[Deck] Death and Taxes

[Luca Grease]

Interesting that Cata AND Gideon appear in the boards in all of the lists.

Presuming I'd want both of those in the miracles match-up... that does seem a bit of a non-bo?

Nah... they are so powerful that you will usually be happy to see them both (won't happen often), and just try to sequence them right. Also, Gideon can be +1'd to save it as a creature the turn you cast Cataclysm.

One thing I can't warm up to in those sideboards (especially the first two) is the low number of creatures in them. I've settled for 7 including Faerie Macabre, but 3 or 4 seems awfully low, especially when 2 of them are copies of Containment Priest. There are matchups where you really want to shave a substantial number of X/1s, but you also want to maintain a reasonably high body count not to fall behind on board. These are the ones where having a few singletons like Leonin, Banisher Priest, Mirran Crusader etc. in the side will come in handy.

[Finn]

The math of Chrome Mox makes more sense in this deck than Mox Diamond because it is a simple matter to count it as a Plains while Mox Diamond takes up a spell slot.

I'm probably being dumb, but can you explain this?

It is very important! When allotting slots for lands, you can not count Mox Diamond among them because you have to ditch a land to have the mox. So it has to replace a spell in your design. Since Chrome Mox exiles a spell, it replaces a land in your design. Put another way, when you are counting up your cards for the deck, you count them up like this:

23 lands
2 Mox Diamond
35 other stuff

vs.

21 lands
2 Chrome Mox
37 other stuff



Also, @iatee: There is a trade-off when you use Chrome Mox. Your last post lists only negatives as if there are no positives (making it a strange card to be worth $15 if that were the case). I have acknowledged that there are negatives (and that the positive may outweigh them), so simply listing those negatives does nothing to bolster the argument against the card if that was your purpose.

[iatee]

Phyrexian Obliterator is a $25 card that sees essential no play in any format.

There are obviously positives - you can design great hands with the card, and sometimes you'll even draw one. But the number of games where you'll draw a strong Chrome Mox hand is going to be lower than the number of games where you topdeck it as a dead draw. Cards that are *only* good in your opening hand - and aren't even reliably good in your opening hand (sometimes you don't have a good card to ditch or you don't even have multiple colored spells, you've already mulliganed so this becomes a double mulligan, etc.) aren't cards we should be playing unless we want to be a t1 deck, and we don't.

In matchups where card advantage doesn't matter and you regularly die with a hand filled with cards - sure of course this is fine. If your meta is nothing but Tin Fins and Storm, tossing in a bunch of Chrome Moxes might be worth it. But those matchups make up a fairly small % of the format, and Eldrazi's t1 Chalices are already pushing them out.

[fluuu]

Do u think that The new copter Smuggler Will replace Serra avenger?

[LeoCop 90]

On the Chrome Mox/Mox diamond debate.

As Finn says, if a mox is to be played in this deck, it is probably chrome mox. The reason is simple: we only play 23 lands so we can't really shave lands for mox diamonds, to accomodate them we would have to play a too high density of manasources. Instead, we have roughly 27 cards that can be pitched to chrome mox (23 lands, 4 vial, 3 revoker, 3 equipments leave us with 27 colored cards). This is not an especially high number but it supports one or two copies of chrome mox.

It is difficullt to say if chrome mox has more advantages or disadvantages, but i think iatee is dismissing it too easily. There is no reason to be obsessed with the concept of card disadvantage, because there are games of magic where card advantage doesn't matter at all (especially in legacy where all sorts of broken stuff are available). While we are not a stompy deck that abuses lock pieces, we have a good amount of cards that benefit a lot from being played earlier in the right matchups : thalia 1.0, thalia 2.0, sanctum prelate, ethersworn canonist,and others. Even being able to equip a jitte onto something ahead of schedule can be crucial sometimes.

My opinion is that chrome mox is worth exploring, and i would start with one in the maindeck and one in the sideboard, to bring in against decks where speed is crucial.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Ok. I'll leave this discussion until I either win an event with the Diamonds or until I remove them from the list. My intrigues are derailing the thread. Thanks for your input, guys, but seems I cannot be shook from this.

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[Stevestamopz]

Never leave home without Ratchet Bombs in the sideboard kiddos. That card would have been insane against the entire top 8 and there were 0 in the sbs.

[Curby]

So what would you take out of those sideboards to make room for Ratchet Bombs, and why would your modified sideboard be better against the top8 of that event?

[Stevestamopz]

So what would you take out of those sideboards to make room for Ratchet Bombs, and why would your modified sideboard be better against the top8 of that event?

Pithing Needle, Dread of Night, tokens (not marit lage obviously), all things that are played in multiples against DnT and that easily overload Council's Judgment.

I'm not going to change 3 sideboards for your amusement, but I start my DnT sideboards with 2 Ratchet Bombs and go from there. Bahra_ long ago showed me the power of what looks on the surface to be an underwhelming card and it has been impressive every time I've boarded it in and drawn it.

[Curby]

Shrug. My sig. I don't expect to be amused by you, but if your goal was to provide a strong argument in favor of Ratchet Bomb, I have to say I'm unconvinced.

Maybe I'm crazy though. Can anyone else tell me why Ratchet Bomb would be so much better than the more common selections against this top8 in particular, and against the current Legacy meta in general?

You mentioned starting using Bombs long ago, which I get. Hell, I used them as well back in the day. Our primary use for them was at 0 for flipped Delvers (back when that worked) and tokens. With our increased reliance on tokens in grindy matchups, and the fact that flipped Delvers now count as CMC 1, and with Eldrazi and other Chalice decks pushing ETW-happy combo decks to a corner of the meta, it made sense to ditch Ratchet Bombs for Paths, Disenchants, etc. But again, maybe I'm crazy.

[Patrunkenphat7]

I was just reading this article http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/c...sen-2016-06-12 (outdated, I know), but I was very surprised to see how Thomas described how Death and Taxes was created... I know for a fact that Finn created the deck, and I had it sleeved up in 2009 thanks to Finn's info about it online. Just thought this was weird.

[Curby]

I was just reading this article http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/c...sen-2016-06-12 (outdated, I know), but I was very surprised to see how Thomas described how Death and Taxes was created... I know for a fact that Finn created the deck, and I had it sleeved up in 2009 thanks to Finn's info about it online. Just thought this was weird.

Yup, I've posted before in this thread how Finn seems to get passed over in articles and videos recounting D&T's history. In an attempt to give the benefit of the doubt, Enevoldsen says he got the deck from a friend, Andreas Petersen. In the ideal case he's merely mistaken in believing that Petersen designed the deck.

I'm happy to see that Thraben University gets it "right," or at least this better follows what I know:

http://www.thrabenuniversity.com/?page_id=35

Note that over a half decade of development occurred before Petersen allegedly designed the deck!

[pbrod88]

Longtime lurker on here. I have been on the 3 caverns build since cutting the green splash (teeg, choke, pridemage, library) for the new conspiracy goodies. Besides the burn match up getting worse, I cannot see going back. Has anyone else tried 3 caverns?

I am surprised to see many builds still only running 1.

[Medea_]

@kerbysdl

The history section of my site is largely an adaptation and expansion of what Finn wrote for an article/the MtGS primer eons ago.

[infiniteJ]

It's yet to be determined what the best numbers are in DNT, but it seems lists are starting to converge. I'm not suggesting that any of these thoughts are better than the current monowhite lists, but I was wondering if anyone had tried or tested any of the following:

Copter builds: With with squadron hawk it could be really good. I've played some say too much squadron hawk in legacy but I can assure you it's a fine card. Space is obviously really tight. The flying/body is similar to avenger, but it's much easier on the manabase. It's resilient to terminus and helps cycle dead draws, a problem that DNT can run into in the mid-late game.

Starting list:

4 Mom
4 Squadron hawk
4 Thalia
4 SFM
1 Revoker
3 Recruiter
1 Sanctum Prelate
3 Flickerwisp
3 Copter
4 Vial
4 STP
3 Equip
23 Land

Blue Splash: Recruiter can search up meddling mage. It can also search up Geist, which should lock up the miracles matchup. If you want to stretch the mana, it can search up Venser for the karakas lock or True-name for the mirror breaker. Spell Queller also seems like it could be a fit.

Starting List:

3 Mom
4 SFM
4 Thalia
2 Revoker
1 Meddling mage
3 Recruiter
3 Flickerwisp
3 Spell Queller
1 Geist
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Venser
4 vial
4 STP
3 Equip
23 land

Black Splash: If DNT is as represented as it was at eternal weekend, having access to Orzhov Pontiff seems a potential breaker, especially if it can be fit into the g1 config.

Red Splash: Old lists ran Pia and Kiran as a tutor target. The new Pia is 3cc and has some useful abilities and seems maybe a slight upgrade at 3cc.

[Curby]

Besides the burn match up getting worse, I cannot see going back. Has anyone else tried 3 caverns?

To be honest I'm a little surprised you're up to 3. I could maybe see that in a THC-heavy build (that eschews Avengers). Otherwise, with around 6 non-human cards in the maindeck (not to mention Gideons, Cataclysms, Judgments, etc. from the side), I'm also surprised that 3 has never bitten you.

I'm considering 2-3 Avengers in my maindeck (and 0 THCs) and have been debating 1 or 2 Caverns. Medea and others do fine on 0.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I play 3 also.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

[DarthVicious]

Opening my list up to constructive criticism. Most of the inclusions are pretty obvious, but I do have reasons for some inclusions.


4 Flickerwisp
//Running less than 4 is bad imho. I'd run 8 if I could.
4 Mother of Runes
//Yep.
4 Recruiter of the Guard
//I usually don't mind seeing muliples, although they are small little guys.
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
//Legendary, and needed some space. She's not always as relevant as she seems.
3 Serra Avenger
//Yep. Damn right. One of the reasons I put this deck together.
3 Stoneforge Mystic
//4 is a bit too many.
2 Sanctum Prelate
//Only weak vs. creature matchups.
1 Mirran Crusader
//Needs little introduction.
1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
//Not great as often as she needs to be run to be great, but still useful.
1 Mangara of Corondor
//This little combo is one of the other reasons I put the deck together.
1 Paladin en-Vec
//Jund is a bad matchup. They can do very little about him.

4 Aether Vial
//Again, less than 4 is just bad.
4 Path to Exile
//The lifegain from StP is more often relevant than not, considering the average size of our creatures is like 2 or 3 just one Swords can give them two turns worth of an extension.
1 Umezawa's Jitte
//Must.
1 Batterskull
//Must.

10 Plains
4 Karakas
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
2 Sea Gate Wreckage
//I was never a fan of SoFI because you need to connect with it, and if you're connecting with equipment you're generally winning regardless of the card draw. This just gets cards when you need more cards.

SB:
1 Disenchant
//Never a bad card, really. Although extra equipment could go here also.
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Sanctum Prelate
2 Council's Judgment
1 Paladin en-Vec
//The extra one postboard helps.
1 Mirran Crusader
//Ditto.
2 Ethersworn Canonist
//With Storm always being out there, and S&S transitioning to a more Omni-Tell... it seems good.
1 Hokori, Dust Drinker
//Mostly for Miracles and Lands.
1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
//For those matchups where she's really good.
2 Declaration in Stone
//Helps having two extra removals in the board vs. creature decks. Also great for Warrens and Entreat tokens.


Yes, it's 61 cards. Yes, I'm comfortable with that. I... am enlightened.

[Curby]

I play 3 also.

I'm less surprised that it works well with your build compared to others:

1) You don't play Avengers.
2) Your Mox Diamonds allow you to pitch extras and get "real" white sources.
3) You run 14 "real" sources, i.e. you maintain a high count of non-Cavern mana sources.

(In case it wasn't clear based on the earlier conversation, I'm genuinely intrigued by your inclusion of Mox Diamond. Please keep us updated with how they perform over time.)

[AsmodeusDM]

So from recent paper results along with the continued dominance of 3 decks (Eldrazi, Miracles, Grixis Delver) is it safe to say that recruiter is now a maindeck mainstay and as a result certain silver bullet creatures and typical auto-4-ofs change a bit?

In my mind this is the starting D&T shell.

29 spells (out of 37)

3 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Sanctum Prelate
2 Recruiter of the Guard
3 Flickerwisp
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterkskull
4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares

18 lands (out of 23)
7 plains
4 Wastes
4 Ports
3 Karakas

From here it's just a matter of addings lands (either more plains or specialty nonbasics) and figuring out which other maindeck staples you should go up on and which silver bullet creatures you should maindeck. I figure this is going to vary greatly depending on the meta; i.e. in an eldrazi heavy meta I probably wouldn't want the 4th Mom; but I would start to more heavily consider Thalia, Heretical Cathar. Miracles pushes me towards Caverns; more Flickerwisps, Prelates, and Revokers. Delver variants make we want Serra Avenger back in the list. etc etc.

I guess the question is after the spate of results from EE, EW europe, and now the American EW.. what is our legacy meta? And what should we be planning against?.... aside from the mirror... since i"m sure a lot of new people are going to try to pick up the deck.