[Deck] Death and Taxes

It's really hard to know how this card will play out until it's been tested. The wheel of fortune effect is not comparable to any other draw effect, 7 cards is like starting a new game of magic, which gives you new tools to disrupt whatever else they're drawing into. You're making your opponent discard their entire hand at instant speed, which has a powerful controlling aspect to it, but at the same time you're opening yourself up to the randomness of what their new 7 is too. With active vials vs a combo deck you might be able to draw into a hatebear on a turn you need it, but you also might draw them into the combo hand they want. It's a super swingy, cube-y effect.

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Originally Posted by iatee

It's really hard to know how this card will play out until it's been tested. The wheel of fortune effect is not comparable to any other draw effect, 7 cards is like starting a new game of magic, which gives you new tools to disrupt whatever else they're drawing into. You're making your opponent discard their entire hand at instant speed, which has a powerful controlling aspect to it, but at the same time you're opening yourself up to the randomness of what their new 7 is too. With active vials vs a combo deck you might be able to draw into a hatebear on a turn you need it, but you also might draw them into the combo hand they want. It's a super swingy, cube-y effect.

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For what it's worth, you could fire off the ability during your opponent's draw step with Spirit of the Labyrinth in play. They lose their entire hand including their natural draw step (baring any instant speed effects they could cast at that point) while you still get a single card out of it instead of being completely empty-handed. Discarding their hand this way is also a hard counter to Miracle triggers because no card = no Miracles.

I'm not sure he isn't good. More often than not, we are playing with fewer cards in hand than our opponent, so we come out of a 7 card dump with more than our opponent.

I've been doing the 2U sorcery that does this with my Merfolk build and it is amazing almost every time.

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Originally Posted by redtwister

I'm not sure he isn't good. More often than not, we are playing with fewer cards in hand than our opponent, so we come out of a 7 card dump with more than our opponent.

I've been doing the 2U sorcery that does this with my Merfolk build and it is amazing almost every time.

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I think it largely depends on the deck and how much of their stuff they can play. If you get a choke-hold on their mana to get CA AND stall their cards afterwards, it could be amazing. But you could very easily jeopardize that advantage, depending on your draw luck, so I'm sceptical.

Edit: For what it's worth, the Magus has nice synergy with Sword of Light and Shadow.

So I tested with a 4 Fireslinger, 3 Ethersworn, 2 Containment Priest SB vs Elves. Friend ran a pretty standard elves list with a decent sb vs D+T (3 Abrupt Decay, Progenitus, 1 Null Rod, 1 Pithing Needle)

On the play pre-board - 1 win 3 losses
On the draw pre-board - 1 win 3 losses

On the play post-board 4 wins, 0 losses
on the draw post-board 2 wins 4 losses

I never lost a game post-board where I had Fireslinger, even counting the ones where it ate a decay, and a lot of the post-board losses were to t3 Natural Orders for Progenitus. Most of those woulda still happened a turn or two later if I had the theoretical t2 Sudden Demise for 1. I don't think there was ever a time where I wanted Fireslingers to be Cunning Sparkmages - having them as an option for vial on 2 was important.

I think the overall match win rate against a good Elves player using this kinda a heavily SB'd RW list - even one with 4 Sudden Demises and a bunch of Canonists - is probably something like 45%. Whereas normal Mono-W is maybe like 25% and GW maybe 30%.

G1 is always awful, G2 is easier to steal because we can actually take control of the game t3, G3 you need to have the right sb answer in hand or mull to it. I'm interested in how the Fireslingers will do vs Mono-W D+T and especially Infect, where I think it might really swing the match win %. If they do I think I'd probably keep 3 in the board.

@iatee - how much do you value revoker in the elves matchup?

@iatee: Has fetching Fireslinger with Recruiter ever come up in those matches? Or did you just go for another Canonist/Containment Priest/Revoker instead?

Steve - Revoker is one of the most important cards in the matchup.

Barook - Containment Priest was usually the target, since if you're at a point in the game where you can Recruit you're likely ahead and Natural Order becomes the only thing that beats you. Also post-board that's more likely their game plan, since it's so easy.

What do you guys think of the Veteran Armorers in the SB for the list that placed 16th in the GP? The card is adorably fair. It's easy to see where it could be a blowout, vialed in vs Dread of Night or Golgari Charm, but it also seems so low impact if you have it when you need a hand vs the types of decks that play Dread of Night or Golgari Charm. I guess 4 Thalia 4 Wingmare lists are already gonna be so threat dense vs storm that protecting them is basically equivalent to playing more threats. That said, it still does nothing vs Massacre.

I posted my tournament report here:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...Taxes&p=915212
Barely missed day two, ended at 238th place.

After being sick of my goblins deck failing me, I decided to finally have another shot at R/W. Thanks to the miracle that is social networking, we are currently having a renaissance of Legacy in Melbourne. Weekly legacy with 15-20 people? I wouldn't have believed it either a month ago, but it happened tonight, and it was an absolute blast.

Anyways the list;

1 Cavern
3 Flooded Strand
3 Karakas
2 Plains
3 Plateau
4 Port
4 Wasteland
3 Windswept Heath.

4 Flickerwisp
2 Recruiter
2 Magus
1 Mangara
1 Mirran Crusader
4 Mother of Runes
3 Revoker
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia

4 Plow
4 Vial
1 Sofi
1 Jitte
1 Batterskull

Sideboard:
2 Ethersworn
1 Leonin-Relic Warder
1 Containment Priest
1 Manic Vandal
1 Magus
2 Council's Judgement
3 Sudden Demise
1 Disenchant
3 Rest in Peace

Round 1 Nic-Fit with Birthing Pod
Win the roll

All three games were super grindy. Game 1 was pretty classic DnT against non-brainstorm decks. Play batterskull, put it on some dork and win.

Game 2 he boarded in a heap of removal for artifacts and dudes and dread of night (ugh). I boarded in Relic Warder, Vandal and Disenchant. I think I boarded out 2 Magus and a Thalia. Anyway, tldr he killed my equipment, murderous redcapped my dudes (a lot) and crushed me with grave titan.

Game 3 was similar to Game 2, but with 4 minutes on the clock nothing much happened.

Round 2 - ANT
Lose the roll
This dude usually plays bullshit show and tell decks, so a 7 card hand of 2x Revoker, Cavern, Karakas, other random bullshit was a snapkeep.
Anyway, I died without interacting much.

Bring in the usual brigade of Ethersworns and RIPS, board out pia and kiran and swords.

Games 2: T2 Thalia, T3 Ethersworn and Wasteland. Get rekt mate.

Game 3: We both mull, me to 5 him to 6. Nothing notable happens in the early turns except he cast dread of night and I was attacking with Revoker. I eventually draw Recruiter, go get Ethersworn (play both in 1 turn), and that pretty much sealed the deal. No skill was involved in any of these games.

Round 3 - Goblins
Lose the roll
The matchup is from my experience on the other side, all about the start. If goblins gets a busted start they win. If DnT does, DnT wins.

Game 1- He has removal and vials working overtime, Goblin Ringleader hits 4 for 4 twice in a row and I am dead very quickly.

Game 2 - Mom into Stoneforge into Thalia + Wasteland, into Sword on Thalia into cya.

Game 3- Look at a hand of 5 lands, Stoneforge and Thalia. Ship it and mulligan to a hand of 4 lands, Stoneforge and Thalia. Groce. I was looking for a Demise, especially on the draw but no such luck. Anyway, we both had slowish starts but then he exploded and I didn't. Also - Legion Loyalist lols very hard @ Batterskull. The more you know.

I'm not even mad, I fucking love Goblins.

Round 4 - Legend Miracles
Lose the roll.
Game 1- Turn 1 Vial resolves, which is always a nice feeling. Thalia comes down soon and grabs a Sword and gets to work. At some point he CJ'd my Sword and cleared my board, stabilising with a Mentor.

I topdeck a Pia and Kiran and see he's at 2. Nice. He untaps and blind miracles an Entreat for about 5 Angels. He thinks he's won, I tick Vial up to 4, burn him out. Excellent.

Sideboard: Take out 4 Plows, bring in Relic Warder, Magus #3 and 2 Sudden Demise. It might be wrong but I feel like you need something to stabilise against a board of Mentor tokens, and being an X spell means you can hope to get around CB if they keep it in.

Game 2- You know those games were they have 8 plows and Mentor and Jace and you just can't do anything? Yeah that was this game. He even found a 2nd Jace for Counterbalance with a brainstorm when I tried to demise for X=3 against Mentor and friend. The beats were real.

Game 3- Both of us mull, me to 5 and him to 6. I keep a hugely shit hand but it has a turn 1 Vial which is about as good as it's going to get. Not much of anything happens for a while, he taps out for Jace and I kill it with Revoker and Stoneforge, while my Vials tick up (I had 2). At some point I have Pia and Kiran and Mangara in hand with 2 Vials and Karakas in play. So I channel my inner p.sulli and stone rain the crap out of his lands, while the thopters and parents get to work. He tried to plow Pia/Kiran without realising they were legendary. Karakas bounced em and they came back with a vengeance. At some point he V.cliqued away my Mango (which made :( cos I was going for the flawless victory - no lands/permanents in play for him), but it was too late for him anyway. 6 Thopters crashing in every turn made short work of his life total and I fell in love with a new magic card.

Final record 2-1-1. Not great, but I suck at magic so I'm happy.
I really want a third Recruiter back in there somewhere but it's so tight as it is and there's no way I'm cutting Mangara. Against Nic-Fit I drew precisely 0 Recruiters across 3 games which made things harder than they needed to be against the Murderous Redcap deck, and Recruiter for Pia and Kiran would have just been game. The 3 mana to burn someone is quite a bit admittedly, but reach is nice and mostly it's just a way to tutor for flyers while generating value. Obviously it needs more testing but it was awesome today.

A quick tournament report. I played in the source tournament that jelly is running. I missed top 8 so I'm all done and thought I'd write it up since I ran Imperial Taxes.

Creatures:
4 Flickerwisp
3 Imperial Recruiter
2 Magus of the Moon
1 Mangara of Corondor
4 Mother of Runes
2 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Vryn Wingmare
1 Mirran Crusader

Spells:
4 AEther Vial
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Swords to Plowshares

Lands:
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
4 Wasteland
3 Karakas
3 Plains
2 Plateau
4 Rishadan Port

Sideboard:
2 Containment Priest
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Manriki-Gusari
3 Rest in Peace
2 Sudden Demise
1 Pithing Needle
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Sword of War and Peace
1 Forked Bolt
1 Cunning Sparkmage

2-0 Storm - Both games were won off the back of Port and bringing in Flickerwisp off vial 2 turns in a row to take out land. Thalia and Thalia's pony won games with mana denial. I love Flickerwisping lands off a vial.

1-2 Burn - Took g1 with Mom, Stoneforge and Batterskull. Lost g2 and g3 to an endless stream of Smash to Smithereens and Searing Blaze (3 Searing Blaze were played on my creatures game 2). My opponent had the right cards in the sideboard, and drew them at the right time. It happens!

2-0 Storm - Both games got there with creatures, and port. Flickerwisping lands is amazing. This time I saw cabal therapy, which terrified me if he had a way to flash it back and get my Revoker, but they had no way to flash back. Revoker on LED won the 2nd game by a mile.

0-2 Miracles - Died hard to bad keeps both games, g1 lost to counterbalance lock and a Jace without Aether Vial or a Cavern of Souls. Game 2 I kept a 2 port hand with vial and creatures, the vial got forced. It was risky and I paid for it.

1-2 Miracles - Crushed game 1 through Imperial Recruiter for Imperial Recruiter chains, a Cavern of Souls on Human and a Sword of Fire and Ice, the dream is real. Game 2 was really fun, lots of back and forth, I got rid of 3 Jace's throughout the game, and we fought a LOT over my Mangara/Karakas setup that was a great threat but never connected due to lack of Vial on the board. My opponent entreated for 4 which I managed to hold off with Flickerwisp on a token, StP on another, and a 2nd Wisp. It looked like I had it in the bag just barely... then next turn they miracled another entreat and I folded. Game 3 I remember I kept a really loose hand and ended up dying to Keranos of all embarrassing things.

Some thoughts. Overall the deck felt quite solid, and the matches I lost didn't feel unwinnable, just sometimes you lose to better players and bad top decks. With the decks I played against, I'd go up to at least 3 Revoker main again. Having Wingmare as another taxing tutor target was great, and won me a game against Storm. I loved having Cavern of Souls every time, and would even consider going to 3 to be able to fully ignore countermagic. Magus of the Moon was useless in every match. The red sideboard cards didn't get used, though I think I brought in extra removal against Burn and didn't see it. The red splash really improves the miracles matchup, recruiter for recruiter and then doing it again with the one in your hand post-terminus feels astounding if you can get some equipment on the board to turn your stupid 1/1 into a threat of any kind.

I have a few thoughts here regarding Magus of the Wheel. It is rambling because phones suck for composition. Hopefully it is good enough to be coherent.

All rights boys. I have done testing results to share regarding the me Magus. It is very good and I reiterate that I think I'm on another planet when I read other opinions. These results as not on the least surprising.

I have been wondering what deck would do best with it and I feel confident that DnT gets some of the best use from it.

To make room I simply called it beef and cut into my avengers/crusaders. I Used recruiters but I'm not even sure they are necessary. Let me be abundantly clear. Magus gives this deck an entire new angle of attack while losing virtually none of the existing tactics. It is extremely potent. The biggest problem has been coming up with the right version of DnT to accompany it. Some changes would have to occur. I tried Chrome Mox, which worked fairly well, Thalia-be-damned. I tried having more 1-drops, which I hated. I tried spirit of the Lab. I tried Black Vise. I tried using wasteland for mana more and delaying paying equip costs and such. Eh eh eh. None felt perfect.

What it did well was to give massive card advantage to a deck that opponents can otherwise count on not to have it. I talked to my opponents and they felt sorta bamboozled by it. I win every game in which I was able to abuse it. I just attacked with it when I was already ahead. In many games he was simply holding jitte or batterskull. Vigilance was very powerful on him.

The card is good enough to sit next to Thalia as the centerpiece of the deck. You have to change your mindset to get the hang of it though, which kind of makes me laugh when I consider that the biggest issue for people coming to DnT is the required change in mindset. You're going to have to do it again.

But if you are not experimenting with this card starting now you are doing it wrong. People telling you it is not good are wrong.

@Finn: I'm currently still trying to wrap my head around the idea, but I need more details. How many Magi did you use? Where they used in conjunction with Magus of the Moon? Why are they THAT impactful? Was it due to massive CA?

Just throwing some ideas/comments out there:

- Have you tried Simian Spirit Guide in place of Chrome Mox? Gets around Thalia and can provide a body for equipment in a pinch.

- Sword of Light and Shadow can recover creatures from your GY which you discarded.

- Sword of War and Peace might be a real dealbreaker here. Some people on Salvation experimenting with it in the place of MD Batterskull (while moving it to the SB). But Magus of the Wheel puts it on a new level. Swing with a equipped creature, put the trigger on the stack, activate Magus of the Wheel to ideally gain 7 and deal 7 extra damage. That's extremely brutal.
Edit: Mirran Crusader would instagib for 22 damage in that case. Even in the worst case scenario of fearing your opponent's newly drawn removal, you can do this:
Swing, first strike 4 damage ---> trigger, deal damage depending on cards, 4 normal damage, trigger on stack, Magus in response, still deal ~5-7 extra damage. Even 15 damage for playing save can be extremely lethal.

I like the Simian Spirit Guide idea. Better than Mox.

Thinking about it, I'm sure you want this card instead of Imperial Recruiter. You may still want Magus of the Moon, but you also want a way to abuse Magus of the Wheel's power level, which may be in the manipulations of the equipment you run that Barook is mentioning. Clearly, this is very powerful with Sword of Light and Shadow and Sword of War and Peace.

You probably also need to think of a way to stymie your opponent's ability to take advantage of 7 new cards, though given that we are the deck that is top decking more often than the rest, we should usually be in a position to benefit from it incrementally more.

It may be that this card also synergizes frighteningly well with Jötun Grunt.

Creatures 26
4 Flickerwisp
4 Mother of Runes
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Magus of the Wheel
3 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Simian Spirit Guide
2 Magus of the Moon

Spells 11
4 AEther Vial
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Sword of War and Peace
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Swords to Plowshares

Lands 23
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
4 Wasteland
3 Karakas
3 Plains
2 Plateau
4 Rishadan Port

Sideboard
3 Jotun Grunt
3 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Sudden Demise
...

As nice as recovering discarded creatures or even your sacrificed Magus might be, I don't think it's worth cutting the SoFaI.

As far as blocking your opponent from abusing their fresh cards gets, it's nice that you can activate Magus of the Wheel at the end of their turn to reduce their options to instant speed for the next turn while you can vial in creatures ready to attack asap. But there's more to it - why not run a single Canonist MD as Recruiter target? Has applications in various match-ups and slows them down even further while we work our Vials with the fresh cards.

Having played R/W a long time now, I'd cut Magus of the Moon before I cut Recruiters. Magus lets you spike wins, Recruiter lets you play Demonic Tutor.

Both Guide and Mox are all-in high variance cards, and we don't have a deck that has a consistent win combo vs all decks, just powerful prison starts. I think if you're playing those cards you need to be going for some 4 cavern 4 magus 4 thalia x spirit guide build.

I don't think we need to put worse Swords in just for potential upside with the Wheel effect. Wheel seems like a more powerful card when you *don't* build around it and have the option to use it. If you start relying on having to use it, then you're in a bad place vs decks that very much want you to draw them 7 cards.

I would try something like this:

Creatures 26
4 Flickerwisp
4 Mother of Runes
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Recruiter
2 Magus of the Moon
2 Magus of the Wheel

Spells 11
4 AEther Vial
Sofi/Skull/Jitte
4 Swords to Plowshares

Briefly here:
Magus tends to be best with a batterskull. The vigilance is everything. You just have a lot more control and options and the opponent is more limited. I'm still new to the design so often I was unwilling to attack with it my biggest creature.
Spirit guide does seem better, but I have a hard time putting it in a land spot like mox goes.
The miracles matchup was the most impacted.
I agree with iatee that you want to stick to the DnT shell
Wheel is a slow card and can not be counted on, so it is best when it is not your only bullet.
You have to be hindering your opponent's ability to take advantage of their extra cards. We need to have massive conversations about how to do that best, but this deck already does a fair amount of that, especially with moons.

Hey guys, I've been lurking for a while, and I've been playing Death and Taxes for close to about a year now.

I've finally gotten my Plateaus and Magus's that will allow me to play Blood and Taxes.

2 Cavern of Souls
3 Karakas
2 Plains
2 Plateau
4 Flooded Strand
2 Arid Mesa
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
4 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Serra Avenger
4 Flickerwisp
3 Imperial Recruiter
2 Magus of the Moon
4 AEther Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull
1 Mangara of Corondor
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 Rest in Peace
SB: 2 Kor Firewalker
SB: 2 Sudden Demise
SB: 1 Magus of the Moon
SB: 2 Council's Judgment
SB: 2 Containment Priest
SB: 1 Mirran Crusader

This is what I've got so far. I'm probably going to change up the board a bit more.

Here's my burning question. In terms of one of's to fetch with the Recruiter, what if I boarded into Peacekeeper + SoLaS vs Infect and Elves? I don't think either deck has a way to interact with this combo besides Piracy Charm, and it seems to just lock they down. am I crazy?

I also want to run the Mirran Crusader main, but I don't want to cut Mangara. Suggestions?

EDIT: Also, can someone let me know which top tier decks are the worst matchups for this deck? I want to theorycraft a few more changes.

EDIT 2: I've noticed people sticking to Avenger, so I haven't cut it, but I was wondering if my Avengers could be cut here for Mirran Crusader and Vryn's Wingmare, to expand my tutor package.

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Originally Posted by Violence

Here's my burning question. In terms of one of's to fetch with the Recruiter, what if I boarded into Peacekeeper + SoLaS vs Infect and Elves? I don't think either deck has a way to interact with this combo besides Piracy Charm, and it seems to just lock they down. am I crazy?

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For Elves: If they can go off with Glimpse, they can try to put enough fodder into their GY to repeatly drain you with DRS + untap effects. So that doesn't necessarily work to stop them, but only to stall them a while.