Vaka Nought - A Powerful Brew Abusing Stifle and Dress Down to slam 12/12s and Titans

[Clark Kant]

Vaka Nought is a unique deck built around Dress Down, Stifle, Dreadnought and either Uro (Bant versions) or Dragon's Rage Channeler, Lazav and Kroxa (Grixis versions) to add resiliency. The deck was in development (and played both Lazav and Uro together alongside Dreadnought) before Dress Down was spoiled but post Dress Down, the list diverged into two very different directions that I like to refer to as Dress Nought and Naked Nought (the Dreadnoughts don't have Uros to back them up).

Despite the strength of Dress Down, the fundamental game plan stayed the same, to disrupt your opponents manabase with Stifle and Wasteland, disrupt their win conditions using Daze, FoW or Dress Down, and win using a Dreadnought and either Uro or Dragon's Rage Channeler (alongside Lazav to abuse the Surveil shenanigans) while they are still rebuilding. Instead of creating a new thread, the existing thread where the preMH2 lists were being discussed was updated with the post MH2 changes. However, there were so many different ways to abuse Dress Down that the deck several different directions.

The newest list that is the current focus of development is...

Vaka Nought - Temur (aka. Dress Naughty)

4 Wasteland
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical Island
1 Tiaga
1 Snow Covered Island

4 Stifle
4 Dress Down
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
3 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath

4 Dragon's Rage Channeler
2-3 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
1-2 Brazen Borrower
1-2 Sylvan Library

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3-4 Daze
3-4 Force of Will
1 Force of Negation

Sideboard:
1 Abrade
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Brazen Borrower
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
1 Collector Ouphe
1 Wilt
2 Veil of Summer
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Pyroblast
3 Endurance

It's still very early and some of the numbers might need tweaking.

The list looks very similar to Temur Delver but it's a misdirect of sorts. Your opponents will think they are playing vs Delver and will heavily focus on countering or killing DRC/Ragavan asap, and will expect Lightning Bolt and will thus value their life total highly when casting Ad Nauseam or utilizing Sylvan Library. In doing so, your smaller threats really function to draw out removal and counterspells that would have otherwise hit your Dreadnought or Uro. Your smaller threats also all generate pseudo card advantage (DRC's surveil trigger helps you dig for your Dress Downs while filling up your yard for Uro, meanwhile Ragavan makes treasure tokens and lets you cast your opponents cantrips to help dig for combo pieces). They also serve to ping at your opponents life total so that a single swing with either a Dreadnought or a Uro wins the game.

The one weakness with this approach is that the only interaction that you have game one with your opponent's game plan is Daze, Force, Brazen, Stifle, Wasteland and Dress Down (against specific matchups). Postboard, you have quite a bit more interaction with your opponent.

With Dress Down, people seem to miss that you can cast Dress Down at the end of your opponent's turn, and then cast any combination of Dreadnought, or a titan like Uro/Kroxa on your turn in order to get a 12/12 trampler along with a 6/6 titan in one go which means the only way your opponent wins is if they manage to Wrath the board the very next turn (for which you have FoW and Daze and FoN to help protect against). In the Death's Shadow versions of the list, you also abuse the fact that Dress Down turns your lowly 2/2 Death’s Shadow into a game winning 13/13 Shadow for a turn, but Death's Shadow proved to be inferior the Dragon's Rage Channeler + Lazav surveil plan upon further testing, and the current Grixis list looks as below...

Vaka Nought - Grixis (aka. Naked Nought)

4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Thoughtseize
4 Force of Will
4 Daze

4 Stifle
3-4 Dress Down

4 Dragon's Rage Channeler
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
1-2 Lazav, the Multifarious
0-2 Kroxa (Can play up 2 Urza's Saga along with utility artifacts instead of Kroxa as they serve a similar role)
1-4 Ragavan (Test Slots)

0-2 Urza's Saga
3-4 Wasteland
1-2 Bloodstained Mire
0-1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Badlands
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn

The test slots could instead go to Lighting Bolt or Expressive Iteration or Force of Negation or Flusterstorm or Drown in the Loch or Predordain or Reanimate or Expediate or Temur's Battle Rage or Thud or to a alternative threat such as Death's Shadow or Delver of Secrets or Urza's Saga targets like Soul Guide Lantern or Pithing Needle.

The above lists are the ones that are the current focus of development as both the Bant and Simic versions feel really good where they are right now. BoshNRoll 4-1ed with the Simic list I sent him and I 4-1ed with the Bant list despite running into various mtgo bugs that cost me games. I also sent the list above to BoshNRoll to play the Grixis list through a league as my laptop is no longer allowing me to play mtgo and I wanted to get a video of the Grixis variant up for this thread. I earlier lost a league due to my 10 year old laptop crashing and have run into bugs and lag and connection issues which makes me feel bad about blowing money on MTGO leagues only to lose to technical issues. For now, I have gone back to doing most of my testing in person or in the free mtgo tournament practice rooms for now.

Once the above brews are tested and refined, next on the agenda is put together a BUG (Sultai) list utilzing both Uro and Lazav together alongside maindeck Thoughtseize and Abrupt Decay. It'll be a grindier albeit very powerful list, but I still need to get my hands on some fetches before I can put it together.

Surveil is such an incredibly strong ability and boot strapping it to Channeler and Lazav made it very abusable. Plus the Grixis version is an absolute blast to play.

The Uro version was initially just Simic due to Endurance making the white splash no longer neccesary, but Bant list reemerged due to how rock solid Prismatic Ending ended up being maindeck and how awesome Serenity and Knight of Autumn in the sideboard have been with all the affinity running around post MH2...

Below is the Bant version that I 4-1ed with in spite of technical issues with my computer.

Vaka Nought - Bant (aka. Dress Nought)

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Flooded Strand
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Prismatic Vista
1 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland (was also pleased by a 1 of Urza's Saga here during testing)

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Stifle
4 Dress Down
4 Daze
4 Force of Will

3 Prismatic Ending
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Sylvan Library

4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
1 Noble Hierarch (also was pleased with Esper Sentinel and Mother of Runes here in earlier test builds)
1 Ice-Fang Coatl
1 Brazen Borrower
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor (also tested Teferi3 and a second Sylvan Library here, Library might actually be stronger in this slot but hindsight is 20/20)

Sideboard:
3 Endurance
2 Knight of Autumn
2 Carpet of Flowers
1 Serenity
1 Karakas
1 Brazen Borrower
1 Containment Priest
1 Collector Ouphe
1 Mother of Runes
1 Pithing Needle
1 Swords to Plowshares

Below is the Simic List list I sent to BoshNRoll to play due to my laptop's issues with mtgo, when Dress Down was spoiled.

His 4-1 video is here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETm2CazPDq8&t=1734s

Vaka Nought - Simic (aka. Naughty Dress)

3 Wasteland
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Prismatic Vista
3 Tropical Island
3 Snow Covered Island
2 Snow Covered Forest
1 Urza's Saga

4 Stifle
4 Dress Down
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
2 Noble Hierarch
2 Sylvan Library
1 Ice-Fang Coatl
1 Brazen Borrower

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
1 Force of Negation
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sideboard:
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Pithing Needle
1 Flusterstorm
1 Divert
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
1 Collector Ouphe
1 Wilt
2 Veil of Summer
2 Carpet of Flowers
3 Endurance

I also briefly toyed around with a Death's Shadow based list due to Dress Down temporarily turning Shadow into a 13/13 but eventually abandoned it to build the Grixis list around Surveil, Channeler and Lazav...

Vaka Nought - Shadow (aka. Death Nought)

4 Stifle
4 Dress Down

4 Death’s Shadow
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
3 Street Wraith
1 Dragon's Rage Channeler
1 Lazav
1 Kroxa

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Thoughtseize
4 Daze
3 Ponder
1 Snuff Out/Drown In the Loch/Flusterstorm
1 Force of Negation/Expedite/Thud/Temur’s Battle Rage

4 Wasteland
14 Grixis Lands

All the 1 ofs were being tested, and it quickly became clear how broken surveil is in a deck with Dreadnoughts, Cantrips and Lazavs especially when surveil came bootstrapped to an aggressive 1 drop like Channeler.
—————————
The initial thread when created on May 11 and was built around Dreadnought and Uros alongside Noble Hierarchs, MoM's, Scroll of Fates, Torpor Orbs, Hushbringers or Lazav and became defunct when Dress Down was printed. You can skip to page 2 of this thread for pertinent discussion about the Dress Down based lists.

[Reeplcheep]

Some comments:

You have to decide if you are more of a tap out creature combo deck or a tempo deck with a combo finish.

if you are more of a tempo deck you should probably cut hierarch and mom for more instant speed interaction like plows and spell Pierce.

If you are more of a creature combo deck, you should be playing 4 ouat over preordain and the 1 mana counters. You are a 2 card combo involving 2 creatures, ouat is insane. You also want 4-5 mana dorks. The best sequence your deck can do imo is t1 dork, t2 hush plus dreadnought. Ouat can find any of those three pieces for free; with 4-6 of each piece it should be very consistent.

[FTW]

Yeah, I agree with Reeplcheep. You should pick a direction.

It seems like you're leaning towards the tempo plan (Xerox, Stifle, Wasteland, Daze). If so then you don't want Hierarch, Mom, or so many Uros (just for curve reasons). The problem is Uro + Stifle is 4 mana and tempo decks don't want many plays at 3-4 mana. You might want an alternate cheap threat, maybe Delver or Hooting Mandrills or Hexdrinker. You probably want 4 StP maindeck.


//Creatures: 14
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Hushbringer
2 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath

//Spells: 27
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Stifle
1 Veil of Summer
1 Spell Pierce
1 Force of Negation

//Lands: 19
4 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Forest



If you want to go the creature combo route, then 4 OUAT and 4 Noble Hierarch seems good. But then you won't have room for as much tempo mana denial. Noble Hierarch has a nice interaction with Hushbringer (turn 2 combo and Exalted + Lifelink) so this direction seems fun.

[Fox]

Let's have mana we can accomplish something with.

Land (22)
4x Misty
4x Vista
5x Island (4x snow)
2x Forest (1x snow)
1x Trop
2x Wasteland
2x Lotus Field
1x Blast Zone
1x Field of the Dead

Dudes (12)
3x Reclaimer
1x Hexdrinker
3x Nought
3x Ice-Fang
2x Uro

PW (4)
2x Nissa of the 5/5s
2x Karn

Spells (17)
4x FoW
2x FoN
4x BS
4x Stifle
3x GSZ

Artifact (2)
2x Scroll of Fate
---
Now this is 57 cards so there is this question about how much you want to invest in Arbor and Mystic Reflection vs a 4th Ice-Fang or Veil or Urza's Saga/other utility land or even maindeck Verdict off Field. Arbor/Reflection in certainly the coolest and most Depths & PW-trolling thing you can do with a Misty Rainforest. I would start at 1x Arbor and 2x Mystic in these last 3 slots, and consider moving to 2x Arbor if this direction tested well.
---
While Ice-Fang is the closest thing UG has to a real kill spell, there is some juggling you have to do, and at the end of the day Verdict off of Field is ultimately something you'll have to resort to to cover the inadequacies of the UG color combo.

Note how everything makes sense in this list and there really isn't anything to disrupt. Stifle works with Lotus. Honest Lotus feeds Uro and/or grows Reclaimers. Reclaimer finds the Lotus. Lotus is a 5/5 hexproof that casts the Nissa that would animate it. Nissa rebuys whatever, including Karn. Karn has the sideboard & exile looping. GSZ & Uro ramp to 7 lands, Reclaimer spams zombros, Karn wishes Crucible.

Dreadnought is just chillin' here saying "this is fine" in a deck that can combo him [or Uro] with cards like Stifle, Scroll, Karn wishes (including Torpor Orb), and Reflection. At no point is there any pressure to make 12/12s, it's just a thing you *can* do.

It should also be noted that Urza's Saga can wish out a Dreadnought, so Reins of Power is technically a wrath spell that can be investigated by switching up a few slots.

Unlike other magical christmasland Urza's Saga brewing ideas, this deck would be fine with 1x. It can tutor it [Reclaimer]. It can actually keep it alive [Stifle the Wasteland]. It can recur it [Nissa/Karn]. All of these things without going out of our way at all...like all you have to do is -1 Blast Zone and it slots in seamlessly.

A UG sideboard should be closer to:
1x Crypt
1-2x Gravestone or Relic or Lantern or Furnace
2x FoV
1-2x utility lands like Karakas or Bog
2-3x Veil
1x Torpor Orb
1x Scroll of Fate
1x Liquimetal Coating
1x Crucible
2x Supreme Verdict or Reins of Power [Wrath]

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I'd like to start with a meta level question.

Dreadstill has had access to Torpor Orb for roughly ten years now. Why does worsening your mana base to make a Torpor Orb that dies to every removal spell, including not just StP but also Punishing Fire, Stomp, a single Jitte activation etc., make it better?

If there's a version of this deck that's worthwhile you would expect it to be built around the fact that Hushbringer is a creature, and not just hoping that that fact incidentally doesn't come up, e.g. maximizing Mother of Runes, Once Upon a Time etc.. At that point you're basically building a Maverick variant, which, doesn't sound terrible honestly, but then do that.

The other obvious meta level concern that has to be pointed out is that uh. Uro just. Doesn't seem good in this deck?

Like, let's consider. Uro does not need to be "broken" because he already sees quite a lot of play because he's already good. This is not because people cheat around his "if he didn't escape" sac clause but because it's just pretty easy to have him escape.

Moreover part of the reason this is the case, and part of the reason he's good, a huge part in fact, is that he has an ETB ability. The life gain + explore is huge. It buys time, it digs you deeper into your deck. Most importantly it means you don't care that much if they StP or just keep Karakas'ing Uro because you're getting ahead still.

But you wouldn't be because you've specifically played cards to make Uro drastically worse until you actually get to untap and swing with him. At which point it's still going to take a number of turns to kill them, if they don't just throw a couple of Goyfs or a Baleful Strix/Icefang in front of him. I mean maybe you stopped them from drawing a card but the thing is that those cards are still really good against you because you're investing very heavily into a couple of creatures that can just die to a deathtouching chump block.

So yeah you can win a lot of games in Legacy playing the standard cantrip/Force base and Stifle/Daze/Wasteland package is hardly an innovation. Throw in any threat with the remaining cards and you can win a lot of games, you could go back and run an old 2007 Thresh list card for card and win a lot of games because those cards have never stopped being good.

But why is this threat package better than anything that already exists?

Again, especially given that this threat package/deck ALREADY existed and has fallen out of favor because it wasn't as efficient as other threat packages? Because the threats are like, utility + standalone instead of being fragile combos that you have to spend resources protecting instead of proactively using the same resources to disrupt your opponent's plans?

[Fox]

@TheInfamousBearAssassin the reason why is that some 1-card combos allow people to hide deckbuilding flaws. For some reason people thought Stifle'ing their own Uro trigger was good. Take away the DHA, Ice-Fang, Astrolabe, and Oko though and plays like that turn out to be not so good on their own. What's interesting is the bifurcation of realizing Sanctuary target 1-for-1 is trashers, but we're still seeing a lot of this Uro/Stifle stuff.

The reason for that is Uro decks get dismantled by yard hate, so they've convinced themselves that the fix should be to keep it out of the yard. Now why this [Dreadnought stuff] is the response over "side in a Living Wish, side out an Uro b/c you're definitely getting Surgical'd" is anyone's guess. This list at least has Wasteland for Karakas, so they won't turn their Uro into a permanently textless use of 1UG. There is also some fringe scenario out there where enemy Uro value pile doesn't run Plow or Wasteland, so Torpor effect + Karakas will turn keep enemy Uro from ever getting value.

The real question though is why, after jumping through all these unnecessary hoops for Uro, do they routinely side out Dreadnoughts (effectively Surgical'ing half of their card names with text, so the opponent doesn't have to).