Hi RedTwister,
Yes, exactly that. Merfolk, Spirits, Hatebears/D&T, Elves, the whole lot. Affinity is also not a great matchup though Stony Silence is obviously great. The Abzan/Creature Toolbox Combos are also terrible for me as well.
Death's Shadow I've only played once and lost but I feel like Chalice should put in great work there...we'll see.
I only run one THalia, Heretic Cathar...she doesn't come up too often and if she's not useful, easy to side out.
Guys,
Haven't been able to play and been in the discussion as much. Currently sitting at 83-47 now in MTGO Leagues & 2-Man Queues (.638 win rate) so have been regressing to a mean somewhat from the days when I think I was sitting at 70% win rate. I've bumped the Spellskites due to the changing meta in favor for the Matter Reshapers and Aven Mindcensor as redtwister suggested. Still doing great against Eldrazi - 12-1 right now, but pretty much auto-losing to every wide creature based strategy. I think shucking up the cash for 2nd and 3rd Horizon Canopies and Cavern of Souls as well as the 4th Chalice of the Void may be necessary.
Stabilo, you've probably already figured out a lot of these but you asked these a while ago and didn't want to leave you hanging:
Q: How do you SB against Bant Eldrazi? Chalice yes or no?
A: Yes. Shut off Nobles, Ancient Stirrings, Paths, totally keep them in.
Q: How is Smuggler's Copter for you?
A: Ehhh. By the time you guys started talking about Aven Mindcensor and Matter Reshapers, I was more than ready to trade Copter out for either of those 2.
Q: How is EE?
A: Sounded like you figured this out already but yeah an EE that can realistically only go up to 2 most of the time is more than sufficient to be sideboard-worthy at least for me. I'm glad it's in there and plan to keep it as well.
Crossed the 100 match mark in MTGO Competitive play with this deck! Record is now standing at 72-38, all in MTGO Friendly Leagues or 2-Man Queues. I've been able to basically go quasi-infinite with this deck thanks to the Friendly League Prize Structure (except decided to buy a 3rd Chalice of the Void since I only had 2 before and the Engineered Explosives in the board)...after 2 1-5's in a row though was down to 40 tickets but was able to win 4 2-Man Queues in a row to get back to 80. Probably too much information, but for me this is a big deal ever since MTGO's economy changed to the play points structure it's been a lot harder to do anecdotally for me at least playing mostly traditional D&T and E&T builds. My current build is below:
My thoughts re: match-ups at this point:
-GREAT Match-Ups are: Tron (7-0), Red Deck Wins/Goblins/Burn/Zoo (14-1), Unfair Decks (Ad Nauseam, Reanimator, Eggs, Cheerios, Infect, decks relying on 1 CMC spells)
-GOOD Match-Ups are: Valakut (6-1), Soul Sisters - which used to always be a terrible match-up for D&T/E&T back in the day, but so much more winnable thanks to Chalice and Smasher (4-1), Eldrazi Aggro - this I think is huge because it's Eldrazi Aggro has become the largest part of the meta according to MTGTop8 (10-1 against both Bant and Eldrazi Tron configurations).
-FAIR 50/50 Match-Ups are mostly what you would expect: Jund, Control (UW, Jeskai, UB, Grixis, etc), and Affinity is 50/50 ONLY thanks to the sideboard cards, which brings me to the final point:
-BAD Match-Ups are almost entirely all creature-based strategies that go wide and long. Goblins and Affinity are the only ones I would consider fair or good because of Chalice, Stony Silence and Engineered Explosives plus additional removal we carry. By and large, D&T, Elves, Merfolk (my lone Merfolk win was thanks to a Game 3 win that went to 30+ turns with a Worship on board and a Selfless Spirit and Blinkmoth hitting every turn and Eldrazi Displacer tapping down his lone flying Vendilion Clique), CoCo Chord of Calling (any of the Creature Toolbox decks), Bant Spirits, and Tokens comprise half of my losses. I'm fortunate that with the exception of D&T (1-7 against D&T so roughly 7% of my matches), none of these decks individually comprise a huge part of the MTGO competitive meta. Been following Stabilo's advice to load up on ALL removal which helps, but doesn't really turn the tide yet. The only non-creature based match-up that I would actually say is bad is UR Storm. With Baral and Electromancer they have 8 ways to reduce cost of spells even with Thalia on Board. One match was won by them winning game 1, then game 2 turn 2 Desperate Ritual into a Blood Moon that completely caught me with my pants down. I've seen Storm win through a Rest in Peace as well. I'm 1-3 in this match-up and would like more samples to see if this is truly as bad as it's felt so far as I would imagine this should be a decent match-up.
My thoughts in general:
-The base as described in Stabilo's Primer is rock solid. I would not mess with any of those at all (Lands: 3 Gemstones, 4 Eldrazi Temples, 4 Ghost Quarters, 4 Plains minimum because Blood Moon can really suck Spells: 4 Simian Spirit Guides, 4 Chalices, 3-4 Thalia 1.0's, 4 Arbiter, 1-2 Thalia 2.0, 4 Displacer, 4 Thought-Knot Seer, 4 Reality Smasher, 3 Dismember)
-With that the main development point for this deck is that the manabase still need to be optimized. I commented on this earlier but even after 100 games I don't know what will give us the extra push. Agree with Stabilo in general the following lands are good and should be considered but in what # I'm never sure about (Cavern, Horizon Canopy, Battlefield Forge because late-game Simians really can be useful sometimes), Mutavault, Blinkmoth Nexus for the flying, Tectonic Edge and Eiganjo Castle). I also wonder if 24 lands is sufficient or if 25 is really the optimal number. 23 is definitely too little while running Ghost Quarters to cast Thought-Knots and Reality Smashers reliably without a Vial.
-From the non-land side of the deck, I think there are 4-5 flex slots TOPS. I have 2 Selfless Spirits, 1 Spellskite, 1 Smuggler's Copter. All have proven useful in match-ups here and there to justify its consideration in the deck (ie. Selfless saving my creatures from Anger of the Gods, Wraths and Verdicts, and negating Oblivion Stone), but there have also been plenty of times where I've wished these cards were something else. This is where I also believe a lot of great discussion still remains to be found.
OK thanks for letting me ramble when I'm jetlagged early in the AM from travel. Hope to hear your thoughts and continued discussion on what's been a really fun deck to play in Modern that doesn't make feel like I've been cheating on my first Modern love of D&T/E&T (maybe that's why I keep losing to them). Thanks again Stabilo for the great innovation!
Anyone else pretty much auto-loses to D&T with this deck? 1-5 against D&T. The 1 win was against the Mono White version but the BW E&T absolutely obliterates this deck.
Boom//Bust could be interesting in theory. I think you absolutely need the Reality Smashers though. 100% they are the finishers of this deck and don't get stalled behind chump blockers or lingering souls.
I would cut 2 Selfless Spirit, 2 Thalia 2.0 to see if you can make that work.
I've been playing a very similar list to stabilo's and that is mostly where you want to be. I'm currently 45-21 in League play on MTGO (only 2 5-0's thus far though). There are a few flex slots but deviations anywhere else makes this deck a worse D&T or E&T deck.
I think where the most flexibility lies is in the manabase. Do we add manlands? How many horizon canopies etc.
Jund, the new Ur storm, and BW E&T incidentally are my worst matchups so far. Let me know what you guys are seeing and how you guys combat.
Edit: my current list below (would up the chalice count if it wasn't so expensive... Bought my first 2 at $14 per)
Lt, you still running the RW build? How's yours performing in the more aggressive meta now? Care to share your current list if so? Always love testing out new variants.
CatMix,
Like the new build...Aethersphere Harvester was the main takeaway I got from Trophy Mage testing. Overall, I didn't like how heavy-loaded D&T became on the 3-Drops when running Trophy Mage and the results weren't impressive playing the Friendly Leagues).
I've ran through with your updated build (running 1 Smuggler's Copter, 1 Aethersphere Harvester instead and 3 Concealed Courtyard + 1 Aether Hub since I don't own 4, kept the Arbiters - Arbiter 4 Life, and snuck in a Kytheon & Reality Smasher as singletons), but mostly identical. I like how it runs so far. 3-2 in my first league (Affinity still sucks and strangely lost to Mono-Red Burn), going to keep running through a few more times and post my thoughts. Love the whole D&T community for constantly innovating and testing and keeping this thread so active.
That's huge!!! I was working on a build already trying to model it after the Legacy version (with 3 equipment and obviously Trophy replacing Stoneforge), but was having issues figuring out the splits for the cards without getting too 3+drop heavy.
Hopefully I can pull the same results as you! Thanks for pioneering for the rest of us.
LTGlitter -w hat is your MTGO screen name? I like this build and have been working on a lot of different RW variants...none of which appear more successful than E&T or BW D&T. This looks good - would love to talk more shop with you. Mine is BMChu168
Sigh...Stoneforge seemed OK as everyone and their mom runs Kologhan's Command (Jund, Grixis Control, any deck that has those colors) that's constantly 2 for 1-ing fair decks all around. If anything the existence of Kologhan's Command is the perfect argument for Stoneforge's unbanning. We'll keep up the good fight in the meantime.
All, from playing in MTGO Leagues with Mono-White D&T (my list was posted a few pages back after my first 5-0) - these are the results distribution I am showing (62.3% win percentage in Leagues & 2-Man Queues). The TLDR version is that D&T (the Mono White version) seems really bad against any type of Control (Draw-Go type) and aggro decks like Merfolk, Soul Sisters, Affinity. Are these matchups that improve when playing the BW version? The Tidehollow-Strangler interaction seems legit as well as the Zealous Persecution and Kambal sideboard tech you get. Is it safe to say BW is the best version? What are BW's bad match-ups?
Hi guys,
Just 5-0ed my first Modern League (Friendly) with this monowhite build. Thought I did great - beating Dredge, UrzaTron 2x, Burn, and Bloomless Titan. Really loved the build, but some questions for my other Monowhite D&T players out there:
1. Selfless Spirit - is it really that good? I eschewed my Judge's Familiar 1-drops for 2x Selfless Spirits. I noticed many of the BW builds don't even run it at all...is anyone having great success with Selfless Spirit and not wishing it was something else? Only running 3xThalia and wonder if that should be a 4th one instead.
2. Thalia, Heretic Cathar - Same question? Who is loving this card instead of a Brimaz or something else a bit more aggressive? And why?
Excited to be playing D&T again...a long-time favorite but been out of MTGO for a while.
Yes, exactly that. Merfolk, Spirits, Hatebears/D&T, Elves, the whole lot. Affinity is also not a great matchup though Stony Silence is obviously great. The Abzan/Creature Toolbox Combos are also terrible for me as well.
Death's Shadow I've only played once and lost but I feel like Chalice should put in great work there...we'll see.
I only run one THalia, Heretic Cathar...she doesn't come up too often and if she's not useful, easy to side out.
Haven't been able to play and been in the discussion as much. Currently sitting at 83-47 now in MTGO Leagues & 2-Man Queues (.638 win rate) so have been regressing to a mean somewhat from the days when I think I was sitting at 70% win rate. I've bumped the Spellskites due to the changing meta in favor for the Matter Reshapers and Aven Mindcensor as redtwister suggested. Still doing great against Eldrazi - 12-1 right now, but pretty much auto-losing to every wide creature based strategy. I think shucking up the cash for 2nd and 3rd Horizon Canopies and Cavern of Souls as well as the 4th Chalice of the Void may be necessary.
Current Build:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/eldrazi-staxes/
Stabilo, you've probably already figured out a lot of these but you asked these a while ago and didn't want to leave you hanging:
Q: How do you SB against Bant Eldrazi? Chalice yes or no?
A: Yes. Shut off Nobles, Ancient Stirrings, Paths, totally keep them in.
Q: How is Smuggler's Copter for you?
A: Ehhh. By the time you guys started talking about Aven Mindcensor and Matter Reshapers, I was more than ready to trade Copter out for either of those 2.
Q: How is EE?
A: Sounded like you figured this out already but yeah an EE that can realistically only go up to 2 most of the time is more than sufficient to be sideboard-worthy at least for me. I'm glad it's in there and plan to keep it as well.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/eldrazi-staxes/
My thoughts re: match-ups at this point:
-GREAT Match-Ups are: Tron (7-0), Red Deck Wins/Goblins/Burn/Zoo (14-1), Unfair Decks (Ad Nauseam, Reanimator, Eggs, Cheerios, Infect, decks relying on 1 CMC spells)
-GOOD Match-Ups are: Valakut (6-1), Soul Sisters - which used to always be a terrible match-up for D&T/E&T back in the day, but so much more winnable thanks to Chalice and Smasher (4-1), Eldrazi Aggro - this I think is huge because it's Eldrazi Aggro has become the largest part of the meta according to MTGTop8 (10-1 against both Bant and Eldrazi Tron configurations).
-FAIR 50/50 Match-Ups are mostly what you would expect: Jund, Control (UW, Jeskai, UB, Grixis, etc), and Affinity is 50/50 ONLY thanks to the sideboard cards, which brings me to the final point:
-BAD Match-Ups are almost entirely all creature-based strategies that go wide and long. Goblins and Affinity are the only ones I would consider fair or good because of Chalice, Stony Silence and Engineered Explosives plus additional removal we carry. By and large, D&T, Elves, Merfolk (my lone Merfolk win was thanks to a Game 3 win that went to 30+ turns with a Worship on board and a Selfless Spirit and Blinkmoth hitting every turn and Eldrazi Displacer tapping down his lone flying Vendilion Clique), CoCo Chord of Calling (any of the Creature Toolbox decks), Bant Spirits, and Tokens comprise half of my losses. I'm fortunate that with the exception of D&T (1-7 against D&T so roughly 7% of my matches), none of these decks individually comprise a huge part of the MTGO competitive meta. Been following Stabilo's advice to load up on ALL removal which helps, but doesn't really turn the tide yet. The only non-creature based match-up that I would actually say is bad is UR Storm. With Baral and Electromancer they have 8 ways to reduce cost of spells even with Thalia on Board. One match was won by them winning game 1, then game 2 turn 2 Desperate Ritual into a Blood Moon that completely caught me with my pants down. I've seen Storm win through a Rest in Peace as well. I'm 1-3 in this match-up and would like more samples to see if this is truly as bad as it's felt so far as I would imagine this should be a decent match-up.
My thoughts in general:
-The base as described in Stabilo's Primer is rock solid. I would not mess with any of those at all (Lands: 3 Gemstones, 4 Eldrazi Temples, 4 Ghost Quarters, 4 Plains minimum because Blood Moon can really suck Spells: 4 Simian Spirit Guides, 4 Chalices, 3-4 Thalia 1.0's, 4 Arbiter, 1-2 Thalia 2.0, 4 Displacer, 4 Thought-Knot Seer, 4 Reality Smasher, 3 Dismember)
-With that the main development point for this deck is that the manabase still need to be optimized. I commented on this earlier but even after 100 games I don't know what will give us the extra push. Agree with Stabilo in general the following lands are good and should be considered but in what # I'm never sure about (Cavern, Horizon Canopy, Battlefield Forge because late-game Simians really can be useful sometimes), Mutavault, Blinkmoth Nexus for the flying, Tectonic Edge and Eiganjo Castle). I also wonder if 24 lands is sufficient or if 25 is really the optimal number. 23 is definitely too little while running Ghost Quarters to cast Thought-Knots and Reality Smashers reliably without a Vial.
-From the non-land side of the deck, I think there are 4-5 flex slots TOPS. I have 2 Selfless Spirits, 1 Spellskite, 1 Smuggler's Copter. All have proven useful in match-ups here and there to justify its consideration in the deck (ie. Selfless saving my creatures from Anger of the Gods, Wraths and Verdicts, and negating Oblivion Stone), but there have also been plenty of times where I've wished these cards were something else. This is where I also believe a lot of great discussion still remains to be found.
OK thanks for letting me ramble when I'm jetlagged early in the AM from travel. Hope to hear your thoughts and continued discussion on what's been a really fun deck to play in Modern that doesn't make feel like I've been cheating on my first Modern love of D&T/E&T (maybe that's why I keep losing to them). Thanks again Stabilo for the great innovation!
Congrats on the last couple finishes...haven't been able to crack more than a 3-2 recently (currently holding at 48-24.667 win rate).
What do you think is the best turn 1 play in a Game 1 (play and draw) when you have a Thalia/Arbiter/Chalice in hand?
I would cut 2 Selfless Spirit, 2 Thalia 2.0 to see if you can make that work.
I think where the most flexibility lies is in the manabase. Do we add manlands? How many horizon canopies etc.
Jund, the new Ur storm, and BW E&T incidentally are my worst matchups so far. Let me know what you guys are seeing and how you guys combat.
Edit: my current list below (would up the chalice count if it wasn't so expensive... Bought my first 2 at $14 per)
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/eldrazi-staxes/
Like the new build...Aethersphere Harvester was the main takeaway I got from Trophy Mage testing. Overall, I didn't like how heavy-loaded D&T became on the 3-Drops when running Trophy Mage and the results weren't impressive playing the Friendly Leagues).
I've ran through with your updated build (running 1 Smuggler's Copter, 1 Aethersphere Harvester instead and 3 Concealed Courtyard + 1 Aether Hub since I don't own 4, kept the Arbiters - Arbiter 4 Life, and snuck in a Kytheon & Reality Smasher as singletons), but mostly identical. I like how it runs so far. 3-2 in my first league (Affinity still sucks and strangely lost to Mono-Red Burn), going to keep running through a few more times and post my thoughts. Love the whole D&T community for constantly innovating and testing and keeping this thread so active.
Hopefully I can pull the same results as you!
Wins Losses Win %
Eldrazi Aggro 4 0 1.000
Goblins 4 0 1.000
Jund 3 0 1.000
Dredge 2 0 1.000
Mono Black Discard 1 0 1.000
Tokens 1 0 1.000
WW Humans 1 0 1.000
Utopia Sprawl 1 0 1.000
UR Storm 1 0 1.000
Bloomless Titan 1 0 1.000
Urza Tron 8 1 0.889
UR Aggro 2 1 0.667
Valakut 2 1 0.667
Infect 3 2 0.600
Kiki Chord/Podless Collected 1 1 0.500
Death & Taxes 1 1 0.500
Red Deck Wins 1 1 0.500
Boros Control 1 2 0.333
Affinity 0 1 0.000
Mono Blue Turns 0 1 0.000
Soul Sisters 0 1 0.000
Jeskai Ascendancy 0 1 0.000
Planeswalker Control 0 1 0.000
Merfolk 0 3 0.000
UB/UW/UWB/UWR Control 0 5 0.000
Total 38 23 0.623
Just 5-0ed my first Modern League (Friendly) with this monowhite build. Thought I did great - beating Dredge, UrzaTron 2x, Burn, and Bloomless Titan. Really loved the build, but some questions for my other Monowhite D&T players out there:
1. Selfless Spirit - is it really that good? I eschewed my Judge's Familiar 1-drops for 2x Selfless Spirits. I noticed many of the BW builds don't even run it at all...is anyone having great success with Selfless Spirit and not wishing it was something else? Only running 3xThalia and wonder if that should be a 4th one instead.
2. Thalia, Heretic Cathar - Same question? Who is loving this card instead of a Brimaz or something else a bit more aggressive? And why?
Excited to be playing D&T again...a long-time favorite but been out of MTGO for a while.
Creatures
2 Selfless Spirit
4 Leonin Arbiter
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Serra Avenger
4 Flickerwisp
3 Eldrazi Displacer
1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1 Fiend Hunter
3 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
Artifacts
4 Aether Vial
1 Sword of War and Peace
Instants
4 Path to Exile
Enchantments
1 Worship
Lands
11 Plains
1 Eiganjo Castle
4 Eldrazi Temple
1 Mutavault
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Tectonic Edge
Sideboard
1 Pithing Needle
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
1 Blessed Alliance
2 Kor Firewalker
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Spellskite
2 Mirran Crusader
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Ethersworn Canonist