MAKE IT RAIN (27/121 AT EUROPEAN TOURNAMENT!)(BfZ)
Modern
SCORE: 157 | 64 COMMENTS | 15326 VIEWS | IN 56 FOLDERS
Movin' up to the next stage! —Nov. 6, 2015
The deck as it was during MKM Officials Series Toulouse showed impressive results, far beyond my wildest expectations. Its consistency was simply far better than every single deck I ever brewed before!
However, as everything it still had some flaws. The main issue it had was dealing with creature based decks. Merfolks, elves were almost impossible to beat, Infect, Delvers and other Young Pyromancers were to fair in my opinion... G/W Hatebears, that usually plays bigger creatures than straight mono white Death and Taxes, caused some problems.
But Battle for Zendikar finally came and with it, a fairly strange card: Wasteland Strangler. Being too conditionnal, it has been overlooked by almost all modern players. Returning an exiled card of your opponent to his graveyard? First it requires an exiled card to begin with, and second it's only going to act in favor of your opponent giving some stuff to work for Grim Lavamancer, Tasigur, the Golden Fang, Tarmogoyf, Scavenging Ooze and many others.
In other words, it looks definitively weak.
Looks.
For I am now proud to present to you the new Death and Taxes deck that is going to your ennemies to tears!
While looking at the deck as it was until now, what one can see is that there are plenty of exile shenanigans: Dryad Militant, Path to Exile, Flickerwisp (note that if the expelled permanent is brought in the graveyard, it's not going to come back ever again). But it's still not enough to justify a 3 drop that is going to require a black splash. This is without counting on the second addition a black splash can give us: Tidehollow Sculler. Thoughtseize thats hurts your opponent on a stick! Plus, if you use the exiled card as fuel for Wasteland Strangler, it won't come back even if the sculler dies! Imagine: a turn 1 Aether Vial into turn 2 whatever you feel like into a turn 3 Strangler into vial'd Sculler makes a thoughtseize effect, two creatures and a good removal for only three mana. That's what I call value. And that means we've got a new starting hand of death, enhancing the already pretty good consistency of the deck!
Black like Death and White like taxes: now the deck deserves its name.
The basis is the very same as your old "Make it rain" contender. The changes are those two creatures and, sadly, a more expensive manabase. In terms of gameplay, the gimmicks allowed by the addition of Tidehollow Sculler and Wasteland Strangler makes the deck more enjoyable to play, but also trickier and as said earlier more expensive.
I've been working on it for two weeks now, so I hope you will have some good time playing its new and fresh version of a great but rare archetype.
By the way, you can check the old version of the deck here:
Make it rain (old version, but gold).
Modern
SCORE: 3 | 7 COMMENTS | 443 VIEWS
Erase over Disenchant. Instant speed exile rather than destroy
July 29, 2015 6:19 p.m.
in your description, its Restoration Angel, not restoration archangel
July 29, 2015 6:27 p.m.
elpokitolama says... #4
Erase does not affect artifacts, so I'll pass on this one. Thanks anyway! :)
Ooooops, thank you CheeseBro. I'll correct this later :)
July 29, 2015 6:32 p.m.
luis.esguevillas says... #6
surely you run 4 Flagstones in a deck which runs 1?
August 13, 2015 10:49 a.m.
elpokitolama says... #7
luis.esguevillas I did not understand what you meant... Could you elaborate please?
August 13, 2015 11 a.m.
luis.esguevillas says... #8
Well flagstones is legendary, so you can trigger it yourself to thin lands out of your deck by having several
August 14, 2015 6:44 a.m.
jonathanveedot says... #9
Nice deck bro, +1.
I agree with Luis on the Flagstones. All or none, but Def go with none. It's somewhat useless on its own, and Blood Moon will make it more useless with the already sensitive mana base. I recommend swapping for a plains, but since you're running Blade Splicer you may consider 2 Mutavaults (swap with Flagstone and a Plains). The reason for running it is to give you resilience to wipes, and Splicer on the field gives the man land first strike. Just a thing to consider.
Also, another thought: You could swap out 1 Thalia and 3 Dryads for 2 Vryn Wingmare and Kytheon, Hero of Akros Flip. It'll give you the potential to stack effects with Vryn and Thalia, and makes the noncreature hate consistent enough to make Judge's Familiar better. I like Kytheon because he is easy to get online in monowhite, and he demands attention, so your opponent has to decide whether he/she prefers to take out taxers or Kytheon with the removal in their hand. If your vial is up that also means keeping up 3 mana for his protect ability isn't a problem. You could also very well leave in 2 Dryads over him if graveyard shenans is a problem.
I would consider two 'Skites as well over the two blade splicer. It's ability is top notch in this deck and it provides some main board answers to burn, twin, affinity (steal their equip), and some other stuff.
Great deck, just wanted to throw in some suggestions (:
August 17, 2015 8:45 p.m.
elpokitolama says... #10
I'm currently testing Kytheon in the paper version of the deck, and if the card is indeed really good it looks like it doesn't belong here... Same goes for the Wingmare, which isn't a bad card but being able to stack effects doesn't justify its cost (the reason why I think I'll remove Aven Mindcensor in the new upcomming version of the deck, which is going to be white with a splash of red).
About Spellskite, I do not know what to do. It's a bloody great card that can help the deck to become even greater, but I still do not know where to put it efficiently (it's not going to replace a slot left for a win-condition, the only card I can see replacing the splicers here would be Kitchen Finks). Skites are even better here than in any other deck since I haven't another source of lifeloss, so I'll definitively give 'em a shot one day or another! Thanks for the suggestion :D
The decklist here is what I own actually, I'm going to update it as I'll get my hands on those 3 other flagstones. Thanks for the tip guys (and girls maybe?)! :)
August 18, 2015 6 p.m.
jonathanveedot says... #11
Yea, I def feel that. I actually didn't like Vryn too much in mono-W, but WG running Hierarch let's me ramp into it nicely on turn 2. Running him with Thalia and familiar vs a control deck was fun tho lol.
Spellskite is def a beast. He steals game 1's and makes the opponent hesitant to run removal over another play. Even a singleton rocks MB.
I love these decks because of how interactive and meta they are. Good luck.
August 18, 2015 6:13 p.m.
You're on to something here Llama, and I like it. :)
Thanks for the like btw. Much appreciated!
September 14, 2015 1:18 a.m. Edited.
"Now, what makes Death and Taxes different from Hatebears, the blink tricks! The best card to blink your creatures is, obviously, Restoration Archangel"
I believe you mean to link Restoration Angel not archangel. under 2.1 the combos.
September 14, 2015 4:42 p.m.
elpokitolama says... #14
Damn, it happened twice! Thanks for telling me xP
Thanks you too BoCaliv :)
I'm still working on the next stage of the deck, so if anyone is interested in brewing with me, ask me on my page! It's only for minor modifications but it would really help me to have fresh ideas :>
September 14, 2015 4:51 p.m.
elpokitolama says... #16
That's not it, it's just that the deck how it is here is the very same that I played at Toulouse and that I actually own right now. Also, I don't want to spam people that commented here some time ago :p
September 14, 2015 4:56 p.m.
skeletonkey8 says... #19
Hello, great list, so much fun to play =)
i have 1 suggestion though, Gideon, Ally of Zendikar for a Elspeth, Knight-Errant, gideon although not quite as good for card value as elspeth, he serves a lot of purposes that you deck likes, he can play the attrition game with 2/2's, better than 1/1s. he be a hard to remove persistent threat with +1 and if your just trying to push through damage to win, the Rally effect is just an added bonus.
elpokitolama says... #1
New update guys, everything that happened in Toulouse is detailled here :)
(Also, I forgot to say that both games I won again Jund were also without any lifeloss)
July 27, 2015 3:17 p.m.