[Deck] Imperial Painter

[Michael Keller]

After going a disappointing 3-4 this past weekend in the big $1,000 tournament in Syracuse, I did some thinking and analyzing on the deck and the reasons why it didn't do so well.

One of the main reasons was an underestimation of how the deck should mulligan against certain kinds of decks. For example, there is an obscene amount of hatred for Ichorid in the sideboard, yet I lost to it in a tight game 3 battle. I opened up with the combo (Painter and Grindstone), but no other hate. It's knowing what to mulligan into and who plays first the third game that can adversely affect the result of the match - even within the first two turns.

My other losses were against random Counterbalance-control with Gaea's Blessing main-deck and the Painter's Servant/Grindstone combo itself sideboard. That particular match went to a third game, but I opened with a land and Chrome Mox and never saw another land again.

There were however some very bright spots in the how the deck performed. Sword of Light and Shadow always seemed relevant and more often than not turned out to be the difference maker against more aggressive decks. Magus ended up being somewhat important as it shut down non-basics on the opening play. Ultimately, it was my performance that really cost me games that I could have (and in most cases, should have) won.

I also really feel there are too many slots in the sideboard devoted to punishing specific decks that can fold a touch easier against one or two hate cards rather than say, six or seven. As it stands, here is my sideboard:

4x Pyrokinesis
4x Trinisphere
3x Faerie Macabre
2x Viashino Heretic
1x Silent Arbiter
1x Vexing Shusher

I'm really considering taking the sideboard into a different direction in association with the main-deck. In larger tournaments, the perception of Trinisphere in the main has become more of an accepted theory because of how well it works against essentially all combo builds and even some control.

Lightning Bolt works really well in the local meta, but unfortunately, it was a dead horse this past weekend. I really think Sword of Light and Shadow fixes your aggro match pretty well. Lightning Bolt doesn't hit Mongoose, but the Sword pumps your men up enough to knock him off. Bolt also doesn't kill Tarmogoyf too often, and while it is really a good card, I think I'm learning more and more that I really want to draw a better business spell.

There are also a lot of sideboard slots dedicated to Imperial Recruiter. If in fact you have to spend a tutor to find one of the cards in the sideboard dedicated to hating out the deck you brought it in against, that's one less tutor for nabbing you a Painter's Servant, in which case, you're probably in trouble. With this in mind, I'm considering adding a Faerie Macabre to the main build to balance out the combo match and cutting one from the board as well. You really don't need any more than two.

Thoughts?

[DrewliusMaximus]

If in fact you have to spend a tutor to find one of the cards in the sideboard dedicated to hating out the deck you brought it in against, that's one less tutor for nabbing you a Painter's Servant, in which case, you're probably in trouble.

I've thought about this same thing. That's one reason I tried 4 MD Burning Wish this past weekend so I could use it for versatility and save Recruiter for consistency.

I only got to test briefly, and I don't have a complete sideboard for it, but it seemed to work pretty well. I tried something like:

18 Land
4 Mox
4 SSG
4 Magus
4 Recruiter
4 Servant
2 Jaya
8 Blast
4 L. Bolt
4 Burning Wish
4 Grindstone

I figure you could sideboard Pyroclasm (ideally Rolling Earthquake) , Shattering Spree, Demonfire, and a bunch of other stuff. Has anyone else tried this?

[Skeggi]

(...)
My other losses were against random Counterbalance-control with Gaea's Blessing main-deck and the Painter's Servant/Grindstone combo itself sideboard. That particular match went to a third game, but I opened with a land and Chrome Mox and never saw another land again.
(...)
Thoughts?

We talked about Scarecrone before. Against decks with Counterbalance it could be useful. On the other hand, so could Aether Vial.

[thefreakaccident]

I do not understand this deck's success at all... please do not take this as flaming or whatever, just hear me out...

Against non-blue decks, you have 10 dead cards... and 3 that are not-so good (jaya)... which means, against black, in my eyes, the deck would falter... the fact that a painter's servant makes them good does not change the fact that they are bad without him.... I thought that cards that are dependent on other cards to be good were always bad... right?


The same arguement can be used for dreadnought... but that is 4 cards, not 10+...

The deck also seems to be draw dependent (very much so in fact)... Why not just run dragon stompy, which although plays a totally different style, it just seems to want to do similar things that this deck wants to do (win quick, or shut the opponent down), which it does through moons (same), and scary artifacts, whereas this deck tries to use moon (same), but then try to use painter in conjunction with bad spells to control the gamestate...


I just do not understand how this is performing well at all... I could see it doing well if literally every deck in my meta was blue, but that is never the case in any given meta.


Basically, what this long post sums up to is:

1. How in the hell would this beat anything with black, like eva green, the rock, or funkbrew?

2. Why play this over Dragon stompy?

[moOnsteak]

^

1. I agree that black is the worst opponent for this deck. .Discard, mass destroyer (deed everyone), anti-creature like edict are the real nightmare. .
I really have no answer 'bout that. .

2. This build can do something that DS can't do : destroy permanents that annoy you (counter won't be counted, DS can do that with CoTV), win in a split second, win when you was underwhelming. .

10 dead cards isn't wrong (10?? you mean for 12?? 8 blast plus 4 grindstone), but 8 cards (Imperial to Painter & Painter itself) to make it shine is worthed. .

Dreadnought isn't one that's right to be compared since Stiffle can be the best landy spell or anti-storm beside of part to win. .
It's like Hulk Flash, that contain 24 dead cards (4 flash, 4 Protean Hulk, 4 Summoning Pact, 4 Disciple of fault, and 8 0/0 artifact creatures as their win condition those days), which is also dead card when Flash aren't there, but deadly when they come along. .

[thefreakaccident]

Comparing this and hulk flash is bold, to say the least...

When I was referring to dreadnought, I was referring to the card itself (reliance theme therein)...

Also, good hulk decks did not run the turn 0 win, although it was cool in theory :)...

I miss those days...

Me: extract

Opponent: what the hell is that? *opponent reads card*

Me: gg?

Of coarse the card was terrible outside of that MU, but desperate times called for desperate measures

[Maveric78f]

When your oponent plays an early Daze you can use Active Volcano to bounce his Land a second time and throw him back.

Actually, you can't. If I understood well what you planned to do.

I do not understand this deck's success at all

What success?

The deck folds to countertop combo, to chalice@1, to combo, to control with not a too junk mana base, to goblins, to burn, to ...
Even with painter online, you can't do better than 1 for 1 and you can't tutor for your instant kill (grindstone).

The deck 2nd in a tourney of around 50 players which is a fair result but I asked for a report of this tourney and I never got it.

Once more, you can take this post as flaming, but you are shouting that your deck is the best, that it should be DTB very soon, that it's more or less like Flash Hulk, etc... There is no way to answer you back with no flaming.

[Michael Keller]

The deck folds to countertop combo, to chalice@1, to combo, to control with not a too junk mana base, to goblins, to burn, to ...
Even with painter online, you can't do better than 1 for 1 and you can't tutor for your instant kill (grindstone)..

First off, you honestly have no idea what you're talking about - and I'm just being honest here.

1.) You play 18 3cc spells, 1 un-counterable which makes everything else uncounterable, 2 cards which inherently destroy blue permanents on their own without Painter, 8 Blast effects to counter with, and 1 4cc spell - all of which you can Demonic Tutor for. I have never lost to Counterbalance and Sensei's Divining Top online - ever.

2.) I did write up a tournament report and it's in the Tournament Reports and Announcements section under the June Hadley 6/28 event. For the third time.

3.) This deck folds to combo? Are you insane? The deck packs Trinisphere, and that alone makes almost every relevant combo deck in the format fold to you. I suppose Blasting Diminishing Returns and Faerie Macabring against Ichorid and Ill Gotten Gains is good as well...? And you know, you can just win turn two as well, I guess...

4.) Dragon Stompy deserves no comparison to Imperial Painter, and I'll tell you why. In Dragon Stompy, the idea of the deck is to deplete your hand with essentially one or two large, relevant threats. You pitch your entire hand to Chrome Moxes and Seething Songs. In Imperial Painter, you either work out creatures one at a time or play Painter and go to town on whatever they have out. You have the choice in Imperial Painter, see. You have actually board control elements. There are less relevant top-decks in Dragon Stompy than there are Imperial Painter. Drawing an Arc Slogger is probably not as good as drawing an Imperial Recruiter into Painter and Blasting their creature.

5.) Folding to Burn? Do you think equipping a Sword of Light and Shadow to any of your creatures turning them into 4/4's that gain you three life a turn negates that problem? Yeah, I think so. Or you know, you could just use the attack step which works generally better than their one spell a turn...

6.) Even with Painter online, your opponent won't have any threats online and probably not a whole lot of land either.

7.) Losing to Chalice at one? Again - you play 20+ cards that have a higher cost than one, and you can Demonic Tutor for one card that negates that "problem" if it arises. You also have Heretic in the board. Chalice at one is the least of your problems, which shows you have no understanding how the deck primarily functions, which is to say - you assume the only way the deck wins is through Grindstone.

No.

[thefreakaccident]

My primary and only concern with the deck was the excess of dead cards that could (and probably do) accumulate in your hands without painter... especially against decks without blue in them (survival would be an auto-loss?, goblins?, goyf sligh?, dragon sompy?, agro loam?, pikula?, funkbrew?)... they all seem to be bad/terrible MUs...

Basically anything with disruption that is non-blue seems terrible, at least in my eyes.


EDIT: and the oh, well with no countermagic, we can just godfish arguement is kinda bullshit, as you would have to aggressively mulligan for grindstone, as you have no means to tutor for it...

Perhaps a light blue splash for trinket mage could increase the deck's consistency, being able to access both parts of the combo with imperial... (go grab either mage or painter)...

[DrewliusMaximus]

I know there's good reason to question many aspects of this deck (specifically the potential buildup of dead cards without Servant), but consider:

1. There are 8 ways MD to get Magus. While it's not going to be turn 1 every time, it's still pretty good. If you SB Moons, then you have more consistent access to Blood Moon effects than Dragon Stompy.
2. Jaya turns useless cards into useful cards, turning a buildup of Blasts into utility and guaranteeing that your topdeck will do something.
3. Trinisphere can be more of a lock in this Deck than in Dragon Stompy because you can destroy lands. Granted, Trinisphere is mostly sideboarded, but I know Legend did well in one tournament with it in the MD (maybe it should be considered again in the MD?).
4. When Servant is online, you can sometimes trade more than 1 for 1 when you have Jaya out also. And even if you are trading 1 for 1, you are trading one Blast for...anything. That is alot of flexibility.
5. Considering that this deck is new and that there can't be that many players playing this because of Recruiter availability, 5 top-8's so far on deckcheck in several countries is pretty good.

If Imperial Painter as a concept is crap, I'm surprised that has worked so well so far. Nonetheless, it's a new deck so there's got to be a bunch of criticism. Hopefully it can be constructive.

[Maveric78f]

Result speaking, there has been 3 good results (2/49, 5/51 and 2/35). The rest means nothing. Even 5/51 can be achieved with a report of 4/0/2 (even if it's more probably 4/1/1 or 5/0/1), so that's not really impressive. The 5 "imperial painter results" you report are obtained in 5 different countries, meaning that the deck is probably more spread than what you think and getting only 3 good results in 2 months is not really an achievement to my sense.

I've read your report. The following sentence stroke me:

Overall, I got a set of Volcanics which I sold to Bob. All in all, a classic event. Three top 8's out of four events, Finals in two of them. *Shrug*. Maybe next time I can finish the job. Until then...

This is kind of a result. Was it all with imperial painter? Why isn't it on deckcheck?

Apart from that, you win twice against Ichorid, and I'm very doubtful, to say the less that this is a positive MU preboard and postboard.

[Madpeep]

I picked up this deck for the $1k Syracuse tournament and had alot of fun playing it. I got paired with Ichorid round three and while I did get stomped game one after keeping a mediocre hand, games two and three were a breeze after bringing in 4 faerie macabres. Reb/Pyro counters many of their spells, under Trinisphere (which I had MD) they can't cast anything, Magus hits all of their lands, and Faerie gets their dredgers/bridges out of the GY.

I ended up going 4-3 at the event. All three of my losses were to Threshold decks, while I beat R/U Goblins, Ichorid, Dragon Stompy, and Affinity.

[Skeggi]

I ended up going 4-3 at the event. All three of my losses were to Threshold decks, while I beat R/U Goblins, Ichorid, Dragon Stompy, and Affinity.

Should we conclude you lost to countertop?

[Madpeep]

Not at all. I lost to Nimble Mongoose, Swords to Plowshares, and Lightning Bolt.

[DrewliusMaximus]

Madpeep, were you happy with Trinisphere in the main? And did you use 3 or 4?

[Madpeep]

I loved Trinisphere in the main and used all four. With 4 Magus of the Moon and 4 Trinisphere, you have a good chance of dropping one form of disruption on turn one, or two at the latest. Also, there are very few matches where trinisphere isn't absolutely amazing. I only sided them out against Dragon Stompy, when I brought in 4 Pyrokinesis. The worst card in the deck is Lightning Bolt. It was useless most of the day.

[Skeggi]

Yeah, people seem to prefer magma jet over lightning bolt.

[Ghostfire45]

Magma Jet is good and all but its certainly not better than lightning bolt

[Michael Keller]

Just to let everyone know, I ended up winning again at the local event here in Syracuse (5-1) yesterday. The wins? They came against the following:

Threshold
Dragon Stompy
TES (2x)
Train Wreck

That's quite a variety. The only loss was to Train Wreck and that went to a third close game. The deck has been performing very well and I haven't made any changes to the main or sideboard. I ended up getting seven packs for first and cracked a foil Bitterblossom.

Totally cool.

And by the way, here's the Hadley event on deck-check: Here.

@Maveric: And Ichorid is an extremely favorable matchup for this deck. The amount of hate that comes in post-board is disgusting. I've played close to a dozen tournament matches against Ichorid and lost all but two. Pre-board you have about a 50/50. And if Ichorid is a problem in your meta, main-deck Trinisphere. This way, they can't play any of their spells. And play Magus, you know who shuts off their Coliseums. Or you could just Blast the most relevant spells in their deck like Breakthrough, Careful Study, and Deep Analysis. I suppose that's good too...

[DrewliusMaximus]

Just to let everyone know, I ended up winning again at the local event here in Syracuse (5-1) yesterday.

Legend, did you use the list with SoLS?

I loved Trinisphere in the main and used all four.

I was playing around with MD Trinisphere (which I like now), but I was wondering if 3 might be a good number for the MD because:
1. Antisymmetry with Mox
2. Unlike Dragon Stompy, Imperial Painter has many cheaper spells, so Trinisphere potentially slows down our own gameplan.
3. This deck can frequently come fast out of the gate with cheaper spells, either countering blue spells with Blasts or playing a Servant and a Blast first turn (or burning a creature, or attempting a 2nd turn combo), making a turn 3 or 4 Trinisphere/Magus the preferable play (especially if you can Blast a land before then).

Am I misguided here?