What's your current listQuote:
Originally Posted by Reeplcheep
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What's your current listQuote:
Originally Posted by Reeplcheep
It was added to the third post of the primer.Quote:
Originally Posted by Obamamw3
Mini TR:
Got 12th/72 in the Saturday challenge
I made small changes to the list. I expected lots of combo and snow, so I trimmed some oko removal for more gas. The most important thing vs control is drawing that second must-answer threat, so an extra curse target curse of fools wisdom and “Sylvan library” Treacherous Blessing was great. This does make your tempo Matchups worse but rug is already pretty bad. Plan was to dodge rug.
Opposition Agent continues to be game winning vs combo, control and base-green, but I do think it is better served in the sideboard. Mostly to avoid turning on opponents’ g1 plows. The smoothing of pelakka predation continues to overperform. The recent popularity of snow Hullbreacher (more arcanist, less decay) made leyline and chalice a lot better in control matchups than normal. Elspeth’s nightmare was great in the extra removal slot. With rug running y. Peezy over green creatures and arcanist/uro everywhere, it can often be a 2 for 1.
Matchups:
0-2 some snow variant
2-1 rector fit. 1: they played neoform plus deep glow skate for the instant ultimate off of arena rector. maximum jank, I love it. 2: Opposition agent is insane vs them.
2-0 some snow variant. Hard cast foolswisdom was actually pretty strong here if I remember correctly.
2-0 no-R loam. They just don’t have answers to a fast curse, I think they were running apparitions.
2-1 Rug Delver. Failed the dodge rug plan. Elspeth leads to a t2 helm kill through brainstorm & force of negation.
0-2 D&T. Kept hands that were a bit too land light and never drew out of them. Probably should have mulligans more aggressively instead of getting tempted by the 2x PE 2 lander. He went on to get 4th.
2-1 snow day. I think it’s silly that 4 slots makes a completely new deck in blue control land. Don’t remember games much, but he asked for a concession into top8 after losing g3. Is that BM? I thought it’s pretty haughty to not ask before g1. He ended up making top8 and then lost in finals anyways after I refused.
Overall very satisfied with the performance. hopefully this puts more spotlight on the deck as one of the best chalice or monoB decks in the format.
As you can see from my matchups, generally your life total is irrelevant and the games are all about engines right now. Sylvan Library is highly played for this reason. I was thinking of trying a jank list with 2 nesting grounds.
I was very high on this card when Ikoria was spoiled, but then companions happened...
Now that wasteland is at an all time low, the engine of nesting grounds plus treacherous blessing seems very attractive. With no 1BB spells at all and extra black sources in pelakka caverns, the opportunity cost of an untapped colourless source is pretty low. It offers raw card draw to power through the “force everything” play style rampant nowadays. Additionally Elspeth nightmare is a card I already want to play as an arcanist/uro answer; with nesting grounds it is a Defeat or Duress with buyback. Minor advantages would be resetting chalice if you cast it in the blind vs Urza or something. Or you can use it to save loyalty from legend ruled karns.
Yeah, that's ridiculous. The time to ask is before the match begins.Quote:
Originally Posted by Reeplcheep
Congrats on your finish. Looks like the deck is back on the menu.
Same thing I posted on Twitter: a few leagues after the challenge I got another 5-0 with almost the same list. I feel pretty good about the meta position of the deck. Sideboard discard/agent and the extra curse improves the blue control matchup greatly, and you still destroy non-blue or unfair decks. Curse of Fool’s wisdom has been good vs control because sylvan library/Klothys/days undoing combo are being played more, which it shuts down. Additionally with games going longer drawing your targets is more likely. This both improves the quality of curse of misfortunes if cruel reality is drawn and is not unreasonable to hard cast if drawn itself in long games.
Depths, Stryfo, and RUG are the only matches where I feel like the underdog, but these matches are still more winnable than they used to be. Rug is easier since they have mostly switched to Young Pyromancer from green creatures, making them more vulnerable to Plague engineer. Opposition Agent has been a godsend for the depths and stryfo matchup. It also improved maverick/12 post so much I think they’re actually favoured post board.
List
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsJLujYV...jpg&name=small
Matchups
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsJLwjmV...jpg&name=small
My time as a modern lantern player taught me how strong targeted discard is in prison. Theoretically, this is since prison quickly reduces the amount of relevant cards to a very small number. Vs snow for example basically all that matters are forces and ways to find forces through chalice (uro/library). I have tried non targeted discard in the past in curses like hymn and davriel but they usually have a ton of irrelevant cards to discard. The deck really wants Thoughtseize on a theoretical level but the chalice and ancient tomb non-bos are too strong I think. Hence I am trying the various alternatives like collective brutality, Agonizing Remorse and Elspeth’s nightmare. Collective brutality is the worst discard but is cute with fools wisdom and can kill ouphe/delver. Remorse is the closest to Thoughtseize but has minimal upside (minor gy hate). Elspeth has the highest upside (2 or 3 for 1 some of the time) but is expensive and slow. What do people think is the best?
An example of the discard being strong this league was t1 remorse taking their only creature interaction (FOW) into t2 agent steal a fetch. This single handily beat snowicles with a great anti prison hand (2 wilts, land plus fetch, cantrips, snap).
I went back to curses Monday after flirting with Esper control and got an easy 4-1. The deck is great at beating the anti blue decks and slow blue can be beat with proper Sideboarding. Just gotta dodge or get lucky vs rug.
You can see the strength of the deck vs combo in this vid posted today
I make 2 critical errors (not saving pelakka for pulverize g1 and giving free storm with agent g2), but still manage to beat the best in the business.
I also added some thoughts to the primer in orange.
I would be interested in people’s thoughts about discard vs removal. The tempo of Eliminate is essential vs the top deck rug delver, and also good vs ur and d&t. However almost every other popular deck it is dead or bad compared to the more versatile Agonizing Remorse Vs snow and snow variants taking fow/uro is more important than killing one of their endless 3 drops. Vs elves and titanpost it is about equal. Vs oops, Doomsday, TEs, gaak, lands the exiling discard is amazing and the removal is dead.
In agreement with kinda gold fishing has shown 2 mana to be more important than cycling of memory leak or the removal of Elspeth’s nightmare.
In general I don’t win rug even with 4 eliminate so maybe it’s better to focus on turning my 55-50 % matchups (a+b combo and slow blue) into clear wins. What makes remorse a good maindeck card (ok but not amazing vs anything) makes Sideboarding weird due to lack of cuts. Maybe I add more karn bullets that I took out for lack of space. (Torpor orb for doomsday and crypt for gy decks)
Perhaps in a list with so much mana and so little card selection the flexibility of Thoughtseize is better than the tempo of removal. I’m not convinced Thoughtseize is better than chalice hence the 2 cmc version in remorse.
Draft:
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
8 Snow-covered Swamp
4 Pelakka Predation // Pelakka Caverns
4 Dark Ritual
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Agonizing Remorse
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Helm of Obedience
4 Karn, the Great Creator
4 Curse of Misfortunes
1 Curse of Death’s Hold
1 Cruel Reality
1 Curse of Fool’s Wisdom
1 Overwhelming Splendor
3 Plague Engineer
2 Opposition Agent
2 Soul Shatter
1 Torpor Orb
1 Tormod’ Crypt
1 Vault of Whispers
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Mycrosynth Lattice
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Liquimettal Coating
Any other good karn targets I am missing for this meta?
Juntu Stakes
Cheap elves/arcanist/y. Peezy answer
Armix, Filigree Thrasher
Wish-able Ouphe answer.
Welding Jar
Protect a Chalice?
Pithing Needle
If you cast karn with a mana floating.
Shield Sphere
Free elk Defense
Heart of Kiran
Elk/delver Defense.
Glad to see you're back on this.
Just watched the video. Good match. Game 1 I think playing out Predation as a land was not a mistake. You already saw their hand with Memories (no 3cmc) and you discarded the Burning Wish, so what were the chances they had a 3cmc to hit? They got lucky immediately cantripping into a 2nd Wish and another red source, then they chose to Wish for Pulverize the turn before using it instead of the same turn. If they hadn't found Wish so easily or hadn't held Pulverize for a turn, Predation wouldn't have mattered. That was the one narrow scenario where you needed Predation, just variance. Based on the information you saw, playing out Predation seemed reasonable. It was unlikely to have targets.
Have you cut Curse of Exhaustion? Bryant Cook played around you as though you had it.
Cruel Reality isn't bugged again is it?
How bad does the RUG matchup become if you cut Eliminate completely? What about a 2/2 split with Memories? Or some Eliminate in the SB? Using 3cmc Soul Shatter to remove 1cmc Delver seems like how you lose vs tempo.
For Karn targets, think about what would help you either win or not lose the game, because SB space is precious. Welding Jar and Shield Sphere seem too marginal. It's good sometimes, but enough to take a spot?
Needle seems bad with Chalice and sphere. The cases where you need it, don't have a resistor, and don't have enough mana for Spyglass are probably narrow. Record some games and see if it comes up often, but I'm guessing it was just a bad beat from variance.
Armix is an interesting answer to Ouphe stopping Helm. You could also Eliminate it, but if you cut all targetted creature removal from the 75 then you probably do need an out somewhere.
I appreciate your comments.
In hindsight I think you are right. The can win through chalice on 0, so playing to end the game as fast as possible is correct. If I had a trinisphere however they can only win by pulverize so I should have saved it.
I cut exhaustion a while ago since with the rise of doomsday it’s worse in combo matchups, and fools wisdom was printed which does similar things. Fools wisdom can be hard casted, answers Klothys and burn, and provides a secondary wincon if cruel reality was exiled to mox. No cruel reality bugs, but a few minor city of Traitors and agent ones.
Losing eliminate makes my Delver mu a bit worse and maverick/d&t mu a lot worse. Improves most other matchups though. Soul shatter is for turbo Tibalt and Marit Lage, perhaps should just be more spyglasses? Agreed it’s bad vs Delver.
Agree on the iffier karn targets.
Do you think armix is better than more removal in the board or ballista?
If tibber's is here for good, should Necromentia return to the deck? Possibly unmask too to get more turn 1 interaction.
They also have 4xVeil of Summer main to turn off Chalice @ 0 for a turn, so there were a lot of outs besides Pulverize. They could also Wish and cast Pulverize in the same turn, protecting them from discard, or be holding up Veil to turn off your discard. There were a lot of ways for them to win in that gamestate that Predation couldn't stop. Meanwhile you had nothing else out, so it seemed like you needed the mana to be proactive.Quote:
Originally Posted by Reeplcheep
I thought they also had Abrupt Decay or Chain of Vapor too (for even more outs), but the Decays are in the board and they cut Chain completely from that build.
With a 3sphere game 1 (and their Decays in the board), then yes their only out is to Wish into Pulverize over separate turns, and they can't protect it with Veil, so that's where discard really secures the lock.
That makes sense. Other than Doomsday and Burn, which matchups are Fools Wisdom better in? Which are Curse of Exhaustion better in? Is Exhaustion only better vs Storm? Does it help low-curve matchups like Delver at all, or have you already won either way once you have Curses out?Quote:
Originally Posted by Reeplcheep
Tough call. I would definitely run Armix if you stick with 0 Eliminate, because you need some targetted removal somewhere. Armix looks better than Ballista because Ballista can't kill Ouphe. Is there no Shriekmaw effect on an artifact creature?Quote:
Originally Posted by Reeplcheep
Oh right, Turbo Tibalt. Soul Shatter's strong then. Is there room for some Eliminates while keeping the Soul Shatters and Engineers? That's where I think you have to be careful with the Karnboard because adding too many tools really cuts down your SB space. How often is Torpor Orb good?
Edit: I assume Necromentia was cut earlier because of the BB cost, and that doesn't help much vs Turn 1 combo decks.
Necromentia or unmask could return to the deck. Those seem to bleed more value than just playing more md spyglass however.Quote:
Originally Posted by kinda
The other option is to cut chalice for 1 cmc discard as tomjab did above.
Yah I am in agreement.Quote:
Originally Posted by FTW
Fools wisdom has been helpful vs control (additional wincon if curses are drawn in long games, punishes uro + karakas durdle) and vs Wheel decks. The primary benefit of fools wisdom vs delver/xerox is turning off sylvan library and Klothys which are big problems for this deck. Exhaustion is only good vs storm(very good matchup) and Omni (favourable, but splendor is almost as good vs them). Both are not great vs tempo though just because you are adding 1 more difficult to cast card to the deck.Quote:
Originally Posted by FTW
The karn targets are just because the discard is always ok thus less cuts. If I ran more removal main board I would have more things to side out and thus trim on my karn package.Quote:
Originally Posted by FTW
There is noxious gearhulk And duplicant, but I was worried that might be a bit expensive. Pith Driller and Exectuioners Capsule Are cheaper but worse options.
Yeah that makes sense.
Gearhulk and Duplicant both seem too slow. If you have the game state to pass the turn with Karn and play a 6 cmc, how often is Lattice or Bridge or Helm not enough to get there? You could also run something like Steel Hellkite as a wincondition / removal, but you already have such big haymakers.
I assume you need cards to help when those don't work: e.g. Ouphe stopping Helm/Lattice (because Karn would be an artifact) or weenies like Dreadhorde beating through Bridge. In those scenarios Executioner's Capsule, Walking Ballista and Pith Driller don't really do much. But Armix solves a lot. Armix seems worth testing.
Nevinyrral's Disk is also a card. Unlike Oblivion Stone, it doesn't kill Karn and costs less total to activate. But it doesn't deal with Ouphe.
Torpor orb is not completely necessary, but it is useful in most matchups where I’d want the 4th plague engineer. The upside is the free value game 1 vs doomsday, goblins, breakfast, and oops.
Armix could also do silly things with the madness on fools wisdom.
Banning affecting this deck:
Oko being banned is a big deal; we can win through it but chalice and 3ball are more likely to eat a force of will from the opponent, and thus our payoffs should resolve more frequently.
Astrolabe isn’t a huge deal for this deck, but making blue decks choose between B2B or decay is nice. More fair non blue though helps a bunch. lands, D&T and Loam are pretty good matchups that fell of the side of the earth. I’m not sure what the effect on uro will be, but I don’t see leyline being bad vs fair blue anyways; if they cut uro they are probably playing sevinnes and sanctuary. Delver is likely cutting arcanist for Gurmag or goyf
This deck was quite good against arcanist, but the card kept down slow combo a bit. More storm would be great for us.
Cascade change: Valki, God of lies was a massive problem for this deck since it dodged eliminate and chalice was dead. Now we can go back to eliminates over spyglass/soul shatter.
Overall this should mean less of our worst matchups (rug directly, Valki directly, depths because more wasteland decks) and more of good matchups (loam, d&t, storm).
I would likely go back to 4 eliminate 4 Pelakka 1 Fools wisdom in fleet slots. In my experience vs ur delver that Configuration actually has a decent shot of winning there and should be good vs the rebirth of Thalia decks.
Good news for Curse players.
I expect to see less delver decks - our worst mu and arise of mavericks, loam decks & spell combos which is fine. Will try to change back main to 4cotv/4trini instead of 8 discards
yah well done with the success of discard. How has opposition agent md been? More blow-outs or more turning on dead plows?
I have gone 16-4 since the bannings in leagues. Deck feels quite good right now; blue control feels good and delver is no longer unwinnable now that plague engineer and chalice are real threats.
More fair non-blue and less depths is also great for this deck. List and mus in tweet
Deck feels solid. Only wondering if 3rd agent is better than a torpor orb (game 1s vs doomsday) and if I need a 19th untapped land (t1 b sources are at the bottom end)
List looks good overall but 4 Eliminates seems excessive (and dead against too many matchups) in the post-oko world.
Maindecking Ensnaring Bridge, Agonizing Remorse, or one of the new removal spells seem like the better route to take.
Yah that is where I am least certain. I was expecting a bunch of very fast ur delver and Thalia decks where it is great, but that didn’t materialize.Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain Hammer
Options:
Soul shatter: answers to fast Marit Lage and fast karn which are problems for the deck. clunky
Hagra’s mauling: an extra land drop is always useful, helps against uptick in wasteland. Really clunky.
Remorse: really flexible. Proactive so better t1 play usually. Tempo negative, life loss.
The abyss: very powerful, slow
Rider: threat if dead, hard to cast.
Bridge: the deck gets cards stuck in hand too easily imo.
Perhaps the best option is swap in the remorses with 2 of the md eliminates?
Still trying to figure out the last flex slots. One thing I have realized and why I don’t go below 2 helms is that the deck has a mild threat density problem. It’s constructed such that only 1 card needs to resolve to win, so you can run more interaction. That does mean however that ~ 10% of hands just have all hate and you don’t draw a finisher before t5. Having an eliminate rotting in your hand while the opponent draws out of 3 ball is a problem.
My wish list for it would be:
- 1 black pip
- 2-3 cmc
- Doesn’t die to removal
- Proactive, can play t1 otp.
- Flexible enough to be worth playing vs all fair decks at least.
- Can win the game if given enough time.
Agent was proactive but not great vs all fair decks and dying to removal was a big problem. The early damage often didn’t matter either.
Eliminate is great in oko.fmt but not being proactive and not helping the decks threat density problems.
Rider is wincon and flexible, but not really proactive, also BB pips.
Maybe it’s time for Liliana the last hope? She meets everything except for double black pips. However since I last tried her oko has been banned (who just destroys her) and I started running pelakka predation (way more black sources if I need them). We are starting to see more x/1s like peezy and Thalia and snapcaster again. She is very good against decks that ignore chalice like plague engineer. Doesn’t turn on removal. T1 play worth Ritualing into. Actually wins the game within 5 turns if the opponent doesn’t do anything, increasing threat density vs control. Has slight synergy with splendor, deaths hold and plague engineer.
Thoughts? If you like it, how many copies? Does she need some eliminates as support?
Edit: I want 2 urborg for Liliana and 0 urborg for agent. The only matchups they overlap really is maverick so I think I should be ok with a clean swap for sideboard agents and vault of whispers.
Doom fall is proactive removal but is pretty low power level. Collective brutality might be good again with pws and x/3s being less common. Synergy with bridge and fools wisdom.
Hello Reeplcheep,
Love the deck, I have been brewing on some Black Stompy for a while, then I saw your nice video with Phil G, it made me try the deck and I'm enjoying it very much!
Liliana LH seems a good idea, maybe just 1 MD? BB could be a problem, but I've tried Liliana of the Veil in a Zombie Stompy with the same mana base and it was okay. Worth trying for sure!
Other ideas..: 1 Toxic Deluge? Liliana's triumph?
Really glad to hear I inspired you!Quote:
Originally Posted by tillcor
I tried 2 brutality 2 lili in 2 leagues. Lili was ok but the flexibility of brutality (with oko and arcanist gone) was really good. I could see a 3/1 split making sense.
Compared to something like eliminate, the combo and control matchups are way better, and the deck just runs smoother. After a few leagues , I ran hot through a bunch of well-known grinders for a 5-0.
2-1 bant miracles
2-0 Omni (first lili emblem kill)
2-1 turbo depths (nightmare mu)
2-0 esper tezzerrator yorion ... thing
2-0 grixis phoenix (g1 t0 leyline concede :D)
Looks like a strong choice. Brutality's modes do everything you need it to now that Oko is banned.
Okay, so 2/2 then and no Eliminate? let's go!
I understand the flexibility of c. brutality, but I also noted that big creatures are back, like Tarmogoyf (at least in my community). I guess we'll reconsider it in a while when combo will be less present and the meta stabilized. And combo decks are a bit less played in paper, so...
Love Liliana though, reminds me of a good old huge Pox T1...
I was running 3 collective brutality 1 Liliana last hope that league which I think is better. I really dislike bb cards in the main deck but 1 lily (In addition to fools wisdom as a 4th curse) drastically lowers the amount of games where you lose to never drawing a win con.
Generally any creature that doesn’t care about brutality is weak to the plague engineers post board. It’s really only KOTR in maverick, deaths shadow in its namesake deck, or LOTV in pox where you’d rather have eliminate. Any delver threat taking their daze/fow is way more important than killing the threat. Additionally goyf is usually only to beat the mirror; most delver players prefer delve threats like mandrills/Gurmag in an open meta (which dodge eliminate). Hullbreacher/narset you can just take the days undoing or fow which are just as important. Elvish reclaimer is probably not a 3/4 on t1 or t2.
In the first omni game lily emblem provided a wincon where I never drew one which was great, but it was really the brutality stripping the show & tell that won me the game.
Warning long theory blurb
This actually leads into some of theory and innovation behind my deck that may not be obvious at first glance. When you put ancient tomb and chalice in your deck you inherently are trading flexibility and consistency for tempo. The first way people actually made stompy decks good is balls to the wall aggro deck like eldrazi. All your card do the same thing (smash face) and consistency doesn’t matter because they are hopefully dead by t4.
My deck takes the opposite approach of trading back some tempo for consistency. Traditionally decks do that with cantrips like brainstorm or tutors like GSZ but that’s not an option in stompy decks. Pelakka predation is not an mana-efficient card in your good hands but it’s your best card if your are pinched or flooded on mana. It’s always worth a card against almost any matchup, since it can answer a wasteland, a force, OR a doomsday. Collective brutality is similar in that it is less efficient than remorse or eliminate, but it gets stronger the worse your hand is (because of escalate) and can always trade with something (delver, Thalia, or show & tell).
The core idea is your lock pieces or fast threat hands are going to win no matter what in your good hands; your flex interactions job is to rescue your shitty hands. Which pelakka predation and collective brutality do very well. Flex interaction intentionally being low ceiling high floor cards is a large departure from other chalice deck and part of what makes my deck good.
The other reason why I like the targeted discard is that a+b combo is more popular than engine combo right now. In the league above you have depths/Phoenix/omni, and doomsday/narset day is popular too. Not too much elves/ant/TES/enchantress/Hogaak. Targeted Discard is so much better than additional hate pieces vs those decks (except depths, which is why it’s tough) because they only have a few cards that matter. Imagine drawing blood moon vs omni or spyglass vs omni. And then your lock pieces makes it hard for them to find another piece before they die.
This has been jank deckbuilding 201 with Dr. Reeplcheep. Tune in next time for “Sideboard mapping for dummies”.
Thank you for your thorough analysis, I totaly agree with you on all those points... I really like Pelakka too, and I understand that it is the obvious exemple of how flexible a card can be to serve our purpose. Can't wait to try Collective Brutality. Oh, and I just saw on twitter that you were running 4 Plague Engineers in SB, I get it now...
Do you remember how the Dark Depths match went?
Game 1.Quote:
Originally Posted by tillcor
Got discarded into t2 combo otd.
Game 2.
They had t3 natural combo without casting any spells. This is usually strong because it dodges 3ball/agent/chalice, but i had karn for bridge and they had no answer.
G3.
They kept a force of vigor + decay based hand for my lockpieces but got bodied by opposition agent x2.
Played in the challenge; depths was suddenly 10% of the meta and I faced them twice oof. Ended up 3-4. Perhaps with brutality main I need more flexible removal like soul shatter sideboard.
The flexibility of brutality has been great. I liked the extra win cons in lili tlh but she is very hard to cast and isn’t always great. Additionally the deck has felt a bit mana light: I have to use the predations as lands too much (would rather be spells most of the time and only lands in emergencies).
Thoughts on Crawling Barrens? Black decks have often used workshop to increase threat density. Untapped land when land screwed, powerful mana sink when flooded. I can pretty easily afford the charge up cost. 4/4s are quite a bit harder to kill than 3/3s in legacy. Now that oko is gone a 4/4 murders most planeswalkers. It also makes agent more of a gotcha since I have a credible reason to hold up mana until end of turn.
What's your current list?
When did you cut Soul Shatter in the SB? I thought you were running at least 2 for a while, not just for Turbo Tibalt but also Depths.
Liliana's Triumph is also an option but the 2B cost should be easy enough for you.
What were your other wins and losses in the Challenge? Did the deck have any new strengths or weaknesses with the change to Brutality?
I cut soul shatter for 1 Tormod crypt and 1 Torpor orb after the ban. Brutality/lili was replacing my prior flex slots of either eliminate (great vs tempo, useless otherwise) or remorse (great vs control and combo, bad otherwise).
5-0 list here
I had two reasons: I though doomsday would go up and depths would go down with the resurgence of fair non-blue. Brutality is flexible but low power compared to my old options so I thought I would have less cuts. Less cuts means less cards to bring in g2 means I should just run more karn targets. I think the second point is correct that I want less targets, but perhaps I cut the 4th engineer and the third agent for 2 soul shatters.
In general I think it just makes land based matchups worse. I lost to leovold beats vs nic fit and primeval Titan out of 12post where eliminate or remorse could have been helpful. However compared to eliminate it massively improves the combo and control matchups and compared to remorse it massively improves the tempo matchups.
Several combo control matchups I would just go chalice, discard 2x, curse where before with eliminate you would go chalice, curse they force, than you sit around with useless eliminates until they draw out of the chalice and you lose. Remorse solves that problem but then you just concede to t1 delver or t2 Teeg.
Yeah, I see where Brutality's flexibility helps fill the deck's gaps in those scenarios.
Then the answer is just in the SB. I think you can't afford to lose those Soul Shatters as long as Depths is a top contender. Brutality's flexibility is great, but it means the deck has no removal in the 75 for cards like Marit Lage, Leovold or Prime Time. That's your 4 losses right there. Soul Shatter would answer all 4. You wouldn't necessarily have won all those games, but at least your deck would have some answer vs no answers. Soul Shatter should also help against randoms walkers like Jace that will reappear post-Oko.
Edit: Maybe you don't need so many Karn slots. I would guess that you're already winning the games where you untap with Karn or Curse. You already have answers to dangerous board states through them. Your SB should be helping you in the games where you don't have those engines.
The downside with brutalities flexibility is that the sideboard improvement is less. Vs depths I would want 4 plague engineer, 2 shatter, 3 agents, spyglass, and helm. but what am I cutting to make room? Sure lili and 3 ball and urborg are bad. But you still have 5 more things to bring in. Karn gets bridge. Helm kill actually can race them. Chalice is great. Brutality takes crop, discard, and counter hate like fov or decay.
I think I agree I need 2 shatters. The question is should they replace the worst karn targets or trim the black cards.
The thought behind the additional karn targets is the most common situation I lose after untapping with karn is vs gy decks in the blind (when I didn’t keep a leyline hand), an uro that is about to escape, vs d&t (apparition hitting karn and bridge is oof) or vs a resolved doomsday. Hence torpor orb and Tormod’s crypt.
So brutality continues to be great in testing as additional 2 cmc flexible plays. It also makes ensuring bridge considerably better in the deck.
Liliana is really nice as a threat you can play t1 off of dark ritual. Having additional threat density has made me consider dropping the md helms. Helm is often an awkward card in the early game but you need more than 8 wincons to be sure of finding something to end the game.
However, they haven’t worked super well together. Brutality excels vs control and small creatures, Liliana excels vs control and small creatures, and plague engineer also answers small creatures. Having no answers to a TKS or even KOTR game 1 has been an issue and makes my already bad depths/maverick matchup worse.
Thoughts on 0 brutality 0 helm 3 liliana’s triumph 3 last hope?
Triumph and lily cover each other’s weaknesses (go wide vs go tall) and gives maindeck outs to lage. Bonus 2 for 1 synergy. You will have worse spell combo and control matchups than brutality but those matchups are already pretty good. The cards are great vs all my worst mus (depths/delver/maverick). And my curve goes down/black count for mox goes up, at the cost of being more black intensive (min 2 urborg). Sideboard will need to be rejigged slightly (more agents/less shatters)
LtLH is good at managing small creatures but seems much better in a deck with value creatures to return, like Grixis Control running Snapcaster Mage and Baleful Strix. The emblem is still a wincon, but without creatures main LotLH is doing much less than its supposed to do, just killing X/1s and growing slowly.
Is Liliana of the Veil any good here? Is the problem that untargetted discard is bad in prison, and you need the Edict effect at instant speed for Marit Lage and SneakShow?
Liliana, Death's Majesty or Liliana, Dreadhorde General? These are normally not in consideration for Legacy because of CMC but you're Stompy. Both immediately act as a wincon, making 2/2s while threatening to Wrath the opponent's board. Maybe there are curve issues. It could replace Helm for the spot of MD wincon without being dead outside the combo.
The best answer for TKS, Marit Lage or KOTR is Soul Shatter. Is it worth running any copies main?
All good points. The minus is pretty bad mainboard but returning a agent or plague engineer could be devastating in the right matchup. Perhaps I should focus the sideboard on creatures so I can keep her in for more matchups.Quote:
Originally Posted by FTW
The reason I didn’t consider Liliana was because untargeted discard is really bad in prison and you need so many lands to function. The deck is hyper focused on card quality over card quantity, between chalice/3ball/no creatures/threats that dodge decay. If you go t1 mox chalice, t2 urborg Lotv you only have 2 cards in hand and they have 7. Trading a curse for plow there seems absolutely aweful. She also doesn’t actually kill the opponent.
I do like Deaths majesty but being castable off of t1 dark ritual and can win the game are the primary considerations. I loved agent for that reason but turning on removal was really bad, and attacking with a x/2 7 times was more difficult to accomplish than protecting her for 5. The list of cards that can do that without turning on removal is quite short: phyrexian arena/treacherous blessing/bitterblossom are all going to kill you.
Having more t1 things off of dark ritual also helps with the chalice/drit problem. City/chalice/deaths majesty/dark ritual is considerably more awkward to sequence than city/chalice/dark ritual/Last hope. There is no 1 cmc removal for lily other than needle so just play her first and then chalice around daze. Agent was awkward for the opposite reason, you had to choose between ritualling it out or protecting it from plow.
Once you get to 4 mana and beyond it’s a lot harder to justify over helm. It may not seem like it, but 5 mana is a lot easier in this deck than 6 mana so I don’t think I would play the general. Between sol lands and my acceleration you usually end up at an odd number of mana (tomb plus swamp plus drit, city plus 2 lands plus mox.)
With oko gone I feel like my mainboard removal should care more about delver/Thalia/daze than JTMS/karn/mentor. Those cards at least can be handled by pelakka some of the time.