D&T actually predates Mana Tithe - it was made right after the printing of Time Spiral, i.e. Mangara/Flagstones. IIRC, Death stands for the aggro and Taxes for the mana denial.
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D&T actually predates Mana Tithe - it was made right after the printing of Time Spiral, i.e. Mangara/Flagstones. IIRC, Death stands for the aggro and Taxes for the mana denial.
....which used to be a much greater component of the deck (ie. Rishadan Ports + Tangle Wire + Hokori, Dust Drinker). These days, the deck is more like just "Death", relatively speaking.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nihil
Thanks guy. At first when I heard the name of the deck, I thought it had to do with Land Tax, but seeing as how 'Tax is banned, I thought it was a post-mortem version of the Tax deck. Silly me.
I clicked the link of the origin. I like the description of the proverb from which the name came ("Nothing is certain but death and taxes"): "It draws on the actual inevitability of death to highlight the difficulty in avoiding the burden of taxes. "
I can see how the description can applied to Magic when it comes to this deck. The inevitably of death comes the creatures and the burden of taxes comes from the mana denial. Clever.
Has anybody tested the Wg version? I think this deck looks pretty awesome, but I just feel fat like Tarmogoyf and then hate like Teeg good be really good.
A list I threw together.
Creatures
3 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
3 Gaddok Teeg
4 Serra Avanger
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Stonecloaker
3 Mangara of Corondor
Spells
4 Aether Vial
4 Mana Tithe
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Armageddon
Land
4 Karakas
4 Rishadan Port
3 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Windswept Heath
4 Savannah
3 Plains
SB
1 Armageddon
4 Samurai of the Pale Curtain
4 Glowrider
3 Krosan Grip
3 Tivadar of Thorn
Hi Jak!Quote:
Originally Posted by Jak.
I wonder why you prefer Armageddon over Cataclysm? In most situations where I have found Cataclysm usefull is situations where you are outnumbered (for example against gobbos or other aggro decks).
You're right, but not completely.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nihil
Death and Taxes was the name Finn originally gave to his deck that abused Hokori + Vial + Karakas, and Cloud of Faeries with Grand Arbiter Augustin (the Tax Collector), among other things. He tried UW and then GW, but settled on mono white, which quickly got adopted by hundreds of people who were looking for an alternative to budget White Weenie.
It'd be nice if the creator of the deck got a little credit.
I don't know about 26 creatures. I have not had that amount since before I started using Cataclysm. But for sure,
1. Mana Tithe is not an especially strong card. I often move it to SB in favor of Oblivion Ring if I think I will not see combo that day.
2. Do not start removing gy hate creatures. They randomly win games at times and create an annoyance for a great number of decks - all while attacking and stuff.
I posted a black splash list a little while back. I think it is pretty strong and it has done great in MWS testing (not randoms, actual tier decks).Quote:
Originally Posted by Finn
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 Thoughtsieze
4 Aether Vial
3 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Scrubland
3 Vindicate
2 Plains
3 Windswept heath
4 Flooded strand
4 karakas
4 Wasteland
1 Flagstones
Thoughtsieze and vindicate give the deck much more versatile removal which helps alot as they are not dead in any matchup. Knight of meadowgrain is just a slight change from white knight which is mostly inferior to it. Dark confidant gives the deck much needed draw and it acts as a small beater.
I have almost identical list to this, but I have replaced Knight of meadowgrain with cataclysm. How have they worked for you? Could the be replaced with Epochrasite? Have you been missing reseting power of Cat?Quote:
Originally Posted by technogeek5000
I'm also curious to know if you miss stonecloaker. Despite its polyvalence, I found him a bit weak and so consider him as the first set of cards I'm willing to remove to add something else (apart from the 2-mana guys who can change according to metagames and preferences). Do you think I'm wrong, and if so which set of cards (from the classic build) would you be willing to give up instead?
I use also Stonecloaker. In my opinion it's worth running atleast 2 off them (I run 3). It has some really nice interactions with all of the decks creatures. In addition to saving your creatures from removal and gaining card advantage and tempo it has really nice synergy with Mangara and jotun grunt. It's shame it cant be used if it is the only creture but that is the risk you have to take...
Gaining tempo? How?
True about the synergies, but if you play weathered wayfarer (instead of isamaru) to get more chances to hit karakas (along with some other cute tricks), you can support the mangara engine easily without stonecloaker (of course this makes you more vulnerable to blood moon and needle, but well).
My question was, if you HAD to remove a set of cards (particularly creatures), which one would you pick first? I know that all cards in the deck are usefull and synergic, but I'd like to know which you think is the least good.
Also, I'm curious to know whether you guys think switching between cataclysm main and oblivion ring side is a good idea. I seem to board my oblivions rings 75%, and I can hardly think of a situation where I would be displeased to get one. Cataclysm on the other hand is imo a sideboard card by nature, as it hits some decks (alot) harder than others. With all the thresh, aggro loam and dragon stompy decks (to name just a few) running around, I have it stuck in my hand far more often than I think is reasonnable.
Your opinion?
Hi Maëlig,
Il play 3 Wayfarer and 3 stonecloaker. Stonecloaker is so good with my 3 Grunt. It can remove Bridge from below, Life from the loam, genesis, etc... in the grave, and (generally) it don't take chalice of the void or counterbalance. It's a good aggro creature with flying and i like bounce one mangara with it to keep the pressure on my opponent, and often : I active Mangara, in reponse i active karakas, my opponent plays Sword or bolt in reponse and i play Stonecloaker in reponse.
I ALWAYS play Stonecloaker in reponse because it's always a very bad surprise for the opponent.
For the gravehate i don't play samurai of the pale curtain because i don't like the interaction with Grunt. So i must keep Stonecloaker in maindeck.
In France Goblins come back with strong results :mad: . For me 3 Silver knight main and 3 Tivadar of thorn in sideboard are necessary actually.
I'm going to play D&T at Paris on Saturday. I'll give you some news.
@Marko: You should post your list, we might be able to help you with it. Also your reasons for running stonecloaker arent exactly spectacular. Sure it can remove a brigde and a loam or whatever you need, but you hit 1 card for 3 mana and to bounce a creature. Stonecloaker is very narrow and in most builds your not going to want be be wasting your mana on cloaker. When i was testing the card, in every single game i wanted it to be a different creature except for once. Its especially bad in builds where you splash a color.
I play D&T only in monowhite version.Quote:
Originally Posted by technogeek5000
For me the best qualities of Stonecloaker are the surprise and the card advantage. I understand that you don't want to play it if you splash.
Yes, Aether Vial is my friend. Put 3 counters on vial only for Mangara is not optimum.Quote:
Originally Posted by technogeek5000
My list is close to the original of Flinn :
12 Plains
2 Flagstones of Trokair
3 Karakas
4 Wasteland
3 Mangara of Corondor
4 Serra Avenger
3 Stonecloaker
3 Silver Knight
4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Cataclysm
3 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Mana Tithe
3 Jotun Grunt
3 Weathered Wayfarer
2 True Believer
Sideboard:
1 Jotun Grunt
2 True Believer
1 Cataclysm
2 Abolish
3 Tivadar of Thorn
4 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Pithing Needle
Actually, In France, the metagame is open. Less ***** but more dragon stompy, Ichoride, Goblins, landstill than a few weeks.
@marko and Maelig, Weathered Wayfarer also seems a bit odd to me. Every other critter we run is either effective removal, effective in combat, or both, but this guy is a small, vulnerable tutor in a highly consistent deck and ties up mana in the critical early turns of the game. Wouldn't a bounce-able 2/2 for 1 be better? How many activations do you normally see in a typical game? I'd love the extra mana to pull off more consistent Cataclysms, but still, he just seems so small. :confused:
I agree that Cataclysm is pretty meta-dependent, but in many games against big critters I'd still rather cast it. I'd rather Dragon Stompy lose its mana base and be stuck with 1 killable creature than have it topdecking huge bombs to race with my weenies. Against Thresh it's a valid point, and is more likely to be countered if the tradeoff would be detrimental to them (they could also Daze your open mana just to protect a land).
This is probably dumb, but has anyone considered using a few Ancient Tombs? Stonecloaker, Jitte, Cataclysm, and Oblivion Ring could benefit from it. Sometimes I really have to stretch to pull off a Cataclysm (or even more so, a double Cat). I'm probably saying this because I only have 2 Rishadan Ports and 2 Ancient Tombs right now. :cry:
Salut Marko, sympa de te voir ici. :smile:
About wayfarer, I've been happy with him so far and am not willing to trade him back for isamaru. My reasons are a bit different from marko's, since I do not play stonecloaker so I really need to have a karakas when mangara comes out (plus the fact that I play Lin who is bouncable). Other than that, let's state the obvious : wayfarer is good when you need him, ie when you are manascrewed. So yes, I think it makes the deck more consistent and it has allowed me to take out a land or two. Other than that, if your opponent plays alot of non-basic you can regularly take out the "extra" land he puts to keep your board advantage or simply to make him run out of ressources (since you probably also draw lands during these turns, you can recover from this wasteland soft-lock pretty easily). Jotun allows you to keep on wastelanding if need be (although it hasn't happened to me often). Finally, I also play a signle tutorable mishra's factory, which I haven't used much but is nice against sweepers.
Do I need to say that he is a HOSE against landstill (not a great MU imo)? One game I rember my opponent playing a standstill (with nothing else on his side) while I had this guy. Next few turns he tries to slip in some manlands which all get wasted, and after having fetched a mishra's factory he was obliged to break his own standstill. Next game, he FoWed wayfarer without hesitation on 1st turn.
Hmm, a land toolbox is interesting. Would you mind posting your manabase (or full list?)
10 plains
3 karakas
2 flagstones
4 wasteland
1 mishra
1 CoK
3 wayfarer
4 serra avenger
4 knight of the holy nimbus
2 jotun
2 true believer
3 mangara
3 lin
4 vial
4 stp
4 mana tithe
3 catclysm/oblivion ring (I'm still unsure about this)
Maybe a single Mirror Entity for the Rebel toolbox (you creatures are very small exept for grunt) and a single Maze of Ith for the land toolbox (could be nice againt that annoying phyrexian dread or goyf)?
I thought about it, the problem being that you can't go too far in this tutoring strategy. Knight of the holy nimbus and to a lesser extent CoK are good by themselves and are synergic with the rest of the deck (knight + mana denial saved me a couple of games). So is the lands package (as I said mishra's factory is quite nice against sweepers like deed). On the other hand, I think I wouldn't be happy to draw a maze of ith in alot of situations, and I don't have enough mana to make mirror entity really good (I'm often running on 2 or 3 lands). In short, I think they are too situational, even as singletons. I'll have to give it a gtry though.
My result of MC in Paris, France. 16/02/08
47 players
my list :
12 Plains
4 Wasteland
3 Karakas
2 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Serra Avenger
3 Mangara of Corondor
3 Stonecloaker
3 Silver Knight
3 Jotun Grunt
3 Weathered Wayfarer
2 True believer
4 Mana Tithe
4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Cataclysm
3 Umezawa's Jitte
Sideboard:
1 Jotun Grunt
2 True Believer
1 Cataclysm
3 Tivadar of Thorn
4 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Oblivion Ring
1 Ice floe
1st match : WG equipments- I loose the die roll.
Sword and creatures give me victory (2-0)
2nd match : Goblins R/b (finish 5th)- I loose the die roll
1 round : Wayfarer gives me recursive wasterland for destroying these bilands and Rishadan ports. Grunt kills.
2 round : Cataclysm+Tivadar+Jitte are too strong. (2-0)
3d match : Faery stompy (finish 7th)- I loose the die roll
1 round : I don't know what my opponent plays. I have Vial, sword, and one plains in my opening hand. He begins with City of traitors=>Chalice at one.
I can't do anything.
2 round : I begin with Vial. him, chalice at one. his knocks are stronger than mines, whith his flying creatures. I can't play my swords and no drawing my oblivions. (0-2)
Why I put a Ice floe in my side ? Maze of ith is better !
4th match : White stax- I loose the die roll.
Recursive wasteland and cataclysm (against his artefacts) do the job. (2-0)
In the first round he kept crucible of worlds on cataclysm, but after, i play grunt who replaces his lands under his library. Grunt is great against crucible !
5th match Faery stompy :frown:
I win the die roll (Yeahhh baby !!! )
1 round : Recursive wasteland and 3 serra avenger give me the victory.
2 and 3 round : I loose for the same reasons the 1st match against FS
I want Maze of ith !!!
6th match : Burn- I loose the die roll...again and again and...:mad:
1 round : he kills me on my turn 3, i have Jitte on board but no creature
2 round : he kills 3 True believer before me. I have Jitte on board but he kills my creatures when i equippe.
It's a bad day because i didn't have the mangara lock during this tournament. :cry:
Conclusion : D&T is a very good deck against control and aggro but aggro control is more difficult. The good cards in this tournment are :
1-Cataclysm
2-wayfarer+wasteland
3-oblivion ring
4-Grunt, because it's strong and it replaces my wastelands in my library.
The worst cards : True believer, Ice floe.
I'm going to cut the 2 true believer in maindeck for 1 maze of ith and 1 Epochrasite, to put one more true believer in the side and -1 ice floe.
Sorry for my bad translation french=>english
Hey guys, I have been tinkering with this deck for a couple of weeks, and I noticed some people around here have done away with the Jitte. It seems to make sense with the addition of Oblivion Rings, but I am wondering if that is a standard build.
Advice: don't do it if you're running the mono-w build. You can neglect it when you're running things like Goyf which is huge despite Jitte, or if you're cantripping into what you need. But Jitte on the mono-white weenie package is too good in D&T to let go. If possible Serra Avenger is almost always your best equip target. Isamaru often is a great target early on. Jitte is pretty much what allows you to outclass mid-range decks with your creatures.
I hate the card and think it's ruined alot of good game play. But I can't deny how good it is and even despite my inclinations to not run it when I have other options, it simply belongs in the mono-white builds. Just remember to keep your creature count high. It's what keeps death and taxes consistent. Try not to drop below 22 creatures, even that seems a bit few sometimes.
I can't stress this enough. I was running 20 creatures at one point. Top decking lands and Mana Tithes with no way to dig is the suck!Quote:
Originally Posted by Galroth
I can't stress this enough. I was running 20 creatures at one point. Top decking lands and Mana Tithes with no way to dig when you desperately need threats is the suck.Quote:
Originally Posted by Galroth
What do you think is the best splash for D&T?
Green offers
- Gaddock Teeg MB/SB shuts off EE, Wrath, Force etc. Only thing that sucks is that he shuts off Cataclysm, too.
- Goyf.
- Krosan Grip in the Side to fight Deeds/random Enchantments/Artifacts you want to fight against
Black offers
- Dark Confidant, as teh Drawengine
- Thoughtseize
- Vindicate in the place of Oblivion Ring
Blue offers
- a bunch of cantrips
- Daze and FoW (only with heavy amount of Islands/Blue Spells)
- Meddling Mage SB
Did I forget anything?
Green seems kinda sweet but black and blue look nice, too.
Maybe we should not splash at all. Any suggestions?
And finally another question: What do you think are D&T good/average/bad Matchups...? This would help to decide which splash is the best :smile:
In the playing i've done with this deck, I perfer no splash, green is the best i've found. blue and black are ok, but green tends to run better for krosan grip, with all the artifacts and enchanments running around, and goyf is a nice beat for 2cc.
None whatsoever. Splashing makes you vulnerable to Wastelands, Moons, B2B, and makes it harder to use Cataclysm, which is the nuts in this deck. Splashing also makes you run fetchlands, which really hurts the Dragon Stompy matchup.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joon
In the black splash, Vindicate is only a slight upgrade over Oblivion Ring. Thoughtseize is nice, and Bob is pretty sweet, but I'm not sure what matchups black improves enough to warrent the splash.
The green splash is worse. Gaddock Teeg helps with Storm, but that matchup is always going to be bad, and there are already plenty of white/artifact cards that help: Orim's Chant, Abeyance, Mana Tithe, Glowrider, Chalice of the Void, Thorn of Amethyst. Tarmogoyf is a great beater, but is anti-synergistic with the graveyard denial strategies of Samurai of the Pale Curtain, Jotun Grunt, and Stonecloaker. Krosan Grip does very little that Oblivion Ring, Disenchant, and Mangara don't do already.
Blue isn't that great either. Brainstorm, Ponder, Stifle, Meddling Mage, Leyline of Singularity was always fun, but I've never had a build that ran enough blue to use Force of Will or Daze, which is the biggest reason to add blue.
I just don't see how splashing adds to the deck. You make yourself more vulnerable to mana denial which hurts the Aggro Loam, Dragon Stompy, The Rock, and Vial Goblins matchups. Since the cards I've seen cut the most from these lists are Stonecloaker, Jotun Grunt, and Samurai of the Pale Curtain, which hurt the Ichorid, Threshold, and Loam/Confinement matchups to name but a few decks that use the graveyard, I have to ask all you guys who splash in D&T -- What do you gain that offsets these losses?
I have tried that blue splash (the deck began blue/white) and black splash. I lik black the most, but I still play monowhite because I like disabling opponent disruption.
Hi!
I have been playing DaT successfully on the local weekly tournament (the meta is like the t8 in most larger tournaments. I´m very interested in developing the deck further. Shadowmoore is comming, and I have found two interesting cards:
Order of Whiteclay cc3
Creature - Kithkin Cleric (R)
3 untap: Return target creature card with converted mana cost 3 or less from your graveyard to play.
1/4
Augury Adept cc3
Creature - Kithkin Wizard (R)
Whenever Augury Adept deals combat damage to a player, reveal the top card of your libary and put that card into your hand. You gain life equal to it's converted mana cost.
2/2
Do you think that any of these cards might be strong enough? DaTs largest weakness has been the lack of card drawing (even though the card economics is good), Augury Adept may fit the card drawing spot. The Order of White Clay may strengthen the card economics and bring back previously killed/countered creatures.
Both look interesting, especially the draw engine one that fits into the mono white package, but another better card just popped up in the enchantment category that helps the bad combo matchup:
Runed Halo
ww
Enchantment Rare
As Runed Halo comes into play, name a card.
You have protection from the named card. (You can't be targeted by it, and all damage that would be dealt to you by it is prevented)
#21/301
The only thing it doesnt help against is ETW, but ghostly prison sb fixes that. Plus, its an enchantment, protecting from creature hate, and is essentially a time-walk enchantment against tendrils while they waste time grabbing removal from their sb.
That is very interesting. Considering that one and the recent Thorn of Amethyst, I think there are finally enough combo hate cards at reasonable costs to make that matchup good.
I understand that Runed Halo is a sideboard card and people tend to run True Believer in the main, but is it that much better than existing sideboard options that we'd want to run the Halo too?
Whiteclay and Adept seem too slow: a Resurrecting Yotian Soldier seems fun-but-slow in this deck, and a non-evasive costly bear will attack on turn 4 (cast) or 5 (vial) and be blocked and killed by almost any other creature that's out on turn 2. Perhaps the question to ask is: what would you take out for these? D&T already runs a ton of 3-ofs, indicating that the deck is tightly packed as it is.
Between the other colors, I'de have to say that black splash seems to help more. Confidant is a very nice engine, which can be pretty threatening once equipped with the jitte (then again what creature isnt? :laugh:).Quote:
Originally Posted by Finn
Finn, when you made your D+T deck and splashed black, did we have the same build? Heres how I spashed black in D+T...
4X [CARD]Karakas[/CARD]
4X [CARD]Flooded Strand[/CARD]
4X [CARD]Scrubland[/CARD]
3X [CARD]Godless Shrine[/CARD]
2X [CARD]Plains[/CARD]
1X [CARD]Swamp[/CARD]
1X [CARD]Volrath's Stronghold[/CARD]
3X [CARD]Flagstones of Trokair[/CARD]
4X [CARD]Aether Vial[/CARD]
3X [CARD]cataclysm[/CARD]
4X [CARD]Dark Confidant[/CARD]
4X [CARD]Samurai of the Pale Curtain[/CARD]
4X [CARD]True Believer[/CARD]
4X [CARD]Mangara of Corondor[/CARD]
4X [CARD]Swords to Plowshares[/CARD]
4X [CARD]Thoughtseize[/CARD]
4X [CARD]Cabal Therapy[/CARD]
3X [CARD]Umezawa's Jitte[/CARD]
SB: 3 [CARD]Kataki, War's Wage[/CARD]
SB: 4 [CARD]Mother of Runes[/CARD]
SB: 4 [CARD]Warmth[/CARD]
SB: 4 [CARD]Extirpate[/CARD]
Mother of Runes for me seems to warrant a side board in case I run into decks packing alot of removals. Other than that I think the rest ispretty self explanatory.
I really, really, would like to add vindicate in the list, however, I keep thinking to myself... is it really worth it? Just doesn't seem like it is needed.
Hi!
I can´t really understand why people still play True Beliver. Every deck that he is good against got answers for it (Solidarity has like 5 cards in SB that the can fetch with Cunning Wish+ one or more echoing truth in main). Most of the time it´s just a 2/2 for WW, not very optimal.
DaT is NOT a 8-land stompy, it´s an aggro/controll deck. The deck does not win on fast damage, but boardcontroll and card economy (playing the stonecloakers/mangaras etc right).
While it is just a 2/2 for WW, he still does trades with quite a bit of creatures. Yes it is true that many decks has an answer for it, many decks has an answer or some form of a silver bullet against othe problems as well. Should that stop you from playing the card? They can find the answer all they want, like you said they can fetch an answer form their side board. But that just delays them even more. They used their tutor to find a way around the creature, instead of getting their win card.
True Believer has quite alot of use in my area. Many decks are packing hand destruction, few burn decks running around, and several combo decks running around. Granted I play an uphill battle against fast weenie decks, but it just comes down to who has the jitte, and can I stall long enough for cataclysm.
If you play True believer in main deck, i think Absolute law is better than Warmth in SB. True believer + Absolute law = victory against Burn (be careful at Anarchy). and Absolute law is better against Gob and Aggroloam RG.
In your deck list i don't like Flagstones of trokair with Samurai OTPC. Perhaps Jotun Grunt is better.
6. Reanimator - Is that a turn 1 Akroma? I play Karakas, gg.
Good reanimators are running akroma anymore... Just a FYI
Your better getting rid of mana base than creatures