[Deck] Deadguy Ale (B/w Confidant)

[rsaunder]

@Seraphim: It looks like points 1 and 3 concerning hypnotic specter are contradictory. Specter keeps your opponents in topdeck mode after turn 4 when the might be able to refill them after your initial onslought of discard. I agree that it's better than negator in here (not sure when that was brought up, but OK...) due to its inherent strength against combo , controll, and aggro-control. I personally enjoy dropping hippy as the only creature on the board against control and making them spend some of thier already limited resources destroying that particular must-answer threat.

@ e. plague: In Pikula's tournament report, his decision to play the 2 plagues MB was something like "I only had room for 2 creature removal spells, so I decided that they ought to be really game changing creature removal spells". I'd link to the article, but I'm not sure if it was lost in the aether or whatever.

Your pre-board games against goblins sound a lot worse than mine. I generally go a little less than 50/50 (8 and 9 last test session with 2 jitte and 3 knight MB) pre-board, far better post board. As you say, it all has to do with tight play.

I like your analasys of plagues other applications. When talking to wastedlife, he's mantioned that he fears deadguy variants because they bring in plague to compliment thier disruption games 2 and 3. Having tested it a little bit recently, I think that such measures might be worthwhile, what with those belcher variants catching on.

That being said, I don't really like the 3 knight 2 jitte setup. It was dandy against goblins and all of that other stuff that plays 2 toughness creatures, but to be honest it just too much pressure on our already full 2cc slot. The way I see it, 3 knight can be cut for 3 plague, and the 2 jitte can be replaced by cursed scrolls, which I was desperately missing.

My list right now in that case:

The Staples (4 Bob, 4 Hymn, 4 Duress, 3 shade, 3 grunt, 4 dark ritual, 4 vindicate)
My Manabase (4 mire, 2 delta, 1 tomb of urami, 4 scrubland, 4 wasteland, swamps to 22 land)
3 Hippy
4 Sinkhole
2 cursed scroll
3 e. plague

And a SB, assuming 6-9 slots for thresh, 4 for goblins, 5 (thoughts for a 6th?) for solidarity, 2-6 for other combo:
3 Chalice (thresh, combo of all sorts)
2 Serenity (random decks)
3 Dystopia (survival, thresh, stampy, some enchantress stuff)
3 extirpate (combo, things that rely on 1 or 2 cards)
1 Plague (Duh)
3 Something else (ghostly prison perhaps?)

Man, I LIKE how much that frees up the SB.

[Hanni]

This is just something I threw together today and was foolin around with for a little bit on MWS.

B/w/u Deadfish

Lands (24)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Scrubland
3 Underground Sea
6 Swamp
4 Wasteland

Creatures (10)
4 Dark Confidant
3 Nantuko Shade
3 Jotun Grunt

Spells (26)
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sinkhole
2 Smallpox
4 Vindicate
4 Stifle
4 Brainstorm

I've been tryin to throw Stifle into all kinds of decks lately for shits and giggles. In here, it compliments the LD strategy, gives a little additional (although unecessary) strength vs combo, and improves the Goblins matchup. Brainstorm adds a little additional consistency to the deck.

I dropped Dark Ritual in favor for a few extra lands to support the 2-of on Smallpox. The deck is focused moreso on LD than other versions of Deadguy that I've tested.

Not sure whether this is actually an improvement or not but it was solid in testing. I still think the aggro approach is the way to go with the deck in all honesty, but it's fun to throw weird ideas together and play with them on MWS.

EDIT:

This is the sideboard I came up with:

Sideboard (15)
1 Darkblast
4 Engineered Plague
4 Dystopia
2 Serenity
1 Kataki, War's Wage
3 Pithing Needle

Kataki and Serenity answer randomness like Enchantress, Stax, Affinity, as well as randomness like Faerie Stompy (Kataki at least).

For Goblins, I think the LD strategy is rather amazing.

-4 Duress
-4 Brainstorm
+1 Darkblast
+4 Engineered Plague
+3 Pithing Needle

Simply put, you attack their manabase. Vindicate and Pithing Needle deal with Vial. If you're blowing up their lands and keeping them off Vial, they cannot function. Goblins is a very mana hungry deck. No mana = bad times for them. The deck has 11 creature removal type spells postboard with 4 Vindicate, 2 Smallpox, 4 Engineered Plague, and 1 Darkblast. Play LD as aggressively as possible but keep them off of Warchiefs and Lackey's. The deck has answers to Lackey on the draw in Darkblast and Stifle, but Engineered Plague is also very strong.

EDIT: I think for the sideboard, I'm going to:

-2 Serenity
-1 Kataki, War's Wage
-1 Darkblast
+2 StP
+2 Engineered Explosives

With Vindicate already, I think the Engineered Explosives should be sufficient to deal with that sort of randomness. They have the added benefit of answering alot more randomness too. I felt that StP was worthy of sideboard space, 2-of seems appropriate. Darkblast was a bit narrow while StP is good all around.

New Sideboard (15)
4 Engineered Plague
4 Dystopia
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Pithing Needle

[Hummingbird TG]

@Rsaunder:

Does that mean you're cutting the Smallpoxes you used to be advocating?

@Hanni:

4 Stifle? Won't they be dead in plenty of occasions?

[rsaunder]

@Rsaunder:

Does that mean you're cutting the Smallpoxes you used to be advocating?

I cut them when I tried out the jitte+knight combo. Now I'm trying the plagues in that slot.

EDIT: That doesn't necissarily mean they'll stay cut.

[rsaunder]

So, I think that the concept of sweepers needs to be discussed a little in here. A while ago, I tried out a 3c deadguy that splashed green alongside white for perniscious deed. It wasn't terribly impressive, but perhaps that had to do with my manabase. Recently, whenever I've run into an Aggro deck, I've been forced to think about how much easier the match would be with a sweeper to take out creatures and vials. In theory, it also does just as much against combo as e. plague, taking out goblin tokens like nobody's business. This list is purely hyopthetical, and my main list is still that one with smallpox from a while back, this is in no way a be-all-and-end-all list, it may well just be me being slightly hungover. I'll tell you after I try it out.

4 Scrubland
4 Bayu
4 Bloodstained mire
2 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland
1 Tomb of Uruami
4 Swamp

4 Deed
4 vindicate
3 Hippy
3 Shade
3 Grunt
4 Confident
4 Duress
4 Hymn
4 Sinkhole
4 Dark Ritual (with this list, this might not be the optimal acceloration, not sure yet)

SB:
4 Plague
3 Dystopia
3 Chalice
3 Extirpate
2 Serenity

EDIT: It sucks. The manabase is too vulnerable to wasteland to have a good shot against goblins. Also, the mana investment for the next turn thing kinda sucks. Can anyone else think of any other sweepers that are on color? Damnation is a possibility.

[Hummingbird TG]

Probably Damnation, although Deed can(but will unlikely-ly be used to) scale to 2cc so as to leave Hyppie untouched.

Anyway, @ your green build: I stand by that Dark Ritual is the optimal acceleration. Due to green being a splash we cannot have a green accelerant,and our legacy Moxen gets killed by Deed, which is Anti-synergy, thus I go for ritual. Also, which do you prefer of your 3 builds, Plague, Deed or Smallpox?

[Blair Phoenix]

So, I think that the concept of sweepers needs to be discussed a little in here. A while ago, I tried out a 3c deadguy that splashed green alongside white for perniscious deed. It wasn't terribly impressive, but perhaps that had to do with my manabase. Recently, whenever I've run into an Aggro deck, I've been forced to think about how much easier the match would be with a sweeper to take out creatures and vials. In theory, it also does just as much against combo as e. plague, taking out goblin tokens like nobody's business. This list is purely hyopthetical, and my main list is still that one with smallpox from a while back, this is in no way a be-all-and-end-all list, it may well just be me being slightly hungover. I'll tell you after I try it out.

4 Scrubland
4 Bayu
4 Bloodstained mire
2 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland
1 Tomb of Uruami
4 Swamp

4 Deed
4 vindicate
3 Hippy
3 Shade
3 Grunt
4 Confident
4 Duress
4 Hymn
4 Sinkhole
4 Dark Ritual (with this list, this might not be the optimal acceloration, not sure yet)

SB:
4 Plague
3 Dystopia
3 Chalice
3 Extirpate
2 Serenity

EDIT: It sucks. The manabase is too vulnerable to wasteland to have a good shot against goblins. Also, the mana investment for the next turn thing kinda sucks. Can anyone else think of any other sweepers that are on color? Damnation is a possibility.

The problem I see with sweepers in this deck against aggro, as it will more than likely hurt you more than your opponent, considering Deadguy on the whole has a low threat density and needs to really keep it's creatures on the board, while aggro decks tend to have a high threat density allowing it to come back from any sweepers faster than you can.

[rsaunder]

The problem I see with sweepers in this deck against aggro, as it will more than likely hurt you more than your opponent, considering Deadguy on the whole has a low threat density and needs to really keep it's creatures on the board, while aggro decks tend to have a high threat density allowing it to come back from any sweepers faster than you can.

That's true and a reasonably good analasys of the situation. I was thinking you could change your order of play to absolute disruption and tempo if you have a sweeper in hand while holding creatures rather than trying to balance out dropping early creatures and disruption. That ends up being a lot like how I played smallpox, balancing it by having no creatures in play. None of these experiments have been particularly successful, that's just how I'd think that they would work.

@Hummingbird TG:The green build was disappointing. Even though I added an extra land, the splash just wasn't working. So far Deed is the worst of the three, with smallpox being the best, anthough to be fair I need to test plague more against not only goblins and TES to draw and real changing conclusions.

[Blair Phoenix]

That's true and a reasonably good analasys of the situation. I was thinking you could change your order of play to absolute disruption and tempo if you have a sweeper in hand while holding creatures rather than trying to balance out dropping early creatures and disruption. That ends up being a lot like how I played smallpox, balancing it by having no creatures in play. None of these experiments have been particularly successful, that's just how I'd think that they would work.

Thats how they SHOULD work, but the problem is that the hands you draw aren't tailor made, and there will always be times when you have an opening hand with your sweeper that ends up with more threats than disruption. The other problem is that you're opponent is likely to get at least a few threats on the board pre-sweep, and if you aren't dropping creatures, they'll be able to get a few free swings in before your sweeper comes online which may or may not be game breaking in the example of goblins and such.

[JnC]

What about a red splash for firestorm? With the card drawing of this deck, I have a tough time accurately using cursed scroll. Horde a few land cards and pitch them to a firestorm to open a hole for your offense. Also provides a way to burn out your opponent.

[Nydaeli]

Can anyone else think of any other sweepers that are on color?

I've always wanted to run Engineered Explosives in this deck, maybe with a singleton Bayou or something. It'll at least take out Vials, Jittes and smaller dudes.

[Hummingbird TG]

Pity Damnation wouldn't work against TES, or we'd have our sweeper...

[Seraphim]

I think that we are trying to turn this deck into a b/w control deck with cheap cards so that we don't die from our bob. While I do agree that this is possible, I don't think that this is the right move. I did read Pikula's article thoroughly (two times in the last week in fact) and I do agree that the deck is lacking in only one thing against every matchup. It appears to be different in every matchup.

Against non-goblin aggro, engineered plague is rarely better than a 2 for 1, and sometimes as poor as a 1 for 1 with higher mana cost than what was paid for the creature.

If we take out the plagues for damnation / mutilate, we face a serious problem in how to deal with goblins. Eplague is our best shot at beating goblins because of its ability to outright lock them out of the game in games 1-3.

As far as a 3-color build, I have been working on something that may have some promise.

4 Dark Confidant
3 Hypnotic Specter
3 Nantuko Shade
2 Psychatog
2 Withered Wretch

2 Umezawwa's Jitte
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Vindicate
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Cursed Scroll
2 Engineered Plague
4 Brainstorm
1 Serum Visions

2 Chrome Mox
4 Wasteland
3 Scrubland
3 Underground Sea
2 Swamp
1 Island
1 Plains
2 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta

Sb:
4 Dystopia
2 Engineered Plague
3 Stifle
2 Sphere of Law / Pithing Needle (meta call)
2 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Withered Wretch
1 Darkblast

I don't really want to change the thread to a debate on 2 or 3 colors, I just want to point out that I feel that something like this can work and may be worth testing if time permits.

[rsaunder]

Seriously guys, adding a 3rd color is the wrong way to go about any of these things. I'd rather add a more significant white splash and be able to take advantage of some of the things that it offers that splash another color at this point. It's just such an inherently weak manabase for a deck that, despite its low mana curve, is excedingly mana hungry. Especially if you want to cut it to 20 land.

No Jotun grunt? That can't be the right call.

I'll be trying damnation against goblins tonight, if it works well, I may work with it other places, if not, I see no merit in its inclusion.

[Blair Phoenix]

Hmm, pretty sure the mana cost + p/t makes it too restrictive to see play here, but I'll post it here to get your guys opinion anyways. New card spoiled from FS

Shimian Specter 2BB
Creature - Specter (R)

Flying

Whenever Shimian Specter deals combat damage to a player, that player reveals his or her hand. Choose a nonland card from it. Search that player's graveyard, hand and library for all cards with the same name as that card and remove them from the game. Then that player shuffles his or her library.

2/2

[JnC]

Ok, if the third color splash is out, what about Powder Keg?

[Bane of the Living]

I've always wanted to run Engineered Explosives in this deck, maybe with a singleton Bayou or something. It'll at least take out Vials, Jittes and smaller dudes.

QFT. Not to mention Needle, Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond. Goblin tokens..
This card beat the hell out of me recently in my metas deadguy varients. Even set from 0-2 is killer.

[rsaunder]

@BlairPhoenix: You win, damnation wasn't amazing.

QFT. Not to mention Needle, Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond. Goblin tokens..
This card beat the hell out of me recently in my metas deadguy varients. Even set from 0-2 is killer.

Okay, 3 plague is a plausable call in here, and I love it. In those 5 swing slots, I'd been testing 3 plague 2 smallpox, but EE might get pulled back from the discard bin. I remember running a singleton of these back before grunt and smallpox were legal as an answer to threshold's mongese, and it might be worthwhile to bring back now.

So what does anyone think: 3 plague and (please mix up these numbers for your own lists, these are just what I'm running with right now)...
2 EE (thresh, goblin token hate, blows up vials, jittes, SoTF, etc.)
2 Smallpox (thresh's creatures, punish aggro decks with mediocre curves, LD 13-15)
2 cursed scroll (late game V. gobbos, reach against controll)
2 black knight (decent with e. plague v. thresh, good against AS, good against goblins, another creature which is always good)

BlairPhoenix mentioned to me earlier the concept of cutting shade. I don't think our clock can afford to do that completely, but with 3 grunts and at least for me 1 Tomb of Urami, I think one can be cut. What could we do with this extra slot? Is having the extra creature and clock better than anything else that could be in here? Shade's been underperforming, but is it a necissary evil? I dunno.

Another thing I experimented with this evening was a 2-of lotus petal cutting that shade and a land to help get our massive number of 2-drops online a little earlier. It wasn't bad, obviously it's another sucky late game topdeck but it allowed for far more frequent busted first turns dropping black knights against gobs without rits, hymns, sinkholes on the draw, and one instance combined with a rit to drop a hymn+bob, which was devistating.

So, Discuss! Or keep discussing!

[Hummingbird TG]

2 of Lotus Petal? Won't it be 4 or none in this case, as 2 would be too low a chance to get them early but enough to screw you up later on your topdecks?

[Seraphim]

@humingbird: not necessarily...the point is to get to a critical mass of acceleration. It takes approximately 8 cards with the same effect to consistently have 1 in your opening 7. The problem with this theory is that statistics say that even if its 80% that you will have one in your opening 7 with 8, having 8 also means its like a 40% chance of having 2 or more. This deck really wants to see 1 accelerant. That accelerent needs to get the job thoroughly done on the spot or be a constant source of mana (chrome mox / mox diamond) to fuel further turns. I think that somewhere between 4 and 6 is the right number for the competing reasons of not wanting to draw too many and really needing one in the first 10 cards.

I would really like to thoroughly test chrome mox in the place of dark ritual. I think that it helps the mana light hands and can help stop the dead draws from taking control of the game turns 7-12 (I know, I know...it is in fact one of those dead draws turns 7-12).

I like Jotun Grunt (he is in good company on my list of favorite 2 drops ever), I just have a problem with the fact that he does not have good synergy with dystopia...an important factor due to his ability to break the same matches that dystopia does. Withered Wretch has served as an excellent late-game topdeck vs many decks for me. Many situations in which Jotun Grunt would be too late, I found that wretch can improve the situation 1-2 turns faster and I don't have to worry about my graveyard or my opponent's not having enough gas for him to stick around.

@rsaunder - I'm glad that Eplague is working out for you. I've been advocating its use for so long now...I think that the card is proving its worth over and over.

A couple more things: I find cursed scroll to be amazing as a finisher and as a board controller. The problem is that swarming aggro will overrun your ability to control the board with scroll with any good series of topdecks unless you have sweepers (plague in most cases). It gives the deck reach (fairly important in quite a few matchups) against control, but does not help the early game out at all. If I could run vindicates 5-8, I would...but we don't really have that option.

I've recently gone down to 1 scroll in my lists to make room for more beaters / equipment. I think that scroll is amazing at finishing many decks, but I also feel that creatures + equipment + solid disruption wins just about every matchup that I've tested.