Got a 5-0 with basically the test list above. - 1 Trinisphere -1 Swamp for 2 Hagra’s mauling since 10 lockpiece artifacts are too many and I wanted to squeeze in more removal.
Matchups:
Brutality was decent, madnesses a fools wisdom which was nice.
Tormods crypt was nice and let karn immediately answer a loam and another time an uro.
Defense grid got a fow once or twice and made it awkward for them to cast brazen borrower so it seemed fine.
Plague reaver was a very effective sylvan library/gurmag answer and won a game vs lands where presumably they sided out maze.
Opposition agent won both postboard matches vs Grixis.
Never cast hagra’s mauling; jury is out.
Went 4-3 in sat. challenge. Plague reaver continues to be great; opponents are ill prepared for it. Either it gets them dead (reach from brutality was surprisingly good) or it takes significant resources for them to deal with so I can win with my main plan.
Overall losses were to fair blue that were preventable in hindsight. The choices with this deck are very punishing and made with very little information, so I need to think more about my plays than go with the flow. More positively, I faced several of my poor matchups and none felt unwinnable. My good matchups (ant) felt like a breeze.
I think from a deck building POV I am satisfied where I have gotten the deck. From a results POV it has the best claim to being the top monoB deck in legacy. It also has the same or better results as all the tier2 chalice decks (bomberman/turbo muxus/eldrazi). With plague reaver I have gotten rid of the last “probably not legacy playable” slot in the 75 (Soul shatter) so the deck feels tight and solid.
I just got a 5-0 with the same list. Deck feels really hot if you can dodge the faster delver variants and rainbow depths.
Anyone have thoughts on the 3 ball/grid split?
T1 3 ball is why this deck has such a good combo mu and is more applicable to the meta as a whole. But it has a lot of friendly fire in chrome mox and dark ritual. 2nd copies don’t do anything unless you have karn.
Defense grid plays much better with dark ritual and gives more consistent nut draws (t1 grid, t2 rit wincon). Very good vs my most difficult matchups and stacks better than 3 ball. It can also attack without its ability stopping. But it’s completely useless in more matchups.
More than 9 hate artifacts between grid/ball/chalice leads to too many all hate piece draws imo.
What do you guys think of the new 5-0 list?
Creature (19)
1 Juzam Djinn
2 Archfiend of Ifnir
4 Desecration Demon
4 Opposition Agent
4 Plague Engineer
4 Rotting Regisaur
Instant (8)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Eliminate
Artifact (14)
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Chrome Mox
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Trinisphere
1 Umezawa's Jitte
Land (19)
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
9 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Sideboard (15)
2 Helm of Obedience
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Nature's Ruin
3 Necromentia
1 Pharika's Libation
2 Plague Spitter
1 To the Slaughter
1 Virtue's Ruin
I think an aggressive approach could be good, but I don’t like some of the card choices here.
I think the djinn and archifiend are unplayable other than for nostalgia reasons. I’d rather play more “regisaurs”:
plague reaver
Egon, god of death
Ammit eternal
Hunted Nightmare
Are all considerations.
Alternatively
Blackbloom rogue
Kalitas, traitor of Ghet
Mardu strike leader
Kheru mind-eater
All have utility.
Also I really dislike helms in the sideboard. Helm is not to make leyline good vs gaak; you could win with anything if leyline sticks. Helm is to make leyline good vs goblins. You could board in the combo vs decks weak to the combo but not creatures or gy hate, but why not just play more cards directly for those matchups?
I agree Juzam is probably a bit shit but at least the archfiend has cycling
Plague Reaver you don't want to play because you have too much other stuff to sac to it
Egon not great because you don't want to commit a ritual into it just to have it selfdestruct later
Maybe the Ammit or Hunted Nightmare are ok
I wouldn't play Kheru Mind Eater because opponent will just put stuff under it that already gets blocked by trini/chalice
Custodi Lich I think isn't too bad either if you are willing to consider 5drops but maybe it's too matchup-dependent (or you can play something like Court of Ambition that's not a creature but has the same monarch problem that's a bit risky to cast)
or a PW like ob nixilis or whatever
edit
Maybe Rankle is ok as well
Went 3-4 in the Sunday challenge. Lots of ur delver and elves.
Lost to sneak and show because I played scared (playing discard instead of jamming curses).
Lost to elves because removed a dryad arbor instead of hand checking for decay with doom fall.
Brutality performed well.
Doom fall was undergoing testing as brutality 3; worse than brutality most of the time.
Plague reaver continued to punk people who didn’t expect it.
Better than 50% vs delver which is very encouraging. Lost easy matchups like S&S and elves due to poor play.
Defense grid seems like it made a difference for the above, I am liking the 2/3 split with trinisphere.
Still not sure if md helms are better or worse than Lilliana’s. Half the time they win the game half the time they are completely dead. Lily helps with black count but is harder to cast and also has that binary play pattern.
It’s possible Liliana last hope could be a great fit for this deck. Both the plus (strix) and the minus synergize very well with your scary creatures
In my experience, the ability to play as a land is way better than cycling so I’d rather play blackbloom rogue.
What if we just jammed the Witch/Smog combo? You could go off with Trinisphere backup.
In what situations do you think the witch/smog combo is better than helm/leyline? Or are you talking about the aggro version above?
-Combo is lower CMC
-The witch is a creature and still useful on its own (Leyline is okay when in one's opening hand but sucks as a topdeck. Helm is useless on its own). As a creature it also means it can't be spell-pierced, it can be caverned, etc.
-Witch doesn't suck in multiples
-Combo isn't vulnerable to needle, karn, null rod and other such nonsense
But ultimately you can still run both combos if you feel like it, like those wacky decks such as DETH and the like
Those are good points and maybe it’s worth it for the aggro version.
Assuming that you start with leyline in play, it’s 4+1 mana instead of 3+2 (or 3 +3 with 3 ball in play). Being less black intensive is a major factor in a deck with so many sol lands.
You can play the combo pieces in either order so you are faster in case of a top deck and avoids discard.
The combo is vulnerable to the mentioned cards, but decay/plow/bolt/plague engineer/eliminate/Dismember/tabernacle/glacial chasm/Ensnaring bridge are more played.
The combo is a turn slower to actually win if you don’t have a sac outlet, which is quite relevant for combo decks and marit lage.
The combo is an artifact for karn (but not for chrome mox, to be fair)
If your leyline gets brazen borrowered in response to helm, you can just go off again later. With chain of smog you lose the chain, the witch (because it’s in your hand with a smog activation on the stack) and the rest of your hand too.
I made this deck partly because I think leyline is a great, 0 mana, hatepiece for the entire meta. In a deck with few instants is witch really that good?
Imo Un targeted discard is quite bad in prison, so I don’t like chain in fair games.
Helm is actually pretty good vs doomsday, mystic sanctuary, and most griselbrand decks used fairly. Or as a 4/4 with karn.
I think witch/smog is a decent combo, but it works better in a discard shell (pox perhaps) than a prison one.
As an aside, chrome mox is often the best card in the deck; it trades useless targets for acceleration. Should I experiment with gemstone caverns as mox #5?
Last edited by Reeplcheep; 04-07-2021 at 10:18 AM.
Great primer!
Yeah, Witch/Smog does not fit here. You've already got a strong deck going with consistent results. No reason to dilute it with a less consistent aggro-combo when you're trying to play prison-combo.
People are overhyping an expensive One With Nothing that loses to Bolt. It should be strong in a dedicated combo shell, but you can't just cram those 8 slots into anything with swamps and expect to not get blown out.
As long as fair blue keeps playing cards like Uro, Snapcaster and Loam, G1 Leyline is free value. Not to mention all those times you make Reanimator, Dredge and Hogaak scoop on Turn 0. One of the best things going for HelmLine is that Leyline is good and also dodges a lot of hate (Decay, counters). Then you don't even need to run 4x of piece B because Karn can find it, so you can get away with fewer Helms main. Any other A+B combo would take more space, be more vulnerable to more interaction, and wouldn't give you some % of free T0 wins.
If you're finding Helms dead, maybe 1 copy should be a Liliana. As you've said before, you need a certain density of win conditions, but it doesn't have to be that heavy on Helm. With 1 Helm main and the 4 Karn you can still get it if you need it.
Maindeck 2 Grid / 3 3sphere is a gambit. You're gambling to see a lot of fair blue so you're mainboarding for them. If you don't see much blue, those Grids will be dead. But you're trying to improve a tough and popular matchup. Maybe in the Leagues it's not always worth it. But in the Challenges you must see more fair blue. Are Grids performing well in the Challenges?
Yah I whiffle-waffle on lily vs helm. Both helm and lily don’t do anything about a third of the time (no leyline in first quarter of deck vs combo/big creature), and can be challenging to cast (4-5 mana vs BB). But they are also the best possible thing you can do a good portion of the time.
After the printing of opposition agent aggro blue is probably my worst common matchup. I think in the challenge grid definitely was a reason I went 2-1 vs delver/ninjas instead of 1-2 in matches.
So far grid has felt very good in challenges. I feel like my ur winrate goes way up; its way easier to play around daze than trinisphere. Rug is harder because brutality doesn’t kill as much; but brutality is more generally relevant I feel than liliana’s triumph.
I might go up to 3 grids it has felt so good.
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