[Deck] Death and Taxes

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Originally Posted by Finn

You also play Saffi Eriksdotter from time to time. But from what I saw of that meta, it seems that tricks of that sort are the name of the game. And there is no arguing with results. You have a lot of anti-aggro stuff, and I suppose that is good when the common combos are all graveyard dependant (for which the deck is well equipped to handle).

But I warn other people reading this that you are taking your chances when you get too creative with the basic strengths ofthe deck. Phaerimm's Wg deck, for example, does not have Karakas at all, so there is a lot given up for access to stuff like Wasteland and Gofy. He can do this stuff because it keeps his opponents (who see him and this deck almost weekly) on their toes.

Lemme 'splain

Ones
3 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
3 Mana Tithe
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Aether Vial

Twos
3 True Believer
4 Serra Avenger
2 Jotun Grunt
3 Samurai of the Pale Curtain
3 Umezawa's Jitte

Threes
3 Stonecloaker
3 Mangara of Corondor

Fours
3 Cataclysm

Land
4 Karakas
4 Rishadan Port
3 Flagstones of Trokair
11 Plains

sb:
3 Glowrider
1 Mana Tithe
4 Orim's Chant
1 Jotun Grunt
3 Tivadar of Thorn
3 Oblivion Ring

This is my general purpose build. It is strong against anything with graveyard dependence, (including Threshold) as almost all of the hate is in the main. If you are expecting CounterTop Thresh to be a big factor (does Baseruption usually have this feature?) I think I would put O.rings in the Mana Tithe spot. Mana Tithe is really only for the combo matchup anyway, and the Oblivion Rings have been very, very good to me so far.

The basics are:

-Mangara
-Karakas
-Stonecloaker
-Cataclysm
-Jitte
-graveyard hate (I have Stonecloaker, Samurai of the Pale Curtain, and Jotun Grunt in this role)
-mana denial (I have Rishidan Port, Mana Tithe, Cataclysm, Mangara, and Glowrider for this)
Everything else is a metagame call.

In general, using creatures for the disruption (Glowrider instead of Thorn of Amethyst, Grunt instead of Tormod's Crypt, etc.) creates versatility in place of speed. This situation means that you want either a Mana Tithe or Orim's Chant in the opening draw against TES, Belcher, Breakfast, etc. It gives you a turn or two to get one of the creature hosers down. If that happens you can attack while delaying them more so you are usually in pretty good shape.

Samurai and Grunt together is not such a big deal.

Four Karakas' is occasionally a problem, but I sacrifice it to Cataclysm a lot. And the opponent simply must do something about it in a LOT of games or they are going to lose.

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I know that the green splash is generally poo-poo'd by D&T players, but when it comes to beating Counterbalance decks, there is simply nothing better than Krosan Grip. I know that Oblivion Ring can get rid of it, but the problem with Counterbalance-based decks is that they usually have the ability to supliment the troublesome enchantment with free countermagic.

Another sort of odd thing in this deck is the presence of Jotun Grunts, and the absence of fetches. If you splashed a single Savannah along with Windswept Heaths (as well as Flagstones), you could easily splash 3 Grips in the SB, and support the two Grunts you have maindeck a little better.

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Originally Posted by Xurcks

4 Tormod's Crypt(Meta choice:could be glowrider\true believer\silver knight\intrepid hero\kataki\preacher\spectral lynx)

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:eek: Man, that's just hilarious. Cataclysm, then gimme your goyf!

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Originally Posted by Alfred

If you splashed a single Savannah along with Windswept Heaths (as well as Flagstones), you could easily splash 3 Grips in the SB, and support the two Grunts you have maindeck a little better.

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Splashing green for Grip would be wonderful if it didn't undermine our mana base. The problem is that big booms (Cat, geddon, Smokestack, etc.) are best played asymmetrically, and this applies not only to the board but the deck.

It's great if you play Smokestack or Cat and get rid of 3 of your opponent's lands. It's even better when you know they only have 10 "business" lands in the deck and the rest are fetches and utility lands. We play Cataclysm because we can abuse every aspect of it, but that's reduced when we splash.

If we're playing with 22 real lands, we can afford multiple Cataclysms per game and still keep our mana supply up. Once we start replacing business lands with fetches, losing three lands to each Cat might actually mean losing 4-5 lands, and you can't reliably keep the steady flow of mana. Also, Stifle and Wasteland start hurting you even more than they already do (I've lost a Mangara to a Stifled Karakas). It might be worth it if you see a lot of Countertop in your meta, but it doesn't really seem too good to me.

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Originally Posted by Finn

This is my general purpose build.

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Hmm, interesting. A few pages back you were saying that the light blue splash is generally superior, but you're now saying that this is a more generally effective build. What changed?

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Originally Posted by Maëlig

3 cataclysm
3 lin sivvi, defiant hero

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How often does this work? I thought the point of the deck was to get a control (Vial/Mangara) or aggro (Angel/Jitte) combo out and blow everything up. Blowing things up is what you generally don't want to do when playing tribal decks, as the exchanges become more symmetrical. Of course you can save Lin Sivvi for a quicker turnaround after the Cat hits, but I'm not sure that it's something to count on, nor should it be necessary in a deck built upon individual creature efficiency.

Random thought: I kinda like Auriok Champion (mentioned awhile back) in my burn-heavy, black-heavy meta. It's small, but wears Jitte as well as anyone else, and can push through blockers against a satisfying number of MUs here.

Hi Guys!

I would suggest that we include Epochrasite in DaT, it´s great with vial and cataclysm, and a real annoyance for the opponent (just keep comming back again).

How much luck have you had with the main decked true belivers? In most of my playtesting games true beliver is nothing but a 2/2 bear for 2 mana. I have recently tested Eight-and-a-half-tails with some success, sure it´s a bit mana exhaustive but it provides protection against STP and can make your critters unblockable, last night my epochrasite kept running past his blocker goyf for the win.

/Tobias

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Originally Posted by kirbysdl

How often does this work? I thought the point of the deck was to get a control (Vial/Mangara) or aggro (Angel/Jitte) combo out and blow everything up. Blowing things up is what you generally don't want to do when playing tribal decks, as the exchanges become more symmetrical. Of course you can save Lin Sivvi for a quicker turnaround after the Cat hits, but I'm not sure that it's something to count on, nor should it be necessary in a deck built upon individual creature efficiency.

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Well, as I said I fully recognise the disinergy here. Only I think that it is not that bad and not that important anyways. Here are the main reasons.
Stats : In a game lasting about 13 turns (where you would draw a total of 20 cards), you have an 33% chance to hit both cards. The 67% other times, you'll usually be quite happy to find any of those two cards.
Sideboard strategy : In my experience, cataclysm gets sided out quite often, against thresh (and god knows there's alot of thresh out there) and other fish-like deck. This further reduces the chance to hit both cards.
Planning : If you have cataclysm in hand before you start running the rebel engine, then you will play it first and then recover rapidly with Lin. This is actually a very nice way to play it.
Complementarity : Lin is usually in MU where cataclysm is bad (aggro-control to simplify).
Not to mention the fact that if you get the rebel engine started, then you're usually on your way for the win and you don't need cataclysm anyways.

So basically the only time I see this would be bad would be if you drew cataclysm after having started the rebel engine and in such a board position that you would have benefited from cataclysm if you had not done so.

The important thing to note is that the addition of Lin doesn't really require to add some cards that are below normal efficiency, which would make the deck worse that the classic build in case we don't hit Lin (thus increasing instability). Knight of the holy nimbus is good by himself, and I know some people running it in D&T without the rebel engine. OK, the CoK is a bit random without Lin, but rarely useless either.


Ceridan, epochrasite is not bad (especially in a meta with lots of board control), but the important thing to ask is whether it is better than a card already in the deck. What would you take out for it?
Same with Eight-and-a-half-tails, where would you put him?
There are actually quite alot of contestants at the 2 mana creatures.

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Originally Posted by kirbysdl

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Originally Posted by Finn
This is my general purpose build.

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Hmm, interesting. A few pages back you were saying that the light blue splash is generally superior, but you're now saying that this is a more generally effective build. What changed?

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I rediscovered how important Glowrider is from the sideboard. I had been happy with Brainstorm and Stifle, but I did not like Ponder. In fact, I am not liking Ponder in general these days. Anyway, with the redesigned sb of Orim's Chant over Sphere of Resistence (now probably Thorn of Amethyst), I found that I generally had enough turns to land a Glowrider against fast combo. And when it resolves against combo or control, Glowrider is so much better. He is easier to side in since you don't have to recount your threats, and generally I find myself siding him in against a lot of opponents that I would not have given Thorn in its place. And the guy wins games - a lot of them.

And Glowrider sucks in the Wu build.

Hi Maelig!
I would replace samurai of the pale curtain with Epochrasite because running both is bad synergy. I´m thinking of replacing 2 eight-1/2-tails with 2 wingshards... Most of my meta runs lots creatures (goyf, mascara-bob, finkel, eternal witness etc).

The rebell-engine are really nice, but I think that it may take up too many slots in DaT, (but I have run it in my angel stompy with some success).

What do you guys think is the best SB? my recent SB is:
4 Abolish
4 Rule of Law
4 Samurai of the Pale Curtain
3 Wing Shards (these are the weakest I think)

(p.s. I can´t understand that you dared to remove the Stonecloaker! He´s one of the decks best creatures because of his synergy, and the spot graveyard removal is great at tricking goyfs and against the increasing survival builds. And the Stonecloakers ability to make your creatures fizzle removal spells+ mangara i wonderful. Stonecloaker weights up some of the losses of not having card drawing spells).

I took Death and Taxes to 1st out of 25 against a pretty random meta this past Friday. Report here

Unfortunately, the casual house rules mean I can't use this deck again in a tourney there (they like to encourage new deck designs) but it certainly performed as advertised!

I enjoyed reading your report. I can sympathize with the portion devoted to what happens when you have only a Stonecloaker. I have had that happen every once in a while, and it is frustrating. You almost want to not count it as a creature.

It seems that you will not be piloting the deck again, but I want to mention that, if you do, a simple way to beef up D+T against a meta that you suspect of being little to no combo is to simply replace the True Believers with Silver Knights, and be sure to have the Oblivion Rings in the main over Mana Tithe.

With those changes, you have as good a shot as any deck could reasonably boast, especially in the underwhelming metagame you wrote about.

Mana Tithe was actually surprisingly useful, and I imagine it would get even better with Ports in the deck. If I were to replace it, I'd probably look for another 1-drop critter. I'd say Mom or Lions, but they seem like outdated choices now. I'm not sure that I need 4 Rings in the main anyway. On the other hand, I can't keep my current count of 20 land if I'm going to be adding Ports (and diluting my White sources). On the third hand, Ports and Tithes go well together so taking out Tithes for Ports is a bit odd. I do notice that I often have mana untapped though, so I should be able to make good use of Ports during their turn.

I like this deck too much to dismantle it, so I'll keep it around to play at other venues. =)

Hello!

I have built this following WB D&T list:

Land:
4x Scrubland
3x Windswept Heath
2x Bloodstained Mire
3x Karakas
4x Plains
2x Swamp
1x Flagstones

Creatures:
3x Isamaru
3x Stonecloaker
3x Mangara
2x Jötun Grunt
4x Dark Confidant
4x Serra Avenger

Other:
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Vindicate
3x Cataclysm
3x Duress
3x Jitte
4x AEther Vial

I have few problems with the list.
1) Mana base.
Is having 5 fetches too much for recovery from Cataclysm? should I cut the mires in favor of more Flagstones? I'm also afraid of Dragon Stompys blood moon effects, should I add more basics? In tournament I recently participated I faced alot of wasteland effects. Should I add 4th Karakas? Maybe on SB?

2) 3- offs
Deck does look really janky and bad deck design for it's many 3 offs. Any reasonable cuts to be made? Altough this kind of design is really helpful against decks packing pithing needle, meddling mage or cabal therapy (whit out peek effects). It also makes the deck more fun to play as each game is different. It's also fun to win, so what's your suggestions?

3) Epochrasite
I would love to add him to this deck, 4/4 beater thats hard to get rid off could be perfect (with cataclysm it could be even more better). I think its leagal play to drop him in on turn 3 with vial as 4/4? But what to cut, deck is really tight as it is.

4) SB
This one needs more explanation I think.
Where I came from the meta (27 players) is really random here is some breakdown:
tendrils-combo (iggy & TES): 2
muc: 2
affinity: 3
goblins: 3
landstill: 2
threshold: 1
also: 41land, belcher, tog, enchantress, dragon stompy as one offs... and many various aggro.
History has also seen some pox-decks running rampart. It's not safe to assume that this is the absolute meta as legacy is at huge uproar here in Finland and high quality decks are already starting to man the top8 slots. I's expecting even more furious match ups in becoming tournaments.

Still most of the meta is really some updated table top deck which I think this type of deck should steam roll, as they are not prepared to such strong attack on both air and ground combined with LD (mangara, vindicate and cataclysm can really punish over extension and mana screw).
I also had to fight some Pernicious deed / graveyard decks.

Current SB:
4x Engineered Plague
4x Tormods Crypt (this could be cut to less as I already have grunts and stonecloackers, maybe Withered Wretch? If mana base can support it)
Rest of the places need help. I was thinking:
1x Duress
2x Cabal Therapy
1x Vindicate
Strong package against combo (-4x StoP from MB)
3x Diabolic Edict / Smother (which is better)
to fight aggro decks. (-3x Duress)
I was thinking Edict because in that tournament I lost one game to Kodama of the North Tree. :cry: (could have double blocked but trample damage was enough)
With this SB I'm really afraid of Dragon Stompy. Is there any "I win" cards against them?
Other SB options include: EE, Tivadar of Thorn, Thorn of Amethyst, Glowrider, Pithing needle and Disenchant/ Seal of Cleansing (which one is better?).
Also, it's note worthy that I could MB atleast 2 Engineered Plague. But what to cut?

I hope I didn't make complete ass out off myself, my first post after all. :wink:

Thanks you for all your help! /S

Why not play thoughtseize over duress?

Is this deck still the powerhouse it was when Phaerimarchlord was playing it. I wanted to make the BW list because the only thing i need to buy are avenger karakas and mangara but if i invest the money in it i want to know if the deck can still beat nearly everything in the format like it used to.

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Originally Posted by zulander

Why not play thoughtseize over duress?

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Mainly 3 reasons:
1) Duress has worked good enough for me and I'm well prepared to fight creatures with stop, vindicate, mangara and jitte. As well as traditional creature combat
2) Lifeloss from fetches, Confidant(having lot of 3 drops and some cataclysms don't help on this) and 'seize can really add up. I'd like to use jitte counters to boost my or kill opposing creatures, rather than try to offset lifeloss from my own actions.

and last but not least 3) I don't own any and buying them when facing above reasons... just no. I rather spend the money getting duals, fetches and tarmos I still don't own.

Good enough reasons?

Recently I have been playing Sensei´s Divining Top in my build (along with 3 fetches), and if you are splashing for mascara-Bob i would make it a autoinclude (4 damage from a Cataclysm is a punch in the face). Urborg, Tomb of Yogurt (Tuborg) might be a good card in a W/b build. The black cards you get access to is really nice, but the splash is really messing up the manabase of the deck (and often some of the synergys). Often you get a Duress in the starting hand, but no black mana (or no white mana for the WW-cost creatures).

And I think that 4 Jötun Grunts in main. I have never had a problem with it and most people are very eager to counter it (and when they see another one comming after they countered the first they just get sad/desperate).

I can´t imagine playing Engineered Plague in the sideboard of this deck, Goblins is not a very hard deck to beat, and if you are afraid of the you could use Tivadar of Thorn instead (he´s good againt other red beat-decks and you can abuse him with karakas since he´s a legend).

Epochrasite is a really nice creature, and when you abuse him with vials and Cataclysm he has a really cool synergy with the rest of the deck. But the problem is that most of the time he´s just a 1/1 creature for 2 mana... One way to get the most out of his ability is to run Cabal Therapy instead of Duress, then you can sacrifice him to have him come back as a fat guy some turns later.

So you've been playing doran.dec lol.

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Originally Posted by PhaerimmArchlord

I've been using a new list not quite he D&T you all know anymore.W/b/g with Bob,vindicate,duress,doran,teeg,goyf. So far quite fun.:cool:

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Well then post your list :cool: I´m most worried about DaT ending up like mixer where you just pour in your non-brainer brokeness creatures and press the button (loosing all the minor tech-synergies that makes the deck fun to play with).

Zulander i see that you sigged my last post and im sorta wondering why. Phaerimarchlord won countless local tournaments with this deck, won a few dual events, and toped 4/8 at a whole bunch of other events so its not like the deck was bad. It had bad matchups against combo only which is remedied by adding a second color so when i was testing this deck with the black splash it absolutely smashed anything i played it against. Im just wondering if it can still do that in the current meta.

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Originally Posted by technogeek5000

won a few dual events

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Hrm, I didn't know that. Do you happen to have a link to these events?

here was one that i remember. Ill edit the post when i find the rest of them because i know theres more.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ead.php?t=6072

Edit: not a dual but another one i found http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ead.php?t=5937

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Originally Posted by technogeek5000

here was one that i remember. Ill edit the post when i find the rest of them because i know theres more.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ead.php?t=6072

Edit: not a dual but another one i found http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ead.php?t=5937

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Oh, I thought you meant dual land drafts, not duals from the local $5-10 tournament.

I'm sure techno is immensely sorry you misinterpreted his statement.

I'm also sure the humor of your sig and curt response to techno will garner you much appreciation in this thread dedicated to the development of D&T.

*Read as: stop wasting our space*

*The irony or my post is not lost on me*

I guess D+T is not popular in Virginia. Around here it is so common that I have to deal with dedicated hate. Gloom has been showing up. I was going to paste a link to a quote I came across by Scrumdogg from the new card discussions about Maralen that went something like:

"Maralen could work...everyone thought that Death and Taxes would not work either until we kept losing to it."

But it was deleted at the request from one of his teammates. Who asks for something like that to be deleted? WTF is that all about?

Anyway, has anyone got the Black splash to work without losing Rishidan Port? The reason is that I thought Vindicate would be good since it could kill lands, but since you lose Port, what's the benefit? All the splash has gotten me was access to slighty better combo hate and Confidant. I'm about ready to return to mono-white.

Zulander: He also topped 4 at kaddis last dual event. That with all the other evnets he won is nothing to laugh at.

Petridish: I have a black splash list that works fine with ports. here is what ive been using.

4 Dark Confidant
4 Serra Avenger
4 Knight of Meadowgrain
3 Mangara of Corondor
3 Jotun Grunt
3 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4 Swords to plowshares
3 Cataclysm
4 Aether Vial
3 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Scrubland
3 Vindicate
3 Plains
3 Windswept heath
4 Flooded strand
4 karakas
4 Rishadan Ports

Originally i was running thoughtsieze or thorn in place of vindicate but i liked having a out to anything so you dont get screwed against random shit like humlity. That and i was using wastes in place of ports which i realy liked but ports just seemed a slight bit stronger. Theres no stonecloaker as ive stated earlier in this or the old D&T thread. My list just uses up all my available mana and stonecloaker was always the weakest play.

Edit:

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Originally Posted by Galroth

I'm sure techno is immensely sorry you misinterpreted his statement.

I'm also sure the humor of your sig and curt response to techno will garner you much appreciation in this thread dedicated to the development of D&T.

*Read as:

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Originally Posted by Peter_Rotten

|^^^^^^^^^^^\||____
|.The STFU Truck..|||'""|""\__,_
| __GTFO 4ever_w_ l||__|__|__|)
|(@)@)"""""""**|(@)(@)**|(@)[/

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Fixed

Would a creature base looking something like this work?

Mother of Runes x4
Isamaru x3

Dark Confidant x3
Oona's Prowler x3
Serra Avenger x4

Mangara of Corondor x3
Phyrexian Negator x3

23

Mother of Runes pretty much serves the same role here as CounterTop does in 'Gro, further protecting your creatures. I shoved in the Negators because they have synergy with the mana denial plan and the Mother of Runes, which I probably would have slipped into the deck anyway.

Also, how is Cataclysm against tri-color decks like threshold and whatnot? They would get to keep thier CounterTop engine, would they not? And a good number of lands, right? Do the duals count towards the land they have to sac (as in, would they get to keep a Tropical, a Tundra, and a basic Island, or would they have to sac all of thier non-basics, even if they didn't have another land in one of it's colors)?

I love the deck, even in it's WW form, but I have to splash black (MOAR VINDICATE!!!).

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Originally Posted by raharu

Would a creature base looking something like this work?

Mother of Runes x4
Isamaru x3

Dark Confidant x3
Oona's Prowler x3
Serra Avenger x4

Mangara of Corondor x3
Phyrexian Negator x3

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I would tend to say that prowler is a bad choice in most decks that don't need a discard outlet (mostly because of the fact that you give your opponent one). You really want to have jotun as a 2-of, ESPECIALLY if you go for the black splash. MoR is not so good imo because it doesn't fit with cataclysm.

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Originally Posted by raharu

Also, how is Cataclysm against tri-color decks like threshold and whatnot? They would get to keep thier CounterTop engine, would they not? And a good number of lands, right? Do the duals count towards the land they have to sac (as in, would they get to keep a Tropical, a Tundra, and a basic Island, or would they have to sac all of thier non-basics, even if they didn't have another land in one of it's colors)?

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What does cataclysm have to do with basic/non-basic lands? Each player keeps one land and sacrifices the rest, period.
But you're right, cataclysm is pretty useless against thresh (sometimes it even hurts you more than them). It's a card that ends up sided out quite often.


By the way, I've continued testing my version with Lin, and am very happy with it. I'll try to post some later on.

@#$%^&*()_!!!

Obviously I can't read cards anymore (I thought it was one of each color). WTF! This is the second time this month. I even glanced at the card online before I posted. WTF!!!

Also, would you keep a Jitte or a Vial if you had to play a Cataclysm? I would assume it's board dependent, but which is favored?

EDIT: why is Oona's Prowler a bad fit for the deck? I don't follow your argument. It's either a cheaper, less cost restrictive (1B vs. 1BB) but weaker Hypnotic Specter or a cheap threat that fits in with the deck's curve.

Part of what makes Death and Taxes so efficient is how effective all of its creatures are independent of the present synergies. Isamaru without Karakas is still a good card. Likewith with Samurai of the Pale Curtain, Serra Avenger, and most of the other creatures. Death and Taxes also plays a fairly consistent game due to the high amount of threats that these creatures present.

Adding cards like Mother of Runes or Negator which are better with decks build around them probably isn't the way to go in my opinion. It's true that they work amazingly well together. But you need them together to really be good. They just don't fit with everything else well enough to dedicate that kind of space to these cards.

A question: how have the oblivion rings been working for everyone. I dedicated two slots, and they do work as both disenchants and creature removal. They're just not ever awesome for me. Sometimes I just want a couple of more creatures. For the moment they're staying in however. It just feels like a weaker slot. Opinions?

Current Sideboard:

4x Thorn of Amethyst - combo/cantrip hate
3x Glowrider - combo hate
3x TrueBeliever - combo hate
2x Jotun Grunt - thresh/graveyard hate
3x Tivadar of Thorn - goblin hate

I have been steam rolling combo with this sideboard + my 4 mana tithes main board. I'm quite satisfied with this set up presently. The oblivion rings did allow me to ignore Disenchant and Kataki in the sidebard.

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Originally Posted by Galroth

Part of what makes Death and Taxes so efficient is how effective all of its creatures are independent of the present synergies. Isamaru without Karakas is still a good card. Likewith with Samurai of the Pale Curtain, Serra Avenger, and most of the other creatures. Death and Taxes also plays a fairly consistent game due to the high amount of threats that these creatures present.

Adding cards like Mother of Runes or Negator which are better with decks build around them probably isn't the way to go in my opinion. It's true that they work amazingly well together. But you need them together to really be good. They just don't fit with everything else well enough to dedicate that kind of space to these cards.

A question: how have the oblivion rings been working for everyone. I dedicated two slots, and they do work as both disenchants and creature removal. They're just not ever awesome for me. Sometimes I just want a couple of more creatures. For the moment they're staying in however. It just feels like a weaker slot. Opinions?

Current Sideboard:

4x Thorn of Amethyst - combo/cantrip hate
3x Glowrider - combo hate
3x TrueBeliever - combo hate
2x Jotun Grunt - thresh/graveyard hate
3x Tivadar of Thorn - goblin hate

I have been steam rolling combo with this sideboard + my 4 mana tithes main board. I'm quite satisfied with this set up presently. The oblivion rings did allow me to ignore Disenchant and Kataki in the sidebard.

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How many Oblivion Rings do you run in main?

That made me think, how good would Kataki be in present meta? I guess it absolutely annihilates those random affinitys you might encounter (it is fairly good deck still. It can suprise you pants down).
How goos it is against Dragon Stompy? Stax variants? Should I make some room for maybe 2-3 them in my SB?
It is even legend for karakas... yay

I used to run it to obliterate affinity and stax. However, between aether vial and jitte D&Ts artifact count is substantial enough that it generally effects us as well. Now glowrider and truebeliever get to fill this sideboard slot. They tend to hurt more decks all around. Though I do question how many more decks truebeliever hates on that kataki. Obviously it's meta dependent. Thorny of Amethyst and Glowrider rip apart so many decks though! If it's not heavy creature and aggro, these two are almost always coming in.

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Originally Posted by Galroth

A question: how have the oblivion rings been working for everyone. I dedicated two slots, and they do work as both disenchants and creature removal. They're just not ever awesome for me. Sometimes I just want a couple of more creatures. For the moment they're staying in however. It just feels like a weaker slot. Opinions?

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Oblivion Ring is pretty much just seal of Vindicate. Are you still WW?

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Originally Posted by Galroth

A question: how have the oblivion rings been working for everyone. I dedicated two slots, and they do work as both disenchants and creature removal. They're just not ever awesome for me. Sometimes I just want a couple of more creatures. For the moment they're staying in however.

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I'm loving them enough to put 2 in the main and 2 in the side, though I wonder if I can cut it down to 1 in the side. One of D&T's main strengths is the individual awesomeness of its cards, and the Ring is great generic point removal. I think I'm a bit of a control player at heart, and the deck could undoubtedly do fine with some more critters in those slots. However, the point is to be able to survive on a couple of critters in play at a time (to keep the Cat from hurting us too much) and I seem to be doing alright.

To be fair, I'm only running 20 lands (I don't have any Ports or Wastelands to use yet). When I get Ports or Wastes, the introduction of colorless lands means I'll likely go up to 21-22 lands to keep the consistency of drawing white sources. If this forces me to cut critters, I might feel the hurt you're currently feeling with regards to threat density.

I just wanted to share the board i am running currently.

4 Engineered Plauge
4 Leyline of Singularity
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Thorn of Amethyst

Engineered plauge is obviously for tribal decks as they have tended to be a problem for the deck. LotV and Thorn should be self explanatory. The one I realy like is the leyline of the singularity. I brought the card up a long time ago as mainboard option to murder all forms of aggro which it did. Its also nifty against warrens combo as the tokens kill themselves due to the legendary rule. Leyline comes in against all forms of aggro because it is such a amazing beating against them. Goblins, D. Stompy, and other problematic aggro decks become extremely favorable once you have the singularity/karakas going.

Also i made the following changes to my maindeck:

-4 Rishadan Ports
-3 Cataclysm
-1 Plains

+4 Wasteland
+3 Thoughtsieze
+1 Flagstones of Trokair

Hey, neat. Leyline of Singularity does work quite well with Karakas and prevents them from doing nasty multiples (e.g. multiple Phyrexian Arena). I also note that you took out Cataclysm, but for decks packing the Cat I'm wondering if it's so good. Leyline makes them keep dupes in hand, but the point of any sweeper is to get them to over-commit so not only is the sweeper highly asymmetric, it makes it more difficult for them to recover. Any other thoughts on it in the mono-white build?

Leyline of Singularity has also awesome synergy with Oblivion Ring. Remove something from the game, wait for them resolving a second copy of the card, play a second Ring, targeting something else.

Due to the legend rule, both Rings go to the graveyard, but the remove trigger is still on the stack. Your opponent loses both cards to the legend rule and the new target is removed from the game once and for all because the return trigger resolves before the remove trigger. Good times. :laugh:

Guys, I don't want to shut off ideas, but Leyline of Singularity goes into a different deck. It has been discussed a few times already. And while it is cool, you can't go putting cool things in a deck and expect it to play aggro consistently.

What I would like very much to see is a viable black splash deck. Has anyone done this?

I have not tested any splash color in Death and Taxes, so my opinion is very suspect. However, I'm extremely hesitant to splash a color to Death and Taxes because I do not think there is much to be gained in any potential splash.

The black splash is interesting, and it does seem a bit more tested than the others for obvious reason. Blue would be played for the sifting ability of brainstorm and counterspell, daze, and force of will. Unfortunately the splash is too limited to make truly good use of daze and force of will and for those reasons seems a little unviable. Red... nobody has thought of or tested because it doesn't seem to help the problem match-ups. Green does give us Teeg, and Goyf. But in my testing Control match-ups and opposing Goyfs are much less of a concern than... the true nemesis... combo. And this is why black is being considered.

Death and Taxes really isn't built for a heavy splash. Too much double white to support. And I think it should stay this way. So only light splashes for a single colored mana are are probably involved.

A breakdown of what black offers: double black mana and double white mana is too hard to support, so hymn to tourach is out. Same with Nantuko Shade and the other black beaters just really don't offer anything that astounding which would warrant the splash for black's beaters. It's really for 3 cards. Dark Confidant for the card advantage and an otherwise solid creature drop. And your anti combo set-up of Duress, Thoughtseize, or possibly Cabal Therapy. These only require a single black mana so the splash can remain light. Now, are these cards really so much better than other possible card advantage and combo disruption? Well Dark Confidant is badass card draw. White really doesn't offer anything that could even come close to equaling this. But it doesn't actually directly help with the problem matchups of combo. Are Duress and Thoughtseize really so much better than Thorn of Amethyst, Glowrider and TrueBeliever? They do come down faster, they might even be more versatile. But do they warrant an splash?

I don't know what the latest statistics were, but I believe combo generally compromises only about 15% of the field. Now I don't want an auto loss to combo, so I board heavily against it. But I just really don't see the splash being that much better to risk it. If one tries to argue that control is also an issue, then I would think Thorn and Glowrider are just as good against control. I really can't bring myself to justify this. It's a close call, but I'm still left wondering why you'd risk this (much less pay for the duals :P).

2 cents... mine.

From the very limited amount of playing that I've done with the black splash, I will gladly tell you that Cabal Therapy was the first card I added to the deck - not Vindicate, not Confidant, not Duress, not Leyline. Therapy is far from dead against aggro and control and it's great in being able to remove problematic cards that your current hand may not be able to stop or handle.

This deck is made for that kind of card. It's simply not that fast and it plays enough creatures so that you can two whacks when you need it. Many Rock decks have been successful in the past because they were good at discarding the problem cards and just swinging through the slop that the opponent had left. That philosophy obviously won't completely apply to a deck that wants to use a Mangara lock or swing with non-green creatures, but it's not like it couldn't or wouldn't be applicable.

Meh, this might be too much conjecture and not enough results or facts - I apologize if it is.

Sorry, but just curious, what is the origin of the name of this deck?

Finn can correct me if I'm wrong, but probably:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&s...es&btnG=Search

Cataclysm = Death
Mana Tithe = Taxes
Isamaru = Puppy