[Deck] Death and Taxes

[redtwister]

@iatee and medea_
That is a really good point re: removal changing. In fact, except for us and Stoneblade decks, who is going to be running a lot of white spells in general?

The dominant multi-color schemes seem to be Grixis, BUG, and 4C aka BUGR. Esper, unless it is Deathblade, doesn't seem like it will be a thing. UW is just a bad color combo in the format. Eldrazi seems to have largely gone back to Mono-Colorless, though W Eldrazi could see some revival I suppose. That means removal tilts hard towards Fatal Push and Lightning Bolt.

I would crack up if we end back up in a format where we need to sideboard Wilt-Leaf Liege for hand destruction. That isn't impossible.

[Medea_]

I'm curious as the opinions about Caverns now. With Miracles being one of the biggest reasons to play them and splashing black or red likely on the horizon are people going to be cutting them.

I am planning on picking up 2 plateaus and tossing in some white fetches for Magus of the Moons and maybe test Harsh Mentor ( not as hopeful since I thought it would be really good against top ) Additionally, I'll probably being on one of the pingers as opposed to sudden demise but that's me.

I've always thought Cavern would be borderline unplayble without Miracles around.

[iatee]

I have found Caverning out Magus of the Moon to be 'pretty good' even against non-Miracles decks. I probably wouldn't play it now in mono-W.

[Marungo]

I don't get how a land that makes your important spells uncounterable as a one-of is bad at all. Especially with many people suggesting "combo summer" I think we're likely to see a spike in counterspells from blue decks to combat this. I never thought of cavern as a miracles-or-bust land, I just thought of it as a great utility land against all blue decks.

[colo]

For the longest time, I've been playing both Orzhov Pontiff and Magus of the Moon in an otherwise mono-W list, powered by 4 Vials and 3 Caverns. I remember exactly two games where I lost due to an uncastable creature stuck in my hand, yet a lot of victories powered by either of the two. Even with Counterbalance out of the picture, I don't think Cavern is to be simply tossed aside. The colour fixing it provides for creature spells - of which we do play a few - is not to be underestimated. The peace of mind it provides when playing opponents with stack interaction is also something I really like.

[heyoka]

i can agree on colo's post.. same experience for me , it "seems "slightly greedy, manawise.. but the upside is just too big ( even a one of copy of avenger was still very consitantly castable )

[geneyquakes]

Random thought:

Should we just be playing more Ghost Quarters? Obviously its is too early to tell exactly that we will be facing, but I think it is pretty safe to assume that there will be significantly less basic lands running around. Miracles with its 6 or 7 basics is no longer a concern, and that plays more basics than almost anything. Other decks will range from 0 to 2. Against any Delver decks, 6 Strip Mines starts looking obnoxious. Against midrange decks, once they see a Port of a Vial they will aggressively start fetching for their basics. Elves will also generally start on Forest-Forest, which turns GQs into Strip Mines as early as turn two. If we expect Lands to pop up more, extra tools against Chasm, Maze, Tablernacle and friends are strong.

If you are splashing, then this might just be far too rough on the mana base, but something like 9 Plains, 3 Karakas, 1 Cavern, 2 Ghost Quarter, 4 Port, 4 Wasteland could be fine in mono-white. It is a little heavy on colorless but the power boost could be worth it. It also makes things like Warping Wail and Eldrazi Displacer pretty easy to support if they are things that end up being good (I'm skeptical but it is not out of the realm of possibility)

This will clearly depend on what the mana-bases look like on the other side of the table, but I think this is something to keep in mind.

[Matys007]

Yesterday I have tested against 4c Aggro Loam with Blood and Taxes:

4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares

1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull

4 Mother of Runes
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Flickerwisp
3 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Harsh Mentor
2 Mirran Crusader
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Sanctum Prelate

4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
2 Plateau
2 Cavern of Souls
3 Karakas
3 Plains
1 Arid Mesa
1 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
2 Windswept Hearth

I must said that early Harsh Mentor was really good. Opponent feels like playing modern: fetch for 3 life + pain for using KotR, Maze of Ith and other stuff. Even in late game when life total is low opponent couldn't use Life from the Loam in proper way.

In my opinion Cavern is good even without Miracles in the metagame. Sometimes resolved Thalia, Magus or even Mom can win game on it own against many decks (for example Delver or some BUG builds).

[Medea_]

We are living in a time where greed may be rewarded. I really encourage you to try new things and report in after testing.

[Warden]

Random thought:

Should we just be playing more Ghost Quarters? Obviously its is too early to tell exactly that we will be facing, but I think it is pretty safe to assume that there will be significantly less basic lands running around. Miracles with its 6 or 7 basics is no longer a concern, and that plays more basics than almost anything. Other decks will range from 0 to 2. Against any Delver decks, 6 Strip Mines starts looking obnoxious. Against midrange decks, once they see a Port of a Vial they will aggressively start fetching for their basics. Elves will also generally start on Forest-Forest, which turns GQs into Strip Mines as early as turn two. If we expect Lands to pop up more, extra tools against Chasm, Maze, Tablernacle and friends are strong.

If you are splashing, then this might just be far too rough on the mana base, but something like 9 Plains, 3 Karakas, 1 Cavern, 2 Ghost Quarter, 4 Port, 4 Wasteland could be fine in mono-white. It is a little heavy on colorless but the power boost could be worth it. It also makes things like Warping Wail and Eldrazi Displacer pretty easy to support if they are things that end up being good (I'm skeptical but it is not out of the realm of possibility)

This will clearly depend on what the mana-bases look like on the other side of the table, but I think this is something to keep in mind.

You're not alone. A majority of the "top decks" right now run off incredibly greedy manabases. The larger issue is figuring out the ratio of plains:utility lands. Wasteland is certainly a keeper IMO. Karakas is also a necessity. But then you need to determine the hierarchy of Port, GQ, Cavern, Canopy. I wouldn't rule out GQ usurping Port's role in the deck (blowing up ever-present non basics > tapping down the opponent). Harsh Mentor probably factors into this equation (your own or if opponents run them in bulk) but it's too early to call anything.

[iatee]

GQ does seem very good right now, and we lost the deck that Port was best against. It's possible that all the Tundra bros will give us new Port targets if they're playing Stoneblade variants, but it's also possible that GQ will just be a generally better card than Port for a while. A Path to Exile main would also seem viable for similar reasons.

Another thing I'm considering is a Cunning Sparkmage main. Similar to Sanctum Prelate, it has matchups where it's useless, and matchups where it's unbeatable. Obviously it's fantastic vs Elves, but it's also good vs Grixis Delver, which might be the best Delver deck. Also obviously great in the mirror, Infect, Aluren, a few other places. Sure, vs combo it is more or less a dead card, but so is Umezawa's Jitte, etc. Could also see maybe thinking about a Basilisk Collar somewhere with this plan. Collar is good vs fast decks, Eldrazi, burn, Gurmag Angler, doesn't require a huge mana investment (which is especially important now) and sometimes you'd just get the Sparkmage+Collar combo online to just demolish a fair matchup. I think equipment will be generally better because there will be fewer Pithing Needles, Abrupt Decays and Null Rods around.

The main I'm thinking about would have 1 Spirit, 1 Ethersworn, 1 Sparkmage, 2 Revoker, 4 SfM, X tutors, at least one Crusader, plus Maguses - even with all this crap you're still not favored vs Elves, which is sad. But it might be approaching like, 45% g1.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

If you play GQ, I think Mindcensor is pretty much an auto-include? Makes Path out of the board a little better also.

Which is better, Cunning Sparkmage or Orzhov Pontiff?

In the black splash there is the option of Tymna the Weaver as a CA engine. Legendary, so Karakas tricks, lifelink seems pretty great also. Slap a sword on it and get in.

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[H]

Personally, I'd hesitate to move right to GQ over Port. I honestly feel like Port is probably the second best card in D&T, behind Vial, and the fact that we can and do run it is a key to our success. The issue with GQ is that sometimes it doesn't really do anything but lose you a land drop and cut them off one color. Port plus Thalia can often steal a variance game and the number of games I have won due to simply drawing say, two Ports and a Wasteland is nothing to scoff at.

Now, in some cases GQ might be as good as Port, but one key to not overlook is the ability to mode-switch with Port. At a certain point, you might need to equip and if you GQed you won't have as much mana as you do with Port.

I think there are still plenty of decks playing many things at sorcery speed where Port is still fantastic. In fact, just the other day I was lamenting there not being more decks for me to run Port in.

Just my two cents.

[Medea_]

Finally had a few minutes to write up my thoughts (http://www.thrabenuniversity.com/?p=973). I echoed many of the things we've been discussing here to pass them on to a more generic audience.

@Secretly.A.Bee
I think Pontiff has more potential for abuse between blinking and the haunt thing. If I were going to pick one splash color, it would be red though. I want an "I win button" in Magus for the unknown metagame.

[vtml1984]

I just had a thought. DRS is going to be everywhere; why not in Death and Taxes? If we go with a black splash for Orzhov Pontiff, we get the black sources for DRS and fuel for our DRS. The only issue here is then we need to run a one of Savannah for the other activation. I think we could go 1 Savannah, 3 Scrub land, 6 fetches, 2 Plains. That would give use 10 sources, plus Vial, for DRS. I know this is most likely insane, but I was thinking if we can't beat them join them. It would also allow use to power out a turn 2 THC.

Is it just complete bat-shit crazy or only mildly crazy?

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I think mom and vial are both better as 1-drops, and then it makes it worse to revoked it, and you now open yourself up to Harsh Mentor more than you did before. You will only get value out of your opponents graveyard for instants and sorceries, and that can leave him a wasted slot. I thought about an isamaru, but other than something similar, I don't think it's a good fit.

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[Medea_]

I just had a thought. DRS is going to be everywhere; why not in Death and Taxes? If we go with a black splash for Orzhov Pontiff, we get the black sources for DRS and fuel for our DRS. The only issue here is then we need to run a one of Savannah for the other activation. I think we could go 1 Savannah, 3 Scrub land, 6 fetches, 2 Plains. That would give use 10 sources, plus Vial, for DRS. I know this is most likely insane, but I was thinking if we can't beat them join them. It would also allow use to power out a turn 2 THC.

Is it just complete bat-shit crazy or only mildly crazy?

I've experimented pretty extensively with Noble Hierarch in the past, and it didn't end up working out too well for me. The mana was a little shakey at times, and it just felt a little worse than Maverick.

[vtml1984]

I've experimented pretty extensively with Noble Hierarch in the past, and it didn't end up working out too well for me. The mana was a little shakey at times, and it just felt a little worse than Maverick.

That makes sense, as well as the comment before about our lack of fuel. I wonder if Maverick is the new Death and Taxes post Miracles?

Unrelated note: I find it funny that I just sold out of Miracles a couple of months ago to buy Death and Taxes (mostly because I wasn't enjoying Miracles, but a bit of concern about a possible Ban).

[iatee]

I don't think Maverick gains very much from Miracles being gone because Maverick was not a strong deck regardless of Miracles. Not a good deck for a fast combo meta, only an okay deck for a super fair meta.


I just had a thought. DRS is going to be everywhere; why not in Death and Taxes? If we go with a black splash for Orzhov Pontiff, we get the black sources for DRS and fuel for our DRS. The only issue here is then we need to run a one of Savannah for the other activation. I think we could go 1 Savannah, 3 Scrub land, 6 fetches, 2 Plains. That would give use 10 sources, plus Vial, for DRS. I know this is most likely insane, but I was thinking if we can't beat them join them. It would also allow use to power out a turn 2 THC.

Is it just complete bat-shit crazy or only mildly crazy?

Not enough fetchlands to feed DRS. I think you could probably build a Junk Vial deck, but it would look very different from DnT.

[Tylert]

That makes sense, as well as the comment before about our lack of fuel. I wonder if Maverick is the new Death and Taxes post Miracles?

Unrelated note: I find it funny that I just sold out of Miracles a couple of months ago to buy Death and Taxes (mostly because I wasn't enjoying Miracles, but a bit of concern about a possible Ban).

I see that you are not a true spike :)

[Finn]

I've experimented pretty extensively with Noble Hierarch in the past, and it didn't end up working out too well for me. The mana was a little shakey at times, and it just felt a little worse than Maverick.

Freakin' Noble Hierarch. I fooled around with this card in D+T when it was hot. It felt powerful as hell in a deck that also featured Aether Vial. My biggest complaint was that it pulled me toward wanting my manabase to better support it because it is a 1-drop you want on turn 1. But as a splash color, that was not going to happen. That is one of many things that make Deathrite so annoyingly good. You can effortlessly run it with Brainstorm or without because in your three color deck, either of the splash colors can bring him out. This just is not going to happen with us, so I doubt that any of those green mana creatures will do the job. Also, its ability does not stak with Aether Vial, so there are times when that hurts.

[vtml1984]

I see that you are not a true spike :)

That may be true, but I thought I would have better success with a deck I enjoyed. However, I will freely admit, but I need to enjoy the deck I spend so much money on and spend so much time thinking about and playing.

[vtml1984]

I don't think Maverick gains very much from Miracles being gone because Maverick was not a strong deck regardless of Miracles. Not a good deck for a fast combo meta, only an okay deck for a super fair meta.



Not enough fetchlands to feed DRS. I think you could probably build a Junk Vial deck, but it would look very different from DnT.

Yeah, I think DRS is on the bat-shit crazy side of ideas. I don't have duals yet to support either the red or the black splash. Which direction should I head in as I will need to buy the dual lands.

[Medea_]

To echo Finn, the card was very good, but it wasn't supportable without really mucking with the mana base. Accelerating out threats and hate was great, as was connecting with equipment early. Hierarch is also better as a card with Terminus gone.

[OopsMissedTrigger]

I am so conflicted between the three options going forward: Red splash, Black splash or Mono-White.

My local meta consists of lots of BUG, combo and DNT players. I can see pros and cons of all three options but I am leaning towards a splash. I sort of want both colors. Is 2 Badlands with 3 Caverns too sketchy of a manabase? :wink: I am also playing around with Electrickery (I like the instant speed over Sudden Demise) in my testing and its been pretty rewarding so far.

Hoping MKM Frankfurt will give a bit of insight.

[Warden]

@Finn: Totally agree with you about DRS. He has little drawback in most lists that run him. But I think he's staying in the format as a staple (see: waste, brainstorm, fetchlands, STP, etc). I'd be extremely surprised if they removed him from Legacy.

@Madea_: Great column! You really have a gift with writing because your words are SO engaging and refreshing to read.
For the sample RW taxes list, I don't understand the logic behind pingers (with or without factoring in the upcoming Harsh Mentor). If we're about to face more shroud (mongoose)/pseudo shroud (TNN)/consequences for targeting (Leovold), why would we want pingers?

As for BW taxes, where do you stand on Dark Confidant? Did he gain? Did he move laterally? Is he more or less irrelevant? I think black offers DnT what it needs: sweepers for unfavorable matchups. Zealous Persecution and Orzhov Pontif are big. We should also give Perish a consideration. It indiscriminately kills DRS, elves and anything green from delver. I expect Virtue's Ruin or Massacre may make a comeback in sideboards should DnT explode in popularity.

[Medea_]

@oopsmissedtrigger
I think it's Colo that plays both. He plays a three cavern build and splashes one or two of each. I don't think something like a Badlands is going to be playable; even the mono-white version is hurting on white sources.

@Warden
The pingers make Elves feel much better. If you have a hate bear and a pinger, you can likely hold the fort down. If Empty the Warrens becomes a thing (which the MTGO results from today support), Goblin Sharpshooter is a tutorable answer to that problem if you can make it that far without being dead.

Confidant is still fine. I like splash for as few cards as possible though. It makes it so that I can play a mono-white game 90% of the time, fetching the off-color land only when necessary.

Edit: MTGO results (http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/competitive-legacy-constructed-league-2017-04-26)

[Barook]

Hierarch is also better as a card with Terminus gone.
Agreed. It might deserve to get another look due to Renegade Rallier who works very well with a Wasteland/GQ strategy and does impact the board immediately, unlike KotR.

[Medea_]

Agreed. It might deserve to get another look due to Renegade Rallier who works very well with a Wasteland/GQ strategy and does impact the board immediately, unlike KotR.

So I've had my eye on this deck for quite some time. Version 1. (http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=14993&d=290668&f=LE) Version 2. (http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=14973&d=290552&f=LE)

I don't think that this can carry right into the next format, but I really like the interactions here.

[geneyquakes]

So I've had my eye on this deck for quite some time. Version 1. (http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=14993&d=290668&f=LE) Version 2. (http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=14973&d=290552&f=LE)

I don't think that this can carry right into the next format, but I really like the interactions here.

Four may be too many and I dont know what they replace, but I could see this deck using a few Eldrazi Temples to give it access to those Modern Bant Eldrazi style turn two Thought-Knot Seers. I think Cavern of Souls is worth thinking about as a Human/Eldrazi dual land. The fact that the the main mana dork is a human makes this pretty appealing, but its possible that Brushland is just better.

I also question the lack of Green Sun's Zenith if you are going to run singleton Pridemage, Ooze, and Gaddock Teeg. You might not need 4, but I could see trimming Jailer and the second Library to fit a few in. I understand not playing multiples of these (although Pridemage is a powerhouse with Rallier in the right matchups), but being able to tutor for them in certain matchups seems very good. I also like a value Dryad Arbor with rallier and green fetches.

Like you said, there is plenty of tinkering that can be done but the interactions there do look very strong.

[DisgruntledElk]

Alright gents, I have a few versions of the deck on MODO and I have jammed a bunch of different leagues since the new era of legacy.

I miss miracles.

Now that that is out of the way, let me tell you why.

I tried at first to tweak the Mono White version of the deck and simply got crushed. Between lands (yes, winnable, but a grind), Czech Pile (feels poor), and the piles of True Name decks and Elves!, I am somewhat convinced that Mono White is dead (I have a Cat Tax build with 4 arbiter 4 wingmare, but have yet to test it).

As such, I have always been a fan of the RW (I was on imperial back when we didn't have the Recruiter of the Guard), and after tweaking it to the current meta (some more work is still required), this is what I have come up with (multiple 4-1s, generally 3-2 or 4-1. I have been so close to multiple 5-0s even with the rampage of Elves!)

Red Dead Taxes:
26 Creatures:
4 Mom
4 Thalia
4 SFM
2 Revoker
2 Spirit of the Labyrinth
3 Flickerwisp
2 Recruiter of the Guard
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Sanctum Prelate
3 Magus of the Moon

Spells:11
4 Vial
4 STP
1 Jitte
1 SoFI
1 Batterskull

Land: 23
2 Cavern of Souls
3 Plains
2 Plateau
4 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
3 Karakas
4 Wasteland
4 Port

SB: 15
1 Path
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Sudden Demise
1 Canonist
1 Containment Priest
1 RIP
1 Manriki-Gusari
1 Council's Judgment
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar

Overall the deck feels really solid, and we can actually beat elves (which is surprising to say the least). It is possible that the deck should just get rid of the caverns and run an additional fetch and an additional plateau, which would bring us up to 9 red sources. As it stands, I feel you have to hope to get lucky in the Elves! matchup anyway. I could also see trimming 1 Sudden Demise for a Cunning Sparkmage though, as I love that card. That being said, Sudden Demise is a beating in the Elves, Czech Pile, and any sort of grindy matchup with smaller creatures like food chain. I feel either manriki or manic vandal is pretty key in the current meta as well, as it is very difficult to beat a TNN stoneforge deck otherwise.

As for Magus...

Well, this card has always been good, but I don't think it has ever been better. Being able to take out Czech Pile, Lands, and any Delver deck is just huge right now and I fully endorse the red splash. Spirit of the Lab is also quite nuts as it trades with Leovold and shuts off his triggers, allowing our mana denial plan to stay online.

Anyway, let me know what y'all think!

[Matys007]

In my opinion we have to wait, and try to adapt decklist to metagame after 2-3 big tournaments. For that moment I think that we should play a version which can beat decks which get some benefits from banning SDT. In my opinion Wr list is the way to go for that moment.
It is so much better than mono W against elves. Even Magus of the Moon is good, because it lock 2nd Gaea's Cradle. As we know Elves often combo with adding mana from Cradle, then playing second and sac the first.
Cunning Sparkmage is really good. Nice cards against Infect which is hard MU for DnT in my expereience (but it depends how good is Infect player).
I was never a fan of Spirit of the Labyrinth. It is really 0/1 point card, OP when vialing it in response to Brainstorm, but it dies to every removal and opponent can easy play around it.
Also in my opinion 2 Mirran Crusader in maindeck is good option. This is our TNN in many matchups.

[Medea_]

@disgruntledelk

I think I'd probably opt for Cavern and Sparkmage OR no Caverns and Sudden Demise. Otherwise what you've got there looks good. If you collect any data about your wins/loses or what you play with the RW build, I'd love to have it.

[iatee]

I was never a fan of Spirit of the Labyrinth. It is really 0/1 point card, OP when vialing it in response to Brainstorm, but it dies to every removal and opponent can easy play around it.

It's one of the few hatebears that actually does a lot against Elves and increases the # of relevant turn 2 plays you have vs Storm. I sideboard it out a lot, and obviously it's terrible vs fair decks, but I think the meta is right.

[iatee]

Disgruntled, the list looks good to me. I agree that Manriki is actually better than it was before, I don't love that card, has always felt clunky and niche...but if all white decks are now SfM decks then it's a pretty reasonable sb slot for 'basically all white decks'.

[Cringe]

Just getting into D&T and man do I have to say that the deck just feels good when coming from a tier 2 deck. I went down to 1 revoker and threw in 2 canonist. I test regularly agains BUG, elves, Girxis Delver and Dark Depths. The canonist feels great against elves and I'm assuming a handful of other decks. The red splash has my attention. Magus was awesome in goblin prison so I'll be picking up 4 of them. Blazing Volley is for sure a great card against elves, but I'm not sure about 1 damage acrossed the board against other decks. It kills off most things but t then leave DRS True-name and some other elves that are 2/2. I think a one of in the side would be good for elves. Lastly, is mono white dead now? I feel like it wouldn't be just because in my experience so far, I can race a true name with mom on the board
And flickerwisp. Let me know what everyone thinks. I'm wanting to try to splash different colors and see where that takes me

[Medea_]

@Matys007

I've argued against SotL on many occasions. I hate that it grows Goyf by two when it hits the yard, I hate that it has one toughness, and I hate that it's another body that doesn't handle combat well. Yet, Iatee is right that it's probably a good choice at the moment.

I like Manriki better in lists with Serra Avenger, but we might get to the point where we need it regardless.

[Ayiluss]

Admittedly I have never been a fan of red or any other splash in D+T since I prefer stable mana base that mono white version provides. However after reading this threat and the one at MTG Salvation after Top ban I'm more and more inclined to go for it or at least give it a try. Magus looks really appealing in the upcoming metagame as we can expect a lot of mana greedy decks and having some free wins here and there is never bad. I remember my friend went 6-0 at the local store once playing Painter just due to the power of Blood Moon. Another thing is that (I'm not expert but this is how most people are saying) red gives us better game against Elves). If we can make it reasonable at least then it's worth imo given the fact how bad the matchup otherwise is.

Lastly many people are speculating that mono white D+T will be in bad spot or worse positioned at least in the new metagame. Do you think regarding what I wrote above RW D+T will be decent though (I know Elves is still a bad matchup) or good enough to give it a try over the white version?

[vtml1984]

Looking at the Meta data again today it appears that Storm, Elves, Show and Tell, and Delver are the decks to beat.

Which splash gives us the best tools for that meta?

I am not sure Blood Moon is great here, but I am still new to the deck. And my previous posts illustrate I am not expert with the deck.

[gh0st_b1rd]

As a person who has effectively been on Red since Conspiracy 2 came out I will just say that with 5 fetchlands, 2 duals and 3 Basic Plains your mana base is still rock solid if you're playing against non-Stifle decks. I realized I woulf lose nothing from playing the splash when I was obscenely being back to back Wastelanded by BUG Delver during a game I was in with Monowhite.

And the honest truth with RW Taxes for me so far has been that games I lost has been due to flooding which I would have lost with Monowhite anyway. If you prioritize fetching out basic Plains early you will effectively be playing Monowhite anyway. Even when I start with Pia and Kiran in my opening hand I still fetch out Basic Plains. Also you will also get used to sequencing your lands after some games with the splash. It is always a good idea to delay playing and cracking your fetchlands if possible. Besides, your opponent will be more apt to Wasteland your Karakas and Ports early rather than your dual lands anyway because those cards put so much more implied pressure on your opponent.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Is it worth it to go 1/1 split on the Recruiters? Just curious because I'm finding that I REALLY want an effect like Kor Skyfisher. Protecting a Sword/Jitte or to make them waste Jitte counters and removal, non-legendary bounce, non-Karakas bounce (PKN/Flickerwisp). Delver blocks for 1W seems super also.

As far as the red splash goes, can't you get your double red easily off magus?

Edit: I'm debating dropping a Cavern for a Plateau, putting my list to a 2/2 split. The second non-creature red source dedication opened up the idea of 2x Lightning Bolt in the sideboard. It was posted a page or 2 back, and I dismissed it fairly quickly. Now, I'm unsure, since I dislike using Blood Moon effects while giving them basics. It also gives reach. My problem is that it's possibly a dead card due to mana, and it's not board pressure. Anyone have arguments/actual experience with this situation?

[DarthVicious]

Just curious because I'm finding that I REALLY want an effect like Kor Skyfisher.

Stonecloaker is an option, however it doesn't bounce noncreatures in exchange for other additional utility on top of those Delver blocks, saving creatures from removal, saving Mangara from himself, etc.

I'm considering some number of Ancient Tomb in my mono :w: list also, though I forget how the testing with that idea went.

[iatee]

I'm debating dropping a Cavern for a Plateau, putting my list to a 2/2 split. The second non-creature red source dedication opened up the idea of 2x Lightning Bolt in the sideboard. It was posted a page or 2 back, and I dismissed it fairly quickly. Now, I'm unsure, since I dislike using Blood Moon effects while giving them basics. It also gives reach. My problem is that it's possibly a dead card due to mana, and it's not board pressure. Anyone have arguments/actual experience with this situation?

I've tried Lightning Bolts before, I think they're not really what you want to be doing. I like Path a lot better if you need to up your removal. Small creature decks are generally Wasteland decks, so you really don't want to have to fetch Plateau t1 to kill a Mom or Delver. One of the few upsides Bolt had was that it could, in theory, kill a Jace, and now there will be fewer theoretical Jaces to theoretically bolt (it never actually happened.)

[LegacyIsAnEternalFormat]

how did the testing with Renegade Rallier go? the day it was spoiled i predicted it would be a great addition to the gw deck, was i right?

[iatee]

It's a splash 3 drop that gives you a Wasteland when there's a splash 3 drop that gives you a Blood Moon.

[Marungo]

I'm definitely sticking with mono white. I hate splashing. That being said, what does everyone think of boarding or dropping Sword of Fire and Ice for another creature? I know it's just a good equipment but it was best vs. Miracles and otherwise was at best the second equipment we tutor up.

[geneyquakes]

I'm definitely sticking with mono white. I hate splashing. That being said, what does everyone think of boarding or dropping Sword of Fire and Ice for another creature? I know it's just a good equipment but it was best vs. Miracles and otherwise was at best the second equipment we tutor up.

I definitely loved Sword against Miracles so it may have dropped off a bit, but it is still the best Sword on raw power level and I like having that option. In particular, if you are sticking with mono-white you will (I am assuming) have more Mirran Crusader and Serra Avenger slots than people who are splashing. These two are very, very good with Swords. An extra option outside of Jitte that is easily castable without Stoneforge is also good to have access to. I am not opposed to keeping other swords in mind, but with less Miracles War and Peace has dropped a lot in value, and the other swords may have relevant protection colors but the abilities are more lower impact.

[Marungo]

I definitely loved Sword against Miracles so it may have dropped off a bit, but it is still the best Sword on raw power level and I like having that option. In particular, if you are sticking with mono-white you will (I am assuming) have more Mirran Crusader and Serra Avenger slots than people who are splashing. These two are very, very good with Swords. An extra option outside of Jitte that is easily castable without Stoneforge is also good to have access to. I am not opposed to keeping other swords in mind, but with less Miracles War and Peace has dropped a lot in value, and the other swords may have relevant protection colors but the abilities are more lower impact.

Oh don't get me wrong it's Fire and Ice or nothing. I actually am struggling to find room for avenger currently but I want to don't get me wrong. Overall I just question the necessity of the sword anymore but we will see more in the coming days

[Medea_]

I don't think SoFaI is cuttable. It's generically good and is important against TNN

I 4-0'd with a list one card off from DisgruntledElk's list from the previous page. Red splash felt great. I beat Burn, Bomberman, Merfolk, and Elves.

[geneyquakes]

4 Wasteland
3 Rishadan Port
3 Ghost Quarter
3 Flooded Strand
2 Windswepth Heath
3 Plains
2 Plateau
3 Karakas

4 Mom
4 Thalia
4 Stoneforge
3 Flickerwisp
2 Revoker
2 Magus of the Moon
2 Mirran Crusader
2 Recruiter of the Guard
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Sanctum Prelate

4 Vial
4 StP
1 Batterskull
1 SoFI
1 Jitte

2 Sudden Demise
2 Council's Judgement
2 Path to Exile
2 Rest in Peace
1 Canonist
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Leonin Relic Warder
1 Cunning Sparkmage
1 Pia and Kiran
1 Containment Priest

So this is what I have been playing around with. I still need to test it out way more but I like a lot of it in theory. I had been playing with Caverns before, but I wanted to add Sudden Demise so I bumped up the natural red count. Seven is still low, but I also wanted to try out Ghost Quarter. The 4-3-3 Waste-Port-GQ split is admittedly very arbitrary and it is really pushing it on the colorless sources. I think less than 4 Wastelands is insanity, and Port is still very important, buy I want to draw GQ early and often enough that I get a feel for how it plays. I played this 75 a bit last night to mixed results. I am going to run it in a few longer events and jam testing games over the weekend to get a better idea.

The deck felt quite good against UWr Mentor, even though Magus was pretty irrelevant. GQ wasn't an extra Waste, but it was able to take them off of Red post board, cutting off some their artifact hate. Spirit of the Labyrinth was very good against their 12 cantrips plus Jace strategy.

I got crushed by elves (surprise!), but they had very resilient turn three kills and my sideboard cards didn't come up or were too slow.

I lost a pretty close 1-2 match in the DnT mirror. Opponent was on mono-white. I got stuck on lands and out-Jitted. Lack of Serra Avenger hurt, as they were faster and bigger in the air, so the Jitte advantage snowballed quickly.

Overall the sideboard and lands were pretty sub-optimal for these specific matches, but I want to try them in a bigger range of matchups to get some better information.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the splash gets worse if Delver lists start running Stifle, right? Like if UR Delver starts seeing a lot of play, it's kinda just back to mono-white, yeah?

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[gh0st_b1rd]

Just practice vs Stifle Delvers. Stifle is a skill testing card for both sides and is something everybody in Legacy has to learn how to deal with.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

It's one of my favorite cards to play, and I've had several times where it plus wasteland won me the game. It's why I worry about it.

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[gh0st_b1rd]

Unless they lead with a DRS it is often hard for them to maintain holding a mana for Stifle. Could always bait Stifles with SFMs and Recruiters. Generally for me, it's always been the other way around.

[colo]

@oopsmissedtrigger
I think it's Colo that plays both. He plays a three cavern build and splashes one or two of each. I don't think something like a Badlands is going to be playable; even the mono-white version is hurting on white sources.


FTR, this is my current list - the Sideboard isn't tweaked to the new/upcoming Metagame at my LGS yet, but I already made some changes to take on what I _think_ will become more prevalent. Most notable change is going all-in on Faerie Macabre over Surgical Extraction, since the splash damage aspect of being able to extract Terminus doesn't seem relevant to me any more. With this exact mainboard list, I'm 11-0-1 in matches (not games) over the last three tournaments I attended at my LGS when playing D&T.


4 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Flickerwisp
3 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Leonin Relic-Warder
4 Recruiter of the Guard
1 Stonecloaker
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Palace Jailer
1 Orzhov Pontiff

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 AEther Vial
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte

9 Plains
3 Karakas
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
3 Cavern of Souls


SB: 2 Rest in Peace
SB: 2 Faerie Macabre
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 Council's Judgment
SB: 1 Containment Priest
SB: 2 Orzhov Pontiff
SB: 2 Sanctum Prelate
SB: 1 Mirran Crusader
SB: 1 Apostle's Blessing

[RobNC]

Even without fetchlands, we have so many targets for Stifle (SFM, Vial, ETB triggers) that I don't think it's too much of a worry. You have so many different things to be doing that them holding up Stifle mana can actually help you stay ahead.

[DarthVicious]

I'm definitely sticking with mono white. I hate splashing. That being said, what does everyone think of boarding or dropping Sword of Fire and Ice for another creature? I know it's just a good equipment but it was best vs. Miracles and otherwise was at best the second equipment we tutor up.

I've been sticking with mono white for some time now and love it. Then again, I'm also running Godsend to fight TNN/Leo/Eldrazi and it's especially good on an Avenger. One equip I'm testing soon also is Necropouncer. +3 power and haste with all our fliers and an equip of :2: seems good.

I've been unhappy with swords of X&Y for a long time and finally decided to cut them. Maybe they'll get better if Decay numbers drop with Miracles gone now, who knows.

[Medea_]

I cannot under any circumstances believe that Necropouncer is better than SoFaI. The last thing I want in my deck is a dead-weight, 6 drop, non-creature spell. I don't even love Batterskull at this point, and that has much more utility. Godsend is more reasonable, but its awkward mana cost and 3 equip cost are two strikes against it. I did a quick search with scg's database and mtgtop8, and that Godsend has never ended up in a Legacy deck with results. I'm willing to entertain all sorts of thoughts, but you're really going to have to work to convince me that either of those cards are good.

[DarthVicious]

I cannot under any circumstances believe that Necropouncer is better than SoFaI. The last thing I want in my deck is a dead-weight, 6 drop, non-creature spell. I don't even love Batterskull at this point, and that has much more utility. Godsend is more reasonable, but its awkward mana cost and 3 equip cost are two strikes against it. I did a quick search with scg's database and mtgtop8, and that Godsend has never ended up in a Legacy deck with results. I'm willing to entertain all sorts of thoughts, but you're really going to have to work to convince me that either of those cards are good.

Yes, it's six mana to cast. But we have Stoneforge. It also comes with a body. Godsend allows you to attack or block regardless what's on the table, but I'll agree it does feel awkward sometimes. Worst case, its something your opponent can and must answer. Unanswered it dominates combat and presents an uphill battle for the opponent.

[colo]

I can get behind Godsend in theory, since it is another angle for interacting with True-Name Nemesis on the ground - but a 6-Mana, 1-Toughness Living Weapon equipment just won't cut it in this format. There's plenty of better equipment available in its stead.

[Ayiluss]

Why there are only 3 copies of Flickerwisp in RW D+T? I mean I like the card a lot and don't wan't to play less than full set? Is this because Miracles is gone but then again it's till good against Delvers and plenty of other decks?

I'm also wondering why no Serra Avenger? I'm not an expert but want to make these things clear? SA is similar as Flickerwisp good against Delver decks and is one of the few ways we have to push through the damage with TNN on the board.

Lastly I finally decided to give RW D+T a try and of course my first game was against Elves. I manage to win though with the help of Ethersworn Canonist, Containment Priest and Sudden Demise. After that I realized that RW version is indeed quite a bit of better against Elves and while not make the mu good makes it reasonable at least which is good enough for me given the fact how bad the mu otherwise is. Another thing is that Magus of the Moon is really sweet. I still remember my friend went 6-0 at the local store a while back with Painter and it was mostly due to Blood Moon.

That said I must admit that I probably gave too little credit to the RW D+T till now and that it's indeed a good deck although I still love mono white version. So, in the upcoming future I'll stick with the RW version due to Elves and because free wins here and there that Magus provides are always nice.

[Marungo]

I really agree with the assessment of dropping Flickerwisp. I think it was Bahra who said it, "Once you play enough with Death and Taxes, you realize Flickerwisp is great and always a 4-of." This is my assessment and I totally agree with it. I also was aware of the SoFaI use against TNN. I'll stick with it going forward and don't get me wrong I love the card, but if TNN doesn't become the force we expect, I think cutting is very reasonable. Just thinking outside the box here. That being said I have been working a little and built a solid mono-white deck that I played vs Lands, Grixis Delver, Storm, and 5C Control. I had a winning record against everything but storm and I at least felt like I had a shot vs storm. Anyhow here's the list:

4 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Flickerwisp
3 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Mirran Crusader
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Serra Avenger

4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte

11 Plains
1 Cavern of Souls
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
3 Karakas

SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 Containment Priest
SB: 2 Council's Judgment
SB: 2 Path to Exile
SB: 2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
SB: 2 Rest In Peace
SB: 1 Sanctum Prelate
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage

[Medea_]

Flickerwisp is insane. Anyone who argues otherwise hasn't played the deck enough.

In the mono white builds, 4x Flickerwisp is absolutely correct. In the RW build, I'm not sure if we have space for all four plus all the other stuff. I think we need more [true] two drops right now. There is an absolute ton of combo running around. In lists that don't run pingers, I might cut a Recruiter to bring back the fourth Flickerwisp.

[c2232]

Why exactly is everyone putting batterskull back in the main?

[Marungo]

Flickerwisp is insane. Anyone who argues otherwise hasn't played the deck enough.

In the mono white builds, 4x Flickerwisp is absolutely correct. In the RW build, I'm not sure if we have space for all four plus all the other stuff. I think we need more [true] two drops right now. There is an absolute ton of combo running around. In lists that don't run pingers, I might cut a Recruiter to bring back the fourth Flickerwisp.

Oh I can totally see it in the splash versions. By the way it felt really nice to not have 10 3-drops and have 8 instead. Something to be said for that. List felt real solid and consistent.

[DarthVicious]

Flickerwisp is insane. Anyone who argues otherwise hasn't played the deck enough.

In the mono white builds, 4x Flickerwisp is absolutely correct.

Truth.

On this note has anyone tested/considered testing Glimmerpoint Stag? Or the new cat that's apparently rocking standard right now? Not saying they'll be good, but... it'd be very nice to run nine wisps. They're never dead.

[Finn]

Truth.

On this note has anyone tested/considered testing Glimmerpoint Stag? Or the new cat that's apparently rocking standard right now? Not saying they'll be good, but... it'd be very nice to run nine wisps. They're never dead.

I hope we can agree that Stag is a weak Flickerwisp. If you can start a description of a card that way, it really does not make the cut except occasionally in combo.

...What cat?

[DarthVicious]

...What cat?

Felidar Guardian. Never mind, that's worse than the Stag now that I read it. Only flickers your permanents, costs four, and is 1/4.

Stag is a weak Flickerwisp, but these are the only cards that produce this effect from what I can tell. Displacer is close enough for me to get repeated uses out of birth triggers.

[Medea_]

If I wanted more Flickerwisps, I'd just play a Displacer or a Restoration Angel. Those cards are great, but even they are at the edge of playability in this shell.

[Medea_]

Why exactly is everyone putting batterskull back in the main?

SoWaP was really good against the mirror and Miracles. With Miracles gone, it is probably not the right way to hedge anymore.

[c2232]

SoWaP was really good against the mirror and Miracles. With Miracles gone, it is probably not the right way to hedge anymore.

True, I'm just not so sure Batterskull fills any sort of need. I'm thinking other swords could be good, maybe even a second Jitte.

[iatee]

Has anyone ever tested Basilisk Collar?

[Medea_]

Has anyone ever tested Basilisk Collar?

I played it for like one day. It was fun.

In a red build with pingers and a bunch of first strike creatures, it might be fine. I'm not sure it fits any role we *need,* but it is interesting. I'm not sure where I fall on the pinger vs Sudden Demise train as well.

[vtml1984]

I played it for like one day. It was fun.

In a red build with pingers and a bunch of first strike creatures, it might be fine. I'm not sure it fits any role we *need,* but it is interesting. I'm not sure where I fall on the pinger vs Sudden Demise train as well.

Which pinger are you liking the most? Sorry to pester with all the questions, but I need to buy all the extra colored splash cards.

I like the idea of Goblin Sharpshooter (once I purchase my second and third plateaus I will try it), but I am just curious where you testing is leading you as I purchase the pieces needed.

[colo]

Has anyone ever tested Basilisk Collar?

Yes, and it doesn't do enough imho. Strapping it onto a pinger is cute, but that's about it. Equipment has to boost stats (or be bonkers-broken like Jitte) for D&T to matter. I'd rather play Quietus Spike (which I've never tried), because it turns any leftover critter into a respectable clock.

Goblin Sharpshooter has been too slow in my testing (with Imperial Taxes) in the matchup where it matters most (Elves!) - if it had haste, things would look different, but turn-4-at-best is too late too often.

[Medea_]

Which pinger are you liking the most? Sorry to pester with all the questions, but I need to buy all the extra colored splash cards.

I like the idea of Goblin Sharpshooter (once I purchase my second and third plateaus I will try it), but I am just curious where you testing is leading you as I purchase the pieces needed.

Iatee has played Cunning Sparkmage and Fireslinger in the past, I believe. I conceptually like Sharpshooter (the idea of wiping the opposing board is really appealing), though it is a touch slower than other options, and not a human if you are on a Cavern build. The real question is whether pingers are better than Sudden Demise.

Edit: Someone tried Quietus Spike on MTGS once. It didn't perform well and we didn't hear much about it.

[iatee]

Yeah, I have tried all the pingers at this point. Sharpshooter is a very powerful card for 3 mana but the surprise factor of Sparkmage is worth a lot and...it's human. I also like Fireslinger quite a bit, I think Sparkmage is marginally better but not drastically better.

One thing that nobody has been doing (that seems reasonable for our new meta) is playing multiple copies of pingers. Like if 2-3 Sudden Demises is justifiable, 2-3 Sparkmages should be too, or perhaps a mix.

[gh0st_b1rd]

Flickerwisp is insane. Anyone who argues otherwise hasn't played the deck enough.

In the mono white builds, 4x Flickerwisp is absolutely correct. In the RW build, I'm not sure if we have space for all four plus all the other stuff. I think we need more [true] two drops right now. There is an absolute ton of combo running around. In lists that don't run pingers, I might cut a Recruiter to bring back the fourth Flickerwisp.

I might go back to playing the 4th Wisp. I had originally cut the 4th Wisp because I wanted to find a way to put Pia and Kiran Nalaar in the maindeck. Once resolved, it was as good or better than Flickerwisp in fair match ups.

[silly]

One very marginal thing to note is that you can flicker Cunning Sparkmage for an extra ping, but you can't do so with any of the other pingers.

[ZEROorDIE]

with the up-tick in storm, is it worth considering 1-2 thorn of amethyst or extra Vryn in the board? possibly in place of 1 gideon (I've been on the RW build with 1 in the board) seems strong to me and worst case scenario they have to decide whether their artifact removal is better used on our equipment or the thorn. yes, i know its not tutorable, and ive only been playing this deck on and off for a few months so take this with a grain of salt. just want to flesh out an idea.

[Medea_]

with the up-tick in storm, is it worth considering 1-2 thorn of amethyst or extra Vryn in the board? possibly in place of 1 gideon (I've been on the RW build with 1 in the board) seems strong to me and worst case scenario they have to decide whether their artifact removal is better used on our equipment or the thorn. yes, i know its not tutorable, and ive only been playing this deck on and off for a few months so take this with a grain of salt. just want to flesh out an idea.

People are leaning towards running 2 more Spirit/Canonist in the main to adapt against the uptick in combo. Thorn is plenty annoying, but it costs an extra with Thalia and doesn't get Vialed in.

[ZEROorDIE]

People are leaning towards running 2 more Spirit/Canonist in the main to adapt against the uptick in combo. Thorn is plenty annoying, but it costs an extra with Thalia and doesn't get Vialed in.

I always forget how many applications canonist has, that is a much smoother solution with recruiter.

[RobNC]

Ethersworn Canonist also survives a single Dread of Night, whereas Vryn Wingmare does not.

[Fry]

Yeah, I have tried all the pingers at this point. Sharpshooter is a very powerful card for 3 mana but the surprise factor of Sparkmage is worth a lot and...it's human. I also like Fireslinger quite a bit, I think Sparkmage is marginally better but not drastically better.

One thing that nobody has been doing (that seems reasonable for our new meta) is playing multiple copies of pingers. Like if 2-3 Sudden Demises is justifiable, 2-3 Sparkmages should be too, or perhaps a mix.

In my board I do a 1/1 split of Demise and Sparkmage. I think Demise has more raw power, but the Sparkmage being tutorable and Vialable is crazy good too.

[Mrplow25]

Would two caverns and the aether vials be enough to cast 1 orzhov pontiff from the sideboard in rw taxes

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[gh0st_b1rd]

Would two caverns and the aether vials be enough to cast 1 orzhov pontiff from the sideboard in rw taxes

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Yes. Many Monowhite decks have done this. I would still stick with Cunning Sparkmage if you can. If TNN is the primary concern I would recommend that you find answers for theit equipment instead.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Pontiff is actually good against elves, the mirror, and storm, who have been actively moving to the EtW plan afaik.

I'm going to also try a Pontiff in RW Taxes board, probably in addition to the Cunning Sparkmage.

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[hill_giant]

Iatee has played Cunning Sparkmage and Fireslinger in the past, I believe. I conceptually like Sharpshooter (the idea of wiping the opposing board is really appealing), though it is a touch slower than other options, and not a human if you are on a Cavern build. The real question is whether pingers are better than Sudden Demise.

Edit: Someone tried Quietus Spike on MTGS once. It didn't perform well and we didn't hear much about it.

I have played sharpshooter in the past. He sounds great in theory, but he's incredibly slow, as he costs three and does nothing when he hits play. I would never play him over cunning sparkmage, as exciting as the "kill your board" line sounds.

[IRS]

Hello,

I played in a legacy qualifier today for GP Vegas with DisgruntledElk's Red Dead Taxes with -1 Sudden demise and +1 Canonist in the SB because I could not get the 3rd demise. Here is the list:

Red Dead Taxes:
26 Creatures:
4 Mom
4 Thalia
4 SFM
2 Revoker
2 Spirit of the Labyrinth
3 Flickerwisp
2 Recruiter of the Guard
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Sanctum Prelate
3 Magus of the Moon

Spells:11
4 Vial
4 STP
1 Jitte
1 SoFI
1 Batterskull

Land: 23
2 Cavern of Souls
3 Plains
2 Plateau
4 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
3 Karakas
4 Wasteland
4 Port

SB: 15
1 Path
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Sudden Demise
2 Canonist
1 Containment Priest
1 RIP
1 Manriki-Gusari
1 Council's Judgment
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar

Game 1 1-2 vs classic DT [0-1]: I beat him the first game with a quick jitte equip. The second and third games he managed to equip the jitte and remove mine with Council's judgement for the win. I played very badly as it was my first time with non-monowhite DT and my opponent is excellent at playing his deck and I have little experience with the mirror (previously I managed to win a bunch using SoWaP main). Overall I feel this matchup is harder than the monowhite version for the mirror, especially because Magus is not good against them.

Game 2 2-0 vs ANT [1-1]: This game was interesting. First game I don't know what he's on, I play a SFM opening and he tries to go off, fails and concedes. Game 2 -4 StP -SoFaI -3 Flickerwisp +2 Canonist +2 Surgical Extraction+1 RiP +1 Prelate +1 Macabre. For the second game I have a good hand with prelate, RiP and thalia, plains and Port. I play T2, followed into T3 Prelate on 4. He plays ad nauseam and gets down to 2, thinks for a long a time, and then conceeds since I had lethal on board with the lone prelate.

Game 3 1-2 vs Shardless BUG Leovold [2-1]: The first game I keep a greedy hand with a single land and a vial because it had a great progression of cards. Sadly, he plays Deathrite and destroys the vial before I can put it to use, I do not draw any lands for 4 turns and he kills me with +Leovold and 2 Goyfs and Shardless Agent. He does not get to see any of my cards and I knew exactly what he had. Game 2: +1 Path +2 Sudden Demise +1 RiP +1 Mirran Crusader +1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar -2 revoker -3 flickerwisp -1 prelate. Game 2 I have a karakas, a fetchland, mom, magus and StP. I play karakas and StP his deathrite and next turn I play a wasteland and mom in order to hide my fetch and keep the guise of playing DT. He plays a Strix and passes and then I fetch for Plateau and Magus him. He inmediately goes silent and is pissed about the presence of Magus on the board. Having him locked down, it goes into a long grindy game where he had the strix and the Deathrite plus a shardless agent to block until I found mom and Recruiter, and searched for P+K to try them out since it gave me board control to get rid of pesky strix and other small critter with fliers to get through damage, it felt good but also it was kind of a win more situation as he was locked up by Magus, which esentially won the game. Game 3 I have Magus and manage to draw into 2 crusaders. I T3 magus him with 2 plains on board, leading to double crusaders, he has 2 goyfs but the unblockable damage from the crusaders is too much for him to handle and he concedes.

Game 4 0-2 vs ANT [2-2]: The first game kills me T2 tendrils combo, I have no interaction and I die. I SB in the same way as G2, and I have a very good draw with RiP, Thalia, canonist, port and some lands. I play Thalia followed by Canonist and begin to chip damage, drawing into extraction and macabre, but with RiP in play they were essentially dead draws. I do draw a second port that allows me to double port me so he cant really do anything, until he finds Fatal Push and kills my Canonist. Eventually, he is at 5 life and I play a flickerwisp in order to have lethal on board and flicker my land to double port him. On his turn he unfortunately plays DoN, killing my creatures, and he follows this up with a second DoN, my only out is Council's judgement, which I did not board;he makes a ton of goblins off empty the warrens and kills me. Overall, I was 1 turn away from victory and it was very close. However I feel double Dread of Night is hard to beat. I wonder if its worth boarding in Council's judgement in this matchup because of DoN? because it is a dead draw otherwise.

Game 5 2-1 vs Elves [3-2]: The first game I play vial into mom into SFM searching for jitte, he GSZ for reclamation sage, kills Jitte and then proceeds to Natural Order the behemoth for the kill. Game 2 -4 Thalia -3 Flickerwisp -batterskull +2 Canonist +1 Containment priest +1 path +2 Sudden Demise +1crusaders +1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar. I draw into canonist, a plateau, wasteland and Sudden demise. I play the canonist and wasteland his first cradle, although he gets a few elves out and he gets rid of canonist via reclamation sage. He has 2 dryad arbors, symbiote, visionary and deahrite shaman when I Path Symbiote and then Sudden Demise on their heads, they all die and he conceeds. Game 3 I vial in a mom and canonist into crusader to begin pushing damage through, but I only have plains and plateau. in the meantime I also Magus him since I do not need the second W due to using vial but it does not appear to be too relevant since he has basic forests out, but I put it down just to turn off potential cradles. I draw into recruiter and vial it in to find Containment priest. He probably forgets what he does since he proceeds to play Natural Order and I flash in Containment priest in response. Nothing happens, he plays some nettle sentinels, I revoker the elf dude who taps 3 elves to make 3 green mana, he calls a judge because he forgets it is not pithing needle. This breaks his back and crusader takes it in for the win.

Overall, I feel quite pleased with the power level of the deck. I feel the BUG matchup is very strong given how powerful magus and crusader are, especially Magus in combination with vial. I feel sudden demise is fantastic in the elves matchup, completely tilting it in our favor. This deck takes some time to get accustomed to because of the Magus/land interactions that are not intuitive if you only have experience with monowhite DT, so I made a ton of mistakes in this area. I feel that the potential is very high if played correctly. I do feel that the matchup vs monowhite DT is weaker, given that they are not really susceptible to Magus, but overall its still a game of getting Jitte online first.

Also, I played Pia and Kiran, but I have seen people attempting to mainboard it, and I cannot understand why it is so powerful. I felt that the combination of Magus and this is not good given that it negates the Karakas/Vial combo and I feel this combo is what makes it stand out. What am I missing here?

Thanks for reading.

[OopsMissedTrigger]

DnT won the GP Trial Vegas @ SpellholdGames (6 rounds.. 60+ players I think they said). Video is on twitch (warning you that it isn't pretty :tongue:)

Decked looked like a toolbox build with stuff like Sparkmage, Magus of the Moon and Moat(!), Kambal etc. He even found room for new Thalia. Not sure if we get decklists for that tournament, but after watching the stream I am left with an impression that this tournament wasn't that high level (amount of misplays and errors were quite higher than what I am used to seeing at my LGS), so the results may not give the best take on the meta.

[Ayiluss]

DnT won the GP Trial Vegas @ SpellholdGames (6 rounds.. 60+ players I think they said). Video is on twitch (warning you that it isn't pretty :tongue:)

Decked looked like a toolbox build with stuff like Sparkmage, Magus of the Moon and Moat(!), Kambal etc. He even found room for new Thalia. Not sure if we get decklists for that tournament, but after watching the stream I am left with an impression that this tournament wasn't that high level (amount of misplays and errors were quite higher than what I am used to seeing at my LGS), so the results may not give the best take on the meta.

Do you have a link?

[OopsMissedTrigger]

Do you have a link?

https://www.twitch.tv/spellholdgames/videos/all

Not sure how long they stay up.

[Ayiluss]

https://www.twitch.tv/spellholdgames/videos/all

Not sure how long they stay up.
Thanks!

[a tribe called trest]

petal death and taxes

lands 22

Karakas 3x
Rishadan Port 4x
Wasteland 4x
Ghost Quarter 1x
Plains 10x


Creatures 23

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 4x
Thalia, Heretic Cathar 3x
Stoneforge Mystic 4x
Mother of Runes 4x
Serra Avenger 4x
Flickerwisp 4x


Artifacts 11

Aether Vial x4
Lotus Petal x4
Batterskull x1
Umezawa's Jitte x1
Sword of Fire and Ice x1


Instant/sorcery 4

Swords to Plowshares x4


SB 15

Moat x1
Baneslayer Angel x1
Rest in Peace x3
Path to Exile x2
Council's Judgement x1
Disenchant x1
Ethersworn Canonist x3
Containment Priest x3




Spent some time exploring Lotus Petal and it felt very reasonable in the new meta. The initial reason for testing was to make the elves matchup a semi-reasonable one for the mono white build(by turboing out Thalia 2.0 and canonist/priests). The secondary reason was without Miracles slowing down the format, mono white feels like it needs to become more opening hand dependent than in the past. I considered Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond to be non starters since without recruiter, I can't overcome the card disadvantage. Ancient tomb is an interesting idea, but unlike petal it doesn't actually help for turn 1 interaction as its colorless mana. It's possible the deck should just become thalia stompy, but I'd still prefer the power of aether vial/mother of runes/rishadan port/swords to plowshares over chalice of the void.

The rest of the list is loosely based off the "stock" DnT builds Medea posted in the past with 4 Serra Avengers and 3 Mirran Crusaders. Instead I swap the crusaders for Thalias and the Revokers for petals. If greedy mana bases are gonna become the flavor, I'd rather be racing with Thalia 2.0 than revoker on DRS. Havent tested extensively, but so far I've only missed the revoker in the mirror, which admittedly this version is a heavy dog too. Considering an Eldrazi Displacer to help with that in tandem with the containment priests. Serra Avenger is the better beater for this deck over Mirran Crusader because with only 22 actual lands, there are times you turbo out a thalia early and are stuck on only 2 lands later. Certainly possible I should have them in the 75 though. Moat and Baneslayer are just tests against elves and true name nemesis. Preferred it to be a gisela, but went with baneslayer since its at least a hail mary in the mirror. Without revokers, those could easily be holy light or other narrow hate like that.

Pros - things like turn 1 stp your drs, play petal aether vial are game breaking. As is turn 1 Thalia against a large swath of the field. Post board turn 1 rip and canonist is a treat.
Cons - going down to 22 lands with 4 petals gives me 26 virtual land sources. so unless i need a land in the late game, I've increased the amount of dead top decks over traditional lists by 3. This has occasionally been frustrating.


By no means have I done heavy testing with this, but for the most part its shown promise. Maybe nothing significant happens to the meta and this is all irrelevant, but it seems pretty likely we are going to need to speed up as mono white. If I was showing up to a major tournament today, I'd just sleeve up whatever red splash Iatee is on since that seems better positioned. If I was set on running a mono white list, I'd give something out of the ordinary like this a shot.

[WashableWater1]

petal death and taxes

lands 22

Karakas 3x
Rishadan Port 4x
Wasteland 4x
Ghost Quarter 1x
Plains 10x


Creatures 23

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 4x
Thalia, Heretic Cathar 3x
Stoneforge Mystic 4x
Mother of Runes 4x
Serra Avenger 4x
Flickerwisp 4x


Artifacts 11

Aether Vial x4
Lotus Petal x4
Batterskull x1
Umezawa's Jitte x1
Sword of Fire and Ice x1


Instant/sorcery 4

Swords to Plowshares x4


SB 15

Moat x1
Baneslayer Angel x1
Rest in Peace x3
Path to Exile x2
Council's Judgement x1
Disenchant x1
Ethersworn Canonist x3
Containment Priest x3




Spent some time exploring Lotus Petal and it felt very reasonable in the new meta. The initial reason for testing was to make the elves matchup a semi-reasonable one for the mono white build(by turboing out Thalia 2.0 and canonist/priests). The secondary reason was without Miracles slowing down the format, mono white feels like it needs to become more opening hand dependent than in the past. I considered Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond to be non starters since without recruiter, I can't overcome the card disadvantage. Ancient tomb is an interesting idea, but unlike petal it doesn't actually help for turn 1 interaction as its colorless mana. It's possible the deck should just become thalia stompy, but I'd still prefer the power of aether vial/mother of runes/rishadan port/swords to plowshares over chalice of the void.

The rest of the list is loosely based off the "stock" DnT builds Medea posted in the past with 4 Serra Avengers and 3 Mirran Crusaders. Instead I swap the crusaders for Thalias and the Revokers for petals. If greedy mana bases are gonna become the flavor, I'd rather be racing with Thalia 2.0 than revoker on DRS. Havent tested extensively, but so far I've only missed the revoker in the mirror, which admittedly this version is a heavy dog too. Considering an Eldrazi Displacer to help with that in tandem with the containment priests. Serra Avenger is the better beater for this deck over Mirran Crusader because with only 22 actual lands, there are times you turbo out a thalia early and are stuck on only 2 lands later. Certainly possible I should have them in the 75 though. Moat and Baneslayer are just tests against elves and true name nemesis. Preferred it to be a gisela, but went with baneslayer since its at least a hail mary in the mirror. Without revokers, those could easily be holy light or other narrow hate like that.

Pros - things like turn 1 stp your drs, play petal aether vial are game breaking. As is turn 1 Thalia against a large swath of the field. Post board turn 1 rip and canonist is a treat.
Cons - going down to 22 lands with 4 petals gives me 26 virtual land sources. so unless i need a land in the late game, I've increased the amount of dead top decks over traditional lists by 3. This has occasionally been frustrating.


By no means have I done heavy testing with this, but for the most part its shown promise. Maybe nothing significant happens to the meta and this is all irrelevant, but it seems pretty likely we are going to need to speed up as mono white. If I was showing up to a major tournament today, I'd just sleeve up whatever red splash Iatee is on since that seems better positioned. If I was set on running a mono white list, I'd give something out of the ordinary like this a shot.

In my experience, fast mana is a sideboard card. Burning a card to get one turn ahead is only really valuable against combo, where you are looking to lock them out rather than grinding them out. When I'm in a combo heavy meta, I tend to run 2 petal 2 Chrome Mox off the sideboard. Getting lock pieces out turn one is often good enough

[Bosque]

In a combo heavy meta I prefer the spirit guides, since in the red or green splashes they are still creatures you can cast and not 100% dead cards later in the game.

[Kami]

Long-time reader, but I rarely write anything

I think that monoW is still possible, even better in some metas (probably we'll have a mix of monoW, red splash and black splash further on).

The card that is impressing me right now is canonist. I'm using 2 main, 2 sb, and it really changes a lot of matchups simply by existing in your MD game 1.


My base list:

12 plains (eventually 1 horizon canopy in place of 1 plains)
4 waste
4 port
3 kakas

4 mother
4 thalia
4 stoneforge
4 flickerwisp
2 canonist
2 revoker
2 recruiter
2 mirran crusader
2 serra avenger (flex, I'll try different things in this slots)

4 stp
4 vial
3 equip (jitte, SoFI, batterskull)



Side
2 containment (i think 2 is the right number now, 1 is too low)
2 canonist
1 revoker
1 leonin relic warder
1 path to exile
1 pithing needle
2 council
2 faerie macabre
1 rest in peace (maybe -1 macabre + 1 RiP)
1 surgical extraction
1 prelate (still useful?)



PS: sorry by my really poor english... I'm trying :smile:

[vtml1984]

I looked at the MKM Frankfort and Death and Taxes was played the second most, and no Top 8 showings. I know it is a sample size of one, and that they could have just been paired against Elves every round. I just thought it was interesting. When I looked they didn't have anything outside the Top so it could have just been breakers.

Everything, except Elves, that was in the Top 8 seemed like decks we should have game against (even the mono-white version). This is why I was surprised, but again only one event.

[vtml1984]

Long-time reader, but I rarely write anything

I think that monoW is still possible, even better in some metas (probably we'll have a mix of monoW, red splash and black splash further on).

The card that is impressing me right now is canonist. I'm using 2 main, 2 sb, and it really changes a lot of matchups simply by existing in your MD game 1.


My base list:

12 plains (eventually 1 horizon canopy in place of 1 plains)
4 waste
4 port
3 kakas

4 mother
4 thalia
4 stoneforge
4 flickerwisp
2 canonist
2 revoker
2 recruiter
2 mirran crusader
2 serra avenger (flex, I'll try different things in this slots)

4 stp
4 vial
3 equip (jitte, SoFI, batterskull)



Side
2 containment (i think 2 is the right number now, 1 is too low)
2 canonist
1 revoker
1 leonin relic warder
1 path to exile
1 pithing needle
2 council
2 faerie macabre
1 rest in peace (maybe -1 macabre + 1 RiP)
1 surgical extraction
1 prelate (still useful?)



PS: sorry by my really poor english... I'm trying :smile:

Why didn't you like Sanctum Prelate?

Why no anti-hate for Dread of Night?

Edit: I like the list overall, but I would trade a Serra Avenger for a Prelate in the Main.

[Marungo]

Long-time reader, but I rarely write anything

I think that monoW is still possible, even better in some metas (probably we'll have a mix of monoW, red splash and black splash further on).

The card that is impressing me right now is canonist. I'm using 2 main, 2 sb, and it really changes a lot of matchups simply by existing in your MD game 1.


My base list:

12 plains (eventually 1 horizon canopy in place of 1 plains)
4 waste
4 port
3 kakas

4 mother
4 thalia
4 stoneforge
4 flickerwisp
2 canonist
2 revoker
2 recruiter
2 mirran crusader
2 serra avenger (flex, I'll try different things in this slots)

4 stp
4 vial
3 equip (jitte, SoFI, batterskull)



Side
2 containment (i think 2 is the right number now, 1 is too low)
2 canonist
1 revoker
1 leonin relic warder
1 path to exile
1 pithing needle
2 council
2 faerie macabre
1 rest in peace (maybe -1 macabre + 1 RiP)
1 surgical extraction
1 prelate (still useful?)



PS: sorry by my really poor english... I'm trying :smile:

Your English is fantastic. Better than that of plenty of people I've seen type. As for your list it's actually pretty close to the one I've posted a page or two back. Only difference is -1 avenger and -1 canonist for +1 revoker +1 spirit of the labyrinth. At least in the main that is. Side is different in a few spots. I think mono white is still quite good and if enough combo arises I'll likely cut the spirit for a second canonist. Spirit is better vs more decks in a general field though and still combo applicable so I like one right now.

[Marungo]

Why didn't you like Sanctum Prelate?

Why no anti-hate for Dread of Night?

Edit: I like the list overall, but I would trade a Serra Avenger for a Prelate in the Main.

Feels like people run into dread of night way more than I ever have. Why hate when you can play 2 toughness creatures and just some council's judgment? Card is applicable in one matchup and it's a deck that's obviously gonna see a decline with increased combo presence. It's one of the worst times to play dread of night and even if you do it's not backbreaking like people assume it is.

[Barook]

So Bahra 5-0'ed again (12-3 total record) with the following list (Fiend Hunter has been replaced by Banishing Priest to be fetchable with Recruiter):

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C-dXHNuXkAAOScC.jpg:large

Discuss.

Edit: There are appearently videos of the deck from his stream:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/138370242
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/138611670

[vtml1984]

Feels like people run into dread of night way more than I ever have. Why hate when you can play 2 toughness creatures and just some council's judgment? Card is applicable in one matchup and it's a deck that's obviously gonna see a decline with increased combo presence. It's one of the worst times to play dread of night and even if you do it's not backbreaking like people assume it is.

Maybe I have just been hit with it a higher amount than others. I seem to get it once a week at my LGS, and every larger tournament I have been to I have faced down it at least once. The problem could just my meta, and it could really lower the likelihood with all the combo now.

[redtwister]

@Barook
Well, the man has chutzpa and that deck is super pared down to the nuts and bolts. No non-humans except Flickerwisp and Stoneforge Mystic. No home run hitters (no Mirran Crusader or Serra Avenger), but plenty of hate: Orzhov Pontiff, Palace Jailer and Pia and Kiran Nalaar in the main... what!?!?!?

But let's be honest, we know what's really insane here: the manabase (the chances of having your human resolve as uncounterable seem insanely high in this build); 4 Chalice of the Void; which leads to 0 Swords to Plowshares replaced by 2 Dismember. The sideboard just kind of follows from there really.

The man is singing a song I am all about hearing.

If this doesn't punish combo for all it's worth, I don't know what does. It also hits Delver really hard. Hope you have that FoW because Chalice on 1 turn 1 is even better in Legacy than Modern. Also, very solid against Burn. Hm... is Chalice as good as it feels?

Obvious concerns are casting Flickerwisp. WW is going to be a bit rough on this deck with 12 W sources. Not enough R for reliable Sudden Demise on turn 2, but plenty of Chalices to accentuate those Demises, so maybe not so bad.

If you think you need to do a lot of targeted removal, going from 2 to 4 actual removal spells is making you sad, but I don't know. StP might now be great at the moment and we might not want to give opponents free life.

[Marungo]

So Bahra 5-0'ed again (12-3 total record) with the following list (Fiend Hunter has been replaced by Banishing Priest to be fetchable with Recruiter):

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C-dXHNuXkAAOScC.jpg:large

Discuss.

Edit: There are appearently videos of the deck from his stream:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/138370242
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/138611670

This list is just so insane for me. I'm a man who hesitates to splash because it takes away from core elements of the deck (not easily hit by wasteland, fliers vs delver and true-name), but this man has gone way beyond my wildest ideas of risky. I don't even really wanna call this amalgamation death and taxes. Feels like it's own thing since it plays so differently.

[Medea_]

Can someone type out the sb from Bahra's deck for me? I can't see it in the image and can't really get on twitch at the moment.

[Douif]

Can someone type out the sb from Bahra's deck for me? I can't see it in the image and can't really get on twitch at the moment.

3 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Sudden Demise
2 Containment Priest
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Sword of War and Peace
1 Palace Jailer
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Cunning Sparkmage

[Barook]

Can someone type out the sb from Bahra's deck for me? I can't see it in the image and can't really get on twitch at the moment.

4 Wasteland
2 Rishadan Port
2 Ancient Tomb
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Flooded Strand
4 Windswept Heath
3 Plains
2 Plateau
2 Karakas

4 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Magus of the Moon
4 Flickerwisp
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Palace Jailer
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar

2 Dismember
4 Aether Vial
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull

Sideboard:
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Sudden Demise
2 Containment Priest
3 Ethersword Canonist
1 Banisher Priest
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Cunning Sparkmage
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Sword of War and Peace
1 Palace Jailer

Asked him on Twitter about his mana base. According to him, it's pretty okay, although Flickerwisp is troublesome and he might cut down on their number a bit.

[Farone]

I looked at the MKM Frankfort and Death and Taxes was played the second most, and no Top 8 showings. I know it is a sample size of one, and that they could have just been paired against Elves every round. I just thought it was interesting. When I looked they didn't have anything outside the Top so it could have just been breakers.

Everything, except Elves, that was in the Top 8 seemed like decks we should have game against (even the mono-white version). This is why I was surprised, but again only one event.

Yeah i was playing at MKM Frankfurt with a Red splash. Went 7-3. I saw a lot of DnT players around, sadly none at the top8 :(

0-2 BR Reanimator
2-1 Merfolk
2-1 Dredge
2-0 mono white DnT
1-2 BUG (sadly one of the friends I travelled to the event)
2-0 RUG Delver
2-0 Storm
2-1 Some Tezzeret, Thopter, ensnaring bridge, walking ballista deck, not sure what to call it. (Even was on stream with it, i'll link it when its posted on Youtube)
2-1 Elves!
0-2 4c Delver

Played the following list:
4x Wasteland
4x Rishadan Port
3x Karakas
3x Plains
3x Flooded Strand
2x Arid Mesa
2x Cavern of Souls
2x Plateau

4x mom
4x Thalia
4x SfM
3x Flickerwisp
2x Phyrexian Revoker
2x Mirran Crusader
1x Sanctum Prelate
2x Recruiter of the Guard
2x Magus of the Moon
1x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Harsh Mentor (was expecting a lot of mirror and SfM decks...)

4x StP
4x Vial
Jitte, SoFaI and Batter

SB:
1x Pithing Needle
1x Relic of Progenitus
1x Sword of War and Peace
2x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Cunning Sparkmage
1x Faerie Macabre
1x Leonin Relic-Warder
1x Magus of the Moon
1x Sanctum Prelate
1x Rest in Peace
2x Path to Exile
1x Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1x Council's Judgement

[iatee]

Did Harsh Mentor do anything for you?

[redtwister]

This list is just so insane for me. I'm a man who hesitates to splash because it takes away from core elements of the deck (not easily hit by wasteland, fliers vs delver and true-name), but this man has gone way beyond my wildest ideas of risky. I don't even really wanna call this amalgamation death and taxes. Feels like it's own thing since it plays so differently.

I mean, Vial, Mom, thalia, SfM, Flickerwisp, Wasteland, Port, Karakas, Jitte, Sword, B-Skully. We've seen Imperial and other times Chalice has been used. Looks DnT to me, though I agree it is quite the brew.

[Medea_]

Well, it's a touch greedy, I'll say that. I think I'd want to go down one Wisp for sure, and I'm not a huge fan of Faerie, but I think it makes sense as a deck.

[IRS]

4 Wasteland
2 Rishadan Port
2 Ancient Tomb
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Flooded Strand
4 Windswept Heath
3 Plains
2 Plateau
2 Karakas

4 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Magus of the Moon
4 Flickerwisp
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Palace Jailer
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar

2 Dismember
4 Aether Vial
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull

Sideboard:
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Sudden Demise
2 Containment Priest
3 Ethersword Canonist
1 Banisher Priest
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Cunning Sparkmage
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Sword of War and Peace
1 Palace Jailer

Asked him on Twitter about his mana base. According to him, it's pretty okay, although Flickerwisp is troublesome and he might cut down on their number a bit.

I have been watching his stream and the list seems pretty strong. My only question is why he does not include Thalia 2.0 in the list, given that he is already playing Ancient Tombs. Thalia 2.0 seems really strong in this meta.

I feel this takes a bit from the new Enevoldsen lists mixed in with the red splash.

[Barook]

Bahra is currently live with the deck for those who want to see it in action (https://www.twitch.tv/bahra_)

[OopsMissedTrigger]

Did Harsh Mentor do anything for you?

I would like to know this as well. I have a list that I am going to run here in May with two of these little bastards in the sideboard.

[Farone]

I would like to know this as well. I have a list that I am going to run here in May with two of these little bastards in the sideboard.

During the trial on Saturday I was able to play it twice in the mirror and did 10 and 12 damage. On sunday in the mirror I was wishing it would draw it, also against the artifact/thopter deck I wish I would draw one game 1 where he had a Padeem and ensnaring bridge on the table....

So far I will keep in the list.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Sounds about right. That card is a real hoser. I love it. Awaiting my preorders impatiently.

Edit: in an open meta where miracles no longer exists, which equipment out of the following list do you play in a sideboard if your main is Jitte/SoFI/BS?

-Jitte #2
-SoWP
-SoLS
-SoFF
-Manriki-Gusari

[talpa]

I feel this takes a bit from the new Enevoldsen lists mixed in with the red splash.

Are these lists in this thread and I am missing them, or can you please post them?

[WashableWater1]

I've been trying out RW taxes, and although it seems pretty close to monowhite in terms of power I'm wondering what the draw to it is all of a sudden. It seems like Red based Delver, Storm and Sneak and Show are all turning out more and more, none of which are crippled by a Magus. While I understand that RW is better vs Elves, what else is leading to the renewed interest?

[Ayiluss]

Sounds about right. That card is a real hoser. I love it. Awaiting my preorders impatiently.

Edit: in an open meta where miracles no longer exists, which equipment out of the following list do you play in a sideboard if your main is Jitte/SoFI/BS?

-Jitte #2
-SoWP
-SoLS
-SoFF
-Manriki-Gusari
I play Manriki-Gusari because I expect more Stoneblade decks since Miracles no longer exists and TNN in combination of Jitte is the real deal.

[redtwister]

@Secretly.A.Bee
In the blind, based on what I expect to see (a lot of Delver, where the main three are fine; a lot of Elves, where only Jitte really matters; a lot of Stoneblade and DnT), I am using Manriki-Gusari for now.

@WashableWater1
The expectation of a lot of greedy BUG and 4C manabases plus the renewed power of Lands. Even against BUGR Delver, Magus can be pretty back-breaking, especially with even a single Mom. I played 4C Delver yesterday against a friend who is a better player than I am and I crushed him 4 out of 5 games. Pontiff was a super blowout. :eek:

RE: Bahra's List
The mana was surprisingly good against a Delver deck that was running 4 stifle. 24 lands felt right too because getting a fetch stifled wasn't nearly as bad since I actually was that slight margin better at hitting land drops.

The posted build need more anti-combo hate. In the latest video, I see Bahra put in Mindbreak Trap, and I think you need that or Sanctum Prelate for sure. Trap might just be better, but I like the flexibility of Prelate, as you see in that UW Control match in his stream. Prelate on 4 is a huge problem for them (of course, if he doesn't miss the Pia bounce, he also wins...)

[iatee]

I've been trying out RW taxes, and although it seems pretty close to monowhite in terms of power I'm wondering what the draw to it is all of a sudden. It seems like Red based Delver, Storm and Sneak and Show are all turning out more and more, none of which are crippled by a Magus. While I understand that RW is better vs Elves, what else is leading to the renewed interest?

Part of this is probably a lot of people saw someone put a Magus out with an Aether Vial on camera and thought 'That looks fun'. (It is.) Also, splashing now doesn't cost a thousand dollars or whatever - that was always a real constraint.

It is close to Mono-W - it's almost the same deck. Imperial Taxes was a much different deck when it was the only deck with access to a Recruiter. Post-Conspiracy 2, Mono-W decks shifted towards prison+tutor builds too.

Now the question is mostly "Do I want to trade a slightly better manabase for a very powerful effect that regularly wins matches / forces my opponent to play differently even when it's not on the table + a sideboard that can beat Elves?" I think it is an obviously good trade and more people seem to be coming to that conclusion.

The fact that Storm and SnS aren't crippled by Magus doesn't really matter - you side them out / you have other cards to cripple those decks. You just also have a card to cripple decks that are crippled by Magus. You're not taking out Thalia and Karakas to play Blood Moon, you're just diversifying the ways you can disrupt an opponent.

[Marungo]

Part of this is probably a lot of people saw someone put a Magus out with an Aether Vial on camera and thought 'That looks fun'. (It is.) Also, splashing now doesn't cost a thousand dollars or whatever - that was always a real constraint.

It is close to Mono-W - it's almost the same deck. Imperial Taxes was a much different deck when it was the only deck with access to a Recruiter. Post-Conspiracy 2, Mono-W decks shifted towards prison+tutor builds too.

Now the question is mostly "Do I want to trade a slightly better manabase for a very powerful effect that regularly wins matches / forces my opponent to play differently even when it's not on the table + a sideboard that can beat Elves?" I think it is an obviously good trade and more people seem to be coming to that conclusion.

The fact that Storm and SnS aren't crippled by Magus doesn't really matter - you side them out / you have other cards to cripple those decks. You just also have a card to cripple decks that are crippled by Magus. You're not taking out Thalia and Karakas to play Blood Moon, you're just diversifying the ways you can disrupt an opponent.

Aren't you simplifying the assessment of picking between mono white and RW? For one you trade for a worse manabase that is noticeable against other wasteland decks when your one colored source can be more easily attacked. You also actually take damage from your manabase which is one of the huge upsides of mono white death and taxes. In addition you lose some power by having spots taken by magus which is just a 2/2 for 3 and you yourself have said you have a worse delver matchups and part of that is likely due to the decreased number of fliers the deck can accommodate including Serra Avenger.
I'm not saying RW isn't good, I think it's super sweet and arguably a strictly better option in the meta we have seen and anticipate to develop, but I just don't want things to be oversimplified as "it's obvious RW is better."

[Medea_]

Just to shake things up, here's another sweet list from Don Donelson (he had a good run at a big SCG thing awhile back). I'll probably write up something later about it, but this should just show you the variety in what can be successful right now. I think he started out 6-0 with this and lost in the finals of an event:

4 wasteland
4port
2 karakas
1 horizon canopy
1 mishra factory
10 plains

4 vial
4 stp
Sofi/jitte/bskull

4 mom
4 sfm
4 Thalia
1 lone missionary
2 canonist
4 Serra avenger
4 flickerwisp
2 recruiter of guard
1 Aven mindcensor
1 vryn wingmare

3 RIP
2 Moat
1 COP REd
1 seal of cleansing
2 path
2 councils
2 revoker
SoFaF
1 needle

[colo]

Are you sure Lone Missionary is the correct allocation for that slot?

[WashableWater1]

Aren't you simplifying the assessment of picking between mono white and RW? For one you trade for a worse manabase that is noticeable against other wasteland decks when your one colored source can be more easily attacked. You also actually take damage from your manabase which is one of the huge upsides of mono white death and taxes. In addition you lose some power by having spots taken by magus which is just a 2/2 for 3 and you yourself have said you have a worse delver matchups and part of that is likely due to the decreased number of fliers the deck can accommodate including Serra Avenger.
I'm not saying RW isn't good, I think it's super sweet and arguably a strictly better option in the meta we have seen and anticipate to develop, but I just don't want things to be oversimplified as "it's obvious RW is better."

I was more wondering what matchups in particular RW was better. Right now the only one I'm seriously worried about is Elves, but I'm not sure if I'm willing to weaken the whole deck in order to make one matchup better.

That said, I've been working on my sideboard and think that I can get my Elves matchup to the point that it's somewhat winnable. Does anyone have any suggestions for cards to try? I'm working with 2 Canonist, 3 Path, 3 Containment Priest, 1 Needle and a maindeck Spirit of the Labyrinth right now, but I'm considering cards like Cursed Totem, Ratchet Bomb and EE in an E Tutor board or a Holy Light plan. What has worked for other people?

[Medea_]

Yes, I am 100% sure he ran Lone Missionary.

[iatee]

Aren't you simplifying the assessment of picking between mono white and RW? For one you trade for a worse manabase that is noticeable against other wasteland decks when your one colored source can be more easily attacked. You also actually take damage from your manabase which is one of the huge upsides of mono white death and taxes. In addition you lose some power by having spots taken by magus which is just a 2/2 for 3 and you yourself have said you have a worse delver matchups and part of that is likely due to the decreased number of fliers the deck can accommodate including Serra Avenger.
I'm not saying RW isn't good, I think it's super sweet and arguably a strictly better option in the meta we have seen and anticipate to develop, but I just don't want things to be oversimplified as "it's obvious RW is better."

One thing I really have to highlight is that if you play correctly and fetch Plains aggressively, the manabase is not really much softer vs Wasteland decks - if you're playing 5 fetches 3 plains (and you can even play a cleaner manabase than this) you're playing 8 basics, which is only one or two away from what most Mono-W lists play. Your colored source isn't easily attacked because you only fetch it when necessary / you don't actually play many red cards. Mono-W is not immune to Wasteland either and generally the times you lose to Wasteland with RW you would have lost to Wasteland with Mono-W (e.g. Karakas + Port are your opening lands.)

I think you have a marginally worse Grixis Delver matchup by playing fewer flyers, but the difference is pretty marginal and can be made up for with your board. Or you can play more flyers. But for the most part Serra Avenger and Magus of the Moon are comparably powerful vs Grixis Delver, really good if they don't have a Bolt, not so good if they do. The matchup vs UR Delver is worse, as is the matchup vs Burn - Moon obviously terrible and the few points of fetch damage matter. If your local meta is Burn, UR Delver, Reanimator, SnS then there is little reason to play a RW build, since you're just siding out Maguses and taking a few points of extra damage. But even then - that cost is very low. It's not free, but it's not expensive.

So if anything I think the argument should be shifted from 'Why play RW?' to 'Why should people play Mono-W?' There are reasons to, for sure, in certain metas it's a better deck. Just not most of the time. There are similarly going to be metas where playing 4 Swords to Plowshares in your deck is incorrect, or where Thalia does very little, but we accept that on the whole they are pretty powerful effects against a broad range of decks. Magus is similar.


I was more wondering what matchups in particular RW was better. Right now the only one I'm seriously worried about is Elves, but I'm not sure if I'm willing to weaken the whole deck in order to make one matchup better.


So Elves obviously, but also
- Infect
- All Lands-based decks: Lands, Depths, 12-Post, 4c Loam
- Eldrazi is marginally better
- All BUG decks are much better
- All Stoneblade decks that play more than 2 colors

[H]

Yes, I am 100% sure he ran Lone Missionary.

I mean, it's not as terrible as it seems. That plus Flickerwisps would probably be pretty decent if you expect to be racing True-Names/facing Burn.

[redtwister]

I would add to iatee's points and say that this build is also very strong against anything with TNN. also, if Grixis Delver get's going with Young Pyromancer, this deck can punish it for trying to go wide with 2x Pontiff.

If the format is BUG Delver, Grixis Delver, Elves, Lands, Non-creature Combo and Stoneblade, then Chalice + Magus + Pontiff is extremely good. Heck, Chalice is also fantastic against Burn.

I think the deck is oddly powerful, though of course we are always stuck with the hands we draw. the main thing I would watch out for is Stifle, which is suddenly much better.

[Marungo]

One thing I really have to highlight is that if you play correctly and fetch Plains aggressively, the manabase is not really much softer vs Wasteland decks - if you're playing 5 fetches 3 plains (and you can even play a cleaner manabase than this) you're playing 8 basics, which is only one or two away from what most Mono-W lists play. Your colored source isn't easily attacked because you only fetch it when necessary / you don't actually play many red cards. Mono-W is not immune to Wasteland either and generally the times you lose to Wasteland with RW you would have lost to Wasteland with Mono-W (e.g. Karakas + Port are your opening lands.)

I think you have a marginally worse Grixis Delver matchup by playing fewer flyers, but the difference is pretty marginal and can be made up for with your board. Or you can play more flyers. But for the most part Serra Avenger and Magus of the Moon are comparably powerful vs Grixis Delver, really good if they don't have a Bolt, not so good if they do. The matchup vs UR Delver is worse, as is the matchup vs Burn - Moon obviously terrible and the few points of fetch damage matter. If your local meta is Burn, UR Delver, Reanimator, SnS then there is little reason to play a RW build, since you're just siding out Maguses and taking a few points of extra damage. But even then - that cost is very low. It's not free, but it's not expensive.

So if anything I think the argument should be shifted from 'Why play RW?' to 'Why should people play Mono-W?' There are reasons to, for sure, in certain metas it's a better deck. Just not most of the time. There are similarly going to be metas where playing 4 Swords to Plowshares in your deck is incorrect, or where Thalia does very little, but we accept that on the whole they are pretty powerful effects against a broad range of decks. Magus is similar.



So Elves obviously, but also
- Infect
- All Lands-based decks: Lands, Depths, 12-Post, 4c Loam
- Eldrazi is marginally better
- All BUG decks are much better
- All Stoneblade decks that play more than 2 colors

I dunno man, I would argue until top was banned mono white was strictly better. And clearly more people on this site were playing and discussing mono white up until the banning. That being said is RW good? Yes? Does it gain the power of some auto wins with magus and such? Yes. Does it decrease your win percentage vs decks with a good amount of basics or enough wastelands? Yes. You lose power to gain another form of lock piece. There are detriments to doing this and I think they should be acknowledged before we declare one is obviously better.
For instance burn, delver, and previously miracles were all worse matchups playing RW than mono white because you had magus in the main. Again I'm not saying RW is worse or mono white is obviously better because relatively speaking they're the same decks with minor trade offs

[chaosjace]

As far as I am aware, and could be wrong, RW hasn't put up results in a long time.

[Medea_]

As far as I am aware, and could be wrong, RW hasn't put up results in a long time.

Pre-Miracles, Iatee Top 16'd the Legacy Open (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=112723) with it.

Post-Miracles, Bahra has put up a 5-0 or two with it, and a couple of people have done well at local-sized events.

[iatee]

I dunno man, I would argue until top was banned mono white was strictly better. And clearly more people on this site were playing and discussing mono white up until the banning. That being said is RW good? Yes? Does it gain the power of some auto wins with magus and such? Yes. Does it decrease your win percentage vs decks with a good amount of basics or enough wastelands? Yes. You lose power to gain another form of lock piece. There are detriments to doing this and I think they should be acknowledged before we declare one is obviously better.
For instance burn, delver, and previously miracles were all worse matchups playing RW than mono white because you had magus in the main. Again I'm not saying RW is worse or mono white is obviously better because relatively speaking they're the same decks with minor trade offs

Even with a mostly dead Magus g1, RW was better positioned vs Miracles because it played a ton of Caverns, Pia/Kiran, more prison pieces and fewer generic beaters that just get killed for little value. Being able to tutor up an uncounterable Pia/Kiran is just way more powerful vs Miracles than anything Mono-W could reliably do.

I don't think 'clearly more people on this site' is much of an argument. The number of people in the world who play legacy competitively is super tiny compared to other formats and most players are not very good or spike-y. It is ultimately a casual format, and things move slowly - even Miracles took years to get optimized.

And I agree nothing is obviously better, and everything is context dependent. Like I said, if you expect UR and 'I need my Karakas' decks all day at your local event, playing Blood Moon obviously isn't worth it. But Legacy's meta is super wide, and in a large event with a variety of decks, you will almost certainly encounter decks where having a Blood Moon wins you games you wouldn't have won otherwise.

[Marungo]

Even with a mostly dead Magus g1, RW was better positioned vs Miracles because it played a ton of Caverns, Pia/Kiran, more prison pieces and fewer generic beaters that just get killed for little value. Being able to tutor up an uncounterable Pia/Kiran is just way more powerful vs Miracles than anything Mono-W could reliably do.

I don't think 'clearly more people on this site' is much of an argument. The number of people in the world who play legacy competitively is super tiny compared to other formats and most players are not very good or spike-y. It is ultimately a casual format, and things move slowly - even Miracles took years to get optimized.

And I agree nothing is obviously better, and everything is context dependent. Like I said, if you expect UR and 'I need my Karakas' decks all day at your local event, playing Blood Moon obviously isn't worth it. But Legacy's meta is super wide, and in a large event with a variety of decks, you will almost certainly encounter decks where having a Blood Moon wins you games you wouldn't have won otherwise.

I don't know about "wouldn't have won." You'd still win a good majority but you just don't get an auto win. Also I personally disagree with your miracles assessment since mono white could have run just as many cavern if it wanted to. That wasn't something exclusive to RW. And I would argue the gain of Pia and Kiran is balanced by the dead g1 magus.
Regardless I think we about covered our analysis of the two strategies. But as someone who doesn't play RW I am curious what your current 75 is Iatee. I'd likely try is once at a local. I've only played RW a handful of times and it's been a while

[iatee]

I don't know about "wouldn't have won." You'd still win a good majority but you just don't get an auto win. Also I personally disagree with your miracles assessment since mono white could have run just as many cavern if it wanted to. That wasn't something exclusive to RW. And I would argue the gain of Pia and Kiran is balanced by the dead g1 magus.
Regardless I think we about covered our analysis of the two strategies. But as someone who doesn't play RW I am curious what your current 75 is Iatee. I'd likely try is once at a local. I've only played RW a handful of times and it's been a while

Well in the 'you could' realm - RW could also run Pia/Kiran main, which just turns the matchup into basically a bye, instead of just 'strongly favored'. Mono-W could play 3 Caverns, it could even play 4 - in reality people played 2 at most and generally 1. G1 having a (mostly bad / once in a while you still win with it) Magus is balanced by 3 Cavern - they're generally playing far more dead cards than you are (FoW, Counterbalances) so you still come out ahead - and you never ever lose to Countertop. This sounds like an exaggeration since obviously Miracles was a busted deck with no bad matchups etc etc etc but my win % vs Miracles with RW was probably in the realm of 80% at competitive REL and it was easily the tier 1 deck I wanted to face the most. The only tier decks that I would rather see in a tournament would be Lands-based combo.

My current list looks mostly like the list at the open: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/legacy-death-and-taxes-34922#online

With +1 Ethersworn in the main and -1 Palace Jailer - not even sure about this. Storm is definitely better now, and it's everywhere online, but that doesn't make paper LEDs appear in peoples' laps.

If I were going to a tournament tomorrow, I would probably try this board:

4 Path to Exile
1 Council's Judgment
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Mirran Crusader
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Cunning Sparkmage
2 Containment Priest
1 Relic Warder
1 Palace Jailer
1 Pia/Kiran

I've always liked my sideboard effects to be attached to creatures when possible, and now that the sweeper deck is gone, I think that strategy is even more correct.

[vtml1984]

Well in the 'you could' realm - RW could also run Pia/Kiran main, which just turns the matchup into basically a bye, instead of just 'strongly favored'. Mono-W could play 3 Caverns, it could even play 4 - in reality people played 2 at most and generally 1. G1 having a (mostly bad / once in a while you still win with it) Magus is balanced by 3 Cavern - they're generally playing far more dead cards than you are (FoW, Counterbalances) so you still come out ahead - and you never ever lose to Countertop. This sounds like an exaggeration since obviously Miracles was a busted deck with no bad matchups etc etc etc but my win % vs Miracles with RW was probably in the realm of 80% at competitive REL and it was easily the tier 1 deck I wanted to face the most. The only tier decks that I would rather see in a tournament would be Lands-based combo.

My current list looks mostly like the list at the open: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/legacy-death-and-taxes-34922#online

With +1 Ethersworn in the main and -1 Palace Jailer - not even sure about this. Storm is definitely better now, and it's everywhere online, but that doesn't make paper LEDs appear in peoples' laps.

If I were going to a tournament tomorrow, I would probably try this board:

4 Path to Exile
1 Council's Judgment
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Mirran Crusader
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Cunning Sparkmage
2 Containment Priest
1 Relic Warder
1 Palace Jailer
1 Pia/Kiran

I've always liked my sideboard effects to be attached to creatures when possible, and now that the sweeper deck is gone, I think that strategy is even more correct.

I agree with idea of effects attached to creatures. But I still really like Rest in Peace. Also, why 4 path right now?

[iatee]

Good vs Reanimator, Burn, Delver, the mirror. It's kinda just an experiment but I find myself siding in 4 quite a lot, which makes me think 'Why not 4 Path?'

RiP is really good obviously and one of the few effects you can't get on a body. I think it's easier to justify not playing any if you have lots of other GY hate (C Priests, Macabre) + Path is good against almost all of the 'I want RIP' decks, in some cases better even (eg vs BR Reanimator, where RIP is slow).

[vtml1984]

Good vs Reanimator, Burn, Delver, the mirror. It's kinda just an experiment but I find myself siding in 4 quite a lot, which makes me think 'Why not 4 Path?'

RiP is really good obviously and one of the few effects you can't get on a body. I think it's easier to justify not playing any if you have lots of other GY hate (C Priests, Macabre) + Path is good against almost all of the 'I want RIP' decks, in some cases better even (eg vs BR Reanimator, where RIP is slow).

That makes sense. My problem is I am in DC and we have Lands players on top of Lands players. What are you siding out when you bring in that many spells?

[Marungo]

Well in the 'you could' realm - RW could also run Pia/Kiran main, which just turns the matchup into basically a bye, instead of just 'strongly favored'. Mono-W could play 3 Caverns, it could even play 4 - in reality people played 2 at most and generally 1. G1 having a (mostly bad / once in a while you still win with it) Magus is balanced by 3 Cavern - they're generally playing far more dead cards than you are (FoW, Counterbalances) so you still come out ahead - and you never ever lose to Countertop. This sounds like an exaggeration since obviously Miracles was a busted deck with no bad matchups etc etc etc but my win % vs Miracles with RW was probably in the realm of 80% at competitive REL and it was easily the tier 1 deck I wanted to face the most. The only tier decks that I would rather see in a tournament would be Lands-based combo.

My current list looks mostly like the list at the open: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/legacy-death-and-taxes-34922#online

With +1 Ethersworn in the main and -1 Palace Jailer - not even sure about this. Storm is definitely better now, and it's everywhere online, but that doesn't make paper LEDs appear in peoples' laps.

If I were going to a tournament tomorrow, I would probably try this board:

4 Path to Exile
1 Council's Judgment
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Mirran Crusader
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Cunning Sparkmage
2 Containment Priest
1 Relic Warder
1 Palace Jailer
1 Pia/Kiran

I've always liked my sideboard effects to be attached to creatures when possible, and now that the sweeper deck is gone, I think that strategy is even more correct.

Thanks for the list. I'll give it a try just like I give everything a try. BTW I ran 2 cavern for a long time and also had about an 80% win rate. I believe I went 16-4 in my last 20 matches vs miracles and I'm sure you know that Maryland has a good and talented legacy community. I just think good DnT players won if they thouroughlly understood the matchup. Also totally agree about Lands. Even without Magus I love that matchup from mono whit too. Just feel like post board especially we run them over.

[iatee]

4 Path to Exile
1 Council's Judgment
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Mirran Crusader
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Cunning Sparkmage
2 Containment Priest
1 Relic Warder
1 Palace Jailer
1 Pia/Kiran

W/ the above board I would bring in:

Macabre
4 Path
1 Relic Warder
1 Palace Jailer

take out
4 STP
1 SotL
1 Ethersworn
1 Crusader

If you have more stuff like RiP, more Maguses, then just take out more fair creatures that don't Blood Moon them + Chalice on 2 them or find ways to protect your Blood Moon + Chalice on 2. Even Thalia isn't really that important. Having some outs to a fast 20/20 is a good plan since you're winning the long game, and Path is way better than STP since you don't give them 20 life / they generally fetch their forest early anyway. (Also they tend to board in Tireless Tracker now as an alt win con.)

[WashableWater1]

So if anything I think the argument should be shifted from 'Why play RW?' to 'Why should people play Mono-W?' There are reasons to, for sure, in certain metas it's a better deck. Just not most of the time. There are similarly going to be metas where playing 4 Swords to Plowshares in your deck is incorrect, or where Thalia does very little, but we accept that on the whole they are pretty powerful effects against a broad range of decks. Magus is similar.
-

Stifle seeing an uptick in Grixis Delver is certainly a non-zero factor.

Here's why I still will keep my cards for mono white together: mono white taxes has a very consistent manabase that is highly resilient to wasteland, stifle and blood moon. You have good matchups against the most popular decks in the format, and with the recent loss of Miracles you can devote more cards to your bad matchups. Having extra slots to run generic beaters helps you close out games against combo decks before they can draw out of your lock.

[iatee]

Sure yeah, don't go selling all your basic Plains.

There are certainly reasons and situations where WR is less powerful, Stifle and Wasteland are generally not the reasons. Price of Progress decks, sure. Fast Blood Moon - sure, that can beat you, or at least cut you off WW. Delver of Secrets when you play fewer flyers - yep, sometimes that matters.

Stifle when you only play 5 fetchlands and have better Stifle targets anyway - no, that very rarely actually matters. Wasteland when you play nearly as many sources of basics - no, that very rarely actually matters.

[IRS]

Are these lists in this thread and I am missing them, or can you please post them?

I was referring to this:

https://twitter.com/therealenevolds/status/843567637233881089

It was a month ago or so I think...

If you look around page 387 you can find the tweet and a discussion in which these experimental builds of his were discussed. He was basically using Ancient Tomb to power a T2 Thalia 2.0, T3 Jailer and such.

[tionaryfoo]

whats up guys. brand new member, old time stalker.

i just want to simply ask if Death and taxes will still be tier 1 or will it fall down to tier 2. the meta is a little shaky right now and everyone is running around not knowing is is quite the 'meta'. rw taxes is surely the talk on the block eight now but does magus really do that much more other than the impact it has in the elves match up.

[Black_Diamond]

Hi,

Do you guys think Paladin en-Vec is playable at the moment?

Cheers

[iatee]

I think Fiendslayer Paladin is a better card. Even though it doesn't have true protection, lifelink is very good vs all the Bolt decks you'd bring it in against.

[Medea_]

D&T will very likely remain a tier one deck. It will take a little bit of time to figure out what the build needs to look like in the new metagame though. There will likely be some short-term hiccups as we figure that out, and we might not have quite the same degree of good matchups as before.

I don't think we need to hedge strongly enough against Grixis Delver at the moment that we need either of the Paladins.

[Black_Diamond]

@iatee you´re correct Fiendslayer is the better card.

I will playtest Bahras CotV List tomorrow. Can give you a short feedback of the performance tomorrow.

[Mad Mat]

What does RW do to true-name nemesis? Results from Frankfurt show the format to be rather swamped with them and red offers nothing to address the asocial fish other than hoping magus can shut them off double blue (which is not so straightforward as these decks either run red removal or a shitload of mana dorks). The other thing is Manic Vandal, but I haven't seen that guy anymore for some time. The usual (sword of fire and ice, racing in the air or hoping to land a council's judgment) don't seem enough when most decks are running multiples, often even 4 in the aggressive blade lists. The answers seem particularly insufficient in the grixis match-up.

[iatee]

Red does not offer much vs TNN in particular. Black is the only color that really offers a variety of non-CJ ways to deal with TNN.

In theory you could play some Skullcrack type effect and try to kill a TNN on blocking duty, but I don't think there exist any that are really playable.

[gh0st_b1rd]

Everything Monowhite does vs a TNN is what RW does as well. We just Revoker whichever equipment they have in play, then try and threaten a scary crackback using Batterskull as our leading unit.

[iatee]

Get wrecked TNN:

http://a1.res.cloudinary.com/csicdn/image/upload/c_pad,h_300,w_300/v1/Images/Products/mtg%20art/Avacyn%20Restored/full/AVR148.jpg

[Mad Mat]

Everything Monowhite does vs a TNN is what RW does as well. We just Revoker whichever equipment they have in play, then try and threaten a scary crackback using Batterskull as our leading unit.
Yes, but against an aggressive deck with multiple true-names, the traditional plans are unreliable and/or insufficient. Last year there was a surge of bant aggro decks in particular in our meta, which ultimately faltered because the deck had a terrible game against miracles. D&T was a bye for that deck. As in, none of the players ever lost even a game to mono white D&T in over 20 tournament matches. I played a black splash for pontiff and the match-up was still in their favor, although now they had to work for it.

With miracles gone, this deck is tier 1 again and both mono white and I would assume RW seem to have almost no chance against it. That's why I ask if there isn't a need to put in extra hate for true-name if you're not splashing black.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Get wrecked TNN:

http://a1.res.cloudinary.com/csicdn/image/upload/c_pad,h_300,w_300/v1/Images/Products/mtg%20art/Avacyn%20Restored/full/AVR148.jpg
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Good stuff, I say.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Yes, but against an aggressive deck with multiple true-names, the traditional plans are unreliable and/or insufficient. Last year there was a surge of bant aggro decks in particular in our meta, which ultimately faltered because the deck had a terrible game against miracles. D&T was a bye for that deck. As in, none of the players ever lost even a game to mono white D&T in over 20 tournament matches. I played a black splash for pontiff and the match-up was still in their favor, although now they had to work for it.

With miracles gone, this deck is tier 1 again and both mono white and I would assume RW seem to have almost no chance against it. That's why I ask if there isn't a need to put in extra hate for true-name if you're not splashing black.
Do you mean Reid Duke's "Dark Bant" list with 8 mana dorks, 1 Goyf, 4 TNN and 2 Leo? If so, I think you are over-stating the decks domination. I beat it with mono-white multiple times over the last 3 months with mono-white. It's weak to early blood moons vs. RW unless they are aware of it and grab basics early. Also, it's an easy race if you can get SOFI on a mirran crusader. Flickerwisp also races. Just name DRS with Revoker and get evasive pressure down. You can often get there. Also, that decks combo matchup is...bad. I'm not too concerned. Just don't let them draw a billion cards, mind your targeted activations. Don't kill the mana dorks until you have an answer for the leovold.

[Mad Mat]

Do you mean Reid Duke's "Dark Bant" list with 8 mana dorks, 1 Goyf, 4 TNN and 2 Leo? If so, I think you are over-stating the decks domination. I beat it with mono-white multiple times over the last 3 months with mono-white. It's weak to early blood moons vs. RW unless they are aware of it and grab basics early. Also, it's an easy race if you can get SOFI on a mirran crusader. Flickerwisp also races. Just name DRS with Revoker and get evasive pressure down. You can often get there. Also, that decks combo matchup is...bad. I'm not too concerned. Just don't let them draw a billion cards, mind your targeted activations. Don't kill the mana dorks until you have an answer for the leovold.
No, these lists are actual stoneblade decks with mystic and jitte. Because of the mana dorks and the cantrips they can get an equipped true-name out quite consistently and fast. The deck's combo match-up is not so bad because they have access to white for hatebears, in addition to counters, DRS and discard. Magus might make a difference, but I expect him often to be too slow to make the difference (just as sofi or a race with our own flyers).

This is an example list: http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=15001&d=290729&f=LE

[tescrin]

Options; from best to worst:

* Flying. The TNN decks normally don't have a lot of flyers. Avenger is what D&T spammed back when TNN first came out and it did fine IIRC

* Manriki-Gusari was also a common way to kill op's equips. Cheap equip cost also make it quite handy.

* Pyroblast/REB. These are reasonable sideboard anyway. Add that they give game for T1 combo turns, and are good against 60% of the field or more, and are removal for Delver and other such nonsense; seems fine.

* If you're desperate, Flanking > TNN. Both W and R have a plethora of 2-drop flankers. The better ones seem to be:
Outrider en-Kor
Zhalfirin Crusader
Riftmarked Knight
Knight of the Holy Nimbus
Mtenda Herder

Depending if you want them low to the ground. Herder seems like a pretty good 1-drop as it attacks through DRS, Thalia, TNN, Bob, SFM, etc, without dying; all even if they had a Mother of Runes on the table.

* Reconnaissance to give yourself the ability to swing with everything every turn while not losing anyone to blockers. TNN can't block everyone. Psuedo-vigilance is also a plus

[iatee]

Yeah, Magus sometimes just punishes their clunky draws and 4c manabase. It's really hard to beat t2 SfM t3 TNN, but they don't always have it. Those decks tend to run fewer cantrips than most legacy blue decks (that list is only running 4 Brainstorm) so they don't always do their thing as consistently as other blue decks. You can beat an inconsistent deck with a 4c manabase. Sometimes it beats itself.

I'm way more concerned about facing a UW Stoneblade deck, since it's going to do the same thing more consistently and doesn't give you much room to manascrew it.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

No, these lists are actual stoneblade decks with mystic and jitte. Because of the mana dorks and the cantrips they can get an equipped true-name out quite consistently and fast. The deck's combo match-up is not so bad because they have access to white for hatebears, in addition to counters, DRS and discard. Magus might make a difference, but I expect him often to be too slow to make the difference (just as sofi or a race with our own flyers).

This is an example list: http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=15001&d=290729&f=LE
Right, that's close to his list. Reid had went past dark bant into 4c with sfm if you watch his youtube stuff. This isn't his, but it's close and again, has almost no game VS. combo, so I doubt there's much to worry about after RD 2 if you can avoid it early, there's a good chance it doesn't stay in the winning brackets.

[Medea_]

I don't think there are any playable flanking cards in this deck. If I'm going to get cute, I would just like a Pontiff to deal with TNN AND Elves (along with other stuff) with one slot.

[Mad Mat]

Yeah, Magus sometimes just punishes their clunky draws and 4c manabase. It's really hard to beat t2 SfM t3 TNN, but they don't always have it. Those decks tend to run fewer cantrips than most legacy blue decks (that list is only running 4 Brainstorm) so they don't always do their thing as consistently as other blue decks. You can beat an inconsistent deck with a 4c manabase. Sometimes it beats itself.
The trade-off was between running decay to improve the miracles match-up or run ponder to improve consistency. This list was before the ban so it attempted the former. Now the deck does not need maindeck decay as much anymore, its consistency will improve again.

This sort of deck isn't really comparable to esperblade. It's more comparable to grixis or patriot delver, with very efficient threats but here compounded by a stoneforge package rather than burn and disruption. Such a combination is very difficult for D&T to beat. It'd be interesting to test how magus really performs in this match-up. A combo of magus and pontiff would be back-breaking, but is not that straightforward to pull off mana-wise. Keep in mind that this sort of deck also runs 4 wastelands and has quite a bunch of maindeck answers to vial (even if it drops decay).


I'm way more concerned about facing a UW Stoneblade deck, since it's going to do the same thing more consistently and doesn't give you much room to manascrew it.
Not by magus or wasteland, but thalia and port do a lot of work in this match-up. Stoneblade has no acceleration and cannot rely on its typical gameplan as much as it wants to: dropping a single threat like an equipped stoneforge or jace and protecting it, because we have so much answers to put in the way. The deck is also more susceptible to our late game hate cards like cataclysm and gideon.

If the meta starts to warp towards these sort of blade decks (the control esper lists and the aggro bant/bug/4c lists), manriki is going to be key. It also makes me lean towards black splash more than red splash. In my experience, splashing both will lead to not being able to cast the necessary bullets when you need them. Unless you make your manabase too greedy, which also does not seem too advisable as I expect a surge of blood moon and back to basics effects (in response to the rise of delver and aggro true-name lists).


Right, that's close to his list. Reid had went past dark bant into 4c with sfm if you watch his youtube stuff. This isn't his, but it's close and again, has almost no game VS. combo, so I doubt there's much to worry about after RD 2 if you can avoid it early, there's a good chance it doesn't stay in the winning brackets.
Why would this sort of deck have no game vs combo?

[iatee]

Decks w/ a slow clock that just hope their FoWs are gonna save them are all pretty bad against combo, since the combo deck has time to set up past FoW / Cabal Therapy you.

[tescrin]

I also find it odd that he says "you won't face this if you dodge it round 1 so you're in the winning brackets"; and cites a list that just top8'd? It's such a self-contradicting point it seems satirical. He also cites Reid Duke playing it, and I mean, I know he screws around a bit.. but he's also someone who knows what he's doing. He's topped with Pox of all things (although it was when it was in a reasonable meta for it)

but that's kinda my point. He's a good player who plays a variety of stuff, often targeted at the meta from an angle. I'd think it odd that one of the Mtg-Celebs would be cited as a great example of why a deck sucks; *right next* to the deck top 8ing in a quoted passage.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I also find it odd that he says "you won't face this if you dodge it round 1 so you're in the winning brackets"; and cites a list that just top8'd? It's such a self-contradicting point it seems satirical. He also cites Reid Duke playing it, and I mean, I know he screws around a bit.. but he's also someone who knows what he's doing. He's topped with Pox of all things (although it was when it was in a reasonable meta for it)

but that's kinda my point. He's a good player who plays a variety of stuff, often targeted at the meta from an angle. I'd think it odd that one of the Mtg-Celebs would be cited as a great example of why a deck sucks; *right next* to the deck top 8ing in a quoted passage.
I said it wouldn't STAY in the upper tables. Things are changing all the time, but I'm pretty sure Stoneblade isn't where it's settling.

I beat the hooey out of lands tonight. He wasn't the best lands player, but it was fine since I've rarely played the matchup, it was the GQ version, it seems better. Moon makes it grossly winnable, albeit a little swingy. I won even after stp on a 20/20.

[Black_Diamond]

@ Mad Mat

That is the list I registered for Frankfurt:



/NAME:

3 Plains
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
2 Plateau
3 Karakas
3 Cavern of Souls
2 Flooded Strand
2 Windswept Heath
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Flickerwisp
3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Mother of Runes
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Mirran Crusader
3 Magus of the Moon
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Aether Vial
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice


//Sideboard

SB: 1 Manriki-Gusari
SB: 2 Rest in Peace
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Council's Judgment
SB: 1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
SB: 1 Containment Priest
SB: 2 Orzhov Pontiff
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Path to Exile
SB: 1 Leonin Relic-Warder



In my experience it is quite good against all the True-Name-Nemesis decks, because the usually can´t handle Mirran Crusader very well. After the sideboarding it is really in our favour with two Orzhov Pontiffs. The mana base is of course very greedy but works quite good for me, with all the Delver Decks around i really like the 3 Cavern of souls.

Unfortunately in Frankfurt the result was not so good: Win against Grixis Controll and Goblins, Loss against Burn x 2 and Turbo Depth. I decided the day before to play Mariki-Gusari over Kor Firewalker :eek:

[Mad Mat]

@Black Diamond: That is another approach to the three-color problem. On first sight, I have two 'problems' with it.

One, you don't have access to pontiff game 1, where his surprise factor is much higher (most players don't count on D&T having game 1 answers to true-name and are therefore prone to go all in on the asocial fish). Second and more importantly is that with only caverns and vial, you're not as consistently getting pontiff out against decks running wasteland, such as delver and true-name aggro. It's also not as consistent in the mirror without scrubland. With this split, you kind-of hope that most match-ups where pontiff stars are match-ups where your caverns will be spared or can be saved until needed. In my experience, this is typically not the case. With what you say about delver and cavern, I have relatively frequently been swamped with my (1-of) pontiff in hand because my black sources got wasted (or stifled). Delver is a deck which can consistently get 2 to 3 wastelands every game and which plays 4 daze, so you are often not in a position to keep your splash sources in hand. It's the same reason why I don't like Kambal that much: he should be wicked against delver in theory, but in practice he's rather unreliable to cast (very bad thing against this deck) and because of his black requirement his interaction with karakas is much less relevant.

Burn will be worse for any splash. I don't think there's a need to bring in specific burn-hate for that purpose. You could improve your sb a bit by including flex slots which are good against other decks than burn as well, such as blessed alliance or mark of asylum.

[Medea_]

Article (http://www.thrabenuniversity.com/?p=1011)

I tweaked Bahra's list a little bit and am trying it out tonight. Seems interesting.

[J ♥ 5]

I don't think there are any playable flanking cards in this deck. If I'm going to get cute, I would just like a Pontiff to deal with TNN AND Elves (along with other stuff) with one slot.

I've actually been playing a Riftmarked Knight as a 'third' Mirran Crusader for about a month, and it's surprisingly decent. If you're expecting a large amount of True Names I wouldn't hesitate to test one out. OUTSIDE of the True Name consideration its unequivocally worse than a crusader would have been, but it can do a decent impression.

Key Points:
• Flanking, if a True-Name blocks it it dies (also lets it rumble better than a 2/2 should against creatures)
• Pro Black allows it to dodge Abrupt Decay, Fatal Push, swing through Leovold, Deathrite & Gurmag
• Suspend ability - This was ACTUALLY relevant against Miracles (RIP) sometimes, getting an uncounterable pro white 2/2 (that also has flanking) is pretty big game. Flanking means it couldn't be ganked by clique or snapcaster. With Miracles gone I can't imagine this matters too much though.

Going in to Legacy tonight I think I'm swapping it for a Canonist, but it's definitely an avenue worth exploring.

[Medea_]

I went 3-1 with the Bahra-style build tonight, beating Burn, Eldrazi, and Merfolk. My loss was to Burn. The sideboard might need a bit of tweaking still, but conceptually, the deck is fine. I'll be running this through a gauntlet in the next few days.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

How did you like it?

[IRS]

I went 3-1 with the Bahra-style build tonight, beating Burn, Eldrazi, and Merfolk. My loss was to Burn. The sideboard might need a bit of tweaking still, but conceptually, the deck is fine. I'll be running this through a gauntlet in the next few days.

I eagerly await your reworked sideboard.

How did you feel about flickerwisp in the list? Do you feel it can be replaced by Displacer or THC as proposed in the channel the other day?
?

[Medea_]

@IRS

I was in the chat and suggested cutting a Flickerwisp for a Resto, THC, or Mindcensor as well as suggested cutting Sudden Demise. The decklist in my article reflects those two changes. I don't want to lose access to the Flickerwisp effect, but it is *really* hard to actually cast. 2 or 3 is probably correct.

@Secretly.A.Bee
I'd say that the early game is great and the late game is great in comparison to normal taxes. Chalice and Magus threaten to effectively end the game far before traditional taxes can. Pia and Kiran, Resto, and Palace Jailer dominated games once I got to them, especially if I drew two of them together; dropping those cards on turn three felt amazing as well. That being said, some of the consistency in the mid-game is gone. There are fewer true threats like Avenger and Crusader to trade with other threats, and you can't simply StP away opposing threats.

[NeckBird]

With everyone brewing W/r/b Death & Taxes decks for the current meta, it's important to note that a mono-white Death & Taxes deck took down a 268 player Legacy tournament in Japan this past weekend.

http://mtg.bigmagic.net/article/2017/05/article/%E3%82%AB%E3%83%90%E3%83%AC%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B8/bmo09/027.html

8《平地/Plains》
4《リシャーダの港/Rishadan Port》
4《不毛の大地/Wasteland》
2《魂の洞窟/Cavern of Souls》
2《地平線の梢/Horizon Canopy》
3《カラカス/Karakas》

クリーチャー
4《ルーンの母/Mother of Runes》
4《石鍛冶の神秘家/Stoneforge Mystic》
4《スレイベンの守護者、サリア/Thalia, Guardian of Thraben》
3《ちらつき鬼火/Flickerwisp》
2《ファイレクシアの破棄者/Phyrexian Revoker》
2《護衛募集員/Recruiter of the Guard》
2《ミラディンの十字軍/Mirran Crusader》
2《聖域の僧院長/Sanctum Prelate》
1《宮殿の看守/Palace Jailer》
1《迷宮の霊魂/Spirit of the Labyrinth》
1《セラの報復者/Serra Avenger》

スペル
4《剣を鍬に/Swords to Plowshares》
4《霊気の薬瓶/AEther Vial》
1《殴打頭蓋/Batterskull》
1《火と氷の剣/Sword of Fire and Ice》
1《梅澤の十手/Umezawa's Jitte》


サイドボード
2《封じ込める僧侶/Containment Priest》
2《外科的摘出/Surgical Extraction》
2《エーテル宣誓会の法学者/Ethersworn Canonist》
2《議会の採決/Council's Judgment》
2《ゼンディカーの同盟者、ギデオン/Gideon, Ally of Zendikar》
1《流刑への道/Path to Exile》
1《解呪/Disenchant》
1《フェアリーの忌み者/Faerie Macabre》
1《安らかなる眠り/Rest in Peace》
1《万力鎖/Manriki-Gusari》

[redtwister]

@_Medea
Here is what I am working on. Some of this was after watching Bahra's stream and his realization that Flickerwisp and Sudden Demise are both hard to cast reliably and the deck was very soft to nono-creature combo. Given the 24 lands and two maindeck 4 drops, maybe Restoration Angel is the call, since 3/4 flyer is also amazing, but I am testing Eldrazi Displacer for now because of the wider range of tricks, the CMC 3, and the ability to hit opponent's creatures, despite the somewhat nonbo with Magus of the Moon. What makes them options of course is that both are Wx, not WWx, both give a flicker effect. However, and this is why I am on a 2/2 split, neither one can be searched out with Recruiter of the Guard, a not inconsiderable issue... So until they print 3/2 2W Flash, Flying, Flicker (aka not Stonecloaker... I think this is it with this manabase.

Sideboard, I might be a bit overboard on combo hate, but I think that might be okay until the dust settles a bit more. Sanctum Prelate has fallen out of favor, but it happens to be an interesting catch-all for the worst non-creature spells you are facing (4 vs. TES/ANT is solid, 3 vs. Show and Tell to stop them from putting Omniscience into play, on 1 in the mirror especially against mono-W, on 1 vs. Grixis Delver, and so on.) I just haven't been able to let her go.

Lands (24)
4 Wasteland
2 Rishadan Port
2 Ancient Tomb
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Flooded Strand
4 Windswept Heath
3 Plains
2 Plateau
2 Karakas

Creatures (23)
4 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Magus of the Moon
2 Flickerwisp
2 Eldrazi Displacer
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Palace Jailer
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar

Other Spells (13)
2 Dismember
4 Aether Vial
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull

Sideboard: (15)
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Containment Priest
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Banisher Priest
1 Cunning Sparkmage
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Palace Jailer

[iatee]

With everyone brewing W/r/b Death & Taxes decks for the current meta, it's important to note that a mono-white Death & Taxes deck took down a 268 player Legacy tournament in Japan this past weekend.

For everyone talking about splash builds being soft to Wasteland - this mono-W list has exactly as many basic land sources as most splash lists do if they play 5 fetches 3 Plains.

[Medea_]

@iatee
One thing I noticed is that there needs to be a fair number of generically solid cards in the sideboard. There are going to be some matchups where things like Chalice or Magus just don't do much; I want to have some reasonable cards to sub in. We've been trying cutting cards like Council's Judgment, and the result is that some of our flexibility is gone. I worry that going too far down the Mindbreak Trap route might put you in a position where you don't have enough to board in for many matchups.

[Bryant Cook]

@iatee
One thing I noticed is that there needs to be a fair number of generically solid cards in the sideboard. There are going to be some matchups where things like Chalice or Magus just don't do much; I want to have some reasonable cards to sub in. We've been trying cutting cards like Council's Judgment, and the result is that some of our flexibility is gone. I worry that going too far down the Mindbreak Trap route might put you in a position where you don't have enough to board in for many matchups.

I've faced the 3 color decks online, I feel like they're giving up a lot to be able to fight off storm. You're playing Thalia, Chalice of the Void, Prelate, Revoker, Cannonist & Pontiff/Sudden Demise. You don't need Mind Break Trap too, use those slots to help fix other match-ups.

[iatee]

Jeez Bryant, at least add 'please'...

[Bryant Cook]

Jeez Bryant, at least add 'please'...

I typically save that for the moment before I go in dry.

[Chatto]

Jeez Bryant, at least add 'please'...


I typically save that for the moment before I go in dry.

I was wondering what mr. Bryant Cook was doing in the DnT-thread... Was not disappointed LOL

[IRS]

@_Medea
Here is what I am working on. Some of this was after watching Bahra's stream and his realization that Flickerwisp and Sudden Demise are both hard to cast reliably and the deck was very soft to nono-creature combo. Given the 24 lands and two maindeck 4 drops, maybe Restoration Angel is the call, since 3/4 flyer is also amazing, but I am testing Eldrazi Displacer for now because of the wider range of tricks, the CMC 3, and the ability to hit opponent's creatures, despite the somewhat nonbo with Magus of the Moon. What makes them options of course is that both are Wx, not WWx, both give a flicker effect. However, and this is why I am on a 2/2 split, neither one can be searched out with Recruiter of the Guard, a not inconsiderable issue... So until they print 3/2 2W Flash, Flying, Flicker (aka not Stonecloaker... I think this is it with this manabase.

Sideboard, I might be a bit overboard on combo hate, but I think that might be okay until the dust settles a bit more. Sanctum Prelate has fallen out of favor, but it happens to be an interesting catch-all for the worst non-creature spells you are facing (4 vs. TES/ANT is solid, 3 vs. Show and Tell to stop them from putting Omniscience into play, on 1 in the mirror especially against mono-W, on 1 vs. Grixis Delver, and so on.) I just haven't been able to let her go.

Lands (24)
4 Wasteland
2 Rishadan Port
2 Ancient Tomb
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Flooded Strand
4 Windswept Heath
3 Plains
2 Plateau
2 Karakas

Creatures (23)
4 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Magus of the Moon
2 Flickerwisp
2 Eldrazi Displacer
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Palace Jailer
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar

Other Spells (13)
2 Dismember
4 Aether Vial
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull

Sideboard: (15)
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Containment Priest
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Banisher Priest
1 Cunning Sparkmage
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Palace Jailer

Why not try THC in the Displacer spot? She is W2, she has crazy impact if dropped on T2, she can be bounced with Karakas, she can be recruited, she does not require mana investment to be relevant and thus plays well with Magus, and ahe is flexible enough to be boarded out without affecting the deck. I do feel however that the flucker effect is pretty sweet, but it comes at a high price with Displacer and I dont know if its worth playing over THC given her many synergies, sweet stats and hateful effects.

[hill_giant]

Took (approximately) Bahra's WRb list to the legacy win-a-box at my local store today and crushed everyone (storm, shardless, bug delver, eldrazi). My draws were good, and those were good matchups for the deck, but it felt really powerful.

[zebhillard]

Took (approximately) Bahra's WRb list to the legacy win-a-box at my local store today and crushed everyone (storm, shardless, bug delver, eldrazi). My draws were good, and those were good matchups for the deck, but it felt really powerful.

What changes from the list did you make?

[Marungo]

So for what it's worth, Friday I tried iatee's red splash build at a local FNM and went 3-0. Beat Abzan, Lands, and ANT. I definitely see the appeal, but to me I just felt like I was playing a powered down less consistent DnT. I did get the free win vs lands with mom and magus but I wasn't looking for help against lands. I already loved that matchup. Overall I think I'll stick with mono white and definitely gonna stay away from Bahra's weird take on DnT. I got super lucky to beat ANT and I'll stick with my assessment that it's a bad matchup. G1 drew actual perfect and won. G2 got therapied and t3'd. G3 somehow beat triple dread of night with revoker beats, port, and batterskull... I got ridiculously lucky to win.

[Mad Mat]

Played the following list in two events this weekend and went undefeated in both:

3 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Flickerwisp
3 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Mirran Crusader
2 Serra Avenger
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Judge's Familiar

4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte

5 Plains
3 Flooded Strand
2 Scrubland
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
3 Karakas

SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 Council's Judgment
SB: 1 Path to Exile
SB: 1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
SB: 2 Rest In Peace
SB: 1 Sanctum Prelate
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Orzhov Pontiff
SB: 1 War Priest of Thune
SB: 1 Leonin Relic-Warder
SB: 1 Manriki-Gusari
SB: 1 Blessed Alliance

First went 3-0 at FNM, beating Esper Stoneblade, Affinity and 4-color True-Name aggro. Against the latter, I decided to board out all thalia's, the bad cards (judge's familiar and prelate) and shave a mom and a plow. The philosophy is to allow them to efficiently make use of their cantrips, while maxing out on answers to their difficult to answer threats. Seems like a promissing sideboarding approach.

Today, I went 4-0-2 in swiss and won top 8 in a 48 (or something like that) player event. Beat burn, bug landstill, elves and sneaky show with omni in the swiss (and then ID'ed twice). In top 8 I beat elves and omni sneak again and esperblade in the finals. Judge's Familiar had a lot of impact, winning me at least one game against burn, countering a natural order from elves, providing extra disruption and damage against sneaky show and beating esper in game 3 of the finals (countering a lingering souls for postponing execution in game 2), because it's a cheap flyer that threatens to nullify big impact spells like toxic deluge and disenchant. And that you really don't want to waste a plow or fatal push on.

War Priest of Thune was twice instrumental in beating omniscience, although a major reason to include it was food chain (which I managed to dodge, fortunately). I was surprised to beat elves twice, but I think some missplays by my opponent did a lot of help as did the unexpected blow-outs by pontiff (and once a blatant disregard for the little bird with no sense of humor). Going back to 3 revoker is also very good, as this card plays a critical role in the match-up. Finally, Prelate on 4 is crucial in preventing the sudden hoof out of nowhere loss that is the gravest threat this deck poses to us. Containment Priest would do even more to help with this, but I find its impact otherwise too limited to put it in the sideboard again.

Sideboarding:

Burn:
-3 revoker
-2 mirran
-1 pontiff

+1 prelate
+1 war priest
+2 canonist
+1 blessed alliance
+1 relic-warder

Esper:

-4 stp
-2 mother
-2 mirran

+1 Manriki
+1 relic-warder
+2 council's judgment
+1 pontiff
+1 gideon
+1 blessed alliance
+1 needle

true-name aggro:

-4 thalia
-1 stp
-1 mother
-1 prelate
-1 judge's familiar

+1 Manriki
+1 relic-warder
+2 council's judgment
+1 pontiff
+1 gideon
+1 blessed alliance
+1 needle

Sneaky show (with omni):

-4 stp
-2 mother
-1 pontiff
-1 jitte

+1 war priest
+1 relic-warder
+2 canonist
+1 prelate
+2 council's judgment
+1 needle

Elves:

-4 thalia
-2 flickerwisp

+1 path
+2 canonist
+1 pontiff
+1 needle
+1 prelate

[redtwister]

Played the last GPPTQ with Bahra's main board and 1-2 changes in the side, went 1-2 drop.

Burn felt really, really bad. All of the fetchlands hurt a lot. I lost 3 of the 4 games with Chalice on 1 and Sanctum Prelate out of the side on 2, because 3 mana burn spells still win. I feel like not having maindeck Rishadan Port was very harmful in the burn matches because I could not use turns I wasn't casting things to tap down their mana and slow them up. I also only really had Sanctum Prelate and Ethersworn Canonist in the sideboard. Batterskull was definitely not good enough and Dismember was very, very sad in place of Swords to Plowshares.

Beat Omni-Tell out of the side thanks to Mom, Thalia, Wasteland and Karakas.

I actually don't know how I feel about chalice if I am not playing against Elves and Grixis Delver. I'm sure those would have been good in those matches. Also, it was fine on 0 on the play against Omni-tell to stop their Lotus openers. It sure didn't hurt against Burn, they had to top-deck spells to win, they just kept doing it. One round I lost to turn 3 Volcanic Fallout, turn 4 Volcanic Fallout. One guy was even playing sideboard Leyline of Punishment, on top of Sulfuric Vortex.

I don't know what today says though, the meta was crazy and hopefully not representative. 3 Burn, 1 Goblins, 2 Maverick, 1 High Tide, 1 Imperial Painter, 1 Omni-Tell, 1 Grixis Delver, 1 Bant Stoneblade, me, and 3 decks I did not see.

If I had played a meta like Mad Mat faced, except, the burn deck, it would have been fine. I don't think I have ever been at a 15 person meta with 3 burn, 1 Goblins and 1 Painter deck (and I think with 2 Orzhov Pontiff I can fight off Goblins). So much red hate.

[zakzes]

How is War Priest of Thune over say Leonin Relic-Warder? It feels easier to cast but much more narrow. Also I assume blessed alliance is really only there for SnS, which feels bad, and TNN deck. Surely there are better things to be played?

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[Secretly.A.Bee]

Blessed Alliance is also good against burn and to an extent, storm. Lifegain, bro. Respond to the storm trigger and gain 4 life. Respond to a bolt.

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[redtwister]

Okay, so I am here after the horror of today.

Lands 23
4 Wasteland
4 Cavern of Souls
2 Flooded Strand
2 Windswept Heath
2 Arid Mesa
4 Plains
2 Plateau
3 Karakas

Creatures 26
4 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Flickerwisp
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Magus of the Moon
2 Serra Avenger
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Sanctum Prelate

Other Spells 11
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Aether Vial
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull

Sideboard: (15)
2 Rest in peace
2 Containment Priest
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Cunning Sparkmage
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Path to Exile
1 Leonin Relic-Warder
1 Palace Jailer

My main feeling against Burn, e.g. was that not having STP really hurt me, badly. Have to kill those stupid creatures, even if they only run 8. Plus, i want them for DRS, etc. Chalice + Dismember just feels bad.

I have 15 W sources and Port has both felt bad (except marginally against Burn) and feels less necessary when you have Magus.

I want 4 Flickerwisp. I just do. I also want 2 Serra Avenger, but maybe that ought to be Spirit of the Labyrinth. Avenger is obviously the card that races, but SotL is very strong against combo decks and draw. Neither one are human, but I have 4 Cavern and 15 white sources, so what do I care?

I wasn't thrilled with 24 lands or the mainboard 4 drops, but I like Jailer and P&K in general, so I want them in the 75.

No idea about the sideboard, honestly. I mean, I want Pontiff, Canonist, and Faeries Macabre and the rest is "Um, dunno".

[zebhillard]

I'm working through testing my 75 as the Legacy-Leg of my team for the Louisville event, and I'm sitting on this quasi-finished main and completely up-in-the-air sideboard.

24 Creatures
4 Mother of Runes, Stoneforge Mystic, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Flickerwisp
2 Magus of the Moon, Phyrexian Revoker, Recruiter of the Guard
1 Ethersworn Canonist, Orzhov Pontiff, Sanctum Prelate

13 Spells
4 Swords to Plowshares, Aether Vial
2 Chrome Mox
3 Equipment (Jitte, Batterskull, SoFaI)

23 Land
5 Fetches
4 Cavern, Wasteland, Rishadan Port
3 Plains
2 Karakas
1 Plateau

SB
4 Path to Exile
2 Ethersworn Canonist, Containment Priest, Surgical Extraction
1 Pia and Kiran, Cunning Sparkmage, Magus of the Moon, Sanctum Prelate, Palace Jailer

[Elpresidente]

Been a while since I did a report (though kind of disingenuously I only really write this when I do well), but I was able to win GP Vegas Byes today with the most stock dnt list I have played in sometimes.
Will write up the full report later, but here is the list

10 Plains
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
3 Karakas
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Horizon Canopy

4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte

4 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Phyrexian Revoker
4 flickerwisp
2 Serra Avenger
2 Mirran Crusader
2 Recruiter of the Guard
1 Sanctum Prelate

Sideboard
1 Pithing Needle
2 Path to Exile
2 Containment Priest
2 Council's Judgment
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Seal of Cleansing
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Mangara of Corondor

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Why do people like Serra Avenger? I think that card is wasted cardboard. Could've been a basic forest...

Congratulations on your byes, I got mine with DnT also. I'll see you there, although I haven't the foggiest on what to play.

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[Mad Mat]

How is War Priest of Thune over say Leonin Relic-Warder? It feels easier to cast but much more narrow. Also I assume blessed alliance is really only there for SnS, which feels bad, and TNN deck. Surely there are better things to be played?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk
I don't play war priest over relic-warder, but I do play war priest over a second relic-warder. I think there are sufficient amounts of food chain and omniscience out there to warrant the priest. It has some additional value against burn, lands, aluren and any deck bringing in dread of night. The effect of permanently killing a critical enchantment is quite important, especially now you have tutor to fetch it up. It is probably the most narrow card in the board, only coming in in about 4 out of 18 match-ups I prepared for. That puts it about the same level of narrowness as Gideon in the post-miracles age.

Blessed Alliance comes in against eldrazi, delver, burn, infect, reanimator and any deck playing stoneforge mystic and/or true-name nemesis. You don't bring it in against sneaky show because you almost always lose to emrakul there and alliance does little to prevent that. It's a subpar removal spell against delver at 2 mana, but it does kill mongoose and the true-names they tend to play nowadays. It also randomly gains you 4 life, which can be important against the more burn-y versions such as UR delver. But I play it over a second path for its additional power in the other match-ups listed, in particular burn, infect, reanimator and stoneblade.

[Elpresidente]

Hit up a GPT on May 7th, field was somewhat soft, but still ended up coming out ahead and getting my byes for GP Vegas.

The list again

10 Plains
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
3 Karakas
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Horizon Canopy

4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte

4 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Phyrexian Revoker
4 flickerwisp
2 Serra Avenger
2 Mirran Crusader
2 Recruiter of the Guard
1 Sanctum Prelate


Sideboard

1 Pithing Needle
2 Path to Exile
2 Containment Priest
2 Council's Judgment
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Seal of Cleansing
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Mangara of Corondor


So quick list things. Went back to the mono white variant and I completely agree that Cavern can be a liability in certain matchups, particularly against delver variants. So I went for the highest basic plains count I could while still fitting in one cavern, occasional value from this against blue decks but it isn’t important, and a horizon canopy, flood hedging. I lost one game to the horizon canopy doing enough damage to make an exalted tnn lethal, but it was otherwise pretty good. Overall record for the evening was 6-1 in rounds, 13-6 in games

Round 1: Dave Trie on UR Delver 1-2
Game 1: He mulled to 5 and had a hand of all lands and a vortex, I quickly kill him when it comes down to the race
Side In: 2 Path to Exile, 2 Council’s Judgment, 2 Ethersworn Canonist
Side Out: 1 Vial, 3 Revokers, 2 Mirran Crusader
Cut boltable non flying threats and a card that does nothing, wasn’t sure what else to cut, but all the non creature spells makes a vial a bit worse
Game 2: He has a very creature heavy start and I’m removal light so I get run over pretty fast
Game 3: A lot like the second game, he has a very creature heavy draw, I have not enough creatures and removal to get me to the end

Record 0-1

Round 2: Trevor Smith on Grixis Delver 2-1
Game 1: He only has cantrips and soft permission. It’s actually pretty funny, due to the turn one cabal on thalia, I thought he was on storm. I had double swords double crusader, so I removed all of his threats and killed him pretty quickly
Side In: 2 Path to Exile, 2 Council’s Judgment
Side Out: 3 Revokers, 1 Serra Avenger
Cut on the cards that do nothing for for removal, cut an avenger as I’d rather have something that can block angler
Game 2: The board gets super stalled as I take some hits from 2 Gurmag anglers and he eventually manages to drain me with drs for game
Game 3: I play a vial on turn 2 after top decking it, and it enabled me to dump my entire hand of prelate, crusader, and SFM fairly easily and lets me attack through completely unabated as he reveals the 2 bolts in his hand stranded by the prelate

Record 1-1

Round 3: Harry Takenaka on Sneak and Show 2-1
Game 1: Mull a reasonable 7, but needed more direct interaction as we both knew what we were playing. I get a quick soft lock with revoker and karakas and he dies needing to top deck a show and tell for his omniscience.
Side in: 2 Containment Priest, 1 Pithing Needle, 1 Mangara of Corondor, 2 Council’s Judgment
Side out: 4 Swords to plowshares, 1 jitte, 1 stoneforge mystic
Cut some of the slower cards for things that shut him out faster. Removal is pretty bad, so it also gets cut
Game 2: he forces my turn 1 play then shows a turn 2 omniscience into griselbrand. Finds emrakul and I die
Side in: 2 Ethersworn canonists
Side out: 2 mirran crusader
Dying to show and tell omni sucks
Game 3: I manage to get a canonist in play for the omniscience line, then drop a revoker to deal with the sneaks. He plays a moon on turn 2 which I let happen. He follows with a sneak, which I judgment to be safe. He plays another which I judgment again to be safe. I manage to kill him by hardcasting the batterskull to get me exactly lethal

Record 2-1

Round 4: Chris Kapica on Bant blade 2-1
Game 1: He mulls to 5, but unfortunately a jace bounces my mirran crusader which was holding back his jitte’d deathrites and I end up dead in a few turns as a result after he eventually finds a TNN and with DRS Drains I die
Side In: 2 Council’s Judgment, 1 Pithing Needle, 1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, 2 Path to Exile
Side out: 2 Swords to plowshares, 1 flickerwisp, 1 Mother of Runes, 1 Prelate, 1 Aether Vial
Some of this is due to us knowing each other’s list because we test together, I know he’s not on basics, but I don’t want to overload on removal due to TNN and having few answers
Game 2: Starts of very poorly as my equipment get thoughtsiezed and I have a super limited clock. I manage to eventually assemble a board of SFM, thalia, mirran, and flickerwisp. A risky attack from Chris’ TNN lets me crack back and put him to 6. He finds his jitte using stoneforge, puts it into play and connects putting me to 8. I top deck path to exile. Due to his being choked on mana, his board looks like tapped SFM, tapped TNN, tapped Noble, untapped DRS and no untapped lands. I have 3 lands in play, the path to exile gets me exactly lethal damage due to it not being swords, leaving him at 6 and making it so that the jitte counters can’t prevent 6 damage from coming through using any of the modes.
Game 3: He keeps a reactionary ish hand with dread, double drs and double ZP. It kills my thalia, several of my SFMs, a crusader, and a revoker. He thoughtsiezes my Council’s which I was going to use to exile dread. Luckily I was able to put batterskull into play and beat down till he hits 9 life at which point he finds a TNN, but I’m able to emblem a Gideon and finish the game in the air with flickerwisps. Was fortunate he was unable to find a faster clock besides draining with DRS

Record 3-1

Round 6: Dustin (can’t remember the last name) on Elves 2-0
Game 1: He mulled to 5 and only drew lands, while I had t2 stoneforge and got it active early to kill his things
Side in: 1 Pithing Needle, 2 Path to Exile, 2 Containment Priest, 2 Ethersworn Canonist
Side out: 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, 1 Sanctum Prelate, 1 Wisp, 1 Batterskull
Cut a wisp, and the generally bad cards for things that help me not die immediately in the matchup, but I’m basically still just hoping I get insanely lucky.
Game 2: He keeps 7, but plays dryad arbor and passes. I play a vial and pass back. He plays out DRS plus visionary using a cradle. I tick up vial and play mystic fetching jitte with the intention of holding it until I can play and attack with it in one turn. He destroys my vial using decay after I bluff an activation then pushes my mystic. This leads me to take a risk, play out a second mystic and another vial after which I pass. He untaps and natural orders for craterhoof, but due to only having the 3 creatures can only put me to 4 after I chump with mystic. I untap and play a needle on DRS and pass, porting cradle in upkeep. He goes for an attack where I path his craterhoof and go to 2. He then plays nettle and passes. I now need to top deck a creature to pair with the avenger in my hand to not die. I draw the perfect creature in Containment priest. He attacks. I activate vial to put in avenger, flash in priest, block DRS and nettle sentinel and go to 1. I untap cast and equip jitte and manage to stabilize the board. He shows my 2 GSZ’s in hand after he concedes to the jitte.
I was incredibly fortunate that he decided to go for my vial with the decay and also push my mystic. If he had fetched another dryad arbor and ignored my vial, there was no way I was going to be able to win that game.

Record 4-1

Going into top 8, I get third seed, the seeds in order are

UR Delver (Dave)
4c Artifact stuff (I’ll explain later but played by CT)
DnT (Me)
Grixis Delver (Michael g)
Sneak and Show (Michael B I Think)
Dragon Stompy (Andrew Son)
UR Delver (Seth Y)
UR Delver (Prince Cortez Jr)

We all split prizes and decide to just play for the byes

So I get to play dragon stompy round 1 of top 8
Quarterfinals: Andrew Son on Dragon Stompy Intentional Concession
Andrew has byes already and was willing to concede to me, so I definitely owe him and I appreciate the gesture immensely.

Semifinals: CT Barnham (2nd Seed) on 4c Artifact jank 2-1
Ok, let me explain. CT and I both scrubbed out at Fire and Dice yesterday, so we were just having fun messing around with the homebrew he brought. The deck is insane. He plays 4 lotus petals, 4 mox diamonds, 4 mox opals, 4 tombs, 1 of each artifact land minus green, and his plan is to get turn 1 3 or 4 drop as often as possible, sometimes casting day’s undoing once he establishes his mana. The win cons are cards such as new Daretti, Dack, Ajani Vengeant, Nahiri, and Agent Tezz. Additionally he mainboards several lock pieces like ensnaring bridge and humility. Needless to say, I was not excited, as he often gets to the board well before I can slow him down. I forgot to take notes on the games so some of this isn’t perfectly accurate, due to how stressful the game was, but this was definitely the most difficult set I won, partially on sheer luck.

Game 1: He gets a turn 1 Tezz, followed by a daretti. I’m able to eventually clear both and the several 5/5s that were spewed out, but unfortunately he draws into dack fayden, steals my jitte, finds another daretti, then a bridge. I’m promptly locked out as he ultimates daretti to get 5 copies of ensnaring bridge into play.
Side In: 1 Pithing Needle, 1 Mangara of Corondor, 2 Council’s Judgments, 1 Seal of Cleansing, 2 Surgical Extractions
Side out: 4 Swords to Plowshares, 1 Mirran Crusader, 1 Mother of runes, 1 Jitte.
So the seal I’m super glad I brought with me today even if not for this matchup. Same for the mangara. I wanted ways to deal with artifacts and other assorted permanents. He plays very few creatures so I cut some of that interaction. He also plays very little removal, so a mom cut is fine here.
Game 2: I play land go. He plays land go. I drop a Thalia, then I drop a Prelate on 4. He plays daretti and makes a dude, I revoke daretti immediately. He plays bridge, I seal surgical bridge and just beat in with thalia and a bear, and eventually a flickerwisp as prelate on 4 locked him out of most of his more powerful actions
Game 3: He plays ancient tomb, lotus petal, mox opal, but no action. I play land mom. He makes a land drop and passes the turn. I play a land and due to knowing his deck, I decide to cast a pithing needle. There were 3 things I was concerned with, tezz, daretti, and bridge. I choose to needle fair as revokers can’t hit them, but he was fairly far from metal craft, so in hindsight I should have named daretti. He end steps a mindcensor. He plays another land and casts Daretti and pluses, still one artifact from metalcraft. I untap and council’s judgment his daretti. I start playing out my creatures, landing a revoker on grid to be safe and flickerwisp beats get me there as he runs out of action.


Grand Finals: Prince Cortez Jr. on UR Delver 2-0
Game 1: He keeps a super controlly hand. Forces my vials, Kills my first mystic and mom, forces my second with the bskull in hand. He finally finds a threat and flips it to a fireblast. I take the opportunity to waste one of his two mountains in play. At this point I was able to get a flickerwisp and crusader into play. In order to keep himself alive he trades his delver with my wisp and blasts my crusader leaving only the one island. I eventually find a creature to equip jitte to and win the game
Side In: 2 Path to Exile, 2 Council’s Judgment, 2 Ethersworn Canonist
Side Out: 1 Vial, 3 Revokers, 2 Mirran Crusader
Same as before
Game 2: I have batterskull in hand with a mystic and some other lands so I keep. He has turn 1 delver which blind flips. He has to bolt my mom, my mystic, and dazes my thalia. His delver manages to hit me to 8 before I top deck and avenger which lets me block and play around daze and I trade with his delver. I then play a flickerwisp to trade with swiftspear. I play a thalia and hard cast a batterskull the following turn as he only had the 2 lands and couldn’t cast a smash. I attack with a jitte’d thalia, leaving up 3 mana to save bskull if something goes wrong. He chain lightnings my thalia which I let happen, and batterskull is able to carry me out.

Final Thoughts:
I’ve been testing the various splashes for the last few weeks and while they all felt powerful and did powerful things, there was a level of consistency I missed in having basic plains to back up on, especially when trying to cast batterskulls, which happened several times throughout the day. Serra avenger put in a ton of work every time I drew it, just being another flying threat to carry equipment was huge. Mangara wasn’t drawn or tutored for at any point, but it was mostly there for when the mirrors get super grindy as there were at least 2 other dnt players in the room. Overall, I was super happy with the performance of the mono white variant and everything felt super consistent

[Medea_]

I did some testing with the Bahra-style build yesterday. Here are my conclusions:

Elves is pretty even. I ended up coming out ahead in both pre and post board games. The deck has an incredible density of hate for this matchup. If you are trying to beat Elves, a pile of hate bears PLUS Chalice PLUS Pontiff/Sparkmage will do the trick. Of note, some of the Elves builds are returning to Progenitus now that Terminus is gone.

Sneak and Show is a touch rougher without Revokers, but still fine. You end up locking out the cantrips with Chalice instead of locking down win conditions, which is slightly worse, but still acceptable. I ended up adding one Revoker back to the build as a tutor target after realizing that I kept wanting to find it here and against Planeswalker decks.

Aggro Loam was a bit rough. My mana base was quite exposed to a Wasteland lock, and I really missed having generically good beaters in this midrange matchup. I won many games where I locked out my opponent with Magus of the Moon, but Mox Diamond was an out for them. I missed RiP here.

I have a team constructed event next weekend, and I'll likely give this a whirl there.

[zakzes]

I don't play war priest over relic-warder, but I do play war priest over a second relic-warder. I think there are sufficient amounts of food chain and omniscience out there to warrant the priest. It has some additional value against burn, lands, aluren and any deck bringing in dread of night. The effect of permanently killing a critical enchantment is quite important, especially now you have tutor to fetch it up. It is probably the most narrow card in the board, only coming in in about 4 out of 18 match-ups I prepared for. That puts it about the same level of narrowness as Gideon in the post-miracles age.

Blessed Alliance comes in against eldrazi, delver, burn, infect, reanimator and any deck playing stoneforge mystic and/or true-name nemesis. You don't bring it in against sneaky show because you almost always lose to emrakul there and alliance does little to prevent that. It's a subpar removal spell against delver at 2 mana, but it does kill mongoose and the true-names they tend to play nowadays. It also randomly gains you 4 life, which can be important against the more burn-y versions such as UR delver. But I play it over a second path for its additional power in the other match-ups listed, in particular burn, infect, reanimator and stoneblade.
I can see that, I just feel that I like the flexibility of relic-warder, especially with mom to protect it. Also I have been messing with a Honor of the Pure to help against Dread of Night and have been liking it quite a bit.
I don't ever really play against much burn or UR delver, but I can see it's application. I still think I like council's judgement just a touch more. But thanks for filling me in!

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[redtwister]

@Everyone
With Miracles out and StP at a low point, we all need to expect the return of Tombstalker because better players will eventually realize how very playable it is again. In this new environment, it is just better than Gurmag Angler and anyone who has faced the 5/5 flyer knows what a beast it is.

@_Medea
I am sold on Imperial for sure, but I am not sold on Chalice + Ancient Tomb + Dismember. Combined with fetch lands, Ancient Tomb and extremely painful creature removal make it nearly impossible to beat Burn, especially if they run a sufficient amount of post-board CMC 3 spells, which they do, and Burn is more common in the early rounds of a tournament than Elves. I don't want to go to 40-60 or even 45-55 against Elves in order to drop to 20-80 against Burn. That is a bad trade off.

I also think that despite the value of chalice on 1 turn 1 or turn 2, I still prefer Sanctum Prelate because we can protect it with Mom and it stops the casting entirely, which keeps Young Pyromancer from dumping its bad hand to go wide on us (and if anyone doubts the validity of that strategy, look at how Grixis Delver decks beat Eldrazi decks with Chalice on 1 e.g. Noah Walker in Philly a couple years ago.)

@Secretly.A.Bee
I am not entirely sold on Serra Avenger at the moment, but we need a way to close games and we need something that doesn't fold to Dread of Night and allows us to race TNN without equipment.

Eldrazi Displacer (2W instead of 1WW is relevant, effect is excellent, 3/3 is substantial) and Restoration Angel (except for being CMC 4, it is all upside) keep popping into my head bcause they have powerful effects and play well with SfM, Palace Jailer, Pia and Kiran, Pontiff, etc. However, they are not strictly better because they also have costs:
- ED has a high cost of effectiveness and doesn't get through TNN, despite working well for those turns where you just have extra mana
- Restoration Angel really wants us to run 24 lands and Vial on 4 feels kind of bad, so do you look for Cavern #2 on Angel? At least with 4 Caverns, that is feasible.
- Both of them require Vial on something other than 2 and the 3 drops are already plentiful thanks to Recruiter and other cards we are adding.
- Neither of them have vigilance, an under-respected aspect of Serra Avenger.

Dropping a Flickerwisp and the Serra Avengers for Wx creatures could also allow for white sources to go to 13-14, instead of 15 and put a couple of Port back in.

Lands 24
4 Wasteland
4 Cavern of Souls
2 Rishadan Port
2 Flooded Strand
2 Windswept Heath
2 Arid Mesa
3 Plains
2 Plateau
3 Karakas

Creatures 25
4 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Flickerwisp
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Magus of the Moon
2 Eldrazi Displacer / Restoration Angel
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Sanctum Prelate

Other Spells 11
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Aether Vial
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull

Sideboard: (15)
2 Rest in peace
2 Containment Priest
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Cunning Sparkmage
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Path to Exile
1 Leonin Relic-Warder
1 Palace Jailer

[Medea_]

@Secretly.A.Bee
Blessed Alliance against Storm is loose. It's very, very rare that a Storm opponent goes for exact damage if you have some mana open.

@MadMatt
I try not to cut fliers against Elves. Getting in with equipment is really important to sealing the deal.

[Mad Mat]

@MadMatt
I try not to cut fliers against Elves. Getting in with equipment is really important to sealing the deal.
The reason I cut a few wisps is because it is the worst creature in the match-up after thalia. Flying is relevant and sometimes flickering is too (e.g. targeting needle or null rod, resetting revoker, re-using stoneforge or recruiter, blinking a critical elf, arbor or cradle from vial...), but it's still most of the time nothing but an expensive extra threat that sucks at blocking duty. Between 2 crusader, 2 wisp, 2 avenger, 3 mother and 1 judge's familiar, you still have ample sources of evasion. You do never want to cut all of your wisps, because recruiting one to re-use a pontiff may be critical.

[Medea_]

This is where I'm at after a couple of days:

4 Wasteland
2 Rishadan Port
2 Ancient Tomb
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Flooded Strand
4 Windswept Heath
3 Plains
2 Plateau
2 Karakas
Creatures
4 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Magus of the Moon
2 Flickerwisp
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Palace Jailer
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Aven Mindcensor
Other Spells
2 Blessed Alliance
4 Aether Vial
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull
Sideboard:
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Containment Priest
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Banisher Priest
2 Cunning Sparkmage
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Manic Vandal
1 Manriki-Gusari
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Palace Jailer

I went 9-1 in games tonight against BUG Delver (5-0 pre, 4-1 post). I wanted to try out Blessed Alliance over Dismember to help out the Burn matchup a bit and try to make that salvageable. It ended up being very good, and I might can the Banisher Priest from the sideboard for a third.

I didn't draw Ancient Tomb once tonight in ten games and I didn't miss it; that may mean that the deck can function as is without it. Chalice is still a very good turn two play, and many times you want to run out a Vial or Mom anyway on one. I'm not quite sure how many wins the Tomb has gotten me that I couldn't have gotten otherwise. The probability of getting Chalice plus Cavern in an opener is somewhat low anyway. The turn two Magus is disgusting though, provided you have access to white mana from the rest of your hand (or a Vial).

Aven Mindcensor is still a bit loose of a slot. I don't hate it, but I don't love it either. That slot was Restoration Angel yesterday, but I wanted to try lowering the cmc a bit for those times when mana is tight.

Mirran Crusader may be unnecessary in the board; I like him as a generic dude to board in when things need to come out, but the BUG matchups are going to be just dominated by Magus anyway.

[sarpedon]

Great writeup! It was fun to watch :) And yeah, I can vouch: the CT artifacts match was intense. The G2 Sanctum Prelate on 4 into Phyrexian Revoker on Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast into Seal of Cleansing to Surgical Extraction his Ensnaring Bridge was kinda like this: http://gph.is/ZZbCro


Hit up a GPT on May 7th, field was somewhat soft, but still ended up coming out ahead and getting my byes for GP Vegas.

The list again

10 Plains
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
3 Karakas
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Horizon Canopy

4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte

4 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Phyrexian Revoker
4 flickerwisp
2 Serra Avenger
2 Mirran Crusader
2 Recruiter of the Guard
1 Sanctum Prelate


Sideboard

1 Pithing Needle
2 Path to Exile
2 Containment Priest
2 Council's Judgment
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Seal of Cleansing
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Mangara of Corondor


So quick list things. Went back to the mono white variant and I completely agree that Cavern can be a liability in certain matchups, particularly against delver variants. So I went for the highest basic plains count I could while still fitting in one cavern, occasional value from this against blue decks but it isn’t important, and a horizon canopy, flood hedging. I lost one game to the horizon canopy doing enough damage to make an exalted tnn lethal, but it was otherwise pretty good. Overall record for the evening was 6-1 in rounds, 13-6 in games

Round 1: Dave Trie on UR Delver 1-2
Game 1: He mulled to 5 and had a hand of all lands and a vortex, I quickly kill him when it comes down to the race
Side In: 2 Path to Exile, 2 Council’s Judgment, 2 Ethersworn Canonist
Side Out: 1 Vial, 3 Revokers, 2 Mirran Crusader
Cut boltable non flying threats and a card that does nothing, wasn’t sure what else to cut, but all the non creature spells makes a vial a bit worse
Game 2: He has a very creature heavy start and I’m removal light so I get run over pretty fast
Game 3: A lot like the second game, he has a very creature heavy draw, I have not enough creatures and removal to get me to the end

Record 0-1

Round 2: Trevor Smith on Grixis Delver 2-1
Game 1: He only has cantrips and soft permission. It’s actually pretty funny, due to the turn one cabal on thalia, I thought he was on storm. I had double swords double crusader, so I removed all of his threats and killed him pretty quickly
Side In: 2 Path to Exile, 2 Council’s Judgment
Side Out: 3 Revokers, 1 Serra Avenger
Cut on the cards that do nothing for for removal, cut an avenger as I’d rather have something that can block angler
Game 2: The board gets super stalled as I take some hits from 2 Gurmag anglers and he eventually manages to drain me with drs for game
Game 3: I play a vial on turn 2 after top decking it, and it enabled me to dump my entire hand of prelate, crusader, and SFM fairly easily and lets me attack through completely unabated as he reveals the 2 bolts in his hand stranded by the prelate

Record 1-1

Round 3: Harry Takenaka on Sneak and Show 2-1
Game 1: Mull a reasonable 7, but needed more direct interaction as we both knew what we were playing. I get a quick soft lock with revoker and karakas and he dies needing to top deck a show and tell for his omniscience.
Side in: 2 Containment Priest, 1 Pithing Needle, 1 Mangara of Corondor, 2 Council’s Judgment
Side out: 4 Swords to plowshares, 1 jitte, 1 stoneforge mystic
Cut some of the slower cards for things that shut him out faster. Removal is pretty bad, so it also gets cut
Game 2: he forces my turn 1 play then shows a turn 2 omniscience into griselbrand. Finds emrakul and I die
Side in: 2 Ethersworn canonists
Side out: 2 mirran crusader
Dying to show and tell omni sucks
Game 3: I manage to get a canonist in play for the omniscience line, then drop a revoker to deal with the sneaks. He plays a moon on turn 2 which I let happen. He follows with a sneak, which I judgment to be safe. He plays another which I judgment again to be safe. I manage to kill him by hardcasting the batterskull to get me exactly lethal

Record 2-1

Round 4: Chris Kapica on Bant blade 2-1
Game 1: He mulls to 5, but unfortunately a jace bounces my mirran crusader which was holding back his jitte’d deathrites and I end up dead in a few turns as a result after he eventually finds a TNN and with DRS Drains I die
Side In: 2 Council’s Judgment, 1 Pithing Needle, 1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, 2 Path to Exile
Side out: 2 Swords to plowshares, 1 flickerwisp, 1 Mother of Runes, 1 Prelate, 1 Aether Vial
Some of this is due to us knowing each other’s list because we test together, I know he’s not on basics, but I don’t want to overload on removal due to TNN and having few answers
Game 2: Starts of very poorly as my equipment get thoughtsiezed and I have a super limited clock. I manage to eventually assemble a board of SFM, thalia, mirran, and flickerwisp. A risky attack from Chris’ TNN lets me crack back and put him to 6. He finds his jitte using stoneforge, puts it into play and connects putting me to 8. I top deck path to exile. Due to his being choked on mana, his board looks like tapped SFM, tapped TNN, tapped Noble, untapped DRS and no untapped lands. I have 3 lands in play, the path to exile gets me exactly lethal damage due to it not being swords, leaving him at 6 and making it so that the jitte counters can’t prevent 6 damage from coming through using any of the modes.
Game 3: He keeps a reactionary ish hand with dread, double drs and double ZP. It kills my thalia, several of my SFMs, a crusader, and a revoker. He thoughtsiezes my Council’s which I was going to use to exile dread. Luckily I was able to put batterskull into play and beat down till he hits 9 life at which point he finds a TNN, but I’m able to emblem a Gideon and finish the game in the air with flickerwisps. Was fortunate he was unable to find a faster clock besides draining with DRS

Record 3-1

Round 6: Dustin (can’t remember the last name) on Elves 2-0
Game 1: He mulled to 5 and only drew lands, while I had t2 stoneforge and got it active early to kill his things
Side in: 1 Pithing Needle, 2 Path to Exile, 2 Containment Priest, 2 Ethersworn Canonist
Side out: 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, 1 Sanctum Prelate, 1 Wisp, 1 Batterskull
Cut a wisp, and the generally bad cards for things that help me not die immediately in the matchup, but I’m basically still just hoping I get insanely lucky.
Game 2: He keeps 7, but plays dryad arbor and passes. I play a vial and pass back. He plays out DRS plus visionary using a cradle. I tick up vial and play mystic fetching jitte with the intention of holding it until I can play and attack with it in one turn. He destroys my vial using decay after I bluff an activation then pushes my mystic. This leads me to take a risk, play out a second mystic and another vial after which I pass. He untaps and natural orders for craterhoof, but due to only having the 3 creatures can only put me to 4 after I chump with mystic. I untap and play a needle on DRS and pass, porting cradle in upkeep. He goes for an attack where I path his craterhoof and go to 2. He then plays nettle and passes. I now need to top deck a creature to pair with the avenger in my hand to not die. I draw the perfect creature in Containment priest. He attacks. I activate vial to put in avenger, flash in priest, block DRS and nettle sentinel and go to 1. I untap cast and equip jitte and manage to stabilize the board. He shows my 2 GSZ’s in hand after he concedes to the jitte.
I was incredibly fortunate that he decided to go for my vial with the decay and also push my mystic. If he had fetched another dryad arbor and ignored my vial, there was no way I was going to be able to win that game.

Record 4-1

Going into top 8, I get third seed, the seeds in order are

UR Delver (Dave)
4c Artifact stuff (I’ll explain later but played by CT)
DnT (Me)
Grixis Delver (Michael g)
Sneak and Show (Michael B I Think)
Dragon Stompy (Andrew Son)
UR Delver (Seth Y)
UR Delver (Prince Cortez Jr)

We all split prizes and decide to just play for the byes

So I get to play dragon stompy round 1 of top 8
Quarterfinals: Andrew Son on Dragon Stompy Intentional Concession
Andrew has byes already and was willing to concede to me, so I definitely owe him and I appreciate the gesture immensely.

Semifinals: CT Barnham (2nd Seed) on 4c Artifact jank 2-1
Ok, let me explain. CT and I both scrubbed out at Fire and Dice yesterday, so we were just having fun messing around with the homebrew he brought. The deck is insane. He plays 4 lotus petals, 4 mox diamonds, 4 mox opals, 4 tombs, 1 of each artifact land minus green, and his plan is to get turn 1 3 or 4 drop as often as possible, sometimes casting day’s undoing once he establishes his mana. The win cons are cards such as new Daretti, Dack, Ajani Vengeant, Nahiri, and Agent Tezz. Additionally he mainboards several lock pieces like ensnaring bridge and humility. Needless to say, I was not excited, as he often gets to the board well before I can slow him down. I forgot to take notes on the games so some of this isn’t perfectly accurate, due to how stressful the game was, but this was definitely the most difficult set I won, partially on sheer luck.

Game 1: He gets a turn 1 Tezz, followed by a daretti. I’m able to eventually clear both and the several 5/5s that were spewed out, but unfortunately he draws into dack fayden, steals my jitte, finds another daretti, then a bridge. I’m promptly locked out as he ultimates daretti to get 5 copies of ensnaring bridge into play.
Side In: 1 Pithing Needle, 1 Mangara of Corondor, 2 Council’s Judgments, 1 Seal of Cleansing, 2 Surgical Extractions
Side out: 4 Swords to Plowshares, 1 Mirran Crusader, 1 Mother of runes, 1 Jitte.
So the seal I’m super glad I brought with me today even if not for this matchup. Same for the mangara. I wanted ways to deal with artifacts and other assorted permanents. He plays very few creatures so I cut some of that interaction. He also plays very little removal, so a mom cut is fine here.
Game 2: I play land go. He plays land go. I drop a Thalia, then I drop a Prelate on 4. He plays daretti and makes a dude, I revoke daretti immediately. He plays bridge, I seal surgical bridge and just beat in with thalia and a bear, and eventually a flickerwisp as prelate on 4 locked him out of most of his more powerful actions
Game 3: He plays ancient tomb, lotus petal, mox opal, but no action. I play land mom. He makes a land drop and passes the turn. I play a land and due to knowing his deck, I decide to cast a pithing needle. There were 3 things I was concerned with, tezz, daretti, and bridge. I choose to needle fair as revokers can’t hit them, but he was fairly far from metal craft, so in hindsight I should have named daretti. He end steps a mindcensor. He plays another land and casts Daretti and pluses, still one artifact from metalcraft. I untap and council’s judgment his daretti. I start playing out my creatures, landing a revoker on grid to be safe and flickerwisp beats get me there as he runs out of action.


Grand Finals: Prince Cortez Jr. on UR Delver 2-0
Game 1: He keeps a super controlly hand. Forces my vials, Kills my first mystic and mom, forces my second with the bskull in hand. He finally finds a threat and flips it to a fireblast. I take the opportunity to waste one of his two mountains in play. At this point I was able to get a flickerwisp and crusader into play. In order to keep himself alive he trades his delver with my wisp and blasts my crusader leaving only the one island. I eventually find a creature to equip jitte to and win the game
Side In: 2 Path to Exile, 2 Council’s Judgment, 2 Ethersworn Canonist
Side Out: 1 Vial, 3 Revokers, 2 Mirran Crusader
Same as before
Game 2: I have batterskull in hand with a mystic and some other lands so I keep. He has turn 1 delver which blind flips. He has to bolt my mom, my mystic, and dazes my thalia. His delver manages to hit me to 8 before I top deck and avenger which lets me block and play around daze and I trade with his delver. I then play a flickerwisp to trade with swiftspear. I play a thalia and hard cast a batterskull the following turn as he only had the 2 lands and couldn’t cast a smash. I attack with a jitte’d thalia, leaving up 3 mana to save bskull if something goes wrong. He chain lightnings my thalia which I let happen, and batterskull is able to carry me out.

Final Thoughts:
I’ve been testing the various splashes for the last few weeks and while they all felt powerful and did powerful things, there was a level of consistency I missed in having basic plains to back up on, especially when trying to cast batterskulls, which happened several times throughout the day. Serra avenger put in a ton of work every time I drew it, just being another flying threat to carry equipment was huge. Mangara wasn’t drawn or tutored for at any point, but it was mostly there for when the mirrors get super grindy as there were at least 2 other dnt players in the room. Overall, I was super happy with the performance of the mono white variant and everything felt super consistent

[redtwister]

@Medea_
Manic Vandal?

Played about 10 games against Grixis Delver yesterday, went pretty much 5/5. Did not like Restoration Angel, and I definitely wanted something with bigger bodies and preferably colorless. 24 lands was a bit much. I definitely need to limit non-human double white, but I was wishing I had Serra Avenger the whole time. I am going to test Displacer because it would be amazing overall in this match.

I was also not aggressive enough with Magus. If they don't have Bolt to kill it and /or DRS to make non-R mana, they, they also can't really do anything. 4C or not, this card is a blowout. Pontiff was amazing. Sanctum Prelate was amazing, especially with Mom out. I got to eh live the dream in the last match by having turn 1 Vial, turn 2 Mom, turn 3 SfM, turn 4 cast Prelate with Cavern forcing him to try and destroy the Chalice on 3, activate chalice and put in Prelate #2 on 1, with the other Prelate resolving on 2. With Mom, he had exactly one out: Dismember, which Mom blanks.

Lands 23
4 Wasteland
4 Cavern of Souls
2 Rishadan Port
2 Flooded Strand
2 Windswept Heath
1 Arid Mesa
3 Plains
2 Plateau
3 Karakas

Creatures 26
4 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Flickerwisp
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Magus of the Moon
2 Eldrazi Displacer
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Sanctum Prelate

Other Spells 11
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Aether Vial
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull

Sideboard: (15)
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Containment Priest
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Rest in peace
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Cunning Sparkmage
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Path to Exile
1 Leonin Relic-Warder
1 Palace Jailer
1 Pithing Needle

[Medea_]

@Redtwister
The opposing equipment can be rough without a bunch of Revokers. That was my solution along with Manriki-Gusari.

I think it is understandable to want a little more bulk. I was considering THC for that reason to keep with a Human with a single white cost. I don't love that card, but it might be fine. I never got a Displacer activation when I tried it out last week as a one of, and I tended to keep it in my hand either because Magus was out or because I had better things to do.

[Finn]

I want to update the opening post.

Can someone post either an agreed upon Wr list or something that has placed since Top got the axe?

[Farone]

just incase anyone wants to see my MKM Frankfurt match vs Tezzeret, here's the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AUOcRBIldQ
I'm at like 2h28m in.

[redtwister]

@Medea_
Okay, I get that. I think I prefer the Manriki-Gusari because it is fetch-able, but yeah.

I have to say, I am really unsure what I want in those spots however you build Wr. Displacer is a nonbo with Magus out, but then again a colorless 3/3 for 2W is also fine and most decks want to kill Magus, and if they can't can't, I feel like we win anyway if we can keep deploying threats. Given the Pontiffs in my build, alongside SfM and Flickerwisp main and PJ and Pi and Kiran sideboard, Displacer is a really nice effect when you do get to use it.

Maybe the deck just wants the Serra Avengers, but then I think the 2 Rishadan Port or 2 Cavern of Souls have to go to have enough white sources.

@Finn
I don't know if there is an agreed upon Wr build and not enough people are playing it atm to put up numbers, except for iatee's list from Worcester. Not sure if he is still on Wingmare + SotL. Certainly not the worst, though that deck get's kind of crushed by Dread of Night and Sulfur Elemental. Not sure how much those two cards were good for him or if it is just that he is a good pilot and he dodged those cards.

Creatures (26)
2 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Flickerwisp
2 Magus of the Moon
1 Mirran Crusader
4 Mother of Runes
1 Palace Jailer
2 Recruiter of the Guard
1 Sanctum Prelate
4 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Vryn Wingmare
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

Lands (23)
3 Plains
2 Arid Mesa
3 Cavern of Souls
3 Flooded Strand
1 Plateau
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
3 Karakas

Spells (11)
4 Aether Vial
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Umezawa's Jitte

Sideboard
1 Pithing Needle
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Sword of War and Peace
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Cunning Sparkmage
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Leonin Relic-Warder
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Rest in Peace
2 Path to Exile
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Council's Judgment

[gh0st_b1rd]

More often than not the way people build their Wr builds is often based on their Monowhite builds. I have never played less than 4 Phyrexian Revokers maindeck and usually my Wr build will reflect that as well.

Speaking of which, Palace Jailer looks appealing in the maindeck of Wr to me at the moment. Back then I jammed Pia and Kia because of the excess of Miracles and BUG decks that preyed on Miracles in my meta. Miracles was the primary concern but is less of a concern for me now. I look forward to creating my own Monarch token.

[iatee]

@Finn
I don't know if there is an agreed upon Wr build and not enough people are playing it atm to put up numbers, except for iatee's list from Worcester. Not sure if he is still on Wingmare + SotL. Certainly not the worst, though that deck get's kind of crushed by Dread of Night and Sulfur Elemental. Not sure how much those two cards were good for him or if it is just that he is a good pilot and he dodged those cards.


I lost playing for t8 to a Sulfur Elemental (but mostly to mana screw.)

I'm not even sure what I'm on but I think using the last list is fine. The defining cards of the red splash are Magus, Pia/Kiran, Cunning Sparkmage, Caverns - the rest is up in the air. So any list with the typical red cru is probably representative enough.

As for those x/1s - they are easy to side out vs fair decks playing hate, and vs unfair decks I think the win equity you're getting by playing them is worth more than what you're giving up when they occasionally have their Dread of Night. e.g. my list has so many cards that are highly relevant vs Storm (4 Thalia, 1 Wingmare, 1 Sotl, 1 Prelate, 2 Revoker + 2 Recruiters to find this crap) that you're much more likely to naturally open with cards that wreck them and steal g1 instead of losing while you stare at a bunch of fair creatures.

I'm actually more concerned about how the deck fares vs fair non-blue (or light blue) decks that don't really care too much about all the hatebears. That's where you really feel bad when you play such a hate-heavy version. If they have hate for your SotL it's generally because that card is wrecking them otherwise. When your SotL is actually just an Oreskos Swiftclaw it feels pretty bad.

[Moctzal]

This is where I'm at after a couple of days:

2 Blessed Alliance

I went 9-1 in games tonight against BUG Delver (5-0 pre, 4-1 post). I wanted to try out Blessed Alliance over Dismember to help out the Burn matchup a bit and try to make that salvageable. It ended up being very good, and I might can the Banisher Priest from the sideboard for a third.


I like Blessed Alliance, but it doesn't kill Deathrite Shamans that don't swing. What would you think of a Warping Wail or 2 in the 75 (in addition to Blessed Alliance)? It can exile 1/x or x/1 creatures, Counter sorceries (board wipes are the big ones, but there are other key cards it can hit like Glimpse of Nature, Green Sun's Zenith or Infernal Tutor to name a few), it can also make you a sword carrier or ramp you. The deck has 12 colorless sources if you're on 4 Cavern of Souls as well, so it's not any harder to cast than Blessed Alliance.

[redtwister]

Ah, if only Sword of Light and Shadow was good... Creature died? Don't care, it's coming back and I am gaining life.

[Medea_]

@Gh0st_b1rd

I've liked the Jailer as well recently.
P+K is still also insane, even with Miracles gone. It's good inevitability for the fair matchups.

@Moctzal

I more want something that can eat any *threat.* DRS is annoying, but Magus eventually beats it. I'm more worried about losing to flipped Delvers, Goyf, and TNN than I am to losing to a random sorcery. I think Warping Wail is a fine card, but maybe not in the main.

[Emurian]

Ah, if only Sword of Light and Shadow was good... Creature died? Don't care, it's coming back and I am gaining life.

IMO this card is underrated. I played with sword of light and shadow last week in my deadguy ale list, managed to score a shared first place with lands that day at our local tournament.

The sword was largely relevant throughout the day, lingering souls + sword to block marit liege, recycling DRS and Kambals, blocking gurmag anglers. Even won a game off the sword due to my opponents board being SFM Bskull DRS whereas my Bskull with sword allowed me to attack for free + being the defense vs his bskul.

I did build my sideboard around the sword a bit with sanctum prelate, kambal, canonist, teeg etc. Mostly hate creatures that I could recurr.

I was torn the day before if I should take sword of fire and ice or the light and shadow, moved the F&I to SB in intitial draft and finnaly removed it for COP Red as I get salty as hell when I lose from burn. [I also figured when running 4 dark confidants the card draw is less relevant, whereas the lifegain is more usefull for the deck I was running it in]

Next time I will be including a fire and ice in my SB just in case I run into TNN stoneblade again while keeping LS mainboard, but can't say I regretted taking LS over FI. In hindsight, I think the LS was the correct choice for that day.

Haven't tried the card ever in DnT because the thing that makes us want the fire and ice is the carddraw. A friend of mine that borrowed my RW DnT said that next time he would like to test LS aswell after seeing me using it with succes. (Spice of his list that day was a Gisela 4/3 flying lifelinker main over a serra -which didn't live up to the expectations- and Spellskite SB -Which DID prove its worth multiple times that day. People just DON'T expect the card in DnT.-)

[Barook]

I more want something that can eat any *threat.* DRS is annoying, but Magus eventually beats it. I'm more worried about losing to flipped Delvers, Goyf, and TNN than I am to losing to a random sorcery. I think Warping Wail is a fine card, but maybe not in the main.
The only card that can hit Delver, Goyf and TNN is Council's Judgment. Not exactly the easiest card on the mana, especially if you splash.

Edit: Have people tried out Walking Ballista in their 75? It seems like a sweet control card/tutor target for Recruiter/mana sink, even if you can't Vial it in for profit. At worst, it's a colorless Mogg Fanatic for :2:.

[zebhillard]

I'm putting serious thought into using Sphere of Resistance in the SB instead of additional creature-based taxing effects like Wingmare. Has anyone else tried this recently, or do you think it will just provide more targets for the inevitable artifact hate that's running around and will be brought in from the board in SB games?

[iatee]

Walking Ballista is cute but it's not gonna be good against anything but the mirror and maybe like, Infect. Not the greatest w/ Aether Vial.

Sphere doesn't attack for 2 or come in for 0 mana off Aether Vial. The reason why this deck is powerful is that our lock-pieces attack for 2 and come in for 0 off Aether Vial. Fair decks can win past a Sphere without pressure - our biggest problem vs the unfair decks that can't win past Sphere isn't that we don't have a good 2 drop to play, it's that we don't always reach turn 2.

In any case if you are gonna play a Stompy lock-piece it should be the best one, which is Chalice. I don't like Bahra's WR Chalice build because there are just too many dis-synergies but Chalice is 10x more powerful than Sphere. PS Chalice is a terrible card for Magic and should obviously be banned.

[gh0st_b1rd]

Also Karakas. Thalia loses little utlity after your opponent starts drawing the right lands.

My friend once said that a component of this deck is also that of a Karakas-abuse deck among other components.

[Medea_]

I still don't think SoLaS is really playable.

Ballista on 1 or 2 was pretty solid in Food Chain, I can tell you that much. I don't think Walking Ballista is going to do more than Cunning Sparkmage, Orzhov Pontiff, or Palace Jailer in our deck though. I'm veering away from Ancient Tomb at the moment. I really like Ballista, but without some extra mana production (DRS, Sol Lands, etc) I'm not sure I dig it; it doesn't have the upside of a combo finish in our deck, and it doesn't play well with Vial.

I agree with Iatee regarding Sphere.

[Warden]

@redtwister: I think your decks have great upside at the expense of a very greedy manabase (both recently posted lists). IMO, 3 plains begs for problems in a deck hoping to place Magus of the Moon on the table. Should Magus actually arrive, what do you do? I think this is an important question for Wr taxes to ask itself. Magus alone doesn't warrant a concession from the opponent -- especially with DRS so prevalent. I think Magus lists need upwards of 5 basics to ensure they can keep pumping out threats (and decrease aether vial dependency). There are quite a few WW (flicker, prelate, mirran) to cast.

[Medea_]

@redtwister: I think your decks have great upside at the expense of a very greedy manabase (both recently posted lists). IMO, 3 plains begs for problems in a deck hoping to place Magus of the Moon on the table. Should Magus actually arrive, what do you do? I think this is an important question for Wr taxes to ask itself. Magus alone doesn't warrant a concession from the opponent -- especially with DRS so prevalent. I think Magus lists need upwards of 5 basics to ensure they can keep pumping out threats (and decrease aether vial dependency). There are quite a few WW (flicker, prelate, mirran) to cast.

Three has been working out for me without too much difficulty. You usually fetch a basic with the first one, as your Caverns tend to be your primary red source in most hands. A fourth would be dandy, but in the matchups where you aggressively slam moon man, it's often a KO punch. I'm going to be cutting my two Ancient Tomb for two other lands at some point, one of which might be Plains four.

[gh0st_b1rd]

Not to mention Aether Vial. Also, Batterskull has been fantastic for me too. And Revokers.

[JermStudDog]

Creature (26)

3x Flickerwisp
1x Kambal, Consul of Allocation
2x Magus of the Moon
4x Mother of Runes
1x Mirran Crusader
3x Phyrexian Revoker
2x Recruiter of the Guard
1x Sanctum Prelate
1x Spirit of the Labyrinth
4x Stoneforge Mystic
4x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben


Instant (4)

4x Swords to Plowshares


Artifact (7)

4x Aether Vial
1x Batterskull
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Umezawa's Jitte


Land (23)

4x Cavern of Souls
1x Flooded Strand
2x Karakas
1x Marsh Flats
6x Plains
1x Plateau
3x Rishadan Port
1x Scrubland
4x Wasteland


Sideboard (15)

2x Containment Priest
2x Council's Judgment
3x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Kambal, Consul of Allocation
1x Orzhov Pontiff
2x Path to Exile
1x Pithing Needle
2x Rest in Peace
1x Spirit of the Labyrinth


I ran this and a similar list on Saturday and Monday and had modestly good results with both lists. It doesn't have all the craziness of playing multiple Chalice in the main, but it runs 3 color humans fairly easily and still manages to fit 6 plains in the deck so making white under blood moon isn't much of an issue. I'm still adjusting things like Kambal, which I like - but only when playing against Delver and/or Storm, so don't take the list for any sort of authoritative statement other than an example of being able to run 3 color humans without dropping down to something like 3 Plains in the whole deck.

[redtwister]

I like the idea of Kambal, but does it come down quickly enough against combo?

[JermStudDog]

I have not had a whole lot of testing with him in general, but he was initially added as a 1-of to the SB to shore up the Burn MU just a bit because having a little extra lifegain is always nice. I ended up throwing a second one in the main because a friend had 2 and I was trying it out anyway.

Obviously he would be slow, but have solid implications against a deck like Storm, where he is yet-another-disruptive-piece. He is definitely a bit slow at 3 mana, but that is often fast enough against ANT. TES seems to be more in style currently and I don't think there's a whole lot that we WANT to be doing that is relevant in that MU.

Where I found Kambal REALLY shines is against Delver and Czech Pile lists. Anything that is going to be constantly Brainstorming, Pondering, and casting lots of low mana-cost, low impact cards. I had a particular game on Saturday where my Delver Opponent had an unflipped Delver and Young Pyro on his side, I had Thalia and Kambal and was immediately thinking "yeah, I'd take that trade" and swung in with both, he couldn't give me a 2-for-1 fast enough. At least with 1 day of experience, Delver player seem to be super scared of the card while I see it as just some random value piece. Leaning away from having him in the MD though, I think he doesn't pull his weight against enough decks to justify his slot there, I could be underestimating how much he's worth against Delver though...

Also pretty sure the Spirit in the main is becoming a Canonist since Elves, Food Chain, and Aluren are all major contenders in the meta moving forward.

[Medea_]

I jammed a bunch of games against Dredge tonight with the 3 color list. 2-2 preboard and 3-2 postboard. Sparkmage in particular was an MVP at getting Bridges out of the yard, and Pontiff ate a team of Narcomeba and Ichorids a couple of times.

This is where I've ended up:


Lands
4 Wasteland
2 Rishadan Port
1 Scrubland
1 Arid Mesa
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Flooded Strand
4 Windswept Heath
3 Plains
2 Plateau
2 Karakas
Creatures
4 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Magus of the Moon
3 Flickerwisp
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Palace Jailer
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
Other Spells
2 Blessed Alliance
4 Aether Vial
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull
Sideboard:
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Containment Priest
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Blessed Alliance
2 Cunning Sparkmage
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Manic Vandal
1 Manriki-Gusari
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Palace Jailer

[gh0st_b1rd]

Can we play a list that slants heavier towards black so that we can mitigate the damage of maindeck Dismembers or is that just not worth it?

Also, speaking of the color Black, I am going to try out a singleton Devout Lightcaster in the sideboard. Hitting of Dread of Nights seems appealing but being able to hit Anglers, Strix, and DRS has its appeal too. Only problem with Lightcaster is that its a Kor. :/

[Medea_]

I really didn't like Dismember against Burn and Delver strategies, hence my recent lists with Blessed Alliance. Even with a couple more black sources, you'll still take 4 the vast majority of the time.

Also, that card is WWW. WWW, you madman!!!

[Warden]

Can we play a list that slants heavier towards black so that we can mitigate the damage of maindeck Dismembers or is that just not worth it?

Also, speaking of the color Black, I am going to try out a singleton Devout Lightcaster in the sideboard. Hitting of Dread of Nights seems appealing but being able to hit Anglers, Strix, and DRS has its appeal too. Only problem with Lightcaster is that its a Kor. :/

I could get behind playing black for some combination of Orzhov Pontiff, Tidehollow, Confidant, and/or Kambal in the main. Also open to DRS, Thoughtseize, ZP, and Perish in the 75. Perish helps problematic midrange matchups + Elves.

[Tormod]

I could get behind playing black for some combination of Orzhov Pontiff, Tidehollow, Confidant, and/or Kambal in the main. Also open to DRS, Thoughtseize, ZP, and Perish in the 75. Perish helps problematic midrange matchups + Elves.

Reminds me of vial Dead Guy, with scullers

[Medea_]

I played the three color deck again last night. I 3-1'd, with wins against Lands, Dredge, and Merfolk. I lost a very close set against Enchantress, but my opponent was all but locked out of both games they managed to win; he had to win by casting spells into Chalice just to draw cards, ultimately finding Sigil of the Empty Throne to make Angels.

The splash offered some really great utility. Magus stole a game against Lands that I had no business otherwise winning. My opponent didn't return their P. Fire to hand in response to a Vial activation, and Magus came down to cut off those shenanigans. Cunning Sparkmage is an MVP at both removing Bridge from Below and picking off opposing threats against Lands. Pontiff absolutely wrecked Merfolk; I Flickered their only lord and then wiped two or three creatures off the board. Pontiff was able to get Argothian Enchantress off the table.

I'll certainly be playing this splash build this weekend for my Team Constructed event. It has been performing very well.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Have you dropped the Tombs yet, or are you still making up your mind?

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

[Medea_]

Have you dropped the Tombs yet, or are you still making up your mind?

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

list (http://www.thrabenuniversity.com/?page_id=11)

[G0R3F3ST]

Hey! This is my first time posting on this thread so bare with me. Although, I've been stalking this thread since conspiracy 2 spoilers. I have been playing the deck ever since then.

I went to a GPTQ yesterday at Paragon City Games. Where I did very lackluster with a 2-4-0 record.

Decklist: 60

Lands: 23
Wasteland X4
Rishadan Port X4
Cavern of souls X2
Karakas X3
Plains X10

Creatures: 26
Mother of Runes x4
Thalia, Guardian of Thrones x4
Stoneforge Mystic X4
Phyrexian Revoker X3
Serra Avenger X1
Recruiter of the Guard X2
Flickerwisp X4
Mirran Crusader X2
Sanctum Prelate X1
Orzhov Pontiff X1

Sideboard: 15
Pithing Needle X1
Grafdigger's Cage X1
Manikin-Gusari X1
Path to exile X2
Rest in Piece X2
Containment Priest X1
Ethersworn Canonist X2
Orzhov Pontiff X1
Councils Judgement X2
Gideon, Ally of Zendikar X2

I will post a tournament report in a little bit.

[gh0st_b1rd]

I would say just keep practicing this deck. Your decklist looks pretty stock and its a harder deck to play than it seems on paper.

[G0R3F3ST]

This was my first time playing at this store. I went into the tournament. Now that I know they have weekly legacy tournaments. I'll be going a lot more even though it's a 45 min. Drive.

I went into this tournament expecting to play against: the mirror match, elves, stoneblade decks, bug leovold, and delver decks. Little did I know I would just get to play against combo decks and cheat big things in turn 2/3.

Round 1: 1-2 sneak and show
Game one: he mulls to 5. I get the lock of Revoker on sneak attack and sanctum prelate on 3.
Game 2: he turn 2 show and tells a Emrakul. I lose
Game 3: I had Revoker on sneak attack and containment priest out. I searched up sanctum prelate and pass with no vial and no mana open to cast it on 3. He cast kozilek's return and then sneak attacks in an emrakul.

Round 2: Bye
Took this time to get some lunch.

Round 3: 1-2 omni-tell
Game one: turn 2 Emrakul and turn 4 I'm dead.
Game two: I win through a show and telled Omniscience.
Game three: He wins through a show and telled omniscience then combos off into release the ants.

Round 4: O-2 tazzarator
Game one: turn 0 he puts in 2 leylines of the void into play. Then he plays a bunch of mana rocks. I play land pass with Revoker in hand. Turn 2 he plays helm of obedience with plenty of mana to activate.
Game two: I play land and a vial pass. He plays land and chalice on 1.I drop Thalia. He plays mana rocks. I do nothing but attack for a few turns. He plays a blue 1/4 creature from Kaladesh that draws him a card. If he has the highest cmc artifact. I exiled it immediately. He also has a red enchantment from origins that taps two artifacts to deal 1 dam. To target creature. He shoots down all my creatures with that card. I almost stabilized with a Gideon, but he then plays thopter foundry and sword of the meek. I scoop it up after that.

Round 5: 2-0 burn
Game 1: he drops a grim lavamancer activates it a couple of times. He burns me a couple of times, but then he runs out of gas, I have 7 life. I drop Thalia and stoneforge. Swing with batterskull. He scoops it up.
Game 2: keeps one land hand doesn't draw any lands. turn 3 I drop Thalia with Karakas back up. He scoops it up.

Round 6: 1-2 charbelcher
Game 1: turn 1 make 18 goblins.
Game 2:I go land pass. he drops taiga, LEDx2, and lotus petal X2 and passes. I drop Revoker on LED. He plays red mana spells and sacs his lotus petals to play goblin charbelcher. I top deck wasteland and get rid of taiga. He can't activate charbelcher so I eventually get the kill.
Game 3: I play Thalia instead of Revoker on charbelcher. He has exactly enough to cast charbelcher and activate. I lose.

Aftermath:
I felt I played pretty well but all those game one steals the combo decks had, I felt like was just playing from behind the whole day. I'm going to put my surgicals back in the board and probably add another containment priest.

[gh0st_b1rd]

That looks like a meta where you want 2x Ratchet Bombs in the SB and a another Prelate or two in the maindeck. I always play at least two copies main because of the paranoia of playing vs Show and Tell decks.

[Medea_]

I'll write it up in detail later, but I top 4'd our team constructed event with the 3 color build. Another player also top 4'd with the three color build (the original one I proposed with the Restoration Angel still in it). If you think the mirror is bad, just wait until you play the mirror when you both have Pingers and Pontiffs...

[Manik33]

Are you pretty sure at this point that mainboarding a playset a Chalice is where we need to be?


I'll write it up in detail later, but I top 4'd our team constructed event with the 3 color build. Another player also top 4'd with the three color build (the original one I proposed with the Restoration Angel still in it). If you think the mirror is bad, just wait until you play the mirror when you both have Pingers and Pontiffs...

[Medea_]

Are you pretty sure at this point that mainboarding a playset a Chalice is where we need to be?

Nope! I can say that it is working fine for me, but it's not like my build is without weaknesses. You give up the best removal spell in the format when you go and play Chalice. You also lose some generic beater creatures in return for a better toolbox and an 'I win' button in Magus of the Moon. I would be comfortable playing this list if I was going to the Team Constructed Open, I can say that much (especially if I had byes).

[iatee]

Here's where I'm at post-Miracles. I went 4-0 at my weekly with it. I like this list a lot.

4 Thalia
4 Sfm
4 Mom
3 Flickerwisp
2 Revoker
2 Recruiter
2 Avenger
2 Magus
1 Prelate
1 Palace Jailer
1 Vryn Wingmare
4 STP / 4 Vial / 3 Equip

4 Wasteland
4 Port
3 Karakas
2 Cavern
5 Fetch
4 Plains
1 Plateau

2 Containment Priest
2 Canonist
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Crusader
1 Sparkmage
1 Magus
1 Relic Warder
3 Path
1 Gut Shot

[zakzes]

So no Orzhov Pontiff? Also, where did you find you were liking gut shot? It seems very meh

[iatee]

I think 3c builds are viable and I've played them before in the past, but I am not sure it's necessary to be that greedy. Probably just depends on the number of TNN you think are gonna be floating around.

The above manabase is nearly as clean as your average Mono-W DnT deck - 9 basic sources, 13 white sources. Not playing that many red cards so going down a red source (-1 Cavern) has felt fine. Avengers were super mediocre vs Miracles, but help vs TNN decks and actual-Delver and are easier to justify with this mana.

Gut Shot killed a Dryad Arbor the one time I saw it. The card does what it does, I don't think it's meh, it's quite powerful, but only vs a subset of legacy (Grixis Delver / Dnt / Infect / Elves). I think it could also be another Cunning Sparkmage. I always find myself wanting more fast removal, but playing 4 Paths vs DnT is awkward (esp vs turn 1 Mom) and you can't bring in more than 1-2 vs Elves.

[redtwister]

@iatee
What made you drop Pia and Kiran? That honestly surprises me more than anything else!

[iatee]

It's one of my favorite cards, though it gets a little bit worse post-Miracles, since that was a tier 1 matchup where that card was unbeatable + where you didn't have to worry about hitting double red unless they were playing something weird like Back to Basics.

With only 2 Caverns and one Plateau, Pia/Kiran is just a little too sketchy for the manabase in that last list. It could be wrong, Pia/Kiran+Karakas has gotten me out of lots of rough situations, and maybe if I play this list long enough I'll start feeling its absence and go back. It's possible the format might end up stabilizing to be less fast/more grindy than people expected, and if that ends up being the case, Pia/Kiran is definitely the go-to card.

Having a Palace Jailer around helps make up for the absence of Pia/Kiran, since that card is of similar power level and is 'the bomb you tutor for' to win a fair matchup.

[IRS]

Here's where I'm at post-Miracles. I went 4-0 at my weekly with it. I like this list a lot.

4 Thalia
4 Sfm
4 Mom
3 Flickerwisp
2 Revoker
2 Recruiter
2 Avenger
2 Magus
1 Prelate
1 Palace Jailer
1 Vryn Wingmare
4 STP / 4 Vial / 3 Equip

4 Wasteland
4 Port
3 Karakas
2 Cavern
5 Fetch
4 Plains
1 Plateau

2 Containment Priest
2 Canonist
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Crusader
1 Sparkmage
1 Magus
1 Relic Warder
3 Path
1 Gut Shot

Hello Eetai,

I have been using your prior build (4 PtE SB) to mixed results, I am however a big fan of this approach. I also like this new list very much.

I wanted to ask you: What is your SB plan and general rationale for the Storm, Czech Pile and Delver matchups?

My thoughts looking at this new list is that faerie is stronger versus reanimator but weaker versus storm, punishing fire decks and lands (ability to surgical PF, DD, others). I also have issues boarding in PtE in the mirror or versus non-delver decks because, as you point out, it puts you behind early. This is why I want to hear your thoughts on how to deal with these MUs.

Additionally, I wanted to ask you about the inclusion of Vryn Wingmare, especially since it dies to DON, which makes it an expensive liability when this card is played.

Thanks in advance!

[iatee]

Hello Eetai,

I have been using your prior build (4 PtE SB) to mixed results, I am however a big fan of this approach. I also like this new list very much.

I wanted to ask you: What is your SB plan and general rationale for the Storm, Czech Pile and Delver matchups?

My thoughts looking at this new list is that faerie is stronger versus reanimator but weaker versus storm, punishing fire decks and lands (ability to surgical PF, DD, others). I also have issues boarding in PtE in the mirror or versus non-delver decks because, as you point out, it puts you behind early. This is why I want to hear your thoughts on how to deal with these MUs.

Additionally, I wanted to ask you about the inclusion of Vryn Wingmare, especially since it dies to DON, which makes it an expensive liability when this card is played.

Thanks in advance!

ANT:

+2 Crusader
+1 Relic Warder
+2 Canonist
+2 Macabre

-4 STP
-1 Jitte
-1 Palace Jailer
-1 Flickerwisp

Czech Pile:

+2 Crusader
+1 Magus
- 1 Jitte
- 1 STP
- 1 Flickerwisp

Grixis Delver:

+3 Path
+1 Gut Shot
+1 Magus
+1 Cunning Sparkmage
-2 Revoker
-2 Recruiter
-1 Palace Jailer
-1 Flickerwisp

Bug Delver:
+3 Path
+1 Magus
+2 Crusader
- 1 Palace Jailer
- 1 Prelate
- 2 Recruiter
- 1 Revoker
- 1 Flickerwisp

Vs Delver decks I try to get a sense of how many wreck-DnT sideboard cards they have in their board. If you think that they'll be playing a super Jund-y attrition game, boarding out prison cards like Thalia/Wingmares and playing value cards like Recruiter, Relic-Warder, Flickerwisp can be a good idea, especially when you play a ton of removal and can make the game go long. The longer a game is going to go, the more I like boarding out at least one Thalia, since you really get punished for drawing multiples, and the tax loses value when both players have a lot of land and are in topdeck mode.

Wingmare - I have the Wingmare as a replacement for a 4th Flickerwisp - 3 Flickerwisps + 1 Wingmare is no softer to Dread of Night than 4 Flickerwisps. But Wingmare is much better against decks that *play* Dread of Night than Flickerwisp is - those decks are playing hardcore targeted DnT hate because a Thalia on board completely wrecks their game plan (and 2 is just game over.) So playing more Thalias isn't wrong, even if once in a while they get to play the kill all Thalias card. A one-of lets you build your own Stax board with a Recruiter and increases the likelihood of you having a relevant card in your opening hand g1 vs a combo deck. I would never suggest people play 4 Wingmare, but I think people greatly undervalue playing 1 tutorable copy.

Path - vs DnT and other 'creature decks with basics' - I think you still generally have to bring them in, even when they're occasionally awkward. Being able to hold someone off from getting equipment online is so important that it's worth the awkward t2 Path your Mom. Elves is the only situation where you have to draw the line, since ramping is their primary game-plan regardless.

Macabre - my local meta is infested with RB Reanimator, i think it's possible a 1/1 split with Surgical is the best plan.

[infiniteJ]

ANT:

+2 Crusader
+1 Relic Warder
+2 Canonist
+2 Macabre

-4 STP
-1 Jitte
-1 Palace Jailer
-1 Flickerwisp

Czech Pile:

+2 Crusader
+1 Magus
- 1 Jitte
- 1 STP
- 1 Flickerwisp

Grixis Delver:

+3 Path
+1 Gut Shot
+1 Magus
+1 Cunning Sparkmage
-2 Revoker
-2 Recruiter
-1 Palace Jailer
-1 Flickerwisp

Bug Delver:
+3 Path
+1 Magus
+2 Crusader
- 1 Palace Jailer
- 1 Prelate
- 2 Recruiter
- 1 Revoker
- 1 Flickerwisp

Vs Delver decks I try to get a sense of how many wreck-DnT sideboard cards they have in their board. If you think that they'll be playing a super Jund-y attrition game, boarding out prison cards like Thalia/Wingmares and playing value cards like Recruiter, Relic-Warder, Flickerwisp can be a good idea, especially when you play a ton of removal and can make the game go long. The longer a game is going to go, the more I like boarding out at least one Thalia, since you really get punished for drawing multiples, and the tax loses value when both players have a lot of land and are in topdeck mode.

Wingmare - I have the Wingmare as a replacement for a 4th Flickerwisp - 3 Flickerwisps + 1 Wingmare is no softer to Dread of Night than 4 Flickerwisps. But Wingmare is much better against decks that *play* Dread of Night than Flickerwisp is - those decks are playing hardcore targeted DnT hate because a Thalia on board completely wrecks their game plan (and 2 is just game over.) So playing more Thalias isn't wrong, even if once in a while they get to play the kill all Thalias card. A one-of lets you build your own Stax board with a Recruiter and increases the likelihood of you having a relevant card in your opening hand g1 vs a combo deck. I would never suggest people play 4 Wingmare, but I think people greatly undervalue playing 1 tutorable copy.

Path - vs DnT and other 'creature decks with basics' - I think you still generally have to bring them in, even when they're occasionally awkward. Being able to hold someone off from getting equipment online is so important that it's worth the awkward t2 Path your Mom. Elves is the only situation where you have to draw the line, since ramping is their primary game-plan regardless.

Macabre - my local meta is infested with RB Reanimator, i think it's possible a 1/1 split with Surgical is the best plan.

Thanks for the input.

I'll add that most elves lists have 2 basic forests and they usually fetch one early, so the second/third paths rarely ramp. Additionally, pathing a dryad arbor is sort of mana neutral. I find that taking out their creatures that generate multiple mana is worth ramping them to more forests. So while path certainly isn't great, it's often good enough in combination with a STP and a revoker. Additionally, taking out wirewood/ranger to enable jitte hits is very important.

[AsmodeusDM]

@iatee

I agree that P+K is the spot to be but that RR is tough; not to mention burning the vial on 4 is tough.

Has anyone ever considered just P? Pia Nalaar

2R
2/2
Legendary Human Artificer (hello SFM)

Create 1 1/1 flying thopter

1R: Target artifact creature gets +1/0 until EOT

1, Sac an artifact: Target creature can't block this turn.


Easier on the mana; comes down on T3; has 3 CMC and removing blockers can be pretty awesome for us at times. Karakasable, human, etc etc.

[iatee]

Thanks for the input.

I'll add that most elves lists have 2 basic forests and they usually fetch one early, so the second/third paths rarely ramp. Additionally, pathing a dryad arbor is sort of mana neutral. I find that taking out their creatures that generate multiple mana is worth ramping them to more forests. So while path certainly isn't great, it's often good enough in combination with a STP and a revoker. Additionally, taking out wirewood/ranger to enable jitte hits is very important.


Yeah I usually bring in at least 1 and sometimes 2. You just shouldn't bring in 3 or 4, even if you can. It turns into a solid card if the game goes long and you can kill a Wirewood or something key - but the first few turns you're just struggling to keep your head above water, and during those turns it only feels like half a card.


@iatee

I agree that P+K is the spot to be but that RR is tough; not to mention burning the vial on 4 is tough.

Has anyone ever considered just P? Pia Nalaar


The card just feels a little too fair. Like it's barely worth value-Karakasing this to make one token. But it's not obviously unplayable and who knows the sac ability might be stronger than it seems, I might toy around with it for a while while I'm running this manabase.

[Warden]

@iatee

I agree that P+K is the spot to be but that RR is tough; not to mention burning the vial on 4 is tough.

Has anyone ever considered just P? Pia Nalaar

2R
2/2
Legendary Human Artificer (hello SFM)

Create 1 1/1 flying thopter

1R: Target artifact creature gets +1/0 until EOT

1, Sac an artifact: Target creature can't block this turn.


Easier on the mana; comes down on T3; has 3 CMC and removing blockers can be pretty awesome for us at times. Karakasable, human, etc etc.

Going with this logic, wouldn't harsh mentor be the better single R pick? He's human, a huge pain in the ass, can be played in multiples, etc.