Well the event started off on a good note. Soon as I walked in the TO had me signed up, paid, and had my normal ritual ready at the counter ( Dr. Pepper and Gummy Wurms ). I built my deck with the understanding that I wanted 0 dead cards post board if possible for each match up. After spending 3-4 hours the previous night examining list and sideboards. I settled on a main deck and started to build my sideboard. Knowing how many cards I wanted to remove for each deck, it allowed me to choose cards with good overlap for multiple matches so I could fit more high impact cards. Not having brainstorm and ponder I felt it was important to have the maximum impact cards possible so that when drawn, they make the difference they need to.
Round one, after failing to give a shit about the player meeting I notice I am not signed up for the event. Since there was an odd number, they gave me the bye. This allowed me to walk around and mise and see what other folks are playing. I have a complete metagame breakdown which I will post at the end. Let me say this, there were 4 burn players.....
Round two, I get called to the feature match to play against my teammate and testing donkey, Iman from Cairo. I know he is playing some dumpster pile of 4 color stoneblade deck. You can see the match here. There is no commentary.
https://www.twitch.tv/tuskvision/v/84692971?t=01h11m31s
I feel fairly favored in these matches, I know the only way he can beat me is cast True Name Ape so my #1 goal is to keep him off magic as much as possible. If you watch the game you will see I carried out my game plan as best as my hand allowed. I feel he made a few missteps and I was able to seize the opportunity and crush his anus.
Round 3 , I know my opponent and I feel super confident about the match up. Its the Show and Ape player. I get pretty salty after this match. Game one I lead Karakas into Vial. Cavern into Thalia. his turn 3 City, Island, Island -> Show and Tell -> Omniscience -> Emrakul...... Sick deck. G2 I mulled and got bloodmooned. I wished him luck but secretly hoped he would step on a Vietnamese landmine.
Round 4 , Once again I am faced with someone I know and I feel like I am going to be leaving early to drink. My opponent was a local player who doesnt play legacy but has burn and has only played twice. His first time played was GP Columbus where he top 16'd. He beat me in the 6-0 Bracket at the GP. I end up taking the match 2-1 after using Ethersworn Cannonist to slow him down and using Displacer as a wall and to flicker his attacking Eidelon and pressure his life total. After resolving a Eidelon after my vial he was unable to keep up the race.
Round 5 , ID with another local burn player. Sick getting lava spiked so much this event.
Top 8 , Same opponent I drew in with. He is one of the more prominent burn players locally but he is a child. I took is solidly after he resolved an Eidelon and Pillar while I had a Vial out. It really seems that this match comes down to a race and eidelon is generally on our sides.
Top 4 , I get to play another teammate and friend who is playing ApeDrazi. It was a pretty reasonable game. I drew 7 wastelands between two games. #Skillgame
Finals , Iman from Cairo again. You can watch the video for this one with shitty commentary .
https://www.twitch.tv/tuskvision/v/84692971?t=06h21m29s
Overall I am impressed with the deck. Anyone interested in my SB guide let me know and I can post it.
I have a foil Spanish one so I had no choice but to play it. I drew it exactly 0 times.Originally Posted by LMental
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Soldier Stompy
-1 SFM + Mirran might prove decent but it does slightly increase the number of 3 cmc which is something I feel slows us and gives us too many risky hands. It's a fine line:
Don't really agree with taking a prelate out, it's just too good! Two gives you a better chance to draw it by T3 and gives redundancy. Against storm you put it on 4 and smile, 1 on delver and smile etc etc. I think it adds so much to the tax angle.
Play testing may always prove you right though. Do let me know how you get on!
Gerrard: "But it doesn't do anything"
Hanna: "No - It does nothing"
Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk
Soldier Stompy
What's that WW 2/2 "you have shroud" guy?
Seems OK for storm variants and burn...
Maybe
Gerrard: "But it doesn't do anything"
Hanna: "No - It does nothing"
True Believer. Thalia 1.0 and Ethersworn Canonist seem like better hate cards to me for those matchups. But there is always room in the sideboard for another hate bear to tutor for game 2 and 3.
Belcher, RUG Delver, Death & Taxes, Colorless Eldrazi, Goblins
Fuck you
Card is unplayable.
Soldier Stompy
Meh, there are better cards. But True Believer could be a bitch with Mother of Runes active in some matchups. I would run other cards though.
Belcher, RUG Delver, Death & Taxes, Colorless Eldrazi, Goblins
Cool article! One cool bullet I missed may be the most high-impact one: Magus of the Moon. It plays really well in a mono white list with 4 vial and 3 caverns. You tutor and lock down most decks and it's a nice surprise :)
Thanks! While I'm a huge fan of Magus in the WR lists floating around, I think 3 Cavern + 4 Vial isn't enough to support it in Mono White--even 4 Caverns wouldn't be enough, to be honest. You won't consistently get Vial on 3 either. So I'd say for Magus you need the Red Splash -- and a major appeal of RotG is moving away from that splash. I don't think the list needs Magus at this point but hey, I could be wrong.
If I wasn't buy with moving into my new apartment, I would probably have more time to screw around with a GW list. Noble Hierarch should be better utility than Chrome Mox. I don't like going down to 21 lands as you did. KotR as tutor target might be interesting to fetch mana denial. I would also run at least 2 basic Plains and more fetches over Duals to ensure stable mana. 4 Cavern seems a bit excessive.
Meanwhile, I'm goldfishing around a bit with a 3x Chrome Mox version of D&T, but it's kinda hard to rate an interactive deck like D&T without an opponent. What I got out of it so far in a vakuum is that you do want to run 4x SFM and 4x Recruiter in a Chrome Mox version to get maximum CA out of it. So there's that.
Geier Reach Sanitarium left a pretty good impression on me so far in goldfishing that I actually want to test 2 of it. Gets rid of the other copy of it, dead Chrome Moxen, excess legends or spells that are locked out under Prelate. I don't run Spirit in the MD atm, but that might change if Sanitarium is the real deal. If we want to run Chrome Mox, we do need some filtering. It all depends how much profit your opponent could get out of it (or not, in case Spirit is online).
Edit: A few questions regarding the Chrome Mox version should be focused on imho:
- How important is THC? Is she worth it to be run in multiples or should she only be a tutor target?
- Same goes for Prelate - how many should we run MD? 1 as tutor target? Or multiples, assuming it's really that strong? Both THC and Prelate lock out things differently.
- Is Spirit of the Labyrinth worth a MD slot, especially with multiple Sanitariums?
- Is Mangara MD material? I never missed him in my Mono W D&T and despite being tutorable now, I question how often I would actually fetch for it pre-board, given how strong our toolbox now is. He should definitely be in the 75, though.
- Do we really need more than 1 Revoker MD now?
- Jailer needs testing, at least in the 75.
Firstly I'm definitely not opposed to the idea of using Recruiter and Mox but I felt these questions had to be asked because they seem like fairly significant problems that could come up with this strategy.
I've been thinking about the new recruiter of the guard and it does seem like it could be good on paper. However I do have some questions about it. The main issue is that it is a 3 drop and raises our curve a lot. While this shouldn't be a problem I also feel like it could be for various reasons, but firstly I'm honestly not sure chrome mox really is the answer. Chrome mox is basically two for one-ing ourselves by pitching a card just to get a hate card on turn one/two that MAY stick. The vast majority of legacy is interaction and I strongly feel like pitching our valuable cards in our hands to speed up isn't necessarily the best answer because other then the recruiter we have 0 ways to replenish our hands. Not only that but chrome mox I feel really makes the deck play more like a combo deck. I don't mean that literally but what I mean is that in games that you use it if you get it out on turn one and use all of your resources to focus on a few high impact creatures and the opponent has enough interaction then the deck just runs out of gas really quickly. I'm not completely opposed to the idea of using it but I think we would need to test it a lot and as Finn suggested I think if we did use it a 2 of would be a good amount. However it does just seem really aggressive and possibly a bit greedy in the overall scheme of what our deck actually does. On paper it seems amazing but then we have to ask how many times are we going to actually just be screwed over by it in an actual game? Not only that but chrome mox basically is another land. It doesn't do anything except speed up our deck sometimes and seems to be incredibly situational its only a value play sometimes.
On the other hand in the games that you do get it turn 1/2 it can be very good but again it seems just really really aggressive.
Recruiter does have the ability to significantly improve our late game, and consistency overall but again I really feel like perhaps the way to go is a 2 or 1 of as a sort of cantrip. One of the strengths I feel with our deck is that every single one of our cards not only disrupts our opponent but makes our board state vastly more impressive and recruiter does neither of these. Albeit it searches for a card that could do this, but in actuality we are paying 2W for a 1/1. I think that the search ability can be very good at points but at other times it just seems meh- it raises our curve, barely makes an impact on our board, and forces us to cut valuable cards. Not only that but we already have incredibly strong tutorable hate cards like enchantments and artifacts using Enlightened tutor which is only W, it doesn't raise our curve and is much easier to recover from due to it's low mana cost if its disrupted. So once again on paper it seems good but in actuality how much will it really help our game plan against the vast majority of legacy?
Jotun grunt was a staple in this deck many moons ago
Magus isn't any greedier than Batterskull, they're effectively as difficult to fairly put into play (hardcasting a 5 drop in legacy vs. drawing one of 3 lands) - you play them because the reward for getting them into play is so huge.
Getting the perfect SB card to win the matchup or to get out of a situation helps win against the vast majority of legacy. I started out playing Imperial Taxes with 2 Recruiters, moved to 3 and then eventually 4. I kept increasing the number because I found myself hoping to draw into that card more than anything else. It can be clunky and slow when you don't have a Vial and you give up some consistency there, but you make up for it by winning games where you used to be praying for good topdecks.
I played at the SCG Classic today and had the worst matchup luck in my life - my first 5 matches included: Oops All Spells, Jund, Elves, Infect. I actually beat Oops and came very close with the other 3, but the tournament was very obviously not a good place for DnT, I've never seen so many Belcher decks in a room, lotta of Elves too. Too bad, was hoping to do better at the last big tournament I'll get to play o.g. Recruiters and Pia/Kiran.
I couldnt agree more with you.
chrome mox seems bad in death and taxes and too many recruiter is going to be bad as well, especially for those who want to run 4 of it without some kind of good acceleration.
i dont see the new recruiter as the new corner stone or go-to-option for our deck. i rather see it being played as some kind of mid-late game card advantage engine after we've already established our board and already played our other threats. like something more reactive that searches us the right piece for a certain situation to really push the game in our favor.
when i think about it, i feel 2 might be a good number for it, cause in my book there is nothing worse than having 2-3 of those in the opening hand, rather than actual threats.we are still playing legacy after all and too many of those will be too slow. drawing into 1 of the recruiters after we've already played or stuff though...this will be great and is going to find us the card we need in the situation. imo, it will be a great supportive card rather than the cornerstone of the deck, cause on its own it virtually does nothing on the field.
i could also see a third copy being played in the SB for match ups where you really need that ONE silver bullet.
Yes I agree that they can be good in certian situations but what about all the other match ups and situations? The card is in most games just a 1/1 for 3 and it relies on aether vial and or a lot of mana up to really get mutch value. I strongly feel like our deck is better suited to running creatures that both affect the board state and disrupt our opponent. A 4 of may work in some metas but it just seems really greedy because a lot of the time it's a very low value/slow card. We need to have tempo against a lot of decks in this format and recruiter does not give outright tempo advantage like a Thalia or Revoker or even Serra avenger would. Then also what happens if you don't draw into aether vial? The card looses so much of its value without it and it's very common to play a game where you don't draw a vial until turn 4 if even at all. I understand the argument that it lets us search our library for silver bullets but we aren't a toolbox deck we are a white weenie deck fundementally revolved around making a board state and disrupting our opponent. If we wanted a toolbox strategy we should be using green Suns zenith and be playing teeg and pridemage. I also think enlightened tutor is arguably better in a lot of situations because it's not only 1 mana and an instant but it also lets you search for about half of the same disruptive cards like revoker and ethersworn but it also allows searching for spells like rest in piece and chalice of the void which just absolutely completely hose strategies.
As @FeX said I think it could work as a 1 or 2 of just to get that extra value and game winning pieces if we need it in the late game. But a 4 of is just really aggressive. It's a good card don't get me wrong, but it just doesn't really seem like it helps our core strategy that much, it's more of a supplement in a lot of situations that helps us ensure a win. Being flooded with them in an opener or even drawing two in a lot of games is just really slow. When we could be actively disrupting or effecting the board state with different threats.
I get how in certain Metas and situations it could be good but generally in the grand scheme of things unless you know exactly everything you are going to face it just feels really bad to run 4 of and draw 2-3-4 in a game rather than drawing active and efficient threats. The deck does lack from card advantage and I feel like that's one of the reasons people wanna play it - because it provides a search effect, an effect that is successful in so many decks and something we've never really efficiently had. But it's honestly not that efficient and I think we'd be better suited running 1-2. Or sticking with the much quicker and easier to recover from enlightned tutor plan.
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
4 Karakas
1 Ancient Den
9 Plains / fetchlands + basics if SDT is real
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Recruiter of the Gard
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull
4 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Flickerwisp
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Ethersworn Canonist / Mirran Crusader
1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar / Spirit of the Lab
1 Sanctum Prelate / the 4th Flickerwisp
SB
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Leonin Relic-Warder
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Peace Keeper
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Containment Priest
etc
22 lands only, I couldn't find what to cut for the 23rd land. One land is Ancient Den and is tutorable by the 4 Enlightened Tutor. It can help to play around Massacre when you need to have WW. (Karakas → Tutor → Den)
The 4 Tutor, 4 Recruiter, 4 Stoneforge Mystic are lots of shuffling effects. Maybe Sensei's Divining Top is worth a slot in the 75 but the lands configuration needs more fetchlands.
With 4 tutors, you can grab Vial, equipment, Revoker and Canonist (and Den) to have strong disruptive turn 2 plays (4 Thalia and 4 Tutor played turn 1 and the 2 hatebears).
Yes, it is card disadvantage but the Stoneforge Mystic package and now the Recruiter package (with Flickerwisp) are *maybe* enough to mitigate the loss.
Also, Recruiter works better with Vial which you play 8 now.
Enlightened Tutor, Recruiter and Stoneforge might be the 4 of. Non-blue decks want consitency too. Now you have but people will want power over consistency...
It only took me 1 game against BUG testing Magus as a 1-of in the board with 4 Cavern of souls maindeck to sell me on the card. I still don't think it's maindeck material for mono white, but as you said, the upside against so many popular (and potentially problematic) decks is so huge that it's worth the occasional inconsistency. Simply put, a tutorable, uncounterable "I win in most board states" card against BUG, Eldrazi, Lands, Aggro Loam, 12Post, etc. is too good to pass up if you have a reasonable chance of making it work. =
Ridiculous Enlightened Tutor suggestions aside, I understand the concern people have with raising the curve and slowing down to the point where we are too far behind against aggressive decks/ allow control decks to set their locks in place before we truly get going. The way to do that, in my opinion, is to not shave our best on-curve 2 drops, namely Thalia and Mystic. Revoker, on the other hand, is rarely the turn 2 play you're looking for, so shaving a couple is fine.
Keeping a core of 4 Thalia, 4 Mystic, and a healthy number of additional 1-mana removal in the sb (with path being the clearly superior option) should give us the respite we need to reign the more aggressive decks in until we get our improved late game going. Seriously, playing against all-nonbasics delver with 3 PtE is addition to 4 Plows almost feels like cheating...
I believe if we go to under 12-13 2 drops we really need some mox.
Since I don't have good experience with chrome mox I will be running a 4 stonef/thalia + 3 revoker +1 spirit. Still thinking that I should have 1 more just for curve concerns.
In the 1 drop department I believe going down to 3 moms is still viable with the eldrazis that are around.
Yeah 12-Post in particular goes from being a very difficult matchup to a good one. I think if we go to 4 Caverns (which is probably reasonable and good Daze protection regardless) there might even be room for another cheat-splash SB card like Orzhov Pontiff or Cunning Sparkmage.
I'm not really concerned about the control decks (I've played hundreds of games with Recruiters vs Miracles and it's the single card I want to see in my opening hand the most after Aether Vial) - but yeah, aggressive decks are more of a problem when we push our curve up. The 3 PTE plan has won me the last few matches vs Grixis Delver, which was the only tier 1 deck that I felt like I had a losing record vs. when I was playing ~13 3 drops. I kept trying to find tutor targets to solve the matchup, but all you need to do vs aggressive-but-threat-light decks is stop being cute and just kill literally every creature they play. When you do, you're right, it feels unfair.
Overall a Recruiter toolbox build is much slower than Serra Avenger tempo DnT and sometimes you'll lose the game because of it. But that's a risk that can be hedged with the sideboard. On the other hand - previous builds of DnT lost games *all the time* to *everyone* because they drew the wrong cards at the wrong time and topdecked a Mom or a second Thalia when they needed a specific answer. This wasn't just a minor issue, this is one of the reasons people didn't even consider picking up the deck. Literally every other t1 legacy deck is filled with card selection, absent maybe Eldrazi but even they have Eye of Ugin for late game inevitability. People can still play more tempo-based builds of DnT that have better g1s vs aggro if they want to, but I suspect that most people are going to realize that they win more games when they have as much or sometimes more card selection than their Brainstorm opponents. It won't always work out, it will just work out more often than not, and when it does you tend to win. There is no strategy that is best against everything, the question is what strategy is strongest against the field, and I think that's going to be the more flexible strategy.
The only reason I question maxing out on Recruiters is because...we might actually want to play 4 Prelate. I think it's going to take some time for the meta to adjust to the card, and maybe it won't be as powerful eventually once people are playing more answers to it, similar to TNN, but in the short-term I think I just want to be landing t3 Prelates through Cavern...
P.S. People should really stop theorycrafting with Chrome Mox and start playtesting with it. Then you can quickly remember why it's a terrible card outside of t1 combo. It is just not a very good Magic card. We are a control deck and are better than ever at playing a long game. Miracles players don't play Lotus Petal to power out t1 Counterbalance. You don't need to have busted openings, you just need to not die right away. As far as ramp goes, I think Noble Hierarch is the only thing worth really testing, because it's not actually a terrible card on its own.
Life has been chaotic, so I was only able to goldfish a few configurations last night. I thought I was crazy, but I reached a similar conclusion while testing green-and-taxes and maverick shells. I was having problems doing something meaningful. If I got the preferred sequencing of T1 dork -> T2 Recruiter, I'm not pressuring the opponent then and there. Instead, I'm leveraging a shitty "now" for a better "future". It is the same feeling as SFM grabbing equipment. I got a bullet I really wanted, but ultimately the tutored card sits in hand. And the deck has less meat-and-potatoes when running a full suite of Recruiters. There is upside. The highs are very high: Perfect sequencing of 1 drop, Thalia GoT, Recruiter, a guaranteed solid "this is what I need" card the next turn. However, the lows are low: Two or three turns of lackluster stuff.
I think part of the issue is needing to mitigate Recruiter itself being pathetic on the board. Whereas all other hate bears do something (even SFM --- as she can "cheat" equipment), Recruiter is literally a waste of a body on the table. I think someone much smarter than me will figure out how to combine her with stuff like Cabal Therapy for value.
I also feel decklists can take bigger risks. Cavern, Vial, and Noble/DRS open up the idea of running a singleton Magus of the Moon main. This means you can disrupt mana early and then disable it entirely after Magus comes out. Then there's Meddling Mage --- turning combo/miracles into Recruiter --> Canonist, Meddling, Revoker, Thalia GoT. Let's also explore the potential of painter's servant. Laugh at the idea, but a small Painter-Grindstone package synergizes with existing Enlightened Tutors and pro-color perks from equipment/mirran crusader.
There are lots of possibilities. At the moment, I think the better solutions won't bank on needing 4x Recruiter.
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