How we usually deal with TNN is get rid of what TNN is enabling which is actually just equipment. I will probably put a Manic Vandal or Thraben Heretic back in to deal with opposing Jittes as my personal way to deal with TNN indirectly, but a Disenchant or 3rd Council's Judgment is also reasonable. Come to think of it, Council's Judgment is one of our most flexible cards in the sideboard and is surprising we havent bumped it up to 3 yet.
Personally I am liking the looks of the red splash more and more. Sudden Demise gives you a real way to deal with Leovold decks without losing value and those decks are only resistant to mana denial because it pressures them so slowly that they will inevitably turn the corner with basic lands vs monowhite while the red splash just drops a Magus of the Moon on the board and follows up with threats.
That being said, I am just an optimist. I will test the Aluren and misc. BUG midrange match ups and get back to you guys on that one.
Remember, I got an on camera TNN and Jitte against Seth Manfield with Council's Judgement. The card will occasionally get people.
I loved Crusader two this weekend. Will write about why in detail later. In short, I got 3 1-hit KOs.
I still hate SotL.
I'll be talking about Jailer vs Banisher Priest in an article this week. Gathered a ton of data by talking with people this weekend.
I only played side events. Had Jailer mainboard, and he was at least decent. I will keep testing him out. I had two Recruiters mainboard, and honestly, almost never used them because other actions required priority. I might replace recruiters with something else, probably more beat down action.
I definitely saw a lot of TNN. Revoker on their equipment saved my ass, and flickerwisping out my revoker so I could equip my own equipment sealed the deal (he stuck a SofI, I revokered it, and then I drew into my own Sofi).
Prelate was great. I felt good with two mainboard. I kept two mainboard Mirran Crusaders and it felt right due to the large amount of Shardless and other BUG variants.
at the moment, i feel like playing less than 2 Mirran Crusader in your 75 might not be a good choice.
Definitely second this. I started day 1 at 5-2 and ended up an unimpressive 5-4. I noticed a LOT of people playing darkblast so not having too many x/1's is important, and basically the only path to victory against BUG decks aside from randomly land-screwing them is crusader.Originally Posted by FeX
I wanna test Jailer. Haven't played it at all and think it looks rather mediocre but always give something a shot before dismissing it. That being said, I can't play 10 3-4 mana guys. It's too much imo. Currently I got 4 flickerwisp, 2 recruiter, 1 crusader, 1 prelate, and 1 jailer, but I've run 2 crusader for a while and agree it feel a like the right number. So what are everyone's thoughts? Seems crazy to cut a flickerwisp but what else can be done?
In the last 2 GP Top8 D&T lost to Miracles because they lost the monarch status. I don't think the card is good in the MU, as it's fairly easy for them to get a free attack and to control the board no matter how they order the play (get monarch first or control the board first), but especially if they terminus you and get back a creature off jailer the game ends on the spot. I'm not 100% convinced about Jailer, although in the last 2 GPs DnT proved the lists with him made it. I'm not sure how heavy the impact of Jailer was on their runs, but both lost as soon as they lost monarch status vs Miracles.
Yes, drawing an extra card vs miracles is neat, but it's very awkard when the tables are turned and miracles draws 2 cards a turn.
I guess we'll have to wait on Wescoe's report about the tournament to see what he has to say about Jailer.
"Ach! Hans, run! It's the Lhurgoat!"
I can see it being risky against Miracles, but if that's the only knock against it*, it's still just 1/60 and can be boarded out if it makes sense to not run in that MU. Did those T8 pilots you mentioned leave Jailer in against Miracles postboard?
* (I know there are other issues)
Most people blindly suggest new cards for decks. True contributors also suggest what to remove. It's not about what's good, but rather what's better than the current selections.
Yes, and both lost because they both lost monarch status. That was in the post as well :P
Wescoe:
The other guy is in coverage in YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwXvd-JmvJs
"Ach! Hans, run! It's the Lhurgoat!"
At the same time both DnT lists made top 8 with a Palace Jailer in the deck which means the card should actually be taken seriously. Its naive to dismiss the card as mediocre with such results being demonstrated.
Granted the card is obviously high variance because it gives your opponent tangible counterplay so there's that vs examples such as Miracles or decks with fliers.
I will test out Jailer soon but I suspect many who do dislike it (including me) only dislike it because it isnt deterministic.
I watched Craig Wescoe beat my friend on Miracles, with a monarch token drawing him a million cards. He had a Karakas in play - if it weren't for the Karakas, my friend's Clique would have stolen the crown and basically taken over the game. As far as I could tell he had sided out his STPs (he never drew into any after something like 10 draws) so that Karakas was really pulling its weight.
So yeah, it was super good there (beat a Jace on board) while also being super close to costing him the whole game.
Hi friends; I'm new posting here although not new reading here.
I really recommend taking Jailer seriously; I played a very Jailer-heavy list (2 main and 1 side, supported by 4 Serra Avenger to try to always be winning combat once the game becomes all about combat) to 9-5-1 despite my many misplays at Louisville. It was better than Gideon in almost all non-miracles situations, and creates a similar gamestate as Gideon in the miracles matchup (the opponent must now start hitting me with combat damage or I will accrue unstoppable value). It's a huge tempo play in the mirror, turns the corner very quickly against Insectile Aberrations, and reads "draw a card per turn for the rest of the game" against Lands. It even carried me through the MUD match I played round 6. I didn't get to Show and Tell it in; didn't see that matchup. Most important is that it does something important against every opponent, even the ones where it isn't ideal, because it always warps the game to be more and more about creature combat, which is the part of the game we should always be winning.
---
One thing I wanted to correct was this misconception, which many of my opponents had as well:
> if they terminus you and get back a creature off jailer
This isn't actually a problem; they don't get the creature back until they become the monarch, so terminus doesn't actually hurt you at all until they cast another separate creature and hit you with it. Against miracles Jailer won one game for me then only lost the other when I failed to answer Clique and my opponent brought in Back to Basics to keep my Karakas down.
---
One question I have for all you who are more expert than me: Is Batterskull getting more and more disappointing for you every time you draw it or flip past it in your library? I feel honor-bound to keep it in the deck but it so rarely is doing anything for me at all that I wonder what common matchups you are deploying it in, besides Eldrazi or when you are racing TNN. I also understand that I must be quite clueless here because no one else really seems to consider cutting it and it's always been in the core of the deck. Thanks!
For the past couple of years I have been allocating some of my spare time to creating a White Stompy deck that is similar to D&T, but with Chalice and Ancient Tomb instead of Vial and Port. The metagame seems particularly hostile to such a version, now that so few decks scoop to a Chalice at 1. Finally decided to switch to D&T and I have not regretted it for a second. I just love this deck, it's super skill intensive and thrives upon knowledge of the format. On the flipside, in games that are not decided by mana and tempo, the deck is very unforgiving and a mistimed Wasteland activation or play into Daze can easily cost you the game. Mother of Runes alone could be the subject of an entire book chapter: when do you attack with Mother, when do you block with it and provide protection etc. There is no rule of thumb and it's great to see whenever top players pick this deck up, they do well with it: Thomas Enevoldsen and Craig Wescoe are examples that spring to mind.
With the above in mind, I have to say I am pro Palace Jailer as a 1-of. This card is also extremely skill intensive as every subsequent attack and card that you play revolves around maintaining Monarch status. It already stole several games for me that I had no business winning. Conversely, if losing Monarch status would yield a loss in an otherwise won game, it seems very likely that the D&T player made one or more mistakes along the way. It should also be realized that the bad beats involving lost Monarch status, may have been lost games either way. I think the games where the D&T player does not make any mistakes, Palace Jailer will only very rarely end up losing you a game that Banisher Priest would have won. The other way around seems much more likely to me.
I haven't thought about or tested multiple copies of Jailer.
Last edited by Mantis; 01-10-2017 at 08:57 AM. Reason: Spelling, grammatical
Team R&D
Alrighty, here's my tournament report for my 48th place finish this weekend.
I wrote a bit about Palace Jailer in my article that I'm posting Friday, so I'll save my thoughts until then.
Grats Phil, you represented us well at the tourney. Sadly missed you at the event.
A resolved Palace Jailer vs a fair deck will generally either win you the game or lose you the game. It will win you the game more often, but you have to be willing to suck up those losses too.
I flamed out at the GP after starting 5-1. I wasn't super happy with my build and probably needed more white sources and maybe a 24th land. Got manascrewed a lot.
R1 (Bye) (Went 4-0 on Friday to almost get a second bye, but lost my 5th match to TNN+Jitte)
R2 Elves (Loss) (Demoralizing way to start the tournament, punished so hard for not getting that 2nd bye)
R3 Bug Delver (win)
R4 DnT (win) (He mentioned he read these boards / played well so it wasn't an easy matchup)
R5 DnT (win) (Wasn't as experienced with the deck)
R6 Lands (win) (Win g1 easily off Prelate, lose g2 to an unchecked Tireless Tracker, win g3 off Revoker for Vortex, Prelate on 2 + monarch token.)
R7 Legends Miracles (loss) Lost a very grindy g1 and we went to time after I Cataclysmed g2.
R8 Dredge (loss) Mulled to 5 g1, but not gonna win g1 vs Dredge on the draw, so I scooped and didn't show him what I was playing. Won g2 off Faerie Macabre, g3 I had it but he had Cabal Therapy and named Macabre + had a t3 kill.
R9 Shardless (loss) G1 I had double Vial on the draw, played the second one over a creature specifically to play around him having an Abrupt Decay - he had his one-of Pulse. Super wrecked. G2 I had a Mirran Crusader in hand all game and never drew a 3rd land over something like 7 turns.
Felt pretty unlucky to lose 3 fine-to-good matchups in a row. I might have made a few tiny mistakes vs Miracles but mostly played alright.
I think Reid Duke's TNN deck looks like an impossible matchup (t2 TNN or Leovold every game + Decay, Jittes + black sideboard cards). I just don't see how we ever beat that. I think everyone wanting to brew with Fatal Push and Leovold for the foreseeable future is going to put DnT in a kinda rough spot. I am probably more interested in going back to splash builds, specifically the black splash. If we're entering a TNN meta, maindeck Pontiff seems like where you want to be and Kambal is another form of damage through a TNN wall. I actually was tempted to play it in the main event, I just forgot to bring Scrublands.
Nice run Phil!
Sorry I didn't get a chance to chat with you at the event.
(aside: I'm from Cleveland and drove down to the event,6.5hrs, Friday night. With two friends and meeting a third coming in from Indy. I was providing two of my friends, including the Indy one, with decks: D&T (me), Eldrazi and UB Reanimator. Alas... Friday night I discovered to my never-ending horror that I had forgotten to put the decks in my overnight bag... so yeah I not only screwed over myself but 2 friends who also made the drive. So needless to say I drank a lot of BOURBON instead of playing Magic :( )
Anyway, on Saturday I did head down to the event and saw lots of folks on D&T as you mentioned. Not to be mean: but after observing about 5 different matches from between 5 to 10 minutes I couldn't believe how BAD most of these D&T players were. It's a shame that so many player pick up the deck which leads to the decision to play enough sideboard hate out of our competitors.
As for Reid's deck: I feel like it's probably critical to land a turn 1 swords on the dork to avoid getting such a strong 3drop play on turn2. The deck doesn't really have many 2-drop plays and feels like it's probably beatable if you can use removal + lands to get them off of 3/4 mana. I agree though that the particular "threat" package of TNN, Leo, and Jace lines up pretty nasty against D&T :(
Ugg just saw Reid had 2 dread of nights and a 2nd jitte in his sideboard.
GROSS.
The Dreads seem like curious choices to me because I see no way that we reliably beat this deck's main, so why even worry about DnT? Also good against Mentors, but that's usually not their main purpose.
Post-board that BUG deck is not even too soft to RiP since it only plays one Goyf. It's possible we would have games where we stall their 3 drop with a STP or Revoker, but that doesn't solve the bigger problem. Plus, I imagine post-AR this deck would replace the Cut with a Fatal Push, and maybe even play additional copies.
(People could also just not end up playing this deck at all.)
@Iatee
I just wrote up a giant article about the deck moving forward that I'm going to push out Friday, and you ended up saying a bunch of the same things I had in mind.
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