[Deck] Death and Taxes

@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...)

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Originally Posted by 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?

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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.

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Originally Posted by iatee

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.

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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."

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

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

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Originally Posted by Marungo

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."

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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?

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

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Originally Posted by Marungo

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."

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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.

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Originally Posted by WashableWater1

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.

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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

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Originally Posted by Medea_

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

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by iatee

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

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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

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

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Originally Posted by chaosjace

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

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Pre-Miracles, Iatee Top 16'd the Legacy Open 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.

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Originally Posted by Marungo

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

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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.

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Originally Posted by iatee

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.

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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

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Originally Posted by Marungo

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

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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/archetyp...s-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.

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Originally Posted by iatee

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/archetyp...s-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.

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

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).

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Originally Posted by 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).

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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?

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Originally Posted by iatee

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/archetyp...s-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.

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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.

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.)

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Originally Posted by iatee

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.
-

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by talpa

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

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I was referring to this:

https://twitter.com/therealenevolds/...67637233881089

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.

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.

Hi,

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

Cheers

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.

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.

@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.

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.

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.

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.

Get wrecked TNN:

http://a1.res.cloudinary.com/csicdn/...ull/AVR148.jpg

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by iatee

Get wrecked TNN:

http://a1.res.cloudinary.com/csicdn/...ull/AVR148.jpg

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BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Good stuff, I say.

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Originally Posted by Mad Mat

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee

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.

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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

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

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.

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Originally Posted by Mad Mat

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

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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.