[Deck] Deadguy Ale (B/w Confidant)

I am not sure if this card has been tested at all, but now that a lone Tomb of Urami is accepted, I was wondering about the viabity of Cabal Pit.

This deck does a great job of filling up the graveyard, and Cabal Pit can act like a key removal spell in the mid game versus a creature that snuck in before your disruption, and that you can't afford to waste a Vindicate or Swords on esp if it tries to chump block a Shade or something.

It actually kills quite a few creatures, and I think the small lifeloss is worth the trade off.

You can also opt to run Descendant of Kiyomoro if all this lifeloss is starting to add up or if you want a nice large toughness beater for cheap.

As for speeding up the clock. Jotun Grunt seems like a great option if you're not running Cabal Pit that is. He is a 4/4 beater that will stick around for atleast two attacks early on and three attacks in the mid to late game. He also refills your library with key cards like Swords and Vindicate. The graveyard hate is just a bonus. The main strength is the 4 power and toughness.

The cabal pit is a nice touch but I just don't think the deck needs such a small targeted removal as that. It's worth testing because I wouldn't mind an answer to meddling mage in game two when I bring in my perishes against grow.

Even though you suggest Descendant of Kiyamanaro *sp* to counter the pain, you might be forgetting that the deck is a white splash, the only 10 sources of white doesn't ensure you with double white on turn 3. Also, you replace which creature with Descendant, it just doesn't seem to fit the decks resources. If you play in a meta with low waste/port/land hate, then this guy would be great, but since this deck already has a problem against gobbos game 1 it just doesn't seem like he warrants a slot.

Finally at the Jotun grunt, he is a great beater, but if I used him he would replace the Withered Wretch just because of their lack of synergy together. In all the match ups where wretch is awesome I have found that timing is the issue on getting cards out of the grave. You will find that against most decks they will find ways to play around the grunt since it only occurs during your upkeep. It may be nice in the board against gro, but I don't think that the deck needs much more help in that match up post-board since you already have perish and possibly spectral lynx.

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Originally Posted by SuckerPunch

I am not sure if this card has been tested at all, but now that a lone Tomb of Urami is accepted, I was wondering about the viabity of Cabal Pit.

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Another non-basic land that the Mana Drainers have suggested is Volrath's Stronghold. It's a reusable method to virtually increase your creature threat density, the main drawback being that it does not provide Black mana.

If one goes to 23 lands, Volrath's Stronghold is natural, but at 22 lands, 4 Wastelands already drop us to 18 black sources, which is more or less the absolute minimum for consistent access to BB. 8 fetches and 4 Scrublands give us 12 white sources, which is 1 less than I personally prefer (I prefer to run 13+ sources for an access to 1 mana of a given colour and 18+ sources for an access to 2 mana of a given colour).

I wouldn't play Cabal Pits since while one land that causes pain I find bearable, multiples becomes hard to stomach. Also, the deck seems to be short on creatures far more often than short on removal. Descendants I find unplayable due to the simple fact that you run only ~10 white sources and it requires 2 white sources to be played.

Sorry Descendant is probably indeed a bad idea given the lack of white source. (I run 4 extra fetchlands in my build along with Tainted Fiedld so that's why I may have overlooked that - I probably just haven't been stung hard enough by Needle yet).

I still feel like this deck needs a decent sized beater other than the lone Tomb of Urami.

I'm guessing this has already been tested but is 3-4 Negator a bad idea cutting the 4th Shade and 2nd Gerrard's Verdict. You play a lot of disruption and removal (3-4 Swords in place of Withered Wretch/Cursed Scroll/Engineered Plague). And the few games I've tried it, it's never been a liability. Yes this deck doesn't need to win fast. But it doesnt hurt to be able to ritual out Negator turn one and then just cripple them with disruption till they die. Given B/r Aggro's success last weekend, I think it's clear that Negator isn't unviable in the format as we once believed.

If not Negator, how about Phyrexian War Beast (3/4 is ideal in a format with burn and lots of 2/2s and 3/3s) or perhaps even something like Grinning Demon.

If your looking for beaters, theres lots of them. Zombie cutthroat, Drinker of Sorrow, Negator, Avatar of Discord, Wretched Anurid, Rotting Giant... The list goes on. The only thing now is to figure out which one was the least destructive draw back

I think it's fairly obvious that Negator and Phyrexian War Beast, and even Grinning Demon to some extent, are superior to all the cards you listed.

The 3/3 Zombies aren't bad but they're too vulnerable to many of the burn spells and creatures in the format.

So I would run Negator if I don't fear the drawback, War Beast if I do.

you can also consider bane of the living as it acts as creature control and is a good beater himself...

If the grunt would be considered, I think 2 or 3 would be the right number, but I think 2 would be just right.

If I was to add a creature to this deck I would make sure it was in multiples of 4, or do a 3 and 1 *similair creatures like wretched anurid/rotting giant*. One of the decks powers is the ability to be consistant, running 4 ofs of all spells is a huge boost in our favor over a lot of decks.

If you are having a problem with aggro I say throw the wretches back in the board and MB the Warbeasts. Disenchant effects have rotated out of many decks mainboards, I'm pretty sure the only decks packing them now are Angel stompy and vindicate from the mirror. Burn seems to be more likely to be played now *R/B confidant*, but if you don't expect to see much burn go with the negator. I gladly would sacrifice 4 lands to trample over a werebear in the late game.

Now that the results of D4D prove that Negator is very much viable in this format, heres the list I'm currently running...

Lands:
4 Swamp
4 Scrubland
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wasteland
1 Tomb of Urami
1 Cabal Pit

Creatures:
4 Dark Confidant
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Phyrexian Negator
2 Nantuko Shade

Spells:
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sinkhole
4 Dark Ritual
4 Vindicate
4 Swords to Plowshore

The changes are...

-2 Engineered Plague
-2 Cursed Scroll
-2 Gerrard's Verdict
-1 Nantuko Shade

-6 Swamp
-1 Tainted Field

+1 Cabal Pit
+1 Tomb of Urami
+4 Polluted Delta

+4 Swords to Plowshore
+4 Phyrexian Negator

I highly encourage people to try out such a build.

I like these changes a lot. The manabase is much more consistent. I don't have worry about things like not having Plains for Vindicate/Swords, or having only Tainted Field in my opening hand without a swamp to accompany it and thus having to mulligan. It cut down on my mulligans a good bit.

The extra swords is great to remove blockers in the path of Negator that you hadn't already vindicated or forced them to discard.

I think such a list has a lot more potential. It gives it speed, which seems to be the reason why the B/R Aggro deck did so well at D4D.

Negator is great. It lets you win early.

If not, you draw a lot of cards and lands anyways so saccing a few to Negator to trample over even 4/4 Werebear is worth it midgame.

It seems like there is a lot of testing to be done to see if the 4 swords are necessary with the negators..I didnt feel that I would want to cut the creature count * especially shade* to increase spot removal. Shade is supposed to be that way...just keep swinging and pumping, gaining card virtually card advantage cause he should beat everythign out there *cept mystic enforcer or regenarators*. The build you are suggesting has a lot of pain in it and adding that aggro is your worse match up I don't think you can afford Negator, Confidants, 8 Fetches, and 2 pain lands.

Finally the lone cabal pit seems a bit out of place...I can see the Tomb as a one of since if you are going to use it you make sure its pretty much a win. But the Pit...its not a game breaker , its a small trick that removes creatures that you should have some answer for by the time you have threshold. Just my opinion, if you are going to use Cabal Pit it should be seen in more numbers if you can afford the pain in your stressed mana base.

In the b/r aggro deck's thread, Anwar stated that Negator was gold against goblins and aggro of all sorts.

Yes the decks are quite different. But they both run the same amount of removal that can take out blockers and a rather similar disruption base.

I don't think Negator hurts your aggro matchup as most seem to believe, and the games I played so far seem to back that up.

Besides, aggro is indeed your worst matchup. And running 4 Swords is a good way to pick it up a tad.

I only cut one Shade, but you're welcome to cut a Negator or Swords to add that Shade back in.

The Cabal Pit is a 1 of because you never want to draw it the same game you drew a Tomb. It's not as bad as drawing 2 tombs, but it's still not so hot either. Running a 2 of something is a good way to ensure that you almost always only draw it once. Thats why I opted for a single one.

The changes SuckerPunch made to this deck worry me more than slightly, partially because I believe that it alters the focus of the deck by adding Negator, but mostly because he has removed a great deal of permanents and replaced them with spells or Deltas, which only thin out the number of permanents in the deck. Let's examine this:

4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
4Wasteland
1 Tomb of Urami
4 Phyrexian Negator

Total of 17 permaments which require sacrifice to have an effect, or will likely require sacrifice.
22 Land, 8 of which sac to find others, and 4 of which sacrifice to destroy other lands, and one of which sacrifices itself and all others you control.
14 Creatures, 4 of which devour permanents whenever they are dealt damage.
Total of 20 (19 if I exclude Tomb) permanents that don't make you sacrifice themselves or others.
The rest of the deck contains 24 spells.
Would you really rather have the Negators than the recurring pressure of Cursed Scroll while 17 cards in your deck cause you to sacrifice permanents?
This isn't Stax<edit>I am referring to Type 1, sorry</edit>, with 59 permanents and a Wheel of Fortune, or B/r sui, which is almost all creatures or lands, so Cursed Scroll or Verdicts would probably be better to include. Maybe sideboard Negator if you like it against Solidarity, but I do not believe it belongs in the maindeck.

I agree that Negator definately shines in some matches and can push the game against some aggro decks. I still don't get why you need 8 fetches, the math says you only need 10 sources of white to get your white splash. It just doesn't seem like you need to lose another 4 life and thin your lands out even more against opposing wastes/sinks/vindicates.

In the end though I agree with what Dreams says, you don't really have that many permanents that stick around in your build. I will have to test out your card counts to see how the deck actually handles aggro with/without the negator. So far with my testing I have found Negator to be prime sideboard material for wretch to come out for...maybe if graveyard abuse finds its way out of the meta this change from SB to MB will happen, but till then wretch is a beast.

The problem with saying the fetchlands cost you a permanent is that they really don't. You sac them but get another permanent in return. There is no net loss of a permanent.

I will agree that in certain matchups and metas, Negator poses a problem. But the fact remains that a.) Combo is becoming more and more prevalent and Negator shines in the combo matchup. Wretch is helpful against survival which is largely nonexistant and Threshold, which this deck already had a solid matchup against before Wretch was added. b.) Anwar stated that he never ran into a matchup where he wished the 4 Negators he maindecked were something else.


True, Red Death is strategically different from this deck. But the only differences between my build of Deadguy and Red Death are...
3 Chain Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Rotting Giant/Wretched Anurid

versus.

4 Swords to Plowshore
4 Vindicate
4 Dark Confidant.

Where as Red Death has 7 ways to get rid of potential blockers of Negator, this deck has 8. This build is almost just as capable of winning quickly as Anwar's deck. But at any moment it desires, it can decide to forego speed to disrupt your opponent's manabase with Vindicate. It is strategically more versatile (heck it's removal can kill creatures like Exalted Angel and Mystic Enforcer that the burn spells can't touch), but there is no reason it can't win quickly.

The fact is, D4D had a pleathora of Deadguy decks both days, and Deadguy didn't top 8 once. It had two Red Death decks, both of which top 8ed. I think this is enough justification for trying to learn and borrow a little bit from Red Death's success.

SuckerPunch's version of the deck takes it more in the direction Sui or Red Death. The issue becomes are you in some kind of middle ground where you don't have the benefits of Deadguy (card advantage plus more disruption) and you don't have full power of Red Death (the more aggressive approach with the full compliment of burn and such). I tried to run Dark Confidant in Sui and it just seemed like he didn't fit the mold especially since he was terrible against goblins. I also don't like the life gain associated with STP. Sui or Red Death are trying to pull that life total down STP seems like the opposite of what you want. Though Deadguy is a different deck with a different strategy. Deadguy wants to generate card advantage over time with disruption + Confidant. Red Death doesn't care for such advantage because its playing for tempo and trying to kill you before card advantage really matters. I'm not sure exactly where SuckerPunch's version fits in. But perhaps this deck could switch between those two strategies effectively.

In all honesty you aren't really saccing any of Deadguys' disruption. I find 4 Swords to actually be more disruptive than the 2 Gerrard's Verdict and 2 Plague were. Verdict gives your opponent a choice where atleast one of the cards they discard is one they never planned to cast anyways, where as Swords always takes out their biggest threat and after they invested both the mana and time into casting it. The fact that they actually wasted a turn to cast the threat that you took out with Swords is a huge difference in tempo. Plague is better against both Goblins and Thunderbluff, but strictly worse than Swords against everything else (cards like that belong in the Board imo), and both cards eat up more mana than Swords does.

But yes, that "almost" as fast as Red Death part was a concern of mine too. It's at most only about a turn slower I found. That I believe is still fast enough that Negator can be MDed against the many matchups where he is gold, and sided out in the few where he isn't so hot. You commented that Negator was great even against goblins.

I am curious to hear how many of your wins came from dropping down a Negator and then simply disrupting your opponent till he wins the game for you. That is afterall the main reason to run him, and I believe the main thing this deck lacks. Deadguy can disrupt your opponent well enough, but once the disruption runs out, so many games it seems like your opponent can recover before you can finish the job.

I think what Anwar is saying is the key in deciding what is going on in your deck. You are playing a middle ground between the two styles. Late game card advantage through disruption and Confidant and Beating your opponent down fast and disruption. I find by mixing these two you aren't using the color combinations properly. Yeah you have swords and vindicate to enforce your beats, which almost seems counter intuitive. You give them life so you don't sac permanents *granted you smash them for 5, but still* or you are killing a creature with a 3cc spell. The reason I thought the red version played negator cause it had the ability to remove a blocker, pound in, and disrupt hand/land in any order they chose at 1cc a piece.

I think you missed the idea behind fetches and Negator...think of it this way. When playing thresh, turn one you fetch out a land and your oponent wastelands it....he killed 1 land 1 for 1, but really he just thinned out your deck 2 lands so your chance of drawing another one get even lower. Yes fetches can thin out your deck to get more business spells...but it can work for the opponent as well by lowering the amount of lands left in your deck to draw. So you sac a land to Negator...thats one less land in play/deck you can have is all he meant.

My point, as I illustrated in the post directly above yours, is that you really aren't saccing Pikula's disruption by running 4 Swords over 2 Verdicts and 2 Plagues.

Yes, the deck is maybe a turn slower than Red Death, but it's not any less disruptive than Pikula's deck, you just speeded up the clock.

You still have 8 lands that you can fetch and 2 more permanent sources and 4 wastelands on top of that, and if you calculate the average turn at which a deck draws and plays out 10 lands, it's very very late into the game, far longer than the vast majority of games in legacy last. In a tourney, they've usually called time by then. Include the 4 wastelands into the calculation (you only use wastelands early anyways, as late in the game, wasting mana source hardly matters), and you are talking about a situation that practically never comes up, a situation which only occurs once you have drawn out 3/4 of the deck.

And like you yourself said, drawing more business spells than mana sources late in the game is usually a good thing, far more often than it is a disadvantage, even in a deck like this.

But if you really want, go back to have just 9 ways to get white mana. The manabase I use is just a personal choice. There is no reason you can't simply use the standard Pikula mana base of just 4 fetchlands if you want to. Cutting Gerrard's Verdict for Negators actually ups your black count afterall. And I don't want to derail the real discuusion.

So lets go back to talking about the viability of Negator and wheter or not Swords is an effective means of disruption in Legacy?

As an aside, I have now gone to using 3 Shades and 3 Negators rather than 2 Shades and 4 Negators. That should please some people atleast.

You guys won't find an answer for these questions. You have to set up the deck for the metagame you expect. Pikula did a great job at the GP.

Negtor is a bad creature vs. every deck that runs R and vs many other Aggrodecks. Just imagine how Zilla Stompy laughs about Negators. No matter what people may tell you: Phyrexian Negator is BAD vs. Gobbos, too. And if Red Gro is able to get 2 Burnspells or Mongoose + Burnspell Negator loses the game. The chances that a first turn Negator goes all the way even against those decks are really small: you need Ritual plus Negator plus a lot of good Disruption plus bad topdecks of your opponent.

Negator is mediocre against decks like Angel Stompy, Affinity or White Gro. He will win some games and lose some games.

Negator is a great Creature vs. all Combo decks and Control decks like Rifter, Landstill, Train Wreck or Staxx. It is also an absolute bomb in the Suicide/Deadguy Mirror. Another good thing is that he is so much fun to play: Phyrexian Negator is the Antithesis of Solidarity.

In general Goblins is the most played deck and Red Gro is 1/2 of the 2nd most popular deck in the format. If you expect a different metagame Negator can be a good choice.

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Originally Posted by SuckerPunch

But yes, that "almost" as fast as Red Death part was a concern of mine too. It's at most only about a turn slower I found. That I believe is still fast enough that Negator can be MDed against the many matchups where he is gold, and sided out in the few where he isn't so hot. You commented that Negator was great even against goblins.

I am curious to hear how many of your wins came from dropping down a Negator and then simply disrupting your opponent till he wins the game for you. That is afterall the main reason to run him, and I believe the main thing this deck lacks. Deadguy can disrupt your opponent well enough, but once the disruption runs out, so many games it seems like your opponent can recover before you can finish the job.

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I've used Negator many times by simply dropping him and disrupting my opponent until they are dead. In terms of the Duel for Duals (sorry I've never gotten around to writing a tournament report but I would suggest PowerGamer1003's since he did make Top4), I played 3 Solidarity decks and I believe I got a first turn Negator once or twice and I won both of those games. Negator can almost race Solidarity all by itself when you play him on turn 1. I also used a Negator late in the game to defeat a Threshold opponent by being able to trample over for damage. Its not that Negator is great in every situation, but he is good in so many situations. If the format was dominated by Burn decks or even Goblins running Lightning Bolt then he would a different story. But Legacy is a varied field and there are many decks that you can play at a competitive tournament and many of them can't take immediate advantage of Negator's drawback. My position is that he is strong in many situations that may arise at a Legacy tournament that he is playable in the maindeck despite his drawback. You may lose because of his drawback, but you might also lose because your creature doesn't swing for 5 damage a turn.

This is where Deadguy comes in. It does lack a significant clock, but I'm not sure Negator is best here. It seems like the strategies of Dark Confidant and Negator aren't exactly best together. Dark Confidant is all about generating card advantage with each passing turn. He can bury your opponent in card advantage given enough time. Negator hardly wants the game to go long instead he wants to end it in a few turns. Negator seems best in a deck that wants to abuse tempo. Cards like Dark Ritual and Sinkhole and Hymn in Red Death are used as ways to buy time so that a creature (Negator or others) can come in for the kill. Deadguy doesn't have that strategy. The disruption itself is the strategy. It tries to completely shutdown an opponent based off disruption and to continue that disruption via Dark Confidant. Red Death uses disruption as a means to an end. Deadguy's disruption is the end itself. I believe that this is the reason Chris Pikula found Negator so unsatisfactory in Deadguy Ale. Negator just isn't part of the strategy because he doesn't help you disrupt your opponent. Nantuko Shade doesn't really do this either but the deck needed more win conditions and he fit better into the strategy than Negator. I think changing the strategy of the deck is much harder than it seems. Trying to move it closer to the Sui strategy is harder in practice than it seems. The question I'm left with is, why not choose one of these strategies instead of trying to convert one into the other?

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Originally Posted by Tao

Negator is a great Creature vs. all Combo decks and Control decks like Rifter,

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SCREECH

What?!!?! Do you know what Rifter is?!
Rifter will have a field day with this deck especially if you drop Negator, because it reads "either use one of the 14 ways in your deck to kill this outright or make its controller sacrifice four permanents per turn." Negator is just not good in the maindeck in a deck that is primarily disruption and secondly aggression. In an all-out aggro deck I still believe it is unviable against an aggro format like Legacy, but it is far more acceptable in a deck with more permanents than Deadguy.

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Originally Posted by dre4ms

In an all-out aggro deck I still believe it is unviable against an aggro format like Legacy

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SCREECH!

If Negator is indeed unviable even in an all-out aggro deck as you claim, then how exactly do you explain Anwar and Powergamer1001's dual successes this past weekend in a deck that ran exactly to the dot, the same number of permanents as Deadguy runs, in a build that only differs by 11 cards (Rotting Giant, Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning versus Confidant, Vindicate and Swords). There was a huge number of Deadguy decks at the tournament, not a single one of them came close to top 8ing either day. Anwar's build was run twice, and top 8ed both times? Was that just an anomoly. How do you explain Anwar's 9th place placement in the previous d4d with another deck that ran 4 MD Negators.

The topic at discussion I believe is whether or not Negator belongs in the deck-main or sideboard. While it has an amazing clock against High Tide, and is great against Gro, we have pretty good matchups against both decks already. Now, I live in St. Louis-as some of you may know, there is a Grand Prix here (tomorrow). Day 2 features a Legacy side event, and this is where I'm going to test the fatty. On a side note, why not Phyrexian Scuta or Juzam Djinn instead? Because they cost 4. On turn 2 they are not as good of a play as say, Duress-Hypnotic Specter. Plus, this deck runs 4 Confidants. 3 is really the most life I want to pay for an extra card.

All this being said, here is my current sideboard:

3 Pithing Needle
3 Planar Void
3 Engineered Plague
2 Darkblast
1 Swords to Plowshares
2 Gerrard's Verdict
1 Phyrexian Negator/Cursed Scroll/4th Plague

Phyrexian Scuta et. al clearly don't fit.

But if you do want beats, and don't want Negator or inc. your white reliance by playing Spectral Lynx...

Phyrexian War Beast is by far the best option. It's 3/4 body survives burn, and holds its own against the vast majority of the creatures in this format.

Lol, if you want to be bold and try something completely original, you could always up your Hippe count by running 2 Hollow Specter. It's not half bad, esp if you have mana to choose and discard their best card each time.

I do think 2 Hollow Spectar may warrant testing. It's not as good off of a ritual which sucks, but it's solid when played third turn, since you often have excess mana open fourth turn.

This may belong in a seperate thread or something but I wanted to find a tournament successful version of Rock and started searching for any legacy versions of PT Junk - it was probably the most popular rock variant in extended.

And I ran into the two year old list below...

4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Bayou
4 Scrubland
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Dark Ritual

4 Birds of Paradise
4 River Boa
3 Spectral Lynx
4 Hypnotic Spectar
3 Skeletal Scryin

2 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sinkhole
3 Vindicate
3 Pernicious Deed

The reason I post the list above is because it gives us another way to get around the inability of Deadguy to win if the initial onslaught of disruption fails. Most of the times I lose with Deadguy, it's precisely for that reason, that I wasn't able to disrupt the opponent enough early on. Deed gives Deadguy a reset switch. I am not suggesting anything like the above build, though the ability of all the above creatures to survive Deed is nice. But could a slight green splash for Deed be another possible direction to go, in perhaps a wholly seperate variant that takes the best elements of both Deadguy and the Rock. The past two years afterall also added such bombs as Witness.

Once again, if this was the wrong place to mention the possiblity of a green splash or such a variant, I apolozise.

Deed might be warrantable as replacement for vindicate...but it doesn't hit lands. You're really too heavy into black to play three colors.

I tested Negator. It was useless-as were Needles(everything that they hit, you already have a maindeck answer for). So there's 4 open slots in my sideboard and I think their going to Carnophage/Sarcomancy.

Ewww... Negator is utterly terrible in this deck. It is only useful in the matchups that you should auto-win anyways. Read Pikula's SCG report after GP Philly. He even says that the Negators in the board were a mistake. I guess you learn from the best..:tongue:

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Originally Posted by SuckerPunch

SCREECH!

If Negator is indeed unviable even in an all-out aggro deck as you claim, then how exactly do you explain Anwar and Powergamer1001's dual successes this past weekend in a deck that ran exactly to the dot, the same number of permanents as Deadguy runs, in a build that only differs by 11 cards (Rotting Giant, Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning versus Confidant, Vindicate and Swords). There was a huge number of Deadguy decks at the tournament, not a single one of them came close to top 8ing either day. Anwar's build was run twice, and top 8ed both times? Was that just an anomoly. How do you explain Anwar's 9th place placement in the previous d4d with another deck that ran 4 MD Negators.

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I really don't know how to explain it because I am still convinced that the creature that can singlehandedly wreck yourself faster than your opponent is terrible in this format, but he is nevertheless better in a deck such as b/r that can support him than in a deck like Deadguy, which packs substantially fewer permanents.

My real question is about Pithing Needle. What is this doing for us that we don't have a maindeck answer for-is there something I'm not seeing?

I think I'm going to try and take a note from Pikula's statement of needing more warm bodies. However, Zombies are not warm. At all.

Current Sideboard:
3 Carnophage
1 Sarcomancy(this looks like the better choice since I run 4 Withered Wretch in main-however, I haven't picked them up-regardless, if Negator has a better permanent to sac on color, I'll be suprised. Not that I'm running Negator anymore, but it's an option if the meta changes...ever...)
2 Planar Void
1 Perish
3 Engineered Plague
2 Darkblast
1 Swords to Plowshares
2 Gerrard's Verdict

I actually have been putting some thought into that idea as well. The deck truly does need some more bodies to bring in from the board....but I'm not sure if the deck can sacrfice not having needle. I'm not completely sure why others have used this tool, but in my testing this saves you from the random aggro and aggro/control decks that have good games against you. Yeah you have vindicate, but sometimes you need a faster answer, or the proactive answer to it. The cards I'm talking about are as follows:

Pernicous Deed, Survival of the Fittest, Regenerators in multiples *River Boa, Troll, Lynx, etc*, Mother of Runes, Ravager, Cursed Scroll, random equipment....these are just a few of the cards I have run into where I'm happy I play needle in my board.

While these decks aren't played in high numbers anymore, as seen at the last D4D these decks will pop up cause they know some people such as you are noticing a meta shift.

Pithing Needle also shuts down some fetchlands, I hear.
Sounds like Solidarity and Thresh, which you can already keep off one of their colours if you want, might have a hard time dealing with half of (or all of) their fetches being shut off.

I wouldn't bring stuff like Sarcomancy and Carnophage from the board. This deck has a big problem against fast aggro.

You want a creature that doesn't die to every other creature in the format. Phyrexian War Beast is a suggestion, as is Spectral Lynx, and possibly Negator based on when you want to bring him out. Even 2 Hollow Spectar isn't a horrible choice.

What about Order of the Ebon Hand/Knight of Stromgald?

It's Pro White, can be given first strike, and it's still a 2/x for 2.
But. Carnophage doesn't die to every other creature in the format, at least not the ones that can be cast on turn 1.

I'm not sure about the 2 Planar Void 1 Perish-I just know the situation of me drawing multiple Voids against Thresh-it's a dead card. I would recommend them over Tormond's Crypt, because Crypt can be Stifled as well. However, with Planar Void down, that doesn't stop Mongeese from multiplying, them from drawing cards, or you from dieing unless you draw some critters, or a Perish. 1 of just doesn't seem safe.

I would definately play three Perish, it is simply the best answer to a lot of problems for this deck, and is a three-mana Plague Wind against Thresh if it resolves (except for Pikula in U/G/w). I also wonder what you bring in those two Verdicts against. Solidarity? I can see where they might be good there, but isn't your maindeck already more than sufficient to smash them?

If you are sideboarding B/W Confidant for the DLD in Syracuse, you should run Dystopia in the side. You can expect to see Angel Stompy, Rifter, and possibly MWC, plus Dystopia is still useful against Thresh, SotF, and random green-based graveyard recursion decks. I also recommend to run maindeck Withered Wretches for graveyard hate and as speed bumps against fast aggro.

I was kinda surfing around starcitygame's D4D decklists and I noticed Day 2, there was a less orthadox build (or to what I'm use to at least) of Deadguy Ale. I'm refering to Adam Bowles's list with 4 Hymn, 4 duress, AND 2 Gerard's Verdict. Here's a link to his decklist: Click.

My question is, has anyone done the math behind the idealistic number of discard one should run? Perhaps he increased his count as a meta-game call. (2 solidarity in t8 day 1 and quite a few overall.) I would do the math, except I'm not sure how you would approch it in this situation.

Didn't Chris Pikula run two Verdicts MD?

I don't know the math on the "ideal" number of discards spells but it was a great call since he saw so much Solidarity. The 3 MD Plagues look like another good meta call against all the goblin decks that showed up.

Actually, his deck looks just like Pikula's except -2 Scroll, +1 Plague and +1 Jitte.


EDIT: Running Jitte with 11 creatures is ballsy. Vs. aggro I suppose he could take out the duress for more guys and the second Jitte. :\

I personally would not run Jitte, because it is indeed quite ballsy without a lot of stuff to carry it, and I prefer to have eight discard spells, because I would rather devote my slots to other disruption and destruction for things other than my opponents' hands. Pikula did in fact run two maindeck Verdict and Plague, but that was his (very, very, accurate) metagame call.

Agreed. Jitte in this deck seems rather awful. There just aren't enough threats in the deck to abuse Jitte's powers. Believe me, Jitte on a Hippie or any other beater sounds tempting. But the slot that Jitte takes up isn't worth it. I used to play this deck and I always considered Jitte. But my own insight and everybody I talked to said the deck isn't creature heavy enough. Remember folks... this deck isn't mainly aggro, control is a big factor in this deck too.