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Oops, sorry pander, I spaced out when reading the names. I forgot Alex Kwan = pander. Great job man!
1 less land no problem at all today? Grats again, you do the painter boys proud. Wish I was in the states so I can get me some large scale legacy action.
I was happy with 21 lands + 3 Mox Opal. That seemed like plenty of mana sources. In the only game I lost to mana screw, it was my own fault for not mulling a one-lander.
In retrospect, if I had predicted the amount of combo present yesterday, I would have run LEDs over Magus of the Moon in the board.
Has anyone tried the Bomberman combo in the sideboard without Trinket Mages?
I like being able to pack 4 Mental Missteps and 2 maindeck red Blasts, which means cutting the Trinket Mages and trimming down to 21 lands (which is reasonable without Mage, which is one of the more expensive cards). But without Trinket Mage or Transmute Artifact, can you reliably assemble the alternate win with just 4 Intuition, 4 Top, and 4 Brainstorm?
The problem with the Bomberman combo is that it's 3 cards. 3 card combos are mediocre, especially when you already run a better one.
Grindstone/Painter's Servant sucks pretty hard against double Progenitus, unfortunately.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sintheros
The Bomberman combo technically requires three cards, but you win by simply resolving one Auriok Salvager and one Intuition (albeit at sorcery speed). It's very much vulnerable to removal, but you wouldn't be boarding it in against decks with removal.
I just run painter-llawan as my alternate win. Requires less slots and after board you have plenty of reb effects which allow you to play control against emrakul/proggy decks. Don't forget llawan bounces proggy and with painter in play, Emmy too.
Its not nearly as bad as it seems. I had to play against NO Rug in 2/4 Rounds last night and went 1-2 and 2-1. If you mill them before they get Progenitus out, they have 1 turn to kill you before they lose which isn't very easy. Blood Moon helps quite a bit if you can land it without them having a Forest or Hierarch.Quote:
Originally Posted by lordofthepit
Another thing I did that could be considered wrong in that match was to board out Forces and name a non-blue color with Painter. They usually board in REB/Pyroblast, so that makes those cards dead and their FoWs dead outside of hardcasting if they left them in.
Edit: The round I lost:
Game 1: I kept a risky hand that had 1 land, Brainstorm, 2x Monolith, Transmute Artifact. I never drew another land. Plus side is that he didn't have any idea what I was playing since I had only played Volcanic Island and Brainstorm.
Game 2: Combo'd out fast.
Game 3: I cast Blood Moon and he had a Misty out and fetched a basic Forest. If he didn't have that I'm confidant I would have won easily as it would have bought be plenty of time to set up the combo. As such, he was able to recover through GSZ > Hierarch > NO the next couple turns.
NO Rug doesn't run two Progenitus, almost all of them run one only, which allows us to still win with the combo. The problem lordofthepit was posing is the infinite loop two Progenitus will cause making it impossible to win with the combo. The decks that run more than one Prog is usually Sneak Show or NO Show.Quote:
Originally Posted by WhippoorwillIts not nearly as bad as it seems. I had to play against NO Rug in 2/4 Rounds last night and went 1-2 and 2-1. If you mill them before they get Progenitus out, they have 1 turn to kill you before they lose which isn't very easyQuote:
Originally Posted by lordofthepit
A couple options, is running SB S&T/Emrakul, Bomberman, Ensnaring Bridge, transmute/robot, or like Ivanpei said the painter/llawan lock. None of them are particularly great.
Edit: Never mind. I posted before thinking it through.Quote:
Originally Posted by PanderAlexander
Painter's Servant gets there against most of the format, but obviously, there are a few problem decks:Quote:
Originally Posted by PanderAlexander
- Zoo: Too much removal makes relying on a 1/3 body unreliable. Show and Tell into Emrakul is a much better plan, but a lot of Zoo decks have Knight of the Reliquary for Karakas now, especially since this transformational plan is pretty standard tech. Furthermore, there isn't much Zoo played in my metagame (besides myself), and if I'm not playing Zoo, I don't prepare for it since it probably won't get played.
- Sneak and Tell or Show and Tell + Natural Order combo: Painter/Stone will never get there unless they somehow draw 3 of their 4 Progenituses or something. Show and Tell seems extremely awkward against a deck that is better designed to play the combo than you are. Painter/Llawan is okay to bounce their fatties once, but not preemptively since they never cast their creatures anyway. Also, relying on four 1/1s, four 1/3s, and a couple legendary 2/3s to beat down against a combo deck seems miserable, even if we do have better countermagic and card search. Ensnaring Bridge slows them down a little bit, but none of our guys have evasion, so the beatdown plan will only send our dorks into their untapped fatties, but it's our only option if we go this route. Transmute/Robot is more realistic but still gets trumped if they drop a single fatty. I think this is where Bomberman combo is really useful.
- Anything with Emrakul: It's possible to beat Emrakul or Blightsteel Colossus if you have gravehate accessible. However, this turns our win condition into a three-card combo (Grindstone, Painter's Servant, and Crypt/Spellbomb/etc., with Goblin Welder being able to replace any of these conditions). I'd rather just transform into the Bomberman combo which requires us to resolve only two cards (Auriok Salvagers and Intuition), thus freeing up more sideboard space.
Llawan seems interesting and can make the Merfolk matchup even better. (I managed to beat a friend who dropped an Energy Flux that raped 4 of my artifacts on turn 3 because I had the Llawan.) But the Merfolk matchup is already really easy and most of us have a bunch of Red Elemental Blasts to bring in with nothing that weak to take out. It usually seems kind of win-more with Painter's Servant, and in the Progenitus/Emrakul matchups where you really want it, Bomberman is just better.
Out of that list, Zoo is really the only scary matchup. Instead of making the deck less consistent against most of the field for just a few bad matchups, just beat them the old fashion way by out-playing those bad matchups.. In SCG L.A. I went up against both NO Show and Sneak Show and beat them both 2-0, it was definitely hard but not all matchups should be easy and those type of decks aren't really popular in the meta currently. Zoo is really the only truely difficult matchup, I playtested against a friend with a crappy value version and even that was extremely difficult. A lot of the ideas thrown out are cute, such as the robot plan maindeck or Bomberman in the sideboard, but just my opinion, unless your meta is full of Progenitus/Emrakul, keeping the deck focused on the core combo with backup bombs in the SB such as Blood Moon, Llawan, and possibly Ensnaring Bridge seems the best route.
So basically all I'm saying is: Changing the deck dramatically by trying to stuff other strategies/combos just for a few bad matchups makes your deck more inconsistent against the majority of the field. If you're unfortunate to go up against one of the rare bad matchups then hope for the best and play accordingly.
Maybe I need to test this deck more against X-and-Show. I've never played it out, but it seems awful in theory. Your 2-0 matches give me some hope, although you're obviously one of the best pilots.Quote:
Originally Posted by PanderAlexander
What's your strategy against these types of decks? Beatdown with your 1-power creatures game 1 (as unlikely as it is to get there), and then board into Llawans and more blasts in games 2 and 3? Do you sandbag your Llawans?
Maybe I need to test this deck more against X-and-Show. I've never played it out, but it seems awful in theory. Your 2-0 matches give me some hope, although you're obviously one of the best pilots.Quote:
Originally Posted by PanderAlexander
What's your strategy against these types of decks? Beatdown with your 1-power creatures game 1 (as unlikely as it is to get there), and then board into Llawans and more blasts in games 2 and 3? Do you sandbag your Llawans?
Has anyone tried Tezzeret the Seeker as a different win con in the board? With the amount of artifacts we play, his ultimate will often be lethal. Against Emrakul/Prog, he can immediately find Ensnaring Bridge, which should buy us enough time to draw up to 5 cards and use his ultimate for the knockout blow.
@Lordofthepit
I've seen you post in many threads, from Zoo, Maverick, TA, etc and can tell you know legacy very well. Those matchups with multiple prog/emrakul is definitly very hard but is winnable without resorting to another combo and from what I've read from your posts you're definitly capable of doing so. Bottom line I'm saying is, sure stuffing another combo/strategy is going to help against those decks, but how many times are we really going to go up against those in the current meta and doing so makes the deck less consistent against the majority of the meta we will see.
@Wanderlust
Tezz sounds like an amazing idea, I've been wanting to test him out but haven't played Painter-Stone in the past few tournaments. He doesn't demand much space in the deck like other alternate win-cons, probably 1-2 of him. He can search for a combo piece or make 5/5 guys, definitly deserves testing. The only problem I see in "theory" is the deck has no removal and the counters are limited to protect him, we may only get one use before he gets killed off. I'm particularly thinking about him in one of those bad matchups like NO Show that runs many beaters such as goyf.
I just had a "no duh" moment in which I realized that even if multiple Progenituses prevent you from decking your opponent, Game 1 still ends in a draw and you're able to bring in sideboard cards for Games 2, 3, 4, etc. I guess it isn't too difficult to "combo off" and force a draw if you can Crypt away Emrakul, which is actually to our advantage since outright winning is a bit difficult preboard!Quote:
Originally Posted by PanderAlexander
@Lordofthepit - as you say force draw G1, kill them other games, Welder+ Ensnaring Bridge (and yeah immortal 1/3 ftw) or Phyrexian Metamorph should solve the problem; or needle Sneak attack, counter all S&T
@PanderAlexander - Tezzeret is 5cc guy who most likely survives 1 turn and tinkers something, I can't see any reason why to play 5 mana tutor for Ensnaring bridge.. the time it get played (and maybe countered) you are near-dead anyway since 5 mana was paid for the process you won't combo off
Hi everybody. I've been playtesting this deck for several months. Made a couple of top2-top4 finishes in tournaments with 20+ players. The most favourite deck at the moment! =)
Reading this topic eventually pushed me to sharing some thoughts with you guys.
I began playing classic Caleb's list. As mental missteps were printed I moved to +3 MM -1 volcanic -1 REB -1 Trinket leaving original SB. I noticed 2 things:
- Team America with stifles matchup is worse than Zoo which is considered as the worst
- Even when I was siding in the Sh&T-Emrakul combo, I have never won with Emrakul and always regretted that I sided out main combo parts
So I went on changing SB. The first thing I did was throwing away Emrakuls and adding Blood Moons as Team America was indeed an Engineered Plague for me. The second thing was adding Spellskites as a great card against Zoo and Ensnaring Bridges as a weapon of choice against Emrakul decks (Sneaky Show, 12 posts, etc). The bridge is also good agaisnt Dredge, Zoo, Affinity, Merfolks and so on. The SB I am testing at the moment is this:
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Blood Moon
2 Ensnaring Bridge
1 to 2 Pithing Needle
2 to 3 Spellskite
3-4 Pyroblast or REB (having 2 maindeck)
0 to 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
the amounts vary depending on the meta (if you have some information of course).
While changing maindeck to -1 Trinket Mage -2 LED, + 1 Transmute Ertifact, + 1 REB, +1 MM after the last changes, I realised that I need a backup plan, whatever it is. I didn't want to return to Emrakuls, mostly because it needs 6 slots in SB and is fragile in the current meta with lots of Vindilion Cliques, Jaces, Innocent Bloods, Karakas' and so on. I don't like Llawan as it only requires StP, or Bolt, or bounce, or smth else and doesn't stop opponent to put Emry/Progenitus with Sneak Attack/Sh'nT and always needs Painter already in play. Moreover it wins slowly and I feel good against Merfolks from the beginning.
I don't like the Auriok Salvagers and the new Tezz, because I feel not wise to change the manabase. So I came to trying either Koth of the Hammer as this one is unexpected and can win quickly. On the other hand Koth is a blunt weapon and performs great with Blood Moon in play which doesn't do much against Sneak Attack (the number one I want a backup plan against). Jace, the Mind Sculptor is much more versatile and doesn't require extra cards to work. The negative thing is that he isn't fast. But playing the +2 ability can significantly slow down the opponent, so Jace's low speed should be compensated.
Unfortunately I don't have enough time at the moment to test Jaces. I am pretty sure with the rest of the SB. What do you guys think about Jaces? The matches I am thinking to play it against are SneakAttack, NO Show, perhaps Landstill control decks.
Also wanted to add that Tezzeret the Seeker looks great as a tool, but the manacost is too high. As a SB plan - may be depending on your meta, but playing in maindeck requires revision of the manabase (returning to 22 lands and perhaps increasing Ancient Tombs/City of Traitors).
Also to lordofthepit:
note that Painter's Servant doesn't completely change the color of cards and permanents but instead makes them the chosen color in addition to other colors they have. So this doesn't shut up opponents' Force of Will and your blue spells are still targetable for their blasts. Prooflink.Quote:
Another thing I did that could be considered wrong in that match was to board out Forces and name a non-blue color with Painter. They usually board in REB/Pyroblast, so that makes those cards dead and their FoWs dead outside of hardcasting if they left them in.
And a rule question from me: the Painter's ability starts with "as it comes". As means that it is not a triggered ability, nor activated so what kind of ability is it? Can it be still stifled? In what layer is Painter when his ability "triggers"?
phehhh, I think that's all wanted to say at the moment. I would appriciate if you comment on Jace and my questions. And thanks to all of you for sharing your experience here!
p.s. when I have some new techs in mind the first thing I do I come here and check wether someone has already tried it. And how wonderful it is to find that someone is thinking the same way =)
"As ~this~ enters the battlefield" is not a triggered ability. It's a replacement effect and therefore can't be stifled.
Layer 5.Quote:
Originally Posted by door
1) copy effects
2) control-changing effects
3) text-changing effects
4) type-changing effects
5) continuous effects, except those that change P/T
6) power/toughness-changing effects
Quote:
Originally Posted by door
First off, welcome to The Source.
Secondly, and I suppose this can apply to essentially everyone discussing the topic, is that it seems like many people misunderstand their reasoning behind wanting additional win conditions, as opposed to merely supporting the original better and using sideboard space more wisely. There are a ton of additional combos and win conditions to choose from, and some of them are necessary depending on what you're looking for, but it also greatly depends on why you're trying a secondary win condition in the first place. That's pretty much narrowed down to either:
- You're facing heavy removal through either StP, Ancient Grudge, Bolt, Pernicious Deed, Vindicate, etc.
- Dealing with hosers like Energy Flux, Null Rod, and to a lesser extent Needle/Revoker.
- Dealing with anti-mill effects like Emrakul, 2x Progenitus, or Gaea's Blessing.
- You're trying to sidestep the opponent's hate cards in anticipation they'll bring in something that messes with your combo (which is going to be among the above).
Now, for all four of these issues, there is very little reason to run additional win conditions when you have answers that should be in your sideboard already. For the first, odds are people have picked up the fact that Spellskite is the stone cold nuts, and that it essentially solves most problems in this issue combined with Mental Misstep, FoW, and REB to a lesser extent. The anomaly here is Pernicious Deed, which is an entirely different can of worms. Our only real out for this is Pithing Needle, which is in most boards anyway, and also shuts down Pridemage and other hate along the way. For the second, you have REB effects to handle Flux, and Null Rod/Needle/Revoker post-Painter. Running artifact removal is also pretty smart currently given how common artifact-based strategies are becoming, so that helps as well if you have Ancient Grudges in your board. For the 3rd, a simple Crypt deals with this, with the exception of 2x Progenitus. However, that comes from a single obscure deck, so this is really the only case where an extra win condition is truly necessary. For both Emrakul and Gaea's Blessing, it's generally easier to add a Crypt to the Painter combo instead of attempting a different combo that the deck isn't geared to use regularly and you wind up with dead Painter cards unless you entirely board them out. It's also worth noting that it's also more logical to also just use something to fight their own combo here like Ensnaring Bridge, which is also good across many matchups.
You could argue with this logic that in the above scenarios, you're essentially turning our two card combo into three by adding support cards, like Crypt or Spellskite. However, these are merely cards that protect and support an existing combo that you've already designed the deck around and have easy access to and synergy with, rather than add an entirely different two/three card combo that doesn't flow as well. It's more practical to find answers to their answers than use something that doesn't work as well with the deck when the original combo works much easier for you, because in an overwhelming majority of situations their hate will be applicable to whatever combo you're trying to use.
So now that I've identified why we wouldn't need an alternative win condition, that doesn't necessarily mean we wouldn't want one. If you can have a win condition that can bypass multiple issues, then it's probably worth looking at. For instance, Show and Tell/Emrakul is the most popular because it technically gets around every one of them, but that unfortunately comes with a number of problems on its own (Karakas, Clique, entirely dead by themselves, etc) and a high number of sideboard slots. That, but it's also limited to builds with 3-4 Intuitions. Not that it's an issue for many Painter players who continue to use the traditional Intuition build, but it does prove that the alternative win conditions are subjective to deck design. For instance, you aren't going to recommend running a Wurmcoil Engine to someone who doesn't run Transmute Artifact/Grim Monolith and without any easy way to cast it; it just doesn't make sense. However, as long as you can identify the core issues the alternate win condition solves, and you can do it within deck design and minimal sideboard slots, it could be worth doing. Another thing to consider is how that win condition could be used in a variety of matchups and give you the most out of your slots. This doesn't work well for something like Bomberman, which not only is a lot of slots, but doesn't handle half the problems the Painter combo itself had, like spot removal and Null Rod/Needle, etc. It's just a poor choice to use something that doesn't have any huge advantages over the other combo in most matchups and uses a lot of slots. Using Wurmcoil Engine as a good example, it's worth using against every aggro or aggro-control deck due to superior stats and lifelink, and any deck playing Null Rod or Emrakul because it bypasses both Null Rod and milling the yard. Granted, this is an extreme case given how much you get out of a single slot, but the point remains. Those extra slots you save can go towards creating room for additional Blood Moons, Ensnaring Bridges, Spellskites, etc.
I'm not going to go through every possible combo and win condition we could use because it's a waste of time and we should all be capable of evaluating them for ourselves, but I figured I'd mention something on Planeswalkers given they're popping up in conversation. The issue I have with Planeswalkers is that we have very little in the way of protecting them, unlike every other deck that uses them. We can't get much value out of them given they are likely going to die the very next turn. That's pretty much applicable to any planeswalker we'd consider except Tezzeret the Seeker. Jace is obviously strong, but we can't really do anything with him like other decks. We can't sit back and fateseal people to death while protecting the board state and killing stuff. We can Brainstorm him, then he will get attacked and die. Unsummoning with him is fine for a turn I guess, but I really have to question what the deck wants to do if it spent it's time playing a 2UU Unsummon when it could be killing the opponent instead. It's slightly better against something with Emrakul, but there are a number of cards that are good against that deck that are likely better for us overall.
Tezzeret the Seeker is interesting because it can easily find combo pieces, protect itself by finding Ensnaring Bridge or Spellskite, and then make an army of 5/5's. And it can accomplish this with only 2-3 slots maximum, which is ideal for an alternate win condition because it gives us the most value out of the slots. However, he costs 5. That's a lot. I only realistically see this guy coming up in builds using Grim Monolith, because Intuition-based builds will not be able to cast it reliably against Wastelands. People can try it otherwise with Ancient Tombs and Opals for acceleration, but it's a bit more difficult, and at that point you have to question if it's worth it or not. However, he does offer enough that it's worth looking into, but I'm wary of that casting cost.