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Thread: [Deck] Strawberry Shortcake

  1. #1041

    Re: [Deck] Strawberry Shortcake

    I see... makes sense. Think I will shift the 4th Painter to main aswell and see if I like. I'm always a bit reluctant when it comes to change, so yesterday was the first time I played the deck with the 4 Bolts in side instead of main and the first time actually trying out the copters.
    They were a blast. Totally underestimated that card. That was another change I should've made earlier. Guess the maindeck Bolts were primarily for fighting Arcanist. If this holds truth when Ragavan hits paper - Time will tell.

    I think I liked the wishable Painter so much, because I'm usually a control player and as the deck has some nice prison elements, I've always leaned towards locking the game up first and then going for the 100% sure kill. That way having 6 plus mana was seldomly a problem, sitting there with multiple weldereffects, moon and bridge with an opponent basically unable to intervene with what I'm about to do. Often not even going for the Painter right away with Karn but rather looking for some more shenanigans.
    I'm simply lacking the predatory comboplayer skills to see my turn two or three "go for it" window after all the Counterbalances I've hidden behind :D

    Part of what I like most about the deck are the sheer resilience, amount of shenanigans and the load of routes that are unforeseeable for the opponent. It's just the kind of deck that makes me smirk from one ear to another while constantly feeling like I've next leveled my opponent into oblivion. Friggin' awesome deck.

    Thx for the answers.

    Edit.. also I liked the added flexibility of wishable Painter..

  2. #1042
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    Re: [Deck] Strawberry Shortcake

    Quote Originally Posted by Kap'n Cook View Post
    Wanted to give a quick Modern Horizons 2 update. List first:

    4 Ancient Tomb
    3 City of Traitors
    3 Bloodstained Mire
    2 Wooded Foothills
    4 Mountain
    2 Plateau
    1 Great Furnace

    2 Urza's Saga
    3 Lotus Petal
    1 Lion's Eye Diamond
    1 Simian Spirit Guide

    4 Imperial Recruiter
    4 Painter's Servant
    3 Goblin Engineer
    3 Goblin Welder
    1 Goblin Cratermaker
    1 Ethersworn Canonist

    3 Grindstone
    1 Ensnaring Bridge
    1 Blood Moon

    4 Pyroblast
    4 Lightning Bolt

    2 Enlightened Tutor
    3 Karn, the Great Creator


    side:

    1 Lotus Petal
    1 Grindstone
    1 Engineered Explosives
    1 Walking Ballista
    1 Ethersworn Canonist
    1 Ensnaring Bridge
    3 Surgical Extraction
    1 Tormod's Crypt
    2 Red Elemental Blast
    2 Rip Apart
    1 Magus of the Moon


    Saga is crazy good. I quickly went up to two copies after trying the first. They quickly snowball, and the uncounterable beaters/welder fodder plus LED/Petal/Stone and sideboard Crypt is amazing. Saga plus Painter is also an easy turn 3 win. I have aspirations of a third but need a lot more testing to see what sticks out.

    The four bolts are a concession to Ragavan and UR delver, which appears to be the new deck of choice. We line up well, being able to block and play bolts and blast the new dragon, but it's still a very tough matchup. Saga helps here too providing more mana around Daze, and so far every time I've gotten Wastelanded, it's always been the Saga over Plateau/Sol land. Pressure off our Tombs is actually huge. I've been regularly e-tutoring for a Saga to hit my land drop and to just provide insane value over three turns.

    The EE and Ballista are quick flex spots for 1 drop delver and whatever else, one of those spots will 100% be Portable hole. There are a lot of other moving pieces with the metagame right now that a lot could change, but this is where I'm starting
    Since you seem to be one of the most successful players with this deck, I tested this list as well for something like a 100 or so games. Here are my notes:

    1 - Mycosynth Lattice deserves a sb slot: upping the land count allows you to consistently play it much easily. Against control decks you can drop Karn, -2 to get and play Petal, then if you have another mana source in hand you're capable of slamming Lattice into play the very next turn. I like the idea of Karn not just being an oversized tutor engine but also a real threat, capable of winning in spite of a Pithing Needle that's naming Grindstone.

    2 - The aggro plan is weaker than ever: while Sagas are nuts indeed, very few games ended with me winning through beats (actually, they are 3, one against Standstill, one against U/B shadow, and one against Bant Control). I feel that from here we have two routes: upgrading the aggro plan or going all-in for the combo. If we want to keep the pseudo-aggro alternative plan i feel we should add Smuggler's Copter to the mix again. This would also make Recruiter better again, since more often than not they sit in play doing absolutely nothing and i've been tempted to swap the 4th Recruiter for the 4th Goblin Engineer. If we want to abandon the aggro plan, then i feel we could probably go heavier on white, cut the Bolts and substitute then with Swords to Plowshares. This would give us more defense against decks like shadow, Thespian-Depths combo, and even reanimator, but it would make the manabase more fragile than now.

    3 - Rip Apart's not very performing: maybe it's me and i've been unfortunate with pairings but the enchantment issues seem so rare that i'm not sure they are worth their sb slots. Abdrade looks better in so many situations, first of all because i'm happy to side it against the rampant UR delver, while i'm not so enthusiastic to do so with Rip Apart due to color requirements

    4 - Is Meekstone worth a sb slot?: I'm not sure with this but it's a good artifact fetchable with Saga as a sort of 2-class Ensnaring Bridge. I tried it and it shone in some occasions

    Please let me know what you think, the real-life 180 men tournament is approaching (next week) and i'm willing to give this a spin!

  3. #1043
    Bob Ross
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    Re: [Deck] Strawberry Shortcake

    Quote Originally Posted by Davek View Post
    Since you seem to be one of the most successful players with this deck, I tested this list as well for something like a 100 or so games. Here are my notes:

    1 - Mycosynth Lattice deserves a sb slot: upping the land count allows you to consistently play it much easily. Against control decks you can drop Karn, -2 to get and play Petal, then if you have another mana source in hand you're capable of slamming Lattice into play the very next turn. I like the idea of Karn not just being an oversized tutor engine but also a real threat, capable of winning in spite of a Pithing Needle that's naming Grindstone.

    2 - The aggro plan is weaker than ever: while Sagas are nuts indeed, very few games ended with me winning through beats (actually, they are 3, one against Standstill, one against U/B shadow, and one against Bant Control). I feel that from here we have two routes: upgrading the aggro plan or going all-in for the combo. If we want to keep the pseudo-aggro alternative plan i feel we should add Smuggler's Copter to the mix again. This would also make Recruiter better again, since more often than not they sit in play doing absolutely nothing and i've been tempted to swap the 4th Recruiter for the 4th Goblin Engineer. If we want to abandon the aggro plan, then i feel we could probably go heavier on white, cut the Bolts and substitute then with Swords to Plowshares. This would give us more defense against decks like shadow, Thespian-Depths combo, and even reanimator, but it would make the manabase more fragile than now.

    3 - Rip Apart's not very performing: maybe it's me and i've been unfortunate with pairings but the enchantment issues seem so rare that i'm not sure they are worth their sb slots. Abdrade looks better in so many situations, first of all because i'm happy to side it against the rampant UR delver, while i'm not so enthusiastic to do so with Rip Apart due to color requirements

    4 - Is Meekstone worth a sb slot?: I'm not sure with this but it's a good artifact fetchable with Saga as a sort of 2-class Ensnaring Bridge. I tried it and it shone in some occasions

    Please let me know what you think, the real-life 180 men tournament is approaching (next week) and i'm willing to give this a spin!

    You bring up some interesting points, I think the meta in general has already evolved from where we were two weeks ago when everyone was overreacting to UR delver and calling for bannings. For some data, my first 38 mh2 matches were a 53% win rate, with the next 54 matches (pretty much 3 saga) at a 81% wr.

    A lot of the removal is now exile based, with many decks playing white for Prismatic Ending. This complicates a couple things, you can't as easily leave naked Grindstones lying around. You hope the Goblins eat removal, but in general they are having more trouble than before trying to act as protection. I have some ideas for small tweaks, but I really just want to practice various maindeck builds against the meta before Portable Hole comes out in two weeks.

    To your points:

    1) You're right that I should revisit testing Lattice with Sagas now. The line of just jamming Saga and then grabbing Led for Karn to then wish for something is very real. It also solves scenarios where you end up with only those two cards and haven't drawn a recruiter, or can't reasonably entomb something with Engineer.

    2) Sure, the Copter beats were always a nice side avenue for the deck, and I have been missing the ability to block fliers. Moreso I've been missing the filtering. The overall problem is that I don't see where to fit copters in, and I don't know if that's a knock on recruiter. He's usually one of the best cards for enabling combo, in that the ability to block and tutor to hand is subtle card advantage something like Engineer can't provide. There are enough games where you need Cratermaker too. Feel free to chop, but a big reason I've always liked the deck is just playing the full set.

    3) Rip Apart - yea I could see dropping these once Hole is out. There are enough Sylvan Libraries out there that it's been nice to have these as an answer, and I like their ability to pressure a Karn in play compared to Abrade. I don't board in Rip apart against Delver, because of the whtie which is another knock. There are arguments that we should just run Prismatic Ending

    4) Certainly worth testing, I like that you can flex a Beta Meekstone on all the Walmart Delver players before dying to a Ragavan self assembling Painter and Stone on it's own lol. It competes with Bridge, but another Saga target could be nice. Might need 4 sagas in this case


    The broader things I'm seeing right now are the rise in Depths and midrange decks now that people have started to learn the Delver matchups. It's interesting that Ragavan completely cannibalizes the Delver mirror, as you are playing a second copy of your deck, so one Monkey hit and you are up a mana for Daze and up a card. So they have completely inbred their decks into this one drop UR pile, with separate midrange brews like Rug Delver and newer stoneblade lists popping up. Then the bigger control decks like Bant/UW/Bug. Saga is also a major player, and more people are prepared with Wasteland decks and ways to tutor it up

    Saga is still better than Copter, but I miss the filtering. As much of a meme it is, I might end up trying a single Brainstone since that's also a Saga target, and I wouldn't mind it as a value Engineer target. The ideal case is being able to move the bolts back to the board. That solves the lack of beatdown transition back towards a combo-control weird stack deck that hides behind bridge and counters your stuff

    I could envision a build like this:

    4 Ancient Tomb
    2 City of Traitors
    3 Bloodstained Mire
    2 Wooded Foothills
    4 Mountain
    2 Plateau
    1 Great Furnace

    3 Urza's Saga
    3 Lotus Petal
    1 Lion's Eye Diamond
    1 Simian Spirit Guide

    4 Imperial Recruiter
    4 Painter's Servant
    3 Goblin Engineer
    3 Goblin Welder
    1 Goblin Cratermaker

    3 Grindstone
    1 Ensnaring Bridge
    1 Blood Moon
    1 Ethersworn Canonist
    1 Portable Hole

    4 Pyroblast
    2 Red Elemental Blast

    1 Brainstone
    2 Enlightened Tutor
    3 Karn, the Great Creator


    side:

    1 Grindstone
    1 Lotus Petal
    3 Surgical Extraction
    1 Tormod's Crypt
    1 Ethersworn Canonist
    1 Ensnaring Bridge
    1 Portable Hole
    1 Pithing Needle
    4 Lightning Bolt
    1 Magus of the Moon
    Strawberry Shortcake

    http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...erry-Shortcake

    What a brainstorm do? Draw card and activate on draw effects fix hand, removing woods
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  4. #1044
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    Re: [Deck] Strawberry Shortcake

    Thank you for the quick reply. In order to raise to 80+% your win-rate, did you drop the bolts as suggested by your potential new list or just swap a city of traitors for the third saga?

  5. #1045
    Bob Ross
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    Re: [Deck] Strawberry Shortcake

    Quote Originally Posted by Davek View Post
    Thank you for the quick reply. In order to raise to 80+% your win-rate, did you drop the bolts as suggested by your potential new list or just swap a city of traitors for the third saga?
    Here's the list:


    4 Ancient Tomb
    2 City of Traitors
    3 Bloodstained Mire
    2 Wooded Foothills
    4 Mountain
    2 Plateau
    1 Great Furnace

    3 Urza's Saga
    3 Lotus Petal
    1 Lion's Eye Diamond
    1 Simian Spirit Guide

    4 Imperial Recruiter
    4 Painter's Servant
    3 Goblin Engineer
    3 Goblin Welder
    1 Goblin Cratermaker

    3 Grindstone
    1 Ensnaring Bridge
    1 Ethersworn Canonist
    1 Blood Moon

    4 Pyroblast
    4 Lightning Bolt

    2 Enlightened Tutor
    3 Karn, the Great Creator


    side:

    1 Grindstone
    1 Lotus Petal
    3 Surgical Extraction
    1 Tormod's Crypt
    1 Ethersworn Canonist
    1 Ensnaring Bridge
    1 Pithing Needle
    1 Walking Ballista
    2 Red Elemental Blast
    2 Rip Apart
    1 Magus of the Moon
    Strawberry Shortcake

    http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...erry-Shortcake

    What a brainstorm do? Draw card and activate on draw effects fix hand, removing woods
    #FreeNedleeds

  6. #1046
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    Re: [Deck] Strawberry Shortcake

    Thank you again! Now, a question about sideboarding: against show and tell/emrakul in general, do you bring in Crypt or do you leave it out as a target for Karn? Wouldn't it be better to cut a Surgical for an additional Crypt/Lantern so that you can keep one in the the deck and the other for Karn's wishboard?

  7. #1047
    Bob Ross
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    Re: [Deck] Strawberry Shortcake

    Quote Originally Posted by Davek View Post
    Thank you again! Now, a question about sideboarding: against show and tell/emrakul in general, do you bring in Crypt or do you leave it out as a target for Karn? Wouldn't it be better to cut a Surgical for an additional Crypt/Lantern so that you can keep one in the the deck and the other for Karn's wishboard?
    Depends on the emrakul deck - sneak/omni/post/tin fins, but the main way against sneak/omni I’ve been doing is

    -3 stone, -1 led, -1 moon, -1 karn, -1 painter, -4 bolt, +1 petal,+3 surgical, +2 blast, +1 canonist, +1 bridge, +1 needle, +2 rip apart

    this gives the best control approach to the matchup, you have a ton of live drops off show and tell and tutors to get bridge in play. ideal scenario is canonist/painter in play with blast in hand. Usually you need to answer two attempts, by then you either hope you can beat down or get a karn and go -2 stone -2 crypt. it’s still a three card combo but karn acts as a pseudo 2 card and let’s you go heavy stax and keep the dead stuff in the side
    Strawberry Shortcake

    http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...erry-Shortcake

    What a brainstorm do? Draw card and activate on draw effects fix hand, removing woods
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  8. #1048

    Re: [Deck] Strawberry Shortcake

    I’ve been noticing that having all these urzas sagas means that we’re more ‘gung-ho’ into finding stone via the last saga level.

    My thinking is that 3 saga, 2 stone, 2 etutor, 3 engineer, 3 karn should really be enough to find the stone, right?

    Isn’t it better off then, to go down a stone, and use one more slot as hate vs whatever the meta is? I was thinking of a pyrokinesis main, since it’s so good vs a bunch of little dorks, and it could give us even more flexibility at a not very large cost in deckbuilding.

    Ive also played a bit with dragon rage channeler, and let me tell ya; if you’ve never had the pleasure of paying R, blasting a land, AND feeding your welder via surveil, you gotta try it. Even if it’s just meme-good. It feels great.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Legacy decks: mono U painter, strawberry shortcake, imperial painter, solidarity, burn
    EDH decks: zedruu voltron, rakdos the defiler, persistent petitioners, blind seer

  9. #1049
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    Re: [Deck] Strawberry Shortcake

    So, yesterday the 170-men tournament went pretty well, for i managed to top8 it! Basically, i listened to the suggestions of both of you guys, because i listed a pretty similar list to the one that Kap'n kindly shared while i ended up shaving 1 grindstone and 1 petal for 2 of my beloved copters. Sideboard differences in comparison to Kap'n were 1 lattice and 1 meekstone instead of walking ballista and magus of the moon. Ended 6-1-1 with an intentional final draw, losing only to ug show and tell and beating 2 jeskai miracles, food chain, TES, Death and taxes and Bug delver with chain of smog combo. Deck felt awesome and we ended up splitting top8 prizes

  10. #1050
    Bob Ross
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    Re: [Deck] Strawberry Shortcake

    Quote Originally Posted by Davek View Post
    So, yesterday the 170-men tournament went pretty well, for i managed to top8 it! Basically, i listened to the suggestions of both of you guys, because i listed a pretty similar list to the one that Kap'n kindly shared while i ended up shaving 1 grindstone and 1 petal for 2 of my beloved copters. Sideboard differences in comparison to Kap'n were 1 lattice and 1 meekstone instead of walking ballista and magus of the moon. Ended 6-1-1 with an intentional final draw, losing only to ug show and tell and beating 2 jeskai miracles, food chain, TES, Death and taxes and Bug delver with chain of smog combo. Deck felt awesome and we ended up splitting top8 prizes

    Shortcake Tier 0

    The meta in general seems extremely wide open, that's a pretty big spread of decks you faced

    The copter additions I like a lot for a more tanky build. Playing with the bolts and Sagas gives a ton more beatdown presence and ability to block Delver and the red one.

    I usually like to build toward full combo redundancy, so I'll probably always play the full four stones in the 75. I don't see a problem shaving one to play more like a Trinket Mage era Blue Red style painter deck though
    Strawberry Shortcake

    http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...erry-Shortcake

    What a brainstorm do? Draw card and activate on draw effects fix hand, removing woods
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  11. #1051
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    Re: [Deck] Strawberry Shortcake

    Wanted to give my DnD list update now that Portable Hole is available on mtgo. Been through maybe 4 leagues, decent performance so far, mostly been testing manabase configs:


    Strawberry Shortcake 7/9/21

    4 Ancient Tomb
    2 City of Traitors
    3 Bloodstained Mire
    2 Wooded Foothills
    3 Mountain
    3 Plateau
    1 Great Furnace

    4 Urza's Saga
    3 Lotus Petal
    1 Lion's Eye Diamond
    1 Simian Spirit Guide

    3 Grindstone
    1 Brainstone
    1 Portable Hole
    1 Ethersworn Canonist
    1 Ensnaring Bridge

    4 Imperial Recruiter
    4 Painter's Servant
    3 Goblin Engineer
    3 Goblin Welder
    1 Goblin Cratermaker

    4 Pyroblast
    4 Lightning Bolt

    1 Enlightened Tutor
    2 Karn, the Great Creator


    side:

    1 Lotus Petal
    1 Grindstone
    1 Pithing Needle
    1 Portable Hole
    1 Ethersworn Canonist
    1 Ensnaring Bridge
    1 Tormod's Crypt
    3 Surgical Extraction
    2 Red Elemental Blast
    1 Magus of the Moon
    1 Karn, the Great Creator
    1 Karakas




    I've been steadily working in Urza's Saga in greater numbers, and the card is probably too good not to run the full set of. That has made the manabase and playstyle a bit different, as a lot of times you are operating on colorless mana only. There were enough hands I've wanted to keep that didn't have a permanent red source in them that would come back to bite me. I've been mentioning how Saga is a lightning rod for Wasteland, I think going up to three Plateau for color stability can work. Otherwise I'll just go back to the usual 4/2 split. Getting a fifth fetch back in is also a way to help the red count, and I plan on leaning more heavily on Brainstone to fix flooding, where fetch will help too. There's 22 lands now in the deck, I've always run 19. The deck is super mana hungry with Saga construct production, so I'm hoping the extra lands aren't really that bad.


    For the board, when I was running Rip Apart and Prismatic Ending they always felt like a bit extra. It was tough finding cards to cut to bring them in too. With Hole now, we have so much coverage against the majority of cards you'll run into. That freed up some space, where a card I've never run but I think makes sense right now is Karakas. It gives us a lot more game against Reanimator and Depths, while just being more mana against Delver and bouncing Ragavan. It's an angle Painter usually doesn't have, and I feel like the effect helps some of our harder matchups. The last card was just Karn. There isn't anything I really want to run instead, and getting the third copy back in the 75 gives a lot more post board flexibility
    Strawberry Shortcake

    http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...erry-Shortcake

    What a brainstorm do? Draw card and activate on draw effects fix hand, removing woods
    #FreeNedleeds

  12. #1052
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    Re: [Deck] Strawberry Shortcake

    I went 6-0 at a local tournament today with the following:

    4 Ancient Tomb
    2 City of Traitors
    3 Urza's Saga
    5 Fetch, Mountain
    2 Plateau
    1 Great Furnace
    3 Lotus Petal
    1 Simian Spirit Guide

    4 Painter, Recruiter
    3 Grindstone, Engineer, Welder, Karn TGC
    2 Enlightened Tutor
    1 Cratermaker, Canonist, Blood Moon, Ensnaring Bridge

    4 Pyroblast
    2 Bolt
    1 REB, Hole

    SB:
    2 Bolt, Surgical
    1 Rip Apart, REB
    1 Ensnaring Bridge, Pithing Needle, Soul-Guide Lantern, Tormod's Crypt, Grindstone, Hole, Canonist, Liquimetal Coating, Breya's Apprentice

    Card choices
    • Bolt/Blast distribution - I started with 4 maindeck Bolts, 4 maindeck Pyroblasts, and 2 sideboard REBs and kept finding myself in situations where I really wanted a Blast and did not want a Bolt. The 4 Bolts were originally a concession to Delver, but I was only infrequently getting paired against Delver on MTGO and Bolt was underwhelming against the slower blue decks and against the faster combo decks. The Bridge plan is good enough in G1 against Delver that I decided to deemphasize maindeck creature removal.
    • 3 Saga - Mostly because I didn't want to acquire a 4th, but also because 3 seems to be enough that when I draw one, I can play it and have two mana available to activate it the following turn. Finally, I really wanted to play Blood Moon so maximum Saga would be practically begging for awkwardness.
    • 3 Karn - With the arrival of Prismatic Ending there is a lot of exiling removal for combo pieces, and I wanted to avoid being obligated to Blast a Swords/Ending on one. I also kept finding that my constructs tend to be 3/3 or 4/4, rarely larger, so I wanted a way to put multiple artifacts in play without stuffing the maindeck with situational cards. This is relevant for being able to attack into possible Endurance or blanking possible Lightning Bolts.
    • No Brainstone - I liked Brainstone at first, but the activation was often inconvenient and I was usually activating it in the late game when I had 0-1 cards in hand to start with. I decided I would rather have an additional Bolt.
    • Soul-Guide Lantern - Tormod's Crypt is fine in Dredge- or Hogaak-like matchups where the whole graveyard needs to be wiped, but often it is enough to snipe a single card (Uro, Loam). In those situations Lantern has the advantages of staying in play to power up constructs and possibly drawing a card later. Moreover, having 2 exiling artifacts means that in Emrakul matchups, one can stay in the board and one brought in, so that it is easier to assemble the 3-card combo via Karn or ETutor/Engineer.
    • Rip Apart - I wanted another answer for Chalice.
    • Breya's Apprentice - This card is for grinding. Every tutor effect finds it, it synergizes with goblins, and most importantly it "draws cards". Also relevant is that it can put a Painter that did not name a color due to Dress Down into the graveyard without requiring another artifact already in the graveyard, unlike goblins.


    Matches:
    Round 1: 2-0 vs. Bant Miracles
    Game 1: I lead with Welder which meets a Prismatic Ending, then Tomb -> Painter with a Blast in hand and untapped Mountain. He has no removal for the Painter, but I don't draw any more mana so am forced to use the Tomb to cast Grindstone in order to leave up Mountain + Blast. He is under the impression that a Dress Down at this point will turn of the color-setting ability of Painter (which it doesn't), so he passes back and I draw the Mountain to activate Grindstone with Blast backup in his upkeep, which deals with the Dress Down but not the Endurance. He finds no help in the draw step so I Grindstone again on my turn to win.

    -3 Petal, -1 SSG, -1 Blood Moon, +1 REB, +1 Lantern, +1 Canonist, +1 Surgical, +1 Apprentice
    Having seen his deck I know he has only 2 Teferi and 1 JTMS, so Needle is not worth it. One could keep Blood Moon, but it's relatively easy for them to fetch basics and you may need Sagas and/or white mana. Portable Hole stays in because sometimes there is a Null Rod, and Blasts are usually devoted to stopping countermagic or stopping removal. Hole gets the nod over Rip Apart here because it is an artifact to strengthen constructs.

    Game 2: I keep a slower hand with Karn, Engineer, Blast, Recruiter, and some lands including a Saga. Engineer dumps Canonist before getting exiled and Recruiter gets countered, so I wait to draw mana for Karn + Blast. Saga -> Lantern exiles an Uro after which he has no real action, so Karn -> Liquimetal Coating goes to work on his white mana while I wait to draw Painter. Eventually I do, then Karn -> Stone to activate in his upkeep. 7 minutes of judge calls corrects his and the judges' understanding of the interaction between Painter and Dress Down and then I win.

    Round 2: 2-0 vs. Sneak & Show
    Game 1: I start with a Welder to his Volcanic -> Preordain. My second land is a Saga which I use to play Stone holding up Bolt, because it looks like he is playing Delver and I want to be able to play 3rd land + Engineer -> Bridge, weld Stone for Bridge with possible Blast backup if I draw one next turn, so I would rather not run the Engineer into a Daze this turn. This works out well as his Show and Tell -> Griselbrand lets me Engineer -> Bridge, then on my turn swap Stone -> Bridge which he can't answer.

    -1 Blood Moon, -2 Bolt, -1 Hole, -2 Stone, +1 Blast, +1 Canonist, +1 Bridge, +1 Lantern, +1 Needle, +1 Surgical
    This leaves me with 1 Stone and one exile effect in the deck. On the draw I bring in the second Bridge since Karn might be too slow to get it in advance of a Show and Tell.

    Game 2: I mulligan to 2 Saga, Petal, Canonist, Cratermaker, Blast, which has terrible mana but allows me to put in Canonist off S&T + Blast an Omniscience, or put in Cratermaker off S&T to kill Emrakul, and Saga will eventually grab Needle for Sneak Attack. Naturally he plays T1 Ragavan. I draw no mana so use Saga + Petal to play Canonist, which trades with Ragavan. He cantrips but finds nothing, so courtesy of a timely City of Traitors my Saga produces 2 constructs and a Needle and the constructs carry the day.

    Round 3: 2-0 vs. Emry Thought Monitor Saga Affinity
    Game 1: Knowing the matchup, I keep a hand that has no turn 1 play but with 2 Engineers and a Bridge. He plays a Pithing Needle on Grindstone, I Engineer for Portable Hole. He has a Saga and some more cheap artifacts that don't really matter, so I play a Saga of my own and a second Engineer for Painter. I play the Bridge to hold off his constructs, freeing up mine to become goblin fodder to return the Hole, exiling the Needle, and the Painter before Saga fetches the Grindstone. Two Engineers allows me to blank his Aether Spellbomb so the combo wins.

    -1 Canonist, -1 Bolt , +1 Rip Apart, +1 Needle
    The only realy concerns in this matchup are Chalice and Karn. Bolt can kill Emry or Thought Monitor, but is usually useless against his constructs.

    Game 2: He has T1 Seat of the Synod, Needle on Stone, Mox Opal and Force of Wills my T1 Welder, but has no action afterward. Fearing Chalice on 1, on my second turn I Portable Hole away the Needle (turning off the Opal) and play Grindstone which also gets Forced. With the opponent so low on resources it's merely a waiting game until I draw Saga -> Grindstone and Recruiter -> Painter to win.

    Round 4: 2-0 vs. UR Delver
    Game 1: On the play I have T1 Saga followed by Ancient Tomb, with a Mountain + Blast + Stone. Saga makes one construct before getting Wastelanded, which then gets Bolted so the path is clear for a delirious DRC and the stupid monkey. With Grindstone in play I resolve Bridge with 5 cards in hand, and take another hit before I get to ETutor -> Painter -> cast Painter with two red mana available and 2 Pyroblasts as the only cards in hand, but at 6 life. He Wastelands a third time leaving me with just Plateau + Mountain and Bolt puts me to 3, but I topdeck an Ancient Tomb to combo with Blast backup.

    -1 Blood Moon, -1 Canonist, -2 Enlightened Tutor, -1 Karn, +1 REB, +2 Bolt, +1 Apprentice, +1 Hole
    Deemphasizing the white mana, but since Hole can deal with a T1 threat I bring in the second. Apprentice comes in because something has to, and bringing a flier can be relevant.

    Game 2: He mulligans to 5 and a Bolt on his T1 DRC leaves him with cantrips. I get a Saga construct and two goblins, but my hand is all removal and Blasts so I go for anemic beats (the construct is a 1/1). After running some threats into my removal the game is essentially over.

    Round 5: 2-1 vs. Bant Miracles
    Game 1: I mulligan to 5 including a Welder, Saga, and Painter. T1 Welder ends prismatically, and though a timely ETutor finds a second Painter to pair with the second Stone, the opponent draws StP and I can't reassemble before losing to Uro damage.

    -3 Petal, -1 SSG, -1 Blood Moon, +1 REB, +1 Lantern, +1 Canonist, +1 Surgical, +1 Apprentice

    Game 2: I keep a slow 6 that leans on the 2x Saga. I luckily draw a 4th artifact to start attacking with 2 4/4s, which eventually seals the game.

    Game 3: I keep Apprentice, Karn, Recruiter, Mountain, Tomb, Blast. The plan is to draw the mana to play Karn with Blast backup, so Apprentice and Recruiter become bait. Apprentice eats Swords but Recruiter resolves, fetching Painter. So I am pretty sure he has removal, and opt to play the Painter with Blast backup after Saga finds a Stone. I Blast a Swords on the Painter, which gets countered so the Painter is exiled. After two turns I have the mana for Karn + Blast and Karn resolves naturally, so I fetch Tormod's Crypt (since Lantern is in the deck) to take care of a sleeping Uro. Karn gradually begins to take over the game, fetching back the exiled Apprentice and a Portable Hole to remove a Sylvan Library. Prior construct beatdown has brought him down to 8, and in combat a flashed Endurance blocks a Thopter. Apprentice turns that Thopter into +2/+0 on the other Thopter, which paired with a Dressed-Down Painter brings him to 4, in danger of a lethal attack on my next turn. Unfortunately he hardcasts a Terminus so I am left to rebuild from a Karn on 1. I draw a Blast, and opt not to counter an end-step Ice-Fang. I let the Coatl kill the Karn rather than waste a Blast on it, and am rewarded by drawing another Karn. This Karn gets the sideboard Bridge, which doesn't stop Ice-Fang since I'm still holding the Blast, but does protect me and Karn against any end-step Endurances. After several turns of both of us drawing nothing relevant, I assemble the combo only to have Painter exiled by a Swords, the Blast being countered. I draw an ETutor which allows me to topdeck a Painter and empty my hand, so that Karn will be on 3 at the start of my turn. I cast the tutored Painter, which gets forced, then Karn grabs the exiled Painter which allows the combo to win.

    Round 6: 2-0 vs. UR Delver
    Game 1: He leads with a Delver which I Hole away. He has the Wasteland for my Plateau but since I have Mountain, Saga, Ancient Tomb in hand already and no more white cards that is no problem. Saga produces a construct before being Wastelanded, and although the first Painter dies the second one does not so the combo wins.

    -1 Blood Moon, -1 Canonist, -2 Enlightened Tutor, -1 Karn, +1 REB, +2 Bolt, +1 Apprentice, +1 Hole

    Game 2: After trading off creatures with each other's removal and baiting out the Meltdown with 2 Grindstones and 2 constructs, I land a Bridge and the opponent is reduced to surveiling for the 1-of Brazen Borrower, having already used the Abrade to kill a threatening construct. I'm trying to find the third maindeck Grindstone to go for the manual mill win, and a second Saga finds it. I now have two 5/5 constructs, a hardcast Spirit Guide (originally a Ragavan blocker), a Recruiter, and a Painter against a Ragavan and two delirious DRCs with the opponent at 10 and me at 14. After some fetches and a Surgical on Saga, the opponent is at 6 and I topdeck a Bolt to pair with one in hand for lethal.

    Observations

    1. Blood Moon never came up and I never particularly wanted it. Some of that is due to the matchups played.
    2. It's difficult to actually close out a game via construct damage. I wouldn't mind some more maindeck artifacts, but which ones and what to cut?
    3. I faced Delver twice and 2 maindeck Bolts seemed fine.


    Changes
    I wouldn't fault anyone for cutting the Blood Moon, or playing a 4th Saga, or replacing the Coating or Apprentice in the sideboard, but I think the list is great as is.
    a.k.a. Eddy Viscosity

  13. #1053
    Bob Ross
    Kap'n Cook's Avatar
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    Re: [Deck] Strawberry Shortcake

    Snuck into 8th in the Legacy challenge yesterday with a 5-2 record and promptly lost to finish in 8th, figured I'd give a quick post and list thoughts:

    4 Ancient Tomb
    2 City of Traitors
    1 Arid Mesa
    2 Bloodstained Mire
    2 Wooded Foothills
    4 Mountain
    2 Plateau
    1 Great Furnace

    4 Urza's Saga
    4 Lotus Petal
    1 Lion's Eye Diamond
    1 Simian Spirit Guide

    4 Imperial Recruiter
    4 Painter's Servant
    3 Goblin Engineer
    3 Goblin Welder
    1 Goblin Cratermaker
    1 Walking Ballista
    1 Ethersworn Canonist

    3 Grindstone
    1 Brainstone
    1 Portable Hole
    1 Ensnaring Bridge

    4 Pyroblast
    2 Red Elemental Blast

    1 Enlightened Tutor
    2 Karn, the Great Creator


    side:
    3 Surgical Extraction
    1 Tormod's Crypt
    1 Grindstone
    1 Pithing Needle
    1 Portable Hole
    1 Ethersworn Canonist
    1 Ensnaring Bridge
    4 Lightning Bolt
    1 Magus of the Moon
    1 Karn, the Great Creator


    Don't worry, Arid Mesa is just an old border placeholder online so I can see the 5th fetch, it will def be an OG onslaught for big paper events

    I had been messing around with no bolts main since it's so much better against the broader meta, and hoping to get by with bridge game 1 against UR Delver. Otherwise, you don't actually really care about killing any creatures from DnT, so I switched up the main a bit. Brainstone continues to be my filter card for random Saga value, and Portable Hole is the generic catch all


    Not gonna do a broader recap, but wins were: Rug Cascade for crashing footfalls, Bug Aluren with Force of Vigor, Endurance, and your bug value pile, UR Delver, UB Painter (sorry mapson) where g1 he leads Tomb and Painter on black, whlie I have land, grindstone, LED for the turn 1 on the comeback, and Doomsday. Losses to UR Delver same dude twice, and UG lands where i got ground down to dust.

    I have some things I'm going to tinker with, probably try to get some Smuggler's Copters back in because of their utility across matchups plus filter. Otherwise prepping for the Pit open, and will probably post a pimp update once old border Karns are out
    Strawberry Shortcake

    http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...erry-Shortcake

    What a brainstorm do? Draw card and activate on draw effects fix hand, removing woods
    #FreeNedleeds

  14. #1054
    Member
    Airwave's Avatar
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    Re: [Deck] Strawberry Shortcake

    Quote Originally Posted by Davek View Post
    So, yesterday the 170-men tournament went pretty well, for i managed to top8 it! Basically, i listened to the suggestions of both of you guys, because i listed a pretty similar list to the one that Kap'n kindly shared while i ended up shaving 1 grindstone and 1 petal for 2 of my beloved copters. Sideboard differences in comparison to Kap'n were 1 lattice and 1 meekstone instead of walking ballista and magus of the moon. Ended 6-1-1 with an intentional final draw, losing only to ug show and tell and beating 2 jeskai miracles, food chain, TES, Death and taxes and Bug delver with chain of smog combo. Deck felt awesome and we ended up splitting top8 prizes
    I see you managed to top8 again, congratz!

  15. #1055
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    Re: [Deck] Strawberry Shortcake

    Thank you! I did in fact, it was a 194 men tournament this time, straight 6-0 and then 2 ID to enter Top8. Matchups I faced were Sneak and Show (2-0), Dredge (2-1), Bant Omnitell (2-0), U/B Shadow (2-0), Goblins (2-1) and Jeskai Sagavan (2-1). Lost in Top8 to UR Delver. Decklist was pretty much the same as last time, just added a 4th Saga maindeck, a 4th Karn to sb and made room for a couple of Portable Holes (1 maindeck, 1 sb) cutting Blood Moon, Simian Spirit Guide and Rip Apart.
    The deck is at its best, saga allows you to have a very consistent beatdown plan while at the same time presenting at least half of the combo on the battlefield.

  16. #1056

    Re: [Deck] Strawberry Shortcake

    I was wondering, since we have all the fetch lands available as old-border, what would give me more of an edge;
    1. as the original shortcake build had it (mires, foothills)?
    2. as big a spread as possible (one of each that fetches mountains)?
    3. pretending to be some other deck (in this case, only tarns, pretend to be UR delver or something along those lines)?

    Or some other combination I've not thought of?
    Legacy decks: mono U painter, strawberry shortcake, imperial painter, solidarity, burn
    EDH decks: zedruu voltron, rakdos the defiler, persistent petitioners, blind seer

  17. #1057
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    Airwave's Avatar
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    Re: [Deck] Strawberry Shortcake

    Oswald Fiddlebender

    Could this be an interesting addition to the deck?

  18. #1058

    Re: [Deck] Strawberry Shortcake

    Quote Originally Posted by Airwave View Post
    Oswald Fiddlebender

    Could this be an interesting addition to the deck?
    Activate as a sorcery stops you from doing the weld grindstone into painter trick. But this could be goblin engineer number 5 if you want.

  19. #1059
    Member
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    Re: [Deck] Strawberry Shortcake

    Quote Originally Posted by Reeplcheep View Post
    Activate as a sorcery stops you from doing the weld grindstone into painter trick. But this could be goblin engineer number 5 if you want.
    Activate as a sorcery is a big disadvantage indeed. Dodging graveyard-hate on the other hand is nice, but this isn't often relevant until game 2, hmmz

  20. #1060
    Member
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    Re: [Deck] Strawberry Shortcake

    Quote Originally Posted by schweinefettmann View Post
    I was wondering, since we have all the fetch lands available as old-border, what would give me more of an edge;
    1. as the original shortcake build had it (mires, foothills)?
    2. as big a spread as possible (one of each that fetches mountains)?
    3. pretending to be some other deck (in this case, only tarns, pretend to be UR delver or something along those lines)?

    Or some other combination I've not thought of?
    I mentioned this earlier, but I think spread it the best, so use all four. Spyglass can kill you with multiples.

    I love pretending to be another deck, but how often can you wait a turn to use scalding tarn, turn 1 Welder or Grindstone can't wait, enlightened tutor can on the other hand.

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