Dominaria has really gotten my wheels turning, and as some of you may know the first card I tried to break was Mox Amber. I'm an exclusively mono white player, so it's possible that a blue mage can better utilize Amber, but after trying a myriad of different decks, my conclusion is that Amber is too fair to break. So, it's on to the next, and the next is Fall of the Thran.
Full disclosure: I love prison decks. Specifically, I love prison decks with a lot of moving parts. Unfortunately, Lantern Control isn't feasible in mono white, but I've been working on a mono white artifact control/prison list utilizing some synergies that others have known about for some time but that I'm only now discovering, and I've been having extremely positive results in admittedly sparse online testing. Here's the 60:
A quick word about the name of the deck: the deck itself started out different than it is now, but the heart of the gameplan was the same: Fall of the Thran plus Ghostly Prison. I started calling the deck Thran Stax before immediately realizing it sounded just like Anthrax. If this is already the name of another, more prominent deck, my bad.
Anyway, about the deck. If this deck turns out to continue producing positive results, I may make a full-blown guide to gameplay, but for now I'll just elaborate on the basics. First, plan A is to ramp out Fall of the Thran and combine it with Power Conduit, which will allow you to reset Fall to 0 lore counters, essentially Armageddoning every turn. Since you have mana rocks and Darksteel Citadels, this should favor you. Combined with even just 1 Ghostly Prison, creature-based decks can no longer attack you, and most decks have a hard time continuing the game with a maximum of 1 mana per turn. If you can achieve this lock before dying, you're in good shape. You have Wraths to help you get there, as well as a surprisingly powerful card drawing engine in Otherworld Atlas. You have cards that add/move counters meaning you can quickly begin drawing several cards a turn, digging you to a Thran, and you can even then move a counter from Atlas to a rock to give you that 1 extra mana you might need to cast it. Atlas also doubles as a win condition. Since the effect is symmetrical, you can cause your opponent to draw their deck before you thanks to discarding Emrakul during cleanup, replenishing your library with what used to be your graveyard. Emrakul of course serves as a fine win con on his/her/its own, since it is not unusual to get your mana rocks to 6+ counters thanks to the Coretappers and Energy Chambers. Combine a 6 counter Cornucopia with a Voltaic Key or 2 and it's really not hard at all to hardcast Emmy. Of course, that's assuming your opponent hasn't scooped by then.
This deck is, in a word, hilarious. As is typical of my decks starting out, I don't have a ready made sideboard yet, but Disenchant of some kind will be key to protect against Stony Silence, which is devastating. Chalice of the Void might make an appearance, as might Leyline of Sanctity, since in theory the deck is weak to combo if it doesn't land Fall in time.
Looking forward to comments/suggestions. In anticipation of the "where is Hex Parasite/Leyline of the Void to go with Fall, I have tried them, and found that Leyline doesn't fit this basic shell, and Parasite used to be where Mox is now, but I found the mana ramp more relevant, plus Parasite has no real purpose without Fall in play. Power Conduit without Fall in play certainly isn't spectacular, but if you have, say, an Everflowing Chalice with 1 counter and a Cornucopia on 0, they effectively both have a counter since you can tap Chalice for 1, Conduit the counter over to Cornucopia, and tap Cornucopia for 1.
This seems like a really solid deck for a new idea.
I've seen these kind of decks usually run Surge Node for charge counter ramping, is Energy Chamber just better in this version ?
Have you considered Board the Weatherlight to help dig through the deck and find Fall (or other artifacts) ?
It is like a white Ancient Stirrings with the added benefit of finding the Saga (but not finding non-artifact lands and costing 2-mana).
Darksteel Reactor seems like possible win-con in a deck full of charge counters though it might still be too slow. Walking Ballista is another good option.
Elspeth, Sun's Champion is always a good option to ramp into in a white deck to stabilize and close out games.
Thanks for the feedback, Dennis. Good to see a familiar name.
Surge Node somehow escaped my eye when I was searching through charge counter cards. I don't know whether it would be "better" than Energy Chamber but in initial testing Chamber has felt like the most important piece of the deck. I may end up running both since getting a consistent stream of charge counters on to rocks is pretty important to the deck's gameplan. Node would also give Conduit something to eat, since right now it often sits there with nothing to do since nothing has any counters. I think I'll try it out.
Board the Weatherlight is a card I've considered. I'm skeptical that it's worth the cost, but I'm willing to give it a whirl. I'm just not sure where to trim to make room for this and Node. I might be able to afford cutting the Wraths and moving them to the board. Will need to do more testing.
Reactor was the initial win con, but it was just too slow and didn't otherwise do anything. It was basically a 4 mana Darksteel Relic unless I had the game practically wrapped up (Conduit+Fall+Prison). Ballista is worth considering too, since it is flexible enough to come down early and shoot annoying creatures. I might consider giving that some run, but I do like the ability to Emrakul my graveyard back into my library to make Atlas a legitimate win con.
I do like Elspeth, I'm just having problems finding room as is with cards that have better synergy. Worth keeping in the back of my mind, but I need to do more tinkering with the heart before jamming in extra win cons.
Could you use this to ramp into Enduring Ideal? I just feel like that might be a small card package, 7 cards I think... You already have the ramp to run it.
On Surge Node: It's a bit faster, because you get that first counter a turn earlier. You're also more likely to get at least one counter, and it plays well with Voltaic Key.
On Board the Weatherlight: Maybe cut one Fall, one Mox? It'll dig for both, and the second one of either does you no good. That feels like a weird answer, though.
One for-sure thing to try: 4xGemstone Mine for 4xPlains. You have so many rocks the downside is unlikely to matter, and it's more food for Power Conduit. I suspect this will be pure upside.
As early defense and potential win mechanic, Hangarback Walker might also be useful. It's a similar slot as Walking Ballista which Dennis suggested.
So, after thinking about this concept for a bit and reviewing the decklist and suggestions above,
I think one has to make a strong claim for additional filtering/deck manipulation and removal.
As already stated, there is an enormous amount of decks that can shut you down, either by killing you on turn 4 or by making your life miserable via cards like e.g. Stony Silence, Solemnity, Meddling Mage, Negate, artifact/enchantment removal... you name it. So dropping Ghostly Prison on turn 3 probably won´t cut it, especially with "only" 4 sweepers.
The combination of Fall of the Thran and Power Conduit resembles a combo lock that, while efficient and inherently strong, is very fragile. And while redundancy will definitely help to install the lock asap, imho there is a need for cards like Path to Exile, Board the Weatherlight, maybe even Wall of Omens and/or Mind Stone.
My basic idea is to make the concept more resilient during the first 3 to 5 turns and provide more efficient ways
to draw into the core pieces, ward of fast creatures and destroy opposing artifacts/enchantments/creatures. These cards cannot be too expensive with regards to cmc, so Fall of the Thran - with the exception of Emmy - should be the most expensive piece in the deck.
In order to do that, I would isolate the core of the deck:
and fill up with a selection or combination of the following cards:
Mainboard Land: 1-2 Inventors´ Fair (generates some extra life; can tutor up some artifacts)
Mainboard Sorcery: 1-2 Board the Weatherlight (filtering for artifacts, legendaries, sagas)
Mainboard Artifact: 1-4 Mind Stone (card draw and ramp)
Mainboard Artifact: 1-2 Damping Sphere (shuts down Tron, helps against Storm/degenerate combo decks)
Mainboard Artifact: 1-2 Storage Matrix (we can ignore lands and creatures, so it benefits us since the opponent has to select his untap targets more carefully)
Mainboard Creature: 1-4 Wall of Omens (card draw and early aggression control)
Mainboard Creature: 1-4 Scrap Trawler (defense/offense, brings back key artifacts on death)
Mainboard Plainswalker: 1-2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant (nice interactions overall, especially the -8 combined with Fall)
Sideboard Instant: 1-3 Dawn Charm (an odd-one, but potentially interesting fog effect and pseudo-counterspell)
Sideboard Instant: 1-2 Angel´s Grace (another fog-ish effect)
Sideboard Instant: 1-3 Disenchant (or any other related card)
Sideboard Sorcery: 1-2 Day of Judgment (me thinks additional sweepers are a good idea)
This is really only the product of a short brainstorming session, but I think some of these cards
might help the overall deck idea.
Well, I guess Eternal scourge is an additional way to finish the game over multiple turns.
Question is, how can we integrate it without disrupting the original idea and card composition too much?
I feel, for it to make an impact, you would need at least 2-3. It may work out just fine though!
I guess you could probably eliminate the darksteel citadels if you don´t use the opals (I guess?)since they helped to activate them faster. But they also contribute to mana after Fall, so we might have to keep them.
Nevertheless, I think you will face dire situations vs. fast decks and probably
also against control decks, since you have nothing against the likes of JTMS.
Also, I feel something to get back your graveyard could potentially be quite important.
So Emrakul or something like Elixir of Immortality might be necessary.
I am not sure about Defense Grid. Feels a bit odd.
Maybe it is strong in combination with Damping Sphere?
Yes, Pithing Needle/Spyglass are must-haves after SB.
Not sold on Ethersworn Canonist...maybe better if it had flash.
I am also not sold on Rest in Piece. It kinda conflicts with your
ability to shuffle back your own cards and don´t deck yourself in
long matches. Maybe Relic of Progenitus could fill that gap?
You could use Elixir of Immortality like some versions of dice factory. The other kill you with Atlas deck.
Relic is probably the better card as it fights against graveyard decks and can be pitched to draw in a pinch. Still the 5 life is not pointless and can help in other matchups.
I too like Relic in this concept quite a bit.
Seems like the smarter solution since it also provides some card draw, but sure, you can always smuggle one
Elixir in. Shouldn't hurt that much.
The core task would be to pinpoint the most important pieces of the engine and leave out the rest.
But without playtesting I can´t really provide a good solution to this. I just feel, with Humans, Hollow One,
Goblins being so popular right now, redundancy of "combo" pieces alone will not be enough.
Maybe a mono-colored version of this idea isn´t even viable.
Seems like heavy base artifact deck should probably play metalcraft mox. Allows more busted plays like citadel, chalice, mox, coretapper... that's turn 2 atlas or geddon. Not great to geddon that early but if one of your lands is citadel. Put in some flagstones to max out on the effect and geddons can potentially be played with literally 0 negative effect against you some games.
Yeah that's how I'd probably run this deck. Play 2 hex parasites in the board for combo decks that will try to race you. Not much storm, ad, tron can do when you geddon them when they have 2 lands out then do so every turn moving forward.
This isn't quite the same as what you're brewing, but it does seem related so I'm going to mention it here: another interesting way to break the symmetry of fall is to play cards that exile your opponent's graveyard. I'm thinking WB, with maybe some nihil spellbombs and remorseful clerics. Apart from that it'd just be W/B midrange.
Granted, you don't get to blow up lands every turn, but if you blow them up once and then you start returning two lands a turn while your opponent is back to turn one that's probably good enough to win.
Full disclosure: I love prison decks. Specifically, I love prison decks with a lot of moving parts. Unfortunately, Lantern Control isn't feasible in mono white, but I've been working on a mono white artifact control/prison list utilizing some synergies that others have known about for some time but that I'm only now discovering, and I've been having extremely positive results in admittedly sparse online testing. Here's the 60:
4 Darksteel Citadel
12 Plains
Artifact Ramp
4 Mox Opal
4 Everflowing Chalice
4 Astral Cornucopia
4 Coretapper
4 Energy Chamber
4 Power Conduit
3 Voltaic Key
4 Ghostly Prison
4 Wrath of God
4 Fall of the Thran
Value/Win cons
3 Otherworld Atlas
2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
A quick word about the name of the deck: the deck itself started out different than it is now, but the heart of the gameplan was the same: Fall of the Thran plus Ghostly Prison. I started calling the deck Thran Stax before immediately realizing it sounded just like Anthrax. If this is already the name of another, more prominent deck, my bad.
Anyway, about the deck. If this deck turns out to continue producing positive results, I may make a full-blown guide to gameplay, but for now I'll just elaborate on the basics. First, plan A is to ramp out Fall of the Thran and combine it with Power Conduit, which will allow you to reset Fall to 0 lore counters, essentially Armageddoning every turn. Since you have mana rocks and Darksteel Citadels, this should favor you. Combined with even just 1 Ghostly Prison, creature-based decks can no longer attack you, and most decks have a hard time continuing the game with a maximum of 1 mana per turn. If you can achieve this lock before dying, you're in good shape. You have Wraths to help you get there, as well as a surprisingly powerful card drawing engine in Otherworld Atlas. You have cards that add/move counters meaning you can quickly begin drawing several cards a turn, digging you to a Thran, and you can even then move a counter from Atlas to a rock to give you that 1 extra mana you might need to cast it. Atlas also doubles as a win condition. Since the effect is symmetrical, you can cause your opponent to draw their deck before you thanks to discarding Emrakul during cleanup, replenishing your library with what used to be your graveyard. Emrakul of course serves as a fine win con on his/her/its own, since it is not unusual to get your mana rocks to 6+ counters thanks to the Coretappers and Energy Chambers. Combine a 6 counter Cornucopia with a Voltaic Key or 2 and it's really not hard at all to hardcast Emmy. Of course, that's assuming your opponent hasn't scooped by then.
This deck is, in a word, hilarious. As is typical of my decks starting out, I don't have a ready made sideboard yet, but Disenchant of some kind will be key to protect against Stony Silence, which is devastating. Chalice of the Void might make an appearance, as might Leyline of Sanctity, since in theory the deck is weak to combo if it doesn't land Fall in time.
Looking forward to comments/suggestions. In anticipation of the "where is Hex Parasite/Leyline of the Void to go with Fall, I have tried them, and found that Leyline doesn't fit this basic shell, and Parasite used to be where Mox is now, but I found the mana ramp more relevant, plus Parasite has no real purpose without Fall in play. Power Conduit without Fall in play certainly isn't spectacular, but if you have, say, an Everflowing Chalice with 1 counter and a Cornucopia on 0, they effectively both have a counter since you can tap Chalice for 1, Conduit the counter over to Cornucopia, and tap Cornucopia for 1.
I've seen these kind of decks usually run Surge Node for charge counter ramping, is Energy Chamber just better in this version ?
Have you considered Board the Weatherlight to help dig through the deck and find Fall (or other artifacts) ?
It is like a white Ancient Stirrings with the added benefit of finding the Saga (but not finding non-artifact lands and costing 2-mana).
Darksteel Reactor seems like possible win-con in a deck full of charge counters though it might still be too slow.
Walking Ballista is another good option.
Elspeth, Sun's Champion is always a good option to ramp into in a white deck to stabilize and close out games.
Surge Node somehow escaped my eye when I was searching through charge counter cards. I don't know whether it would be "better" than Energy Chamber but in initial testing Chamber has felt like the most important piece of the deck. I may end up running both since getting a consistent stream of charge counters on to rocks is pretty important to the deck's gameplan. Node would also give Conduit something to eat, since right now it often sits there with nothing to do since nothing has any counters. I think I'll try it out.
Board the Weatherlight is a card I've considered. I'm skeptical that it's worth the cost, but I'm willing to give it a whirl. I'm just not sure where to trim to make room for this and Node. I might be able to afford cutting the Wraths and moving them to the board. Will need to do more testing.
Reactor was the initial win con, but it was just too slow and didn't otherwise do anything. It was basically a 4 mana Darksteel Relic unless I had the game practically wrapped up (Conduit+Fall+Prison). Ballista is worth considering too, since it is flexible enough to come down early and shoot annoying creatures. I might consider giving that some run, but I do like the ability to Emrakul my graveyard back into my library to make Atlas a legitimate win con.
I do like Elspeth, I'm just having problems finding room as is with cards that have better synergy. Worth keeping in the back of my mind, but I need to do more tinkering with the heart before jamming in extra win cons.
on mono-colored decks, especially in case of prison decks.
If I come up with some solid
additions/ideas I will post asap.
On Board the Weatherlight: Maybe cut one Fall, one Mox? It'll dig for both, and the second one of either does you no good. That feels like a weird answer, though.
One for-sure thing to try: 4xGemstone Mine for 4xPlains. You have so many rocks the downside is unlikely to matter, and it's more food for Power Conduit. I suspect this will be pure upside.
As early defense and potential win mechanic, Hangarback Walker might also be useful. It's a similar slot as Walking Ballista which Dennis suggested.
I think one has to make a strong claim for additional filtering/deck manipulation and removal.
As already stated, there is an enormous amount of decks that can shut you down, either by killing you on turn 4 or by making your life miserable via cards like e.g. Stony Silence, Solemnity, Meddling Mage, Negate, artifact/enchantment removal... you name it. So dropping Ghostly Prison on turn 3 probably won´t cut it, especially with "only" 4 sweepers.
The combination of Fall of the Thran and Power Conduit resembles a combo lock that, while efficient and inherently strong, is very fragile. And while redundancy will definitely help to install the lock asap, imho there is a need for cards like Path to Exile, Board the Weatherlight, maybe even Wall of Omens and/or Mind Stone.
My basic idea is to make the concept more resilient during the first 3 to 5 turns and provide more efficient ways
to draw into the core pieces, ward of fast creatures and destroy opposing artifacts/enchantments/creatures. These cards cannot be too expensive with regards to cmc, so Fall of the Thran - with the exception of Emmy - should be the most expensive piece in the deck.
In order to do that, I would isolate the core of the deck:
Engine Cards (minus Voltaic Key)
Value Cards (like 1-2 Atlas and 1 Emmy?)
Prison Cards (-1 Ghostly Prison?)
Ramp Cards (-1 Astral Cornucopia, -1 Chalice?)
and fill up with a selection or combination of the following cards:
Mainboard Land: 1-2 Inventors´ Fair (generates some extra life; can tutor up some artifacts)
Mainboard Sorcery: 1-2 Board the Weatherlight (filtering for artifacts, legendaries, sagas)
Mainboard Artifact: 1-4 Mind Stone (card draw and ramp)
Mainboard Artifact: 1-2 Damping Sphere (shuts down Tron, helps against Storm/degenerate combo decks)
Mainboard Artifact: 1-2 Storage Matrix (we can ignore lands and creatures, so it benefits us since the opponent has to select his untap targets more carefully)
Mainboard Creature: 1-4 Wall of Omens (card draw and early aggression control)
Mainboard Creature: 1-4 Scrap Trawler (defense/offense, brings back key artifacts on death)
Mainboard Plainswalker: 1-2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant (nice interactions overall, especially the -8 combined with Fall)
Sideboard Instant: 1-3 Dawn Charm (an odd-one, but potentially interesting fog effect and pseudo-counterspell)
Sideboard Instant: 1-2 Angel´s Grace (another fog-ish effect)
Sideboard Instant: 1-3 Disenchant (or any other related card)
Sideboard Sorcery: 1-2 Day of Judgment (me thinks additional sweepers are a good idea)
This is really only the product of a short brainstorming session, but I think some of these cards
might help the overall deck idea.
Cheers
Question is, how can we integrate it without disrupting the original idea and card composition too much?
I feel, for it to make an impact, you would need at least 2-3. It may work out just fine though!
Nevertheless, I think you will face dire situations vs. fast decks and probably
also against control decks, since you have nothing against the likes of JTMS.
Also, I feel something to get back your graveyard could potentially be quite important.
So Emrakul or something like Elixir of Immortality might be necessary.
Maybe it is strong in combination with Damping Sphere?
Yes, Pithing Needle/Spyglass are must-haves after SB.
Not sold on Ethersworn Canonist...maybe better if it had flash.
I am also not sold on Rest in Piece. It kinda conflicts with your
ability to shuffle back your own cards and don´t deck yourself in
long matches. Maybe Relic of Progenitus could fill that gap?
Relic is probably the better card as it fights against graveyard decks and can be pitched to draw in a pinch. Still the 5 life is not pointless and can help in other matchups.
Seems like the smarter solution since it also provides some card draw, but sure, you can always smuggle one
Elixir in. Shouldn't hurt that much.
The core task would be to pinpoint the most important pieces of the engine and leave out the rest.
But without playtesting I can´t really provide a good solution to this. I just feel, with Humans, Hollow One,
Goblins being so popular right now, redundancy of "combo" pieces alone will not be enough.
Maybe a mono-colored version of this idea isn´t even viable.
Yeah that's how I'd probably run this deck. Play 2 hex parasites in the board for combo decks that will try to race you. Not much storm, ad, tron can do when you geddon them when they have 2 lands out then do so every turn moving forward.
Granted, you don't get to blow up lands every turn, but if you blow them up once and then you start returning two lands a turn while your opponent is back to turn one that's probably good enough to win.
Goryo's Fuse Combo UBR