[Deck] Death and Taxes

I'm playing the 4th round of a daily event right now and I am 2-1 and I just made the most awesome bluff ever.

I'm playing against dredge, game 2 and I have Rest in Peace in hand and I play Windswept Heath and pass the turn. On his turn he plays a Cabal Therapy and in response I fetch, tap my plains for W and then untap it again and pass priority. He then thinks I have Enlightened Tutor and name that, on turn 2 I slam the Rest in Peace I had.

Who says you can't bluff online?

Edit: I lose anyways obviously he has turn 2 kill the third game. Losing this daily to Grixis Delver and Dredge, beating RUG Delver and 12 Post. First daily I haven't cashed with the deck.

Was watching earlier. Deck looks super sweet. Is it just for fun or is it something you would truly consider at a GP?

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

Was watching earlier. Deck looks super sweet. Is it just for fun or is it something you would truly consider at a GP?

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I am working on it now in preparation for GP Lille. I will play it there if I still think it's better (positioned) than the mono white version, when the time comes.

What do you think is still troublesome for the R/W build that needs to be addressed? Elves seems alright now post-board with Sudden Demise.

Omnitell still seems horrible in the current state, but what else?

And what are your impressions on Fiend Hunter so far?

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Originally Posted by Barook

What do you think is still troublesome for the R/W build that needs to be addressed? Elves seems alright now post-board with Sudden Demise.

Omnitell still seems horrible in the current state, but what else?

And what are your impressions on Fiend Hunter so far?

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I don't think there's any glaring problems with the RW build. But I guess I need more testing. Omnitell is definitely not good but if I go up to 4x Ethersworn Canonist the match up should be positive.

Fiend Hunter was good so far, I think I tutored for him once but I just drew it a lot and it was nice to have a removal spell like that.

I think the hardest thing for the WR is pyroclasm or rough/tumble with no creature with more then power 2 (except fiend hunter)

I have liked Thorn of Amethyst in this matchup. They have a hard time getting rid of it.

You can always run Reverent Mantra http://magiccards.info/mm/en/44.html against pyroclasm effect, works also fine against decay.

I would rather jam Crusade in there than that card.

I wonder if the 3 Magus/2 Recruiter split is the right one instead of 2/3. Magus is great in the right match-ups, but due to being on D&T, most people who have the option already fetch basics before Magus can come online. It's kinda frustrating when they essentially turn into Grey Ogres that ruin your own manabase in these cases.

I went 2-2 in the latest daily:
- Lost R1 to Esper Stoneblade who had everything (including tons of basics),
- stomped BUG Delver R2,
- won against UR Isochron Standstill R3 (where Magus was suprisingly good despite all the burn he runs)
- lost R4 to UWR Stoneblade with 4 StP, 3 Bolts and 4 Snapcaster, making it impossible to stick threats (of course he had the second Bolt for my Magus naturally 14 cards in :rolleyes: ).

Not a single time I had the desire to fetch up a Fiend Hunter, so I do wonder about that slot.

Fiendslayer Paladin as a Recruiter target crossed my mind, since Firewalker's body sucks as a fighter for the MD. The trade-off is true protection vs lifelink when compared to Paladin en-Vec. Might be terrible, but immunity to Bolt and AD while making racing harder could be good, who knows.

Silverblade Paladin would be another potential target, but it only adds raw punching power and thus is probably in the category "win-more".

What would you guys recommend in a sideboard for a really fair meta? Most of it just people casting Knight of the Reliquarys and bashing in with them. I've worked out this. I have 4 remaining slots, and i'm not really sure what to put in there, any suggestions?

1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Cataclysm
2 Gut Shot
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Manriki-Gusari
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Rest in Peace

4x Remaining Slots

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Originally Posted by CptHaddock

What would you guys recommend in a sideboard for a really fair meta? Most of it just people casting Knight of the Reliquarys and bashing in with them. I've worked out this. I have 4 remaining slots, and i'm not really sure what to put in there, any suggestions?

1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Cataclysm
2 Gut Shot
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Manriki-Gusari
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Rest in Peace

4x Remaining Slots

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Council's Judgment seems good. Do you really not want any combo hate, like Ethersworn Canonist?

Otherwise, Containment Priest might be an option to stop their GSZ shenanigans. Or Fiend Hunter for more creature removal.

What does your MD look like?

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Originally Posted by Barook

Council's Judgment seems good. Do you really not want any combo hate, like Ethersworn Canonist?

Otherwise, Containment Priest might be an option to stop their GSZ shenanigans. Or Fiend Hunter for more creature removal.

What does your MD look like?

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I might run 1-2 Ethersworns in the board. We have a really odd meta, there might be 1 or 2 storm players if we get a really large event but most of the time it's pretty fair. I've almost never seen any show and tell decks either. The most unfair things people might be doing is ramping with post or dark depths comboing people out. Main deck looks something like this. I'm open to suggestions on that aswell.

4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Mirran Crusader
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Flickerwisp
1 Mangara of Corondor
3 Serra Avenger
4 Mother of Runes

4 Swords to Plowshares

1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Aether Vial
1 Sword of Fire and Ice

4 Rishadan Port
11 Plains
4 Wasteland
3 Karakas
1 Horizon Canopy

For those testing the red splash, does it improve our Jund match-up?

As a painter player, I'd guess it doesn't improve jund because magus is pretty poor against lightning bolt and punishing fire, despite blood moon being great against jund.

Played today a 5-round tournament in Nuremberg with the WR-D&T build:

1. Round: UR delver
2 very fast games, in both i have mother + stoneforge into batterskull bzw g2 into SoFI after batterskull got smashed. Boarded out 3 magi and revoker for kor firewalker, council's judgement and sudden demises: Demises shined against a pyromancer and 5 token => 2:0 1:0 in matches

2. Round: UW Vial-blade (homebrew pile, not representative)
g1 i loose against an enemy aether vial wich sneaks in stoneforge for jitte and Nemesis afterwards while i'm stuck on 2mana, my own vial got forced and i only have 2 mothers + Thalia. G2/3 i have own aether vials which bring in better stuff then his, cause he is stuck on 1mana after double wasteland from me and is not able to put his Equipments into play. Boarded out 3 magi für vandal and demises =>2:1 2:0 in matches

3. Round: Sneakshow
G1 i have to mulligan to 6 and i'm "rewarded" with drawing 2 magi -.- I have Karakas but no pressure due to 2 magi in my hand and die to sneak attack - activation some turns later. G2 i have 2 vials, Thalia, port and 2 flickerwisps, which is exactly enough to kill him before he can attack with his Griselbrand. G3 he mulligans to 6, me to 5 and have following hand: 2 revoker 2 wasteland, Thalia, Containment priest. He Forces the 1. revoker, 2. goes on his Lotus petal cause he is low on mana. Boardsituation after round 3: 2 wastelands 1 revoker on Lotus petal on my side, in my Hand Thalia, mother of runes and the containment priest, he has in play 2 islands, the revokered petal and 1 card in hand i do not know. 5 rounds later i havn't drawn a white source or an vial and die to sneak attack into Griselbrand. Boarded out 3 magi, the Jitte für 2 Containment priest and 2 council's judgement. => 1:2 2:1 in matches

4. Round: Reanimate
G1 i play land go, he has fetch island into careful study, discard Griselbrand and useless card. IpPlay Thalia which got dazed, his nxt round play is island go. I play Magus which got dazed too and he plays island ponder. Nxt round i cast Mangara which resolves. He plays exhume, which gets him Griselbrand and me Thalia so i can remove him in my turn with Mangara and play stoneforge into SoFI AND recruiter for fiend hunter (just for sure) which makes the game. G2 he mulls to 5 and i have dual vial with much too much business for him => Boarded out 3 magi, the Jitte and i guess 2 mother of runes für 2 containment priest, 2 rest in peace and 2 council's judgement. => 2:0 3:1 in matches

5. Round: miracle
2 games long i don't have an aether vial and get crushed hard due to drawing only clunky 3drops and not being able to use port effectivly, g2 i loose to my own magus cause i can't bounce my Thalia with Karakas in rsp on his Terminus...

So regarding the whole tournament: Recruiters were nice and sudden demises wer ok too, still not necessary... Concerning magus... I boarded him out in 4 of 5 matches and lost the match hard in which i kept him in... I'm through with the clunky red splash and leave it to you, guys, to have much fun with it^^
Personal i'm back on mono W cause the Cons, which i summed up some pages ago were extremely true (perhaps only for this tournament, but remember: online mtg is not mtg in RL and many decks have much more stabile manabases then you might think...); And even IF you play much against bug / deathblade or whatever, classic D&T has not rly bad matchups against theese decks... BUT: Good luck for any who is willing to play tournaments with WR D&T!

Greetz from Germany,
Marius Hausmann

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Originally Posted by Wasteland

I'm through with the clunky red splash

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It's really cool that you dismiss the idea after having success with it in all but 1 tournament in which you still had a positive winrate.

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Originally Posted by Wasteland

remember: online mtg is not mtg in RL and many decks have much more stabile manabases then you might think...

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You're right, online mtg is not mtg in real life. Online the competition is much more fierce, the players are vastly better because usually they actually play legacy every single day! The decks are better, the players are better and thus the testing is way better.

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Originally Posted by Wasteland

And even IF you play much against bug / deathblade or whatever, classic D&T has not rly bad matchups against theese decks... BUT: Good luck for any who is willing to play tournaments with WR D&T!

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So now Deathblade is a good match up for us? THE True-Name Nemesis + Umezawa's Jitte deck, with tons of removal, zealous persecution and Council's Judgement in the board? Deathrite Shaman to punish us for Wastelands and Stoneforge's to stop our clock?

Fact is that Magus of the Moon vastly improves the Deathblade and BUG match up (even if BUG was a good match up already, which I do believe it was) while improving other rogue match ups as well as match ups such as 12 post that is now a complete walk over and some builds could have been difficult before.

Fact is that Sudden Demise vastly improves the elves match up that was absolutely horrid before, unless of course you played some build that is super weak to D&T hate and much weaker to BUG decks, but stronger against elves with 3 Aven Mindcensor 4 Ethersworn Canonist and several Containment Priest as well. You can fix all this by playing a stronger main deck and a stronger and more versatile sideboard. All at the cost of being weaker (but still not weak!) to turn 1 Blood Moon, Wasteland, Stifle and fast delver decks that we are already super favored against and should still be a walk over even with cutting a few 2 drops for 3 drops (even though those 2 drops were Serra Avenger that is really a 3-4 drop).

I have played close to 100 matches with the deck now and mantain a +75% winrate against some of the best legacy players in the world, including Julian Knab, Jean-Mary Accart, Rich Shay and various pros/semi pros.

If/when I play this in paper I am sure my winrate is significantly higher and that I have a better chance of spiking tournaments than with mono white.

I intend on working on this build until GP Lille and Prague Eternal and maximizing the potential of it, a potential I am sure is very high. Unless something gets printed that makes we think that my build of mono white D&T needs work and can be better, I believe that the W/r approach is the way to go.

Played the rw version in a decent tournament today going 4-1-1, losing in the top 8. Beat burn round 1 ( turns out double firewalker is good against them) then lost to infect due to a slight misplaced in 3. Then mooned the crap out of ug cloudpost. Then had a unintentional draw with miracles followed by wins over storm and fish and then a unfournate loss in the mirror in the top 8. Overall continue to really enjoy this version and did lots of work with a fiend hunter this event.

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Originally Posted by BearsandSquires

Played the rw version in a decent tournament today going 4-1-1, losing in the top 8. Beat burn round 1 ( turns out double firewalker is good against them) then lost to infect due to a slight misplaced in 3. Then mooned the crap out of ug cloudpost. Then had a unintentional draw with miracles followed by wins over storm and fish and then a unfournate loss in the mirror in the top 8. Overall continue to really enjoy this version and did lots of work with a fiend hunter this event.

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how do you like this version vs mono white? and how did you feel vs mirror?

Of course the Deathblade-MU is way better with the red-splash but you don't play the whole day against this deck, and i have the feeling that in way more matchups magus screws ourselves MUCH more then the opponent... The argument that then you "just don't drop" it, is relative, since you can't shuffle away it and have to play with the cards your deck gives you... (=> see my match vs. Sneakshow, where magus is more weak then a vanilla morph...)
Against elves you are right and i already admitted that sudden demise is great but 1.) that isn't true for the magus, which is the main reason for the splash and 2.) i'm still 10:4 against elves with mono W (which comes mostly from the judgements, which handle Progenitus)...
I did not just play the tournament but tested more against friends and except for bug (i admit i didn't test against stuff like 10post but there mindcensor shines too), magus was nearly always terrible (maybe the meta is a bit other then in Denmark or as online, as i said before). IF i would play this deck with red again, i would quite sure go for 3 recruiters, only 1 Magus and 1 more flex-slot, quite as Barook suggested some days ago for rly just fetching the moon in mu's where you want it...
By the way: there's a little mistake about your 40% of having aether vial in the starting hand: the percentage of HAVING it in your starting hand is right for sure, but: Count away the hands, which you have to mull away despite having vial cause you have no or only 1 offcoloured land, only 3 drops, no creatures but only Equipments etc. - there for sure additional 5-10% go away... Then count away the matches in which your vial gets countered or destroyed and already you are perhaps about 20-25% of having it ready earlygame (maybe i'm a bit wrong of it, im not a mathematic genius^^)
After all i feel just much more comfortable with mono W and like playing the deck the "fair" way, which for sure is worse in some matchups but overall more consistent.
Greetz,
Marius