[Deck] Death and Taxes

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Originally Posted by nwong

Grunt is very good since it shrinks Goyfs and kotr. It's one of the reasons Mav is an even to slightly favorable matchup. Mav's main advantage is superior creatures and Grunt takes that away from them.

It also limits Snapcasters, is almost auto win against Dredge, hurts Reanimator and laughs at Grindstone. It's no slouch in other aggro matchups either. I've had 3 maindeck since forever and haven't had problems with it. Keeping it up for 2-3 turns is more than enough.

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It's not an autowin against Dredge since more often than not it'll be way too slow.
Most decks out there don't use their graveyard, which makes Grunt more of a niche card and being able to keep him alive for merely 2-3 turns against such decks simply doesn't convince me. Also if you've fed your 1st Grunt till death, it's likely you won't be able to support your 2nd one for long, which is why 2 seems much more feasible than 3.
Flickerwisp can reset his counters, which is nice, but that's about it.

Another good thing about grunt is that when your opponent kills your jitte/batterskull,... whatever, you can just put them back in your deck and search for them again with stoneforge.

And against burn it keeps their lavamancers out of fuel, and prevents them from flashbacking their hellspark elemental.

Seems to me there's a hell of a lot of gimmicks that make 3 grunts worth your while....

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Originally Posted by overseer1234

Another good thing about grunt is that when your opponent kills your jitte/batterskull,... whatever, you can just put them back in your deck and search for them again with stoneforge.

And against burn it keeps their lavamancers out of fuel, and prevents them from flashbacking their hellspark elemental.

Seems to me there's a hell of a lot of gimmicks that make 3 grunts worth your while....

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I agree that Grunt is a great card against many matchups, but there's also many matches where the graveyards don't grow and you can't summon him.
I believe 2 is the right number, except if you're facing a lot of Dredge, Zoo and Painter, OR if you're using Sword of Body and Mind, which I recomend If you're facing a lot of Maverick.

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Originally Posted by klaus

Most decks out there don't use their graveyard, which makes Grunt more of a niche card and being able to keep him alive for merely 2-3 turns against such decks simply doesn't convince me.

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What Legacy meta have YOU been playing in? Maverick, Stoneblade, RUG, UR Delver, Reanimator, Dredge, Burn, even combo decks like TES all use their yard as a resource. Grunt is amazing in all of these matchups (so long as there's a hatebear in the TES matchup). He gives you a clock with his 4 power. His 4 toughness means he can't be bolted, or killed by a lot of creatures in legacy. He retrieves things you lost (equipments, dudes) and steals things your opponents want in their yard (lands, types, snap targets, reanimation targets, dredgers, bridges, ichorids, anything with flashback; the list goes on). Most importantly, though, he slows your opponent. Do they want to keep feeding him by churning fetches and spells into their yard? It forces them to reconsider how to play, and for decks that want to autopilot, their pilots suffer. Even for decks like Stoneblade, Grunt is a huge pain in the ass--and also excellent spell snare bait. He also carries every weapon we have like a champ.

In short, the big dumb gorilla is worth 3 slots.

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Originally Posted by Barbed Blightning

In short, the big dumb gorilla is worth 3 slots.

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Haha. Nicely put. I'm sure though that quite a few D&T players weren't able to cast Grunt #2 due to Grunt#1 having eaten up both yards quite frequently.
At the end of the day it's a meta choice. And I'll stick with my 2 gorillas for the time being.

Before Thalia, I was certain that three was the right number. Now, you gotta cut something. I still have three, but I am watching more carefully.

I cut one revoker for 2 in the side. I bring them and O ring in for the Mav/Nic Fit matchup, taking out Thalia.

The way I see it, you can do the 2-2 split of any of the following, depending on your meta:

Jotun Grunt
Thalia
Phyrexian Revoker

Alternatively, you could do a 3-1 split of:

SFM
Flickerwisp

Ultimately, we know the cards we want to run in the Main, it's now just a matter of numbers.

this might be personal preference, but I'm not that fond of thalia...

I mean, its good enough to play 4 since the opponent really wants to counter it/remove it.

In the long game (where we inevitably will get since we're no way fast enough to kill in the early/mid game) she isn't relevant anymore...

So in all honesty I'm not playing with her because even with her the combo matchup is dreadful (you can't have more then 1 in play, so you cant have the effect cumulative), and you still need to board out enough irrelevant stuff and board in so much.

And even then it's a dreadfull matchup.

I admit that I'll keep the E tutor sideboard with canonist, maybe even thorn, and rule of law.

But, if there's that much combo in the meta where you would need 4 thalia, then i fear you're better of playing a different deck... (in my case that would be dragon stompy)

On the other hand I'm digging 4 revokers (they do so much it's not even funny) and 4 SFM+batterskull.

Games go long, but we're most comfortable in long games. As an example I was playing against a two color deck and was able to keep him off a color the entire game by wasting his duals and porting down THREE basics a turn. Much like Stax attacks resources in many ways, we do the same. Even if Thalia's disruption is less useful in the later turns, a first striking Jitte carrier that can be protected by Mom, Karakas, or Flickerwisp is indeed a relevant threat.

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Originally Posted by lebarion

I agree that Grunt is a great card against many matchups, but there's also many matches where the graveyards don't grow and you can't summon him.
I believe 2 is the right number, except if you're facing a lot of Dredge, Zoo and Painter, OR if you're using Sword of Body and Mind, which I recomend If you're facing a lot of Maverick.

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Yeah, even if he costs 2 mana you rarely play him before turns 4-5 or he will die too soon and even then you do not want a hand clogged with them. I believe 2 is the optimal number as well.

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Originally Posted by maurobad2k4

Yeah, even if he costs 2 mana you rarely play him before turns 4-5 or he will die too soon and even then you do not want a hand clogged with them. I believe 2 is the optimal number as well.

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The problem with 2 is that you won't see enough of him to matter in the match when you'd want him. Obviously it's not beneficial to keep an opener with 2 grunts, but even if he or the second one dies in the course of a few turns, that's good by many legacy standards. Burn plays Keldon Marauders, after all, and there's no way to keep them out longer than 2 turns. I also like being able to take a hand without grunts vs say Delver RUG and pop him out when I draw into him and basically win right there. Even if he only lives for two turns, if he connects with any of our basic swords (Sofi, Solas) he's quartered your opponent's life. Even with a Jitte, the ape's scary.

I want to see Grunt in more games than I don't...3 is the number.

Where did this Ape BS come from? He's a giant.

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Originally Posted by Seems Good

I want to see Grunt in more games than I don't...3 is the number.
Where did this Ape BS come from? He's a giant.

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Can't we agree on "gorilla" i kind of dig that

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Originally Posted by Seems Good

I want to see Grunt in more games than I don't...3 is the number.

Where did this Ape BS come from? He's a giant.

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I think it came from this - Simian Grunt.

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Originally Posted by Seems Good

I want to see Grunt in more games than I don't...3 is the number.

Where did this Ape BS come from? He's a giant.

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I killed this Dredge player at the GP with a sofi-equipped grunt, saying "...and the big dumb gorilla swings for the fences." Just seemed appropriate.

Guys,

I got 69th at Indy with this list:

4 x aether vial
4 x phyrexian revoker
4 x serra avenger
3 x jotun grunt
3 x thalia
1 x batterskull
1 x sword of light and shadow
1 x jitte
4 x stoneforge mystic
4 x mother of runes
2 x mangara of corondor
2 x flickerwisp
4 x swords to plowshares

4 x wasteland
4 x rishdan port
4 x karakas
11 x plains

SB:
1 powder keg
2 catacylsm
1 graftdigger's cage
1 wheel of sun and moon
2 kitchen finks
3 enlightened tutor
1 cop: red
1 phyrexian metamorph
1 serenity
1 aura of silence
1 ethersworn canonist

Went 11-4-1. Lost to RUG, Belcher, High Tide, and Maverick played by Dan Jordan who got top 8.

Phyrexian revoker: I couldn't draw enough of him. Playing any less than 4 is a big mistake to me. He is great versus maverick or u/w stoneblade. Names so many things: elspeth/jace, quasali pridemage, noble heirarch, knight of reliquary.

Flickerwisp: Guys, I know this have been debated but...In my testing beforehand, this guy was so lame when I didn't have an active vial. And guess what, your not going to always have a vial. Vial gets forced quite a bit, thoughtseized, etc... I removed 2 of him for room for thalia. Only running 2 mangara was a mistake. I would do 3. I want the deck to have more of a reason to turn vial of up to 3. But to me flicker is not the answer. either that, or just go with a ton of 2 drops......

Serra Avenger: great to put equipment on. with the meta going with more flyers (delver, linger of souls) I have a hard time going to 3. Avengers are bad in the red matchups due to being within bolt range and of course you don't want to have vs combo but everything else its great. I was able to put a batterskull on here facing an opp that had just a germ batterskull in play (playing u/w stoneblade). I will stick with 4 for now

Thalia: pretty pleased with her. backed with wasteland, you can punish poor starting draws. she is not the complete answer to combo. high tide went off on me with her in play. she will slow combo down but we still need a lot of help in the combo matchup

Rishdan ports: anyone else seem to think these aren't as great as they probably once were? I mean don't get me wrong, if your running mono-color like my build there isn't much downside to running them. but they just didn't seem to cut the other player off as effectively as i wanted.

SB:

Kitchen Finks: I wanted something that was useful in more than just burn. I didn't play burn all day. I used them against the two pox decks I played. worked well against them but this card didn't seem to be the most beneficial for the sb. i wanted a cop:red to one use against burn but two to be able to name progenitis. but you want to tutor for a phyrexian metamorph instead so the cop isn't needed.

catacylsm: kinda of torn on this. seems pretty good against maverick and stoneblade deck. but also feels like a cutesy card. maybe cause i feel its good against decks that we already have favorable matchups

powder keg: i wanted another card like serenity. kills empty the warrens tokens. i would use this again

I played a Eureka deck. He plays Eureka putting into play Progenitis, Nicol Bolas Planeswalker, and a land. I put into play batterskull, thalia, and revoker (naming nicol bolas PSW). He is upset about not being able to use the PSW right away. A turn or two later I tutor for phyrexian metamorph copy his progenitus and bash the rest of game with batterskull.

RUG matchup: didn't see any jotun grunt which shine in the matchup. red removal can also make this matchup though

Thank you for the report, and congrats on the finish!

Yeah, thanks for the report.

Re: It's interesting that you go to 4 Avengers and 2 Flickerwisps, citing Vial as a major reason. Keep in mind that an Avenger swinging on turn 5 is a lot less scary, but you're looking at just that without Vial. Avenger's a great dumb beater, but just a dumb beater, whereas Flickerwisp allows for a ton of tricks, from removing blockers and mana sources to resetting our Revokers to resetting their Planeswalkers. The toughness of 1 is an increasing liability, but the key to this deck is the trickiness, and there's just not much with Avenger.

You went to 2/2 Mangara/Flickerwisp and noted that there isn't much incentive to set a Vial to 3. This is precisely the problem experienced by the guy that top-8'd SCG Dallas, and is yet another reason to run at LEAST 3 Flickerwisps alongside 3 Mangara.

Port seems like Grunt, in that some games it's a blowout in concert with our other Taxes, and sometimes it's precisely the wrong card for the situation. However, if you anticipate the continuing popularity of greedy manabases with few basics, then I'd keep the maindeck tools to punish those designs.

Revoker and Avenger are great, but you were only able to keep 4 because of the (IMO inappropriate) cuts to the 3-drop creatures. The list is getting tight, and something's got to give.

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Originally Posted by kirbysdl

Revoker and Avenger are great, but you were only able to keep 4 because of the (IMO inappropriate) cuts to the 3-drop creatures. The list is getting tight, and something's got to give.

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+1

@kirby

I don't think you can look at this just in a vacuum. If I have to hardcast something I'm happy to hardcast avenger over flickerwisp. Yes you can't cast it 1st couple of turn but the deck has tons of other creatures it can cast those turns. Avenger is generally our best target to hook our equip on. I wouldn't fault anyone for cutting her to 3. Yes both avenger and wisp are better with vial, I just found (imo) the tricks if i had to hardcast flicker that are relevant really don't seem to do much if no flash is involved (i.e. the need to reset a revoker). so to me i'll take a 3/3 flyer,vil for 2 mana instead of a vanilla 3/1 flyer for 3 if I have to hardcast.

yes my cut to 2 mangara and 2 flicker was incorrect. I just think flicker leaves me desiring something more.