@charonsobol, I agree regarding the sentiment that this deck lacks a win con as that's what it felt like playing it conservatively as both opponents had countermagic. I suspect if I'd been more aggressive with casting collected company that it would have felt stronger. The only way to tell for sure is to continue testing. I'll be playing in a softer meta tomorrow and report back. I suspect that you're correct about burn but think that bgx would be an ok match. Scooze goes a long way in shutting them down. Four is the generally accepted number for horizon canopys by the pro players for a GW dnt/bears deck. I used to think a more conservative approach was better but haven't looked back recently. The ability to cycle after playing it is just too good. This is for GW though. Whether four is the correct number in bant remains to be seen. Also, aether vial is in the deck. It's the first card listed. Any chance you can post your bant list?
@stabil0, knightfall requires a critical mass of forest and plains types to keep the combo rolling long enough to fill the graveyard and make lethal. I don't think dnt could play enough to make knight a win con as knightfall does due to the fact that forest/plains types compete for slots with our utility and land destruction.
@scytale, green makes a poor splash as scooze is thirsty for green mana. It's also ridiculously powerful at the moment. I'd play without flickerwisp before playing without scooze. I like sprite because it answers cheap removal and cheaty 0 cmc powerhouses. My primary experience is with GW and I think that those are the weaknesses when compared to wb and wu. I'm unsure of the correct number of fetchlands vs shock lands and the inclusion of arbiter. Five fetches and three arbiters proved to be clunky last night. My previous experience tells me that three is the right number of fetches to run alongside a set of arbiters but that was with two colors and a meta where blood moon was a novelty.
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Your success in playing dnt/hatebears is determined largely by your ability to read and prepare for the meta that you will be playing in. Furthermore, it has an absolutely brutal learning curve. Expect to lose; a lot.
@charonsobol, I agree regarding the sentiment that this deck lacks a win con as that's what it felt like playing it conservatively as both opponents had countermagic. I suspect if I'd been more aggressive with casting collected company that it would have felt stronger. The only way to tell for sure is to continue testing. I'll be playing in a softer meta tomorrow and report back.
Being more aggressive with Collected Company probably won't help, because you don't have a high enough density of threats. You'll be able to dig through your top six, but you won't find anything to use.
Four is the generally accepted number for horizon canopys by the pro players for a GW dnt/bears deck. I used to think a more conservative approach was better but haven't looked back recently. The ability to cycle after playing it is just too good. This is for GW though. Whether four is the correct number in bant remains to be seen.
No, four is not the "generally accepted" number in WG. Craig Wescoe uses 4 Horizon Canopies, but that's it. To my knowledge, there isn't even another pro player that plays the deck, let alone some kind of pro player consensus on the topic.
Lots of players in this thread play WG D&T, and I don't think anybody else runs four.
Also, aether vial is in the deck. It's the first card listed.
Yes, but you can't count on that. Any metagame that consistently allows you to keep a Vial on the board isn't a competitive metagame. I can't seem to go a complete match without it being Decayed, K-Commanded, C-Commanded, Grudged, Revelried, or Stony Silenced. (No, please don't ask me why people bring in artifact-specific hate when I only have four artifacts in my deck. I have no idea why they do it either.)
Unfortunately not. This is a competitive thread, meant for the discussion of competitive lists. Bant is not a competitive version of the deck, and consequently I will not be posting my list. I won't stop you from posting yours, but the long-standing purpose of this thread is to foster competitive discussion.
Playing millions of cards every turn... Slowly and systematically obliterating any chance my opponent has of winning... Clicking the multitude of locking mechanisms into place... Not even trying to win myself until turn 10+ once I have nigh absolute control... Watching my opponent desperately trying to navigate the labyrinthine prison that I've constructed... Seeing the light of hope fade and ultimately extinguished in an excruciatingly slow manner... THAT'S fun Magic.
We have 2-3 users that are dramatically making this thread incomprehensible and non-productive for anyone else to possibly join in the discussion. This needs to change.
Every time I see [ktkenshinx] post in here, I get the impression of a stern dad walking in on a bunch of kids trying to do something dumb and just shaking his head in disappointment.
Near Mint: The same as Slightly Played, but we threw some Altoids in the box we stored it in to cover up the scent of dead mice. Slightly Played: The base condition for all MTG cards. This card looks OK, but there’s one minor annoying ding in it that will always irritate and distract you whenever you draw it. Moderately Played: This card looks like it survived the Tet Offensive tucked inside the waistband of GI underwear. It may smell like it, too. Heavily Played: This card looks like the remains of Mohammed Atta’s passport after 9/11. It may be playable if you double-sleeve it to stop the chunks from falling out. The condition formerly known as "Washing Machine Grade" Damaged: This card is the unfortunate victim of a Mirrorweave/March of the Machines/Chaos Confetti/Mindslaver combo.
[M]aking counterfeit cards is the absolute height of dishonesty. Ask yourself this question: Since most people...are totally cool with the use of proxies...what purpose do [high] quality counterfeit cards serve?
What are some cool tips for someone starting out with this deck?
Learn and practice your Flickerwisp corner plays. That guy can do so many different things and it's easy to forget them, but those plays win games.
Start with a completely stock list, then make adjustments once you've played plenty of games with it. Underestimating the importance of some cards, and how many is needed in the list is a pretty common mistake for new-comers to the deck.
This is with 2 flex slots, and I'll give a small list of possible options below. Also thanks to the addition of Concealed Courtyard our manabase has improved, and there's currently some experimentation going on. I've listed probably 1 basic land too few, so we don't get Path/GQ fetches as often, and we're slightly weaker to Blood Moon, but in all other situations our mana is a little more reliable (which feels like the weakest point of the deck sometimes). Also the 4th Thalia, Displacer, and maybe even the TKS (as I've seen a few lists have been doing) could be treated as flex slots too, but for a beginner I probably wouldn't mess with them for now.
I might've missed some, but I think all these cards are mainboard material for the current meta.
Know there is never THE turn 2 play to make (or turn 3), it's always dependent on the matchup. Turn 2 Thalia, Arbiter or Sculler are each very powerful against particular decks (turn 2 Displacer or Strangler are potential plays too, or even TKS if you got the nut draw). Learn to play flexible and adapt to your opponent, because (subjectively) no deck does this better than ours. So become familiar with the meta.
From my experience, Wall of Resurgence brings more value to the board than a Blade Splicer.
Blade Splicer is better as mana sink and filling the board with tokens, but in a real game thats too hard. However, a single Wall of Resurgence puts a 3/3 with haste on the board and a 0/6 that, if not removed, blocks everything. Flickering Wall can bring value too, but the thing is:
-With Blade Splicer, if they kill a piece, we got a 3/3 or a 1/1.
-With Wall, if they kill a piece, we got a 3/3 or a 0/6.
Thats why we should care about what land we target. But overall, Im happy having that 0/6 wall on the field. If our opponent is low on removal, like bant eldrazi, +3/+3 on shambling vent is good too.
Thats why we should care about what land we target. But overall, Im happy having that 0/6 wall on the field. If our opponent is low on removal, like bant eldrazi, +3/+3 on shambling vent is good too.
If you play Mono W DnT with Flagstones of Trokair it is better to run the wall over the splicer
Favourite Deck: Elves (Modern & Legacy)
Standard: New Perspectives Combo
Modern: GW Hatebears | Death and Taxes | Eldrazi and Taxes | Abzan Liege | Abzan Company
Commander: The Gitrog Monster (Combo) | Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper (Control) | RIP Leovold Sultai (Elvestorm, no unfair locks) | Mono G (Yisan or Titania)
Tiny Leaders: Too many decks to keep track of
Pauper: RIP UR Drake | Mono B | GBx Goodstuff | Jund "Melira"
R1: Bye
R2: 2-1 Storm
R3: 2-1 RG Tron
R4: 2-0 Ad Nauseam
R5: 2-1 Affinity
T8: 0-2 Junk
It was a sad ending to a good run, I mulled 6 G1 and mulled to 5 cards to keep a hand with 2 ghost quarters as lands... I still think I could have won G1 had I made two plays differently, but it relied on my opponent bricking on draws. Double lingering souls can be troublesome, if not devastating. I wish I had lost/conceded to affinity, as I would have played against Grixis Goryo and had an easier MU.
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In Lorwyn's brief evenings, the sun pauses at the horizon long enough for a certain species of violet to bloom with the fragrance of mischief.
It is all too situational, you don't always have Flagstones of Trokair or Blinkmoth Nexus (how many of these you are forced to run as a result ?).
I don't think that playing a "Wall" is good enough and prefer more proactive creatures in the 3-cmc slotm namely: Kitchen Finks, Blade Splicer and Thalia, Heretic Cathar.
I am not really looking for a 0/6 most of the time.
We don't always have an active vial or a land to spare (for instance after Ghost Quarter'ing) to not care about it getting removed (bolted).
This might also count as a "cool tip" to remember about the deck:
Never forget that you can use a Path to Exile or a Ghost Quarter on yourself in a dire mana-fixing situation. (Just don't forget to pay your own Arbiters.)
Both can be potentially difficult to do under a resolved Blood Moon, but if you know one is coming it isn't that hard to plan ahead.
In any D&T flavor, Aether Vial is an allstar under a resolved Blood Moon. Flickerwisp+Vial is especially helpful in taking Moon offline a turn so you can "fetch" with GQ and/or do whatever else you need to do with your window of properly-colored mana.
Other than that, it really depends on what flavor/build you're running to decide how to deal with it.
Monowhite doesn't care since it has so many basic plains, just Wisp it up on the turn you want to use multiple TecEdges and/or GQs.
BW Eldrazi really doesn't like Blood Moon and needs to be more proactive. Sculler gives you information most importantly, and grabbing their Moon forces them to spend their turn's mana on removal giving you a window of opportunity to Path/GQ yourself ahead of time. If a Moon resolves things get trickier. Vial helps a whole lot, otherwise you need to Path yourself into some basics. Unless you have artifact removal handy, the only way to kill it is to Wisp+Processor the thing away- so you have to figure out quickly if your resources are better suited toward killing it, of fighting for the win underneath it.
GW can vary build to build and game to game. Versions that are more Hatebears-like have more strictly colored GW creatures which can become a pain to cast, but manadorks can do a lot to help weather the storm.
UW I don't have much experience with- but I assume they try to answer Blood Moon on the stack with Spell Queller. I'm also guessing they're about as color-strict as GW but not as sensitive as BW-Eldrazi, and if they're playing any Restos they should be able to trigger a Wisp on the turns they really need to use their colored mana.
@Charonsobol, Serafin Wellinger and Brandon Semerau have both top sighted GPs playing GW. Each played a set of horizon canopy. 100% of pros putting up strong results at the highest levels of competition is good enough for me. That's not to say that four is always correct but I think it's a safe bet in an unknown meta.
We seem to disagree on a lot. That said, you're a one of the most knowledgeable contributors to this thread and I value your opinion. I'd be very interested to see your list and compare ideas over pm if you feel so inclined.
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Your success in playing dnt/hatebears is determined largely by your ability to read and prepare for the meta that you will be playing in. Furthermore, it has an absolutely brutal learning curve. Expect to lose; a lot.
@Dysposablehero, start off with mono white as it's simplest. You don't need additional complications when learning the basics of the deck. Flickerwisp corner plays are perhaps the most complex part of the deck. Learn the stack and priority rules inside and out. You'll need expertise instead of just familiarity. This deck rewards tight play and mercilessly punishes bad play. Be prepared to spend the first few months losing.
@Everyone interested in bant. I went 3-0 against blue moon, rw human tribal and bushwhacked zoo. A detailed write up will be available tomorrow.
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Your success in playing dnt/hatebears is determined largely by your ability to read and prepare for the meta that you will be playing in. Furthermore, it has an absolutely brutal learning curve. Expect to lose; a lot.
We seem to disagree on a lot. That said, you're a one of the most knowledgeable contributors to this thread and I value your opinion. I'd be very interested to see your list and compare ideas over pm if you feel so inclined.
Playing millions of cards every turn... Slowly and systematically obliterating any chance my opponent has of winning... Clicking the multitude of locking mechanisms into place... Not even trying to win myself until turn 10+ once I have nigh absolute control... Watching my opponent desperately trying to navigate the labyrinthine prison that I've constructed... Seeing the light of hope fade and ultimately extinguished in an excruciatingly slow manner... THAT'S fun Magic.
We have 2-3 users that are dramatically making this thread incomprehensible and non-productive for anyone else to possibly join in the discussion. This needs to change.
Every time I see [ktkenshinx] post in here, I get the impression of a stern dad walking in on a bunch of kids trying to do something dumb and just shaking his head in disappointment.
Near Mint: The same as Slightly Played, but we threw some Altoids in the box we stored it in to cover up the scent of dead mice. Slightly Played: The base condition for all MTG cards. This card looks OK, but there’s one minor annoying ding in it that will always irritate and distract you whenever you draw it. Moderately Played: This card looks like it survived the Tet Offensive tucked inside the waistband of GI underwear. It may smell like it, too. Heavily Played: This card looks like the remains of Mohammed Atta’s passport after 9/11. It may be playable if you double-sleeve it to stop the chunks from falling out. The condition formerly known as "Washing Machine Grade" Damaged: This card is the unfortunate victim of a Mirrorweave/March of the Machines/Chaos Confetti/Mindslaver combo.
[M]aking counterfeit cards is the absolute height of dishonesty. Ask yourself this question: Since most people...are totally cool with the use of proxies...what purpose do [high] quality counterfeit cards serve?
As far as Mono-white DnT, goes what are people's thoughts on one drops. In particular I'm very interested in what people think of Icatian Javelineers? Are one drops necessary? Or am I better of fitting more 2-3 drops in the main?
Is Declaration in Stone a good sideboard option against Dredge? Itll usually hit multiple Amalgam or Bloodghast, and they wont have the mana for the card draw usually. I was thinking of running it along side some Rest in Peace. Also seems good against Abzan for Lingering Souls.
@stabil0, knightfall requires a critical mass of forest and plains types to keep the combo rolling long enough to fill the graveyard and make lethal. I don't think dnt could play enough to make knight a win con as knightfall does due to the fact that forest/plains types compete for slots with our utility and land destruction.
@scytale, green makes a poor splash as scooze is thirsty for green mana. It's also ridiculously powerful at the moment. I'd play without flickerwisp before playing without scooze. I like sprite because it answers cheap removal and cheaty 0 cmc powerhouses. My primary experience is with GW and I think that those are the weaknesses when compared to wb and wu. I'm unsure of the correct number of fetchlands vs shock lands and the inclusion of arbiter. Five fetches and three arbiters proved to be clunky last night. My previous experience tells me that three is the right number of fetches to run alongside a set of arbiters but that was with two colors and a meta where blood moon was a novelty.
WB Eldrazi and Taxes BW
It does, but you need to have access to a surplus of green mana. Plus, you need Scavenging Ooze to stay alive, which isn't guaranteed against BGx.
No, four is not the "generally accepted" number in WG. Craig Wescoe uses 4 Horizon Canopies, but that's it. To my knowledge, there isn't even another pro player that plays the deck, let alone some kind of pro player consensus on the topic.
Lots of players in this thread play WG D&T, and I don't think anybody else runs four.
Yes, but you can't count on that. Any metagame that consistently allows you to keep a Vial on the board isn't a competitive metagame. I can't seem to go a complete match without it being Decayed, K-Commanded, C-Commanded, Grudged, Revelried, or Stony Silenced. (No, please don't ask me why people bring in artifact-specific hate when I only have four artifacts in my deck. I have no idea why they do it either.)
Unfortunately not. This is a competitive thread, meant for the discussion of competitive lists. Bant is not a competitive version of the deck, and consequently I will not be posting my list. I won't stop you from posting yours, but the long-standing purpose of this thread is to foster competitive discussion.
WUDeath&TaxesWG
Legacy
UBRGDredgeUBRG
UHigh TideU
URGLandsURG
WR Card Choice List
WUR American D&T
WUB Esper D&T
The Reserved List
Heat Maps
Learn and practice your Flickerwisp corner plays. That guy can do so many different things and it's easy to forget them, but those plays win games.
Start with a completely stock list, then make adjustments once you've played plenty of games with it. Underestimating the importance of some cards, and how many is needed in the list is a pretty common mistake for new-comers to the deck.
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Flickerwisp
4 Eldrazi Displacer
3 Wasteland Strangler
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Aether Vial
2 Flex Slots
4 Concealed Courtyard
1 Godless Shrine
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Ghost Quarter
3 Shambling Vent
2 Plains
1 Swamp
This is with 2 flex slots, and I'll give a small list of possible options below. Also thanks to the addition of Concealed Courtyard our manabase has improved, and there's currently some experimentation going on. I've listed probably 1 basic land too few, so we don't get Path/GQ fetches as often, and we're slightly weaker to Blood Moon, but in all other situations our mana is a little more reliable (which feels like the weakest point of the deck sometimes). Also the 4th Thalia, Displacer, and maybe even the TKS (as I've seen a few lists have been doing) could be treated as flex slots too, but for a beginner I probably wouldn't mess with them for now.
1 Serra Avenger
1 Blade Splicer
1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Reality Smasher
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Dark Confidant
1 Kytheon, Hero of Akros
1 Thraben Inspector
1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
I might've missed some, but I think all these cards are mainboard material for the current meta.
Know there is never THE turn 2 play to make (or turn 3), it's always dependent on the matchup. Turn 2 Thalia, Arbiter or Sculler are each very powerful against particular decks (turn 2 Displacer or Strangler are potential plays too, or even TKS if you got the nut draw). Learn to play flexible and adapt to your opponent, because (subjectively) no deck does this better than ours. So become familiar with the meta.
Blade Splicer is better as mana sink and filling the board with tokens, but in a real game thats too hard. However, a single Wall of Resurgence puts a 3/3 with haste on the board and a 0/6 that, if not removed, blocks everything. Flickering Wall can bring value too, but the thing is:
-With Blade Splicer, if they kill a piece, we got a 3/3 or a 1/1.
-With Wall, if they kill a piece, we got a 3/3 or a 0/6.
A 0/6 brings much more tempo value than a 1/1.
Thats why we should care about what land we target. But overall, Im happy having that 0/6 wall on the field. If our opponent is low on removal, like bant eldrazi, +3/+3 on shambling vent is good too.
If you play Mono W DnT with Flagstones of Trokair it is better to run the wall over the splicer
Favourite Deck: Elves (Modern & Legacy)
Standard: New Perspectives Combo
Modern: GW Hatebears | Death and Taxes | Eldrazi and Taxes | Abzan Liege | Abzan Company
Commander: The Gitrog Monster (Combo) | Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper (Control) | RIP Leovold Sultai (Elvestorm, no unfair locks) | Mono G (Yisan or Titania)
Tiny Leaders: Too many decks to keep track of
Pauper: RIP UR Drake | Mono B | GBx Goodstuff | Jund "Melira"
WB Eldrazi and Taxes BW
R1: Bye
R2: 2-1 Storm
R3: 2-1 RG Tron
R4: 2-0 Ad Nauseam
R5: 2-1 Affinity
T8: 0-2 Junk
It was a sad ending to a good run, I mulled 6 G1 and mulled to 5 cards to keep a hand with 2 ghost quarters as lands... I still think I could have won G1 had I made two plays differently, but it relied on my opponent bricking on draws. Double lingering souls can be troublesome, if not devastating. I wish I had lost/conceded to affinity, as I would have played against Grixis Goryo and had an easier MU.
I don't think that playing a "Wall" is good enough and prefer more proactive creatures in the 3-cmc slotm namely: Kitchen Finks, Blade Splicer and Thalia, Heretic Cathar.
I am not really looking for a 0/6 most of the time.
We don't always have an active vial or a land to spare (for instance after Ghost Quarter'ing) to not care about it getting removed (bolted).
It's my usual list:
4x Path to Exile
4x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4x Leonin Arbiter
4x Dark Confidant
4x Tidehollow Sculler
4x Flickerwisp
2x Kitchen Finks
2x Aven Mindcensor
2x Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1x Vryn Wingmare
1x Mirran Crusader
1x Kambal, Consul of Allocation
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
2x Godless Shrine
4x Concealed Courtyard
4x Caves of Koilos
4x Ghost Quarter
1x Tectonic Edge
1x Sea Gate Wreckage
1x Vault of the Archangel
3x Plains
1x Swamp
2x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Sunlance
2x Burrenton Forge-Tender
2x Rest in Peace
2x Stony Silence
2x Zealous Persecution
1x Dismember
1x Ghostly Prison
1x Mirran Crusader
figure out when its good to cast everything you draw, and when its better to not do that.
Both can be potentially difficult to do under a resolved Blood Moon, but if you know one is coming it isn't that hard to plan ahead.
In any D&T flavor, Aether Vial is an allstar under a resolved Blood Moon. Flickerwisp+Vial is especially helpful in taking Moon offline a turn so you can "fetch" with GQ and/or do whatever else you need to do with your window of properly-colored mana.
Other than that, it really depends on what flavor/build you're running to decide how to deal with it.
We seem to disagree on a lot. That said, you're a one of the most knowledgeable contributors to this thread and I value your opinion. I'd be very interested to see your list and compare ideas over pm if you feel so inclined.
@Everyone interested in bant. I went 3-0 against blue moon, rw human tribal and bushwhacked zoo. A detailed write up will be available tomorrow.
WUDeath&TaxesWG
Legacy
UBRGDredgeUBRG
UHigh TideU
URGLandsURG
WR Card Choice List
WUR American D&T
WUB Esper D&T
The Reserved List
Heat Maps
WB Eldrazi and Taxes BW
In U/W I like Detention Sphere in the Dredge match-up and Declaration comes 1-turn earlier.