Jund is tricky, but your best bet game one is to deal with their deathrite as soon as possible. Deathrite circumvents our mana denial plan, so you MUST either name him with revoker or kill him immediatly with a swords or else our main game plan is shut down. The punishing fire engine is solved with rest in peace from the board.Originally Posted by JanoschEausH
I've been testing against tnn decks mostly lately, and have had my most success pinning these decks down by slamming a revoker and naming jitte. by doing that you prevent them from effectively killing your board, a tnn with a batterskull is a lot easier to deal with then a tnn with a jitte for us. If your playing esper blade it shouldnt be as much of a hassle as mana denial is a lot easier against them then it is against deathblade, same reason as jund, deathrite shaman kills our main angle of attack. But in either case, revoker on jitte has been great in my matches against blade decks with tnn
I also have moved zealous persecution to the main
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Hey guys,
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I’ve been playing Dead Guy solidly for the past 5 months or so, and I’m in love with it. I love the disruption it has and I love how many decks it has the ability to shut down.
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I’ve tested all kinds of variations of it and I think I’m finally happy with a list of 75 going into any meta with a pretty balanced board.
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The list I’m running is as follows:-
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Creatures (20)
Mother of Runes x 4
Stoneforge Mystic x 4
Tidehollow Sculler x 4
Dark Confidant x 4
Phyrexian Revoker x 4
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Instants (4)
Swords to Plowshares x 4
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Sorceries (10)
Thoughtseize x 2
Cabal Therapy x 2
Lingering Souls x 4
Vindicate x 2
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Planeswalkers (2)
Liliana of the Veil x 2
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Artifacts (4)
Umezawa’s Jitte x 1
Batterskull x 1
Sword of Light and Shadow x 1
Swords of Fire and Ice x 1
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Lands (20)
Marsh Flats x 4
Scrubland x 4
Wasteland x 4
Karakas x 2
Plains x 2
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth x 1
Swamp x 3
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Sideboard
Ethersworn Canonist x 2
Oblivion Ring x 2
Pithing Needle x 2
Rest In Peace x 2
Enlightened Tutor x 1
Disenchant x 2
Zealous Persecution x 2
Perish x 1
Toxic Deluge x 1
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I will give very specific reasons for my card choices in a moment, but first I will tell you why I didn’t include certain cards in my 75 that people might be wondering why.
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Hymn to Tourach
The power level of this card is unquestionable, it has the potential to win games on it’s own. But our gameplan is to blank our opponents draws as efficiently as possible, and although hymn is a 2-for-1, it DOES NOT give us information as to what our opponents have in the rest of their hand. With that vital information, it allows us to make the rest of the deck more live (such as naming the correct card with Revoker, or a Swords to Plowshares on the most relevant threat). I think that this is much more important to a game than an opponent discarding 2 potentially irrelevant cards.
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Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Now it is very clear that this card is a monster against combo decks, but I believe that the discard package we run is more than enough to give us a good game 1 vs. storm and SNT decks. We run Lingering Souls, Liliana and Batterskull in our 75, so making those spells cost 1 more is no good for us.
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Aether Vial
Think that this was the hardest card to justify not to include in this build, flashing in your guys for free seems like a great idea, right? Well on the face of it, yes. But I believe that flashing your guys in is only useful if your lands are doing something, such as porting their lands like D&T and Goblins do. Or animating man-lands to attack/block like in Merfolk. Vial will also make us play out the threats in our hand more, making us over-extend into terminus/supreme verdict/pyroclasm/massacre. We will be trying to make these spells a 1 for 1 or a 2 for 1 worst case scenario.
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Sensei’s Divining Top
Why not run top? Because we only run 20 lands (4 of them being wasteland) and top is fine if you’ve got 1 mana spare a turn, but we need our mana to make threats, disrupt them in some way or equipping some equipment. I found it better just to run more of the number of things that you’re digging for. What about the lifeloss from Bob? Well we run 3 pieces of equipment that gain life for us. We also have 10 ways of killing our own Bob if we REALLY need to.
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Mirran Crusader
This guy is often the finisher in D&T decks, but I believe that as powerful as he is, he doesn’t fit into our “utility creature” suite that our other guys are. And he doesn’t have evasion on his own, which is aweful in a meta full of Jace’s and True-name Nemesis.
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Serra Avenger
I am nut running the 2 CMC angel because I am not running Aether Vial, and if you can’t cast her on the first few turns of the game, I would much rather tap out for a Lingering Souls as it’s an extra body against Jace and Delvers.
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Bitterblossom
I really like Bitterblossom – and there is a reason this card is banned in Modern. The amount of pressure you can put your opponent under with this card is incredible, however this comes at a cost – your life total. We already lose life because of Thoughtseize and Dark Confidant. A 3rd card that makes us lose life in our deck can be too much for us to handle. And we need to remember that Engineered Plague exists, a resolved Plague on Faeries means we are losing 1 life a turn for no reason. I much prefer Lingering Souls for 3 reasons – we don’t lose life from it. We can make more than 1 token in a turn and it’s not the end of the world if they get a plague on spirits against us, as we can deal with the enchantment (vindicate or disenchant) and then flashback our Lingering Souls the turn after.
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Inquisition of Kozilek
This card is not to dissimilar to Thoughtseize, and it will hit 80-90% of relevant spells that we care about in Legacy, however that 10-20% that it DOES not hit will be in the games where it’s really relevant. As it would only be a 2 of, I think Thoughtseize is strictly better (IMO) in its place.
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OK I think that’s enough reason as to why I’m NOT running certain cards, let’s take a look into why I have selected the cards that I have for my 75.
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Mother of Runes?
Yes – Mother of f!#$ing Runes – when you’re running 4 other creatures that offer as much utility as they do, you need a way to protect them. Mom is great for this role. Don’t forget, she can also make your guy equipped with a Jitte unblockable. She is also a great blocker against goyfs and large Merfolk herself!
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Dark Confidant?
Surely there’s no reason for me to justify why we include the “dead guy” in “Dead guy ale”? But for those newcomers to this thread, I will make it simple – Dark Confidant wins games. “But I run Batterskull without any library filter – won’t I lose a quarter of my life?” Yes you will – but the card advantage from this card is absolutely nuts! It’s even better in multiples. Although, through experience, I wouldn’t recommend having any more than 2 on the battlefield. And remember – Real men go topless with Bob!
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Tidehollow Sculler?
This card is absolutely nuts! I personally think that he is better than Vendilion Clique. He gives us everything we need for this deck – information on our opponents hand, a “discard” effect. And a 2/2 body to equip to. He is also the main reason that we have SOME game against Show and Tell game 1. You put this in with a S&T, nab their most relevant spell (cunning wish or enter the infinite) which will allow you to untap to potentially cast a Liliana or Vindicate their Omniscience. This is much, much better than dying on the spot. He is also a great card against all the storm decks out there.
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Phyrexian Revoker?
Phyrexian Revoker is a great card in a meta overrun by Deathrite Shaman, Jace, Aether Vials, opposing Liliana’s and LED’s. It’s a Pithing needle we can equip to. Great all-around catch all card.
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Stoneforge Mystic?
Shes a tutor for your equipment, which will inevitably swing the game massively in your favour. She can even flash them in uncounterably! 4 Stoneforge – 4 equipment. Perfect. She also has 2 toughness which is more relevant than you think it is with all the dread of night and Golgari Charms running around.
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4 Equipment?
Some people may think that 4 equipment is incredibly greedy, but each one I have selected for this deck is to help with certain matchups that you could just end up losing without them. Umezawa’s Jitte and Batterskull are the 2 most common pieces of equipment that people should be familiar with, and I have included them along with 2 other pieces of equipment – Sword of Fire and Ice and Sword of Light and Shadow. Let’s take a look as to why we have chosen these swords over others.
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Firstly, let’s look at the protection and why it’s relevant. SoFI – pro red and pro blue. Really good against Young Pyromancer deck’s, Goblins, Jaces, Merfolk, Punshing Grove decks, and being able to attack through a True-Name Nemesis feels outright amazing! SoLaS – Pro white and pro black. This is often the difference maker against Death and Taxes – protection from all their guys and swords to plowshares is stupidly good and being able to block opposing Batterskull germs will eventually win you the game.
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Secondly – a +2/+2 boost on your guys is amazing! It means that an equipped Stoneforge Mystic or Sculler will have 4 toughness. Out of bolt range, and can block a large portion of Legacy stand-alone creatures.
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Thirdly when a creature hits with a sword equipped, you get 2 pretty broken effects off each one. SoFI – deals 2 damage to target creature or player and you draw a card. This. Is. Insane! The 2 damage can be used to speed your clock against combo players, finish off a planeswalker without having to attack it, and kill off most threats in Legacy (Deathrite Shaman, Mother of Runes can’t be tapped to protect it, as it’s a colourless source, Insectile Abberation) whilst drawing another piece of disruption or another threat.
SoLas – return a creature card from your graveyard to your hand – this ability is the main reason you have a plan against grindy decks. They bolted your mom earlier? They used Abrupt Decay on your Bob? No matter, just get it back and re-cast it to push your threats over the edge. The lifegain is also really important against the longer games. SoLas is probably the best equipment to naturally draw turn 7, 8 or 9 to put you over the edge once again.
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Thoughtseize?
We need T1 disruption against the unfair decks in Legacy, so why not the best 1 CMC discard spell in Legacy? And running 2 of these isn’t too incremental to our life total in conjunction with Dark Confidant.
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Cabal Therapy?
On more than one occasion, has this card been a 1 mana hymn for me. I believe that this card is BETTER as a follow up spell to a turn 1 Thoughtseize as we can nab the relevant card. Also, the synergy with Lingering Souls and a flashbacked Cabal Therapy is great. In a pinch, it can also be used to kill our own Dark confidant if we need to.
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Swords to Plowshares?
Along with the best 1 CMC discard spell, we need to be running the best 1 CMC spot removal spell as there are many creatures out there that can outclass our own. STP is the best way to deal with these.
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Lingering Souls
I believe that Lingering Souls is one of the best cards against the “blue” decks out there. You tap out to cast it turn 3, they daze, spell pierce or FOW it, that’s fine as you get to flash it back next turn anyway. It is also a great card against Jace’s and Delvers. And having guys with evasion with equipment on them is backbreaking for some decks. Lingering Souls tokens have won me more games than you think. A necessary 4-of.
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Vindicate?
3 words on Vindicate which is so versatile in our disruption plan – Destroy target permanent. I hardly ever board this card out as it can take out (almost) ANYTHING. Whether it’s a pesky humility, a planeswalker we can’t deal with, or one of the lands for TES to go off, Vindicate is useful in so many situations.
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Liliana of the Veil?
This card sums up pretty much everything that Dead Guy wants to do, it’s good against combo decks (making them discard), it’s good against aggro decks (making them sacrifice a guy) and her ultimate is absolutely nuts! Plus, it’s not the end of the world if we discard a Lingering Souls with her! ;-) Such a great main deck card for guys with shroud (Geist, True-name Nemesis, Nimble Mongoose and even Progenitus).
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The manabase is pretty standard and allows us to play any spell in our deck as long as we have WBB mana available.*
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The Sideboard
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Zealous Persecution
Kills opposing Mother of Runes, 18 goblin tokens that a large empty the Warrens made, True-name Nemesis and swarms of elves. Also can be great against tribal decks by messing with combat math for a turn. And at 2 mana, we can usually wait to cast this around a Spell Pierce.
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Disenchant
A solid catch-all for pesky artifacts and enchantments out there.
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Toxic Deluge
We run this as out 3 mana Damnation. A bit like Zealous Persecution, but with a little bit more flexibility. We don’t want to run 2 of these, as the lifeloss can be relevant.
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Pithing Needle
There’s a lot of Miracles in my local meta, and this thing can stop Helm of Obedience, Sensei’s Divining Top and Jace without having to worry about Swords to Plowshares, terminus or Supreme Verdict
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Rest In Peace
This is the best graveyard hate our there IMO, and within our colours. Yes, we interact with our own yard a bit (Lingering Souls, Cabal Therapy and Sword of Light and Shadow) but those cards are often irrelevant in the matches where you NEED to exile their yard.
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Oblivion Ring
Great against Show and Tell decks, and kind of acts as our Vindicates 3-4.
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Ethersworn Canonist
A storm-hate card that doesn’t make our top end spells cost more than they should? And it’s also a body we can equip to? Yes please!
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Perish
This thing kind of acts as our second Toxic Deluge, but without us having to pay any life. It also kills Progenitus. Great as a 1 of.
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Enlightened Tutor
So we have 8 cards in our side that we can tutor for with this. In many ways it feels like the 3rd artifact or enchantment that we need.
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So there you have it guys, my explanation of why I chose the cards I have done. Any comments/questions are welcome.
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Thanks for reading.
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Boxman_619
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Real men go Topless with Bob
Hi guys, I was compelled to finally register after getting absolutely steamrolled last night in our weekly in my first run with DGA.
4 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Abyssal Persecutor
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Lingering Souls
3 Diabolic Edict
3 Thoughtseize
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Innocent Blood
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Pithing Needle
4 Swamp
4 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Arid Mesa
2 Plains
2 Scrubland
1 Karakas
1 Bayou
1 Savannah
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Echoing Calm
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Krosan Grip
1 Duress
1 Rule of Law
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Cabal Therapy
My build is designed to dodge Wasteland by fetching lots of basics and go over the top of TNN with Persecutor. I know no wasteland myself looks weird, but when I get to the tourney report you'll see that it never really came up. That's why I'm so vexed--I thought I might be taking a bit of a risk by not having it, but I just ended up sort of losing.
Rd. 1: Merfolk
g1 we trade one for one for a while, but he eventually gets a TNN and lord out and beats my removal.
Out: 3 Thoughtseize, 1 Lingering Souls. In: 2 Toxic Deluge, 1 Abrupt Decay, 1 Krosan Grip
G2 I slam a T2 Jitte, equip it to a Souls token, still get in a bind. But I resolve a Toxic Deluge, flashback souls, and get there.
G3 goes more like G1. TNN and extra creatures to sac.
Rd. 2: Miracles
G1 he Top-miracles Entreat on my turn while I'm bashing in with a SoFI-equipped Mystic. Blah.
Out: all sac-based removal and Persecutor. In: Deluge, Calm, Decay, Grip, Duress.
G2 he mulls to 5 and I t1 Needle SDT, so I win.
G3 he hardcasts terminus to my board of 2 souls tokens, Batterskull, Bob. No matter, I had a decent grip of DRS, Bob 2, plus Souls in the GY, plus a Needle on top. I rebuild and get him to 1 when he miracles Terminus, rips Jace, and slams his own Skull.
Rd. 3: Pox
G1 I punt when I forget that Urborg works on both players and keep using my fetches. I also had an embarrassing Inquisition into Therapy where I named Smallpox but meant Sinkhole (He had two Sinks in hand, which I meant to clean out).
Out: Thoughtseize, Lili. In: Grip, Decay, Duress, Therapy, Surgical
G2 I had a monster: DRS, Souls, Bob, basics. I won super fast.
G3 he played three smallpoxes in a row and I like totally died
Rd. 4: D&T
G1 I can't beat two vials
Out: Edict, Percy. In: Deluge, decay, grip, calm
G2 is going ok until he pulls off a Flickerwisp/o-ring trick killing my needle on vial and my bob...
In summary:
-I lost g1 and won g2 three times. Yes being on the play is important, but is it that much so?
-I played decks that play a lot of basics, so lack of Wasteland was never a real issue. I killed a Mutavault against Merfolk with my jitte, D&T never played a karakas (and I did blank his wasteland in play), pox did get a couple factories out on me but I was dead either way, and miracles actually flooded in a couple games. (Helped him hardcasts Terminus and Bskull
-bad luck with the miracles and triple pox? Or am I missing something that important?
Thanks for any advice.
@maharis I'm very new to the deck, but one thing I will suggest is Zealous Persecution. I run 4 in my sideboard and it's so freaking good against TNN and I even destroyed a Death and Taxes player last night on MTGO game 2 when I drew 2 of them. Also pumps your Spirit tokens.
I keep Needle in my SB as well as Diabolic Edict (I run Smother main). Reason why you're not running full set of StP?
Not sure about Persecuter either...I think a value creature like Tidehollow Sculler would work better. My two cents...
4 of the same card in the sideboard is using to much space in the board for it and should probly be in the main in that case. I run 1 main 1 board as well as a pontif.
My removal suit is 4 Swords to plowshares 4 liliana 2 Disfigure 1 Zealous Persecution with discard suit of 4 Thoughtseize 3 Inqusition of kozilek 3 Tidehollow.
@Rizso ...Mistyped, I run 3 Zealous Persecution in board while considering bringing 1-2 main possibly.
Where do you think Hymn to Tourach stands right now? I've been playing it, and have been hot/cold on it. Thinking about cutting it for more removal (I play this deck on MTGO and removal seems to be better recently).
I havent played hymn for a while as it hits numbers of cards but its a chance it wont get the card I actually want. Thats why I rather go for Thoughtseize, Cabal Therarpy and Inquisition of Kozilek.
I run Hymns but i see your point. My living the dream is casting Hymn to Tourach turn 1. Although the last time I did that it was against Reanimator (didn't know what he was on) :)
Yeah, 2 STP seems a bit weird. Definitely full 4. I'm also a firm believer in 4 Wastelands. Always. 1 Pithing Needle.....hmmm....might as well be a Phyrexian Revoker. Even then, I only have Revokers in board. Also zealous persecutions need to be somewhere in the 75. Echoing Calm seems a bit too niche for my liking, although i can imagine the look on an opponent's face when you take out multiple Leyline of Sanctities. :) And Rule of Law IMO seems a bit slow vs the combo decks. Another Canonist or Thalia would be better imo.
Persecutor. Hmmm, never tried it. Tried Phyrexian Obliterator before. Only good vs fair non white decks. I suggest Hero of Bladehold if you want a beater. She doesn't have evasion but Deadguy has plenty of removal and she often represents a 2 turn clock.
But yeah, 3 smallpox in a row would beat a lot of decks.
Just to be clear, im not against acquiring wastelands, I was just going for a different strategy. I want to hit my land drops and play spells, not get in a wasteland war that I can only lose. Other wasteland decks play more taxing effects, Aether Vial, cantrips or some combination of all three. We play Bob and Deathrite which are so vulnerable.
I am definitely going up to at least 3 STP. I like sacrifice effects because of TNN, Mongoose, and keeping their life total down, but I definitely wanted STP more.
Persecutor is fun but sadly feels too win-more. I liked its ability to one-shot planeswakers even thru chump blocking (and get sword activations) but its too hard to maintain. I think I'm abandoning that idea.
Echoing Calm is because Leylines are popular in my meta. rule of law is supposed to be another Canonist but I couldn't get my hands on one.
After putting some time between the night and now I think I have a better idea of what I want to do.
boxman.
20 lands seems very light for the deck. Very, especially with no Deathrite. I used to play an aether vial version of what you listed (more creatures obviously to support playing vial) and had 20 lands....wasn't enough lands.
Maharis.
Having Wastelands definitely isn't a detriment to having in Deadguy. I guess in my version though, I can win the wasteland wars since I have Vindicate backup. Not much feels greater when you waste one land and Vindicate the other one leaving them with nothing. I will say though, on TC decks there is a deadguy ale that made top 8 at SCG that didn't play wastelands but did play Mirran Crusaders and Hero of Bladehold.
I also notice that 2 of your losses were to Vial decks. Perhaps an Engineered Explosives or 2 would help. It's great at killing the vials or killing a bunch of Merfolk at 2 or 3.
Richard Cheese
Like the build. Got to ask though, how's the manabase? 23 lands. 2 colors with 8 non-colored lands. How often did you get awkward hands that you couldn't cast say STP or Thoughtseize?
Well because of Punishing Fire existing, I have Rest in Peace, 2 of them. A necessary evil. Very happy I didn't run into it at GP Washington.
Jund is a coin flip match for me. TNN decks, I've only lost to one since it came into fruition. Lol, actually made Zealous Persecution better since Geist of Saint Traft could survive -1/-1. TNN decks tend to be threat lite, which is nice for me.
Richard Cheese. I definitely agree that adding the one mana discard and Bob adds a ton to D&T. IMHO, sometimes it's better to turn 1 thoughtseize than turn 1 Vial. I run into that situation in my deadguy......thoughtseize or Shaman.
Needs moar Dark Confidant. 4 isn't enough. 6? Maybe even 8?
What, the Pain Seer or Blood Scrivener? Don't like either one. Pain Seer will probably see Standard play but I'm not gonna experiment Adding it to deadguy.
The new infest is out. Same cost, same effect with scry 1 tacked on. Thoughts? Still like my Zealous Persecution. But decent removal with some library manipulation is interesting.
Pain Seer gets significantly less worse when:
-MoM to protect its attack
-the deck is full of better creatures to spend removal on. Who Lightning Bolt's Chub Toad?
-equipment to make a bigger and protected attacking body, one that may survive
Scrivener doesn't belong.
Well, I spent some thoughts about seer as well.
MoM requires you to at least have both cards in your hand. It´s like a mini combo and not always given. If not given, you get your Bear for 2 mana.
well, if chub toad made me draw cards whenever I attack I´d probably bolt it....
equippment delays the draw engine even more. you have to draw it, play it and equipp it.
Honestly dude, it's never been a problem for me. In a durdle deck where the top of your curve is 3 really (not including Batterskull) you get enough mana. Maybe because I don't see a whole lot of pox in my meta I feel it's OK. And 5 basics I think is a lot really, so it's very rare we lose Wasteland wars.
Real men go Topless with Bob
Can I ask what happend to Bitterblossom? I'm still playing that card as a 2off, and I like it loads. If you manage to slam it turn 2 against miracles or any other control deck its geegee. I'm playing a heavy SFM package to back these tokens it up which works out excellent. The flying faeries don't care about TNN niether
Just started testing w/ 2 Bitterblossoms a few nights ago and I'm a fan.
Have 4 Souls/2 Blossoms main, but haven't gotten to the point where I want to try Elspeth/Sorin...I'd rather just stick w/ the removal/discard I have at the moment instead of making room.
What Equipment package are you running in the main?
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