I think the key to beating 5c Humans, which is a hard match-up for sure, is to at all costs save your removal solely for Mantis Rider and just stick the rest out hoping your first-strikers can hold the ground.
Because of Storm and other nut draws that I play Dec in Stone in sideboard as my path number 5 and 6. You need to get rid of the storm enablers or the tokens. Gifts Ungiven is annoying, but not unbeatable. You need to pile properly to not lose. RiP/Cage does the job alongside Thalia/Leonin (that taxes their magic/search respectively). Other Disruptions is necessary to win fast, like one or more of these: Selfless Spirit/BFT, Spell Queller/Negate in Blue, Hand Disruption in TKS/Tidehollow/Kitesail/Inquisition/Thoughtseize, Ethersworn Canonist/Eidolon of Rhetoric/Rule of Law and Double Flickerwisp at their lands or Baral/G.Eletromancer to buy you a turn.
Dec in Stone also is nice (just nice) against Lingering Souls and Double Tarmogoyf/Dark Confidant in Junk, Champion of the Parish or Meddling Mage (naming Path) in Humans, great agains Affinity (and its a nut when you have stony silence).
Because of Storm and other nut draws that I play Dec in Stone in sideboard as my path number 5 and 6. You need to get rid of the storm enablers or the tokens. Gifts Ungiven is annoying, but not unbeatable. You need to pile properly to not lose. RiP/Cage does the job alongside Thalia/Leonin (that taxes their magic/search respectively). Other Disruptions is necessary to win fast, like one or more of these: Selfless Spirit/BFT, Spell Queller/Negate in Blue, Hand Disruption in TKS/Tidehollow/Kitesail/Inquisition/Thoughtseize, Ethersworn Canonist/Eidolon of Rhetoric/Rule of Law and Double Flickerwisp at their lands or Baral/G.Eletromancer to buy you a turn.
Dec in Stone also is nice (just nice) against Lingering Souls and Double Tarmogoyf/Dark Confidant in Junk, Champion of the Parish or Meddling Mage (naming Path) in Humans, great agains Affinity (and its a nut when you have stony silence).
You’ve either not played against competent storm pilots or you’ve not played against storm often - because there is very little chance they put a bear into play when you’ll EVER be able to interact with it at sorcery speed.
The plan against DnT from the Storm perspective is simple: sculpt your hand as strongly as possible, if there is a piece of hate in play (Bear, Cage, RiP) then find your answer and kill the opponent. DnT doesn’t normally have an extremely fast game, this is one of the MUs you need to try getting them to zero ASAP with some disruption on the way.
Monowhite taxes (for storm) feels much easier than BW Taxes, because there’s less hand disruption. Thalia is great if she sticks, they will typically bring in 3 bolt 1 dismember 2 wipe away anticipating your sideboard moves. Empty the Warrens is possible also, but not *super* scary. DnT is slow enough that grapeshot wins are still likely.
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No, non-creature spells are usually a liability, especially a 3CMC spell with BB in the mana cost. Just play more "flex slot" creatures like Blade Splicer or Thalia V2.
Or even maindeck Fatal Push.
As for the human Match-up, I have yet to lose to the archetype with E&T, Wasteland Strangler is great and blink effects are surprisingly good against it.
Thanks, I actually totally forgot about the double black mana cost of Arena.
Bob is good, but less than a need for the deck. I often side him out. You could try thraben inspetor, which can be abused with Eldisplacer, or copters, or even play more removal/Thalias/smashers/stranglers/splicers.
What do you guys think about a mono-white list like this? My meta has shifted to be a lot of deaths shadow, with a few tron, UW control, and eldra tron players, followed by single players of mono-white taxes, BW tokens, and then I think there are a few elves players. I mostly need help with the sideboard and in terms of the mainboard, I do not know if I should have the crusaders instead of big Thalia or other creatures.
Because of Storm and other nut draws that I play Dec in Stone in sideboard as my path number 5 and 6. You need to get rid of the storm enablers or the tokens. Gifts Ungiven is annoying, but not unbeatable. You need to pile properly to not lose. RiP/Cage does the job alongside Thalia/Leonin (that taxes their magic/search respectively). Other Disruptions is necessary to win fast, like one or more of these: Selfless Spirit/BFT, Spell Queller/Negate in Blue, Hand Disruption in TKS/Tidehollow/Kitesail/Inquisition/Thoughtseize, Ethersworn Canonist/Eidolon of Rhetoric/Rule of Law and Double Flickerwisp at their lands or Baral/G.Eletromancer to buy you a turn.
Dec in Stone also is nice (just nice) against Lingering Souls and Double Tarmogoyf/Dark Confidant in Junk, Champion of the Parish or Meddling Mage (naming Path) in Humans, great agains Affinity (and its a nut when you have stony silence).
You’ve either not played against competent storm pilots or you’ve not played against storm often - because there is very little chance they put a bear into play when you’ll EVER be able to interact with it at sorcery speed.
The plan against DnT from the Storm perspective is simple: sculpt your hand as strongly as possible, if there is a piece of hate in play (Bear, Cage, RiP) then find your answer and kill the opponent. DnT doesn’t normally have an extremely fast game, this is one of the MUs you need to try getting them to zero ASAP with some disruption on the way.
Monowhite taxes (for storm) feels much easier than BW Taxes, because there’s less hand disruption. Thalia is great if she sticks, they will typically bring in 3 bolt 1 dismember 2 wipe away anticipating your sideboard moves. Empty the Warrens is possible also, but not *super* scary. DnT is slow enough that grapeshot wins are still likely.
On MTGO I play against storm a fair amount and they very frequently cast a T2 Baral/electromancer. If they play it on T2 and you don't answer it they can almost always go off with 3 open mana on T3 or just cantrip on T3 into a replacement and go off on T4 at instant speed. Jon Finkel has an article from before Baral was ever printed advocating the T2 electromancer with multiples in hand. With now running 7-8 of these effects I can't imagine it is ever the wrong line to play one on T2 as your chance to find another is so high.
All that said I agree that Dec in stone has its place but that place is not against storm.
That was before we had Fatal Push, which means you aren’t getting ramped by PtE on your bear.
The only time storm jams out t2 bear is in a drag race - Dredge, Affinity, counters company, mirror, etc
I think it is a lot more complicated than that. If they have multiples or they don't have a way in hand to interact with our sideboard hate, it can be correct to go for the win as soon as possible versus playing around sorcery speed removal. If their hand is Baral x 2, manamorphose, ritual, gifts and 2 land in play it's probably correct to risk one of the redundant Barals vs giving us more draw steps to find RiP, eidolon of rhetoric or Thalia since they can beat a removal spell on Baral but can't beat resolved hate with that hand. In a perfect world they hold up remand on turn 2, Baral on turn 3 with remand backup, but variance doesn't always cooperate and I've seen a lot of t2 bears without protection on the other side of the table
@kodieyost Thanks for replying.
(This part is not needed to read, tbh)
I have a sheet to register every match against tier 1 and some tier 2 archetypes in a team with 4 members. We always discuss among ourselves which is the better plays. For that, we write notes to discuss briefly after the match. About storm, we noticed that Cantrips are the better way to find answers and protect the combo.
If you have a creature to "invalidate" thalia, then you MUST play it against DnT because there are only 4 paths in 60 card, when you have 5~7 creatures to reduce the cost of your spells. In worst case scenario, you'll be ramped or stopped being attacked with Thalia. If you ever find a white deck playing storm, you'll end up facing one or more of your worst nightmares which can be: Rest In Peace, Eidolon of Rhetoric/Ethersworn Canonist/Rule of Law and/or Leyline of Sanctity. It's a long list to answer with Echoing Truth, tbh.
Again, Grapeshot can steal game one if it accidentally happens. But game two, you will SURELY have to consider to plan on EtW, because graveyard hate is a must-have in all sideboards and works fine against storm. So Empty the Warrens is better to fight that than a couple Echoing Truths. That is where my opinion about Dec in Stone becomes a reality in most of my games.
You may not agree with that, but I don't think that my training partners or my online opponents were incompetent players at all.
I support Declaration in Stone, been playing 2 for a while taken quite a few storm players by surprise with it in sideboarded games. Mono-white taxes is still a hatebear deck, so they're much more likely to have success going for Empty rather than Grapeshot. I've discussed this with a potent storm player in my meta and he totally agrees, bringing in the additional 2 Empty post-board.
I do wonder tho, if Settle the Wreckage is effective enough against Empty. Overall I'd like its utility against decks like humans, Elves, and cheeky techs like Blood Baron of Vizkopa (yes, a savvy 4c control player totally stomped me game 2/3 against me with this..)
I'm out of surgery and feeling moderately better. I want to try and do a no mic stream tonite! Let me know if you are interested (and if so, what time to plan the stream)!
What do you guys think about a mono-white list like this? My meta has shifted to be a lot of deaths shadow, with a few tron, UW control, and eldra tron players, followed by single players of mono-white taxes, BW tokens, and then I think there are a few elves players. I mostly need help with the sideboard and in terms of the mainboard, I do not know if I should have the crusaders instead of big Thalia or other creatures.
You run a pretty stock list and with 3 crusaders you should do fine. tokens would be a bad match up though so maybe take a look at the dec and stone discussion on this page as it is very good for that match up.
I decided to recently revisit trophy taxes and ended up pulling out a 5-0. The deck grinds very well while still having game against some combo which is why I tried it. In the 5-0 league, I played vs GW valuetown, GR tron, martyr proc, jeskai, and WB drazi (not E&T). I also streamed 2 leagues with the deck yesterday and ended up dropping from both leagues. The deck seems to always go 1-2 or 2-1 meaning they're a lot of close games. I don't think the deck is quite perfect, but it's a blast to play and has some neat tools.
I'm out of surgery and feeling moderately better. I want to try and do a no mic stream tonite! Let me know if you are interested (and if so, what time to plan the stream)!
Much love,
-Catmix
Excellent news!!!
Hoping you feel better and better each day. Stay strong men and there's no hurry to come back to streaming. Take your time.
@methupmyass I hope you are coming out on the other side of your medical issues. I don’t know the pain you’re in but can empathize with the feeling. Feel better!!
I've been moving into BW EnT recently and loving the tax aspect. What do you all think about a one-of Maralen, The Mournsong in our flex slot?
Obvious Christmas land: vial her in and search up mindcensor/arbiter then tax their draw step to oblivion.
Without Christmas: she has great synergy with a lot of the cards independently and self-assembles the rest. We incidentally hose cantrips. Can blink TKS without giving them the card draw. Never pull redundant Thalias. Grab smasher on-time to wreck face.
For the drawbacks: double black is tough to get T3 (we do have vial). She is a lightning rod for removal (what isn't in the deck?). Opponent gets to draw their silver bullet (occasionally we can vial/displacer in disruption). Worst case, opponent pulls their cheep instant speed removal spell to deal with her (shrug, at least she sent 3 to the dome first).
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Very good point and I did forget about that, but still it is much slower if you end up having to hard cast it compared to canonist.
Dec in Stone also is nice (just nice) against Lingering Souls and Double Tarmogoyf/Dark Confidant in Junk, Champion of the Parish or Meddling Mage (naming Path) in Humans, great agains Affinity (and its a nut when you have stony silence).
You’ve either not played against competent storm pilots or you’ve not played against storm often - because there is very little chance they put a bear into play when you’ll EVER be able to interact with it at sorcery speed.
The plan against DnT from the Storm perspective is simple: sculpt your hand as strongly as possible, if there is a piece of hate in play (Bear, Cage, RiP) then find your answer and kill the opponent. DnT doesn’t normally have an extremely fast game, this is one of the MUs you need to try getting them to zero ASAP with some disruption on the way.
Monowhite taxes (for storm) feels much easier than BW Taxes, because there’s less hand disruption. Thalia is great if she sticks, they will typically bring in 3 bolt 1 dismember 2 wipe away anticipating your sideboard moves. Empty the Warrens is possible also, but not *super* scary. DnT is slow enough that grapeshot wins are still likely.
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Bob is good, but less than a need for the deck. I often side him out. You could try thraben inspetor, which can be abused with Eldisplacer, or copters, or even play more removal/Thalias/smashers/stranglers/splicers.
4 Thraben Inspector
2 Smuggler’s Copter
4 Flickerwisp
2 Shefet Dunes
4 Aether Vial
4 Restoration Angel
4 Path to Exile
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Tectonic Edge
4 Blade Splicer
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Eiganjo Castle
12 Plains
3 Mirran Crusader
2 Gravedigger’s Cage
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Rest in Peace
3 Stony Silence
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Dusk // Dawn
1 Aven Mindcensor
On MTGO I play against storm a fair amount and they very frequently cast a T2 Baral/electromancer. If they play it on T2 and you don't answer it they can almost always go off with 3 open mana on T3 or just cantrip on T3 into a replacement and go off on T4 at instant speed. Jon Finkel has an article from before Baral was ever printed advocating the T2 electromancer with multiples in hand. With now running 7-8 of these effects I can't imagine it is ever the wrong line to play one on T2 as your chance to find another is so high.
All that said I agree that Dec in stone has its place but that place is not against storm.
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/taking-modern-by-storm
The only time storm jams out t2 bear is in a drag race - Dredge, Affinity, counters company, mirror, etc
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I think it is a lot more complicated than that. If they have multiples or they don't have a way in hand to interact with our sideboard hate, it can be correct to go for the win as soon as possible versus playing around sorcery speed removal. If their hand is Baral x 2, manamorphose, ritual, gifts and 2 land in play it's probably correct to risk one of the redundant Barals vs giving us more draw steps to find RiP, eidolon of rhetoric or Thalia since they can beat a removal spell on Baral but can't beat resolved hate with that hand. In a perfect world they hold up remand on turn 2, Baral on turn 3 with remand backup, but variance doesn't always cooperate and I've seen a lot of t2 bears without protection on the other side of the table
(This part is not needed to read, tbh)
Again, Grapeshot can steal game one if it accidentally happens. But game two, you will SURELY have to consider to plan on EtW, because graveyard hate is a must-have in all sideboards and works fine against storm. So Empty the Warrens is better to fight that than a couple Echoing Truths. That is where my opinion about Dec in Stone becomes a reality in most of my games.
You may not agree with that, but I don't think that my training partners or my online opponents were incompetent players at all.
I appreciate your opinion and replying.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/844958#paper
Well done, men!
I hope you share with us your experience with the deck.
I do wonder tho, if Settle the Wreckage is effective enough against Empty. Overall I'd like its utility against decks like humans, Elves, and cheeky techs like Blood Baron of Vizkopa (yes, a savvy 4c control player totally stomped me game 2/3 against me with this..)
Legacy: Death'n'Taxes
It's simple, strong,and breaks the contraposition situation at a time.
I'm out of surgery and feeling moderately better. I want to try and do a no mic stream tonite! Let me know if you are interested (and if so, what time to plan the stream)!
Much love,
-Catmix
WWModern Death And Taxes (w/ Militia Bugler) (JUL '19)
GWModern Maverick (JUL '19)
WBCatmix on Twitch!
WWCatmix on Youtube
You run a pretty stock list and with 3 crusaders you should do fine. tokens would be a bad match up though so maybe take a look at the dec and stone discussion on this page as it is very good for that match up.
Thanks friend!
I decided to recently revisit trophy taxes and ended up pulling out a 5-0. The deck grinds very well while still having game against some combo which is why I tried it. In the 5-0 league, I played vs GW valuetown, GR tron, martyr proc, jeskai, and WB drazi (not E&T). I also streamed 2 leagues with the deck yesterday and ended up dropping from both leagues. The deck seems to always go 1-2 or 2-1 meaning they're a lot of close games. I don't think the deck is quite perfect, but it's a blast to play and has some neat tools.
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
Excellent news!!!
Hoping you feel better and better each day. Stay strong men and there's no hurry to come back to streaming. Take your time.
WWModern Death And Taxes (w/ Militia Bugler) (JUL '19)
GWModern Maverick (JUL '19)
WBCatmix on Twitch!
WWCatmix on Youtube
Obvious Christmas land: vial her in and search up mindcensor/arbiter then tax their draw step to oblivion.
Without Christmas: she has great synergy with a lot of the cards independently and self-assembles the rest. We incidentally hose cantrips. Can blink TKS without giving them the card draw. Never pull redundant Thalias. Grab smasher on-time to wreck face.
For the drawbacks: double black is tough to get T3 (we do have vial). She is a lightning rod for removal (what isn't in the deck?). Opponent gets to draw their silver bullet (occasionally we can vial/displacer in disruption). Worst case, opponent pulls their cheep instant speed removal spell to deal with her (shrug, at least she sent 3 to the dome first).