MTG Salvation

Parfait

Parfait is a mono-white control deck that uses the Land Tax + Scroll Rack combo. As long as you had less lands than your opponent, you are able to search your library and refill your hand with three basic lands. You would then activate Scroll Rack to replace those lands with useful card in your hand.
When the original Legacy (then type 1.5) ban list was released, Land Tax was one of the cards that got the hammer due to its brokenness with Scroll Rack. Over time, more better and effiencient cards got printed and Land Tax eventually turned from Broken to a laughing matter. Even though all this turn of events happened, Land Tax did not leave the ban list. Instead the apparent reason why it was banned is because it stalled games.
There has been a lot of speculations with the unbanning of Land Tax. It especially goes up everytime right before any updates on the B/R list. MTG Salvation is currently allowing a MWS Legacy tournament that allows players to run Land Tax. I myself would like to have my own take on Parfait for another Legacy tournament within my area that will be allowing Land Tax.
Recently, I have been playtesting this decklist, although not thoroughly. It has been working so far but far from being a deck to beat.

Here is my currently decklist:



Currently the decklist clocks at 62 cards but I am still working on trimming it.

I find that when I am playing Parfait in Legacy, you have to be a passive deck. It basically answers what your opponent throws. You don't really have to build the Parfait engine right away. Instead, try to set it up mid to late game. You have SDTs to help you early game. Mid-game, you will run out of gas, this is when you're going to utilize the Parfait Engine and try to either lock your opponent or combo-win (depending on the situation)

Here are the main combo lockdowns that the deck utilizes:

Scepter-Lock (Isochron Scepter + Orim's Chant): This essentially prevents your opponent from casting any spells and attacking with their creatures. It works by coping Chant via Scepter over and over again until you get enough mana and find your win condition.

Confinement-Lock (Solitary Confinement): This lock is more conditional as it requires the Parfait Engine. This is more like an add-on to your Engine. It works by utilizing the card advantage gained from Parfait Engine to fuel Solitary Confinement's drawback. Although it is not a permanent lock as Scepter-Lock, you can still utilize this to buy you time to set up your win conditions. It could also work with Land Tax alone but it will only protect you until you run out of lands from your library.

Here are the win conditions of the deck:

Luminarch Ascension: Luminarch is really effective once you've set up a lock to your opponent. However, it is not as threatening by itself.

Painter-Stone Combo (Painter's Servant + Grindstone): If you are in a hurry and have a way to Tutor them, you can always win with this.

Goblin Charbelcher: This is your late game win condition, when you have went through with most of your lands. It could also act as a conditional removal.

Other Card Choices:

This deck is an idea and some of my choices need justification:

Lands:

Plains: No need to explain

Ghost Quarter: This is your Wasteland. You might say its suboptimal but the main goal is to keep your opponent from their utility land, whether if its a man-land or a dual land. It is essentially a Wasteland but you want your opponent to have a higher land count as your to have Parfait Engine going. Whether your opponent decides to replace the destroyed land, its a win-win condition for you.

Serra Sanctum: You run ample amounts of enchantment. I dont see whats wrong with a land that produces a lot of mana.

Toolbox:

Sensei's Divining Top: Like what I mentioned above, you Parfait is only good mid to late game. SDT is your helper early game. It helps you draw essential cards that you need to get by early game.

Enlightened Tutor: If you need a silver bullet really bad, Tutor is there to bail you out. It could grab anything from combo-pieces to essential answers.

Path to Exile: PtE rivals StP in this deck as this creature removal is made for this deck. PtE virtually doesnt have a drawback with this deck.

Swords to Plowshares: For the most part, this is the best creature removal in the format. Having it to back up PtE does not hurt.

Orim's Chant: Legacy's version of Time Walk. I currently play Quinn and I find this card to buy you time early game. It also creates a lock when paired with Scepter.

Abeyance: This card is there to push through your counter. It also act as pseudo-disruption to certain decks. At worst, it cantrips for 1W

Isochron Scepter: Pair this with Chant and you have Scepter-lock. Pair this with one of your removals and you have a beating stick.

Humility: Humility is one of those underrated cards out there. It shuts down a lot of creatures in a creature format. It also stops Qasali Pridemages and Trygon Predators from ruining your day. Makes Tarmogoyf an $80 1/1 for 1G

Oblivion Ring: Tutorable utility removal.

Runed Halo: Its a pseudo-removal that protects you from a lot of dangerous things in the format. It can protect you from Goyfs to Tendrils.

Wrath of God: Mass creature removal

Day of Judgement: Wrath of God 2.0. Sometimes, variety is good.

Cataclysm: I recently added this mass removal as a Balance version. It has been okay so far. I am still undecided. It helps stabilize the field when things are not going your way.

Argivian Find: This deck runs a lot of singleton (because of its toolbox nature). Sometimes, you might need to recycle an enchantment or an artifact to win.

Zuran Orb: This helps you keep your land count in check. It can also act as life gain against aggro.

Pithing Needle: I have been debating a lot lately with this card. It is an awesome card as it shuts down anything from Vials to Survivals. If you dont need SDT anymore, you can shut down SDT to help you go through against CounterTop.

Recent Suggestions/Possible Inclusion:

Mox Diamond: Keeping your land count low is good. Mox D helps you with mana without going up on your land count. The problem that I have faced so far is that my deck's land count is too low to support Mox Diamond. Land Tax sometimes help but Mox Diamond itself is not consistent. Also, getting them removed is a hard pull-back.

Chrome Mox: I am running a lot of singletons and exiling a card for C Mox is a real hard decision.

So far, both have been unhelpful. Maybe I just dont know how to utilize Mox D properly but without Mox D, it has been working fine.

Moat: This card is more of a meta call. I have been seeing a lot of Qasali Pridemages and Trygon Predators and Humility has been the better call lately. If the meta's aggro has been without the mentioned two then I suggest running Moat.

Sacred Mesa: Originally, I was running this with Ascension's spot but I found that its more mana-intesive compared to Ascension. The "1W" upkeep also hurts in a deck that runs a low land count.

Planar Birth: Vintage Parfait used to run this to return lands that have been sacrificed via Zuran Orbs. I have not really playtested with it and I dont see any help that it could provide.

Wheel of Sun and Moon: This card is more of a sideboard card as a gravehate. I like the of using this to keep Confinement lock an infinite hard lock but it feels like a win-more condition.

Ethersworn Canonist: This card has been on the main of Vintage lists. Vintage has a different meta to Legacy and not everyone will be running a storm based combo deck. This card is more of a sideboard card.

Splashes:
There has been a lot of suggestions concerning splashes. Having a splash does add more tools to the deck. The main problem that I see against splashes is that we already have a lot of little things going on. Having additional splash could result to a lot of micro-managing which will make the deck less effective. I'd like to keep a particular focus on the deck. Having said that doesn't mean that I am closing my mind on any splashes.

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Projected Matchups (these do not really have real/little testing experience and are based on what the matchup's mainboard consists off):

Zoo - Zoo is a fast aggro deck that runs minimal lands. This means that the Parfait engine will not work to its fullest. You do have a lot of creature removal to keep Zoo at bay. Life gain from Zuran Orb and Genju also helps. If you manage to stabilize mid-game, you could have a fighting chance. I would actually rate this as a 50-50. Boarding in Ghostly Prison, Additional Humility and spot removal, and even Pulse of the Fields could help.

Merfolks - Same deal with Zoo. Merfolk (like the good old fish decks) can run with minimal land although they are not as fast as Zoo. You can keep removing their creatures but you have to watch out for their permission. It will be easier to have either Scepter-lock or Confinement-lock against them. This would actually be a good match up.

ANT - Probably, by the time you get Parfait draw engine running, you are already dead. Really bad match up. Your best bet is to try to Chant them on their 5th storm count, just right before they storm out. Boarding in Ethersworn Canonists and Runed Halos could help

CounterTop Variants - CounterTop engine is a mana-intensive engine. Parfait really shines against mana-intensive decks. Although a lot of your spells are within CounterTop's range. I would say that this is a 50-50 matchup. Boarding in additional Enchantment/Artifact hate could help. Pithing Needle on Top could also help, although it could hurt you as well.

Dredge - Dredge is almost mana-less, hence your Parfait engine will be useless against them. Really bad matchup. Your best bet is to side in a lot of grave hate. Ghostly Prison also helps.

Pro-Bant - Bant Progenitus need their mana to function. I can see Parfait Engine work its fullest against this deck. The card advantage vs. tool that you can utilize within a Parfait deck can take advantage of Pro-Bant decks. This should be a good match up.

Aggro-Loam - It all comes down to Chalice of the Void on this one. With Chalice at one, Aggro-Loam could race you. Overall though, I would say its a 50-50 matchup. Grave hate could help this matchup. Sacred Ground also prevents them from pulling a DD shenanigans on you.

Canadian Thresh - It is said that Canadian Thresh does not have any bad matchups. This deck is no different. Canadian Thresh can run on minimal lands no problem hence your Parfait engine wont be so effective. They will always be pressing for tempo as well. This could be a bad matchup.

Vial Goblins - Vial Goblins are mana hungry and Parfait engine works really well against mana-hungry decks. This should be an good match up.

Bant Survival - Bant Survival decks are mana intensive hence Parfait engine will work just as fine. Needle on Survival could hurt them. Worse comes to worst, they will have a resolved Iona. In that case, you can try to outrace them with Painter-Stone combo.

I hope there are other ideas out there to make this deck better/function to its fullest. I would love to hear some ideas. If you want to add anything on the mentioned matchups above, please feel free. I am not a Legacy prodigy. If you have any questions on the deck please feel free to ask.

You're missing Soldevi Digger which gives you a recursion engine under TaxRack and also minimizes the pain from having to discard to Confinement. Running Find/Isochron only lets you get back some things, Soldevi lets you refill your library and use TaxRack to get everything back. Dumping Find as it is rarely going to be better than STP on a stick is probably a good call. You should probably go to 3 Scepters anyway, 2 isn't enough with the amount of imprintable instants you have.

I really don't think you need to diversify your win cons, what are you worried about? Extirpate? You don't have to worry about Needle since you have Aura of Silence, which btw should be more than a one of. If you're going to run an extra win con besides Belcher, run a token generator like Mobilization which isn't impacted by Humility

Quote from phantomgreen

You're missing Soldevi Digger which gives you a recursion engine under TaxRack and also minimizes the pain from having to discard to Confinement. Running Find/Isochron only lets you get back some things, Soldevi lets you refill your library and use TaxRack to get everything back. Dumping Find as it is rarely going to be better than STP on a stick is probably a good call. You should probably go to 3 Scepters anyway, 2 isn't enough with the amount of imprintable instants you have.

I really don't think you need to diversify your win cons, what are you worried about? Extirpate? You don't have to worry about Needle since you have Aura of Silence, which btw should be more than a one of. If you're going to run an extra win con besides Belcher, run a token generator like Mobilization which isn't impacted by Humility

Would Wheel of Sun and Moon be better instead of Soldevi Digger? Jotun Grunt could do the same job but he won't be as effective under an active Humility.

I was actually okay with 2 Scepters as drawing multiples of them feels useless. Granted, you can always Tutor them if you really need them.

I do agree that multiple Needles are needed in some matchups. It would be a fixture in the side to have a second and even a third one.

Based on my experience with Quinn, token generators are awesome late game if you have a lot of available mana. I know that Painter-Stone combo takes 6 mana to end game but it can be done gradually and have instant results. Although, I might try running Luminarch Ascension as it forces your opponent to deal with it right away.

Also as an artifact mana source, I cannot decide whether I should use Mox Diamond or Chrome Mox. Both create early card disadvantage. Mox Diamond is disadvantage in a way that you have to have multiple lands on hand to get it going, something that could be hard to achieve due to the low land count. Chrome Mox is disadvantage because you are running a lot of singletons. You have to think twice on what to discard. Mox Diamond however creates a nice synergy with Land Tax late game.

At one point, I was thinking of using Borderposts. They were almost perfect as their alternative costs require returning a land card back to your hand (which can be use as Scroll Rack fodder, I did not mind paying 1 mana to play them). The only problem was they came in the field tapped.

Sure thing, Wheel of Sun and Moon would be better, that card came out after I quit playing so it's still working its way into my knowledge of the game. You want a Digger effect though for sure, because one of the strong points of original Parfait is to be able to recur and reuse the same cards over and over again. White has really good targeted removal in the form of Swords and whatever Disenchant effect you prefer, being able to get them back and TaxRack them over and over again is broken.

True on the ability to Tutor for them, and if they're removed then your Wheel will just get them back.

The reason I don't like PainterStone is that really unless you get an amazing hand you're not going to be able to drop it and win. Parfait is a slow, controlling deck. PainterStone is either a quick kill or a midrange kill and putting down one of the two pieces doesn't really do much for you until you put the second one down, I think in Parfait you're always going to find something better to spend the mana on. So I'd say either go to a Belcher only kill and really go hardcore control or if you want a second win con then just realize that Parfait is slow and you're better off playing something that works with that slow nature and also synergizes with the rest of the deck.

Quote from phantomgreen

Sure thing, Wheel of Sun and Moon would be better, that card came out after I quit playing so it's still working its way into my knowledge of the game. You want a Digger effect though for sure, because one of the strong points of original Parfait is to be able to recur and reuse the same cards over and over again. White has really good targeted removal in the form of Swords and whatever Disenchant effect you prefer, being able to get them back and TaxRack them over and over again is broken.

True on the ability to Tutor for them, and if they're removed then your Wheel will just get them back.

The reason I don't like PainterStone is that really unless you get an amazing hand you're not going to be able to drop it and win. Parfait is a slow, controlling deck. PainterStone is either a quick kill or a midrange kill and putting down one of the two pieces doesn't really do much for you until you put the second one down, I think in Parfait you're always going to find something better to spend the mana on. So I'd say either go to a Belcher only kill and really go hardcore control or if you want a second win con then just realize that Parfait is slow and you're better off playing something that works with that slow nature and also synergizes with the rest of the deck.

What would you include in the deck if 2 slots got opened (PainterStone slot)?

I am guessing you used to run Parfait back in the old Type 1 days? If you did, who did your old version look like?

Quote from Naz

You can't utilize Mox Diamond at all with your list. Think about it. Normally a deck requires at least 24 lands to utilize Mox Diamonds, you'll have 1 land on average.

If you want to accelerate you'll need to do it with Chrome Mox.

I believe I stated that dilemma on the above post. Also the problem with Chrome Mox is that I run a lot of singletons. Are there other alternatives than Mox Diamond and Chrome Mox?

Remember this is Vintage:



I also ran Moat whenever I knew there'd be alot of aggro and at the time there were some people who ran Planar Birth as a way to take all the lands you'd dumped into your graveyard and put them into play, once you'd thinned your deck of all the lands via Tax. You'd guarantee this didn't happen to your opponent by Tormod's on their GY, and well Tormod's was also a general fix all for certain decks back then, and of course now as well.

In the PainterStone slots I'd just add more control. You've got 6 STP effects plus *** so creatures are handled but your Disenchant effects are just 1 Aura of Silence. Running multiple lets you use the sacrifice effect while still keeping the increased mana burden on your opponent. Oblivion Ring is good as a quasi Disenchant but it's not a complete one. Extra Aura of Silence would also let you abuse the ORing stack trick with Disenchant effects for permanent removal.

Yeah Abolish is definitely worth considering especially with Chalice/3sphere as you said.

Once Charbelcher was printed it was without a doubt the best win con for Parfait, it's so amazing in this deck.

I'll keep PainterStone combo for now as it is my failsafe if Belcher ever goes bad. I might replace Orings with Abolish (Probably leave one Oring on MD).

Serra Sanctum works wonders in this deck! I might just replace Moxes with petals for now as I haven't any useful artifact mana source (see discussion above).

Also, would Equipoise work like a pseudo-Balance?

sort of...it would work insanely well with kismet to keep everything tapped down and out of play, but for the most part, it probably isn't worth it. solitary confinement with your land tax/rack engine might be the far better call to make.

This is my current vintage deck:

8 plains
2 swamp
3 wasteland
1 strip mine
4 mox diamond
1 mox pearl
1 mox jet
1 mox ruby
1 sol ring
1 black lotus

4 landtax
4 scroll rack

3 ethersworn canonist
3 dark confidant
4 aven mindsensor

4 aura of silence
2 orim's chant
2 abeyance
2 path to exile
1 sensei divining top
1 enlightened tutor
1 demonic tutor
1 vampiric tutor
1 trinisphere
1 crucibal of worlds
1 zuran orb
1 tormods crypt
1 balance

sideboard
2 orims chant
2 abeyance
1 path to exile
2 tormods crypt
2 moat
3 null rod
and I have 3 open sb slots I toy with.

In vintage, I love the deck. I keep the game under control through aura, chant, abeyance, canonist, 3sphere, and mindcensor. Tax rack dies provide my primary means if advantage, but Bib definatly helps. While I'm controling, I knock down life totals with my 2/1s. This is a good strategy for vintage since most decks run 3 or 4 creatures tops. Legacy is a whole other ballpark. And with creature heavy decks, you get burn heavy decks as well. The loss of power, sol ring, balance, demonic, and vampiric would be a big consideration as well.

I would advise a black splash for Bob. He gives my a secondry means of advantage. As for a win condition, I always liked Sacred Mesa, but Luminarch Asension could be good if you keep you opponent at bay well enough.

OP updated.

Also, I just got my PC and will try to start playtesting this on MWS.

Anyone interested?