Hello all I'm back, and this time I want to cover the new kid on the block, Painter's Servant. I have been eagerly awaiting this deck since Shadowmoor was printed and the combo with Grindstone was discovered. I have a Trio of decks today that all use the combo differently and would like to explain the how and why of each one, but before we get into lists lets look at the combo closer shall we?

The Basic Combo

So as you can see the combo peices are both colorless meaning that you can drop them into any shell or work any kind of deck around them. It costs a total of 6 mana to deck your opponent, which can conviently be broken up over 3 turns. The way it works is pretty simple. Servant will turn every card in every zone into the color you choose, and the grindstone will then, once activated dump a library into the graveyard since the top two cards will always share a color be they lands, artifacts or rainbow colored. Things to watch out for are Gaea's Blessing which will once your done emptying a library return the graveyard to said library, and Darksteel Colossus which will just start an infinante loop timing someone out. The only way around this is Stifle on one of the triggers( as they are both triggered abilaties) or Extirpate on said card and reactivating the stone.

 So now that your in the know about how it works lets get to some lists shall we? The first list seems to be the most popular in the legacy world (probably because of the prohibitive cost of a key card in deck #2) and its a Blue, Black affair splashing Green for sideboard options.

 This deck is pretty much a straight port of a 1st place list from legacy. Obviously I switch in the two restricted cards since they are banned in that format but not in ours. The deck is not a combo deck, its is a control deck much like Bomberman masquerades around as. The goal of this build is to get a soft lock with the counterbalance/top combination and then deck them with a modicum of protection. Very rarely will you go for a quick combo kill as the deck just cant generate enough protection against most other builds. An exception would be decks like RDW or Zoo which have very fast clocks but little to no disruption. Also it as a transformer sideboard allowing you to side out almost all of the combo and play akin to classic level blue after board. I have already gone into how the deck hopes to achieve the combo above so lets get right into finding the combo.

Finding It

So here they are, Ponder and Brainstorm are again as I stated last time the awesome sauce at library manipulation and also help hide important cards from targeted discard. Trinket can go and fetch half the combo or a top to help lock out the oppressor, or a timely bomb to nuke a specific casting cost from the face of the table. Vamp was a third vault but I figured that on average you would activate vault twice anyways so why not just go get the card you need. Vault can help set up anything you need to draw at the cost of a few life points, and lastly the two black spells can combine quite nicely with counterbalance putting any casting cost you need on top to counter a spell.

Protection

Here we have a very light permission sweet in the force and the soft lock combo for low cost spells. Thoughtseize is in here over Duress because this deck needs to nail early beaters and then try to lock them out with the balance. This is very light in terms of protection so you have to have a good knowledge of the deck to know when to use it and when to hold onto it.

Utility

  Bob, or the great one may seem odd in the deck but I believe he is there as a diversion. I mean if left unchecked he can create quite a hole to dig your self out of. Because of how dangerous he is especially with a Top in play most opponents will try very hard to stop him, meaning that your Servant should have an easier time of making the table. If by chance Bob sticks around then, hoorah you probably just won the game. The Explosives are tutor able by a few of the cards in the deck and can help bomb your way out of problem card like Pithing Needle, they also recur with Ruins. Echoing Truth is a safety for any permanent that troubles you and can be tutored and drawn (easily enough) at instant speed. Lastly Crypt makes the utility slot because even at 1.5 life per turn in a control deck its still insane. Imagine a first turn play of Top and Bob, or Trinket Mage fetching a Top or Grindstone, and there's always first turn Servant and Stone second turn win. It is also not a bad draw in the middle of the game as having an extra two mana to get to six or just protect the combo pieces as you play them is rather nice.

Lands

Ok so beyond the obvious inclusion of four Sea's we have a pair of Breeding Pools to allow us access to our Sideboard and a third color of mana for the sunburst on Explosives. A full eight pack of fetch lands do a couple of different things for us. Firstly fetch lands are imo one of THE best things about eternal formats. They make decks better period. The more you can play the better your matches will play out almost guaranteed. Secondly the prevalence of Wasteland is strong as it is just such a great card praying on exactly why the format is a format, the mana bases. In a format with Wastelands you really want to just sit on fetches so that you can work around how debilitating the Tempest uncommon can be. They combo with your blue filter spells, Counterbalance, Lim-duls Vaults, and SDT's. Lastly in conjunction with the foresight for Wasteland they will get you Basics first if your opponent is packing Blood Moon or Magus of the Moon. Filling out the deck  is a singleton legendary land. If any deck that can make blue mana and has any artifact presence at all in it, it should make room for a copy. It does have a bulls-eye on it for Waste but it is fantastic at what it does. Creating Explosive loops is cool but getting to resolve your entire combo no matter how many tries it takes is great against control.

Sideboard

Hydroblast is kind of important against RDW an Zoo as this deck has a lot of self inflicted pain. It also is good for decks packing Pyroblast and can combo up with the Servant to become one mana Vindicates or Counterspells. The needle has a variety of uses and since this deck aims for a mid game the duo with all the tutoring should be sufficient. Crypt is in primarily for Dredge but does have some splash hate on Thresh and any graveyard based combo decks. K. Grip as a singleton is really just there to kill Chalice of the Void, Needle, or Counterbalance. The Blessing is a concession to other Painter decks as I don't wanna be caught with my pants down. My favorite part of the deck however, is the six big men hiding in here. I have sided them in in almost every match I've played. First off they give you the ability to just smash through hate aimed at your combo. Secondly and more importantly they will catch people unawares. Having them in makes for a completely different deck as you will generally trade out three of each combo piece becoming more akin to Bomberman, where you just play out as a mid range deck and then drop a combo on the table after you have spent your opponents initial rush.

I've played about a dozen matches with this deck and find that first off it feels very clunky until you get a feel for it. I definitely believe that it needs a lot of practise before you would even feel comfortable entering it into a PE and double to triple that to feel like you could win it all. It is a straight up dog to Necro but with experience I could see this arch-type doing well for the person who puts in the time to master it. As for any further tweaking to our specific meta I haven't even come close to piloting it at a proficient enough level to figure out what cogs can be switched in or out.

The next deck, is for me loads more fun to play even if it is a little less consistent then Epic Painter is. Its Imperial Painter, a mono-red affair that looks like Dragon Stompy's little kid brother trying to play in the big leagues. If your familiar with Dragon Stompy then your probably familiar with this as well. It has the same basic shell of Stompy in Big degenerate affects altering the game on the first or second turn, although Painter packs a combo finish and Stompy supplies the face smashing. Here is my current list which is largely lifted from a second place legacy finish, with some modifications to the main and sideboard going more for our meta then the legacy equivalent.

 The combo as already been noted so we shall continue straight into the toolbox and go from there.

The Toolbox

So we have the name sake of the deck which can go and fetch any creature out of your library. Magus is a four of because a Blood Moon that smashes for two is better then one that doesn't. Jaya can come out of left field and start nuking the board with a Servant out, plus she can off Counterbalance which is bad times for you. Shusher is pretty great against control decks, he will resolve through Balance and a grip of blue instants. Then once he's comfortable he'll make sure that all your  other spells resolve even through Chalice of the Void. Last is the little dragon which is a pretty nice threat since he dodges Smother, flies and can get in for five plus damage as early as turn three.

Disruption

The moon is an auto include in our format where 95% of the field is running multiple dual lands. The Jitte is there as a solid plan b whenever it shows up, since you have a a lot of dorks to carry it. The fork of doom can also clear out a Meddling Mage naming a key spell . Lightning bolt is your removal , it is almost never correct to point it at their face instead of a little man ruining your day.  The Blasts and Response's combo up with Painter as well as being relevant sans scarecrow getting a leg up on any counter spells, and the Blasts being able to hit any blue spell. Response is admittedly weak which is why I'm only running two where conventional wisdom says to run four Red Elemental Blasts. A nice synergy in the deck is to lock the lands down with a moon effect and start Blasting your opponents basics  with either Pyro or Jaya once Painter is on board.

Fast Mana and Lands

Nine sources of two colorless mana available to you on the first turn along with eighteen sources of red mana make for some rather spicy opening plays. Opening hand can consist of Tomb or Vein plus Mox or SSG to allow access to 2R on turn one or a Crypt and any one of Mox, Mountain, or SSG will also allow you to accelerate into a Moon effect, a Recruiter, a Painter plus Blast, full combo with a second turn win, or a post sideboard 3Sphere. Spirit Guide or SSG doubles as a beater once your past the acceleration phase of the game and can carry the magical bloody fork.

Sideboard

Pithing Needle is in for decks packing any significant amount of Necros, Deeds, Sceptors, or Explosives. Necro is super fast and if they resolve the skull, decking them won't matter and you'll have to try beatdown mode which isn't super fast, 2-Land Belcher is also way fast for you so getting that needle down asap is good. Crypt is for the other  fast combo deck Dredge with some splash hate on Gaea's Blessing other graveyard based decks such as Dragon or  Loam strategies and Thresh. 3Sphere also comes n against Necro and Belcher but has a good use in a lot of matchups as limiting most decks to one spell per set is really strong but  I'd rather have the Moons maindeck because the Sphere also slows down your chances at a six mana one turn win. Shusher comes in for most if not all control decks and a singleton more for CotV decks. Lastly the Tinkerer blows up lots of debilitating artifacts such as Needle, CotV, and activated Mishra's Factorys and lives to break something else on the next turn, but in a pinch he can off anything like a Crucible, or Shackles.

There it is in a nut shell. Your goal is very draw dependent from game to game. The one constant and the reason there are seven moons in the deck is that you really wanna try to resolve one on the first turn. It is a beating against most of the field and if you have the option the enchantment should always be played first as its harder for most decks to remove it. The rest of your decisions are pretty fluid as having the Recruiters in there give you some options. I generally like to go for Painter only if i have counter spell back up or a Shusher. Otherwise I'll usually go for the Shusher or the dragon. If Painter is already down I always fetch a Jaya as shes pretty awesome when the world is Blue.  The deck is capable of some insane plays, totally taking your opponent out of the equation. The down side to this deck though is that it lacks card advantage. You just can not go punch for punch with other decks as you will always run out of steam first. I have played the deck about three dozen matches and in the TP room it has around a 90% win record once serious testing against serious decks were considered but.... it lost a close match against R Thresh in an 8-Man Que round one, and was stomped out of the 12/28 PE 0-2 in matches and 0-4 in games against our very own JxClaytor running Mono Black Agro and Blade running 2-Land Belcher.

Dont let the tourney results scare you off as I haven't and would still run this in another PE with maybe a few Sideboard modifications. It is extremely fun to play and there are so many little interactions in the deck. Did you know that naming Blue or Red with Painter will make Sword of Fire and Ice useless? Or that you can Pyroblast your own Mana Crypt if its gonna kill you and you have a Painter out? There are lots of room for exceptional play options like those in here.  Last tip about this before the next arch-type is that if your going to go for a one turn win dont name Blue with Servant if you don't have any countersplls because you don't want to let your opponent pitch a land to FoW your Grindstone.

The last deck is still just an idea really. When Servant was suspected of being half of a two card combo I started thinking about how it could fit into a Bomberman shell. Once I was accepted into the Tempest beta I threw together a list of cards that I would like to try together. I've really only played a couple of matches with the deck and its still a very rough list, but I figured that if everyone else could see it maybe there would be some tweaks that I missed. Here is the deck.

This list looks really good on paper, there are a couple of cross synergy's in the combos such as the Diamond giving you access to three mana to activate the Grindstone or Salvagers being able to replay a destroyed or countered millafact. For those of you unfamiliar with how Bomberman works...

Step one, play out any one of Salvagers, Diamond, and Spellbomb or Furnace.

Step two , play out the other pieces.

Step three, sac the Diamond for three White mana and then recur it with the Salvagers ability. This will net you one mana, after a couple of activations you will be able to recur and play either Spellbomb to do 20 damage or Phyrexian Furnace to draw into the Spellbomb.

The Counter/Top soft lock will help you protect your big white combo man from StP and other debilitating spells as once you start bombing you have no hand. Balance is also just really good in this meta where the average casting costs in most decks is about 2.8 and only that high because most builds run four 5cc spells in them. FoW should need no reasoning I mean its a blue deck and we have 14 other blue spells and our entire deck if there is a Painter in play to pitch to them. Pyro may be cuter then is necessary with a lot of decks going for the agro plan and not enough Thresh or Control decks running around but it does combo with Painter making them Hard counters or Vindicates. Spell Snare was a third planeswalker and a Fact or Fiction but the deck needed a little more help in the early game.

The aforementioned planeswalker just seems fun to play with. He may also be a bit cute but he can fetch your entire Painter combo and 2/3's of your Bomberman Combo, plus they are put directly into play getting around all kinds of nastiness. Once in a while you will also be able to just go big with his ultimate and end the game from a losing position with beatdown. Trinket can also fetch a ton of your combo bits but also has the added bonus of getting Explosives to bomb out problem cards. Which brings me to the artificial Control Magic. Shackles, in light of recent PE's should be HUGE if it ever gets to tap. You have a lot of Islands and stealing there best guy every turn to either block and trade or just go on the offensive should be tastey and its fetchable by Tezzeret.

Noticeably missing is Mishra's Factory which doesn't fit into a three color mana base very well with the addition of Wasteland. Sure you could try him out but then you are weakening the rest of your deck for a shot at two damage. Ruins is nice as it can replace lost utility or combo parts even if it wont stay in play very long. The Laboratory is something I am trying as it seams good with Trinket and who doesn't wanna block, stack damage, and bounce? Or attack, bounce, play him back out untapped while getting a juicy card. The Affinity lands are there as Trinket targets and also as a way to smash in for five once you have gained 5-6 loyalty on the Seeker. Lastly Crypt is still amazing even at the loss of life in this slow deck. A quite unlikely first turn kill is available to the deck because of it. Turn one Crypt, Land, Painter, Grindstone, Diamond, for five cards you can win although three of them are singletons so its not very plausible. Also you could get a second turn Bomberman win with an extra land and subbing out the the Painter, and Grindstone for a Salvagers and either Furnace or Spellbomb.

The sideboard is heavily slanted towards Necro with a good dedication to Zoo and Thresh along the way. Meestone is a higly underplayed card at the moment but this could be because everyone seems to be running huge men. Canonist and Needle should all come in against any combo deck but Dredge as they help your slow butt up a lot and most of your combo bits are artifacts getting around Canonist's Arcane Laboratory effect. The three Crypts are for graveyard shenanigans as I really hate being caught with my pants down by Dredge.

So three different decks two of which are proven winners in Legacy but not here in the digital realm and the little idea that may or may not bear any fruit. I encourage all the readers to chime in on how there testing with Painter is going and please suggest changes or modifications to Painter Man (such as the lack of card drawing).

Untill next time whiffy out!
George Efelis
Member of Clan Magic Eternal
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