I'm new to the deck, I put together the following list base on decks I've seen.Originally Posted by CptHaddock
Let me know any changes you would make. Thank you.
4 Mountain
1 Great Furnace
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Plateau
3 Arid Mesa
3 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
1 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Magus of the Moon
3 Goblin Welder
4 Imperial Recruiter
4 Painter's Servant
2 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Spellskite
3 Lotus Petal
4 Grindstone
2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Blood Moon
2 Red Elemental Blast
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Pyroblast
Sideboard
1 Surgical Extraction
3 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Containment Priest
2 Red Elemental Blast
3 Sudden Shock
1 Koth of the Hammer
3 Fiery Confluence
If soemone could explain the pros and cons of each version that would help me a lot pick the version I would like to play. I feel like the straight red version is the most consistent version.
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White splash is by far the most consistent as you can find your combo pieces with Enlightened Tutor, and it's the version that most run atm. The list you posted is pretty close to the "stock list", but the differences lies in tutor-targets, number of blasts/tutors and the sb.
The strength with mono-red compared to white splash is that the manabase sustains Wastelands better, and you won't find situations where you won't be able to cast something due to lack of white mana. That being said, those are pretty minor drawbacks as sol lands are the most targeted by wastelands, and in worst case Lotus Petal handle white mana problems any day. The extra sb "silver bullets" in white + E.Tutor main outweights any weakness the splashed manabase contains, at least in my opinion.
I do believe mono-red is better for learning the deck tho, as E.Tutor can offer some hard choices since the card-disadvantage can be back-breaking if used wrong (often it's just fetch grindstone/painter and win next-turn, but yeah). Also the sideboard choices in white is more focused than red, so you'll need to know the metagame in some degree.
Blue version(s) isn't considered Imperial Painter and plays out quite differently, so you'll need to visit another forum if you'd like to know the details about those ~
Personally I'm going to try out 2 in the sb as alternate wincons, especially against miracles. Koth was a king a few years back but got excluded with the realease of Monastery Mentor, since he just got beaten down before ult. Chandra on the other hand is able to Flame Slash mentor.
The removal->wincon may also be useful against other grindy decks like bigger BUG, maverick, bant, stoneblade and some others.
Last edited by Morcrux; 10-02-2016 at 01:07 PM.
Thanks for the advice! Any plans to move the new Chandra to the main? Also i've seen list play 2 Nahiri, the Harbinger in the side, what's your opinion on that card over Chandra? How has your current build been doing?
Sorry for all the questions.
I've done quite well locally, but alas I live in a relatively small country. There's usually about 13 or 45 people on the tourneys here depending on event size, so results aren't flashy.
Been playing 2 Nahiri sb since she got out, but she'll be out in place of Chandra for a while testing now. Nahiri is the perfect tech against miracles, but unless you're playing something like emrakul (which I don't like either), she's not really coming in anywhere else.
I hope Chandra will fit that better, but if it turns out she can't handle miracles well enough, I might fall back to Nahiri if counterbalance is too present in the meta.
As for moving planeswalkers to main, I don't think this is the deck for it. In the core this is a combo deck and game 1 I'd go all in for resolving it asap, as you can see is greatly reflected in my list atm.
Fast combo can beat anything without Emrakul main, but planeswalkers are dead to other combo decks. This is however my opinion based on what I've experienced, there are other guys here who thinks and plays differently.
After all, some people played Chandra, Pyromaster for a little while as a card-engine, althought it didn't become a big hit. Might as well test the new one if you like to play safer.
I think you did a good job of explaining Mono-Red vs. RW, but as someone who has had success with both, I think it's important to highlight that Mono-Red is really playing up the denial / prison aspects of this deck. It's not really the same deck as RW Painter if we want to get right down to it.
Agreed, mono red lists highlight aggressive skills. RW lists allow the player to better out play the field instead of hating on it and winning there after.
So I'm about 15 matches into the deck and I'm about 5-10. I don't consider myself a bad player either. I've had a lot of success with lands which in my opinion is probably one of the hardest decks to play. The way I would sum up this deck to anyone new like me whose "trying" to get into this deck. It comes down to the saying "Jack of all traits and a master of none". The deck is a prism deck, a combo deck, a control deck, a burn deck, a tutor deck, but not all that good at any of those things. I was exaggerating on the last couple, however in saying that I find its really not that great at being a prism deck. I play dragon stompy, now that is a prism deck. It's not even really great at the combo, easy to break up, generally very slow. Lands / Hexmage two other decks I play a lot, both are great at the combo. Onto control, it's only controlling when you land a painter. If you find yourself playing against a lot of abrupt decays, which from my experience is in the majority of the decks do to counterbalance, you'll never keep painter on the field.
I guess I'm being very bitter right now as this deck is supposed to be very powerful, but doesn't seem to do anything better then any other deck.
Any new deck I pickup I give it 100 matches. If I'm not over 60% win rate on it, I drop it. So will report back after I get there.
The deck just loses to anything that plays creatures basically, because they pressure you and can mess with the combo really easily.
Any insight on my frustrations would be appreciated.
Just curious about this deck- it seems extremely powerful on paper, but I don't actually see it performing. It's MTGO and RL placements are quite rare- why is that? Also how do you guys feel about the UR version in terms of consistency and counterspell protection? Minus the blood moon lock, which is a huge deal of course.
UR version has another thread somewhere nearby. That's an entirely different deck :)
Low results, are suspect, are at least partially due to loww number of players playing the deck. Then add to that the fact that pro players (who make the decks visible oftentimes) highly prefer Brainstorm decks, and this isn't one. Then add to the fact that without heavy sideboarding this deck is not suitable to underdeveloped/budget metagames as Burn matchup is abysmal (I have a dedicated Warmth slot in my SB...).
As for MTGO, there are some results here and there. Clearly not enough. If all goes well I expect to add to these results next year :)
The two decks are very different as already stated. I like to play both. The blue version feels more consistent but it's also very all in. If not immediately able to interact with hate it's likely to fold and doesn't get free wins like this deck. If you'd like to talk more please comment on the ur painted stone thread or on my recent tournament report.
If it did much better than other decks everyone would play it. Althought it's probably Imperial Recruiter which is the main reason for why more people don't play this, since he's so expensive and only works in Painter or Aluren.
If you're just looking for big tournament numbers, then this deck probably ain't for you. That being said, the deck has won or top 8'd several bigger tournaments in the past, and Jack is still going strong on mtgo. On GP Lille 2015, several of us made 6-3 and a couple made day 2, and that was in a time where Omnitell (maybe our worst matchup) was THE thing.
So yeah, deck doesn`t perform like the brainstorming Tier 1 topdogs, but it can pull its weight with a good pilot. That ain't gonna happen after a mere 15 games, heck maybe even 100 isn't enough. This goes for every legacy deck ever so I`m sure you already knew.
The important question is wheter you enjoy playing it or not; I sure as hell do.
Last edited by Morcrux; 10-03-2016 at 11:26 AM.
It took me significantly more than 15, or even 50 matches to get the swing of this deck. The main reason for that, I believe, is that Painter really relies on reading your opponent, and the amount of respect they have for your ability to just win out of nowhere. Yes, all of Legacy is played in the hand to some degree, but as you remark upon Painter not being a good control deck, or kind of a halfway threat on numerous fronts, knowing which threat you are and being perceived as in a game or match is fundamental.
The way I see it, there are basically 3 outcomes in every game with the deck. The first is that you slam a moon, or a quick combo, and basically pull it off, with or without counter back-up, and with constant pressure, or you run into bad draws and lose. The second is that you get a bad hand, and basically get steamrolled, as this deck doesn't usually draw out of pressure very well unless it's hate pieces are particularly potent in the matchup. The third is that you struggle back and forth, and either win through prison elements, partial pressure, and SDT allowing you to rebuild to a point where you can either nickel and dime them out with attackers/planeswalkers, or create a win-or-lose turn where you go for the combo with multiple counters.
What this amounts to, in my opinion, is that with experience, you can leverage your opponent's time and mana if you understand the key pieces, and how your hand and board currently is matching up against their's. Typically, aside from getting run over by an aggressive board, you will find that you really only care about a couple cards in the long term of the game. Forcing a BUG player to represent Abrupt Decay while you have a Grindstone and/or 5 mana or a Painter, instead of just activating, whether they have it or not, is going to waste 2 mana of their turn for x turns, while you can draw into REB to force the issue by targeting a land, draw a Welder to make it irrelevant, draw a second Painter, draw a land and another Grindstone, draw a Blood Moon to make them float AD mana etc. etc. just as an example...Which one of these draws saves you could vary greatly based on something like DRS or Wasteland, and so when playing from behind, I'm usually trying to hold onto my resources until a coherent plan takes shape if I can spare the life total.
Aside from this sort of thing, which varies a lot by match-up, the other very difficult bit is learning what hands you can keep against what decks, how to use fast mana in this deck and if it's actually good in your hand, and how you need to play and rebuild after a shitty hand or mulligan. I put a lot of value in SDT in keeping hands, and when it doesn't look like the combo is going to come off quickly, I typically use E-Tutors and top spins and fetches to try and land Moons and Ensnaring Bridges, and keep my life total reasonably high by chaining recruiters, or getting Welder to preserve locks/draw many cards with Top, etc. while the rest comes together. I usually try to leave combo pieces floating in the top 3 until I have to look for something else, so that your opponent doesn't know how close you are to killing them if there's probes and therapies, thoughtseizes, etc. involved. I find that usually if you go for the combo after letting them have time to set up, you've wasted all of your looks on those combo pieces, made them less likely to draw in the future, and put essentially no pressure on them. For most decks, Blood Moon and Bridge must be dealt with either immediately or eventually, and so you can almost guarantee that they will trade for a card you care about if you do eventually get the combo ready. A lot of the time, it is worth waiting to play the whole combo and activation out in one turn if the game has gone long, as correct sequencing, particularly if you can slow roll a Sol land, could get them to make a mistake or not counter something they have an answer for next turn. This is kind of the variant of the turn 2 kill, where it goes: T:1 sol land, painter, t2: grindstone resolves? one mana floating, ok, sol land #2 / activate grindstone.
Anyway, the deck is quite good, has a lot of play, and rewards experience, and can do well against most decks aside from like, Tin-Fins or Burn, but consistency is probably it's biggest issue due to some pretty awful schizophrenic opening hands at times. The game plan is solid, but you don't get that many chances at it unless you play your opponent correctly and create convincing narratives that buy you time to win.
I'll +1 what Morcrux and Ringo said and give my 2 cents as well. I think that one of the biggest misnomers that newer players have about Imperial Painter is that it's a prison deck with this random combo thrown in there. As silly as this sounds one of the biggest breakthroughs that I had when I started playing this deck was realizing that we are a combo deck and not some janky prison deck. The lock pieces help us combo off by prevent some portion of the opponent's gameplan.
If you haven't i'd read Seth's posts about the deck here and here. I think they're very informative and they really helped me understand the deck.
If your new to the deck you will get more wins out of first playing the deck a while and understanding the lines of play then tinkering with cards.
The list you put up seems fine to start.
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I agree with the other posters. Anyone piloting this deck needs a lot of practice doing it especially with the Rw version. I use to enjoy playing the mono red version better because it was less complicated to play. But the consistency that the Rw version brings with enlightened tutor and the sideboard options far outweighs the mono red version. I would say it took me the better part of a year piloting the deck to get really comfortable with it and know what lines of play to take. When I first picked it up I was kinda new to legacy so it was a lack of knowledge of the format that was my initial struggle with the deck.
Recently played in a Swiss tournament at my LGS
5 red fetch
1 great furnace
4 mountain
4 tomb
3 city of traitors
2 plateau
4 recruiter
4 painter
1 jaya
1 revoker
2 ssg
3 goblin welder
4 grindstone
4pyroblast
2 red blast
3 e tutor
1 led
1 bridge
3 petals
3 sdt
1 engineered explosives
4 blood moon
SB:
1 canonist
1 rip
1 magus of the moon
3 lightning bolt
3 fiery confluence
2 ensnaring bridge
1 red blast
1 thorn of amathyst
2 nahiri harbinger
Round 1 vs UR delver
I'm familiar with my opponent as he is with me. His version plays wasteland and is heavy on counter magic and burn. I believe his only creatures in the deck are 4 delver, 3 snapcaster mage, and 2 true name with maybe 2 lava mans in the board. Game 1 I mull to 5 and run into a lot of counter magic and wastelands. Game 2 I end up getting wasted again and lost due to trying to play around daze. He showed me he boarded them out and if I had just used my petal to cast the painter I would have won. Lesson learned. I always found that most of my opponents left dazes in against painter.
Round 2 bug delver w/ accumulated knowledge.
I had never seen this version before but I end up landing a painter and stone after he forced my t1 welder and then forced my pyroblast of his brainstorm while he was low on cards in hand. -1 led, -1 jaya, -1 revoker, -2 e tutor, +3 bolt, +2 confluence, +1 blast. Game 2 I mull to 5 again and end up keeping a t1 moon hand with only a tomb and two petals. Moon ends up getting forced and he wastes my tomb and when I finally find find a mesa it ends up getting stifled. Game 3 my blasts and bolts end up taking care of his creatures. We keep trading cards and counters and he becomes hell bent while I have a top on play. I eventually play a moon with a pyroblast on top of my library. He attempts to counter the moon and I activate top to blast it. He ends up scooping.
Round 3 vs eldrazi stompy
I'm on the play and play turn 1 stone followed by a turn to painter off a sol land. He scoops.
+2 bridge, +1 magus, +3 confluence, +1 bolt -1 welder, -3 e tutor, -1 jaya, -2 red blast. He gets a t1 chalice with some threats on the board. I land a turn 2 blood moon. I'm able to confluence on t3 with all my lands tapped. He gets another chalice out but I end up landing a bridge. We play draw go for a while. He ends up getting ratchet bomb up to two counters but I find a 2nd confluence to blow up the ratchet blob chalice and his endless one 1/1 and displacer. He plays chalice for three which I end up blowing up with a 3rd confluence and I'm able to recruit for painter and play the combo all in one turn.
Round 4 vs zombardment
This match was against a good friend who I play against a lot so we both know eachother's deck in and out. I have to worry about him getting out bitterblossom along with contamination (and I thought blood moon messed with people's mana bases). I mull to 5 again. I'm able to clear his board with explosives I think it was a few grave crawlers a death rite and some other one drop. He plays that new zombie that gets +1 +1 for all zombies in the yard and he's able to tap 2 zombies and lose a life to draw a card while I am hiding under a bridge. I'm at 7 life and he just keeps creating zombies and eventually find goblin bombardment to win.
-2 red blast, -1 jaya, -2 blood moon, -1 revoker, -2 welder, +1 rip, +3 bolt, +3 confluence, +1 bridge. I land a turn 2 rip to slow him down and end up combining before he can beat me down. Game 3 I e tutor for rip at the end of his turn 1 to play a turn 2 rip. I end up dropping ee down to get rid of his 1 drop creatures and his needle on stone. He builds back up and has lethal on board but no green mana for golgari charm, decay, or k grip. I end of turn e tutor for led and play painter, stone, and led to combo off.
Ended up getting $30 store credit. Felt really comfortable playing the deck and even though I had to mulligan a lot it wasn't too bad. I feel like I am sideboarding too much in my matches but it hasn't hurt too much. An active jaya is great but I feel like it doesn't happen too often and is pretty slow. I moved magus to the board in place of hedge mage because with the three confluence I found that I was rarely bringing the hedge mage in. Instead of magus in the main deck I put in the one of explosives to have a 2nd and faster answer to chalice on 1 (eldrazi) game 1. Relying on a painter with an active jaya wasn't working well for me. Explosives has been really good so far for me and that along with confluence definitely helped me clear the board to get the wins. Side note I finished foiling out the deck (everything that could be foil) so it was extra fun to play 😁. I know there was some discussion a while back about which five fetches to play, 3 tarn and 2 mesa to possibly conceal your deck as miracles or sneak and show in the early part of the game. I play 2 tarn and 1 of each other red fetch. I still find people casting surgical on a fetch or putting a needle on one so that is my reasoning.
Question, in round 4 you said you were hiding behind a bridge game one but don't have main deck bridges? I am confuse
I played one ensnaring bridge main and two in the board for this tournament. I put "bridge" instead of ensnaring bridge in the deck list. Sorry for the confusion. I want to go up to two main deck but don't know what to cut. Every week I'm at this shop I usually see at least 3-4 people playing eldrazi, a Merfolk player, and 3-4 death and taxes players. Fortunately I have not seen alot of miracles there anymore. Online against miracles I have been chaining recruiters together when the combo hasn't been working and attacking the life total instead of recruiting for painter. Do other people do this consistently? My record against miracles is probably still negative but it has been improving a lot.
Ahh okay I overlooked that bridge then.
As for chaining recruiters, that's often the way to go against miracles. Always keep one or two in hand, because if they counter the last one and then terminus you're off your clock and on to theirs
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I think it really depends on the contents of your opening hand. I look for some combination of the following: blasts + grindstone, top, e-tutors/recruiter and ofc lands. I like having an early grindstone against them because it's one of the unique ways that we can interact with them game 1. Although it's gotten a little worse with miracles playing some number of EEs maindeck.
If i'm on the play i'll keep a slightly janky hand with a turn 1 moon just because sometimes you can really screw them over with a turn 1 moon. I think most of my last few miracles games have been won by having the combo although I did almost live the dream of double fiery confluence + double sudden shock a miracles player to death recently. He ended up countering one of the fiery confluences so I had to beat down with a recruiter.
If you're looking for another bridge main I think the best course of action might be to swap a bridge in your sideboard with the revoker in the main.
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