Wellspring is a control deck built out of what appear to be aggro parts. It plays a very reliable tempo game, grinding the opponent's life total down with undercosted fliers, controlling the board with burn spells, which eventually turn to the opponent's face for a kill. The deck has been around for a long time, but had a had time breaking out of Tier 3. The printing of the Refuge lands (e.g. Wind-Scarred Crag) makes three-color decks at least a fringe possibility, and the banning of Cloud of Faeries seems to have put enough of a dent in mono-blue Delver to let this deck leap to the top spot in the metagame.
The core of the deck is a mono-white draw engine coupled to mono-red burn spells. The blue splash seems to be the strongest, but some players have been enjoying a black splash as well.
Basic Strategy
The draw engine that forms the core of this deck is comprised of two parts: Pistons and Birds. Pistons are artifacts that draw you a card when they enter the battlefield; Birds are undercosted fliers with the "drawback" of bouncing an artifact/permanent. "Correct" operation of the deck involves having your birds bounce your pistons; as the pistons go up and down from hand to table, you will always replace your birds with pistons, and your pistons with fresh cards.
Another way to look at it is hand size. Every turn you draw a card and play a land, for 0 net hand size change. If you play a piston, it cantrips, 0 change. If you play a bird, it bounces a piston, 0 change. So you can apply all this pressure in the form of small fliers without actually spending a card. Everything in this deck that costs you a card, ideally, should be a 1-for-1 trade with either an enemy creature or a counterspell.
A snap-keep hand typically includes a piston, a pair of lands that can cast it on turn two, and either a bird or a spot removal, preferably color-matching the mana you're holding. One land can be playable on the draw, if you've got a piston in hand already and a couple of burn spells to stall with.
If you mulligan or play into a situation with no pistons in your hand, or in play, or in the bin with recursion options in hand, the deck gets much weaker. Depending on the precise build of your deck and the opponent, it may be plausible to sit patiently with instants up and wait for a piston to appear; or you may be obligated to play birds by bouncing lands to get a presence on the board.
The Boros version has a hard time regrowing its hand, and is more likely to be forced to play aggressively.
The Jeskai version is almost exclusively using blue mana to include Mulldrifter, which gives it a much stronger long game, since it now has a way to regrow its hand size.
Core Engine Cards
These comprise the core functionality of the deck. You want 8-9 pistons and the full 8 birds.
Pistons: Prophetic Prism - Besides running our engines, these lend a level of color-fluidity to the deck that it couldn't otherwise have.
Ichor Wellspring - They don't DO much, exactly, but they run the engine nicely, and they sacrifice nicely, which gives us some interesting options.
Elsewhere Flask - This one only shows up as piston #9, and only in the Boros version, which has such a hard time functioning without a piston.
Birds: Glint Hawk - Slightly lower toughness, slightly harder to use in aggro mode. Still solid, and a mandatory 4-of.
Kor Skyfisher - The 3 points of toughness gives this one the edge; it can gang-block a 4/4 and trade 1-for-1 with it, which is a good play that you should make when you can.
Engine Grease
These aren't part of the main mechanism of the deck, but they help keep it moving, letting you adjust your access to resources as the game progresses.
Spells: Remember the Fallen - This is the only way the Boros version can increase its hand size. It's quite good at that, but not good enough to be played in Mardu or Jeskai.
Read the Bones - This is a powerful reason to be in Mardu. You can only run two or three of them, because three mana and two life are kind of awkward, but the dig-and-draw effect is very powerful for cutting through the middle-late game.
Faithless Looting - A very solid role-player in the Boros version, but generally as a 2-of; they drop your hand size by one on the first cast, and you need two cards you won't miss before you can cast it for full value. Good synergy with Remember the Fallen.
Kuldotha Rebirth - Kind of an odd fit, but it gives you an Atog-like outlet for your extra artifacts, a way to kill your Ichor Wellspring, and three 1/1 bodies that are tricky for the opponent to remove without wasting cards.
Origin Spellbomb - A versatile role-player, but generally only seen in the Boros version.
Land: Ancient Den/Great Furnace - Colored artifact lands are broken. The red and white ones are mandatory 4-ofs; the Jeskai version generally doesn't bother with Seat of the Synod, but the Mardu version will usually run 4-of Vault of Whispers, because of their increased dependence on metalcraft.
Wind-Scarred Crag - The Refuge lands are big game in this deck. The incidental lifegain and color-flexibility offset the tempo loss just enough to let us use these and play three colors. Most Mardu and Jeskai builds will have 9-10 of these in various combinations. The Boros build should have 4.
Forgotten Cave/Secluded Steppe - Given that your mana base skews heavily towards red and white, and given that you aren't likely to have much mana up, these guys are the only cycling lands you want to play. If you have the extra colored mana to cycle them out, then it's probably a good time to do so.
Boros Garrison - Occasionally relevant as a 1-of, maybe 2. Lets you replay a Refuge or pick up a cycling land to cycle it off.
Mortuary Mire - I haven't gotten to try it yet, but this seems like a good addition to the Mardu list, which relies much more on specific threat creatures than Boros or Jeskai.
Removal
Alright, so you've got four power in the air and six cards in hand; now you need to keep your opponent off the table long enough to win. From your copious draws, trade 1-for-1 with anything and everything they play.
The burn spells are actually a core element of the strategy; besides being efficient and flexible creature-kill, they can also be aimed directly at the opponent to close out a game quickly.
Galvanic Blast - There's not a lot of relevant creatures, especially turn 1, with exactly 3 toughness, so Galvanic Blast is usually fine as a defense for your opening, and it obviously gets much better once your engine is running and artifacts are flowing freely. Burn kills against slower decks are a real possibility.
Firebolt - A solid 1- or 2-of, though it's outclassed by Chainer's Edict in the Mardu version.
Journey to Nowhere - It's clunky, but it's about the only cost-effective answer we have for toughnesses greater than 4, and it trumps recursion. It's especially relevant against Apostle's Blessing, since the rest of your removal is red.
Chainer's Edict - This is a fantastic card, and a great addition to the Pauper format. It's easily maindeckable as 2-of in the Mardu list.
Noncreature: Kor Sanctifiers - These were popular in the Boros build, 1- or 2-of in the maindeck. They make a good soft spot for sideboarding; they're relevant in lots of matchups against stuff like Oubliette; they can break your own Ichor Wellspring; and in a pinch, a 2/3 body for 3 isn't terrible.
Oblivion Ring - This seems to go around as about a 1-of in every variation of the maindeck. It's very versatile, but usually boards out for something more specifically relevant.
Finishers
Because this deck tends to play longer games, it's usually built with some 4- or 5-drop creatures to help close the game in one way or another.
Guardian of the Guildpact - My personal favorite for the Boros deck, the Guardian is nearly unkillable and unblockable, giving you lots of inevitable pressure to play with. He's weak to Monoblack, Affinity, and any of the various hybrid/gold removals that might be run.
Sanctum Gargoyle - This one's better against Monoblack, and better in the Boros build, where you can feed him with looting. He can loop with a copy of himself in the graveyard to make sure you never run out of creatures. He's lost a lot of standing since Gurmag Angler and Sultai Scavenger have everyone loaded up on graveyard hate.
Seraph of Dawn - This one is very nice against burn specifically - they can't kill it easily, or block it, and the lifegain will really help turn the game around.
Cenn's Enlistment - Another option for Boros, this gets slightly better in the splashed builds, where you're more likely to have a hand full of unnecessary lands.
Mulldrifter - The Jeskai build's main payoff. He is a mandatory 4-of with the blue splash. He joins your armada of flying bears as the late game begins, and he regrows your shrinking hand after you've been spending cards killing things.
Bleak Coven Vampires - The Mardu build's main payoff. He increases your reliance on metalcraft substantially, and he doesn't replace himself as a draw; the four lifedrain is wonderfully punchy and as a 4/3, he will almost certainly trade for an enemy card. 3-of is plenty.
Sideboard
This advice is outdated. I just want to point out that Lone Missionary is good enough right now to see maindeck play in the Jeskai build.
Against Goblins, Elves, Slivers, and Stompy, you want Electrickery and/or Krark-Clan Shaman. The former seems more popular, perhaps due to incidental use against Spellstutter Sprite. The latter, if used, has to completely replace Kuldotha Rebirth due to intense anti-synergy.
Against Affinity and the mirror, you want Ancient Grudge; the flashback cost is fairly easy to hit with Prophetic Prism. Gorilla Shaman can also be relevant, more against Affinity than anything else.
Pyroblast was big game against Post, and it may still matter against Tron, but mostly you want it against Dragonaut and Delver. Against Dragonaut, it's another cheap instant that can kill Nivix Cyclops; against Delver it's insurance against getting your pistons countered.
Runes of Protection would be nice, but we can't count on having the deep necessary to rely on them. We draw cards fast enough to get away with boarding 1-2 Circle of Protection as needed.
Circle of Protection: Black will render MBC largely toothless, and thus susceptible to being burned out. Note that Corrupt does nothing if the damage is prevented.
Standard Bearer is also a reasonable board against Dragonaut; they have to draw some fairly specific cards to be able to go off once you have Standard Bearer on the table.
Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
are the backbone of the deck but land count, and roughly 10 remaining card spots remain up for discussion in my mind.
In my limited recent testing there are a ton of black decks in the casual rooms and I can definitely back up the idea that Sanctum Gargoyle is a beast against them.
This was a private message to LordSaturn and Dromar the Banisher on this deck before Saturn got this thread written out.
I'd love to read both of you gentleman's thoughts on boros kitty. Also, I've been mildly playing around with 4 Sanctum Gargoyle and 3 Perilous Myr in my 75 since I've been running into black deck after black deck.
My thoughts are that;
Two Sanctum Gargoyle equal one in play every turn in spite of removal and they block all of mbc's creatures very well.
Perilous Myr potentially turns removal effects into a two for one for me if they have anything on the table.
One buys back the other and I'm still rocking 2 Remember the Fallen main deck.
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I really didn't have a better idea on what to replace the land destruction with and as far as where did I find the space... well I still never bit the bullet on a playset of Pyroblast so I have room you two probably don't have. Other than "Buy Pyroblast", I'd love to know both of your thoughts on this but didn't want to derail the orzhov discussion nor resurrect the old thread if one of you write up a primer on it.
I know my mana base is a wreck since I haven't adjusted it since I started playing with the card choices again recently but between the draw and the fixing of prophetic prism I haven't had a struggle.
I've been mildly playing around with [...] 3 Perilous Myr in my 75 since I've been running into black deck after black deck. Perilous Myr potentially turns removal effects into a two for one for me if they have anything on the table.
I am a fan of Perilous Myr; he crumples the ground-pounder aggro decks pretty fiercely, and is good with a sac outlet; you can KDR him into a flipped Delver and get a guaranteed kill.
For the first draft I only covered cards people have had in the 3-1 and 4-0 listings, though.
I really didn't have a better idea on what to replace the land destruction with and as far as where did I find the space... well I still never bit the bullet on a playset of Pyroblast so I have room you two probably don't have. Other than "Buy Pyroblast", I'd love to know both of your thoughts on this but didn't want to derail the orzhov discussion nor resurrect the old thread if one of you write up a primer on it.
Pyroblast was really, really good against 8Post, allowing us to throttle their draw while we clubbed them out. It's solid against Delver, since getting all our pistons countered effectively kills us, but you can get around Delver in other ways, i.e. burn spells.
So my sideboard is clearly out of date. I'm definitely losing the LD, and I'm probably grabbing some various Circles of Protection. I continue to not really know where the metagame is headed, but we have SO many excellent options.
I also probably want to ditch the Secluded Steppe in favor of a Boros Garrison, but that's kind of a marginal improvement. The Prophetic Prism definitely makes it easier to dodge color-screw.
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
Worth noting that COP black does nothing vs. Gray Merchant, and is pretty sub par vs. Crypt Rats unless you have a LOT of mana open. (since they can pulse it out one point at a time).
I wouldn't run any fewer than 3 copies and I still like having the full 4 quite a bit despite two blue decks dying in the bans since Delver and Cyclops/Fiend are still two of the most popular decks out there and MUC is on the upswing.
The lack of Origin Spellbomb in this thread is a pretty big oversight I think. I'm not running 4 copies of that card just to be cute, it actually does a lot for the deck:
-another turn 1 play. Pauper is a fast format and passing the first turn without doing anything is pretty poor.
-another card that synergizes well with Kuldotha Rebirth (you can sacrifice it and still pay the white to draw a card, effectively making it function as another Wellspring in play)
-adds to your artifact count for Galvanic Blast
-smooths out your draws by letting you see more cards over the course of a game
-another cheap artifact for Glint Hawk to bounce (obviously not ideal but there are times where you just need to get a Glint Hawk in play and being able to bounce this and replay it cheaply is reasonable)
-Gives you virtual lifegain against decks like Affinity and can also let you trade a Lightning Bolt up for one of their 4/4s
-protects your important creatures from edict effects against MBC
Nevermind when you get to actually trade the Myr token straight-up for a real card, then you're just way ahead. Now all that being said, 4 might not be the exact correct number, however I think you want at least 2, and probably 3. I might try cutting the 4th and putting back in the 4th Wellspring.
Some other thoughts:
-Faithless Looting is a much better draw engine in this deck than Remember the Fallen, I'd flip those ratings around personally. I've mostly settled on 3 Looting since I want to draw a copy pretty much every game. The problem with Remember the Fallen is not only that it's slow but also that it can't ever dig you into immediate removal like Looting or a flashback Looting can. At best it gives you the roundabout return a Wellspring/Prism that ended up in the bin and then 5 mana later you might find the removal you need.
-Krark-Clan Shaman sucks in this deck. I tried it out when I first picked the deck up and it never really does what you need it to do. It's also useless against Delver where Electrickery is actually fairly decent.
-Maindeck Kor Sanctifiers is a really nice out to problem cards and at worst he can usually cantrip off of a Wellspring (or get pitched to Faithless Looting). I'm also a fan of a singleton Oblivion Ring in the main, but depending on the meta I could see something like a Pillar of Flame/Magma Spray/Electrickery perhaps being more useful in that slot.
-As far as a 4 drop with inevitability, I've never really found it necessary - I always find ways to win be it pecking away with flyers and 1/1 tokens or burning my opponent out. The deck doesn't have that much trouble winning once its established control of the board. If you really want one though I'd probably favor the Gargoyle just because it's better against MBC than Guardian of the Guildpact is.
-Patrician's Scorn vs Leave No Trace - I find you usually want to board out your Journeys against the decks you want Scorn against anyways so I tend to favor Scorn.
-I vastly prefer Gorilla Shaman to Ancient Grudge for the Affinity matchup, though part of that is because I already run 2 Kor Sanctifiers maindeck. This deck is able to get a lot of mana out though and it's not uncommon for Shaman to be an immediate one-sided Armageddon against Affinity. Atog-Fling is one of the ways Affinity beats us so being able to take that out away by taking out so many of their resources is quite useful.
-The other problem with COP: Black is you still need a way to actually kill your MBC opponent. I find I'm often drawing a lot more cards than they are too so decking them isn't an option. One sideboard I saw had Curse of the Pierced Heart alongside the COPs, and I'm assuming that's what their particular plan was against MBC (board in COP, win with Curse which MBC can never kill). Haven't tried this out in practice though and also not really interested in dedicating that many sideboard slots to MBC anyways. Burning them out might work but you have to watch out for Tendrils of Corruption lifegain, and if you don't find the COP fast enough you might be forced to chuck burn at creatures or lose it to discard.
-Never played with Perilous Myr in this deck, but not sure how much I like it in a deck that can't keep recurring it for value like Tortured Existence decks do and only has one way to sacrifice it.
-Standard Bearer is certainly a reasonable sideboard for this deck. I run 2 myself for the Stompy and Hexproof matchups, you can also bring them in against Cyclops/Fiend if you have the space (forces them to have a kill spell for the Bearer before they're able to combo off with Artful Dodge and Assault Strobe).
I wouldn't run any fewer than 3 copies and I still like having the full 4 quite a bit despite two blue decks dying in the bans since Delver and Cyclops/Fiend are still two of the most popular decks out there and MUC is on the upswing.
Yeah, I forgot about Dragonaut. If you're trying to go without Pyroblast, you need to have another out to Nivix Cyclops. Going up to the full 4 Journey to Nowhere is a possibility.
The lack of Origin Spellbomb in this thread is a pretty big oversight I think.
Let's be fair; you are literally the only person winning with those so far. That isn't to say they're bad, just that I'm not sure how to evaluate them yet, having not even tried them myself. What section would you add them under? What rating would you give them?
Faithless Looting is a much better draw engine in this deck than Remember the Fallen, I'd flip those ratings around personally. I've mostly settled on 3 Looting since I want to draw a copy pretty much every game. The problem with Remember the Fallen is not only that it's slow but also that it can't ever dig you into immediate removal like Looting or a flashback Looting can. At best it gives you the roundabout return a Wellspring/Prism that ended up in the bin and then 5 mana later you might find the removal you need.
Conversely, my problem with Faithless Looting is that if you topdeck one into an empty hand, it is a literal blank. Also, pitching one Looting to the other is kind of crappy, especially if your opponent is playing some graveyard hate. Graveyard hate is (I expect) going to become more and more prevalent as control decks try to play the long game that suddenly exists.
Krark-Clan Shaman sucks in this deck. I tried it out when I first picked the deck up and it never really does what you need it to do. It's also useless against Delver where Electrickery is actually fairly decent.
I've seen the opposite - when I bring in the Krark-Clan Shaman, it's because he can do stuff like wipe out a bunch of 3/3 slivers or 2/2 goblins; meanwhile I've rarely seen a Delver deck with enough Faeries to make Electrickery worth it, as opposed to just Lightning Bolting or Pyroblasting a random Faerie to make Spellstutter Sprite not work.
As far as a 4 drop with inevitability, I've never really found it necessary - I always find ways to win be it pecking away with flyers and 1/1 tokens or burning my opponent out. The deck doesn't have that much trouble winning once its established control of the board. If you really want one though I'd probably favor the Gargoyle just because it's better against MBC than Guardian of the Guildpact is.
This is going to depend heavily on what kind of control decks wind up taking over. For now, the Sanctum Gargoyle is definitely favored, since most control is MBC or similar-to-MBC.
I vastly prefer Gorilla Shaman to Ancient Grudge for the Affinity matchup, though part of that is because I already run 2 Kor Sanctifiers maindeck. This deck is able to get a lot of mana out though and it's not uncommon for Shaman to be an immediate one-sided Armageddon against Affinity. Atog-Fling is one of the ways Affinity beats us so being able to take that out away by taking out so many of their resources is quite useful.
I've actually tried Gorilla Shaman; I'm not a huge fan. About the only thing he can destroy in a timely fashion is artifact lands; this is generally a very unreliable strategy against Affinity, which can trump your Mox Monkey with a single red source and then resume not paying mana for anything.
When I'm trying to hold back Atog-Fling, I find the simplest thing to do is aim burn spells at the Atog on my own turn, which combines with Ancient Grudge against his artifact creatures to heavily pressure his card count. If he doesn't have the Fling already in hand, you can do cute stuff like burn-burn-Journey to Nowhere and just basically shred him to bits. If he does have the Fling already in hand, then either you were already dead, or he has to decide whether to spend it on a nonlethal burn, which is a reasonably bad thing for him to be doing.
If you really, really hate Fling, try Dawn Charm. Affinity players hateDawn Charm. It has some incidental uses against MBC and Dragonaut, too.
The other problem with COP: Black is you still need a way to actually kill your MBC opponent. I find I'm often drawing a lot more cards than they are too so decking them isn't an option. One sideboard I saw had Curse of the Pierced Heart alongside the COPs, and I'm assuming that's what their particular plan was against MBC (board in COP, win with Curse which MBC can never kill). Haven't tried this out in practice though and also not really interested in dedicating that many sideboard slots to MBC anyways. Burning them out might work but you have to watch out for Tendrils of Corruption lifegain, and if you don't find the COP fast enough you might be forced to chuck burn at creatures or lose it to discard.
Yeah, I included it for completeness more than anything else. Playing against MBC is just a learned skill, there's lots you can do to mitigate risk and maximize opportunity. Circle of Protection: Black just makes it really hard for them to win.
Never played with Perilous Myr in this deck, but not sure how much I like it in a deck that can't keep recurring it for value like Tortured Existence decks do and only has one way to sacrifice it.
My main experience with Perilous Myr was in a deck where he combined with Atog and Unearth to shred blockers while pumping the Atog. He is definitely a tough thing for ground-pounding aggro decks to attack into, but those may not be prevalent at the moment.
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
Let's be fair; you are literally the only person winning with those so far. That isn't to say they're bad, just that I'm not sure how to evaluate them yet, having not even tried them myself. What section would you add them under? What rating would you give them?
I just feel like more people need to adopt this card. I know it looks bad on paper but it's actually a very good role player in this deck, as I mentioned it does a lot of useful things. I'd probably add it under "engine grease" as for rating, probably 3ish.
Conversely, my problem with Faithless Looting is that if you topdeck one into an empty hand, it is a literal blank. Also, pitching one Looting to the other is kind of crappy, especially if your opponent is playing some graveyard hate. Graveyard hate is (I expect) going to become more and more prevalent as control decks try to play the long game that suddenly exists.
The first is a non-issue against most decks other than MBC since you are easily be able to sandbag extra lands in anticipation of drawing Looting. Against MBC you don't really want to sandbag lands because you'll probably get Chittering Rats'd out of the game. The 2nd issue you bring up again only really arises against MBC decks that run Bojuka Bog. Few other decks are running graveyard hate (and if they do it has a pretty negligible effect against this deck anyways, especially a version like mine that has only Faithless Looting that cares about the graveyard). I don't think pitching a Faithless Looting to Faithless Looting is as bad as you make it out to be either. Sometimes you end up with two early and just really need more business spells or lands and the fact that you can pitch it and still potentially get some value out of it later actually makes it an appealing card to discard in those scenarios.
I've seen the opposite - when I bring in the Krark-Clan Shaman, it's because he can do stuff like wipe out a bunch of 3/3 slivers or 2/2 goblins; meanwhile I've rarely seen a Delver deck with enough Faeries to make Electrickery worth it, as opposed to just Lightning Bolting or Pyroblasting a random Faerie to make Spellstutter Sprite not work.
The problem is that this deck doesn't have nearly the artifact count that Affinity does which can make the Shaman really awkward at times. Also sacrificing either your lands or any of your cantrip artifacts can make any future Glint Hawks or Skyfishers lose their effectiveness. Slivers is also not a very popular deck and neither is Goblins of late. Electrickery is useful against Delver because you really just want all the removal you can get against them. You'd rather not have to waste your Galvanic Blasts or Journeys on their Faeries if you can't get a Glint Hawk/Skyfisher to resolve and Electrickery is an efficient way to deal with one or more Faeries if they put you on the backfoot. The fact that it gives you another answer to turn 1 Delver is pretty nice too (not that we don't have a lot of those already, but every bit helps).
This is going to depend heavily on what kind of control decks wind up taking over. For now, the Sanctum Gargoyle is definitely favored, since most control is MBC or similar-to-MBC.
Guardian is probably better or equally good against most other decks in the format right now (other than Delver since all their guys fly) but yeah control matchups are the only time you should really care about this I think.
I've actually tried Gorilla Shaman; I'm not a huge fan. About the only thing he can destroy in a timely fashion is artifact lands; this is generally a very unreliable strategy against Affinity, which can trump your Mox Monkey with a single red source and then resume not paying mana for anything.
I don't see how this is at all unreliable. Even if they have the Galvanic Blast to kill your Shaman if you still took down most of their lands in the process that's still a considerable setback for them (either via color screw or restricting how many spells they can actually play in a turn and reducing Atog's food reserve). Yes if they have a bunch of creatures in play it might not matter that they have no land, but this is a deck running a lot of removal so ideally they shouldn't be getting an overwhelming board presence anyways. I'd say 9 times out of 10 when you play Gorilla Shaman against them you win.
When I'm trying to hold back Atog-Fling, I find the simplest thing to do is aim burn spells at the Atog on my own turn, which combines with Ancient Grudge against his artifact creatures to heavily pressure his card count. If he doesn't have the Fling already in hand, you can do cute stuff like burn-burn-Journey to Nowhere and just basically shred him to bits. If he does have the Fling already in hand, then either you were already dead, or he has to decide whether to spend it on a nonlethal burn, which is a reasonably bad thing for him to be doing.
Now you're just trading your Bolts for whatever artifact they value the least though, that's not really ideal. Blast is a bit better (and I do like to aim this at Atog myself from time to time to either 2-for-1 or force them to let it die) but sometimes you need to save that for the more immediate threat of an Enforcer or Forger. They also might have Chromatic Stars in play which are often free sacrifices for Atog anyways. Fling also isn't the only way an Atog can burn you out - they have 4 Disciples too and dropping one at any point in time can mean death out of nowhere. Shaman blowing up a lot of their resources reduces the likelihood of this.
My main experience with Perilous Myr was in a deck where he combined with Atog and Unearth to shred blockers while pumping the Atog. He is definitely a tough thing for ground-pounding aggro decks to attack into, but those may not be prevalent at the moment.
You're right they're not really prevalent lately. Slivers is a rogue deck at best, Goblins hardly sees play, and even Stompy has been on the decline lately. Affinity is about on the same level of popularity as Stompy lately and the Myr is probably worse against them than it is against the other decks mentioned since it can't kill a 4/4. Might be something to keep in mind if the meta shifts though.
elsewhere flask has only ever been ran as a 1x and is terrible, no really use for its ability beyond draw and you can do something better like spellbomb
I posted this in two places due to relevance. If that is an issue feel free to remove one.
Dromar,
The overall consensus among speaking to many top Pauper players is that the stock list is rather poor. However, you have had a lot of success with your version and that certainly deserves recognition. You have certainly provided lengthy worthwhile feedback and reasoning for your deck choices and for the suboptimal choices of the other lists.
For reference there are two distinct versions on MTGGoldfish, which along with Alex Ullman's Facebook page are clearly the best place to find information on the new metagame.
When it comes to the format and specific decks it is best to follow the top pilots and authorities on the format and decks. Experience and results are what counts. Thanks again Dromar for all your efforts here, on our site and in the Daily Events.
I posted this in two places due to relevance. If that is an issue feel free to remove one.
Dromar,
The overall consensus among speaking to many top Pauper players is that the stock list is rather poor. However, you have had a lot of success with your version and that certainly deserves recognition. You have certainly provided lengthy worthwhile feedback and reasoning for your deck choices and for the suboptimal choices of the other lists.
For reference there are two distinct versions on MTGGoldfish, which along with Alex Ullman's Facebook page are clearly the best place to find information on the new metagame.
When it comes to the format and specific decks it is best to follow the top pilots and authorities on the format and decks. Experience and results are what counts. Thanks again Dromar for all your efforts here, on our site and in the Daily Events.
Eric
Thanks for the kind words Eric. Like I said to you a few days ago I have tuned my list a lot from the stock builds to get it somewhere that I felt it was competitive with most of the field. The one sticking point was always that no matter what I did the Post matchups were really bad in the pre-bans meta so it wasn't until Post got the axe that I felt it was worthwhile to start taking the deck into DEs. I'm always happy to share my findings with other players.
Having just watched a certain match on stream, what do you think of Celestial Flare? Would give an out to the hexproof nut draw without being dead against most other decks. Probably too clunky.
I've been updating the OP as we discuss. Celestial Flare certainly seems worth a mention as a sideboard choice - we have loads of options for enchantment hate, but that's a lot narrower than "slightly lame 1-for-1 removal that happens to kill a hexproofer".
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
Having just watched a certain match on stream, what do you think of Celestial Flare? Would give an out to the hexproof nut draw without being dead against most other decks. Probably too clunky.
Game 1 is pretty miserable for us vs Hexproof, even my list that runs 2 Sanctifiers and an O-ring main, some lists have even less to interact with them game 1. I bring in over half my board against them (3x Electrickery, 2x Standard Bearer, 1x Disenchant, 2x Patrician's Scorn) but some of those cards are lot less useful if you don't draw them in a timely fashion (Electrickery and Standard Bearer don't help you much if they already have a large creature). For some reason I've been paired against 3 Hexproof decks in the last 2 DEs I've entered which is probably somewhat on the unlucky side since I don't think it's that popular of a deck.
I'm intrigued by the idea of Celestial Flare though. Not really sold on it maindeck but it's pretty reasonable against Hexproof and also has uses against Cyclops/Fiend as well. The biggest strike against it is the mana cost of course but it might still be workable. I'll probably try a couple out myself and see.
am i missing something, or why is nobody running cop: green in the sideboard against hexproof?
I haven't played enough with this deck to make a final judgement on the MU, but it seems to me that all the other cards for the MU (Scorn, etc) just do nothing than delaing your eventuall death by a bit, as you can't race them effectivly.
Cop green on the other hand could shut of the deck completle, and most lists don't seem to have enchantment remvoal in the sideboard.
If anyone is curious, what i think about the deck so far.
I picked the deck up only last week because i didn't know what else to play in a constantly shifting metagame.
This deck is great fun to play, but it "suffers" from the Rock Problem that you have no really bad MUs (at least against the topdecks) but you also have no autowins.
If you like attriton wars go for it, otherwise this is probably not the deck for you ^^
It's mentioned in the primer but it's an incredibly narrrow card and Hexproof isn't a very common matchup right now anyways. The only other decks you might get some use for it against are Stompy and Slivers, and both of those decks can
a) swarm you, making it difficult to hold up enough mana to stop all their guys with while still developing your own board, and
b) blow it up with the Gleeful Sabotages they're already bringing in against you anyways
I do agree it's probably the single best card for beating Hexproof but the deck is like what, 2-3% of the metagame right now? You're much better off playing cards that have uses in other matchups like Celestial Flare (also strong vs Cyclops/Fiend and passable against most other aggro) and Kor Sanctifiers.
I tend to agree with your last point - the deck has few auto-wins, you really do have to work for it each and every match. It offers so many decision-trees and so many long games though that there is a lot of room for a capable pilot to maneuver themselves into winning positions which is probably what I most enjoy about playing it.
If you needed to beat Post, you had 4 Molten Rain and 1 Earth Rift on your sideboard, and you mulled aggressively toward those. I'm not sure that works against Tron, but it's what I'd try.
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
Land destruction can help against Tron but they're much more committed to finding their Tron lands than most Post decks were to finding their Posts so it's not nearly as effective I find. You blow up one of their lands and they often have another Expedition Map or Ancient Stirrings waiting in the wings to find a replacement. Really you just have to go aggro on them. And not just normal aggro, but psychotic aggro (this is one of the rare cicrcumstances I would say going turn 1 Great Furnace -> Kuldotha Rebirth is actually reasonable). You need to deploy your creatures as fast you can here, don't worry about cantripping each Glint Hawk/Skyfisher off a Prism because you're just giving them too much time if you do.
Traitorous Blood may or may not be a better option than land destruction (can't say I've tried it) but it only seems particularly great against Crusher. If they have Fangren Marauder sticking around then they probably already gained a bunch of life off of it anyways so lava axing them doesn't accomplish much. They also kill with Rolling Thunder a non-zero amount of the time too and Traitorous Blood doesn't do anything against that win condition. All-in-all it should be a pretty bad matchup though.
The options just aren't good. Given that they're built to go over the top of anything with absurd piles of mana and the Fangren Marauder combo, you can:
1) Go over the top of them anyway. Not realistic.
2) Attack their hand. Not in these colors, and it's pretty hard to splash in this deck.
3) Attack their combo. This mostly involves having enough artifact hate to keep their Fangren Marauder from having anything around to trigger from once it arrives. Probably this doesn't work, since their artifacts all cantrip.
4) Attack their mana base. Possible, but expensive. You could kill four Cloudpost and be done crushing the mana machine; Tron is a lot harder to crumple.
5) Aggro out. Possible; mull and play yourself as an aggressive deck. Depends on drawing the right half of your deck, and they will be prepared to fight this.
Traitorous Blood slots in under #5; as soon as they get their brick wall up, steal it and swing for lethal. It's almost not worth casting unless it can kill them immediately.
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
So since the Tron matchup is so bad is there even any point devoting sb-slots to it? If you have the space then I guess it's fine, but I myself would rather reinforce other matchups instead.
And is it worth bringing in Lone Missionary vs Tron, taking out some of the durdlier cards, just based on that it is more aggro (kind of).
I saw a 4-0 list that ran 2 Goblin Bushwhacker in the maindeck (seems wrong), and that card could possibly be good vs Tron when your planning to beat them down as fast as possible.
Yeah if you have them it's probably worth bringing in Lone Missionaries just so you have more creatures to beat down with. He's pretty bad against turn 3 Sea-Gate Oracle but you can't afford to just sit there and do nothing if you have any hope of winning.
Running Bushwhacker in this deck seems really bad to me since you just don't have enough creatures to support it. Obviously the guy wants to combo it with Kuldotha Rebirth, but if you don't draw a Kuldotha Rebirth it's pretty much a stone blank. Of course Tron might be one exception where it's okay but in every other matchup it seems awful.
I'm looking to take this deck to my paper pauper group and have a few questions before I take it out for a spin.
Kudoltha Rebirth: It seems to me that the only way to really profit from this card is if you use it on Wellspring, and this assumes you have another piston ready in case you top deck a bird. I suppose just getting 3 power for 1 mana and killing a redundant artifact is pretty good too, but if a non-piston artifact is to be redundant, we're looking at an artifact land and five land drops at least before you can use it. It just seems like you'd be sitting with a KDR in your hand for a long time before being able to use it advantageously - not to mention getting two of them.
Sanctum Gargoyle: This card seems even more convoluted than KDR, in fact assuming that the conditions for KDR use have been met and that one was indeed used to send a Wellspring (ideally) to the grave. Even under such ideal circumstances, it's still no better than a Kor Skyfisher for 4 mana rather than 2, though it probably doesn't matter much at that point in the game. The primer states it's used to return something you discarded (to Looting I assume?), but also says you should never discard a piston (obviously), leaving artifact lands the only realistic option - and how useful is that when you already have 4 mana to play the gargoyle? If the two copies are intended to recur each other, well, I did some hypergeometric distributions on that and... if you see 30 cards (half your deck) in a game, you're still only 25% likely to draw 2 out of 2 gargoyles. If you see 75% of your deck (45 cards), the chance climbs to 56%. So I just wanted to confirm that the purpose of this card is to have birds 9-10 for 4 mana under ideal circumstances. Or am I missing something?
It seems to me that to make running KDR and Gargoyle somewhat more reliable, you really NEED to run some number of Origen Spellbomb and/or Perilous Myr. For lists not running either but insisting on Gargoyle, how often is gargoyle just a 2/3 flyer for 4 for you?
Here are a few cards I haven't seen mentioned but that I thought could be interesting and would like your opinion on:
Hobble: I'm considering this as a 1-2 of over Journey. It's a bad piston with Kor Skyfisher that helps you draw into better pistons/removal (filling the role of the 1-2 flasks in previous lists). Since you mostly have fliers, using this on a big ground target is often equal to Journey. If you consider that the mana cost is equal to Journey + Looting but that it sets you back 0 cards rather than potentially 2 cards, I think it's pretty interesting whether you need it as a piston or not.
Manamorphose: The deck is based around assembling a bird/piston combo, and only so many cards are available to us. This would make the mana base even more stable (permitting room for more Forgotten Cave for instance) while letting you draw into the engine more readily, without having to run more than the typical 2-of Looting. The only downside is slightly more difficult mull decisions.
Flame Jab and Cenn's Enlistment: Since we're running burn and token producers already, and we're drawing lots of cards leading to occasional mana floods, AND we want to discard profitably to Looting whenever possible, wouldn't retrace make sense? I think both as 1-ofs to round out removal and KDR packages could be really spiffy.
Looking forward to your comments!
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You've got the right basic ideas; KDR is useful for squeezing value out of something that would otherwise be useless. The goblin tokens are of varying use as chumps or attackers, depending on the matchup, and in some metas you may not want the goblins, and thus KDR, at all.
The main thing you return from Sanctum Gargoyle is another Sanctum Gargoyle. This means, as you determined, running more than two of them. I will update the primer to make this more clear.
EDIT: I ran my own stats on getting 2 gargoyles within N cards:
total copies | odds in 30 | odds in 45
---------------------------------------
2 | 24.6% | 55.9%
3 | 50.0% | 84.9%
4 | 69.4% | 95.5%
This indicates to me that 3 gargoyles is basically the sweet spot, though if you had a build with lots of added value like Origin Spellbomb, 4 would not be incorrect.
By "something you discarded" I mean "something monoblack made you discard" generally. I don't know about never discarding a piston, there are situations where that's the right call. The main thing is to always have access to a piston, so you can keep running out birds profitably.
Origin Spellbomb was a strong favorite of at least one pilot (was it Dromar?) and I personally have a variant that runs Perilous Myr. The former is a solid choice, but never much suited my playstyle; the latter competes for the all-important slot.
For lists not running either but insisting on Gargoyle, how often is gargoyle just a 2/3 flyer for 4 for you?
This deck fell out of favor pretty hard with the rise of Gray Merchant of Asphodel, so "lists [doing X]" is an empty set. No pistons/birds strategy can reasonably fight the current monoblack lists.
Hobble is better than Elsewhere Flask as a card, but worse as a piston; you only get eight birds, and I'd rather be sure they all cantrip as often as possible.
Also, if you've got something horrible Hobbled, but it's your only piston, you're likely to want to recast it immediately, which will limit your other options. One of the strongest plays this deck can make is to drop the same piston 2-3 times in a single turn, and Hobble is bad at that.
Hobble is strongly worse than Journey to Nowhere. Atog alone is reason enough to want Journey, and Fangren Marauder is another excellent reason. Hobble also doesn't run down black devotion at all, which matters frequently. Consider carefully what creatures you encounter in your metagame and what they can do without attacking/blocking you.
I feel like the impact on your mulligans - which are very important, this deck is consistent but tempo-sensitive - is much greater than the value gained from thinning your deck by four cards.
Also, it's creates a huge weakness against Delver, who can Dispel or Hydroblast it. This deck really doesn't have enough color trouble to need Manamorphose.
These are interesting additions, but I am skeptical. It's not like we have much access to discarded land, or nearly any way to gain card advantage - everything we do other than Remember the Fallen is at card parity or worse, so once we go down to topdeck mode, we mostly stay there.
I might like Cenn's Enlistment as a 2-of finisher, particularly to play fair with the Standard decks I usually play against - most of them really can't fight a Guardian of the Guildpact at all.
FWIW, I never played in a daily and I will never play in an 8-man. I'm just a thoughtful student of strategy, with plenty of experience operating the deck in casual environments.
Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
Thanks for the replies! I agree with most of them. I just don't think Gargoyle is good enough to run at all if the first one doesn't have a tempting target. He'd probably be better in a white weenie list running Porcelain Legionnaire and Razor Golem (and possibly Court Homunculus too).
I agree that Hobble is probably a bad choice in an on-line meta. I play mostly paper pauper/casual where I face both pauper and non-pauper decks, which sounds a lot like your environment as well. I have a boros artifact-oriented aggro list that I would like to do something with - it could go towards boros kitty, or towards affinity or the mono-white suggestion as above. I'm looking for something that's fun, improves my play skill and could have a decent match-up against most things casual without really sideboarding.
I have to say though, the overall concept of the deck - a two card combo just to draw a few cards - seems weak on paper (no pun intended). It's humbling to think that a single Mulldrifter does as much for 5 mana and one card, as a twice dropped piston bounced with Glint Hawk does for the same mana and two cards. It seems much the same deck could be had without the hassle by just running some Izzet control or aggro control list, except you'd have more draw/filtering and counters too.
Anyway, if I were to run this in my "environment", I'm contemplating this list in light of your suggestions:
It would probably perform better if I forgot about retrace and just ran GoGs instead, it just seems a bit random for the deck.
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I'm looking to take this deck to my paper pauper group and have a few questions before I take it out for a spin.
Kudoltha Rebirth: It seems to me that the only way to really profit from this card is if you use it on Wellspring, and this assumes you have another piston ready in case you top deck a bird. I suppose just getting 3 power for 1 mana and killing a redundant artifact is pretty good too, but if a non-piston artifact is to be redundant, we're looking at an artifact land and five land drops at least before you can use it. It just seems like you'd be sitting with a KDR in your hand for a long time before being able to use it advantageously - not to mention getting two of them.
Sanctum Gargoyle: This card seems even more convoluted than KDR, in fact assuming that the conditions for KDR use have been met and that one was indeed used to send a Wellspring (ideally) to the grave. Even under such ideal circumstances, it's still no better than a Kor Skyfisher for 4 mana rather than 2, though it probably doesn't matter much at that point in the game. The primer states it's used to return something you discarded (to Looting I assume?), but also says you should never discard a piston (obviously), leaving artifact lands the only realistic option - and how useful is that when you already have 4 mana to play the gargoyle? If the two copies are intended to recur each other, well, I did some hypergeometric distributions on that and... if you see 30 cards (half your deck) in a game, you're still only 25% likely to draw 2 out of 2 gargoyles. If you see 75% of your deck (45 cards), the chance climbs to 56%. So I just wanted to confirm that the purpose of this card is to have birds 9-10 for 4 mana under ideal circumstances. Or am I missing something?
It seems to me that to make running KDR and Gargoyle somewhat more reliable, you really NEED to run some number of Origen Spellbomb and/or Perilous Myr. For lists not running either but insisting on Gargoyle, how often is gargoyle just a 2/3 flyer for 4 for you?
Here are a few cards I haven't seen mentioned but that I thought could be interesting and would like your opinion on:
Hobble: I'm considering this as a 1-2 of over Journey. It's a bad piston with Kor Skyfisher that helps you draw into better pistons/removal (filling the role of the 1-2 flasks in previous lists). Since you mostly have fliers, using this on a big ground target is often equal to Journey. If you consider that the mana cost is equal to Journey + Looting but that it sets you back 0 cards rather than potentially 2 cards, I think it's pretty interesting whether you need it as a piston or not.
Manamorphose: The deck is based around assembling a bird/piston combo, and only so many cards are available to us. This would make the mana base even more stable (permitting room for more Forgotten Cave for instance) while letting you draw into the engine more readily, without having to run more than the typical 2-of Looting. The only downside is slightly more difficult mull decisions.
Flame Jab and Cenn's Enlistment: Since we're running burn and token producers already, and we're drawing lots of cards leading to occasional mana floods, AND we want to discard profitably to Looting whenever possible, wouldn't retrace make sense? I think both as 1-ofs to round out removal and KDR packages could be really spiffy.
Looking forward to your comments!
Rebirth - I think it's one of the worst cards in the deck, but a necessary evil. There's not really anything quite like it and while it can be clunky at times it also has some level of versatility, being able to let you play defence or offence as necessary. You're right in that it's generally a turn 3+ play a lot of the time (the ideal play being turn 2 Wellspring, turn 3 Rebirth + 2 drop, or turn 3 Wellspring into Rebirth). You can't really play 4 of them due to the issue you pointed out (drawing 2+ early) but I've always found 3 useful, and against the control decks like MBC and MUC they're very useful for applying pressure.
Sanctum Gargoyle - tried it when I first picked up the deck but I don't think it's really where you should be. As you pointed out, you don't actually have a lot of ways to put artifacts in your grave to begin with (Rebirth, Faithless Looting, and then maybe your opponent attacking your hand or boarding in artifact hate). In addition it's just such a clunky card and not what you want against the faster opponents in the format. The inevitability it provides also doesn't even matter against some of the long game decks like Tron that try to throw a giant fireball at your face or Familiar Storm that don't care about your creatures much at all. I even run 3-4 Spellbombs and still wouldn't run the card, I just don't think it does very much for the deck outside of the mirror match and against MBC.
Hobble - 3 mana is a lot to spend on a removal spell. That being said, I can see it being played as a 1-of in the spot that many of us (myself included) have an Oblivion Ring in. Oblivion Ring can give you outs to random artifacts/enchantments game 1, but most of the time it is just used as creature removal so the loss in versatility might not matter. I don't think you really want to play more than 1 though.
Manamorphose - please don't play this. You're just diluting the deck with more cards that don't actually do anything and it has enough "do-nothing" cantrips as it is. This is a combo card, not a card a midrange deck like this is interested in.
Retrace cards - Cenn's Enlistment is probably playable as a 1-of but I wouldn't want it outside of grindy matchups like MBC. Flame Jab I don't think you get enough utility out of to justify it in this deck. There's just not a whole lot 1 toughness creatures to prey upon with it, and when you're needing 2+ extra lands to kill something its usefulness goes down. This also creates tension between it and Faithless Looting since you're usually wanting to discard those excess lands to Looting anyways. It's very good against certain decks (Goblins, Elves, Infect) but those decks just aren't that popular these days.
I have to say though, the overall concept of the deck - a two card combo just to draw a few cards - seems weak on paper (no pun intended). It's humbling to think that a single Mulldrifter does as much for 5 mana and one card, as a twice dropped piston bounced with Glint Hawk does for the same mana and two cards. It seems much the same deck could be had without the hassle by just running some Izzet control or aggro control list, except you'd have more draw/filtering and counters too.
The main thing is that (:4mana::symu:) is very different from (:2mana:)(:symw:)(:2mana:) - one of those gives you an attacker on turn 4, the other on turn 6.
Playing two cantrips is very strategically different from playing a 2-for-1 draw; instead of trying to build and spend hand size cyclically, we're mostly trying to maintain our existing hand size vs. theirs long enough to win. In exchange for the inability to overpower the long game with bombs, we get a fast and consistent aerial attack to keep the game short.
The "engine" component of the deck doesn't do anything but kick out flying bears without paying cards for them, which frees you to spend the rest of your hand burning creatures/face.
Anyway, if I were to run this in my "environment", I'm contemplating this list in light of your suggestions:
I think you've got two too many lands, and could probably replace them with Spellbomb #3 and #4.
This deck cantrips very fast, which makes it hard to gauge things like land count by conventional metrics. You can easily keep a two-lander with this deck.
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
Sourcing Sands1R
Sorcery Common
Scouring Sands deals 1 damage to each creature your opponents control. Scry 1.
From born of the gods seems like a pretty solid card. I know a lot of us are already running electrickery in the sideboard and its nearly a direct upgrade.
Sourcing Sands1R
Sorcery Common
Scouring Sands deals 1 damage to each creature your opponents control. Scry 1.
From born of the gods seems like a pretty solid card. I know a lot of us are already running electrickery in the sideboard and its nearly a direct upgrade.
This is very far from a direct upgrade of Electrickery. A lot of people bring Electrickery in to fight fairies, so having it be a sorcery is a big hindrance. Even against generic weenie decks, being able to play your sweeper as an instant gives you more flexibility and the potential for bigger blowouts. Scry is worth considering but it's not an auto-swap.
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Jeskai archetype page on mtggoldfish: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/21706
Wellspring is a control deck built out of what appear to be aggro parts. It plays a very reliable tempo game, grinding the opponent's life total down with undercosted fliers, controlling the board with burn spells, which eventually turn to the opponent's face for a kill. The deck has been around for a long time, but had a had time breaking out of Tier 3. The printing of the Refuge lands (e.g. Wind-Scarred Crag) makes three-color decks at least a fringe possibility, and the banning of Cloud of Faeries seems to have put enough of a dent in mono-blue Delver to let this deck leap to the top spot in the metagame.
The core of the deck is a mono-white draw engine coupled to mono-red burn spells. The blue splash seems to be the strongest, but some players have been enjoying a black splash as well.
Sample Decklists
4 Glint Hawk
4 Kor Skyfisher
3 Kuldotha Rebirth
4 Mulldrifter
2 Lone Missionary
Pistons
4 Ichor Wellspring
4 Prophetic Prism
2 Chain Lightning
4 Galvanic Blast
4 Lightning Bolt
Hard Removals
2 Journey to Nowhere
1 Oblivion Ring
Lands
4 Ancient Den
4 Great Furnace
2 Secluded Steppe
4 Swiftwater Cliffs
3 Tranquil Cove
1 Wind-Scarred Crag
1 Boros Guildgate
Basic Strategy
The draw engine that forms the core of this deck is comprised of two parts: Pistons and Birds. Pistons are artifacts that draw you a card when they enter the battlefield; Birds are undercosted fliers with the "drawback" of bouncing an artifact/permanent. "Correct" operation of the deck involves having your birds bounce your pistons; as the pistons go up and down from hand to table, you will always replace your birds with pistons, and your pistons with fresh cards.
Another way to look at it is hand size. Every turn you draw a card and play a land, for 0 net hand size change. If you play a piston, it cantrips, 0 change. If you play a bird, it bounces a piston, 0 change. So you can apply all this pressure in the form of small fliers without actually spending a card. Everything in this deck that costs you a card, ideally, should be a 1-for-1 trade with either an enemy creature or a counterspell.
A snap-keep hand typically includes a piston, a pair of lands that can cast it on turn two, and either a bird or a spot removal, preferably color-matching the mana you're holding. One land can be playable on the draw, if you've got a piston in hand already and a couple of burn spells to stall with.
If you mulligan or play into a situation with no pistons in your hand, or in play, or in the bin with recursion options in hand, the deck gets much weaker. Depending on the precise build of your deck and the opponent, it may be plausible to sit patiently with instants up and wait for a piston to appear; or you may be obligated to play birds by bouncing lands to get a presence on the board.
The Boros version has a hard time regrowing its hand, and is more likely to be forced to play aggressively.
The Jeskai version is almost exclusively using blue mana to include Mulldrifter, which gives it a much stronger long game, since it now has a way to regrow its hand size.
The Mardu version uses black mana to include much harder removal - Terminate and Chainer's Edict - as well as more powerful finishers like Bleak Coven Vampires and Gurmag Angler.
Core Engine Cards
These comprise the core functionality of the deck. You want 8-9 pistons and the full 8 birds.
Pistons:
Prophetic Prism - Besides running our engines, these lend a level of color-fluidity to the deck that it couldn't otherwise have.
Ichor Wellspring - They don't DO much, exactly, but they run the engine nicely, and they sacrifice nicely, which gives us some interesting options.
Elsewhere Flask - This one only shows up as piston #9, and only in the Boros version, which has such a hard time functioning without a piston.
Birds:
Glint Hawk - Slightly lower toughness, slightly harder to use in aggro mode. Still solid, and a mandatory 4-of.
Kor Skyfisher - The 3 points of toughness gives this one the edge; it can gang-block a 4/4 and trade 1-for-1 with it, which is a good play that you should make when you can.
Engine Grease
These aren't part of the main mechanism of the deck, but they help keep it moving, letting you adjust your access to resources as the game progresses.
Spells:
Remember the Fallen - This is the only way the Boros version can increase its hand size. It's quite good at that, but not good enough to be played in Mardu or Jeskai.
Read the Bones - This is a powerful reason to be in Mardu. You can only run two or three of them, because three mana and two life are kind of awkward, but the dig-and-draw effect is very powerful for cutting through the middle-late game.
Faithless Looting - A very solid role-player in the Boros version, but generally as a 2-of; they drop your hand size by one on the first cast, and you need two cards you won't miss before you can cast it for full value. Good synergy with Remember the Fallen.
Kuldotha Rebirth - Kind of an odd fit, but it gives you an Atog-like outlet for your extra artifacts, a way to kill your Ichor Wellspring, and three 1/1 bodies that are tricky for the opponent to remove without wasting cards.
Origin Spellbomb - A versatile role-player, but generally only seen in the Boros version.
Land:
Ancient Den/Great Furnace - Colored artifact lands are broken. The red and white ones are mandatory 4-ofs; the Jeskai version generally doesn't bother with Seat of the Synod, but the Mardu version will usually run 4-of Vault of Whispers, because of their increased dependence on metalcraft.
Wind-Scarred Crag - The Refuge lands are big game in this deck. The incidental lifegain and color-flexibility offset the tempo loss just enough to let us use these and play three colors. Most Mardu and Jeskai builds will have 9-10 of these in various combinations. The Boros build should have 4.
Forgotten Cave/Secluded Steppe - Given that your mana base skews heavily towards red and white, and given that you aren't likely to have much mana up, these guys are the only cycling lands you want to play. If you have the extra colored mana to cycle them out, then it's probably a good time to do so.
Boros Garrison - Occasionally relevant as a 1-of, maybe 2. Lets you replay a Refuge or pick up a cycling land to cycle it off.
Mortuary Mire - I haven't gotten to try it yet, but this seems like a good addition to the Mardu list, which relies much more on specific threat creatures than Boros or Jeskai.
Removal
Alright, so you've got four power in the air and six cards in hand; now you need to keep your opponent off the table long enough to win. From your copious draws, trade 1-for-1 with anything and everything they play.
The burn spells are actually a core element of the strategy; besides being efficient and flexible creature-kill, they can also be aimed directly at the opponent to close out a game quickly.
Creature:
Lightning Bolt - Passing your first turn with an untapped Mountain in play, and a burn spell and a Forgotten Cave in hand, is basically a perfect opening for this deck. Lightning Bolt is at full power in this situation, Galvanic Blast is not.
Galvanic Blast - There's not a lot of relevant creatures, especially turn 1, with exactly 3 toughness, so Galvanic Blast is usually fine as a defense for your opening, and it obviously gets much better once your engine is running and artifacts are flowing freely. Burn kills against slower decks are a real possibility.
Firebolt - A solid 1- or 2-of, though it's outclassed by Chainer's Edict in the Mardu version.
Journey to Nowhere - It's clunky, but it's about the only cost-effective answer we have for toughnesses greater than 4, and it trumps recursion. It's especially relevant against Apostle's Blessing, since the rest of your removal is red.
Chainer's Edict - This is a fantastic card, and a great addition to the Pauper format. It's easily maindeckable as 2-of in the Mardu list.
Terminate - Less absurd than Chainer's Edict, this is still excellent against Gurmag Angler and Ulamog's Crusher and such. Another fine upgrade on the Mardu list.
Noncreature:
Kor Sanctifiers - These were popular in the Boros build, 1- or 2-of in the maindeck. They make a good soft spot for sideboarding; they're relevant in lots of matchups against stuff like Oubliette; they can break your own Ichor Wellspring; and in a pinch, a 2/3 body for 3 isn't terrible.
Oblivion Ring - This seems to go around as about a 1-of in every variation of the maindeck. It's very versatile, but usually boards out for something more specifically relevant.
Finishers
Because this deck tends to play longer games, it's usually built with some 4- or 5-drop creatures to help close the game in one way or another.
Guardian of the Guildpact - My personal favorite for the Boros deck, the Guardian is nearly unkillable and unblockable, giving you lots of inevitable pressure to play with. He's weak to Monoblack, Affinity, and any of the various hybrid/gold removals that might be run.
Sanctum Gargoyle - This one's better against Monoblack, and better in the Boros build, where you can feed him with looting. He can loop with a copy of himself in the graveyard to make sure you never run out of creatures. He's lost a lot of standing since Gurmag Angler and Sultai Scavenger have everyone loaded up on graveyard hate.
Seraph of Dawn - This one is very nice against burn specifically - they can't kill it easily, or block it, and the lifegain will really help turn the game around.
Cenn's Enlistment - Another option for Boros, this gets slightly better in the splashed builds, where you're more likely to have a hand full of unnecessary lands.
Mulldrifter - The Jeskai build's main payoff. He is a mandatory 4-of with the blue splash. He joins your armada of flying bears as the late game begins, and he regrows your shrinking hand after you've been spending cards killing things.
Bleak Coven Vampires - The Mardu build's main payoff. He increases your reliance on metalcraft substantially, and he doesn't replace himself as a draw; the four lifedrain is wonderfully punchy and as a 4/3, he will almost certainly trade for an enemy card. 3-of is plenty.
Sideboard
This advice is outdated. I just want to point out that Lone Missionary is good enough right now to see maindeck play in the Jeskai build.
Against Goblins, Elves, Slivers, and Stompy, you want Electrickery and/or Krark-Clan Shaman. The former seems more popular, perhaps due to incidental use against Spellstutter Sprite. The latter, if used, has to completely replace Kuldotha Rebirth due to intense anti-synergy.
Against Affinity and the mirror, you want Ancient Grudge; the flashback cost is fairly easy to hit with Prophetic Prism. Gorilla Shaman can also be relevant, more against Affinity than anything else.
Pyroblast was big game against Post, and it may still matter against Tron, but mostly you want it against Dragonaut and Delver. Against Dragonaut, it's another cheap instant that can kill Nivix Cyclops; against Delver it's insurance against getting your pistons countered.
Runes of Protection would be nice, but we can't count on having the deep necessary to rely on them. We draw cards fast enough to get away with boarding 1-2 Circle of Protection as needed.
Circle of Protection: Black will render MBC largely toothless, and thus susceptible to being burned out. Note that Corrupt does nothing if the damage is prevented.
Circle of Protection: Red crushes Dragonaut, Burn and Goblins, and can allow you to ignore Atog/Fling.
You have a few outlets against Hexproof: you can blow out all their enchantments with Patrician's Scorn, Ray of Revelation or Leave No Trace, or you can disrupt their aura-casting with Standard Bearer, or you can prevent all their combat damage with Circle of Protection: Green, or you can pick off their Voltron with Celestial Flare.
Stompy also suffers a bit under Circle of Protection: Green and Standard Bearer.
Standard Bearer is also a reasonable board against Dragonaut; they have to draw some fairly specific cards to be able to go off once you have Standard Bearer on the table.
Also, I'd love it if you added a copy of what your current deck list looks like. I know that;
are the backbone of the deck but land count, and roughly 10 remaining card spots remain up for discussion in my mind.
In my limited recent testing there are a ton of black decks in the casual rooms and I can definitely back up the idea that Sanctum Gargoyle is a beast against them.
This was a private message to LordSaturn and Dromar the Banisher on this deck before Saturn got this thread written out.
My thoughts are that;
Two Sanctum Gargoyle equal one in play every turn in spite of removal and they block all of mbc's creatures very well.
Perilous Myr potentially turns removal effects into a two for one for me if they have anything on the table.
One buys back the other and I'm still rocking 2 Remember the Fallen main deck.
--
I really didn't have a better idea on what to replace the land destruction with and as far as where did I find the space... well I still never bit the bullet on a playset of Pyroblast so I have room you two probably don't have. Other than "Buy Pyroblast", I'd love to know both of your thoughts on this but didn't want to derail the orzhov discussion nor resurrect the old thread if one of you write up a primer on it.
My current list isn't much evolved but;
3 Kabira Crossroads
3 Plains
4 Great Furnace
3 Forgotten Cave
5 Mountain
1 Evolving Wilds
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Galvanic Blast
3 Kuldotha Rebirth
1 Krark-Clan Shaman
4 Glint Hawk
4 Ichor Wellspring
4 Prophetic Prism
2 Journey to Nowhere
4 Kor Skyfisher
2 Remember the Fallen
2 Kor Sanctifiers
2 Guardian of the Guildpact
4 Sanctum Gargoyle
1 Guardian of the Guildpact
2 Ray of Revelation
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Krark-Clan Shaman
3 Perilous Myr
I know my mana base is a wreck since I haven't adjusted it since I started playing with the card choices again recently but between the draw and the fixing of prophetic prism I haven't had a struggle.
I am a fan of Perilous Myr; he crumples the ground-pounder aggro decks pretty fiercely, and is good with a sac outlet; you can KDR him into a flipped Delver and get a guaranteed kill.
For the first draft I only covered cards people have had in the 3-1 and 4-0 listings, though.
Pyroblast was really, really good against 8Post, allowing us to throttle their draw while we clubbed them out. It's solid against Delver, since getting all our pistons countered effectively kills us, but you can get around Delver in other ways, i.e. burn spells.
My current list:
4 Glint Hawk
4 Kor Skyfisher
Pistons
4 Prophetic Prism
4 Ichor Wellspring
Grease
3 Kuldotha Rebirth
2 Faithless Looting
2 Remember the Fallen
Removal
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Galvanic Blast
2 Journey to Nowhere
2 Kor Sanctifiers
2 Guardian of the Guildpact
Land
3 Plains
5 Mountain
1 Evolving Wilds
4 Ancient Den
4 Great Furnace
3 Kabira Crossroads
2 Forgotten Cave
1 Secluded Steppe
4 Pyroblast
1 Journey to Nowhere
3 Krark-Clan Shaman
2 Ancient Grudge
4 Molten Rain
1 Earth Rift
So my sideboard is clearly out of date. I'm definitely losing the LD, and I'm probably grabbing some various Circles of Protection. I continue to not really know where the metagame is headed, but we have SO many excellent options.
I also probably want to ditch the Secluded Steppe in favor of a Boros Garrison, but that's kind of a marginal improvement. The Prophetic Prism definitely makes it easier to dodge color-screw.
BTW, no Standard Bearer sideboard?
I wouldn't run any fewer than 3 copies and I still like having the full 4 quite a bit despite two blue decks dying in the bans since Delver and Cyclops/Fiend are still two of the most popular decks out there and MUC is on the upswing.
The lack of Origin Spellbomb in this thread is a pretty big oversight I think. I'm not running 4 copies of that card just to be cute, it actually does a lot for the deck:
-another turn 1 play. Pauper is a fast format and passing the first turn without doing anything is pretty poor.
-another card that synergizes well with Kuldotha Rebirth (you can sacrifice it and still pay the white to draw a card, effectively making it function as another Wellspring in play)
-adds to your artifact count for Galvanic Blast
-smooths out your draws by letting you see more cards over the course of a game
-another cheap artifact for Glint Hawk to bounce (obviously not ideal but there are times where you just need to get a Glint Hawk in play and being able to bounce this and replay it cheaply is reasonable)
-Gives you virtual lifegain against decks like Affinity and can also let you trade a Lightning Bolt up for one of their 4/4s
-protects your important creatures from edict effects against MBC
Nevermind when you get to actually trade the Myr token straight-up for a real card, then you're just way ahead. Now all that being said, 4 might not be the exact correct number, however I think you want at least 2, and probably 3. I might try cutting the 4th and putting back in the 4th Wellspring.
Some other thoughts:
-Faithless Looting is a much better draw engine in this deck than Remember the Fallen, I'd flip those ratings around personally. I've mostly settled on 3 Looting since I want to draw a copy pretty much every game. The problem with Remember the Fallen is not only that it's slow but also that it can't ever dig you into immediate removal like Looting or a flashback Looting can. At best it gives you the roundabout return a Wellspring/Prism that ended up in the bin and then 5 mana later you might find the removal you need.
-Krark-Clan Shaman sucks in this deck. I tried it out when I first picked the deck up and it never really does what you need it to do. It's also useless against Delver where Electrickery is actually fairly decent.
-Maindeck Kor Sanctifiers is a really nice out to problem cards and at worst he can usually cantrip off of a Wellspring (or get pitched to Faithless Looting). I'm also a fan of a singleton Oblivion Ring in the main, but depending on the meta I could see something like a Pillar of Flame/Magma Spray/Electrickery perhaps being more useful in that slot.
-As far as a 4 drop with inevitability, I've never really found it necessary - I always find ways to win be it pecking away with flyers and 1/1 tokens or burning my opponent out. The deck doesn't have that much trouble winning once its established control of the board. If you really want one though I'd probably favor the Gargoyle just because it's better against MBC than Guardian of the Guildpact is.
-Patrician's Scorn vs Leave No Trace - I find you usually want to board out your Journeys against the decks you want Scorn against anyways so I tend to favor Scorn.
-I vastly prefer Gorilla Shaman to Ancient Grudge for the Affinity matchup, though part of that is because I already run 2 Kor Sanctifiers maindeck. This deck is able to get a lot of mana out though and it's not uncommon for Shaman to be an immediate one-sided Armageddon against Affinity. Atog-Fling is one of the ways Affinity beats us so being able to take that out away by taking out so many of their resources is quite useful.
-The other problem with COP: Black is you still need a way to actually kill your MBC opponent. I find I'm often drawing a lot more cards than they are too so decking them isn't an option. One sideboard I saw had Curse of the Pierced Heart alongside the COPs, and I'm assuming that's what their particular plan was against MBC (board in COP, win with Curse which MBC can never kill). Haven't tried this out in practice though and also not really interested in dedicating that many sideboard slots to MBC anyways. Burning them out might work but you have to watch out for Tendrils of Corruption lifegain, and if you don't find the COP fast enough you might be forced to chuck burn at creatures or lose it to discard.
-Never played with Perilous Myr in this deck, but not sure how much I like it in a deck that can't keep recurring it for value like Tortured Existence decks do and only has one way to sacrifice it.
-Standard Bearer is certainly a reasonable sideboard for this deck. I run 2 myself for the Stompy and Hexproof matchups, you can also bring them in against Cyclops/Fiend if you have the space (forces them to have a kill spell for the Bearer before they're able to combo off with Artful Dodge and Assault Strobe).
Yeah, I forgot about Dragonaut. If you're trying to go without Pyroblast, you need to have another out to Nivix Cyclops. Going up to the full 4 Journey to Nowhere is a possibility.
Let's be fair; you are literally the only person winning with those so far. That isn't to say they're bad, just that I'm not sure how to evaluate them yet, having not even tried them myself. What section would you add them under? What rating would you give them?
Conversely, my problem with Faithless Looting is that if you topdeck one into an empty hand, it is a literal blank. Also, pitching one Looting to the other is kind of crappy, especially if your opponent is playing some graveyard hate. Graveyard hate is (I expect) going to become more and more prevalent as control decks try to play the long game that suddenly exists.
I've seen the opposite - when I bring in the Krark-Clan Shaman, it's because he can do stuff like wipe out a bunch of 3/3 slivers or 2/2 goblins; meanwhile I've rarely seen a Delver deck with enough Faeries to make Electrickery worth it, as opposed to just Lightning Bolting or Pyroblasting a random Faerie to make Spellstutter Sprite not work.
But yeah, metagames shift and YMMV.
This is going to depend heavily on what kind of control decks wind up taking over. For now, the Sanctum Gargoyle is definitely favored, since most control is MBC or similar-to-MBC.
I've actually tried Gorilla Shaman; I'm not a huge fan. About the only thing he can destroy in a timely fashion is artifact lands; this is generally a very unreliable strategy against Affinity, which can trump your Mox Monkey with a single red source and then resume not paying mana for anything.
When I'm trying to hold back Atog-Fling, I find the simplest thing to do is aim burn spells at the Atog on my own turn, which combines with Ancient Grudge against his artifact creatures to heavily pressure his card count. If he doesn't have the Fling already in hand, you can do cute stuff like burn-burn-Journey to Nowhere and just basically shred him to bits. If he does have the Fling already in hand, then either you were already dead, or he has to decide whether to spend it on a nonlethal burn, which is a reasonably bad thing for him to be doing.
If you really, really hate Fling, try Dawn Charm. Affinity players hate Dawn Charm. It has some incidental uses against MBC and Dragonaut, too.
Yeah, I included it for completeness more than anything else. Playing against MBC is just a learned skill, there's lots you can do to mitigate risk and maximize opportunity. Circle of Protection: Black just makes it really hard for them to win.
My main experience with Perilous Myr was in a deck where he combined with Atog and Unearth to shred blockers while pumping the Atog. He is definitely a tough thing for ground-pounding aggro decks to attack into, but those may not be prevalent at the moment.
I just feel like more people need to adopt this card. I know it looks bad on paper but it's actually a very good role player in this deck, as I mentioned it does a lot of useful things. I'd probably add it under "engine grease" as for rating, probably 3ish.
The first is a non-issue against most decks other than MBC since you are easily be able to sandbag extra lands in anticipation of drawing Looting. Against MBC you don't really want to sandbag lands because you'll probably get Chittering Rats'd out of the game. The 2nd issue you bring up again only really arises against MBC decks that run Bojuka Bog. Few other decks are running graveyard hate (and if they do it has a pretty negligible effect against this deck anyways, especially a version like mine that has only Faithless Looting that cares about the graveyard). I don't think pitching a Faithless Looting to Faithless Looting is as bad as you make it out to be either. Sometimes you end up with two early and just really need more business spells or lands and the fact that you can pitch it and still potentially get some value out of it later actually makes it an appealing card to discard in those scenarios.
The problem is that this deck doesn't have nearly the artifact count that Affinity does which can make the Shaman really awkward at times. Also sacrificing either your lands or any of your cantrip artifacts can make any future Glint Hawks or Skyfishers lose their effectiveness. Slivers is also not a very popular deck and neither is Goblins of late. Electrickery is useful against Delver because you really just want all the removal you can get against them. You'd rather not have to waste your Galvanic Blasts or Journeys on their Faeries if you can't get a Glint Hawk/Skyfisher to resolve and Electrickery is an efficient way to deal with one or more Faeries if they put you on the backfoot. The fact that it gives you another answer to turn 1 Delver is pretty nice too (not that we don't have a lot of those already, but every bit helps).
Guardian is probably better or equally good against most other decks in the format right now (other than Delver since all their guys fly) but yeah control matchups are the only time you should really care about this I think.
I don't see how this is at all unreliable. Even if they have the Galvanic Blast to kill your Shaman if you still took down most of their lands in the process that's still a considerable setback for them (either via color screw or restricting how many spells they can actually play in a turn and reducing Atog's food reserve). Yes if they have a bunch of creatures in play it might not matter that they have no land, but this is a deck running a lot of removal so ideally they shouldn't be getting an overwhelming board presence anyways. I'd say 9 times out of 10 when you play Gorilla Shaman against them you win.
Now you're just trading your Bolts for whatever artifact they value the least though, that's not really ideal. Blast is a bit better (and I do like to aim this at Atog myself from time to time to either 2-for-1 or force them to let it die) but sometimes you need to save that for the more immediate threat of an Enforcer or Forger. They also might have Chromatic Stars in play which are often free sacrifices for Atog anyways. Fling also isn't the only way an Atog can burn you out - they have 4 Disciples too and dropping one at any point in time can mean death out of nowhere. Shaman blowing up a lot of their resources reduces the likelihood of this.
You're right they're not really prevalent lately. Slivers is a rogue deck at best, Goblins hardly sees play, and even Stompy has been on the decline lately. Affinity is about on the same level of popularity as Stompy lately and the Myr is probably worse against them than it is against the other decks mentioned since it can't kill a 4/4. Might be something to keep in mind if the meta shifts though.
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Legacy
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Dromar,
The overall consensus among speaking to many top Pauper players is that the stock list is rather poor. However, you have had a lot of success with your version and that certainly deserves recognition. You have certainly provided lengthy worthwhile feedback and reasoning for your deck choices and for the suboptimal choices of the other lists.
For reference there are two distinct versions on MTGGoldfish, which along with Alex Ullman's Facebook page are clearly the best place to find information on the new metagame.
Kuldotha Boros (including DromarX):
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/7863
Kuldotha Boros (suboptimal as discussed):
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/7995
Alex Ullman's Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/nerdtothecore
Metagame Analysis Page on Our Site:
http://www.castingcommons.com/pauper...meta-analysis/
When it comes to the format and specific decks it is best to follow the top pilots and authorities on the format and decks. Experience and results are what counts. Thanks again Dromar for all your efforts here, on our site and in the Daily Events.
Eric
Thanks for the kind words Eric. Like I said to you a few days ago I have tuned my list a lot from the stock builds to get it somewhere that I felt it was competitive with most of the field. The one sticking point was always that no matter what I did the Post matchups were really bad in the pre-bans meta so it wasn't until Post got the axe that I felt it was worthwhile to start taking the deck into DEs. I'm always happy to share my findings with other players.
Game 1 is pretty miserable for us vs Hexproof, even my list that runs 2 Sanctifiers and an O-ring main, some lists have even less to interact with them game 1. I bring in over half my board against them (3x Electrickery, 2x Standard Bearer, 1x Disenchant, 2x Patrician's Scorn) but some of those cards are lot less useful if you don't draw them in a timely fashion (Electrickery and Standard Bearer don't help you much if they already have a large creature). For some reason I've been paired against 3 Hexproof decks in the last 2 DEs I've entered which is probably somewhat on the unlucky side since I don't think it's that popular of a deck.
I'm intrigued by the idea of Celestial Flare though. Not really sold on it maindeck but it's pretty reasonable against Hexproof and also has uses against Cyclops/Fiend as well. The biggest strike against it is the mana cost of course but it might still be workable. I'll probably try a couple out myself and see.
It's mentioned in the primer but it's an incredibly narrrow card and Hexproof isn't a very common matchup right now anyways. The only other decks you might get some use for it against are Stompy and Slivers, and both of those decks can
a) swarm you, making it difficult to hold up enough mana to stop all their guys with while still developing your own board, and
b) blow it up with the Gleeful Sabotages they're already bringing in against you anyways
I do agree it's probably the single best card for beating Hexproof but the deck is like what, 2-3% of the metagame right now? You're much better off playing cards that have uses in other matchups like Celestial Flare (also strong vs Cyclops/Fiend and passable against most other aggro) and Kor Sanctifiers.
I tend to agree with your last point - the deck has few auto-wins, you really do have to work for it each and every match. It offers so many decision-trees and so many long games though that there is a lot of room for a capable pilot to maneuver themselves into winning positions which is probably what I most enjoy about playing it.
Traitorous Blood may or may not be a better option than land destruction (can't say I've tried it) but it only seems particularly great against Crusher. If they have Fangren Marauder sticking around then they probably already gained a bunch of life off of it anyways so lava axing them doesn't accomplish much. They also kill with Rolling Thunder a non-zero amount of the time too and Traitorous Blood doesn't do anything against that win condition. All-in-all it should be a pretty bad matchup though.
1) Go over the top of them anyway. Not realistic.
2) Attack their hand. Not in these colors, and it's pretty hard to splash in this deck.
3) Attack their combo. This mostly involves having enough artifact hate to keep their Fangren Marauder from having anything around to trigger from once it arrives. Probably this doesn't work, since their artifacts all cantrip.
4) Attack their mana base. Possible, but expensive. You could kill four Cloudpost and be done crushing the mana machine; Tron is a lot harder to crumple.
5) Aggro out. Possible; mull and play yourself as an aggressive deck. Depends on drawing the right half of your deck, and they will be prepared to fight this.
Traitorous Blood slots in under #5; as soon as they get their brick wall up, steal it and swing for lethal. It's almost not worth casting unless it can kill them immediately.
Yeah if you have them it's probably worth bringing in Lone Missionaries just so you have more creatures to beat down with. He's pretty bad against turn 3 Sea-Gate Oracle but you can't afford to just sit there and do nothing if you have any hope of winning.
Running Bushwhacker in this deck seems really bad to me since you just don't have enough creatures to support it. Obviously the guy wants to combo it with Kuldotha Rebirth, but if you don't draw a Kuldotha Rebirth it's pretty much a stone blank. Of course Tron might be one exception where it's okay but in every other matchup it seems awful.
Kudoltha Rebirth: It seems to me that the only way to really profit from this card is if you use it on Wellspring, and this assumes you have another piston ready in case you top deck a bird. I suppose just getting 3 power for 1 mana and killing a redundant artifact is pretty good too, but if a non-piston artifact is to be redundant, we're looking at an artifact land and five land drops at least before you can use it. It just seems like you'd be sitting with a KDR in your hand for a long time before being able to use it advantageously - not to mention getting two of them.
Sanctum Gargoyle: This card seems even more convoluted than KDR, in fact assuming that the conditions for KDR use have been met and that one was indeed used to send a Wellspring (ideally) to the grave. Even under such ideal circumstances, it's still no better than a Kor Skyfisher for 4 mana rather than 2, though it probably doesn't matter much at that point in the game. The primer states it's used to return something you discarded (to Looting I assume?), but also says you should never discard a piston (obviously), leaving artifact lands the only realistic option - and how useful is that when you already have 4 mana to play the gargoyle? If the two copies are intended to recur each other, well, I did some hypergeometric distributions on that and... if you see 30 cards (half your deck) in a game, you're still only 25% likely to draw 2 out of 2 gargoyles. If you see 75% of your deck (45 cards), the chance climbs to 56%. So I just wanted to confirm that the purpose of this card is to have birds 9-10 for 4 mana under ideal circumstances. Or am I missing something?
It seems to me that to make running KDR and Gargoyle somewhat more reliable, you really NEED to run some number of Origen Spellbomb and/or Perilous Myr. For lists not running either but insisting on Gargoyle, how often is gargoyle just a 2/3 flyer for 4 for you?
Here are a few cards I haven't seen mentioned but that I thought could be interesting and would like your opinion on:
Hobble: I'm considering this as a 1-2 of over Journey. It's a bad piston with Kor Skyfisher that helps you draw into better pistons/removal (filling the role of the 1-2 flasks in previous lists). Since you mostly have fliers, using this on a big ground target is often equal to Journey. If you consider that the mana cost is equal to Journey + Looting but that it sets you back 0 cards rather than potentially 2 cards, I think it's pretty interesting whether you need it as a piston or not.
Manamorphose: The deck is based around assembling a bird/piston combo, and only so many cards are available to us. This would make the mana base even more stable (permitting room for more Forgotten Cave for instance) while letting you draw into the engine more readily, without having to run more than the typical 2-of Looting. The only downside is slightly more difficult mull decisions.
Flame Jab and Cenn's Enlistment: Since we're running burn and token producers already, and we're drawing lots of cards leading to occasional mana floods, AND we want to discard profitably to Looting whenever possible, wouldn't retrace make sense? I think both as 1-ofs to round out removal and KDR packages could be really spiffy.
Looking forward to your comments!
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I really enjoy having a paper copy of this deck, it has loads of play to it against whatever people are randomly playing at the shop.
You've got the right basic ideas; KDR is useful for squeezing value out of something that would otherwise be useless. The goblin tokens are of varying use as chumps or attackers, depending on the matchup, and in some metas you may not want the goblins, and thus KDR, at all.
The main thing you return from Sanctum Gargoyle is another Sanctum Gargoyle. This means, as you determined, running more than two of them. I will update the primer to make this more clear.
EDIT: I ran my own stats on getting 2 gargoyles within N cards:
This indicates to me that 3 gargoyles is basically the sweet spot, though if you had a build with lots of added value like Origin Spellbomb, 4 would not be incorrect.
By "something you discarded" I mean "something monoblack made you discard" generally. I don't know about never discarding a piston, there are situations where that's the right call. The main thing is to always have access to a piston, so you can keep running out birds profitably.
Origin Spellbomb was a strong favorite of at least one pilot (was it Dromar?) and I personally have a variant that runs Perilous Myr. The former is a solid choice, but never much suited my playstyle; the latter competes for the all-important slot.
This deck fell out of favor pretty hard with the rise of Gray Merchant of Asphodel, so "lists [doing X]" is an empty set. No pistons/birds strategy can reasonably fight the current monoblack lists.
Hobble is better than Elsewhere Flask as a card, but worse as a piston; you only get eight birds, and I'd rather be sure they all cantrip as often as possible.
Also, if you've got something horrible Hobbled, but it's your only piston, you're likely to want to recast it immediately, which will limit your other options. One of the strongest plays this deck can make is to drop the same piston 2-3 times in a single turn, and Hobble is bad at that.
Hobble is strongly worse than Journey to Nowhere. Atog alone is reason enough to want Journey, and Fangren Marauder is another excellent reason. Hobble also doesn't run down black devotion at all, which matters frequently. Consider carefully what creatures you encounter in your metagame and what they can do without attacking/blocking you.
I feel like the impact on your mulligans - which are very important, this deck is consistent but tempo-sensitive - is much greater than the value gained from thinning your deck by four cards.
Also, it's creates a huge weakness against Delver, who can Dispel or Hydroblast it. This deck really doesn't have enough color trouble to need Manamorphose.
These are interesting additions, but I am skeptical. It's not like we have much access to discarded land, or nearly any way to gain card advantage - everything we do other than Remember the Fallen is at card parity or worse, so once we go down to topdeck mode, we mostly stay there.
I might like Cenn's Enlistment as a 2-of finisher, particularly to play fair with the Standard decks I usually play against - most of them really can't fight a Guardian of the Guildpact at all.
FWIW, I never played in a daily and I will never play in an 8-man. I'm just a thoughtful student of strategy, with plenty of experience operating the deck in casual environments.
I agree that Hobble is probably a bad choice in an on-line meta. I play mostly paper pauper/casual where I face both pauper and non-pauper decks, which sounds a lot like your environment as well. I have a boros artifact-oriented aggro list that I would like to do something with - it could go towards boros kitty, or towards affinity or the mono-white suggestion as above. I'm looking for something that's fun, improves my play skill and could have a decent match-up against most things casual without really sideboarding.
I have to say though, the overall concept of the deck - a two card combo just to draw a few cards - seems weak on paper (no pun intended). It's humbling to think that a single Mulldrifter does as much for 5 mana and one card, as a twice dropped piston bounced with Glint Hawk does for the same mana and two cards. It seems much the same deck could be had without the hassle by just running some Izzet control or aggro control list, except you'd have more draw/filtering and counters too.
Anyway, if I were to run this in my "environment", I'm contemplating this list in light of your suggestions:
4 Kor Skyfisher
2 Kor Sanctifiers
2 Perilous Myr
4 Prophetic Prism
4 Ichor Wellspring
2 Origen Spellbomb
4 Galvanic Blast
3 Kudoltha Rebirth
2 Faithless Looting
2 Journey to Nowhere
1 Flame Jab
1 Cenn's Enlistment
4 Great Furnace
3 Forgotten Cave
3 Kabira Crossroads
2 Boros Garrison
3 Mountain
2 Plains
3 Mountain
It would probably perform better if I forgot about retrace and just ran GoGs instead, it just seems a bit random for the deck.
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Rebirth - I think it's one of the worst cards in the deck, but a necessary evil. There's not really anything quite like it and while it can be clunky at times it also has some level of versatility, being able to let you play defence or offence as necessary. You're right in that it's generally a turn 3+ play a lot of the time (the ideal play being turn 2 Wellspring, turn 3 Rebirth + 2 drop, or turn 3 Wellspring into Rebirth). You can't really play 4 of them due to the issue you pointed out (drawing 2+ early) but I've always found 3 useful, and against the control decks like MBC and MUC they're very useful for applying pressure.
Sanctum Gargoyle - tried it when I first picked up the deck but I don't think it's really where you should be. As you pointed out, you don't actually have a lot of ways to put artifacts in your grave to begin with (Rebirth, Faithless Looting, and then maybe your opponent attacking your hand or boarding in artifact hate). In addition it's just such a clunky card and not what you want against the faster opponents in the format. The inevitability it provides also doesn't even matter against some of the long game decks like Tron that try to throw a giant fireball at your face or Familiar Storm that don't care about your creatures much at all. I even run 3-4 Spellbombs and still wouldn't run the card, I just don't think it does very much for the deck outside of the mirror match and against MBC.
Hobble - 3 mana is a lot to spend on a removal spell. That being said, I can see it being played as a 1-of in the spot that many of us (myself included) have an Oblivion Ring in. Oblivion Ring can give you outs to random artifacts/enchantments game 1, but most of the time it is just used as creature removal so the loss in versatility might not matter. I don't think you really want to play more than 1 though.
Manamorphose - please don't play this. You're just diluting the deck with more cards that don't actually do anything and it has enough "do-nothing" cantrips as it is. This is a combo card, not a card a midrange deck like this is interested in.
Retrace cards - Cenn's Enlistment is probably playable as a 1-of but I wouldn't want it outside of grindy matchups like MBC. Flame Jab I don't think you get enough utility out of to justify it in this deck. There's just not a whole lot 1 toughness creatures to prey upon with it, and when you're needing 2+ extra lands to kill something its usefulness goes down. This also creates tension between it and Faithless Looting since you're usually wanting to discard those excess lands to Looting anyways. It's very good against certain decks (Goblins, Elves, Infect) but those decks just aren't that popular these days.
The main thing is that (:4mana::symu:) is very different from (:2mana:)(:symw:)(:2mana:) - one of those gives you an attacker on turn 4, the other on turn 6.
Playing two cantrips is very strategically different from playing a 2-for-1 draw; instead of trying to build and spend hand size cyclically, we're mostly trying to maintain our existing hand size vs. theirs long enough to win. In exchange for the inability to overpower the long game with bombs, we get a fast and consistent aerial attack to keep the game short.
The "engine" component of the deck doesn't do anything but kick out flying bears without paying cards for them, which frees you to spend the rest of your hand burning creatures/face.
I think you've got two too many lands, and could probably replace them with Spellbomb #3 and #4.
This deck cantrips very fast, which makes it hard to gauge things like land count by conventional metrics. You can easily keep a two-lander with this deck.
Sorcery Common
Scouring Sands deals 1 damage to each creature your opponents control. Scry 1.
From born of the gods seems like a pretty solid card. I know a lot of us are already running electrickery in the sideboard and its nearly a direct upgrade.
RGStandard Gruul AggroRG
This is very far from a direct upgrade of Electrickery. A lot of people bring Electrickery in to fight fairies, so having it be a sorcery is a big hindrance. Even against generic weenie decks, being able to play your sweeper as an instant gives you more flexibility and the potential for bigger blowouts. Scry is worth considering but it's not an auto-swap.