That was my next question, yeah. Like I said, I'd be intrigued by a deck that, for example, uses Bob and pulls off the Finks/Madcap combo with the Taxes package-- but with BW D&T as it is, especially the Eldrazi variant, what would you even drop?
@darktutor You say I'm wrong but don't explain why. That's... enlightening, I guess?
All I see is that the vast majority of cards in my deck are cmc3 (up to 4 via TKS), and none of them alone are enough to win the game. You'd be essentially taking 2-3 damage per turn unless you luck out and get a land, but with no guarantee that it'll be what you need to turn the tide in your favor. The risk doesn't seem worth it at all. It's not like we necessarily run super explosive cards, after all. I wouldn't want to run the risk of taking that much damage per turn unless I had a way to mitigate the losses.
It seems to me that you didn't read my comments on bob, but whatever.
'Your deck' is not everybody else's. Because you call your deck grindy it doesn't mean it's the only grindy deck out there. The very definition of Bob is attrition. Bob has always been a modern and legacy grindy staple and goes in grindy decks. The only grindy deck that stopped playing it in modern is Junk, because they acquired Siege Rhino (a CMC 4) at the same time that the metagame was warped by Treasure Cruise, BGx was outright bad and dropped off the format until not too long ago where Jund just dominated with Lightning Bolt (forcing Junk out of BGx flavor). Now Junk is getting good again, and even more Junk players are slowly coming back to Bob.
If you play Eldrazi taxes that's fine, your curve is a lot higher and there is no point in playing it. In the comment I quoted from you, there isn't anything related to eldrazi. You simply said this:
Your comments on Bob were a lot of words that never directly answered the question and generally boiled down to "he's good" and "lots of decks use him". Sorry, but that does not make much for scintillating discussion.
And you still have not answered why he'd be worth much in D&T in general. What would you even drop for him? Even then, I'm having a very hard time ever justifying wanting to play him in the early game where we're much more interested in getting the Taxes portion of our deck online. Casting him on Turn 2 instead of Thalia or Arbiter or Sculler and actually getting some disruption going feels rather greedy to our own detriment, to be honest.
Cards for life is a trade a grindy deck takes 100% of the time. Life is a much more fungible resource than cards when you're fighting an attrition battle, especially when some of the cards you play can get you life back. That is why Bob is really good in most attrition decks. However, most attrition decks that play Bob are also stuffed with cheap interaction and efficient threats. D&T has neither of those things, since its curve trends heavily toward the 3-spot and most of the creatures come with an effect baked in. Given that, Bob seems like a poor choice unless you significantly retool the deck's curve. I suppose that's achievable, but it definitely moves you away from the established builds, at which point it's up to you to determine if the resulting deck is better than the alternative. One could argue that the most holistic way to test the card's fit is to just jam it into the current shells, but I'm of the opinion that will end poorly.
Regardless of the deck, Dark Confidant wins by burying your opponent in card advantage. It trades life for cards, and most of the time, cards are the correct choice. Playing Dark Confidant on T2, instead of getting the taxes online, is a judgment call; it's a must-answer card on T2, or else it will slowly win you the game. And if your opponent spends removal on it, then that's one fewer piece of removal that will be available for Thalia or Arbiter.
For those reasons, Dark Confidant has seen some success in WB D&T.
When playing Dark Confidant, the only important number is the expected value of the life loss per turn. In D&T, that number should be less than 2. In fact, Sheepz once designed a list where the average CMC of cards in the deck was 1.3. At that point, Dark Confidant is just a cheaper Phyrexian Arena with legs that swings for two damage each turn. Seems pretty good.
In practice, Confidant plays a lot like Eidolon of the Great Revel does in Burn; yes, the user can expect to take some damage, but as you approach the red zone, you start swinging for two. If your opponent blocks it, then you've drawn some extra cards and it's probably worth it. If your opponent doesn't block it, he or she is basically giving you two free damage per turn. And much like with Eidolon, there is seldom a right answer for your opponent, other than just removing it immediately.
Dark Confidant can be a great card in this deck. Sure, it's not exactly a tax, but it draws you more taxes than you would otherwise be able to see. Not every version of WB D&T wants him, but Dark Confidant isn't a card that should be casually brushed off without proper testing.
Playing millions of cards every turn... Slowly and systematically obliterating any chance my opponent has of winning... Clicking the multitude of locking mechanisms into place... Not even trying to win myself until turn 10+ once I have nigh absolute control... Watching my opponent desperately trying to navigate the labyrinthine prison that I've constructed... Seeing the light of hope fade and ultimately extinguished in an excruciatingly slow manner... THAT'S fun Magic.
We have 2-3 users that are dramatically making this thread incomprehensible and non-productive for anyone else to possibly join in the discussion. This needs to change.
Every time I see [ktkenshinx] post in here, I get the impression of a stern dad walking in on a bunch of kids trying to do something dumb and just shaking his head in disappointment.
Near Mint: The same as Slightly Played, but we threw some Altoids in the box we stored it in to cover up the scent of dead mice. Slightly Played: The base condition for all MTG cards. This card looks OK, but there’s one minor annoying ding in it that will always irritate and distract you whenever you draw it. Moderately Played: This card looks like it survived the Tet Offensive tucked inside the waistband of GI underwear. It may smell like it, too. Heavily Played: This card looks like the remains of Mohammed Atta’s passport after 9/11. It may be playable if you double-sleeve it to stop the chunks from falling out. The condition formerly known as "Washing Machine Grade" Damaged: This card is the unfortunate victim of a Mirrorweave/March of the Machines/Chaos Confetti/Mindslaver combo.
[M]aking counterfeit cards is the absolute height of dishonesty. Ask yourself this question: Since most people...are totally cool with the use of proxies...what purpose do [high] quality counterfeit cards serve?
I have the same opinion as @rothgar13. Bob is a great card, but D&T doesn't have beaters to end the game quickly. Neither tons of removal or solid lifegainers. Our best beaters are 3 CMC, we have only 4 spot removal (although flickerwisp can buy you a turn) and our best lifegainers available have no end game impact or have a high CMC.
Edit: In another note, I guess that Serra Avenger and the new vehicle are very good card combinations that can end the game quickly and also can grind the game
Edit 2: Can someone teach me how to edit the set of tagged cards? It's not working for me
Playing millions of cards every turn... Slowly and systematically obliterating any chance my opponent has of winning... Clicking the multitude of locking mechanisms into place... Not even trying to win myself until turn 10+ once I have nigh absolute control... Watching my opponent desperately trying to navigate the labyrinthine prison that I've constructed... Seeing the light of hope fade and ultimately extinguished in an excruciatingly slow manner... THAT'S fun Magic.
We have 2-3 users that are dramatically making this thread incomprehensible and non-productive for anyone else to possibly join in the discussion. This needs to change.
Every time I see [ktkenshinx] post in here, I get the impression of a stern dad walking in on a bunch of kids trying to do something dumb and just shaking his head in disappointment.
Near Mint: The same as Slightly Played, but we threw some Altoids in the box we stored it in to cover up the scent of dead mice. Slightly Played: The base condition for all MTG cards. This card looks OK, but there’s one minor annoying ding in it that will always irritate and distract you whenever you draw it. Moderately Played: This card looks like it survived the Tet Offensive tucked inside the waistband of GI underwear. It may smell like it, too. Heavily Played: This card looks like the remains of Mohammed Atta’s passport after 9/11. It may be playable if you double-sleeve it to stop the chunks from falling out. The condition formerly known as "Washing Machine Grade" Damaged: This card is the unfortunate victim of a Mirrorweave/March of the Machines/Chaos Confetti/Mindslaver combo.
[M]aking counterfeit cards is the absolute height of dishonesty. Ask yourself this question: Since most people...are totally cool with the use of proxies...what purpose do [high] quality counterfeit cards serve?
I think Kambal's destiny is as a kick-ass sideboard card, personally. I remain unconvinced that there's enough beef to justify the WB non-Eldrazi build, and that one simply doesn't have the room for him in the mainboard.
Your comments on Bob were a lot of words that never directly answered the question and generally boiled down to "he's good" and "lots of decks use him". Sorry, but that does not make much for scintillating discussion.
And you still have not answered why he'd be worth much in D&T in general. What would you even drop for him? Even then, I'm having a very hard time ever justifying wanting to play him in the early game where we're much more interested in getting the Taxes portion of our deck online. Casting him on Turn 2 instead of Thalia or Arbiter or Sculler and actually getting some disruption going feels rather greedy to our own detriment, to be honest.
You can be mad at me for pointing out that you made a poor critic of a card all you want, but it won't make your comment right. Bob is awesome in grindy decks. I will not reply anymore to a guy who won't read actual card evaluations and limits to reply quickly to a last post. If you want to see how and when bob was played (and still is) in BW, use the search tool.
Cards for life is a trade a grindy deck takes 100% of the time. Life is a much more fungible resource than cards when you're fighting an attrition battle, especially when some of the cards you play can get you life back. That is why Bob is really good in most attrition decks. However, most attrition decks that play Bob are also stuffed with cheap interaction and efficient threats. D&T has neither of those things, since its curve trends heavily toward the 3-spot and most of the creatures come with an effect baked in. Given that, Bob seems like a poor choice unless you significantly retool the deck's curve. I suppose that's achievable, but it definitely moves you away from the established builds, at which point it's up to you to determine if the resulting deck is better than the alternative. One could argue that the most holistic way to test the card's fit is to just jam it into the current shells, but I'm of the opinion that will end poorly.
If you don't play Eldrazi (and even if you play just TKS and no other drazis) bob is still a fine choice. You claim D&T has no interaction, but it does in 4x Tidehollow Sculler (+4 TKS if you play them) + Path + the taxing. Taxing is interacting, if you haven't noticed by now. Not allowing your opponent from casting their spells efficiently (or not at all in some turns), force them to fall 1-3 turns behind their curve, that is interacting. Efficient threats we -somewhat- do have, though not so many, I'll give you that. Flickerwisp and Mirran Crusader being the most efficient. I agree that you need to revamp the curve if you want to play it, and that's exactly what I've been saying from the start. I choose not to play Eldrazis because you're playing a bad Eldrazi beatdown and a bad Taxing game with a really, really, clunky manabase. I have gotten nothing but good results in eldrazi-less BW TAxes in all my competitive events, even winning a PPTQ (after top8ing all of them). I am never going back to Eldrazis because the pay-off is explosion at the cost of consistence, and that's something I am not into because we're not playing a deck that wants to explode.
@Darktutor, Aven Mindcensor is part of our decks backbone and I would never leave home without him. But from playtesting and the genereal mtg community I get the feeling that Thalia 2.0 just doesn't make the cut. Same for Vryn's Wingmare. Why? They just arrive too late or get bolted with too little returns. My prediction is that Kambal will follow suit when he's put into the main.
Theorycrafting works both ways, everybody can think of situations in which their fav card shines. Like you said, fun but not productive. If Kambal turns out to be a star during further actual playing then I'll take back all that I've said. Still, I'm not convinced as of this moment.
But then you're not seeing the full picture. You still haven't answered about playing Thalia GoT on T3 (because you didn't have any T2), is it too late? Is it obsolete? Of course it isn't. But when you do have a Thalia on the board and you drop a Wingmare, things go really bad really quick for your opponents. The same applies to Thalia HC, they complement each other so well. She's also an all star against creature decks. I understand what you're saying and I will also take back all I said about Kambal if it ends up being a poor choice. But knowing my meta and the card potential, I will play 1 main and 1 side.
Regardless of the deck, Dark Confidant wins by burying your opponent in card advantage. It trades life for cards, and most of the time, cards are the correct choice. Playing Dark Confidant on T2, instead of getting the taxes online, is a judgment call; it's a must-answer card on T2, or else it will slowly win you the game. And if your opponent spends removal on it, then that's one fewer piece of removal that will be available for Thalia or Arbiter.
For those reasons, Dark Confidant has seen some success in WB D&T.
When playing Dark Confidant, the only important number is the expected value of the life loss per turn. In D&T, that number should be less than 2. In fact, Sheepz once designed a list where the average CMC of cards in the deck was 1.3. At that point, Dark Confidant is just a cheaper Phyrexian Arena with legs that swings for two damage each turn. Seems pretty good.
In practice, Confidant plays a lot like Eidolon of the Great Revel does in Burn; yes, the user can expect to take some damage, but as you approach the red zone, you start swinging for two. If your opponent blocks it, then you've drawn some extra cards and it's probably worth it. If your opponent doesn't block it, he or she is basically giving you two free damage per turn. And much like with Eidolon, there is seldom a right answer for your opponent, other than just removing it immediately.
Dark Confidant can be a great card in this deck. Sure, it's not exactly a tax, but it draws you more taxes than you would otherwise be able to see. Not every version of WB D&T wants him, but Dark Confidant isn't a card that should be casually brushed off without proper testing.
Explanations about bob have been given since the dawn of modern and the origins of Junk and Jund as we know them in MODERN (not the origins of The Rock). People are -even in 2016- afraid of the life loss that he provides and still fail to understand why or how they lose to him when they decide not to kill him 'because it's doing damage'. I appreciate your efforts in trying to explain it to this community, but Bob has been played in the past and even in the BW D&T from Legacy. Explanations, experience and insight of him are everywhere in the forum. But here, people aren't asking productive questions about bob, they just want to bury it because either don't like it or don't understand it (or both), and that's not the correct way of getting insight about the deck/card.
I have the same opinion as @rothgar13. Bob is a great card, but D&T doesn't have beaters to end the game quickly. Neither tons of removal or solid lifegainers. Our best beaters are 3 CMC, we have only 4 spot removal (although flickerwisp can buy you a turn) and our best lifegainers available have no end game impact or have a high CMC.
Edit: In another note, I guess that Serra Avenger and the new vehicle are very good card combinations that can end the game quickly and also can grind the game
Bob doesn't want the game to end quickly (at least not most of the time), bob wants to go long and get you as many cards as possible. I do play Kitchen Finks and with the addition of Concealed Courtyard I'm very likely to play 1 4drop in my main and 1 in my side, being it Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet.
BTW, Vigilance and Crew aren't a combo since you have to crew it before declaring attackers.
Bob is great in D&T because it does what the decks want to do best: grind. When people face D&T they have a very clear vision on what they have to spend their removal on: Thalia, Arbiter, Mindcensor, New Thalia, Tidehollow. Now, the rest of the creatures we play can't just be random value creatures, or dumb beaters, they have to be creatures that strand your opponent's removal. The average control/midrange deck plays about 8/14 removal spells. We play 27/30 creatures, they play 4/15 creatures. The problem begins when their removal keeps us from getting board presence and by the time we get some, they have dropped larger threats. Non taxing creatures need to prevent that from happening.
That's 12 creatures. Out of those 12 I got 4 meta calls: 2x Kitchen Finks, 1x Brimaz, King of Oreskos and 1x Mirran Crusader. Either the crusader or Brimaz are likely to leave to get Kambal room. Because those cards are purely meta calls (the same as Kambal) although Kambal seems better than any (at this stage).
Why is bob good in this deck? It provides redundance at no virtual cost, slamming bob means drawing 2 cards a turn. Now, your opponent won't be spending removal tactically on your taxers to let bob live and refill your hand with taxers they won't deal with. The math is very simple 29 Creatures outweigh 14 removal spells. Drawing 2 cards a turn means than this outweigh is happening more often than not. So you have a Thalia and a Bob, what do you kill? Same goes for Bob + Arbiter. Although context is everything, experienced players will alwasys kill bob (as long as they don't need to kill the taxer in order to kill it).
What does mean to draw 2 cards a turn? It means increasing your chances of drawing your 1/2 ofs in the deck that can be vital to win. It also means more land-drops, which is awesome when you're playing a low curve with a low land count and you're drawing 2 cards a turn. Sign me up for that, please!
When I play Death and Taxes, I want to put the entire pressure of the game on my opponent. I want to be dropping creatures that put them in a position where they need to be more than careful to answer the board. All the creautres die to Lightning Bolt, but you can't play 29 bolts and if you did (or kinda do like burn) you wouldn't be pointing them at my creatures. So, my creatures come into the battlefield with a bullseye in their forehead, effectively over-weighing removal. That's why Bob is more important than a Blade Splicer, or a Wasteland Strangler, or a Reality Smasher (which is the clunkiest of all in E&T) or Eldrazi Displacer. I want my cards to be good on their own, not depending on blinking them or having a blink target. I want my cards to strand your cards, that's how I play D&T and that's why Bob is key in my deck for me to do my thing.
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I didn't say that D&T had no interaction, I said it has no cheap interaction, and there's a significant difference between the two. Tax creatures aren't as effective when they enter the battlefield in the mid-to-lategame, so you're not always thrilled to flip them with a Bob. The large amount of 3-drops also makes it much less palatable. I've seen your results and they are commendable, but they're a very small "n" compared to the results of D&T players at large, and that strongly suggests that D&T players in general do best when going for the WB Eldrazi build overall. Mono-W and GW certainly have merit and they should be mentioned, but if you're already springing for B, I see no reason to avoid reaching for Eldrazi while you're there. The "explosiveness vs. consistency" argument was made for decks like Burn when debating the inclusion of Wild Nacatl, and by now I think we all know how that argument ended.
I didn't say that D&T had no interaction, I said it has no cheap interaction, and there's a significant difference between the two. Tax creatures aren't as effective when they enter the battlefield in the mid-to-lategame, so you're not always thrilled to flip them with a Bob. The large amount of 3-drops also makes it much less palatable. I've seen your results and they are commendable, but they're a very small "n" compared to the results of D&T players at large, and that strongly suggests that D&T players in general do best when going for the WB Eldrazi build overall. Mono-W and GW certainly have merit and they should be mentioned, but if you're already springing for B, I see no reason to avoid reaching for Eldrazi while you're there. The "explosiveness vs. consistency" argument was made for decks like Burn when debating the inclusion of Wild Nacatl, and by now I think we all know how that argument ended.
I understand better what you mean and I agree. Although I still believe bob is a key piece in BW D&T (not E&T).
However, a larger portion of players are playing eldrazi and taxes than regular bw D&T, therefore E&T will show better results in a larger scale. But little by little, the number of people playing it to good results is decaying over time. It got hyped, and now it's getting realistic: the deck has mana problems and consistency problems. GW D&T is doing great apparently, they even got 2 GP top8s last Modern GPs.
I don't think you want to compare eldrazis to Nacatls in burn, eldrazis aren't taxing your opponent (at least not as much as non eldrazi cards) and you can't compare beaters with ETBs to Taxers. Nacatl is an aggresive creature that doesn't have haste, but promises a lot of damage over other creatures with haste which aren't as efficient or spells that aren't really stealing the game. I think Eldrazis will be gone in the future from D&T, but of course I can always be wrong.
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Your comments on Bob were a lot of words that never directly answered the question and generally boiled down to "he's good" and "lots of decks use him". Sorry, but that does not make much for scintillating discussion.
And you still have not answered why he'd be worth much in D&T in general. What would you even drop for him? Even then, I'm having a very hard time ever justifying wanting to play him in the early game where we're much more interested in getting the Taxes portion of our deck online. Casting him on Turn 2 instead of Thalia or Arbiter or Sculler and actually getting some disruption going feels rather greedy to our own detriment, to be honest.
You can be mad at me for pointing out that you made a poor critic of a card all you want, but it won't make your comment right. Bob is awesome in grindy decks. I will not reply anymore to a guy who won't read actual card evaluations and limits to reply quickly to a last post. If you want to see how and when bob was played (and still is) in BW, use the search tool.
Okay, seriously now.
I'm not mad and never was. I made a statement, and you said I was wrong, but never explained why. I asked why, and you got all aggressive for absolutely no reason, and told me to read "evaluations" that you, in fact, never actually made. Maybe my assessment was incorrect-- but you completely ignored the rest of what I said, being "unless you have some way to mitigate the losses", and you yourself run Finks for that. So does Junk/Abzan. Jund has Scavenging Ooze. And so on. Unless you build around that, D&T typically doesn't. There was more to what I said and you flew off the handle at the first part of it, which admittedly was a misevaluation on my part-- which would have been just as easily resolved had you considered the fact that, shockingly, it could have been an honest mistake by someone who hasn't actually been playing as long as you, and explained your point instead of acting like the way you did? It's this kind of attitude that drives so many people away from this game, and I honestly feel that it's pretty sad that it's so prevalent.
So step back, untilt yourself, and realize the only one getting mad over nothing here is you.
Bob is great in D&T because it does what the decks want to do best: grind. When people face D&T they have a very clear vision on what they have to spend their removal on: Thalia, Arbiter, Mindcensor, New Thalia, Tidehollow. Now, the rest of the creatures we play can't just be random value creatures, or dumb beaters, they have to be creatures that strand your opponent's removal. The average control/midrange deck plays about 8/14 removal spells. We play 27/30 creatures, they play 4/15 creatures. The problem begins when their removal keeps us from getting board presence and by the time we get some, they have dropped larger threats. Non taxing creatures need to prevent that from happening.
That's 12 creatures. Out of those 12 I got 4 meta calls: 2x Kitchen Finks, 1x Brimaz, King of Oreskos and 1x Mirran Crusader. Either the crusader or Brimaz are likely to leave to get Kambal room. Because those cards are purely meta calls (the same as Kambal) although Kambal seems better than any (at this stage).
Why is bob good in this deck? It provides redundance at no virtual cost, slamming bob means drawing 2 cards a turn. Now, your opponent won't be spending removal tactically on your taxers to let bob live and refill your hand with taxers they won't deal with. The math is very simple 29 Creatures outweigh 14 removal spells. Drawing 2 cards a turn means than this outweigh is happening more often than not. So you have a Thalia and a Bob, what do you kill? Same goes for Bob + Arbiter. Although context is everything, experienced players will alwasys kill bob (as long as they don't need to kill the taxer in order to kill it).
What does mean to draw 2 cards a turn? It means increasing your chances of drawing your 1/2 ofs in the deck that can be vital to win. It also means more land-drops, which is awesome when you're playing a low curve with a low land count and you're drawing 2 cards a turn. Sign me up for that, please!
When I play Death and Taxes, I want to put the entire pressure of the game on my opponent. I want to be dropping creatures that put them in a position where they need to be more than careful to answer the board. All the creautres die to Lightning Bolt, but you can't play 29 bolts and if you did (or kinda do like burn) you wouldn't be pointing them at my creatures. So, my creatures come into the battlefield with a bullseye in their forehead, effectively over-weighing removal. That's why Bob is more important than a Blade Splicer, or a Wasteland Strangler, or a Reality Smasher (which is the clunkiest of all in E&T) or Eldrazi Displacer. I want my cards to be good on their own, not depending on blinking them or having a blink target. I want my cards to strand your cards, that's how I play D&T and that's why Bob is key in my deck for me to do my thing.
This was the explanation I wanted and was looking to get when I had asked for it. Thank you for finally making it.
That makes sense and I can see your point. It works, you just need to build your deck around him.
Your comments on Bob were a lot of words that never directly answered the question and generally boiled down to "he's good" and "lots of decks use him". Sorry, but that does not make much for scintillating discussion.
And you still have not answered why he'd be worth much in D&T in general. What would you even drop for him? Even then, I'm having a very hard time ever justifying wanting to play him in the early game where we're much more interested in getting the Taxes portion of our deck online. Casting him on Turn 2 instead of Thalia or Arbiter or Sculler and actually getting some disruption going feels rather greedy to our own detriment, to be honest.
You can be mad at me for pointing out that you made a poor critic of a card all you want, but it won't make your comment right. Bob is awesome in grindy decks. I will not reply anymore to a guy who won't read actual card evaluations and limits to reply quickly to a last post. If you want to see how and when bob was played (and still is) in BW, use the search tool.
Okay, seriously now.
I'm not mad and never was. I made a statement, and you said I was wrong, but never explained why. I asked why, and you got all aggressive for absolutely no reason, and told me to read "evaluations" that you, in fact, never actually made. Maybe my assessment was incorrect-- but you completely ignored the rest of what I said, being "unless you have some way to mitigate the losses", and you yourself run Finks for that. So does Junk/Abzan. Jund has Scavenging Ooze. And so on. Unless you build around that, D&T typically doesn't. There was more to what I said and you flew off the handle at the first part of it, which admittedly was a misevaluation on my part-- which would have been just as easily resolved had you considered the fact that, shockingly, it could have been an honest mistake by someone who hasn't actually been playing as long as you, and explained your point instead of acting like the way you did? It's this kind of attitude that drives so many people away from this game, and I honestly feel that it's pretty sad that it's so prevalent.
So step back, untilt yourself, and realize the only one getting mad over nothing here is you.
Bob is great in D&T because it does what the decks want to do best: grind. When people face D&T they have a very clear vision on what they have to spend their removal on: Thalia, Arbiter, Mindcensor, New Thalia, Tidehollow. Now, the rest of the creatures we play can't just be random value creatures, or dumb beaters, they have to be creatures that strand your opponent's removal. The average control/midrange deck plays about 8/14 removal spells. We play 27/30 creatures, they play 4/15 creatures. The problem begins when their removal keeps us from getting board presence and by the time we get some, they have dropped larger threats. Non taxing creatures need to prevent that from happening.
That's 12 creatures. Out of those 12 I got 4 meta calls: 2x Kitchen Finks, 1x Brimaz, King of Oreskos and 1x Mirran Crusader. Either the crusader or Brimaz are likely to leave to get Kambal room. Because those cards are purely meta calls (the same as Kambal) although Kambal seems better than any (at this stage).
Why is bob good in this deck? It provides redundance at no virtual cost, slamming bob means drawing 2 cards a turn. Now, your opponent won't be spending removal tactically on your taxers to let bob live and refill your hand with taxers they won't deal with. The math is very simple 29 Creatures outweigh 14 removal spells. Drawing 2 cards a turn means than this outweigh is happening more often than not. So you have a Thalia and a Bob, what do you kill? Same goes for Bob + Arbiter. Although context is everything, experienced players will alwasys kill bob (as long as they don't need to kill the taxer in order to kill it).
What does mean to draw 2 cards a turn? It means increasing your chances of drawing your 1/2 ofs in the deck that can be vital to win. It also means more land-drops, which is awesome when you're playing a low curve with a low land count and you're drawing 2 cards a turn. Sign me up for that, please!
When I play Death and Taxes, I want to put the entire pressure of the game on my opponent. I want to be dropping creatures that put them in a position where they need to be more than careful to answer the board. All the creautres die to Lightning Bolt, but you can't play 29 bolts and if you did (or kinda do like burn) you wouldn't be pointing them at my creatures. So, my creatures come into the battlefield with a bullseye in their forehead, effectively over-weighing removal. That's why Bob is more important than a Blade Splicer, or a Wasteland Strangler, or a Reality Smasher (which is the clunkiest of all in E&T) or Eldrazi Displacer. I want my cards to be good on their own, not depending on blinking them or having a blink target. I want my cards to strand your cards, that's how I play D&T and that's why Bob is key in my deck for me to do my thing.
This was the explanation I wanted and was looking to get when I had asked for it. Thank you for finally making it.
That makes sense and I can see your point. It works, you just need to build your deck around him.
I am not mad, mate. I was just making a point. The statement you wrote is invalid, because you weren't just talking about D&T, you generalized. I just explained why I think bob is awesome in D&T when you don't want to force your curve high for random value creatures. I apologize if I sounded aggressive, it was not my intention. Gotta review my way of writing stuff I guess, as it's not the first time this happens. Sorry, english isn't my first language and I try my best.
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In Lorwyn's brief evenings, the sun pauses at the horizon long enough for a certain species of violet to bloom with the fragrance of mischief.
Yes, you just explained, which is what I was asking for from the beginning-- and again, thank you for that.
What I said may have been a generalization, but the intent was in context of this thread since, well, it's in this thread. And I already declared my mistake on that. So let's just let this die already and move on.
Favourite Deck: Elves (Modern & Legacy)
Standard: New Perspectives Combo
Modern: GW Hatebears | Death and Taxes | Eldrazi and Taxes | Abzan Liege | Abzan Company
Commander: The Gitrog Monster (Combo) | Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper (Control) | RIP Leovold Sultai (Elvestorm, no unfair locks) | Mono G (Yisan or Titania)
Tiny Leaders: Too many decks to keep track of
Pauper: RIP UR Drake | Mono B | GBx Goodstuff | Jund "Melira"
We only have two taxing creatures in standard: Thalia, Heretic Cathar and Kambal, Consul of Allocation. THC is great (pun unintended) in a tribal human deck, but KCA is not that good in a heavy creature-based format like standard, unless the format is very different with rotation. Land disruption also costs a lot.
A DnT deck in standard is not possible in the sense of a Modern or Legacy version. What is possible is a White Weenie deck with THC, Thalia's Lieutenant, maybe even KCA.
B&W Eldrazi was a tier 2-3 deck in SOI and EDM standard, and BW control often had Eldrazi in the side for some match-ups. Unfortunately, the loss of Caves of Koilos make the mana base much weaker.
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WB Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim | WBR Queen Marchesa | WUBR Breya, Etherium Shaper
Modern:
/ Death and Taxes | W/ Soul Sisters | Spirits | U Faeries | Tempered Steel Affinity
It seems to me that you didn't read my comments on bob, but whatever.
'Your deck' is not everybody else's. Because you call your deck grindy it doesn't mean it's the only grindy deck out there. The very definition of Bob is attrition. Bob has always been a modern and legacy grindy staple and goes in grindy decks. The only grindy deck that stopped playing it in modern is Junk, because they acquired Siege Rhino (a CMC 4) at the same time that the metagame was warped by Treasure Cruise, BGx was outright bad and dropped off the format until not too long ago where Jund just dominated with Lightning Bolt (forcing Junk out of BGx flavor). Now Junk is getting good again, and even more Junk players are slowly coming back to Bob.
If you play Eldrazi taxes that's fine, your curve is a lot higher and there is no point in playing it. In the comment I quoted from you, there isn't anything related to eldrazi. You simply said this:
And that statement, couldn't be more wrong.
And you still have not answered why he'd be worth much in D&T in general. What would you even drop for him? Even then, I'm having a very hard time ever justifying wanting to play him in the early game where we're much more interested in getting the Taxes portion of our deck online. Casting him on Turn 2 instead of Thalia or Arbiter or Sculler and actually getting some disruption going feels rather greedy to our own detriment, to be honest.
WB Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim | WBR Queen Marchesa | WUBR Breya, Etherium Shaper
Modern:
/ Death and Taxes | W/ Soul Sisters | Spirits | U Faeries | Tempered Steel Affinity
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
For those reasons, Dark Confidant has seen some success in WB D&T.
When playing Dark Confidant, the only important number is the expected value of the life loss per turn. In D&T, that number should be less than 2. In fact, Sheepz once designed a list where the average CMC of cards in the deck was 1.3. At that point, Dark Confidant is just a cheaper Phyrexian Arena with legs that swings for two damage each turn. Seems pretty good.
In practice, Confidant plays a lot like Eidolon of the Great Revel does in Burn; yes, the user can expect to take some damage, but as you approach the red zone, you start swinging for two. If your opponent blocks it, then you've drawn some extra cards and it's probably worth it. If your opponent doesn't block it, he or she is basically giving you two free damage per turn. And much like with Eidolon, there is seldom a right answer for your opponent, other than just removing it immediately.
Dark Confidant can be a great card in this deck. Sure, it's not exactly a tax, but it draws you more taxes than you would otherwise be able to see. Not every version of WB D&T wants him, but Dark Confidant isn't a card that should be casually brushed off without proper testing.
WUDeath&TaxesWG
Legacy
UBRGDredgeUBRG
UHigh TideU
URGLandsURG
WR Card Choice List
WUR American D&T
WUB Esper D&T
The Reserved List
Heat Maps
DnT! I'm a power-load
DnT! Watch me Explode
Edit: In another note, I guess that Serra Avenger and the new vehicle are very good card combinations that can end the game quickly and also can grind the game
Edit 2: Can someone teach me how to edit the set of tagged cards? It's not working for me
[CARD=Tarmogoyf|Future Sight]Tarmogoyf[/CARD]
It allows you to differentiate between different printings. For example, here is a Future Sight Tarmogoyf and a MM2015 Tarmogoyf.
By default, if you don't specify a set, it will use the most recent printing of a given card, including promos and masterpieces.
WUDeath&TaxesWG
Legacy
UBRGDredgeUBRG
UHigh TideU
URGLandsURG
WR Card Choice List
WUR American D&T
WUB Esper D&T
The Reserved List
Heat Maps
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
You can be mad at me for pointing out that you made a poor critic of a card all you want, but it won't make your comment right. Bob is awesome in grindy decks. I will not reply anymore to a guy who won't read actual card evaluations and limits to reply quickly to a last post. If you want to see how and when bob was played (and still is) in BW, use the search tool.
If you don't play Eldrazi (and even if you play just TKS and no other drazis) bob is still a fine choice. You claim D&T has no interaction, but it does in 4x Tidehollow Sculler (+4 TKS if you play them) + Path + the taxing. Taxing is interacting, if you haven't noticed by now. Not allowing your opponent from casting their spells efficiently (or not at all in some turns), force them to fall 1-3 turns behind their curve, that is interacting. Efficient threats we -somewhat- do have, though not so many, I'll give you that. Flickerwisp and Mirran Crusader being the most efficient. I agree that you need to revamp the curve if you want to play it, and that's exactly what I've been saying from the start. I choose not to play Eldrazis because you're playing a bad Eldrazi beatdown and a bad Taxing game with a really, really, clunky manabase. I have gotten nothing but good results in eldrazi-less BW TAxes in all my competitive events, even winning a PPTQ (after top8ing all of them). I am never going back to Eldrazis because the pay-off is explosion at the cost of consistence, and that's something I am not into because we're not playing a deck that wants to explode.
But then you're not seeing the full picture. You still haven't answered about playing Thalia GoT on T3 (because you didn't have any T2), is it too late? Is it obsolete? Of course it isn't. But when you do have a Thalia on the board and you drop a Wingmare, things go really bad really quick for your opponents. The same applies to Thalia HC, they complement each other so well. She's also an all star against creature decks. I understand what you're saying and I will also take back all I said about Kambal if it ends up being a poor choice. But knowing my meta and the card potential, I will play 1 main and 1 side.
Explanations about bob have been given since the dawn of modern and the origins of Junk and Jund as we know them in MODERN (not the origins of The Rock). People are -even in 2016- afraid of the life loss that he provides and still fail to understand why or how they lose to him when they decide not to kill him 'because it's doing damage'. I appreciate your efforts in trying to explain it to this community, but Bob has been played in the past and even in the BW D&T from Legacy. Explanations, experience and insight of him are everywhere in the forum. But here, people aren't asking productive questions about bob, they just want to bury it because either don't like it or don't understand it (or both), and that's not the correct way of getting insight about the deck/card.
Bob doesn't want the game to end quickly (at least not most of the time), bob wants to go long and get you as many cards as possible. I do play Kitchen Finks and with the addition of Concealed Courtyard I'm very likely to play 1 4drop in my main and 1 in my side, being it Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet.
BTW, Vigilance and Crew aren't a combo since you have to crew it before declaring attackers.
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Bob is great in D&T because it does what the decks want to do best: grind. When people face D&T they have a very clear vision on what they have to spend their removal on: Thalia, Arbiter, Mindcensor, New Thalia, Tidehollow. Now, the rest of the creatures we play can't just be random value creatures, or dumb beaters, they have to be creatures that strand your opponent's removal. The average control/midrange deck plays about 8/14 removal spells. We play 27/30 creatures, they play 4/15 creatures. The problem begins when their removal keeps us from getting board presence and by the time we get some, they have dropped larger threats. Non taxing creatures need to prevent that from happening.
So, Taxers:
4x Leonin Arbiter
4x Tidehollow Sculler
2x Aven Mindcensor
2x Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1x Vryn Wingmare
That's 17 cards right there.
Now, the rest of the creatures I play are:
4x Flickerwisp
2x Kitchen Finks
1x Brimaz, King of Oreskos
1x Mirran Crusader
That's 12 creatures. Out of those 12 I got 4 meta calls: 2x Kitchen Finks, 1x Brimaz, King of Oreskos and 1x Mirran Crusader. Either the crusader or Brimaz are likely to leave to get Kambal room. Because those cards are purely meta calls (the same as Kambal) although Kambal seems better than any (at this stage).
Then there's the non creatures:
4x Path to Exile
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
Why is bob good in this deck? It provides redundance at no virtual cost, slamming bob means drawing 2 cards a turn. Now, your opponent won't be spending removal tactically on your taxers to let bob live and refill your hand with taxers they won't deal with. The math is very simple 29 Creatures outweigh 14 removal spells. Drawing 2 cards a turn means than this outweigh is happening more often than not. So you have a Thalia and a Bob, what do you kill? Same goes for Bob + Arbiter. Although context is everything, experienced players will alwasys kill bob (as long as they don't need to kill the taxer in order to kill it).
What does mean to draw 2 cards a turn? It means increasing your chances of drawing your 1/2 ofs in the deck that can be vital to win. It also means more land-drops, which is awesome when you're playing a low curve with a low land count and you're drawing 2 cards a turn. Sign me up for that, please!
When I play Death and Taxes, I want to put the entire pressure of the game on my opponent. I want to be dropping creatures that put them in a position where they need to be more than careful to answer the board. All the creautres die to Lightning Bolt, but you can't play 29 bolts and if you did (or kinda do like burn) you wouldn't be pointing them at my creatures. So, my creatures come into the battlefield with a bullseye in their forehead, effectively over-weighing removal. That's why Bob is more important than a Blade Splicer, or a Wasteland Strangler, or a Reality Smasher (which is the clunkiest of all in E&T) or Eldrazi Displacer. I want my cards to be good on their own, not depending on blinking them or having a blink target. I want my cards to strand your cards, that's how I play D&T and that's why Bob is key in my deck for me to do my thing.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
I understand better what you mean and I agree. Although I still believe bob is a key piece in BW D&T (not E&T).
However, a larger portion of players are playing eldrazi and taxes than regular bw D&T, therefore E&T will show better results in a larger scale. But little by little, the number of people playing it to good results is decaying over time. It got hyped, and now it's getting realistic: the deck has mana problems and consistency problems. GW D&T is doing great apparently, they even got 2 GP top8s last Modern GPs.
I don't think you want to compare eldrazis to Nacatls in burn, eldrazis aren't taxing your opponent (at least not as much as non eldrazi cards) and you can't compare beaters with ETBs to Taxers. Nacatl is an aggresive creature that doesn't have haste, but promises a lot of damage over other creatures with haste which aren't as efficient or spells that aren't really stealing the game. I think Eldrazis will be gone in the future from D&T, but of course I can always be wrong.
Okay, seriously now.
I'm not mad and never was. I made a statement, and you said I was wrong, but never explained why. I asked why, and you got all aggressive for absolutely no reason, and told me to read "evaluations" that you, in fact, never actually made. Maybe my assessment was incorrect-- but you completely ignored the rest of what I said, being "unless you have some way to mitigate the losses", and you yourself run Finks for that. So does Junk/Abzan. Jund has Scavenging Ooze. And so on. Unless you build around that, D&T typically doesn't. There was more to what I said and you flew off the handle at the first part of it, which admittedly was a misevaluation on my part-- which would have been just as easily resolved had you considered the fact that, shockingly, it could have been an honest mistake by someone who hasn't actually been playing as long as you, and explained your point instead of acting like the way you did? It's this kind of attitude that drives so many people away from this game, and I honestly feel that it's pretty sad that it's so prevalent.
So step back, untilt yourself, and realize the only one getting mad over nothing here is you.
This was the explanation I wanted and was looking to get when I had asked for it. Thank you for finally making it.
That makes sense and I can see your point. It works, you just need to build your deck around him.
WB Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim | WBR Queen Marchesa | WUBR Breya, Etherium Shaper
Modern:
/ Death and Taxes | W/ Soul Sisters | Spirits | U Faeries | Tempered Steel Affinity
What I said may have been a generalization, but the intent was in context of this thread since, well, it's in this thread. And I already declared my mistake on that. So let's just let this die already and move on.
WB Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim | WBR Queen Marchesa | WUBR Breya, Etherium Shaper
Modern:
/ Death and Taxes | W/ Soul Sisters | Spirits | U Faeries | Tempered Steel Affinity
Favourite Deck: Elves (Modern & Legacy)
Standard: New Perspectives Combo
Modern: GW Hatebears | Death and Taxes | Eldrazi and Taxes | Abzan Liege | Abzan Company
Commander: The Gitrog Monster (Combo) | Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper (Control) | RIP Leovold Sultai (Elvestorm, no unfair locks) | Mono G (Yisan or Titania)
Tiny Leaders: Too many decks to keep track of
Pauper: RIP UR Drake | Mono B | GBx Goodstuff | Jund "Melira"
DnT! I'm a power-load
DnT! Watch me Explode
A DnT deck in standard is not possible in the sense of a Modern or Legacy version. What is possible is a White Weenie deck with THC, Thalia's Lieutenant, maybe even KCA.
B&W Eldrazi was a tier 2-3 deck in SOI and EDM standard, and BW control often had Eldrazi in the side for some match-ups. Unfortunately, the loss of Caves of Koilos make the mana base much weaker.
WBC Eldrazi & Taxes CBW
UR Keep on Cantripin' (UR Phoenix) RU
WU Surprise! It's not UW Control! (UW Midrange) UW
BG The Rock, Straight BG
U Mono-Blue Fish U
RBW Mardu Pyromancer BWR
RG Rabble! Rabble! (GR Blood Moon Aggro) GR
Legacy
W Death & Taxes W