[Deck] Death and Taxes

[Tormod]

Spirit is good, it might not be 4 copies good, but it does a very good job of beating down with 3 power and slowing your opponent down to a more "fair" card draw rate.

Shiel's had Batterskull in the sideboard. I've seen a few Dnt decks doing this lately. What's the reasoning for this?

[amalek0]

getting back to the prison roots that was the origin of the deck?

[MrShine]

Spirit is good, it might not be 4 copies good, but it does a very good job of beating down with 3 power and slowing your opponent down to a more "fair" card draw rate.

Shiel's had Batterskull in the sideboard. I've seen a few Dnt decks doing this lately. What's the reasoning for this?

Finn has been suggesting / testing this for some time. It's basically a metagame call; most of the time you are going for Jitte first and SoFI close second anyway. Grabbing 'Skull and having SFM removed means it can get trapped in your hand. It also reduces the amount of bad opening hands due to the 3 equipment main, which was a problem I was definitely feeling.

Batterskull is at it's best against Miracles and other control decks as a recurring threat. Jitte / Sword are much better in the Midrange / Delver MUs where there's removal flying around everywhere and you need to keep them off as many threats as possible (to stop them connecting with their own Equipment).

[dcosiem]

Spirit is good, it might not be 4 copies good, but it does a very good job of beating down with 3 power and slowing your opponent down to a more "fair" card draw rate.

Shiel's had Batterskull in the sideboard. I've seen a few Dnt decks doing this lately. What's the reasoning for this?

I think it's good enough to put 3 at least against all blue decks.

[Barook]

I think it's good enough to put 3 at least against all blue decks.

But what to cut from the sideboards? We have lots of tools available, but not that much space to work with.

I'm also interested in the performance of Judgement's Council in Robert Sullivan's sideboard.

[Tormod]

I can see cutting Aven Mindcensor for Spirit of the Lab.

He's one of those cards blue decks and combo decks hate. He stops draws from cantrips, elvish visionary draws, ancestral visions shenanigans, griselbrand...

[Lemnear]

I can see cutting Aven Mindcensor for Spirit of the Lab.

He's one of those cards blue decks and combo decks hate. He stops draws from cantrips, elvish visionary draws, ancestral visions shenanigans, griselbrand...

What he can NOT do is catching the usual T1/2 cantrips fired to fix greedy keeps, handle Ad Nauseam/Past in Flames or provides any purpose against the threat of Griselbrand itself, which is being a 7/7 flying lifelinker you can rarely race. The only 2 combo decks SotL hosses are High Tide and OmniTell. I doubt that is enough for the Spirit to make the cut

[Thirty]

Council's judgement was a savior for me so many times yesterday.

I lost a close game to food chain yesterday match one in the SCG open, and then fell prey to Mono red burn with triple Goblin Guides on turn two. But the rest of the day was golden until I got paired against Mono red burn again. I exiled so many True Name Nemesis and even a Omnitell Progenitus.

Wish I had packed a true believer hate bear or better answer for the burn decks.

[Tormod]

What he can NOT do is catching the usual T1/2 cantrips fired to fix greedy keeps, handle Ad Nauseam/Past in Flames or provides any purpose against the threat of Griselbrand itself, which is being a 7/7 flying lifelinker you can rarely race. The only 2 combo decks SotL hosses are High Tide and OmniTell. I doubt that is enough for the Spirit to make the cut

And Aven Mindcensor helps against that how?

[raikenxy]

And Aven Mindcensor helps against that how?

aven mindcensor stops every tutor in most of those decks ? infernal tutor, fetch lands, natural order, merchant scroll, green sun zenith... albeit one of the weaker bears it still has applications wide enough to warrant main deck playability and it's still decent against elves, its a card that is neither truly bad or truly great against any match up; the flexibility of mindcensor would be it's greatest strength. Neither spirit or mindscensor stop a griselbrand, but at least mindcensor can block it. spirit hoses only a few decks and annoys others. decks like deathblade and delver strategies play things that impact the board before using cantrips to find answers. Spirit isn't gonna stop tnn from hitting you with a jitte while jace is fateseeling you, nor will it stop american delver just killing all your creatures with 8 removal spells and grim lavamancer post board. is it good against elves... yeah... they can't mid game grind you or just glimpse you out of no where... still doesn't stop them from just dropping a natural order on turn 4 and killing you. does it stop griselbrand? yeah... they can't draw seven... but they still end up getting a 7/7 with flying and lifelink that just reads "pay nothing: draw 1 card" when spirit is out. and lets just be honest i know i rarely keep in swords to plowshares against any deck playing griselbrand because karakas just takes care of him a lot better then any creature we play and the odds of being able to exile him are just way to low to warrant running 4 dead cards.

[Said-In-Contest]

aven mindcensor stops every tutor in most of those decks ? infernal tutor, fetch lands, natural order, merchant scroll, green sun zenith... albeit one of the weaker bears it still has applications wide enough to warrant main deck playability and it's still decent against elves, its a card that is neither truly bad or truly great against any match up; the flexibility of mindcensor would be it's greatest strength. Neither spirit or mindscensor stop a griselbrand, but at least mindcensor can block it. spirit hoses only a few decks and annoys others. decks like deathblade and delver strategies play things that impact the board before using cantrips to find answers. Spirit isn't gonna stop tnn from hitting you with a jitte while jace is fateseeling you, nor will it stop american delver just killing all your creatures with 8 removal spells and grim lavamancer post board. is it good against elves... yeah... they can't mid game grind you or just glimpse you out of no where... still doesn't stop them from just dropping a natural order on turn 4 and killing you. does it stop griselbrand? yeah... they can't draw seven... but they still end up getting a 7/7 with flying and lifelink that just reads "pay nothing: draw 1 card" when spirit is out. and lets just be honest i know i rarely keep in swords to plowshares against any deck playing griselbrand because karakas just takes care of him a lot better then any creature we play and the odds of being able to exile him are just way to low to warrant running 4 dead cards.

Well, playing 3 Karakas I think I won't mind having Griselbrand JUST a 7/7 flying lifelinker..I mean, the problem with Griselbrand is that his controller will kill us the following turn by drawing a bunch of cards....
I played vs Griselbrand a billion times, and still you name it with revoker to stop the draw as soon as possible...
With spirit on the ground and a non-uncommon combination of mother of runes and a flyer (Serra, flicker) you can block Griselbrand all day long.
Also, having the chance to slow down my opponent while he is casting cantrips (4 ponder, 4 brainstorm 2-3 gitaxian) is something I kinda like, because time is something I need to find Karakas and say goodbye.
All of this to say: spirit vs Griselbrand based decks is strong, no matter what

On the other hand, if you wanna talk about the fact that spirit can also be the most miserable card in the deck vs a lot of other decks, then I'll have to agree.
The card is simply sad because vs non combo non miracle decks it's a 3/1 that dies to anything, and usually you'll be forced to hold it back doing nothing.
By now I' tempted to switch the 2 spirit I have in the maindeck into 2 mind censor...still, having a lot of 3 drops and another situational card like the bird doesn't feel so great.
I mean, in the end mindcensor is really good vs combo decks and, as someone has already said, even spirit is good in those match ups...so I don't really know..
Moreover, all this x/1 dumb creatures are not a great deal...

Basically my thoughts were these:
If the meta is miracle oriented like it is in Italy, then 2 spirit in the main is fine. Not so great, but it does something

If the meta is like the American one, then I don't think I like the spirit so much

About having spirit in the board:
It's a great idea, no situational cards in the maindeck surely is good in this non cantrips deck.
The point is: do I really wanna cut something else from the board to make room for it?

[Lemnear]

And Aven Mindcensor helps against that how?

This was NOT an argument FOR Mindcensor. The point of my post was to Highlight that SotL has actually a minimal impact on cantrips, combo and Griselbrand aka the reasons you want to run Spirit in the first place. We had all those "OMG! It kills blue and combo!" In the Spoiler thread and those proved themselves laughable; not only because ANT runs 3-4 Dread of Night

[Tormod]

This was NOT an argument FOR Mindcensor. The point of my post was to Highlight that SotL has actually a minimal impact on cantrips, combo and Griselbrand aka the reasons you want to run Spirit in the first place. We had all those "OMG! It kills blue and combo!" In the Spoiler thread and those proved themselves laughable; not only because ANT runs 3-4 Dread of Night

You must be confused. I said I could see cutting Aven Mindcensor for Spirit of the Lab, then you went off on your tirade.

[Lemnear]

You must be confused. I said I could see cutting Aven Mindcensor for Spirit of the Lab, then you went off on your tirade.

I'm not confused. You made bold statements about how good SotL is against this and that; I mentioned that those reasonings for SotL are the same we saw in the Spoiler thread and that they are flawed

[dcosiem]

What he can NOT do is catching the usual T1/2 cantrips fired to fix greedy keeps, handle Ad Nauseam/Past in Flames or provides any purpose against the threat of Griselbrand itself, which is being a 7/7 flying lifelinker you can rarely race. The only 2 combo decks SotL hosses are High Tide and OmniTell. I doubt that is enough for the Spirit to make the cut

How can you doubt that? That is the whole format of legacy. LOL.

And Aven Mindcensor helps against that how?

Probably Aven at 1 would do. He's not great enough to have 2 I think because it's a turn 3 card, and that somehow or other it doesn't stop the person from retrieving a land if he is lucky enough to see 1 at the top 4 or whatever they are searching for. There are so many flex spots in Death and Taxes, it's a meta call and experience on the player to determine which is best fit for them. Who do you want to beat? Who do you want to have a bad match up against? Or do you just want to be 50% against all the format? I build most of my decks to the last option, but sometimes big tournements I tune by decks to beat blue decks because they are the most versatile and consistent decks at winning due to Brainstorm and Force of Will mostly.

aven mindcensor stops every tutor in most of those decks ? infernal tutor, fetch lands, natural order, merchant scroll, green sun zenith... albeit one of the weaker bears it still has applications wide enough to warrant main deck playability and it's still decent against elves, its a card that is neither truly bad or truly great against any match up; the flexibility of mindcensor would be it's greatest strength. Neither spirit or mindscensor stop a griselbrand, but at least mindcensor can block it. spirit hoses only a few decks and annoys others. decks like deathblade and delver strategies play things that impact the board before using cantrips to find answers. Spirit isn't gonna stop tnn from hitting you with a jitte while jace is fateseeling you, nor will it stop american delver just killing all your creatures with 8 removal spells and grim lavamancer post board. is it good against elves... yeah... they can't mid game grind you or just glimpse you out of no where... still doesn't stop them from just dropping a natural order on turn 4 and killing you. does it stop griselbrand? yeah... they can't draw seven... but they still end up getting a 7/7 with flying and lifelink that just reads "pay nothing: draw 1 card" when spirit is out. and lets just be honest i know i rarely keep in swords to plowshares against any deck playing griselbrand because karakas just takes care of him a lot better then any creature we play and the odds of being able to exile him are just way to low to warrant running 4 dead cards.

Fix your english. It's atrocious. That was hard to read. Yes, comparing Griselbrand to a Spirit of Lab--it's obvious that Griselbrand is the better creature. But, for MTG sake, do we really need to compare how good a blocker Mindcensor is opposed to Spirit? We're talking about Spirit's ability to give us favorable control over upbeat fast tempo brainstorming decks. If people never played any blue decks before, and are speaking solely on the fact that they have only played this deck, don't even contest what I'm saying. I'm telling you this card is the shit. Play 3 of this or at least 2, your deck will be a top contending deck. Then more people will have more hate for it because it's just too good. Have people forgotten that the best card in legacy is Brainstorm and why it's so good? HELLO, ANCESTRAL RECALL are you there? By holy grail of Magic, why is Ancestrall Recall limited to 1 in Vintage? It's almost the same principle with Brainstorm, but you have to put 2 back. But, it's makes it great with fetch lands to shuffle bad cards away and get new ones. We all know that. My point is Spirit stops people from drawing 3 cards. 3 cards is 3 threats. It's so fucking good. People have to learn to adapt to the changes that are coming. If you don't, stay behind and fail while others succeed because they understand value of new assets that change the game.

[Lemnear]

How can you doubt that? That is the whole format of legacy

It's atrocious. That was hard to read. Yes, comparing Griselbrand to a Spirit of Lab--it's obvious that Griselbrand is the better creature. But, for MTG sake, do we really need to compare how good a blocker Mindcensor is opposed to Spirit? We're talking about Spirit's ability to give us favorable control over upbeat fast tempo brainstorming decks. If people never played any blue decks before, and are speaking solely on the fact that they have only played this deck, don't even contest what I'm saying. I'm telling you this card is the shit. Play 3 of this or at least 2, your deck will be a top contending deck. Then more people will have more hate for it because it's just too good. Have people forgotten that the best card in legacy is Brainstorm and why it's so good? HELLO, ANCESTRAL RECALL are you there? By holy grail of Magic, why is Ancestrall Recall limited to 1 in Vintage? It's almost the same principle with Brainstorm, but you have to put 2 back. But, it's makes it great with fetch lands to shuffle bad cards away and get new ones. We all know that. My point is Spirit stops people from drawing 3 cards. 3 cards is 3 threats. It's so fucking good. People have to learn to adapt to the changes that are coming. If you don't, stay behind and fail while others succeed because they understand value of new assets that change the game.

Yeah, Legacy is all about Enter the Infinte and Time Spiral and lets not Contest that someone is saying who can't differ between +2 cardadvantage and +/-0 off a 1cc card while ignoring all points I previously made about SotL being unable to catch T1/2 Cantrips, Brainstorms cast in response to SotL or the fact that the format is also full of StoP and Lightning Bolts to respond to vialed SotL's. We saw the attempts to run 3-4 SotL to adress Legacy's 8-cantrip-core in the past with desasterous results.

I can't take a discussion serious which grounds itself on stuff like "Brainstorm = Ancestral Recall -> SotL; ignore all manacosts" or "Leonin Arbiter -> Tutors or Fetches never work; ignore all manacost". Prime example of trolling this thread, dcoaiem

[Tormod]

I'm not confused. You made bold statements about how good SotL is against this and that; I mentioned that those reasonings for SotL are the same we saw in the Spoiler thread and that they are flawed

Hell yeah you're confused. You even quoted me where I said I can see cutting Aven for SoL.

Maybe you should stop arguing for the sake of arguing. Its really boring to see you groan about things and act like you're 'better' than everyone. We get it, You love Your Opinions and think others should take it as gospel.

[LeoCop 90]

Men, there's no need to argue this way over spirit of the lab. Lemnear is being so harsh about the card just because when it was first spoiled, everyone thought it would completely warp legacy. During the first weeks after spirit's release, we saw lists with 4-of main deck and they didn't work very well.
That said, i think spirit is not a bad card. Simply put, you can't expect to jam 4 of them into your deck and destroy blue because of them. It is just a card that can work mid-game, when the board is stabilized, in order to make every topdecked cantrip useless. And yeah, it has some applications against combo. Overall, i think playing a couple spirits main deck can be viable but you have to be very careful in what to cut. Its best place though is as a one-of in side paired with enlightened tutor in my opinion.

[Zombie]

Men, there's no need to argue this way over spirit of the lab. Lemnear is being so harsh about the card just because when it was first spoiled, everyone thought it would completely warp legacy. During the first weeks after spirit's release, we saw lists with 4-of main deck and they didn't work very well.
That said, i think spirit is not a bad card. Simply put, you can't expect to jam 4 of them into your deck and destroy blue because of them. It is just a card that can work mid-game, when the board is stabilized, in order to make every topdecked cantrip useless. And yeah, it has some applications against combo. Overall, i think playing a couple spirits main deck can be viable but you have to be very careful in what to cut. Its best place though is as a one-of in side paired with enlightened tutor in my opinion.

Ponder and Preordain do work just fine under Spirit. It nerfs them for sure, but they can still do the card selection stuff. GSZ likewise doesn't really care. Elvish Visionary, Glimpse and Brainstorm get horribly murdered though.

[Finn]

Ponder and Preordain do work just fine under Spirit. It nerfs them for sure, but they can still do the card selection stuff. GSZ likewise doesn't really care. Elvish Visionary, Glimpse and Brainstorm get horribly murdered though.

Eh, not so much. I have sat on the ANT side of this, and it is too much for ANT to handle for the most part. I dunno about Show and Tell stuff, but storm can maybe cast one of the sorcery cantrips before you just grind to a halt. You can't just go down a card each time. Storm needs a number of cards in hand to build the count. I have gotten lucky a few times. I chained tutors once, and I got a really good Past in Flames sequence once. Most of the time Spirit slows the game enough for D+T to do its thing. For every time I have gotten around Spirit of the Lab, I have gone down to it a few others. Of all the occasions I have faced it, the only times I have gotten around it has been when it was the only disruption D+T could muster. Paired with Revoker, Canonist, Mindcensor, RiP, or Thalia, I just could not circumvent it in time. Take your salt with this though - I am a competent storm player. I am certainly not the best around.