[Deck] Death and Taxes

Alright, tournament was 4 rounds, and I made first going 3-0-1 (W-L-D)

Here's what I ran:


4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
4 Karakas
11 Plains

4 Mother of Runes
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Jotun Grunt
4 Serra Avenger
4 Flickerwisp
3 Mangara of Corondor
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Aether Vial
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Batterskull

//Sideboard
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Gravedigger's Cage
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Circle Of Protection: Red
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Stony Silence
2 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Enlightened Tutor

Round 1: Rbg Goblin
He wins the die-roll.
G1: He gets the lackey opening, but doesn't get to draw anything relevant... I plow the first one, he plays a second one, I SFM into jitte, he goes warren weirding and lackey into lackey, and only draws 1 piledriver.... I play Avenger, play jitte + equipe and win from there...
G2: He mulls to 6, keeps an iffi hand and manafloods... I only see a lackey, 2 vial (witch I revoker), a stingscourger. and my topdecked jitte wins with something I can't remember protected by mother of runes....

1-0-0

R2: Reanimate
He wins the die-roll
G1: he goes fetch, go, I go land go, he goes careful study, I go jothun grunt and he doesn't find his reanimation spell fast enough and draws nothing that can win against my armada of flyers+sword of fire and ice
G2: He opens with carefull study, I open with gravediggers cage. He gets to show and tell a Jin, and I a grunt... he eventually wins needling my sword and jitte while I draw crap....
G3: I go land go, he goes T1 Entomb, I go EOT Tutor, for next turn gravedigger's cage+mother of runes, with a metamorph in hand. He show and tells imperial archangel, which I metamorph. We go to time and I am 1 damage short of killing him after getting rid of the angel (I could swing for 18 and he was at 19...)
A draw it is then.
1-0-1

R3: RUG with tarmogoyf, snapcaster, jace, lightning bolt, lavamancer,... whatever...
He win's the die-roll
G1: I feast upon his stupid manabase until I find a sword of fire and ice so my mon can protect my avenger while his lavamancer is revokered. he got to counter something here and there but I got what mattered to stick.
G2: I get my god draw, with turn 1 vial, giving me a turn 2 mom, turn 3 SFM, turn 4 avenger+equip. I also remember playing a sword in his lavamancer before vialing in mom, and disrupting his manabase with ports....
2-0-1


R4: Maverick
I win the die-roll(finaly)
G1: we have a mother of runes war, but he plows mine while I try to protect my jitte equipped creature.... he forgets that even with his stupid mom's and quirion ranger-like flyer cant stop my revoker from getting counters. I clean up his mom's with jitte counters next turn I blindly revoker qasali again, and win with a flickerwhisp while grunt keeps his knight small.
G2: This was a real LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG grind, going back and forth with battle's preventing his jitte from getting active, to who can get his mom's active, to us both battling about who's sword of light and shadow is better.... I eventually get 3 revoker's out for SoLaS, Qasali, and Eslpeth, with one of them already equiped with SoLaS + a mother of runes active. I flicker his SoLaS, and finally get my avenger's and SFM back from the dead and win from there.....

3-0-1, I get first and win 5 boosters (containing nothing relevant) and a FNM foil dismember

Damn that was a lot of fun for one evening, and we even played some more games afterwards just for fun.

But what really surprises me is that NOBODY knows D&T, and EVERYBODY underestimates it.

I mean, while playing4fun I get thoughtseized, and they see flickerwhisp and go like "Mèh", probably not relevant and take the pretty useless grunt because they are like: OMFG a 4/4 for 1W that kills graveyards is so unfair..... while I flicker my batterskull FTW next turn....


I just really hope the new uber-wrath doesn't kill this deck off.... It's so much fun, and I'd hate to see it die....

Congrats on the win. Your list is delightfully old-school. Was the absence of Thalia an active metagame decision, or do you just not have them? Thalia slows RUG, slows Reanimator, and eats the weenies of Goblins and Maverick even though they play fewer spells. Notably though, you didn't see any sort of storm combo, where Thalia can really help.

The absence of thalia is indeed simply becaus I don't have anny. But I can't say i missed them...

Went top4 split in a 102-man 7-round tourney. Report to follow when I edit this post.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mrjumbo03

Went top4 split in a 102-man 7-round tourney. Report to follow when I edit this post.

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Really like to see that report.

Played on tourney today with D&T and went 4-1 placing 2nd. List was like this:

4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
4 Karakas
10 Plains

4 Mother of Runes
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Jotun Grunt
4 Serra Avenger
2 Flickerwisp
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Mangara of Corondor
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Aether Vial
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of feast and famine
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Batterskull

sb

1 Gravedigger's Cage
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Circle Of Protection: Red
1 Warmth
1 Pithing needle
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Sword of Body and Mind
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 path to exile
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Enlightened Tutor

Won against landstill, reanimator, dredge and pox. Lost against tempo ***** :cry:

Report is up here:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...805#post637805

Quote:

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Originally Posted by colo

I honestly think D&T (along with any other sort of aggro-control without counterspells) will not be viable any more once and as long Terminus is legal. If I think of the UW Landstill lists that I expect to pop up (and how difficult, or rather, actually unwinnable this matchup has been before such bombs as the miracle timewalk and the miracle, quasi-free super-WOG), I can only shudder in disgust.

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Thalia's our answer to that, and I don't see the doom-and-gloom. If terminus gets too good, it gets axed--like MM was. If it sticks, and I'm merely wrong about Thalia, then maybe we should be concerned; still, I'll take a loss against a fringe deck for a hatebear that beats most of the meta almost by herself.

Thalia is notgoing to save you from Terminus - most control players won't mind paying 1W for Superwrath in their draw step either.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by colo

Thalia is notgoing to save you from Terminus - most control players won't mind paying 1W for Superwrath in their draw step either.

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Treat it as a wrath, then. They won't hit it realistically before t4 anyway, and you keep you swords, vial, etc. Use you wisp/karakas to save your important dudes and, if all else fails, keep them off white. Honestly, it's not that big a deal.

I will freely admit that Terminus has the potential to be a royal pain, but at the same time so is massacre and WoG. I think that if you are experienced with playing aggro based strategies, that you should be able to not over extend your field to the point where a wrath effect of some sort will put you behind to the point where you are unable to recover.

If miracles are as busted as they seem, there's always
Wand of Denial
Grindclock
Shriekhorn
Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
and plenty of other crappy hosers. :)

Seriously though, keeping particular cards on top of your library is actually quite taxing on a deck. The control deck we are talking about would not be any Landstill deck any of us have ever seen before. It would need lots of specific cards devoted to library manipulation which means fewer business spells. I am willing to wait and see. And there is also the real possibility that there is a powerful white hoser bear in the next set.

Has Weathered Wayfarer been run in DNT at all? He seems really good, especially with a vial draw and fetching with wasteland/fetch on the stack. I like that you can use him to load up on wastelands or ports to keep your opponent down.

4 Fetches
5 Plains
4 Karakas
4 Port
4 Wasteland

4 Vial
2 Jitte

4 Swords

4 Mom
3 Wayfarer
4 Revoker
2 Stoneforge
3 Avenger
3 Jotun Grunt
3 Thalia
3 Mangara
4 Flickerwisp

D&T is not the right environment for yet another mana-sink that is Weathered Wayfarer. It has been tried on occasion, and even with mild success sometimes, but if you're looking to get the most out of Wayfarer, take a closer look at UW Tempo. That deck is built around that little dude in a way, and really makes him shine.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Antonius

Has Weathered Wayfarer been run in DNT at all? He seems really good, especially with a vial draw and fetching with wasteland/fetch on the stack. I like that you can use him to load up on wastelands or ports to keep your opponent down.

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Wayfarer might be good post-board material for matchups where you really want to find Karakas, like against Emrakul in SnT, and various targets in Reanimator. Then again, is it better than the proactive ways of stopping SnT/Reanimator with the Etutor board? Extra virtual copies of Karakas ensure that you have a retro-active way to stop Reanimator cold.

I need a quick bit of advice. I feel like I'm running too few lands at 21 but can't decide on what to cut. I also need to tweak my SB. Here's my current build:

7x Plains
4x Wasteland
4x Karakas
3x Rishadan Port
3x Flagstones of Trokair

4x Serra Avenger
4x Stoneforge Mystic
4x Flickerwisp
4x Mother of Runes
3x Mangara of Corondor
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3x Jötun Grunt
3x Phyrexian Revoker

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

SB:
3x Enlightened Tutor
2x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Stony Silence
1x Serenity
1x Phyrexian Metamorph
1x Wheel of Sun and Moon
1x Tormod's Crypt
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Hex Parasite
1x Oblivion Ring
1x Pithing Needle
1x Aura of Silence

I'll move add Grafdigger's Cage to the SB alongside Absolute Law at the very least.

I'd cut the 4th Avenger. For the longest time I thought it was sacrilege to do so, but having 7 2drops you can't play on turn 2 really hurts. And of all the creatures, Avenger is really the only one without utility, not to mention the overabundance of Lightning Bolts in the current meta due to RUG. I probably won't play Flagstones as well without playing Cataclysm unless you're up against an inordinate amount of Pox, which is the only matchup I could see you wanting it. I'd go full on Ports just because Mana Denial is so much stronger with the printing of Thalia.

As for the SB, I don't see the need for Phyrexian Metamorph anymore as Progenitus has fallen out of favor. I think you have lots of Artifact/Enchantment hate in the form of Stony Silence, Aura of Silence and Serenity, and it'd be okay to drop 1 of the 3, considering you also can tutor for them. Crucible of the Worlds seems underwhelming also, as you really only have wasteland to recur. Also, I don't know if it's personal preference but I want Phyrexian Revoker over the Pithing Needle on the board more often than not, as hitting mana abilities is much more important for me than hitting lands.

A guy named Garret Roosa top 8'd at Providence, but got paired against Elves in the quarters. I have heard some guys say how easy this matchup is for them with Jitte at your service, but I think it sux even after a big SB. Garret had the same problem I always have. Revokers are powerful stoppers, but you can't attack or block with them unless you have Feast or Famine on them or an already juiced Jitte or Mother of Runes or something. And all this assumes you have their aggro plan handled, which you really can't reliably do. Just about the same thing for Canonist. We really aren't equipped to handle the real problem - that deck barfs out shitloads of elves. And I, for one, am not about to pack dedicated hate for it.

Good job, Garret. Your list was tight.

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=45966

Elves does indeed crush d & t.

As an elves player, I rarely ever have problems with death & taxes.

To beat Elves, you have to have couple Swords to Plowshares in your opening hand and be able to get a Jitte online really fast. In other words, you need to get lucky or it's going to be a blowout against you.

It's a combo deck that's minimally affected by Thalia. Remember how soft we were to combo before Thalia? :cry: