So your fair plan is close to the same (albeit much much worse once Uro gets nuked by Surgical), so every time they answer something with Plow/Ending ask yourself "does a 12/12 get them out of this?" (The answer is usually no)
You end up hurting the midrange plan while simultaneously not specializing enough to help your combo (regardless of what the random combo being put into midrange soup is called). You end up with a worse deck than either pure fair or pure combo, as these pieces just trip over themselves.
Take Hierarch for instance, you're dumping your hand by playing it...in a deck that needs to dump its hand to make Noughts...that has to dump its hand to protect all this with FoW. Once this doesn't work you're a mana dork deck trying to draw through more dead topdecks (other Hierarchs and half of the A + B combo). You need the mana dork to be a credible threat by itself (i.e. DRS or Deathrite Monkey) to get away with this; otherwise your deck construction is losing to itself.
Uro and Dreadnought are not the "fair plan" This deck's fair plan is "attack with Endurance, and Bane" Where Bane is only under some definitions of fair.. They're combo pieces. I know you understand this because you address it in your write up about Hierarch you make a decent point about it having no utility beyond turn 1.
Hierarch shouldnt be a 4 of. 0-2 is the right number of Hierarchs for this deck. You never want to see more than a single Hierarch in any game. The same is true of Sylvan Library, 0-2 at most.
Endurance is a great card. If you want to play it, I would take the Simic Dressnought list that is posted in the OP (the first list posted) and replace some of the 1 ofs and 2 ofs in that list (I would cut the Ice Fang, the Jace and either the FoN or a Daze or a Hierarch) for 3 Endurances.
Speaking of, Bant Dressnought 5-0ed yet again, JKNECHT 5-0ed with…
Creature (15)
4 Esper Sentinel
3 Murktide Regent
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
Sorcery (6)
4 Ponder
2 Prismatic Ending
Instant (16)
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
Artifact (2)
2 Scroll of Fate
Enchantment (2)
2 Dress Down
Land (19)
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Savannah
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
4 Wasteland
Sideboard (15)
2 Prismatic Ending
1 Flusterstorm
1 Force of Negation
2 Mystical Dispute
2 Narset, Parter of Veils
1 Outland Liberator
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Torpor Orb
And RUG Dressnought 5-0ed for the third time this week. This time Oceansoul82 5-0ed with it…
Creature (7)
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
3 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
Sorcery (8)
4 Expressive Iteration
4 Ponder
Instant (21)
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Pyroblast
4 Stifle
1 Stubborn Denial
Enchantment (4)
4 Dress Down
Land (20)
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Mystic Sanctuary
2 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
4 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
Sideboard (15)
3 Pyroblast
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Hydroblast
1 Meltdown
2 Pyroclasm
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Unlicensed Hearse
The RUG Dressnought list seems to have landed on a finalized iteration, as 4 different pilots 5-0ed or top 8ed challenges with the same identical list.
Why would you cut the Ice Fangs? They seem look good green cards.
And better yet, I already own them.
Then instead of 4 Hierarch you probably need some green cantrip. 4 Abundant Harvest or 2 Harvest + 2 Ice-Fang Coatl. Because Bane requires a high instant and sorcery count. Between that and Endurance/FoV needing green count, you're stuck playing a green instant or sorcery that goes to the graveyard (not GSZ or Living Wish). The only ones that would also advance the Dreadnought plan are cheap cantrips. So probably both Abundant Harvest and Once Upon A Time. You could try Worldly Tutor instead, but it seems bad.
Sylvan Library is a good card at 1-2 copies, but it doesn't count as a spell for Sailors' Bane.
OK, this is sorta/kinda where I'm at right now.
4 Dress down
4 Phyrexin Dreadnought
4 Uro
4 Endurance
3 Sailors' Bane
4 Ice-Fang Cotl
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
3 Daze
2 Collected Company
1 Brazen Borrower
2 Snow-Covered Forest
5 Snow-Covered Island
4 Prismatic Vista
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Rimewood Falls
1 Breeding Pool
2 Wasteland
3 Chill
3 Veil of Summer
1 Brazen Borrower
2 Force of Negation
2 Lazotep Plating
4 ???
E: oops I forgot dress down, ok I need 4 cuts
Last edited by FourDogsinaHorseSuit; 08-31-2022 at 06:13 PM.
Collected Company is bad. Phyrexian Dreadnought and Sailors' Bane are both misses. Uro will go to the graveyard. The only bodies you can make are Endurance, Coatl and Borrower. You may not even hit 1 of them.
None of the winning decks are running Coatl. If you do play it for green count, you might as well have Force of Vigor in the SB.
What's Chill for? Is that to beat Pyroblast and Burn? Seems like overkill. You could just play 1-2 Hydroblast.
Hit rate with coco is 83% before including dreadnought. You also have brainstorm to guarantee hits. Ponder to preselect hits.
You also are allowed to go EOT -> [brainstorm ->] dress down -> untap -> cast coco, knowing what's on top of your deck.
It's 75% if you assume you're down to 50 cards in your deck with 10 hits. Or as we say in the biz: Good enough!
Whoops I forgot dressdown and now I see how I managed to cram Daze, Endurance, Ice-Fang AND had space left over to jam CoCo. Nope. Snip that.
Ignoring the Dress Down combo for now (too many moving pieces), I see 9 hits in the whole deck (4 Endurance, 4 Ice-Fang, 1 Borrower). That's before your 4 cuts.
Optimistically, if you've drawn none and used cantrips/fetches, that's 9 hits in 46 cards: 25% chance to hit nothing, 42% chance to hit 1 creature, 33% chance to hit 2 creatures.
Modern Coco usually had 25-30 hits, almost always hitting 2 good things. Trying to resolve a 4-mana spell in Legacy while hitting at a much lower rate seems bad. There's a good reason Coco doesn't see more Legacy play in 15-creature midrange decks. It's not new surprise tech no one's thought of. It's not good enough.
Why not just play Once Upon A Time?
Sure, if you ignore the highest upsides the play is weaker.
The highest upsides are inconsistent though. It's a 2-card A+B combo that costs 6 mana and can be easily disrupted. It's unnecessary variance/risk when the deck already has easier ways to make threats.
If you want Dreadnought more often, run Urza's Saga for an uncounterable tutor and additional threats. Or Scroll of Fate to make instant speed uncounterable EOT Dreadnought/Uro, while also converting dead draws into bodies.
Why isn't Torpor Orb used in this deck more? It's a permanent good creature in to play effect. Is it too much of a sitting duck, or not flexible enough?
Trying to rely on a backup plan of Uro or Kroxa looks horrid when you keep turning these into getting 1 for 1'd. It's also quite poor-looking to trap yourself in the Karakas abyss.
There is also a problem with Torpor just being another way to make a sorcery speed dude, but still passing the turn. You haven't changed the rules enough when compared to EoT Dress Down + draw a card. There is also a variance problem with stacking Torpor effects doing absolutely nothing in multiples.
The most competitive choice you can make with any combo deck will always be to select combo pieces that don't kill you by flooding out on one side of the A then B combo. Multiple Dress Down and multiple Scroll of Fate without piece B aren't going to cost you the game as you either cycle them or throw down extra Scrolls as 2/2 beaters.
So Delver is a thing at my LGS and I was hopping I could get a rundown of how the MU should go in traditional stiflenought lists. What makes it so favored and how I can incorporate that theory into the UG list I'm trying to hammer out.
My LGS has some really good delver players.
You have to be able to pick fights with not-blue cards (i.e. kill spells). When you pick these fights, Delver loses b/c they no longer have agency with Iteration - i.e. they are obligated to dig for another dude. If they blow their hand stopping the kill spell, they automatically end up in a position where they have no agency - your FoWs will dictate how the game proceeds.
In the background you blow up their mana and deny them the endgame of Iteration -> Shame Island -> Daze to loop Shame Island for Iteration. Having cut this mode of Daze, all you need to do is not let Daze counter real spells; if you're going to turn on Daze make sure you're setting them down to 1 land or less (aka at least 2 turns from being able to cast Iteration.
If Delver is what you really want to target, you can run Daze (but it is bad against almost every other non-combo deck).
Other than that, you need to be able to get on board on turn 1. DRC is the best way to do this followed very very distantly by Reclaimer (b/c 4 toughness is more than Bolt can deal with).
This is where the good matchup stops, and the reason it stops is that you can't play 2c [Dreadstill can]. On 3c you are not allowed to play the asymmetry game of "I can Waste you, but you can't Waste me" so the Delver matchup will always revolve around the Wasteland lottery...and this is why you need to be able to get on board on 1 mana.
As far as the 3c goes, green is the absolute worst. While it's cool and all to get Uro, that requires an overwhelming commitment to green mana...which doesn't cast Plow/Ending/Bolt/REB; i.e. very hard to pick fights with nonblue cards (vs Delver's 4-5 REB effects). You also don't have enough green to run the two best cards: FoV, Endurance. Recalimer and Ice-Fang can up the green count, but not exactly helpful against Murktide (you're not going to get to resolve and keep Ice-Fang into declare blockers vs so many Bolt and REB)... So you end up playing UR or UW + needs GG mana (or BB if Kroxa) - again why you'll never escape the Wasteland lottery abyss.
The last piece of the puzzle vs Delver is don't get mana screwed (and then Daze'd forever). Keep land heavier hands and don't activate Wasteland when it is more valuable to use the alternate mode of "your Daze is dead forever".
Beating Delver takes stable mana, efficient threats, and cheap removal for their threats - especially Murktide (StP, Pyroblast).
Delver punishes greedy mana (nonbasics) and 3-4cmc creatures by getting on board earlier and then disrupting your mana (Daze, Wasteland) to prevent the big guys. If you can't also get on board early and cheaply answer their threats, they'll use their mana denial and tempo to race. The Dreadnought plan should be good. It's bigger than their guys, good tempo, and hard for them to remove (SB Meltdown & Borrower?). Your build's biggest weakness is that it might die to Delver's creatures and mana denial before it establishes Uro or Sailors' Bane. It doesn't have a good answer to fast Murktide+DRC. Endurance is very strong in the matchup but needs a higher green count. You probably need a 1-mana answer to Murktide: Run Afoul in green or splash another color for removal (StP, Pyroblast).
@Fox why must he be 3c? Why can't Dressnought be 2c?
UR can get on board fastest to out-Delver Delver. DRC is also the best Sailors' Bane enabler.
//Creatures: 12
4 Dragon's Rage Channeler
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
3 Sailors' Bane
1 Brazen Borrower
//Spells: 27
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Stifle
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Daze
3 Expressive Iteration
1 Force of Negation
//Enchantments: 3
3 Dress Down
//Lands: 18
4 Wasteland
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Polluted Delta
2 Prismatic Vista
2 Volcanic Island
3 Island
1 Mountain
//Sideboard: 15
3 Pyroblast
1 Flusterstorm
1 Scroll of Fate
1 Blood Moon
1 Pyroclasm
1 Powder Keg
2 Meltdown
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Ashiok, Dream Render
Something roughly like that should beat Delver and combo, but will struggle against other fair blue piles. Sailors' Bane and Scroll of Fate should help the fair matches.
1-of Hunted Phantasm is an option, but probably not good enough. You could also make room for 2 Urza's Saga cleanly (tutors Dreadnought and SB cards, or makes more threats).
Dreadnought!
Cmc 5... Commander card?
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