http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/mardu-dnt-2017-1/Originally Posted by Miniscus
Yeah Dark Confidants are worth the slots in the deck, giving you way stronger mid-late game power like Stoneforge Mystic. Personally don't think Pia and Kiran Naalar and Alesha are worth it. The main characteristic of this deck isn't that it plays 3 colors but rather, it tries to proactively develop the board faster and safer with Sol Lands + Cavern, rather than reactively denying mana with lands. One strategy isn't necessary worse than the other; simply put, I'm just disappointed by the consistency of Port + Wasteland even with active vial.
Pia and Kiran has been ok when I've played it, but I don't often find myself really stretching for it or needing it to get out of a jam. Not tried Alesha so can't speak for that. I'm also heavier on the red splash for sideboard options against Delver and the like (quite big in my meta) so I'm at 1/3 split of scrublands/plateaus and not doing the sol lands. I can see the benefit of them for sure, and your point about essentially being uncounterable is pretty worthwhile. I like the 4 caverns also, especially since you've dropped port. I'm on 4 wasteland no port, mainly just because I want to go harder on the mana denial plan in some matchups with early wastelands/fast magus of the moon. Definitely going to try out the dark Confidants, as well as the warping wail in the side. Not got access to sol lands, but I recognize their benefit
So what's the over/under on the right number of Prelates to run? I've been on 2 forever and liked it, but lately I haven't been in love with it against Delver and other fair decks. What slot is it competing against for everyone else? I always find it competing for a second Crusader or the first Spirit of the Labyrinth. Is anyone really in love with Mirran Crusader right now? I'm not that afraid of the BUG decks being too prevalent any more.
My problem with Crusader is that a lot of bolt effects are going around (e.g 4 lightning bolts and kolaghan's command). You better have Mother of Runes on board to make it worthwhile. Spirit of the Labyrinth is okay but I never loved the card due to its fragility. I've went from 1 Prelate to 2 Prelates... I think its sheer power level and diversity makes it fine to have 2 copies. Sometimes when you're in control, you want to lock down any answers your opponent might have (e.g Abrupt Decay, Bolt, Toxic Deluge, Ensnaring Bridge, etc.). Not bad in the fair match-ups and an absolute necessity in the unfair ones.
Until something better comes along, Mirran Crusader will always be a minimum 1-of in my main as the best tutorable beater for this deck.
You may not be in love with Prelate, but it's pretty necessary, and I play 1/1 main/side split. I think it's still correct.
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Here's a list I will be running this weekend. I really hate recruiter of the guard. I hate drawing it. I Hate it in my opening hand. I hate that it's 3 mana. I Hate that it's slow. I hate casting it. I hate being unable to cast it. I hate that it does literally nothing by itself. I hate that it isn't an answer to a problem immediately. So I decided to drop it, and go back to playing the spell queller version I was playing right before he got printed, because that was the last time I had fun with this deck. Also, sideboard mulldrifter for funsies (when it should probably be something else, possibly back to basics and an e-tutor).
The theory behind the UW build is that you value tempii over everything. This makes you a lot weaker when you don't play tight, and don't stick to a tempo oriented gameplan. Luckily Death and Taxes is quite good at generating tempi. Because you can eventually get to a point where you are ahead or even in tempo, flickerwisp in conjunction with spell queller allows you to actually beat the cards that kill you regardless of your acquired tempi (TNN, Jitte, Punishing Fire, Toxic Deluge). Your opponent can't win the game if the card they want to use is exiled.
Also sideboard mulldrifter is super cute (in against anything grindy like grixis, lands, BUGx). Casting it off of cavern of souls naming elemental is so satisfying :P. It also has a super fun interaction, since you can decide how the triggers stack. What you do is you evoke it, put evoke on the stack first, and then put the draw cards trigger on the stack. You then draw 2 cards. If one of them was a flickerwisp, you can flicker mulldrifter while evoke is still on the stack. Congrats, you just netted 4 cards.
// 60 Maindeck
// 7 Artifact
4 Aether Vial
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
// 26 Creature
3 Spell Queller
3 Flickerwisp
1 Mirran Crusader
4 Mother of Runes
3 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Spellskite
2 Meddling Mage
1 Sanctum Prelate
// 4 Instant
4 Swords to Plowshares
// 23 Land
2 Tundra
3 Flooded Strand
3 Karakas
4 Wasteland
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Rishadan Port
4 Plains
1 Island
// 15 Sideboard
// 1 Artifact
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
// 5 Creature
SB: 1 Sanctum Prelate
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 Mulldrifter
// 2 Enchantment
SB: 2 Rest in Peace
// 5 Instant
SB: 1 Path to Exile
SB: 2 Spell Pierce
SB: 1 Blessed Alliance
SB: 1 Disenchant
// 1 Planeswalker
SB: 1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
// 1 Sorcery
SB: 1 Council's Judgment
Emptying the Warrens: So YOU don't have to!
I have a question - what do you do with all of the tempi that you generate? I understand that generating tempi is good, but tempi alone is not going to win a game because even though tempi is an important part of the game tempi isn't the only thing magic is about. I feel like it is easy to overrate tempi because so often we play a game that was all about tempi and we think "Damn, tempi is awesome, all I really need is tempi, I'm going to play more tempi cards (to generate more tempi)." But sometimes you have so much tempi that you don't even have anything to do with it. You get flooded...in tempi.
I intend to attack their faces with said tempii? All I need is for my opponents to not resulve deluge or get punishing fire online, and that usually is enough time for me to kill them.
Emptying the Warrens: So YOU don't have to!
The problem with Death & Taxes is it's not that great as a pure tempo deck. The ideal tempo play is turn 1 Aether Vial and have Wasteland/ Ports to (hopefully) mana screw them while cheating in Thalia. When you don't have this tempo play, it can be very slow and you have to rely heavily on hatebears / Flickerwisps and Stoneforge Mystic to carry the late game. In essence, the deck is half tempo and half good stuff (prison or card quality).
You're running things like Spell Queller which seems like a great tempo card but you run into a lot of problems (e.g not getting to 3 lands, going through aether vial is too slow, gets killed and instead gives your opponent the tempo, etc.). In Modern it's actually pretty good because (a) you can combine it with other disruptive 1-2 mana spirits and (b) in Jeskai builds, you generate tempo with the sheer number of removals since Modern is a creature-centric format, allowing you to make an impactful turn 3 Queller.
The creatures I would add from other colors would involve giving this deck either (a) card advantage/ card filtering or (b) superior lockdown power. When you creatures/ land base don't align well with your opponent's, you want more universal threats on the board (this is why Thalia and Stoneforge are staples).
Added 4 Chalice of the Void back into the main. Here is my reasoning:
(1) Against Delver decks, yes having Swords to Plowshare is great. But the deck's consistency with cantrips and 'free' counterspells means their average draw is going to be way better than yours. Chalice of the Void shuts off all their future cantrips, their own removal spells against us, things like Dread of Night, and every one of their 1-cmc threats which are not only good in the early game but also dangerous in the late game (e.g Deathrite Shaman).
As a result, I took out the Swords to Plowshares. In the side, I run Blessed Alliance and Warping Wail instead. Still keeping some Mother of Runes as you can cast it through 4 Cavern of Souls and 4 Aether Vials.
(2) Chalice is also universally powerful. I often want it on both x=0 and x=1, which is why I'm running the full set. It's ironically better than a removal spell against some creature decks.
(3) It provides the lockdown and tempo advantage this deck wants on TURN 1-2. In my opening hand, there are two cards that I want to see every game: Thalia and Aether Vial (assuming I have no idea what the match-up is). Why? Because they're universally versatile. Chalice of the Void also meets this criteria. More importantly, it's a valid turn 1 play in a deck with 6 Sol Lands and quite fine as a turn 2 play as well.
Yes. I understand. I've also been playing the deck with 6-7 years at this point. I understand that other colors provide other things. I played way before we had recruiter or any of this fancy stuff.. We won by playing the tempo game. Blue provides better tempo. The issue I have with the "value cards" is that they don't win me the game against the cards I'm actually scared of. Recruiter of the guard -> mirran crusader is just a request to get blown out by a toxic deluge or removal spell + liliana (etc, etc, etc).
Emptying the Warrens: So YOU don't have to!
I agree with you Recruiter can be quite slow. I think it's a mistake to play more than 2, even in my deck where I can play it on turn 2.
But what must be discussed is whether you think this situational tempo advantage is worth integrating blue into the mana base. When I think of the best tempo cards, I think of being able to cheat things in for almost no cost. Aether vial, Daze, and Force of Will are what comes to mind. A 3-mana tempo card is almost an oxymoron, especially in Legacy. Spell queller is very inconsistent without vial in play. It's a card that's meant to operate largely in instant-speed-decks, as you will have to consider "do I keep 3 mana open or do I play my bears/ equipment?" I think with blue, things like Daze seem more reasonable but requires significant deck constraints. Overall, these are all just food for thought, rather than a rejection of the blue splash concept.
It's been a pretty big gap between semi-major events for me lately, so I've been experimenting (really close to just messing around) with different, or old-school mono W lists to varying success.
Here's an oldschool 'aggro' list
Last week had me swapping Serra Avengers for Spirit of the Labyrinths, and going to a 2/2 split Mirran Crusader/Brimaz.Code:// MB 10 Plains 2 Cavern of Souls 4 Wasteland 4 Rishadan Port 3 Karakas 4 Mother of Runes 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 4 Stoneforge Mystic 3 Phyrexian Revoker 3 Serra Avenger 4 Flickerwisp 4 Mirran Crusader 4 Aether Vial 1 Umezawa's Jitte 1 Batterskull 1 Sword of Fire & Ice 4 Swords to Plowshares //SB 2 Armageddon 2 Ethersworn Canonist 2 Rest in Peace 2 Surgical Extraction 2 Council's Judgement 1 Blessed Alliance 1 Sword of War & Peace 1 Holy Light 1 Pithing Needle 1 Path to Exile
I have to say, being back at playing 4 mirran crusaders really felt good against a lot of decks, especially with the Geddon out of the board.
Does anyone have some suggestions for some wilder things to test as I'm on this fun streak? I have a lot of stuff in my maybeboard I'm working through, next week I think its the 24 land 2 Restoration Angel & Dustbowl.
I've been wanting to play around with Eldrazi Displacer and Aven Mindcensor, but I think I would probably go to 3 Crusaders 1 Brimaz. I also really love 4 Revokers or at least 1 Spirit in that lists because your 2 slot is a little slim (Avenger doesn't count as a 2 for the purposes of curving out)
Yeah I'm thinking if I was re-doing it I'd go 4 revokers and 2 avengers, I'm not really a fan of Spirit even given a blowout last week.
Brimaz was something I haven't touched in years and it felt so good against the bolt matchups, but I don't think its good enough in general at the moment to justify.
I like the idea of displacer, might try a build with like 3 port 2 eldrazi temples, or I guess maybe just 2 ancient tombs
I figure if you want to go Dustbowl, try Displacer and 2 Recruiters. Displacers can do a lot with the cards you already run, they're just slow
I went down to one a while back in favor of SotL in the main. The best feeling in the world is Vial into SotL in response to a Brainstorm. Makes me smile every time
Everyone loves Spirit in response to Brainstorm, but plenty don't play it precisely because it only happens once in a blue moon. I guess another question is what's the conventional wisdom on that single maindeck Spirit?
Most people blindly suggest new cards for decks. True contributors also suggest what to remove. It's not about what's good, but rather what's better than the current selections.
Dust Bowl and Flagstones of Trokair is good times.
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"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
"Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers."
It's sort of like Thalia #5 for me. It attacks a lot worse, but being able to come down turn 2 and shut down cantrips while attacking is nice. It's a tempo card that also counteracts Leovold, so I've been happy enough with it.
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