4 Card Blind: The Silkster Seasons

[dte]

Thanks for the explanation!

[Wrath of Pie]

Thanks for the explanation!

To be fair you wouldn't know how US state postal codes work most likely, so I can understand why you needed the explanation.

[dte]

To be fair you wouldn't know how US state postal codes work most likely, so I can understand why you needed the explanation.

That, and the fact that Providence was in Rhodes Island, and that RI stands for Rhodes Island.
A few things to learn!

[Reeplcheep]

I completely played myself this round. My first submission, the day that the new round was determined, was dryad arbor, 2x island of wak-wak, ray of revelation because I found that it lost to most of the other decks I thought of, and the ones it didn't lose to it drew with (And indeed I think it would have been a clean sweep here. None of your threats are discarding enchantments or flying creatures). But then I thought, well other people may come up with this too, and find answers.

This is a brilliant deck that I missed. However you would lose to blackmail take ray, bandits talent both lands. So one of the wak-waks need to be gutshot.

[tirrit]

This is a brilliant deck that I missed. However you would lose to blackmail take ray, bandits talent both lands. So one of the wak-waks need to be gutshot.

Nice catch! I totally forgot that Bandit's talent's etb was anything more than "discard a card". I think the safer fix would be virtue of strength instead of one of the islands, though. That way you can pick up the other island if it gets discarded, or if blackmail hits ray you can pitch it to talent, but you can't actually get dryad arbor back after it dies unless it somehow dies during your own main phase

[silkster]

I realize that I haven't announced it officially. This week was a bit slower because of a few mistakes that involved the top deck. It's been a few days without comment, so I'll confirm that the next ceiling deck is: Leyline of Anticipation, Lotus Petal, Dark Ritual, Tatterkite

Remember that Inkmoth Nexus, Bandit's Talent, and Blackmail are banned (but Swamp is legal), as well as the powerful 7.

It's fine if you've already submitted. I haven't looked at the entries, but they'll be there waiting for me when the time comes.

[FTW]

I realize that I haven't announced it officially. This week was a bit slower because of a few mistakes that involved the top deck. It's been a few days without comment, so I'll confirm that the next ceiling deck is: Leyline of Anticipation, Lotus Petal, Dark Ritual, Tatterkite

Remember that Inkmoth Nexus, Bandit's Talent, and Blackmail are banned (but Swamp is legal), as well as the powerful 7.

It's fine if you've already submitted. I haven't looked at the entries, but they'll be there waiting for me when the time comes.

Sorry, I should have confirmed earlier. I agree with Wrath's assessment. I missed that I can discard WoP when we're both at 2 life, Loxodon will enter play, but Rack will kill on upkeep before it can attack for lethal. WoP could instead reveal Leyline, then I can never Raven's Crime. But The Rack doesn't target, so WoP still can't make a threat. DD 2-2

That makes Tatterkite the ceiling deck by 1 point.

[silkster]

bb8df1f286e548a1cb9099c9aabf4f73f49b6348af15df8db020d8626828d0db

[silkster]

Ceiling Round 6

GoblinSmashmaster: Chancellor of the Forge, Grove of the Burnwillows, Burning Inquiry, Basking Rootwalla, comment: Goblin Smash!
FTW: Island, Oona's Gatewarden, Force of Negation, Drifter il-Dal, comment: Hope nobody Goes for the Throat
dte: Chronomaton, Island sanctuary, Fountain of Cho, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, comment:
Reeplcheep: Scrubland, Cabal Therapy, Crawling Chorus, Fume Spitter, comment: Toxic Gameplay
Wrath of Pie: Island, Rishadan Dockhand, Rishadan Dockhand, Force of Negation, comment:
Tirrit: Mana confluence, Aether Vial, Swarm Shambler, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, comment: I decided to go with silly: Best way to cheat eldrazi into play?
Silkster: Underground River, Fume Spitter, Cruel Sadist, Cabal Therapy, comment: gotta pay that life

[Reeplcheep]

Reeplcheep: Scrubland, Cabal Therapy, Crawling Chorus, Fume Spitter, comment: Toxic Gameplay

Goblin: Chancellor of the Forge, Grove of the Burnwillows, Burning Inquiry, Basking Rootwalla, comment: Goblin Smash!
Toxic lets me win the race. WL
Edit: doesn’t pumping Rootwalla win you the race 3 damage to 2?

FTW: Island, Oona's Gatewarden, Force of Negation, Drifter il-Dal, comment: Hope nobody Goes for the Throat
Therapy and spitter trade, I win with chorus. WW

dte: Chronomaton, Island sanctuary, Fountain of Cho, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, comment:
I kill on t11 you cast ulamog on t12. I can double CT you and without slowing down. WW

Wrath of Pie: Island, Rishadan Dockhand, Rishadan Dockhand, Force of Negation, comment:
FoN then port me DD
Edit: OTP I can CT then cast threat so that it costs you a block to port. WD

Tirrit: Mana confluence, Aether Vial, Swarm Shambler, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, comment: I decided to go with silly: Best way to cheat eldrazi into play?
I kill you on t11, same turn you put in kozilek. If you attack me with kozilek, you lose to the mite. WD

Silkster: Underground River, Fume Spitter, Cruel Sadist, Cabal Therapy, comment: gotta pay that life
My threat doesn’t die to spitter but yours does. WD

8W 3D 1L for 27/36

[FTW]

FTW: Island, Oona's Gatewarden, Force of Negation, Drifter il-Dal, comment: Hope nobody Goes for the Throat

Oona's Gatewarden seemed cute but misled me into thinking Drifter was a safe threat. I thought any 1-mana 2/2 (Icehide Golem or Mass discard + Nether Spirit) invalidated Fume Spitter but should have respected it. Instead, no one played 2/2s and only 1 mass discard.

GoblinSmashmaster: Chancellor of the Forge, Grove of the Burnwillows, Burning Inquiry, Basking Rootwalla
FoN counters Burning Inquiry. OTP I play my 2 power first, then you get 1 haste attack but I gain 1 life, so I win the race.
OTD you cast Rootwalla and get 1 haste attack, putting me to 20. If I play Oona first, it can't stop both threats and I'll lose Drifter to Inquiry, but if I play Drifter first then I can't play Oona and I lose the race by 1 turn.
WL 3-3

dte: Chronomaton, Island sanctuary, Fountain of Cho, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
I race on T11, so Ulamog's too slow to matter, and I can Force Sanctuary. There are many decisions about charging Chrono or attacking, but T3 Chrono + slow land is much slower than Tirrit's engine, so I should race this.
WW 6-0?

Reeplcheep: Scrubland, Cabal Therapy, Crawling Chorus, Fume Spitter
Nice deck! Metagamed against exactly what I'm doing. Fume Spitter answers Drifter. Chorus outlasts Oona, or if I Force Therapy (preventing flashback) then you get 1 more creature than me. LL 0-6

Wrath of Pie: Island, Rishadan Dockhand, Rishadan Dockhand, Force of Negation
Luckily you can't tap me out of upkeep costs, and Drifter is slightly faster. WW 6-0

Tirrit: Mana confluence, Aether Vial, Swarm Shambler, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
Kozilek attacking T12 is too slow to matter. A lot of math & decisions for you. Your best clocks racing 2-power evasion are:
a) Grow to 3/3, Win T10, Lose in 9 attacks
b) Grow to 4/4, Win T9, Lose in 8 attacks
c) Grow to 5/5, Win T9, Lose in 8 attacks
All 3 options are just slow enough to lose to T0 Tatterkite, but race a sorcery-speed 2/x when you go first.
OTP I race all your options.
OTD If you lead with Shambler, you could race Drifter. But I can play T1 Oona, slowing you down a lot, then Drifter will race and Kozilek is still too slow. If you lead with Vial (for faster Kozilek), Drifter will race without Oona.
WW 6-0

Silkster: Underground River, Fume Spitter, Cruel Sadist, Cabal Therapy, comment: gotta pay that life
Fume Spitter kills my wincon, and Oona isn't enough to stop your threats. LL 0-6

21 points (7 wins, 5 loss)

[FTW]

Goblin: Chancellor of the Forge, Grove of the Burnwillows, Burning Inquiry, Basking Rootwalla, comment: Goblin Smash!
Toxic lets me win the race. WL
Edit: doesn’t pumping Rootwalla win you the race 3 damage to 2?

Blazing Rootwalla would, but not Basking Rootwalla

[GoblinSmashmaster]

GoblinSmashmaster Results for Round "Fast goblins!"

GoblinSmashmaster: Chancellor of the Forge, Grove of the Burnwillows, Burning Inquiry, Basking Rootwalla, comment: Goblin Smash!
That's me, playing into everyone

FTW: Island, Oona's Gatewarden, Force of Negation, Drifter il-Dal, comment: Hope nobody Goes for the Throat
You use the Force :( 3-3

dte: Chronomaton, Island sanctuary, Fountain of Cho, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, comment:
You have Eldrazi :( 0-6

Reeplcheep: Scrubland, Cabal Therapy, Crawling Chorus, Fume Spitter, comment: Toxic Gameplay
Goblin smash! 3-3

Wrath of Pie: Island, Rishadan Dockhand, Rishadan Dockhand, Force of Negation, comment:
You use the Force :( 2-2

Tirrit: Mana confluence, Aether Vial, Swarm Shambler, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, comment: I decided to go with silly: Best way to cheat eldrazi into play?
You have Eldrazi :( 0-6

Silkster: Underground River, Fume Spitter, Cruel Sadist, Cabal Therapy, comment: gotta pay that life
Goblin smash! 3-3

11 goblin points :|

[dte]

Damn, being scared of magus of the moon and evil presence like things did not pay of: chronomaton did nothing, and having my first thought of sanctuary island, ulamog, sanitarium, and calciform pools would have made a full sweep :/
Instead it seems quite far from it.

Edit, mistook river and sea. 3 damages from river.


@Silk, I do not see how your deck lose to the target?
T1 spitter & kite
t attack, S18
T2 attack and sadist, t19
t attack, S16
T2 attack and pump sadist, t18 S15
t attack, S13
T3 attack, t15
t attack, S11
T4 attack, t12
t attack, S9
T5 attack, t9
t attack, S7
T6 attack, t6
t attack, S5
T7 attack, t3
t attack, S3
T3 attack, t dead?

Both OTP and OTD, it looks like it wins, or did I miss something?

[dte]

GoblinSmashmaster: Chancellor of the Forge, Grove of the Burnwillows, Burning Inquiry, Basking Rootwalla, comment: Goblin Smash!
6-0
6

FTW: Island, Oona's Gatewarden, Force of Negation, Drifter il-Dal, comment: Hope nobody Goes for the Throat
0-6
I am slower with chronomaton:
T3 c1
T4 attack F19
T5 c2
T6 attack F17
T7 c3
T8 attack F14


dte: Chronomaton, Island sanctuary, Fountain of Cho, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, comment:
Me, who made the wrong change :/

Reeplcheep: Scrubland, Cabal Therapy, Crawling Chorus, Fume Spitter, comment: Toxic Gameplay
0-6

Wrath of Pie: Island, Rishadan Dockhand, Rishadan Dockhand, Force of Negation, comment:
1-4

Tirrit: Mana confluence, Aether Vial, Swarm Shambler, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, comment: I decided to go with silly: Best way to cheat eldrazi into play?
6-0
12

Silkster: Underground River, Fume Spitter, Cruel Sadist, Cabal Therapy, comment: gotta pay that life
Is that legal? If yes, 0-6

[silkster]

GoblinSmashmaster: Chancellor of the Forge, Grove of the Burnwillows, Burning Inquiry, Basking Rootwalla, comment: Goblin Smash!
The first deck in my gauntlet was Burning Inquiry, but with fast mana and a 1-mana threat, but I didn't think to play a madness creature for some reason.
WL

FTW: Island, Oona's Gatewarden, Force of Negation, Drifter il-Dal, comment: Hope nobody Goes for the Throat
My first thought looking at this round was how many pitch spells were playable. The vast majority of my early lists were pitch spells, until I eventually realized that I wanted to play 3 cards instead of 2.
WW

dte: Chronomaton, Island sanctuary, Fountain of Cho, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, comment:
I actually missed this deck when I was scanning for legality, so I'm glad it seems to be legal. That's some good ground hate, but then I remembered that Cabal Therapy catches that with lots of time to spare.
WW

Reeplcheep: Scrubland, Cabal Therapy, Crawling Chorus, Fume Spitter, comment: Toxic Gameplay
I didn't even realize how similar our decks are until I was reading your write-up. For a brief moment, I was on Young Wolf instead of the sadist, which was even closer. I saw Crawling Chorus in my searches, and the reason I moved away from it is because I had a few decks that won out of nowhere on turn 11 (through one discard but not two), so I wanted my clock to be faster than turn 11. Chorus was a good choice though.
Chorus trades better unless I discard it.
DL

Wrath of Pie: Island, Rishadan Dockhand, Rishadan Dockhand, Force of Negation, comment:
I had a few charge land decks in mind. This is a nice mix of catching T1 decks and slower decks, but lots of the field went down the middle.
WW

Tirrit: Mana confluence, Aether Vial, Swarm Shambler, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, comment: I decided to go with silly: Best way to cheat eldrazi into play?
When I was scanning decks for legality, I thought you submitted Shambling Swarm because I was sure you'd play something that uses -1/-1 counters. I also wondered to myself a few hours later why you were playing Mana Confluence that would only ever cost you 1 life. I also didn't realize why you and dte had gone for Eldrazi until I read GoblinSmashmaster's write-up.
Sadist kills in 9 turns, so if you lead on Shambler I can just remove it and win.

T1: Vial taking 1; Therapy on Shambler
T2: 1 counter; Spitter
T3: V2; Sadist, hit 1
T4: V3; 2/2, hit 1
T5: V4; 3/3, hit 1
And I'm now 4 attacks from winning, so I win with Vial on 8.
WW

Silkster: Underground River, Fume Spitter, Cruel Sadist, Cabal Therapy, comment: gotta pay that life
My math says that I can lost 4 life to win on T9 or 6 life to win on T9 or 8 life to win T10 and I assume it only gets worse from there.

Most of my early decks were a 1-mana threat and a combination of pitch spells. I was actually really focused on Force of Despair as a removal spell that doesn't hit this specific Tatterkite, so I spent the first few days looking for flash threats. I'm glad I eventually moved away from that when I realized that I wanted to be able to cast more than 2 cards. The only fun deck I had was Fountain of Cho, Barren Glory, Claws of Gix, Noxious Revival. I wanted to play it because it was the most different, but it was just losing way too much. But finding it made me want to play a clock that was faster than T11 at the cost of life, which was helpful against the Eldrazi clocks. It was a lot of Swamp+Sadist, Mana Confluence+Cenn's Tactician, or maybe a 3-life dfc land, before I realized that I could actually play 2 threats if I paid enough life.

[silkster]

Damn, being scared of magus of the moon and evil presence like things did not pay of: chronomaton did nothing, and having my first thought of sanctuary island, ulamog, sanitarium, and calciform pools would have made a full sweep :/
Instead it seems quite far from it.

@Silk, I do not see how your deck lose to the target?
T1 spitter & kite
t attack, S18
T2 attack and sadist, t19
t attack, S16
T2 attack and pump sadist, t18 S15
t attack, S13
T3 attack, t15
t attack, S11
T4 attack, t12
t attack, S9
T5 attack, t9
t attack, S7
T6 attack, t6
t attack, S5
T7 attack, t3
t attack, S3
T3 attack, t dead?

Both OTP and OTD, it looks like it wins, or did I miss something?

I think you're missing that Underground River is not Underground Sea and costs me lots of life. I think. You had me panicked that I had played the wrong card.

[dte]

I think you're missing that Underground River is not Underground Sea and costs me lots of life. I think. You had me panicked that I had played the wrong card.

Yes, I just read underground sea, did not think of the river. Even looking again and again thinking you would not have missed it I never realised it was not underground sea.
The river gives you exactly the 3 damages needed.
Sorry for the scare!

[Wrath of Pie]

Wrath of Pie: Island, Rishadan Dockhand, Rishadan Dockhand, Force of Negation, comment:

GoblinSmashmaster: Chancellor of the Forge, Grove of the Burnwillows, Burning Inquiry, Basking Rootwalla, comment: Goblin Smash! - DD - I had this with Nether Spirit but couldn't find a fourth card I was happy with (the real answer is probably another Burning Inquiry).
FTW: Island, Oona's Gatewarden, Force of Negation, Drifter il-Dal, comment: Hope nobody Goes for the Throat - LL - You went for my throat instead.
dte: Chronomaton, Island sanctuary, Fountain of Cho, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, comment: - WD
Reeplcheep: Scrubland, Cabal Therapy, Crawling Chorus, Fume Spitter, comment: Toxic Gameplay - DL
Tirrit: Mana confluence, Aether Vial, Swarm Shambler, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, comment: I decided to go with silly: Best way to cheat eldrazi into play? - LL
Silkster: Underground River, Fume Spitter, Cruel Sadist, Cabal Therapy, comment: gotta pay that life - LL

1w4d = 7 points

[tirrit]

Tirrit: Mana confluence, Aether Vial, Swarm Shambler, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, comment: I decided to go with silly: Best way to cheat eldrazi into play?



GoblinSmashmaster: Chancellor of the Forge, Grove of the Burnwillows, Burning Inquiry, Basking Rootwalla, comment: Goblin Smash!
6-0 I stabilize after discarding on turn 4 at 11 life on the draw, turn 2 at 17 life on the play. I eventually make an eldrazi to win.

FTW: Island, Oona's Gatewarden, Force of Negation, Drifter il-Dal, comment: Hope nobody Goes for the Throat
0-6 I agree with your assessment. Oona's gatewarden is quite the speedbump!

dte: Chronomaton, Island sanctuary, Fountain of Cho, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, comment:
0-6 I can't attack through island sanctuary and eventually get annihilated.

Reeplcheep: Scrubland, Cabal Therapy, Crawling Chorus, Fume Spitter, comment: Toxic Gameplay
1-4 Crawling chorus doing overtime by surviving annihilation!

Wrath of Pie: Island, Rishadan Dockhand, Rishadan Dockhand, Force of Negation, comment:
6-0 I just need to tap on main phase once to get aether vial online, then shambler stabilizes and blocks as a 2/2 while aether vial prepares the way for kozilek.

Silkster: Underground River, Fume Spitter, Cruel Sadist, Cabal Therapy, comment: gotta pay that life
0-6 You're way too fast given that you can answer my shambler


13/36 points

The penultimate deck I submitted was the same thing Silkster and Reeplcheep were doing: mana confluence, chronomaton, cabal therapy, portable hole. Basically one land and three threats/answers. That seems to be a winning combination, but it's so boring! I decided to try something more fun instead. I was hoping that shambler would buy more time for kozilek, by forcing people to take time off to kill it, and hopefully if it dies to like, go for the throat or something, I'll get a chump blocker out of the deal. Didn't work out that way! I had another wacky deck that I was considering, but like dte I was afraid of bloodmoon. It turns out it would have pretty much cleaned up I think since no one was on land destruction, meddling mage, or flyers and everyone was on discard and ground creatures: charge land, ice floe, city of traitors, ulamog