Eldariel
06-23-2007, 09:51 PM
First of all, I'll go ahead and point out that the original idea wasn't mine. While I have developed the deck since, I originally read about Wr Goblin-killer from some guy playing at Philly. Now, that deck was built specifically to smash the living out of Goblins, but the present version seems to be capable of holding its own on all fronts. Basically, I took the original idea and tried to incorporate pieces of Angel Stompy's gameplan to get some more powerful individual cards in there and to generate more mana for both, bigger sweepers and to power out fast equipment and Chalices. Chalices are probably the most relevant addition as they give you a game against combo G1 too.
First of all, the deck:
// Lands
4 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
3 [TE] Plains (4)
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [A] Plateau
3 [TE] Ancient Tomb
1 [TE] Mountain (1)
// Creatures
4 [SC] Silver Knight
4 [TE] Soltari Priest
2 [TSP] Knight of the Holy Nimbus
4 [UL] Mother of Runes
4 [ON] Exalted Angel
3 [CS] Jotun Grunt
// Spells
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
2 [U] Disenchant
3 [MR] Chrome Mox
3 [U] Earthquake
4 [P3] Rolling Earthquake
4 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
// Sideboard
SB: 1 [CS] Jotun Grunt
SB: 1 [U] Disenchant
SB: 2 [RAV] Lightning Helix
SB: 4 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [LE] Glowrider
SB: 4 [SC] Pyrostatic Pillar
So yea, basically WW with few 'kill your board and ignore mine'-cards thrown in. This looks especially good now that Empty the Warrens is the card du jour and you have 7 MD cards that totally rain on turn 1 Empty for any less than 16 Goblins, and if you happen to have Mox or be on the play, you can even trump the 20-Goblin opening. Anyway, quick rundown:
Manabase:
Fetches - Getting Plateaus and Plains as need be.
Plains - Wastelands, etc. suck.
Plateau - You only ever need R. Then again, that one Mountain should probably be in there, but it makes one mad to actually draw into it since the deck is so reliant on white mana.
Ancient Tomb - The deck incorporates Angels, Jittes, Chalices and different varieties of Earthquakes along with a variety of SB-cards. It's fully capable of supporting some MD acceleration. Oh, and the deck has a total of 9 lifegain effects MD to offset the loss.
Mountain, or rather the lack of - As the Bloodstained Mires suggest, there used to be a Mountain here and there probably should be one too, but drawing a Mountain when you could...well, draw Plains instead is infuriating. The Mountain really needs to be the third land/manasource with WW around for the deck to function.
Chrome Mox - The deck needed acceleration as this was the most readily available and easiest to incorporate without wasting deckspace. Makes for nice fast openings and allows more consistent early Chalices, which we all know to be just that powerful.
Creatures:
Mother of Runes - Used to be Glittering Lynx, but Lynx was low-impact on offense and the deck tends to be on offense a lot thanks to the sweepers and the fact that not all decks use blockers. Mother of Runes, while no better on offense, is much better at supporting offense by trivializing StP and making that turn 2 Morph much safer a play. Also acts as a strong defender should need be and survives Quakes n' stuff.
Silver Knight - 2/2 FS survives all, obvious.
Soltari Priest - 2/1 Shadow survives all, totally, blatantly obvious.
Knight of the Holy Nimbus - Tends to survive sweepers as people like to tap out, has awesome offensive capabilities and takes lots of resources from opponents to kill without StPs (and if they StP this, that's one StP less at Moms and Angels)
Jotun Grunt - The deck was lacking punch, Grunt gives it some punch. A big body, cheap cost and ability to hose graveyard strategies, Grunt has it all. Oh, and the deck, while not amazing, still has decent support capabilities for it.
Exalted Angel - Morph-Swing-Win. Should probably be a 4-of, but due to curve reasons, the 4th got cut for now. Prolly going back instead of the thus far lackluster MD Lightning Helix
Stuff:
Chalice - Removing half of opponent's spells/mana sources is fun.
Rolling/Earthquake - Sweeping opponent's board while yours is immune is fun. So is burning face. And since they're scaleable, they actually take out Threshold's or Faerie Stompy's threats too while still killing EtW tokens and Goblins and burning face in control MUs.
Disenchant - Turns out the format still has lots of important artifacts and enchantments. Who saw that coming?
Lightning Helix - Just another lifegain removal-spell to offset all the self-inflicted pain and put one ahead in liferace. I dunno if it's good enough though, most creatures seem out of the range which is annoying.
Umezawa's Jitte - Creatures+Jitte=best combo aggro-decks can play. Makes 'em threats against control alone. Let's you rape other aggro. Makes combo-deck's 'going off' a pain as they need at least a couple of extra points. I don't need to tell you this, you know all that stuff.
SB:
Glowrider/Pyrostatic Pillar - Anti-combo and decks-that-play-lots-of-cards. I won a game vs. Burn with Pyrostatic Pillar. True story. Glowrider was involved too.
Disenchant - When 2 isn't enough. Should prolly be 2 more and maybe few Seals or Needles, but meh.
Lightning Helix - I guess it pretends to be an additional anti-aggro slot, but there're really no aggro-decks you'd want to bring it in against over your MD slots. Meh, at least it gains life. Good against Burn I guess, so it prolly shouldn't be here.
Jotun Crypt - The deck still has graveyard-using decks. Once you pick up your jaws, I'll tell you that I'm not kidding.
Anyway, I'll have to say that I haven't playtested the deck that much since I haven't really played much Magic as of late, but the few games I've played it's performed admirably (except once in a random Magic-League tournament against Cephalid Life where I failed to see any of the anti-combo cards in the course of the entire match). Anyway, the manabase might be a bit weak, but it still contains 18 white sources and 21 lands total. I guess I should drop Lightning Helixes for another Angel and one more land. Oh well.
Anyway, Threshold seems to be pretty easy with all the threats this deck poses along with the MD Grunts (not necessary, but handy, an additional threat). Basically, they don't want Chalice, Angel, Grunt, Jitte or sweepers resolving so you can pretty much toss them around as you like. Disenchant can come in handy if you have it in hand when they go for Counterbalance, but otherwise it's a bit weak. Obviously red builds are the easiest and white builds are the hardest.
Any random aggro like Zoo seems to work pretty well too with all the anti-aggro cards MD and the mana to use 'em. Goblins should follow the suite but since I haven't done systematic testing, I haven't played the MU enough to know. The additional lands would certainly help there though. Anyway, sweepers are nice.
Combo, Empty the Warrens-combo can't use their namesake which helps a lot but still isn't enough if they know you've got sweepers. have a strong hand and you don't have any hate handy. Chalice gives you better chances than an average aggro-deck, but it doesn't magically make all combo roll over and die (I wish). Disenchant can occasionally be useful for killing LEDs at unopportune moments too, and lifegain can save you in tight spots. The MU isn't a rout, but you aren't dead in water either. Don't have hard numbers so I just do strategic analysis.
Against control-decks, quakes are a bit weak but they're still burn and chalices, disenchants and jittes along with Angels and Grunts tend to be all-stars. Many a game is won with quakes once the opponent is low enough and you've topdecked few lands. Also works nicely against win conditions like Decree of Justice or Exalted Angel (Rolling).
Midrange probably might be a bit problematic, but you have midrange tools too, so you should be alright as long as nothing like Survival stays in play for too long. One of the prime reasons I'd want more Disenchants around, although sweepers are great against their mana sources. The deck might want Armageddons or Wastelands somewhere. Dunno, both sound useful.
Stompy-decks are probably the worst, they don't mind Chalice at 1 (can't play Chalice at 2 here) and they tend to be just faster. I'd hate to play Faerie or Angel Stompy because 'lots of fat fast' is just the recipe for disaster here and Disenchants only help so much. The sweepers are all but useless with the speed and the size of the creatures in those MUs.
Anyhow, that's it, I'm kinda happy with where the deck is now although there's obviously room both ways. It's a very succesful Chalice-deck which is what I'm happy about and it has the tools to wreck in the present meta with the sweepers, which is always nice. Empty the Warrens was really a godsent for the deck (you don't hear that often), making combo-decks much more consistent, but at the same time worse against this one.
First of all, the deck:
// Lands
4 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
3 [TE] Plains (4)
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [A] Plateau
3 [TE] Ancient Tomb
1 [TE] Mountain (1)
// Creatures
4 [SC] Silver Knight
4 [TE] Soltari Priest
2 [TSP] Knight of the Holy Nimbus
4 [UL] Mother of Runes
4 [ON] Exalted Angel
3 [CS] Jotun Grunt
// Spells
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
2 [U] Disenchant
3 [MR] Chrome Mox
3 [U] Earthquake
4 [P3] Rolling Earthquake
4 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
// Sideboard
SB: 1 [CS] Jotun Grunt
SB: 1 [U] Disenchant
SB: 2 [RAV] Lightning Helix
SB: 4 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [LE] Glowrider
SB: 4 [SC] Pyrostatic Pillar
So yea, basically WW with few 'kill your board and ignore mine'-cards thrown in. This looks especially good now that Empty the Warrens is the card du jour and you have 7 MD cards that totally rain on turn 1 Empty for any less than 16 Goblins, and if you happen to have Mox or be on the play, you can even trump the 20-Goblin opening. Anyway, quick rundown:
Manabase:
Fetches - Getting Plateaus and Plains as need be.
Plains - Wastelands, etc. suck.
Plateau - You only ever need R. Then again, that one Mountain should probably be in there, but it makes one mad to actually draw into it since the deck is so reliant on white mana.
Ancient Tomb - The deck incorporates Angels, Jittes, Chalices and different varieties of Earthquakes along with a variety of SB-cards. It's fully capable of supporting some MD acceleration. Oh, and the deck has a total of 9 lifegain effects MD to offset the loss.
Mountain, or rather the lack of - As the Bloodstained Mires suggest, there used to be a Mountain here and there probably should be one too, but drawing a Mountain when you could...well, draw Plains instead is infuriating. The Mountain really needs to be the third land/manasource with WW around for the deck to function.
Chrome Mox - The deck needed acceleration as this was the most readily available and easiest to incorporate without wasting deckspace. Makes for nice fast openings and allows more consistent early Chalices, which we all know to be just that powerful.
Creatures:
Mother of Runes - Used to be Glittering Lynx, but Lynx was low-impact on offense and the deck tends to be on offense a lot thanks to the sweepers and the fact that not all decks use blockers. Mother of Runes, while no better on offense, is much better at supporting offense by trivializing StP and making that turn 2 Morph much safer a play. Also acts as a strong defender should need be and survives Quakes n' stuff.
Silver Knight - 2/2 FS survives all, obvious.
Soltari Priest - 2/1 Shadow survives all, totally, blatantly obvious.
Knight of the Holy Nimbus - Tends to survive sweepers as people like to tap out, has awesome offensive capabilities and takes lots of resources from opponents to kill without StPs (and if they StP this, that's one StP less at Moms and Angels)
Jotun Grunt - The deck was lacking punch, Grunt gives it some punch. A big body, cheap cost and ability to hose graveyard strategies, Grunt has it all. Oh, and the deck, while not amazing, still has decent support capabilities for it.
Exalted Angel - Morph-Swing-Win. Should probably be a 4-of, but due to curve reasons, the 4th got cut for now. Prolly going back instead of the thus far lackluster MD Lightning Helix
Stuff:
Chalice - Removing half of opponent's spells/mana sources is fun.
Rolling/Earthquake - Sweeping opponent's board while yours is immune is fun. So is burning face. And since they're scaleable, they actually take out Threshold's or Faerie Stompy's threats too while still killing EtW tokens and Goblins and burning face in control MUs.
Disenchant - Turns out the format still has lots of important artifacts and enchantments. Who saw that coming?
Lightning Helix - Just another lifegain removal-spell to offset all the self-inflicted pain and put one ahead in liferace. I dunno if it's good enough though, most creatures seem out of the range which is annoying.
Umezawa's Jitte - Creatures+Jitte=best combo aggro-decks can play. Makes 'em threats against control alone. Let's you rape other aggro. Makes combo-deck's 'going off' a pain as they need at least a couple of extra points. I don't need to tell you this, you know all that stuff.
SB:
Glowrider/Pyrostatic Pillar - Anti-combo and decks-that-play-lots-of-cards. I won a game vs. Burn with Pyrostatic Pillar. True story. Glowrider was involved too.
Disenchant - When 2 isn't enough. Should prolly be 2 more and maybe few Seals or Needles, but meh.
Lightning Helix - I guess it pretends to be an additional anti-aggro slot, but there're really no aggro-decks you'd want to bring it in against over your MD slots. Meh, at least it gains life. Good against Burn I guess, so it prolly shouldn't be here.
Jotun Crypt - The deck still has graveyard-using decks. Once you pick up your jaws, I'll tell you that I'm not kidding.
Anyway, I'll have to say that I haven't playtested the deck that much since I haven't really played much Magic as of late, but the few games I've played it's performed admirably (except once in a random Magic-League tournament against Cephalid Life where I failed to see any of the anti-combo cards in the course of the entire match). Anyway, the manabase might be a bit weak, but it still contains 18 white sources and 21 lands total. I guess I should drop Lightning Helixes for another Angel and one more land. Oh well.
Anyway, Threshold seems to be pretty easy with all the threats this deck poses along with the MD Grunts (not necessary, but handy, an additional threat). Basically, they don't want Chalice, Angel, Grunt, Jitte or sweepers resolving so you can pretty much toss them around as you like. Disenchant can come in handy if you have it in hand when they go for Counterbalance, but otherwise it's a bit weak. Obviously red builds are the easiest and white builds are the hardest.
Any random aggro like Zoo seems to work pretty well too with all the anti-aggro cards MD and the mana to use 'em. Goblins should follow the suite but since I haven't done systematic testing, I haven't played the MU enough to know. The additional lands would certainly help there though. Anyway, sweepers are nice.
Combo, Empty the Warrens-combo can't use their namesake which helps a lot but still isn't enough if they know you've got sweepers. have a strong hand and you don't have any hate handy. Chalice gives you better chances than an average aggro-deck, but it doesn't magically make all combo roll over and die (I wish). Disenchant can occasionally be useful for killing LEDs at unopportune moments too, and lifegain can save you in tight spots. The MU isn't a rout, but you aren't dead in water either. Don't have hard numbers so I just do strategic analysis.
Against control-decks, quakes are a bit weak but they're still burn and chalices, disenchants and jittes along with Angels and Grunts tend to be all-stars. Many a game is won with quakes once the opponent is low enough and you've topdecked few lands. Also works nicely against win conditions like Decree of Justice or Exalted Angel (Rolling).
Midrange probably might be a bit problematic, but you have midrange tools too, so you should be alright as long as nothing like Survival stays in play for too long. One of the prime reasons I'd want more Disenchants around, although sweepers are great against their mana sources. The deck might want Armageddons or Wastelands somewhere. Dunno, both sound useful.
Stompy-decks are probably the worst, they don't mind Chalice at 1 (can't play Chalice at 2 here) and they tend to be just faster. I'd hate to play Faerie or Angel Stompy because 'lots of fat fast' is just the recipe for disaster here and Disenchants only help so much. The sweepers are all but useless with the speed and the size of the creatures in those MUs.
Anyhow, that's it, I'm kinda happy with where the deck is now although there's obviously room both ways. It's a very succesful Chalice-deck which is what I'm happy about and it has the tools to wreck in the present meta with the sweepers, which is always nice. Empty the Warrens was really a godsent for the deck (you don't hear that often), making combo-decks much more consistent, but at the same time worse against this one.