Creature (27)
Sideboard
Artifact (5)
Instant (1)
Enchantment (4)
Creature (5)
9-5-1 matches, 24-13 games at GP Louisville Jan 2017.
Pre-tournament rationale for the deck was that Pyroclasm and Kozilek's Return are coming in as the "solves D&T" hate cards, so I would just start my list with 4 Serra Avenger and see where the deck went. My guilty pleasure is my 2 pieces of fast mana against matchups where we aren't going to grind, but I went to Chrome Mox instead of Simian Spirit Guide because of the Serra Avengers. As it turned out this play was really good; a lot of people were talking about killing Sanctum Prelate and I didn't even have to cast one for it to scare my opponents.
Things I was considering:
- Is Serra Avenger good?
- Should those 3drops be Mangara of Corondor or Mirran Crusader?
- Should those 4drops be Palace Jailer or Gideon, Ally of Zendikar?
- How is the sideboard? Do we miss not playing Faerie Macabre? How is the mirror vs Recruiters?
Score:
- Serra Avenger was insanely good in every match.
- Mangara was good about as often as Mirran Crusader would have been, and honestly neither was hugely impactful. I did Mangara-lock 2 people out of the game, use Mangara as a wasteland in the mirror match, and terrify some miracles players, but except vs miracles, Mirran Crusader would have been similar impact, and that impact was not as much as you would expect for 3 mana.
- Palace Jailer was completely insane and singlehandedly won 7 games. In 6 of these games (vs 4c delver, shardless, UR delver, the mirror, lands, MUD), it was definitively better than Gideon would have been and in 1 (vs Miracles) it was definitely worse. Palace Jailer directly lost me one game when I sideboarded incorrectly thinking my Aggro Loam opponent was on Lands; Gideon would have won that game. Palace Jailer allllmost won the other miracles game that Gideon would have definitely won. So it's an interesting choice.
- As far as the sideboard goes, Circle of Protection: Red , Manriki-Gusari , and Seal of Cleansing had almost exactly zero impact. I destroyed one Dread of Night and no equipment, and never activated CoP (but then, I didn't play against very many burn decks). Meekstone won no games and actively lost me a game against Eldrazi. Sword of Light and Shadow was fine but not the all-star I was expecting; your creatures just don't hit the graveyard unless you are chump-blocking to keep the monarchy. I needed more graveyard hate badly; having twice as much would have won at least 2 more matches. I also needed a real actual plan against skilled miracles pilots, especially legends miracles.
- Batterskull was a HUGE disappointment, often reading "this card is in your hand again; don't you feel stupid that it is in your deck?" It won literally a single game (against RUG delver), but that game would also have been won by any equipment that gained life -- even the sword of light and shadow, which gives protection from the two colors that RUG doesn't play. Is it realistic to just not play Batterskull, or do I undervalue putting that thing into play?
Changes going forward: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/death-and-taxes-post-louisville/
- Revoker wins games, so we need to not mess around; play 4.
- Mangara was underwhelming, but keeping him might be enough to allow me to skimp on catch-all answers like Council's Judgment and Seal of Cleansing. Mangara can't answer a Dread of Night , but I honestly think that card is wayy overplayed for how little it affects things.
- Batterskull is on the chopping block for me; I need to find someone to talk to about this.
- Palace Jailer is here to stay, for me anyway. At this tournament, I saw no reason to play Prelate, unless it's really that good vs Miracles.
- Sideboard, it's time to put away the Meekstone and the Manriki-Gusari ; we rarely need 5 equipments and we desperately need more antimiracles and antigraveyard cards. I lost games to 4c delver, lands, aggro loam, and should have lost one to reanimator all because I just didn't have enough sources of grave hate in the 75.
Round 1 vs Bryan (Shardless BUG) win 2-0, record is now 1-0
- Serra Avenger++ game 1 killing Liliana with Flickerwisp's help.
- The board is Rest in Peace vs. Tarmogoyf, Tarmogoyf, Shardless Agent. I cast Palace Jailer exiling Shardless Agent and it runs away with the game; the opponent had to kill the RiP then chump attack a Goyf to get the Monarch. Here Jailer is better than Gideon would have been, since it had the same effect (make a 2/2 and demand combat) but it also drew a million cards instead of making a million 2/2s.
Round 2 vs Chris (4c Delver) loss 1-2, record is now 1-1
- Game 1 Palace Jailer wins the game exiling an
Insectile Aberration
and prompting a Snapcaster Mage to jump onto the battlefield just to do combat; this is better than Gideon would have been because it got in by Aether Vial
. Mangara very bad here and just sat in my hand where a Mirran Crusader would have won. - Game 2 and 3 my opponent has Ancient Grudge, Snap Decay, and more -- in game 2 my graveyard has 7 artifacts when I die (5 equipment, a vial, and a Meekstone). More graveyard hate would have helped this match a lot.
Round 3 vs Mike (Aluren) win 2-0, record is now 2-1
- Game 1 Aluren resolves but my opponent is out of gas and can't find the combo; he dies to 3-power flyers.
- Game 2 he stabilizes with a Toxic Deluge and Aluren resolves, but I am sandbagging some answers. We have a stack of Cavern Harpy, Phyrexian Revoker, Cavern Harpy, Phyrexian Revoker so when the dust settles everyone is naming Cavern Harpy to kill the combo. End step I flash in Mangara, Serra Avenger, Stoneforge and this game is over.
Round 4 vs Vince (Eldrazi) loss 1-2, record is now 2-2
- Game 1 I keep Mom, Thalia, Jitte, Port, 3 Plains and holy god is that hand terrible in this matchup.
- Game 2 he shows me Displacers; I had taken out all but 1 Revoker but managed to Enlightened Tutor for it and eventually get there with a Flickerwisp holding a Sword of Fire and Ice.
- Game 3 my hand has Plains Wasteland for mana and my opponent opens with Eldrazi Mimic . I miss the opportunity to E Tutor for Chrome Mox; I had never thought of the interaction, and I die with a Meekstone on the table doing absolutely nothing. Definitely a misplay on my part.
Round 5 vs Mark (BR Reanimator) win 2-0, record is now 3-2
- Game 1 he mulligans to 5 and lets me resolve a T2 Thalia. He untaps and casts Dark Ritual into Collective Brutality to kill Thalia, which is insane value for me. Eventually he gets Mangara-locked out of the game.
- Game 2 he turn 1 Entombs an Iona, Shield of Emeria and Animate Deads it. I look at him kind of sideways and play Karakas and put it back in his hand. He goes on full tilt and never finds the Sire Of Insanity line, instead putting Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite on the table four times while I repeatedly activate Karakas to save my Thalias. The deck was not prepared for this matchup but I dodged a bullet.
Round 6 vs Stephen (MUD) win 2-1, record is now 4-2
- Game 1 he resolves 2 Lodestone Golems, 2 Wurmcoil Engines, and a Spine of Ish Sah. I win this game, thanks to Palace Jailer . At one point we are racing a Wurmcoil Engine vs a Flickerwisp that is holding a Sword of Fire and Ice backed up by a Monarch token. It turns out when you draw 3 cards per turn, you can just be in The Abyss and it doesn't matter at all. By the time he Spines the Sword of Fire and Ice, it's too late; I've drawn over a dozen cards.
- Game 2 he goes turn 1 Metalworker and I don't have the answer, so he plays turn 2 double Lodestone Golem ; I am not going to win that game. Props to him for going all-in in that situation.
- Game 3 he plays turn 2 Grim Monolith, turn 3 Grim Monolith, and turn 4 Grim Monolith. It turns out that my play of turn 2 Phyrexian Revoker, turn 3 Phyrexian Revoker, turn 4 Palace Jailer is more than enough to win here. In this game Gideon, Ally would have been just as good as Jailer.
Round 7 vs Ivan (Miracles) win 2-0, record is now 5-2
- Game 1 I stoneforge a Sword of Fire and Ice and it kills him.
- Game 2 is more interesting; the SoFI gets countered and I have to play with an Umezawa's Jitte. With my board being a vial on 3 and a Flickerwisp holding a 2 counters-equipped Jitte, Ivan makes 4 4/4 angels. They all die to the second Flickerwisp and a Swords to Plowshares.
Round 8 vs Scott (Lands) loss 1-2, record is now 5-3
- Game 1 he has the turn 1 on-the-play Marit Lage with Ghost Quarter backup, so my Karakas just gives me one extra turn to try to draw the swords. I don't draw it.
- Game 2 I get to run out a Palace Jailer just to get the Monarch token; again this is better than Gideon because he can't Punishing Fire away my Monarch token.
- Game 3 I mulligan to 5 just looking for one of my 3 sources of Rest in Peace. My opponent picks a line of trying to Ghost Quarter me out of the game before finding out many, many turns later that I actually have 11 plains in my deck. He never sees that he can kill me with Barbarian Ring and almost dies to a bunch of Mother of Runes in combat, but he finds two Maze of Ith and I screw up the math, pitching Palace Jailer when I should have pitched a Flickerwisp to try to draw cards toward Rest in Peace. Never found it. Need more graveyard hate, badly.
Round 9 vs James (RUG Delver) win 2-0, record is now 6-3 to make day 2!
- Game 1 Serra Avenger shines bright and I never see any green spells from the opponent (I did see a Flooded Strand which was strange), so I don't board correctly, thinking I was up against UR delver.
- Game 2 he played a Winter Orb which reminds me that I should play that card. This is the only game of the entire day where Batterskull did anything at all. Seriously -- at all. It dealt combat damage one single time, trading with a double-block from Nimble Mongoose s, and stared down a True-Name Nemesis while a Serra Avenger won the game again.
Round 10 vs Sean (D&T, recruiters) win 2-0, record is now 7-3
- Game 1 I keep triple-Mother of Runes and that is way more than enough to win this matchup. My opponent equips Jitte to his own Mother of Runes and it attacks into my board of all moms... he correctly comments that he needs to wake up!
- Game 2 he plays a Thalia, Heretic Cathar and I cast a turn 4 Palace Jailer wiping his board and drawing a card. The game ends instantly. Interestingly he had to cast a Recruiter of the Guard to go get a Phyrexian Revoker for an equipment I had fetched, but he died before either the revoker or the equipment hit the table. At least in the mirror match, it looks like there are two distinct roles to take -- tempo and value -- and here the tempo plan looked insanely strong.
Round 11 vs Scott (D&T, recruiters) win 2-0, record is now 8-3
- Game 1 we both play T1 vial and T2 stoneforge, but Scott goes and gets a Batterskull, so he loses on the spot to a swords. I am confused as to how both of my day 2 D&T opponents are playing with a severe lack of experience. Maybe the deck is just super powerful now.
- Game 2 he goes for a value plan with recruiters like my round 10 opponent, and like my round 10 opponent he gets blasted off of the board by a Palace Jailer . Here Gideon would have been okay but not as good.
Round 12 vs Josh (UR Delver) win 2-1, record is now 9-3
- Game 1 I misplay and throw away two flyers when I could have traded off one of them and only needed to wait one turn for mom to come online.
- Game 2 I lose my vial to Smash to Smithereens but playing 8 3-power flyers is super strong in this matchup, so I frustrate my opponent by drawing a lot of them.
- Game 3 he keeps a hand full of answers and he answers all the things (Smash, Force, Daze, etc) before finally deploying the last cards in his hand -- Delver and Sulfuric Vortex. I play a Palace Jailer , exiling the Delver and the race begins. He gets the monarch with a Stormchaser Mage, but I get it back with the second Palace Jailer into Sword of Fire and Ice. The math on the race is complicated here and he Chain Lightnings one of my creatures, but in the end we are both at 2 when I get to swing in with the Jailer for the win. Again the Jailer wins where Gideon would not have won.
Round 13 vs Steve (Aluren) draw 1-1, record is now 9-3-1
- Game 1 we take about 25 minutes but a Sword of Fire and Ice is good enough to push through an absurd stack of value creatures.
- Game 2 I am on the mana denial plan for days and can't find a decent clock outside of a Palace Jailer which I use to exile his Parasitic Strix hoping that maybe he only plays one and can't combo me. He resolves Aluren and we have the Harpy vs Revoker fight, but he wins it with a decay, although he now has no mana up and is facing down a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben at 10 life. He starts to dig but immediately flips his only remaining Parasitic Strix to the bottom of the deck with Shardless Agent and can't cast the Brainstorm he finds. He then has to spend 1 life over and over to recast Shardless and Glint-Nest Crane to get all the way through the deck again to find it, and only gets there with literally one life left. At some point I am able to cast a Flickerwisp to force him to wait until his end step to do all this, but my vial only made it to 3 so I can't Palace Jailer the strix at instant speed to win it. A great game and well-deserved win for him, but we both go to 9-3-1.
Round 14 vs Yuta Takahashi (!) (Miracles) loss 1-2, record is now 9-4-1
I'd just like to point out that I and my Aluren opponent got maximum-punished for our draws; I got a miracles pro round 14 and he got Tom Ross.
- Game 1 he answers two avengers with swords and I can't land a Stoneforge Mystic to make my cards matter; not really close although it took a while.
- Game 2 I get to Palace Jailer a Vendilion Clique and it is enough to get there.
- Game 3 he spends his first mana on a Brainstorm and his turn 2 on a Counterbalance. I untap and play a turn 2 Thalia, which (in hindsight obviously) flips a 2-drop. Just things pros do! I wait for him to cast Jace and use the opportunity to land a Jailer for no value, demanding that the game be about combat damage. He eventually establishes countertop and V-clique against my Monarch and Karakas, and it is actually an interesting battle. I know that I need to Swords the clique eventually, so I try to set up a scenario to do it -- casting a Vial into countertop then responding to the top activation with the swords, but he uses the last of his mana to cast a Counterspell; this essentially ends the game as he eventually lands a Back to Basics shutting off Karakas.
This match was by far the most informative. First of all, my sideboard is not good against an experienced miracles pilot. Sword of Light and Shadow doesn't do anything different from other equipment really. Additionally, it was clear that in this particular matchup, Gideon was in competition against the Jailer. A stream of 2/2s would have been a much more serious problem than an extra card per turn. I initially argued to myself that the monarch is better because you can't Venser, Shaper Savant away a Monarch token, but that's actually incorrect -- Venser is perfectly happy attacking to take away the monarch token! In the end here, my opponent's marginally-useful sideboard cards were significantly better than my useless ones, and that plus his much higher skill level was enough to turn the match.
Round 15 vs Justin (Aggro Loam) loss 1-2, record is now 9-5-1.
- Game 1 I don't see him do much of anything except cast a bunch of Life from the Loam and die to Serra Avenger, so I win sideboard completely wrong. In hindsight the Savannah should have been a strong indication that my opponent was on a creature deck and not Lands, but I boarded out Mother of Runes.
- Game 2 I land a Palace Jailer exiling his third Dark Confidant, but then he untaps and plays Knight of the Reliquary and I feel very stupid with all my moms sitting in my deckbox. I demanded that he kill me with combat damage, and he was more than happy to do so. My Rest in Peace was not even helpful once he had both the 4th Bob and the monarchy!
- Game 3 I keep Plains, Wasteland, Mother of Runes, Flickerwisp, Revoker, Palace Jailer and my opponent mulligans to 5 and keeps a 1-lander. This game seems over to me, as I go T1 Mom, T2 Revoker against his T1 tapped green land, T2 GSZ for Dryad Arbor. I go T3 Swords your Dryad Arbor and Wasteland your last permanent, leaving the boardstate as --Plains, Mom, Revoker-- versus --completely empty board--. He plays another land and I topdeck a Wasteland.
I could now either waste his land again, putting him to no permanents again, or play a Stoneforge Mystic to establish a better clock, allowing him to play two turns of magic before putting him away. None of my other cards are castable because they all have WW costs, so I waste his permanent to put the board back how it was.
I lose this game twelve or maybe even fifteen turns later: he takes 5 hits from the Revoker before casting a Golgari Charm to wipe my board. I draw all 4 Flickerwisps, discard to hand size four times before being spared that specific embarrassment by a Liliana that ticks up. I die with 7 cards in my hand, never seeing another land. Sure, I guess technically my opponent got a Chandra, Torch of Defiance emblem. Whatever, I would play it exactly the same way again.
Suggestions
Updates Add
Comments
Attention! Complete Comment Tutorial! This annoying message will go away once you do!
Important! Formatting tips — Comment Tutorial — markdown syntax
Please login to comment
| Date added | 7 years |
| Last updated | 7 years |
| Legality | This deck is Legacy legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 9 - 5 Mythic Rares 26 - 6 Rares 14 - 3 Uncommons 0 - 1 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.05 |
| Tokens | Phyrexian Germ 0/0 B, The Monarch |
| Votes | |
| Ignored suggestions | |
| Shared with | |
| Views |