[Project] Rebuilding ATS - It needs to be done

[Sims]

I've tested Carven Caryatid and I really, really hated the 3cc. It bugged the hell out of me. Not being able to stop a turn 2 Piledriver or something from the draw sucks hardcore. I don't believe killing attackers is all that big of a deal if they aren't dealing me damage, because it just buys time until I setup a lock. Plus, I think the ability to cantrip off of a dying Wall of Roots or Blossoms is really good. +2 cards from a Wall of Blossoms that holds off a Lackey or something is titties in my book.

Not gunna disagree with you, it was just a theory that hit me while I was reading the post as I know that sometimes the mana you have to pay to blow up your Walls for cards might become expensive. Genesis-ing a Wall of Mulch to draw 1 Card is slightly expensive, although it becomes slightly better if you are using Genesis to recurr WoB that you're blowing up with WoM. Still though, 3GGG for 2 cards seems a bit...much. However, the logic is sound and it's true that killing attackers isn't as big of a deal if you can set up lock within a reasonable amount of time. I didn't think the extra mana was going to be as big of a deal, and that perhaps killing off smaller attackers (even though the walls would likely keep them from swinging for a few turns anyways) would help keep the subsequent PDs from being bigger than they could be. /shrug. You'd know better than I anyways, this was your pet.

[Di]

Obviously the Genesis play with the Wall isn't that great, but I was just demonstrating an example of what you can do given the situation. Most likely in this case there will be something better to get, such as Eternal Witness or Tradewind, but you get the point.

[troopatroop]

The thing about Enlightened Tutor that always bugged me and made me pull it, is that it often cludders your hand up when you've already drawn survival. When you need creatures in your hand to go crazy with survival, enlightened tutor does jack shit outside of searching for Masticore. This lead me to putting 1 Worship in the maindeck to search for when I've already drawn survival and I'm trying to stabilize the lock. Worship was the tits against goblins, and would be an amazing maindeck slot right now. Often times I would tutor for Worship before Survival because it would help me stay alive much better than Survival would have, and it seems to me like that situation would come up alot more in this metagame than before.

[Citrus-God]

For some reason, I feel that AEther Vial belongs in this deck. If Vial is in play, while SotF is active, I can synergize my whole entire deck with AEther Vial, have some mana open to drop down more threats. Yes it's slow, and it's slow against Combo. So please don't sue me...

Aether Vial would be run over mana production creatures. As good as it is, those creatures are used to abuse Survival of the Fittest much faster. Aether Vial doesn't lead you to survivaling more often; it can just dump a Tradewind into play a bit slower than the deck usually can. I find the deck's speed is already too good to lose creatures for. I guess the issue is that the bulk of creatures that want to be played the most round out at 4, so Vial's potential won't come out until it's at that counter. By then, I'll have more than enough mana to do what I like.

Pikula, Needle, and Sharpshooter... err... I really don't know what to say to that. Maybe for Sharpshooter, we could go back to the Enlighten Tutor build, and run Absolute Law. But to tell the truth, it's now worth it...

I actually don't think using the Enlightened Tutor build is that bad. After playing at the Grand Prix and cutting basic lands for nonbasic lands, I realized that Wasteland isn't nearly as prevalent as I originally believed. Yes, Wasteland is still seen in a million decks and yes Life from the Loam decks will be more prevelant in the metagame soon, but the main complaint people had with the manabase was due to Wasteland rape, something I honestly don't see it as popular as I once thought. If I can run a deck that is even more manahungry that this at the Grand Prix with twice as many nonbasics and still perform well, I think the older manabase has a shot at doing well now.

gahh... I hate Wastelands. They can seriously slow down a lot of decks. You right, running Savannahs just slow you down even more...

As for the old manabase, I think Red is a very huge part of the deck, besides Anger. I believe that Red gives insane tools to combat other decks, like Goblins.

With FtK, Sharpshooter, and Goblin Pyromancer in the side. I think this deck could do pretty damn well...

[Whit3 Ghost]

What about a black splash for Diabolic Intent? The only condition is that you need a creature to sacrifice, which isn't a problem considering the walls and mana guys.

[Slay]

Sacrificing at Sorcery speed is far less than tits when your opponent has a Warchief or a Lackey across from you.
-Slay

[Whit3 Ghost]

Good point. I was just considering it as an alternative to E. Tutor.

[Efreet]

sorry but i don't think that play duress, diabolic intent or worship maindeck are solutions to the real problems..

against pithing needle we can use scavenger folk x1 maindeck with orango/viridian shaman (if not both) or eventually 1 seal of cleansing to have another target for tutor..

against meddling we can use in mono-copy Ftk, grim lavamancer or even another masticore and/or a seal of fire, both target for tutor..

against goblin i don't see so much problem..

i have 3 consideration:

1) what about use again Stifle? is extremely good against combo, help our manabase and is blue :) why don't try..

2) what about improve the UW component of the deck? we could use (rebuilding our mana base obviously) meddling mage in 4x and Stp in 4x.. it could help a lot against combo and fatal turn-one lackey.. and postboard we could have more tool to help.. we only have to remove some situational creature in the actual maindeck..

3) i actually testing maindeck 3x pithing needle and they help a lot, but seem just too situational for our needs..

[cartman34]

This Deck needs several things to addept to the current metagame.

3-4 Stifle:Not only that it protects your lands it is also a good answer to Neddle,Mage etc..

Playing Black:I think that you shoudl not be forced to run that many blue cards and that pitching a Card to FoW is very clunky for this deck so Cabal Therapy could be a good replacement and we all know how good confidant is.

Loxodon Hierarch:It is great against aggro , giving you enought time to set up your lock and it is a good beatdown creature against Combo(I think FtK would be a good sideboard card).

To support that many Colors you should run a maximum(8) of green Fetchlands along with other cards to support your mana base.

Wall of Roots is good but its more often dead than you might think and this Deck can get out of Gas very fast without Survival so maybe a Combination of Wall of Blossoms and Wood Elves(you can survival it to get a Taiga) would be worth testing.

A full set of Meddling Mages in the board helps your combo machtup and with 8 Fetchlands any maybe even 1 couple of City of brass you can support it and since combo decks don´t run mana disruption.You can set up a lock against combo and its a good topdeck.Its good if you don´t have space for enlighted tutor that you have anti combo cards that are fetchable with survival.

[Efreet]

Sorry but.. have you ever played the deck?? i mean..

First of all stifle doesn't prevent meddling from naming..

Pitch a Fow was never been expensive for this deck with 16 blue card, so i don't think this is the problem.. cabal therapy doesn't improve any of our match-up and play confidant with tradewind, masticore, muse and fow is more than a suicide, even if powerfull..

loxodon hierarch is good against aggro, sorry that "aggro-non goblin" is always a bye for this deck.. it will never help us setting up our lock more than a baloth.. more baloth has only a color to his mana cost so is more flexible, thanks to the ability of gain life whenever we want too.. against combo, this is not a improve, just useless as any other creature in the deck over tradewind..

wall of roots is not good, more!! is never dead because we play only with 18 lands, and a more mana is sure more usefull than an extra card.. we can play wall of blossom, but never take out wall of roots that also add speed against combo.. wood elves is good, but in the actual metagame i think that for a 3mana cost we can find something better for our needs..

meddling mage in side is good, but only if you don't use enlightened tutor so you don't have a side made up of toolbox..

18-20 lands with 8 fetch 2 city of brass and 4 fow means death against every stupid monored burn deck, and goblin wins without piledriver -_-" ... this is not the way to have a better mana base..

[dsg123456789]

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
2 [B] Tropical Island
2 [B] Taiga
3 [B] Bayou
5 [UNH] Forest
3 [ON] Wooded Foothills
3 [ON] Windswept Heath

// Creatures
1 [VI] Uktabi Orangutan
1 [FD] Eternal Witness
1 [ON] Ravenous Baloth
3 [RAV] Dark Confidant
1 [EX] Wood Elves
1 [UD] Masticore
4 [B] Birds of Paradise
1 [LE] Seedborn Muse
1 [JU] Anger
4 [TE] Tradewind Rider
3 [MI] Wall of Roots
3 [VI] Quirion Ranger
1 [UD] Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 [MM] Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 [JU] Genesis

// Spells
4 [JU] Cabal Therapy
4 [US] Duress
4 [EX] Survival of the Fittest
3 [IA] Brainstorm

// Sideboard
1 [UL] Bone Shredder
1 Gilded Drake


I have been testing ATS with black, since black gives you so many powerful tools. Duress+Cabal Therapy is a must stronger defense to punch through than Force of Will, and they give you card advantage (potentially) rather than card disadvantage.

One problem that I have found with my list is that I really wish I
had some way to recover better from heavy disruption like deadguy ale uses. I am testing both the manabase I have posted and a base with 4 of Bayou and Trop and 2 of Taigas, and so far, neither seems better than the other. Confidant is strong, and since this deck has an average CC of about 2.4, where Deadguy Ale has avg CC of 2, it is not too painful, and you can always therapy it away.

Also, I wish there was a better foil to aggro. Masticore seems weak overall, but I dont know what would be stronger in his place.

I run the 3 Brainstorms because 4 Confidants was quite painful and did not find me a survival fast enough. The Brainstorms+Confidant lets you draw into lots of threats and find your survival in a reasonable time frame.

[Citrus-God]

So you fixed the Card Advantage Problem... Looks decent. Problem I have with your list is that, after a Wrath hits the board, and they throw away your Survival, your deck is crap.

Yes, Dark Confidant fixed the topdeck problem, but what about your opponents' topdeck? Discard can't punch through that, only counters can. And isn't Cabal Therapy an anti-synergy with your gameplan to lock your opponent with TR?

To tell the truth, I personally liked the hybrid list Di posted on the other ATS thread. Simply because it can topdeck. I mean, he had something going there. It can play 3 roles (Aggro, Control, Lock.) against curtain decks, instead of the standard 2. (Lock and Control.)

[dsg123456789]

The Therapy and Duresses are there either to protect you from removal and disruption spells so that you can quickly achieve at least 1 Rider activation per turn, thereby gaining an advantage that you can exploit to seal the game, or you can use them to dismantle your opponent's strategy, such as by Therapy-ing piledrivers and warchiefs to buy yourself lots of time. You often can afford to sacrifice a creature it it is nessecary in the early game, because it is more important to protect yourself than to have 5 instead of 4 mana. (Thats why Cabal Therapy isn't anti-synergy--it's just a powerful disruptive spell).

Also, I'd like to point out that most permanent-based decks are not good when they have every permanent except thier lands destroyed. But at the very least this deck can recover with Genesis-->Witness-->Survival, something that decks like Stax cannot do.

The one problem with my list is that it does not have a maindeck creature removal spell, so I think that I am going to cut a therapy and another spell (like a Quirion Ranger) for a Masticore and Bone Shredder MD, because those let you recover easily against decks like Deadguy Ale and Goblins.

[Efreet]

you don't understand the problem..

the problem is:

- IF I HAVEN'T SURVIVAL IN PLAY, HOW CAN I RESIST??
- YOU NEED TO IMPROVE YOUR TOPDECK..
- HOW CAN I DO IT?
- PLAY CABAL THERAPY...

wow!!! what a wonderful solution.. it seems useless topdecking a enlightened tutor, but not therapy.. therapy is god in this situation..

the problem of confidant is that is not well supported.. deadguy ale play more of 20 (i don't remember) lands, and you will take only 1-2 damage, rarely 3..

in our deck you always take 2 damage, sometimes 1 sometimes 3, and my god it can happen even 4..

no way to play with it without creating a new concept of the deck!! you have to cut one color: blue and green no way.. you can cut white to add black, so you lose tutors, stp (if we wanna try them..) and toolbox in side to gain therapy and confidant..

i don't think we improve anything..

[dsg123456789]

Efreet, I would appreciate it if you tried to be a little more coherent. Black is much better than white because:

1) You get a secondary draw engine that is very powerful and works without ever seeing a suvival
2) You get a large amount of more efficient maindeck disruption that is usually card parity and sometimes card advantage, rather than the disadvantage of Force of Will.
3) Dark Confidant will only lose you 2.3 life per turn, which is barely more than Deadguy Ale loses on average per turn (2 life).

Enlightened Tutor and Force of Will are card disadvantage solutions that generally are only useful for the first copy you cast (i.e. you usually only have a Blue card to pitch once for Force and you only need to tutor a Suvival once with the tutor), where Confidant and Duress/Therapy are useful every single time you get one (whether it be for further disrupting your opponent or for drawing more cards or just for another Suvival activation).

i think we improve something..

[Efreet]

i didn't tell you that is a bad idea..

i told you that confidant needs to be more supported, not only by brainstorm but also by (for example) sensei..

i appreciate your ideas, but i still prefer the version with white just because actually in the metagame don't exist the worst deck against which we can play: solidarity and landstill..

in the past only this 2 decks were the problem, and all other archetypes were lot of fun for us..

so i think we need only a few changes, and not to reinvent the deck.. i'll try all your decklist without problem, and i can change my mind in this way :)

Capitalization please. Thanks. - Zilla

[Slay]

Confidant doesn't need to be better supported at all. You're simply paranoid about losing life. In this format, with the exception of burn, no one cares about how much life you have. If you're drawing 2 cards a turn, you're going to outpace Goblins, sligh, stompy, etc. very very quickly. Who cares if you hit a Tradewind Rider off a Dark Confidant? You have a Tradewind in your hand, and you're about to win the game. 4 life for winning the game seems like a very fair trade.
-Slay

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Confidant doesn't need to be better supported at all. You're simply paranoid about losing life. In this format, with the exception of burn, no one cares about how much life you have. If you're drawing 2 cards a turn, you're going to outpace Goblins, sligh, stompy, etc. very very quickly. Who cares if you hit a Tradewind Rider off a Dark Confidant? You have a Tradewind in your hand, and you're about to win the game. 4 life for winning the game seems like a very fair trade.
-Slay

Myth.

Every deck except Solidarity cares about your life total, and running cards like Genesis and Tradewind with Confidant is a risk that is best avoided.

[Slay]

They may care about your life total, but becuase you're drawing more cards than them, they aren't going to be able to hit you for any reasonable amount of damage, barring a vastly superior draw on their part. The only decks that can actually kill you through the massive card advantage you're getting are decks that wield 12+ burn cards.

The main concern of Dark Confidant should be its extremely killable 2/1 frame, and its inability to stop a first turn Lackey. In my 100+ games testing with AMwP, a deck that sports double the 4cc creatures this deck has, I've only run into problems with life totals once against a non-burn deck.
-Slay

[dsg123456789]

This deck can support Confidant, because as I think I said before, the average CC in the build I posted is a mere 2.5, which means you will lose about 7.5 life with 3 turns of Confidant-ing. That is usually the lifespan of the Confidant. Also, paying half your life to win the game is acceptable, like Slay said (twisting your words a bit here). The other "nice" thing about the Confidant is its fragile, extremely killable 2/1 frame, because you won't have to suffer its life loss for very long most of the time.