I created that without seeing this post, most of the info is pretty much the same, but I'll link it over to this post.
Has anyone tried a non-permanent build of this? (only lands + spells)
I was testing with a buddy and it was mostly just to blank a lot of main deck spells that gain life. It also opens up a more transforming sideboard into a more creature heavy build once they take all those out. However I'm not sure if that brings enough benefit for that, probably just a meta call.
What about Inescapable Blaze in addition or instead of Banefire. Sure its always 6 mana, but I've found that with Sword-Point Diplomacy they nearly always give you lands regardless of their life total, and the Instant speed can be quite relevant.
Finally, with the current excellent mana bases, has anyone leaned into Grixis? Ionize and Firemind's Research seem like a near perfect fit, as well as some of the UB cards. Jump-Start as a mechanic has great synergies with Sword-Point Diplomacy.
Oh dear... I apologize to all for not seeing that and just adding to that. Perhaps a Mod can merge mine with his or vice versa?
As a side note, I played a very similar deck in a casual group with modern cards using Browbeat and Dash Hopes, and its quite fun. I'll have to update it with these as well.
Regarding Wizard's I definitely added that as an optional Archetype, and they seem to fit quite well. There is also Ghitu Chronicler which fits with amazingly imo with this deck.
*reserved for a quick variant list, will add other variants of Red+Black+X punisher/burn style decks that people put here as well*
This deck/archetype is wide open for adding a third color, or slightly tweaking the gameplan while still following the aggressive punisher playstyle, most notably running a more creature heavy build. Here are some of the variants that one could run with something like this.
1) Grixis - with the Izzet guild mechanic of Jump-Start, and some counterburn style cards, Grixis seems like a go-to, and very possibly the optimal build for this deck. Notable inclusions could be Ionize, Beacon Bolt, Thought Erasure, Notion Rain, Sonic Assault, Firemind's Research, or some of the split cards. Izzet also cares about, "total number of instant and sorcery cards you own in exile and in your graveyard", which works very well with Sword-Point Diplomacy.
2) Jund - Assassin's Trophy is a very strong card, and Jund brings quite a few other tricks as well, especially in a more creature heavy version. This would probably be a more value version of the deck that uses the graveyard for undergrowth but leans a bit away from the Burn/Aggro aspect and focuses more on the value of the punisher cards.
3) Mardu - Haven't looked too much into this, but it seems like it would play a bit more controlly, I'm sure there are a few cards that would be a nice inclusion, but overall I think similar to Jund it would be more of a splash of another color rather than how Grixis would bring a lot of new cards.
4) Izzet - While I personally would force myself to at least splash Sword-Point Diplomacy, this style deck is very similar to an Izzet CounterBurn deck, so I guess I can see some reason for including this as a variant.
5) Rakdos/Izzet/Grixis Goblins - Skirk Prospector is a great card, and Goblins have a ton of support right now, Goblin Electromancer and Guttersnipe fit right in as well. Not sure what exactly it gets you, but Skirk Prospector+2 more Goblins means on T4 you can Ritual of Soot, and in response sac all of them, and cast Risk Factor in response letting you wipe and play a card on T4.
6) Rakdos/Grixis Vampires - I'm currently working on a Dimir Vamps list with a buddy, and the crossover between these two seems pretty reasonable. Dusk Legion Zealot and other vamps provide pretty hearty card draw, which is great in this style deck, as well as some creatures to attack and lifegain synergies as well. The biggest payoffs in my opinion however come in as Discard and Flavor.. yes Flavor. Mass discard while using punisher and burn spells is quite nasty, and Arterial Flow fits that nicely.
6) Rakdos/Grixis Wizards - Wizard's Lightning... Plus, I mean, Todd Anderson played Risk Factor in an Izzet Wizard deck. Cant be hard to tweak it to a more punisher/burn style (though it may not be optimal for Wizards, who cares).
RAKDOS Risky Diplomacy
**!! Yes yes, I know, punisher cards. Come on, read a bit further as a pity read if you must. !!**
What is a punisher card, and why is it considered bad?
MTG Wiki - "Punisher spells force an opponent to decide how to punish themselves, usually giving them a choice between either two bad situations or between something bad for them and a bonus for you."
Despite the typically win/win guise of these cards, the main (and real) issue with them is that it gives the opponent a choice, and they will always choose the least bad option.
Ok, so why play this cards if they're bad?
1) Its pretty fun.
2) Generally the individual effects are stronger than their cost to off-set the choice provided.
3) People wont expect them, and thus if you can get it to work wont have a specific strategy against them.
4) As a build around, you can break or play around the downside of them giving a choice, and that is what this deck aims to do.
Now, on to the deck and discussion itself!
The first thing we need to address is how we are going to break these cards and make them usable. Risk Factor is considered by some as an extremely pushed punisher card, and in the right shell can be a strong card. Here is a link to a list that pro Todd Anderson built using the card: instant-deck-tech-izzet-risky-wizards-standard. Essentially in a very aggressive deck, either mode of the card becomes a huge downside for your opponent. You're either dealing 4 to the fast in a deck designed to go 20-0 as quickly as possible, or you're refilling to get other cards that will work to kill the opponent.
Now there are a few key things about Risk Factor that are not generally part of punisher cards and help it become a lot stronger than its predecessors. First, its Instant speed, this allows for us to hold up other interaction, and use this card at the end of the opponents turn, similar to how a Blue deck would hold up both Counterspell and Anticipate at the same time. Secondly, Jump-Start is a very strong mechanic as it will let you play the card again from your graveyard, adding pressure and threat density. Finally, the current Standard card pool has a lot of fairly strong direct burn; Shock, Lightning Strike, Fight with Fire, that go very well with Risk Factor.
You might notice that I've talked quite a bit about Risk Factor, yet havent mentioned the other namesake card of the deck, Sword-Point Diplomacy. Well, to be blunt, Sword-Point Diplomacy is a much worse card in a vacuum. In this card, the cost is much higher for the opponent than with Risk Factor, however the option of choice is weighed a lot heavier in favor of the opponent as well. Sword-Point Diplomacy first lets the opponent see the card individually, then make a choice between that card and 3 life for each specific card, and not only that, it exiles the card if they take the life! This would allow for the opponent to let us draw two lands, then exile one of our win conditions in exchange for 3 life, sweet deal opponent! The trick to making Sword-Point Diplomacy work in our deck is again a similar all in Burn playstyle, combined with the fact that we actually want every card in our deck, including lands which you'll see why later.
What are some other key cards in the deck, as well as a key focus?
* We are looking for cards that kill the opponent as quickly as possible, without giving them the chance to interact. While typically these would be creatures, we also need to pack a high density of answers as well since most of our card draw is controlled by the opponent. Cards that give the option to hit "Any Target" or have multiple uses are key in this, here are some of those.
- Shock
- Lightning Strike
- Fight with Fire (kicker plays well with our, 'sure, give us lands' sub-theme
- Banefire (also likes lots of lands)
- Inescapable Blaze (also likes lots of lands)
Hmm, all of those cards you mentioned are red, and our "good" punisher card is red, why bother going into black as well? A weakness of Red is big creatures, and things that damage just doesnt deal well with. Sometimes you need hard removal or wrath effects, you may also want some lifegain, which I hear red isnt the best at. Enter some of the other below cards that work great with this deck.
- Sovereign's Bite (lol, I know, just let it all come together)
- Vraska's Contempt (see, a real card!)
- Murder
- Ritual of Soot
Ok, so now we have a decent list of some cards that might do something when you put them all together, why so much emphasis on no permanents? Mostly this is to shut off the opponents removal, and to try and keep our deck as streamlined and focused as possible. There are some quite decent variants of this deck that could not only use creatures, but a few that are creature heavy, and two potential tribal variants (vamps/goblins). Lets look at how we might play against some specific styles of other decks. Hyper Aggro (white weenie, RDW) - Our deck is packed with removal/burn, and has some maindeck lifegain. Plus we have the benefit of the opponent having the similar mindset of 'my life doesnt matter as long as I kill them first', which we can *hopefully* exploit. Midrange (stompy, tokens, value) - Again, our endless removal should come out on top here, and in this match up we're using the 'our life doesnt matter as long as we kill them first' mentality. Control (counter spells, teferi, nexus, turbo fog) - Turbo fog doesnt help against direct damage, and having a creature-less main deck helps blank a good bit of their removal, and possibly 'confuse' a reactionary deck at first. For the counter heavy decks, you may note above I have two finishers that cant be countered, we're leaning on those fairly heavily. Additionally, black brings discard, the traditional 'answer' to control style decks.
Blah blah blah, words and such, what about a decklist: *Note, this is just an early draft, I havent settled fully on one yet, but have been testing lots of variants and tweaking.
I keyed this above list to have plenty of removal for creature, while still keeping a critical mass of direct burn to the face. I started out with a 2/2 split of Banefire and Inescapable Blaze because I honestly cannot decide between the two. I've had a few test games where I draw blaze and the opponent is at 8 or 9 life and it feels bad, meanwhile the Instant speed on it is more of an upside than you'd think on a "cant be countered" spell. While having 4 total seems high, keep in mind you may be discarding or even exiling them due to the punisher effects. Against control a playset of both come in, they're simply too good to not have.
Against a control matchup, depending on how it feels, you could almost bring in your full sideboard. Direct Current is an expensive Shock, but eats two counters when they get low. Vicious Rumors looks pretty bad and needs more testing, but I think the drain 1 life is relevant in this deck, and the discard is nice, though its probably the first cut from the deck besides perhaps Duress. That depends on how well the "cant be countered" spells end up being overall.
There could also be an argument for more some Murders, and perhaps another Ritual of Soot or two, but I think maindeck has enough damage to any target, and incremental lifegain that you can get away with it. Remember, we play more like a burn deck than a control deck. We just want to kill them before they kill us, so we typically dont need to remove every threat, just a few.
The lands I set at 24 to start, however I'm honestly thinking of dropping them to 23, or maybe even 22. We have quite a bit of card draw between the punisher effects, and with Sword-Point Diplomacy, they will nearly always end up giving us lands. Field of Ruin seems like a great card in GRN meta for all the non-basic's and it doesnt end up losing us a land either. The others are just some extra utility, random scry/card draw. Detection Tower is very likely not needed, but it seemed cute for the theme.
Conclusion:
While I realize this deck wont be going out and winning a PT (most likely), I think it is a really fun FNM archetype as it brings a lot to the table. Aggressive decks do very well early in rotation because they are linear rather than reactionary and as the format isnt "solved" or known yet, the uncertainty opens up for misplays and is great for these decks. The Burn archetype is one of the most aggressive, and further, this deck will definitely cause further uncertainty and misplay opportunities for the opponents. Beyond that, it brings quite a bit of fun interaction between you and the opponent as players rather than just as cards/decks especially in paper magic. The deck itself has everything it needs to fight every archetype and can open up to plenty of other color combos quite easily, especially with the next set and new guilds.
It was a long read, but thanks for reading what you did, and I'd love to hear back on any constructive criticism and suggestions for it as I will likely be plaything this deck until Sword-Point Diplomacy rotates. I'll be adding my testing as I go, though until I get the entire deck on Arena again it might be slower updates.
So to be clear, in the case of Kitesail Freebooter, the "Exile that card until KF leaves the battlefield" is a property belonging to the exiled card, while with Fiend Hunter it belongs to FH.
Basic idea:
Boros control with the above combo as a finisher. While could potentially be considered fragile at first, we have to look at that Enchantments are probably the hardest things to remove in Standard Meta atm, and double horse = indestructible.
We even have access to Gideon's Intervention to name counter spells or other trouble cards lol.
Boros control has an amazing matchup against aggro, and stompy to some degree with Settle the Wreckage, while having an easily transformable sideboard into a more lifegain aggro/midrange.
Thoughts/suggestions? I'll add a decklist tomorrow morning as its one of two I'm working on.
Another option would be a more Naya or GW shell and going semi Enchantress with some of the new m19 support cards.
Essentially the idea would be to play UB Pirate tribal/control, while spamming out clones of Forerunner getting an increasingly quicker clock for every pirate played. Obviously has the glaring first noticed weaknesses of;
- Folds to wipes
- Without Forerunner it doesnt do much
Those two major weaknesses I was shoring up by running a more controlling package, quite a few counters/kill spells, as well as was considering splashing another color like green for hexproof/protection.
While I do definitely agree this "combo/synergy" could be pretty fragile, as well as slow, I think it definitely has some serious potential power in its grindy value. If I was fairly adamant about trying to stick this synergy/gameplan as a main focus in a deck, how would yall suggest to improve it? Anything you can think of that might go well with it?
I have a question as to what happens regarding the following set of events, that from what I can tell mostly revolves around what "happens" to a creature when it is modified or changed, though it could also delve into whether the trigger/effect has the condition, or whether the creature itself does.
From what I'm looking at in the rulings it looks like the values of both "Name" and "rules text" would change, and thus the newly copied Ornithopter could die and the card exiled by Kitesail would be gone for good?
Obviously a pretty niche case, but I wonder if it would end up working to get around the LTB trigger.
Hey All, love the base idea and have been self brewing a similar deck as well. Here are some of my thoughts on the deck.
Armageddon is all about crippling your opponent, meaning that ideally the more lands they have when you blow it up the better. Based on concept, I've been taking a look at a much more controlling, almost gifty build of just GGreenG/WWhiteW. So how do we absolutely maximize the devastation of blowing up all their lands?
This may seem very all in and risky, which it is, but I think it would make a very solid build for this deck, and that is because we have a massive advantage during the matches, especially during Game1: We built our deck to do this!
Now obviously giving our opponents ramp is a pretty risky thing and we need a way to counter act that, and here are some possible main deck answers. Aggro: Fogs, lifegain, boardwipes, chumping. 4 maindeck Settle the Wreckage is already really strong against aggro, and green is also just a strong color to be in against them as well since we have the big fatties which you'll see further down. Plus this is possibly the best color pair to sideboard for anti-aggro. Midrange: We would probably treat this similarly to an aggro match-up I would guess since our list is primarily a control deck. Again our color pair is pretty strong against this as white gives very strong removal and green has some big fatties. Things like Cast Out and Ixalan's Binding would be great here. Tempo: This could be a pretty tough match up, however I think we could still come out on top if played carefully. Answering this archtype would be depending on what color tempo deck it is. Control: Possibly the most difficult of the Game 1s for us depending on the color (we can assume a blue deck probably would snap off a counter on 'Geddon without much hesitation. Our best defense against this would be G1 surprise and a strong maindeck answer/finisher that is generally a hedge against them.
I mentioned finishers a few times above, so here are what I would pick as the two best finishers for my control style list of this deck: Carnage Tyrant and Approach of the Second Sun!
Now before we all scream about me saying to use a 6cmc or 7cmc as a finisher in an Fall of the Thran Sagageddon deck, the reason is because I fully dont intend for my lands to blow up, or if they happen to, I will have ways to get them back thus breaking the symmetry. In my version I am planning on playing both Heroic Intervention and Sylvan Awakening. So with our main "combo" as a 8cmc or 9cmc combo, we should be able to play the finishers next turn if they havent already been played.
The imagined gameplay or "plan" of this deck would be as follows;
Early-game: Setup, ramp some, maybe fog/chump against aggro, try to sneak a few extra lands to your opponent.
Mid-game: Focus on 'stabilizing' and finishing any required set up, making sure you have the pieces ready.
End-game: Lands go kaboom, if the opponent doesnt scoop, follow up turn with one of the finishers.
Some probable issues so far:
- Our answers to different archtypes are pretty different from each other meaning we need a sort of toolbox or need to consolidate answers.
- Worst color pair for card advantage meaning horrible variance can really hurt us.
- If our main plan/goal doesnt work, our deck turns into a really bad really weird ramp style deck.
This style of Sagageddon would take some fine tuning to get right, but I believe that we have a pretty solid set of cards to do so in standard right now, and the deck has a really high ceiling for it. Optimal draws could potentially be seeing us casting a one sided Armageddon around T7 and destroying upwards of 10 of the opponents lands, then following up with an unbeatable finisher.
p.s.
You know you want to... you wouldnt be in this thread to begin with if you didnt.
Seems like since this is a more aggressive/tempo shell, the biggest weakness of the tribe is lack of 1 drops. In addition, and partly due to, lack of 1-drops, there is also a bit of being just a tad too slow and/or running out of gas.
Because of those two things, I really thing that a playset of Shapers' Sanctuary need to be in the deck, or at the very least 3 copies.
- It gives us another T1 play besides sitting there, and potentially could be the correct T1 play over your 1 drop in some games.
- It stacks with multiples, and triggers regardless of whether you counter or respond with hexproof (Dive Down, Blossoming Defense, Heroic Intervention)
- While not directly protecting you against board wipes, it indirectly does via the card advantage. Have fun in a control shell tapping out on T5/T6 for a wipe only to have the merfolk player untap and drop 2-3 more creatures with likely another pump/protection in hand.
Thats just a rough guess, but honestly the pump and green protection seems a bit better mainboard than the Censor's and Spell Pierce's as the protection value will be similar though more flexible, and the deck as a whole wants to be the aggressor in most matches. Between running the enchantment card draw, the 2nd main phase card draw, and potentially the explore Merfolk, 22 lands may even be high when you end at 3 cmc, and 24 creatures *should* still be enough to push through.
Sideboard is where I would put Spell Pierce and Censor as probably a playset as they both have more benefit after a game1 where the opponent doesnt see a single counter.
Finally, its not a Merfolk, but has anyone considered: Prowling Serpopard?
Probably as a SB card, but depending on the meta 1-2 could be good MB.
- Fits curve of the deck, and is above the curve statwise
- Great utility for an aggro deck
- Plays SOOOOO well with Shapers' Sanctuary + Heroic Intervention
Thanks everyone, thats been a huge help, my friend and I are still wanting a more tribal theme, but we are taking yalls advice and toning it down in the complication aspect. If people step on each others toes while drafting, well sucks for them haha. Its been a bit of a busy week, but I'll try to keep this topic updated with our progress.
Hey all I'm looking to build my first Cube with a friend as a project and I wanted to get some thoughts, tips and tricks for it from this lovely community.
Our goal/idea: Tribal Cube, trying for lots of cross color tribes so that we have good support for probably 3-4 tribes in each color. Humans for example.
- Restrictions: Most of the cards available come from Innistrad and later, we have some rares but have always been more casual players, generally open a box or two each set + he has almost every Wizards precon product. We have no issue with buying more cards if they fit well, but arent wanting to go spend like $5-10 per card and are trying to stay in the bulk or less range.
Tribe thoughts:
I was thinking it'd probably be good to do like a varying (specialty/depth/something) of tribes for each color. For example have a broad tribe like Humans/Elementals to cross all colors, then more niche ones like Wizards/Warriors to cross 3 colors with maybe a splash here or there in another color, then even more narrow with things like Giants/Zombies/Fairies to be 2 colors with a small potential multi color splash, then go as narrow as it gets with things like Goblins/Elfs. This would give me 3-5 tribes with decent support per color, and keep the ability to splash pretty well and do like a bi-tribal draft.
I'll have to do more research but off top of my head, some of the following could be good types:
-T1 (all color)
= Human
= Elemental
= Ally
= Sliver
= Shapeshifter
-T2 (most colors)
= Warrior
= Wizard
= Rogue
= Knight
= Shaman
= Horror
= Bird
= Spirit
-T3 (guild based + splash)
= Giant
= Zombie
= Vampire
= Minotaur
= Beast
= Sphinx
= Faeries
= Druids
= Naga/Serpents
= Goblin
= Elf
-T4 (most narrow, mostly 1 color)
= Treefolk
= Dragons
= Kraken
= Demon
= Angel
**If you have suggested tribes for this type of thing that covers all the colors pretty well, please share, seems like its going to take a good bit of work/research to find the best support/power levels/distribution.
Questions:
Does anyone have like a good guide for where to start for cube?
Im guessing I'd probably want the small 360 version as we normally only have 3-4 players tops and sometimes even just draft 1v1. For the breakdown, is it something like 50 of each color, 40 colorless, 40ish multi color, and maybe 30 non-basic lands?
If someone has done a tribal cube like this, what sort of spells/creature ratios did you use, is ramp super important for cubes (again this is real casual play, mostly while drinking and joking, but never fun to get mana screwed)
Super cube-noob question here: How do you go from a pile of 360 cards to "draft packs", just shuffle it around, blindly pick up 15 cards and go? This seems like it could be a bit rough and super RNG with my smaller play groups and still being tribal focused.
In yalls opinion does this seem like a fun/reasonable first cube?
TLDR: Altered Ego+Vizier of Many Faces targeting mainly Rogue Refiner or Filigree Familiar, then massing up, trading hits here and there, drawing tons of cards, then use Open into Wonder to close it out. Its silly, but I suspect could be FNM level pretty easily, and who doesnt like to draw lots of cards?
I know its a pretty rough idea and likely has a lot of holes, but I'd love some feedback or thoughts on it. Or if you think this is complete trash, do you have any other ideas for a fun double clone deck in standard?
Thought process/drawn out explanation: Clone is and always has been in my opinion an interesting and pretty powerful ability, albeit you're actually cloning something worth while. Lately we've started seeing some Clones with slight upsides attached to them, and that makes them go from decent to pretty good in certain scenarios. In addition, we currently have 2x 4cmc Clones in standard with an upside to each: Altered Ego && Vizier of Many Faces.
Why on earth does this matter or seem relevant at all? Well, that depends on if there are any good or even decent targets worth cloning, and further if you can make a deck out of those targets. When SOI first came out, I had a Simic Eldrazi deck that used 4x Altered Ego to copy Reality Smasher and Thought-knot Seer, and while it definitely wasnt a Tier 1 deck, it was very easily FNM playable and winnable, and quite frankly a blast to play. It drew lots of cards and pretty much was a constant barrage of hasty 5/5 hard to kill guys. I looked into that again but wasnt convinced it was the correct deck this time around. Firstly, it lost a bit of mana stability in the pain lands, and Ceremonious Rejection is a real SB card (maybe less of with the recent banning). It also has the trouble of being fairly slow not really doing anything until T4 or T5 besides putting out little blockers.
Moving on from that I thought, ok I can get quicker by cloning a 3 cmc creature and looked at all the 3 cmc creatures available and non immediately stood out to me as a superb target, especially with the wanted consistency. We could clone ramp guys, but why not just play more ramp creatures that are 2 or 3 mana. We can clone some utility creatures or value creatures, but is it really worth it, maybe. I also stumbled onto some fun ideas that I will probably try out eventually for giggles, which are to clone lords: Lord of the Accursed, Regal Caracal, and even Chief of the Foundry all seemed like fun little gimmicks. But there was always a bit of a "why" that I asked myself.
-Lord of the Accursed: Why not just play regular zombies, its probably more consistent.
-Regal Caracal: Suffers from the same "too slow" issue, though, would probably be f-n hilarious if it got rolling.
-Chief of the Foundry: Ok, strong artifact creatures, wheres the payoff?
I looked back and thought, well dang, there seems to be a lot of "OK" things we can do, but none of them really stand out as something worth it, so I looked a bit deeper into the roots of Simic thinking maybe I'll find a synergy that is worth it. What does Simic really do well: draws cards, makes mana, does 'silly' things, makes resources (energy/counters/whatever). Out of all this, the only thing that really stands out by itself is drawing cards, flooding your advantage so to speak. Then looking back at two cards I previously passed over as simply "neat, but why" I thought, hmm, maybe something odd could take shape here.
By themselves they look a bit lack luster and could be, testing will show. But it does give us quite a bit of card advantage to keep drawing gas, and a bit of life to stay alive vs decks that are actually doing something. I was then wondering how we would actually win by doing this and figured, well, we have lots of energy, maybe that could help, and we can also go beatdown using Open into Wonder. Finally a deck started to shape itself, and still was very odd, but looked interesting and most importantly, fun.
The ideal curve would be something along the lines of;
T1 - land, go
T2 - land, counter/ramp creature/something
T3 - Rogue Refiner (draw)
T4 - Clone, draw, pretend we arent really doing anything
T5 - Clone counter durdle
T6 - Rogue Refiner
T7 - Open into Wonder for a big hit
Blah blah, kinda durdle around, draw some cards, mass your board as best you can, then Open into Wonder for a decent bit. Of course in practice our creatures very well may be getting targeted with removal, and we'll be getting attacked, but thats fine, we can pack cheap counters to protect us, trade a few hits back and forth while letting them think they'll win the race and getting a tish of life from Filigree Familiar. Then we hit big for 12 or so damage to close out or come close to closing out the game.
I created that without seeing this post, most of the info is pretty much the same, but I'll link it over to this post.
Has anyone tried a non-permanent build of this? (only lands + spells)
I was testing with a buddy and it was mostly just to blank a lot of main deck spells that gain life. It also opens up a more transforming sideboard into a more creature heavy build once they take all those out. However I'm not sure if that brings enough benefit for that, probably just a meta call.
What about Inescapable Blaze in addition or instead of Banefire. Sure its always 6 mana, but I've found that with Sword-Point Diplomacy they nearly always give you lands regardless of their life total, and the Instant speed can be quite relevant.
Finally, with the current excellent mana bases, has anyone leaned into Grixis? Ionize and Firemind's Research seem like a near perfect fit, as well as some of the UB cards. Jump-Start as a mechanic has great synergies with Sword-Point Diplomacy.
As a side note, I played a very similar deck in a casual group with modern cards using Browbeat and Dash Hopes, and its quite fun. I'll have to update it with these as well.
Regarding Wizard's I definitely added that as an optional Archetype, and they seem to fit quite well. There is also Ghitu Chronicler which fits with amazingly imo with this deck.
This deck/archetype is wide open for adding a third color, or slightly tweaking the gameplan while still following the aggressive punisher playstyle, most notably running a more creature heavy build. Here are some of the variants that one could run with something like this.
1) Grixis - with the Izzet guild mechanic of Jump-Start, and some counterburn style cards, Grixis seems like a go-to, and very possibly the optimal build for this deck. Notable inclusions could be Ionize, Beacon Bolt, Thought Erasure, Notion Rain, Sonic Assault, Firemind's Research, or some of the split cards. Izzet also cares about, "total number of instant and sorcery cards you own in exile and in your graveyard", which works very well with Sword-Point Diplomacy.
2) Jund - Assassin's Trophy is a very strong card, and Jund brings quite a few other tricks as well, especially in a more creature heavy version. This would probably be a more value version of the deck that uses the graveyard for undergrowth but leans a bit away from the Burn/Aggro aspect and focuses more on the value of the punisher cards.
3) Mardu - Haven't looked too much into this, but it seems like it would play a bit more controlly, I'm sure there are a few cards that would be a nice inclusion, but overall I think similar to Jund it would be more of a splash of another color rather than how Grixis would bring a lot of new cards.
4) Izzet - While I personally would force myself to at least splash Sword-Point Diplomacy, this style deck is very similar to an Izzet CounterBurn deck, so I guess I can see some reason for including this as a variant.
5) Rakdos/Izzet/Grixis Goblins - Skirk Prospector is a great card, and Goblins have a ton of support right now, Goblin Electromancer and Guttersnipe fit right in as well. Not sure what exactly it gets you, but Skirk Prospector+2 more Goblins means on T4 you can Ritual of Soot, and in response sac all of them, and cast Risk Factor in response letting you wipe and play a card on T4.
6) Rakdos/Grixis Vampires - I'm currently working on a Dimir Vamps list with a buddy, and the crossover between these two seems pretty reasonable. Dusk Legion Zealot and other vamps provide pretty hearty card draw, which is great in this style deck, as well as some creatures to attack and lifegain synergies as well. The biggest payoffs in my opinion however come in as Discard and Flavor.. yes Flavor. Mass discard while using punisher and burn spells is quite nasty, and Arterial Flow fits that nicely.
6) Rakdos/Grixis Wizards - Wizard's Lightning... Plus, I mean, Todd Anderson played Risk Factor in an Izzet Wizard deck. Cant be hard to tweak it to a more punisher/burn style (though it may not be optimal for Wizards, who cares).
**!! Yes yes, I know, punisher cards. Come on, read a bit further as a pity read if you must. !!**
What is a punisher card, and why is it considered bad?
MTG Wiki - "Punisher spells force an opponent to decide how to punish themselves, usually giving them a choice between either two bad situations or between something bad for them and a bonus for you."
Despite the typically win/win guise of these cards, the main (and real) issue with them is that it gives the opponent a choice, and they will always choose the least bad option.
Ok, so why play this cards if they're bad?
1) Its pretty fun.
2) Generally the individual effects are stronger than their cost to off-set the choice provided.
3) People wont expect them, and thus if you can get it to work wont have a specific strategy against them.
4) As a build around, you can break or play around the downside of them giving a choice, and that is what this deck aims to do.
Now, on to the deck and discussion itself!
The first thing we need to address is how we are going to break these cards and make them usable. Risk Factor is considered by some as an extremely pushed punisher card, and in the right shell can be a strong card. Here is a link to a list that pro Todd Anderson built using the card: instant-deck-tech-izzet-risky-wizards-standard. Essentially in a very aggressive deck, either mode of the card becomes a huge downside for your opponent. You're either dealing 4 to the fast in a deck designed to go 20-0 as quickly as possible, or you're refilling to get other cards that will work to kill the opponent.
Now there are a few key things about Risk Factor that are not generally part of punisher cards and help it become a lot stronger than its predecessors. First, its Instant speed, this allows for us to hold up other interaction, and use this card at the end of the opponents turn, similar to how a Blue deck would hold up both Counterspell and Anticipate at the same time. Secondly, Jump-Start is a very strong mechanic as it will let you play the card again from your graveyard, adding pressure and threat density. Finally, the current Standard card pool has a lot of fairly strong direct burn; Shock, Lightning Strike, Fight with Fire, that go very well with Risk Factor.
You might notice that I've talked quite a bit about Risk Factor, yet havent mentioned the other namesake card of the deck, Sword-Point Diplomacy. Well, to be blunt, Sword-Point Diplomacy is a much worse card in a vacuum. In this card, the cost is much higher for the opponent than with Risk Factor, however the option of choice is weighed a lot heavier in favor of the opponent as well. Sword-Point Diplomacy first lets the opponent see the card individually, then make a choice between that card and 3 life for each specific card, and not only that, it exiles the card if they take the life! This would allow for the opponent to let us draw two lands, then exile one of our win conditions in exchange for 3 life, sweet deal opponent! The trick to making Sword-Point Diplomacy work in our deck is again a similar all in Burn playstyle, combined with the fact that we actually want every card in our deck, including lands which you'll see why later.
What are some other key cards in the deck, as well as a key focus?
* We are looking for cards that kill the opponent as quickly as possible, without giving them the chance to interact. While typically these would be creatures, we also need to pack a high density of answers as well since most of our card draw is controlled by the opponent. Cards that give the option to hit "Any Target" or have multiple uses are key in this, here are some of those.
- Shock
- Lightning Strike
- Fight with Fire (kicker plays well with our, 'sure, give us lands' sub-theme
- Banefire (also likes lots of lands)
- Inescapable Blaze (also likes lots of lands)
Hmm, all of those cards you mentioned are red, and our "good" punisher card is red, why bother going into black as well? A weakness of Red is big creatures, and things that damage just doesnt deal well with. Sometimes you need hard removal or wrath effects, you may also want some lifegain, which I hear red isnt the best at. Enter some of the other below cards that work great with this deck.
- Sovereign's Bite (lol, I know, just let it all come together)
- Vraska's Contempt (see, a real card!)
- Murder
- Ritual of Soot
Ok, so now we have a decent list of some cards that might do something when you put them all together, why so much emphasis on no permanents? Mostly this is to shut off the opponents removal, and to try and keep our deck as streamlined and focused as possible. There are some quite decent variants of this deck that could not only use creatures, but a few that are creature heavy, and two potential tribal variants (vamps/goblins). Lets look at how we might play against some specific styles of other decks.
Hyper Aggro (white weenie, RDW) - Our deck is packed with removal/burn, and has some maindeck lifegain. Plus we have the benefit of the opponent having the similar mindset of 'my life doesnt matter as long as I kill them first', which we can *hopefully* exploit.
Midrange (stompy, tokens, value) - Again, our endless removal should come out on top here, and in this match up we're using the 'our life doesnt matter as long as we kill them first' mentality.
Control (counter spells, teferi, nexus, turbo fog) - Turbo fog doesnt help against direct damage, and having a creature-less main deck helps blank a good bit of their removal, and possibly 'confuse' a reactionary deck at first. For the counter heavy decks, you may note above I have two finishers that cant be countered, we're leaning on those fairly heavily. Additionally, black brings discard, the traditional 'answer' to control style decks.
Blah blah blah, words and such, what about a decklist:
*Note, this is just an early draft, I havent settled fully on one yet, but have been testing lots of variants and tweaking.
1x Arch of Orazca
1x Detection Tower
4x Field of Ruin
2x Zhalfirin Void
4x Dragonskull Summit
5x Swamp
7x Mountain
// 8 Punisher \\
4x Risk Factor
4x Sword-Point Diplomacy
4x Shock
4x Lightning Strike
3x Fight with Fire
2x Banefire
2x Inescapable Blaze
4x Sovereign's Bite
// 9 Other \\
3x Tormenting Voice
4x Vraska's Contempt
2x Ritual of Soot
2x Banefire
2x Inescapable Blaze
4x Vicious Rumors
4x Direct Current
3x Duress
I keyed this above list to have plenty of removal for creature, while still keeping a critical mass of direct burn to the face. I started out with a 2/2 split of Banefire and Inescapable Blaze because I honestly cannot decide between the two. I've had a few test games where I draw blaze and the opponent is at 8 or 9 life and it feels bad, meanwhile the Instant speed on it is more of an upside than you'd think on a "cant be countered" spell. While having 4 total seems high, keep in mind you may be discarding or even exiling them due to the punisher effects. Against control a playset of both come in, they're simply too good to not have.
Against a control matchup, depending on how it feels, you could almost bring in your full sideboard. Direct Current is an expensive Shock, but eats two counters when they get low. Vicious Rumors looks pretty bad and needs more testing, but I think the drain 1 life is relevant in this deck, and the discard is nice, though its probably the first cut from the deck besides perhaps Duress. That depends on how well the "cant be countered" spells end up being overall.
There could also be an argument for more some Murders, and perhaps another Ritual of Soot or two, but I think maindeck has enough damage to any target, and incremental lifegain that you can get away with it. Remember, we play more like a burn deck than a control deck. We just want to kill them before they kill us, so we typically dont need to remove every threat, just a few.
The lands I set at 24 to start, however I'm honestly thinking of dropping them to 23, or maybe even 22. We have quite a bit of card draw between the punisher effects, and with Sword-Point Diplomacy, they will nearly always end up giving us lands. Field of Ruin seems like a great card in GRN meta for all the non-basic's and it doesnt end up losing us a land either. The others are just some extra utility, random scry/card draw. Detection Tower is very likely not needed, but it seemed cute for the theme.
Conclusion:
While I realize this deck wont be going out and winning a PT (most likely), I think it is a really fun FNM archetype as it brings a lot to the table. Aggressive decks do very well early in rotation because they are linear rather than reactionary and as the format isnt "solved" or known yet, the uncertainty opens up for misplays and is great for these decks. The Burn archetype is one of the most aggressive, and further, this deck will definitely cause further uncertainty and misplay opportunities for the opponents. Beyond that, it brings quite a bit of fun interaction between you and the opponent as players rather than just as cards/decks especially in paper magic. The deck itself has everything it needs to fight every archetype and can open up to plenty of other color combos quite easily, especially with the next set and new guilds.
It was a long read, but thanks for reading what you did, and I'd love to hear back on any constructive criticism and suggestions for it as I will likely be plaything this deck until Sword-Point Diplomacy rotates. I'll be adding my testing as I go, though until I get the entire deck on Arena again it might be slower updates.
*Other variants to follow*
Yeah.... ignore me... thats what I get when thinking up a deck focus at 3am while being on-call and working an outage lol.
As for lifegain, should be easy enough in RW, especially a more durdley controlling deck.
Somewhat related... since its a "Cast" trigger, clones dont work either do they?
Basic idea:
Boros control with the above combo as a finisher. While could potentially be considered fragile at first, we have to look at that Enchantments are probably the hardest things to remove in Standard Meta atm, and double horse = indestructible.
We even have access to Gideon's Intervention to name counter spells or other trouble cards lol.
Boros control has an amazing matchup against aggro, and stompy to some degree with Settle the Wreckage, while having an easily transformable sideboard into a more lifegain aggro/midrange.
Thoughts/suggestions? I'll add a decklist tomorrow morning as its one of two I'm working on.
Another option would be a more Naya or GW shell and going semi Enchantress with some of the new m19 support cards.
Forerunner of the Coalition+Arcane Adaptation with support from,
Metamorphic Alteration+Vizier of Many Faces+Mirror Image
Essentially the idea would be to play UB Pirate tribal/control, while spamming out clones of Forerunner getting an increasingly quicker clock for every pirate played. Obviously has the glaring first noticed weaknesses of;
- Folds to wipes
- Without Forerunner it doesnt do much
Those two major weaknesses I was shoring up by running a more controlling package, quite a few counters/kill spells, as well as was considering splashing another color like green for hexproof/protection.
While I do definitely agree this "combo/synergy" could be pretty fragile, as well as slow, I think it definitely has some serious potential power in its grindy value. If I was fairly adamant about trying to stick this synergy/gameplan as a main focus in a deck, how would yall suggest to improve it? Anything you can think of that might go well with it?
Kitesail Freebooter enters -> Kitesails effect steals a card -> Metamorphic Alteration is cast enchanting Kitesail Freebooter copying Ornithopter -> Ornithopter (kitesail) leaves the battle field, what happens to the card that was exiled by Kitesail's effect?
From what I'm looking at in the rulings it looks like the values of both "Name" and "rules text" would change, and thus the newly copied Ornithopter could die and the card exiled by Kitesail would be gone for good?
Obviously a pretty niche case, but I wonder if it would end up working to get around the LTB trigger.
Armageddon is all about crippling your opponent, meaning that ideally the more lands they have when you blow it up the better. Based on concept, I've been taking a look at a much more controlling, almost gifty build of just GGreenG/WWhiteW. So how do we absolutely maximize the devastation of blowing up all their lands?
This may seem very all in and risky, which it is, but I think it would make a very solid build for this deck, and that is because we have a massive advantage during the matches, especially during Game1: We built our deck to do this!
Now obviously giving our opponents ramp is a pretty risky thing and we need a way to counter act that, and here are some possible main deck answers.
Aggro: Fogs, lifegain, boardwipes, chumping. 4 maindeck Settle the Wreckage is already really strong against aggro, and green is also just a strong color to be in against them as well since we have the big fatties which you'll see further down. Plus this is possibly the best color pair to sideboard for anti-aggro.
Midrange: We would probably treat this similarly to an aggro match-up I would guess since our list is primarily a control deck. Again our color pair is pretty strong against this as white gives very strong removal and green has some big fatties. Things like Cast Out and Ixalan's Binding would be great here.
Tempo: This could be a pretty tough match up, however I think we could still come out on top if played carefully. Answering this archtype would be depending on what color tempo deck it is.
Control: Possibly the most difficult of the Game 1s for us depending on the color (we can assume a blue deck probably would snap off a counter on 'Geddon without much hesitation. Our best defense against this would be G1 surprise and a strong maindeck answer/finisher that is generally a hedge against them.
I mentioned finishers a few times above, so here are what I would pick as the two best finishers for my control style list of this deck: Carnage Tyrant and Approach of the Second Sun!
The imagined gameplay or "plan" of this deck would be as follows;
Early-game: Setup, ramp some, maybe fog/chump against aggro, try to sneak a few extra lands to your opponent.
Mid-game: Focus on 'stabilizing' and finishing any required set up, making sure you have the pieces ready.
End-game: Lands go kaboom, if the opponent doesnt scoop, follow up turn with one of the finishers.
Some probable issues so far:
- Our answers to different archtypes are pretty different from each other meaning we need a sort of toolbox or need to consolidate answers.
- Worst color pair for card advantage meaning horrible variance can really hurt us.
- If our main plan/goal doesnt work, our deck turns into a really bad really weird ramp style deck.
This style of Sagageddon would take some fine tuning to get right, but I believe that we have a pretty solid set of cards to do so in standard right now, and the deck has a really high ceiling for it. Optimal draws could potentially be seeing us casting a one sided Armageddon around T7 and destroying upwards of 10 of the opponents lands, then following up with an unbeatable finisher.
p.s.
You know you want to... you wouldnt be in this thread to begin with if you didnt.
Because of those two things, I really thing that a playset of Shapers' Sanctuary need to be in the deck, or at the very least 3 copies.
- It gives us another T1 play besides sitting there, and potentially could be the correct T1 play over your 1 drop in some games.
- It stacks with multiples, and triggers regardless of whether you counter or respond with hexproof (Dive Down, Blossoming Defense, Heroic Intervention)
- While not directly protecting you against board wipes, it indirectly does via the card advantage. Have fun in a control shell tapping out on T5/T6 for a wipe only to have the merfolk player untap and drop 2-3 more creatures with likely another pump/protection in hand.
Honestly I havent looked all all the Merfolk to give a full list/deck, however I'd like to play something like the following.
4x - 1 drop
4x - Shapers' Sanctuary
12x - 2 drop
8x - 3 drop
4x - Blossoming Defense
3x - Heroic Intervention
3x - Chart a Course
22x - lands
Thats just a rough guess, but honestly the pump and green protection seems a bit better mainboard than the Censor's and Spell Pierce's as the protection value will be similar though more flexible, and the deck as a whole wants to be the aggressor in most matches. Between running the enchantment card draw, the 2nd main phase card draw, and potentially the explore Merfolk, 22 lands may even be high when you end at 3 cmc, and 24 creatures *should* still be enough to push through.
Sideboard is where I would put Spell Pierce and Censor as probably a playset as they both have more benefit after a game1 where the opponent doesnt see a single counter.
Finally, its not a Merfolk, but has anyone considered: Prowling Serpopard?
Probably as a SB card, but depending on the meta 1-2 could be good MB.
- Fits curve of the deck, and is above the curve statwise
- Great utility for an aggro deck
- Plays SOOOOO well with Shapers' Sanctuary + Heroic Intervention
Our goal/idea: Tribal Cube, trying for lots of cross color tribes so that we have good support for probably 3-4 tribes in each color. Humans for example.
- Restrictions: Most of the cards available come from Innistrad and later, we have some rares but have always been more casual players, generally open a box or two each set + he has almost every Wizards precon product. We have no issue with buying more cards if they fit well, but arent wanting to go spend like $5-10 per card and are trying to stay in the bulk or less range.
Tribe thoughts:
I was thinking it'd probably be good to do like a varying (specialty/depth/something) of tribes for each color. For example have a broad tribe like Humans/Elementals to cross all colors, then more niche ones like Wizards/Warriors to cross 3 colors with maybe a splash here or there in another color, then even more narrow with things like Giants/Zombies/Fairies to be 2 colors with a small potential multi color splash, then go as narrow as it gets with things like Goblins/Elfs. This would give me 3-5 tribes with decent support per color, and keep the ability to splash pretty well and do like a bi-tribal draft.
I'll have to do more research but off top of my head, some of the following could be good types:
-T1 (all color)
= Human
= Elemental
= Ally
= Sliver
= Shapeshifter
-T2 (most colors)
= Warrior
= Wizard
= Rogue
= Knight
= Shaman
= Horror
= Bird
= Spirit
-T3 (guild based + splash)
= Giant
= Zombie
= Vampire
= Minotaur
= Beast
= Sphinx
= Faeries
= Druids
= Naga/Serpents
= Goblin
= Elf
-T4 (most narrow, mostly 1 color)
= Treefolk
= Dragons
= Kraken
= Demon
= Angel
**If you have suggested tribes for this type of thing that covers all the colors pretty well, please share, seems like its going to take a good bit of work/research to find the best support/power levels/distribution.
Questions:
I know its a pretty rough idea and likely has a lot of holes, but I'd love some feedback or thoughts on it. Or if you think this is complete trash, do you have any other ideas for a fun double clone deck in standard?
Thought process/drawn out explanation:
Clone is and always has been in my opinion an interesting and pretty powerful ability, albeit you're actually cloning something worth while. Lately we've started seeing some Clones with slight upsides attached to them, and that makes them go from decent to pretty good in certain scenarios. In addition, we currently have 2x 4cmc Clones in standard with an upside to each: Altered Ego && Vizier of Many Faces.
Why on earth does this matter or seem relevant at all? Well, that depends on if there are any good or even decent targets worth cloning, and further if you can make a deck out of those targets. When SOI first came out, I had a Simic Eldrazi deck that used 4x Altered Ego to copy Reality Smasher and Thought-knot Seer, and while it definitely wasnt a Tier 1 deck, it was very easily FNM playable and winnable, and quite frankly a blast to play. It drew lots of cards and pretty much was a constant barrage of hasty 5/5 hard to kill guys. I looked into that again but wasnt convinced it was the correct deck this time around. Firstly, it lost a bit of mana stability in the pain lands, and Ceremonious Rejection is a real SB card (maybe less of with the recent banning). It also has the trouble of being fairly slow not really doing anything until T4 or T5 besides putting out little blockers.
Moving on from that I thought, ok I can get quicker by cloning a 3 cmc creature and looked at all the 3 cmc creatures available and non immediately stood out to me as a superb target, especially with the wanted consistency. We could clone ramp guys, but why not just play more ramp creatures that are 2 or 3 mana. We can clone some utility creatures or value creatures, but is it really worth it, maybe. I also stumbled onto some fun ideas that I will probably try out eventually for giggles, which are to clone lords: Lord of the Accursed, Regal Caracal, and even Chief of the Foundry all seemed like fun little gimmicks. But there was always a bit of a "why" that I asked myself.
-Lord of the Accursed: Why not just play regular zombies, its probably more consistent.
-Regal Caracal: Suffers from the same "too slow" issue, though, would probably be f-n hilarious if it got rolling.
-Chief of the Foundry: Ok, strong artifact creatures, wheres the payoff?
I looked back and thought, well dang, there seems to be a lot of "OK" things we can do, but none of them really stand out as something worth it, so I looked a bit deeper into the roots of Simic thinking maybe I'll find a synergy that is worth it. What does Simic really do well: draws cards, makes mana, does 'silly' things, makes resources (energy/counters/whatever). Out of all this, the only thing that really stands out by itself is drawing cards, flooding your advantage so to speak. Then looking back at two cards I previously passed over as simply "neat, but why" I thought, hmm, maybe something odd could take shape here.
Rogue Refiner && Filigree Familiar
By themselves they look a bit lack luster and could be, testing will show. But it does give us quite a bit of card advantage to keep drawing gas, and a bit of life to stay alive vs decks that are actually doing something. I was then wondering how we would actually win by doing this and figured, well, we have lots of energy, maybe that could help, and we can also go beatdown using Open into Wonder. Finally a deck started to shape itself, and still was very odd, but looked interesting and most importantly, fun.
The ideal curve would be something along the lines of;
T1 - land, go
T2 - land, counter/ramp creature/something
T3 - Rogue Refiner (draw)
T4 - Clone, draw, pretend we arent really doing anything
T5 - Clone counter durdle
T6 - Rogue Refiner
T7 - Open into Wonder for a big hit
Blah blah, kinda durdle around, draw some cards, mass your board as best you can, then Open into Wonder for a decent bit. Of course in practice our creatures very well may be getting targeted with removal, and we'll be getting attacked, but thats fine, we can pack cheap counters to protect us, trade a few hits back and forth while letting them think they'll win the race and getting a tish of life from Filigree Familiar. Then we hit big for 12 or so damage to close out or come close to closing out the game.
We could throw a few value creatures in there like Sylvan Advocate, Tireless Tracker, Channeler Initiate to fill out the curve, or go more of counter style deck. Throw in Blossoming Defense, Negate for some protection and a bit of pump. Then just beat face.