But you could also try some copies of Thalia, Heretic Cathar. She seems good vs creature-based decks.
I would agree. The extra removal and disruption will really help against merfolk, elves and affinity. Those kinds of aggro decks are really difficult to play against with mono W. Merfolk and Elves Dusk Dawn and sun lance can be really helpful, it is also a great card against both eldrazi match ups. You will have less land destruction and wasteland strangler will be bad against the eldrazi decks. So make sure you have stuff in the board for the eldrazi match up. Like big thalia or an extra dusk dawn.
My current meta consists of Merfolk, Elves, Affinity, Eldrazi Tron, Grixis Death's Shadow, Bant Eldrazi and U/R Storm
With the amount of Merfolk/Elves/Affinity in your meta, I would very strongly consider Zealous Persecution and/or Orzhov Pontiff in your SB. Orzhov has the upside of being a flicker target, making it also useful against decks like Bant Eldrazi that might have a bunch of 1-toughness targets, or against decks with lord effects where you might want to be able to trigger him multiple times in a turn. Persecution is better against Affinity and Elves where landing it a turn earlier than Pontiff can be key. Both are good and definitely cards I would want against a meta with plenty of decks that "go wide."
Hey guys so I played a mono white eldrazi and taxes build yesterday at my LGS that's fairly competitive. After 5 rounds, I was very pleased to come out 4-1. I only lost to grixis control because of flooding with lands on the first match and being mana screwed on the second match but it happens. I managed to beat merfolk, storm, grixis death shadow, and RG tron. Definitely going to stick to this build for now and I'm no longer afraid of blood moon. If anyone wants to know my build I'd more than happy to share it.
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@grayson Mono-White Eldrazi seems to be a great build. I played a bit with it on my stream last night and went 3-2 with the two losses being explained as bad match ups in my deck tech. I also skimmed on solutions for those match ups based on needs for testing. I do genuinely think if players are really wanting to run the drazi package but having rough times with BW ENT, that this would be a great transition!
In my experience thus far, the following decks are troublesome for Mono-White ENT:
Most of the other decks are reasonable to fair. I think a huge fix for the deck is adding a presence of flyers to the list. I was going to follow up and stream today but MTGO is broken for a lot of ISP atm. Will not be "fixed" until tomorrow's downtime!
Throw some ideas my way team!
PS: earlier in the thread, I was asked about my vizier of the deferment testing. I did test the list and it went very well. Vizier and Displacer fight for consideration in my white list a lot. The problem is that The mono-white shill feels "locked" to a standard and innovating is hard when so many cards beg to be a 4 of.
Eldrazi Displacer: This card was great at pulling the game back into favor against grind match ups but struggled to be better than a 3/3 against a reasonable amount of the field. This is still a spicy 1 to 2 of contender for blank slots though.
Vizier of Deferment: This card is actually pretty exciting. I rant it because I wanted to see its comparison to Displacer. There is obvious ups and downs in comparison but the flash and "next end step" clause allowed the mono-white shell to pull off some very interesting lines. I flickered my wisp after combat and made an exile trigger happen on opps' turn. The body is not impressive but the "gotcha" element has bene really complimentary with blade splicers, wisp and resto.
vizier of deferment is really interesting, especially with flash so it's independently good from vial, but the attacked or blocked clause seems really limiting.
So two questions with that...
1. Did you find the attacking or blocking clause to be significant often?
2. Not sure how you actually tested but your example list has 3 flickerwisp, 3 vizier and 4 resto. Did you find that too much flicker/fluff and no substance/bodies you actually wanted to flicker?
PS - I checked out and like your stream. Maybe you will test vizier on it...
1. I was using it on my creatures nearly all the time. Blocking and Attacking were equally represented. Mostly targeting Blade Splicer and Wisp.
2. No. Vizier played very well with all the flicker tricks. Also gave pseudo vigilance to restoration angels which was neat. the flicker tricks make the opponent not prepared for the combat tricks and also lead to combat fatal pushes/etc which allowed for maximum flicker value.
@grayson Mono-White Eldrazi seems to be a great build. I played a bit with it on my stream last night and went 3-2 with the two losses being explained as bad match ups in my deck tech. I also skimmed on solutions for those match ups based on needs for testing. I do genuinely think if players are really wanting to run the drazi package but having rough times with BW ENT, that this would be a great transition!
In my experience thus far, the following decks are troublesome for Mono-White ENT:
Most of the other decks are reasonable to fair. I think a huge fix for the deck is adding a presence of flyers to the list. I was going to follow up and stream today but MTGO is broken for a lot of ISP atm. Will not be "fixed" until tomorrow's downtime!
Throw some ideas my way team!
PS: earlier in the thread, I was asked about my vizier of the deferment testing. I did test the list and it went very well. Vizier and Displacer fight for consideration in my white list a lot. The problem is that The mono-white shill feels "locked" to a standard and innovating is hard when so many cards beg to be a 4 of.
I actually watched your stream when you played mono white E&T. So that inspired me to make the build haha. but yeah it's a good deck. For the most part i'm following your build with the matter reshapers but i shaved one to add a splicer and I'm also running the serra avenger. What your opinion on running hostile desert as manland? I haven't gone against any of those matchups as yet except for Storm* and i 2-0 it. maybe it was just luck tho. One matchup that I did find hard with the build was BW token or any token producing deck like decks with young pyromancer. I missed having pontiff but i was thinking of maybe experimenting with marrow shards. the fact i can tap out and still have it up can come as a huge blowout for unsuspecting players.
@grayson I think mutavault is a better choice than hostile desert. Storm is beatable but still can be difficult. I didn't cover tokens because I haven't really seen it to know but I imagine that they are truly hard to get through. I'd run walking ballista before I'd run marrow shards.
@grayson I think mutavault is a better choice than hostile desert. Storm is beatable but still can be difficult. I didn't cover tokens because I haven't really seen it to know but I imagine that they are truly hard to get through. I'd run walking ballista before I'd run marrow shards.
makes sense. Ballista is better removal. Do you think reality smasher isn't really good for the meta right now?
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Is it allowed to talk leaks here, by the way? (Concerning Scuttle the Wreckage)
\
What's there to discuss? This is a 4 mana spell that isn't even good. I suspect this card is barely playable in standard, I don't know how you slot it in to this 8 non-creature spell deck.
Is it allowed to talk leaks here, by the way? (Concerning Scuttle the Wreckage)
\
What's there to discuss? This is a 4 mana spell that isn't even good. I suspect this card is barely playable in standard, I don't know how you slot it in to this 8 non-creature spell deck.
Well not mainboard of course, but it might be a good sideboard-card for us against decks like Elves and Merfolk, who have been traditionally hard match-ups.
What's there to discuss? This is a 4 mana spell that isn't even good. I suspect this card is barely playable in standard, I don't know how you slot it in to this 8 non-creature spell deck.
Well not mainboard of course, but it might be a good sideboard-card for us against decks like Elves and Merfolk, who have been traditionally hard match-ups.
It's an instant-speed, Monowhite, 1-sided board wipe against go-wide decks. I like it better than Dusk // Dawn.
While none of the ideas used by Mery were unprecedented, that particular configuration had never been played before and ended up being very, very good in the current meta. As a result, his decklist has become quite popular and has appeared many times since its debut.
People keep saying this, but his deck list was pretty much the same thing that people had been playing online since January link. Wesco even said after the event that 2 of the cards should be swapped out for mirran crusader main deck due to the rising deaths shadow decks.
The major differences are in the sideboard and the Wescoesque inclusion of Kor Skyfisher and Honor of the Pure. This may only amount to a changeout of 10 or so cards, but it's a pretty significant difference taken as a whole.
Make no mistake, Mery didn't invent the wheel, he just looked at all the wheels that were spinning the best when he cobbled his together and worked out the bumps.
That said, there are certainly decisions that can be criticized in his list and there are matchups, even Tier 1 matchups, it completely ignores.
“Modern has provided us a non-rotating format that is far more accessible than Legacy or Vintage, but still retains many of the qualities that people enjoy in those formats—such as a more stable metagame, the ability to play and tweak the same deck week after week, and simply a much more powerful card pool than Standard.”
- Sam Stoddard, “Developing Modern” (June 21, 2013) (by means of Sheridan Lardner, "Fixing Modern: Defining Format Mission (March 16, 2016))
It's an instant-speed, Monowhite, 1-sided board wipe against go-wide decks. I like it better than Dusk // Dawn.
I still don't like it, however.
It is definitely interesting and would shore up some of our bad match ups like Knightfall, Elves and basically all the CoCo decks. I know that Dusk Dawn has preformed well against Eldrazi decks and match ups with high removal.
I can second this, as I do exactly this. I never miss the cavern of souls but every once in a while I wish I had 2-3 of each horizon canopy and shefet dunes instead of just 4 dunes.
After lots of reading (especially here), theorycrafting, and online testing, I finally got the chance last night to bring D&T to a paper event! Played a fairly stock monowhite list with Sea Gate Wreckage and Mutavault in place of Canopies. Weathered Wayfarer, Smuggler's Copter, Serra Avenger, and a Relic filled up my maindeck flex slots as one-ofs. My sideboard was fairly standard besides the spicy inclusions of Mark of Asylum, Kor Firewalker, and Mangara of Corondor.
Round 1 vs Naya Zoo: Mulled to 6 on the play and opened with Inspector into Arbiter, not blocking my opponent's T1 Nacatl or T2 Goblin Guide. On T3 I played another Inspector and swung. My opponent bolted Arbiter, and in response I pathed both his dudes--no search for you. From there, Avenger and Resto took over the game, with a pair of clues providing gas. G2 an early Thalia demanded removal, only for me to follow up with another. This tempo advantage bought me enough time to stabilize, and a vialed Flickerwisp on Splicer during his attacks was enough of a swing to hand me the game. 1-0
Round 2 vs Grixis Delver: Not sure if this is the stock Delver list these days, or some kind of hybrid between Delver and Shadow, but it was basically a Grixis Shadow list without Shadow or the heavy life loss (fewer fetches, no Thoughtseize or Street Wraith), instead running Delver, Bolt, and a few other utility spells. G1 his T1 Delver flipped on T3, which was also the turn he played an Angler. My curve was fine, but he had a handful of removal spells and I never found a Path. Lost before I could stabilize.
G2 my progression was wild: T1 Vial, T2 Thalia and Inspector, T3 Arbiter, Arbiter, Vial. By T4 I had two Tec Edge down and was content to slow roll through the Vials, threatening to shut him off a color altogether even if he found a way through the Arbiter tax. Clocked him out with my board, pathing his Tasigur and forcing his unflipped Delvers to chump. G3 was a major grind, with a slow start on my end mitigated by chaining back-to-back-to-back Relics to shut off his Delve cards and dig for answers. Eventually he fought through my Relics to resolve an Angler, but by then I had a full hand, a Vial at three, and combat tricks aplenty. Found my Forge-Tender as a hedge against sweepers and won the game from there. 2-0
Round 3 vs Naya Burn: G1 on the play was absurd. T1: Inspector, pass. Opponent plays a fetch and passes back. T2 swing for 1, play an Arbiter. Opponent cracks his fetch in response to Arbiter for a tapped land, goes to turn, thinks for a while, then scoops, showing me a hand of three fetchlands and four two-mana spells. Damn, Arbiter, you're a savage. G2 I mulled to a decent 6 but his start was too fast for me to handle. He ran out of steam and was in topdeck mode after putting me to one life. I had a three turn clock on him, so had to hope he failed to find a damage spell, but a Boros Charm came off the top for the win. G3 my opponent mulled to 5, while I kept Plains, Vial, Inspector, Thalia, Kor Firewalker, Splicer, and Flickerwisp. Drew into more gas and won comfortably. 3-0
Round 4 vs Dredge: My one-of Relic in the main showed up in my opener after a mull to 6, so I thought I was in business. But my opponent had some nasty early Dredge action, forcing me to crack my Relic on T3 in response to two Narcomeba triggers, with two Amalgams and a Conflagarate in the yard. Didn't have much choice there, but he still had two Cathartic Reunions as a follow up, and proceeded to overwhelm me in no time. G2 was a 25 minute grind fest. My early Relic kept him from really going off, while Thalia and a pair of Inspectors started the clock and played the advantage game. Flickerwisp out of Vial in response to Conflagarate saved Thalia. Next turn, I drew his lone Narcomeba into a trade by attacking with Wisp, then slammed a Mirran Crusader, who closed out the game from there.
G3 I kept Plains, Ghost Quarter, Grafdigger's Cage, Inspector, Thalia, Serra Avenger, and Path. His early plan was Dredging via Stinkweed Imp and then hardcasting the Imp, which he did three times in a row, and honestly did a fine job of keeping him in the game long enough to find an Abrupt Decay for my Cage. He went off immediately, but my board state, while not strong enough to attack profitability into the Imps, was good enough to defend. We went to turns without either of us finding a way through. My next cards after the game ended were Relic, Path, and Mirran Crusader, which seems favored for the win. Ah well. 3-0-1
Not bad at all for the deck's paper debut! My one-ofs barely showed up at all; it was the deck's core that overperformed, especially the one- and two-drops. Inspector, Arbiter, and Thalia were all extraordinarily effective.
What a fun archetype this is. Thanks to everyone for keeping the discussion active, and helping players like me who are new to the deck do well. Planning to run the exact same list next time I play D&T (hopefully with a pair of Canopies added).
Excellent write-up, and good job! The work you put in really shows, all your plays were smart and showed foresight. I'm also new to the archetype, and although I'm running a UW tempo build, I see some things in your performance to aspire to, especially in how you played to tempo swings like that double-path turn against the zoo deck, and how you slow-rolled when necessary. How did Firewalker do? I run 4 Leyline of Sanctity in my board and I'm wondering whether I should just find some creatures to board in against burn instead.
Excellent write-up, and good job! The work you put in really shows, all your plays were smart and showed foresight. I'm also new to the archetype, and although I'm running a UW tempo build, I see some things in your performance to aspire to, especially in how you played to tempo swings like that double-path turn against the zoo deck, and how you slow-rolled when necessary. How did Firewalker do? I run 4 Leyline of Sanctity in my board and I'm wondering whether I should just find some creatures to board in against burn instead.
Thanks much!
UW tempo looks fun; I also play 4c Humans, and there's a ton of overlap between the two builds.
Firewalker was great the one time I saw him (G3 vs Burn). Steady lifegain and a clock or repeat blocker, whatever your circumstances dictate. I wouldn't necessarily advise him for everyone, but I expect a lot of red on any given night at my LGS, so I sideboard accordingly (one each of Firewalker, Forge-Tender, and Mark of Asylum for now).
I've never used Leylines of Sanctity, so I can't speak to them. I will say that Burn seems to be a favorable matchup for D&T, so unless Leylines are pulling double duty against a lot of discard decks where you play, I might consider trying out some alternatives.
Decided top lower the cmc of my average build this week and for a little more aggro. Not sure how much difference it will make but we will find out after fnm tomorrow. Thalia, heretic cathar included since first strike is relevant with inclusion of basilisk collar and helps power through chump blockers.
I had my first mirror match last night. He was on the GP vegas list with dunes instead of canopies. I do the same but also run displacer over resto and copters over avengers and revoker.
We went to game 3 and I thought it was really interesting. I knew the games would be grindy so I boarded out 2 vials, all 4 arbiters and my single mindcensor. My thought being that they would be low impact and bad top decks. I brought in gideon, ally of zendikar, elspeth, knight-errant, extra mirran crusaders and banisher priests. He still tried to go for the arbiter land destruction plan so I made sure in games 2 and 3 to mostly have 3 lands in play and 1 in hand in case I drew a planeswalker. We both got T1 vials in G2 and G3 so I prioritized flickering his vial (even when he had 4-5 lands) and saved my paths only for restos. Between keeping his vial on 0-1 counters and smuggler's copter I was able to grind through everything even multiple flickers of his blade splicer due to displacer and just hitting him early and often in the air.
This got me thinking about how many different strategies there could have been between boarding and flickering. I would really like to hear your guys approach to the mirror match.
Decided top lower the cmc of my average build this week and for a little more aggro. Not sure how much difference it will make but we will find out after fnm tomorrow. Thalia, heretic cathar included since first strike is relevant with inclusion of basilisk collar and helps power through chump blockers.
I have been thinking about basilisk collar lately as well. Good luck and let us know how it goes.
@ppkitty: in the mirror I try to board against opponent's play style. IS the opponent trying to close out the game as quick as possible, are they using LD aggressively, are they trying to control the game are they aggressively blinking cards like blade splicer with flicekrwisps. Then I use sideboard to formulate a game-plan to counter at. IE if opponent is going aggressive I will board in a way to draw the game out and go over the top somewhat like you did with walkers. If opponent is trying to be the control i will take out some of the top end and use flickerwisps etc.. as tempo plays to force damage through. There are many ways to pilot the deck, you just have to realize what the opponent is attempting to accomplish and think of a game-plan that counters that and sideboard toward maximizing that game plan.
A few last minute changes to deck above to goo more aggro I took out big Thalia, collar(sorry kitty) and skit, added 4 kor sky fisher. Then tion rip from since and added jotun grunt.
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I would agree. The extra removal and disruption will really help against merfolk, elves and affinity. Those kinds of aggro decks are really difficult to play against with mono W. Merfolk and Elves Dusk Dawn and sun lance can be really helpful, it is also a great card against both eldrazi match ups. You will have less land destruction and wasteland strangler will be bad against the eldrazi decks. So make sure you have stuff in the board for the eldrazi match up. Like big thalia or an extra dusk dawn.
With the amount of Merfolk/Elves/Affinity in your meta, I would very strongly consider Zealous Persecution and/or Orzhov Pontiff in your SB. Orzhov has the upside of being a flicker target, making it also useful against decks like Bant Eldrazi that might have a bunch of 1-toughness targets, or against decks with lord effects where you might want to be able to trigger him multiple times in a turn. Persecution is better against Affinity and Elves where landing it a turn earlier than Pontiff can be key. Both are good and definitely cards I would want against a meta with plenty of decks that "go wide."
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In my experience thus far, the following decks are troublesome for Mono-White ENT:
Boro/Mardu Burn
Vizier Combo/Company
Soul Sisters
Storm
Dredge
Most of the other decks are reasonable to fair. I think a huge fix for the deck is adding a presence of flyers to the list. I was going to follow up and stream today but MTGO is broken for a lot of ISP atm. Will not be "fixed" until tomorrow's downtime!
Throw some ideas my way team!
PS: earlier in the thread, I was asked about my vizier of the deferment testing. I did test the list and it went very well. Vizier and Displacer fight for consideration in my white list a lot. The problem is that The mono-white shill feels "locked" to a standard and innovating is hard when so many cards beg to be a 4 of.
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1. I was using it on my creatures nearly all the time. Blocking and Attacking were equally represented. Mostly targeting Blade Splicer and Wisp.
2. No. Vizier played very well with all the flicker tricks. Also gave pseudo vigilance to restoration angels which was neat. the flicker tricks make the opponent not prepared for the combat tricks and also lead to combat fatal pushes/etc which allowed for maximum flicker value.
_thanks for checking the steram out <3
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I actually watched your stream when you played mono white E&T. So that inspired me to make the build haha. but yeah it's a good deck. For the most part i'm following your build with the matter reshapers but i shaved one to add a splicer and I'm also running the serra avenger. What your opinion on running hostile desert as manland? I haven't gone against any of those matchups as yet except for Storm* and i 2-0 it. maybe it was just luck tho. One matchup that I did find hard with the build was BW token or any token producing deck like decks with young pyromancer. I missed having pontiff but i was thinking of maybe experimenting with marrow shards. the fact i can tap out and still have it up can come as a huge blowout for unsuspecting players.
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makes sense. Ballista is better removal. Do you think reality smasher isn't really good for the meta right now?
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What's there to discuss? This is a 4 mana spell that isn't even good. I suspect this card is barely playable in standard, I don't know how you slot it in to this 8 non-creature spell deck.
Well not mainboard of course, but it might be a good sideboard-card for us against decks like Elves and Merfolk, who have been traditionally hard match-ups.
I still don't like it, however. The major differences are in the sideboard and the Wescoesque inclusion of Kor Skyfisher and Honor of the Pure. This may only amount to a changeout of 10 or so cards, but it's a pretty significant difference taken as a whole.
Make no mistake, Mery didn't invent the wheel, he just looked at all the wheels that were spinning the best when he cobbled his together and worked out the bumps.
That said, there are certainly decisions that can be criticized in his list and there are matchups, even Tier 1 matchups, it completely ignores.
Still, I would use it as a reference point for where to start with the archetype for new players, with the suggestion of those on a budget substituting Shefet Dunes for Horizon Canopy and Sea Gate Wreckage for Cavern of Souls.
- Sam Stoddard, “Developing Modern” (June 21, 2013) (by means of Sheridan Lardner, "Fixing Modern: Defining Format Mission (March 16, 2016))
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3 Caves of Koilos
3 Eldrazi Temple
2 Fetid Heath
3 Godless Shrine
4 Ghost Quarter
3 Plains
3 Shambling Vent
2 Tectonic Edge
Artifacts (4):
4 Æther Vial
4 Path to Exile
Creatures (29):
3 Aven Mindcensor
3 Eldrazi Displacer
3 Fiend Hunter
4 Flickerwisp
4 Serra Avenger
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Wasteland Strangler
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Dismember
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Rest in Peace
3 Stony Silence
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Flooded Strand
6 Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Steam Vents
3 Sulfur Falls
Creatures (16):
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Stormchaser Mage
2 Gut Shot
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Mutagenic Growth
3 Spell Pierce
3 Twisted Image
3 Vapor Snag
Sorceries (8):
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Serum Visions
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Blood Moon
2 Dispel
1 Forked Bolt
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Repeal
2 Roast
1 Spell Snare
2 Spellskite
1 Vapor Snag
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Clifftop Retreat
1 Copperline Gorge
5 Mountain
3 Sacred Foundry
2 Stomping Ground
4 Wooded Foothills
Creatures (14):
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel
4 Goblin Guide
2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Atarka's Command
4 Boros Charm
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lightning Helix
3 Searing Blaze
Sorceries (8):
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt
2 Deflecting Palm
4 Destructive Revelry
2 Kor Firewalker
2 Path to Exile
2 Rending Volley
3 Skullcrack
19 Forest
3 Treetop Village
Creatures (24):
4 Avatar of the Resolute
4 Dryad Militant
2 Dungrove Elder
4 Experiment One
4 Leatherback Baloth
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Strangleroot Geist
4 Rancor
Instants (10):
3 Aspect of Hydra
4 Vines of Vastwood
3 Dismember
2 Choke
2 Gut Shot
2 Deglamer
2 Feed the Clan
2 Oxidize
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Skylasher
1 Unravel the Æther
It is definitely interesting and would shore up some of our bad match ups like Knightfall, Elves and basically all the CoCo decks. I know that Dusk Dawn has preformed well against Eldrazi decks and match ups with high removal.
I can second this, as I do exactly this. I never miss the cavern of souls but every once in a while I wish I had 2-3 of each horizon canopy and shefet dunes instead of just 4 dunes.
Round 1 vs Naya Zoo: Mulled to 6 on the play and opened with Inspector into Arbiter, not blocking my opponent's T1 Nacatl or T2 Goblin Guide. On T3 I played another Inspector and swung. My opponent bolted Arbiter, and in response I pathed both his dudes--no search for you. From there, Avenger and Resto took over the game, with a pair of clues providing gas. G2 an early Thalia demanded removal, only for me to follow up with another. This tempo advantage bought me enough time to stabilize, and a vialed Flickerwisp on Splicer during his attacks was enough of a swing to hand me the game. 1-0
Round 2 vs Grixis Delver: Not sure if this is the stock Delver list these days, or some kind of hybrid between Delver and Shadow, but it was basically a Grixis Shadow list without Shadow or the heavy life loss (fewer fetches, no Thoughtseize or Street Wraith), instead running Delver, Bolt, and a few other utility spells. G1 his T1 Delver flipped on T3, which was also the turn he played an Angler. My curve was fine, but he had a handful of removal spells and I never found a Path. Lost before I could stabilize.
G2 my progression was wild: T1 Vial, T2 Thalia and Inspector, T3 Arbiter, Arbiter, Vial. By T4 I had two Tec Edge down and was content to slow roll through the Vials, threatening to shut him off a color altogether even if he found a way through the Arbiter tax. Clocked him out with my board, pathing his Tasigur and forcing his unflipped Delvers to chump. G3 was a major grind, with a slow start on my end mitigated by chaining back-to-back-to-back Relics to shut off his Delve cards and dig for answers. Eventually he fought through my Relics to resolve an Angler, but by then I had a full hand, a Vial at three, and combat tricks aplenty. Found my Forge-Tender as a hedge against sweepers and won the game from there. 2-0
Round 3 vs Naya Burn: G1 on the play was absurd. T1: Inspector, pass. Opponent plays a fetch and passes back. T2 swing for 1, play an Arbiter. Opponent cracks his fetch in response to Arbiter for a tapped land, goes to turn, thinks for a while, then scoops, showing me a hand of three fetchlands and four two-mana spells. Damn, Arbiter, you're a savage. G2 I mulled to a decent 6 but his start was too fast for me to handle. He ran out of steam and was in topdeck mode after putting me to one life. I had a three turn clock on him, so had to hope he failed to find a damage spell, but a Boros Charm came off the top for the win. G3 my opponent mulled to 5, while I kept Plains, Vial, Inspector, Thalia, Kor Firewalker, Splicer, and Flickerwisp. Drew into more gas and won comfortably. 3-0
Round 4 vs Dredge: My one-of Relic in the main showed up in my opener after a mull to 6, so I thought I was in business. But my opponent had some nasty early Dredge action, forcing me to crack my Relic on T3 in response to two Narcomeba triggers, with two Amalgams and a Conflagarate in the yard. Didn't have much choice there, but he still had two Cathartic Reunions as a follow up, and proceeded to overwhelm me in no time. G2 was a 25 minute grind fest. My early Relic kept him from really going off, while Thalia and a pair of Inspectors started the clock and played the advantage game. Flickerwisp out of Vial in response to Conflagarate saved Thalia. Next turn, I drew his lone Narcomeba into a trade by attacking with Wisp, then slammed a Mirran Crusader, who closed out the game from there.
G3 I kept Plains, Ghost Quarter, Grafdigger's Cage, Inspector, Thalia, Serra Avenger, and Path. His early plan was Dredging via Stinkweed Imp and then hardcasting the Imp, which he did three times in a row, and honestly did a fine job of keeping him in the game long enough to find an Abrupt Decay for my Cage. He went off immediately, but my board state, while not strong enough to attack profitability into the Imps, was good enough to defend. We went to turns without either of us finding a way through. My next cards after the game ended were Relic, Path, and Mirran Crusader, which seems favored for the win. Ah well. 3-0-1
Not bad at all for the deck's paper debut! My one-ofs barely showed up at all; it was the deck's core that overperformed, especially the one- and two-drops. Inspector, Arbiter, and Thalia were all extraordinarily effective.
What a fun archetype this is. Thanks to everyone for keeping the discussion active, and helping players like me who are new to the deck do well. Planning to run the exact same list next time I play D&T (hopefully with a pair of Canopies added).
Thanks much!
UW tempo looks fun; I also play 4c Humans, and there's a ton of overlap between the two builds.
Firewalker was great the one time I saw him (G3 vs Burn). Steady lifegain and a clock or repeat blocker, whatever your circumstances dictate. I wouldn't necessarily advise him for everyone, but I expect a lot of red on any given night at my LGS, so I sideboard accordingly (one each of Firewalker, Forge-Tender, and Mark of Asylum for now).
I've never used Leylines of Sanctity, so I can't speak to them. I will say that Burn seems to be a favorable matchup for D&T, so unless Leylines are pulling double duty against a lot of discard decks where you play, I might consider trying out some alternatives.
4 dryad militant
4 leonin arbiter
4 Thalia, guardian of thraben
3 serra avenger
1 spellskite
4 flickerwisp
4 blade splicer
2 mirran crusader
1 aven mindcensor
2 Thalia, heretic cathar
4 path to exile
4 aether vial
1 basilisk collar
Lands 22
4 ghost quarter
4 tectonic edge
4 shefet dunes
10 plains
3 burrenton forge-tender
1 aven mindcensor
2 kataki, war's wage
2 rest in peace
2 grafdigger's cage
1 mirran crusader
2 lone missionary
2 fiend hunter
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We went to game 3 and I thought it was really interesting. I knew the games would be grindy so I boarded out 2 vials, all 4 arbiters and my single mindcensor. My thought being that they would be low impact and bad top decks. I brought in gideon, ally of zendikar, elspeth, knight-errant, extra mirran crusaders and banisher priests. He still tried to go for the arbiter land destruction plan so I made sure in games 2 and 3 to mostly have 3 lands in play and 1 in hand in case I drew a planeswalker. We both got T1 vials in G2 and G3 so I prioritized flickering his vial (even when he had 4-5 lands) and saved my paths only for restos. Between keeping his vial on 0-1 counters and smuggler's copter I was able to grind through everything even multiple flickers of his blade splicer due to displacer and just hitting him early and often in the air.
This got me thinking about how many different strategies there could have been between boarding and flickering. I would really like to hear your guys approach to the mirror match.
I have been thinking about basilisk collar lately as well. Good luck and let us know how it goes.
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