The rationale for many of these is somewhat interconnected. Bob is for sure better and more consistent CA than the "virtual CA" of Shadows of the Past, but I wanted a little smaller curve to make him work without hurting me too much in the long run (if the game even gets to the long run). So I took out the CMC6 Beseech the Queen and replaced it with CMC2 Shred Memory, doubly serving as grave hate (which I needed more of) and tutor, since 9/10 times the thing we're searching for with Beseech is transmutable by Shred anyway (Bitterblossom or Reassembling Skeleton to feed braids; Null Rod, Torpor Orb, Chains of Mephistopheles, Winter Orb, etc. as deck hosers; and so forth...at absolute worst can always grab Demonic Tutor if you really badly need something not cmc2, but I can't imagine that ever being relevant). I also took out the CMC4 Magus of the Abyss, who as I mentioned above was usually getting sacced to himself next turn anyway like a glorified Fleshbag Marauder (he's not a bad creature on his own, but when Braids is in the command zone he loses a lot of appeal) and replaced it with Liliana, Heretical Healer, who has all highly relevant abilities if she can be flipped. I'm still not entirely certain just how consistently she can be flipped, so I'll be testing that out, but as Prid3 said a long time ago in an above post at worst we can always sac Braids to herself for the flip, though granted that means pitching Braids to the GY instead of the CZ.
The other changes are more minor. Drownyard Temple is a slightly worse than Dakmoor Salvage #2 in that it's a one-card land-based solution to feeding Braids if necessary, though it only taps for colorless. Also I never really ended up needing Thought Vessel's "no max hand size" ability, it's only relevant with Necropotence, so I swapped it for Prismatic Lens which has a slightly more useful secondary ability.
That's sound reasoning for the changes and it does good things to the average cmc. Drownyard Temple looks pretty cool, I'll have to try it myself.
It's a good list. There's many different Sidisi variants out there, most I've seen are more reanimator/combo than stax to take advantage of recurring sidisi for additional tutors. Also, I've been saying for a long time what you guys discussed in that thread, which was that the banning of Braids in the 99 was a real blow to Pox-type stax in EDH (actually I've been saying that from the day the "banned as commander" list was abolished), and I think it's only matter of time considering recent power creep that she becomes unbanned. Kokusho was seen as overly oppressive back then also and he's since been unbanned. At this point people are afraid of her just by name, she's been on the banlist for so long a lot of people can't (or don't want to) imagine what a Braids deck even looks like. And that's part of the reason I maintain this thread, I think more exposure to Braids is a good thing, so people can see that she's not nearly the unrivaled terror she used to be next to Derevi, Empyreal Tactician and other power-creeps.
Braids in the command zone really does make a big difference in card selection. Magus of the Abyss for me is meh because I have a superior alternative in the CZ, since you guys don't it's a much more viable pick for you. For me reanimation effects like your Reanimate or Xiahou only dilute Braids, for you every reanimation is another Demonic Tutor with Sidisi in the grave. Your curve, too, is overall a little bigger, so you probably generate more mana-per-game than I do and you can afford to play things like Bubbling Muck and Death Cloud, and you'll likely have more lands out than I do at any given time so you can make better use of Beseech the Queen.
Thank you, it's been frustrating learning how to sequence the effects properly, but that table scoop is just oh so rewarding. I am on the lockdown strategy, I actually like to think of this project as preparation for Braids' unbanning. Having access to Smokestack in the command zone is probably the difference that Mono Black needs to gain some competitive ground, as Griiver suggests. That was sort of my idea behind using Sidisi, but I'm finding Smokestack itself is far too frail rush it onto the battlefield on turn 2-3 without disrupting the board. Working to lock down the board with Contamination and Null Rod in the early stages of the game has been really making a difference for me. Pox and Death Cloud see heavy use in my list as pseudo-redundancy for the Smokestack/Braids effect and for the degree of symmetric disruption they offer. The inclusion of multiple ritual effects allows me to have the mana needed to make Death Cloud worthwhile, even with few lands and Null Rod in play. Magus of the Abyss is definitely not as strong as I'd like it to be, but I currently don't own The Abyss and using Anowon, the Ruin Sage doesn't seem like the proper substitute. His combat stats have been decent for times I have to resort to beat down however.
That said I still have some questions. How's Mana Web work for you? Don't people just tap all their lands in response to the trigger? It won't stop people from playing "draw-go" against you. My go-to solution for control players has always been Defense Grid, it does the same job of forcing everyone to play on their own turn while also screwing over "free" spells because of the tax mechanic (for example, your mana web won't do anything if someone counters you with Force of Will, but my defense grid will say "nope, pay 3 or go home"). And land-light rock-heavy decks ignore the web almost completely.
Mana Web is something I'm currently testing out, but all your points have also been in my mind regarding its inclusion. I really wanted something that offered pseudo-redundancy for Tangle Wire more than a means to stop control, for which Defense Grid is the way to go. I was previously using Orb of Dreams for the same job, which I think I liked better because it had more impact, making it difficult to accumulate mana.
How about Infernal Darkness? How long can you sustain it? Once again you seem to be running a bigger-mana, bigger-curve build than mine, so I wouldn't be surprised if it works better for you than I'd imagine it working for me.
Infernal Darkness was my selection for a stand-in while I saved up for Nether Void. I might play both anyway because having a redundant Contamination has been pretty favorable so far, but yeah.. I only try to sustain it for 3-4 turns at most. Like Griiver says, often that buys enough time to drop more lock pieces/get value from Liliana. I do agree it would probably get the axe if Braids was in the CZ. Do you think Lodestone Golem would make for a better substitute?
I like your Ophiomancer by the way, I didn't even know that card existed. Learn something new every day! I might consider testing it against Sengir Autocrat, he's kinda like Breeding Pit you know (which I eventually cut a while back), old school 2009 pre-ban braids flavor, but maybe he's been eclipsed by now.
I love him and Skullclamp does too. Sengir Autocrat isn't necessarily bad, but Ophiomancer can feed the Contamination lock a little better I think. A Deathtouch blocker every turn is real cute, too.
Anyway, I'm glad to know my braids list is still inspiring people, even though as of yet she remains banned. As far as I'm concerned, any discussion about Braids or Braids-derivatives like your Sidisi, whether here on mtgs or on the competitive edh subreddit or elsewhere, is a discussion worth having--because people will never seriously start reconsidering Braids' position on the banlist in 2016 if they don't know what a Braids deck would actually look like in 2016 compared to other top commanders.
Yeah man, thanks for helping to keep the dream alive. Mono Black Pox offers some much needed flavor in the cEDH meta.
It's been working just fine over the last couple days. It's exactly what you would expect, roughly on par with Dakmor Salvage as an OK recursive thing, nothing fantastic or game-changing but probably still worth the tradeoff over a simple Swamp.
Having access to Smokestack in the command zone is probably the difference that Mono Black needs to gain some competitive ground, as Griiver suggests. That was sort of my idea behind using Sidisi, but I'm finding Smokestack itself is far too frail rush it onto the battlefield on turn 2-3 without disrupting the board.
Two things on this. To your first comment, I completely agree: Smokestack-esque stax always needs a level of speed appropriate to the format if it's going to keep up with opponents' rate of permanent generation. In Vintage where moxen let people regularly drop 3+ permanents on turn 1, stax decks use a playset of Mishra's Workshops (and their own moxen) to keep up. In Legacy it's Mox Diamond and Chrome Mox, as well as a playset of Trinisphere to help slow everyone else down. In EDH we run all the accelerants we can, but the nature of the 99-singleton format means we can never really have competitive consistency without a stax effect in the command zone.
Secondly, regarding early Smokestack, I also agree with you that it's not as effective as one might think. Smokestack takes a full turn to get rolling and that makes a huge difference in those early T1-4 when so many things are happening. Once again that's a problem solved by Braids--she's sort of like a Smokestack pre-set to 1, she hits the field and immediately gets to work. That's really what I think firmly establishes her as on-par with other top tier decks, to answer Griiver's question up above: if you're my opponent and your opening play is "land -> pass," T2 braids comes out and makes you sac that land and you never get off the ground, as opposed to a T2 smokestack which gives you a full turn or two to fortify your board. In fact, if your opener is land -> pass, and I can stick a T2 braids, Her balancing weakness is that if she can't explode early, because either she faces heavy disruption or she just gets a really crappy hand, her ability becomes underwhelming. A T4 or even sometimes a T3 braids drop (if I'm not playing 1st) can often feel completely useless, by that point people have enough junk on the board that they don't even care. In my games she strikes me as very similar to Hermit Druid, where she seeks to win very, very early before anyone has a chance to respond, and past T3-4 after people have had some time to prepare, her win chances drop significantly.
Pox and Death Cloud see heavy use in my list as pseudo-redundancy for the Smokestack/Braids effect and for the degree of symmetric disruption they offer. The inclusion of multiple ritual effects allows me to have the mana needed to make Death Cloud worthwhile, even with few lands and Null Rod in play. Magus of the Abyss is definitely not as strong as I'd like it to be, but I currently don't own The Abyss and using Anowon, the Ruin Sage doesn't seem like the proper substitute. His combat stats have been decent for times I have to resort to beat down however.
Like you said, this is sort of the best you can do without Braids in the CZ. She's just that important. Braids shouldn't need nor would she even have the mana to cast Death Cloud as nobody's board, including her own, should ever develop that far in the first place. Anowon, the Ruin Sage makes Magus of the Abyss look like a champion, he's super lame with his 5cmc...but so are all his alternatives: Sheoldred, Call to the Grave, Kuon, Ogre Ascendant, what else is there? I had the same exact problem when I tried to build Nath of the Gilt-Leaf stax post-braids (before Sidisi existed). There just wasn't enough quality pox dudes to come in and make a difference early enough. So I'm sorry I can't offer you better advice on that, but it's because I wasn't ever able to solve the problem myself.
Mana Web is something I'm currently testing out, but all your points have also been in my mind regarding its inclusion. I really wanted something that offered pseudo-redundancy for Tangle Wire more than a means to stop control, for which Defense Grid is the way to go. I was previously using Orb of Dreams for the same job, which I think I liked better because it had more impact, making it difficult to accumulate mana.
I haven't tested either of them myself, only seen other people try to play them, so this is all theorycraft--but neither of them are are really redundant with Tangle Wire insofar as neither of them lock opponents out of the game on their own like Tangle Wire can do. Even so, if I had to choose one I'd rather choose Orb of Dreams, because at least that would be an actual impediment (however minor) to my tempo, as opposed to mana web which doesn't actually slow tempo but rather works more like a watered-down Defense Grid in forcing players to play instants on their own turn. Both Mana Web and Orb of Dreams synergize well with Winter Orb/Static Orb so the more relevant comparison is which one is better as a standalone prison piece, and at least on paper Orb of Dreams wins that contest.
Infernal Darkness was my selection for a stand-in while I saved up for Nether Void. I might play both anyway because having a redundant Contamination has been pretty favorable so far, but yeah.. I only try to sustain it for 3-4 turns at most. Like Griiver says, often that buys enough time to drop more lock pieces/get value from Liliana. I do agree it would probably get the axe if Braids was in the CZ. Do you think Lodestone Golem would make for a better substitute?
Depends on your meta I guess. Lodestone Golem is good in other formats because he's a prison piece that also brings efficient 5/3 beats, but in EDH we don't care about the beats so he's just an OK prison piece (not taxing artifacts is pretty significant in a format where so many of the strongest combo pieces, utility, and accelerants are artifacts). If I had to choose between golem and Infernal Darkness I'd choose the enchantment, at least it can actually lock people out of the game for a few turns if they're not prepared for it, golem is just a sometimes-speedbump.
I love him [ophiomancer] and Skullclamp does too. Sengir Autocrat isn't necessarily bad, but Ophiomancer can feed the Contamination lock a little better I think. A Deathtouch blocker every turn is real cute, too.
After the last week of playtesting or so I think I'm definitely going to make the swap. Like I said, Sengir Autocrat is a classic, he was Braids tech before Braids was ever on a banlist. Autocrat's job was putting 4 bodies on the field at a highly efficient 4cmc to feed Braids or some other stax effect for 4 turns, effectively buying time while you try to dig out Bitterblossom or Nether Spirit or some other more long-lasting solution. Ophiomancer, however, basically IS another Bitterblossom, except on legs, and he does it all for 3cmc rather than autocrat's 4...or in other words, Autocrat temporarily feeds braids for 4cmc, ophiomancer permanently feeds braids for 3cmc. I'm actually having difficulty thinking of an argument in Autocrat's defense (and they're both cute with Skullclamp). Thanks again for introducing me to Ophiomancer, I literally had no idea that card existed until looking at your decklist, dunno how I missed it.
I guess that means I might have to re-paste together another artistic banner sometime, since now it will have 2 card arts which aren't actually in the deck anymore (Autocrat on the left, Breeding Pit on the right).
The two lands are pretty self-explanatory. I think Volrath's Stronghold and Command Beacon both pass the "swamp test" (are their abilities good enough to justify not being a basic swamp tapping for that all-important B?) but I'll keep testing them. Now and then we may find ourselves forced to sac braids to her own ability (particularly if we're trying to flip Liliana, Heretical Healer), and since we play such heavy stax, trying to cast her a second time for 6cmc can be nearly impossible sometimes.
I cut one extra land to make room for Cursed Totem, another one of those fantastic cards like Torpor Orb that turns off soooo many things while not hurting us in the slightest since literally none of our creatures have any activated abilities whatsoever (well, Reassembling Skeleton does, but Totem doesn't stop it because it's activated when he's in the GY).
Lastly Chalice of the Void. I'm trying to work it into my Arcum list too, but it works even better in Braids honestly. It's never a dead draw, because at absolute worst you just drop it for 0 and wipe out all the pacts, moxen, Mana Crypt, and other great 0 drops (make sure you play your own moxen/crypt first). Set it to 1 or 2 counters and it's even better; if we're playing the game right our opponents shouldn't have more than 2-3 mana to work with on any given turn anyway, so locking them out of all 1 or 2 drops is a huge play. Best of all, as with any of our other prison effects, if it ever gets in our own way later on because we topdeck something really great, then we just sac it to Braids and move along. Zero regrets about Chalice.
Oh, and I cut Nether Traitor, he was always the weakest of the "food creatures" because he doesn't feed braids on his own, he needs another food source to work...unlike Nether Spirit or Reassembling Skeleton or Ophiomancer which are all one-card solutions, they feed braids forever all on their own.
Nice changes, I'm excited to hear how Chalice of the Void pans out for you. Along with the uses you've mentioned, it seems like really great tech against Vandalblast and Cyclonic Rift as well.
Nice changes, I'm excited to hear how Chalice of the Void pans out for you. Along with the uses you've mentioned, it seems like really great tech against Vandalblast and Cyclonic Rift as well.
I've been testing Chalice already for a while and it's been going great thus far in both my Braids games and my Arcum games. The real struggle until now was just finding something to cut in order to fit it in each list. Both commanders can interact with it in unique ways (Braids can easily dispose of it later on if it gets in the way, Arcum can use it in all of his artifact combos).
I suppose it really does say something about the format as a whole, eh, that we've reached the point where the competitive curve has approached such Vintage levels that Null Rod, Trinisphere, and Chalice of the Void can be game-winners in the right matchups. That's sort of amusing I guess.
So this started out as, "What if I'm not giving Jeweled Amulet or Chrome Mox enough of a chance?" I've traditionally stayed away from both of them, Chrome Mox because I didn't think there was enough black cards to consistently be able to power it, Amulet because...well, it's basically a ghetto Lotus Petal, it's simply a pretty bottom-of-the-barrel one-shot rock. But the difference between a T2 braids and a T3 braids is so astronomically huge that I got to thinking maybe I really can justify topping off on rocks, even janky ones like Amulet and ones that might not be able to consistently trigger like Chrome Mox. And THEN I said, hey, I'm running 31 artifacts now, why don't I go all the way, swap out two more lands for Vault of Whispers and Darksteel Citadel and throw in Mox Opal to try and hit metalcraft.
I cut swamps to make these changes, so the total number of mana sources in the deck is still the same, but with less land mana and more fast rock mana. It'll be interesting to see if I can make Opal and Chrome work consistently enough, but the good news about those two is that if absolute worse comes to worse they can still hit the field de-activated and feed braids for a turn (not like Mox Diamond which sacs itself). But hopefully that won't happen too often, and initial results from the last couple games have been positive, I'm actually having less trouble with them than I anticipated.
So, we'll see how that all plays out with more testing in coming weeks.
So using the decklist with the above forecasted changes (i.e. including the artifact lands, Mox Opal, Chrome Mox, Jeweled Amulet), and considering that I don't get very often to test this deck in live scenarios since only my immediate friends will let me play it, I took some time the other day to formally quantify the performance of this deck in solitaire. Obviously it's not as useful as real play, because there's nobody at the table to Force of Will my braids or Spell Pierce my Vampiric Tutor, but I still think it's still a worthy endeavor because at the end of the day a T2 braids is a T2 braids and we want to maximize the chances of that one way or another to hopefully nail opponents with land -> pass openers.
In 50 games, I was able to get this distribution of braids drops:
So with a sample size of 50 games we can be 95% confident that the true proportions of braids-droppability for each turn lie within 14.1% of the following values:
T1 braids - 6%
T2 braids - 44%
T3 braids - 36%
T4 braids - 10%
T5 braids - 4%
...which is pretty good as far as I'm concerned, the ideal ≤T2 braids was 50% of all games, the only-OK T3 braids was another 36% on top of that.
Some reminders, notes, and other things to keep in mind:
- I always played as if I won the roll (no T1 draw), except when I was testing a Gemstone Caverns hand when I played as if I lost the roll to make Caverns work. It's easier to land T2 braids when you lose the roll, but T2 braids hurts more when you win the roll. Also T1 braids is useless unless you lost the roll since nobody has anything to sac on their 0th turn (usually).
- High margin of error of 14.1%. This is because the sample size is only 50, and I'm waaaay too lazy to play out the 100s or 1000s of solitaire games needed for lower margin of error (if I played 100 games instead of 50, the margin of error would only decrease to 10%, and if I played 200 games, it would only decrease to about 8%).
- Either of the 1 mana tutors (vampiric or imperial seal) in an opening hand is pretty much guaranteed T2 braids, you just fetch Mana Crypt and as long as you hit 2 black land drops there's your easy 2BB on T2. But we all knew already that Crypt is broken, so this isn't very surprising.
- Both of the T5 braids drops were due to mana screw, which was 2/50 = 4% of trials, acceptably low for my tastes.
- In a real scenario, early braids does not necessarily mean winning, and late braids does not necessarily mean losing. On several of the T4 braids games, the braids drop was prefaced with hard stax plays, for example T1 Trinisphere, or T1 Winter Orb + T2 Tangle Wire, so those goldfishes would likely play out better in a real situation than would be implied by a T4 braids drop. Similarly, a T2 braids isn't necessarily a win if you're going 2nd and an opponent has an explosive T1 with many possible things to sac. That said, generally an early braids means you're winning and a late braids means you're losing, so we can still get some value out of the numbers.
- Liliana, Heretical Healer was mostly mulliganed away in those trials (all but in 1 game), so I didn't get much good data on her, and she's the card I most badly want to test going forward. If we have 4BB, we can always sac braids to herself to flip Lili and then re-cast braids, but that's a high-cost late-game play, hopefully we can make her work better than that.
- In all 50 games the braids play was "sustainable" within 0-2 turns, meaning I either already had a Braids-sustaining effect on the field when Braids came out or I was able to put one there in the next 1 or 2 turns. "Braids-sustaining effect" meaning, like, Bitterblossom or Nether Spirit or Dakmor Salvage or any one of those.
- Chrome Mox appeared in 5 games and worked every time, Mox Opal appeared in 4 games and worked every time. I think it's pretty safe to say these are good choices, despite my earlier hesitation.
_____________
So, despite the study limitations, overall I think it was a worthwhile and positive little experiment, and it went good enough I think to justify finalizing the above changes into the main post: 5 swamps out, 2 artifact lands and 3 rocks in.
just wanted to drop by and say that I really appreciate your efforts. Your changes look really promising and your last analysis via solitaire was a really interesting / informative read. Kind of a selfish question, but how is Liliana, Heretical Healer working out? Did you have the chance of further playtesting?
Thanks for the support and for dropping by! Yeah, once in a while I see "let's build a smokestack/pox deck" posts on the cEDH subreddit, and I see you and triplerx are usually among those who reply to them, and same as you guys at this point I'm pretty much just waiting for Braids' day of liberation. After trying out so many alternatives in a variety of colors, and unless there's some new printing that changes everything, I just can't see "smokestack stax" or "pox stax" being viable in the competitive scene beyond Braids, Cabal Minion in the command zone (I had trouble bringing Nath stax up to competitive level even when she was legal in the 99).
To answer your question, I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say Flipwalker Lili is a "great" card but rather just acceptable enough to stay in my list until further testing or until I find something better to replace her. At worst, like I said before, if we can ever generate 4BB, that's a guaranteed flip by saccing braids to herself and then re-casting her; but that's a total of 5BBB for the flipped Lili when you consider her casting cost with it, not efficient by anyone's definition. More ideally is when we've already got something like Bitterblossom or Nether Spirit feeding braids, then Lili comes out as additional pressure, but until that time she's practically useless. And since she's so situational I often find myself mulliganing her away from an opening hand (which has also made playtesting her more difficult, but adds to the evidence that she's just not as consistent as I wished she were).
If they come out with some other 3-4cmc stax powerhouse piece that's a little more consistent, something more akin to a 2nd copy of Liliana of the Veil, then I will probably swap her out for that. I would rather have a haymaker I know I can always use rather than one I can probably use much of the time but not always.
With that in mind, have you ever considered Ratchet Bomb? Seems like it could have a place against certain matchups (it should easily be able to interact with cards like i.e. Tormod's Crypt, Rest in Peace, mana dorks / rocks, hatebears, tokens and in general stuff that is hard to interact with in mono b) and is pretty easy to cast. Not sure if needed, but maybe something you have missed.
I've considered several sweepers in the past: Engineered Explosives and Powder Keg on the cheap end, or Nevinyrral's Disk and Oblivion Stone on the higher end. Of those, I definitely agree with your thoughts that Ratchet Bomb would be the best for a deck like this one, in a similar vein as Chalice of the Void: if we're "doing it right" then everyone is playing on a short curve and the most problematic permanents we ever deal with are the 0-2cmc kind, usually engines like Survival of the Fittest, hatebears, or piles of mana rocks/mana dorks from an explosive start.
I'm still trying to decide on the best balance between creature spot removal, sweepers, and discard, since they're all important. At the moment I'm actually thinking this deck needs more discard, as the number of cards in my list that shut down countermagic are currently very few (Defense Grid, Chalice at X=2, Cavern of Souls...can't think of any others), our strategy is very predictable and well-telegraphed i.e. vulnerable to countermagic, and we have no counters of our own.
That said, if I ever decide to put another sweeper in, Ratchet Bomb is definitely the card.
Keep up the good work!
I'll do my best! We'll all have to keep fighting the good fight until beloved Braids sees her day in the sun. I have faith.
That's sound reasoning for the changes and it does good things to the average cmc. Drownyard Temple looks pretty cool, I'll have to try it myself.
Thank you, it's been frustrating learning how to sequence the effects properly, but that table scoop is just oh so rewarding. I am on the lockdown strategy, I actually like to think of this project as preparation for Braids' unbanning. Having access to Smokestack in the command zone is probably the difference that Mono Black needs to gain some competitive ground, as Griiver suggests. That was sort of my idea behind using Sidisi, but I'm finding Smokestack itself is far too frail rush it onto the battlefield on turn 2-3 without disrupting the board. Working to lock down the board with Contamination and Null Rod in the early stages of the game has been really making a difference for me. Pox and Death Cloud see heavy use in my list as pseudo-redundancy for the Smokestack/Braids effect and for the degree of symmetric disruption they offer. The inclusion of multiple ritual effects allows me to have the mana needed to make Death Cloud worthwhile, even with few lands and Null Rod in play. Magus of the Abyss is definitely not as strong as I'd like it to be, but I currently don't own The Abyss and using Anowon, the Ruin Sage doesn't seem like the proper substitute. His combat stats have been decent for times I have to resort to beat down however.
Mana Web is something I'm currently testing out, but all your points have also been in my mind regarding its inclusion. I really wanted something that offered pseudo-redundancy for Tangle Wire more than a means to stop control, for which Defense Grid is the way to go. I was previously using Orb of Dreams for the same job, which I think I liked better because it had more impact, making it difficult to accumulate mana.
Infernal Darkness was my selection for a stand-in while I saved up for Nether Void. I might play both anyway because having a redundant Contamination has been pretty favorable so far, but yeah.. I only try to sustain it for 3-4 turns at most. Like Griiver says, often that buys enough time to drop more lock pieces/get value from Liliana. I do agree it would probably get the axe if Braids was in the CZ. Do you think Lodestone Golem would make for a better substitute?
I love him and Skullclamp does too. Sengir Autocrat isn't necessarily bad, but Ophiomancer can feed the Contamination lock a little better I think. A Deathtouch blocker every turn is real cute, too.
Yeah man, thanks for helping to keep the dream alive. Mono Black Pox offers some much needed flavor in the cEDH meta.
Two things on this. To your first comment, I completely agree: Smokestack-esque stax always needs a level of speed appropriate to the format if it's going to keep up with opponents' rate of permanent generation. In Vintage where moxen let people regularly drop 3+ permanents on turn 1, stax decks use a playset of Mishra's Workshops (and their own moxen) to keep up. In Legacy it's Mox Diamond and Chrome Mox, as well as a playset of Trinisphere to help slow everyone else down. In EDH we run all the accelerants we can, but the nature of the 99-singleton format means we can never really have competitive consistency without a stax effect in the command zone.
Secondly, regarding early Smokestack, I also agree with you that it's not as effective as one might think. Smokestack takes a full turn to get rolling and that makes a huge difference in those early T1-4 when so many things are happening. Once again that's a problem solved by Braids--she's sort of like a Smokestack pre-set to 1, she hits the field and immediately gets to work. That's really what I think firmly establishes her as on-par with other top tier decks, to answer Griiver's question up above: if you're my opponent and your opening play is "land -> pass," T2 braids comes out and makes you sac that land and you never get off the ground, as opposed to a T2 smokestack which gives you a full turn or two to fortify your board. In fact, if your opener is land -> pass, and I can stick a T2 braids, Her balancing weakness is that if she can't explode early, because either she faces heavy disruption or she just gets a really crappy hand, her ability becomes underwhelming. A T4 or even sometimes a T3 braids drop (if I'm not playing 1st) can often feel completely useless, by that point people have enough junk on the board that they don't even care. In my games she strikes me as very similar to Hermit Druid, where she seeks to win very, very early before anyone has a chance to respond, and past T3-4 after people have had some time to prepare, her win chances drop significantly.
Like you said, this is sort of the best you can do without Braids in the CZ. She's just that important. Braids shouldn't need nor would she even have the mana to cast Death Cloud as nobody's board, including her own, should ever develop that far in the first place. Anowon, the Ruin Sage makes Magus of the Abyss look like a champion, he's super lame with his 5cmc...but so are all his alternatives: Sheoldred, Call to the Grave, Kuon, Ogre Ascendant, what else is there? I had the same exact problem when I tried to build Nath of the Gilt-Leaf stax post-braids (before Sidisi existed). There just wasn't enough quality pox dudes to come in and make a difference early enough. So I'm sorry I can't offer you better advice on that, but it's because I wasn't ever able to solve the problem myself.
I haven't tested either of them myself, only seen other people try to play them, so this is all theorycraft--but neither of them are are really redundant with Tangle Wire insofar as neither of them lock opponents out of the game on their own like Tangle Wire can do. Even so, if I had to choose one I'd rather choose Orb of Dreams, because at least that would be an actual impediment (however minor) to my tempo, as opposed to mana web which doesn't actually slow tempo but rather works more like a watered-down Defense Grid in forcing players to play instants on their own turn. Both Mana Web and Orb of Dreams synergize well with Winter Orb/Static Orb so the more relevant comparison is which one is better as a standalone prison piece, and at least on paper Orb of Dreams wins that contest.
Depends on your meta I guess. Lodestone Golem is good in other formats because he's a prison piece that also brings efficient 5/3 beats, but in EDH we don't care about the beats so he's just an OK prison piece (not taxing artifacts is pretty significant in a format where so many of the strongest combo pieces, utility, and accelerants are artifacts). If I had to choose between golem and Infernal Darkness I'd choose the enchantment, at least it can actually lock people out of the game for a few turns if they're not prepared for it, golem is just a sometimes-speedbump.
After the last week of playtesting or so I think I'm definitely going to make the swap. Like I said, Sengir Autocrat is a classic, he was Braids tech before Braids was ever on a banlist. Autocrat's job was putting 4 bodies on the field at a highly efficient 4cmc to feed Braids or some other stax effect for 4 turns, effectively buying time while you try to dig out Bitterblossom or Nether Spirit or some other more long-lasting solution. Ophiomancer, however, basically IS another Bitterblossom, except on legs, and he does it all for 3cmc rather than autocrat's 4...or in other words, Autocrat temporarily feeds braids for 4cmc, ophiomancer permanently feeds braids for 3cmc. I'm actually having difficulty thinking of an argument in Autocrat's defense (and they're both cute with Skullclamp). Thanks again for introducing me to Ophiomancer, I literally had no idea that card existed until looking at your decklist, dunno how I missed it.
So it'll be:
- out Sengir Autocrat, in Ophiomancer
I guess that means I might have to re-paste together another artistic banner sometime, since now it will have 2 card arts which aren't actually in the deck anymore (Autocrat on the left, Breeding Pit on the right).
Legacy: GWR Enchantress <--That's my banner! (lol tinypic removed it)
Casual: WB [[Primer]]Clerics Tribal; BU Affinity
EDH: ...U [[Primer]]Arcum Dagsson; BG Legal Stax; B Illegal Stax
Proxy: .WX TriniStax
Other stuff: [[Official]]Shuffling, Truth + Maths
- out 3 swamps, Nether Traitor
- in Volrath's Stronghold, Command Beacon, Cursed Totem, and Chalice of the Void
The two lands are pretty self-explanatory. I think Volrath's Stronghold and Command Beacon both pass the "swamp test" (are their abilities good enough to justify not being a basic swamp tapping for that all-important B?) but I'll keep testing them. Now and then we may find ourselves forced to sac braids to her own ability (particularly if we're trying to flip Liliana, Heretical Healer), and since we play such heavy stax, trying to cast her a second time for 6cmc can be nearly impossible sometimes.
I cut one extra land to make room for Cursed Totem, another one of those fantastic cards like Torpor Orb that turns off soooo many things while not hurting us in the slightest since literally none of our creatures have any activated abilities whatsoever (well, Reassembling Skeleton does, but Totem doesn't stop it because it's activated when he's in the GY).
Lastly Chalice of the Void. I'm trying to work it into my Arcum list too, but it works even better in Braids honestly. It's never a dead draw, because at absolute worst you just drop it for 0 and wipe out all the pacts, moxen, Mana Crypt, and other great 0 drops (make sure you play your own moxen/crypt first). Set it to 1 or 2 counters and it's even better; if we're playing the game right our opponents shouldn't have more than 2-3 mana to work with on any given turn anyway, so locking them out of all 1 or 2 drops is a huge play. Best of all, as with any of our other prison effects, if it ever gets in our own way later on because we topdeck something really great, then we just sac it to Braids and move along. Zero regrets about Chalice.
Oh, and I cut Nether Traitor, he was always the weakest of the "food creatures" because he doesn't feed braids on his own, he needs another food source to work...unlike Nether Spirit or Reassembling Skeleton or Ophiomancer which are all one-card solutions, they feed braids forever all on their own.
Legacy: GWR Enchantress <--That's my banner! (lol tinypic removed it)
Casual: WB [[Primer]]Clerics Tribal; BU Affinity
EDH: ...U [[Primer]]Arcum Dagsson; BG Legal Stax; B Illegal Stax
Proxy: .WX TriniStax
Other stuff: [[Official]]Shuffling, Truth + Maths
I suppose it really does say something about the format as a whole, eh, that we've reached the point where the competitive curve has approached such Vintage levels that Null Rod, Trinisphere, and Chalice of the Void can be game-winners in the right matchups. That's sort of amusing I guess.
Back on topic, the next changes I'm testing for the next little while are as follows...
out: 5x swamps
in: Vault of Whispers, Darksteel Citadel, Jeweled Amulet, Chrome Mox, Mox Opal
So this started out as, "What if I'm not giving Jeweled Amulet or Chrome Mox enough of a chance?" I've traditionally stayed away from both of them, Chrome Mox because I didn't think there was enough black cards to consistently be able to power it, Amulet because...well, it's basically a ghetto Lotus Petal, it's simply a pretty bottom-of-the-barrel one-shot rock. But the difference between a T2 braids and a T3 braids is so astronomically huge that I got to thinking maybe I really can justify topping off on rocks, even janky ones like Amulet and ones that might not be able to consistently trigger like Chrome Mox. And THEN I said, hey, I'm running 31 artifacts now, why don't I go all the way, swap out two more lands for Vault of Whispers and Darksteel Citadel and throw in Mox Opal to try and hit metalcraft.
I cut swamps to make these changes, so the total number of mana sources in the deck is still the same, but with less land mana and more fast rock mana. It'll be interesting to see if I can make Opal and Chrome work consistently enough, but the good news about those two is that if absolute worse comes to worse they can still hit the field de-activated and feed braids for a turn (not like Mox Diamond which sacs itself). But hopefully that won't happen too often, and initial results from the last couple games have been positive, I'm actually having less trouble with them than I anticipated.
So, we'll see how that all plays out with more testing in coming weeks.
Legacy: GWR Enchantress <--That's my banner! (lol tinypic removed it)
Casual: WB [[Primer]]Clerics Tribal; BU Affinity
EDH: ...U [[Primer]]Arcum Dagsson; BG Legal Stax; B Illegal Stax
Proxy: .WX TriniStax
Other stuff: [[Official]]Shuffling, Truth + Maths
In 50 games, I was able to get this distribution of braids drops:
So with a sample size of 50 games we can be 95% confident that the true proportions of braids-droppability for each turn lie within 14.1% of the following values:
T1 braids - 6%
T2 braids - 44%
T3 braids - 36%
T4 braids - 10%
T5 braids - 4%
...which is pretty good as far as I'm concerned, the ideal ≤T2 braids was 50% of all games, the only-OK T3 braids was another 36% on top of that.
Some reminders, notes, and other things to keep in mind:
- I always played as if I won the roll (no T1 draw), except when I was testing a Gemstone Caverns hand when I played as if I lost the roll to make Caverns work. It's easier to land T2 braids when you lose the roll, but T2 braids hurts more when you win the roll. Also T1 braids is useless unless you lost the roll since nobody has anything to sac on their 0th turn (usually).
- High margin of error of 14.1%. This is because the sample size is only 50, and I'm waaaay too lazy to play out the 100s or 1000s of solitaire games needed for lower margin of error (if I played 100 games instead of 50, the margin of error would only decrease to 10%, and if I played 200 games, it would only decrease to about 8%).
- Either of the 1 mana tutors (vampiric or imperial seal) in an opening hand is pretty much guaranteed T2 braids, you just fetch Mana Crypt and as long as you hit 2 black land drops there's your easy 2BB on T2. But we all knew already that Crypt is broken, so this isn't very surprising.
- Both of the T5 braids drops were due to mana screw, which was 2/50 = 4% of trials, acceptably low for my tastes.
- In a real scenario, early braids does not necessarily mean winning, and late braids does not necessarily mean losing. On several of the T4 braids games, the braids drop was prefaced with hard stax plays, for example T1 Trinisphere, or T1 Winter Orb + T2 Tangle Wire, so those goldfishes would likely play out better in a real situation than would be implied by a T4 braids drop. Similarly, a T2 braids isn't necessarily a win if you're going 2nd and an opponent has an explosive T1 with many possible things to sac. That said, generally an early braids means you're winning and a late braids means you're losing, so we can still get some value out of the numbers.
- Liliana, Heretical Healer was mostly mulliganed away in those trials (all but in 1 game), so I didn't get much good data on her, and she's the card I most badly want to test going forward. If we have 4BB, we can always sac braids to herself to flip Lili and then re-cast braids, but that's a high-cost late-game play, hopefully we can make her work better than that.
- In all 50 games the braids play was "sustainable" within 0-2 turns, meaning I either already had a Braids-sustaining effect on the field when Braids came out or I was able to put one there in the next 1 or 2 turns. "Braids-sustaining effect" meaning, like, Bitterblossom or Nether Spirit or Dakmor Salvage or any one of those.
- Chrome Mox appeared in 5 games and worked every time, Mox Opal appeared in 4 games and worked every time. I think it's pretty safe to say these are good choices, despite my earlier hesitation.
_____________
So, despite the study limitations, overall I think it was a worthwhile and positive little experiment, and it went good enough I think to justify finalizing the above changes into the main post: 5 swamps out, 2 artifact lands and 3 rocks in.
Legacy: GWR Enchantress <--That's my banner! (lol tinypic removed it)
Casual: WB [[Primer]]Clerics Tribal; BU Affinity
EDH: ...U [[Primer]]Arcum Dagsson; BG Legal Stax; B Illegal Stax
Proxy: .WX TriniStax
Other stuff: [[Official]]Shuffling, Truth + Maths
To answer your question, I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say Flipwalker Lili is a "great" card but rather just acceptable enough to stay in my list until further testing or until I find something better to replace her. At worst, like I said before, if we can ever generate 4BB, that's a guaranteed flip by saccing braids to herself and then re-casting her; but that's a total of 5BBB for the flipped Lili when you consider her casting cost with it, not efficient by anyone's definition. More ideally is when we've already got something like Bitterblossom or Nether Spirit feeding braids, then Lili comes out as additional pressure, but until that time she's practically useless. And since she's so situational I often find myself mulliganing her away from an opening hand (which has also made playtesting her more difficult, but adds to the evidence that she's just not as consistent as I wished she were).
If they come out with some other 3-4cmc stax powerhouse piece that's a little more consistent, something more akin to a 2nd copy of Liliana of the Veil, then I will probably swap her out for that. I would rather have a haymaker I know I can always use rather than one I can probably use much of the time but not always.
I've considered several sweepers in the past: Engineered Explosives and Powder Keg on the cheap end, or Nevinyrral's Disk and Oblivion Stone on the higher end. Of those, I definitely agree with your thoughts that Ratchet Bomb would be the best for a deck like this one, in a similar vein as Chalice of the Void: if we're "doing it right" then everyone is playing on a short curve and the most problematic permanents we ever deal with are the 0-2cmc kind, usually engines like Survival of the Fittest, hatebears, or piles of mana rocks/mana dorks from an explosive start.
I'm still trying to decide on the best balance between creature spot removal, sweepers, and discard, since they're all important. At the moment I'm actually thinking this deck needs more discard, as the number of cards in my list that shut down countermagic are currently very few (Defense Grid, Chalice at X=2, Cavern of Souls...can't think of any others), our strategy is very predictable and well-telegraphed i.e. vulnerable to countermagic, and we have no counters of our own.
That said, if I ever decide to put another sweeper in, Ratchet Bomb is definitely the card.
I'll do my best! We'll all have to keep fighting the good fight until beloved Braids sees her day in the sun. I have faith.
Legacy: GWR Enchantress <--That's my banner! (lol tinypic removed it)
Casual: WB [[Primer]]Clerics Tribal; BU Affinity
EDH: ...U [[Primer]]Arcum Dagsson; BG Legal Stax; B Illegal Stax
Proxy: .WX TriniStax
Other stuff: [[Official]]Shuffling, Truth + Maths