[Deck] Deadguy Ale (B/w Confidant)

I'd pick Specter over Fiend because Specter is a recurring source of discard, whereas Fiend nails one card and that's it, no further pressure unless you play more discard. Specter's discard is also random, which can sometimes give combo and control players fits. Specter also has evasion and is a 2/2. There have been times where I've stalled the ground up with some Shades, but needed something to push through damage. That's where Specter comes in. While 2/2's for 3 are pretty slow when they're not Ritualed out first turn, Specter is the best creature with a power/ability/cost ratio. Fiend is only a 1/1, and while nabbing 1 card you want for one less B is cute, they need only bounce it or easily deal with it to get the card back, whereas the damage Specter has done to their hand will remain even after it has been dealt with.

I value Specter higher than Fiend, and I would choose him over Fiend every time.

I agree with your assessment of Hypnotic Specter. In my testing it has been pretty effective. I do think Mesmeric Fiend could find a place in the deck, though. What are your thoughts on Duress? I know it's THE staple discard spell, but I've found that in the current Legacy meta it often times misses completely, especially against Goblins (which typically makes up a third of the field). Mes Fiend costs 1 more than Duress, and they have the ability to get that card back, but it can remove creature cards and at the least slow them down for a couple turns.

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Originally Posted by B.C.

I agree with your assessment of Hypnotic Specter. In my testing it has been pretty effective. I do think Mesmeric Fiend could find a place in the deck, though. What are your thoughts on Duress? I know it's THE staple discard spell, but I've found that in the current Legacy meta it often times misses completely, especially against Goblins (which typically makes up a third of the field). Mes Fiend costs 1 more than Duress, and they have the ability to get that card back, but it can remove creature cards and at the least slow them down for a couple turns.

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What do you never have a target against? Goblins, right? I think that that's about it as far as duress's suckiness goes, as against everything else, you will always have a pull.

Duress is good because it is 1cc. The mana curve of this deck is rather high right now, with few 1 drops as it is. 4 less 1 drops means less hands that do in quick tendrils combo, less hands that are keepabale without a dark ritual, and less options to get rid of opposing counterspells. I feel fine cutting the number of duresses down to 3, if I really want to fit something in, but that's about it. It's a staple.

Just tossing this out there: http://mtgsalvation.com/planar-chaos-spoiler.html

Necrotic sliver. It's a vindicate on legs. I think that the 3cc and 3 mana for the activation is too much for the deck, but it might be interesting as a 2-of or something. Also, extripate looks like it's real. And how about a blue splash in here? could work. Just brainstorming.

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Originally Posted by rsaunder

What do you never have a target against? Goblins, right? I think that that's about it as far as duress's suckiness goes, as against everything else, you will always have a pull.

Duress is good because it is 1cc. The mana curve of this deck is rather high right now, with few 1 drops as it is. 4 less 1 drops means less hands that do in quick tendrils combo, less hands that are keepabale without a dark ritual, and less options to get rid of opposing counterspells. I feel fine cutting the number of duresses down to 3, if I really want to fit something in, but that's about it. It's a staple.

Just tossing this out there: http://mtgsalvation.com/planar-chaos-spoiler.html

Necrotic sliver. It's a vindicate on legs. I think that the 3cc and 3 mana for the activation is too much for the deck, but it might be interesting as a 2-of or something. Also, extripate looks like it's real. And how about a blue splash in here? could work. Just brainstorming.

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I think that the new Sliver is a great card, but I dont think it can be put into the deck. Its three casting cost, and can't be Ritualed into play. That means, you have to burn a ritual on your second turn and have a white mana source in play if you want to get him out as early as possible. After that, you have to wait an additional turn (assuming you hit 3 land drops) if you want to activate him.

I would much rather Ritual out Hippy or Hymn, Duress.
Or Sinkhole, Duress. Or pretty much anything.

If he cost 1BB or BBB or something like that, then I would play him in a heartbeat, but you can not easily cast him.


If we went for a blue splash, what would we add to the deck?
Card draw?

I think if I added a blue splash, I'd rather just play U/W/b Fish instead. You'd have Confidant, Brainstorm, etc. for draw with Grunt and Avenger as beaters. You could add Duress to the MD, but you'd also get FoW, Stifle, and Mage against combo and Mother of Runes to protect your dudes. It also opens up your mana base more for other decks like Red Death or regular Deadguy to hate on. I don't see it being particularly needed.

And I'm also not much of a fan for the sliver. As has been discussed, his mana cost is prohibitive and he's at the 3cc marker and another 3 to activate, which kinda pushes the overall mana cost of the deck up. Extirpate, though, makes for a very powerful SB card.

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Originally Posted by Anarky87

I think if I added a blue splash, I'd rather just play U/W/b Fish instead. You'd have Confidant, Brainstorm, etc. for draw with Grunt and Avenger as beaters. You could add Duress to the MD, but you'd also get FoW, Stifle, and Mage against combo and Mother of Runes to protect your dudes. It also opens up your mana base more for other decks like Red Death or regular Deadguy to hate on. I don't see it being particularly needed.

And I'm also not much of a fan for the sliver. As has been discussed, his mana cost is prohibitive and he's at the 3cc marker and another 3 to activate, which kinda pushes the overall mana cost of the deck up. Extirpate, though, makes for a very powerful SB card.

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Meh, twas merely a thought. Similarly with the U splash. If I were to make the deck 3 colors for any reason, it would be green for deed.

I don't remember if I posted that, but I tried it a while back. Kinda mediocre. Helped the thresh match, hindered the goblins (I never got to cast deed, I was just too bust getting my lands wasted). Obviously sucked against solidarity. Very meh.

A friend took third place this past sunday with Suppression Field in the maindeck. It added alot of pressure to decks playing fetchlands alongside the rest of the LD. That might be worth more attention.

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Originally Posted by bane_of_the_living

A friend took third place this past sunday with Suppression Field in the maindeck. It added alot of pressure to decks playing fetchlands alongside the rest of the LD. That might be worth more attention.

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So then I assume he didn't play Shade (4BB just to pump twice) or Scroll (5) and made his own fetches and Wastes (If he ran any) worse? I'd like to know the exact list before I make any real judgements though.

He played Serra Avenger and Plague Spitter. No Shade or Scroll. He still played 4 fetches and some amount of Wastelands. Obviously the anti synergy wasnt too much since he took 3rd.

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Originally Posted by bane_of_the_living

He played Serra Avenger and Plague Spitter. No Shade or Scroll. He still played 4 fetches and some amount of Wastelands. Obviously the anti synergy wasnt too much since he took 3rd.

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Apparently not too much. Avenger seems ok, since you'll spend most of your first couple turns playing disruption, and Spitter has always been kinda 'meh' in my opinion. Four fetches and I'm gonna guess at least 2 Wastes still seems like a lot of symmetrical splash damage from Field, depending on how many he ran. If you can get the list and post it, I'm sure that'd be great.

So I tried this whole Plague Spitter and Serra Avenger thing.
Spitter kills Confidant. Bad idea in my book. Serra Avenger, however, I've actually liked having a 2/2 split with Nantuko Shade. The reasoning behind this is that while Shade's benefit is being castable in early turns, the downfall is once 2 are on the board they become hard to manage. While the Avenger can't be played on the turns you usually go duress-smallpox-hymn, the turn after the hymn she is a cheap fat flier that won't be a thorn in your spine from Bob, and can deal 3 damage while blocking almost every goblin. This also makes 1/3(or so) of your threats white(3 Grunt). Not that CoP:Black is played in every deck or anything, I'm just saying a 3/3 goes a long way in this deck.

One last thing. Jotun Grunt has become a Withered Wretch/Rotting Giant on steriods. I really feel 3 is a must-have.

I'd like to also chime in that Spitter with a Mogg Fanatic on the table will also shoot down your Specter, which is the only flying creature you have against them (unless you play Avenger). There would be some nice tricks you could pull with it's going to the graveyard trigger, but I don't think this deck could abuse it properly.

As for the Avenger, how often do you consistently see the WW by turn 4? I remember pages ago that people were very reluctant to have a board sweeper like WoG or Exalted Angel in the deck, and the main agreement was the WW in the casting cost/morph cost was the biggest culprit. My biggest concern is anything that's packing Wasteland would cripple this card from being played, as well as future spells, due to our small white manabase.

And Jotun Grunt is still amazing. With the addition of 3-4 Smallpox, I've never had issues running a minimum of 3 of this guy. I may actually turn him into the heavy hitter of the deck, and run my Shades down to 2, or cut them completely.

I'm also testing Extirpate in the SB now, so if I can get some results in some matches I'll post them. Also, Urborg is such an amazing card that I've decided to look into testing with Wastelands again. I'll see if that destabilizes my manabase at all, I'm considering running 2-3 Urborgs over swamps, just so I can get to them fast without cluttering the hand.

So yeah, I too am running 3 MB grunt now, with the third in place of one Hippy. I really like it.

Avenger would be awesome, but Deathwing hit the nail on the head. The WW cc is just too much for the manabase to handle consistantly.

So what's everyone's board looking like after the month or so since this thread has been bumped? Any new tech anyone wants to share?

Mine is, as of right now:
4 plague
3 dystopia
2 chalice of the void
2 pithing needle
2 STP (fine, it seems like a good call as a 2-of right now, shut up)
2 serenity

Deathwing: It's not getting 2 white on the table-it's keeping 2 white on the table. An opening hand with Avenger just means you'll probably be getting Scrubland before Swamp with your fetchlands. With only 2 Avengers, it's not so often that you see her to make a hassle to cast. I've also replaced my 2 Godless Shrine back to Tainted Field. For some reason, people don't Wasteland a Tainted Field half the time. I guess something subliminal about Shrine's life payment makes it enticing?

Rsaunder: My creature base has 3 Grunt 3 Specter as well. I think taking out a hyppie gives Dark Ritual it a little more freedom to pound the immediate disruption earlier, where hyppie just seals the deal afterwards. Jotun Grunt lets you shuffle all your Vindicates back into your deck for each fetchland you crack. Even goldfishing he can stick around for 8 damage played turn 3. Plus, he's a beast after that turn 3 Smallpox(potential 6 total cards in graveyards...gotta love it).
As for my board, I will be trying out Suppression Field at our City Champs here(only 2 of them are Legacy Format:/), but with only 2 Shade I think they could be quite potent against a few tough matchups for us. So. I suppose this is my current board:

2 Negator(Iggy/Tide are played here. hmph.)
2 Suppression Field(Above mentioned builds are running 8 fetchlands...and I can't afford Chains of Meph quite yet. This is probably going to make the PC shift to Extirpate.)
3 Dystopia(you know.)
4 Plague(All goblins players in Stl are incompetant. I could possibly make this Damnation. I'm wondering if the new white Drop of Honey will work in this slot.)
4 Swords to Plowshares(Eh. Gotta have 'em against good aggro.)

The white Drop of Honey would quickly eat up your own dudes too. Since the majority of your deck runs 2 power dudes you would have a slight advantage over goblins, but not enough to justify running it over Engineered Plague, which can just lock them down.

Exitrpate: It isn't half as good as people say it is. When you board it in Iggy boards in Xantid Swarm and Solidarity/Spring Tide boards in skill, making it a rather weak card. I would stick with the suppression fields since they come online earlier and wouldn't hurt you all that much.

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Originally Posted by Cait_Sith

Exitrpate: It isn't half as good as people say it is. When you board it in Iggy boards in Xantid Swarm

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Which they then would have to find right away, play, and hope it doesn't die. And who's to say you haven't Duressed/Hymn'd something vital away that you can just Extirpate in response?

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and Solidarity/Spring Tide boards in skill, making it a rather weak card. I would stick with the suppression fields since they come online earlier and wouldn't hurt you all that much.

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I'm not even sure I'd bring it in against Solidarity. After playing Red Death (And this doesn't pertain to B/w, so I apologize), I'm not entirely sure that burn isn't just better. It doesn't really do a whole lote against them unless you can make them discard something useful, like Wish, and follow it up with Extirpate.

Is the card over-hyped? Yes, very much. Is it still a very powerful card in the perfect color? Absolutely. It fits right into black's function in Legacy, and I see no reason not to run some amount in your board.

Ooh, I like periphery nodes in the board here, it looks like a dystopia for all creature based decks a little, doesn't it?

When PC shifts in, I'm definitely fitting 2/3 nodes and 2/3 extripate in the board where chalice and swords are right now.

The way I look at it, Jotun Grunt would be probably the last creature to die, given a creature's dieing for each Node to fill is c. upkeep, and he's 4/4. It's completely untested though. As for Extirpate, yes, I'm sure it's all hype if you're not running discard...in Deadguy...something as simple as stealing all your Flooded Strands can be huge. Wait a second, you can't FoW it? ;)

I know a lot of people don't like Serra's Avenger because of the double white in the casting cost, so what about Mystic Zealot (3W). It comes down the same turn as the avenger and with all of the sorceries, wastelands, and fetchlands in the deck most of the time it's a 3/5 flyer. Even when you don't have threshold he's still out of bolt range, unlike Serra's Avenger. The only disadvantages are that it costs four, so you can't disrupt and cast it on your fourth turn, it's not always flying, and it doesn't have vigilance. But the ability to block Werebears, Chimeric Idols, Moongoose, and more I think might even it out.

Because Vigilance is that sick. Avenger also allows you to cast 2 spells on turn 4 without a dark rit.

Reason 3? http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/Card...aspx?&id=83771