[Deck] Death and Taxes

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Originally Posted by iatee

SoLaS seems fine, though ultimately the biggest problem with Czech Pile is Kolaghan's Command, and that's a problem that isn't going to be solved w/ an artifact.

I don't think DnT is favored, even vs variants w/ fewer Hymns. It feels about even to me, probably a tad unfavored with stock DnT.

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(Anecdotally again) i think an artifact might just be the thing? These games go long and ive found over and over again that you can attrition way better with equipment. kolaghans command is a 2 of? On occasion a snapcastet target? I'm not overly worried about that 2 of 2for1.

If they're shooting my sword they're not killing my vial, if they're killing my vial then my creature is getting suited up.

Maybe it's just win more.

I guess I'm just hoping for more people tested input

Well I don't know if it's win more as much as 'not always win'. I think you want to present threats that are naturally hard to answer with 1 for 1s - RiP, Gideon, Cataclysm, Fiendslayer Paladin and P/K are all things that they can't easily deal with. If they don't answer SoLaS you win, but they have more answers to that than they do to the rest of those cards. Also "kill all your creatures so you can never even equip SoLaS" is another answer to SoLaS.

Mangara comeback time? Just 5-0'd in my first run with 1 (and 2 Recruiter of the Guard) and he was absolutely crucial in several of my games.

https://i.imgur.com/OxWSr1F.jpg

While I think Mangara is worse than he was during Miracles/Eldrazi era, I never bought the idea that he's stone-unplayable either, I'm mostly not playing one because I don't have room rather than because I think the card doesn't have value - having a copy around allows you to get out of a lot of weird situations. I think he's more of a sideboard card than a maindeck card these days, though.

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Originally Posted by Bahra

Mangara comeback time? Just 5-0'd in my first run with 1 (and 2 Recruiter of the Guard) and he was absolutely crucial in several of my games.

https://i.imgur.com/OxWSr1F.jpg

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What match up do you feel he was at his best in?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

Bahra, if you feel like making a quick tournament reports of your 5-0 run, it would be of great value =D
And nice run

no sanctum prelate?

If you try, you will find that you can't really use Mangara out of the board. He is a generalist sort of answer that comes out in many games for more specific hate in games 2 and 3 if your board is correct for the event.

I mean, I've tried and I've found that I could. Council's Judgment is a generalist answer card too. Mangara doesn't hit TNN but it's tutorable + doesn't cost 4 mana with a Thalia in play + and it hits lands. The reason why he's not an amazing sideboard card at the moment is that decks that he's particularly good against (Miracles/Stoneblade/Eldrazi/Weird Enchantress/MUD crap) just don't make up enough of the meta anymore.

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Originally Posted by Mannaus

Bahra, if you feel like making a quick tournament reports of your 5-0 run, it would be of great value =D
And nice run

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Sorry I can't, the new mtgo update deleted all replays, and I've since played another league and don't remember all the other matches any more.

I'm going to Eternal Weekend and am finalizing the list i'm taking. Opinions?

// 60 Maindeck
// 7 Artifact
4 Aether Vial
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
// 26 Creature
4 Mother of Runes
2 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Recruiter of the Guard
4 Flickerwisp
2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Banisher Priest
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
// 4 Instant
4 Swords to Plowshares
// 23 Land
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
2 Karakas
2 Cavern of Souls
10 Plains
1 Horizon Canopy

// 15 Sideboard
// 2 Artifact
SB: 1 Sword of War and Peace
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
// 8 Creature
SB: 1 Leonin Relic-Warder
SB: 1 Banisher Priest
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Containment Priest
SB: 1 Faerie Macabre
SB: 2 Mirran Crusader
// 2 Enchantment
SB: 2 Rest in Peace
// 1 Instant
SB: 1 Path to Exile
// 2 Sorcery
SB: 2 Council's Judgment

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Originally Posted by Soryuu

I'm going to Eternal Weekend and am finalizing the list i'm taking. Opinions?

// 60 Maindeck
// 7 Artifact
4 Aether Vial
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
// 26 Creature
4 Mother of Runes
2 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Recruiter of the Guard
4 Flickerwisp
2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Banisher Priest
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
// 4 Instant
4 Swords to Plowshares
// 23 Land
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
2 Karakas
2 Cavern of Souls
10 Plains
1 Horizon Canopy

// 15 Sideboard
// 2 Artifact
SB: 1 Sword of War and Peace
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
// 8 Creature
SB: 1 Leonin Relic-Warder
SB: 1 Banisher Priest
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Containment Priest
SB: 1 Faerie Macabre
SB: 2 Mirran Crusader
// 2 Enchantment
SB: 2 Rest in Peace
// 1 Instant
SB: 1 Path to Exile
// 2 Sorcery
SB: 2 Council's Judgment

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I'd play the mirran crusaders main instead of spirit of the labyrinth and the two thalia. I'll add another phyrexian revoker also.
In the SB you can play more instant removal then (+1 path), and one more containement priest maybe? (Sneak and show is prevalent in my area).

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Originally Posted by Tylert

I'd play the mirran crusaders main instead of spirit of the labyrinth and the two thalia. I'll add another phyrexian revoker also.
In the SB you can play more instant removal then (+1 path), and one more containement priest maybe? (Sneak and show is prevalent in my area).

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Crusader seems really medium MB, but would you cut to make room for the Spirit?

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Originally Posted by Soryuu

Crusader seems really medium MB, but would you cut to make room for the Spirit?

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He's a 2-turn clock with ANY equipment. That's not exactly"medium" in my book. It's also a wall for all the Zombie fish running around. I definitely wouldn't cut it for a SotL.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

Ignoring the fact that THC is not very good, putting extra legendary creatures in your deck and then taking out copies of Karakas is not a strategy with internal consistency.

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Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee

He's a 2-turn clock with ANY equipment. That's not exactly"medium" in my book. It's also a wall for all the Zombie fish running around. I definitely wouldn't cut it for a SotL.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

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Zombie fish? What do you mean?

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Originally Posted by iatee

Ignoring the fact that THC is not very good, putting extra legendary creatures in your deck and then taking out copies of Karakas is not a strategy with internal consistency.

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That's fair. I changed it up some:
// 60 Maindeck
// 7 Artifact
4 Aether Vial
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
// 26 Creature
4 Mother of Runes
3 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Recruiter of the Guard
4 Flickerwisp
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Banisher Priest
2 Mirran Crusader
// 4 Instant
4 Swords to Plowshares
// 23 Land
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
2 Karakas
2 Cavern of Souls
10 Plains
1 Horizon Canopy

// 15 Sideboard
// 2 Artifact
SB: 1 Sword of War and Peace
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
// 8 Creature
SB: 1 Leonin Relic-Warder
SB: 1 Banisher Priest
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Containment Priest
SB: 2 Faerie Macabre
SB: 1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
// 2 Enchantment
SB: 2 Rest in Peace
// 1 Instant
SB: 1 Path to Exile
// 2 Sorcery
SB: 2 Council's Judgment

I'm also trying to put in a 1x Aven Mindcensor but I can't figure out what I would want to remove.

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Originally Posted by Soryuu

Zombie fish? What do you mean?

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Gurmag Angler

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Originally Posted by filln

Gurmag Angler

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Never heard that before, good point.

Gave R/W taxes a try today at a 46 player tournament. 11th place with 4-2.

G1: 0-2 Grixis control (with therapy).
-Game 1 probe and therapy eats everything good from my hand, allowing him to take over.
-Game 2 I miss a land drop turn 3 which allows him to take over with pyromancer despite my rest in peace, killing every creature I draw.
G2: 2-1: Grixis control (with hymns and wasteland).
-Game 1 I face 5 K-commands (2 with snapcaster) in turns 3-7, one of which I manage to counter with familiar but to little avail.
-Game 2 I manascrew him with mother into thalia + wasteland and seal the deal with magus as he had no swamps.
-Game 3 he mulls (I do too), fows my vial and then fails to make any card advantage play because of my rest in peace he couldn't counter.
G3: 2-1: Eldrazi.
-Game 1 he has an unbeatable godhand (on the play chalice -> TKS -> smasher -> endbringer).
-Game 2 he has a slow hand, punished by double waste, allowing me to eventually land batterskull. Thalia was actually relevant in forcing him to waste another spirit guide on warping wail to allow him to (hopefully) get a mimic with jitte hit in (I had path and vial->wisp backup anyway).
-Game 3 is sort of the same, with jailer sealing the deal. The two paths in the side really helped here a lot, although I got lucky he drew his one-of wastes both times. Never saw a magus nor did I ever have the window to recruit for him.
G4: 0-2: U/G enchantress.
-I have little hate against this deck with my current build (no cataclysm, no spirit of the labyrinth, only one canonist, only two revoker, no pontiff or kambal). Both games I have a single hatebear which he manages to address long before my clock is even remotely threatening. There were some mana issues too, but I don't think this was ever winnable.
G5: 2-1: Lands.
-Game 1 he dies to sanctum prelate on 2 after a rather slow start without exploration but with punishing fire and gamble -> loam.
-game 2 he draws into an answer to prelate in the form of molten vortex while my clock is shit because of maze and my mana being tied up in preventing a Marit lage token from appearing.
-game 3 I have double RIP and double magus off of vial. Without the second magus I would have died to the interaction with Dark Depths, so the power of magus in this match-up really took a hit with the rules change.
G6: 2-0: Burn.
-Game 1 he gets me to 2, but only after I got some thalia beats in and he cast flame rift twice, so he's also at 6. He had a slow hand with double eidolon (both were plowed) and double flame rift. One turn he missplays hard when he bolts thalia while I have karakas open (well, might have won him the game if he hadn't, but it cost me two extra mana to recast as well so who knows). While he's tapped out after suspending a lethal rift bolt, I have enough mana to hardcast sword of fire and ice (through thalia) and equip for the win.
-Game 2 we both mull, my mother survives into thalia, stoneforge for jitte, prelate on 2 and sfm->jitte + equip for the win.

Overall, I wasn't very impressed by the red splash in this tournament. It was better during testing, so I'm not giving it up, but I'm leaning to going back to black, especially because (despite my games) true-name really was all over the place (7+ delver and they were all packing, and that's not counting blade decks). Magus seems quite easy to play around if you know what you're doing and too often a double-edged sword (against lands, shutting down your karakas and port, restricting your white sources). Plus, grixis control is waaaay more of a threat to us than czech pile. Pia and Kiran are often too expensive or uncastable with double red.

Lands(24):
5 Plains
2 Plateau
4 Flooded Strand
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
2 Cavern of Souls
3 Karakas

Creatures(26):
3 Mother of Runes
1 Judge's Familiar
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Flickerwisp
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Magus of the Moon
1 Vryn Wingmare
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Mangara of Corondor
1 Palace Jailer
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar

Other(11):
4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Equipment

Sideboard(15):
2 Rest in Peace
2 Council's Judgment
2 Path to Exile
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Cunning Sparkmage
1 Manic Vandal
1 War Priest of Thune
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Pithing Needle
1 Mirran Crusader

Scrubbed out of a 40-ish man tourney over the weekend, basically over mulligan decisions (kept most sevens I had, only saw Vial twice all day).

Elves, Mirror, Jund, Turbo-Depths, and Burn before I dropped. Mostly just wanted to test anyway.

My All-Stars were Cloudchaser Kestrel and Eldrazi Displacer, and the usual suspects. Displacer held the fort vs the mirror for what felt like eternity until getting revoked, and Kestrel was irreplaceable vs Burn.

On another note, I've been eyeballing Scavenger Grounds for some time now. Thoughts? I've heard grave hate is good.

I'm doing some intensive testing for EW and the Legacy Open this week. Anyone got any interesting builds or ideas floating around? Due to a couple of issues in my personal life, I haven't played much in the past month. I've got a couple of off the walls ideas that I've been meaning to try out, but I'm open to suggestions for things to throw on my testing schedule.

Came here for the same question as Medea....

Looking to head to EW and havens't dusted off D&T in a long while.


Little concerned of all these Czech pile decks floating around... Leovold and KCmd are both realllllll scuuuuurrrrryyy.

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Originally Posted by AsmodeusDM

Came here for the same question as Medea....

Looking to head to EW and havens't dusted off D&T in a long while.


Little concerned of all these Czech pile decks floating around... Leovold and KCmd are both realllllll scuuuuurrrrryyy.

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While not playing in EW, SCG DC is coming up and I am thinking the same. Thought about using sword of light and shadow. I am really interested in going back to the green splash like I used two years ago at EW. I think choke and teeg could still do some work. I also really loved pridemage in the main.

I think my EE list is well-tuned to beat Czech and I recommend the 75. I can't make it to EW or the Open, but it would be nice to see someone else do well with it regardless.

Someone actually top4'd a large tournament with it overseas: http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=17109&d=305814&f=LE

Here are the approaches I see as viable, in no particular order:

1. Stock D&T. No major adaptations. Just play what you know.
2. Splash red largely for P&K. It's the best "army in a can" option available, with the big upside of being legendary.
3. Splash green for Choke. There was a list from sometime recently that did just that. Czech Pile can't really deal with enchantments.
4. Splash red and black largely off Cavern for Pontiff and Magus.
5. Get weird. Move StP to the sideboard. Maindeck something like RiP or Relic of Progenitus to fight against Snapcaster and DRS in Czech Pile. Bahra was messing around with this strategy last night on stream. It caught my attention.
6. Make moderate changes to the maindeck of stock D&T for the current meta. I've seen 2x Spirit of the Labyrinth as a good option on that front, and many people are going back to Cataclysm in the sideboard as well.

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6. Make moderate changes to the maindeck of stock D&T for the current meta. I've seen 2x Spirit of the Labyrinth as a good option on that front, and many people are going back to Cataclysm in the sideboard as well.

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I am skeptical of the desire to play Cataclysm to combat Czech Pile. I tried it, but they keep an Underground Sea, a Deathrite Shaman, and a Baleful Strix. That beats anything we could keep unless it is exactly Karakas, Thalia, Vial, RiP. And realistically we aren't going to have Thalia on the board anyway; she died and our opponent has 4 cards left in hand.

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3. Splash green for Choke. There was a list from sometime recently that did just that. Czech Pile can't really deal with enchantments.

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I think if you want to actually win the lategame you need absurd knockout cards like Choke; this weekend you will catch them off-guard because they board out 6 counterspells. The smart opponents will keep 2+ force in against splash builds, but maybe you can find some other spell to bait with?

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1. Stock D&T. No major adaptations. Just play what you know.

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I'm on this plan, adjusting the beaters so there are more Mirran Crusaders in the deck. The games I'm winning are games where I get ahead in tempo, not card advantage, and the Crusaders aren't the worst thing to play against non-Czech decks anyway. I'll be pretty poorly set up vs decks with 4 bolt, but I at least have a coherent plan against Czech: ignore DRS and Baleful Strix and kill them while they durdle (they play Ponder too on top of DRS, Strix; this is a legitimate tempo opening in the early game). Have 2 RiP, 4 Mirran Crusader, and 2 Gideon in the deck postboard, and try to get them to bolt a Stoneforge Mystic by fetching a Batterskull so that your Crusader lives.

I don't know why they kill Stoneforge Mystic, by the way, but they all do -- most of our equipment is terrible against them with their 3 K Commands. I feel like if they identify this and play correctly, Stoneforge isn't even a 2 for 1. The only legitimate 2 for 1s in our deck are threatening to chain Flickerwisps on Recruiter or legendary creatures. I don't think trying to chain 2 for 1s against them (e.g. P&K) qualifies as a coherent strategy. Their Snapcasters are like 4 or 5 for 1s in the late game when they snap k command to kill an artifact during combat, win combat, and bring back a 2 for 1 creature from the grave. That's not something we can beat, IMO, unless we massively warp our deck.

I'm not in for massively warping the deck; there are lots of other decks to play against.

By the way, I took Alesha, Who Smiles at Death through a league alongside P&K as my last attempt at plan 2 before concluding that I liked plan 1. :)

Notes from son over past 2 days of DnT testing/brainstorming (4 weeks after I warned him 4c was a thing):
- keep 4x mirran crusaders against 4 bolts and race to arm them with sword(s); besides
- they will serve to outrace TNN's in grixis decks.
- serra avengers to move to flex slots and might reduce to zero for other threats; still in development

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Originally Posted by ChrisCunningham

I don't know why they kill Stoneforge Mystic, by the way, but they all do -- most of our equipment is terrible against them with their 3 K Commands. I feel like if they identify this and play correctly, Stoneforge isn't even a 2 for 1. The only legitimate 2 for 1s in our deck are threatening to chain Flickerwisps on Recruiter or legendary creatures. I don't think trying to chain 2 for 1s against them (e.g. P&K) qualifies as a coherent strategy. Their Snapcasters are like 4 or 5 for 1s in the late game when they snap k command to kill an artifact during combat, win combat, and bring back a 2 for 1 creature from the grave.

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It's actually not that hard to out card advantage them. Post-board my build has 3 Recruiters, 2 PK, Palace Jailer + 2 RiP which itself eats up almost all their card advantage. If you ever resolve a RiP, suddenly the only card in their deck that seems to matter is Jace. Plus our deck has more card advantage than people think, it's just found in weird places - beyond SfM, anytime you untap with Mom you've got virtual card advantage + Flickerwisp frequently produces a 2 for 1 out of Vial.

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Originally Posted by rostov

Notes from son over past 2 days of DnT testing/brainstorming (4 weeks after I warned him 4c was a thing):
- keep 4x mirran crusaders against 4 bolts and race to arm them with sword(s); besides
- they will serve to outrace TNN's in grixis decks.
- serra avengers to move to flex slots and might reduce to zero for other threats; still in development

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I went 7-4 in matches last night with a stock list. List felt fine, but I'm experimenting a bit now. My current list also has 4 Crusaders... Historically I've enjoyed those aggro builds, and the pro-black of Crusader feels pretty darn good right now. I'm 3-0 currently, but that's largely due to the fact that my Elves opponent punted an easy game away. I'll take it.

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Originally Posted by iatee

It's actually not that hard to out card advantage them. Post-board my build has 3 Recruiters, 2 PK, Palace Jailer + 2 RiP which itself eats up almost all their card advantage. If you ever resolve a RiP, suddenly the only card in their deck that seems to matter is Jace. Plus our deck has more card advantage than people think, it's just found in weird places - beyond SfM, anytime you untap with Mom you've got virtual card advantage + Flickerwisp frequently produces a 2 for 1 out of Vial.

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I'm sorry for the tone of this reply but our experiences have been so drastically different. Can you give an example of what your game wins vs Czech Pile look like?

* Are you hitting them multiple times with equipment? Sometimes I manage to hit them once with SoFI, but the next attack it gets K commanded and the creature runs into a Baleful Strix and the K Command gets another card too from another mode.
* It sounds like you are keeping Jailer in. Are you casting Swords to Plowshares on Baleful Strix? Holding it back with Mom + Flyer? Or is the Monarch token acting as a Howling Mine / is that good? Are they being forced to block with Baleful Strix somehow, letting you keep Monarch?
* RiP is a 2-CMC permanent. It's dying to Abrupt Decay in my games. Are you landing RiP and then your opponent is tempo-forced into using Snapcaster as an Ambush Viper? Are you saving RiP until they spend a decay on an equipment? I haven't tried this line.
* Recruiter is not a 2-for-1 unless you threaten to Flickerwisp it, because our equipment is not surviving. Are your opponents spending a card on the 1/1 body before you attempt to flicker it? Or is your equipment alive so that the 1/1 is worth something?
* Is P&K doing more for you than just being a 2 for 1? All my legends meet the same fate: spot removal, activate Karakas, spot removal. Are the Thopters winning the game / also worth a card? I haven't cast P&K in my Czech games. I guess if you have Mom AND Karakas it gets tough to remove legends, but my Moms are all dead on arrival or dead by sweepers long before anything remotely approaching this situation.

What am I missing here? I guess I just want to hear about your game wins and what they look like. All my game wins vs Czech are Mirran Crusader attacking and my opponent cursing the fact that they used their Bolt too early.

The Czech Pile Primer's description of the matchup is:

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This matchup is not too challenging. You run a huge amount of cheap removal for their creatures and can easily out-CA them in the lategame. Having at least 4 maindeck answers to their equipment is also very handy, and a single well-timed Kcommand can often just blow them out. The only things to be wary of are land-light hands, where you can get Wasted/Ported/Thalia’d out of the game. Prioritize your land drops, and you should easily stay alive until the late game where you have the advantage. Make sure you save a Lightning Bolt or Jace for Mirran Crusder though. Post board gets even better. You board in a metric ton of additional removal and it is almost impossible for them to keep anything on the board.

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which is more or less what my experience has been. Their sideboard guide is to take out all countermagic and discard because they don't care about any of the spells we play at all.

I'd love to hear a happier story. :)

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Originally Posted by Medea_

My current list also has 4 Crusaders...

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Are you playing any Serra Avengers? I'm torn right now, because it is definitely aggressive like the crusaders, but there are so many Baleful Strixes.. :/

I dunno, it kinda seems like your opponents just happen to have had the right answers at the right time. They don't always. Sometimes they'll have the Decay for RiP, other times they won't and they're playing a deck filled with Ambush Vipers and Squires.

I would say my games vs Pile have always been super grindy and generally pretty boring - unlike playing against Miracles, the new deck-to-beat doesn't play very interesting Magic. I don't think there's a single play pattern beyond you play stuff, they try to kill it. I can say that card I'm scared of the most is Hymn, since it has the possibility of turning a hand that can't lose into a hand that can't win, but other times it does effectively nothing. I find myself caring about Hymn, Command and Jace - beyond that I expect to have better card quality on average.

Palace Jailer is great against Pile, so I wouldn't dream of taking it out- it will lose you a game once in a while, but it wins you the game more often. If they have a Baleful, you can Palace Jailer it or wait until they don't. The game is going to last a while regardless.

As per whether Thopters are worth a card - yes, against decks like Pile - basically Blue Jund - any free body is worth something. That's why Lingering Souls is generally a nightmare for them. Recruiter's 1/1 body is worth something, Sfm's 1/2 body is worth something, and flying 1/1s are definitely a pain in the ass.

Since all they do is kill stuff I think you just need to maximize the amount of must-answer threats vs them, and the best way to do that may well be playing 4 Mirran Crusaders for Mono-W - but with a splash list you can play as many Crusaders and RiPs as you want + additional must-answer threats that hit them from other directions like Magus and P/K.

The deck-to-beat doesn't do *anything* to punish your mana and plays a super greedy manabase itself, so playing a super Plains-happy manabase doesn't seem like a great decision right now. Obviously I'm a partisan for WR but other splash colors also have must-answer-threats (Choke, Sylvan Library, Dark Confidant) and cards like Horizon Canopy are also better in this kinda 'lose to Plains topdeck' meta. One of my friends has been doing pretty well with a GQ/Arbiter build, which is also pretty good vs Pile. I think the Primer is right - vanilla DnT is not favored - but it's really not that hard to get to a place where you are.

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Originally Posted by ChrisCunningham

Are you playing any Serra Avengers? I'm torn right now, because it is definitely aggressive like the crusaders, but there are so many Baleful Strixes.. :/

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The 4x Crusader list drops the 2x Avengers. Losing a couple of flying bodies hurts, but running a stream of Crusaders into your opponents feels pretty good these days... I ended up 5-1 tonight, only losing to Grixis Delver.

Whats going on ya'll. Long time reader, first time poster.

Heading into EW I'm still unsure of the correct number of Crusaders. Is 3x Crusaders and 1x Palace Jailer better than just 4x Crusaders? Jailer has always seemed clunky and too cute to me, but its appeared in a fair amount of lists seeing some success. Curious to hear your thoughts.

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Originally Posted by ThrabenVagabond

Whats going on ya'll. Long time reader, first time poster.

Heading into EW I'm still unsure of the correct number of Crusaders. Is 3x Crusaders and 1x Palace Jailer better than just 4x Crusaders? Jailer has always seemed clunky and too cute to me, but its appeared in a fair amount of lists seeing some success. Curious to hear your thoughts.

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Generally speaking, diversity is good. I'm taking a very narrow approach to adjust my matchup percentages in a few specific places. Having 6 effective copies of Mirran Crusader is a real pain for Czech Pile. Jailer is a great card, and nobody is going to fault you for throwing a copy in your deck. Go with your gut and what the results of your testing show you.

I had a hilarious 49 minute game 1 against Paul Lynch yesterday, with me on Imperial and him on Czech Pile. We were both a bit wiped from work, but it was amazing how any slight misplay let the other person into the game. I think we both misplayed 3-4 times, but it was always close. I did not see a Cavern until the 45th minute and never saw a Wasteland, but I had 3 Ports working overtime. I ended up losing largely because he found his last Snapcaster and FoW with about 15 cards left in his deck and I had to try and resolve Recruiter on Cavern and then Jailer without it.

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Originally Posted by Medea_

Generally speaking, diversity is good. I'm taking a very narrow approach to adjust my matchup percentages in a few specific places. Having 6 effective copies of Mirran Crusader is a real pain for Czech Pile. Jailer is a great card, and nobody is going to fault you for throwing a copy in your deck. Go with your gut and what the results of your testing show you.

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Medea so are you running stock mono-white? What's been in your flex spots?

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Originally Posted by AsmodeusDM

Medea so are you running stock mono-white? What's been in your flex spots?

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I'm running something just a few cards different from the first list here. I've replaced the Avengers with more Crusaders, and made a couple of sideboard adjustments that I'll keep to myself until after the event.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by iatee

One of my friends has been doing pretty well with a GQ/Arbiter build, which is also pretty good vs Pile.

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Would you happen to have a list handy by chance?