Silly-ish question... when is CN2 legal? I'm going to Indy this weekend and trying to figure out if I need to get $200 worth of cards to play in side events
It's legal today.
Right on. Thank you!
If anyone else is in Indy hit me up and we can meet and talk shop.
I got absolutely wrecked in my last games pre-Recruiter, heh. I really wish I played online so I could have people critique my playing, but I lost to Miracles in round 1, then Sultai Delver. I beat Grixis Delver and Nic Fit. Pretty demoralizing losses.
Just theorizing here, but with Recruiter slowing the deck a hair, maybe it just means we need to change the sideboard to hedge more against faster decks. For example, more Graffdiger's Cage instead of Containment Priest / RiP (or even in addition too?) I agree that ignoring the fast decks entirely is not a good plan, and if recruiter does make D&T more powerful and prevalent, that will probably shift the meta as we will push out some of the fair blue decks and open the door for more combo.
Also, Recruiters price seems to have dropped pretty hard after the set went live, $14 and falling, where do you think it will stop? Thinking about buying an extra set or two I feel like it may inch back up if it proves to be good enough
Wow, the price of both cards crashed hard. I think if the cards prove as powerful as we think they are, it should bounce back. I'll probably buy a couple more Prelates at ~$15 and Recruiters at $12 or less.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Standard
Tempo Modern
Eldrazi and Staxes
Whir Prison Legacy
5c Humans
DnT
"I'm a lead farmer... !" Quote ruined due to policy.
The card price isn't based on whether they are used. It is the amount of stock has been increasing due to conspiracy 2 being opened like crazy. The cards will prob stabilize at 10-15 for recruiter, and prelate at 15-20 ish. The stock won't diminish until a bunch of people want them.
So some first rounds of initial testing after I got my Recruiters, Prelates, and extra Cavern of Souls.
Recruiter... is awesome. Value on its own, being able to get a specifically needed answer, Flickerwisp for Value City, etc. No need to beat that one to death, we all knew it'd be good.
I played the mirror twice, and I didn't like Sanctum Prelate in that match. I sided both of mine out for each game 2 and 3. It's really only good when you're already ahead, because you want Plowshares just as much as the next guy, and any singleton CMC-2 or 3 spells are going to be singletons and impossible to gauge ahead of time. Against a Show and Tell deck, the was great, naming 3. What is really excellent about this is that if naming '3' for them becomes the norm, it will encourage they stick on Pyroclasm as opposed to Kozilek's Return, which is good for us.
Now just going to find out whether it should be 2, 3, or 4 Cavern of Souls.
So some first rounds of initial testing after I got my Recruiters, Prelates, and extra Cavern of Souls.
Recruiter... is awesome. Value on its own, being able to get a specifically needed answer, Flickerwisp for Value City, etc. No need to beat that one to death, we all knew it'd be good.
I played the mirror twice, and I didn't like Sanctum Prelate in that match. I sided both of mine out for each game 2 and 3. It's really only good when you're already ahead, because you want Plowshares just as much as the next guy, and any singleton CMC-2 or 3 spells are going to be singletons and impossible to gauge ahead of time. Against a Show and Tell deck, the was great, naming 3. What is really excellent about this is that if naming '3' for them becomes the norm, it will encourage they stick on Pyroclasm as opposed to Kozilek's Return, which is good for us.
Now just going to find out whether it should be 2, 3, or 4 Cavern of Souls.
Mind sharing the list you've been testing on? I'm looking for a starting point for Sanctum Prelate / Recruiter testing myself; will be running a lot of reps online, but always like to jump off someone else's starting point
just 2? I don't know how you have the space for 4. Prelate in the mirror is naming 1, Swords and MoMs are quintessential in that match up as you hit up your flyer with a jitte to end the game.
Rulings question: is there a way to use Flickerwisp for preventing the Sulfuric Vortex damages?
Is there a way to flicker away a card to the second next step (i.e. for an entire turn)?
You can use Flickerwisp, with vial, to flicker the Sulfuric Vortex! At the beginning of the end step of your opponent's turn, use Flickerwisp off vial to flicker the Vortex. It will not come back in until the beginning of the NEXT end step. So on your turn it will not be in play. It will come back at the beginning of your end step, just in time to deal damage to your opponent during his upkeep.
just 2? I don't know how you have the space for 4. Prelate in the mirror is naming 1, Swords and MoMs are quintessential in that match up as you hit up your flyer with a jitte to end the game.
I agree with 2 Caverns, maybe 3, 4 seems way too much, we need to keep enough pure white sources in the deck or we're going to get blown out by Blood Moon, Back to Basics, and Price of Progress
Prelate I think gets cut in the mirror, remember it only hits non-creature spells, so it does not get MoM. On 1 it stops Vial, StP, and Needle but, so if you have a vial out, have StP'd a dude, then it would be nice to lock your opponent out from answering, but if that's the case you're probably already well ahead anyway. Maybe keeping 1 is fine for that scenario, but I think I like more aggressive threats as they help close the game and/or help you catch up, Prelate does nothing to help you catch up.
Hello!
How many Recruiter of the Guard copies have you found to be good? 2-3? 4 seems to be too much.
How many 3-drops should we play, and which? I think that the right number is between 7 and 9, not more.
Could someone remind me why Vryn Wingmare is not so good? I've searched through the thread but I cannot find reasonable reasons.
As stated in Medea's blog, it deserves its own list Wingmare D&T.
Also, I think that Mangara of Corondor is still worth playing in 2 copies as a generic removal for round 1, even if it's slow, with potential recursion. Adding to the 4 StP 2 Mangara and 1 Fiend Hunter or Banisher Priest, we have 7 removals.
Finally, with so many legends played, I think Eiganjo Castle deserves 1 slot, acting like a Karakas for our own creatures; moretheover, I see less and less people playing Horizon Canopy, but in my testing 2 is a good amount.
Rulings question: is there a way to use Flickerwisp for preventing the Sulfuric Vortex damages?
Is there a way to flicker away a card to the second next step (i.e. for an entire turn)?
I think the consesus on Recruiter is 3 to start.
I'm probably going to run 3-4 Flickerwisp, 2 THC, 1 Mirran Crusader, 1 Mangara, 1 Prelate main, I think 7-9 is a good number.
Wingmare was cut for more aggressive creatures like Serra Avenger and Mirran Crusader in the build Medea and AN have championed. I personally never really tried it as I worry about -1/-1 effects, and I think the decks it is good against like Miracles, Shardless etc. we're already pretty good against, and in the matches she's bad, she's really bad. Depends on your meta. Search Michael Derczo on youtube, he played the Wingmare build a lot and was pretty successful with it. Also, you can check out this Youtube playlist someone put together. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3D0S0Z3P3dA6192WPYsxCDHf-1NQ2G7x
I like Mangara as a 1 of, I think 2 main might be too much. Recruiter is going to slow the deck down a little in favor of consistency, and Mangara is also kind of slow to set up, that's my main concern.
I like Eiganjo Castle in theory and cut the Horizon Canopy for it online, but after dozens of games, I haven't had a chance to activate it a single time to save one of my Thalia's, so it may get cut to make room for more Caverns. Be careful you don't cut too many basic plains for Horizon Canopy, Eiganjo Castle, Caverns as one of the main strengths of our deck is our consistent and hard to disrupt mana base that doesn't deal us any damage. Too few basic plains and all of the sudden the aforementioned Blood Moon, Back to Basics, and Price of Progress really hurt. By my math, if you're running 3 Karakas, 1 Eiganjo Castle, 2 Horizon Canopy +4 Ports and Wastelands, that's only room for 9 basic plains without any Cavern, and I think you really want 2 Cavern, so that would put you at 7 basic plains, that's too few in my opinion.
Wynk is correct, vial Flickerwisp in on their end step, you need to have a vial for this trick to work. Because the beginning of the end step has already passed, Flickerwisps return to battlefield trigger won't happen. The Vortex is gone for your entire turn. This also allows you to gain some life, it comes back at the end of your turn, so your opponent will take the 2 damage on their upkeep, this can be a potentially big life swing that puts you ahead and makes their Vortex work against them, and is one of the main reasons I keep my Flickerwisps in for this matchup now.
The sideboard is really loose. In any event, I was happy to score 3 Recruiters and 3 Prelates Friday night. My crew and I brewed it in the hotel Saturday night (after my very poor day one performance of 4-5 with Jund in the main event). The above list was a smoldering pile of garbage. I went 1-4 which is the worst I've done with D&T probably ever. That said, I did it for science! I wanted to push the toolbox approach as hard as I reasonably could. Three recruiters, seven silver bullets, and no untutorable creatures seemed like the way to do that.
Maybe it's just my play style, but I was never happy to see Prelate and I was only happy to see Recruiter about one out of four times.
- I never cast Prelate.
- Recruiter is very slow.
- Chaining Flickerwisps was not as good as we thought.
- I missed Serra Avengers something fierce.
- I missed Phyrexian Revokers a lot, too. Revoker is secretly the deck's trump card: it gives us a mutable answer to a variety of situations. I tutored for it a couple times and died because it was too slow. Opposing Jittes were already equipped. Opposing Moxen already did their damage.
- Big Thalia was a house whenever I played her. I wish she was main deck.
- I really missed Pithing Needle.
Instead of the usual smattering of beaters and threats, I was stranded with situational/irrelevant hatebears and two-turn too late answers. I was Asuka when she couldn't sync with her Eva.
I will confess, it was sweet to cast Recruiter for a Banisher Priest to get a blocker out of the way to swing for lethal. So was tutoring up a late-game SFM to get a game winning Batterskull.
There were about 70 people in the event. I made it a point to talk with all the D&T guys. None of them were running Recruiters.
TL;DR After today here's where I am:
- Some number of Recruiters have a place in the main.
- Some number of Big Thalia have a place in the main.
- Prelate is a sideboard card.
- Friends don't let friends play Death & Toolboxes.
Honestly I think it is just going to take time to adjust with a new build. I personally and going to start with 2 Recruiter and 1 Prelate in the main, potentially a 2nd and 3rd prelate in the side. When you want them, you want them? But it definitely is something that should be introduced slowly. Maybe 1 or 2 silver bullets and 2 or 3 recruiter, otherwise your usual stock list. Then go from there.
Honestly I think it is just going to take time to adjust with a new build. I personally and going to start with 2 Recruiter and 1 Prelate in the main, potentially a 2nd and 3rd prelate in the side. When you want them, you want them? But it definitely is something that should be introduced slowly. Maybe 1 or 2 silver bullets and 2 or 3 recruiter, otherwise your usual stock list. Then go from there.
I think prices may have plateaued, or at least slowed their freefall, so I may pick up 3 recruiters and a couple of Sanctum Prelates. Looking forward to using them!
I don't think I agree that Recruiters are bad; after all, people were splashing red for Imperial Recruiter, and we could still play a one-of Magus of the Moon if we wanted in mono white with caverns/vial. Imperial Taxes had its definite upsides, so I don't see why suddenly a recruiter is bad now. I don't think we want to run tons of toolbox creatures, but 3-4 seem nice: Spirit of the Labyrinth, Banisher Priest, Sanctum Prelate, maybe Ethersworn Canonist. Otherwise we just end up drawing cards we don't want to cast too often. Not to mention that every other card is tutorable that we run 2+ of (Revoker, Thalia 1/2, Flickerwisp). The Recruiter of the Guard is actually better since it lets us go find Flickerwisp and Thalia 2 if we desired. Sideboard should have some more silver bullets, but they should replace the other bullets, so overall consistency shouldn't be affected. (Perhaps in duplicates.)
(I want to live the dream where I have two vials on 2 and 3 and can Recruit a Spirit of the Labyrinth in response to Ancestral Recall. Someday maybe.)
I'm excited to see how they perform! And how you ladies and gentlemen fare with the deck.
I am in agreement with the people who don't want to get rid of Serra Avenger, tentatively, because it take us down to 4 flyers and Avenger is the best flyer we can use. However, DnT has at times been more control and less race and honestly you could go with 2 Aven Mindcensor (I actually prefer this to Vryn Wingmare in the build) and again spread out your kinds of denial, be able to tick vial to 3, have a flash creature, and have those two extra flyers. Yes, it is a poor defender and doesn't race TNN nearly as well, but then again it makes opposing Stoneforge Mystics worse and can be fetched by Recruiter and it is 2W not WW and comes down a turn earlier. It also is value against combo.
I can't find space to make Recruiter of the Guard more than a 2-of at the moment. I think it will have a different function from Imperial Recruiter in RW, which had two blowout cards to fetch in certain matches, namely Magus of the Moon and Pia and Kiran Nalaar. WW doesn't exactly have a blowout card, even Mirran Crusader against BUG isn't a blowout, whereas Magus in that match usually is. Or, to put it another way, our blowout card is an untutorable 4 drop planeswalker... ouch.
Sanctum Prelate is SB material until I see a reason to make it main. It could take the Mangara of Corondor spot, but I am also contemplating putting Spirit of the Labyrinth in that spot. I feel like the extra 2cmc and draw denial is better right now than Mangara, but I might be wrong.
And no, I am not playing Banisher Priest or Leonin, Relic-Warder at the moment. Not enough room, especially if I had to remove Gideon to fit them in, which seems like the flex spot. Or I guess I could remove the Faerie Macabre given the lack of Reanimator in the meta at the moment and put in Relic-Warder.
That actually raises the question: With Prelate, do we need Gideon against Miracles? Is Gideon simply good enough to stay in the deck, especially against Miracles and Shardless BUG and Jund, or does it come out now?
On the paper, it's quite easy to cut a Flickerwisp for a Recruiter of the Guard. Lists have performed well with only 3 Wisps in the past. Players tend to play 4 now because it's the best 3-drop overall, but since Recruiter can search for one... Also Imperial Recruiter isn't able to search for a Wisp, so we can't litterally transform Blood & Taxes into mono-W Taxes and expect the list to function the same.
Now for efficient playtesting, it's good to start with 3 Recruiters and cut the 4th copy of anything we have, this way we draw the card often and see how it plays out. It's common to lose time in playtesting by just putting 1-2 copies, thenconclude "oh well I drew it only twice in 10 matches, so I can't tell". Putting the card in the opener seems like the best way to test the card, since it's slow, it's not obvious that it's strong enough by turn 3 !
Since Elves has been discussed a lot recently, Recruiter of the Guard into Orzhov Pontiff, Ethersworn Canonist or Containment Priest should looks very appealing to some players. Magus of the Moon can still be a 1-of as it's been proposed on this page. The thing is this new Recruiter allows a lighter splash for the lists that want one, and it might actually be the best application for the card.
Besides, I'm curious to read from players who have tried out Gisela, the Broken Blade as a SB option, if there's any.
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Pioneer - A bunch of stuff Modern - Humans Legacy - Grixis Phoenix / Death & Taxes
This is my idea for a more 'toolbox' style deck. I'm not sure if I like losing the Serra Avengers, so I kept them in even though they can't be searched up by the Recruiter.
Mind sharing the list you've been testing on? I'm looking for a starting point for Sanctum Prelate / Recruiter testing myself
So I played a lot this weekend, here are my thoughts.
Mana acceleration is back on the back burner. There were times it was stellar, others where topdecking a Petal was equivalent to just just flood, but nothing truly exceptional overall one way or another. The instance that sealed it though: facing off against Storm, I'm on the draw and get Probed, then Cabal Therapy is cast. Opponent nets 2 Petals from my hand, which would've been used to cast Prelate on turn 1. I lost that match. Now the point isn't that anything could have been done to stop getting Therapy'ed, or that I wasn't going to lose a hate-piece: it's that the 'hate-piece' wasn't a hate piece at all, and rather, just an enabler to a fast hate piece. I'd rather have the slots I'm dedicating to combating fast decks actually be real spells... so I'm sticking with a discard package out of the sideboard. There's just no other way. It won't have the same impact on Elves as would the possibility of a turn 1 or turn 2 THC, but it's more a solid choice that works, as well as with the turn 1 decks.
Cavern of Souls is a good 2-of. I was trying 3 with no issues, but #1 I know in the long run, it's better to have more true-white sources, and #2 I get to save myself another $50 not buying a third. Unlike Goblins or Merfolk, our signature removal spells aren't tribal (Gempalm Incinerator/Tarfire)or colorless (Dismember), so the 4-on-the-floor Cavern of Souls makes more sense with them and less with us. Also, Fickerwisp and Stoneforge Mystic still make up 7-8 slots that aren't human so... 2 is probably the right number.
Recruiter is awesome. He's a slow 3-drop, but who cares? Value all the time. I really wish there was a Disenchant-on-a-body for real, however, like has been mentioned here. Banisher Priest and Leonin Relic Warder will do for now, but I really don't like them all that much on paper.
Prelate is not just sideboard material, I don't know who got that idea. You'll knock out your yet-to-be-drawn Plowshares if you name 1, but that's a pretty awesome play a lot of the time, regardless. Naming 2 or 3 is even more backbreaking for the decks that use them. Prelate adds another layer of "Mom"-type protection.
Far as what is good for toolboxing maindeck, Mangara is still awesome, Revoker got trimmed as such but I still found myself Tutoring for it against some weirder stuff like Food Chain combo. Also as a recruitable 1-of, and a large reason why I'm going to back to the discard suite... Orzhov Pontiff is a HUMAN (yayy!!) and wrecks opposing creature matchups with very little investment. After that, I had one spot left, and wanted another 2-drop, so I threw my old pal Bob in there as well, bringing me somewhat close to where I was before the spoiled cards. I think those new goodies just enabled a more refined version:
First things first... the worst cards in the deck are Leonin Relic-Warder and Banisher Priest. I hate their LtB triggers, but there's nothing really straight better if you want Recruitable options. I thought maybe Bone Shredder, but he doesn't hit Deathrite Shaman or Gurmag Angler, so that's out. Likewise, War Priest of Thune is comparable to Relic-Warder at just getting rid of Dread of Night, but there should be some artifact Recruiting as well, so unless one splashes red for Magus of the Moon and gets the bonus of Manic Vandal that comes with it, that's what we got. Likewise, if anyone splashes green, they can do well on that front with Qasali Pridemage or Harmonic Sliver, but green gets you no fast deck solutions, so I'm thinking I'll stick to black for that purpose.
Is it 3 or 4 Stoneforge Mystic? I found myself grabbing her with my Recruiters quite often, so as they're both "closers" in that regard, I reasoned that we could lose a spot of hers, JUST TO TRY FOR NOW. I don't know if it's correct, but I haven't regretted it since. Normally, if we didn't have Recruiter of the Guard, I would never consider such a thing, but that card brings all sorts of new structural thinking to the deck. Additionally, I had been trying 3 Mother of Runes when I was going for acceleration, but now that my turn 1 plays dropped back to "normal" in the maindeck, I wanted to bring her back to normal as well.
FLICKERWISP IS STILL THE BEST CARD IN THE DECK. This is obvious to me, even now. Four Wisp makes the 3 Recruiters/3 Mystics better; I'd rather have them naturally than search for them. But I want my four Wisps considering the need to switch Sanctum Prelate's designation on the fly for the ever-changing game state. Like say you lock out CMC1 cause you have no Moms in play and no Plowshares in hand. Well, as the game goes on and you get a Mom on board, and draw your removal, switching Prelate to another number might be the right call. Did I mention Flikerwisp triggers with Orzhov Pontiff are incredible? This is especially true if you can get it to go off twice in one turn, giving you a one-sided -2/-2 effect.
I'm sad Lotus Petal is not gonna do it, really. I'd intended to make the deck VERY creature heavy, but to not ignore all those fast combo decks I've been *****ing about forever, I needed more cheap noncreature spells to help. Oh well. Maybe I was going about it wrong and Chrome Mox or Mox Diamond are really kickass, but you can't control all that well for when they will be "excellent" or when they will be "meh". Thoughtseize is more naturally excellent on its own, so I'll continue down that road for the time being.
@esplanades
Post #1: Not sure if your remark about people not liking Recruiter's was directed at me or not, but to clarify: I think Recruiter is gas. My toolbox build was jank.
Post #2: I like where your list is going.
@Medea
Nice article, good read. Prelate is going to take a lot of practice to play correctly. It also makes me think about how nuts Restoration Angel is now. Obviously, you can't flicker the Prelate to stop a spell already on the stack, but you *can* flicker it to protect it from a kill spell and stop them from going off that turn.
Heh, Restoration Angel and Recruiter is a thing too, isn't it... Gahh so is Displacer. That is disgusting.
@Redtwister
Yes! For science! I like your list. It is basically what I wished I played yesterday.
@headminerve
I totally agree that for playtesting it is best to play with a bunch of copies of the new cards. You want to see them all the time so you can evaluate them at different parts of the game.
I think Restoration Angel may be worth playing now. I'm not quite sure, since I know we want a lower curve because of our land destruction, and I'm not sure we ever want to be leaving up 4 mana, but the idea seems sick. Protecting Thalias, protecting/resetting Revokers/Prelates. Seems pretty sick. Eldrazi Displacer could work too (3 drop) but Restoration Angel doesn't die to bolt and can profitably block a flipped delver. But displacer will let you get 'endless' value, just can't save itself.
I play Eldrazi & Taxes in modern, but I never thought I'd see the day when I'd want a displacer in my legacy deck. I'll have to think on this.
Frenadol has had a lot of local success with the 24 land dust bowl version with 3 resto angels. I followed suit in uw and ran it with 2 resto angels. I also tend to run 2 resto in my normal mono white weenie build. Card is gas
I showed up at GP Seattle with 2x Resto Angels. My path to day 2 was stopped by Sam Black, but what can ya do? In an environment that you can predict as "slow" or "fair", she's bonkers. However, with a slower curve overall (back then CMC3s were less used), one should definitely be wary of her high cost. I'd argue though, that Recruiter is so good, you really ought to make the whole deck fetchable with it like Elves does with Green Sun's Zenith. It's the main card of Maverick and a few other decks too, and even they don't have all 100% search eligibility. I can understand holding onto Serra Avenger just for sake of natural percentage to draw efficient beaters, but I also think a lot of those things we had to do for sake of structural design - for a deck that draws its cards with no foresight (a minority in Legacy) - don't necessarily have to be adhered to now. DnT can at least join the ranks of Maverick, Elves, Eldrazi, Goblins, etc. that have searchable answers, so there's already plenty of value to be had without need to spend 4 mana. I do like her though, so it's a tough call.
For Stompy-type lists that would use Moxen and Ancient Tomb over Aether Vial (which sounds pretty rad actually), you'd probably straight replace Flickerwisp with Resto Angel, as you'd need Vial-less flickering tricks, but could also afford it sooner. That build is probably the deck that kicks ass with acceleration like I wanted, but you'd likely have to commit to acceleration creatures, which means you'd cut Wisp and some other amounts of WW cards, not all obviously, then smash face with turn 1 Thalia 1.0 or 2.0, Recruiters, Prelates, then turn 2 possibly you have Resto Angel ready and you just ride a tempo wave to Valhalla.
I really just want to cut the Serra Avengers, but I'm not sure we have anything with reliable evasion to replace her. I agree that not being able to recruit her is a big negative, IMHO.
Right on. Thank you!
If anyone else is in Indy hit me up and we can meet and talk shop.
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
BG Collected Company Elves
Legacy
W Death and Taxes
EDH
GW Sigarda, Host of Herons
GW Saffi Eriksdotter
Also, Recruiters price seems to have dropped pretty hard after the set went live, $14 and falling, where do you think it will stop? Thinking about buying an extra set or two I feel like it may inch back up if it proves to be good enough
Tempo
Modern
Eldrazi and Staxes
Whir Prison
Legacy
5c Humans
DnT
"I'm a lead farmer... !" Quote ruined due to policy.
Recruiter... is awesome. Value on its own, being able to get a specifically needed answer, Flickerwisp for Value City, etc. No need to beat that one to death, we all knew it'd be good.
I played the mirror twice, and I didn't like Sanctum Prelate in that match. I sided both of mine out for each game 2 and 3. It's really only good when you're already ahead, because you want Plowshares just as much as the next guy, and any singleton CMC-2 or 3 spells are going to be singletons and impossible to gauge ahead of time. Against a Show and Tell deck, the was great, naming 3. What is really excellent about this is that if naming '3' for them becomes the norm, it will encourage they stick on Pyroclasm as opposed to Kozilek's Return, which is good for us.
Now just going to find out whether it should be 2, 3, or 4 Cavern of Souls.
Mind sharing the list you've been testing on? I'm looking for a starting point for Sanctum Prelate / Recruiter testing myself; will be running a lot of reps online, but always like to jump off someone else's starting point
You can use Flickerwisp, with vial, to flicker the Sulfuric Vortex! At the beginning of the end step of your opponent's turn, use Flickerwisp off vial to flicker the Vortex. It will not come back in until the beginning of the NEXT end step. So on your turn it will not be in play. It will come back at the beginning of your end step, just in time to deal damage to your opponent during his upkeep.
I agree with 2 Caverns, maybe 3, 4 seems way too much, we need to keep enough pure white sources in the deck or we're going to get blown out by Blood Moon, Back to Basics, and Price of Progress
Prelate I think gets cut in the mirror, remember it only hits non-creature spells, so it does not get MoM. On 1 it stops Vial, StP, and Needle but, so if you have a vial out, have StP'd a dude, then it would be nice to lock your opponent out from answering, but if that's the case you're probably already well ahead anyway. Maybe keeping 1 is fine for that scenario, but I think I like more aggressive threats as they help close the game and/or help you catch up, Prelate does nothing to help you catch up.
I think the consesus on Recruiter is 3 to start.
I'm probably going to run 3-4 Flickerwisp, 2 THC, 1 Mirran Crusader, 1 Mangara, 1 Prelate main, I think 7-9 is a good number.
Wingmare was cut for more aggressive creatures like Serra Avenger and Mirran Crusader in the build Medea and AN have championed. I personally never really tried it as I worry about -1/-1 effects, and I think the decks it is good against like Miracles, Shardless etc. we're already pretty good against, and in the matches she's bad, she's really bad. Depends on your meta. Search Michael Derczo on youtube, he played the Wingmare build a lot and was pretty successful with it. Also, you can check out this Youtube playlist someone put together.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3D0S0Z3P3dA6192WPYsxCDHf-1NQ2G7x
I like Mangara as a 1 of, I think 2 main might be too much. Recruiter is going to slow the deck down a little in favor of consistency, and Mangara is also kind of slow to set up, that's my main concern.
I like Eiganjo Castle in theory and cut the Horizon Canopy for it online, but after dozens of games, I haven't had a chance to activate it a single time to save one of my Thalia's, so it may get cut to make room for more Caverns. Be careful you don't cut too many basic plains for Horizon Canopy, Eiganjo Castle, Caverns as one of the main strengths of our deck is our consistent and hard to disrupt mana base that doesn't deal us any damage. Too few basic plains and all of the sudden the aforementioned Blood Moon, Back to Basics, and Price of Progress really hurt. By my math, if you're running 3 Karakas, 1 Eiganjo Castle, 2 Horizon Canopy +4 Ports and Wastelands, that's only room for 9 basic plains without any Cavern, and I think you really want 2 Cavern, so that would put you at 7 basic plains, that's too few in my opinion.
Wynk is correct, vial Flickerwisp in on their end step, you need to have a vial for this trick to work. Because the beginning of the end step has already passed, Flickerwisps return to battlefield trigger won't happen. The Vortex is gone for your entire turn. This also allows you to gain some life, it comes back at the end of your turn, so your opponent will take the 2 damage on their upkeep, this can be a potentially big life swing that puts you ahead and makes their Vortex work against them, and is one of the main reasons I keep my Flickerwisps in for this matchup now.
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Mother of Runes
4 Flickerwisp
3 Recruiter of the Guard
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Banisher Priest
1 Containment Priest
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Mangara of Corondor
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Swords to Plowshares
11 Plains
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
3 Karakas
1 Cavern of Souls
2 Cataclysm
2 Council's Judgement
2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1 Disenchant
1 Path to Exile
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Manriki-Gusari
1 Gradigger's Cage
1 Sword of War and Peace
The sideboard is really loose. In any event, I was happy to score 3 Recruiters and 3 Prelates Friday night. My crew and I brewed it in the hotel Saturday night (after my very poor day one performance of 4-5 with Jund in the main event). The above list was a smoldering pile of garbage. I went 1-4 which is the worst I've done with D&T probably ever. That said, I did it for science! I wanted to push the toolbox approach as hard as I reasonably could. Three recruiters, seven silver bullets, and no untutorable creatures seemed like the way to do that.
Maybe it's just my play style, but I was never happy to see Prelate and I was only happy to see Recruiter about one out of four times.
- I never cast Prelate.
- Recruiter is very slow.
- Chaining Flickerwisps was not as good as we thought.
- I missed Serra Avengers something fierce.
- I missed Phyrexian Revokers a lot, too. Revoker is secretly the deck's trump card: it gives us a mutable answer to a variety of situations. I tutored for it a couple times and died because it was too slow. Opposing Jittes were already equipped. Opposing Moxen already did their damage.
- Big Thalia was a house whenever I played her. I wish she was main deck.
- I really missed Pithing Needle.
Instead of the usual smattering of beaters and threats, I was stranded with situational/irrelevant hatebears and two-turn too late answers. I was Asuka when she couldn't sync with her Eva.
I will confess, it was sweet to cast Recruiter for a Banisher Priest to get a blocker out of the way to swing for lethal. So was tutoring up a late-game SFM to get a game winning Batterskull.
There were about 70 people in the event. I made it a point to talk with all the D&T guys. None of them were running Recruiters.
TL;DR After today here's where I am:
- Some number of Recruiters have a place in the main.
- Some number of Big Thalia have a place in the main.
- Prelate is a sideboard card.
- Friends don't let friends play Death & Toolboxes.
I agree!
I don't think I agree that Recruiters are bad; after all, people were splashing red for Imperial Recruiter, and we could still play a one-of Magus of the Moon if we wanted in mono white with caverns/vial. Imperial Taxes had its definite upsides, so I don't see why suddenly a recruiter is bad now. I don't think we want to run tons of toolbox creatures, but 3-4 seem nice: Spirit of the Labyrinth, Banisher Priest, Sanctum Prelate, maybe Ethersworn Canonist. Otherwise we just end up drawing cards we don't want to cast too often. Not to mention that every other card is tutorable that we run 2+ of (Revoker, Thalia 1/2, Flickerwisp). The Recruiter of the Guard is actually better since it lets us go find Flickerwisp and Thalia 2 if we desired. Sideboard should have some more silver bullets, but they should replace the other bullets, so overall consistency shouldn't be affected. (Perhaps in duplicates.)
(I want to live the dream where I have two vials on 2 and 3 and can Recruit a Spirit of the Labyrinth in response to Ancestral Recall. Someday maybe.)
I'm excited to see how they perform! And how you ladies and gentlemen fare with the deck.
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
BG Collected Company Elves
Legacy
W Death and Taxes
EDH
GW Sigarda, Host of Herons
GW Saffi Eriksdotter
Firstly, good article. Interesting take.
Secondly, who knew Bradley Cooper played magic??
@Permanence
Thanks for the report and for diving in head-first. I wholeheartedly agree on Revoker and have never been comfortable with less than 3.
Here's where I am at after some mediocre amount of play-testing and a lot of talking to other people:
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Mother of Runes
4 Flickerwisp
3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Serra Avenger
2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Mangara of Corondor
4 Aether Vial
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Swords to Plowshares
Lands 23
8 Plains
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
3 Karakas
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Flagstones of Trokair
2 Rest in Peace
2 Path to Exile
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Manriki-Gusari
1 Containment Priest
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Pithing Needle
I am in agreement with the people who don't want to get rid of Serra Avenger, tentatively, because it take us down to 4 flyers and Avenger is the best flyer we can use. However, DnT has at times been more control and less race and honestly you could go with 2 Aven Mindcensor (I actually prefer this to Vryn Wingmare in the build) and again spread out your kinds of denial, be able to tick vial to 3, have a flash creature, and have those two extra flyers. Yes, it is a poor defender and doesn't race TNN nearly as well, but then again it makes opposing Stoneforge Mystics worse and can be fetched by Recruiter and it is 2W not WW and comes down a turn earlier. It also is value against combo.
I can't find space to make Recruiter of the Guard more than a 2-of at the moment. I think it will have a different function from Imperial Recruiter in RW, which had two blowout cards to fetch in certain matches, namely Magus of the Moon and Pia and Kiran Nalaar. WW doesn't exactly have a blowout card, even Mirran Crusader against BUG isn't a blowout, whereas Magus in that match usually is. Or, to put it another way, our blowout card is an untutorable 4 drop planeswalker... ouch.
Sanctum Prelate is SB material until I see a reason to make it main. It could take the Mangara of Corondor spot, but I am also contemplating putting Spirit of the Labyrinth in that spot. I feel like the extra 2cmc and draw denial is better right now than Mangara, but I might be wrong.
And no, I am not playing Banisher Priest or Leonin, Relic-Warder at the moment. Not enough room, especially if I had to remove Gideon to fit them in, which seems like the flex spot. Or I guess I could remove the Faerie Macabre given the lack of Reanimator in the meta at the moment and put in Relic-Warder.
That actually raises the question: With Prelate, do we need Gideon against Miracles? Is Gideon simply good enough to stay in the deck, especially against Miracles and Shardless BUG and Jund, or does it come out now?
Tempo
Modern
Eldrazi and Staxes
Whir Prison
Legacy
5c Humans
DnT
"I'm a lead farmer... !" Quote ruined due to policy.
4 Rishadan Port
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Cavern of Souls
3 Karakas
9 Plains
4 Mother of Runes
4 Flickerwisp
3 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
2 Mirran Crusader
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Recruiter of the Guard
1 Sanctum Prelate
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Fiendslayer Paladin
2 Council's Judgment
2 Rest in Peace
1 Banisher Priest
1 Stonecloaker
1 Leonin Relic-Warder
2 Pithing Needle
Now for efficient playtesting, it's good to start with 3 Recruiters and cut the 4th copy of anything we have, this way we draw the card often and see how it plays out. It's common to lose time in playtesting by just putting 1-2 copies, thenconclude "oh well I drew it only twice in 10 matches, so I can't tell". Putting the card in the opener seems like the best way to test the card, since it's slow, it's not obvious that it's strong enough by turn 3 !
Since Elves has been discussed a lot recently, Recruiter of the Guard into Orzhov Pontiff, Ethersworn Canonist or Containment Priest should looks very appealing to some players. Magus of the Moon can still be a 1-of as it's been proposed on this page. The thing is this new Recruiter allows a lighter splash for the lists that want one, and it might actually be the best application for the card.
Besides, I'm curious to read from players who have tried out Gisela, the Broken Blade as a SB option, if there's any.
3 Karakas
10 Plains
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
1 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Flickerwisp
2 Mirran Crusader
3 Mother of Runes
2 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Recruiter of the Guard
1 Sanctum Prelate
2 Serra Avenger
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
3 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Banisher Priest
2 Cataclysm
2 Containment Priest
2 Council's Judgment
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Manriki-Gusari
2 Path to Exile
1 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Rest in Peace
1 Sanctum Prelate
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
BG Collected Company Elves
Legacy
W Death and Taxes
EDH
GW Sigarda, Host of Herons
GW Saffi Eriksdotter
Mana acceleration is back on the back burner. There were times it was stellar, others where topdecking a Petal was equivalent to just just flood, but nothing truly exceptional overall one way or another. The instance that sealed it though: facing off against Storm, I'm on the draw and get Probed, then Cabal Therapy is cast. Opponent nets 2 Petals from my hand, which would've been used to cast Prelate on turn 1. I lost that match. Now the point isn't that anything could have been done to stop getting Therapy'ed, or that I wasn't going to lose a hate-piece: it's that the 'hate-piece' wasn't a hate piece at all, and rather, just an enabler to a fast hate piece. I'd rather have the slots I'm dedicating to combating fast decks actually be real spells... so I'm sticking with a discard package out of the sideboard. There's just no other way. It won't have the same impact on Elves as would the possibility of a turn 1 or turn 2 THC, but it's more a solid choice that works, as well as with the turn 1 decks.
Cavern of Souls is a good 2-of. I was trying 3 with no issues, but #1 I know in the long run, it's better to have more true-white sources, and #2 I get to save myself another $50 not buying a third. Unlike Goblins or Merfolk, our signature removal spells aren't tribal (Gempalm Incinerator/Tarfire)or colorless (Dismember), so the 4-on-the-floor Cavern of Souls makes more sense with them and less with us. Also, Fickerwisp and Stoneforge Mystic still make up 7-8 slots that aren't human so... 2 is probably the right number.
Recruiter is awesome. He's a slow 3-drop, but who cares? Value all the time. I really wish there was a Disenchant-on-a-body for real, however, like has been mentioned here. Banisher Priest and Leonin Relic Warder will do for now, but I really don't like them all that much on paper.
Prelate is not just sideboard material, I don't know who got that idea. You'll knock out your yet-to-be-drawn Plowshares if you name 1, but that's a pretty awesome play a lot of the time, regardless. Naming 2 or 3 is even more backbreaking for the decks that use them. Prelate adds another layer of "Mom"-type protection.
Far as what is good for toolboxing maindeck, Mangara is still awesome, Revoker got trimmed as such but I still found myself Tutoring for it against some weirder stuff like Food Chain combo. Also as a recruitable 1-of, and a large reason why I'm going to back to the discard suite... Orzhov Pontiff is a HUMAN (yayy!!) and wrecks opposing creature matchups with very little investment. After that, I had one spot left, and wanted another 2-drop, so I threw my old pal Bob in there as well, bringing me somewhat close to where I was before the spoiled cards. I think those new goodies just enabled a more refined version:
4 Flickerwisp
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Sanctum Prelate
2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1 Dark Confidant
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Mangara of Corondor
4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Wasteland
3 Plains
3 Karakas
3 Flooded Strand
2 Windswept Heath
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Scrubland
3 Thoughtseize
2 Rest in Peace
2 Containment Priest
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Leonin Relic-Warder
1 Banisher Priest
1 Bitterblossom
1 Pithing Needle
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Enlightened Tutor
Is it 3 or 4 Stoneforge Mystic? I found myself grabbing her with my Recruiters quite often, so as they're both "closers" in that regard, I reasoned that we could lose a spot of hers, JUST TO TRY FOR NOW. I don't know if it's correct, but I haven't regretted it since. Normally, if we didn't have Recruiter of the Guard, I would never consider such a thing, but that card brings all sorts of new structural thinking to the deck. Additionally, I had been trying 3 Mother of Runes when I was going for acceleration, but now that my turn 1 plays dropped back to "normal" in the maindeck, I wanted to bring her back to normal as well.
FLICKERWISP IS STILL THE BEST CARD IN THE DECK. This is obvious to me, even now. Four Wisp makes the 3 Recruiters/3 Mystics better; I'd rather have them naturally than search for them. But I want my four Wisps considering the need to switch Sanctum Prelate's designation on the fly for the ever-changing game state. Like say you lock out CMC1 cause you have no Moms in play and no Plowshares in hand. Well, as the game goes on and you get a Mom on board, and draw your removal, switching Prelate to another number might be the right call. Did I mention Flikerwisp triggers with Orzhov Pontiff are incredible? This is especially true if you can get it to go off twice in one turn, giving you a one-sided -2/-2 effect.
I'm sad Lotus Petal is not gonna do it, really. I'd intended to make the deck VERY creature heavy, but to not ignore all those fast combo decks I've been *****ing about forever, I needed more cheap noncreature spells to help. Oh well. Maybe I was going about it wrong and Chrome Mox or Mox Diamond are really kickass, but you can't control all that well for when they will be "excellent" or when they will be "meh". Thoughtseize is more naturally excellent on its own, so I'll continue down that road for the time being.
Post #1: Not sure if your remark about people not liking Recruiter's was directed at me or not, but to clarify: I think Recruiter is gas. My toolbox build was jank.
Post #2: I like where your list is going.
@Medea
Nice article, good read. Prelate is going to take a lot of practice to play correctly. It also makes me think about how nuts Restoration Angel is now. Obviously, you can't flicker the Prelate to stop a spell already on the stack, but you *can* flicker it to protect it from a kill spell and stop them from going off that turn.
Heh, Restoration Angel and Recruiter is a thing too, isn't it... Gahh so is Displacer. That is disgusting.
3 Mother of Runes
3 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Flickerwisp
2 Restoration Angel
2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Containment Priest
2 Eldrazi Displacer
1 Sanctum Prelate
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
23 Lands
@Redtwister
Yes! For science! I like your list. It is basically what I wished I played yesterday.
@headminerve
I totally agree that for playtesting it is best to play with a bunch of copies of the new cards. You want to see them all the time so you can evaluate them at different parts of the game.
I think Restoration Angel may be worth playing now. I'm not quite sure, since I know we want a lower curve because of our land destruction, and I'm not sure we ever want to be leaving up 4 mana, but the idea seems sick. Protecting Thalias, protecting/resetting Revokers/Prelates. Seems pretty sick. Eldrazi Displacer could work too (3 drop) but Restoration Angel doesn't die to bolt and can profitably block a flipped delver. But displacer will let you get 'endless' value, just can't save itself.
I play Eldrazi & Taxes in modern, but I never thought I'd see the day when I'd want a displacer in my legacy deck. I'll have to think on this.
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
BG Collected Company Elves
Legacy
W Death and Taxes
EDH
GW Sigarda, Host of Herons
GW Saffi Eriksdotter
For Stompy-type lists that would use Moxen and Ancient Tomb over Aether Vial (which sounds pretty rad actually), you'd probably straight replace Flickerwisp with Resto Angel, as you'd need Vial-less flickering tricks, but could also afford it sooner. That build is probably the deck that kicks ass with acceleration like I wanted, but you'd likely have to commit to acceleration creatures, which means you'd cut Wisp and some other amounts of WW cards, not all obviously, then smash face with turn 1 Thalia 1.0 or 2.0, Recruiters, Prelates, then turn 2 possibly you have Resto Angel ready and you just ride a tempo wave to Valhalla.
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
BG Collected Company Elves
Legacy
W Death and Taxes
EDH
GW Sigarda, Host of Herons
GW Saffi Eriksdotter