Originally Posted by
Balanced
Of the cards you listed I have trouble thinking of metas where those cards under perform, especially Tabernacle. If you are not in a meta with aggro creature decks I would consider that outside of the norm, and Tabernacle still does work rarely against big creature decks, and as I said pitches to Diamond. I personally will not be removing it from the MD anytime soon in any meta, unless I know everyone in the room is on Dark Depths or ANT storm (Tabernacle is still perfectly fine against TES btw). Ghost Quarter can occasionally be dead but is not against Czech Pile or Delver, two of the boogie men of the format that I think are played rather consistently, and can pick off those 1-2 pesky basics in lists than run them, as well as be your alternative mana denial plan with starts where you need Spyglass on Wasteland to protect your own mana base. Darksteel is artifacts 25-26 when you lose powder from the list, I can agree that my wasteland protection argument is weak (though not irrelevant), however I couldn't find a better artifact land for the slot.
I think perhaps my most debatable inclusion after I thought about it for a while when changing the list was the 3 maindeck Spyglass. Honestly other than Omnitell and Burn filled metas I am convinced they deserve the slot as I've been playing games, the (overall, i.e. mtgtop8) meta is ripe with targets.
I found myself with less keepable hands with the Powders. They made the hands bad themselves imo by being present in my opening 7, 6, what have you, and I still stand by them being terrible top decks. I am happy to have Smokestack eat my redundant Trinispheres or Chalices etc, which actually help support my lock mechanisms themselves, or my lands if I have a Metalworker in play. 26 lands vs. 24 has given me more consistent broken Mox Diamond openers, and made me feel perfectly okay without a 3 cost mana rock (especially when a significant amount of game losses can come down to getting stuck on 2 mana, in which case I can't cast the mana rock anyway). That's been my experience. I'm not saying I know the Powders are bad, I just don't like them and I experienced them making the deck weaker and less consistent in my games personally. As a final remark I am against the amount of information it gives my opponent, in terms of my card choices and what lock pieces / combo pieces have been removed before the game begins.
My strategy with this deck has been hope for the amazing turn one play, and count on and/or setup the amazing turn two play. Of course I would love to start every game with Chalice or Trinisphere turn 1, but that is not how the deck consistently performs with or without powders (I think the ratio is about 50-50 in terms of turn 1 to turn 2 "hard" lock piece starts imo with my list tweaks, I'd be curious to find out how much higher that ratio is with powders). So I decided to tweak the list with that in mind, leaning on more consistent and protected turn 2's while enjoying when the deck gives me great turn 1s.
I play at several different shops, and this configuration has been working for me. Take that for what it's worth I suppose. I am still happy to see other variants and ideas and how they perform. I'll keep your criticism in mind and try and watch how the list performs in different player environments with a close eye.
