For your Koth question, I used to play Skred, which is where he was really able to pull his weight, but I'm not so sure about Prison. Koth works best when your land base is almost entirely mountains. Prison, on the other hand, relies a lot on rituals and guide to cheat cards into play. While Koth can help with acceleration through his first and second abilities, the extra mana from your rituals is generally better used on a lock piece; Chandra is also more versatile, as she can "draw" you a card or add free mana to tick up, act as emergency removal, or end the game with her ult. Koth's ult is slower and requires a huge number of mountains to be game ending, which is not a guarantee with our manabase. Hope this helped!
I have both decks and originally started out as a Death & Taxes player, so I'll try and do a little blurb on both. Also read the primers for both decks, the two threads have excellent writers, and make sure to watch some YouTube gameplay of both.
Bant Spirits
Pros
+Is easier to pilot than BW Eldrazi Taxes.
+Almost all of the creatures have flying; the natural evasion is VERY difficult for many decks to deal with.
+Manabase is more stable thanks to the ability to fetch all 3 colors and having no colorless mana restrictions.
+With Noble Hierarchs/Birds of Paradise (budget), you can pull off some nutty plays like a turn 2 Geist of Saint Traft or a turn 3 Collected Company.
+The deck plays at instant speed, through Aether Vial, creatures with flash, and Collected Company, making removal and counters much more difficult for your opponent, also lets you bluff or fake out an opponent just by leaving lands/mana up.
+Since most lists runs about 10 or less non-creature spells, Bant Spirits is largely resistant to decks that focus on punishing non-creature spells, and will not necessarily lose if you're unable to play Vial or Company, or one of them gets Surgically Extracted.
+Creatures have powerful abilities that allow for interaction with the opponent or protecting your board state, such as Spell Queller, Mausoleum Wanderer, Rattlechains, and Selfless Spirit, while acting as additional threats in the meanwhile.
+The primary lord, Drogskol Captain, is capable of creating a "soft lock" where playing two will give all your spirits Hexproof, making them immune to everything except bigger creatures, sacrifice effects, or boardwipes.
+Playing Green, Blue, and White gives us access to some of the best sideboard cards in the game, such as Rest in Peace, Stony Silence, Knight of Autumn, and counterspells such as Ceremonious Rejection, Unified Will, and Disdainful Stroke.
Cons
-Limited interaction with your opponent outside of creatures. Pre-board, there aren't many options for dealing with non-instant/sorcery spells outside of Spell Queller or Deputy of Detention. Furthermore, many of your creatures' interactions occur only once upon ETB, such as Spell Queller or Deputy of Detention, or require sacrifices to be used, such as Mausoleum Wanderer or Selfless Spirit. This can make matchups against big mana decks such as Tron or Amulet Titan, or combo decks like Storm, into races.
-As a creature-based tempo deck, boardwipes can cripple us if we dump everything onto the field or have no means of interacting with them through a Queller.
-In addition to the above point, the strength of the deck is manifested in our board state; if we're unable to maintain a good number of creatures, our deck loses out on power.
-Manabase is three color, therefore you will be pinging yourself through shocks and fetches. Sometimes you might also have a hand you can't play due to color restrictions, and depending on the boardstate/lands we have, a Blood Moon can be crippling.
-$$$$$$$$ - Many of the most important cards in the deck are expensive, such as Noble Hierarch, Aether Vial, Collected Company, and the manabase.
BW Eldrazi and Taxes
Pros
+Has access to some incredibly powerful creatures main deck, such as Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Thought-Knot Seer, Dark Confidant and Tidehollow Sculler. Furthermore, your white creatures serve as taxes that cannot be dodged until said creatures are killed or otherwise dealt with, as opposed to Spirits where their creatures usually only trigger their interaction with the opponent once.
+A lot of the creatures are incredibly synergistic. Tidehollow Sculler can steal a card from your opponent/Flickerwisp can remove a card for a turn, allowing you to process the removed card with Wasteland Strangler. Not only does the exiled card go into the opponent's graveyard, but you've also killed one of their creatures! Using Leonin Arbiter, Path to Exile becomes arguably the best removal spell ever printed in Magic, and Ghost Quarter becomes a better Wasteland.
+Since the deck runs a fair bit of hand disruption, you usually have an idea of what your opponent has in hand; perfect information is one of the most powerful assets in Magic.
+Through Aether Vial allowing instant speed, uncounterable creatures, the deck is able to cripple opponents for making common Modern plays. Flashing in a Leonin Arbiter when they fetch usually means an opponent has time-walked themselves on mana and lost a life to boot. You can also flash in Tidehollow Skuller after they've drawn for the turn and steal their newest card. Another trick is one of the most complicated interactions in the deck, but flickering a Tidehollow Sculler with a vialed in Flickerwisp or through a Restoration Angel allows you to permanently remove one of your opponent's cards and steal another one.
+Has more powerful finishers through Eldrazi than regular Death and Taxes, as Thought-Knot Seer is a 4/4 that can come down on turn 3 or even turn 2 depending on how many Eldrazi Temples you have online. Eldrazi Displacer also allows you to continuously recycle your own ETB effects, which can be incredibly powerful depending on the build you play.
+White has some of the best sideboard cards in Magic, while black offers removal and hand disruption through cards like Fatal Push, Inquisition of Kozilek, and Thoughtseize. Kambal, Consul of Allocation is also an excellent card that punishes a wide range of decks for playing non-creature spells.
Cons
-The manabase. In my opinion, BW Eldrazi & Taxes has one of the worst, if not THE worst manabases in all of Modern. This is compounded by the fact that a good number of your creatures require colorless mana to be played or to activate their effects, and you cannot run fetches due to the nature of Leonin Arbiter. While Aether Vial can alleviate some of this, it also means that losing a Vial can be crippling or even game-ending depending on your mana situation, compared to Spirits or Merfolk where losing a Vial is annoying but not a serious loss. Essentially, you're playing a three color deck with no fetches, mana dorks, or other means of fixing your mana. I've lost games due to not having mana when I've needed it, or drawing it too late. Hitting my own lands with Ghost Quarter to fix mana is not an uncommon situation. Also, Blood Moon can be virtually game-ending, and Merfolk can be considered a poor matchup due to their ability to turn your lands into Islands through Sea's Claim and Spreading Seas, while also becoming unblockable.
-Playing any Taxes style deck requires knowledge about the current metagame, popular decks, and common creatures/spells. The more you make an effort to learn the meta and how Taxes interacts with them, the better you will do. However, the reverse is also true. This is a deck that demands smart decision-making, sequencing, knowledge of triggers and the stack, and match-up knowledge. If you lack any of the aforementioned, matches will be that much more difficult for you.
-Like Bant Spirits, the majority of your interaction and game plan comes from having creatures on the battlefield. This deck shares the same weakness of Spirits, Merfolk, and other creature-based decks to sweepers and mass removal.
-Unlike Spirits or Merfolk, almost none of your creatures have flying or similar means of evasion, and your main win con is still beating your opponent down with creatures. This can lead to stalemates or even losses if your opponent has something like Ensnaring Bridge or an equal number of creatures. Furthermore, your taxes are creature-based, which means chump blocks can significantly hurt you if you use an Arbiter or Thalia to block your opponent's Death's Shadow or Awoken Horror.
-Your creatures also cannot get nearly as huge as Spirits or Merfolk as you possess no lords, which requires smarter decisions about combat.
Hope this helped inform you about the decks! Post in both threads if you need more advice or commentary, and have fun!
So after trying really hard to make a spicy Ponza brew work as the deck I wanted to bring to my first GP, the lack of consistency has driven me nuts.
That being said, I want to go back to Spirits, but I'm unsure whether to keep my Bant build or go UW for GP LA next week. What do people think would be a better choice for my first big GP? D:
So I managed to finally get a full set of Goyfs, but money is a huge issue for me as a recent college grad. Is there any way to replace Lilianas & Bobs? Or is the deck not competitive enough without at least one set of either?
I can see the frustration but that's not a scenario that justifies Geist. You have been unlucky, golgari charm is an occasional sideboard card, that deck also ( guess it's the new sultai control) is as much as occasional.
I think GoST is good with green because you have the spot to play it t2 on the play, which is nuts.
I second this. Being able to cheat it out early with dorks is why I have two copies of it in my Bant build. In comparison, I only had a single copy in the side of my UW version because it wasn't nearly as good without being able to attack on turn 3.
Combust is favored because you don't want to end up countering your own spells with Vial. It's kind of a nonbo with one of our main lock pieces, especially since one of the best plays we can make in general is a turn one Chalice on one.
Just one quick question? What do you guys want to see forum the primer update and how would you like me to make contributions? PM if it’s something in great detail.
I dunno if it'd be best posted somewhere on the front page Primer, in the Leonin Library, or stapled chronologically into the thread as quarterly updates... but I was a big fan of the "LSV Set Review"-esque thing that you did a couple times here highlighting D&T-relevant pickups. (Though I can't find an example to link to for the life of me.)
They sort of made for neat old signposts like "Oh yeah, AKH/HOU had some neat stuff like GBI, GideonOTT, Shefet Dunes, and Dusk/Dawn." especially when there's some 20/20-hindsight followup somewhere with the "Dang. We were totally sleeping on Thraben Inspector, guys." type commentary.
Ditto. Plus I'd love to see some more commentary on color splashes, been meaning to go back to D&T and try a red splash.
Ironically I took a break from Prison to mess around with Ponza, since it was getting a little stressful trying to make good plays with the deck; today, however, I faced another player at my LGS running Prison, which smoked my Ponza. It was really funny in a tragic sort of way being on the receiving end of Chalice for once.
Almost finished building the deck and I noticed Brainpipe's post about Vexing Devil rulings. I know Fling is a no go, but does Pongify/Rapid still work for the turn 2 Pelt Collector "combo"?
It's still checking for higher power, which evolve also does, so I assume it does. That's how I understood it worked and none of my opponents opposed it.
And the way I built the deck, I built it to be aggressive as possible while also being resilient enough that it doesn't just lose on turn 4 if it doesn't kill, like Bushwhacker zoo does. It isn't as aggressive, but it has counterspells to tighten up some matchups, which I really like. But with both styles of decks, you just sign up to lose to blood moon, that's just how I see it.
I meant more of "Is Vexing Devil a legal target for Pongify/Rapid before it's sacrificed" or is that a no go?
3 Drogskol Captain
2 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Phantasmal Image
2 Rattlechains
2 Reflector Mage
3 Selfless Spirit
4 Spell Queller
4 Supreme Phantom
Lands
3 Botanical Sanctum
1 Breeding Pool
4 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Horizon Canopy
2 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Moorland Haunt
1 Plains
1 Temple Garden
2 Windswept Heath
3 Aether Vial
4 Collected Company
2 Path to Exile
2 Damping Sphere
2 Disdainful Stroke
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Knight of Autumn
3 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Unified Will
Bant Spirits
Pros
+Is easier to pilot than BW Eldrazi Taxes.
+Almost all of the creatures have flying; the natural evasion is VERY difficult for many decks to deal with.
+Manabase is more stable thanks to the ability to fetch all 3 colors and having no colorless mana restrictions.
+With Noble Hierarchs/Birds of Paradise (budget), you can pull off some nutty plays like a turn 2 Geist of Saint Traft or a turn 3 Collected Company.
+The deck plays at instant speed, through Aether Vial, creatures with flash, and Collected Company, making removal and counters much more difficult for your opponent, also lets you bluff or fake out an opponent just by leaving lands/mana up.
+Since most lists runs about 10 or less non-creature spells, Bant Spirits is largely resistant to decks that focus on punishing non-creature spells, and will not necessarily lose if you're unable to play Vial or Company, or one of them gets Surgically Extracted.
+Creatures have powerful abilities that allow for interaction with the opponent or protecting your board state, such as Spell Queller, Mausoleum Wanderer, Rattlechains, and Selfless Spirit, while acting as additional threats in the meanwhile.
+The primary lord, Drogskol Captain, is capable of creating a "soft lock" where playing two will give all your spirits Hexproof, making them immune to everything except bigger creatures, sacrifice effects, or boardwipes.
+Playing Green, Blue, and White gives us access to some of the best sideboard cards in the game, such as Rest in Peace, Stony Silence, Knight of Autumn, and counterspells such as Ceremonious Rejection, Unified Will, and Disdainful Stroke.
Cons
-Limited interaction with your opponent outside of creatures. Pre-board, there aren't many options for dealing with non-instant/sorcery spells outside of Spell Queller or Deputy of Detention. Furthermore, many of your creatures' interactions occur only once upon ETB, such as Spell Queller or Deputy of Detention, or require sacrifices to be used, such as Mausoleum Wanderer or Selfless Spirit. This can make matchups against big mana decks such as Tron or Amulet Titan, or combo decks like Storm, into races.
-As a creature-based tempo deck, boardwipes can cripple us if we dump everything onto the field or have no means of interacting with them through a Queller.
-In addition to the above point, the strength of the deck is manifested in our board state; if we're unable to maintain a good number of creatures, our deck loses out on power.
-Manabase is three color, therefore you will be pinging yourself through shocks and fetches. Sometimes you might also have a hand you can't play due to color restrictions, and depending on the boardstate/lands we have, a Blood Moon can be crippling.
-$$$$$$$$ - Many of the most important cards in the deck are expensive, such as Noble Hierarch, Aether Vial, Collected Company, and the manabase.
BW Eldrazi and Taxes
Pros
+Has access to some incredibly powerful creatures main deck, such as Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Thought-Knot Seer, Dark Confidant and Tidehollow Sculler. Furthermore, your white creatures serve as taxes that cannot be dodged until said creatures are killed or otherwise dealt with, as opposed to Spirits where their creatures usually only trigger their interaction with the opponent once.
+A lot of the creatures are incredibly synergistic. Tidehollow Sculler can steal a card from your opponent/Flickerwisp can remove a card for a turn, allowing you to process the removed card with Wasteland Strangler. Not only does the exiled card go into the opponent's graveyard, but you've also killed one of their creatures! Using Leonin Arbiter, Path to Exile becomes arguably the best removal spell ever printed in Magic, and Ghost Quarter becomes a better Wasteland.
+Since the deck runs a fair bit of hand disruption, you usually have an idea of what your opponent has in hand; perfect information is one of the most powerful assets in Magic.
+Through Aether Vial allowing instant speed, uncounterable creatures, the deck is able to cripple opponents for making common Modern plays. Flashing in a Leonin Arbiter when they fetch usually means an opponent has time-walked themselves on mana and lost a life to boot. You can also flash in Tidehollow Skuller after they've drawn for the turn and steal their newest card. Another trick is one of the most complicated interactions in the deck, but flickering a Tidehollow Sculler with a vialed in Flickerwisp or through a Restoration Angel allows you to permanently remove one of your opponent's cards and steal another one.
+Has more powerful finishers through Eldrazi than regular Death and Taxes, as Thought-Knot Seer is a 4/4 that can come down on turn 3 or even turn 2 depending on how many Eldrazi Temples you have online. Eldrazi Displacer also allows you to continuously recycle your own ETB effects, which can be incredibly powerful depending on the build you play.
+White has some of the best sideboard cards in Magic, while black offers removal and hand disruption through cards like Fatal Push, Inquisition of Kozilek, and Thoughtseize. Kambal, Consul of Allocation is also an excellent card that punishes a wide range of decks for playing non-creature spells.
Cons
-The manabase. In my opinion, BW Eldrazi & Taxes has one of the worst, if not THE worst manabases in all of Modern. This is compounded by the fact that a good number of your creatures require colorless mana to be played or to activate their effects, and you cannot run fetches due to the nature of Leonin Arbiter. While Aether Vial can alleviate some of this, it also means that losing a Vial can be crippling or even game-ending depending on your mana situation, compared to Spirits or Merfolk where losing a Vial is annoying but not a serious loss. Essentially, you're playing a three color deck with no fetches, mana dorks, or other means of fixing your mana. I've lost games due to not having mana when I've needed it, or drawing it too late. Hitting my own lands with Ghost Quarter to fix mana is not an uncommon situation. Also, Blood Moon can be virtually game-ending, and Merfolk can be considered a poor matchup due to their ability to turn your lands into Islands through Sea's Claim and Spreading Seas, while also becoming unblockable.
-Playing any Taxes style deck requires knowledge about the current metagame, popular decks, and common creatures/spells. The more you make an effort to learn the meta and how Taxes interacts with them, the better you will do. However, the reverse is also true. This is a deck that demands smart decision-making, sequencing, knowledge of triggers and the stack, and match-up knowledge. If you lack any of the aforementioned, matches will be that much more difficult for you.
-Like Bant Spirits, the majority of your interaction and game plan comes from having creatures on the battlefield. This deck shares the same weakness of Spirits, Merfolk, and other creature-based decks to sweepers and mass removal.
-Unlike Spirits or Merfolk, almost none of your creatures have flying or similar means of evasion, and your main win con is still beating your opponent down with creatures. This can lead to stalemates or even losses if your opponent has something like Ensnaring Bridge or an equal number of creatures. Furthermore, your taxes are creature-based, which means chump blocks can significantly hurt you if you use an Arbiter or Thalia to block your opponent's Death's Shadow or Awoken Horror.
-Your creatures also cannot get nearly as huge as Spirits or Merfolk as you possess no lords, which requires smarter decisions about combat.
Hope this helped inform you about the decks! Post in both threads if you need more advice or commentary, and have fun!
That being said, I want to go back to Spirits, but I'm unsure whether to keep my Bant build or go UW for GP LA next week. What do people think would be a better choice for my first big GP? D:
I second this. Being able to cheat it out early with dorks is why I have two copies of it in my Bant build. In comparison, I only had a single copy in the side of my UW version because it wasn't nearly as good without being able to attack on turn 3.
Ditto. Plus I'd love to see some more commentary on color splashes, been meaning to go back to D&T and try a red splash.
I meant more of "Is Vexing Devil a legal target for Pongify/Rapid before it's sacrificed" or is that a no go?