning, I really think 4 welder/4 engineer becomes a powerful plan once again. Looking at some ideas from discord (thanks to Petdan in particular), I've come up with two lists that abuse the power of the welder/engineer engine. The first concentrates on a more stable manabase and is a little grindier with the use of Arcum's Astrolabe, while the second is more aggressive and focuses more on early big-dumb-creature recursion on top of the more classic painter/grindstone combo. Here are this lists for comparison....

Ice Cream Cake (name under review)

4 x Goblin Welder
4 x Goblin Engineer
3 x Painter’s Servant

1 x Lion’s Eye Diamond
1 x Mox Opal
3 x Lotus Petal
3 x Grindstone
4 x Arcum’s Astrolabe
1 x Nihil Spellbomb
4 x Pyroblast
1 x Red Elemental Blast
2 x Enlightened Tutor
1 x Wishclaw Talisman
2 x Ensnaring Bridge
1 x Blood Moon
2 x Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
3 x Karn, the Great Creator
1 x Bolas’s Citadel

4 x Ancient Tomb
2 x City of Traitors
1 x Badlands
1 x Plateau
4 x Bloodstained Mire
1 x Scaling Tarn
1 x Great Furnace
4 x Snow-covered Mountain
1 x Snow-covered Swamp

SB
1 x Ethersworn Canonist
1 x Glass Canon (probably getting cut)
2 x Surgical Extraction
1 x Plague Engineer
2 x Angrath’s Rampage
1 x Lion’s Eye Diamond
1 x Tormod’s Crypt
1 x Grindstone
1 x Painter’s Servant
1 x Liquimetal Coating
1 x Ensnaring Bridge
1 x Mycosynth Lattice
1 x Wurmcoil Engine

This list again is really focusing on the combo. The citadel really lets you power out a ton of cards and you often win the turn you play it. It does play a nihil spellbomb main so you can still combo out even with Emrakul in opponent's library. This list is more grindy and 4 x astrolabe offer good card draw if a couple goblins can stick.

Devil’s Cake

4 x Goblin Welder
4 x Goblin Engineer
3 x Painter’s Servant
2 x Imperial Recruiter
1 x Wurmcoil Engine
1 x Sundering Titan

1 x Lion’s Eye Diamond
3 x Lotus Petal
2 x Mox Opal
3 x Grindstone
4 x Pyroblast
1 x Red Elemental Blast
2 x Enlightened Tutor
1 x Wishclaw Talisman
1 x Ensnaring Bridge
1 x Blood Moon
1 x Recurring NIghtmare
2 x Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
3 x Karn, the Great Creator

4 x Ancient Tomb
2 x City of Traitors
1 x Badlands
1 x Plateau
4 x Bloodstained Mire
2 x Scaling Tarn
2 x Great Furnace
1 x Vault of Whispers
2 x Snow-covered Mountain
1 x Snow-covered Swamp



SB
1 x Ethersworn Canonist
1 x Glass Casket
2 x Surgical Extraction
1 x Plague Engineer
1 x Murderous Rider
1 x Goblin Cratermaker
1 x Lion’s Eye Diamond
1 x Tormod’s Crypt
1 x Grindstone
1 x Painter’s Servant
1 x Liquimetal Coating
1 x Ensnaring Bridge
1 x Mycosynth Lattice
1 x Nihil Spellbomb

This list again is more explosive. Not only can you go for early combo but you can also go after a titan or wurmcoil in the early turns as an alternative win con. This list is also playing 2 x Imperial Recruiter which helps find your goblins or some of the SB hate bears. It also interacts well with Recurring Nightmare. Nightmare also combos well with goblin engineer, letting you search for multiple artifacts to put in your graveyard.

Still not sure which one I like better. Both are a lot of fun. Bolas's Citadel has been really fun to play with in particular. The one downside about the second list is that sometimes the large creatures are irrelevant, particularly against decks not playing traditional lands (eg bomberman, 12 post, some depths lists). Overall, I think the snow deck is better against these lists or control lists, whereas the more aggro build is better against delver and other more traditional fair decks.

Give them a try and let me know what you think. Also looking forward to any other ideas that may be floating out there.

PA

[drude1]

One other option for those of you who like the green splash...

Moldy Cake

4 x Goblin Welder
4 x Goblin Engineer
3 x Painter’s Servant
1 x Wurmcoil Engine (could be Titan)

1 x Lion’s Eye Diamond
1 x Mox Opal
3 x Lotus Petal
3 x Grindstone
4 x Arcum’s Astrolabe
4 x Pyroblast
2 x Veil of Summer
1 x Wishclaw Talisman
4 x Once Upon a Time
1 x Ensnaring Bridge
1 x Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
3 x Karn, the Great Creator
1 x Bolas’s Citadel

4 x Ancient Tomb
2 x City of Traitors
1 x Badlands
1 x Taiga
4 x Wooded Foothills
1 x Scaling Tarn
1 x Great Furnace
4 x Snow-covered Mountain
1 x Snow-covered Forest

SB
2 x Surgical Extraction
3 x Assassin’s Trophy
2 x Plague Engineer
1 x Lion’s Eye Diamond
1 x Tormod’s Crypt
1 x Nihil Spellbomb
1 x Grindstone
1 x Painter’s Servant
1 x Liquimetal Coating
1 x Ensnaring Bridge
1 x Mycosynth Lattice


No Blood Moons here. You could try to squeeze them in but they would have to be at least a 3 of probably since we don't have e.tutor to find them. The nice thing about this list is that the once upon a times allow you to find the goblins early and often...redundancy is key! Veil of Summer is obviously a good card as well. This version so far has the citadel and a copy of wurmcoil for the fair/aggro match-ups. Wurmcoil could also be a titan. It also runs 3 Assassin's trophy in the SB, which is a catch-all. This could be abrupt decay (or a split?) but right now I like the trophy as it hits lands in the depths match-up. Could also play Magus of the Moon in the SB if you wanted. It's good when it's good.

This version has legs, and is fun. Just goes in a little bit different direction.