[Deck] Imperial Painter

I've tested Dragon's Claw more now than when I posted about it before on here, and I'm being absolutely serious when I say that it makes games 2 and 3 heavily in your favor if you stick one, and play the whole game around keeping as many in play as possible. This is better against U/R Delver, but also quite good against Burn. In my opinion, that justifies running a playset, at least in the near future and particularly if you're planning on going to GP NJ, where a lot of people will be picking up budget decks. If it merely improved the match up, but not enough to turn it around, I wouldn't run it, but my experience has been that it is good enough to put the whole match up in your favor over 3 games. After you have one claw down, the game plan is then to get a painter out on blue to protect it and/or hopefully either a second claw and/or a second painter to put on red so that every spell cast can be countered with blasts and gains you life. Smash to Smithereens, as usual, is something to watch out for.

@jandax: all you need is blood moon against lands huh? See my horrible loss report above. I do agree that assemble probable isn't necessary in the MU, but it's slow enough that it works as a win con where Koth doesn't. This is assuming blood moon is not in play. Yes, if you can keep a blood moon around then you are probably okay.

@kapn: as far as the main deck ratchet/e.e., I seem to be confused as to why anyone would use e.e. over ratchet bomb in this deck. You are using it for its recurrent interaction with welder right? Wouldn't it always be set to zero when taken out of graveyard? That seems suboptimal.


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Originally Posted by drude1

@kapn: as far as the main deck ratchet/e.e., I seem to be confused as to why anyone would use e.e. over ratchet bomb in this deck. You are using it for its recurrent interaction with welder right? Wouldn't it always be set to zero when taken out of graveyard? That seems suboptimal.

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For the graveyard recursion purposes ratchet is leagues better I agree. Another pro is ticking up beyond 2 and not requiring plateau for >1. I'm torn because I've liked how much faster explosives is when dealing with 1-2 mana permanents. Also, resolving it through counterbalance by paying variable amounts of mana is actually a huge deal. Lastly, its a zero-mana artifact if you ever need an emergency weld target, which might become more important with Daretti in a week. Just my current thought process. What do you think

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Originally Posted by drude1

@jandax: all you need is blood moon against lands huh? See my horrible loss report above. I do agree that assemble probable isn't necessary in the MU, but it's slow enough that it works as a win con where Koth doesn't. This is assuming blood moon is not in play. Yes, if you can keep a blood moon around then you are probably okay.

@kapn: as far as the main deck ratchet/e.e., I seem to be confused as to why anyone would use e.e. over ratchet bomb in this deck. You are using it for its recurrent interaction with welder right? Wouldn't it always be set to zero when taken out of graveyard? That seems suboptimal.


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Read over your post:

Lands is a deck that can get around Blood Moon two ways; Moxen and a basic. If you get to moon first, your next priority is to find a Revoker for Mox Diamond or Painter/Blast for their basic. In your third game, I would have dropped the painter off the tomb turn one. This opens up an entirely new game state that lets you deal with their priority cards (Mox/Basic). Afterwards, you could have dropped the moon a couple turns later with the second blast up, after using your turn two to blast his forest. Then you'd pretty much be in the driver's seat. Don't forget Painter is a deck full of must answer cards, so next time do play around stuff you can put them on, otherwise just let them have the wasteland or other card that'd set you back.

I'm not convinced Daretti improves imperial painter.
I 've played this deck for a year now and reading seth's post i learnt to understand that our priority is being a fast and consistent combo deck. Sure, we have blood moon and bridge and tutors can find those as well as the combo, but we mustn't get too cute and always remember our aim is to combo off.
In this perspective, what does Daretti do for us? Obviously it can recur grindstone and painter, but we already have welder that does it at the cost of 1 red mana. Even welder is not an essential part to the deck, he is there just to protect the combo and eat removal (don't misunderstand, he is a fantastic card, but in the end he is not integral to the combo plan). So why include a 4 mana planeswalker that does the same job as welder?
The obvious upside is that he cycles through the deck ... the other obvious upside is that he let us run an alternative "reanimator" plan as kap suggested. But we already have koth that works as alternative plan while being a lot faster and winning under a bridge. The looting part of daretti is good but is it worth paying 4 mana ? It is far from sure that adding a reanimator target will improve the deck.
For now, i think daretti is a strong planeswalker and could enable a new entire archetype (4 welder, 4 daretti, lots of artifacts..... the thread has already been created in the developing section), but it remains to be seen if he is good for imperial painter.
I don't want to sound too harsh but this is just food for thought and i think it is very important to test a lot before evaluating a card that looks very powerful at first glance.

Let's just say he's got more synergies with the deck than Koth does.

I am at work so some of the MTGO/Wizards stuff is blocked here. Anyone know when the Commander 2014 decks will be released on MTGO? I would like to jam a few games with Daretti before the GP.

If I remember correctly, there is a bout a weeks gap between paper and MTGO releases. If that is the case... unless I want to create a hotspot with my phone and jam games the entire way to NJ, I don;t think I would have enough confidence to run him at the GP.

Side note: I have been slacking on streaming. Someone actually asked my in Bahra's stream last night if I would start up again. Leading up to the GP I should really get some games in. So, I am planning on streaming again starting Sunday and doing it a few times over the next 2 weeks.

There are many things Daretti helps us with. Yes Welder does the same thing already as his -2 and at instant speed. But lets look at why some of the other decks in the format are Tier 1 and people don't take Painter very seriously unless they have a bad beat story. They have a ton of redundancy in the deck. All of the Delver decks, Reanimator, SNS, DNT, Elves... They all have redundancy in terms of winning and how to win I feel Daretti provides us with some much needed redundancy that we have lacked in this deck for some time.

I know we are a combo deck and we have to assemble our combo just like any other combo deck. Granted you can win on Turn 1 but if you have that in hand, how many times are you realistically going to try for it? I have been able to do this once and i was so nervous about a Force the entire time. Regardless Daretti helps us assemble that combo sooner in some cases. In Shortcake I feel he is less effective but can still do what we want to do with him. I feel he is better in the Mono Red version of the deck as he is just better for the deck when compared to Chandra.

After talking to Jack briefly about using him in shortcake i think he requires a major overhaul of the deck to incorporate him properly into the deck. Now Jack's version that he posted yesterday looks solid there are a few numbers i personally want to tweak and try out to see if he is worth it. All in all i think it is a very cool time to play Painter whether we decide pretty much as a group to play or not play Daretti im sure he will have an impact on any future iterations of this deck as he is something to consider every time you sleeve up.

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Originally Posted by cab0747

I am at work so some of the MTGO/Wizards stuff is blocked here. Anyone know when the Commander 2014 decks will be released on MTGO? I would like to jam a few games with Daretti before the GP.

If I remember correctly, there is a bout a weeks gap between paper and MTGO releases. If that is the case... unless I want to create a hotspot with my phone and jam games the entire way to NJ, I don;t think I would have enough confidence to run him at the GP.

Side note: I have been slacking on streaming. Someone actually asked my in Bahra's stream last night if I would start up again. Leading up to the GP I should really get some games in. So, I am planning on streaming again starting Sunday and doing it a few times over the next 2 weeks.

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It releases the same day on MTGO apparently so we may get to jam some games with it before the GP.

Containment priest:

1W - 2/2 flash

If a nontoken creature would enter the battlefield without being cast, exile it instead.

Tutorable hate for dredge and show and tell, elves and dnt (vial). Not as great with welder but in those matchups you can hedge a bit for this guy. Bringing in rip against dredge and maybe snt anyways.

Regarding ratchet bomb/ee:
Being able to blow up elves the turn you cast it and also playing around spell pierce and daze better against UR I think gets it. Against either of those decks, we probably don't want the game going long enough to recur bomb and tick up multiple times anyways.

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Originally Posted by jandax

Read over your post:

Lands is a deck that can get around Blood Moon two ways; Moxen and a basic. If you get to moon first, your next priority is to find a Revoker for Mox Diamond or Painter/Blast for their basic. In your third game, I would have dropped the painter off the tomb turn one. This opens up an entirely new game state that lets you deal with their priority cards (Mox/Basic). Afterwards, you could have dropped the moon a couple turns later with the second blast up, after using your turn two to blast his forest. Then you'd pretty much be in the driver's seat. Don't forget Painter is a deck full of must answer cards, so next time do play around stuff you can put them on, otherwise just let them have the wasteland or other card that'd set you back.

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Fantastic Monday morning quarterbacking here. I explained my rationale in detail on the last post. If he has the wasteland I'm blown out. Not to mention I have 2 blood moons in my hand so if he hits the first one I would usually have time to play painter/blast the forest in subsequent turns and drop another blood moon. The odds that he has 2 dark depths to play in succession along with an answer to blood moon is pretty low. Game two I had the blood moon right away and he still took care of it. It's not so simple as "drop blood moon and then revoker and you have the game." They tend to like to interact a little with you. In that particular match, he was busy answering my cards and dropping 20/20s by turn 4 in 2 games. You should goldfish this deck and see how many times you can have blood moon and revoker on the table by turn 4.
Painter on turn 1? He kills it in response to my blast and I get two for one'd. Not in love with that play either. Like I said, if I had known he didn't have a wasteland I would have gone for the painter play but on the good chance (44%) he does have a wasteland by his draw step, I chose not to role those dice.
The real point is that Assemble the Legion is a win condition because it sneaks around their defenses (tabernacle and maze of ith) as you are having lots of little dudes that are coming out swinging every turn. They also swing under a bridge, which might be the only thing keeping a 20/20 from smacking you back. Again, I'm not saying it's an absolute must have by any means, as our primary combo is usually pretty good against them. But I was just listing M.U.s that I would CONSIDER bringing the card in for.

Whatup y'all? It's been a while.

Unfortunately I have not had time to play magic for months, but my friend told me to take a look at Daretti.

First off, I like Jack's point about the new discard option for Shortcake. The other thing that occurred to me is Squee. Seems like even a 1-of would provide a long-term-inevitability option for Recruiter with Daretti out.

Since I've been out of the game for a bit, I could be totally off though and it might just not be necessary. Still, I hope someone will test.

And congrats to all the successful painters recently! The deck seems to be evolving nicely.

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Originally Posted by Calculoso

Containment priest:

1W - 2/2 flash

If a nontoken creature would enter the battlefield without being cast, exile it instead.

Tutorable hate for dredge and show and tell, elves and dnt (vial). Not as great with welder but in those matchups you can hedge a bit for this guy. Bringing in rip against dredge and maybe snt anyways.

Regarding ratchet bomb/ee:
Being able to blow up elves the turn you cast it and also playing around spell pierce and daze better against UR I think gets it. Against either of those decks, we probably don't want the game going long enough to recur bomb and tick up multiple times anyways.

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Oooh, I do like containment priest. That card definitely has potential in the board. Graveyard hate that is searchable with recruiter is sweet.
As for bomb/ee, my perspective is a little different. I agree to some extent with your thoughts. Although I play with pyrokinesis in my SB and have cleared the elves board many times in the past and still lost to more elves. (BTW, elves is the reason I would still play Chandra over the new guy, but I'm still staying open on that one) The recurrent affect is definitely worth considering. I do agree that the potential 0cc is an issue. EE is probably not that much faster against elves though, as you are probably searching for it turn one, playing turn 2 (for 1) and using turn 3, which is exactly what you would do with the bomb. Also, against delver strategies, you can keep recurring bomb and activate for zero to kill flipped delvers or pyro tokens for free, without having to pay the 2 mana activation ability. Both take out 0 cc things (like empty the warrens tokens or angel token from miracles) the turn you cast them for 2 mana, so that's a wash. The only real nod ee gets is killing 2cc things much faster, which is also relevant. It's probably a matter of personal preference.

Containment priest looks very good, but don't forget he exiles the painters you weld in and the giant monsters you could cheat in with daretti !

Well Containment Priest is finding at least a single slot in my sideboard.

Yeah i think he deserves a slot in shortcake sideboard, given that show and tell/reanimator can cause problems. He also beats green sun's zenith and natural order.

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Originally Posted by LeoCop 90

Yeah i think he deserves a slot in shortcake sideboard, given that show and tell/reanimator can cause problems. He also beats green sun's zenith and natural order.

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Also from elves fetching for dryad arbor (not as likely with moon effects but still a thing). I take out a welder or two (running three) when I bring in rip and this guy would be coming in when I bring in rip. Still like having 1 welder though as a tutor target if they deal with it or you need to bring back non painter artifacts.

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Originally Posted by drude1

Fantastic Monday morning quarterbacking here. I explained my rationale in detail on the last post. If he has the wasteland I'm blown out. Not to mention I have 2 blood moons in my hand so if he hits the first one I would usually have time to play painter/blast the forest in subsequent turns and drop another blood moon. The odds that he has 2 dark depths to play in succession along with an answer to blood moon is pretty low. Game two I had the blood moon right away and he still took care of it. It's not so simple as "drop blood moon and then revoker and you have the game." They tend to like to interact a little with you. In that particular match, he was busy answering my cards and dropping 20/20s by turn 4 in 2 games. You should goldfish this deck and see how many times you can have blood moon and revoker on the table by turn 4.
Painter on turn 1? He kills it in response to my blast and I get two for one'd. Not in love with that play either. Like I said, if I had known he didn't have a wasteland I would have gone for the painter play but on the good chance (44%) he does have a wasteland by his draw step, I chose not to role those dice.
The real point is that Assemble the Legion is a win condition because it sneaks around their defenses (tabernacle and maze of ith) as you are having lots of little dudes that are coming out swinging every turn. They also swing under a bridge, which might be the only thing keeping a 20/20 from smacking you back. Again, I'm not saying it's an absolute must have by any means, as our primary combo is usually pretty good against them. But I was just listing M.U.s that I would CONSIDER bringing the card in for.

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I wasn't trying to talk you down, and I left off "I" infront of 'Read over your post' so maybe there was some confusion. What I meant to say that after reading over your match, and given my own experience with the deck, that's how I would have approached that particular game. Seems like your opp just drew well, that can happen. Things to watch out for are Sphere of Resistance and their own EE's, things can get out of hand quick

Okay... So I know it's not a SCG Open or something... But did manage to win a 23 player legacy tournament today in Copenhagen... Top 4 included Death and Taxes and 2x U/R Delver.... Not a good top 4 for me, but I did manage to win... :D

Decklist will be up later, when I have had some sleep :D

I'd be really interested to hear if anyone has made any breakthroughs with Daretti, or has found anything in testing yet. I was tinkering with my mono red list, until I noticed Containment Priest - a tutorable hate card for a wide variety of the biggest threats against Painter, namely Sneak and Show, Elves (imagine, not only not getting 'hoofed, but also not getting GSZed for Reclamation Sage), Reanimator, and to some extent, Dredge. Obviously, Containment Priest is a bit of a nonbo with Goblin Welder or Daretti, but those cards aren't particularly relevant against these removal light combo decks. Additionally, this card is a white splash card against decks that generally aren't terribly susceptible to Moon effects after turn 1 on Painter's play.

Much respect to the R/W Shortcake lists and players, but personally I am not a huge fan of Enlightened Tutor, and have been mostly on monored and have enjoyed that style of play. With the priest though, I'm considering throwing in a Plateau and a Lotus Petal, since Priest will often come in for some number of Blood Moons, and is still quite easy to find in the deck with Imperial Recruiter, Sensei's Top, and Daretti. I'm also still on the Dragon's Claw plan against U/R and Burn, and that has been performing, if that's a match up you are seeking some percentage points against. With all this in mind, this is the list I've been tinkering with (and yes, I am aware this is a bit soft to Bridge from Below with only 2 Crypts, though Priest pretty much wrecks Dread Return, Ichorid, and Narcomoeba):

Mana

6 Mountain
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Plateau
1 Lotus Petal
3 Simian Spirit Guide

Creatures

4 Painter's Servant
3 Imperial Recruiter
1 Magus of the Moon
2 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Goblin Welder

Instants

4 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Lightning Bolt

Other

4 Grindstone
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Blood Moon
3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Daretti, Scrap Savant

Sideboard
SB: 3 Thorn of Amethyst
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Manic Vandal
SB: 1 Lightning Bolt
SB: 1 Koth of the Hammer
SB: 4 Dragon's Claw
SB: 2 Containment Priest
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast

I think I'd like to fit in the 4th SSG, 3rd Lotus Petal, or 20th land somewhere, most likely, since the curve is a little higher thanks to Daretti. If y'all have any thoughts or suggestions, let me know, otherwise I'll let you guys know how this is running once I play some more games with it. So far, it's been running smoother than my experiences with the old mono-red lists, but I haven't had a chance to test anything really extensively.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I know the 3 recruiters is sacrilege, but I've been missing the 4th one for a few weeks....and to be honest haven't been missing it at all. Definitely wouldn't go any lower, and probably 4 is correct, but I try and keep my online decklists close to what I'm doing in paper.

EDIT #2: Also, I'm fairly comfortable with the idea of just 1 Plateau because it will only ever be fetched against decks where Containment Priest is good e.g. not decks with Wasteland, with the exception of DnT, where I'm not sure Priest would be much better than Lightning Bolt or Ensnaring Bridge or Revoker, or whatever it is Painter already does against that deck.