Hey painter people, I started getting into the deck a few month or so before the top ban and have been lurking for a little while. I've devoured every piece of content I can find, so I figure it's high time to get involved and help weld what we can back into play, top shenanigans or no top shenanigans. (As an aside, if anyone knows of any more painter coverage/matches floating around, that'd be sweet! Think I've pretty much all of the SCG stuff.)
Since the ban I've been jamming RW with more Enlightened Tutors, but also UR—not a painted stone list, though, don't worry. It's much like RW, with Blood Moon, Ensnaring Bridge and so on, but Intuition instead of Enlightened Tutor. Not a million miles away from what Kap'n Cook posted a little while ago, really.
3 Grindstone
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
3 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Mox Opal
4 Goblin Welder
3 Imperial Recruiter
4 Painter's Servant
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
4 Blood Moon
2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
2 Intuition
4 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
3 Mountain
4 Great Furnace
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Volcanic Island
//Sideboard
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Manic Vandal
1 Intuition
2 Sudden Shock
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Pyroclasm
I'm not a fan of Chrome Mox and have been trying Mox Opal, upping the artifact count with Great Furnace to enable it. Not sure if 20 artifacts is enough. Anyone got any figures on how many required to reliably turn on metalcraft?
More Great Furnace means more vulnerable to Wasteland, but Great Furnace staying an artifact under Blood Moon is nice, and Welder is a very strong card, so I figure more play on that front isn't bad either.
Intuition is great, and having a kill from just Welder on the board and end of turn Intuition steals games when people aren't expecting it. The difference between Intuition and Enlightened Tutor feels huge to me, but then I've never been that keen on Enlightened Tutor.
Dack Fayden is sweet, but I don't think he really does what the deck wants—possibly a bit too cute? Chandra still feels great.
I've pushed up the land count because losing top hurts consistency, so currently the list is at 26 mana sources. Thoughts?
Surgical is a card for sure, but losing a combo piece to it isn't necessarily that problematic because it usually means that our opponent isn't putting much pressure on, giving us plenty of time to set up Ensnaring Bridge, Chandra, and/or assorted dorks. Also, I wouldn't see it as a compelling argument not to run Intuition, as decks that will run it often have a way of getting our cards into the 'yard either way. Cabal Therapy, etc.
I've toyed with a 1-of Trinket Mage in either the main or the board. It's nice to be able to go the long way round via Imperial Recruiter to get Grindstone if it comes up, and you can tutor up a land or fast mana, or explosives and crypt post board. It has some play to it for sure, but it is slow. In general, of course there are plenty of good utility creatures—Spellskite, Phyrexian Revoker, Jaya Ballard and Magus of the Moon and so on. Clearly, though, there's not space for all of them if you're running 4 Goblin Welder, which I think is where the deck wants to be. In any case, I'm not sure which of those should be main and which should be side. Clearly, it also depends on where the meta goes.
I haven't played with Gamble at all and would be curious to hear how people are getting on with that.
As far as the sideboard, there are clearly many avenues one can take, but as others have pointed out, Storm is seeing an uptick making Thorn of Amethyst good. Tormod's Crypt is a concession to Reanimator and Emrakul decks (Sneak and Show), as well as various other graveyard strategies, but might be better as Surgical Extraction.
The sweepers are mainly for Elves (and do double duty for Death and Taxes), which mostly comes down to combo speed and having a painter on the board in order to be able to counter Natural Order. I'm not sure what's worth looking into here given that Grafdigger's Cage is such a nonbo with Goblin Welder.
I like having the extra Intuition, which is making me wonder whether it should be 3 copies maindeck.
I've still been running Sudden Shock over other burn spells to me because it kills things in the matchups in which you want to kill things while not allowing them to interact, but I have to confess to not having played with Firebolt. It does seem sweet with Intuition and is clearly a good answer to Deathrite.
The point that others have raised about running out of gas is all too real, and I'm not sure what the options are aside from going heavier blue. Faithless Looting digs, but doesn't actually accrue any card advantage and Enlightened Tutor is card disadvantage. Chandra at least does some good work, as ever.
Anyway, that's probably more than enough for now—I'd love to hear about people's thoughts and ongoing testing results. I've been playing on Cockatrice, which is less good than MTGO, but better than nothing. If anyone has any advice for getting the deck on MTGO in anything resembling a cost efficient way, please share haha.
