[Deck] Death and Taxes

[redtwister]

@Barook
This is what I do against Infect with Imperial. Despite Flickerwisp being generally decent, at 3, it is only as good as having a vial in, which for me makes it too slow.
-1 Batterskull
-1 Vryn Wingmare
-1 Mirran Crusader
-3 Flickerwisp
+3 Sudden Demise
+2 Ethersworn Canonist
+1 Pithing Needle

Stop Inkmoth (Needle)
Board wipe creatures (Demise)
Stop multiple spells per turn (Canonist)

[iatee]

I don't think we need Needle, especially if it's right to play multiple Magus post-board, Inkmoth is the least of our worries.

I played 19 matches (mostly post-sb) vs my friend on Grixis Delver tonight and I think I won 15. I don't think that deck has a lot of game post-DTT. Won past double Dread of Night in play two separate times.

[Hopo]

Infect players tend to fist pump whenever you cast mom or Thalia so you might want to consider siding those out. Magus is one of the best cards against infect - if played on turns 1-2. Your deck is not equipped to spit out game-endingly fast maguses so do not put too much emphasis on that.

[Stevestamopz]

Infect players tend to fist pump whenever you cast mom or Thalia so you might want to consider siding those out. Magus is one of the best cards against infect - if played on turns 1-2. Your deck is not equipped to spit out game-endingly fast maguses so do not put too much emphasis on that.

Lol wot. Everything you said is wrong.

[Hopo]

Lol wot. Everything you said is wrong.

Sure, if you say so without any explanations.

[Barook]

Sure, if you say so without any explanations.

Out of the 2 matches I played 2 days ago, 3 out of my 4 wins were caused by Magus of the Moon - 2 were won on the spot by it and the third won greatly swung into my favor thanks to it.

Stall them with removal, then drop a well-timed Magus. Their manabase is extremely greedy and hitting their utility lands (Inkmoth Nexus, Pendelhaven) hurts them alot. If you're lucky and they can't deploy a basic forest, then it also turns of Invigorate.

[Hopo]

What are your opponents siding in? I never lost a match after siding in needle and Null rod. That leaves you very little reliable answers to Agent, the main threat in the matchup (outside t1 elf nuts). Thalia hinders stp to the point that it has been identified as more of a nuisance than anything else.

I myself have to play in an environment where imperial painter is a real contender so my deck reflects that and trust me, turn 3 or 4 magus is not something I fear. I understand if Magus catches bad pilots but you shouldn't count on that.
Take a look at the infect thread to see how people feel about the matchup. To me it has always been one of the better ones and I appear to not be alone.

You have a game if you have a live Vial, removal and a reasonable clock. A magus on empty board is obviously nuts but after the first fetchland you are facing a basic forest.

But you should probably ask stevesampoz as his response hints he has hidden knowledge and impressive record against infect.

[Stevestamopz]

But you should probably ask stevesampoz as his response hints he has hidden knowledge and impressive record against infect.

Never lost to it with r/w yet, lost to it many times with Gobs and mono-white.

Thalia absolutely hoses infect and stops them from just killing you with all their free spells. We have 23 lands and can easily pay 1 more for one spell - Infect can't; especially when they have to pay mana for their normally free spells.

But whatever, I'm not engaging in shitposting with you on this. Magus and Thalia are powerhouses against Infect and their greedy manabase and that's that.

[Hopo]

Thalia absolutely hoses infect

No matter how many times you repeat this, it won't make it true.

There is a common misconception about infect being an all-in combo deck that aims to play several spells in a single turn to end the game. I could actually swear your reply claimed exactly that when I first read it. Either I read completely wrong in haste or you edited your post afterwards to reflect more the actual reality. Either way, I now understand where your opinions come from. If you think of infect as a fragile combo deck that commits it's hand to killing the second a creature connects, you might end up with such view. Even many infect players do that mistake, claim the deck to be bad because of that and abandon it.

Thalia does little to stop Agents with Hierarch beating you down over some turns. In any non-combo matchup infect shouldn't go for the combo kill unless they have to or they know the coast is clear. It plays a very elegant aggro-combo-control game which sometimes ends on turn 2 against a tapped out opponent who didn't respect the tiny elf.

Your trump card against infect is Jitte. Ethersworn canonist is the runner-up. Not because it stops infect comboing in a single turn but because it makes to choose between playing, protecting or pumping a threat or controlling the board. Canonist makes Stp a real threat because you have to slow down the game considerably to have an answer up all the time. Thalia just doesn't have the same impact as you can still play the spells if you have mana and it has zero impact on Hierarch, which is golden in this matchup.

Magus shuts down nexus, which is kind of a thing but you could never count on it against Wasteland and Port in the first place.

Sometimes you have the nuts and infect can do nothing but I have to courage to claim that outside anecdotes infect is the favored deck in this matchup.

[Finn]

No matter how many times you repeat this, it won't make it true.

There is a common misconception about infect being an all-in combo deck that aims to play several spells in a single turn to end the game. I could actually swear your reply claimed exactly that when I first read it. Either I read completely wrong in haste or you edited your post afterwards to reflect more the actual reality. Either way, I now understand where your opinions come from. If you think of infect as a fragile combo deck that commits it's hand to killing the second a creature connects, you might end up with such view. Even many infect players do that mistake, claim the deck to be bad because of that and abandon it.

Thalia does little to stop Agents with Hierarch beating you down over some turns. In any non-combo matchup infect shouldn't go for the combo kill unless they have to or they know the coast is clear. It plays a very elegant aggro-combo-control game which sometimes ends on turn 2 against a tapped out opponent who didn't respect the tiny elf.

Your trump card against infect is Jitte. Ethersworn canonist is the runner-up. Not because it stops infect comboing in a single turn but because it makes to choose between playing, protecting or pumping a threat or controlling the board. Canonist makes Stp a real threat because you have to slow down the game considerably to have an answer up all the time. Thalia just doesn't have the same impact as you can still play the spells if you have mana and it has zero impact on Hierarch, which is golden in this matchup.

Magus shuts down nexus, which is kind of a thing but you could never count on it against Wasteland and Port in the first place.

Sometimes you have the nuts and infect can do nothing but I have to courage to claim that outside anecdotes infect is the favored deck in this matchup.

This has been my experience as well. I do not know what Stevestampozs has been doing, but I find myself fearing the different roles infect can take against me. Sometimes you have Jitte, Vial at 3 , and Flickerwisp in hand, ready for whatever because they drew lots of creatures. Other times, you are dead long before that because they had just one and lots of accel. What I really want against that deck is Glasses of Urza.

EDIT: Upon further thought, I have landed Magus of the Moon exactly zero times due to my lack of playing them. Different deck - different potential for results.

[iatee]

I think I still like Mom as a way to provide insurance against t1 Elf, but I definitely have had plenty of games where Thalia was more of a nuisance for me than she was for the Infect player. I think I'm going to try the side-out-Thalias plan in the future, especially on the draw.

Infect has ramp, tons of free spells, and Thalia doesn't even provide a great blocker since she'll still die to any pump spell or a Pendelhaven. Thalia *can* sometimes have moments where she saves us from a t2/3 kill, but if they were on the play and their opening was noble->blighted, they don't need very much mana to combo win on t3, even with Thalia out. And at that point she prevents us from casting a spell and holding up STP. We're also siding in stuff like Sudden Demise, which becomes pretty hard to cast and playing around Daze with it becomes almost impossible. And the Canonists coming in kind of replace her spot in the curve, so hopefully we have a SFM/Canonist for our 2 drop play anyway.

I don't know if going down to 0 Magus is necessary, cause I like having one as a Recruiter target if they have an awkward start and we have a powerful one, and it does shut off Inkmoth. But yeah, it's not a trump card the same way it is in a lot of matchups.

[iatee]

Sometimes you have the nuts and infect can do nothing but I have to courage to claim that outside anecdotes infect is the favored deck in this matchup.

Yeah I think this is pretty clear. That said, playing red does give us access to tools that can improve the matchup a lot. We could potentially have a build+sideboard that turns it into a favorable matchup, it's just a question of how many slots we're willing to dedicate to it.

What do you guys think of Fireslinger? Less of a blowout than Goblin Sharpshooter, but comes out a turn earlier. Could 4 in the sideboard be a good-enough replacement for Sudden Demise vs Elves? It's also a human. I find it hard to imagine losing the mirror match very often w/ 4 of those post-board.

[iatee]

Fireslinging Human Taxes

4 Thalia
4 Mom
4 SFM
4 Flickerwisp
3 Recruiter
3 Revoker
2 Magus
1 Mangara
1 Crusader

4 STP / 4 Vial / Bskull / Sofi / Jitte

4 Port
4 Wasteland
3 Cavern of Souls
4 Fetch
2 Plateau
3 Plains
3 Karakas

SB:
4 Fireslinger
4 Ethersworn
2 Containment Priest
1 Manic Vandal
1 Magus of the Moon
3 Rest in Peace

Rough SB plan:
Storm - +4 Ethersworn, +1 Rip - 4 STP, - 1 Jitte
Infect - +4 Fireslinger, +4 Ethersworn, - 4 Thalia, -2 Magus, -1 Batterskull, -1 Mom
Elves - +4 Fireslinger, +4 Ethersworn, +2 Containment Priest -4 Thalia, -2 Magus, -1 Mangara, -1 SoFI, -2 Flickerwisp
Shardless - +1 Magus, +3 Rip - 1 Mangara, - 1 SoFI, -2 Flickerwisp
Lands - +3 RIP, +1 Magus, -2 STP, - 2 Revoker
Miracles - +1 Manic Vandal +1 Ethersworn -2 Magus
D+T - +4 Fireslinger, +1 Manic Vandal, +1 Containment Priest -4 Thalia, -2 Magus
Rug Delver - +3 RIP, +1 Magus, - 3 Revoker, - 1 Mangara
Reanimator - +3 RIP, +2 Containment Priest -2 Magus, -3 Revoker
Merfolk - +1 Manic Vandal, +2 Containment Priest -1 Mangara, -2 Magus

[Bosque]

I guess I'd rather have Cunning Sparkmage than Fireslinger because of haste. Comes online same timeframe, less warning though.

[iatee]

Maybe, I'd like to test both. Fire t2 lets you spend your mana in more ways t3 and/or leave your vial on 2 which is important since your 2 drops are key here and/or sometimes hold up STP + ping vs infect.

Both still leave you open to just losing to elves/infect perfect hands if you're on the draw, but also are much better in the mirror than Sudden Demise. Also can't be countered by infect.

[Barook]

Maybe, I'd like to test both. Fire t2 lets you spend your mana in more ways t3 and/or leave your vial on 2 which is important since your 2 drops are key here and/or sometimes hold up STP + ping vs infect.

Both still leave you open to just losing to elves/infect perfect hands if you're on the draw, but also are much better in the mirror than Sudden Demise. Also can't be countered by infect.

Why not run a split? Fireslinger doesn't come online before T3 and that might still be too slow. Sudden Demise was run in the first place because being able to nuke them on T2 is so much better than T3. Otherwise, Ratchet Bomb would solve a good chunk of our problems in those match-ups without the need of a splash.

[CheddarOps]

For what it's worth, I've played mono white with 2 gut shot in the board for elves, infect, and the mirror and I've had a pretty good experience against all 3 matchups as a result. That might be due to my skill, my opponent's skill, the surprise factor of gut shot, or luck, but it's felt like enough to get them in post board games.

It doesn't really add another dimension to the match up, but it's been good to me against infect, and I'd suggest trying it out if you're monowhite.

[iatee]

Why not run a split? Fireslinger doesn't come online before T3 and that might still be too slow. Sudden Demise was run in the first place because being able to nuke them on T2 is so much better than T3. Otherwise, Ratchet Bomb would solve a good chunk of our problems in those match-ups without the need of a splash.

I have two problems with Sudden Demise:
1. I think Elves is the only matchup where it's 100% always the best card you could have and so I find myself siding it in pretty infrequently / half-heartedly. There are also likely to be fewer Pyro decks around.
2. It requires a lot of red mana sources, which makes it harder to abuse Cavern, a card that gives us a super dominant game 1 vs blue decks.

I think it might be worth giving up a certain % of those t3 losses to play with a deck with a more flexible sideboard and a more powerful main. I'd like to test that sample sideboard over a large set of post-board matches vs Elves/Infect/D+T, maybe I'll be able to force one of my friends into doing it sometime soon. It feels like postboard having 4 SFM/4 Ethersworn/4 Fireslinger/3 Revoker/2 Containment Priest (plus 3 Recruiters) should be enough to:
1. Be curving out w/ nothing but relevant creatures almost every game +
2. Always win the long game

[Barook]

2. It requires a lot of red mana sources, which makes it harder to abuse Cavern, a card that gives us a super dominant game 1 vs blue decks.

That's a fair point. Other options to consider:

Kris Mage: Would be faster, but costs to activate and also cards
Sparkmage Apprentice: is also a usable on T2 and allows for Flickerwisp shenanigans, but is also a one-shot use
Stun Sniper: Harder to cast, can't hit players and costs activate, binding part of our mana. Can tap down fat creatures, though.

[iatee]

I think the R activation makes Kris Mage worse than Sudden Demise and Sparkmage is too one-for-one - which makes it worse than Gut Shot and vs Elves where we are gonna lose the one-for-one battle.

Stun Sniper is pretty cool and might have some game vs other creature decks...keeps a Delver/Goyf in check...even potentially can hold bigger cheated into play stuff in check like Emrakul/Batterskull Germ/etc. I dunno if you can ultimately afford to bring a 1/1 for 2 white creature in against a lot of those matchups, but it's not hard to think of some more uses for it.