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Thread: [Primer] Six Shades of Dressnought aka Vaka-Nought

  1. #221

    Re: [Primer] Six Shades of Dressnought aka Vaka-Nought

    Quote Originally Posted by Reeplcheep View Post
    Which ones and where?
    Argument A, line 1: This is a false premise. The whole context of the discussion is "what makes a format healthy" and you want to just assume that answer as a premise.
    Argument A, line 2: This is a false premise. The statement of fact about the state and viability about the two control decks is false.
    Argument A, line 3: This is a false premise. First you have combined multiple claims into the line. The first that the action is different. The second that it is more interesting. Interesting being a subjective term can't be asserted without logic defining why and how.
    Argument A, line 5: This is a false premise. First you are making two claims here: The first about where mind twist will go. There is no evidence that only non-blue decks would play mind twist. In fact having a color weight of just one B means that nearly every deck can play it. You even, in line 4, explained how. The all power of cantrips. The second claim, that it makes them better, is up for debate, you provide no evidence for this.
    Argument A, line 6: Each one of the three individual claims of this line are false: There is no evidence mind twist improves these decks. There is no evidence Mind Twist is interesting. You also have shown no conntection between mind twist and Fair blue decks, so you also can't make any claim about mindtwist's affect on these decks.
    Argument A, line 7: Even if the lines were true you never demonstrated that these items improved your own criteria of format health. Even if we were to assume 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 (and we shouldn't, they are all fallacious) an improvement of decks doesn't translate to diversity. You have already explained that these decks exist and the format doesn't become more diverse when extant decks continue to be extant but with an additional card. That's the meaning of the word diversity.

    SO the answer is: Everywhere.

  2. #222

    Re: [Primer] Six Shades of Dressnought aka Vaka-Nought

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Nice discussion about Dressnought.
    I can only swoon over Ledger Shredder so many times before the 10th and I can get my hands on Sailor's Bane.

  3. #223

    Re: [Primer] Six Shades of Dressnought aka Vaka-Nought

    Quote Originally Posted by FourDogsinaHorseSuit View Post
    Argument A, line 1:

    SO the answer is: Everywhere.
    Jesus lol I thought my posts were cringe

  4. #224

    Re: [Primer] Six Shades of Dressnought aka Vaka-Nought

    Quote Originally Posted by kombatkiwi View Post
    Jesus lol I thought my posts were cringe
    Got 'im

  5. #225

    Re: [Primer] Six Shades of Dressnought aka Vaka-Nought

    Quote Originally Posted by FourDogsinaHorseSuit View Post
    Citations needed
    Because I don't see format health as the status of [your pet deck].
    Nic Fit is literally the definition of format health. Anytime Nic Fit is viable, Legacy is healthy.

  6. #226
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    Re: [Primer] Six Shades of Dressnought aka Vaka-Nought

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    What makes Dreadstill vs Landstill any different (not just diluted by bad cards)? As a Landstill but not Dreadstill player, it seems the same to me. You add a fast clock and tempo tools that helps vs combo and Delver, but it's a vulnerable 2-card combo that makes you weaker to Plow/Ending and Chalice. Why would the effect on UWR MindTwister be worse? Why is Landstill not hurt as much by it?

    Conversely, why wouldn't some other non-Standstill draw engine complement Dreadnought as well? I think that's the driving question behind this entire Dressnought thread.
    When it comes to MindTwister stuff it's important to remember that Narset is a pretty bad card by itself. It can't take over the game, it's legendary, and even if we ignore insta-death to Bolt there are significant problems keeping this card alive. You add the Dreadnought package to this you're upping the bad/questionable topdeck variance quite a bit, and that package isn't going to increase the odds of untapping with a Narset b/c the package is primarily offensive (blocker issues). It's easier to protect a Narset with more slots dedicated to Plow/Ending. The fail case of casting a Day's Undoing without Narset-type passive looks especially bad if you're going to play from that position by making 2-for-1 Dreadnoughts into 1-card removal.

    ^At the end of the day this is MindTwister with a lower winrate, a worse deck. The choice is anti-competitive. Doesn't mean the deck can't win an amount of the time b/c staples still win games; it's just that it will win less while doing the same thing.

    In terms of trying to play UWR MindTwister + Nought vs actual MindTwister vs playing Standstill (+/- Nought) vs actual MindTwister, we have turn 2 plays, and these are immune to Plow and Ending. We also have better mana and don't need to play Ponder to assemble it. Asymmetry will win more games vs MindTwister than a watered-down + higher variance version of MindTwister. MindTwister is not pre-boarded against asymmetry.

    As far as Landstill vs MindTwister...in the most competitive build (currently UBw) we have 5x targeted PW kill spells pre-board, and Cling to Dust draws through Narset while also making our draw 7 far superior to theirs. UBw also has the best mana-requiring counterspell in the format: Drown. Post-board UBw gives MindTwister few high value targets for red Blasts, and it's very good at eliminating relevant plays from MindTwister's deck and GY. Both pre- and post-board UBw Landstill can attack mana, including basics (Mountain and the Volc x2), which not only strands red cards, but also makes Ending worthless at the same time.

    Whether Standstill, Landstill, Dreadstill, or StifleNought we're looking to maximize wins by punishing stationary targets (meta decks), b/c we know how they have to play. When it comes to StifleNought, you basically need a meta run by DTT Omni or Breach choking removal-based/fair strats out of the format to achieve a winrate above a Standstill-using variant. When you don't have this going on, you can't profitably isolate Delver as the target (being the best in the Daze mirror isn't worth much when Daze sucks vs every remaining hard matchup).
    ---
    On the other stuff, @FTW has summed it up correctly. This is a Dreadnought thread, and we were talking about Dreadnought in relation to MindTwister (which is Mind Twist + Timetwister happening at the same time when Day's/Echo are added to a Narset-type passive). This is one of the three things that matters in legacy [total hand destruction; the other two being Goyf and FIRE], and it's really really bad to try and force StifleNought vs UWR MindTwister. That said, both Day's and Echo are getting banned, it's just a matter of time. One look at the banlist seeing Mind Twist and Timetwister tells you all you need to know.

    While you can chalk up an amount of losses to "they're exploiting a [soon-to-be] banned card," the bigger picture is that the format is flooded with not-combo...because they are overloading on removal b/c they can't beat Delver. We're also seeing responses to Delver in the form of Sol Land/Chalice and Mox/Loam. It is not unusual to see fair non-blue shift towards Cavern/Vial, particularly in paper due to DnT's cost, as the response to Delver. None of these adaptions are helpful for isolating Delver as the primary target for StifleNought.

  7. #227

    Re: [Primer] Six Shades of Dressnought aka Vaka-Nought

    Sailor's Bane was on the list of cards they just couldn't implement on MTGO, lmao.
    Ambitious Dragonborn too but that one was more of a meme. I was actually gonna buy a mythic token and play some but yeesh.

  8. #228
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    Re: [Primer] Six Shades of Dressnought aka Vaka-Nought

    Quote Originally Posted by Fox View Post
    When it comes to MindTwister stuff it's important to remember that Narset is a pretty bad card by itself. It can't take over the game, it's legendary, and even if we ignore insta-death to Bolt there are significant problems keeping this card alive. You add the Dreadnought package to this you're upping the bad/questionable topdeck variance quite a bit, and that package isn't going to increase the odds of untapping with a Narset b/c the package is primarily offensive (blocker issues). It's easier to protect a Narset with more slots dedicated to Plow/Ending. The fail case of casting a Day's Undoing without Narset-type passive looks especially bad if you're going to play from that position by making 2-for-1 Dreadnoughts into 1-card removal.
    Why tap out for sorcery speed Narset when you can play nonlegendary flash-Narset?

    UWR doesn't because it's a creature-light deck, so it doesn't want to turn on enemy spot removal. Narset -2 also has a high chance of digging them into something to protect Narset (StP, Ending, FoW, FoN, Blast). Narset's just a better fit for them. Dreadnought can't defend Narset as well, but it's already weak to fair removal so flash-Narset isn't turning on dead removal. It's also easier to defend EOT flash-Narset -> Day's than to try to untap with regular Narset. You could go one step further with Teferi passive, denying them any interaction window.

    On its own, Hullbreacher's floor is helping count to 20 or discarding 1 removal spell to help Dreadnought through. But in a deck that wants to hold open mana for instant interactions (Stifle, Dress Down) it can also ambush Brainstorms, ramp you, ambush their Day's, ambush attackers, and generate other value on its own.

    Is there a potential deck there?


    Quote Originally Posted by Fox View Post
    Whether Standstill, Landstill, Dreadstill, or StifleNought we're looking to maximize wins by punishing stationary targets (meta decks), b/c we know how they have to play. When it comes to StifleNought, you basically need a meta run by DTT Omni or Breach choking removal-based/fair strats out of the format to achieve a winrate above a Standstill-using variant. When you don't have this going on, you can't profitably isolate Delver as the target (being the best in the Daze mirror isn't worth much when Daze sucks vs every remaining hard matchup).
    This addresses Stiflenought's relevance, but doesn't answer the question of why Dreadstill isn't a watered-down Landstill by adding the 2-for-1 creature. Unless the meta is full of Delver and combo, aren't you just adding a big weakness to fair removal?

    Does adding Dreadnought to Landstill somehow weaken it less than adding Dreadnought to other fair blue draw engines? (UWR MindTwister, Bant Uro, ...)
    In a meta full of fair white removal, what does Dreadstill add vs Landstill?


    Quote Originally Posted by Fox View Post
    That said, both Day's and Echo are getting banned, it's just a matter of time. One look at the banlist seeing Mind Twist and Timetwister tells you all you need to know.
    That assumes the banlist is only based on fairness in the current format. There's a lot of evidence to the contrary.

  9. #229
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    Re: [Primer] Six Shades of Dressnought aka Vaka-Nought

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Why tap out for sorcery speed Narset when you can play nonlegendary flash-Narset?

    UWR doesn't because it's a creature-light deck, so it doesn't want to turn on enemy spot removal. Narset -2 also has a high chance of digging them into something to protect Narset (StP, Ending, FoW, FoN, Blast). Narset's just a better fit for them. Dreadnought can't defend Narset as well, but it's already weak to fair removal so flash-Narset isn't turning on dead removal. It's also easier to defend EOT flash-Narset -> Day's than to try to untap with regular Narset. You could go one step further with Teferi passive, denying them any interaction window.

    On its own, Hullbreacher's floor is helping count to 20 or discarding 1 removal spell to help Dreadnought through. But in a deck that wants to hold open mana for instant interactions (Stifle, Dress Down) it can also ambush Brainstorms, ramp you, ambush their Day's, ambush attackers, and generate other value on its own.

    Is there a potential deck there?

    This addresses Stiflenought's relevance, but doesn't answer the question of why Dreadstill isn't a watered-down Landstill by adding the 2-for-1 creature. Unless the meta is full of Delver and combo, aren't you just adding a big weakness to fair removal?

    Does adding Dreadnought to Landstill somehow weaken it less than adding Dreadnought to other fair blue draw engines? (UWR MindTwister, Bant Uro, ...)
    In a meta full of fair white removal, what does Dreadstill add vs Landstill?
    The problem is that Hullbreacher is a bad card. It can at least attack, which is an okayish backup plan without Bolt...but it doesn't really get you ahead, nor does it really improve in multiples. Narset at least has anti-flood built-in against redundant copies of itself (choose not-Narset off the top 4, find a pitch spell to burn a Narset in hand, or reset Narset once it drops to [1] loyalty). Much more importantly, it allows you to drop the worst card in the deck (Day's) down to a 1x b/c Narset spam will find it while wasting everyone's time with quad laser Plow/Ending. Decks don't win in legacy by casting a Day's Undoing where the opponent gets their 7 too, so they can't really afford to ever cast it unsupported by a passive.

    So with Hullbreacher we've got a self-flooding problem on top of it being a very bad idea to either flood out on Day's...or be unable to reliably see 1-2x slots of Day's in a deck where you've spent 4 slots on Hullbreacher. This is a lot of variance to add to a deck, especially if you're adding it on top of a Dreadnought package. Now you've got a deck with two A then B combos which do not share tools. Again these are A then B combos, not just A plus B; you have to do both of these things in a set sequence (i.e. you can't cast Day's and then afterwards cast Hullbreacher). The lack of sharing tools is the same reason that Painter/Grindstone has never worked well Dreadnought (and Painter/Grindstone even has the benefit of being A plus B, where it doesn't matter which one you deploy first).
    ---
    In terms of Dreadstill vs Standstill/Landstill, the question is what you're trying to beat. Dreadstill runs around an 80% winrate against tier 2 (random legacy stuff), and is much better against combo; these strategies routinely have profound weakness to Stifle and Wasteland, while also being ill-equipped to handle or race a 12/12. Dreadstill is fine against Delver, as is Landstill/Standstill. Landstill/Standstill generally has a marginally better matchup vs total hand destruction [Hymn, CB, Probe/Therapy...and plus or minus vs MindTwister types]. Both are generally unaffected by FIRE design. Both are designed to beat the concept of Goyf.

    If you wanted the highest winrate with UWr Standstill/Landstill, you immediately shift to UR Dreadstill or UW Dreadstill; UWr has gaping holes in the lifegain and non-Pyroblast'able value engine department. If you want the Standstill/Landstill play experience, the one that wins is UBw Landstill. Standstill/Landstill has better mana and more spot removal whereas Dreadstill is much better at utilizing colorless mana and mana denial. There is also a larger idea of enforcing the rules of a local meta; if you play enough Dreadstill you will farm Thassa, Post, and other undesirable tier 2s out of that room for Landstill/Standstill. Dreadstill/Standstill/Landstill are just different ways to maximize wins with the card Standstill by playing [insert color combination] most optimally.

    In the last couple months of paper I was able to attend like 50% of the weekly events, and iirc I went:
    3-0 + ID w/ UW Dreadstill
    2-2 w/ UW Dreadstill
    3-0 + ID w/ UBw Landstill
    2-0-2 w/ UBw Landstill
    1-1-2 w/ UBw Landstill
    3-1 w/ UR Dreadstill

    So 14-4-4 (not counting IDs), with all four draws being on UBw Landstill, and all in either highly-favored matchup (if no time for last game, 1/4) or winning/deterministically winning positions (if last game in progress, 3/4). So you also have to consider the play speed of the room when choosing how to play the card Standstill. Most of that is your own play speed, which is going to require 2x paper events per week to develop and maintain (or like barely ever missing a 1x legacy weekly, or other comparable/better access to timed paper play). This more productive than calling slow play on others to preserve clock in events under compREL. As far as the difficulty of strategic and tactical decisions in-game, the non-Dreadstill stuff is way easier. No matter what you choose, overall you should be making more money than entry costs. The question is more about what aspect of your game you want to improve (speed vs decision making) and what type of opposing strats you want to farm/push out of the room longer term.
    ---
    All of this feeds into the larger question you're asking about alternate draw engine w/ Dreadnought and Dreadstill vs Landstill/Standstill. The goal is to have a deck that does something better than anyone else. This is where pairing Dreadnought with a conventional CA source surrounded by conventional cards kinda just plays conventional legacy, except worse. You need to play a fundamentally different CA game to be the best at it. We have decades of examples proving that nothing can play conventional legacy better than the absolute diversity killers of Goyf, total hand destruction, and FIRE. Those three are all basically legalized cheating (especially the no-skill, total hand destruction crap), and completely immune to being hated out of tier 1. You can't improve stuff like this by adding a Dreadnought package; they don't need the excess power b/c it comes with increased variance.

    Bringing it back to StifleNought, you have no game against non-Delver tier 1 and around 75% of tier 1.5 decks are very bad matchups. Really good matchups vs tier 2, vs Delver, and vs most tier 1.5 combo is all you've got working in your favor. You can't make money playing with this many bad matchups, except for online leagues where good matchups are disproportionately represented. You can't fix this matchup problem by playing conventional legacy, even if that covers a CA angle.

    If you're an online player, running leagues with StifleNought just isn't useful/applicable play experience, and it certainly doesn't help you understand the mtgfinance subgame of extracting money from modern and commander price-ruining formats (paper). Leagues are pretty worthless play experience for Standstill/Landstill; you get better at navigating the client and managing the clock, but it gets expensive to pay the yolo-combo tax. Dreadstill vs leagues is pretty easy and you get exposed to more decisions and interactions, but you're not really improving speed so much as fighting an annoying UI. You're also not really winning the finance game by dropping ~$800 to own a deck (leagues take too long to justify ~$40/month rental fee), and the real money is all in paper, beating modern price spikes and spinning it into RL and other random cards commander inflates.

  10. #230
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    Re: [Primer] Six Shades of Dressnought aka Vaka-Nought

    Quote Originally Posted by Fox View Post
    So with Hullbreacher we've got a self-flooding problem on top of it being a very bad idea to either flood out on Day's...or be unable to reliably see 1-2x slots of Day's in a deck where you've spent 4 slots on Hullbreacher. This is a lot of variance to add to a deck, especially if you're adding it on top of a Dreadnought package. Now you've got a deck with two A then B combos which do not share tools.
    You could have 3 Hullbreacher + 1-2 Day's. Hullbreacher is nonlegendary and turns sideways (i.e. does things beyond the passive ability), so it doesn't need to mitigate self-flooding the way legendary Narset does. The floor of a flash 3-power blue creature can't be that low. Pitches to Force, ambushes fair attacker, discards removal spell, Bolts PWs. But yes, it doesn't help dig into Day's, so the draw combo is unreliable. Added variance.

    It sounds like the underlying issue is Dreadnought's 2-for-1 A-then-B is already enough variance that it can't tolerate any other source of variance, card disadvantage, or conditional draw. Or conversely, tier 1 engines that already work don't need the added variance of Dreadnought.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fox View Post
    3-0 + ID w/ UBw Landstill
    2-0-2 w/ UBw Landstill
    1-1-2 w/ UBw Landstill

    So 14-4-4 (not counting IDs), with all four draws being on UBw Landstill, and all in either highly-favored matchup (if no time for last game, 1/4) or winning/deterministically winning positions (if last game in progress, 3/4).
    So despite new cards like Shark Typhoon and Timeless Dragon, Landstill still has the classic problem of struggling to actually finish matches. It was like that in the old days of Factory beatdown (and even older days of Mindslaver lock). I had hoped it improved. The problem's even worse online, where those timeout draws become match losses or you have to invest much more time to gain the same number of trophies, so no wonder there's so little Landstill represented in MTGO data.


    Quote Originally Posted by Fox View Post
    All of this feeds into the larger question you're asking about alternate draw engine w/ Dreadnought and Dreadstill vs Landstill/Standstill. The goal is to have a deck that does something better than anyone else. This is where pairing Dreadnought with a conventional CA source surrounded by conventional cards kinda just plays conventional legacy, except worse. You need to play a fundamentally different CA game to be the best at it. We have decades of examples proving that nothing can play conventional legacy better than the absolute diversity killers of Goyf, total hand destruction, and FIRE. Those three are all basically legalized cheating (especially the no-skill, total hand destruction crap), and completely immune to being hated out of tier 1. You can't improve stuff like this by adding a Dreadnought package; they don't need the excess power b/c it comes with increased variance.
    Interesting. Most of my experience with UWx Landstill is from a much older period when that "conventional Legacy" didn't exist. FIRE wasn't printed yet. For a period there was no "total hand destruction" or Goyf either. Then there was CB+Top and Goyf, but no Snapcaster or Probe or FIRE yet. The format was much more diverse.

    The advantages of playing Landstill back then were perhaps different too. Standstill was the uncontested best draw engine and pure control shell. Then it survived the "legalized cheating" of Goyf and CB+Top because non-spell actions invalidate CB and the deck shuts down big dumb creatures even if they're bigger and dumber. By the time FIRE and more "total hand destruction" took off, CB Miracles took over as the dominant UWx control shell.

    I suppose the reasons to play Landstill/Dreadstill today are different than before. Tier 1 is dominated by what you call "conventional Legacy", but Standstill allows an "unconventional" game plan that can still compete by ignoring some of these directions of power creep or making them to play in a game they're not designed for.

    Back to the DressNought concept, perhaps pairing Dreadnought with conventional CA and conventional cards won't be strictly worse. Dreadnought's fast clock and the mana denial package could still improve matchups against combo, tier 2 greedy mana, and brews - at the expense of adding weaknesses to fair removal (UWR, Bant, D&T, Grixis). Your point is that conventional CA isn't enough to fix those bad fair matchups. Is Standstill necessarily the only thing that does? Can no other draw 3 fill that role?

    Quote Originally Posted by Fox View Post
    it certainly doesn't help you understand the mtgfinance subgame of extracting money from modern and commander price-ruining formats (paper). You're also not really winning the finance game by dropping ~$800 to own a deck (leagues take too long to justify ~$40/month rental fee), and the real money is all in paper, beating modern price spikes and spinning it into RL and other random cards commander inflates.
    I assume most long-time paper Legacy players own the staples (Forces, full set of fetches, at least 1x blue duals, Wasteland, Xerox, removal) so the cost of a deck is really the cost of its unique cards. Standstill, Shark Typhoon, Timeless Dragon, Supreme Verdict, Sevinne's, Kaya, and black wraths are not that expensive.

  11. #231
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    Re: [Primer] Six Shades of Dressnought aka Vaka-Nought

    You could have 3 Hullbreacher + 1-2 Day's. Hullbreacher is nonlegendary and turns sideways (i.e. does things beyond the passive ability), so it doesn't need to mitigate self-flooding the way legendary Narset does. The floor of a flash 3-power blue creature can't be that low. Pitches to Force, ambushes fair attacker, discards removal spell, Bolts PWs. But yes, it doesn't help dig into Day's, so the draw combo is unreliable. Added variance.

    It sounds like the underlying issue is Dreadnought's 2-for-1 A-then-B is already enough variance that it can't tolerate any other source of variance, card disadvantage, or conditional draw. Or conversely, tier 1 engines that already work don't need the added variance of Dreadnought.
    You start running into problems in the format if you're playing a lot of 3/2 bodies without pretty heavy removal accompanying them. There's 1 mana 3/4s and Goyf/Murktide types on 2 mana, so it can become very difficult to actually punch through. You're more likely to reach a battlefield stall (if you're not just behind in the race), at which point you're the one topdecking Daze. As you say, it's too much variance to sustain (particularly when the pieces of each combo don't help each other).

    So despite new cards like Shark Typhoon and Timeless Dragon, Landstill still has the classic problem of struggling to actually finish matches. It was like that in the old days of Factory beatdown (and even older days of Mindslaver lock). I had hoped it improved. The problem's even worse online, where those timeout draws become match losses or you have to invest much more time to gain the same number of trophies, so no wonder there's so little Landstill represented in MTGO data.
    The time issues have more to do with maintaining speed in paper, which has been harder to get practice the past few years of covid. Online the time is usually okay (no shuffling), but casting Cling to Dust is like a 20 second investment. The issue with online is that league experience is fairly useless when combo is so overrepresented (so you'll get a lot of fake matchups, where time really isn't an issue...so you don't get any meaningful practice). It should also be noted that the average legacy match take a lot more time b/c the format is flooded with answers which take time to slog through (on top of their cantrips and fetch/shuffles or Saga/whatever). Every paper round it is common that people (not on Standstill) are going to time, so at some point they may need to increase round time by 5-10 minutes to discourage people from not conceding when they are dead.

    I suppose the reasons to play Landstill/Dreadstill today are different than before. Tier 1 is dominated by what you call "conventional Legacy", but Standstill allows an "unconventional" game plan that can still compete by ignoring some of these directions of power creep or making them to play in a game they're not designed for.
    Precisely. Punish them for swimming in their own conventional card abyss by playing a different style.

    Back to the DressNought concept, perhaps pairing Dreadnought with conventional CA and conventional cards won't be strictly worse. Dreadnought's fast clock and the mana denial package could still improve matchups against combo, tier 2 greedy mana, and brews - at the expense of adding weaknesses to fair removal (UWR, Bant, D&T, Grixis). Your point is that conventional CA isn't enough to fix those bad fair matchups. Is Standstill necessarily the only thing that does? Can no other draw 3 fill that role?
    You can't dodge the bad matchups, which is the issue. That's too many losses to break even/make money, so like in my above paper set, that cost was $60 buy-in with $110 in prize [$50 profit]...but if I play these StifleNought things, I'm losing money every week. It is really hard to break 2-2 in paper with StifleNought, so even if I play perfectly and have all this experience on Nought, like I know I'm gonna average out between 2-2s and 3-1 (so $60 buy-in, and *maybe* $60 prize on a very good run where exactly half of my results are 3-1).

    In terms of different CA, I'm waiting for Life's Legacy as an instant (does not exist yet) or a playable "you gain, they drain" (so the CA is Arguel's Blood Fast which flips into Diamond Valley...but I need a card that is better than Vito). These are the leading candidates for not-Standstill CA; they just don't exist yet.


    I assume most long-time paper Legacy players own the staples (Forces, full set of fetches, at least 1x blue duals, Wasteland, Xerox, removal) so the cost of a deck is really the cost of its unique cards. Standstill, Shark Typhoon, Timeless Dragon, Supreme Verdict, Sevinne's, Kaya, and black wraths are not that expensive.
    Long-time players is not where we get our new players from.; like sometimes sure...but the long-term Dreadnought pilot is the one who is buying into legacy from 0-1 duals owned. The only comparable budget build is DnT (which builds into basically nothing, so you have to love playing it). Shadow is pointless to build in paper b/c you don't have mtgo league-levels of combo...so it's just a good way to rage-quit a format you tried to enter as you get spammed out by Plow/Ending. Stuff like Oops all Spells will never survive the hate cards they incentivize local metas to run. Contrast this to Dreadnought which teaches blue play patterns and the staples to build into whichever direction you want to go, all the while playing an end-stage legacy deck (like DnT, from the list above). The way we recruit new players is giving them a not-budget deck that only costs around $2000 (if they don't like the play styles or build-out potential of ~$1200 DnT)...and if they have zero duals, there are only slightly less red adjustment b/c of Vista giving 9 slots of access to basic red (8 Fetch, 1 Mountain) which brings us down by about $750, to DnT-range costs.

    This is my issue with a lot of the StifleNought stuff, where we've got the combination of not really viable outside of mtgo leagues and outrageous deckbuilding cost in the manabase. This discourages new pilots from finding their way to the Dreadnought archetype...which then decreases new Standstill pilots (as it is much cheaper to wobble from Dreadstill to Landstill/Standstill for minimal cost while moving at a speed of acquiring one dual at a time). The online stuff has lots of tourism potential, but minimal potential to generate a long-term pilot.

  12. #232

    Re: [Primer] Six Shades of Dressnought aka Vaka-Nought

    This came in 9th in the latest Legacy challenge. Slip Out the Back seems like the real deal…

    Creature (9)
    1 Brazen Borrower
    2 Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger
    2 Murktide Regent
    4 Phyrexian Dreadnought

    Sorcery (7)
    3 Expressive Iteration
    4 Ponder

    Instant (21)
    4 Brainstorm
    1 Force of Negation
    4 Force of Will
    4 Lightning Bolt
    2 Slip Out the Back
    1 Snuff Out
    4 Stifle
    1 Stubborn Denial

    Enchantment (4)
    4 Dress Down

    Land (19)
    4 Polluted Delta
    4 Scalding Tarn
    1 Snow-Covered Island
    2 Underground Sea
    4 Volcanic Island
    4 Wasteland

    Sideboard (15)
    1 Abrade
    1 Hydroblast
    1 Meltdown
    2 Narset, Parter of Veils
    1 Plague Engineer
    3 Pyroblast
    1 Red Elemental Blast
    1 Scroll of Fate
    2 Surgical Extraction
    2 Torpor Orb

    The one change I would make is to add 4 Leyline of the Void to the sideboard. UR Murktide straight up autoloses to Leyline in my experience, and its the most popular deck in legacy.

  13. #233
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    Re: [Primer] Six Shades of Dressnought aka Vaka-Nought

    Gotta be careful with the challenges. What decks did they face, how many were in the challenge/how many rounds? A lot of these challenges are short enough to randomly never roll unwinnable matchups. It's much harder to hide in say a 300+ player showcase challenge going for 9 rounds.

    Leyline is a bad card. One of the main reasons we don't play stuff like Leyline is that 12/12s and disruption naturally performs well vs GY combo. Why would you ever add a clunker like Leyline to a deck with an overwhelmingly positive matchup vs Delver?

    UW Dreadstill got 58th in the showcase. Zero Leyline, zero Slip Out the Back. Only 2/9 rounds were against the biggest joke in legacy: UR Delver. This matchup is easy.

  14. #234
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    Re: [Primer] Six Shades of Dressnought aka Vaka-Nought

    Quote Originally Posted by Clark Kant View Post
    The one change I would make is to add 4 Leyline of the Void to the sideboard. UR Murktide straight up autoloses to Leyline in my experience, and its the most popular deck in legacy.
    4 Leyline means less slots for other matches. Why add cards to improve an already good matchup (UR Delver)? Also, what would the sideboard mapping look like? You already bring in 4 red blasts + Hydroblast. If you bring in 4 Leyline too, what 9+ cards do you board out? Do you remove some of the Dreadnought combo, even though UR has a hard time answering 12/12s?

    It makes more sense to save SB space for the bad matchups like UWR Day's Undoing.

  15. #235
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    Re: [Primer] Six Shades of Dressnought aka Vaka-Nought

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    It makes more sense to save SB space for the bad matchups like UWR Day's Undoing.
    Definitely need a better plan vs Plow/Ending, but that's not really a fixable problem. After so many months of pointing out that Daze does not protect Dreadnought [outside of a Daze mirror], they at least dropped that...but Ponder still isn't doing them any favors, and Iteration isn't reliable CA when they lack 1-drop proactive plays.

    In terms of priorities, it's always a bad idea to specifically target banned cards and the decks they're in. To really go after MindTwister, you'd need like 12/15 of your SB slots to be 6x Blast, 4x Invasive Surgery (if you could get delirium), and 2x Scroll of Fate...but even then, you're talking about a matchup you'll almost always start by losing game 1. It's kinda like playing Gut Shot to beat Ragavan. The focus should be on Plow/Ending, which means 3-4c Uro midrange once Day's and Echo are inevitably banned. When you focus in like this vs MindTwister, you're gonna start missing the obvious stuff like: there are 23x 1-drops and a whole lot of Chalice running around.

    ^So like in the showcase, 6/9 matches were either MindTwister (2x Day's, 1x Echo) or Chalice (2x red, 1x blue). It's not the banned effects you need to react to, it's the big picture that doesn't change after the bans, which you need to be targeting. The issue ofc is that it's Stiflenought, and if you can only count on 1 in 3 decks you see being favorable (Delver or combo), you have some viability issues. Every move you make vs Plow/Ending, has to also attack Chalice and/or Vial. This ofc spirals out of control when you're getting Blood Moon'd, E-Bridge'd, taxed by Thalia/Port, and Wasted. At some point you just need to realize going all-in on beating people to death with a 12/12 maybe needs something else happening in the deck. Get back down to 2c, play basics, learn that Otawara is a better card than Brazen, and definitely stop playing $2-3k manabases. Spoiler alert, competitive choices lead to Dreadnought + Standstill.

  16. #236
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    Re: [Primer] Six Shades of Dressnought aka Vaka-Nought

    "bad matchups like UWR Day's Undoing", not specifically dedicating all your slots to one matchup. Bant Uro, 4c Yorion, and other Plow decks fit too.

    It just comes down to smart sideboard building. Your SB cards vs Day's should be applicable for other matchups to make maximal use of the limited 15 slots. That means your UWR slots will be for common strategies in other bad matches (Plow/Ending) instead of targeting their combo (Invasive Surgery??). Otherwise it's the same problem as overboarding for UR Delver when Delver isn't the only deck.

  17. #237
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    Re: [Primer] Six Shades of Dressnought aka Vaka-Nought

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    "bad matchups like UWR Day's Undoing", not specifically dedicating all your slots to one matchup. Bant Uro, 4c Yorion, and other Plow decks fit too.

    It just comes down to smart sideboard building. Your SB cards vs Day's should be applicable for other matchups to make maximal use of the limited 15 slots. That means your UWR slots will be for common strategies Plow/Ending instead of targeting their combo (Invasive Surgery??). Otherwise it's the same problem as overboarding for UR Delver when Delver isn't the only deck.
    Hitting the 1x Day's with a Surgery isn't the point. The wincon is removing their 3rd color of mana. You can do this by double-killing red sources (not just destroy, but also exile), or you can remove their ability to use the color. The card you're trying to hit is Ending, which you follow up with: here's a Scroll of Fate you can't deal with anymore, and all my blue cards are colorless, so nice Pyroblasts.

    The card also has text vs UR Delver (not that you need it) b/c Surgery will 1-shot their entire Shame Island/Iteration looping.

    When it comes to beating the card Day's Undoing, you accomplish that by never putting yourself in a position to fight over it. The best answer is always that Narset is a legendary permanent, so you target it with Otawara and let Day's resolve. Otherwise you just spam red blasts at their PWs.

  18. #238
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    Re: [Primer] Six Shades of Dressnought aka Vaka-Nought

    The point is no one was talking about specifically targeting banned cards or focusing vs MindTwister. My point was about prioritizing SB space for bad matchups instead of overboarding for Delver (already good). UWR Day's was an example of a bad matchup, not a thing to over-focus on.

    The above deck does have Stifle + Waste + Surgical to attack 3rd color of mana. It has Scroll too. It's capable of attempting that plan vs Ending (in UWR or Bant), especially with a 2nd Scroll. That's not enough to swing the matchup to favorable, but it will never be favorable and that's not the goal.

    Against Chalice, they at least have Kroxa + Murktide + Scroll + Borrower as wincons that ignore Chalice. They aren't all-in on Dreadnought.

    Edit: That's also why Surgery won't work. They cannibalize their graveyard, instead of self-milling with DRC.

  19. #239
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    Re: [Primer] Six Shades of Dressnought aka Vaka-Nought

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Edit: That's also why Surgery won't work. They cannibalize their graveyard, instead of self-milling with DRC.
    Surgery = Invasive Surgery. Not Surgical.

  20. #240

    Re: [Primer] Six Shades of Dressnought aka Vaka-Nought

    All I'm hearing is reasons why sailor's bane is superior to murktide, and that's probably the real issue with mtgo results: sailors' bane never made it online

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