So I have a million deck ideas in my head now with this meta shakeup and one of the things that seems most true to me right now is that the format is poised for greatness at any cost. However, I just got my Bobs within the past month and haven't actually sat down to brew anything with him yet. This means that I've never actually built with him in mind so I'm not quite sure where to start.
Rather than use all my time studying hundreds of decklists and trying to put them in the context of the formats they existed in I figured I would just ask here directly. When you're playing Dark Confidant what sort of mana curve are you generally looking for? How many 4's can I afford? 5's? How many 1's do I need? Is there a total CMC of my deck that I should try and stay under? In a goldfish what turn should I be looking at for a clock in order to avoid needless risk to my life total? How much lifegain should I include? What's the max amount of pain I should accept from my manabase? Is he functional if Black is a tertiary color or does he really push you to needing black as primary or secondary?
You need a very low mana curve, 1/2/3 drops mostly, with only a few higher drops, 2 or 3. Look at some jund lists for ideas but you don't have to run jund.
With Bob I generally like playing a conservative, land heavy manabase (Every land you flip with Bob means no life lost!) that makes up the loss of spells with more utility lands with high impact 1-2 drops and being conservative on 4's. Your expensive stuff should have a huge impact on the board to justify that kind of lifeloss.
You need a very low mana curve, 1/2/3 drops mostly, with only a few higher drops, 2 or 3. Look at some jund lists for ideas but you don't have to run jund.
I've studied a lot of Jund lists but that alone isn't answering my question. For example, Jund will run Huntmaster with Bob figuring the lifegain offsets the pain of a 4 drop but Abzan won't run Siege Rhino with Bob.
With Bob I generally like playing a conservative, land heavy manabase (Every land you flip with Bob means no life lost!) that makes up the loss of spells with more utility lands with high impact 1-2 drops and being conservative on 4's. Your expensive stuff should have a huge impact on the board to justify that kind of lifeloss.
The land trick helps a lot, that's the sort of thing I'm looking for. Do you know if anyone has really tried Blighted Fen? Or is the clock too slow on that? Does Mortuary Mire to manipulate my Bob hit have any merit?
I'm looking at BGU rather than Jund but I've seen they play Courser of Kruphix, following this logic is that card really even all that good? It flips for 3 and gaining a life off of playing your land simply means you aren't flipping a 0.
You need a very low mana curve, 1/2/3 drops mostly, with only a few higher drops, 2 or 3. Look at some jund lists for ideas but you don't have to run jund.
I've studied a lot of Jund lists but that alone isn't answering my question. For example, Jund will run Huntmaster with Bob figuring the lifegain offsets the pain of a 4 drop but Abzan won't run Siege Rhino with Bob.
Few key differences I see are that Jund has a lower average cmc compared to Junk, and that Jund has more effective manlands, which makes Dark Confidant much better.
I run Bob in my BW DnT build, where I keep the average CMC pretty low, and he works pretty effectively. Drawing lands is almost wanted at a certain point when you're a large quantity of ghost quarters and tec edges.
With Bob I generally like playing a conservative, land heavy manabase (Every land you flip with Bob means no life lost!) that makes up the loss of spells with more utility lands with high impact 1-2 drops and being conservative on 4's. Your expensive stuff should have a huge impact on the board to justify that kind of lifeloss.
The land trick helps a lot, that's the sort of thing I'm looking for. Do you know if anyone has really tried Blighted Fen? Or is the clock too slow on that? Does Mortuary Mire to manipulate my Bob hit have any merit?
I'm looking at BGU rather than Jund but I've seen they play Courser of Kruphix, following this logic is that card really even all that good? It flips for 3 and gaining a life off of playing your land simply means you aren't flipping a 0.
the manipulation and knowledge you get with Bob, courser,and fetches can be a thing of beauty.
I pretty much prefer to play bob only in deadguy-ale style builds--curve that pretty much runs 1 drops and 2 drops, maybe 24-25 lands with 6-7 ghost quarter/tec edge. Abuse aether vial, discard, tidehollow sculler, leonin arbiter, etc. I never liked playing bob with 3-drops in my deck unless I had access to brainstorm or jace, the mind sculptor.
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Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
In the past I've run 4 Bob with 3-4 Kitchen Finks, 3 Liliana, 2-4 4 drops that gain life (Huntmaster/Rhino), and maybe 1-3 other 3 drops. Other than that, all 1-2 CMC cards. I never had problems with him killing me.
EDIT: As for playing 5 drops, I've always sided 2 Thragtuks, which is flipped probably don't kill you and then pay the life back. Waaaay back when, I played Batterskull in the maindeck as a 1 of, and things were fine.
I wouldn't play Tasigur though, that's asking for problems.
In the past I've run 4 Bob with 3-4 Kitchen Finks, 3 Liliana, 2-4 4 drops that gain life (Huntmaster/Rhino), and maybe 1-3 other 3 drops. Other than that, all 1-2 CMC cards. I never had problems with him killing me.
EDIT: As for playing 5 drops, I've always sided 2 Thragtuks, which is flipped probably don't kill you and then pay the life back. Waaaay back when, I played Batterskull in the maindeck as a 1 of, and things were fine.
I wouldn't play Tasigur though, that's asking for problems.
This was my initial thought. It's ok to run some higher CMC cards that gain life, but then I got to thinking about the fact that you need to have the life to lose in the first place. If I'm right, the meta is going to get a whole lot faster without Twin and that means generally having less life available per turn. Where as on turn 4-5 you may have had 9 before, it could only be 5 now. Obviously, you need to be at atleast 6 life before you can break even on a Thragtusk. So I'm reconsidering that opinion, it still holds true for something like Ooze and Finks but maybe not so true for Obstinate Baloth and Thragtusk.
Yeah that's the catch-22 of it now. If you flip Rhino and lose 4 life against an aggressive deck, you might just die before you can heal back the life.
I was mostly playing against UR, GB, and other value style decks, and although they could be pretty aggressive, they weren't like Affinity or Burn in terms of damage. There was usually enough room against those decks to fall to 8 life, Bob up a Rhino, and stay alive. Against hyper aggro decks, that's just not happening, you'll be dead.
I love Bob, but I wouldn't be on the Bob plan if I expected an aggressive metagame. BGx decks can play other cards or change themselves up a bit and still be pretty strong, he's not necessary. But if you're planning to defeat decks like Tron, BGx, any blue control decks, or the Eldrazi stuff, then Bob is a powerful weapon, and you can afford to play a reasonable amount of 3+ CMC cards that gain life and you'll never really notice the damage.
Try to keep your average CMC around 1.8 for the deck.
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Dark Confidant is a very peculiar card. Despite its perceived power level, it only promotes a very specific play style. You need cards that cheap, obviously. But you also need cards that ends the game quickly, since you can only flip so many cards from him before he kills you. Cards like Lightning Bolt and Tarmogoyf are ideal for Bob. Abzan Junk doesn't play him because they are a grindy deck while Jund is better at ending the game quickly, if for no other reason than Lightning Bolt. Cheap cost cards that are also threatening and proactive at ending the game sooner rather than later.
He also pairs poorly with Delve, which is a new big favorite keyword of the format.
I did a bit of math when I removed my old Phyrexian Arenas from my Bg Devotion deck, to fit Bob in. I try to get my average cmc close to that of Junds. What I did was add all of the mana costs together, then divide by the total number of cards in the deck. When I did the math, Jund was hovering around 1.4ish, which is where I've managed to get my deck. You can still run 4 drops, and I even run three 5 drops, but my average flip off Bob isn't that bad. One life per card is the golden rule, and the closer to that you are, the better Bob becomes. I tried to stay under 1.5 as much as possible, as I don't want to be paying closer to 2 life per card, as it's just not worth it at that point.
Now I can say that tuning Bob lists is really hard. I'm currently in a bind, trying to fit in main deck board wipes, but at 5 mana a pieces, it's difficult to find the room without significantly re-tooling.
In order to build with Bob have a low curve, lots of lands, lots of lifegain, and ways to kill Bob if you need to. Also, he's best in a midrange shell that grinds the game out.
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Modern
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
I have built a BR aggro using Bobs. The deck was created two years ago. Thus there is supposed to have a room to improve. Maybe this can give you some ideas.
I did a bit of math when I removed my old Phyrexian Arenas from my Bg Devotion deck, to fit Bob in. I try to get my average cmc close to that of Junds. What I did was add all of the mana costs together, then divide by the total number of cards in the deck. When I did the math, Jund was hovering around 1.4ish, which is where I've managed to get my deck. You can still run 4 drops, and I even run three 5 drops, but my average flip off Bob isn't that bad. One life per card is the golden rule, and the closer to that you are, the better Bob becomes. I tried to stay under 1.5 as much as possible, as I don't want to be paying closer to 2 life per card, as it's just not worth it at that point.
Now I can say that tuning Bob lists is really hard. I'm currently in a bind, trying to fit in main deck board wipes, but at 5 mana a pieces, it's difficult to find the room without significantly re-tooling.
Black Sun's Zenith is only 2 on a flip but it's a slow card. Drown in Sorrow is 3 but not much good past turn 3.
Dark Confidant is a very peculiar card. Despite its perceived power level, it only promotes a very specific play style. You need cards that cheap, obviously. But you also need cards that ends the game quickly, since you can only flip so many cards from him before he kills you. Cards like Lightning Bolt and Tarmogoyf are ideal for Bob. Abzan Junk doesn't play him because they are a grindy deck while Jund is better at ending the game quickly, if for no other reason than Lightning Bolt. Cheap cost cards that are also threatening and proactive at ending the game sooner rather than later.
He also pairs poorly with Delve, which is a new big favorite keyword of the format.
Not to derail the thread but I have been looking for a good esper deck for a while. Do you have the esper suiside deck list?
I tried Esper Confidant before. Its not that great right now. Bob is fantastic against combo and control decks, but I seen my jund friends board them out when facing creature heavy decks like Little Kid Abzan.
I'm building a new Duskmantle-Mindcrank deck with bob. I think Bob would be fantastic there.
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I did a bit of math when I removed my old Phyrexian Arenas from my Bg Devotion deck, to fit Bob in. I try to get my average cmc close to that of Junds. What I did was add all of the mana costs together, then divide by the total number of cards in the deck. When I did the math, Jund was hovering around 1.4ish, which is where I've managed to get my deck. You can still run 4 drops, and I even run three 5 drops, but my average flip off Bob isn't that bad. One life per card is the golden rule, and the closer to that you are, the better Bob becomes. I tried to stay under 1.5 as much as possible, as I don't want to be paying closer to 2 life per card, as it's just not worth it at that point.
Now I can say that tuning Bob lists is really hard. I'm currently in a bind, trying to fit in main deck board wipes, but at 5 mana a pieces, it's difficult to find the room without significantly re-tooling.
Black Sun's Zenith is only 2 on a flip but it's a slow card. Drown in Sorrow is 3 but not much good past turn 3.
Instead I moved my Obliterators to the side, removed two main deck spot removals, and slotted in two Geralf's Messenger and two Languish. Seems decent thus far, but oddly makes the deck feel much more like an aggro deck than I'm used too. Which is really weird to say when main decking wraths, but there it is.
Rather than use all my time studying hundreds of decklists and trying to put them in the context of the formats they existed in I figured I would just ask here directly. When you're playing Dark Confidant what sort of mana curve are you generally looking for? How many 4's can I afford? 5's? How many 1's do I need? Is there a total CMC of my deck that I should try and stay under? In a goldfish what turn should I be looking at for a clock in order to avoid needless risk to my life total? How much lifegain should I include? What's the max amount of pain I should accept from my manabase? Is he functional if Black is a tertiary color or does he really push you to needing black as primary or secondary?
I've studied a lot of Jund lists but that alone isn't answering my question. For example, Jund will run Huntmaster with Bob figuring the lifegain offsets the pain of a 4 drop but Abzan won't run Siege Rhino with Bob.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
Make sure you can kill him yourself. Whether it's attacking into blocks, kill spells, liliana, etc., you should build in options.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
The land trick helps a lot, that's the sort of thing I'm looking for. Do you know if anyone has really tried Blighted Fen? Or is the clock too slow on that? Does Mortuary Mire to manipulate my Bob hit have any merit?
I'm looking at BGU rather than Jund but I've seen they play Courser of Kruphix, following this logic is that card really even all that good? It flips for 3 and gaining a life off of playing your land simply means you aren't flipping a 0.
I run Bob in my BW DnT build, where I keep the average CMC pretty low, and he works pretty effectively. Drawing lands is almost wanted at a certain point when you're a large quantity of ghost quarters and tec edges.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
EDIT: As for playing 5 drops, I've always sided 2 Thragtuks, which is flipped probably don't kill you and then pay the life back. Waaaay back when, I played Batterskull in the maindeck as a 1 of, and things were fine.
I wouldn't play Tasigur though, that's asking for problems.
Modern - GB Elves, UW Ojutai Control
Legacy - BWG Junk Stoneblade
Gay and Proud
#MakeAmericaGreatAgain
This was my initial thought. It's ok to run some higher CMC cards that gain life, but then I got to thinking about the fact that you need to have the life to lose in the first place. If I'm right, the meta is going to get a whole lot faster without Twin and that means generally having less life available per turn. Where as on turn 4-5 you may have had 9 before, it could only be 5 now. Obviously, you need to be at atleast 6 life before you can break even on a Thragtusk. So I'm reconsidering that opinion, it still holds true for something like Ooze and Finks but maybe not so true for Obstinate Baloth and Thragtusk.
I was mostly playing against UR, GB, and other value style decks, and although they could be pretty aggressive, they weren't like Affinity or Burn in terms of damage. There was usually enough room against those decks to fall to 8 life, Bob up a Rhino, and stay alive. Against hyper aggro decks, that's just not happening, you'll be dead.
I love Bob, but I wouldn't be on the Bob plan if I expected an aggressive metagame. BGx decks can play other cards or change themselves up a bit and still be pretty strong, he's not necessary. But if you're planning to defeat decks like Tron, BGx, any blue control decks, or the Eldrazi stuff, then Bob is a powerful weapon, and you can afford to play a reasonable amount of 3+ CMC cards that gain life and you'll never really notice the damage.
Modern - GB Elves, UW Ojutai Control
Legacy - BWG Junk Stoneblade
Gay and Proud
#MakeAmericaGreatAgain
I've been using him in BW Midrange and Mardu Midrange.
MTG finance guy- follow me on Twitter@RichArschmann or RichardArschmann on Reddit
He also pairs poorly with Delve, which is a new big favorite keyword of the format.
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Now I can say that tuning Bob lists is really hard. I'm currently in a bind, trying to fit in main deck board wipes, but at 5 mana a pieces, it's difficult to find the room without significantly re-tooling.
Cheeri0sXWU
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JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
Also strong: Hangarback Walker. That card is generally better with Twin out of the picture, especially with Confidant.
I have built a BR aggro using Bobs. The deck was created two years ago. Thus there is supposed to have a room to improve. Maybe this can give you some ideas.
Anything, but nothing at the moment...
Modern:
WUBRGAmulet Titan, WUBRGHuman
WUBRAd Nauseam, WBRGDeath Shadow, UBRGScapeshift, UBRGDredge
WURJeskai Nahiri, WURCheeri0s, WBGCounter Company, WRGBurn, UBRMadcap Moon, BRGJund Midrange
UBTurn,BRGriselbrand Reanimator, WGKnight Company, RGRG Tron, RGRG Ponza, XAffinity, XEldrazi Tron
Black Sun's Zenith is only 2 on a flip but it's a slow card. Drown in Sorrow is 3 but not much good past turn 3.
Not to derail the thread but I have been looking for a good esper deck for a while. Do you have the esper suiside deck list?
I'm building a new Duskmantle-Mindcrank deck with bob. I think Bob would be fantastic there.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
Instead I moved my Obliterators to the side, removed two main deck spot removals, and slotted in two Geralf's Messenger and two Languish. Seems decent thus far, but oddly makes the deck feel much more like an aggro deck than I'm used too. Which is really weird to say when main decking wraths, but there it is.
Cheeri0sXWU
Reid Duke's Level One
Who's the Beatdown
Alt+0198=Æ