Hello everyone, new to the deck here. Is anyone playing Bob in their lists anymore? I understand that people think he is a lightning rod.. but so is 90% of the other creatures in the deck. 100% if you aren't playing Eldrazi. If he goes unchecked he truly does take over the game, unlike most of the other creatures. He's a pretty good draw at all stages of the game which can't be said about Arbiter/Thalia/Sculler. I run the full 4 Flickerwisps and 2 Restos for protection as well.
Anyone mind sharing their lists that run him?
I personally like having bob in my lists, if he sticks he's great and if he dies, I don't really care since there are other more synergistic cards that often matter more in the matchups at hand, although I must admit I kind of want to have him be 2 mirran crusader in a DS meta, but if something happens with BnR this week, I'll probably stay on bob. Here's my current iteration of EnT that I've been playing. Just be prepared to bolt yourself every other turn.
Death and Taxes (DnT) – Compiled List of Interactions
Good morning, afternoon, evening wherever you may be. This is a guide intended to compile a database of interactions that can be employed when playing death and taxes. This list is meant to be comprehensive but as any DnT player can tell you the number of possible interactions is far more than any one person can recall at a given time. As a result, I’m sure I’ll have missed some. If you notice I have left out any interactions, feel free to point them out in the comments below so we can update the list.
A small disclaimer: DnT lists rely heavilty on stack manipulation regardless of what version you are playing. While I have a good understanding of the stack and how it works, I am not an expert. As a result, some of my logic for why plays work could be somewhat incorrect; if you notice this, please let me know, so that I can increase my understanding of the stack and become a better DnT player.
General Interactions
General interactions include interactions with core cards of the DnT shell such as
Though some of these cards see more play than others, I’d like to first start by restating the “flicker” interactions mentioned in the primer v2.0 by SHEEPZ. These interactions are primarily concerned with using flickerwisp to generate an incremental advantage.
Hardcasting Tricks:
Below in quotations, you’ll find SHEEPZ original statements followed by a slightly more insightful analysis of when these tricks are commonly applied.
1. “Hardcast it to untap one of your creatures after combat.”
When you are in a situation where you can finish off your opponent as long as you survive the next combat step you can attack and post combat flicker a creature such as a thalia or a thraben inspector to generate value/provide you with a chump blocker to survive the turn.
2. “Hardcast it on your own land to untap it, making it cost one less mana basically.”
If you have a path to exile in hand and way to gain a tempo advantage, you can hardcast flickerwisp and target a land that is eligible to enter the battlefield (ETB) untapped and this will allow you apply pressure in the air while also removing a key threat on your opponents turn. This can be especially useful vs. combo decks such as the various company combo decks and most creature strategies.
3. “Hardcast it to remove a blocker.”
Another tempo play, you can cast flickerwisp precombat to flicker an enemy blocker and get in more damage leaving yourself with a 3/1 evasive threat. This is an excellent way to initate a race with you opponent or to force through damage when your opponent is trying to turtle up behind walls or a goyf to prevent you from risking your hatecards/taxing elements.
4. “Hardcast it targeting an opposing Aether Vial, Engineered Explosives, Chalice of the Void, etc. to remove all counters from it.”
A personal favorite play of mine. This line allows you to set your opponent back significantly if you can catch them in a vulnerable position. Against merfolk or in the mirror, resetting an Aether vial can buy you at least 2 turns to get ahead on board. Likewise, since we tend to clog our 2 and 3 drop slots, engineered explosives is valuable card against the hatebers/DnT lists. This trick also works with any permanent that uses counters which can include but is not limited to:
Chalice of the void, everflowing chalice, pentad prism, any planeswalker threatening to ultimate, and the list goes on. Long story short, if it needs counters to function, you can reset it.
5. “Hardcast it targeting your Oblivion Ring or phyrexian revoker to switch targets (when it comes back).”
A very straightforward trick for prioritizing specific threats. You can for instance use oblivion ring to exile a tarmogoyf, then reset it with flickerwisp to exile a Liliana of the veil if she makes an appearance, It can allow you to sometimes pick and choose what parts of a combo to hate out. Against counters company, it can be used to name devoted druid early with phyrexian revoker, and then reset the revoker if the threat of the kitchen finks combo becomes a possibility.
6. “Hardcast it targeting your Jötun Grunt to remove it's age counters.”
While I don’t believe Jötun Grunt still sees widespread play in DnT lists, this trick can still be used to generate additional value our of any ETB creature effect such as blade splicer to generate an additional 3/3 golem.
7. “Hardcast it targeting another flickerwisp you own so that when the second comes back, it removes something for the entire next turn. (unnecessary if you have a vial out though, see vial tricks: #2)”
A trick I was recently reintroduced to, if you want to keep your opponent off of a certain creature or land during the entirety of their next turn, you can cast a flickerwisp targeting your own flickerwisp and flickering it. Since the trigger to return flickerwisp occurs at the beginning of the endstep and all of the similar triggers will be placed onto the stack at the same time, then the trigger to return your flickerwisp will go on the stack and resolve. This causes your newly entered flickerwisps ETB exile ability to trigger after the moment the return trigger would occur. Because of this, the targeted permanent will have to wait until the “next” endstep (your opponent’s endstep) to return to the battlefield.
8. “Hardcast it to remove tokens permanently.”
Tokens are only permanents on the battlefield, so when they leave they don’t come back when the ability triggers.
9. “Hardcast it to reset Planeswalkers (Though vial end of your turn so they can't use its ability on their turn works better)”
See resetting permanents with counters above.
Next are the interactions with Aether vial and flickerwisp
Vial Tricks:
1. “Any of the tricks above also works here.”
They can simply be done at instant speed thanks to vial
2. “Vial it in on your end step to remove one of their lands (or another permanent) for their whole turn (works better with a mana-denial strategy).”
Pretty self-explanatory
3. “Vial it in to stop an attacking creature.”
After attacks have been declared, you can vial in a flickerwisp and bounce an attacking creature and remove it from combat.
4. “Vial it in response to their removal spell to save your creature.”
With all targeted removal, if the target of the spell leaves the battlefield and then returns, it is considered a new entity in the terms of the boardstate. As such, the spell will be countered. In the case of flickerwisp, the spell will attempt to resolve without a legal target and be countered.
5. “Vial it in to save your chump blocker.”
Again, this kind of trick is most important in racing situations, where you can chump your opponent’s tarmogoyf or scavenging ooze with say a thalia, and then vial in a wisp and bounce thalia after blocks have been declared to prevent taking unnecessary damage.
5b. “Vial it in to save Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or a first strike creature after it has already done its damage.”
A special case of the above scenario, if you find a scenario where you can effectively trade with a high value target using a group block, but you’ll lose all of your say a revoker and a thallia to kill a loxodon smiter, you can allow thalia to deal her first strike damage, flicker her with wisp, and then allow the revoker to trade with the smiter.
6. “The most important (and most complicated) interaction. Vial it in to abuse the hell out of Mangara of Corondor, Oblivion Ring, Tidehollow Sculler, Journey to Nowhere, etc. Here's how (with oblivion ring as an example):
a. Cast Oblivion Ring.
b. With it's exile trigger on the stack (targeting, say, a Tarmogoyf), activate Aether Vial.
e. Oblivion Ring's second ability resolves, returning the Tarmogoyf to the battlefield, which, of course never left in the first place - so nothing happens.
stack = 1. exile SGC
f. Oblivion Ring's first ability then resolves, exiling Tarmogoyf permanently (since the return trigger already resolved).
g. At the beginning of your end step, Flickerwisp's delayed trigger returns Oblivion Ring to the battlefield, exiling another nonland permanent as normal.”
This is probably the most powerful interaction to abuse as it allows you to virtually net a 2-for-1 with your ETB exile triggers. This applies to all sorts of cards including tidehollow sculler and fiend hunter, and can be abused with other flicker effects such as Eldrazi displacer and restoration angel.
This concludes the previous list of interactions compiled by SHEEPZ. From here on I will begin to focus on key interactions that deal specifically with Eldrazi and Taxes (EnT) as that is my current preferred flavor of DnT variatns.
To begin with, eldrazi and taxes offers a wide variety of value engines to eek out an incremental advantage over the course of a game. Cards like Eldrazi Displacer, Tidehollow sculler, and Wasteland Strangler offer the pilot a unique variety of interactions that also play well with flickerwisp from stock DnT lists.
Tidehollow Sculler and Wasteland Strangler
The synergy of these two cards is one of the main reasons to even be in black in the first place. A pseudo-thoughtseize on a stick, sculler allows you to disrupt the enemy early and establish a board presence to start the beats. He synergizes well with both Wasteland Strangler and Eldrazi Displacer, and is often an automatic 4-of in every list. Wasteland Strangler is often never more than a 3-of, but synergizes with so many cards that it is always valuable to get on the board. Unfortunately, without a card in exile it can often just be a vanilla 3/2 for 3 which is a poor rate for that kind of body in my opinion.
The main way to abuse these cards is with the process mechanic, which allows you to place any card your opponent owns in exile into their graveyard to give a target creature -3/-3. Since sculler exiles whatever card you target with it, you can choose to process it and give a creature -3/-3. BEWARE HOWEVER, wasteland strangler’s ability is mandatory. If you choose to process a card, then you must give a creature -3/-3. Below is a list of valuable interactions with both cards in conjunction with Eldrazi Displacer.
1a. You can process a card with Wasteland Strangler to give an opposing creature -3/-3 to ensure that the card exile with tidehollow sculler never returns to your opponent’s hand if it is killed.
See above for an in-depth explanation of why this works.
1b. You can process a card with wasteland strangler to give your creature -3/-3.
This may seem counter-intuitive as most of your creatures have two or less toughness, but it works well with Thought-Knot Seer to remove the card from exile, just be conscious of any damage dealt to TKS during the combat phase, and also be wary if your opponent is in red that you are not exposing it to a lightning bolt.
2. You can vial in a flickerwisp, or activate eldrazi displacer to blink your tidehollowsculler in response to the trigger on the stack. This allows you to exile two cards, one permanently, and one under the sculler.
A powerful disruption tool vs. combo decks, the interaction works like this. (items with higher numbers will resolve first on the stack)
1. Tidehollow Sculler’s exile ability goes on the stack
2. Eldrazi Displacer blinks the Sculler
Sculler leaves the battlefield and then enters again now the stack looks like this:
1. Tidehollow Sculler’s initial exile ability
2. Tidehollow Sculler’s trigger to return the exiled card when it left the battlefield
3. Tidehollow sculler’s ability to exile a card when it re-entered the battlefield.
The stack begins to resolve at this point, so you will get to choose a card to exile under tidehollow sculler, next the ability to return the initially exiled card will resolve (for which there is no card in exile to be returned), finally you get to select a card to permanently exile due to sculler’s first exile ability.
This trick can be repeated for as many times as you can blink it with eldrazi displacer or flickerwisp. If you blink it twice with displacer, you will get to exile 3 cards; one under tidehollow sculler and two permanently.
3. Using wasteland strangler to process a card in exile from flickerwisp.
This is my all-time favorite interaction of this deck, and it has gotten me out of all manner of unwinnable boardstates. The interaction is similar to tidehollow sculler above, since the process mechanic only cares about the exiled card being your opponent’s, you can exile a permanent with flickerwisp, and then process it into your opponent’s graveyard to give a creature -3/-3. Again, as with the above example, strangler’s ability in mandatory, so you must choose a target when you play it. In a pinch, you can target your own wasteland strangler if you absolutely need to have the exiled permanent go the graveyard.
The list of problematic cards that this interaction works well with includes any planeswalker, tarmogoyf, Kitchen Finks, Any Land when GQ or Tec Edge is not available, etc. It’s best used as a 2-for-1 value tool, and in this deck it is entirely possible to live “the dream”…
“The Dream” being where you untap with an eldrazi displacer, flickerwisp, and wasteland strangler on board, which allows you to blink your flickerwisp (post combat hopefully), then blink your wasteland strangler to process the card from flickerwisp and kill something. You may feel like a dirty human-being, but you’ll probably set your opponent so far back they have no hope of winning unless they can draw the exact combination of cards they need to get out of it.
4. With 2 cards in Exile you can choose to either cast wasteland strangler + eldrazi displacer it, cast 2 wasteland stranglers, cast wasteland strangler + flickerwisp, or use 2 eldrazi displacer activations to kill a creature with toughness values between 4 and 6.
A couple lines of play in this interaction are pretty self-explanatory. You can cast a strangler and process one card, then cast another one and process the second card to kill a creature with 6 toughness, or you can cast a strangler and blink it with displacer to kill a creature, or you can blink a pre-played strangler twice. The fourth line of play isn’t necessarily intuitive and requires some understanding of when damage and “end of turn” effects wear off, which occurs during the clean-up step of the end phase, after the active player has discarded to hand size. The exchange in game would look something like this.
DnT Player: Casts or vials in wasteland strangler and processes a card to give a creature -3/-3 until the end of the turn. Next the DnT player casts or vials in flickerwisp and exiles their strangler. At the beginning of the end step, the strangler is returned and processes the second card to give the same creature -3/-3 again, killing it when state-based effects are checked. The end phase then progresses to the clean-up step where “until the end of turn” effects would wear off.
Below is the specific rules that clarify when these effects would occur.
512. Ending Phase
512.1. The ending phase consists of two steps: end and cleanup.
513. End Step
513.1. First, all abilities that trigger “at the beginning of the end step” or “at the beginning of the next end step” go on the stack. (See rule 603, “Handling Triggered Abilities.”)
513.1a Previously, abilities that trigger at the beginning of the end step were printed with the trigger condition “at end of turn.” Cards that were printed with that text have received errata in the Oracle card reference to say “at the beginning of the end step” or “at the beginning of the next end step.”
513.2. Second, the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities.
513.3. If a permanent with an ability that triggers “at the beginning of the end step” enters the battlefield during this step, that ability won’t trigger until the next turn’s end step. Likewise, if a delayed triggered ability that triggers “at the beginning of the next end step” is created during this step, that ability won’t trigger until the next turn’s end step. In other words, the step doesn’t “back up” so those abilities can go on the stack. This rule applies only to triggered abilities; it doesn’t apply to continuous effects whose durations say “until end of turn” or “this turn.” (See rule 514, “Cleanup Step.”)
514. Cleanup Step
514.1. First, if the active player’s hand contains more cards than his or her maximum hand size (normally seven), he or she discards enough cards to reduce his or her hand size to that number. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack.
514.2. Second, the following actions happen simultaneously: all damage marked on permanents (including phased-out permanents) is removed and all “until end of turn” and “this turn” effects end. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack.
These are the major interactions that involve tidehollow sculler and wasteland strangler. I feel it is also worth listing off some of the useful interactions with Eldrazi Displacer
Eldrazi Displacer is probably one of the best cards in the deck. It functions like a pseudo Aether vial if you already have a creature with an ETB effect in play, and also as flickerwisps 5-8. Below are some of the niche interactions with displacer and the core cards of the deck.
1. As mentioned above, displacer can blink any creature with a “return target X card in exile to it’s owner’s hand/battlefield, when this creature leaves the battlefield” trigger to permanently exile the target.
This again is useful in conjunction with tidehollow sculler and fiend hunter to permanently exile specific threats/cards.
2. A leonin arbiter can be blinked in response to a fetch to make your opponent pay an additional 2 mana.
This works because when a creature leaves and re-enters the battlefield, it is considered in terms of the game as a completely new entity, even if it’s physically the same card. So in game, your opponent pays 2 and cracks a fetch to search, in response to the fetch you activate eldrazi displacer to blink arbiter, it returns to the battlefield and imposes a new tax of 2 mana to search libraries, forcing your opponent to pay 2 again or not be able to search. This also works if your opponent declares they are holding priority after putting a fetch on the stack so they can pay for arbiter as they will have to pass priority back to you before the fetch can resolve.
3. Without a vial, you can blink a pre-existing flickerwisp on your end step to remove something for your opponent’s entire turn.
This is an extremely useful interaction when you need a permanent to be removed for exactly one or two turns to be able to prevent your opponent from combo’ing off or having access to the tron land they need.
4. You can blink a flipped creature with or a triggered flip-walker to reset it.
A purely value interaction that some opponents aren’t even aware of, this can allow you to prevent a flip walker such as Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy from flipping, or even reset a flipped delver of secrets/insectile aberration. You can also reset a thing in the ice in response to the removal of its last ice counter.
3. You can blink a creature with first strike damage before regular combat damage to save it and deal 2 damage to the blocked or blocking creature.
This may not seem like much, but if you have a vial on 3, and a strangler with a card to process, you can kill a creature with 5 toughness. This works because when creatures with first strike are involved in combat, the damage phase is split into two steps, first strike damage and regular damage, with priority being offered to players during both steps after damage has been dealt. This allows you to deal first strike damage with thalia, and then blink her before regular damage is dealt. This opens you up to the possibility of playing or vialing in a strangler to give their creature -3/-3 which can be used to kill it.
5. With a vial, a wisp and displacer in play, you can save some number if your creatures from a wrath effect as long as you have the mana to activate displacer. This works because of wisps delayed trigger. Say you have a board of thalia, displacer, and sculler vs. some control deck with a vial on three, and a temple and five lands. In response to a wrath, you can vial in flickerwisp and target thalia, then blink the wisp and target sculler, and finally blink the wisp again and target displacer. Verdict will resolve and kill your wisp, but at the end of turn you'll get back sculler, thalia, and displacer leaving you with seven power on board, a mana tax, and a new view of your opponent's hand. This also works if you just incidentally have a wisp in play, it's just more mana-intensive than by using a vial to get a free wisp trigger.
And with that we've exhausted the majority of my knowledge on the interactions within Eldrazi and Taxes. This is by no means a comprehensive list of interactions, and I’ve certainly skipped some of the most basic ones such as using displacer to blink a creature in response to it being targeted by a spell or ability, but these are interactions I expect most people in modern to understand and as such they are not covered here in this list. If you have any additional interactions that I’ve missed or that you use commonly in your matches, please feel free to let me know. I’m not as well versed in the mono-white or G/W variants even though I’ve played them both to some degree, so if anyone would like to append their list of tricks to this list for those decks you’re more than welcome to do so. Thank you for reading!
@kessm05, Excellent work! It's great for many of new DnT and also a reminder to many taxers.
Guys, How is the testing with Gideon of the Trials? And Eldrazi Displacer in non-Eldrazi lists?
Another question: How are you guys against Eldratron decks? That Ballista wrecks me a lot of times and all is dust get rid of my Stony Silence so easily
He mentions trading some percentage points from favorable matchups in Control & Combo to better tackle Fast Aggro & GBx Attrition. Spell Queller has quietly been gaining popularity in Jeskai Tempo-Control and Knightfall lists recently, and its syngery with Mausoleum Wanderer (and Selfless Spirit) here is interesting. I've also seen how powerful Reflector Mage can be in other decks, even without blink effects and mana denial.
I know Craig Wescoe tried a similar UW deck last year and ultimately put it away, but I'm not sure how much of this was due to differences between Wescoe & Vollmer's 75 or differences between the metas they faced at different times and places. Perhaps it's worth re-evaluating UW?
He mentions trading some percentage points from favorable matchups in Control & Combo to better tackle Fast Aggro & GBx Attrition. Spell Queller has quietly been gaining popularity in Jeskai Tempo-Control and Knightfall lists recently, and its syngery with Mausoleum Wanderer (and Selfless Spirit) here is interesting. I've also seen how powerful Reflector Mage can be in other decks, even without blink effects and mana denial.
I know Craig Wescoe tried a similar UW deck last year and ultimately put it away, but I'm not sure how much of this was due to differences between Wescoe & Vollmer's 75 or differences between the metas they faced at different times and places. Perhaps it's worth re-evaluating UW?
What are your thoughts?
I like it, I can see how it would improve your GB/x matchup considerably, I think any variant of DnT is really a meta call I would play this against GBx and DS most days I think so it could be a good call right now. I can't remember wescoe's old list, but Reflector Mage is a hell of a drug. I remember that from my standard days. It's certainly more tempo-y than other builds, but that personally appeals to me. It's almost like a spirits deck crossed with a hatebears list. I think it's worth testing, but you'd need to get super proficient with it before going to a tournament as some lines of play may not be obvious, like blinking a selfless spirit to make mausoleum wanderer a 2 mana tax instead of one.
I'm not sold on his numbers though, but I can't argue with his result. His counter company matchup seems really good post sideboard though that's for sure.
Edit: His traditional Jund/Abzan matchups are noted to be really bad pre-board I don't know if I'd switch taxes variants unless this matchup is favored both pre and post-board
Did you guys see this UW Taxes Primer by Aiden Vollmer?
He mentions trading some percentage points from favorable matchups in Control & Combo to better tackle Fast Aggro & GBx Attrition. Spell Queller has quietly been gaining popularity in Jeskai Tempo-Control and Knightfall lists recently, and its syngery with Mausoleum Wanderer (and Selfless Spirit) here is interesting. I've also seen how powerful Reflector Mage can be in other decks, even without blink effects and mana denial.
I know Craig Wescoe tried a similar UW deck last year and ultimately put it away, but I'm not sure how much of this was due to differences between Wescoe & Vollmer's 75 or differences between the metas they faced at different times and places. Perhaps it's worth re-evaluating UW?
What are your thoughts?
I'm still baffled by the 1 Flickerwisp. I can't imagine Reflector Mage to be a better MD card.
I believe the pilot may have felt wisp to be less necessary with 16 other flying threats when you factor in wanderer, selfless, queller, and resto, but I agree blinking permanents is a low-risk high upside play
I have been playing multiple versions of Death and Taxes for Modern. I started off with Mono White, then B/W Eldrazi and Taxes, Mono White with Eldrazi and now G/W Taxes.
I have also been researching/playing Bant Knightfall and Abzan Counters Company in order to understand how other decks attack/defend.
I decided to try the counters company combo with Vizier and Druid in a G/W Taxes package. Originally it was more to have fun but it has been playing really well. I am no expert so I was wondering if someone else could play test it.
Deck is below. Forgive me for formatting. I also haven't updated the sideboard yet. I am just using a sideboard from another G/W Taxes version.
What I have been seeing is that this deck confuses the opponent because its a hybrid. (Maybe because its horrible lol) The deck also has a lot of must answer creatures.
Some things that I noticed below.
Opponents seem to still target Thalia, Guardian of Thraben over anything else.... even Druid. So if opponent uses removal on Death and Taxes Creatures then Druid combo lives and vice versa.
Rhonas the Indomitable with any 2 power creature is great. Use Rhonas the Indomitable ability on another creature and now you have an active 5/5 with another 4/x. Bonus points if its Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. 9 Damage going toward opponent.
Vial works on Rhonas the Indomitable and so does collected company. (Reason why I don't play walker)Bonus EE doesn't destroy it.
Vial works great to sneak in a Druid or Vizier.
Vizier plus Finks equals forever blocking Finks.
Duskwatch Recruiter is great to get new creatures. (Not Impacted by Leo)
This deck isn't impacted by graveyard hate so Rest in Peace is still good.
4 Gavony Township makes all your small creatures big. You can kill with Druids and Viziers.
Game 2 bring in Selfless Spirit if opponent has board wipes.
The Deck is actually a lot of fun. I am sure it has its weaknesses but it helps you look at G/W taxes in a different way. I would like to get Rhonas the Indomitable in a normal G/W Taxes Package but we might not have enough mana.
@kessm05, Excellent work! It's great for many of new DnT and also a reminder to many taxers.
Guys, How is the testing with Gideon of the Trials? And Eldrazi Displacer in non-Eldrazi lists?
Another question: How are you guys against Eldratron decks? That Ballista wrecks me a lot of times and all is dust get rid of my Stony Silence so easily
GotT is... surprisingly good. Very strong against burn (if you hit him and get a decent hand, you win), but you still need to hit him, so I don't think he's enough in that MU alone, honestly (as you lose without him, or without a decent hand to back him up). Obviously hilarious against certain combo decks, but that's a side benefit. 3 mana wrath-avoiding 4/4 against control, which isn't bad, and against threat-light stuff like DS where you're looking at having one or two threats arrayed against you at a time? Very good. Fails against stuff like elves that's going wide.
In mono-white, Displacer's been cut these days. It's nutty, but the current trend is to run Copters, which moves us towards pitching lands, thus not having the mana for displacers (or even any 4-drops MD, really, though some can still squeeze in, it's tight on 22 lands when you want to use your LD). Just has too many slots for the flickerables as well; splicer, that mainstay from the deck's inception, has now gone, in favour of tempo-ish Thalia 2.0 and gideons. It does work, but I prefer copters, and they're two very different-looking builds ATM. Still got two flex spots in my list from the removal of the last two Restos; I'm tending towards two finks there, but I'll run the two Order of Whiteclay main if the meta's not quite as aggressive. Because that synergy is amazing.
I have been playing multiple versions of Death and Taxes for Modern. I started off with Mono White, then B/W Eldrazi and Taxes, Mono White with Eldrazi and now G/W Taxes.
I have also been researching/playing Bant Knightfall and Abzan Counters Company in order to understand how other decks attack/defend.
I decided to try the counters company combo with Vizier and Druid in a G/W Taxes package. Originally it was more to have fun but it has been playing really well. I am no expert so I was wondering if someone else could play test it.
Deck is below. Forgive me for formatting. I also haven't updated the sideboard yet. I am just using a sideboard from another G/W Taxes version.
What I have been seeing is that this deck confuses the opponent because its a hybrid. (Maybe because its horrible lol) The deck also has a lot of must answer creatures.
Some things that I noticed below.
Opponents seem to still target Thalia, Guardian of Thraben over anything else.... even Druid. So if opponent uses removal on Death and Taxes Creatures then Druid combo lives and vice versa.
Rhonas the Indomitable with any 2 power creature is great. Use Rhonas the Indomitable ability on another creature and now you have an active 5/5 with another 4/x. Bonus points if its Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. 9 Damage going toward opponent.
Vial works on Rhonas the Indomitable and so does collected company. (Reason why I don't play walker)Bonus EE doesn't destroy it.
Vial works great to sneak in a Druid or Vizier.
Vizier plus Finks equals forever blocking Finks.
Duskwatch Recruiter is great to get new creatures. (Not Impacted by Leo)
This deck isn't impacted by graveyard hate so Rest in Peace is still good.
4 Gavony Township makes all your small creatures big. You can kill with Druids and Viziers.
Game 2 bring in Selfless Spirit if opponent has board wipes.
The Deck is actually a lot of fun. I am sure it has its weaknesses but it helps you look at G/W taxes in a different way. I would like to get Rhonas the Indomitable in a normal G/W Taxes Package but we might not have enough mana.
Thoughts?
No E-Wit in the maindeck? I feel like it could be a 2 or 3-of probably. I might would shave a recruiter and a rhonas, as if you combo you only need 1 rhonas, and then maybe cut a single CoCo? I'm not sure what my third cut would be. I'm not sure I'd run 4 hierarch and 4 druid in the list, that's a lot of action you're giving up to ramp.
He mentions trading some percentage points from favorable matchups in Control & Combo to better tackle Fast Aggro & GBx Attrition. Spell Queller has quietly been gaining popularity in Jeskai Tempo-Control and Knightfall lists recently, and its syngery with Mausoleum Wanderer (and Selfless Spirit) here is interesting. I've also seen how powerful Reflector Mage can be in other decks, even without blink effects and mana denial.
I know Craig Wescoe tried a similar UW deck last year and ultimately put it away, but I'm not sure how much of this was due to differences between Wescoe & Vollmer's 75 or differences between the metas they faced at different times and places. Perhaps it's worth re-evaluating UW?
What are your thoughts?
Haven't posted here for a while, but I have always been a strong proponent of UW. I always test a lot of UW, but I feel it has weakened a lot right now because there are too many decks punishing you for being reactive, which is the advantage of playing queller and r mage. Reflector mage, especially, has gotten a lot weaker with the fall of all in creature combo and bant drazi. It doesn't do much against counters company as they can just chord or coco into the threat that you just bounced. He is also usually too slow for storm and is mediocre against dredge as he doesn't block amalgam like splicer, crusader or THC. I will say he can still be decent against death's shadow and their delve threats, but tends to be mediocre in how most attrition matchups play out.
Some other areas UW is lacking in right now are that it doesn't really have good mana sinks that take it out of mono white. An argument can be made for displacer, but UW targets for displacer have become mediocre in this meta compared to BW. Displacing queller is mediocre, and reflector mage has the problems I spoke of earlier, and the only good 2 drop target is spellstutter sprite. The problem with all of these targets is that they are reactive. GW gets access to proactive mana sinks like tireless tracker and scavenging ooze.
In conclusion, I don't think UW is bad or anything, but the current meta is giving awkwardness to the typical lines of play that UW has. This is not to say that UW isn't on the cusp of competing with the other variants. I honestly think UW is a solid two drop away from getting too the next level. It just needs better ways to get ahead early to really leverage the power of spell queller. I'm keeping my eye on the upcoming spoilers for something like an early mana sink that lets leave mana up to bluff queller, or a mini geist of saint traft like card that can come down earlier and let you focus on tempoing out your opponent or a card that can take over the game on its own like dark confidant or brimaz. Even an aggresive court hussar like card at the 2 drops slot could be really nice.
I was thinking the same thing when my friend showed that to me. It makes arbiter that much better and the body isn't bad either, could see play as a 1-of possibly a 2-of in some lists that want to hedge on land destruction.
He mentions trading some percentage points from favorable matchups in Control & Combo to better tackle Fast Aggro & GBx Attrition. Spell Queller has quietly been gaining popularity in Jeskai Tempo-Control and Knightfall lists recently, and its syngery with Mausoleum Wanderer (and Selfless Spirit) here is interesting. I've also seen how powerful Reflector Mage can be in other decks, even without blink effects and mana denial.
I know Craig Wescoe tried a similar UW deck last year and ultimately put it away, but I'm not sure how much of this was due to differences between Wescoe & Vollmer's 75 or differences between the metas they faced at different times and places. Perhaps it's worth re-evaluating UW?
What are your thoughts?
Haven't posted here for a while, but I have always been a strong proponent of UW. I always test a lot of UW, but I feel it has weakened a lot right now because there are too many decks punishing you for being reactive, which is the advantage of playing queller and r mage. Reflector mage, especially, has gotten a lot weaker with the fall of all in creature combo and bant drazi. It doesn't do much against counters company as they can just chord or coco into the threat that you just bounced. He is also usually too slow for storm and is mediocre against dredge as he doesn't block amalgam like splicer, crusader or THC. I will say he can still be decent against death's shadow and their delve threats, but tends to be mediocre in how most attrition matchups play out.
Some other areas UW is lacking in right now are that it doesn't really have good mana sinks that take it out of mono white. An argument can be made for displacer, but UW targets for displacer have become mediocre in this meta compared to BW. Displacing queller is mediocre, and reflector mage has the problems I spoke of earlier, and the only good 2 drop target is spellstutter sprite. The problem with all of these targets is that they are reactive. GW gets access to proactive mana sinks like tireless tracker and scavenging ooze.
In conclusion, I don't think UW is bad or anything, but the current meta is giving awkwardness to the typical lines of play that UW has. This is not to say that UW isn't on the cusp of competing with the other variants. I honestly think UW is a solid two drop away from getting too the next level. It just needs better ways to get ahead early to really leverage the power of spell queller. I'm keeping my eye on the upcoming spoilers for something like an early mana sink that lets leave mana up to bluff queller, or a mini geist of saint traft like card that can come down earlier and let you focus on tempoing out your opponent or a card that can take over the game on its own like dark confidant or brimaz. Even an aggresive court hussar like card at the 2 drops slot could be really nice.
I'm testing Spreading Seas as 2 cmc drop and I'm happy so far. Flickering it is really good. Sometimes you know that Thalia and Arbiter won't survive t2, so why not disfixing opponent's mana? Even Thalia and Arbiter can buy you a turn, Spreading Seas is a card to help strategy of denying a color from your opponent. It is huge against GBx (a slightly unfavored MU), Death's Shadow variants and it's amazing against already ok MU (Tron and Valakut decks). Its downside not being a creature (tax) is not that big deal in many cases, I assure it.
I was reminded tonight that one of our own has an entire site with article he posts about magic in general and about D&T including meta analysis and tournament reports. I think it's an excellent resource and may be something to consider for leonin's library (although we should ask him if that's okay first). Check it out: https://2imu.wordpress.com/
Been working on this Bant variant of Death and Taxes...Not sure it's going to work, but it's something I've wanted to try since Spell Queller was released.
Will try and get back to ya'll (if I remember) after my Thursday Night Modern.
Looking for any help I can get on this one. Lots of playtesting will have to happen to iron it out!
I'm considering 1-2 Smuggler's Copter to help me cycle away bad draws and useless cards (extra Vials, extra Dryad Arbors, etc etc) Not sure where I'd make cuts though.
Been preparing for the SCG invitational weekend in Roanoke and have some testing notes with EnT vs. Grixis Death's shadow for those who may be interested. I've been running a stock EnT list with 2 small changes. The typical 2 flex slots have been swapped from Bob to Mirran Crusader, and the third wasteland strangler was replaced with a fiend hunter to better hate on big creature decks.
Pre-board
Good cards in the matchup (assigned based on order of relevance in my opinion): Flickerwisp, Thalia, Eldrazi Displacer, Leonin Arbiter.
My opponent was often forced to pick a thalia or arbiter with their turn 1 discard just be able to use their deck for the entirety of the game ignoring bigger late-game threats such as TKS and mirran crusader.
Poor cards in the matchup (based on worst to least worst in my opinion): Tidehollow Sculler, Wasteland Strangler, Vial
Tidehollow sculler is really bad in this matchup, between their removal, and K-command there's virtually no way to keep it alive. Wasteland strangler doesn't kill anything except a misplayed DS in this matchup, but it's 3/2 body can be relevant when they usually start the game at 9 life. Vial can sometimes be a trap-card in this matchup where you just get blown out by a K-command, but it's raw power level is so high that I would err on keeping it in post-side. Just be wary of keeping a 1-land vial hand on the draw. On the play it's passable if it's a good six, but on the draw you'll mulligan that every time. With 8 discard spells they have approximately a 65% chance that one is in their opening hand. I also punted a testing match this way.
Best way to win pre-board: Tempo them with flickerwisp beats or displacer activations. I was genuinely surprised at how well this worked. I mean it wasn't just good, it was almost unbeatable. Many games my opponent would put himself to 9-12 life and play a quick tasigur, shadow, angler to try and get a clock going after burning some removal on Thalia, and they simply couldn't race me efficiently when I'm blinking their blocker and dealing 4-6 damage a turn with evasive threats. Be wary of turning on their fatal push though when blinking a permanent with wisp or displacer. It never came up in our games often, but it will allow them to get back in the game, so either get fancy with GQ (most lands only run 2 basics, a swamp, and an island) or get a good read on your opponent.
Sideboarding: -4 tidehollow sculler (this card is just really bad in this matchup imho), -2 wasteland strangler (I wanted to test incidental lifegain in racing situations)
+2 RIP +2 Fatal Push +2 Lone Missionary.
I forgot to ask what my friend sideboarded out, but I know he brought in flaying tendrils and izzet staticaster.
It got more difficult post sideboard with (partially due to me punting games or getting blown out by K-command on my vials) but again the best strategy I found was to simply race them with flickerwisp or play the tempo plan. Fiend hunter does work as well in this matchup and with it becoming more popular I believe it warrants his inclusion in the 75 as an abusable interaction with displacer/wisp.
Record was split 4-4 with my pre-board win percentage being 75% and my post board in percentage being 25%. The data doesn't tell the truth I believe as my post-board losses were due to leaving myself open to getting blown out and then getting completely punished for it. In all I feel like the match is more of a 50/50 split with a slight advantage in taxes favor pre-board, the entirety of each game however will likely revolve around wisp and your ability to stall long enough to efficiently race them.
Been working on this Bant variant of Death and Taxes...Not sure it's going to work, but it's something I've wanted to try since Spell Queller was released.
Will try and get back to ya'll (if I remember) after my Thursday Night Modern.
Looking for any help I can get on this one. Lots of playtesting will have to happen to iron it out!
I'm considering 1-2 Smuggler's Copter to help me cycle away bad draws and useless cards (extra Vials, extra Dryad Arbors, etc etc) Not sure where I'd make cuts though.
Clique and sprite seem too hard on the manabase. Dryad arbor seems fairly bad too. Resto and Coco might also be a problem with 7 fast lands.
I've been playing this for three months. I stopped calling it Taxes altogether and pet-named it Fishless Fish, and while the match results have been consistently poor, I still enjoy it. My favorite interaction is with Spirit of the Labyrinth and Vendilion Clique. Reflector Mage has game against Death's Shadow, and Renegade Rallier helps beat Liliana of the Veil. The biggest loss compared to Orzhov lists is Wasteland Strangler, which is sorely missed whenever I'm reminded that Spell Queller is only a tempo card without the processing effect.
I think the next place I'm going to look is Esper colors, taking the Orzhov lists and removing Wisp for Clique and Reflector - this may prove to be too all-in on Eldrazi Displacer to create value, but we will see.
I personally like having bob in my lists, if he sticks he's great and if he dies, I don't really care since there are other more synergistic cards that often matter more in the matchups at hand, although I must admit I kind of want to have him be 2 mirran crusader in a DS meta, but if something happens with BnR this week, I'll probably stay on bob. Here's my current iteration of EnT that I've been playing. Just be prepared to bolt yourself every other turn.
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Godless Shrine
4 Ghost Quarter
3 Shambling Vent
1 Vault of the Archangel
2 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Eldrazi Displacer
2 Wasteland Strangler
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Dark Confidant
1 Fiend Hunter
4 Path to Exile
Good morning, afternoon, evening wherever you may be. This is a guide intended to compile a database of interactions that can be employed when playing death and taxes. This list is meant to be comprehensive but as any DnT player can tell you the number of possible interactions is far more than any one person can recall at a given time. As a result, I’m sure I’ll have missed some. If you notice I have left out any interactions, feel free to point them out in the comments below so we can update the list.
A small disclaimer: DnT lists rely heavilty on stack manipulation regardless of what version you are playing. While I have a good understanding of the stack and how it works, I am not an expert. As a result, some of my logic for why plays work could be somewhat incorrect; if you notice this, please let me know, so that I can increase my understanding of the stack and become a better DnT player.
General Interactions
General interactions include interactions with core cards of the DnT shell such as
Though some of these cards see more play than others, I’d like to first start by restating the “flicker” interactions mentioned in the primer v2.0 by SHEEPZ. These interactions are primarily concerned with using flickerwisp to generate an incremental advantage.
Hardcasting Tricks:
Below in quotations, you’ll find SHEEPZ original statements followed by a slightly more insightful analysis of when these tricks are commonly applied.
1. “Hardcast it to untap one of your creatures after combat.”
When you are in a situation where you can finish off your opponent as long as you survive the next combat step you can attack and post combat flicker a creature such as a thalia or a thraben inspector to generate value/provide you with a chump blocker to survive the turn.
2. “Hardcast it on your own land to untap it, making it cost one less mana basically.”
If you have a path to exile in hand and way to gain a tempo advantage, you can hardcast flickerwisp and target a land that is eligible to enter the battlefield (ETB) untapped and this will allow you apply pressure in the air while also removing a key threat on your opponents turn. This can be especially useful vs. combo decks such as the various company combo decks and most creature strategies.
3. “Hardcast it to remove a blocker.”
Another tempo play, you can cast flickerwisp precombat to flicker an enemy blocker and get in more damage leaving yourself with a 3/1 evasive threat. This is an excellent way to initate a race with you opponent or to force through damage when your opponent is trying to turtle up behind walls or a goyf to prevent you from risking your hatecards/taxing elements.
4. “Hardcast it targeting an opposing Aether Vial, Engineered Explosives, Chalice of the Void, etc. to remove all counters from it.”
A personal favorite play of mine. This line allows you to set your opponent back significantly if you can catch them in a vulnerable position. Against merfolk or in the mirror, resetting an Aether vial can buy you at least 2 turns to get ahead on board. Likewise, since we tend to clog our 2 and 3 drop slots, engineered explosives is valuable card against the hatebers/DnT lists. This trick also works with any permanent that uses counters which can include but is not limited to:
Chalice of the void, everflowing chalice, pentad prism, any planeswalker threatening to ultimate, and the list goes on. Long story short, if it needs counters to function, you can reset it.
5. “Hardcast it targeting your Oblivion Ring or phyrexian revoker to switch targets (when it comes back).”
A very straightforward trick for prioritizing specific threats. You can for instance use oblivion ring to exile a tarmogoyf, then reset it with flickerwisp to exile a Liliana of the veil if she makes an appearance, It can allow you to sometimes pick and choose what parts of a combo to hate out. Against counters company, it can be used to name devoted druid early with phyrexian revoker, and then reset the revoker if the threat of the kitchen finks combo becomes a possibility.
6. “Hardcast it targeting your Jötun Grunt to remove it's age counters.”
While I don’t believe Jötun Grunt still sees widespread play in DnT lists, this trick can still be used to generate additional value our of any ETB creature effect such as blade splicer to generate an additional 3/3 golem.
7. “Hardcast it targeting another flickerwisp you own so that when the second comes back, it removes something for the entire next turn. (unnecessary if you have a vial out though, see vial tricks: #2)”
A trick I was recently reintroduced to, if you want to keep your opponent off of a certain creature or land during the entirety of their next turn, you can cast a flickerwisp targeting your own flickerwisp and flickering it. Since the trigger to return flickerwisp occurs at the beginning of the endstep and all of the similar triggers will be placed onto the stack at the same time, then the trigger to return your flickerwisp will go on the stack and resolve. This causes your newly entered flickerwisps ETB exile ability to trigger after the moment the return trigger would occur. Because of this, the targeted permanent will have to wait until the “next” endstep (your opponent’s endstep) to return to the battlefield.
8. “Hardcast it to remove tokens permanently.”
Tokens are only permanents on the battlefield, so when they leave they don’t come back when the ability triggers.
9. “Hardcast it to reset Planeswalkers (Though vial end of your turn so they can't use its ability on their turn works better)”
See resetting permanents with counters above.
Next are the interactions with Aether vial and flickerwisp
Vial Tricks:
1. “Any of the tricks above also works here.”
They can simply be done at instant speed thanks to vial
2. “Vial it in on your end step to remove one of their lands (or another permanent) for their whole turn (works better with a mana-denial strategy).”
Pretty self-explanatory
3. “Vial it in to stop an attacking creature.”
After attacks have been declared, you can vial in a flickerwisp and bounce an attacking creature and remove it from combat.
4. “Vial it in response to their removal spell to save your creature.”
With all targeted removal, if the target of the spell leaves the battlefield and then returns, it is considered a new entity in the terms of the boardstate. As such, the spell will be countered. In the case of flickerwisp, the spell will attempt to resolve without a legal target and be countered.
5. “Vial it in to save your chump blocker.”
Again, this kind of trick is most important in racing situations, where you can chump your opponent’s tarmogoyf or scavenging ooze with say a thalia, and then vial in a wisp and bounce thalia after blocks have been declared to prevent taking unnecessary damage.
5b. “Vial it in to save Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or a first strike creature after it has already done its damage.”
A special case of the above scenario, if you find a scenario where you can effectively trade with a high value target using a group block, but you’ll lose all of your say a revoker and a thallia to kill a loxodon smiter, you can allow thalia to deal her first strike damage, flicker her with wisp, and then allow the revoker to trade with the smiter.
6. “The most important (and most complicated) interaction. Vial it in to abuse the hell out of Mangara of Corondor, Oblivion Ring, Tidehollow Sculler, Journey to Nowhere, etc. Here's how (with oblivion ring as an example):
a. Cast Oblivion Ring.
b. With it's exile trigger on the stack (targeting, say, a Tarmogoyf), activate Aether Vial.
stack = 1. exile SGC (O-ring trigger) 2. Vial activation
c. Vial resolves. Vial in the Flickerwisp. Put its ability on the stack targeting your own Oblivion Ring.
stack = 1. exile GoyfC 2. exile O-ring (wisp trigger)
d. Flickerwisp's ability resolves exiling Oblivion Ring. Oblivion Ring's second ability goes on the stack.
stack = 1. exile Goyf 2. return Goyf (O-ring trigger)
e. Oblivion Ring's second ability resolves, returning the Tarmogoyf to the battlefield, which, of course never left in the first place - so nothing happens.
stack = 1. exile SGC
f. Oblivion Ring's first ability then resolves, exiling Tarmogoyf permanently (since the return trigger already resolved).
g. At the beginning of your end step, Flickerwisp's delayed trigger returns Oblivion Ring to the battlefield, exiling another nonland permanent as normal.”
This is probably the most powerful interaction to abuse as it allows you to virtually net a 2-for-1 with your ETB exile triggers. This applies to all sorts of cards including tidehollow sculler and fiend hunter, and can be abused with other flicker effects such as Eldrazi displacer and restoration angel.
This concludes the previous list of interactions compiled by SHEEPZ. From here on I will begin to focus on key interactions that deal specifically with Eldrazi and Taxes (EnT) as that is my current preferred flavor of DnT variatns.
To begin with, eldrazi and taxes offers a wide variety of value engines to eek out an incremental advantage over the course of a game. Cards like Eldrazi Displacer, Tidehollow sculler, and Wasteland Strangler offer the pilot a unique variety of interactions that also play well with flickerwisp from stock DnT lists.
Tidehollow Sculler and Wasteland Strangler
The synergy of these two cards is one of the main reasons to even be in black in the first place. A pseudo-thoughtseize on a stick, sculler allows you to disrupt the enemy early and establish a board presence to start the beats. He synergizes well with both Wasteland Strangler and Eldrazi Displacer, and is often an automatic 4-of in every list. Wasteland Strangler is often never more than a 3-of, but synergizes with so many cards that it is always valuable to get on the board. Unfortunately, without a card in exile it can often just be a vanilla 3/2 for 3 which is a poor rate for that kind of body in my opinion.
The main way to abuse these cards is with the process mechanic, which allows you to place any card your opponent owns in exile into their graveyard to give a target creature -3/-3. Since sculler exiles whatever card you target with it, you can choose to process it and give a creature -3/-3. BEWARE HOWEVER, wasteland strangler’s ability is mandatory. If you choose to process a card, then you must give a creature -3/-3. Below is a list of valuable interactions with both cards in conjunction with Eldrazi Displacer.
1a. You can process a card with Wasteland Strangler to give an opposing creature -3/-3 to ensure that the card exile with tidehollow sculler never returns to your opponent’s hand if it is killed.
See above for an in-depth explanation of why this works.
1b. You can process a card with wasteland strangler to give your creature -3/-3.
This may seem counter-intuitive as most of your creatures have two or less toughness, but it works well with Thought-Knot Seer to remove the card from exile, just be conscious of any damage dealt to TKS during the combat phase, and also be wary if your opponent is in red that you are not exposing it to a lightning bolt.
2. You can vial in a flickerwisp, or activate eldrazi displacer to blink your tidehollowsculler in response to the trigger on the stack. This allows you to exile two cards, one permanently, and one under the sculler.
A powerful disruption tool vs. combo decks, the interaction works like this. (items with higher numbers will resolve first on the stack)
1. Tidehollow Sculler’s exile ability goes on the stack
2. Eldrazi Displacer blinks the Sculler
Sculler leaves the battlefield and then enters again now the stack looks like this:
1. Tidehollow Sculler’s initial exile ability
2. Tidehollow Sculler’s trigger to return the exiled card when it left the battlefield
3. Tidehollow sculler’s ability to exile a card when it re-entered the battlefield.
The stack begins to resolve at this point, so you will get to choose a card to exile under tidehollow sculler, next the ability to return the initially exiled card will resolve (for which there is no card in exile to be returned), finally you get to select a card to permanently exile due to sculler’s first exile ability.
This trick can be repeated for as many times as you can blink it with eldrazi displacer or flickerwisp. If you blink it twice with displacer, you will get to exile 3 cards; one under tidehollow sculler and two permanently.
3. Using wasteland strangler to process a card in exile from flickerwisp.
This is my all-time favorite interaction of this deck, and it has gotten me out of all manner of unwinnable boardstates. The interaction is similar to tidehollow sculler above, since the process mechanic only cares about the exiled card being your opponent’s, you can exile a permanent with flickerwisp, and then process it into your opponent’s graveyard to give a creature -3/-3. Again, as with the above example, strangler’s ability in mandatory, so you must choose a target when you play it. In a pinch, you can target your own wasteland strangler if you absolutely need to have the exiled permanent go the graveyard.
The list of problematic cards that this interaction works well with includes any planeswalker, tarmogoyf, Kitchen Finks, Any Land when GQ or Tec Edge is not available, etc. It’s best used as a 2-for-1 value tool, and in this deck it is entirely possible to live “the dream”…
“The Dream” being where you untap with an eldrazi displacer, flickerwisp, and wasteland strangler on board, which allows you to blink your flickerwisp (post combat hopefully), then blink your wasteland strangler to process the card from flickerwisp and kill something. You may feel like a dirty human-being, but you’ll probably set your opponent so far back they have no hope of winning unless they can draw the exact combination of cards they need to get out of it.
4. With 2 cards in Exile you can choose to either cast wasteland strangler + eldrazi displacer it, cast 2 wasteland stranglers, cast wasteland strangler + flickerwisp, or use 2 eldrazi displacer activations to kill a creature with toughness values between 4 and 6.
A couple lines of play in this interaction are pretty self-explanatory. You can cast a strangler and process one card, then cast another one and process the second card to kill a creature with 6 toughness, or you can cast a strangler and blink it with displacer to kill a creature, or you can blink a pre-played strangler twice. The fourth line of play isn’t necessarily intuitive and requires some understanding of when damage and “end of turn” effects wear off, which occurs during the clean-up step of the end phase, after the active player has discarded to hand size. The exchange in game would look something like this.
DnT Player: Casts or vials in wasteland strangler and processes a card to give a creature -3/-3 until the end of the turn. Next the DnT player casts or vials in flickerwisp and exiles their strangler. At the beginning of the end step, the strangler is returned and processes the second card to give the same creature -3/-3 again, killing it when state-based effects are checked. The end phase then progresses to the clean-up step where “until the end of turn” effects would wear off.
Below is the specific rules that clarify when these effects would occur.
512. Ending Phase
512.1. The ending phase consists of two steps: end and cleanup.
513. End Step
513.1. First, all abilities that trigger “at the beginning of the end step” or “at the beginning of the next end step” go on the stack. (See rule 603, “Handling Triggered Abilities.”)
513.1a Previously, abilities that trigger at the beginning of the end step were printed with the trigger condition “at end of turn.” Cards that were printed with that text have received errata in the Oracle card reference to say “at the beginning of the end step” or “at the beginning of the next end step.”
513.2. Second, the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities.
513.3. If a permanent with an ability that triggers “at the beginning of the end step” enters the battlefield during this step, that ability won’t trigger until the next turn’s end step. Likewise, if a delayed triggered ability that triggers “at the beginning of the next end step” is created during this step, that ability won’t trigger until the next turn’s end step. In other words, the step doesn’t “back up” so those abilities can go on the stack. This rule applies only to triggered abilities; it doesn’t apply to continuous effects whose durations say “until end of turn” or “this turn.” (See rule 514, “Cleanup Step.”)
514. Cleanup Step
514.1. First, if the active player’s hand contains more cards than his or her maximum hand size (normally seven), he or she discards enough cards to reduce his or her hand size to that number. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack.
514.2. Second, the following actions happen simultaneously: all damage marked on permanents (including phased-out permanents) is removed and all “until end of turn” and “this turn” effects end. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack.
These are the major interactions that involve tidehollow sculler and wasteland strangler. I feel it is also worth listing off some of the useful interactions with Eldrazi Displacer
Eldrazi Displacer is probably one of the best cards in the deck. It functions like a pseudo Aether vial if you already have a creature with an ETB effect in play, and also as flickerwisps 5-8. Below are some of the niche interactions with displacer and the core cards of the deck.
1. As mentioned above, displacer can blink any creature with a “return target X card in exile to it’s owner’s hand/battlefield, when this creature leaves the battlefield” trigger to permanently exile the target.
This again is useful in conjunction with tidehollow sculler and fiend hunter to permanently exile specific threats/cards.
2. A leonin arbiter can be blinked in response to a fetch to make your opponent pay an additional 2 mana.
This works because when a creature leaves and re-enters the battlefield, it is considered in terms of the game as a completely new entity, even if it’s physically the same card. So in game, your opponent pays 2 and cracks a fetch to search, in response to the fetch you activate eldrazi displacer to blink arbiter, it returns to the battlefield and imposes a new tax of 2 mana to search libraries, forcing your opponent to pay 2 again or not be able to search. This also works if your opponent declares they are holding priority after putting a fetch on the stack so they can pay for arbiter as they will have to pass priority back to you before the fetch can resolve.
3. Without a vial, you can blink a pre-existing flickerwisp on your end step to remove something for your opponent’s entire turn.
This is an extremely useful interaction when you need a permanent to be removed for exactly one or two turns to be able to prevent your opponent from combo’ing off or having access to the tron land they need.
4. You can blink a flipped creature with or a triggered flip-walker to reset it.
A purely value interaction that some opponents aren’t even aware of, this can allow you to prevent a flip walker such as Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy from flipping, or even reset a flipped delver of secrets/insectile aberration. You can also reset a thing in the ice in response to the removal of its last ice counter.
3. You can blink a creature with first strike damage before regular combat damage to save it and deal 2 damage to the blocked or blocking creature.
This may not seem like much, but if you have a vial on 3, and a strangler with a card to process, you can kill a creature with 5 toughness. This works because when creatures with first strike are involved in combat, the damage phase is split into two steps, first strike damage and regular damage, with priority being offered to players during both steps after damage has been dealt. This allows you to deal first strike damage with thalia, and then blink her before regular damage is dealt. This opens you up to the possibility of playing or vialing in a strangler to give their creature -3/-3 which can be used to kill it.
5. With a vial, a wisp and displacer in play, you can save some number if your creatures from a wrath effect as long as you have the mana to activate displacer. This works because of wisps delayed trigger. Say you have a board of thalia, displacer, and sculler vs. some control deck with a vial on three, and a temple and five lands. In response to a wrath, you can vial in flickerwisp and target thalia, then blink the wisp and target sculler, and finally blink the wisp again and target displacer. Verdict will resolve and kill your wisp, but at the end of turn you'll get back sculler, thalia, and displacer leaving you with seven power on board, a mana tax, and a new view of your opponent's hand. This also works if you just incidentally have a wisp in play, it's just more mana-intensive than by using a vial to get a free wisp trigger.
And with that we've exhausted the majority of my knowledge on the interactions within Eldrazi and Taxes. This is by no means a comprehensive list of interactions, and I’ve certainly skipped some of the most basic ones such as using displacer to blink a creature in response to it being targeted by a spell or ability, but these are interactions I expect most people in modern to understand and as such they are not covered here in this list. If you have any additional interactions that I’ve missed or that you use commonly in your matches, please feel free to let me know. I’m not as well versed in the mono-white or G/W variants even though I’ve played them both to some degree, so if anyone would like to append their list of tricks to this list for those decks you’re more than welcome to do so. Thank you for reading!
Guys, How is the testing with Gideon of the Trials? And Eldrazi Displacer in non-Eldrazi lists?
Another question: How are you guys against Eldratron decks? That Ballista wrecks me a lot of times and all is dust get rid of my Stony Silence so easily
He mentions trading some percentage points from favorable matchups in Control & Combo to better tackle Fast Aggro & GBx Attrition. Spell Queller has quietly been gaining popularity in Jeskai Tempo-Control and Knightfall lists recently, and its syngery with Mausoleum Wanderer (and Selfless Spirit) here is interesting. I've also seen how powerful Reflector Mage can be in other decks, even without blink effects and mana denial.
I know Craig Wescoe tried a similar UW deck last year and ultimately put it away, but I'm not sure how much of this was due to differences between Wescoe & Vollmer's 75 or differences between the metas they faced at different times and places. Perhaps it's worth re-evaluating UW?
What are your thoughts?
I like it, I can see how it would improve your GB/x matchup considerably, I think any variant of DnT is really a meta call I would play this against GBx and DS most days I think so it could be a good call right now. I can't remember wescoe's old list, but Reflector Mage is a hell of a drug. I remember that from my standard days. It's certainly more tempo-y than other builds, but that personally appeals to me. It's almost like a spirits deck crossed with a hatebears list. I think it's worth testing, but you'd need to get super proficient with it before going to a tournament as some lines of play may not be obvious, like blinking a selfless spirit to make mausoleum wanderer a 2 mana tax instead of one.
I'm not sold on his numbers though, but I can't argue with his result. His counter company matchup seems really good post sideboard though that's for sure.
Edit: His traditional Jund/Abzan matchups are noted to be really bad pre-board I don't know if I'd switch taxes variants unless this matchup is favored both pre and post-board
I believe the pilot may have felt wisp to be less necessary with 16 other flying threats when you factor in wanderer, selfless, queller, and resto, but I agree blinking permanents is a low-risk high upside play
Without E.Temple E.Displacer isn't even worth it imho and I'd rather go with 4x Flickerwisp and 3x Resto.
I tried playing around with the mana. Comparing E&T manabases and I couldn't squeeze in the moorland haunts.
A list like that could also use venser which spider and catmix have used in the past. Would be interesting to revisit UW.
I have been playing multiple versions of Death and Taxes for Modern. I started off with Mono White, then B/W Eldrazi and Taxes, Mono White with Eldrazi and now G/W Taxes.
I have also been researching/playing Bant Knightfall and Abzan Counters Company in order to understand how other decks attack/defend.
I decided to try the counters company combo with Vizier and Druid in a G/W Taxes package. Originally it was more to have fun but it has been playing really well. I am no expert so I was wondering if someone else could play test it.
Deck is below. Forgive me for formatting. I also haven't updated the sideboard yet. I am just using a sideboard from another G/W Taxes version.
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Vizier of Remedies
4 Collected Company
4 Devoted Druid
3 Duskwatch Recruiter
2 Rhonas the Indomitable
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Flickerwisp
4 Aether Vial
3 Kitchen Finks
4 Windswept Heath
2 Plains
4 Temple Garden
3 Horizon Canopy
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Gavony Township
1 Forest
Sideboard
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Reclamation Sage
2 Rest in Peace
2 Selfless Spirit
2 Stony Silence
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Condemn
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
What I have been seeing is that this deck confuses the opponent because its a hybrid. (Maybe because its horrible lol) The deck also has a lot of must answer creatures.
Some things that I noticed below.
Opponents seem to still target Thalia, Guardian of Thraben over anything else.... even Druid. So if opponent uses removal on Death and Taxes Creatures then Druid combo lives and vice versa.
Rhonas the Indomitable with any 2 power creature is great. Use Rhonas the Indomitable ability on another creature and now you have an active 5/5 with another 4/x. Bonus points if its Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. 9 Damage going toward opponent.
Vial works on Rhonas the Indomitable and so does collected company. (Reason why I don't play walker)Bonus EE doesn't destroy it.
Vial works great to sneak in a Druid or Vizier.
Vizier plus Finks equals forever blocking Finks.
Duskwatch Recruiter is great to get new creatures. (Not Impacted by Leo)
This deck isn't impacted by graveyard hate so Rest in Peace is still good.
4 Gavony Township makes all your small creatures big. You can kill with Druids and Viziers.
Game 2 bring in Selfless Spirit if opponent has board wipes.
The Deck is actually a lot of fun. I am sure it has its weaknesses but it helps you look at G/W taxes in a different way. I would like to get Rhonas the Indomitable in a normal G/W Taxes Package but we might not have enough mana.
Thoughts?
Can you share your list?
No E-Wit in the maindeck? I feel like it could be a 2 or 3-of probably. I might would shave a recruiter and a rhonas, as if you combo you only need 1 rhonas, and then maybe cut a single CoCo? I'm not sure what my third cut would be. I'm not sure I'd run 4 hierarch and 4 druid in the list, that's a lot of action you're giving up to ramp.
Haven't posted here for a while, but I have always been a strong proponent of UW. I always test a lot of UW, but I feel it has weakened a lot right now because there are too many decks punishing you for being reactive, which is the advantage of playing queller and r mage. Reflector mage, especially, has gotten a lot weaker with the fall of all in creature combo and bant drazi. It doesn't do much against counters company as they can just chord or coco into the threat that you just bounced. He is also usually too slow for storm and is mediocre against dredge as he doesn't block amalgam like splicer, crusader or THC. I will say he can still be decent against death's shadow and their delve threats, but tends to be mediocre in how most attrition matchups play out.
Some other areas UW is lacking in right now are that it doesn't really have good mana sinks that take it out of mono white. An argument can be made for displacer, but UW targets for displacer have become mediocre in this meta compared to BW. Displacing queller is mediocre, and reflector mage has the problems I spoke of earlier, and the only good 2 drop target is spellstutter sprite. The problem with all of these targets is that they are reactive. GW gets access to proactive mana sinks like tireless tracker and scavenging ooze.
In conclusion, I don't think UW is bad or anything, but the current meta is giving awkwardness to the typical lines of play that UW has. This is not to say that UW isn't on the cusp of competing with the other variants. I honestly think UW is a solid two drop away from getting too the next level. It just needs better ways to get ahead early to really leverage the power of spell queller. I'm keeping my eye on the upcoming spoilers for something like an early mana sink that lets leave mana up to bluff queller, or a mini geist of saint traft like card that can come down earlier and let you focus on tempoing out your opponent or a card that can take over the game on its own like dark confidant or brimaz. Even an aggresive court hussar like card at the 2 drops slot could be really nice.
Definetely an excellent card to look into!
4 tectonic edge
4 ghost quarter
2 sea gate wreckage
2 horizon canopy
1 Gemstone Caverns
1 Eiganjo Castle
9 Plains
8 non creature spells
4 Aether Vial
4 Path to Exile
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Selfless Spirit
2 Spellskite
1 Phyrexian Revoker
3 blade splicer
3 Eldrazi Displacer
2 Fiend Hunter
4 Flickerwisp
3 Restoration Angel
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
2 Ghostly Prison
1 Worship
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Sundering Growth
2 Plains
1 Forest
2 Razorverge Thicket
1 Temple Garden
2 Brushland
3 Horizon Canopy
4 Ghost Quarter
2 stirring wildwood
2 Gavony Township
1 tectonic edge
1 gemstone caverns
10 noncreature spells
4 Path to Exile
4 Aether Vial
2 Collected Company
28 creatures
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Leonin Arbiter
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Spellskite
1 Selfless Spirit
4 Flickerwisp
2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
2 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eternal Witness
1 Eldrazi Displacer
2 Restoration Angel
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Peace
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Ghostly Prison
1 Worship
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Concealed Courtyard
2 Godless Shrine
1 Shambling Vent
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Eldrazi Temple
1 Vault of the Archangel
2 Plains
1 Gemstone Caverns
8 Noncreature Spells
4 Aether Vial
4 Path to Exile
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Leonin Arbiter
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Flickerwisp
4 Eldrazi Displacer
2 Spellskite
2 Selfless Spirit
3 Wasteland Strangler
4 Thought-Knot Seer
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Rest in Peace
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Sin Collector
2 Orzhov Pontiff
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Worship
3 Brushland
3 Eldrazi Temple
1 Forest
2 Gavony Township
1 Gemstone Caverns
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Plains
3 Razorverge Thicket
2 Stirring Wildwood
1 Temple Garden
10 noncreature spells
4 Aether Vial
2 Ancient Stirrings
4 Path to exile
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Leonin Arbiter
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1 Spellskite
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Eldrazi Displacer
4 Flickerwisp
1 Eternal Witness
4 Thought-knot seer
2 Reality Smasher
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Peace
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Blessed Alliance
1 Worship
1 Spellskite
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Hallowed Fountain
4 Seachrome Coast
1 Eiganjo Castle
2 Tectonic Edge
1 Moorland Haunt
2 Mutavault
1 Island
2 Plains
2 Horizon Canopy
1 adarkar wastes
1 flooded strand
9 noncreature spells
4 Aether Vial
4 Path to Exile
1 detention sphere
28 creatures
3 Spell Queller
3 Selfless Spirit
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 eldrazi displacer
3 Reflector Mage
4 Flickerwisp
2 Phyrexian Revoker
3 leonin arbiter
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
2 spellskite
2 Rest in Peace
2 stony silence
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 ghostly prison
2 burrenton forge-tender
2 Surgical Extraction
1 kira, great glass-spinner
1 blessed alliance
Will try and get back to ya'll (if I remember) after my Thursday Night Modern.
4 Æther Vial
//Creature (25)
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Reflector Mage
2 Restoration Angel
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Spell Queller
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Voice of Resurgence
//Enchantment (1)
1 Cast Out
//Instant (7)
2 Collected Company
1 Dromoka's Command
4 Path to Exile
3 Botanical Sanctum
2 Breeding Pool
2 Dryad Arbor
1 Forest
1 Gavony Township
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Island
1 Plains
3 Razorverge Thicket
1 Seachrome Coast
2 Temple Garden
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Dromoka's Command
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Rest in Peace
1 Runed Halo
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Stony Silence
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Voice of Resurgence
Looking for any help I can get on this one. Lots of playtesting will have to happen to iron it out!
I'm considering 1-2 Smuggler's Copter to help me cycle away bad draws and useless cards (extra Vials, extra Dryad Arbors, etc etc) Not sure where I'd make cuts though.
Pre-board
Good cards in the matchup (assigned based on order of relevance in my opinion): Flickerwisp, Thalia, Eldrazi Displacer, Leonin Arbiter.
My opponent was often forced to pick a thalia or arbiter with their turn 1 discard just be able to use their deck for the entirety of the game ignoring bigger late-game threats such as TKS and mirran crusader.
Poor cards in the matchup (based on worst to least worst in my opinion): Tidehollow Sculler, Wasteland Strangler, Vial
Tidehollow sculler is really bad in this matchup, between their removal, and K-command there's virtually no way to keep it alive. Wasteland strangler doesn't kill anything except a misplayed DS in this matchup, but it's 3/2 body can be relevant when they usually start the game at 9 life. Vial can sometimes be a trap-card in this matchup where you just get blown out by a K-command, but it's raw power level is so high that I would err on keeping it in post-side. Just be wary of keeping a 1-land vial hand on the draw. On the play it's passable if it's a good six, but on the draw you'll mulligan that every time. With 8 discard spells they have approximately a 65% chance that one is in their opening hand. I also punted a testing match this way.
Best way to win pre-board: Tempo them with flickerwisp beats or displacer activations. I was genuinely surprised at how well this worked. I mean it wasn't just good, it was almost unbeatable. Many games my opponent would put himself to 9-12 life and play a quick tasigur, shadow, angler to try and get a clock going after burning some removal on Thalia, and they simply couldn't race me efficiently when I'm blinking their blocker and dealing 4-6 damage a turn with evasive threats. Be wary of turning on their fatal push though when blinking a permanent with wisp or displacer. It never came up in our games often, but it will allow them to get back in the game, so either get fancy with GQ (most lands only run 2 basics, a swamp, and an island) or get a good read on your opponent.
Sideboarding: -4 tidehollow sculler (this card is just really bad in this matchup imho), -2 wasteland strangler (I wanted to test incidental lifegain in racing situations)
+2 RIP +2 Fatal Push +2 Lone Missionary.
I forgot to ask what my friend sideboarded out, but I know he brought in flaying tendrils and izzet staticaster.
It got more difficult post sideboard with (partially due to me punting games or getting blown out by K-command on my vials) but again the best strategy I found was to simply race them with flickerwisp or play the tempo plan. Fiend hunter does work as well in this matchup and with it becoming more popular I believe it warrants his inclusion in the 75 as an abusable interaction with displacer/wisp.
Record was split 4-4 with my pre-board win percentage being 75% and my post board in percentage being 25%. The data doesn't tell the truth I believe as my post-board losses were due to leaving myself open to getting blown out and then getting completely punished for it. In all I feel like the match is more of a 50/50 split with a slight advantage in taxes favor pre-board, the entirety of each game however will likely revolve around wisp and your ability to stall long enough to efficiently race them.
Hope this helps everyone in the future.
Clique and sprite seem too hard on the manabase. Dryad arbor seems fairly bad too. Resto and Coco might also be a problem with 7 fast lands.
I don't think Sprite is too tough on the mana base, but Clique might be.
Dryad Arbor pairs up so well with AEther Vial though. I've always wanted to play with that interaction. But maybe you're correct.
4 Aether Vial
// 30 Creature
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Flickerwisp
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Spell Queller
2 Renegade Rallier
2 Vendilion Clique
3 Reflector Mage
1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
2 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Oath of Nissa
// 4 Instant
4 Path to Exile
// 20 Land
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Plains
4 Horizon Canopy
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Razorverge Thicket
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
3 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Spellskite
1 Kor Firewalker
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Rest in Peace
I've been playing this for three months. I stopped calling it Taxes altogether and pet-named it Fishless Fish, and while the match results have been consistently poor, I still enjoy it. My favorite interaction is with Spirit of the Labyrinth and Vendilion Clique. Reflector Mage has game against Death's Shadow, and Renegade Rallier helps beat Liliana of the Veil. The biggest loss compared to Orzhov lists is Wasteland Strangler, which is sorely missed whenever I'm reminded that Spell Queller is only a tempo card without the processing effect.
I think the next place I'm going to look is Esper colors, taking the Orzhov lists and removing Wisp for Clique and Reflector - this may prove to be too all-in on Eldrazi Displacer to create value, but we will see.