[Primer] Six Shades of Dressnought aka Vaka-Nought

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Got my Vesuvan Drifters, so far I have no been able to build the RUG elementals list I've been toying with and instead have this UG Drift-Down list:


//Cards you expect
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Dress Down
4 Stifle
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
3 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath

//New stuff
4 Vesuvan Drifter
4 Worldly Tutor
4 Endurence
1 Blightsteel Colossus

//19 Lands
10 Misty Rainforest
4 Tropical island
3 Island
1 Forest
1 Mystic Sanctuary

//SB
15 TBD

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Tomorrow, D00mwake will be playing this deck live on steam, near 330cst

//Land (19)
1x Boseiju, Who Endures
2x Forest
2x Island
4x Misty Rainforest
2x Mosswort Bridge
2x Prismatic Vista
2x Scalding Tarn
4x Tropical Island
//Sorcery (4)
4x Ponder
//Enchantment (4)
4x Dress Down
//Creature (17)
2x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4x Endurance
4x Phyrexian Dreadnought
3x Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
4x Vesuvan Drifter
//Instant (16)
4x Brainstorm
4x Force of Will
4x Stifle
4x Worldly Tutor

//Sideboard
2x Blue Elemental Blast
3x Run Afoul
3x Veil of Summer
2x Seeds of Innocence
2x Scroll of Fate
3x Leyline of Sanctity

A second enrakul let's you still drift if you get one trapped under mosswort

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Once again legacy was played

//Land (19)
3x Forest
2x Island
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Mosswort Bridge
3x Prismatic Vista
2x Scalding Tarn
2x Tropical Island
2x breeding pool
//Sorcery (4)
4x Ponder
//Enchantment (4)
4x Dress Down
//Creature (17)
1x blightsteel colossus
4x Endurance
4x Phyrexian Dreadnought
3x Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
3x Vesuvan Drifter
//Instant (16)
4x Brainstorm
4x Force of Will
4x Stifle
4x Worldly Tutor

//Sideboard
1x leyline of the void
3x Run Afoul
2x Veil of Summer
2x force of Negation
2x Scroll of Fate
3x Leyline of Sanctity


2-1 at the weekly with drift bought
I only got half way through updating the sb which is why there's 1 leyline of the void and no force stuff
2-1 8 cast, G1 they had t1 chalice, g2)3 I had t2 Dreadnought backed by force
2-1 reanimator. G1/3 I got to keep casting endurance, G2 they picked apart my hand. G3 I won on a mul to 4 with no land and 2endurence 2 tutor
1-2 reanimator, lost G1 to the discard and the t1, G2 I leyline to protect my hand and did the thing! Drifter, slam tutor blight steel them. G3 I only had two protection spells and they had a third piece of interaction.
So what did we learn?
Drifter is good, but worldly tutor and the mosswort package isn't.
Elementals are good. They're decent bodies with powerful effects. Even if I go back to RUG and off drifter I am going to want to play more. Maybe even drop Dreadnoughts all together and just play slip/stifle scamamentals

[Fox]

The reason Stifle works is that a deck has a good enough way to goldfish it. If you're going to do elementals, you play the blink rebound spell (at which point your deck is now called Esper Vial).

Aeon Bridge is a bad deck idea where all the consistency of Ponder and Brainstorm are spewed before they can set anything up, trying to get up to 3-4 mana (a hard feat indeed with quad laser duals, as we saw in the 1-4 timeout league). This is why Aeon Bridge goes hard on SnT.

In particular, the lack of a plan on 2 mana, always following a turn 1 that never generated advantage, was really where losses were manufactured. This is why without seeing an Aeon Bridge deck, you can pretty much know their deck begins with 10x 2-drops that all find land (Ice-Fang x4, Dress Down x4, Sylvan Library x2). When you're not overloaded on removal or turn 1 pressure, you can't sit around doing nothing waiting to get up to 3 mana - you need to either have plays or counterplays.

That list from the league doesn't prove anything about Aeon Bridge other than you need tier 2 levels of variance, not tier 3 levels (and that's tier 3 levels of hypervariance despite Ponder/Brainstorm). Even when properly built however, Aeon Bridge generates lower win% than SnT and also has a really poor payoff vs Solitude, Karakas, Sudden Edict, enemy Dress Down + other spell.

At the very least, the deck needed to be able to mobilize Emmy from hand. This is why cards like SnT (cheat) or Currency Converter (sluff) or Scroll of Fate + blink effect (cheat) exist; with the latter two options being Dreadnought-friendly.

The Worldly Tutor/doppelganger stuff was real bad. At pretty much every point that league the play was Tutor Uro -> make Uro. Cycle the Mirage tutor is how to play these effects.

If E Tutor:
-find Astrolabe, do Teferi stuff later
-find Standstill
-find Shark'nado

It Wordly Tutor:
-get Uro or Ice-Fang-type
-otherwise re-zone it (e.g. Jeskai Infiltrator-type effects)
-otherwise make a Griselponder (Skill Borrower -> Grisel to top -> click minus 7 life)
-otherwise stop adding steps and just Greater Good (accepting insta-loss to Surgical)

While the path to the payoff was poorly executed, the biggest issue was finding the mana and the plays to get there. Start on Reclaimer (this allows for an amount of Saga, which adds on Currency Converter and a cantripping yard hate trinket) and show interest in removal (Ice-Fang if UG); both advance mana towards 3.

The problem was mana. Fix the mana. Progress the mana.

[FTW]

I had been thinking about Drifter + Worldly Tutor, but it was in a Drift & Tell shell instead of Aeon Bridge.

I think you really need Show and Tell to justify running the fatties to combo with Worldly Tutor + Drifter. Otherwise those creatures are dead draws in hand (or dead draws if you don't win after Worldly Tutor). Tutoring Dreadnought is a risky play, 3-for-1 if opponent has removal, and not game-winning even if you have Drifter out.

Drifter + Tutor and the Mosswort Bridge combo are both turn 4ish lines, which means like Fox said you need something to keep you alive until then: stable mana progression or removal or something.

Or you go faster with acceleration and Show and Tell.
E.g. Drift & Tell


4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Worldly Tutor
4 Show and Tell
2 Veil of Summer

2 Sylvan Library

2 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
4 Vesuvan Drifter
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Griselbrand
1 Blightsteel Colossus

4 Lotus Petal
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Prismatic Vista
2 Tropical Island
4 Island
2 Forest

//SB:
3 Endurance
1 Collector Ouphe
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Champion of Rhonas
2 Pithing Needle
2 Dress Down
2 Flusterstorm
3 Defense Grid


I think Worldly Tutor would be good there. It sets up the combo, converts into Uro, or finds SB hate. But that doesn't play Dreadnought. Dreadnought plan doesn't work as well with Show & Tell / Drifter.

It's still short on 2 mana plays, but Tomb + Petal and more basics should make it easier to get to 3.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

I think Worldly Tutor would be good there. It sets up the combo, converts into Uro, or finds SB hate.

But your goal shouldn't, IMO, be to make worldly tutor better.
You're making deck building concessions for a bad card.

Anyways here's an experiment I might try this week:
RUB-Nought

4 thoughtseize
3 kroxa
4 grief
4 fury
4 lightning bolt
4 force of will
4 ponder
4 brainstorm
4 dreadnought
4 stifle
4 slip out the back

2 mountain
2 swamp
2 island
4 Scalding tarn
4 Polluted Delta
2 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Badlands

//SB:
Vapor Snag
Leyline of Sanctity
Leyline of the Void
Force of Negation
Subtlty
Brotherhood's End

I need 2 cuts,

[FTW]

But your goal shouldn't, IMO, be to make worldly tutor better.
You're making deck building concessions for a bad card.

It's a bad card in the Dreadnought shell. That doesn't make it bad everywhere.

The combo with Drifter is still worth exploring imho. 1-hit kill with Blightsteel, Annihilate whole board with Emrakul, or big lifelink blocker + draw 7 with Griselbrand. Those lines are all better than making Drifter 12/12 and work better when you can protect it (Veil, Grid, Fluster), when you can get to 3 mana faster (Tomb, Petal), and when you have payoffs for Blightsteel in hand (Show and Tell).

Re: RUB Nought
Black count - 11
Red count - 11
You're going to have a hard time supporting both Elementals. You also gave up Dress Down, the best Dreadnought enabler. Going up to 8xStifle just means getting 2-for-1d even harder by removal. Kroxa is much worse than Uro too. Uro's the best titan. Endurance is the most castable elemental. Why'd you switch away from green?

[Fox]

Again, I think you have a huge problem with getting trigger-locked and/or passing the turn. Skill Borrower -> Grisel on top -> say no to interaction. (This is a non-Nought build). This is however better with E Tutor, which can respond to removal with Relic-type to top -> detonate SkillyB to cantrip and interfere with hostile resource (GY).

Otherwise (non-Nought) you should choose GSZ before Worldly Tutor. Other (non-Nought) pathways are just worse SnT.

When you're putting things on top of deck with Mirage tutors we need to see a cantrip outlet. Ideally this should be anti-Daze to hammer Delver with "lul don't care, end of your turn 1 Tutor...Daze it or I find 1 mana cantrip yard hate and blast DRC and Murktide to blazes, with mana up for Daze".

^that is the floor you must have (any card name that is tutorable and anti-Daze and cantrip). After this you go big - so like E Tutor -> yep, Humility gg. Otherwise you can do Nought things that re-zone from top of deck directly into battlefield face-down.

This Vesuvan Top'of'deck'elganger + Nought stuff is bad. If you're going to reward people for playing removal without ability to access value, play Jeskai Infiltrator. Stop giving out face-up info.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

It's a bad card in the Dreadnought shell. That doesn't make it bad everywhere.

This is the dreadnought thread...

Re: RUB Nought
Black count - 11
Red count - 11
You're going to have a hard time supporting both Elementals. You also gave up Dress Down, the best Dreadnought enabler. Going up to 8xStifle just means getting 2-for-1d even harder by removal. Kroxa is much worse than Uro too. Uro's the best titan. Endurance is the most castable elemental. Why'd you switch away from green?

11 is all you need, and Dress Down works worse than the elementals, which themselves are all powerful enough on their own.

The switch is because there's only 7 playable green cards: Uro and Endurence

[FTW]

11 red might work for just 3 Fury in a deck with Uro and EI to draw cards and ramp lands. 11 for both black and red, with 3 overlapping cards that are also combo payoffs (Kroxa), taxes your colors too much. This build lacks the card draw too (Uro, Dress Down, EI).

The elementals are powerful on their own, but playing both at 4x is very hard on the mana and color pitching. 3RR. 2BB. Cutting Dress Down means you have a lot more ways to 2-for-1 yourself and 0 ways to draw extra cards....

Try it out. But your old RUG plan looked better.

Edit: The Drifter tech looks bad without the Blightsteel/Emrakul combo. Just making a 12/12 flyer isn't impressive when the deck already makes 12/12s many ways with less effort. It may win some games, but Scroll of Fate or Dress Down or Jeskai Infiltrator would in that slot too, and they're good in more other scenarios.

[FTW]

Why not just tweak your UG build, cutting the bad stuff?


//Creatures: 14
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
3 Ice-Fang Coatl
4 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
3 Endurance

//Spells: 16
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Stifle

//Enchantments: 6
4 Dress Down
2 Sylvan Library

//Artifacts: 2
1 Soul-Guide Lantern
1 Scroll of Fate

//Lands: 22
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Prismatic Vista
2 Tropical Island
4 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Boseiju, Who Endures
3 The Mycosynth Gardens
2 Urza's Saga

//Sideboard: 15
3 Run Afoul
2 Force of Vigor
2 Hydroblast
2 Flusterstorm
2 Submerge
2 Powder Keg
1 Pithing Needle
1 Force of Negation


That leaves 3 more slots. Maybe Tarmogoyf, Elvish Reclaimer, Spell Pierce, Subtlety, Force of Negation, or Predict? Brazen Borrower? Lignify? Ice-Fang Coatl?

Edit: 3 slots currently filled with Coatl

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

How would that list fare against delver? A Maze of ith?

[FTW]

How would that list fare against delver? A Maze of ith?

Overall it has a lot of cards that beat Delver: Endurance, Uro, Dreadnought, basics. The one thing it's missing is cheap removal/defense at 1-2 mana. Maybe Ice-Fang Coatl?

[Fox]

Playing yourself into Daze by squandering land drop on Maze is careless; particularly when you know they're just going to Wasteland it. Stop rewarding known deck construction.
---
As with UR builds, you need to get on-board on 1 mana - that's DRC in red and Reclaimer/GSZ-Arbor on green. Note that Reclaimer and GSZ are reasonable topdecks (unlike game-losing dead draws like mana dorks and Mox Diamond).

If you play UG you will get Surgical'd. Having quad laser Uro is suspect - not just because it's easy to wipe all copies, but that list @FTW has pretty much no way to cope with Karakas (must naturally draw Boseju). The end point is Surgical Nought and Karakas check Uro - draw all you like, you're out of credible wincons. -2 Uro, +2 GSZ.

In terms of things the rest of the format will do, which you need a better plan against: Chalice, E-Bridge, Relic-types, recursive spells (Loam/P-Fire), Lage, SnT, Kaldra.

^three slots not helping you here are Mycosynth + no plan for bigger mana investment. You top out at Uro, and you're not using filter mode nor colorless mana to cast that. At the low end of the curve, you've got nothing proactively fix mana for.

While we can find better things to use Mycosynth for like Haywire Mite, Relic-types we can copy *and cycle* with say Meltdown on the stack, proactive color-requiring plays (Reclaimer/GSZ-Arbor)...the top end mana investment is still just Uro...and we still know Surgical +/- Karakas is imminent. What use are 22 lands when you have no late game? Why isn't this like 2x Wasteland hitting Tomb, Lage, Karakas, enemy duals? (Especially if you can tutor specialty effects with Reclaimer)

The main issue in UG is still that you can't really interact or reset with a wrath; and Ice-Fang isn't a great replacement. You definitely have to run Ice-Fang though b/c it's the best you can do, and it gives you GSZ targets on 0 through 3 (Arbor to Reclaimer to Ice-Fang to Uro/Endurance) and blue count for FoW. There is also the flavor of the month you're going to be struggling profusely against with Ponder + Brainstorm + Uro + Sylvan and no removal for Faerie Miscreant. So yeah, forced Ice-Fang...also forced Currency Converter over Sylvan.

And this brings us back to the main problem with UG where Verdict is still the best wrath b/c it pitches to FoW/FoN while you work towards singleton Lotus Field (which combos with Stifle) found with Reclaimer, GSZ for Reclaimer, +/- Saga find Map.

While black stuff has less color color pips, Mycosynth isn't Snow-Covered and you can't pitch Dead of Winter. Nihil Spellbomb is vastly superior to Soul-Guide...but you can't copy it and float black off the same Mycosynth to get the cantripping. So we get stuck with a land (Mycosynth) that does some Dreadnought stuff, but can't contribute to a late game mana-intensive plan.

Survive to late game:
Ice-Fang x3
FoN x2
FoW x4
Verdict x2
Stifle x3

Be able to cast Verdict:
Reclaimer x4
GSZ x2
Map x1
Saga x2
Lotus Field x1

Dreadnought stuff b/c Dress Down dumpsters enemy Thassa and Saga and my Saga + Dress Down makes 12/12s and the whole Stifle in a Lotus Field stuff:
Nought x3
Dress Down x3

Need to answer random things the format does:
Wasteland x2
Haywire Mite x1
Endurance x2
Relic or Furnace x1
Boseju x1
Otawara x1

Some GSZ stuff:
Arbor x1
Uro x2

Need late game:
Karn x2 b/c Chalice killer, combo hater, anti-Surgical, Nought enabler, land killer
Nissa of the 5/5s x2 b/c it buys back things (like Karn) and 5/5 hexproof Lotus Fields are fun

Brings slots up to 45, of which 6 are lands. Add 8x perfect Fetch, 3x Snow Island, 2x Snow Forest, 1x Trop, and blue is important so add 2nd copy of Otawara. Now you just need to make some cuts to get Brainstorm in there, so push a Nought to SB, -1 card from top end (ideally want just to cut 2x from here but Nought stuff and SB constraints lock Karn as 2x and you still need access to Nissa's text), and the next 2 cuts for Brainstorm are harder...but even then, how's the blue count and should you be more aggressive about fixing the mana issues and be replacing Bstorm with OUaT...

The UG stuff is a mess, and murdering yourself (and your wallet) on dual spamming into enemy Wasteland so you can put all your survival onto a tertiary color is bad - it's all bad. Then you add Ponder on top and you'll never have late game or reset button slots...but then you have critical effects locked into higher land counts to cover lack of Ponder, but you have no late game and no way to get there. UG really needs Verdict to not be the best thing it could be doing while Ice-Fang and Uro pushing that hard on UG basics...and you need to be doing this b/c leaving enemy DRC running amok is not competitive, regardless of your archetype.

[FTW]

Good points.

The plan vs Karakas was Saga -> Needle, but that may not be enough answers.

Although there's no big-mana endpoint for 22 lands, 5 of them turn into non-lands. It's really only 17 lands. The other 5 are "spells". Mostly extra copies of Nought. Is that worse than having Wastelands? Wasteland is awkward in an Uro plan, but maybe as a 1-2 of with Reclaimers.

Vs Chalice: 5 answers. 2 FoV, 2 Keg, 1 Boseiju
Vs Bridge: same

Vs Relic effects: Scroll, cheat out Uro without graveyard, Endurance-self in response, Saga -> Needle

Vs recursive spells: 4 answers main. 3 Endurance, Saga -> Soul-Guide

Vs Lage: 3 Run Afoul, Saga -> Needle on Stage

Vs Show & Tell: 3 Run Afoul, 2 Flusterstorm, FoN, Dress Down Atraxa, Ice-Fang ambush, Saga-> Needle @ Sneak Attack

Vs Kaldra: must Stifle/Dress Down/Needle to stop SFM. Can't answer resolved Kaldra.

Could easily add 1x Haywire Mite to add answers and value for Gardens.

Faerie Miscreant is a big problem without proper removal or red blasts. Maybe the RUG version is just better, gaining Bolt and REB (maybe Fury).

Splashing for Verdict is one option, but do you need such a controlling plan? Could you not play for midrange beatdown instead? Vs fast aggro that Verdict will be too inconsistent to stabilize (takes time to fix WW), but Powder Keg works?

[Fox]

If you want to skip on reset buttons like Verdict, you need to be proactive (e.g. DRC and Bolt to dome) and reactive (e.g. Bolt target dude/PW and Blast target thing or kill blue permission). UG has pretty much nothing in this department. Sure you can do some proactive stuff on 1cmc (GSZ ramp, Reclaimer), but the Ice-Fang stuff isn't a universally meaningful play (i.e. everyone has a life total you can Bolt), and you have to resolve it through Daze and Pyroblast...and when it resolves, the odds dictate they have Bolt, so you're still losing 8 life to MurkGoyf - You've got 1 maybe 2 draw steps left.

For a brief moment in legacy this was okay b/c Delver had to use Tarmogoyf, and had to rely solely on opponent's card types to get to 6/7. This went exceedingly poorly for them since Uro is both a 6/6 and even suiciding into a 6/7 Tarmo was a trade with impending Uro recast, removing key card types with escape. Once Goyf picked up keyword flying (MurkGoyf), Uro lost the ability to force combat interaction as well as losing stat parity. Uro no longer acts additive defense with Ice-Fang.

Even though the Uro/Ice-Fang defense is probably going to fail, you still absolutely must run Ice-Fang in UG b/c enemy DRC will not only run you out of turns (combat dmg) like a Delver; but DRC will also make every one of those few turns harder by increasing their card quality...so you have to do something about it - and getting to 4 mana to resolve Endurance through Daze (p.s. don't ever get Waste'd, ever) or deleting yourself from the match with an evoke/Stifle-type all-in Endurance line isn't a solution.

While it's still all bad, you can at least cast Duress target Lightning Bolt - which is exactly what early Reclaimer/GSZ-Arbor are: Duress targeting Bolt, away from Ice-Fang. If Delver fails to play magic on these terms, they lose Daze (can't Daze a Reclaimer activation) or they run into ramp problems (which invalidates Daze +/- powers out Uro fast enough to overrun DRC issues).

If it was just Delver you had to care about, you'd probably be okayish with changes above...but you have to do something about the rest of the format, of which like >90% will massacre your Uro top end (only stuff like TES will lack maindeck & SB yard hate).

So it's a really poor idea to play straight into the most dominant legacy SB trope (yard hate), while also saying "I can afford to not have the answers in my main deck, and forfeit G1 against things like E-Bridge/Depths/Karakas/Chalice/Relic-types." You definitely need the FoVs and the Run Afoul type effects in the SB, but the maindeck itself has to have a plan to win game 1.

In UR that plan is to end the game with damage. In UG you need to extend the game + have something worth doing (and likely to succeed - sorry Uro) once the game is extended.

Even a full set of Ice-Fangs isn't going to drag out a game anywhere near as effectively as Plow/Ending - especially if you're also letting enemy strategies recur value due to no Wasteland and no FoN. With so much [insert opposing stuff] getting through in a game your deck will usually make go long, you need the reset buttons (Verdict-type). Then you need the ability to capitalize on that reset with a late game that does something which dodges the yard hate that lives in just about every SB and are already obligated to bring in.

Grind them to a halt with a reset -> make them react to a late game their netdecked SB has no tools against (it shouldn't be hard to identify the weakness with the most challenging strategies having already lost 4 slots to REB, 3 to yard hate, and 2 to mass artifact hate). The problem however is that Verdict is double off-pip and devours space and mana consistency to incorporate Lotus Field. In contrast UR skyrocketed in mana consistency with Vista, Otawara, DRC, Mycosynth, Currency, Dress Down - all of which also increase power, and play nicely with Saga replacing Factory...so there's not really a reason to dabble in a slower UG color set stuck choosing between high variance or game theory errors [no late game]