Continued play is not making me any more partial to Auriok Champion.
But but it's such an elegant solution to twin!!!
I haven't had a chance to give it a proper run against an aggro deck, but it doesn't seem maindeckable. It steps off of the deck's gameplan of disrupting our opponent while unloading damage in the form of aggro/flicker effects. It doesn't actively disrupt our opponent, except specifically for its use against Twin. It doesn't do much as a beater either as a feeble 1/1. Add the difficulty sometimes presented by the WW cost on the second turn, and it can muck the deck up pretty badly sometimes.
Maybe it belongs solely in the sideboard?
I really wish this deck had a stellar two-drop for Mono W builds, but I just can't seem to find one I like...aside from Inquisitor Exarch, and that only for 1 game.
That's the catch with mono white. The necessity of using subpar choices. Love me some tidehollow
Continued play is not making me any more partial to Auriok Champion.
But but it's such an elegant solution to twin!!!
I haven't had a chance to give it a proper run against an aggro deck, but it doesn't seem maindeckable. It steps off of the deck's gameplan of disrupting our opponent while unloading damage in the form of aggro/flicker effects. It doesn't actively disrupt our opponent, except specifically for its use against Twin. It doesn't do much as a beater either as a feeble 1/1. Add the difficulty sometimes presented by the WW cost on the second turn, and it can muck the deck up pretty badly sometimes.
Maybe it belongs solely in the sideboard?
I really wish this deck had a stellar two-drop for Mono W builds, but I just can't seem to find one I like...aside from Inquisitor Exarch, and that only for 1 game.
That's the catch with mono white. The necessity of using subpar choices. Love me some tidehollow
I think spellskite is an excellent maindeck 2 drop for the monowhite build. It is awesome at protecting your other hatebears, helps vs aggro by being a decent wall, mucks up affinity ravager modular tricks, helps vs combo including twin and scapeshift, and is also awesome vs boggles and infect. The good thing is that it does not have defender despite being an 0/4, which means an equipped sword or elspeth turns it into a win con.
Edit: oh, and he is always castable and makes an awesome surprise with vial!
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My Modern decks: Death and Taxes, Hatebears, Well Oiled Machine, Merfolk, Nyx Wave, Soul Sisters, Stompy, Matyr Proc, Naya Zoo, Robots (I refuse to call it affinity!), Bogles, Kiki Chord
That's the catch with mono white. The necessity of using subpar choices. Love me some tidehollow
So I come back, yet again, to Ethersworn Canonist, which is a weird card in-deck, at best.
I love the splash options, but I also love running my opponent over with 2/2, First Striking lands. I did give in to the temptation of pulling the Tectonic Edges. To anyone considering doing so, don't.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Modern has provided us a non-rotating format that is far more accessible than Legacy or Vintage, but still retains many of the qualities that people enjoy in those formats—such as a more stable metagame, the ability to play and tweak the same deck week after week, and simply a much more powerful card pool than Standard.”
- Sam Stoddard, “Developing Modern” (June 21, 2013) (by means of Sheridan Lardner, "Fixing Modern: Defining Format Mission (March 16, 2016))
That's the catch with mono white. The necessity of using subpar choices. Love me some tidehollow
So I come back, yet again, to Ethersworn Canonist, which is a weird card in-deck, at best.
I love the splash options, but I also love running my opponent over with 2/2, First Striking lands. I did give in to the temptation of pulling the Tectonic Edges. To anyone considering doing so, don't.
I wish I had room for Mutas toooo but I only run three basic lands
That's the catch with mono white. The necessity of using subpar choices. Love me some tidehollow
So I come back, yet again, to Ethersworn Canonist, which is a weird card in-deck, at best.
I love the splash options, but I also love running my opponent over with 2/2, First Striking lands. I did give in to the temptation of pulling the Tectonic Edges. To anyone considering doing so, don't.
I run 2 maindeck canonists as extra combo hate vs storm, ad naseum, restore balance, and living end. She is also very useful for slowing the game down vs small zoo, boggle and infect.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My Modern decks: Death and Taxes, Hatebears, Well Oiled Machine, Merfolk, Nyx Wave, Soul Sisters, Stompy, Matyr Proc, Naya Zoo, Robots (I refuse to call it affinity!), Bogles, Kiki Chord
Continued play is not making me any more partial to Auriok Champion.
I switched the 3 kor fire walkers in my sideboard with 3 champions after someone suggested it, and I've had good success with them. I think I've sided them in vs. every deck that has had a red or black creature in it and have not been disappointed.
-Spellskite, vialing it out and blinking it are both great moves. It's generally relevant against aggro decks, and it's nut unless they have a removal (Flame Slash, Abrupt Decay, Path to Exile) against Twin, Infect, Aura especially out of vial.
I'll back this up, I think it's a safe bet to run one or two Spellskites in the main. When I look at the card in a vacuum, I tend to lean against thinking that it doesn't do enough to advance the deck's game plan, but when I look at the meta, it's useful in a lot of matchups.
Also, we're supposed to jam a lot of our creatures in the 3CMC slot. Any opinions on how many two drops is ideal? I guess you'd want to have two in each game (one to play on the second turn, one to vial in on the third), so... 9? 10?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
When I hit my 3000 post mark, I'm gone for good.
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
The green for KotR is solely because after I have them on one or no lands I can start pumping my knight and close the game out quicker, while having the option to bring back the lands I destroy on my side.
I just need to mess with the land base a little, the splash is nice but I feel like I should be using some land tech with KotR
Firstly razorverge thickets over forests if you can get them. In fact over anything.
Secondly kotr is just a real nonbo with the anti search. The guy barely makes zoo lists, gets vapor snaged and pathed all day long.
Thirdly samuari of the pale c are pretty awful as board cards. They don't hose bins at all really. You want to avoid men in the board with less than 3 toughness- enemy deck will bring sweepers in, and aim for high impact board cards, not utility like this. Kataki is perhaps acceptable as it is mega impact vs affinity. Butb this guy is not, and is a nonbo with sword of l and s plus kotr. Rest in peace hoses storm, insta reanimator and living end as well and is better. Grafdigger's is better too- hosing not living end but pod in particular.
Qasali pridemage is the reason to go green- he gives exalted main deck, allowing survival with resto for many men. He hurts twin.
This version looks weakr vs affinity- no blade splicers, no mutavaults to beat etched champions. Mangara is slow and the champion plus plating kills by t3 often, t 4 regularly.
I would look at runed halo for utility that won't die to sweepers- and that can circumvent both etched champion's pro too. Plus it nails boggles. It can be reset by wisp.
Spellskite is a great addition to boards as it survives sweepers and nails infect combo, boggles.
Mana tithe is interesting, I have considered it an guttural response before now for sphinx's rev/cryptics specifically in usa control. It works when people do not expect it and is strong psychologically.
I dislike crusader in the board- decks running goyf run bolts, and 3 is too much for any deck to lose to a 1cc spell.
Most of the meta seems to be blue tempo, affinity, usa, pod.
I like 3 sphere and mangara in legacy, but think modern is too slow for them. I may be wrong, but the consensus here was that mangara is just too slow.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
oh and jotun grunt is amazingly good in some metas. Shrinks goyfs, can be reset, fast clock etc.
Finally ps - grats to Dr worm- a fine choice to take the thread over- and someone I agree with on D and T a very large chunk of the time too. He knows the deck really well, and can spot a ww pretending to be d and t at fifty paces.......
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
I think whether you use Mangara or not depends on your other card choices. I play a more controlling version with extra flicker/blink/bounce effects that tries to slow the game down with Thalia and Canonist with spellskite and 8.5 tails to protect them. I find Mangara very effective and not too slow in that case. But even in my deck I only run 2 and it is not a major focus like in legacy.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My Modern decks: Death and Taxes, Hatebears, Well Oiled Machine, Merfolk, Nyx Wave, Soul Sisters, Stompy, Matyr Proc, Naya Zoo, Robots (I refuse to call it affinity!), Bogles, Kiki Chord
The green for KotR is solely because after I have them on one or no lands I can start pumping my knight and close the game out quicker, while having the option to bring back the lands I destroy on my side.
I just need to mess with the land base a little, the splash is nice but I feel like I should be using some land tech with KotR
Firstly razorverge thickets over forests if you can get them. In fact over anything.
Secondly kotr is just a real nonbo with the anti search. The guy barely makes zoo lists, gets vapor snaged and pathed all day long.
Thirdly samuari of the pale c are pretty awful as board cards. They don't hose bins at all really. You want to avoid men in the board with less than 3 toughness- enemy deck will bring sweepers in, and aim for high impact board cards, not utility like this. Kataki is perhaps acceptable as it is mega impact vs affinity. Butb this guy is not, and is a nonbo with sword of l and s plus kotr. Rest in peace hoses storm, insta reanimator and living end as well and is better. Grafdigger's is better too- hosing not living end but pod in particular.
Qasali pridemage is the reason to go green- he gives exalted main deck, allowing survival with resto for many men. He hurts twin.
This version looks weakr vs affinity- no blade splicers, no mutavaults to beat etched champions. Mangara is slow and the champion plus plating kills by t3 often, t 4 regularly.
I would look at runed halo for utility that won't die to sweepers- and that can circumvent both etched champion's pro too. Plus it nails boggles. It can be reset by wisp.
Spellskite is a great addition to boards as it survives sweepers and nails infect combo, boggles.
Mana tithe is interesting, I have considered it an guttural response before now for sphinx's rev/cryptics specifically in usa control. It works when people do not expect it and is strong psychologically.
I dislike crusader in the board- decks running goyf run bolts, and 3 is too much for any deck to lose to a 1cc spell.
Most of the meta seems to be blue tempo, affinity, usa, pod.
I like 3 sphere and mangara in legacy, but think modern is too slow for them. I may be wrong, but the consensus here was that mangara is just too slow.
All this^ don't ever over do spells. The minimum numbers are 27 creatures, 23 lands, 10 non-creatures. That means 8 slots are path and vial and ya got 2 extras to play with. Also really really run blade splicer. I can't stress it's importance enough. Cut knights for 2.
Yes, you should not over do spells.
Main deck - 4 path, 4 vial, nothing else if possible. Swords are really pushing it, I think they are not main deckable-one perhaps but it is a real push.....
When considering spells main deck or post board keeping Thalia in ADD ONE TO THE CC!- Thalia. So runed halo is ok at 3, path at 2 etc. But a 4cc spell is not as it costs 5, and is thus unplayable. A sword costs 4.
BUT post board this changes
a) If thalia is removed
b) If you are trying to stop a combo deck
Katakis great high impact men from the board. Stony silence is equally high impact. A split is possible, although in d and t I go for kataki- and try and play around whipflare, using skite to redirect targetted removal.
True believer is a bit of a push though. If you are trying to stop ad nauseam- it is DEAD to their one slaughter pact when they go off. If you are trying to stop storm EVERY storm deck runs 3-4 bolts post board plus echoing truth. When they just have 2 truths or maybe 3 (at 3 with thalia) it is one thing. When they have 4 bolts and truths then true believer just won't cut it.
The new eidolon of rule of law-ness is an example of a great new board option if storm was prevalent- 4 toughness is resilent to bolt, and the effect is really just aimed at storm decks.
Spellskite is great too- boggles, infect etc.
But for decks like reanimator you die to them full stop unless you nail their graveyard totally OR drop thalia. Every other man in the deck is irrelevant. They go off, we lose. So if this is prevalent I want to run rest in peace.
A sample board for me would be, assuming a generic main deck......
3 kataki (affinity)
2 runed halo (affinity, gifts decks, boggles, ad nauseam)
2 rest in peace (reanimator, melira)
2 teeg (pod, storm (warrens) usa and its ilk, storm)
2 spellskite (affinity, storm (eats bolts, protects thalia) boggles, infect)
2 swords of pro whiteness (martyr/sistas,mirror, bw tokens)
2 a.n. other meta depending
If I do run spells side then I want them 2cc- rest in peace, even ratchet bombs.......
Finally - I am 100% behind splicers- they change affinity game one to even or our favour on the play with pridemage main deck........without them etched champion=death.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
Alright folks, here's something I've been working on. Any and all feedback is appreciated as long as you've read the final section, "Anticipated questions", first. I'm planning on posting it again after the thread reboot, but I though I might as well show it to you now.
Guide to microsplashes in D&T
This is a guide for adding a microsplash to white D&T. A microsplash is an attempt to add a very small number of off-color cards to an otherwise mono white list, and attempting to support it at the lowest cost/risk possible so that the deck still feels and plays like a mono white list. I originally intended this to be a cost/benefit analysis, but it’s virtually impossible to measure the benefit of any given card in an unknown meta, especially when we’re adding so few that they won’t show up reliably. For that reason I’ll show you the costs/risks associated with trying to jam a few copies of an off-color creature spell in into an otherwise mono white list, and leave it to you to decide if it’s worth it.
All colors welcome
Even though this guide is written specifically for a green splash for Qasali Pridemage, I’m hoping that it can be useful as a reference work for anyone who’s considering a microsplash for any card in any color. Maybe you want Gaddock Teeg to trip up all those Twin and Pod decks in your meta, or Loxodon Smiter to tell Liliana where she can shove that stupid veil of hers? Or maybe you want to improve your late game by going black for Athreos, God of Passage or blue for Ephara, God of the Polis? The data provided here should hopefully give you a good place to start. Obviously, Horizon Canopy is unique for green, and fastlands are currently only available in ally colors, but everyone’s got the shocks and checks.
Background
This part is very skippable.
I’m one of those guys who really like mono white Death and Taxes, even though I do believe that there are some valuable assets to be gained by adding a second color. Maybe I’m being a soft Vorthos, but there’s a certain purity and simplicity to mono that appeals to me. I don’t like playing lands tapped, I don’t like shocking myself, and even though it’s not really a card that dominates the Modern meta now, I absolutely hate losing to Blood Moon.
After playing mono white for a while, though, I’ve started to envy some of the assets that are reserved to green/white D&T. One of those things is exalted to make our fliers more aggressive. I’m getting tired of opposing Restoration Angels stonewalling my Restos and eating my Serra Avengers, I’m sick of seeing my Flickerwisps trading with 1/1 blockers, and I want more damage from my beloved Judge's Familiars. Another thing I’ve been dissatisfied with is our artifact/enchantment hate. Leonin Relic-Warder never removes anything permanently unless I happen to have all the right cards to do that elusive bounce trick, and almost every other spell is a non-creature spell that gets taxed by Thalia and is dead in my hand unless it has a target. None of them are mainboardable, which means I’ve no answers for artifacts/enchantments in game 1.
Qasali Pridemage caught my eye. This cat does both the things I want the most. Sure, exalted is stackable so that more is better, but it is so often that first +1/+1 that makes all the difference in the air. I’m already running two Horizon Canopy for the draw, and I think my four Æther Vials should make the Pridemages easier to get into play... and I like the look of those Razorverge Thickets, they always come into play untapped until I’ve got all the lands I need to reach the top of my curve, sans my two Restoration Angels. And whether I play QP for exalted or artifact/enchantment removal, I don’t really need to be able to play it on curve, it’s likely to sit comfortably in my hand until I need it for either of its functions. I’ll probably be happy to play it on turn 4-5-6 most of the time.
I wonder... Is it possible that I can get access to Qasali Pridemage while the deck still essentially plays like a mono white deck, with almost all my lands coming out untapped, never shocking me and retaining Blood Moon resiliency? To the drawing board!
About this guide
Some of this is actually very important.
All facts and stats are calculated and written out as if we’re on the play. This is because when it comes to land/color consistency, being on the play is worse than being on the draw because we’ve got one less card available, and I’d rather have my stats be worst-case scenario than best-case. This means, however, that most of the stats will be slightly improved in half of your games.
The scope of these tests is limited to the first 6 turns of the game. After that, a lot of the issues that this guide deals with, become less relevant. It matters less that lands enter tapped, and I’m very likely to be able to cast a top decked Qasali Pridemage that late in the game. (Note that on the draw, this will in many instances roughly translate to the first 5 turns.)
Percentages in this guide are not calculated, but logged by test drawing and goldfishing hundreds and hundreds of starting hands plus top five cards. This means that the numbers aren’t statistically accurate, but should be regarded as approximates, since deviations from actual probability occur even with sample sizes as large as 500 hands. The sunny side of this is that these numbers take into consideration some human and deck-specific factors such as mulliganing bad hands, alleviating problems by playing around them (such as the Leonin Arbiter+Ghost Quarter+fastland scenario and playing fastlands as late as possible) and taking strategy-concious choices (not letting Vial stay at two just to play QP).
I did the goldfishing with draw simulator software, not with cardboard and hand shuffling. This information might be relevant for you if you’re one of those crackpots that likes to blame ”the shuffler” on MTGO when the draw luck aspect of the game isn’t going in your favor.
Cost of running fastlands
I prefer fastlands for splashes in this deck because our curve pretty much stops at three. This means that playing your fourth land tapped only matters if:
you want to play multiple spells (or play a two mana creature and crack a Tectonic Edge)
you want to play one of your few 4CMC spells (usually Restoration Angel)
you’ve got Thalia out and you want to play a 3CMC non-creature spell (such as a sword)
They’re also slightly better in this deck because if you’ve got Leonin Arbiter out and a Ghost Quarter among your first three lands, you can crack the Quarter to destroy a land, then play a fastland and have three mana available. That’s very satisfying. Tectonic Edge also works that way sometimes.
If you’re running four fastlands, you are going to play one land tapped during turns 4-6 in about 13% of your games. Out of those 13%, you will be forced to play a tapped land:
2,6% of games on your fourth turn
6% of games on your fifth turn
5% of games on your sixth turn
In 87% of all games, you’ll play no lands tapped unless you top deck them from turn 7 and onwards.
The number is lower than you might expect for fourth turn, and higher for the fifth. This is because sometimes you get enough lands in your starting hand and first few draws to be able to play different land on your fourth turn, so that you can delay that dreaded tapped land for your fifth if you want to. For statistical consistency I always did that when testing this list, and the numbers reflect that. You can imagine it as some of the tapped drops that would ”belong” to the fourth turn are being ”lumped over” to the fifth turn. If you take a closer look at the art of Restoration Angel, you can see that she is smiling. This is the reason.
Cost of running checklands
Compared to fastlands, you may end up playing fewer checklands tapped if you’re playing a safe number of Plains, but on the other hand, if you have to play a Grove tapped, it means that you haven’t got a Plains, and if you don’t, you need to play your Grove asap to get access to any white mana at all (unless you have one of your Canopys). If you’re running very few or none one drops other than Vial, you might be okay with playing a Sunpetal Grove as your first land if you don’t start with Vial, but otherwise it can get very awkward if you’re stuck with a combination of Grove, Vial and non-white lands in your starting hand. You’re not likely to have a colorless two drop apart from the odd Spellskite, so you either have to play Vial on turn 1 and skip your two drop, or play Vial on turn 1 and then play nothing on turn 2. Both hurt.
It should be noted that checklands have the upside of almost always coming into play untapped after turn 6.
Checklands obviously get better the more plains you run in your deck, so I’ve tried two different mana bases for them, one safe and one significantly more risky. Here’s the safe one:
With this configuration you are going to play a Sunpetal Grove tapped during one of your first turns in 9% of your games. That’s not a lot, but when it happens, it trips up your early game unless you either have one of your Horizon Canopys for a white two drop, or you get the Grove in a starting hand without a one drop.
It’s worth noting that it’s possible to go even safer with 4 Quarter, 2 Edge, 4 Grove and the rest a mix of Plains and Temple Garden, bringing the Plains count (including the Gardens) up to a maximum 13.
With this configuration you are going to play a Sunpetal Grove tapped early in 28% of your games. Ouch.
Cost of running shocklands
They cost you two life to play untapped. Not much more to say about that, other than that we’re going to want to play them untapped a lot in this deck, almost every time in turns 2-5. Turn 1 depends on your number of 1CMC spells, and if you’re running no 1CMC spells other than Vial, shocks get better as you can play the first one tapped about half the time.
Casting consistency
The by far biggest potential risk of running a microsplash is the risk of being stuck with an off-color card in your hand, unable to cast it. That’s effectively card disadvantage, and which is something that this deck is very sensitive to.
These are the green cards I’m playing for this test:
Microsplash indeed. If I’m just running those two off-color cards, I am going to see one of them somewhere in my first 6 turns approximately 36% of all games. Within those 36%, how often am I going to be able to get it into play turing those first 6 turns?
When it comes to casting consistency, it makes very little difference which duals you use unless it's very important that you cast them on curve, but these are my green sources:
With these lands, I was able to hardcast it 28% of all games, or about three quarters of the games where I actually saw Qasali Pridemage. These 28% where I was able to hardcast it include a number of games where I was also able to Vial it in.
Out of the games where I was unable to hardcast Pridemage with a green land, I was able to Vial it in 4% of the games. Note that this isn’t simply a number of all the games where I got Vial and Pridemage; these are exclusively the games where I had a Pridemage in my hand at the time where I had a Vial out that happened to have two counters on it. I never ever let my Vial stay set on two counters just to hope to cast a Pridemage, as that would be strategically counter-productive because we like it at three in this deck. This means that if the card you’re splashing for is a 3CMC creature, such as Loxodon Smiter or Athreos, you can expect this number to be slightly higher and the ”stuck in hand” number below to be slightly lower for those times where you’d draw the off-color card after Vial has reached three.
The last 4% of games I was stuck with a Pridemage in my hand at the end of the 6th turn. This includes a small number of games where I had to play a Razorverge Thicket tapped on my sixth turn and would be able to cast my Pridemage on the 7th turn. See the breakdown on tapped fastlands in the ”Cost of running fastlands” section to get a feel on those numbers.
Let’s try to improve those numbers by adding two shocklands to the mix:
With these lands, out of the 36% of games where I got a Pridemage in my first 6 turns, I was able to hardcast it 29%. It’s just 1% more, and that’s rounded up. At first I was honestly surprised by how little impact those two Temple Gardens has on my chances to hardcast Pridemage, but two lands in a sixty card deck is not a lot when they’re only statistically significant in that small fraction of games where I got a Qasali Pridemage and didn’t get any of my other dual lands.
Notes and takeaways
Vial is not a reliable color fixer.
It’s tempting to think that we can easily cast off-color creatures via Vial, but I very rarely found that I lacked a green source to hardcast QP and had a Vial out with two counters on it, was surprisingly low. It gets somewhat easier if you’re splashing for a 3CMC creature such as Loxodon Smiter or Athreos, God of Passage, since that’s where we’re likely to let our Vial stay. That means that we’ll always be able to Vial them out if we top deck them late, but by that time we should have our dual lands anyway, so I wouldn’t expect it to be very relevant. Also, we do not get a Vial in every game. All this means that we should rely on being able to hardcast all our spells as if we’re not playing Vial, and take Vial as a bonus.
Tectonic Edge and Ghost Quarter do not vastly improve our fastlands.
It’s tempting to think that fastlands will come into play untapped more often in this deck because we sacrifice our own lands. Sometimes we have a Leonin Arbiter out, crack a Ghost Quarter on our fourth turn and then play our fastland untapped, but it doesn’t happen as frequently as I’d wished. We need three different cards at the right time to make it happen, and even then, your opponent might have those two mana available to negate Arbiter. Tectonic Edge almost never works this way, because we’ve usually got four lands out when we can crack it. Cracking it gets us down to three lands, which still doesn’t let us play a fastland untapped.
Don't go too easy on the white sources.
While it’s tempting to go overboard with all those great colorless utility lands and manlands at our disposal, starting off with too little white is incredibly annoying. When I tested the ”risky” checkland mana base with only 12 white sources out of 23 lands, I found it to be way too light on the white because I several times got starting hands with no white mana which I had to mulligan away. Some are fine with that risk, but my personal recommendation is at least 14-15 white lands. Not really relevant to the topic, but it’s something I learned while doing all those draws.
Anticipated questions
Please do not reply to this post without reading through this section first.
”Isn’t it better to just go for two full colors?”
It might very well be. There are pros and cons. I am not here to try to convince you that a microsplash is better than going all in on a second color, or better than mono white for that matter. Consider your deck, meta and playstyle, and decide that for yourself.
”But what about Scavenging Ooze and Noble Hierarch?”
I conveniently skipped it in the "Background" section, but Scavenging Ooze is another asset that I envy green/white decks - mainboardable graveyard hate on an efficient beater that also nets some life? Yes. While certain green cards are microsplash compatible, Ooze is not one of them, and neither is Noble Hierarch. These cards require you to go all in. Ooze’s ability is way too mana intensive, and you want to be able to drop Hierarch on your first turn if you haven’t got Vial.
”Dude, why aren’t you running Ganja Castle?”
I am, but I didn’t bother writing it up where it’s statistically insignificant, and in a checkland list I would probably pick a Mutavault or a Gavony Township over it.
”What about Gavony Township?”
Not much to say about it other than that it’s incredibly powerful, a very compelling reason to go green, and I’m definitely adding at least one. I guess the activation consistency for two copies would be similar to the casting consistency for two copies of Qasali Pridemage, and about half for one, but contrary to off-color spells, Gavony Township won’t be dead in your hand if you haven’t got any green mana to activate it.
”What’s the point when Qasali Pridemage doesn’t work against Blood Moon?”
It’s true that against decks with Blood Moon, they can easily remove Pridemage before playing Moon, and when Moon is out, we can’t almost never get Pridemage out. The thing is that Qasali Pridemage isn’t there to deal with Blood Moon, it’s there to deal with a host of other artifacts and enchantments, most notably Torpor Orb, Birthing Pod and Splinter Twin. Our Moon reciliency only decreases with those few extra duals, so we’re almost as resilient to Moon as a mono white list.
”Just 1% more for two shocklands? That can’t possibly be right. Doesn’t that indicate that your numbers are off?”
It was actually 0,8%. What can I say? I did 500 test hands without the two shocks and 500 without, and the shocks turned out to make a difference in fewer games than I can count on my fingers. As an indication of what kind of statistical deviation we’re dealing with, I saw Qasali Pride in the first 6 turns in 62,2% of all games in one of those 500 hand test runs, and 65,4% in the other 500, so there is indeed some deviation from actual probability percentages, but that’s what real life throws at you. Taking those deviations into consideration, a correct value could very well be as high as 3%, or maybe even closer to zero, but it’s impossible that it’s completely out of the ball park.
”Serra Avenger? LOLOL”
Plz
”Are you satisfied with the results? Are you going to use a microsplash?”
I expected better results for for number of tapped lands coming into play, but I am still going to try it out, using the setup with two Canopys, four fastlands and two Qasali Pridemage. Is it’s worth playing a tapped land on turns 4-6 in 13 out of 100 and having it dead in my hand in four out of 100 of games to have Qasali Pridemage available in a good third of my games? I’m not going to attempt to answer that.
The point about mage is that he is good vs any deck. Exalted is very important- turning 3/3 splicers into 4 power, turning flckerwisps into resto killers.
Turning jotun grunt into 5 power.
Mage is not a board card for affinity.It is too weak to be so.
It helps vs affinity and twin in addition to board cards like skite in the latter case. Not a replacement for it, a supplement to it.
If you want to beat affinity you bring in kataki or stony silence, and halo too.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
1 having it in play with that rate is not effective for affinity and twin matches. The main problem vs affinity is speed, while versus twin they can burn it so you should just pray to vial it out at the right time, and there are many moves to make you unable to do that.
You're right in that the two copies of Pridemage aren't incredibly effective in those matchups. It's a card that I want in my mainboard for other reasons, and that as an added bonus can help those matchups sometimes, but it doesn't replace any of the usual hate, so it doesn't hurt. I've still got my Stony Silences, my Spellskites etc.
If I've got a mage out and one mana open against Twin, it's an obstacle they must overcome before they can cast Splinter Twin, similar to Revoker or Teeg. It's not a shut-down, but it trips them up for at least a turn.
I also think the "dies to removal" argument is pretty hilarious coming from someone who's trying to convince us to play Phyrexian Revoker and Leonin Relic-Warder.
Quote from Udrew »
2 what about casting 2 white spells in the same turn? 3 what about siding, will you be able to cast them?
I'm not completely sure what you're trying to say here. I don't see what makes this setup different from a regular mono white build when it comes to playing two white spells in a turn or when it comes to sideboarding.
Quote from Udrew »
4 what mage does better than spellskites or revoker cant do (torpor orb), does this messy mana worth it?
I'm not sure, but I think it might be. That's my subjective opinion, just like this mana being "messy" is yours. Other than that, I'll quote myself:
Quote from Havrekjex »
I am not here to try to convince you that a microsplash is better than going all in on a second color, or better than mono white for that matter. Consider your deck, meta and playstyle, and decide that for yourself.
You, on the other hand, seem to be pretty set on convincing everyone to play mono white by objecting to anything that isn't.
You had huge work, but I think you are missing the bigger picture. Lets talk about the green splash just for mage: 1 having it in play with that rate is not effective for affinity...
This gives me in my six ways in my deck to disrupt Affinity, and all the while I have still have about the same playing power (even with Kataki) due to running now 4x Noble Hierarch. I also have six Exalted creatures.
Now, even if you aren't running the mana dork sub package that I am running you still have six anti affinity cards that all attack the deck from different directions, which makes the matchup a bloody joke.
4 what mage does better than spellskites or revoker cant do (torpor orb), does this messy mana worth it?
Kataki will die galvanic blast it is not so good vs affinity 3 stony silence are better
You are wrong and "Dies to removal" is a terrible argument. What does it do better than Spellskite? Well, attack, pump other attacks, destroy artifacts and enchantments... Technically Spellskitecan attack, but it is almost never a good idea. I have already laid out the reasons why Revoker is a bad MD card, but just a refresher: guessing at your opponent's plays is a terrible reason to play a card to stop that play from being good. Spellskite is a fantastic card and I will admit that I could try a bit harder to fit a couple into my SB, but it's zero power means that it can never win the game if it is the last creature on the battlefield, and that hurts it here.
Udrew: How many games of GW D&T have you played? I have been playing this deck for two years. I make mistakes all the time and I am not a deck tuning expert by any means, but I have had more games than I can count with the deck so I know a bit about what it can and can't compete with. The mana base is not messy, and while I still think that Mono-white is a great deck and in some ways is the heart and soul of the archetype, green adds versatility.
That's the catch with mono white. The necessity of using subpar choices. Love me some tidehollow
I think spellskite is an excellent maindeck 2 drop for the monowhite build. It is awesome at protecting your other hatebears, helps vs aggro by being a decent wall, mucks up affinity ravager modular tricks, helps vs combo including twin and scapeshift, and is also awesome vs boggles and infect. The good thing is that it does not have defender despite being an 0/4, which means an equipped sword or elspeth turns it into a win con.
Edit: oh, and he is always castable and makes an awesome surprise with vial!
So I come back, yet again, to Ethersworn Canonist, which is a weird card in-deck, at best.
I love the splash options, but I also love running my opponent over with 2/2, First Striking lands. I did give in to the temptation of pulling the Tectonic Edges. To anyone considering doing so, don't.
- Sam Stoddard, “Developing Modern” (June 21, 2013) (by means of Sheridan Lardner, "Fixing Modern: Defining Format Mission (March 16, 2016))
How to Use Spoiler Tags
Starting Over: The Origins of the Mulligan Rule
Practical Approach to Slow Play
THE Guide to Aggro, Part 2: SWARM and TOOLBOX
THE Guide to Aggro, Part 3
THE Guide to Aggro, Part 4
These videos are by MTG Salvation Moderator Lantern!
Introduction to Tempo
Controlling Tempo
Elements of Tempo
Roadblocks to Tempo
How Not To Build A Deck - Tempo
Learn How To Sideboard, Dammit!
Mulligan's Island
The Art of the Mulligan
The Art of the Mulligan: Eight Case Studies
Fundamentals: The Mulligan
Some Mulligan Exercises
A Mulligan Is Worth Three Cards
The Mulligan Debate
Common Sense: The Art of the Mulligan
Who's The Beatdown?
3 Caves of Koilos
3 Eldrazi Temple
2 Fetid Heath
3 Godless Shrine
4 Ghost Quarter
3 Plains
3 Shambling Vent
2 Tectonic Edge
Artifacts (4):
4 Æther Vial
4 Path to Exile
Creatures (29):
3 Aven Mindcensor
3 Eldrazi Displacer
3 Fiend Hunter
4 Flickerwisp
4 Serra Avenger
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Wasteland Strangler
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Dismember
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Rest in Peace
3 Stony Silence
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Flooded Strand
6 Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Steam Vents
3 Sulfur Falls
Creatures (16):
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Stormchaser Mage
2 Gut Shot
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Mutagenic Growth
3 Spell Pierce
3 Twisted Image
3 Vapor Snag
Sorceries (8):
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Serum Visions
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Blood Moon
2 Dispel
1 Forked Bolt
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Repeal
2 Roast
1 Spell Snare
2 Spellskite
1 Vapor Snag
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Clifftop Retreat
1 Copperline Gorge
5 Mountain
3 Sacred Foundry
2 Stomping Ground
4 Wooded Foothills
Creatures (14):
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
4 Goblin Guide
2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Atarka's Command
4 Boros Charm
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lightning Helix
3 Searing Blaze
Sorceries (8):
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt
2 Deflecting Palm
4 Destructive Revelry
2 Kor Firewalker
2 Path to Exile
2 Rending Volley
3 Skullcrack
19 Forest
3 Treetop Village
Creatures (24):
4 Avatar of the Resolute
4 Dryad Militant
2 Dungrove Elder
4 Experiment One
4 Leatherback Baloth
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Strangleroot Geist
4 Rancor
Instants (10):
3 Aspect of Hydra
4 Vines of Vastwood
3 Dismember
2 Choke
2 Gut Shot
2 Deglamer
2 Feed the Clan
2 Oxidize
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Skylasher
1 Unravel the Æther
I wish I had room for Mutas toooo but I only run three basic lands
I run 2 maindeck canonists as extra combo hate vs storm, ad naseum, restore balance, and living end. She is also very useful for slowing the game down vs small zoo, boggle and infect.
I switched the 3 kor fire walkers in my sideboard with 3 champions after someone suggested it, and I've had good success with them. I think I've sided them in vs. every deck that has had a red or black creature in it and have not been disappointed.
I'll back this up, I think it's a safe bet to run one or two Spellskites in the main. When I look at the card in a vacuum, I tend to lean against thinking that it doesn't do enough to advance the deck's game plan, but when I look at the meta, it's useful in a lot of matchups.
Also, we're supposed to jam a lot of our creatures in the 3CMC slot. Any opinions on how many two drops is ideal? I guess you'd want to have two in each game (one to play on the second turn, one to vial in on the third), so... 9? 10?
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
Doomsdayin'
Firstly razorverge thickets over forests if you can get them. In fact over anything.
Secondly kotr is just a real nonbo with the anti search. The guy barely makes zoo lists, gets vapor snaged and pathed all day long.
Thirdly samuari of the pale c are pretty awful as board cards. They don't hose bins at all really. You want to avoid men in the board with less than 3 toughness- enemy deck will bring sweepers in, and aim for high impact board cards, not utility like this. Kataki is perhaps acceptable as it is mega impact vs affinity. Butb this guy is not, and is a nonbo with sword of l and s plus kotr. Rest in peace hoses storm, insta reanimator and living end as well and is better. Grafdigger's is better too- hosing not living end but pod in particular.
Qasali pridemage is the reason to go green- he gives exalted main deck, allowing survival with resto for many men. He hurts twin.
This version looks weakr vs affinity- no blade splicers, no mutavaults to beat etched champions. Mangara is slow and the champion plus plating kills by t3 often, t 4 regularly.
I would look at runed halo for utility that won't die to sweepers- and that can circumvent both etched champion's pro too. Plus it nails boggles. It can be reset by wisp.
Spellskite is a great addition to boards as it survives sweepers and nails infect combo, boggles.
Mana tithe is interesting, I have considered it an guttural response before now for sphinx's rev/cryptics specifically in usa control. It works when people do not expect it and is strong psychologically.
I dislike crusader in the board- decks running goyf run bolts, and 3 is too much for any deck to lose to a 1cc spell.
Most of the meta seems to be blue tempo, affinity, usa, pod.
I like 3 sphere and mangara in legacy, but think modern is too slow for them. I may be wrong, but the consensus here was that mangara is just too slow.
Finally ps - grats to Dr worm- a fine choice to take the thread over- and someone I agree with on D and T a very large chunk of the time too. He knows the deck really well, and can spot a ww pretending to be d and t at fifty paces.......
All this^ don't ever over do spells. The minimum numbers are 27 creatures, 23 lands, 10 non-creatures. That means 8 slots are path and vial and ya got 2 extras to play with. Also really really run blade splicer. I can't stress it's importance enough. Cut knights for 2.
Main deck - 4 path, 4 vial, nothing else if possible. Swords are really pushing it, I think they are not main deckable-one perhaps but it is a real push.....
When considering spells main deck or post board keeping Thalia in ADD ONE TO THE CC!- Thalia. So runed halo is ok at 3, path at 2 etc. But a 4cc spell is not as it costs 5, and is thus unplayable. A sword costs 4.
BUT post board this changes
a) If thalia is removed
b) If you are trying to stop a combo deck
Katakis great high impact men from the board. Stony silence is equally high impact. A split is possible, although in d and t I go for kataki- and try and play around whipflare, using skite to redirect targetted removal.
True believer is a bit of a push though. If you are trying to stop ad nauseam- it is DEAD to their one slaughter pact when they go off. If you are trying to stop storm EVERY storm deck runs 3-4 bolts post board plus echoing truth. When they just have 2 truths or maybe 3 (at 3 with thalia) it is one thing. When they have 4 bolts and truths then true believer just won't cut it.
The new eidolon of rule of law-ness is an example of a great new board option if storm was prevalent- 4 toughness is resilent to bolt, and the effect is really just aimed at storm decks.
Spellskite is great too- boggles, infect etc.
But for decks like reanimator you die to them full stop unless you nail their graveyard totally OR drop thalia. Every other man in the deck is irrelevant. They go off, we lose. So if this is prevalent I want to run rest in peace.
A sample board for me would be, assuming a generic main deck......
3 kataki (affinity)
2 runed halo (affinity, gifts decks, boggles, ad nauseam)
2 rest in peace (reanimator, melira)
2 teeg (pod, storm (warrens) usa and its ilk, storm)
2 spellskite (affinity, storm (eats bolts, protects thalia) boggles, infect)
2 swords of pro whiteness (martyr/sistas,mirror, bw tokens)
2 a.n. other meta depending
If I do run spells side then I want them 2cc- rest in peace, even ratchet bombs.......
Finally - I am 100% behind splicers- they change affinity game one to even or our favour on the play with pridemage main deck........without them etched champion=death.
Guide to microsplashes in D&T
This is a guide for adding a microsplash to white D&T. A microsplash is an attempt to add a very small number of off-color cards to an otherwise mono white list, and attempting to support it at the lowest cost/risk possible so that the deck still feels and plays like a mono white list. I originally intended this to be a cost/benefit analysis, but it’s virtually impossible to measure the benefit of any given card in an unknown meta, especially when we’re adding so few that they won’t show up reliably. For that reason I’ll show you the costs/risks associated with trying to jam a few copies of an off-color creature spell in into an otherwise mono white list, and leave it to you to decide if it’s worth it.
All colors welcome
Even though this guide is written specifically for a green splash for Qasali Pridemage, I’m hoping that it can be useful as a reference work for anyone who’s considering a microsplash for any card in any color. Maybe you want Gaddock Teeg to trip up all those Twin and Pod decks in your meta, or Loxodon Smiter to tell Liliana where she can shove that stupid veil of hers? Or maybe you want to improve your late game by going black for Athreos, God of Passage or blue for Ephara, God of the Polis? The data provided here should hopefully give you a good place to start. Obviously, Horizon Canopy is unique for green, and fastlands are currently only available in ally colors, but everyone’s got the shocks and checks.
Background
This part is very skippable.
After playing mono white for a while, though, I’ve started to envy some of the assets that are reserved to green/white D&T. One of those things is exalted to make our fliers more aggressive. I’m getting tired of opposing Restoration Angels stonewalling my Restos and eating my Serra Avengers, I’m sick of seeing my Flickerwisps trading with 1/1 blockers, and I want more damage from my beloved Judge's Familiars. Another thing I’ve been dissatisfied with is our artifact/enchantment hate. Leonin Relic-Warder never removes anything permanently unless I happen to have all the right cards to do that elusive bounce trick, and almost every other spell is a non-creature spell that gets taxed by Thalia and is dead in my hand unless it has a target. None of them are mainboardable, which means I’ve no answers for artifacts/enchantments in game 1.
Qasali Pridemage caught my eye. This cat does both the things I want the most. Sure, exalted is stackable so that more is better, but it is so often that first +1/+1 that makes all the difference in the air. I’m already running two Horizon Canopy for the draw, and I think my four Æther Vials should make the Pridemages easier to get into play... and I like the look of those Razorverge Thickets, they always come into play untapped until I’ve got all the lands I need to reach the top of my curve, sans my two Restoration Angels. And whether I play QP for exalted or artifact/enchantment removal, I don’t really need to be able to play it on curve, it’s likely to sit comfortably in my hand until I need it for either of its functions. I’ll probably be happy to play it on turn 4-5-6 most of the time.
I wonder... Is it possible that I can get access to Qasali Pridemage while the deck still essentially plays like a mono white deck, with almost all my lands coming out untapped, never shocking me and retaining Blood Moon resiliency? To the drawing board!
About this guide
Some of this is actually very important.
The scope of these tests is limited to the first 6 turns of the game. After that, a lot of the issues that this guide deals with, become less relevant. It matters less that lands enter tapped, and I’m very likely to be able to cast a top decked Qasali Pridemage that late in the game. (Note that on the draw, this will in many instances roughly translate to the first 5 turns.)
Percentages in this guide are not calculated, but logged by test drawing and goldfishing hundreds and hundreds of starting hands plus top five cards. This means that the numbers aren’t statistically accurate, but should be regarded as approximates, since deviations from actual probability occur even with sample sizes as large as 500 hands. The sunny side of this is that these numbers take into consideration some human and deck-specific factors such as mulliganing bad hands, alleviating problems by playing around them (such as the Leonin Arbiter+Ghost Quarter+fastland scenario and playing fastlands as late as possible) and taking strategy-concious choices (not letting Vial stay at two just to play QP).
I did the goldfishing with draw simulator software, not with cardboard and hand shuffling. This information might be relevant for you if you’re one of those crackpots that likes to blame ”the shuffler” on MTGO when the draw luck aspect of the game isn’t going in your favor.
Cost of running fastlands
I prefer fastlands for splashes in this deck because our curve pretty much stops at three. This means that playing your fourth land tapped only matters if:
- you want to play multiple spells (or play a two mana creature and crack a Tectonic Edge)
- you want to play one of your few 4CMC spells (usually Restoration Angel)
- you’ve got Thalia out and you want to play a 3CMC non-creature spell (such as a sword)
They’re also slightly better in this deck because if you’ve got Leonin Arbiter out and a Ghost Quarter among your first three lands, you can crack the Quarter to destroy a land, then play a fastland and have three mana available. That’s very satisfying. Tectonic Edge also works that way sometimes.Here’s our mana base for the upcoming stats:
- 4 Razorverge Thicket
- 2 Horizon Canopy
- 4 Ghost Quarter
- 3 Tectonic Edge
- 10 Plains
If you’re running four fastlands, you are going to play one land tapped during turns 4-6 in about 13% of your games. Out of those 13%, you will be forced to play a tapped land:- 2,6% of games on your fourth turn
- 6% of games on your fifth turn
- 5% of games on your sixth turn
In 87% of all games, you’ll play no lands tapped unless you top deck them from turn 7 and onwards.The number is lower than you might expect for fourth turn, and higher for the fifth. This is because sometimes you get enough lands in your starting hand and first few draws to be able to play different land on your fourth turn, so that you can delay that dreaded tapped land for your fifth if you want to. For statistical consistency I always did that when testing this list, and the numbers reflect that. You can imagine it as some of the tapped drops that would ”belong” to the fourth turn are being ”lumped over” to the fifth turn. If you take a closer look at the art of Restoration Angel, you can see that she is smiling. This is the reason.
Cost of running checklands
Compared to fastlands, you may end up playing fewer checklands tapped if you’re playing a safe number of Plains, but on the other hand, if you have to play a Grove tapped, it means that you haven’t got a Plains, and if you don’t, you need to play your Grove asap to get access to any white mana at all (unless you have one of your Canopys). If you’re running very few or none one drops other than Vial, you might be okay with playing a Sunpetal Grove as your first land if you don’t start with Vial, but otherwise it can get very awkward if you’re stuck with a combination of Grove, Vial and non-white lands in your starting hand. You’re not likely to have a colorless two drop apart from the odd Spellskite, so you either have to play Vial on turn 1 and skip your two drop, or play Vial on turn 1 and then play nothing on turn 2. Both hurt.
It should be noted that checklands have the upside of almost always coming into play untapped after turn 6.
Checklands obviously get better the more plains you run in your deck, so I’ve tried two different mana bases for them, one safe and one significantly more risky. Here’s the safe one:
- 4 Sunpetal Grove
- 2 Horizon Canopy
- 10 Plains
- 4 Ghost Quarter
- 3 Tectonic Edge
With this configuration you are going to play a Sunpetal Grove tapped during one of your first turns in 9% of your games. That’s not a lot, but when it happens, it trips up your early game unless you either have one of your Horizon Canopys for a white two drop, or you get the Grove in a starting hand without a one drop.It’s worth noting that it’s possible to go even safer with 4 Quarter, 2 Edge, 4 Grove and the rest a mix of Plains and Temple Garden, bringing the Plains count (including the Gardens) up to a maximum 13.
Now let’s take a look at the risky list.
- 4 Sunpetal Grove
- 2 Horizon Canopy
- 6 Plains
- 4 Ghost Quarter
- 3 Tectonic Edge
- 3 Mutavault
- 1 Gavony Township
With this configuration you are going to play a Sunpetal Grove tapped early in 28% of your games. Ouch.Cost of running shocklands
Casting consistency
The by far biggest potential risk of running a microsplash is the risk of being stuck with an off-color card in your hand, unable to cast it. That’s effectively card disadvantage, and which is something that this deck is very sensitive to.
These are the green cards I’m playing for this test:
2 Qasali Pridemage
Microsplash indeed. If I’m just running those two off-color cards, I am going to see one of them somewhere in my first 6 turns approximately 36% of all games. Within those 36%, how often am I going to be able to get it into play turing those first 6 turns?
When it comes to casting consistency, it makes very little difference which duals you use unless it's very important that you cast them on curve, but these are my green sources:
- 2 Horizon Canopy
- 4 Razorverge Thicket
With these lands, I was able to hardcast it 28% of all games, or about three quarters of the games where I actually saw Qasali Pridemage. These 28% where I was able to hardcast it include a number of games where I was also able to Vial it in.Out of the games where I was unable to hardcast Pridemage with a green land, I was able to Vial it in 4% of the games. Note that this isn’t simply a number of all the games where I got Vial and Pridemage; these are exclusively the games where I had a Pridemage in my hand at the time where I had a Vial out that happened to have two counters on it. I never ever let my Vial stay set on two counters just to hope to cast a Pridemage, as that would be strategically counter-productive because we like it at three in this deck. This means that if the card you’re splashing for is a 3CMC creature, such as Loxodon Smiter or Athreos, you can expect this number to be slightly higher and the ”stuck in hand” number below to be slightly lower for those times where you’d draw the off-color card after Vial has reached three.
The last 4% of games I was stuck with a Pridemage in my hand at the end of the 6th turn. This includes a small number of games where I had to play a Razorverge Thicket tapped on my sixth turn and would be able to cast my Pridemage on the 7th turn. See the breakdown on tapped fastlands in the ”Cost of running fastlands” section to get a feel on those numbers.
Let’s try to improve those numbers by adding two shocklands to the mix:
- 2 Horizon Canopy
- 4 Razorverge Thicket
- 2 Temple Garden
With these lands, out of the 36% of games where I got a Pridemage in my first 6 turns, I was able to hardcast it 29%. It’s just 1% more, and that’s rounded up. At first I was honestly surprised by how little impact those two Temple Gardens has on my chances to hardcast Pridemage, but two lands in a sixty card deck is not a lot when they’re only statistically significant in that small fraction of games where I got a Qasali Pridemage and didn’t get any of my other dual lands.Notes and takeaways
It’s tempting to think that we can easily cast off-color creatures via Vial, but I very rarely found that I lacked a green source to hardcast QP and had a Vial out with two counters on it, was surprisingly low. It gets somewhat easier if you’re splashing for a 3CMC creature such as Loxodon Smiter or Athreos, God of Passage, since that’s where we’re likely to let our Vial stay. That means that we’ll always be able to Vial them out if we top deck them late, but by that time we should have our dual lands anyway, so I wouldn’t expect it to be very relevant. Also, we do not get a Vial in every game. All this means that we should rely on being able to hardcast all our spells as if we’re not playing Vial, and take Vial as a bonus.
Tectonic Edge and Ghost Quarter do not vastly improve our fastlands.
It’s tempting to think that fastlands will come into play untapped more often in this deck because we sacrifice our own lands. Sometimes we have a Leonin Arbiter out, crack a Ghost Quarter on our fourth turn and then play our fastland untapped, but it doesn’t happen as frequently as I’d wished. We need three different cards at the right time to make it happen, and even then, your opponent might have those two mana available to negate Arbiter. Tectonic Edge almost never works this way, because we’ve usually got four lands out when we can crack it. Cracking it gets us down to three lands, which still doesn’t let us play a fastland untapped.
Don't go too easy on the white sources.
While it’s tempting to go overboard with all those great colorless utility lands and manlands at our disposal, starting off with too little white is incredibly annoying. When I tested the ”risky” checkland mana base with only 12 white sources out of 23 lands, I found it to be way too light on the white because I several times got starting hands with no white mana which I had to mulligan away. Some are fine with that risk, but my personal recommendation is at least 14-15 white lands. Not really relevant to the topic, but it’s something I learned while doing all those draws.
Anticipated questions
Please do not reply to this post without reading through this section first.
It might very well be. There are pros and cons. I am not here to try to convince you that a microsplash is better than going all in on a second color, or better than mono white for that matter. Consider your deck, meta and playstyle, and decide that for yourself.
”But what about Scavenging Ooze and Noble Hierarch?”
I conveniently skipped it in the "Background" section, but Scavenging Ooze is another asset that I envy green/white decks - mainboardable graveyard hate on an efficient beater that also nets some life? Yes. While certain green cards are microsplash compatible, Ooze is not one of them, and neither is Noble Hierarch. These cards require you to go all in. Ooze’s ability is way too mana intensive, and you want to be able to drop Hierarch on your first turn if you haven’t got Vial.
”Dude, why aren’t you running Ganja Castle?”
I am, but I didn’t bother writing it up where it’s statistically insignificant, and in a checkland list I would probably pick a Mutavault or a Gavony Township over it.
”What about Gavony Township?”
Not much to say about it other than that it’s incredibly powerful, a very compelling reason to go green, and I’m definitely adding at least one. I guess the activation consistency for two copies would be similar to the casting consistency for two copies of Qasali Pridemage, and about half for one, but contrary to off-color spells, Gavony Township won’t be dead in your hand if you haven’t got any green mana to activate it.
”What’s the point when Qasali Pridemage doesn’t work against Blood Moon?”
It’s true that against decks with Blood Moon, they can easily remove Pridemage before playing Moon, and when Moon is out, we can’t almost never get Pridemage out. The thing is that Qasali Pridemage isn’t there to deal with Blood Moon, it’s there to deal with a host of other artifacts and enchantments, most notably Torpor Orb, Birthing Pod and Splinter Twin. Our Moon reciliency only decreases with those few extra duals, so we’re almost as resilient to Moon as a mono white list.
”Just 1% more for two shocklands? That can’t possibly be right. Doesn’t that indicate that your numbers are off?”
It was actually 0,8%. What can I say? I did 500 test hands without the two shocks and 500 without, and the shocks turned out to make a difference in fewer games than I can count on my fingers. As an indication of what kind of statistical deviation we’re dealing with, I saw Qasali Pride in the first 6 turns in 62,2% of all games in one of those 500 hand test runs, and 65,4% in the other 500, so there is indeed some deviation from actual probability percentages, but that’s what real life throws at you. Taking those deviations into consideration, a correct value could very well be as high as 3%, or maybe even closer to zero, but it’s impossible that it’s completely out of the ball park.
”Serra Avenger? LOLOL”
Plz
”Are you satisfied with the results? Are you going to use a microsplash?”
I expected better results for for number of tapped lands coming into play, but I am still going to try it out, using the setup with two Canopys, four fastlands and two Qasali Pridemage. Is it’s worth playing a tapped land on turns 4-6 in 13 out of 100 and having it dead in my hand in four out of 100 of games to have Qasali Pridemage available in a good third of my games? I’m not going to attempt to answer that.
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
Doomsdayin'
Turning jotun grunt into 5 power.
Mage is not a board card for affinity.It is too weak to be so.
It helps vs affinity and twin in addition to board cards like skite in the latter case. Not a replacement for it, a supplement to it.
If you want to beat affinity you bring in kataki or stony silence, and halo too.
If I've got a mage out and one mana open against Twin, it's an obstacle they must overcome before they can cast Splinter Twin, similar to Revoker or Teeg. It's not a shut-down, but it trips them up for at least a turn.
I also think the "dies to removal" argument is pretty hilarious coming from someone who's trying to convince us to play Phyrexian Revoker and Leonin Relic-Warder.
I'm not completely sure what you're trying to say here. I don't see what makes this setup different from a regular mono white build when it comes to playing two white spells in a turn or when it comes to sideboarding.
I'm not sure, but I think it might be. That's my subjective opinion, just like this mana being "messy" is yours. Other than that, I'll quote myself: You, on the other hand, seem to be pretty set on convincing everyone to play mono white by objecting to anything that isn't.
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
Doomsdayin'
On a more serious note yea splash mana simply isn't an issue. I've had consistency with a pretty absurd mana base.
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
Doomsdayin'
-2 Aether Vial
+2 Noble Hierarch
-2 Kitchen Finks
+2 Kataki, War's Wage
-1 Blade Splicer
-1 Flickerwisp
+2 Stony Silence
This gives me in my six ways in my deck to disrupt Affinity, and all the while I have still have about the same playing power (even with Kataki) due to running now 4x Noble Hierarch. I also have six Exalted creatures.
Now, even if you aren't running the mana dork sub package that I am running you still have six anti affinity cards that all attack the deck from different directions, which makes the matchup a bloody joke.
You are wrong and "Dies to removal" is a terrible argument. What does it do better than Spellskite? Well, attack, pump other attacks, destroy artifacts and enchantments... Technically Spellskite can attack, but it is almost never a good idea. I have already laid out the reasons why Revoker is a bad MD card, but just a refresher: guessing at your opponent's plays is a terrible reason to play a card to stop that play from being good. Spellskite is a fantastic card and I will admit that I could try a bit harder to fit a couple into my SB, but it's zero power means that it can never win the game if it is the last creature on the battlefield, and that hurts it here.
Udrew: How many games of GW D&T have you played? I have been playing this deck for two years. I make mistakes all the time and I am not a deck tuning expert by any means, but I have had more games than I can count with the deck so I know a bit about what it can and can't compete with. The mana base is not messy, and while I still think that Mono-white is a great deck and in some ways is the heart and soul of the archetype, green adds versatility.
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!