[Deck] Rebels?!?! WTF??

[Jak]

That is what I said to my friend when he wanted a deck based around rebels. I tried to tell him that they aren't that great and you could come up with a better elf deck. But he insists me to help him come up with a good rebel deck, so I start thinking how I could make a slow aggro deck good. The obvious answer was to add control, but I didn't know what and counter-rebels has never been good. So I look through my cards and actually find the perfect card to play when you have the rebel chain out. Solitary Confinement. I don't know if it has been talked about before, but what ever. It seems that it could make a really strong deck.

So this is the list I came up with for my friend.

4 Srubland
2 Godless Shrine
3 Flooded Strand
3 Windswept Heath
6 Plains

4 Chrome Mox

4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Solitary Confinement
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Squee

4 Lin Sivvi
4 Ramosian Sergeant
2 Defiant Falcon
4 Whipcorder
4 Thermal Glider
4 Dark Confidant

That's what I have got so far. The sideboard would probably be something like 4 Plagues, 3 Jittes, 4 Dystopia, 4 Chants.

Now the card choices.

6 Duals- Needed to suport the double black in the sb.
6 Fetches- To retrieve those duals and deck thinning.
6 Plains- Tap for mana.

4 Chrome Mox- Needed accel to get guy plus discard first turn.

4 Duress- The deck needs some control for combo and I think proactive control would be best.
4 Cabal Therapy- Read above.
4 Confinement- They work perfectly with the decks theme. Allows to keep playing guys while locking the opponent down.
4 StP- Too good to leave out.
1 Squee- For confinement lock. Might go up to 2 because I sometimes need them early.

4 Lin Sivvi- A beast. Fetches dudes and has synergy with confinement.
4 Ramosian Sergeant- Gets Whipcorder which is great versus aggro decks and the random reanimator.
2 Defiant Falcon- Fetchable with sergeant and then gets Sivvi.
4 Whipcorder- Read above.
4 Thermal Glider- Only for gobbos. Pro Red and flies is pretty good.
4 Confidants- Allows me to keep drawing under Confinement.

I think it has some potential. Rebels are a strong draw engine and can just create an army. Add that with confinement and you have a good deck. Here are some cards that are worth discussing.

Gaea's Cradle- Really good to get a rebel chain, but I felt it unnecessary because I don't have many fetchers.

The Big Asses (Sky Marshall and Jhovall Queen)- I felt them to be unecessary and win more. Bad with confidant, but as one ofs could be good finishers. My friend wants these. I callz him n00brz.

Another Squee- I sometimes need to get the lock out early and I need Squee alot if I can never get to Confinement.

Anything else I missed that is worth discussing?

Thoughts?

[vigilante]

Am I missing something here? Confinement (with no way to tutor for it) plus a single, solitary Squee (also with no way to tutor for it) to maintain the soft-lock? The value of including that combo seems questionable.

Yes, Dark Confidant will also allow you to maintain the Confinement lock (note that it doesn't let you "keep drawing" under Confinement, as you'll have to discard whatever you draw to Confinement's upkeep cost), but as the deck applies pressure so slowly -- as a result of the creatures being far from resilient -- the Confidant's life loss is just as likely to kill you before you get around to dealing 20.

A final question....how does Lin Sivvi have synergy with Confinement? Sure, you can put any Rebels you discard to Confinement back on the bottom of your library, but that seems to be a pretty weak interaction. Soldevi Digger would let you do that too, and there's few people who would classify that thing as a beast.

[Jak]

How does Lin Sivvi not have synergy with confinement? Let me explain it to you. When you have it out and a Confinement, it basically lets you keep drawing by fetching rebels to put into play. Once you have the lock it lets you keep getting an army.

Now I know the deck has no tutors for confinement or squee, but drawing to cards a turn helps find them and the discard holds the opponent back a bit.

Now this deck needs work. It is for a friend that insists playing rebels because of their ability to just keep getting more. Any help with the idea.

[Radley]

http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5183&highlight=rebels

This might help. And you might want to consider that new rebel cat 2 cc 3/1 :wink:

I don't think solitary confinement is suitable for rebels. :laugh: ^_^

I don't like the idea of adding dark confidant in the deck. Rebel is slow enough to just die from confidant :laugh:

I just want to tell you there's some black rebels too that you might want to consider, well, that is if you really want to splash black. But I think a blue splash is better.

[vigilante]

How does Lin Sivvi not have synergy with confinement? Let me explain it to you. When you have it out and a Confinement, it basically lets you keep drawing by fetching rebels to put into play. Once you have the lock it lets you keep getting an army.
Isn't that just like saying Thallid has synergy with Confinement, because it lets you keep producing creatures without having to play the cards from your hand? Sure, recruiting Rebels directly from your library lets you maintain the Confinement lock a bit longer, but it's not a sustainable engine (unless you get lucky and draw into one of your 4 Confidants/1 Squee). Because your Confinements are going to end up being temporary most of the time (effectively buying you a few turns against aggro opponents at the cost of discarding your hand), the Confinement strategy is inherently weaker here when compared to a deck that sets out to maintain a soft-lock with Confinement indefinately.

I know it's not your deck, but perhaps you need to be clearer with this mate of yours that adding Confinement, a card which requires a specific framework to use effectively (ie. something along the lines of a Life from the Loam or Survival of the Fittest engine) to a Rebels shell, a slow aggro deck, probably isn't going to be a match made in heaven.

[Atwa]

@vigilante:

Once you get a couple fetch rebels in play, confinement is a lock (as long as you can protect them). Even a Ramosian Sergeant can give you almost your wholle deck. You discard cards you don't need, you get more creatures with the recruting ability, and drop your lands to get more rebels. It's the same as Enchantress which plays Solitary Confinement without a Squee (most of the builds).

I do not like the black in the deck. You do know Dystopia also hurts you right? Your manabase should be as imune to wasteland as posible, sincee you really need your lands.

[Radley]

@vigilante:

Once you get a couple fetch rebels in play, confinement is a lock (as long as you can protect them).

It might just work if you have life from the loam in the deck because confinement w/ rebels won't work without lands/mana producers. Sure you can play confinement on turn 2 if you got mox or turn 3 if without but you will ran out of cards in your hand easily because you need to play lands so you can recruit. Plus, LFTL is good with confinement. :laugh:

[vigilante]

atwa: Rebels + Solitary Confinement is not a lock. Rebels put other Rebels from your library into play. Confinement requires you to discard a card from you hand each upkeep, and you skip you draw step. How is the Rebel engine helping to maintain cards in hand to pitch to Confinement? Unless I'm missing something huge (like, Rebels being errata'd so that they suck even more and put the Rebel they recruit into your hand instead of into play) you'll run out of cards in hand, have to sacrifice Confinement, and be left hand-less with a bunch of sub-par creatures in play. As radley points out, you don't want to be missing land drops either, meaning Confinement will stay around for an even shorter span of time.

Enchantress plays Solitary Confinement without Squee because
1) they run a huge-ass draw engine in Argothian Enchantress/Enchantresses Presence/a deck full of enchantments, and
2) they have mechanisms for tutoring up Confinement when they need it (ie. Sterling Grove, Enlightened Tutor, or just drawing fifty gajillion cards a turn).

Are people reading Rebels wrong and thinking they recruit other Rebels to hand instead of to play? Because as they don't, I see no particular synergy between the Rebel recruitment engine and Solitary Confinement (other than the ability to maintain your hand -- and thus Confinement -- for slightly longer due to creature reinforcements coming from your library instead of hand). That plan has it's own drawbacks, namely being excruciatingly slow and mana-intensive, and dying to any form of pinpoint or mass creature removal.

[Atwa]

You are right, I forgot about the 'skip your drawstep' clause.

[Nihil Credo]

I had been working in April on a Counter-Rebels deck, and the results were fairly promising. I stopped working on it when Hulk Flash exploded, but once that is banned and after I finish some tough exams I'm gonna resume development of the deck. Meanwhile, you can find the thread here (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5607).

[Jak]

The thing is you get to keep putting threats into play and drawing cards while you have the lock out. So the basic strategy of the deck is to Lin out, then play Confinement. Hopefully you have a Bob or Squee. Then you get to keep grabbing creatures and create an army. Then win. This deck is not meant to be played out GenCon. It is merely a deck for my friend to play at little tourneys with me. He really wants it to be a tribal rebel deck, so any thoughts on how to make this or some other rebel deck happen would be great.

[hi-val]

For Rebels to be successful, I think it has to run Brainstorm and FOW. Perhaps the best way to exploit Rebels is not to be toolboxy, but to make it all about da bears instead. I'd run Whipcorders, KnightOTHN and 3/1 lolcat along with Sarge and probably 2 Falcon and 2 Lin-Sivvi. The best rebel is Sarge, not Sivvi, in any case, so you want to maximize the power of 2cc dudes in your deck. Thermal Glider and kin are just too expensive mana-wise to be using in the deck.

This would also be a perfect deck for Memory Lapse and/or Remand.

[Nydaeli]

If you splash blue for Intuition, the Confinement lock may be workable. Otherwise, it's probably not.