Can anyone give me a link, where i can read about all the interaction this deck offers and how they work?
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Can anyone give me a link, where i can read about all the interaction this deck offers and how they work?
The main interaction is between Mangara and Karakas. You can tap Mangara and target your opponent's permanent, then while retaining priority (note. Important), use Karakas to return Mangara to your hand. As Mangara is removed as a part of the effect and the target is still legal, the target permanent is removed while Mangara is returned to your hand. You can accomplish the same with Aether Vial at 3 and a flickerwisp. To do this you must do as before, but instead of using Karakas's ability you vial in Flickerwisp and use it to remove Mangara until end of turn.
You can also use Flickerwisp and Vial along with Oblivion Ring to remove one non-land permanent permanently, and another with the way O-ring usually works. To do this, you must cast Oblivion ring. Assuming it resolves (note, you do not have to target until it has resolved), place the first trigger on the stack targeting your first permanent of choice. Retain priority and Vial in Flickerwisp. Use Flickerwisp to remove Oblivion Ring until end of turn. Because Oblivion Ring leaves play, the second trigger is put on the stack. Because the first triggers has yet to resolve, nothing is returned. The first trigger is then resolved, and the non-land permanent is removed. At the end of turn, Oblivion Ring is returned to play, and the triggers work as normal. Because the Oblivion Ring is treated as a separate entity, when it leaves play, the first non-land permanent is not returned.
Another synergy is between Oblivion Ring/Runed Halo/Stoneforge Mystic/Pithing Needle. You can use Flickerwisp to change their target or get another permanent. You can also use Flickewisp to temporarily remove blockers, attackers, and pesky enchantments and artifacts.
Mother of Runes protects your creatures from removal, and can herself block non-tramply beaters. Stoneforge Mystic lets you play a variety of equipment instead of just jitte. It lets you grab protection from relevant colors in the form of Sword of Fire and Ice or Sword of Light and Shadow. Flickerwisp, Serra Avenger and Jötun Grunt make solid beatsticks. Grunt also has the benefit of being able to shrink goyfs and to hinder dredge.
Cards like Goldmeadow Harrier and Burrenton Forgetender are meta-calls. If your meta has a lot of Zoo, Sligh, Goblins, Burn or Dredge, Burrenton Forgetender assists in those matchups. Goldmeadow Harrier is good in other matchups. The flexibility allows for a lot of meta-specific choices.
These are some of the things that popped into my head. I believe that there is a thread on mtgsalvation with an older build and some info on the interactions.
Still up to date and a nice description of interactions
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=50057
IS there a way to keep the Forgetender in play?
For all our n1 tricks we need Vial+Flicker or Karakas and Mangara?
For a lot, yes. As for Forgetender, you can use Sword of Light and Shadow to re-use it. It's one of the ways we can deal with progenitus, and if it eats up a FoW, that's always nice.
Just want to do a small update with a tournament I played in last night. 31 players, 5 rounds cut to top 8.
I played the standard D+T list with Harriers in instead of BFTs. SB was stock as well, though I'm definitely changing that since I'll be playing more legacy events soon enough.
R1 I played against Master Shake playing u/w Thopter Foundry, at least I think that's what it was.
G1 I won the die roll and put out Vial at one and he only played about 3 islands and a Counterbalance before conceding. Since I didn't know what he was playing (thought it was maybe Dreadstill), I sided in a singleton E. Tutor and two Runed Halos.
G2 I kept a hand with the lone E. Tutor in it, and he proceeded to play 3 E.Tutors, fetching Seat of the Synod, Thopter Foundry, and Sword of the Meek in that order. When he tapped out to play Sword, I E. Tutored for O-ring and O-ring'd his Foundry, then had an active Jitte and that was pretty much game.
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R2 I played the most annoying kid in the shop, obviously. I'd go into it more but it really adds nothing, but I already know he's playing Reanimator, and he is very loud and honest with his mannerisms. If he looks at his hand and says 'This hand doesn't do much', I know he has a weak hand, similarly when he Brainstorms and says 'these cards suck' I know they are all bad and he's not mindgaming me.
G1 I mull to 5 just to get a Karakas, and he gets Iona into play on T2 and almost doesn't name white because he has no idea what I'm playing (he only saw Wasteland then Plains). He was thinking I was playing Zoo outloud, and probably would have named something irrelevant, but a kid sitting next to us pointed out that Zoo doesn't run Wastelands (we told that kid later to not speak during matches). I bounced his Iona and won easily.
G2 I sided in the package, E. Tutors, Halos, though I think I forgot to not side the Wing Shards in, which I should have. I had to mull to 6 and I kept a hand with no hate hoping he'd stupidly get a Sphinx of the Steel Wind and obviously he played right and got the T3 Inkwell. We didn't stand a chance.
G3 I kept a hand with an E. Tutor, Vial, one Plains, and a bunch of cards like Grunt. He had T2 Inkwell again, and we didn't draw our second land obviously, though I Vialed on one anyways. He played Inkwell and got in 2 attacks before I was able to triple block it to kill it. Then he slammed down Archangel and was trash talking. I put down two Runed Halos by now naming both Inkwell and Archangel. Note I didn't have a Karakas but he didn't even bother. This game went on for eternity as I drew ALL my Ports, Wastelands, Swords, and cards that just don't do anything against him, while drawing no creatures. He eventually had me at 13 and mised an Echoing Truth (didn't know he ran that) for my Halos, and got an attack in. I went to reply a Halo (only had 3 white sources) and he Forced it, pitching another Force. He got me down to 3 before I got the other Halo back in and the game went back and forth while I drew nothing to kill the Archangel. He eventually topdecked Iona but I had an Avenger with MoR active to block, though I topdecked Karakas to bounce his Iona, swing and kill his ArchAngel and finally win.
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R3 I know what I'm playing because he sat next to me the previous round. He's playing bant with Survival of the Fittest.
G1 I kept him off lands and Wasted his other lands, while eventually just gaining CA and beating him with equipment. I didn't really know the point of Survival but it was just to get good creatures out. Somehow I kept thinking he was going to cheat something into play. I sided in Wheel, Relic, and Wing Shards, though I later learned that Wheel is pointless when it puts Survival targets back in his library.
G2 Went almost to time, a very long time. He played a Rhox War Monk on 3, and then another one on 4, and I couldn't draw removal. He wasted his removal to kill my Harriers, but they bought me enough time to finally draw into a removal for one of the War Monks. This went on for a very long time and he got me to under 10 with War Monk attacks while I drew nothing. I kept him off lands long enough for him not to bother with Survival until really late. I also had Relic early and he had no GY the whole game, so he eventually activated Survival to get Meddling Mage pitching Goyf. I finally managed to play a threat and he had to force and get rid of MM. This went on until he found another MM to sac to survival for Squee, which eventually made me blow up the relic when he pitched Squee. That Rhox War Monk kept beating me until I found some Stoneforge Mystics for SoLaS, which I managed to equip to a guy. He punted and swung into my Avenger with SoLaS and lost his War Monk, and then he could never keep up with the Sword. I won after that easily, though this game was a grind fest.
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So I'm 3-0 right now and liking my chances, but we can't double draw in unless we colluded the undefeateds to do it and it wasn't worth it.
R4 I recognized the guy I was playing but I forgot what deck he was playing until he played T1 Arid Mesa (hint: zoo). He played Goblin Guide and then I realized my hand had no removal, which is very bad against him. Even though I hit like 3 lands off GG, every creature I put out either hit path or burn, and that GG got me to 12 before he eventually played a Grim Lavamancer. I had the Grunts but it was too late, and all it took was two Lavamancer activations and a Price of Progress to kill me (oops, didn't see that coming, I had about 5 non basics in play).
G2 I was wishing I had BFTs in the board. I brought in Relic and Wheel to stop his Lavamancer and I think that was it. I got a MoR to stick a couple turns until it bit removal after blocking a Nacatyl. We had enough removal this game to make it longer, though this game went until 7 mins left in the round. I eventually got him out of removal and played a Stoneforge Mystic (MVP still) with both the Swords on him to get through. He can't really race SoLaS.
G3 I knew favored him since I can't really get a quick kill. He was shuffling fast, and even though he didn't say it he was playing really fast to try to get the win in. I could have been a dick and pile shuffled once, took the full 5 mins, etc but I didn't. I kept a hand with trip MoR (pretty lucky) and he had removal for one but the other two stone walled his 2x Kittys until he drew removal for one after a block. By this point I was at 13 and was getting a little nervous because I wasn't drawing anything. I had a Swords but he had DI burn and put me within range of a Bolt and PoP killing me (I think I had two non basics). I was in real rough shape but I drew Stoneforge off the top and got SoLaS equipped. He didn't have the burn that turn, I'm pretty sure I the one card in his hand as PoP, so as long as he didn't mise burn I was ok. He didn't and I swung into him to gain life, and the next card I mised was another Mystic. I played it and got SoFaI but at this point Time was called. I managed to get him down to 3 on t5 but couldn't finish him off and he was way behind. All I needed was one more turn, but we drew.
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At this point I look at the standings and there is only one 4-0 guy and only two 3-0-1 guys. I ended up getting paired up against the 4-0 player and checked the standings and did the math. There were 9 people with 9 or more points, meaning that I was a lock for T8 if I drew to 11 points, because the 9s were all paired together, and only one person was missing out that could pass me.
At this point I took time to scout the meta and realized there were THREE enchantress players, two more then the last writeup I had. I was thanking my lucky stars that I didn't have to face any of them, because that matchup has to be singlehandedly the WORST matchup for D+T. I'm thinking of putting a couple Aura of Silence just to have a chance next tournament if I see them again.
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Top 8 gets announced and I'm paired up against my friend who is running his own creation (I think). I was paired against him R1 of the last report I made in this thread, where we drew 1-1 because we went to time G3. It is a mix between Loam and 43.lands I'm pretty sure. He plays a ton of lands, all the good utility ones (Maze, Ruins, Tolaria West, Factory, etc), Loam, Crucible, Firespout, Swords, Goyfs, Knights, Intuitions, etc. Pretty much a bad matchup for our deck, since it's combo and you need an answer to Loam or you're stone screwed. Oh, he also main decks two Explosives which is the stone nuts against this deck. After this match I am seriously putting a Pithing Needle or two in the board specifically for Explosives because I cannot beat that card, especially recurred.
G1 I knew I was not favored, and although I had some heat on him with Avenger, Jitte, etc he just had Explosives to just murder me. He had 2-3 Swords and 2-3 Firespouts, which just killed everything I put down.
G2 I sided in E. Tutors, Wheel, Relic, and Wing Shards against him. I stupidly took out the Mangaras, thinking they were too slow, but that was a mistake because I could have used a way to remove his lands (i.e a Maze I couldn't get though late). He didn't have as much removal this game and we managed to get a Jitte with 6 counters riding Flickerwisp, him around 15 or so (I didn't have lethal next turn). He has no blue mana or Ruins at this point. He Trinket Mages for Explosives and sets it at 3 for Flickerwisp hoping I don't have O-ring because he has no mana to pop it. Obviously I don't have the O-ring, and we swing back and drop an Avenger and suit up the Jitte on it, glad he didn't name two on Explosives. He pops Explosives and has a Firespout for the Avenger. I play another Avenger next turn and suit it, because the next swing will be for lethal. He topdecks (on an empty hand) his other lone Explosives for two, wiping everything I have, and I never recovered. The game went on for 20 more minutes, and everytime I got a guy he killed it until he got Maze of Ith to halt my attacks. Then he just played guys, and I drew my O-rings but I had no outs to Gargoyle Castle plus Knight and lost (wheel was putting Castle back in his library lol).
So for all my troubles and being there for 6 hours playing I didn't win a damn thing because payout was only to T4. Oh well, I was ok with how I played making very little actual punts this time around.
I definitely am going to take Orim's Chants out of the board, and probably add in a Pithing Needle and Aura of Silence instead, since my meta has no ANT or Belcher right now. Apparently Goblins is supposed to be on the rise though, so I may want to think about putting Tividar or BFT in the side, but I honestly can't think of any spots for it. Probably Wing Shards, since I never actually cast it all day despite siding it in sometimes. I just didn't need the extra removal against the bant decks because they only have 8 or so attackers.
I am starting to seriously contemplate playing the deck if the number of Enchantress players keeps rising though, lol.
I've got a problem. I've got a tournament coming up, but I was unable to borrow a Sword of Light and Shadow on time. I currently had 61 cards maindeck with it included, so I can still leave it out, but I'm curious if there are viable replacements/other cards that would work in the toolbox.
Current toolbox:
3 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Basilisk Collar
Post tournament edit:
There were approx. 38-40 people there. I went 4-0-1 over Swiss and won in T8. I do believe I got very very lucky with some of the wins. I do not precisely remember how the rounds went because I didn't think to write it down. I went against Re-animator, Bant Countertop, Merfolk and 2 Dreadstill lists in Swiss. In T8 I went against the same Bant Countertop and one of the Dreadstill lists as well as Zoo.
I won most of the matches 2-1, with the exception of UR Dreadstill in which we agreed to a tie since we were going to run out of time.
In the control matchups, I usually managed to remove their relevant threats and managed to force a Flickerwisp, Stoneforge Mystic or Serra Avenge through their control and win with that. I managed to draw a lot of removal in all of the matches, which struck me as a bit weird. I also got a lot of double-vial hands. In some matches I drew 3 Wing Shards and 3 Mangaras.
The hardest matchup by far was the countertop. I had serious trouble fighting through it. My Mothers also tended to get sworded before they got operational.
What I thought about the deck:
I liked my current build. The only thing I would change is switch BFT for Harrier. Harrier seems like it would have been much better in most of my matchups. There is also a signifact lack of combo in my current meta, and I'm thinking of cutting silence in favor of something that works against control.
Overall, while I'm very happy about winning. However, I'm worried that a lot of these victories were because I was topdecking way more removal and answers than usual. It feels like I won due to sheer luck.
I'm calling that this is going to shape up to be the best deck in the format post-MT bannings. How do guys plan to adapt your boards now that you don't need to devote an immense amount of SB space to your combo matchup? Might Cataclysm see play again?
I am thinking that there will still be storm decks post the ban list changes on the first of the month. For example I know that various doomsday decks and to an extent TEPS are fairly minutely effected by the changes. And I am also aware that Goblin Charbelcher is affected next to not at all by these changes. As such it may be prudent to keep at least some sideboard slots devoted to storm match ups. At least keeping the Ethersworn Canonists in the board (as they also help against the enchantress match ups).
Other than that I am seriously liking the idea of Cataclysm. I am toying with the idea of replacing the Mishra's Factories and 1 of the Plains in my deck with Flagstones of Trokair to see if that helps me recover better from Cataclysm (yet to be tested) but we shall see. I am still working on finding time to test that idea.
As far as the other changes to the sideboard not much of the sideboard really needs to be changed, though a friend of mine did suggest that we may want to consider adding Pulse of the Fields as that card can potentially add a game plan against the more aggressive decks in the soon to be present meta, such as Zoo, and possibly even Burn :D
It would be nice to be able to use cataclysm at least in the SB. Seems like a SB with 2-3 cataclysms and 1-2 Ethersworn canonist could result in some nasty good fun for us in the enchantress matchup. I would say we should replace the shards straight up, but I am worried about not having enough redundancy against Progenitus. Maybe something like Teeg vialed in could be another interesting choice, and yes I am even talking about the mono white versions as well as the GW ones. Risky I know, but who knows.
Yes there will still be storm, but significantly less. I don't think TES and DD variants will emerge as popular choices like ANT because they are so much more difficult to play. I'm guessing that ANT and Reanimator players will just sell off their Underground Seas and build something else.Quote:
Originally Posted by DalkonCledwin
You run Factories? How? In place of Ports? Being able to attack under Standstill sounds sexy.
Also, IDK if Flagstones is worth it. Many Zoo players have been maindecking Price of Progress lately. Having more non-basics doesn't sound too hot right now.
I am not sure that the mono-white versions of the deck can effectively pull off the Gaddock Teeg card, as it in essence REQUIRES you to have both gaddock teeg and Æther vial in order to get the teeg into play. However if pulled off it would be a great answer to a lot of the problems that the deck faces.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tanarin
@ Vacrix, yes I run Mishra's Factories in my current build, primarily for the reasons you suggested, being able to attack under standstill which helps alot in the landstill match up. And it is in place of the Rishadan Ports which I wasn't at the time I was building the deck able to get ahold of due to the rising price that had been occuring with Karakas (it was either the Karakas or the Rishadan Port and I figured the Karakas was more useful to the deck than the Ports).
As far as Zoo goes, I currently run 4 Wasteland, 2 Factories, and 4 Karakas. So at any given time I can have up to 4 Wasteland, 2 Factories, and 1 Karakas in play. That is a crap ton of damage from the Price of Progress. Fortunately the wastelands can be used to mitigate that damage themselves so it isn't as bad as all that.
I think your suggestion of being able to attack under landstill is a good point and a good case for keeping the mishra's factories in the deck though. But I am still thinking that running Cataclysm in the board is a good idea as it answers a lot of this decks problematic match ups such as landstill and enchantress.
For the less combo intensive SB, I would probably cut Silence. It frees up four slots to help us against our worst matchup, countertop. I however have no idea for what I should SB in that slot. Possibly some high CMC enchant hate with an alternate manacost.
Current SB:
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Wing Shards
1 Jötun Grunt
1 Goldmeadow Harrier
4 free slots.
I think every SB should have the Enlightened Tutor package, it is simply so good against combo to get out the direct hate you need. Why so many Relics when you can have other hosers like Wheel and whatnot that are good against other matchups as well? Pithing Needle doesn't stop wheel.
Dalkon Cledwin and I talked about this a few weeks ago. He and I do not agree about the tutor package. I am for it and he is against. I figured, going into the conversation that he was going to tell me that the one turn wait for the card you tutor for was going to be the sticking point. And I would have to concede that this is an issue. But he did not directly mention that. Instead, we disagreed about the frequency of drawing your important hate when you use it.
(DC, I found myself unable to convince you that you would draw hate against more opponents more often with versus without. In your case, your meta is not generic, so it might make sense to not account for some things.)
But in general, I can't understand why anyone would not be using the tutor package.
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Also, it seems that if Tendrils combo suffers a hit in popularity from the banning of Mystical Tutor, we are near the top of the list of benefactors. If this does come to pass, I want to take the opportunity to shore up the Zoo and Lands matchups, since those decks are the other real winners. And both of them are right around the 50/50 mark right now for us.
The problem here is that I don't have Enlightened Tutors. I will attempt to get some at some point, but for now there are cards that I need more urgently.
As for the package, would something like this work better?
3 Enlightened Tutor
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Pithing Needle
1 Wheel of the Sun and Moon
1 Meekstone (zoo, NOPro mainly)
3 Wing Shards
1 Jötun Grunt
1 Goldmeadow Harrier
Finn, it isn't that I entirely disagree with you. It's just that I thought that with combo decks in the picture, specifically Ad Nauseam, that the enlightened tutor package was a tad bit slower than would be desired. As such I figured that having an answer immediately as opposed to a turn after you needed (unless you played the tutor at the end of your opponents turn) would be beneficial to you. However waiting for your opponent to take a turn to be able to play your hate card, against combo may not always be an optimal course of action.
However with combo effectively neutered, I think that the enlightened tutor package may be the most optimal sideboarding choice that is available to the deck. At least that is my suspicion at the moment. My main concern with the enlightened tutor package is that it causes the deck to dilute its main board when siding things in and out. But that is something that can be potentially minimized if one knows what to side and how to side properly.
I expect that you guys are happy with the ban of Mystical. It seems to me that this should propel this deck (and some others) into the forefront. What changes can we expect?
well some of us are already planning some changes. Myself for example I am toying around with the mystical tutor package, seeing what changes are optimal for the new environment, even though we don't really know what the new environment is going to be. I fully expect that in one form or another that heavy aggro decks and aggro-control decks will dominate the new environment which will probably make this deck a very popular deck to play in one form or another. I have decided that meekstone is an ideal answer to many of the aggro decks being run in this day and age and want to test it out (which means I need to aquire a meekstone so I can use it). However the other thing I want to test for the heavy aggro environment is Pulse of the Fields. That card can effectively turn back the tide of heavy aggro singlehandedly. This is a huge advantage that I think most white decks can take advantage of that they haven't really seized upon before now, but now that combo is out of the picture they may be able to. The beauty of this decks ability to do so is that it has ways of cheating its cards into play thereby leaving mana open to actually cast pulse.Quote:
Originally Posted by CleverPetriDish
Hmm, well if zoo becomes big, (Which is SHOULD,) Why not run instead of wastelands we run Ghost Quarter, same trick for PoP but it also leaves us at 0 Land loss and 1 mana open for Swords if we need it. Hell, we could even tap the flagstones and respond with Swords. Seems like a better answer than clearing our board just to avoid most of the damage. Heck this may aslo open up the deck to play Path instead of Swords to mitigate the life difference. I say that is worth testing as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by DalkonCledwin