[Deck] Deadguy Ale (B/w Confidant)

[DeathwingZERO]

The Soul Spike was halfass sarcasm, only because a friend of mine and I developed a U/B combo deck around it that's actually got a relatively fast clock for a casual deck (Usually turn 5-6). After posting I realized there's a good chance you'd draw into it with Bob, and that would suck, but I figured it'd be funny to get peoples reactions after I realized how bad it'd be in this deck.

As for Infest, have you ever wanted to go one step further for Mutilate? I've noticed that Infest can't really take down Thresh creatures after about turn 4, and those would seem bad to run into with Negator (Mongoose being a 3/3 and Bear a 4/4). Have you had any issues where you wanted more than -2/-2?

As for Cabal Therapy, it was actually in my Sideboard for a little while, and I didn't mind it that much. It was a good outlet to get rid of Bob if things turned around unfavorably and abruptly, and at times I'd pitch to a creature to take out either a combo piece or a threat I knew was coming that I wouldn't be able to deal with (Mystic Enforcer after thresh, Mongoose, Exalted/Decree/Dragon, basically anything that puts ME on the clock) so the flashback option does end up happening more than people wanted to admit on here so far. Plus, as my arguments earlier stated (probably a few pages back now), it hits creatures, something the deck REALLY wants to do against unfavorable beats.

[Whit3 Ghost]

On saturday I played a local shindig with Deadguy, which I borrowed from rsaunder who decided to play Wastedlifes UGR Gro list.

The list
4x Waste
4x Scrub
5x Fetches
Xx Swamps
1x Tomb of Urami

Creatures
4x Confidant
4x Hyppie
3x Withered Wretch
4x Nantuko Shade

Disruption/Destruction
4x Duress
4x Hymn
4x Sinkhole
4x Vindicate
2x Cursed Scroll(could very well become Jotun Grunt or Spectral Lynx)

Randomness that can win the damn game
1x Umezowa's Jitte

Sideboard
3x Warmth
4x Plague
3x Negator(NEEDs to be extraction, as this cost me a game)
2x Serenity
3x Dystopia

About 11-14 people showed(a lower turnout than usual)

//Round 1, GW beetz
Game 1- I duress, seeing creatures and double Ascetic. He drops a BOP on his turn and passes. My turn 2 Hymn picks up BOTH of the suckers and I think I'm home free. He casts armadillo cloak on the BOP and I can't draw the White source for Vindicate.

Sideboard out- 4 duress
Side in- 3 Dystopia, 2 Serenity

Game 2- Ritual Hyppie. Turn 2 sinkhole. He eventually gets the swords, but Dystopia wrecks his day.

Game 3. One thing about Chris' list is that the random 1 ofs can just steal games.
I keep a lot of his stuff off of the board untill he stabilizes with a Watchwolf. With the Wolf coming at my head, I ritual and activate Tomb, and block the dog. I kept a few land in hand so tomb didn't hurt me at all. He scooped it up when I ritualed into Dystopia a turn later.

1-0
2-1-0

//Round 2- rsaunder with UGR Gro(12 burn spell)
He's a terrible matchup for me, but I convince him to ID due to the low turnout

1-1
3-2-1

//Round 3- Red Death
First, let me say that this list was suboptimal and ran Lotus Petal MD.
Game 1
I smash face. The random Jitte is sick and my Hyppie rides it to victory.

Game 2
I die to turn 1 hyppie, turn 2 Jitte

Game 3
I get a good start, Duress Hymn and creatures. Unfortunately I can't find any LD and am starting to get a little worried. She drops her Jitte and I'm left scrambling to find an answer. I swing for 10 with a Confidant and a Shade to drop her to 3(at this point I'm banking that she'll kill herself off of her own confidant with a Specter or a Negator). She equips Jitte to her Confidant and kills both my doods and Drops Wretched Anurid. Me forgetting about Anurid, thinks that its gg. I drop double confidant and pass my turn. She reveals a Chain Lightning.
rsaunder, who was watching the match(and is my new guardian angel) points out that she lost two life because of Anurid. I pump the fist and laugh.

//Top 4- Kobold combo(!)
Game 1
I disrupt and smash. Nothing much to this game other than that I drew 3 Hymns.

Game 2- I have decent disruption(and a turn 1 Negator), but I mess up and cast a Specter over Vindicating his land. He goes off with that land and I kick myself in the teeth.
However, I'd like to say, that if Negator was Cranial Extraction I would have won the game.

Game 3- My ride shows up and I can't bargain for time. We played the first few turns and I had the game in the bag, I just couldn't get through his shit tons of blockers in time. I grudgingly concede and leave empty handed.

[NANTUKO_SHADY]

So... is anyone planning on bringing Deadguy to The Mana Leak Open!?!

[Whit3 Ghost]

So... is anyone planning on bringing Deadguy to The Mana Leak Open!?!

If rsaunder or I go, one of us would play it. However, this is highly unlikely

[laststepdown]

So the only time Negator was really bad for you was at a misplay-doesn't seem too bad. I think the single Jitte could be even more amazing with the Grunt(as you stated, over Cursed Scroll)-but I'm unaware how many fetchlands your build runs. Not that anyone cares, but personally I run Grunt in SB to bring Negator out against Threshold.

As for the debate of Infest, do you personally bring in Plague against Thresh to begin with? That's a rhetorical question. I'm going to see if Mutilate is a better option, but I don't like raising the mana curve any more than I have to.

[Phantom]

As for the debate of Infest, do you personally bring in Plague against Thresh to begin with? That's a rhetorical question. I'm going to see if Mutilate is a better option, but I don't like raising the mana curve any more than I have to.

I like Mutilate, but isn't Dystopia > Mutilate against Thresh? It's a one sided, slightly slower Wrath that is in your curve. It's perfect against Thresh because they rarely overrun you with threats and you can play it around Daze about the time they are achieving Threshold.

I like the 1-of Jitte, but I've never really understood why people run 3 Shades instead of 4. They are so deadly (assuming you drop him on turn 2 and make your third land drop he's a 4 turn clock that eats your mana) and yet so easy to kill that I would always rather draw 2 than draw none.

To be completely honest, this deck has yet to perform very well recently. I feel the meta has changed enough that we should start looking at other options for this deck to have fair game-maybe creatures aren't what needs to be added.

I agree. I've done a fair bit of testing with the deck as it's in my gauntlet, and have been impressed with it's strengths, but I think I have identified it's major weaknesses (note:these are not ground breaking)

1) Resolved threats, especially big creatures are hard to deal with.
2) The creature base.
3) Many strong matchups are easy to lose.

I actually think #1 is a tad overrated as a weakness. It always suffered at the hands of FS when it dropped a Sea Drake first turn, but it deals much better with slower ground threats via Vindicate, pumped shade, and sometimes StP. I actually think what the removal suite is missing most is a good sweeper. We hit the hand and mana base as fast as possible, but Legacy is so fast, we can't deny all decks permanents, all of the time. Some are bound to slip through. But, if we spend the first 3is turns hitting their hand and mana base, then sweep the board, well that would be pretty sweet.

As for the creature base, I don't really have a problem with the number of creatures (12-15 seems solid) I have a problem with their durability. Follow my logic here. Deadguy is a mana denial deck. Our job is to cut them off from a color, often times their removal color (like cutting off W or R from Thresh). Legacy is a fast format. Every deck must run turn one answers to Lackey. Nearly all of those turn one answers kill any of our creatures. So all a deck must do to kill one of our threats is topdeck one measly fecth/dual/basic and it puts us back at no clock. In many ways, Deadguy is like Thresh. They are both denial decks, they simply have different denial methods (discard and LD vs. Mage, Needle, and Counters). I think one of the differences in the decks performances of late is the quality of creatures each deck runs. Ironically enough, their creature mana curve is often lower than ours.

The matchups are a bit subjective, but it seems that this deck was built to smash combo, crush Thresh, and hose random decks with bad mana bases. To some extent, it has recently been failing to do all three. I can't personally attest to the combo matchups, but I know Thresh matchup is not as favorable as it should be, or at least as I'd like it. Lastly, because of this deck and Goblins running 4 Ports and Wastes, mana bases have become the tightest they've ever been.


So I'm sure you're wondering if I am just going to list problems and leave the solutions to others. Please, I'm action oriented. There are a ton of ways you can go to fix some of these problems. Maindeck Mutilate and Negator (or Lynx). Or you could support WW for Wrath and Angel. Here's mine:


Phantom's Modest Proposal in 2 Parts

1) I tested the deck with Deed a while back. I was surprised at how easily the mana base supported it. Up the fetches and simply fetch G or W as needed. You generally run less than 8 white spells and I was only running 3 Deeds. The slightly shaky mana base hurt me in two matchups, the mirror and Goblins. Luckily, Deed is an absolute beating in both those matchups so at worse it seemed a wash. Meanwhile, Deed was improving my Thresh, Angel Stompy, FS, Random Aggro and Rifter matchups. I think everyone should at least test this and see if I'm right or yell at me.

2) So I've decided on a Green splash. This opens the door to a ton of interesting creatures. The one I'm most interested in (I think) is Nimble Mongoose (at least till they print a 2G Troll Ascetic). With the upped fetch count, Ritual, Wasteland, discard, etc. I would imagine we achieve Threshold fairly timely (turn 5 maybe?). I'm not even really concerned with that right now, so much as I am focusing on how much Goose brings to the table for this deck. At worst, he's the best turn one Lackey answer we have, and at best he's a nightmare for opponents to deal with through the discard and land destruction. As for where to run him? I'd say cut Wretches and/or Hypys for him. I've found that first turn Hypy's never connect with non-combo decks and third turn Hypys are laughable late. We can move him to the board if we don't have better combo hate located there. Here's a rough build of what I'm talking about:

B/w/g Phantom Confidant: A Dorm Brew

//Creatures (15)
4 Dark Confidant
4 Shades
4 Mongoose
3 Spectal Lynx

//Spells (23)
4 Duress
4 Ritual
4 Hymn
4 Sinkhole
4 Vindicate
3 Deed

//Lands(22)
4 Wasteland
hmm. Not sure yet. I do LOVE Tomb here, so I'd like to keep that. Also, I'm not the best mana base builder, so we'll see what I come up with.


Well, I guess that's the end of this monster. I'm sure some people will have some thoughts, lol.

[laststepdown]

Phantom: The reason to run 3 Shades over 4 is because you can rarely keep 2 alive on the board while still disrupting their hand and board. I do agree with you about Dystopia. Infest is my choice over Plague against gobbos(for clarification). I've been complaining about the creature base's durability for quite a while. Someone agrees with me (finally). As for the green splash, I started playing this format with Nimble Mongoose. This deck does achieve Threshold quickly-but I believe you've created a hybrid of Deadguy. (Deadguy Deed?) I highly suggest starting a different thread for it, where we can discuss your build, isolated from the original, to avoid confusion in an already busy thread.

As for the 1-of Jitte, it seems stronger than Scroll. Under the same philosophy that Scroll was, it could be the board control (in theory, cheaper board control at that) we've been looking for-and makes Infest that much more fun. :)

[rsaunder]

As a clarification to Whit3_Ghost's post, I (he) ran 5 saclands, 3 mire and 2 delta, 4 shades and only 2 scrolls.

@The green splash: If it didn't kill all my stuff, too, I'd be all over that. If I want a sweeper that kills everything, I'd go mutilate. At least it lets scroll and jitte stick around. I guess the splash could be done easily (3 bayu for 3 swamps, keep the fetch base the same.)

@Cranial extraction>negator: I think it's a great idea. What do you guys think?

I'd be willing to give a serious shot to sweepers, such as mutilate and deed, while cutting the jitte and wretches from my build. I just wish there were something good in the 3-cc range that was on color.

Also, one quick nooby question: I have e. plague on the board, naming [whatever werebear's creature type is], why doesn't that kill the bear (the bear isn't in play yet, he just cast it from his hand)? I thought that e. plague's effect always happened first (matron not getting the tutoring ability and all).

[Anarky87]

Also, one quick nooby question: I have e. plague on the board, naming [whatever werebear's creature type is], why doesn't that kill the bear (the bear isn't in play yet, he just cast it from his hand)? I thought that e. plague's effect always happened first (matron not getting the tutoring ability and all).

I always thought that when you, for instance, had a Plague out naming Goblins, they could still cast Matron, his effect will trigger, but it will die when SBE's are checked. Then afterwards, its tutor ability will go on the stack, letting you search for a Goblin. Like this example:

Q: I resolve Engineered Plague, naming druid. If a player casts a Yavimaya Elder, do they get to search out two lands and put them in hand?

A: Yes. The Elder must come into play in order for the Plague to affect it. The game sees it go to the graveyard from play, so its ability triggers.

I'm not sure about the Werebear though.

[quicksilver]

Also, one quick nooby question: I have e. plague on the board, naming [whatever werebear's creature type is], why doesn't that kill the bear (the bear isn't in play yet, he just cast it from his hand)? I thought that e. plague's effect always happened first (matron not getting the tutoring ability and all).

Matron does get to tutor. E. plaugue kills the matron but he can still tutor for a goblin just fine. It doesn't kill a werebear whith thresh, because one says -1/-1, the other says +3/+3. They aply at exactly the same time, and neither takes precedence of ther other, so it is a 3/3.

Also, your avatar I think Mulletus used to have that exact same one, I think it is mulletus posting every time I see it.

[rsaunder]

Matron does get to tutor. E. plaugue kills the matron but he can still tutor for a goblin just fine. It doesn't kill a werebear whith thresh, because one says -1/-1, the other says +3/+3. They aply at exactly the same time, and neither takes precedence of ther other, so it is a 3/3.

Also, your avatar I think Mulletus used to have that exact same one, I think it is mulletus posting every time I see it.

Really? I thought I stole the avatar fair and square from someone over at the Starcity vintage forums.

Matron gets the tutor? Well, some judge at Philly diserves to be canned in that case

In any case, though, thanks for clearing that up.

[laststepdown]

@Cranial extraction>negator: I think it's a great idea. What do you guys think?
I just wish there were something good in the 3-cc range that was on color.

There is...it's just that no one besides me has the courage to play him.

Also, one quick nooby question: I have e. plague on the board, naming [whatever werebear's creature type is], why doesn't that kill the bear (the bear isn't in play yet, he just cast it from his hand)? I thought that e. plague's effect always happened first (matron not getting the tutoring ability and all).

I'm assuming you mean a Thresholded Bear. Power/toughness attributions are the last applied state based effect-threshold is a static ability, as well as E Plague's -1/-1. They happen at the same time-continuously. If you were to activate a Tormond's Crypt, targeting the Werebear's controller's graveyard, then Werebear would lose threshold and become a 0/0, and be placed in the owner's graveyard. You can read about State based effects on your own time, in the comprehensive rulebook, rule #420.1 through #420.5. As for Matron, yes, you can tutor. Things like Fanatic though, can't be sacrificed in response to a static ability-they're in the graveyard before you have the priority to activate the ability.

Now my question to you, to stay on topic (discussion of the build, not rules of the game itself) why would you not name Mongoose? You can target Bears with removal, but not the Goose.

[rsaunder]

It was simply the way I chose to ask the question. Goose would of course be the correct choice, but werebear popped into my head first while I was typing the question.

"@Cranial extraction>negator: I think it's a great idea. What do you guys think?
I just wish there were something good in the 3-cc range that was on color."

Those lines were on two seperate topics.

[laststepdown]

Indeed they are-it's just my opinion that Negator answers the question you posed. ;)

I hope I answered your question appropriately though. If you have any more questions about state-based effects, or rules in general, don't be afraid to message me through here or an instant messanger.

[rsaunder]

"Indeed they are-it's just my opinion that Negator answers the question you posed. ;)"--laststepdown

Gotcha.

So I tried the green splash, and I've got to say that I'm impressed. While it didn't drasticly improve the thresh matchup like I was hoping for (I did take out 3 wretch for it, so...) it really did help beat the ever loving heck out of creature based aggro. Most of the time, though, I found that it was killing creatures and not any artifacts/enchantments (getting rid of jittes was nice, but I felt that vindicate would be rather adequite for that). I'm going to try mutilate in it's place, and see if the on-color sweeper could do the trick. Admittedly deed is better, but the change to the manabase, the waiting for a turn, and the destruction of my scrolls and such was annoying.

This has proven to me, though, that the deck absolutely needs a sweeper, at least as a 2-of.

[M.Maddox]

Aren't sweepers really ruining your creatures, as well? Or are you holding back on your creature plays?

[The Marco]

I like Mutilate in the side against random aggro, goblins and even Threshold... It's just a matter of playing it smart...

[DeathwingZERO]

I really like the idea of Mutilate myself, it's just a matter of figuring out what we would take out of the SB or modifying the MD in order to fit maybe 2-3 of these guys.

In almost all cases though, Maddox, you rarely will hit more than 1 of your own creatures by turn 3-4 (which is the golden opporunity, in my experiences), unless your the aggro player of the matchup. Most of the time it's considered x-1 in your favor, especially against aggro decks like Thresh, Gobs, and R/G beats.

[nitewolf9]

I run 2 maindeck mutilates and one in the side now, and it's been pretty useful. I find I'm playing disruption for most of the early game anyway, so it's actually really common against aggro to mutilate all their threats away turn 3-4, with them not having a hand/enough land to recover, then dropping a shade/hippie/whatever ftw.

It's a good addition, it just kinda sucks to turn it over w/ confidant (which almost never happens actually, and it's only one more point than the 2 md plagues of the original build). Pikula himself said that he wanted his only 2 creature destruction spells to be high impact, and I'd say mutilate fits that bill.

[Tacosnape]

What are thoughts of Jotun Grunt in this deck over Withered Wretch? He can't get rid of a card whenever you choose like Wretch can, nor can he be played off a Ritual turn one. He does, however, fit the bill of needing a large face-beater, hating on Threshold/Flashback/LFTL/What have you, synergizes fairly well with all the discard you run, gets around protection from black, and doesn't die horribly to any damage-based spell.