Hey guys,
I see Ratchet Bomb in a lot of SBs and am struggling to understand its inclusion. I'd assume it's good against DnT seeing as the deck is about board presence? What matchups is it for?
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Hey guys,
I see Ratchet Bomb in a lot of SBs and am struggling to understand its inclusion. I'd assume it's good against DnT seeing as the deck is about board presence? What matchups is it for?
It puts in work against Young Pyromancer tokens and (for the time being) flipped Delvers. Anything that is cheap and can snowball early.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dissection
Dissection, generic sweeper cards like Ratchet Bomb, Powder Keg, and Engineered Explosives are good in DnT from time to time. But really, it is good against Elves (a problem matchup). Between the two, it commonly gets a spot in side boards.
Also good insurance vs Miracles angel tokens. In any case, with the rule change on flipped Delvers it seems pretty likely that a lot of people will drop it from their sideboards.
I've been having some pretty decent success with this list over the past few weeks and I plan on taking it to a GPT on Sunday
1 Fiend Hunter
4 Flickerwisp
1 Mangara of Corondor
2 Mirran Crusader
3 Mother of Runes
3 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Imperial Recruiter
3 Magus of the Moon
4 AEther Vial
1 Batterskull
3 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
Land: 22
1 Arid Mesa
1 Cavern of Souls
2 Flooded Strand
3 Karakas
1 Marsh Flats
4 Plains
1 Plateau
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath
Side:
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Containment Priest
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Leonin Relic-Warder
1 Mother of Runes
1 Veteran Armorer
1 Cunning Sparkmage
3 Sudden Demise
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
There's something special to putting the Veteran Armorer into play off Vial in response to Toxic Deluge ^_^
Quote:
Originally Posted by zebhillard
Thanks for the answers. This is what a friend pointed out, but it seemed a bit narrow to me as tokens usually struggle against Batterskull. Elves seems like it's worth it though, what a nightmare matchup!Quote:
Originally Posted by Finn
I like the radical choices here - 3 Moms, 3 SfM. I think Imperial has a lot of room to break w/ the orthodoxy. I think 3 Moms is most likely wrong, but I am not 100% sure that going down on SfM is incorrect when you have an extra 3 copies in Recruiter. I would suggest trying to squeeze in another copy of Cavern over a Plains. 4 is way more than you need. Looks like nmks even got it done the other day with his 1 plains build: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/386756#paperQuote:
Originally Posted by Fry
I think being *that* greedy will eventually get you punished either by drawing a double white card after Magus is out (nmks only has 4 in the 75 though) or having a land-light hand and getting Wasteland'd out by Lands/DnT/etc.
Are either of you guys reliably casting Sudden Demise? I stopped playing it because it just didn't come in for enough non-Elves matchups. Fry's build has 6 red sources, nmks's 8. The chances of drawing/mulling to Sudden Demise + red source twice in a row seem low enough that it's not worth it to use sideboard spots to try make one terrible match-up 50-50. Elves is probably in a pretty bad place right now due to Eldrazi anyway.
I feel the same way about Burn - at this point it's the only deck I think mono-white has a better matchup against (+ maybe Fish, which is still a positive matchup) but SB cards that destroy Burn are so narrow that I still don't like to include anything. Also Burn players are generally terrible, so why bother.
Almost always I have been able to cast it when I wanted to, but I'm starting to think the same way that the Demises are still not enough versus the Elves. So I'm considering dropping them off and playing more Plains's in the main again and something 'better' in the board.Quote:
Originally Posted by iatee
So far I have been satisfied with only one basic, but way more often the amount of fetchable lands has been the problem. I said earlier that 1 Plains and 2 Plateau split would be the split I'd play with Demises in the board, but it has started to feel quite greedy just as you said. Not only because of opposing Wastelands but because of the dead fetches you'll draw later in the game.
I do agree so much with that last sentence. I actually think that Burn is a good deck, but usually the good players don't decide to pilot it. There's almost unlimited number of times I've heard/watched someone playing Burn and losing the match only because the pilot misplayed. Of course there are good players playing the deck as well, but not so often as you said.
Across formats, mono-red decks are generally played by a. new players b. budget players...and c. pure spikes. In various Standards and in Modern pre-Eldrazi you might play against a very good player playing mono-red / Burn, because they felt it was the deck that gave them the best chance at winning a given tournament. Legacy burn is t1.5ish - solid, but not a deck that ever gives you the best chance at winning a tournament, so the pure spikes in legacy are never gonna suit it up.
Other good players who are playing legacy cause they enjoy playing legacy are never gonna play it, because it's not actually fun to play. So that leaves the new players and budget players.
I would never ever trim a mother of runes. That card wins games. Lots of them. It is one of those cards that amplifies the deck and your skill with it.
I like the idea of having the 4 Plains, sometimes it's nice to be able to cast Crusader, Wisp, or Mangara post Magus, and it can be annoying sometimes, normally not an issue. A lot of decks now don't have Mom helping out much against combo decks and Eldrazi it feels like a wasted card, but they are still good against a lot of things, which is why I was torn about the 3 main, but definitely wanted all 4 in the 75. I'm perfectly happy with my 3 SFM as sometimes I do Recruiter for one to help get my specific equipment, but I normally don't need to, and it always sort of makes me sad when I'm playing D&T and a SFM gets blown out before it gets to do its thing with cheating into play, and I like it better as 3 in Imperial Taxes as I don't always want it in my opener, but it's still nice to draw most games without needing to search it out.Quote:
Originally Posted by iatee
I haven't had any issues with casting the Sudden Demise, I like Magus against Elves, shuts them down a lot, obviously not completely, but it slows them down. I also like the card a lot against Mentor Miracles, They normally don't play more than 1 or 2 spells on my turn anyway, so playing it for more mana normally is not a problem as it gets around Counterbalance a lot more often.
Pretty much the when the Sudden Demise comes into play I am still playing the Magus in the deck, so having the 1 plateau hasn't ever been a problem, at least not yet.
@Finn, I was torn very much about the Mom split, and it does do a lot of work against a lot of matches, but it's sometimes also just a 1/1 beater for 1, and I'd rather have another real beater in my list (for me it's more like a 22nd land, I play 21 in my D&T and very rarely have issues there).
In some local metas, I wouldn't be surprised if playing fewer Moms were totally fine. Like if you expect to see Pure combo/Elves/Eldrazi for 50% of g1s, it isn't that crazy to want play fewer Eager Cadets.
In a blind meta I think it's probably not a good idea. But with the recent growth of Eldrazi it's certainly less-wrong.
Hi folks.
First time poster on here but I've been really enjoying and learning a lot from the healthy discussions.
I've recently returned to MTG after an 8 year hiatus and fell straight into death and taxes due to my penchant for annoying white decks with little people :cool:
I've been playing a WW version with 3 wingmares and 3 caverns - so particularly liked seeing this as a feature of your Wr build nmks and wholeheartedly agree on the caverns being vial backup++ (and congrats on the 1st place on mtgo).
Been having some fun down my LGS, but nothing serious at the moment. However there are s couple elves players and I've been wracking my brains for solutions.
I tried the Wb version for orzhov pontiffs and zealous persecutions but found it pretty horrible in initial testing on cockatrice so took it no further.
So, with the possibility for red cards I got thinking and would like to make a suggestion... Laugh if you will, maybe it's a non-starter
It's most certainly slow. But how is Ali from Cairo? Without Mom to back it up most elves builds seem to have maximum 3 abrupt decays to beat it. Perhaps then sword of light and shadow as an additional backup, albeit another slow piece. With Mom it seems like a lock for them, and our flyers FtW?! I'm probably missing something.
Anyway, just a thought. It's only 1 card in the SB. Maybe steal a few elves matches out of sheer surprise value alone :eyebrow:
Keep up the good work.
Thanks.
...though of course a DRS could get around it though.Quote:
Originally Posted by itsmrjack
I would *love* to have an excuse to play that card, but it's worse than Magus of the Moat at what it would be doing vs Elves.
With Ali, Elves can attack you to 1 then DRS drain you once to kill you. With Moat, they can't attack at all, and can only DRS drain, so unless they're playing something like Shaman of the Pack it's a pretty solid fortress. It's also good vs Merfolk, though they have a few more ways to interact with it.
The problem is it's 4 mana, and Elves goes off on t3, so it's not 'enough' of a solution on its own, and (like Sudden Demise, imo) doesn't have enough other matchups where it's good to justify its spot in a board.
Also - PS, for both Ali and Moat, Abrupt Decay doesn't even hit them, so you don't need a Mom. They're (but especially Moat) just a lock in themselves.
I'm not talking about taking this list only to a local meta tournament, but blind ones as well. I don't think that playing 3 main Mother of Runes is a bad thing, it is most definitely unconventional, but without doing unconventional things, you never learn if there's a better option out there. How do you think that innovations sometimes become mainstays?Quote:
Originally Posted by iatee
I believe that 3 Mother of Runes in the main with the 4th in the board is not a bad call going into a blind meta. Eldrazi is on the rise (Pun intended), MUD, ANT, T.E.S., Omni-Show, and more unusual decks like High Tide are bad decks for Mom. Mom does nothing against those decks (or pretty close to it, unless you're just trying to win a pure race).
I know that Mom is her best in the earliest of games, but with the decks that seem to be gaining in popularity, Mom isn't the best of cards. Also With Magus in play, it's harder for certain spells (ie: Abrupt Decay) to make us sad. I don't think I would ever play less than 3 main and 1 side. I think it's a reasonable split, and in the match ups where it may hurt, things are skewed a bit once Magus gets online anyway. In D&T I would never play anything other than the full set main board, but this is IT we're talking here in regards to my deck, very similar, but different.
Mom also combines *with* Magus for a hard lock against bolt decks, however.
Again, I think it's something worth testing, even if I (without having tested either myself) feel like it's more likely that 3 SfM main could be long-term viable than 3 Mom main. I also have been advocating for Cavern of Souls heavy builds for a long time now and any human in the deck becomes marginally better while every non-human gets marginally worse.
But, abstractly - one of the weaknesses of D+T is how few one drops there are. Vial on 1 is often 'wasted'. Having 8 one drops with Mom/Vial means your chances of having a turn one play of some sort is okay - something like 65% before mulligans, so still lower than what you'd want it to be. By going down on 1 drops your chances of having a 'wasted' turn 1 becomes even higher. Most of the rest of the decks in legacy are filled with mana-efficient spells and have game relevant early turns. So even if Mom herself is bad vs an increasing number of decks (that might not actually be the case, since I think Eldrazi is gonna freeze out all but the most dedicated Storm players), that matters less than it would for a given 3 drop.
I very much agree here with what iatee has to say about the 1 drop slots. That was what I was thinking when someone suggested that cutting on Mother of Runes could be ok.Quote:
Originally Posted by iatee
A lot of the times when you look at what makes a good hand for D&T, it is if there's a turn 1 play and how well it sets up the next turn. Is there a vial to play into port? Is there Mother of Runes into Stoneforge Mystic? Is there a Swords to Plowshares for their turn 1 play and then a follow up Thalia? etc.
I rarely keep hands without 1 drops and therefor I would never cut them, Swords to Plowshares is by far the weakest 1 drop, it barely counts as a 1 drop really, and it's the only one I would ever consider trimming down the numbers on (and it's besides the point, but I board out 4x Swords to Plowshares in ~50% of match ups by now).
iatee, thanks for indulging in ol' Ali...
...man, tell me about it! That mysterious scowl... "look into the emerald, not around the emerald, look intooo the emerald..." heheQuote:
Originally Posted by iatee
Agreed. I completely forgot about the existence of this card (I think it came out around the time I quit last).Quote:
Originally Posted by iatee
Yeah I put a PS on this, figuring it immediately after my initial post! Darn DRS.Quote:
Originally Posted by iatee
Aye, it is slooow. Anyhow, a singleton Magus of the Moat + 2/3 Sudden Demise doesn't seem too shabby for an Elves-heavy meta (as uncommon as it sounds, it's the case at my LGS). This gets me thinking about curves vs. Elves...Quote:
Originally Posted by iatee
Proposition:
Ok, so beginning with the premise that, at least when D&T is on the play after a G1 thumping, a T2 Sudden Demise or Canonist or Containment Priest is enough to keep us alive till T4 (obviously not always the case but let's just go with it). Ahemm...
So then what is the better (and by better I mean laying ground to win rather than just staying afloat) following sequence?
either:
(A) T3 Recruiter for Magus of the Moat, T4 Magus of the Moat, T5 play a flyer...
or
(B) T3 SfM get Jitte, T4 play Jitte equip attack (+ mana up for StP), T5 some further disruption or beats...
Clearly lots of ifs buts and maybes involved in either sequence. My point though is simply that the Elves plan seems to fairly often be about T2 disruption followed by getting Jitte online and that getting Jitte online is almost always a 2-turn play (though I've seen others reasonably argue that Jitte is often too slow anyway). Both sequences fall to Thoughseize obvs–but let's go with it for now...
The presence or otherwise of StP, filling in the curve at T1 or T3 seems non-trivial, and sequence (A) leaves only T1 space for StP, meaning that T3 we're wide open compared with seq. (B). But otherwise I feel that Recruiter into Magus of the Moat has a lot going for it as a plan over SfM into active Jitte.
Thoughts?
I'm accutely aware I may be flogging a dead horse here but seems worthy to at least map it out a bit. Perhaps it's been done already though?!
On the draw, however, I think that the spare mana for a possible StP(/Path) that a T3 SfM allows us could be crucial.
Another point of interest here is that if sequence (A) is opted for then does Containment Priest get marginally better than Canonist due to its ability to totally shut off both N.O. and Zenith, therefore leaving their only option to kill us till Mr Moat hits being an early hard-cast Behemoth or Glimpse sequence into Behemoth? Admittedly I haven't seen enough Glimpse sequences to know how reliably and quickly they can go off into lethal Behemoth... I've usually been killed by N.O. or T5/T6 hard-cast Behemoth the times I've played Elves. Hmmm.. Canonist is probably still the favourite here.
Ah yes, thanks for this. You know when a drawback seems to so rarely come up that you forget it's there entirely!Quote:
Originally Posted by iatee
cheers