Galroth
07-03-2007, 11:30 PM
Like I do from time to time, I was toying with ideas to make the archtype Discard a competitive deck. Here goes nothing...
Traditionally Discard has the following problems:
1) It has difficulty dealing with permanents hitting the board.
2) It can be slow to the kill.
3) It draws into too many dead cards late game.
Some of these problems can be addressed, but the effect is essentially relegating Discard to mere disruption while the body of the deck is ported to usually something more aggressive (i.e. RedDeath, Deadguy Ale, and Suicide Black).
**For the purpose of this brainstorming session, I'd like to keep discussion aimed at maintaining Discard as the core of the deck. Please don't offer advice which would simply port Discard to one of these other various decks.
I was considering how to shore up these problems.
Concerning 1) - Black has many answers to creatures, however these answers are quite narrow in that they are generally poor against combo or control strategies. Almost more importantly, Discard is horrible at dealing with artifacts of enchantments beyond splashing another color or incorporating EE.
Concerning 2) - Future Sight has offered Tombstalker to shore up this weakness; even more recently Seiger noticed Avatar of Will, which could be interesting for a blue splash. These cards help address the poor tempo of Discard. Multiple rack effects make for a fairly quick kill, but since black lost its good tutors these are hard to get online. A blue splash with Trinket Mage helps this notably. The inclusion of Negator or Shade has been offered many times, but again I'd like to stray from turning Discard into a deck reliant on creature combat. The reasoning behind this is simple; unless you run the full suicide suite of black's creatures then you will not be playing the beatdown and black's good creatures really aren't fit for control/defense.
Concerning 3) - The cost of running efficient Discard early on is that late game, once their hand is empty, these cards are essentially dead. Sensei's Divining Top helps prevent drawing into dead cards. Other than this I found no efficient method of ensuring excellent draws. Blue's cantrips could be used to address this issue possibly.
Alright... now for the idea I'd like feedback on. I thought about combining Discard with Burn.
Burn addresses all of these shortcoming to an extent. Burn effectively deals with creatures which hit the board, while also never being dead against combo or control. Red also offers sideboard options against Artifacts, one of which, Chalice of the Void is Discard's absolute nightmare. The increase in damage spells should increase Discard's clock. Also Burn provides a few tools to help Discard's poor draws.
Burn is too slow to deal with dedicated Combo, but with the addition of Discard this may not be an issue. I'm not as familiar with Burn as many. If there are other shortcomings that Discard helps, let me know.
Theoretically it seemed like something worth exploring. A question to everyone: by combining the two, do you think they will supplement each others strategies? or will they dilute the strategy of both Discard and of Burn making a deck incorporating both good at neither?
--
Now a selection of cards I was considering testing.
4x Duress
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x The Rack
Your basic discard suite with kill condition.
4x Dark Confidant
3x Tombstalker
Confidant is burn is hot. In Discard I've always found Confidant a questionable inclusion, but if you're going to add burn, then he definitely hold a place. Tombstalker is just as good with the addition of burn as in straight Discard. He's a clock that wants alot of early spells case - no brainer.
2x Sensei's Divinig Top
7x-8x Fetchlands
Addresses the issue of running into dead draws. I only included 2 SDT's because I won't be using it 'til mid/late game and I don't doubles early on, much less 1 in my opening hand.
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Magma Jet
Lightning Bolt is too good to pass up. Magma Jet has scry and helps address the issue of dead draws. It pairs really with SDT and isn't so bad with Confidant. The casting cost is generally the complaint, but I'm fairly certain your turn 1 and 2 will be used for Discard spells before switching to burn for board control / damage to the head. Magma Jet fits this purpose well.
!?
2x Firestorm
2x Cursed Scroll
Well, Cursed Scroll lets you maintain constant burn. It was considered too slow for traditional burn, but if you're not racing them to turn 4... (cause now you can't race combo) then maybe this isn't a bad idea... if you're low on cards. On the other hand, if you've a full hand, maybe a Firestorm :) Alright, honestly this card probably has no place, but it was an interesting idea to turn a full hand of dead cards into a creature sweeper or some massive damage to the head. It has potential while addressing two of the earlier problems I spoke of.
What other cards might be useful?
Thoughts? This is brainstorming, share whatever...
**God Firestorm is cool and needs to be broken... Enchantress anyone?
Traditionally Discard has the following problems:
1) It has difficulty dealing with permanents hitting the board.
2) It can be slow to the kill.
3) It draws into too many dead cards late game.
Some of these problems can be addressed, but the effect is essentially relegating Discard to mere disruption while the body of the deck is ported to usually something more aggressive (i.e. RedDeath, Deadguy Ale, and Suicide Black).
**For the purpose of this brainstorming session, I'd like to keep discussion aimed at maintaining Discard as the core of the deck. Please don't offer advice which would simply port Discard to one of these other various decks.
I was considering how to shore up these problems.
Concerning 1) - Black has many answers to creatures, however these answers are quite narrow in that they are generally poor against combo or control strategies. Almost more importantly, Discard is horrible at dealing with artifacts of enchantments beyond splashing another color or incorporating EE.
Concerning 2) - Future Sight has offered Tombstalker to shore up this weakness; even more recently Seiger noticed Avatar of Will, which could be interesting for a blue splash. These cards help address the poor tempo of Discard. Multiple rack effects make for a fairly quick kill, but since black lost its good tutors these are hard to get online. A blue splash with Trinket Mage helps this notably. The inclusion of Negator or Shade has been offered many times, but again I'd like to stray from turning Discard into a deck reliant on creature combat. The reasoning behind this is simple; unless you run the full suicide suite of black's creatures then you will not be playing the beatdown and black's good creatures really aren't fit for control/defense.
Concerning 3) - The cost of running efficient Discard early on is that late game, once their hand is empty, these cards are essentially dead. Sensei's Divining Top helps prevent drawing into dead cards. Other than this I found no efficient method of ensuring excellent draws. Blue's cantrips could be used to address this issue possibly.
Alright... now for the idea I'd like feedback on. I thought about combining Discard with Burn.
Burn addresses all of these shortcoming to an extent. Burn effectively deals with creatures which hit the board, while also never being dead against combo or control. Red also offers sideboard options against Artifacts, one of which, Chalice of the Void is Discard's absolute nightmare. The increase in damage spells should increase Discard's clock. Also Burn provides a few tools to help Discard's poor draws.
Burn is too slow to deal with dedicated Combo, but with the addition of Discard this may not be an issue. I'm not as familiar with Burn as many. If there are other shortcomings that Discard helps, let me know.
Theoretically it seemed like something worth exploring. A question to everyone: by combining the two, do you think they will supplement each others strategies? or will they dilute the strategy of both Discard and of Burn making a deck incorporating both good at neither?
--
Now a selection of cards I was considering testing.
4x Duress
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x The Rack
Your basic discard suite with kill condition.
4x Dark Confidant
3x Tombstalker
Confidant is burn is hot. In Discard I've always found Confidant a questionable inclusion, but if you're going to add burn, then he definitely hold a place. Tombstalker is just as good with the addition of burn as in straight Discard. He's a clock that wants alot of early spells case - no brainer.
2x Sensei's Divinig Top
7x-8x Fetchlands
Addresses the issue of running into dead draws. I only included 2 SDT's because I won't be using it 'til mid/late game and I don't doubles early on, much less 1 in my opening hand.
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Magma Jet
Lightning Bolt is too good to pass up. Magma Jet has scry and helps address the issue of dead draws. It pairs really with SDT and isn't so bad with Confidant. The casting cost is generally the complaint, but I'm fairly certain your turn 1 and 2 will be used for Discard spells before switching to burn for board control / damage to the head. Magma Jet fits this purpose well.
!?
2x Firestorm
2x Cursed Scroll
Well, Cursed Scroll lets you maintain constant burn. It was considered too slow for traditional burn, but if you're not racing them to turn 4... (cause now you can't race combo) then maybe this isn't a bad idea... if you're low on cards. On the other hand, if you've a full hand, maybe a Firestorm :) Alright, honestly this card probably has no place, but it was an interesting idea to turn a full hand of dead cards into a creature sweeper or some massive damage to the head. It has potential while addressing two of the earlier problems I spoke of.
What other cards might be useful?
Thoughts? This is brainstorming, share whatever...
**God Firestorm is cool and needs to be broken... Enchantress anyone?