[Deck] Death and Taxes

[kellysandall]

Priest can be vialed in, so you wont have to have 2 mana open. The fact that it shuts down afterwards is irrelevant for me, since most decks you want to play it against ,after priest enters the battefield, you are so far ahead it should be ok to finish the game.

With miracles being such a large presence and perceivably a bad match up you dont think hallowed moonlight is worth it?

[mykatdied]

Personally I don't think that effect is worth it. If you even resolve it. If hallowed moonlight is going to make or break that game, you likely already lost.

[deucegg]

Are you guys playing Eiganjo Castle now? Making Thalia 2.0 Lightning Bolt proof seems pretty good, especially with the amount of Grixis Delver around nowadays. Apart from that, I'm currently trying 3 Cavern of Souls. I feel consistently dropping a Thalia 1.0 or 2.0 turn 2/3 vs Delver Decks through Fow/ Daze is pretty damn good, to the point that it can win you the game itself. Thalia 2.0 being human also helps with having enough actual humans to cast with Cavern (alongside with Mom, Thalia 1.0, Crusader).
I've dropped lands like Flagstones of Trokair/ Horizon Canopy for them order to have enough basics to play (8 currently), and while I've had games with 2 Caverns and 0 Plains, I feel like 3 Caverns is still pretty good. What are your thoughts?

[iatee]

3 Caverns has been great in Imperial, but it has the extra bonus of color fixing + the deck is more than 50% humans. I think it's viable even in Mono-W, but only if you play exactly 0 Serra Avengers. Flickerwisp also can be a little awkward, but you do have the option of resetting the Cavern with it.

[deucegg]

3 Caverns has been great in Imperial, but it has the extra bonus of color fixing + the deck is more than 50% humans. I think it's viable even in Mono-W, but only if you play exactly 0 Serra Avengers. Flickerwisp also can be a little awkward, but you do have the option of resetting the Cavern with it.

True, I think its pretty good in Imperial Taxes. However, I think we can still play 3 alongside with Avenger/ Flickerwisp. Most of the time, you'll only need one Cavern on human (maybe two if one gets wastelanded). You can set the other two Caverns on Angel/ Elemental, depending on the situation. You still have 8 basics, 3 Karakas, Eiganjo Castle and Vials to cast/ get into play Flicker or Angel. The main idea behind playing 3 Caverns is getting Thalia 1.0/2.0 safely into play turn 2 or 3, which makes her crucially better. Having to wait an extra turn for Vial can easily be punished, especially by tempo-oriented decks.

[iatee]

I have played literally thousands of games with your manabase (3 Caverns / 12 pure white sources) and I can tell you the Cavern will definitely cost you some games over time if you run Avenger. Try it if you don't believe me, but 3 Caverns stretch the manabase to the limits for Imperial already. (Otherwise I'd be playing 4.)

Cavern's a very powerful card, I've been pushing it as much as anyone...but you have to be willing to give up some of your dependency on WW and non-humans if you want to get away with such a greedy (and high-powered) manabase.

[deucegg]

True, Ive had games where double cavern fucked me up and even made me lose the game. It definitely is greedy, but imo still worth it.

What about Eiganjo Castle?

[Marungo]

Eiganjo castle is far from unreasonable and is probably worth a shot. I just have never wanted it in the matchups where it's good cause it requires mana up and bolt decks (typically delver) are typically good matchups anyhow. Worth testing? Definitely. I just don't like too many wasteable or blood moonable white lands.

Other thing I want to discuss is the miracles question. Not hallowed moonlight, I think the card is terrible and cost 3 with Thalia, but the idea that miracles is a bad matchup. Do you guys agree with that cause I feel once you get good with the deck we're slightly favored? Nothing huge but slight favorites

[mykatdied]

Eiganjo castle is far from unreasonable and is probably worth a shot. I just have never wanted it in the matchups where it's good cause it requires mana up and bolt decks (typically delver) are typically good matchups anyhow. Worth testing? Definitely. I just don't like too many wasteable or blood moonable white lands.

Other thing I want to discuss is the miracles question. Not hallowed moonlight, I think the card is terrible and cost 3 with Thalia, but the idea that miracles is a bad matchup. Do you guys agree with that cause I feel once you get good with the deck we're slightly favored? Nothing huge but slight favorites

With experience miracles is laughable at best, even at worst. If you listen to TEs recent interview that was how he guaranteed top 8 at gp Strausburg. He got into the draw bracket and beat miracles 3 or 4 matches after that. I think with enough experience we can make miracles a very favored match up to slightly favored at worst

[Stevestamopz]

If you want to stick it to Entreat the Angels/Tokens, play Ratchet Bomb. That card is really really good against quite a lot of decks, Miracles included.

Containment Priest is miles better than Hallowed Moonlight.

[Marungo]

With experience miracles is laughable at best, even at worst. If you listen to TEs recent interview that was how he guaranteed top 8 at gp Strausburg. He got into the draw bracket and beat miracles 3 or 4 matches after that. I think with enough experience we can make miracles a very favored match up to slightly favored at worst

Yeah I've won my last 8 matches or so in tournaments to miracles. I was just wondering cause I know some people have differing views on things like matchups (such as people who say we are favored against ANT). I love playing miracles but didn't want to assume everyone had the same experience

[Medea_]

For every colorless mana-producing land you run, you reduce your ability to cheat in equipment with Stoneforge, cast StP in a timely fashion, and cast double white cards (including Council's Judgment, Cataclysm, Gideon). I don't think it's worth going too deep to improve the Miracles matchup (it's already even to good to start with). Cavern is, I'd argue, actively bad in most matchups that aren't Miracles. I've said time and time again that the card would likely be unplayable if Miracles wasn't a thing. Our deck is mathematically light on white sources. Vial lets us cheat a bit, but there is no reason to push it. Once you start factoring in Wastelands, Blood Moons, and the like, extra non-basics start to seem less appealing. In order for a huge number of Caverns to be appealing, you have to be darn close to tribal, something along the lines of what Iatee et al. have been playing with the splash.

Hallowed Moonlight is probably unplayable. Containment Priest is so much better against things like Dredge, Reanimator, Elves, and Sneak and Show that the upside of being able to hit Entreat is just not worth it. I know that I'm certainly not holding up mana for that all game; I'd rather have a Warping Wail at that point so it could hit Terminus as well. It also doesn't play well with Vial and Thalia.

[Adan]

With experience miracles is laughable at best, even at worst. If you listen to TEs recent interview that was how he guaranteed top 8 at gp Strausburg. He got into the draw bracket and beat miracles 3 or 4 matches after that. I think with enough experience we can make miracles a very favored match up to slightly favored at worst

I played Miracles a couple of times now and I think the matchup is by far not as good as you state it to be. You have to take into account that Miracles is per default the best deck in the format. Hence, people (including me) pick it up sometimes but have no idea what to do against certain matchups.

In my experience it all really boils down to Aether Vial. Against Miracles I tend to mulligan very aggressively to Aether Vial because otherwise Counterbalance is live. But other than that, it's difficult to win against multiple sweepers and spotremoval if you don't happen to be able to bounce your legendary creatures around with Karakas and Vial, or simply stick Mother of Runes which is also rather mediocre in that matchup. But multiple StoPs with multiple Snapcasters are extremely annoying.
I won almost all the games where I had Aether Vial and I can just recall winning one game without. I lost one game with Aether Vial because Sulfur Elemental (and then he had StoP, StoP, Snapcaster for Batterskull that I flickered 3 times).

But I realized that I underrated Sword of Fire and Ice in that matchups as it transforms every creature into a serious threat (Jace-proof and can't be chumped by Snapcasters) which allows you to apply pressure without overextending.

[Next_rim]

Just debuted my new THC tech at a weekly - 8x thalias and 3x ancient tombs maindeck. Clean 4-0 sweep, turn 2 THC wins games on the spot.

Additional benefit of turn 1 revoker, turn 1 warping wail and general speed boost felt good. Will keep on testing. I cut 1x port, cavern and mishra factory for the tombs, and cut leonin relic-warders and serra avengers for thalias.

[Barook]

Just debuted my new THC tech at a weekly - 8x thalias and 3x ancient tombs maindeck. Clean 4-0 sweep, turn 2 THC wins games on the spot.

Additional benefit of turn 1 revoker, turn 1 warping wail and general speed boost felt good. Will keep on testing. I cut 1x port, cavern and mishra factory for the tombs, and cut leonin relic-warders and serra avengers for thalias.

Can you post your list? I'm also interested in your SB.

[Bosque]

Just debuted my new THC tech at a weekly - 8x thalias and 3x ancient tombs maindeck. Clean 4-0 sweep, turn 2 THC wins games on the spot.

Additional benefit of turn 1 revoker, turn 1 warping wail and general speed boost felt good. Will keep on testing. I cut 1x port, cavern and mishra factory for the tombs, and cut leonin relic-warders and serra avengers for thalias.

Have you tried Soldier Stompy?

[Next_rim]

Can you post your list? I'm also interested in your SB.

Here is the list: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/legac...-taxes-copy-3/

Have you tried Soldier Stompy?

No. Why would I? Its a different deck. I just tested some alternative ways to land a turn 2 thc.

[Barook]

Here is the list: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/legac...-taxes-copy-3/

How good has been MD Warping Wail for you? I wonder if it's better than Eldrazi Displacer in that slot, given the number of colorless sources you have.

[zebotc]

I was introduced to this deck about two years ago and immediately was drawn towards it because I always enjoy playing different and unique kinds of strategies. So far every time I've played it I've had a blast and I've never had more fun playing magic than with this deck. So recently I've decided to finally get serious and build the deck for real. I was just wondering what you guys think of the list that I've worked out using the new Thalia, is there anything that you guys might consider changing?

4 Flickerwisp
4 Mother of Runes
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Cavern of Souls
3 Karakas
11 Plains
4 Wasteland
4 AEther Vial
3 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
4 Rishadan Port
1 Mangara of Corondor
2 Serra Avenger
SB: 2 Containment Priest
SB: 2 Council's Judgment
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 Rest in Peace
SB: 1 Ratchet Bomb
SB: 2 Enlightened Tutor
SB: 1 Chalice of the Void
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Grafdigger's Cage

[Farone]

I was introduced to this deck about two years ago and immediately was drawn towards it because I always enjoy playing different and unique kinds of strategies. So far every time I've played it I've had a blast and I've never had more fun playing magic than with this deck. So recently I've decided to finally get serious and build the deck for real. I was just wondering what you guys think of the list that I've worked out using the new Thalia, is there anything that you guys might consider changing?

4 Flickerwisp
4 Mother of Runes
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Cavern of Souls
3 Karakas
11 Plains
4 Wasteland
4 AEther Vial
3 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
4 Rishadan Port
1 Mangara of Corondor
2 Serra Avenger
SB: 2 Containment Priest
SB: 2 Council's Judgment
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 Rest in Peace
SB: 1 Ratchet Bomb
SB: 2 Enlightened Tutor
SB: 1 Chalice of the Void
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Grafdigger's Cage

seems fine with me! Maybe Mishra's Factory over a Plains:) But that is just my personal preference.