@drmarkb I had totally forgotten about Gifts targeting me! I don't have Halo/Leyline currently to combat it, but they seem like worthy inclusions.
I wasn't worried about the ThopterSword part b/c of Ghostly/Magus, but I didn't have enough disruption to stop Unburial Rites.
Therefore, I may be trying something closer to your build tonight. I've played w/Chalice in legacy, but never suppression field. We'll see how it goes.
DrMark - I don't have a lot of experience against the decks that you've been discussing. I gathered that Lantern Control is a lockdown. I used to be very experienced against permission decks but that was a long time ago.
I've put together a package of low cmc creatures with the goal of being able to field threats that can single-handedly break a stalled board state, and I threw in a few copies of Gryff's Boon to push the concept. I'm feeling lazy and I don't want to write up a complete decklist but here are the basics:
3x Student of Warfare
3x Figure of Destiny
4x Leonin Arbiter
2x Topplegeist
4x Gryff's Boon
4x Leyline of Sanctity
If you're not familiar with Gryff's Boon, it's a very solid new aura. You can spend 4 to get it back from the graveyard to the battlefield. As the game goes longer they tend to add up and you can quickly turn a creature like Leonin Arbiter into a 4/2 flyer. They work even better on Student of Warfare and Figure of Destiny of course.
As usual I tested against Jund first and in spite of my low creature count it hasn't been bad at all. Jund can answer every creature one-to-one (more or less) but I can quickly load up another one and they can stand against Tarmagoyf if they get fully pumped. The evasion granted by Gryff's Boon actually gives me a shot at racing, and Topplegeist is a free flying blocker that also frequently clears the path for one of the other creatures to deal 3-4 damage.
I suppose this is more of a distant cousin to the D&T approach but I wanted to see if there's any insight that you can give about this.
@drmarkb I had totally forgotten about Gifts targeting me! I don't have Halo/Leyline currently to combat it, but they seem like worthy inclusions.
I wasn't worried about the ThopterSword part b/c of Ghostly/Magus, but I didn't have enough disruption to stop Unburial Rites.
Therefore, I may be trying something closer to your build tonight. I've played w/Chalice in legacy, but never suppression field. We'll see how it goes.
SF is not essential, but in a developed meta there are few decks it does not slow down.
Leyine/Halo interactions are a weakness of Gifts builds, they often don't expect it. Halo is especially sweet because post a Leyline you can use it on a dude on the table, although their tokens can't be nerfed.
DrMark - I don't have a lot of experience against the decks that you've been discussing. I gathered that Lantern Control is a lockdown. I used to be very experienced against permission decks but that was a long time ago.
I've put together a package of low cmc creatures with the goal of being able to field threats that can single-handedly break a stalled board state, and I threw in a few copies of Gryff's Boon to push the concept. I'm feeling lazy and I don't want to write up a complete decklist but here are the basics:
3x Student of Warfare
3x Figure of Destiny
4x Leonin Arbiter
2x Topplegeist
4x Gryff's Boon
4x Leyline of Sanctity
If you're not familiar with Gryff's Boon, it's a very solid new aura. You can spend 4 to get it back from the graveyard to the battlefield. As the game goes longer they tend to add up and you can quickly turn a creature like Leonin Arbiter into a 4/2 flyer. They work even better on Student of Warfare and Figure of Destiny of course.
As usual I tested against Jund first and in spite of my low creature count it hasn't been bad at all. Jund can answer every creature one-to-one (more or less) but I can quickly load up another one and they can stand against Tarmagoyf if they get fully pumped. The evasion granted by Gryff's Boon actually gives me a shot at racing, and Topplegeist is a free flying blocker that also frequently clears the path for one of the other creatures to deal 3-4 damage.
I suppose this is more of a distant cousin to the D&T approach but I wanted to see if there's any insight that you can give about this.
Lantern is a prison lockdown deck, we can't beat it G1 unless we run Chalice or Sup Field. G2 We really need stony silence and Leyines G2. It is a hard deck to play well and not that common.
On the critter deck, its a tad off topic but the only thing I would say is Arbter normally needs 4 GQs which won't play well with the levelling, and Thalia is normally an auto include in critter decks. You may find Tallowisp (?) of interest- a unexiting 1/3 body that tutors for Auras for 2cc from Kami. I have no idea if the SO Innistrad cards are any good, I normally find new cards cost 1 too much.....I normally try and abuse 1cc critters with Martyr Proc control builds.....)
I just had the most depraved T1 on the play. A Turn 0 Leyline followed by a plains, double SSG and a Blood Moon. If I had been the other side I think I would've scooped in protest of that dirty start.
I am running out of cards to try but Suppression Bonds seems to sidestep the bad interaction with Suppression Field and Nahiri, if it's not too late to hit the board.
My latest has 3x Chalice of the Void in the main and I'm using 4x Oblivion Ring, 3x Suppression Bonds and 3x Hammer of Bogardan.
I have two purposes for using Hammer. First - you can't counter it forever. Second - it's a really good card to have in your hand when you're using Nahiri's first ability. I especially like that you can use it early on to control the board, and let it sit there until you need it. Then when Nahiri need's cards in hand to feed her looting ability you can pay the mana to turn her first ability into pure card draw.
I went 2-1 and split top 4 w/something closer to drmark, chalice and sup field in, planeswalkers out.
R1 vs Death's Shadow Aggro
G1 t2 Ghostly/t3 Ghostly, then landkill and a Magus to clean up
G2 he TSeize SSG to stop t2 Ghostly. I lose t4.
G3 mull to 6 into a t1 Chalice? I'll take it. Game over.
R2 vs Amulet Titan
G1 I never really see landkill against this guy. Saw 2 Sup Field, which does almost nothing. Chalice on 0 to stop Pacts slows it down, but a Titan takes me down.
G2 Chalice on 1 and 0 buy time until Assemble the Legion gets online.
G3 Mull to 4 but it was awesome. T2 landkill. T3 landkill gets countered. Ended up getting AtL out but he had Seal of Primordium. Dragonlord Dromoka beatdown.
R3 vs UR Delver
Both games went about the same. I baited out counters w/Sup Field so I could land Ghostly. Tied up his mana w/Ghostly and Magus until I could land AtL.
Takeaways:
Chalice does work, no surprise there. Sup Field seems kinda meh. I'm sure it's amazing t1 on the play. I know if I had seen it vs Death Shadow it would've helped. I feel like I need more threats. I may stay w/Chalice and move back to my PW base.
This is my favorite all-around iteration of the deck so far. It can still occasionally get stuck with a clunky feeling hand but I haven't played a RW Lockdown deck yet that has the sort of consistency that I would like to have. I'm much more happy with the Hammer than I thought I'd be, but I'll get to that...
So this is filled with many of the "hatiest" of hate cards...
Boom // Bust is the only spell in the deck below 3 cmc, which is sorta okay because it has an alternate mode. It can't be completely shut off. At 6 cmc it's a crappy Armageddon but the upside of having it available to snipe out a troublesome land (or to trigger Flagstones and get a Plains on the board) is worth it. That's the one (potentially) bad interaction in the deck - between Boom // Bust and Chalice of the Void.
Chalice as a 4-of in the main. I'm trying to set one for 1 cmc and the next one for 2 cmc.
Leyline of Sanctity as a 3-of in the main. At 3 copies I get it in my opening hand in slightly over 3 in 10 games. At 4 copies the odds go up to just shy of 4 in 10, but you also get a noticeable rise in the number of hands that contain 2 Leylines. Two Leylines in the opening draw is annoying.
Blood Moon as a 3-of in the main. Between Blood Moon, Chalice and Boom // Bust I think I can count on slowing down any degenerate Land decks. I've been carefully tweaking the mana to make Blood Moon as painless as possible for me.
I've transitioned over into O-Rings for most of my problem solving. I hate O-Rings. There's very little that annoys me more than the possibility that my "Answer" will be negated by something like Abrupt Decay, but I'm finding that even when my fears are confirmed, the turn or two that I save might have bought enough time to get better answers. I guess I must have blanked on the other O-Ring because I'm still using Suppression Bonds. Magus of the Tabernacle still has a place here as a possible answer to many contingencies that haven't been addressed otherwise.
Hammer of Bogardan is a 3 cmc lightning bolt, so it avoids Chalice of the Void. It's a nice card to match with Nahiri and it becomes extremely powerful in a longer game.
As for sideboarding - I'm thinking that the deck as constructed would have a decent game against midrange, control and many combo decks. It appears to be a little bit vulnerable to aggro. That's fine - I think aggro is easier to sideboard against.
I'm drawing a comparison to Bogles in my head. They might want to sideboard against other Aggro decks, their own mirror, Spellskite (in any deck) and then they also have inherent challenges in dealing with board sweepers, and then Thoughtseize and Liliana can also be a problem. Bogles is a strong deck (particularly after SoI - word of warning if you haven't run into one yet) but the answers to Bogles are wide and varied.
But here I think there's an opportunity to have a deck that has a strong basic matchup against most of the field, and a sideboard that can be geared toward improving game 2 and 3 against an entire archetype.
I don't have the experience to know if it'll work, but it seems like a good idea at least.
I just had the most depraved T1 on the play. A Turn 0 Leyline followed by a plains, double SSG and a Blood Moon. If I had been the other side I think I would've scooped in protest of that dirty start.
I am running out of cards to try but Suppression Bonds seems to sidestep the bad interaction with Suppression Field and Nahiri, if it's not too late to hit the board.
My latest has 3x Chalice of the Void in the main and I'm using 4x Oblivion Ring, 3x Suppression Bonds and 3x Hammer of Bogardan.
I have two purposes for using Hammer. First - you can't counter it forever. Second - it's a really good card to have in your hand when you're using Nahiri's first ability. I especially like that you can use it early on to control the board, and let it sit there until you need it. Then when Nahiri need's cards in hand to feed her looting ability you can pay the mana to turn her first ability into pure card draw.
Why use suppression bonds when you can have faith's fetters ?
I have used hammer in a skred red control build. It is slow and clunky but not bad and sometimes ideal.
Th list looks a bit too up the curve to beat decks with counterspells and the combo decks in the format. SSG could provide some nut starts though.
I've been very absent-minded about cards. I don't know why I picked Suppression Bonds when I could have picked Banishing Light. I also suggested Norin works well with Faithless Looting but I meant to say Squee.
Since you're not playing Nahiri you probably don't have the same constant concern about using her +2. Her +2 is why I keep experimenting with stuff like Hammer of Bogardan and Faithless Looting.
I accept that I may indeed be too far up the curve.
In my past I've always tried to worry about coping with permission last. It might be a bad idea nowadays, but old habits die hard. I've got myself to a point where I feel excellent against the first mid-range deck. Now I need to see if I can deal with the rest without breaking the core structure of my own deck too much.
Bogardan is a good old style card, its potentially good with Nahiri. As I said it is not a terrible card on its own against Jund type matches.
I figured you meant Squee, on the discard, I mix mine up- both Spanish, that's my excuse.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
I've been very absent-minded about cards. I don't know why I picked Suppression Bonds when I could have picked Banishing Light. I also suggested Norin works well with Faithless Looting but I meant to say Squee.
Since you're not playing Nahiri you probably don't have the same constant concern about using her +2. Her +2 is why I keep experimenting with stuff like Hammer of Bogardan and Faithless Looting.
I accept that I may indeed be too far up the curve.
In my past I've always tried to worry about coping with permission last. It might be a bad idea nowadays, but old habits die hard. I've got myself to a point where I feel excellent against the first mid-range deck. Now I need to see if I can deal with the rest without breaking the core structure of my own deck too much.
Probably best to run a 2/2 split for echoing truth and surgical reasons if you decide to keep 4 o-ring effects.
I think that the most powerful versions of the deck so far have been the ones that play the cards that are strictly the most powerful. Blood Moon and Ensnaring Bridge - for example - completely screw certain decks.
This really stood out to me as I've been continuing to lurk this forum after posting a while back. I've been playing the Boros Prison version with md hosers and 2 of idyllic tutor for tutoring them and Assemble the Legion. I've had a lot of success with this build. The main is unquestionable at this point for me, and something like 11 of the sideboard slots I would say are essential now that I have played the deck for a while. For reference, I am including the deck I posted at the beginning of Feb. I highly recommend this build to anyone looking at using a toolbox idyllic tutor build.
Radiant fountain is a great find for lands since the deck can tolerate some number of colorless lands and this is a great one before a blood moon and it comes into play untapped after. Only one gemstone caverns to cut down on the cuteness (you never want two), but the first is essentially free and the upside is just too high. Biggest change is the adoption of fetchlands after forsaking suppression field. Suppression field lacked the total lockdown. I have learned the hard way too many times that mana taxing sans reliable mana denial is not good enough of a lock for the strict prison build. Since you lack any form of real card advantage, every card needs to haul it's weight and suppression field along with defense grid stopped being real cards after a while. The fetches add a welcomed consistency to finding plains before blood moon.
As for the rest of the choices, I've found these to be the harshest and most likely to get you free wins. Idyllic tutor is a beast with these options because it can fetch the hoser you need, but also can fetch removal (o-ring) or a finisher (assemble). I do not believe sweepers are needed in the main. 1st game, decks lack answers and if you can land a ghostly prison or buy some time with o ring/lightning helix (lightning helix is honestly the glue that binds everything together) you will eventually find that ensnaring bridge.
Sideboard is the result of a lot of matches. 1 more of the big hosers RIP, SS, and Nevermore. I have found nevermore to be a beast against both combo decks, but also removal heavy decks like control or jund, by naming the answers they have. since we are talking about them, these are your worst matchups, while the deck deals well with any unfair decks and also creature decks. Ajani and the singleton bust are ways to cement a lead against these decks and gives you the time to rebuild/find duplicates/more lock pieces. Ricochet trap is a recent addition in response to the increase in blue, but is also decent against removal. Outpost siege is great against these decks. The wrath are needed to save you against creature decks that aim to flood the board and find their sideboard answers. Shattering spree respects the ever threatening affinity and notably works through chalice if replicated and synergizes nicely with blood moon. Torpor orb because I had them in the eldrazi metagame and liked what they did for certain matchups I didn't explicitly put them in for (mostly green decks that use reclamation sage and primeval titan). Finally, but importantly, spellskite is great to protect your gameplan, almost always comes in post board and a headache for decks skimping on real answers, and is itself a hoser against certain fast matchups (infect, bogles, suicide zoo, burn-ish).
Like I said, been playing the deck now since late january and i've found the deck to prove itself constantly.
Suppression field is not really a card I'd ever want in non-landkill builds either (my Boros Bridge board control version has never run it- I use a Story Circle main and Ghost Quarters, and I main deck Mesas), but I am surprised you are not running Temples. In my grey land slots I use Ghost quarter, and like you I run rest in peace main (2) and SSG, it is a amazing how many wins RIP gets. I have not used mine for a while, I still have two main deck spellskite in mine from the pre-twin ban days.
Its a shame that few versions of this deck exist of late, Landkill has been more popular recently.
Again, why not an O ring/Blinding light split?
Thanks for the posting- always nice to get new versions of the deck.
Holy crap I just realized that Gemstone Mine plays so nice with Blood Moon. It's a 5-color first turn mana source that becomes a mountain when blood moon hits.
Suppression field is not really a card I'd ever want in non-landkill builds either (my Boros Bridge board control version has never run it- I use a Story Circle main and Ghost Quarters, and I main deck Mesas), but I am surprised you are not running Temples. In my grey land slots I use Ghost quarter, and like you I run rest in peace main (2) and SSG, it is a amazing how many wins RIP gets. I have not used mine for a while, I still have two main deck spellskite in mine from the pre-twin ban days.
Its a shame that few versions of this deck exist of late, Landkill has been more popular recently.
Again, why not an O ring/Blinding light split?
Thanks for the posting- always nice to get new versions of the deck.
Ya man, this archetype has appealed to me since I first started playing magic. I have nothing against story circle, but I find leaving mana up to be tough sometimes, so that's why I run unlife instead. I used to run ghost quarters but found them somewhat underwhelming. The only real upside is being able to snipe basics before moon comes down, but most of the time I would rather have the mana to make sure I can drop my lock pieces and I really don't think it affects the game where radiant fountain shores up the aggressive strategies that can beat you before you get your pieces in place.
Temples have been underwhelming for me as well in this particular build because I need all my lands to come in untapped. There is nothing more frustrating than having the acceleration needed to drop a sick lock piece turn 1 or 2 but can't because of the temple. That being said, I do run it in my kiki build (which I will link below), so I do know its uses, but really don't like it in my bridge build.
The singleton hosers have won me multiple game 1's by just dropping them blind and getting lucky, but also tutoring them early in game 1. Stony has been an all star, just like RIP.
The main reason I don't split o ring/banishing light is because of a somewhat irrational fear that if I draw my banishing light to exile something with counters on it (planeswalkers mostly, but also things like scooze), that they can remove it in response to the ETB trigger and it won't do anything. I probably should run the split since maelstrom pulse and echoing truth can be a beating, but since there are only 2 it hasn't been a problem. As an aside, pithing needle has been a close contender for a sb slot, but I feel that o ring does enough against the things I want to needle (lands that would need to be needled are covered by blood moon).
Holy crap I just realized that Gemstone Mine plays so nice with Blood Moon. It's a 5-color first turn mana source that becomes a mountain when blood moon hits.
Gemstone mine is an absolute house. I used to play 4 and loved getting it all the time, but drawing multiples is very harsh on the mana and can screw you over if you want to build up to your win cons or bust.
Also, edit: It's actually a 5-color zero turn mana source XD. nothing feels better than starting the game on the draw and dropping a leyline and gemstone against an opp that hasn't even taken their first turn yet...and they were ON THE PLAY!
Haha no no, you definitely said gemstone mine, so it's my bad. I see where you're going with that and you're right, it's a cool interaction to get untapped colored mana at first and then still tap for red later. Good luck with that build!
I'm not sure if that means we have a path to Thoughtseize or not. Thoughtseize was my favorite card to draw in the opening hand. The mana was not completely consistent but it was surprisingly close. It's about the way I thought it would be. You have to read your hand and figure out exactly what land to fetch. If you do it wrong then you color screw yourself. It might delay certain plays on occasion.
But the upside - you get to use Thoughtseize.
I don't know if there's a way to complete the concept or not but it feels so good to be able to get rid of the problem cards pre-emptively. It makes me feel jealous of black. It makes me wish there'd been a shifted version for white to use.
HMMMMMMMMMMMMM......
This is a completely different direction to go in once again.
I wasn't worried about the ThopterSword part b/c of Ghostly/Magus, but I didn't have enough disruption to stop Unburial Rites.
Therefore, I may be trying something closer to your build tonight. I've played w/Chalice in legacy, but never suppression field. We'll see how it goes.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=292409
I've put together a package of low cmc creatures with the goal of being able to field threats that can single-handedly break a stalled board state, and I threw in a few copies of Gryff's Boon to push the concept. I'm feeling lazy and I don't want to write up a complete decklist but here are the basics:
3x Student of Warfare
3x Figure of Destiny
4x Leonin Arbiter
2x Topplegeist
4x Gryff's Boon
4x Leyline of Sanctity
If you're not familiar with Gryff's Boon, it's a very solid new aura. You can spend 4 to get it back from the graveyard to the battlefield. As the game goes longer they tend to add up and you can quickly turn a creature like Leonin Arbiter into a 4/2 flyer. They work even better on Student of Warfare and Figure of Destiny of course.
As usual I tested against Jund first and in spite of my low creature count it hasn't been bad at all. Jund can answer every creature one-to-one (more or less) but I can quickly load up another one and they can stand against Tarmagoyf if they get fully pumped. The evasion granted by Gryff's Boon actually gives me a shot at racing, and Topplegeist is a free flying blocker that also frequently clears the path for one of the other creatures to deal 3-4 damage.
I suppose this is more of a distant cousin to the D&T approach but I wanted to see if there's any insight that you can give about this.
SF is not essential, but in a developed meta there are few decks it does not slow down.
Leyine/Halo interactions are a weakness of Gifts builds, they often don't expect it. Halo is especially sweet because post a Leyline you can use it on a dude on the table, although their tokens can't be nerfed.
Lantern is a prison lockdown deck, we can't beat it G1 unless we run Chalice or Sup Field. G2 We really need stony silence and Leyines G2. It is a hard deck to play well and not that common.
On the critter deck, its a tad off topic but the only thing I would say is Arbter normally needs 4 GQs which won't play well with the levelling, and Thalia is normally an auto include in critter decks. You may find Tallowisp (?) of interest- a unexiting 1/3 body that tutors for Auras for 2cc from Kami. I have no idea if the SO Innistrad cards are any good, I normally find new cards cost 1 too much.....I normally try and abuse 1cc critters with Martyr Proc control builds.....)
I just had the most depraved T1 on the play. A Turn 0 Leyline followed by a plains, double SSG and a Blood Moon. If I had been the other side I think I would've scooped in protest of that dirty start.
I am running out of cards to try but Suppression Bonds seems to sidestep the bad interaction with Suppression Field and Nahiri, if it's not too late to hit the board.
My latest has 3x Chalice of the Void in the main and I'm using 4x Oblivion Ring, 3x Suppression Bonds and 3x Hammer of Bogardan.
I have two purposes for using Hammer. First - you can't counter it forever. Second - it's a really good card to have in your hand when you're using Nahiri's first ability. I especially like that you can use it early on to control the board, and let it sit there until you need it. Then when Nahiri need's cards in hand to feed her looting ability you can pay the mana to turn her first ability into pure card draw.
R1 vs Death's Shadow Aggro
G1 t2 Ghostly/t3 Ghostly, then landkill and a Magus to clean up
G2 he TSeize SSG to stop t2 Ghostly. I lose t4.
G3 mull to 6 into a t1 Chalice? I'll take it. Game over.
R2 vs Amulet Titan
G1 I never really see landkill against this guy. Saw 2 Sup Field, which does almost nothing. Chalice on 0 to stop Pacts slows it down, but a Titan takes me down.
G2 Chalice on 1 and 0 buy time until Assemble the Legion gets online.
G3 Mull to 4 but it was awesome. T2 landkill. T3 landkill gets countered. Ended up getting AtL out but he had Seal of Primordium. Dragonlord Dromoka beatdown.
R3 vs UR Delver
Both games went about the same. I baited out counters w/Sup Field so I could land Ghostly. Tied up his mana w/Ghostly and Magus until I could land AtL.
Takeaways:
Chalice does work, no surprise there. Sup Field seems kinda meh. I'm sure it's amazing t1 on the play. I know if I had seen it vs Death Shadow it would've helped. I feel like I need more threats. I may stay w/Chalice and move back to my PW base.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=292409
4x Chalice of the Void
Creature (8)
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3x Magus of the Tabernacle
4x Simian Spirit Guide
Enchantment (13)
3x Blood Moon
3x Leyline of Sanctity
4x Oblivion Ring
3x Suppression Bonds
4x Nahiri, the Harbinger
Sorcery (7)
4x Boom // Bust
3x Hammer of Bogardan
Land (24)
4x Arid Mesa
4x Flagstones of Trokair
2x Mountain
6x Plains
3x Sacred Foundry
3x Temple of Triumph
2x Windswept Heath
So this is filled with many of the "hatiest" of hate cards...
Boom // Bust is the only spell in the deck below 3 cmc, which is sorta okay because it has an alternate mode. It can't be completely shut off. At 6 cmc it's a crappy Armageddon but the upside of having it available to snipe out a troublesome land (or to trigger Flagstones and get a Plains on the board) is worth it. That's the one (potentially) bad interaction in the deck - between Boom // Bust and Chalice of the Void.
Chalice as a 4-of in the main. I'm trying to set one for 1 cmc and the next one for 2 cmc.
Leyline of Sanctity as a 3-of in the main. At 3 copies I get it in my opening hand in slightly over 3 in 10 games. At 4 copies the odds go up to just shy of 4 in 10, but you also get a noticeable rise in the number of hands that contain 2 Leylines. Two Leylines in the opening draw is annoying.
Blood Moon as a 3-of in the main. Between Blood Moon, Chalice and Boom // Bust I think I can count on slowing down any degenerate Land decks. I've been carefully tweaking the mana to make Blood Moon as painless as possible for me.
I've transitioned over into O-Rings for most of my problem solving. I hate O-Rings. There's very little that annoys me more than the possibility that my "Answer" will be negated by something like Abrupt Decay, but I'm finding that even when my fears are confirmed, the turn or two that I save might have bought enough time to get better answers. I guess I must have blanked on the other O-Ring because I'm still using Suppression Bonds. Magus of the Tabernacle still has a place here as a possible answer to many contingencies that haven't been addressed otherwise.
Hammer of Bogardan is a 3 cmc lightning bolt, so it avoids Chalice of the Void. It's a nice card to match with Nahiri and it becomes extremely powerful in a longer game.
As for sideboarding - I'm thinking that the deck as constructed would have a decent game against midrange, control and many combo decks. It appears to be a little bit vulnerable to aggro. That's fine - I think aggro is easier to sideboard against.
I'm drawing a comparison to Bogles in my head. They might want to sideboard against other Aggro decks, their own mirror, Spellskite (in any deck) and then they also have inherent challenges in dealing with board sweepers, and then Thoughtseize and Liliana can also be a problem. Bogles is a strong deck (particularly after SoI - word of warning if you haven't run into one yet) but the answers to Bogles are wide and varied.
But here I think there's an opportunity to have a deck that has a strong basic matchup against most of the field, and a sideboard that can be geared toward improving game 2 and 3 against an entire archetype.
I don't have the experience to know if it'll work, but it seems like a good idea at least.
Why use suppression bonds when you can have faith's fetters ?
I have used hammer in a skred red control build. It is slow and clunky but not bad and sometimes ideal.
Th list looks a bit too up the curve to beat decks with counterspells and the combo decks in the format. SSG could provide some nut starts though.
Since you're not playing Nahiri you probably don't have the same constant concern about using her +2. Her +2 is why I keep experimenting with stuff like Hammer of Bogardan and Faithless Looting.
I accept that I may indeed be too far up the curve.
In my past I've always tried to worry about coping with permission last. It might be a bad idea nowadays, but old habits die hard. I've got myself to a point where I feel excellent against the first mid-range deck. Now I need to see if I can deal with the rest without breaking the core structure of my own deck too much.
I figured you meant Squee, on the discard, I mix mine up- both Spanish, that's my excuse.
Probably best to run a 2/2 split for echoing truth and surgical reasons if you decide to keep 4 o-ring effects.
I will say that at 3 cc 4 is potentially too many, though.
This really stood out to me as I've been continuing to lurk this forum after posting a while back. I've been playing the Boros Prison version with md hosers and 2 of idyllic tutor for tutoring them and Assemble the Legion. I've had a lot of success with this build. The main is unquestionable at this point for me, and something like 11 of the sideboard slots I would say are essential now that I have played the deck for a while. For reference, I am including the deck I posted at the beginning of Feb. I highly recommend this build to anyone looking at using a toolbox idyllic tutor build.
4 simian spirit guide
4 chalice of the void
4 blood moon
1 rest in peace
1 stony silence
1 phyrexian unlife
1 nevermore
4 lightning helix
4 ghostly prison
4 ensnaring bridge
2 oblivion ring
2 idyllic tutor
2 Assemble the Legion
4 radiant fountain
4 arid mesa
3 clifftop retreat
4 sacred foundry
5 plains
1 mountain
2 ricochet trap
1 rest in peace
1 stony silence
1 nevermore
1 torpor orb
1 boom
1 outpost siege
1 shattering spree
2 wrath of god
2 spellskite
2 ajani vengeant
4 leyline of sanctity
4 chalice of the void
2 rest in peace
2 suppression field
2 stony silence
4 lightning helix
4 blood moon
4 ghostly prison
3 ensnaring bridge
2 phyrexian unlife
2 oblivion ring
1 idyllic tutor
2 Assemble the Legion
4 clifftop retreat
4 sacred foundry
7 plains
1 mountain
2 defense grid
2 nevermore
2 pyroclasm
2 sudden shock
1 roast
2 wrath of god
2 starfield of nyx
2 wear
Radiant fountain is a great find for lands since the deck can tolerate some number of colorless lands and this is a great one before a blood moon and it comes into play untapped after. Only one gemstone caverns to cut down on the cuteness (you never want two), but the first is essentially free and the upside is just too high. Biggest change is the adoption of fetchlands after forsaking suppression field. Suppression field lacked the total lockdown. I have learned the hard way too many times that mana taxing sans reliable mana denial is not good enough of a lock for the strict prison build. Since you lack any form of real card advantage, every card needs to haul it's weight and suppression field along with defense grid stopped being real cards after a while. The fetches add a welcomed consistency to finding plains before blood moon.
As for the rest of the choices, I've found these to be the harshest and most likely to get you free wins. Idyllic tutor is a beast with these options because it can fetch the hoser you need, but also can fetch removal (o-ring) or a finisher (assemble). I do not believe sweepers are needed in the main. 1st game, decks lack answers and if you can land a ghostly prison or buy some time with o ring/lightning helix (lightning helix is honestly the glue that binds everything together) you will eventually find that ensnaring bridge.
Sideboard is the result of a lot of matches. 1 more of the big hosers RIP, SS, and Nevermore. I have found nevermore to be a beast against both combo decks, but also removal heavy decks like control or jund, by naming the answers they have. since we are talking about them, these are your worst matchups, while the deck deals well with any unfair decks and also creature decks. Ajani and the singleton bust are ways to cement a lead against these decks and gives you the time to rebuild/find duplicates/more lock pieces. Ricochet trap is a recent addition in response to the increase in blue, but is also decent against removal. Outpost siege is great against these decks. The wrath are needed to save you against creature decks that aim to flood the board and find their sideboard answers. Shattering spree respects the ever threatening affinity and notably works through chalice if replicated and synergizes nicely with blood moon. Torpor orb because I had them in the eldrazi metagame and liked what they did for certain matchups I didn't explicitly put them in for (mostly green decks that use reclamation sage and primeval titan). Finally, but importantly, spellskite is great to protect your gameplan, almost always comes in post board and a headache for decks skimping on real answers, and is itself a hoser against certain fast matchups (infect, bogles, suicide zoo, burn-ish).
Like I said, been playing the deck now since late january and i've found the deck to prove itself constantly.
Its a shame that few versions of this deck exist of late, Landkill has been more popular recently.
Again, why not an O ring/Blinding light split?
Thanks for the posting- always nice to get new versions of the deck.
Ya man, this archetype has appealed to me since I first started playing magic. I have nothing against story circle, but I find leaving mana up to be tough sometimes, so that's why I run unlife instead. I used to run ghost quarters but found them somewhat underwhelming. The only real upside is being able to snipe basics before moon comes down, but most of the time I would rather have the mana to make sure I can drop my lock pieces and I really don't think it affects the game where radiant fountain shores up the aggressive strategies that can beat you before you get your pieces in place.
Temples have been underwhelming for me as well in this particular build because I need all my lands to come in untapped. There is nothing more frustrating than having the acceleration needed to drop a sick lock piece turn 1 or 2 but can't because of the temple. That being said, I do run it in my kiki build (which I will link below), so I do know its uses, but really don't like it in my bridge build.
The singleton hosers have won me multiple game 1's by just dropping them blind and getting lucky, but also tutoring them early in game 1. Stony has been an all star, just like RIP.
The main reason I don't split o ring/banishing light is because of a somewhat irrational fear that if I draw my banishing light to exile something with counters on it (planeswalkers mostly, but also things like scooze), that they can remove it in response to the ETB trigger and it won't do anything. I probably should run the split since maelstrom pulse and echoing truth can be a beating, but since there are only 2 it hasn't been a problem. As an aside, pithing needle has been a close contender for a sb slot, but I feel that o ring does enough against the things I want to needle (lands that would need to be needled are covered by blood moon).
Gemstone mine is an absolute house. I used to play 4 and loved getting it all the time, but drawing multiples is very harsh on the mana and can screw you over if you want to build up to your win cons or bust.
Also, edit: It's actually a 5-color zero turn mana source XD. nothing feels better than starting the game on the draw and dropping a leyline and gemstone against an opp that hasn't even taken their first turn yet...and they were ON THE PLAY!
The Mine citp with 3 counters that you can tap and remove to get mana. City of Brass is another example that would work.
My mind is going in the direction of a first-turn Thoughtseize, second turn Boom targeting Trokair, then third turn SSG into Blood Moon.
I hate farting around with incomplete answers like suppression field. I love absolute answers like Thoughtseize.
I'm not sure if that means we have a path to Thoughtseize or not. Thoughtseize was my favorite card to draw in the opening hand. The mana was not completely consistent but it was surprisingly close. It's about the way I thought it would be. You have to read your hand and figure out exactly what land to fetch. If you do it wrong then you color screw yourself. It might delay certain plays on occasion.
But the upside - you get to use Thoughtseize.
I don't know if there's a way to complete the concept or not but it feels so good to be able to get rid of the problem cards pre-emptively. It makes me feel jealous of black. It makes me wish there'd been a shifted version for white to use.