Alrighty, once again, it’s data time! Since mid-December I’ve been mucking around with RW Taxes. The build is my own at this point, though I used a combination of Iatee and Bahra’s builds as my starting points for exploring this side of the archetype. Here’s the decklist in its current form:
RW Taxes, 1/12/18
Before I get into the data, I should take a moment to briefly talk about a couple of quirks and strengths of this build. Magus of the Moon is the real reason to splash red; it provides an instant “I win” button against a sizable percentage of the format. It frequently comes off of Vial as a surprise as well, not giving your opponent the opportunity to fetch in response or float some mana. Pia and Kiran Nalaar is a side benefit of splashing red. While the card might not look impressive on the surface, it does a surprising amount of weird things. With a Karakas and an Aether Vial on four, you can produce an army of Thopter tokens that will drown most fair decks. Those Thopters are handy little fellows. Being colorless, they aren’t affected by things like Dread of Night or an opposing Mother of Runes. They are fantastic chump blockers against a fair deck like Eldrazi. Since P&K produces multiple bodies, it is pretty annoying for control decks like Czech Pile or Miracles. P&K is a weird, tutorable source of end game inevitability, something that the mono white build lacks. It is, admittedly, a little hard to cast, but it’s not a card that you usually want to slam on turn four anyway.
The red also gives us a touch more utility in Cunning Sparkmage in the sideboard. It’s great in the mirror and against small creature decks (Elves, Infect). Then there’s that spicy maindeck Rest in Peace. While many people have questioned that decision, I think it has been worth its weight. I’ll discuss it a bit more in the data section and let you form your own conclusion. Most of the rest of the list is pretty standard.
So what didn’t make the cut? I originally started with a Faerie Macabre in the sideboard, as both builds I had been looking at played the little fellow. My previous testing found that it was really only amazing in the Reanimator matchup, and after a couple of leagues with it in the deck, I cut it again. Similarly, both builds featured Fiendslayer Paladin, a card I wasn’t particularly keen on. I get that it is an attempt at hedging against Burn, an absolutely terrible matchup for the RW build, but I found that it was a low impact card on average. I opted to throw a Sanctum Prelate in the board to increase the utility of my Recruiters and a third Path to Exile to help with the Delver matchups (more on that in a minute). I also opted to play a third Plateau over the third Cavern of Souls to make some of my cards a little more castable on average.
The following dataset consists of 111 matches (268 games) in competitive MTGO leagues with the RW build. As discussed above, the build did vary by a card or two over the course of the matches. I ended up with a record of 71-40 (63%). This is slightly higher than the results I got with the monowhite build after a similar number of matches (60%). Though I don’t have an exact number on it, I know I had a higher percentage of 5-0 finishes with the RW build than with the mono white build. I’ll do a bit of comparison a bit later in the article, but I want to start by looking at the matchup breakdown for the RW version. With one exception (Red Prison), I only included matches that had a sample size of four or greater for the matchup breakdown that follows. Here’s the overview before I break things down a bit more:
Very Good Matchups
Eldrazi (5-1, 83%)
BUG Delver (6-3, 67%)
D&T (5-1, 83%)
Lands (3-1, 75%)
Red Prison (3-0, 100%)
Even Matchups
Czech Pile (5-4, 56%)
Miracles (4-4, 50%)
Big Eldrazi (3-2, 60%)
ANT (2-3, 40%)
Grixis Delver (6-6, 50%)
Very Unfavorable Matchups
Burn (1-4, 20%)
Now for some qualitative comments and my thoughts on some of this data!
Very Good Matchups
Eldrazi (5-1, 83%)
BUG Delver (6-3, 67%)
D&T (5-1, 83%)
Lands (3-1, 75%)
Red Prison (3-0, 100%)
The Lands, BUG Delver, and Eldrazi matches are all matchups that a Magus of the Moon has the potential to instantly end. Accordingly, it’s not too surprising that all of those matchups ended up being so favorable. Having a maindeck Rest in Peace also didn’t hurt for the Lands and BUG Delver matchup. It is a little interesting that the Red Prison matchup is still so good despite splashing; despite playing Magus of the Moon ourselves, we are quite vulnerable to an early opposing Blood Moon.
The RW deck tends to approach the mirror a little differently than the mono white version. The mono white version tends to attack the mirror via permanents. Cards like Sword of War and Peace and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar threaten to swing the boardstate very quickly in your favor. The RW Version instead is trying to play more of a control role. With lots of extra removal like Path to Exile, Cunning Sparkmage, and Pia and Kiran Nalaar, you hope to knock your opponent off balance for long enough to get a foothold on the equipment war or let your powerful four drops take over the game.
Even Matchups
Czech Pile (5-4, 56%)
Miracles (4-4, 50%)
Big Eldrazi (3-2, 60%)
ANT (2-3, 40%)
Grixis Delver (6-6, 50%)
It seems like this version of D&T holds it own against the premier control decks of the format, but does not necessarily excel against them. Pia and Kiran Nalaar provides a great end game against the value-oriented nature of both Miracles and Czech Pile. I’m not particularly worried about the average draws from either of these decks. I am quite worried about a good draw that stabilizes the board and follows up with a Planeswalker on an empty board. A curve of Terminus into Jace, the Mind Sculptor or Kolaghan’s Command into Liliana, the Last Hope is backbreaking. Cataclysm has been pretty good in both of these matchups when my opponent gets ahead early, but is not necessarily always a game-winning play.
You’re probably surprised to see Grixis Delver in this category. I was too. The RW version is much more susceptible to opposing mana denial than the mono white version. Cards like Stifle and Wasteland are markedly better against this version. Hence you open yourself up to “just getting Delvered” a bit more often. Most of my loses against Grixis Delver came before I added the third Path to Exile to the deck, something I did mostly for this matchup. Since this deck has a few four drops and a weaker manabase, you do have to fear a fast hand getting ahead of you. Also of note, this build has literally no way to answer a resolved True-Name Nemesis. You have to race it once it hits play. There’s no Council’s Judgment to bail you out.
Very Unfavorable Matchups
Burn (1-4, 20%)
Burn is normally a nail biter of a matchup for D&T. Once you start taking some damage from fetchlands and open yourself up to more damage from Price of Progress, it’s no surprise that this matchup becomes markedly worse. The original builds I based my build around had a Fiendslayer Paladin as a concession to this matchup. I think I’m fine with losing a few percentage points to the Burn matchup to not have that card in my 75 though. I’m not even sure that tutoring for that guy is going to be fast enough to matter in the matchup anyway for non-Vial hands.
Single Card Discussion
Magus of the Moon was pretty great, I’m not going to lie. I attributed 26 of my game wins to that card. In most of those cases, it hit play and my opponent conceded within 1-2 turns. In all the time I played it, my opponent only wiggled out of the Magus four times (when it actually cut them off mana). Twice it was answered by red removal (Forked Bolt and Lightning Bolt) after resolving; in one of those cases, it actually gave my opponent mana to cast the Young Pyromancer and Lightning Bolt that was stranded in their hands. Otherwise it was only answered twice: once by floating mana for an Abrupt Decay and once by casting a Drop of Honey off a Mox Diamond.. Magus was so powerful that I’d consider playing a third in the 75 or a third Recruiter of the Guard to go and find it.
I attributed 8 of my wins to Pia and Kiran Nalaar. In the games where I actually resolved that card, it frequently warped the game. The dream is obviously to combo it with Vial and Karakas, but it’s still solid even when you don’t have the “combo.” The situations that P&K can dig you out of are often pretty dire. One of my favorites involved generating an army of Thopters to hold back a Marit Lage and flinging the tokens at my opponent’s face after blocks. Did I mention the reach?! It feels nice to effectively have burn in your deck. Your opponent has a Null Rod? No worries, just start flinging those Vials at their face! The red/colorless bodies aren’t irrelevant either against hate like Dread of Night.
So that maindeck Rest in Peace… I kept pretty detailed records on this card in particular, as I was very curious to see how it would perform in the Deathrite Shaman-infested world. Each time I drew the card in game 1, I assigned it a value. Zero meant it was a dead card; it does literally nothing in the matchup OR it has the possibility of doing something extremely marginal but did not. One was doing something relevant and likely worth the card slot; in some cases, it was difficult to tell how impactful the card was, but if it seemed like my opponent was likely hindered by it, I assigned it this value. Two represented the power level of a dedicated hate card; it made a very noticeable difference on the board or my opponent’s play pattern. In one case I assigned a value of -1; my opponent got value off of my Rest in Peace using an Oblivion Sower.
I drew the maindeck RiP 31 times, assigning it an average value of 1.3. On average it was a great draw, and when I happened to draw it in the right matchups (e.g. Reanimator, Loam, Lands), it warped the game. I attributed five of my wins directly to a resolved RiP in game 1, and another 3 times where it would have been game-endingly good, but was answered. RiP is great against four of the six Decks to Beat of the moment and certainly not dead against Miracles either, decreasing the power of Search for Azcanta and Snapcaster Mage. Running one in the main is certainly viable and perhaps even good. The card does have some issues: it’s not tutorable via Recuriter, it’s sometimes dead, and it doesn’t necessarily play nice with Thalia. However, when your opponent leads on Deathrite and you follow up with a RiP…well, that fells pretty darn good.
I attributed eight of my wins to Cataclysm. There was also one more scenario where I was so far ahead that I didn’t need to cast it and an instance where I lost a game after resolving Cataclysm. The card is of a comparable power level and utility to Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. Gideon tends to be better when you are ahead on board or at about parity, whereas Cataclysm tends to be better when you are behind. Gideon will be better in more matchups; his generic utility is a bit higher, and there are fewer spots where you can’t deploy the card out of fear of losing the game. There are times where you cast a Gideon and your opponent does something like cast a Snapcaster Mage, remove the token you make, and kill the Gideon. Those scenarios feel bad, but remember that a good percentage of the time when you resolve Gideon, he does still win you the game (though Cataclysm will likely win the game a higher percentage of the time when it resolves). Gideon is a card that you can just jam. Cataclysm is a card that requires a bit more setup, but has a higher potential upside.
Cunning Sparkmage and Sanctum Prelate underperformed. I did not attribute a single win to Cunning Sparkmage. Maybe I’m not boarding it in enough or in the right matchups. I didn’t hate having its utility in the board, and I’m not convinced that I should cut it, but I’ll be exploring my options for this slot. I added Sanctum Prelate to my deck at about the halfway point of my dataset. I only attributed three wins to this card. I didn’t tend to want to tutor for it when given the opportunity. Magus of the Moon often locked my opponent out just as well, or fetching Vryn Wingmare to stack with Thalia did just as much work. I think Prelate is really important for the mono white builds to deal with Life from the Loam and Punishing Fire decks, but it feels less necessary in this build.
Here’s the graph of my overall results with the RW version. Here is a bigger version of the graph if it isn’t readable on your screen as is.
Comparison to Crusader Build
So, at the end of the day, what version of D&T should you be playing? On average, I felt like my performance with RW Taxes was better (based on my percentage of 5-0 and 4-1 finishes). We’re not here for gut feelings though, now are we? In the following chart and discussion, the mono white build will be referred to as WW. Let’s look at some hard data.
If you were to play only against a field of the Decks to Beat with a perfect distribution based on the metagame percentages, RW and WW taxes would probably put you in about the same spot based on the data here. RW Taxes does have a markedly higher average win percentage vs the Decks to Beat though and a higher overall win percentage. Based on what’s here, it is probably better to be playing the splash build at the moment.
I do want to qualify this data a little bit though: I didn’t have Sanctum Prelate in my deck for many of the matches against Lands with WW, the sample size for the Miracles matchup with WW is three, and the percentage against Grixis Delver with RW is likely a bit higher than 50% now that I added the third Path to Exile. The overall result is probably that the WW build probably is better than the data here suggests. Its percentage against Grixis Delver, the most popular deck of the format, is just so high that it makes up for deficiencies elsewhere. Assuming that the Lands matchup is really closer to something like 40% for WW, the Miracles matchup is closer to 50% for WW, and the Grixis Delver matchup is closer to 60% for RW, WW will actually probably slightly outperform the RW build in the weighted average category by about 3%, but will still be behind the RW deck in the average win percentage by about 5%.
If I were to go to a GP tomorrow, I’d take RW Taxes without a doubt, though it probably doesn’t matter too much if you play WW or RW in the grand scheme of things. Either way, make sure you address the deficiencies of your build against the decks you expect to face and you’ll probably be fine. If you don’t have a ton of time to test, play whichever build you are comfortable with. If you have the time the test, the RW build has a ton of upside; at the very least, having some games under your belt will help you understand the mirror and open up the possibility of playing with the build in the future. I don’t recommend picking up the RW build and bringing it to a GP without sufficient testing; sideboarding can be legitimately tricky with this version of the deck, and even I am unsure how I want to approach a couple of matchups.
Changes to Consider
I’ve already suggested a few of these things throughout the article, but here’s what I would consider testing in the RW build in the future:
1. Adding either a Magus of the Moon or a Recruiter of the Guard.
2. Adding an answer to True-Name Nemesis like Orzhov Pontiff or Blessed Alliance.
3. Removing some of the less impressive cards like Sanctum Prelate and Cunning Sparkmage to see if their absence is missed.
4. Testing Dire Fleet Daredevil. I don’t think it is going to be of a consistent enough power level to be worth slots, but a couple of people on The Source have their eye on the card.
Based on the data and testing I have from the RW build, here are things I would consider testing in the WW build:
1. Swapping Gideon, Ally of Zendikar with Cataclysm.
2. Playing the 24th land since the build is so heavy at the three drop slot. Maybe a Horizon Canopy would work well.
3. Trying the Rest in Peace in the main over the 4th Mirran Crusader.
4. Dropping the 2nd Surgical Extraction in the board for a third Rest in Peace. Additionally, going down to one Surgical might in turn lead to dropping the other for some other sideboard card.
I’ll be continuing to work on the RW build in some capacity, likely starting with some of the suggestions above. I look forward to hearing your thoughts, and if you want to chat about the build more, feel free to hit me up with questions on my stream. I’m deathandtaxesftw on Twitch and you can check out my channel here. The channel has videos enabled, so you can click here to watch the videos of my last few streams. If, say, Twitch happens to be blocked at your workplace, you can also check out my videos on the Thraben University channel on Youtube.
