[Deck] W/x Parfait (Tax/Rack Control)

4 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Batterskull
1 Kaldra Compleat
4 Triumph of Saint Katherine

4 Solitude
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Prismatic Ending

3 Armageddon
1 Bloodmoon

4 Tithe
4 Land Tax
4 Enlightened Tutor

4 Scroll Rack
4 Mox Diamond
3 Crucible of Worlds
1 Zuran Orb

4 Ghost Quarter
4 Wasteland
4 Horizon Canopy
4 Silent Clearing
4 Sunbaked Canyon
1 Plateau
1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
1 Mountain
9 Plains

Sideboard
1 Yorion, Sky Nomad
4 Deafening Silence
3 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Null Rod
1 Stony Silence
4 Rest in Peace
1 Helm of Obedience


My believe is that we need to control the number of our lands by using Mox Diamond and the Horizon Canopy, Silent Clearing and Sunbaked Canyon to get Land Tax activation or Tithe bonus land. We can sacrifice them to control the number of lands we control. Same with Wasteland and Ghost Quarter and we add Crucible of Worlds to get the lock or a way to draw cards with the Canopy and its friends. Zuran Orb gives us the possibility of sacrificing every other land for the same purpose.

That's why it is a Yorion deck. I wanted all that. I splashed red for a single Bloodmoon. The multicolor manabase (don't forget Mox Diamond) let us play Prismatic Ending in a monowhite deck if it works ! And because we are mono white, we can play 4 Solitude (Yorion pitches here), I believe.

4 Swords to Plowshares, 4 Prismatic Ending and 4 Solitude in the same deck !

The creatures have lifelink because we play a ton of painlands.

I tried to make room for 4 Urza's Saga + 1 Shadowspear to add more lifelinker and another way to tutor for Zuran Orb but I can't find how.

The sideboard is there to have a chance against combo to which we lose game 1.

The plan is removals, attacks, 8 wastelands, Armaggedon, reload, repeat and win hopefully. Bloodmoon is here as a better Winter Orb.

Thank you for reading my long post.

Basic competitive concepts:
-if we see Crucible in the main, there is a 99.99% chance that it should be a Karn, and that there should be exactly 1x Crucible living in a SB slot, if you wanted this effect.
-Scroll Rack had been replaced by Currency Converter in the main. You play Saga, so play the tutorable lands-to-cards artifact. You have added Karn, so you can play a Scroll Rack in the wishboard.
-You will never put Blood Moon in a 4x Saga deck.
-Tithe is always Timeless Dragon.
-You will not use artifacts and play a symmetrical Null Rod effect. This is Karn.
-We play March over Ending in 1c and 2c decks...especially b/c Karn wishes Liquimetal, which makes their lands into artifacts, which March can target (Ending can't).

So many other problems, but these changes above are mandatory. Also have actual tutor targets for Saga - you literally only have Mox and a Zuran Orb.

Agree with Fox.

Karn, the Great Creator main is better than Null Rod SB. 1-sided hate and artifact tutor. Then you can move Crucible to the SB as a 1-of (or 1 main 1 SB), to avoid that awkward scenario where you draw redundant Crucibles. You already play ETutor so you can get value from a few 1-of silver bullet artifacts. For example, Karn & ETutor both get Canonist against Storm.

The best self-sacrificing land is Urza's Saga! If you want sacrificing lands to control land count, start with 4 Saga. Saga into Zuran Orb then gives perfect control of land count. Saga into Currency Converter converts extra lands into cards. Saga also makes creatures. Saga is one of the best lands to replay with Crucible. Overall Saga is much more value than you get from Horizon Canopy.

If you're playing stuff like Armageddon and Saga -> Zuran Orb, 3-4 Flagstones of Trokair is free value. Also Cosmic Intervention.

Alpine Moon is more 1-sided than Blood Moon once you're playing so many utility lands. Otherwise Blood Moon hurts you too. Blood Moon also has this small problem about turning enemy Dark Depths into Marit Lage.

I’ve been going through some of these posts and I have a few questions?

1. Is enlightened tutor playable in legacy right now?

2. Has anyone tried lotus field? (Got the idea from aspiringspike RW Nahiri/Blink Deck.)

3. What about Fable of the Mirror Breaker and Nettlecyst?

4. As a fun of, how about Reconstruct History? Seems like a draw 5 for 4 in this deck.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CRich3

I’ve been going through some of these posts and I have a few questions?

1. Is enlightened tutor playable in legacy right now?

2. Has anyone tried lotus field? (Got the idea from aspiringspike RW Nahiri/Blink Deck.)

3. What about Fable of the Mirror Breaker and Nettlecyst?

4. As a fun of, how about Reconstruct History? Seems like a draw 5 for 4 in this deck.

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I have been playing with fable. It's good, but unless you commit to more dudes, the last bit is so so. It is a grindy card that does a chunk, buying and bolt and more vs Delver. It is better with sol lands, of course.

Been thinking long and hard about E tutor. Trouble is the deck in g2 needs E tutor effects, especially if you want to go to g2 and 3 and tutor for cards like deafening silence, torpor orb or whatever, but in a world of removal, it is really bad disadvantage. Back in the day more often than not you tutored for a something that got forced. 3ball, half the rip helm combo, whatever. Maybe the shuffle bought you out ahead, after a forcing, but by and large the stuff you tutored for either got countered or it resolved. Tutoring now for most of the deck results in P ending and thus disadvantage- in a world of Uro and EI. With most decks packing the removal they now have, I think tutor's place is questionable.

The other huge, huge issue is meltdown is everywhere due to saga,and that leaves the deck hugely vulnerable.
I degenerated the deck to run bolt and swords, in a pretty standard walker shell. Really the best reason to splash red is 4 or 5 bolt effects in the board, but I feel like I am.playing an inferior painter.

I don't see a huge future for the deck right now unless it can get better versions of cards like the music box, etc. With white getting more EDH love it us possible we can see something in future but so many cards are bloody combat and creature centric , and in Parfait if I am attacking I have probably won already.

I have been mucking about with Court of Grace, which I good vs certain decks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CRich3

1. Is enlightened tutor playable in legacy right now?

2. Has anyone tried lotus field? (Got the idea from aspiringspike RW Nahiri/Blink Deck.)

3. What about Fable of the Mirror Breaker and Nettlecyst?

4. As a fun of, how about Reconstruct History? Seems like a draw 5 for 4 in this deck.

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1. Good question. I've seen this hotly debated. Enlightened Tutor is bad against fair blue (card disadvantage) but strong at pulling silver bullets against unfair decks and fair non-blue. Otherwise the deck lacks card selection and must run an inefficient SB and redundant copies of maindeck cards to ever see them. Fox's Parfait runs 2 ETutor. I've had success with 2-3 in other decks. 4 is too much card disadvantage. Its power depends on how much you abuse it to free up the SB and do broken things. It seems weak getting 7x Deafening Silence 4x Rest in Peace. The card disadvantage hurts even more with 4 ETutor 4 Scroll Rack 4 Mox. When talking about losing to Prismatic and Force of Vigor and Meltdown, imho it may be worth attacking those other sources of card disadvantage first before cutting ETutor.

2. Fox's build abuses Lotus Field + Cataclysm. You get perfect mana, opponent loses board. Saga into Expedition Map gets Lotus Field. Burning Wish gets Cataclysm.
I've tried the tech in both Fox's Parfait build and in UWr Landstill. I find it situational but very high power. It's game-ending when it works. The tutor packages do reduce the variance. Lotus Field is useful for many other reasons too.

3. Those may work in the Stoneforge build above, but don't fit in the low-creature builds. It's a more aggressive less-controlling direction to take the deck.

Re Meltdown: Fox's build addresses this problem, cutting down to 6 artifacts main and hiding the rest in the SB (Karn). Of those 6 artifacts, 3 cycle in response to removal (Relic, Map, Bauble). 0x Mox Diamond. 0 Scroll Racks main, replaced by 2 Currency Converter (replaces itself more easily) and 1 SB Rack (Karn). The artifacts can be tutored for (Urza's Saga, ETutor, Karn) but you're never getting flooded with artifacts or blown out by removal. It's a radical departure from traditional Parfait, but also stands a chance at winning games in this meta hostile to artifacts.

Fable is honestly fine in any saga deck, I would not say don't run it in a low creature deck- it doesn't need cards like solitude etc. to support it, it is just that the last 2/2 is not gamebreaking/underwhelming/only so-so without cards to copy, but at it's heart, the card is 2/2s x2 plus a discard and draw 2, for 3 mana, which goes some way to getting back card disadvantage lost to Mox D or E tutor or whatever you run- and especially the discard/draw is really nice selection. It is just solid value in any deck. If you are running multiples of cards or situational cards it smooths the way. The opponent will spend resources nerfing the saga tokens etc and casting g2 meltdowns and countering the combo cards/walkers/key cards or whatever, and quite often it is nibbles from the 2/2 that actually finish it, again rather reminiscent of painter.
It was the experimental inclusion of fable that lead to me dropping E tutor- I kept noticing that I often cycled the tutor on II as I did not want the disadvantage against most of the format, and with a couple of Orim's main and a reasonable sideboard selection of REB effects alongside Deafening Silence, Damping Sphere, etc.I found there was just about enough to not need the tutor in the unfair matches.

If you're not taking advantage of the Kiki mode, then isn't Urza's Saga into Currency Converter just better at making free bodies and filtering your hand into better cards?

Fable is a strong card in general, especially monored. But being in the splash color seems like a big drawback. What does your manabase look like? Do you have to limit utility lands to have enough stable red sources? Do you rely on Land Tax surviving for fixing?

Cycling E-Tutor assumes that you are finding a thing that cantrips and has some other effect on the game. Astrolabe was the previous best card to cycle E-Tutor with (b/c it turns into Gush with Teferi downtick), but cards like Shark Typhoon, Relic-types, and Currency Converter are pretty close. The E-Tutor cycling strategy works very well with "sac to draw" effects with Cosmic Intervention - this works b/c it is equivalent to picking up Astro with Teferi.

^notice how we go from simple cycling into frank CA combo. This is how E-Tutor is played effectively in this format. Despite the fact that cards are being combo'd together, we're not playing individually bad effects (i.e. opponents cannot 2-for-1, rather they have to engage in two 1-for-1s).

Now contrast this to a much more expensive Kikki's Saga, which plays real heavy into Daze, is much slower at requiring opponents to trade, threatens your mana security (needs more duals and/or not-white sources...in a deck that should be playing Saga), and drives you towards Fetchlands (aka away from Land Tax).

^all these problems, and you're going down on impactful early game plays (i.e. problems vs combo), down on the ability to uninteractively cash in turn 2's mana (i.e. problems vs Daze...which is problems vs Murktide...which is problems vs Delver), and going up on getting blown out by FoV. The number of tier 0 to tier 1.5 strategies you can hang with is rapidly disappearing as you're playing into their known interactions.

This is "good card, wrong deck" syndrome...and it needs to be pointed out that looting twice isn't CA...and you want to do all this to cover for something you shouldn't be doing: going all-in on Land Tax.

When you all-in on Tax/Rack/Mox, you end up on a deck cannot compete b/c it can't overcome its internal variance *and* then gets blown out by what everyone else is already doing (and going to continue doing). There is no magical fix to this deckbuilding flaw; it cannot be overcome by slapping on more jank like Kikki's Saga

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We already have everything Kikki's Saga could add. Want some treasures? Currency Converter. Want to draw-discard? We have Timeless Dragon and Currency Converter. Want to make a 2/2? We can do that with Currency Converter, multiplied in speed by Timeless. Want to copy an evoke elemental? We're going to evoke Solitude, let it resolve, then put Cosmic on the stack.

We have all of the essential functions of Kikki's Saga...in our color...at more aggressive mana costs...with more synergy...with better mana...with less ways for opponents to interact...with more reliability (Urza's Saga 3rd age trigger).

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Originally Posted by FTW

If you're not taking advantage of the Kiki mode, then isn't Urza's Saga into Currency Converter just better at making free bodies and filtering your hand into better cards?

Fable is a strong card in general, especially monored. But being in the splash color seems like a big drawback. What does your manabase look like? Do you have to limit utility lands to have enough stable red sources? Do you rely on Land Tax surviving for fixing?

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I run 2 mnt, 2 plateau, 2 fetch, plus 4 mox d. Sometimes LT fixes the mana, rarely scroll rack but really isn't that often. I do run 2 sol lands to get to 4cc. With mox I generally want to cast bolt there and then. I have toyed with the extra red source to 7 plus 4 mox d, and my utility lands are saga and karakas, so perhaps a bit lower. I sometimes run maze.I do often fetch up mox d off saga.


I run 4 bolt, fable x3, and the 3rd karn slot sometimes as Nahiri, as I am main deck RIP x3.

I also run white staxy decks from time to time- if you want to run geddon/cataclysm/ timeless dragon they work brilliantly in a traditional stompy stax shell alongside Archon of Emeria, Announced Peacekeeper, 3 ball and Chalice , better than in any Parfait esqe deck with 1cc cards. Chalice and 3ball are weaker than back in the days of them walking away with a game on their own, but still strong enough when placed alongside land kill Geddon/Cataclysm effects and the latest 3cc hatebears which add a whole new dimension in themselves.
I don't want to run Parfait as anything other than 4 LTax and some scroll rack with RIP main deck in numbers because I play other decks. I am not saying those other strategies are bad in a Parfait ish shell, I am saying I akready have very good well established homes for those strategies as the main focus, homes that I have played for a long while and do well against top decks. For comp REL I have never played Parfait, I dig it out for local events like FNM.




It is certainly true that lots of meltdown effects exist, I try and play around them. If you are taxing and scroll racking they are survivable by not over committing to artifacts.
Court of grace has been solid for me, ditto the Kiki. Filtering is often what the deck needs.The CA is the tax and scroll rack.

I have a really good delver match up, btw. Running 3 RIP main helps, but when your removal suite is 4 bolt 4 swords et al (including a cursed scroll), and you have searchable zuran orb e.g. off karn, plus 5 REB/Pyrobkast effects to bring in, you tend to do well against it.

So white stax isn't a competitive deck. Your lock pieces are highly unreliable when it comes to surviving and avoiding blowouts (Ending, Boseju, FoV, mass artifact kill)...but the deck is very very reliable at getting massacred by Wasteland and Murktide in particular. High variance, low reward...and not well-equipped to recover from its own Geddon or Cataclysm. Also particularly susceptible to countermagic as it detonates its own hand size with a combination of mulligan and Mox-types.

You can still meme with Ancient Tomb in Stax and just move a few cards to present a competitive Land Tax deck.

What you have identified is a very common theme among Land Tax players: the magical christmasland winmore scenario where Land Tax and Scroll Rack are popping off (which is not going to happen in today's legacy), followed by crazy levels of trying to keep down your land count (for a Land Tax you aren't going to untap with)...despite the fact that you can get lower land totals than your opponents by hitting your land drops thanks to Saga and Lotus.

Now let this sink in: you can do literally anything with that mana and still effortlessly meet the condition of Land Tax. You do not have to auto-lose to FoV your Mox and Land Tax. You don't need to invest more into a Land Tax plan; you can play 1x Land Tax boosted by 1x virtual copy per E-Tutor...and have a deck that has a coherent plan whether or not it does the Land Tax thing...and you don't die to flooding out on 12 slots of Mox/Tax/Rack.

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As we look at the rest of your deck, you're playing too much red, and the Bolt stuff on top of Plow is particularly suspect...but let's just look at the mana. Now my build plays exactly 2x red cards. My access to red mana is: 1x Plateau, 1x Mountain, 1x Mesa, 4x Timeless, 1x Map/2x Currency, 3x Saga finding these, 2x E-Tutor finding these, Lotus Field, and Land Tax. 17/60 slots. Zero inta-death to Mox blowouts and Mox dead topdecks.

Of all those 17 slots, only the basic Mountain is there to explicitly provide red and nothing else by itself; and I've only dedicated 3 slots out of 60 (Mountain and 2x B Wish). The odds are overwhelmingly in my favor to not trip myself up with the splash...and that Mountain pumps its resources directly into Timeless, Map, Lotus, and Currency...which all fix access to white...and when it's the red mana for Wish, the red is finding payoffs for the white mana.

^this mana engine that seamlessly and uninteractively rips lands out of the deck to relentlessly increase odds of topdeck action is the point of Parfait. It has always been the point of Parfait. The only difference is that now we don't have to play horrible high variance tools (quad-Tax/Scroll/Mox) to most efficiently achieve the goal.

The time of Mox is gone. Scroll Rack is a benchwarmer, grabbed by Karn. Land Tax is played optimally at 1x slot, expanded by E-Tutor; it is not the centerpiece, it's just a cog in the machine.

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Originally Posted by Fox

So white stax isn't a competitive deck. Your lock pieces are highly unreliable when it comes to surviving and avoiding blowouts (Ending, Boseju, FoV, mass artifact kill)...but the deck is very very reliable at getting massacred by Wasteland and Murktide in particular. High variance, low reward...and not well-equipped to recover from its own Geddon or Cataclysm. Also particularly susceptible to countermagic as it detonates its own hand size with a combination of mulligan and Mox-types.

You can still meme with Ancient Tomb in Stax and just move a few cards to present a competitive Land Tax deck.

What you have identified is a very common theme among Land Tax players: the magical christmasland winmore scenario where Land Tax and Scroll Rack are popping off (which is not going to happen in today's legacy), followed by crazy levels of trying to keep down your land count (for a Land Tax you aren't going to untap with)...despite the fact that you can get lower land totals than your opponents by hitting your land drops thanks to Saga and Lotus.

Now let this sink in: you can do literally anything with that mana and still effortlessly meet the condition of Land Tax. You do not have to auto-lose to FoV your Mox and Land Tax. You don't need to invest more into a Land Tax plan; you can play 1x Land Tax boosted by 1x virtual copy per E-Tutor...and have a deck that has a coherent plan whether or not it does the Land Tax thing...and you don't die to flooding out on 12 slots of Mox/Tax/Rack.

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As we look at the rest of your deck, you're playing too much red, and the Bolt stuff on top of Plow is particularly suspect...but let's just look at the mana. Now my build plays exactly 2x red cards. My access to red mana is: 1x Plateau, 1x Mountain, 1x Mesa, 4x Timeless, 1x Map/2x Currency, 3x Saga finding these, 2x E-Tutor finding these, Lotus Field, and Land Tax. 17/60 slots. Zero inta-death to Mox blowouts and Mox dead topdecks.

Of all those 17 slots, only the basic Mountain is there to explicitly provide red and nothing else by itself; and I've only dedicated 3 slots out of 60 (Mountain and 2x B Wish). The odds are overwhelmingly in my favor to not trip myself up with the splash...and that Mountain pumps its resources directly into Timeless, Map, Lotus, and Currency...which all fix access to white...and when it's the red mana for Wish, the red is finding payoffs for the white mana.

^this mana engine that seamlessly and uninteractively rips lands out of the deck to relentlessly increase odds of topdeck action is the point of Parfait. It has always been the point of Parfait. The only difference is that now we don't have to play horrible high variance tools (quad-Tax/Scroll/Mox) to most efficiently achieve the goal.

The time of Mox is gone. Scroll Rack is a benchwarmer, grabbed by Karn. Land Tax is played optimally at 1x slot, expanded by E-Tutor; it is not the centerpiece, it's just a cog in the machine.

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When I run white stax/angel stompy [though it doesn't run angels] call it what you will, it does well, and it is not up for discussion. The stuff I have highlighted, is, and there is no polite way to put this- utter bollocks. I run the deck events where I know the field reasonably well and it runs with a positive match win percentage- it is much, much more reliable than it once was thanks to Timeless' plaincycling- obviously no deck is as reliable as a brainstorm/cantrip deck, that goes without saying, but it reliably presents 3 mana t2, and if it has 3 mana t1 nearly always has something to drop with it. You don't get blown out by Force decks; the whole deck presents things force deck do not want resolving t1- 3ball, archon, annointed, chalice, sylex, and geddon is lethal nearly at any point. The timeless tokens and saga circumcent force, and those decks are easier matches, not the hardest, it certainly does not get massacred by wasteland and murktide, end of- it actually crucible locks opponents with wastelands. I don't run it at larger COMP REL, in larger events as the deck gets worse if you do not know the field and I don't enjoy it over 7-8-9 rounds. Telling me my white stompy deck is vulnerable to wasteland and force without seeing the list makes me wonder about what you are saying about your own deck. It is a perfectly "competetive" fringe srategy, more so than anyone's Parfait. T1 3 ball or sylex gets more free wins than anything we do here.

As I said, I want to play parfait, you are correct that there are inherent problems with classic parfait, but I get the impression you want everyone to play your pet deck, and anyone who want to play other decks is going to be told their deck is wrong without even seeing the list, even extending to other archetypes, apparently. You can point out that classic parfait has a lot of mox/LT slots, but cyou an't say "playing too much red"- lightning bolt is actually a really good card, btw, and so is red elemental blast/pyroblast-it's the best board card in the format- all this when you haven't seen the list!!!!!!!!!! You could say I need more red sources than I listed- fair enough- but my deck operates as a RW midrange deck as much as anything- with a RIP helm combo to finish. You seem to think that everyone is running 17 land, when in fact I am running 24 including saga.
You can't "look at the rest of your deck" as you say, because I haven't listed a red splash parfait here in donkey's years, probably 3 plus years ago. This is not constructive- if you were serious you would never attempt a deconstruction of a deck without looking at a list, and didn't bother to ask for it. I own over enough legacy decks to have to visit them under lock and key- I don't want to play your deck, and the last I looked you had humility, a card whose time has sadly passed- in the same list as timeless dragon. I do accept that saga and lotus field reduce counts naturally- I run 4 saga and city of traitors, fwiw.
I think you will kill the thread if you criticise every deck without seeing it. More so if you contributions are about things outside of Parfait.
FWIW- I think you are using enlightend tutor- which is probably wrong, and not running RIP/helm, which is kind odd as it is a much better wincon than blowing up lands. The correct number of saga is 4, as well, for me at least- but then I am playing mox diamonds. I don't think it is worth continuing this, but suggest that it is contrubitions like yours that are pushing people towards discords- where people are far more co-operative.

There are a lot of blatantly competitive concepts you have not recognized. You're just going to have to trust that Crucible should always lose its slot to Karn...that you *will* play Saga with Land Tax b/c it lets you meet the Land Tax condition by playing lands, and that you will cut the Scroll Racks b/c Saga finds a better card called Currency Converter...that you're only allowed to play E-Tutor if you can roll it into a target that effectively cycles it, and then combos into frank CA...and many others discussed in this thread.
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Looking beyond recognizing frankly competitive rules of widely-applicable deckbuilding, it really doesn't matter if we're not going to address the rotten core of this specific deck: flooding out on Tax/Scroll/Mox. It is the 800 pound gorilla. It's like trying to stop the titanic from sinking while it's sitting on the bottom of the ocean. No combination of cards that exist today could be in a list that overcome this flaw and lead to an optimal, most-winning version of Parfait featuring Mox/Tax/Scroll.

You're not allowed to claim you've created a competitive deck whose god hands [Mox into Land Tax] just lose the whole effing game to FoV...nevermind the futility of opening like that into Ending target Tax.
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As you play the deck, it should become rapidly apparent that all that anyone needs to hear is that the list has ~12 slots of Tax/Mox/Scroll to know exactly how poorly that version will go. We honestly don't even need to hear about the other 48 - it truly doesn't matter.
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As far as my rebuild of the archetype goes, you kinda have to follow most of that script. There are certainly some different decision forks where tuning can happen...but it needs to be understood that all progress with Parfait is going to be tied intimately to getting lands out of the deck, into the hand, and replacing them with cards off the top of a now land-depleted deck. The only winning way to do this is decentralizing away from outdated, doomed-to-fail jank engines [i.e. Tax/Scroll/Mox].

Really try to understand the level of dedication to ripping Plains out of the deck you need to attain to compete with Parfait. Like when you see Cataclysm, understand that it's still an engine card killing a Flagstones and ripping out that Plains...and I know the opponents need to turn that ever-lurking 1x Land Tax back on for me after a Cataclysm b/c they are not designed to win off 1 land...leading to even more ripping of Plains out of deck. Timeless also ripping those Plains. Saga and the option of tutoring Zuran sac Flagstones or Map search Wasteland or Fetch for Cosmic - again rip out those Plains. Burning Wish for a From the Ashes -> rip out those Plains. Trade them into topdecks off Saga/Currency, Karn wish Scroll. Need more Plains to rip out? Put them back in with Bauble...then keep doing it by rebuying that Bauble.

^I don't care what my opponent is on, I'm gonna keep smashing the Plains button...and the Cosmic button...and the Saga button...and the Cataclysm button...and the Karn button. The order hardly matters. That's the big difference between building optimally versus stranding yourself of a highly sequence-dependent [read easy to stop] Tax/Scroll all-in. Notice how it does not matter what the opponent chooses to trade against, and contrast that to the Tax/Scroll/Mox experience.

Do you need to play my specific list? Well no...but for everything you change you better maintain the same fanatical devotion to ripping out & trading Plains and resetting the board. Following a competitive deckbuilding decision tree for Parfait almost certainly leads to the cluster of Cosmic/Solitude/Flagstones/Lotus/B Wish/Cataclysm...but like sure, some other cluster of cards could come together to do something on par - but it definitely does not include mass-Tax/Scroll/Mox, that's for sure.
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As far as the playability of the deck goes, it costs $1100...and uh, it's gonna smash pretty much anything people can do in legacy outside of Thassa (while we wait for wotc to print Torpor Orb on a land) or abuse banned cards Timetwister with Mind Twist (known as Echo and Day's). I mean it is beyond effortless to massacre any non-Thassa with Daze [including Delver], anything with Depths, Field of the Dead, anything with Chalice, any non-Thassa GY combo, DnT, Maverick, Goblins, SnT, Reanimator, discard, Post, anything non-Thassa with too many duals, Saga, Burn, Uro, and the list goes on. I also doubt this would feel winnable for opponents on Elves or Painter.

If you're not exploiting Thassa or banned cards, you better be on a lightning fast spell-based combo deck, produce a turn 0-2 Karn, or put down a turn 0 Minsc (and then start getting lucky), if you want to feel confident in a matchup vs properly constructed Parfait. Outside of that, an opponent needs to be on one of a very small list of tier 2 decks...and even then, most of the list of things they could choose from that list have no game vs tier 0 to tier 1.5.

Understand the floor of Parfait: properly constructed and played well, the deck will win most of the time vs that laundry list. It won't just win though, it will demoralize. This decentralized Plains-to-hand-to-cards engine is highly uninteractive, and the stuff it's going to cast isn't sequence-based. That means the best an opponent can hope to do is trade on-rate...and the moment they can't make a trade, it's over.

We aren't on a competitive forum to hand out free lunches to opponents with their FoV and Ending and all that stuff inevitably breaking up Tax/Scroll/Mox. To put this into perspective: Tax/Scroll/Mox truthing is like advocating for Werebear and Frenetic Efreet when DRC and Murktide exist.

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Originally Posted by drmarkb

I run 2 mnt, 2 plateau, 2 fetch, plus 4 mox d. Sometimes LT fixes the mana, rarely scroll rack but really isn't that often. I do run 2 sol lands to get to 4cc. With mox I generally want to cast bolt there and then. I have toyed with the extra red source to 7 plus 4 mox d, and my utility lands are saga and karakas, so perhaps a bit lower. I sometimes run maze.I do often fetch up mox d off saga.

I run 4 bolt, fable x3, and the 3rd karn slot sometimes as Nahiri, as I am main deck RIP x3.

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Interesting. Ok this explains a lot. So you're heavier into red than most Parfait decks. You also have ample early interaction (StP, Bolt, Pyroblast... and maindeck Chants?). Then spending 2R on a slow filter is not as big a deal vs tempo decks, compared to the other builds with less early interaction.

It sounds like you're also largely a 1-for-1 deck (4 Bolt, 4 StP, 5 Pyroblast). 1-for-1 decks really struggle to absorb ETutor's card disadvantage. The problem is compounded when you're quadlaser on Parfait pieces that are card disadvantage when Voltron is not assembled (4 Mox, 4 LT... 4 Scroll too?). So I can see why ETutor becomes awkward in your build and why you'd prefer slots that can trade better than 1-for-1.

Do you find your access to red suffers if your turn 1 Mox/LT eats Prismatic Ending? For a 4 Bolt 5 Pyroblast deck you have limited access to turn 1 red through lands (6 sources). Just wondering how that plays out. Does it affect your mana stability or boarding strategy? Do you sandbag Mox if you may need red later?

Have you ever tried ETutor just in the SB as a way to condense space vs combo? I found that trick effective in Landstill. You get all the benefits of an ETutor SB for G2 and G3, without having the G1 card disadvantage vs all the fair blue stuff that punishes it.

For example
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Deafening Silence
1 Rest in Peace

Vs combo you effectively have 3x Deafening Silence 3x Rest in Peace, except you used 4 SB slots instead of 6. +2 SB slots gained. That creates room for more silver bullets: Torpor Orb, Ethersworn Canonist, Relic of Progenitus, Pithing Needle, Crucible of Worlds, Ensnaring Bridge, etc. (Canonist + Relic bring it to 4x grave hate 4x storm hate while diversifying answers, e.g. you get 3x Canonist vs Elves). If the toolbox is artifacts, they are also tutorable by Karn in G1 and possibly Saga postboard, so you are able to see a 1-of fairly often without it consuming much SB space. Yet you still see ETutor 0 times vs stuff like Delver and Uro Midrange.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fox

There are a lot of blatantly competitive concepts you have not recognized. You're just going to have to trust that Crucible should always lose its slot to Karn...that you *will* play Saga with Land Tax b/c it lets you meet the Land Tax condition by playing lands, and that you will cut the Scroll Racks b/c Saga finds a better card called Currency Converter...that you're only allowed to play E-Tutor if you can roll it into a target that effectively cycles it, and then combos into frank CA...and many others discussed in this thread.
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Looking beyond recognizing frankly competitive rules of widely-applicable deckbuilding, it really doesn't matter if we're not going to address the rotten core of this specific deck: flooding out on Tax/Scroll/Mox. It is the 800 pound gorilla. It's like trying to stop the titanic from sinking while it's sitting on the bottom of the ocean. No combination of cards that exist today could be in a list that overcome this flaw and lead to an optimal, most-winning version of Parfait featuring Mox/Tax/Scroll.

You're not allowed to claim you've created a competitive deck whose god hands [Mox into Land Tax] just lose the whole effing game to FoV...nevermind the futility of opening like that into Ending target Tax.
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As you play the deck, it should become rapidly apparent that all that anyone needs to hear is that the list has ~12 slots of Tax/Mox/Scroll to know exactly how poorly that version will go. We honestly don't even need to hear about the other 48 - it truly doesn't matter.
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As far as my rebuild of the archetype goes, you kinda have to follow most of that script. There are certainly some different decision forks where tuning can happen...but it needs to be understood that all progress with Parfait is going to be tied intimately to getting lands out of the deck, into the hand, and replacing them with cards off the top of a now land-depleted deck. The only winning way to do this is decentralizing away from outdated, doomed-to-fail jank engines [i.e. Tax/Scroll/Mox].
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Not quite sure who your comment is aimed at. I have never ever played crucible in Parfait.
I run 3 or sometimes 4 RIP and helm, always have. Crucible plus RIP is an obvious nonbo.
I have always played Karn. So not sure who should be trusting that crucible loses its slot to Karn, but it sure isn't me who is running crucible.
On LTax and Mox, I am not bothered with ending hitting LT, I am a midrange RW deck with helm combo kill. Sometimes I hit Land Tax and scroll certainly not the aim of my deck.RIP helm is the aim of my deck.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FTW

Interesting. Ok this explains a lot. So you're heavier into red than most Parfait decks. You also have ample early interaction (StP, Bolt, Pyroblast... and maindeck Chants?). Then spending 2R on a slow filter is not as big a deal vs tempo decks, compared to the other builds with less early interaction.

It sounds like you're also largely a 1-for-1 deck (4 Bolt, 4 StP, 5 Pyroblast). 1-for-1 decks really struggle to absorb ETutor's card disadvantage. The problem is compounded when you're quadlaser on Parfait pieces that are card disadvantage when Voltron is not assembled (4 Mox, 4 LT... 4 Scroll too?). So I can see why ETutor becomes awkward in your build and why you'd prefer slots that can trade better than 1-for-1.

Do you find your access to red suffers if your turn 1 Mox/LT eats Prismatic Ending? For a 4 Bolt 5 Pyroblast deck you have limited access to turn 1 red through lands (6 sources). Just wondering how that plays out. Does it affect your mana stability or boarding strategy? Do you sandbag Mox if you may need red later?

Have you ever tried ETutor just in the SB as a way to condense space vs combo? I found that trick effective in Landstill. You get all the benefits of an ETutor SB for G2 and G3, without having the G1 card disadvantage vs all the fair blue stuff that punishes it.

For example
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Deafening Silence
1 Rest in Peace

Vs combo you effectively have 3x Deafening Silence 3x Rest in Peace, except you used 4 SB slots instead of 6. +2 SB slots gained. That creates room for more silver bullets: Torpor Orb, Ethersworn Canonist, Relic of Progenitus, Pithing Needle, Crucible of Worlds, Ensnaring Bridge, etc. (Canonist + Relic bring it to 4x grave hate 4x storm hate while diversifying answers, e.g. you get 3x Canonist vs Elves). If the toolbox is artifacts, they are also tutorable by Karn in G1 and possibly Saga postboard, so you are able to see a 1-of fairly often without it consuming much SB space. Yet you still see ETutor 0 times vs stuff like Delver and Uro Midrange.

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Yes, I am a one for one deck, the only sources of advantage are walkers and permanent repeated removal off Cursed Scroll against one or two decks, plus every now and then I get scroll/LT mid game. I have mucked about with a wrath effect main too, btw.
I have considered ET in the board.
My board is currently
5 REB/Pyroblast
Torpor Orb
Canonist
Damping sphere
Needle
Meekstone
helm
lattice
deafening silence
zuran orb
Peacekeeper

Obviously it is a karn board

Vs spellbased combo storm e.g. TES, ANT + 1 canonist,+1 deafening silence + 1 damping sphere (and the blast effects depending on) depending and I run 2 orim's main. I do not need relic as I am main deck RIP, and crucible is a nonbo for me, but yeah, it is correct to say I can run 1 x ET board.

I do sandbag the mox D sometimes- if I need red and hold the pyroblast I will often bait the first prismatic with the LT, holding back mox, often vs e.g. uro piles it is better for me to resolve RIP. I do sometimes reverse that. I really need to get more red in there. I often search for mox off saga too.

Well I have yet to get my green splash tested, but I’m aiming to parfait this weekend and think I may make another change. I want abeyance and sceptre access. Combo has always been my worst matchup so I think I may try to be proactive finally

Well considering it’s been years since I’ve played paper magic I can’t complain that much. Should have shuffled better, probably would have helped to not get flooded and screwed in my first round against a creature deck that should have been an auto win. Did squeeze in 2 abeyance; the card draw was a definite plus. Finally starting to think about Karn more so as a hate piece then anything. Ended up 2-2 and got to beat pro white with sad belcher activations.

Bottom line, deck still has legs even with minor changes in spite of changes people seem to complain about.

Been having fun with red still.
Unsurprisingly I have added staff of the story teller to fable and saga. They are just great together and give a good beat down and draw package. Fable's filtering is just what the deck needs and card advantage potential of storyteller is obvious.

Reckoner bank buster is under consideration for me, as is a red den, I am up to 4 fetch, 3 mountain 2 plateau, 1 den.

As usual the downsides of the whole deck are force of v, serenity etc., but there is enough draw and filtering to keep up with many decks under the thumb.

Been fetching up hex parasite in the saga package. Surprisingly good on saga and fable as well as nerfing walkers.
Fast combo is a g1 loss as ever.

Hex parasite was my tech for my paintnought list. It lifts quite a bit.

With combo being the main issue that’s where my changes are coming in. The deck is already amazing against fair decks. Trying to up the combo match game one is what I’ve been working on. It’s why I added 2 abeyance for instance. If anything my philosophy is the real change that I suspect I’ll see in my new list. A lot of choices were made to make my opponent play the game I wanted which was fine for making ok cards all stars. I’d like to get it more where every card is a heavy lifter and the engine can be present without being necessary. That was the biggest problem, the engine was required to negate all the card disadvantage. Unfortunately I have a local legacy league going and have been just having fun exploring old decks and ideas I’ve had over the years… I’m going to play a battle of wits enchantress list soon for example… but after that I’ll be back to the way of perfection.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Weapon X

Hex parasite was my tech for my paintnought list. It lifts quite a bit.

With combo being the main issue that’s where my changes are coming in. The deck is already amazing against fair decks. Trying to up the combo match game one is what I’ve been working on. It’s why I added 2 abeyance for instance. If anything my philosophy is the real change that I suspect I’ll see in my new list. A lot of choices were made to make my opponent play the game I wanted which was fine for making ok cards all stars. I’d like to get it more where every card is a heavy lifter and the engine can be present without being necessary. That was the biggest problem, the engine was required to negate all the card disadvantage. Unfortunately I have a local legacy league going and have been just having fun exploring old decks and ideas I’ve had over the years… I’m going to play a battle of wits enchantress list soon for example… but after that I’ll be back to the way of perfection.

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Hehe.
I think the main issue is the lack of generically good anti combo cards. I use saga, staff and fable, which are solid by themselves, and plenty of A+ cards that give control like STP and bolt, and a scroll rack/land tax engine is really strong when it works (albeit the power level of each in isolation isn't good). Karn is pretty good by itself, and whilst RIP isn't it can be amazing in some matches. Cards like curse of silence, battles like the white invasion of g just are too short of power to fill in those last few slots. Orim's is also a big bust in the non storm matches, a one shot no attack for 2 mana is ok but it isn't stopping Thoracle decks. A generically good swiss army knife is needed- a 2 mana angel's grace/feldon's cane/mini surge of salvation/one shot critter/walker stifle type thing (with split second) is the sort of utility we need- the "I don't lose this turn (or when it passes to the next) no matter whether you mill me, combo to thoracle, hit me for 20, or storm" type card.

Well I seem to have gotten a hold of some cards now that I was thinking of using but couldn’t get past my hang ups. Now that I have them and started thinking, I think I’m past my road block finally. The juices are flowing. Parfait revival is officially in the works.

Have a “list” together now that looks ok on paper. Will need to play with it for a bit still to see how it feels. Otherwise straying from the traditional idea was hard, and I may still touch back to it, but I think there’s potential here. List to be posted eventually.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Weapon X

Have a “list” together now that looks ok on paper. Will need to play with it for a bit still to see how it feels. Otherwise straying from the traditional idea was hard, and I may still touch back to it, but I think there’s potential here. List to be posted eventually.

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Interested to see what direction you went in.

Well the tentative list is looking like this right now.

3 karn
1 elspeth knight errant
3 staff of the storyteller
1 helm of obedience
3 rest in peace
2 enlightened tutor
4 orims chant
2 abeyance
4 swords to plowshares
1 oblivion ring
1 portable hole
1 pithing needle
1 ivory tower
1 humility
1 wrath of god
3 Mox diamond
1 liquimetal Torque
1 Library of leng
3 The one ring

4 Urza’s saga
3 ancient tomb
3 wasteland
7 Plains
6 fetches

Ivory Tower (Saga) + One Ring looks strong! That's probably a superior card engine to the original Scroll+Tax. Staff too.

With Staff in the deck, do you want 1 Castle Ardenvale in the manabase? It's basically free to run and can turn into free bodies and cards.

Since you're heavier on the artifact plan you're weak to artifact hate. You've got a ton of answers for Collector Ouphe but what about stuff like SB Null Rod or Stony Silence? Or maindeck Karns? How do you remove noncreature permanents? Do you want some March of Otherworldly Light main?

You could probably shave some of the conditonal singleton artifacts and move them to the SB (Karn, Etutor).

I still feel artifact light which is funny as I’m still on the fence with how hard to push them. That said main deck there is portable hole and oring already. I do appreciate saga being able to put hole into play and that it should answer most things, but obviously it can’t get everything so o ring is a concession there. I’m still unsure of the mana base because there is a lot more card draw available now but the curve sits in an odd spot by being almost 1’s then 4’s. I’m expecting to get to 6 sol lands. The Mox choice could change, I honestly want to play the suspend one and I think opal forces me into artifact lands. The biggest change is cards feel individually more powerful.

I still find it comical that library of leng makes sense to me here even as a way to beat my own Rest In Peace.

Just as a note, you cannot get Portable Hole with the last chapter of Urza's Saga. Still like everything I see though, interested in seeing further development.

Yeah unfortunately Saga into Portable Hole doesn't work. You could get Haywire Mite, but then you need a green source.

Etutor into O-Ring is a good catch all. But that's pre-2020 tech. I think the meta has evolved to the point where the single O-Ring/disenchant effect is no longer enough outs to noncreature permanents (like the 1-of Rec Sage in older GSZ decks). Especially since control mirrors will jam 4 One Ring. Most control & midrange decks run more answers to noncreatures: Prismatic Ending, counters, Trophy, multiple SB Force of Vigor, Leyline Binding, or something else. Monowhite's best tool is probably March. There's also stuff like Serenity and Powder Keg, but symmetrical effects would punish you too much. Maybe there's something else more synergistic, or maybe you can run more answers SB. The 1-of O-Ring and Portable Hole just seems a bit light.

Oh yeah. Remembering short text still kills me, good thing that hasn’t come up. To be fair I want to play council’s judgment as I’ve always liked it and o ring was more of a nod to the enlightened tutors… but yeah a lot of ideas running in my head. I think I have dragons on my radar as another example. I’m certainly trying a lot of things to see what sticks

Ok punted hard in our league final so back to parfait. That said I think I’m going to commit harder to the ring plan right now so manifold key is making its way in. That said I should finally get some games in with it which will help sort my ideas out. The wildest one right now is reprieve.

The One Ring seems very strong here!

I'd be cautious about cramming too many fun-of artifacts like Manifold Key, Library of Leng, etc. In this meta you may just walk into Meltdown or Collector Ouphe and struggle to recover. Cheap artifacts should be able to convert into a card at least, so you don't fall behind on cards or get punished by artifact hate. Everyone has artifact hate now due to Urza's Saga decks.

Examples of safer artifacts: Relic of Progenitus, Currency Converter, Expedition Map, Staff of the Storyteller, Mishra's Bauble. They can convert into a card in response to removal. Artifacts like that are safer to play out because you can always cash them in to avoid falling behind to artifact hate.

Currency Converter is the better version of Library of Leng. It also fights discard, just in a different way (those cards turn into 2/2s instead of going on top). Plus it can dig and fix mana. Great 1-of target for Saga.

You shouldn't need Manifold Key for The One Ring. The One Ring already swings control matchups on its own without support. Especially if you're already backing it up with Orim's Chant to stall more.

Converter doesn’t play the same way with Rest In Peace… which was the only reason I even remembered library of leng. Regardless, still a lot of ideas to sort through before I see what sticks.

For anyone interested, this is the list I came to after some thinkering. Have been trying it out for a while (both pre and post staff) and it's doing well so far even if I can see it being refined. Most of my losses were due to misplays because the deck is very hard to pilot (I'm not the best at playing control) or to mana screw (recently added more lands to hopefully fix that for good).

2x Abeyance
1x Blood Moon
1x Castle Ardenvale
2x Cosmic Intervention
2x Currency Converter
2x Doomskar
2x Enlightened Tutor
1x Expedition Map
1x Flagstones of Trokair
1x Helm of Obedience
1x Humility
1x Isochron Scepter
3x Karn, the Great Creator
1x Land Tax
1x Lotus Field
2x March of Otherworldly Light
1x Mountain
4x Orim's Chant
17x Plains
1x Porphyry Nodes
1x Relic of Progenitus
1x Rest in Peace
3x Staff of the Storyteller
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Urza's Saga
1x Zuran Orb

2x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Helm of Obedience
3x Leyline of Sanctity
1x Liquimetal Coating
1x Nahiri, the Harbinger
1x Pithing Needle
1x Sacred Mesa
1x Seal of Cleansing
2x Spirit of the Labyrinth
1x Staff of the Storyteller
1x Tormod's Crypt

Limiting the number of RIP to 1 makes the converter-nonbo almost non-existant while keeping the 1 shot kill experience. With Orim's chant, etutor and so much card draw thanks to staff, you don't need the extra copies anyway. Note that converter also works perfectly with eachother OR Nahiri postboard. I am unsure if the red splash is still worth it but since it's very light it shouldn't be an issue. On a side note, I have been looking at other colors for the light splash but no other looks appealing to me. At least moon still prevents some decks from functioning.

Also, I am almost 100% convinced the Ring + Karn makes way too many 4 drops since they both require additional casting after resolved. You would need to chose either one if you want to be casting spells before you are dead. At it's core, this version of parfait is a control deck so, unlike similar combo decks, you need early interaction to open the way to the lategame with a steady supply of land drops. The days of locking someone out of the game with prison elements in the early game are far behind as threats are much stronger. This means a lot of efficient 1 for 1 / incremental card advantage is necessary.

In today's meta, you can't trust that 2-permanents combos will stick to generate value so I've reduced them to the minimum. Cards need some usefulness by themselves (or in conjunction with most of the deck) so you don't depend on hitting the right cards at the right time to do anything. Cards like Key or Leng are not what you want unless you go all-in in a combo deck building (and I would argue with today's removal your chances of making it are slim to none). Scepter is still good because it can be used with so many different cards or as an empty threat when you know it won't resolve (stp, tutor, abeyance, ochant, otherworldy for lands destruction after karn has been killed :cool:)

I have tried bauble and it was so bad I would stay away! unless the card has a clear purpose, it needs to generate incremental advantage and act as a redraw in the worst case scenario. That's why I have replaced it with relic as it can both help alleviate the graveyard decks issue (think uro or gy combo decks) while also offering a redraw off of saga in a pinch.

Edit: Slightly altered sideboard as I had forgotten to put in a needle.

Deck is goldfishing weird, mainly as a mana concern. Sol lands and the need for white mana makes things awkward. Already looks like 4 drops are getting cut or moved to board. Also looks like I’m going to play harder into saga. I seemingly can’t draw a ring so far, but there does seem to be a lot of card draw which is nice. Finally trying build a lotus as well since “splash colour” is in the back of my mind. Card quality is easily higher then my bdi list and there is much less card disadvantage.

If there are mana issues (either color or quantity), Timeless Dragon??

I am looking back into that as it was colour. It’s wild what a bunch of goldfishing seems to do for me. At this point it’s been jam all ideas in, focus on something, lather rinse repeat. The stuff that sticks consistently has been the correct answers so far… but the other angle I’m considering goes wide in a big direction. Sadly that may be the right answer but I’m not sold on it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Weapon X

I am looking back into that as it was colour. It’s wild what a bunch of goldfishing seems to do for me. At this point it’s been jam all ideas in, focus on something, lather rinse repeat. The stuff that sticks consistently has been the correct answers so far… but the other angle I’m considering goes wide in a big direction. Sadly that may be the right answer but I’m not sold on it.

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Going wide: Cataclysm + Lotus Field (and Saga find Map find Lotus). Add Solitude, Flagstones, and Cosmic Intervention.

That's certainly 1 viable direction for Parfait. Your last list looked strong.

Others might be wondering if there are other viable ways to build. Captain QC's build looks good.

The One Ring would be a very strong engine if there's a way to make room. That might involve cutting other top end, playing Ancient Tomb, or running more ramp (Timeless Dragon, Sevinne's). You could play just 1 copy in the Karnboard, but then you lose the big benefit of legend ruling them to save life. Seems better at 3-4 copies.

Staff of the Storyteller makes a good draw engine too. Staff plays well with Saga, Currency Converter, Castle Ardenvale, even Timeless Dragon.

If not on Cataclysm, is Doomskar better than regular Wrath?

Is The One Ring playable with 1-of Peace of Mind, discarding extra cards to offset lifeloss & trigger Currency Converter? Is there a better life engine? Maybe just Zuran Orb + Cosmic Intervention?

To be fair I’ll more then likely focus on that first pseudo list for a while. I agree I felt strong, it’s just getting the right pieces together that I find takes time. Even when I made my bdi list that started as an almost carbon copy of vintage parfait. Feeling out the format is the bigger problem since I need to know where I sit and that defines choices. Still a long road ahead.