w00t... took my D+T to a tourney tonight, went 3-1. My only loss was first round, and that was onl because I showed up to late. It performed well, but I was pissed because the TO forced a Top4 split because he wanted to go home, it was only 9:30!!!
Way to go, Dan. I have noticed that a lot of matchups have improved since the inclusion of Mystic. I can't say enough for what this card has done for this deck. Has it become the focus of your offense the way it has for mine?
@Joe, I bet that Powder Keg would suit your purposes and have the added advantage of getting other stuff if you want it to. It will never hit an enchantment, but then I don't know of many enchantments costing 1 that you would want to sb for anyway. Maybe Exploration and Manabond. That's about it.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"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 really depends on which combo you are referring to. If you are afraid of Belcher, go for it. I think that the number of ANT decks that show up at large tournament indicate that ANT is really the combo you should be preparing for. You will see it more. Trap is bad because when your opponent goes Duress, go off --> ToA you are fucked. If you play Chant in response then you can try to do something relevant like True Believer or Ethersworn Cannonist on the following Turn. Thoughtseize is obviously harder to deal with because if you Chant in response and then he takes the Cannonist sitting in your hand then playing Chant in response is obviously a bad play. If your opponent chants you though, and you chant in response, then that gives you the extra turn to drop your other piece of hate on the following turn.Originally Posted by Lio
I've played my fair share of both combo and DnT and Chant > Trap in most cases. If you are thinking of adding something else, look into True Believer. It shuts down discard, ToA, and Burn. Also, like Cannonist, True Believer can be protected by Mother of Runes.
Powder keg is definitely something I have considered as well... The only thing is having to wait a turn to nail stuff at 1cc when you need it to matter... But in all other situations keg does have some promise....
What are your feelings on wing shards? would you play it in your sb again? It seems useful, but the CC is pretty strenous at times
TEAM AWESOME
Well, at least we smell better
OK, let me say it once more : storm-combo hate should hinder the engine, not the kill (same goes for reanimator by the way, you want to stop that Iona from coming into play in the first place). Basically, if you can't stop your opponent from casting AdN, you're screwed, since he will have an answer among his 20+ cards to whatever you have on the board. That's why cards like canonist or chant are great against ANT, while halo, true believer or children of korlis are marginal at best. Same goes for trap, by the way : you really shouldn't count on it to counter tendrils.
Maelig, that is true. But not as much as it once was. I have found that the combo decks have improved to the point that we can't reliably stop the engine anymore. Canonist on turn 2 is a brilliant place to be in, but it is not what used to be. They have the means to get around it. After getting tired of losing with hate in play I started spamming answers (like Runed Halo) along with the good stuff so that I would not have to dedicate sb slots for this one crappy matchup that rarely happens. I have found that having weaker answers, but more of them, has worked well for me. But I would love to hear other opinions on this.
@wing shards: The cc bugs me, but they are so easy to side in against just about everything that is not storm. I am sticking with them for now.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"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."
Sorry for the late reply Finn. I have put 3 Mystics in my deck, and I have almost NEVER hated drawing her. I am also loving my equipment suite- 1 SoFaI, 1 SoLaS, 1 Basilisk Collar, 2 Jittes. Five seemed kinda high at first, but it seems to work for me and my meta.
I am glad that I finally got MWS up and running so I can finally test D+T against a wider variety of decks. I also look forward to seeing your updates to the OP.
Provided there is only 1 engine. Belcher doesn't really have an engine. Its just EtW, Burning Wish-->Etw, Dreturns, ToA, or Belcher. SI's engine is either Infernal Tutor, D4's, or Belcher. NLS has the MOST engines. TES isn't far behind.. The list goes on. Lumping all storm combo into one category of ANT is a fatal mistake. I don't like ANT as a deck because the conventional builds only have one engine: AdN. Thats a dumb was to play the game because then you CAN hinder the engine. Sure you might see ANT.dec more often than the others, which was my argument; prepare for it in the board. However, 'hinder the engine' should not be taken as a general rule. In ANT's case, you are right. Hinder the engine or they will just draw something to remove the bear. You cant put on your blinders and apply that to every combo deck, if you want to win any games that is.OK, let me say it once more : storm-combo hate should hinder the engine, not the kill (same goes for reanimator by the way, you want to stop that Iona from coming into play in the first place). Basically, if you can't stop your opponent from casting AdN, you're screwed, since he will have an answer among his 20+ cards to whatever you have on the board. That's why cards like canonist or chant are great against ANT, while halo, true believer or children of korlis are marginal at best. Same goes for trap, by the way : you really shouldn't count on it to counter tendrils.
You basically said the same thing that I did only with a different justification. Chant is better than Trap against ANT. The others are indeed marginal. I don't justify my position though by claiming that we should 'hinder the engine' because you can't apply that concept consistently. Good combo decks have more than one engine. I don't consider ANT to be good when you can play something like TES or NLS.
Anyway, I mentioned True Believer mainly because its not a dead sideboard card in other matchups. Rarely are you going to board in chant against anything but combo. Same goes for other marginal pieces of hate like Rune Halo. True Believer, though, has won me many games. Its saved my ass against Burn a number of times (its practically MVP) and its also great in the discard matchup. I think playing with it in the board is a better use of space. But hey I'm a combo player. Don't listen to me.
EDIT:
Also, has anyone made the comparison yet between UW Tempo and DnT? Both have similar avenues of play (in that both decks use many of the same cards). DnT plays a different sort of mana denial, but without much card advantage and lacking in the countermagic. What would the reasons be to play DnT over UW Tempo? I was leaning toward buying DnT but with the advent of UW Tempo, I'd much rather play DnT with FoW. The Mangara engine is great but its often too slow; countering threats before they hit play is significantly better than removing them after they hit play. Also, UW Tempo's combo matchup is deceptively good while ours is weak.
Granted, I'm sure DnT still has its nitch as a consistent control deck, but I think that UW Tempo is a better choice overall, namely with the rising popularity of bad matchups like storm combo. Can anyone elaborate on this comparison?
EDIT 2:
Supachai and I tested Basillik Collar. Its mediocre in most situations. Its great when you have something with vigilance, but otherwise you'd much rather just find one of the swords. Even in clutch situations where you had to block, it was only delaying the inevitable, or it didn't give the creature it was equipping pro-red or extra toughness, in which case the opponent just played removal ftw.Sorry for the late reply Finn. I have put 3 Mystics in my deck, and I have almost NEVER hated drawing her. I am also loving my equipment suite- 1 SoFaI, 1 SoLaS, 1 Basilisk Collar, 2 Jittes. Five seemed kinda high at first, but it seems to work for me and my meta.
Funny you mention the UW Tempo angle, because I've cut 2 cards from the deck to add Weathered Wayfarer back in. Far too many times I'm getting mana screwed with multiple Karakas, and having a way to draw out of it is helpful. It's a clear cut SB placeholder too for the difficult matchups like combo and Enchantress.
I too run 3 Silence in the SB with no Mindbreak Traps. I like Silence/Chant better because it can always be used as a time walk. Learning to play it against Combo when it matters (in response to the first or second ritual) is often more than enough to set them back at least a turn, giving you more time to beat them down.
Here's my list for reference:
4 AEther Vial
3 Jitte/SoLS/SoFI
4 StP
3 O-Ring
4 Mother of Runes
4 Serra Avenger
3 Jotun Grunt
3 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Flickerwisp
3 Mangara
2 Weatherer Wayfarer
4 Karakas
4 Wasteland
2 Mishra's Factory
2 Flagstones
12 Plains
SB:
3 Silence
2 Aura of Silence
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Runes Halo
3 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Tivardar of Thorns
2 BFT
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Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
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Though I like Weathered Wayfarer in this, Crop Rotation looks stronger in the W/G builds. I was leaning more toward those builds as DnT's new nitch. Crop Rotation finds lots of goodies and it really deserves more attention. 1cc tutors have always been powerful and Crop Rotation is no exception. It provides many outs to many matchups. Bojuka Bog against Reanimator, Loam, IGG, and Dredge. The Tabernacle at Pendril Vale (if you want to dish out teh monies for it) against aggro (which can sometimes be a very overwhelming matchup for us). Wasteland against non-basics, which adds to our mana denial plan. Karkas to support Mangara tactics. Its also good to play in response to your opponents Wasteland, and it has nice synergy with Flagstones, if you play it. Another random ability is has is to fetch a Factory in response to Standstill. Sure it opens DnT up to Wasteland but I think it has some marginal benefits. Crop Rotation is also pretty good with Wayfarer and provides a toolbox that can be utilized by Wayfarer, Crop Rotation and/or KoTR.
Your opinion has been noted. I view my equipment as a toolbox, with each serving a unique role. While I do admit Collar isn't used as much as Jitte and SoFaI, it serves me as an awesome weapon for Mom to wield.
I have no idea what you're talking about. Storm combo's engine is... storm, ie playing loads of spells (there is belcher but you still need tons of accel for it so it's basically the same, and anyways it's really not played that much). Sure there are different ways of doing that (I never said the contrary), but my point was that they are all hindered by canonist and/or chant. See, true believer and runed halo are indeed pretty good against belcher.deck or SI, but I'd rather have all-round good hate against all storm combo decks than cards that are decent in certain situations but suck against the most common storm combo strategy nowadays, namely AdN. And may I remind you that you were suggesting true believer to help in the ANT MU? So yeah, I think "hinder the engine, don't prevent the kill" is as good of a general rule as it can get in the storm combo MU, although like any rule it shouldn't be taken to the letter.
As for the "but I'd rather have something useful in other MUs" argument, I think this is a common but dangerous mistake. SB isn't for versatile but marginally useful options, it's for cards that can turn the tide. I realize that's again a very broad generalization, but I think it's true on the whole. If you really want to have runed halo in your 75s for instance (not saying it's a good idea), you should MD it, otherwise it's a waste of SB space. Of course, I can understand that you don't want to devote 8+ SB cards solely to the storm combo MU. In that case you have 2 options imo. Either you give up that MU alltogether, which really isn't as bad as it sounds since your chances are slim even when packing hate and this will allow you to focus on improving other MUs. The other option (which I'm currently using) is to run 3 or 4 copies of enlightened tutor together with a 4 or 5 cards package including canonist in your SB. This allows you to virtually run a full set of the best hate against storm combo, while not clogging up the SB and keeping strong options for other MUs.
The reason I play D&T over UW Tempo is price. While Karakas has jumped in price, it still much cheaper than a set of FoW, Duals and Fetches. If I indeed had those, I would play UW Tempo.
As for Basilisk Collar, I've found that it is good. It helps us fight Empyrial Archangel and it helps deter creatures even if it just ends up being used for chump blocking.
I'm also in favor of Runed Halo MD. As for SB, I'm tied between an Enlightened Tutor toolbox and a SB containing 3 Canonists (combo matchups), 3 True Believers (Combo, Monoblack),3 Aura of Silence (Enchantress, Affinity, artifact hate), 3 Cryps/Relics (Dredge isn't too common in my meta, so this ends up being against Goyfs and Loam.), 3 Revenge of the Meeks/Meekstones (Re-animator, goyf and other large beatsticks.)
This lets me bring in a total of 9 cards to stop combo. All of which are useful in several other matchups. This SB still has a problem with belcher though, so I believe that an Enlightened Tutor toolbox with 3 True Believers and 3-4 Silences is a better choice.
We have different definitions of engine then. An engine is something like Ad Nauseum, D4's, etc. Storm is a mechanic that the deck abuses to win. If anything its the win condition, not the engine. Hinder the engine isn't the general rule because decks play multiple engines and multiple outs. Cannonist and Chant don't stop everything. For example, now there is a version of FT that can Doomsday, pass into an Emakrul pile. Chant and Cannonist are pretty much dead in the water. Same goes for decks like SI that run Belcher as an alternative kill. You can't always hinder the engine and that was really my point. Different hate does different stuff. Sometimes the suboptimal storm hate is your only out, like True Believer. That was my point. We agree everywhere else. I really like True Believer, as the occasional DnT player. I agree with Penguinizer, and like his sideboard plans. Having a toolbox allows you to find diverse hate so its harder to fight.
Along the lines of what you guys are saying,
I like the creatures that deliver blows while providing cover from storm. But I have spoken to a few ANT players and they seem to agree that the anti-permanent hate comes in while the Duress type stuff comes out for game 2. For that reason, I think that we still need an absolute bare minimum of 4 cards of the Trap, Chant, Silence type to stand any reasonable chance of winning. If storm decks have to include a variety of anti-hate cards to keep you out of their hair, you have struck a big blow in their game plan. Or at least this is my hope - I am not particularly experienced with actually playing ANT. Opinions?
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"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."
This is why I play Abeyance over Silence/Chant. If you are smart enough to pic out the right time, it and Canonist are enough to F up their day.
Interesting quote from another thread that is relevant here:
Oddly enough, D&T has good matchups against these top decks. So much, that I've been able to post a Top 8 performance in the last Legacy PE on MTGO.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital.../tourn/1133674
My loss to Merfolk in the final game in T8 was due to bad mulligans. (In that, I drew too many Karakas, too few lands that produce W, or none at all) Incidently, that's also my reasoning for running Weathered Wayfarer to help shore up the inconsistency I've found with getting enough land for late game control or early game tempo.
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Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
My Legacy stream
My MTG Blog - Work in progress
That's why I like D&T. It can be built with a nice amount of hate so that it stands a fair chance against a lot of decks. I still think that the dredge matchup is horrible and combo is still a bit iffy post SB.
I have tested against multiple top tier decks. Several matchups (Countertop for one) were tough, but by far not impossible. I've got to try out BFT some time, but I've liked Harrier. What other options do we have for that slot?
Against Dredge, Benevolent Bodyguard (which is a stand-in for Mother of Runes on MTGO) has helped tremendously from letting them go nuts with tokens. BFT performs the same role if you have access to MoM already.
Here's how I would use the seven "1cc" slots, but this is my preference after many games with the deck in tournament matches:
4 Mother of Runes/(Benevolent Bodyguard)
2 Weathered Wayfarer
1 BFT
Since I have those Bodyguards in already, I upped the # on Wayfarers to 3, and that has helped out the CB/Landstill matches by a few % points. Not much mind you, but enough to make it more manageable. Deed still rocks this deck like none other, but Deed hasn't seen much play recently.
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Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
My Legacy stream
My MTG Blog - Work in progress
I have 3 MoMs and 3 Goldmeadow Harriers as my onedrop creatures. I can't really think of what to cut out to add in a 4th MoM, which is a problem. I need to see if I can get the cards for the next proper legacy tournament that's happening around here.
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