First of all, I'll go ahead and point out that the original idea wasn't mine. While I have developed the deck since, I originally read about Wr Goblin-killer from some guy playing at Philly. Now, that deck was built specifically to smash the living out of Goblins, but the present version seems to be capable of holding its own on all fronts. Basically, I took the original idea and tried to incorporate pieces of Angel Stompy's gameplan to get some more powerful individual cards in there and to generate more mana for both, bigger sweepers and to power out fast equipment and Chalices. Chalices are probably the most relevant addition as they give you a game against combo G1 too.
First of all, the deck:
// Lands
4 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
3 [TE] Plains (4)
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [A] Plateau
3 [TE] Ancient Tomb
1 [TE] Mountain (1)
// Creatures
4 [SC] Silver Knight
4 [TE] Soltari Priest
2 [TSP] Knight of the Holy Nimbus
4 [UL] Mother of Runes
4 [ON] Exalted Angel
3 [CS] Jotun Grunt
// Spells
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
2 [U] Disenchant
3 [MR] Chrome Mox
3 [U] Earthquake
4 [P3] Rolling Earthquake
4 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
// Sideboard
SB: 1 [CS] Jotun Grunt
SB: 1 [U] Disenchant
SB: 2 [RAV] Lightning Helix
SB: 4 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [LE] Glowrider
SB: 4 [SC] Pyrostatic Pillar
So yea, basically WW with few 'kill your board and ignore mine'-cards thrown in. This looks especially good now that Empty the Warrens is the card du jour and you have 7 MD cards that totally rain on turn 1 Empty for any less than 16 Goblins, and if you happen to have Mox or be on the play, you can even trump the 20-Goblin opening. Anyway, quick rundown:
Manabase:
Fetches - Getting Plateaus and Plains as need be.
Plains - Wastelands, etc. suck.
Plateau - You only ever need R. Then again, that one Mountain should probably be in there, but it makes one mad to actually draw into it since the deck is so reliant on white mana.
Ancient Tomb - The deck incorporates Angels, Jittes, Chalices and different varieties of Earthquakes along with a variety of SB-cards. It's fully capable of supporting some MD acceleration. Oh, and the deck has a total of 9 lifegain effects MD to offset the loss.
Mountain, or rather the lack of - As the Bloodstained Mires suggest, there used to be a Mountain here and there probably should be one too, but drawing a Mountain when you could...well, draw Plains instead is infuriating. The Mountain really needs to be the third land/manasource with WW around for the deck to function.
Chrome Mox - The deck needed acceleration as this was the most readily available and easiest to incorporate without wasting deckspace. Makes for nice fast openings and allows more consistent early Chalices, which we all know to be just that powerful.
Creatures:
Mother of Runes - Used to be Glittering Lynx, but Lynx was low-impact on offense and the deck tends to be on offense a lot thanks to the sweepers and the fact that not all decks use blockers. Mother of Runes, while no better on offense, is much better at supporting offense by trivializing StP and making that turn 2 Morph much safer a play. Also acts as a strong defender should need be and survives Quakes n' stuff.
Silver Knight - 2/2 FS survives all, obvious.
Soltari Priest - 2/1 Shadow survives all, totally, blatantly obvious.
Knight of the Holy Nimbus - Tends to survive sweepers as people like to tap out, has awesome offensive capabilities and takes lots of resources from opponents to kill without StPs (and if they StP this, that's one StP less at Moms and Angels)
Jotun Grunt - The deck was lacking punch, Grunt gives it some punch. A big body, cheap cost and ability to hose graveyard strategies, Grunt has it all. Oh, and the deck, while not amazing, still has decent support capabilities for it.
Exalted Angel - Morph-Swing-Win. Should probably be a 4-of, but due to curve reasons, the 4th got cut for now. Prolly going back instead of the thus far lackluster MD Lightning Helix
Stuff:
Chalice - Removing half of opponent's spells/mana sources is fun.
Rolling/Earthquake - Sweeping opponent's board while yours is immune is fun. So is burning face. And since they're scaleable, they actually take out Threshold's or Faerie Stompy's threats too while still killing EtW tokens and Goblins and burning face in control MUs.
Disenchant - Turns out the format still has lots of important artifacts and enchantments. Who saw that coming?
Lightning Helix - Just another lifegain removal-spell to offset all the self-inflicted pain and put one ahead in liferace. I dunno if it's good enough though, most creatures seem out of the range which is annoying.
Umezawa's Jitte - Creatures+Jitte=best combo aggro-decks can play. Makes 'em threats against control alone. Let's you rape other aggro. Makes combo-deck's 'going off' a pain as they need at least a couple of extra points. I don't need to tell you this, you know all that stuff.
SB:
Glowrider/Pyrostatic Pillar - Anti-combo and decks-that-play-lots-of-cards. I won a game vs. Burn with Pyrostatic Pillar. True story. Glowrider was involved too.
Disenchant - When 2 isn't enough. Should prolly be 2 more and maybe few Seals or Needles, but meh.
Lightning Helix - I guess it pretends to be an additional anti-aggro slot, but there're really no aggro-decks you'd want to bring it in against over your MD slots. Meh, at least it gains life. Good against Burn I guess, so it prolly shouldn't be here.
Jotun Crypt - The deck still has graveyard-using decks. Once you pick up your jaws, I'll tell you that I'm not kidding.
Anyway, I'll have to say that I haven't playtested the deck that much since I haven't really played much Magic as of late, but the few games I've played it's performed admirably (except once in a random Magic-League tournament against Cephalid Life where I failed to see any of the anti-combo cards in the course of the entire match). Anyway, the manabase might be a bit weak, but it still contains 18 white sources and 21 lands total. I guess I should drop Lightning Helixes for another Angel and one more land. Oh well.
Anyway, Threshold seems to be pretty easy with all the threats this deck poses along with the MD Grunts (not necessary, but handy, an additional threat). Basically, they don't want Chalice, Angel, Grunt, Jitte or sweepers resolving so you can pretty much toss them around as you like. Disenchant can come in handy if you have it in hand when they go for Counterbalance, but otherwise it's a bit weak. Obviously red builds are the easiest and white builds are the hardest.
Any random aggro like Zoo seems to work pretty well too with all the anti-aggro cards MD and the mana to use 'em. Goblins should follow the suite but since I haven't done systematic testing, I haven't played the MU enough to know. The additional lands would certainly help there though. Anyway, sweepers are nice.
Combo, Empty the Warrens-combo can't use their namesake which helps a lot but still isn't enough if they know you've got sweepers. have a strong hand and you don't have any hate handy. Chalice gives you better chances than an average aggro-deck, but it doesn't magically make all combo roll over and die (I wish). Disenchant can occasionally be useful for killing LEDs at unopportune moments too, and lifegain can save you in tight spots. The MU isn't a rout, but you aren't dead in water either. Don't have hard numbers so I just do strategic analysis.
Against control-decks, quakes are a bit weak but they're still burn and chalices, disenchants and jittes along with Angels and Grunts tend to be all-stars. Many a game is won with quakes once the opponent is low enough and you've topdecked few lands. Also works nicely against win conditions like Decree of Justice or Exalted Angel (Rolling).
Midrange probably might be a bit problematic, but you have midrange tools too, so you should be alright as long as nothing like Survival stays in play for too long. One of the prime reasons I'd want more Disenchants around, although sweepers are great against their mana sources. The deck might want Armageddons or Wastelands somewhere. Dunno, both sound useful.
Stompy-decks are probably the worst, they don't mind Chalice at 1 (can't play Chalice at 2 here) and they tend to be just faster. I'd hate to play Faerie or Angel Stompy because 'lots of fat fast' is just the recipe for disaster here and Disenchants only help so much. The sweepers are all but useless with the speed and the size of the creatures in those MUs.
Anyhow, that's it, I'm kinda happy with where the deck is now although there's obviously room both ways. It's a very succesful Chalice-deck which is what I'm happy about and it has the tools to wreck in the present meta with the sweepers, which is always nice. Empty the Warrens was really a godsent for the deck (you don't hear that often), making combo-decks much more consistent, but at the same time worse against this one.
Last edited by Eldariel; 06-24-2007 at 05:55 AM.
Chalice doesn't seem too happy here. At one mana, it stops only your Moms, so I could see that...at two, though, it shuts down half your deck. Do you just drop it for zero and one? If that's the case, it may be better as a sideboard anti-combo card.
You should just go ahead and run windswept heath in place of mire, since there aren't any basic mountains in your deck to fetch.
I think that guy may have been Akki. His deck sported pro: red dudes, and the awesome tech of Glittering Lynx. I'm not so sure about the angel stompy infusion however, but perhaps with some innovation this deck can see some play.
-Steve
Originally Posted by Pinder
How come it needs to be a holiday to bang noobslayer's sister?
Chalice has been pretty good, it's basically always droppable at 1 and 0 affecting the opponent a huge deal. Sure, this is no Faerie Stompy, but it's still pretty handy. The number of decks heavily affected by Chalice at 1 or 0 seems to be significantly lower than the number of decks not affected, so the card belongs in the MD. That's without mentioning that if you are really serious about beating combo, you can't just say 'here, take G1, I'll SB heavily against you' since that just doesn't give you the odds to win.
noobslayer: I think that might be right. Anyway, adding Angel and Jitte was pretty awesome since they don't really die to quakes either and Angel just wins games. Like, a lot of games. Oh, and being able to play Chalice is awesome.
Solpugid: I fixed the decklist since keeping the worthless Helixes in just didn't seem worth it. One more Angel and Mountain, two less Helixes.
How about Razor Golem? In AngelStompy it's almost always a 3/4 at three mana and except the fetchlands you run the same amount of non-plains lands (four) as AngelStompy so you should be able to throw them just as easily. They don't have pro: red but at four toughness they should survive your earthquakes anyway. I'd bring them in instead of the grunts. It's basicly just an extra mana and one less power in exchange for a creature that doesn't die after a few turns and has vigilance. You run 4 crypts in the SB against graveyards anyways.
The Knight of the Holy Nimbus look a tad weak here without any mana denial. Any thought given to Mishra's Factories? They seem to fit the theme well.
I think I'd like to see Armageddon in the sideboard, as I don't like the control matchup here too terribly even despite all the Quake reach.
Still, this looks freaking neato.
I once build and tested a deck almost exactly like this, except for a few differences in creature choice. Nimbus Knight hadn't come out yet, so I was running Paladin en-Vec in his slot, and found that I actually really liked him despite being worried that he would be one mana too much.
Anyway, one of the biggest problems I ran into was combo, which at the time wasn't leaning on EtW. Stuff like Solidarity, old Iggy-Pop, and Salvagers combo all seemed to beat me rather badly. My only out game 1 seemed to be to get a first turn Chalice and pray they couldn't remove it in time. I'd probably go ahead and add the fourth Mox to your list to maximize your chances of the turn 1 Chalice, even though I suspect the combo matchup for the deck is quite a bit better now than when I was working on it.
Another card I really appreciated was Magma Jet, as it helped me off annoying critters like Dark Confidant and Hypnotic Specter and also provided a little bit of card quality.
TEAM DRAGONFORCIA-
Ghost ridin' the whip like we invented that shit.
TEAM UNICORN
We're going for number four!
I think the deck is really a metasmasher right now. I just tested some against Tide-combo and while pre-SB is pretty horrible even with Chalice, post-SB is gets pretty great with Mother-protted Glowriders, Chalice/Pillar combos, Grunts and God-Knows-What. Anyway, it dies to Chalice at 2 pretty bad and Disenchant doesn't help at all. That left me with two options:
Abolish, a personal favourite but one that uses a very sparse resource, Plains, or Aura of Silence, what I'm trying right now. Aura gives me Chalice-removal, a bomb against Staxxish decks, a bomb against Enchantressish decks something nice against Landstill and the like. Could even be playable against fast combo if I can't think of anything else (unlikely there though). Haven't gotten to really test it yet, but it looks like an answer to a host of problems, so my present SB is:
4 Glowrider
3 Pillar
3 Crypt
3 Aura
1 Chrome Mox
1 Jotun Grunt
I found this amount of combo-hate still perfectly satisfactory as I learned to mulligan into fast-enough hands. Anyway, it feels pretty alrigth overall, although I'll have to see if Aura is actually of any help in the MUs I need help in. Might be I want to fit Geddonblaster there somewhere since control is by far the worst problem, but there's precious little room for such.
Magma Jet I can't really fit as I need all my sweepers and other cards are stronger bombs. Razor Golem is interesting, but I'm not sure it's easy to fit. The Chrome Moxes don't really mesh with it either. Might take the Disenchant-slots, but the MD Disenchants have been so good I'm really not even considering removing 'em. One Aura of Silence over one Disenchant, maybe, I'll have to see about that.
Yes i have tested against him with my springtide deck and couldnt beat him postboard.
I also like the idea of MD Disenchant! Ok sometimes they are a dead card but than they are easyly sided out! And in a MU where Disenchant is good you could bring in Aura!
In the current meta this deck is realy good! You could beat fast combo and Agro/control!
The only problem is the small rise of Landstill and FS
“Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
Turns out there're people interested in this deck still. The metagame isn't quite as friendly as it used to be though; Tarmogoyf is big and thus doesn't really mind quakes all that much. Might be the deck wants to MD Swords over the other set of Quakes now and keep the rest of the Quakes on the SB. I've reworked the sideboard a bit:
SB: 1 [CS] Jotun Grunt
SB: 1 [MR] Chrome Mox
SB: 3 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 [LE] Glowrider
SB: 3 [U] Swords to Plowshares
SB: 3 [WL] Aura of Silence
The MD is the same for now, but a switch of tossing 3 StPs to the main over 3 Quakes and keeping the Quakes on the SB might be warranted by the meta (especially with Breakfast around too now), although that weakens Chalice so it's a tough call either way. Mayhap there's even room for the 4th Grunt in the main, although I'm not sure. It is certainly a great card against Threshold and rather big against all the other Tarmos around too.
So yea, I think the deck is still viable, but it might require some more metagaming due to the heavy shift towards Threshold, Breakfast and control.
Oblivion Ring from Lorwyn might find a good place in this deck. It is a more versatile Disechant and can perform a nice StP impression, all the while dodging Chalice.
YOU'RE GIVING ME A TIME MACHINE IN ORDER TO TREAT MY SLEEP DISORDER.
I'd hazard the guess that this is related to my comment in the defunct mono-white thread. The funny part is that I ended up where I am coming from burn, adding Grunt in and mowing over and over again.
Anyway, Wr has existed from the beginning of Magic times, so coming back to it once in a while only makes sense.
Here's again where I am at :
Lands : 19
4 Plateau
8 Fetchlands
7 Plains
Spells : 14
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Aether Vial
3 Earthquake
3 Umezawa's Jitte
Creatures : 27
1 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4 Mother of Runes
4 Mogg Fanatic
2 Jotun Grunt
4 Silver Knight
4 Serra Avenger
4 Goblin Legionnaire
4 Paladin En-Vec
Side : 15
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Orim's Chant
4 Price of Progress
3 Engineered Explosives
I personally prefer Bolt to Swords main because it works much better towards the purpose of a quick kill, which I think essential for such a deck. Wr is at disadvantage against combo and doesn't pack enough card advantage against control, so speed feels important to me.
About Goyf, 2-power of first strike + a bolt feels like it's generally enough to hold it but I lack testing data to assert that.
I believe Aether Vial is important against blue and it is all the better with Goblin Legionnaire, Serra Avenger and first-strikers. Those come with high colour requirements, meaning no City of Traitors or Ancient Tomb and hence no Exalted Angel or Chalice for me.
Mogg Fanatics are there mostly to make sure that Lackeys and Confidants never connect but the mix of them + Isamaru may be reviewed. Maybe going green with Goyfs main and Gaddock (instead of Explosives) in the board is better though.
By the way, once Gaddock hits play, I think I'll go for Pyroclasm instead of Earthquake.
The real pain is still combo but Threshold feels winnable and gobs get thrashed.
In short, that's a different deck from yours, which relates more to Angel Stompy, but I think there are some common issues that can be looked at together in the same thread.
As a side note, Oblivion Ring does indeed look quite nice for the Exalted Angel build but for me, it doesn't solve the real problem of combo.
The very reason I MD 4 Chalices is to keep the combo MU winnable. Combine that with Disenchants and Quakes and you actually have ways to interact with them even preboard. Postboard you've got 4 Chalices, 4 Glowriders and 3 Aura of Silences (once it hit against a deck with artifact mana, it's all over - used to be Pyrostatic Pillar, but since that card never did anything for me except killed me against SI, I switched to the more powerful and versatile Aura) and 4 Moxes along with 4 Tombs to accelerate all that into play. But yea, since I play Chalices (which just happen to be incredibly awesome against Threshold-like decks and not bad against Breakfast either; cast one at 2 and reap the rewards), I cut down on the 1-drops. And with 7 Quakes, I usually WANT Lackey to connect so I can play an even more brutal Quake, taking out SGC, Piledriver AND Lackey along with all the normal goons. Vial isn't horrible, but I'd rather have Chalice; they won't have enough counters to keep your creatures off the table and if they're smart, they'll be aiming for the stuff that allows your creatures to tangle with theirs anyways (Jittes, Quakes...and the occasional Exalted Angel).
How're you surviving with 19 lands? Don't you just plain lose to a single Wasteland on Plateau? And what's up with Paladin en-Vec? 2/2 for 3 isn't good no matter what protections it has. I strongly suggest Razor Golem over it, especially if you go Plains-only (I'd rather keep red mana available in the face of disruption too so I run a single Mountain).
Just asking: How about Pariah? It looks like a strong choice here.
Slap it on a Protection Creature to get basically invulnerable or use it on an enemy creature as removal/fog.
I agree that your combo matchup is much better thanks to Chalice.
However, that comes with a bigger weakness to Wasteland than mine, despite what you think (see below).
I would also point to my faster clock, which compensates partially for the lack of Chalice.
I consider Aether Vial as a mana source. They are as sensitive to artifact hate as your Moxes (of which you have only 3).How're you surviving with 19 lands? Don't you just plain lose to a single Wasteland on Plateau?
Ignoring Vial and Moxes, you're also surviving on 19 lands with 3 of them providing only colourless, with many WW, some 2WW and RX in your costs. Don't you just plain lose to a single Wasteland on Plateau ?
The First Strike bit is quite relevant, thanks to Jitte, Legionnaires, burn and co. while the Golem doesn't work with Jitte. And I disagree about protection being useless. Forgetting Goblins, I see mono-black aggro regularly enough and I expect Smother to have a resurgence some time soon.And what's up with Paladin en-Vec? 2/2 for 3 isn't good no matter what protections it has. I strongly suggest Razor Golem over it, especially if you go Plains-only (I'd rather keep red mana available in the face of disruption too so I run a single Mountain).
Why doesn't the Golem work with Jitte!? Yes he dont have first strike but vigilanze, that is as good!
“Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
Mostly my first land is a Plains so I'll be able to resolve a creature or two even in the face of Wasteland and usually, thanks to the Mountain and 4 Bloodstaineds, I'll have an access to my red spells even if hit by a Waste. In your build I'm worried about getting cut off red, which looks like a more immediate problem when it comes to Wasting Plateaus; there's no guarantee of drawing a second one, leaving all the Bolts, Quakes, Fanatics and Legionnaires (depending on Vial, of course) stranded in your hand.
But yea, First Strike is good with Jitte. So is Vigilance. Without Jitte, Paladin is a 2/2 for 3. Furthermore, you're only playing 3 Jittes so there's even less reason to assume the ability to toss one on the Paladin and he can't really stand on his own merits. I'd strongly consider Razor Golem before dismissing him since 3/4 is so much bigger than 2/2 and Jitte on a guy with Vigilance dominates the board like no other. Opponent can't block nor attack so they're left to die.
As for the combo MU, unless you can kill in 3 turns, the speed of your clock is rather irrelevant since they'll either be able to go off or not by then, at least with the 'fast' combo-decks. I think both of these decks can goldfish in about 5-6 turns, depending on the hand, and rarely faster than that. The build you posted might indeed be a turn faster due to the higher number of 1-drops and Bolts, but with the amount of attacks we're getting, it sort of evens out. Mine probably doesn't go as much over 20 as yours on the lethal swing, but I'm thinking the actual time of the lethal swing won't be much different.
One of my first Type 2 decks in Tempest block was very simliar to this deck. The only difference is that it ran Aether Flash along with the pro-red creatures. Aether Flash is probably something that can be implemented in this deck as well, since most of your creatures seem to be unaffected by it. Just my two cents.
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