Re: [DTB] Death and Taxes
@Secretly.A.Bee
In the blind, based on what I expect to see (a lot of Delver, where the main three are fine; a lot of Elves, where only Jitte really matters; a lot of Stoneblade and DnT), I am using Manriki-Gusari for now.
@WashableWater1
The expectation of a lot of greedy BUG and 4C manabases plus the renewed power of Lands. Even against BUGR Delver, Magus can be pretty back-breaking, especially with even a single Mom. I played 4C Delver yesterday against a friend who is a better player than I am and I crushed him 4 out of 5 games. Pontiff was a super blowout. :eek:
RE: Bahra's List
The mana was surprisingly good against a Delver deck that was running 4 stifle. 24 lands felt right too because getting a fetch stifled wasn't nearly as bad since I actually was that slight margin better at hitting land drops.
The posted build need more anti-combo hate. In the latest video, I see Bahra put in Mindbreak Trap, and I think you need that or Sanctum Prelate for sure. Trap might just be better, but I like the flexibility of Prelate, as you see in that UW Control match in his stream. Prelate on 4 is a huge problem for them (of course, if he doesn't miss the Pia bounce, he also wins...)
Re: [DTB] Death and Taxes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
WashableWater1
I've been trying out RW taxes, and although it seems pretty close to monowhite in terms of power I'm wondering what the draw to it is all of a sudden. It seems like Red based Delver, Storm and Sneak and Show are all turning out more and more, none of which are crippled by a Magus. While I understand that RW is better vs Elves, what else is leading to the renewed interest?
Part of this is probably a lot of people saw someone put a Magus out with an Aether Vial on camera and thought 'That looks fun'. (It is.) Also, splashing now doesn't cost a thousand dollars or whatever - that was always a real constraint.
It is close to Mono-W - it's almost the same deck. Imperial Taxes was a much different deck when it was the only deck with access to a Recruiter. Post-Conspiracy 2, Mono-W decks shifted towards prison+tutor builds too.
Now the question is mostly "Do I want to trade a slightly better manabase for a very powerful effect that regularly wins matches / forces my opponent to play differently even when it's not on the table + a sideboard that can beat Elves?" I think it is an obviously good trade and more people seem to be coming to that conclusion.
The fact that Storm and SnS aren't crippled by Magus doesn't really matter - you side them out / you have other cards to cripple those decks. You just also have a card to cripple decks that are crippled by Magus. You're not taking out Thalia and Karakas to play Blood Moon, you're just diversifying the ways you can disrupt an opponent.
Re: [DTB] Death and Taxes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
iatee
Part of this is probably a lot of people saw someone put a Magus out with an Aether Vial on camera and thought 'That looks fun'. (It is.) Also, splashing now doesn't cost a thousand dollars or whatever - that was always a real constraint.
It is close to Mono-W - it's almost the same deck. Imperial Taxes was a much different deck when it was the only deck with access to a Recruiter. Post-Conspiracy 2, Mono-W decks shifted towards prison+tutor builds too.
Now the question is mostly "Do I want to trade a slightly better manabase for a very powerful effect that regularly wins matches / forces my opponent to play differently even when it's not on the table + a sideboard that can beat Elves?" I think it is an obviously good trade and more people seem to be coming to that conclusion.
The fact that Storm and SnS aren't crippled by Magus doesn't really matter - you side them out / you have other cards to cripple those decks. You just also have a card to cripple decks that are crippled by Magus. You're not taking out Thalia and Karakas to play Blood Moon, you're just diversifying the ways you can disrupt an opponent.
Aren't you simplifying the assessment of picking between mono white and RW? For one you trade for a worse manabase that is noticeable against other wasteland decks when your one colored source can be more easily attacked. You also actually take damage from your manabase which is one of the huge upsides of mono white death and taxes. In addition you lose some power by having spots taken by magus which is just a 2/2 for 3 and you yourself have said you have a worse delver matchups and part of that is likely due to the decreased number of fliers the deck can accommodate including Serra Avenger.
I'm not saying RW isn't good, I think it's super sweet and arguably a strictly better option in the meta we have seen and anticipate to develop, but I just don't want things to be oversimplified as "it's obvious RW is better."
Re: [DTB] Death and Taxes
Just to shake things up, here's another sweet list from Don Donelson (he had a good run at a big SCG thing awhile back). I'll probably write up something later about it, but this should just show you the variety in what can be successful right now. I think he started out 6-0 with this and lost in the finals of an event:
4 wasteland
4port
2 karakas
1 horizon canopy
1 mishra factory
10 plains
4 vial
4 stp
Sofi/jitte/bskull
4 mom
4 sfm
4 Thalia
1 lone missionary
2 canonist
4 Serra avenger
4 flickerwisp
2 recruiter of guard
1 Aven mindcensor
1 vryn wingmare
3 RIP
2 Moat
1 COP REd
1 seal of cleansing
2 path
2 councils
2 revoker
SoFaF
1 needle
Re: [DTB] Death and Taxes
Are you sure Lone Missionary is the correct allocation for that slot?
Re: [DTB] Death and Taxes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Marungo
Aren't you simplifying the assessment of picking between mono white and RW? For one you trade for a worse manabase that is noticeable against other wasteland decks when your one colored source can be more easily attacked. You also actually take damage from your manabase which is one of the huge upsides of mono white death and taxes. In addition you lose some power by having spots taken by magus which is just a 2/2 for 3 and you yourself have said you have a worse delver matchups and part of that is likely due to the decreased number of fliers the deck can accommodate including Serra Avenger.
I'm not saying RW isn't good, I think it's super sweet and arguably a strictly better option in the meta we have seen and anticipate to develop, but I just don't want things to be oversimplified as "it's obvious RW is better."
I was more wondering what matchups in particular RW was better. Right now the only one I'm seriously worried about is Elves, but I'm not sure if I'm willing to weaken the whole deck in order to make one matchup better.
That said, I've been working on my sideboard and think that I can get my Elves matchup to the point that it's somewhat winnable. Does anyone have any suggestions for cards to try? I'm working with 2 Canonist, 3 Path, 3 Containment Priest, 1 Needle and a maindeck Spirit of the Labyrinth right now, but I'm considering cards like Cursed Totem, Ratchet Bomb and EE in an E Tutor board or a Holy Light plan. What has worked for other people?
Re: [DTB] Death and Taxes
Yes, I am 100% sure he ran Lone Missionary.
Re: [DTB] Death and Taxes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Marungo
Aren't you simplifying the assessment of picking between mono white and RW? For one you trade for a worse manabase that is noticeable against other wasteland decks when your one colored source can be more easily attacked. You also actually take damage from your manabase which is one of the huge upsides of mono white death and taxes. In addition you lose some power by having spots taken by magus which is just a 2/2 for 3 and you yourself have said you have a worse delver matchups and part of that is likely due to the decreased number of fliers the deck can accommodate including Serra Avenger.
I'm not saying RW isn't good, I think it's super sweet and arguably a strictly better option in the meta we have seen and anticipate to develop, but I just don't want things to be oversimplified as "it's obvious RW is better."
One thing I really have to highlight is that if you play correctly and fetch Plains aggressively, the manabase is not really much softer vs Wasteland decks - if you're playing 5 fetches 3 plains (and you can even play a cleaner manabase than this) you're playing 8 basics, which is only one or two away from what most Mono-W lists play. Your colored source isn't easily attacked because you only fetch it when necessary / you don't actually play many red cards. Mono-W is not immune to Wasteland either and generally the times you lose to Wasteland with RW you would have lost to Wasteland with Mono-W (e.g. Karakas + Port are your opening lands.)
I think you have a marginally worse Grixis Delver matchup by playing fewer flyers, but the difference is pretty marginal and can be made up for with your board. Or you can play more flyers. But for the most part Serra Avenger and Magus of the Moon are comparably powerful vs Grixis Delver, really good if they don't have a Bolt, not so good if they do. The matchup vs UR Delver is worse, as is the matchup vs Burn - Moon obviously terrible and the few points of fetch damage matter. If your local meta is Burn, UR Delver, Reanimator, SnS then there is little reason to play a RW build, since you're just siding out Maguses and taking a few points of extra damage. But even then - that cost is very low. It's not free, but it's not expensive.
So if anything I think the argument should be shifted from 'Why play RW?' to 'Why should people play Mono-W?' There are reasons to, for sure, in certain metas it's a better deck. Just not most of the time. There are similarly going to be metas where playing 4 Swords to Plowshares in your deck is incorrect, or where Thalia does very little, but we accept that on the whole they are pretty powerful effects against a broad range of decks. Magus is similar.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
WashableWater1
I was more wondering what matchups in particular RW was better. Right now the only one I'm seriously worried about is Elves, but I'm not sure if I'm willing to weaken the whole deck in order to make one matchup better.
So Elves obviously, but also
- Infect
- All Lands-based decks: Lands, Depths, 12-Post, 4c Loam
- Eldrazi is marginally better
- All BUG decks are much better
- All Stoneblade decks that play more than 2 colors
Re: [DTB] Death and Taxes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Medea_
Yes, I am 100% sure he ran Lone Missionary.
I mean, it's not as terrible as it seems. That plus Flickerwisps would probably be pretty decent if you expect to be racing True-Names/facing Burn.
Re: [DTB] Death and Taxes
I would add to iatee's points and say that this build is also very strong against anything with TNN. also, if Grixis Delver get's going with Young Pyromancer, this deck can punish it for trying to go wide with 2x Pontiff.
If the format is BUG Delver, Grixis Delver, Elves, Lands, Non-creature Combo and Stoneblade, then Chalice + Magus + Pontiff is extremely good. Heck, Chalice is also fantastic against Burn.
I think the deck is oddly powerful, though of course we are always stuck with the hands we draw. the main thing I would watch out for is Stifle, which is suddenly much better.
Re: [DTB] Death and Taxes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
iatee
One thing I really have to highlight is that if you play correctly and fetch Plains aggressively, the manabase is not really much softer vs Wasteland decks - if you're playing 5 fetches 3 plains (and you can even play a cleaner manabase than this) you're playing 8 basics, which is only one or two away from what most Mono-W lists play. Your colored source isn't easily attacked because you only fetch it when necessary / you don't actually play many red cards. Mono-W is not immune to Wasteland either and generally the times you lose to Wasteland with RW you would have lost to Wasteland with Mono-W (e.g. Karakas + Port are your opening lands.)
I think you have a marginally worse Grixis Delver matchup by playing fewer flyers, but the difference is pretty marginal and can be made up for with your board. Or you can play more flyers. But for the most part Serra Avenger and Magus of the Moon are comparably powerful vs Grixis Delver, really good if they don't have a Bolt, not so good if they do. The matchup vs UR Delver is worse, as is the matchup vs Burn - Moon obviously terrible and the few points of fetch damage matter. If your local meta is Burn, UR Delver, Reanimator, SnS then there is little reason to play a RW build, since you're just siding out Maguses and taking a few points of extra damage. But even then - that cost is very low. It's not free, but it's not expensive.
So if anything I think the argument should be shifted from 'Why play RW?' to 'Why should people play Mono-W?' There are reasons to, for sure, in certain metas it's a better deck. Just not most of the time. There are similarly going to be metas where playing 4 Swords to Plowshares in your deck is incorrect, or where Thalia does very little, but we accept that on the whole they are pretty powerful effects against a broad range of decks. Magus is similar.
So Elves obviously, but also
- Infect
- All Lands-based decks: Lands, Depths, 12-Post, 4c Loam
- Eldrazi is marginally better
- All BUG decks are much better
- All Stoneblade decks that play more than 2 colors
I dunno man, I would argue until top was banned mono white was strictly better. And clearly more people on this site were playing and discussing mono white up until the banning. That being said is RW good? Yes? Does it gain the power of some auto wins with magus and such? Yes. Does it decrease your win percentage vs decks with a good amount of basics or enough wastelands? Yes. You lose power to gain another form of lock piece. There are detriments to doing this and I think they should be acknowledged before we declare one is obviously better.
For instance burn, delver, and previously miracles were all worse matchups playing RW than mono white because you had magus in the main. Again I'm not saying RW is worse or mono white is obviously better because relatively speaking they're the same decks with minor trade offs
Re: [DTB] Death and Taxes
As far as I am aware, and could be wrong, RW hasn't put up results in a long time.
Re: [DTB] Death and Taxes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
chaosjace
As far as I am aware, and could be wrong, RW hasn't put up results in a long time.
Pre-Miracles, Iatee Top 16'd the Legacy Open with it.
Post-Miracles, Bahra has put up a 5-0 or two with it, and a couple of people have done well at local-sized events.
Re: [DTB] Death and Taxes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Marungo
I dunno man, I would argue until top was banned mono white was strictly better. And clearly more people on this site were playing and discussing mono white up until the banning. That being said is RW good? Yes? Does it gain the power of some auto wins with magus and such? Yes. Does it decrease your win percentage vs decks with a good amount of basics or enough wastelands? Yes. You lose power to gain another form of lock piece. There are detriments to doing this and I think they should be acknowledged before we declare one is obviously better.
For instance burn, delver, and previously miracles were all worse matchups playing RW than mono white because you had magus in the main. Again I'm not saying RW is worse or mono white is obviously better because relatively speaking they're the same decks with minor trade offs
Even with a mostly dead Magus g1, RW was better positioned vs Miracles because it played a ton of Caverns, Pia/Kiran, more prison pieces and fewer generic beaters that just get killed for little value. Being able to tutor up an uncounterable Pia/Kiran is just way more powerful vs Miracles than anything Mono-W could reliably do.
I don't think 'clearly more people on this site' is much of an argument. The number of people in the world who play legacy competitively is super tiny compared to other formats and most players are not very good or spike-y. It is ultimately a casual format, and things move slowly - even Miracles took years to get optimized.
And I agree nothing is obviously better, and everything is context dependent. Like I said, if you expect UR and 'I need my Karakas' decks all day at your local event, playing Blood Moon obviously isn't worth it. But Legacy's meta is super wide, and in a large event with a variety of decks, you will almost certainly encounter decks where having a Blood Moon wins you games you wouldn't have won otherwise.
Re: [DTB] Death and Taxes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
iatee
Even with a mostly dead Magus g1, RW was better positioned vs Miracles because it played a ton of Caverns, Pia/Kiran, more prison pieces and fewer generic beaters that just get killed for little value. Being able to tutor up an uncounterable Pia/Kiran is just way more powerful vs Miracles than anything Mono-W could reliably do.
I don't think 'clearly more people on this site' is much of an argument. The number of people in the world who play legacy competitively is super tiny compared to other formats and most players are not very good or spike-y. It is ultimately a casual format, and things move slowly - even Miracles took years to get optimized.
And I agree nothing is obviously better, and everything is context dependent. Like I said, if you expect UR and 'I need my Karakas' decks all day at your local event, playing Blood Moon obviously isn't worth it. But Legacy's meta is super wide, and in a large event with a variety of decks, you will almost certainly encounter decks where having a Blood Moon wins you games you wouldn't have won otherwise.
I don't know about "wouldn't have won." You'd still win a good majority but you just don't get an auto win. Also I personally disagree with your miracles assessment since mono white could have run just as many cavern if it wanted to. That wasn't something exclusive to RW. And I would argue the gain of Pia and Kiran is balanced by the dead g1 magus.
Regardless I think we about covered our analysis of the two strategies. But as someone who doesn't play RW I am curious what your current 75 is Iatee. I'd likely try is once at a local. I've only played RW a handful of times and it's been a while
Re: [DTB] Death and Taxes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Marungo
I don't know about "wouldn't have won." You'd still win a good majority but you just don't get an auto win. Also I personally disagree with your miracles assessment since mono white could have run just as many cavern if it wanted to. That wasn't something exclusive to RW. And I would argue the gain of Pia and Kiran is balanced by the dead g1 magus.
Regardless I think we about covered our analysis of the two strategies. But as someone who doesn't play RW I am curious what your current 75 is Iatee. I'd likely try is once at a local. I've only played RW a handful of times and it's been a while
Well in the 'you could' realm - RW could also run Pia/Kiran main, which just turns the matchup into basically a bye, instead of just 'strongly favored'. Mono-W could play 3 Caverns, it could even play 4 - in reality people played 2 at most and generally 1. G1 having a (mostly bad / once in a while you still win with it) Magus is balanced by 3 Cavern - they're generally playing far more dead cards than you are (FoW, Counterbalances) so you still come out ahead - and you never ever lose to Countertop. This sounds like an exaggeration since obviously Miracles was a busted deck with no bad matchups etc etc etc but my win % vs Miracles with RW was probably in the realm of 80% at competitive REL and it was easily the tier 1 deck I wanted to face the most. The only tier decks that I would rather see in a tournament would be Lands-based combo.
My current list looks mostly like the list at the open: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetyp...s-34922#online
With +1 Ethersworn in the main and -1 Palace Jailer - not even sure about this. Storm is definitely better now, and it's everywhere online, but that doesn't make paper LEDs appear in peoples' laps.
If I were going to a tournament tomorrow, I would probably try this board:
4 Path to Exile
1 Council's Judgment
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Mirran Crusader
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Cunning Sparkmage
2 Containment Priest
1 Relic Warder
1 Palace Jailer
1 Pia/Kiran
I've always liked my sideboard effects to be attached to creatures when possible, and now that the sweeper deck is gone, I think that strategy is even more correct.
Re: [DTB] Death and Taxes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
iatee
Well in the 'you could' realm - RW could also run Pia/Kiran main, which just turns the matchup into basically a bye, instead of just 'strongly favored'. Mono-W could play 3 Caverns, it could even play 4 - in reality people played 2 at most and generally 1. G1 having a (mostly bad / once in a while you still win with it) Magus is balanced by 3 Cavern - they're generally playing far more dead cards than you are (FoW, Counterbalances) so you still come out ahead - and you never ever lose to Countertop. This sounds like an exaggeration since obviously Miracles was a busted deck with no bad matchups etc etc etc but my win % vs Miracles with RW was probably in the realm of 80% at competitive REL and it was easily the tier 1 deck I wanted to face the most. The only tier decks that I would rather see in a tournament would be Lands-based combo.
My current list looks mostly like the list at the open:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetyp...s-34922#online
With +1 Ethersworn in the main and -1 Palace Jailer - not even sure about this. Storm is definitely better now, and it's everywhere online, but that doesn't make paper LEDs appear in peoples' laps.
If I were going to a tournament tomorrow, I would probably try this board:
4 Path to Exile
1 Council's Judgment
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Mirran Crusader
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Cunning Sparkmage
2 Containment Priest
1 Relic Warder
1 Palace Jailer
1 Pia/Kiran
I've always liked my sideboard effects to be attached to creatures when possible, and now that the sweeper deck is gone, I think that strategy is even more correct.
I agree with idea of effects attached to creatures. But I still really like Rest in Peace. Also, why 4 path right now?
Re: [DTB] Death and Taxes
Good vs Reanimator, Burn, Delver, the mirror. It's kinda just an experiment but I find myself siding in 4 quite a lot, which makes me think 'Why not 4 Path?'
RiP is really good obviously and one of the few effects you can't get on a body. I think it's easier to justify not playing any if you have lots of other GY hate (C Priests, Macabre) + Path is good against almost all of the 'I want RIP' decks, in some cases better even (eg vs BR Reanimator, where RIP is slow).
Re: [DTB] Death and Taxes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
iatee
Good vs Reanimator, Burn, Delver, the mirror. It's kinda just an experiment but I find myself siding in 4 quite a lot, which makes me think 'Why not 4 Path?'
RiP is really good obviously and one of the few effects you can't get on a body. I think it's easier to justify not playing any if you have lots of other GY hate (C Priests, Macabre) + Path is good against almost all of the 'I want RIP' decks, in some cases better even (eg vs BR Reanimator, where RIP is slow).
That makes sense. My problem is I am in DC and we have Lands players on top of Lands players. What are you siding out when you bring in that many spells?
Re: [DTB] Death and Taxes
Quote:
Originally Posted by
iatee
Well in the 'you could' realm - RW could also run Pia/Kiran main, which just turns the matchup into basically a bye, instead of just 'strongly favored'. Mono-W could play 3 Caverns, it could even play 4 - in reality people played 2 at most and generally 1. G1 having a (mostly bad / once in a while you still win with it) Magus is balanced by 3 Cavern - they're generally playing far more dead cards than you are (FoW, Counterbalances) so you still come out ahead - and you never ever lose to Countertop. This sounds like an exaggeration since obviously Miracles was a busted deck with no bad matchups etc etc etc but my win % vs Miracles with RW was probably in the realm of 80% at competitive REL and it was easily the tier 1 deck I wanted to face the most. The only tier decks that I would rather see in a tournament would be Lands-based combo.
My current list looks mostly like the list at the open:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetyp...s-34922#online
With +1 Ethersworn in the main and -1 Palace Jailer - not even sure about this. Storm is definitely better now, and it's everywhere online, but that doesn't make paper LEDs appear in peoples' laps.
If I were going to a tournament tomorrow, I would probably try this board:
4 Path to Exile
1 Council's Judgment
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Mirran Crusader
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Cunning Sparkmage
2 Containment Priest
1 Relic Warder
1 Palace Jailer
1 Pia/Kiran
I've always liked my sideboard effects to be attached to creatures when possible, and now that the sweeper deck is gone, I think that strategy is even more correct.
Thanks for the list. I'll give it a try just like I give everything a try. BTW I ran 2 cavern for a long time and also had about an 80% win rate. I believe I went 16-4 in my last 20 matches vs miracles and I'm sure you know that Maryland has a good and talented legacy community. I just think good DnT players won if they thouroughlly understood the matchup. Also totally agree about Lands. Even without Magus I love that matchup from mono whit too. Just feel like post board especially we run them over.
