The main point of many MTG deck names is to evoke something that is not necessarily adjacent to the concept of the deck. Hence the solar flare in Angel of Despair becomes the name for a deck involving reanimation. It is poetic and evocative. And does not really indicate what the deck does. Which is good when you want to reference a deck in conversation without tipping everyone off to exactly what you are talking about.
Death and Taxes is a suitably nasty sounding name for a deck you expect to just win because it is inevitable. "What are you playing? Uh bears...white weenie bears that do funny things." Or...
No worries if you took license with it, though I did note the weirdness myself as that list isn't really related to D&T except for the predominance of white cards.
I didn't know where the name came from, I assumed it was based on the hatebears. I have seen other versions of this deck that run the Managara/Flickerwisp/Stonecloaker combo and I guess this is another evolution of the deck. I did consider running the combo but it takes quite a lot of card commitment for an effect that isn't that amazing. If we had Karakas in Modern then things might be different.
I apologies if I took the deck title out of context, though I'm still not quite sure how it relates to Mangara either.
There have been some strange deck names and their origins are quite weird. According to LSV the Solar Flare deck is so called because of the eclipse in the back of the picture on Angel of Despair.
You are right, there is no entry fee for the tournament. If I get to play in it, personally I plan on getting some hammybot stuff to add to donations and I would encourage others to do the same.
Glad to hear that you will be getting support for this event again. Keep us posted!
I'll never really understand the alchemy behind the archetype names in pro Magic. The original Death and Taxes was a rogue Legacy deck from a few years ago, whose creator became famous (to the point that WotC paid homage to his creation with a precon) for achieving great results with a relatively budget build. But it wasn't a hatebear deck, it was based on several tricks and interactions, the signature being Flickerwisp/Mangara/Karakas. There weren't hosers of any kind, the only card in common with this list is Aether Vial. Both can be considered White Weenie, I guess, but how TPTB decided that this was the Modern Death and Taxes beats me.
One point of clarification! I will *NEVER* charge an (entry fee/donation) of *ANY* sort for *ANY* event I run.
At the last Ham on Wry, several players put up cards, boosters, tickets, etc. ON THEIR OWN as pledges and bounties. I was suggesting that Hammybot might be a good source to pick up cards for bounties & pledges if you were so inclined.
If you somehow read that as "buy a card from Hammybot to enter", I apologize. That will not be the case. Entry will be free. Period.
I have been in contact with a few people already, and things are looking good. That's all I can say about it at this point.
Hey, I look at and analyze A LOT of decklists, I shouldn't have to feel bad about mis-interpreting the deck creator's purposes for ONE deck :(
The idea that Liege was the centerpiece of that deck really did not occur to me looking at it. It didn't help that I only saw one game you played with that deck, and did not get to see any of the Balefire Liege tricks. I did see the Tamanoa doing alot of work in that game, and I'm used to Tamanoa being the centerpiece of the decks that it is in. You actually did give me some ideas for making that into a Blasphemous Act deck though -- some of the card choices might have been good for my Repurcussion Combo deck too, Glitterfangs get out of the way of my own sweepers just fine for instance.
I really need to see more of these decks being played, especially the unusual ones, to get a good read on them. But really, even when I'm able to attend the event (and I've been attending WAY more frequently this year than last year), I can't always see enough of the decks in action to fully grasp their strengths and strategies.
At the end its all about the tempo of the format. Runechanter's Pike is certainly more powerful card here to the deck but one has to be able to keep up with the tempo to gain the advantage.
Thats good point with Phyrexian Arena. Propably that would be better choice than underworld connections since it doesnt take the one mana for the card. But then it takes two turns to gain a card advantage which Signed in Blood would give straight up. So its a question of tempo versus power again here.
Thinking about the gameplay I dont see one wants the game go too long since there arent any set control conditions that opponent couldnt come back to the game. Once the board is in control one really wants to close down the game as soon as possible.
If you get more play with the deck it would be interesting to reading your thoughts how the deck runs in the current modern metagame. Which cards fit the best to the format etc.
I have not flashed it back once yet. I;m sure the situations happen which is why I put Snapcaster in the deck, it;s nice to discard it early and have the option late game
Your take is original enough. Heck it's a small enough pool in Standard that being truly original might just be code for "bad". I will say there have been plenty of variants flying around but no one solid build has risen to the top. I am sure the Blue Red decks will be near the top if not it.
I think the only thing that was different in the videos was a small sideboard change i made. As of right now the sideboard is fluid and changes constantly.
Some interesting ideas here. I'll have to go back and play the deck some more. I definitely like the addition of Devour Flesh. I also hadn't thought about using Funeral Charm as way to pump your creatures. That's an interaction that I was missing so thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Regarding Underworld Connections, I've seen people play Phyrexian Arena in this deck which is probably marginally better (though it does have the disadvantage of not having an off switch when your life become low).
Runechanter's Pike can be slow but it is very powerful when it works, the first strike it grants can also be very relevant. Bonesplitter is an interesting cheaper alternative. Worth a try for sure.
Nice deck. I actually have a stuffy doll deck with blasphemous act before boros reckoner came into the scene. But it's pure red with lots of them indestructible creature. May be I'll try and get those boros reckoner guys and have a try of pure red stuffy reckoner act deck....
This is a lot meaner than the stuff I put in my article. Though I was thinking the other day how nasty Red Blue stuffy could be. And it looks like the pros picked up on my wave length :p Or perhaps obvious combos are obvious.
Glad to see more people getting in on the (Blasphemous) act.
After some play I started thinking that I want to make the maindeck build more balanced. Too often I did get over top of the game playing aggressive discard and creature control but then not having any threats bashing down the way to the victory was frustrating.
Devour Flesh is good since there are also plenty of other removal that leaves you quite a bit of control which creature opponent has to sacrifice.
I thought maybe a just few more creature to do the trick. So after all thinking and playing I have a build like this at the moment.
Maindeck
Removal spell:
3 Fevour Flesh
3 Go For The Throat
3 Disfigure
3 Funeral charm
Card discard:
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Raven's Crime
4 Wrench Mind
Infect creatures:
4 Phyrexian Crusader
3 Plaque Stinger
2 Hand of the Praedor
3 Inkmoth Nexus
Card advantage
2 Underworl Connections
2 Howltooth Hollow
And
2 Runechanter's Pike
18 Swamps (23 lands in total)
SB:
3 Dismember
3 Infest
3 Rain of tears
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Vampire Nighthawk
So, at the end there's only 2 more creatures compared to the original build but that is nevertheless 20 percent more. At this point I like the idea of having 12 cards of each segment (discard, removal and infect) available in balance together because I cant yet make difference which would be more important to the other. In practice all of them are needed during the first 4 turns.
Funeral charm is a interesting card here since it can be used for each segment: card discard, removal or +2 infect damage. Havent gave a swampwalk to any creature yet but thats a trick not to forget. There are plenty of swamps out there. The tomb would be good for this purpose but yet I havent got to buy it and add to the list.
To make this build faster I have thought about going back to running sign in blood instead of underworld connections. Also it often feels that Runechanters pike a bit slow so more aggressive choice would be simply putting Bone Splitter instead.
Now, I could go on more about in detail on card by card but I think its better leave it for later.
Well done and insightful article.
Another interesting metric would be analyzing where the damage thresholds have been and where they might go to, whether up or down.
Deck looks really fun. I really like the inclusion of Staff of Nin and Heat Shimmer. Tahngarth and Magistrate's Veto are also pretty sweet. You have haste enablers, which is also a good idea. And Hellhole Rats has a special place in my heart since my days of tribal. A couple of comments on your other choices.
You have some dudes with death triggers (Murderous Redcap, Soulcage Fiend) but no real way to kill them on command. High Market could help here.
I tried Lightning Reaver also, but the damage from the counters happens at the end of the turn. That was frustrating. Skull Rend was awesome when Rakdos was out, but if Rakdos wasn't in play it wasn't all that great.
I tried to avoid creatures with triple colored mana in their casting cost, since they're still tough to cast even with Rakdos out. I'm sort of on the fence about Furyborn Hellkite v. Magmatic Force. I went with the Force due to his passive damage dealing ability. But huge dragons are fun.
My problem with Polluted Bonds is that it dealt damage during opponents' turns, and not during mine. Made using Rakdos' paincast ability difficult.
You went true singleton, that's pretty sweet. Thanks for showing the deck!
First of all, keep the insults to yourself, or you get banned, stat. You either dial down your tone when arguing about A GAME, or that's the door.
Second of all, the point of a banned list is to regulate a degenerate meta, not to ban all the combos you don't happen to like. Legacy Tribal Wars is a subset of Legacy, and there's literally HUNDREDS of powerful endgame combos in there. If you want to ban them all, then you want to play another format entirely. Feel free to create it and make WotC support it, but that format is NOT Legacy Tribal Wars.
We have an additional banned list based on YEARS of data from playing in this event, and that takes care of the real problematic cards. Cephalid Illusionist's rate of wins has been nothing to be worried about, like my article clearly demonstrates. It doesn't affect the meta, therefore no ban is even conceivable (the real retarded thing would be banning the Illusionist and keep Aluren, Sneak Attack, Helm of Obedience, etc.)
I don't ban something only because someone hates it, or else I would have to ban pretty much everything north of Grizzly Bears.
The main point of many MTG deck names is to evoke something that is not necessarily adjacent to the concept of the deck. Hence the solar flare in Angel of Despair becomes the name for a deck involving reanimation. It is poetic and evocative. And does not really indicate what the deck does. Which is good when you want to reference a deck in conversation without tipping everyone off to exactly what you are talking about.
Death and Taxes is a suitably nasty sounding name for a deck you expect to just win because it is inevitable. "What are you playing? Uh bears...white weenie bears that do funny things." Or...
No worries if you took license with it, though I did note the weirdness myself as that list isn't really related to D&T except for the predominance of white cards.
I didn't know where the name came from, I assumed it was based on the hatebears. I have seen other versions of this deck that run the Managara/Flickerwisp/Stonecloaker combo and I guess this is another evolution of the deck. I did consider running the combo but it takes quite a lot of card commitment for an effect that isn't that amazing. If we had Karakas in Modern then things might be different.
I apologies if I took the deck title out of context, though I'm still not quite sure how it relates to Mangara either.
There have been some strange deck names and their origins are quite weird. According to LSV the Solar Flare deck is so called because of the eclipse in the back of the picture on Angel of Despair.
Thanks for the clarification, Blip.
You are right, there is no entry fee for the tournament. If I get to play in it, personally I plan on getting some hammybot stuff to add to donations and I would encourage others to do the same.
Glad to hear that you will be getting support for this event again. Keep us posted!
I'll never really understand the alchemy behind the archetype names in pro Magic. The original Death and Taxes was a rogue Legacy deck from a few years ago, whose creator became famous (to the point that WotC paid homage to his creation with a precon) for achieving great results with a relatively budget build. But it wasn't a hatebear deck, it was based on several tricks and interactions, the signature being Flickerwisp/Mangara/Karakas. There weren't hosers of any kind, the only card in common with this list is Aether Vial. Both can be considered White Weenie, I guess, but how TPTB decided that this was the Modern Death and Taxes beats me.
One point of clarification! I will *NEVER* charge an (entry fee/donation) of *ANY* sort for *ANY* event I run.
At the last Ham on Wry, several players put up cards, boosters, tickets, etc. ON THEIR OWN as pledges and bounties. I was suggesting that Hammybot might be a good source to pick up cards for bounties & pledges if you were so inclined.
If you somehow read that as "buy a card from Hammybot to enter", I apologize. That will not be the case. Entry will be free. Period.
I have been in contact with a few people already, and things are looking good. That's all I can say about it at this point.
I was kidding. I'm actually proud that my deckbuilding choices aren't that obvious even to an expert analyst like you. :)
I saw Cyclonic Rift and Tibalt. I wasn't sure how they played in
Hey, I look at and analyze A LOT of decklists, I shouldn't have to feel bad about mis-interpreting the deck creator's purposes for ONE deck :(
The idea that Liege was the centerpiece of that deck really did not occur to me looking at it. It didn't help that I only saw one game you played with that deck, and did not get to see any of the Balefire Liege tricks. I did see the Tamanoa doing alot of work in that game, and I'm used to Tamanoa being the centerpiece of the decks that it is in. You actually did give me some ideas for making that into a Blasphemous Act deck though -- some of the card choices might have been good for my Repurcussion Combo deck too, Glitterfangs get out of the way of my own sweepers just fine for instance.
I really need to see more of these decks being played, especially the unusual ones, to get a good read on them. But really, even when I'm able to attend the event (and I've been attending WAY more frequently this year than last year), I can't always see enough of the decks in action to fully grasp their strengths and strategies.
At the end its all about the tempo of the format. Runechanter's Pike is certainly more powerful card here to the deck but one has to be able to keep up with the tempo to gain the advantage.
Thats good point with Phyrexian Arena. Propably that would be better choice than underworld connections since it doesnt take the one mana for the card. But then it takes two turns to gain a card advantage which Signed in Blood would give straight up. So its a question of tempo versus power again here.
Thinking about the gameplay I dont see one wants the game go too long since there arent any set control conditions that opponent couldnt come back to the game. Once the board is in control one really wants to close down the game as soon as possible.
If you get more play with the deck it would be interesting to reading your thoughts how the deck runs in the current modern metagame. Which cards fit the best to the format etc.
I have not flashed it back once yet. I;m sure the situations happen which is why I put Snapcaster in the deck, it;s nice to discard it early and have the option late game
I've run a deck like this myself, only in Grixis. Snapcaster is an interesting idea. Do you ever flashback your Blasphemous Act?
there might be a good start here. Who knows?
Your take is original enough. Heck it's a small enough pool in Standard that being truly original might just be code for "bad". I will say there have been plenty of variants flying around but no one solid build has risen to the top. I am sure the Blue Red decks will be near the top if not it.
I had a lot of fun playing the deck though it may not sound like it. I know the idea is not original but it was fun to brainstorm something up.
I think the only thing that was different in the videos was a small sideboard change i made. As of right now the sideboard is fluid and changes constantly.
Some interesting ideas here. I'll have to go back and play the deck some more. I definitely like the addition of Devour Flesh. I also hadn't thought about using Funeral Charm as way to pump your creatures. That's an interaction that I was missing so thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Regarding Underworld Connections, I've seen people play Phyrexian Arena in this deck which is probably marginally better (though it does have the disadvantage of not having an off switch when your life become low).
Runechanter's Pike can be slow but it is very powerful when it works, the first strike it grants can also be very relevant. Bonesplitter is an interesting cheaper alternative. Worth a try for sure.
Out of curiosity, why does your deck list differ from the deck in the games? Can you update the deck list to reflect the games?
Nice deck. I actually have a stuffy doll deck with blasphemous act before boros reckoner came into the scene. But it's pure red with lots of them indestructible creature. May be I'll try and get those boros reckoner guys and have a try of pure red stuffy reckoner act deck....
This is a lot meaner than the stuff I put in my article. Though I was thinking the other day how nasty Red Blue stuffy could be. And it looks like the pros picked up on my wave length :p Or perhaps obvious combos are obvious.
Glad to see more people getting in on the (Blasphemous) act.
After some play I started thinking that I want to make the maindeck build more balanced. Too often I did get over top of the game playing aggressive discard and creature control but then not having any threats bashing down the way to the victory was frustrating.
Devour Flesh is good since there are also plenty of other removal that leaves you quite a bit of control which creature opponent has to sacrifice.
I thought maybe a just few more creature to do the trick. So after all thinking and playing I have a build like this at the moment.
Maindeck
Removal spell:
3 Fevour Flesh
3 Go For The Throat
3 Disfigure
3 Funeral charm
Card discard:
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Raven's Crime
4 Wrench Mind
Infect creatures:
4 Phyrexian Crusader
3 Plaque Stinger
2 Hand of the Praedor
3 Inkmoth Nexus
Card advantage
2 Underworl Connections
2 Howltooth Hollow
And
2 Runechanter's Pike
18 Swamps (23 lands in total)
SB:
3 Dismember
3 Infest
3 Rain of tears
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Vampire Nighthawk
So, at the end there's only 2 more creatures compared to the original build but that is nevertheless 20 percent more. At this point I like the idea of having 12 cards of each segment (discard, removal and infect) available in balance together because I cant yet make difference which would be more important to the other. In practice all of them are needed during the first 4 turns.
Funeral charm is a interesting card here since it can be used for each segment: card discard, removal or +2 infect damage. Havent gave a swampwalk to any creature yet but thats a trick not to forget. There are plenty of swamps out there. The tomb would be good for this purpose but yet I havent got to buy it and add to the list.
To make this build faster I have thought about going back to running sign in blood instead of underworld connections. Also it often feels that Runechanters pike a bit slow so more aggressive choice would be simply putting Bone Splitter instead.
Now, I could go on more about in detail on card by card but I think its better leave it for later.
Well done and insightful article.
Another interesting metric would be analyzing where the damage thresholds have been and where they might go to, whether up or down.
Deck looks really fun. I really like the inclusion of Staff of Nin and Heat Shimmer. Tahngarth and Magistrate's Veto are also pretty sweet. You have haste enablers, which is also a good idea. And Hellhole Rats has a special place in my heart since my days of tribal. A couple of comments on your other choices.
You have some dudes with death triggers (Murderous Redcap, Soulcage Fiend) but no real way to kill them on command. High Market could help here.
I tried Lightning Reaver also, but the damage from the counters happens at the end of the turn. That was frustrating. Skull Rend was awesome when Rakdos was out, but if Rakdos wasn't in play it wasn't all that great.
I tried to avoid creatures with triple colored mana in their casting cost, since they're still tough to cast even with Rakdos out. I'm sort of on the fence about Furyborn Hellkite v. Magmatic Force. I went with the Force due to his passive damage dealing ability. But huge dragons are fun.
My problem with Polluted Bonds is that it dealt damage during opponents' turns, and not during mine. Made using Rakdos' paincast ability difficult.
You went true singleton, that's pretty sweet. Thanks for showing the deck!
The deck is good, despite my hate of slivers. You may want to mention why you aren't running Survival of the Fittest.
Man those bears...hate them. Leaving honey tracks everywhere and riling all the hornets nests!
First of all, keep the insults to yourself, or you get banned, stat. You either dial down your tone when arguing about A GAME, or that's the door.
Second of all, the point of a banned list is to regulate a degenerate meta, not to ban all the combos you don't happen to like. Legacy Tribal Wars is a subset of Legacy, and there's literally HUNDREDS of powerful endgame combos in there. If you want to ban them all, then you want to play another format entirely. Feel free to create it and make WotC support it, but that format is NOT Legacy Tribal Wars.
We have an additional banned list based on YEARS of data from playing in this event, and that takes care of the real problematic cards. Cephalid Illusionist's rate of wins has been nothing to be worried about, like my article clearly demonstrates. It doesn't affect the meta, therefore no ban is even conceivable (the real retarded thing would be banning the Illusionist and keep Aluren, Sneak Attack, Helm of Obedience, etc.)
I don't ban something only because someone hates it, or else I would have to ban pretty much everything north of Grizzly Bears.