Today’s article isn’t particularly an article with an ending. Rather, it is a series of beginnings. I’ve been exploring a bunch of alternatives to traditional D&T, most of which have fallen under the umbrella category of the Hateful 8 or various mono-white prison strategies. I’ve played a handful of games with each of the variants below, so I just want to walk you through what I’ve been testing since my last article. Testing new ideas, well, can be frustrating to say the least. It’s rare that your brew is actually legitimately groundbreaking in any way. It’s much more common that you create a deck that could wreck a specific metagame, but has gaping weaknesses of some nature. Here’s a look at about three week’s worth of failures:
Sean Brown's Brew
| Creature: (26) (28) 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 4 Phyrexian Revoker 4 Thalia, Heretic Cathar 4 Magus of the Moon 4 Simian Spirit Guide 2 Sanctum Prelate 2 Scab-Clan Berserker 2 Palace Jailer 2 Pia and Kiran Nalaar Non-Creature Spells: (10) (10) 4 Chalice of the Void 3 Chrome Mox 2 Dismember 1 Umezawa’s Jitte | Lands: (22) (22) 4 Ancient Tomb 4 Cavern of Souls 4 Wasteland 2 Karakas 4 Flooded Strand 2 Plateau 2 Plains Sideboard: (15) (15) 3 Rest in Peace 2 Containment Priest 2 Stoneforge Mystic 2 Mindbreak Trap 2 Sudden Demise 2 Disenchant 1 Ajani Vengeant 1 Batterskull |
This was my first starting point after my last article. I got this list from Sean Brown, who has been walking a very similar path to my own over the past few months. I didn’t like his inclusion of the double red cards, but the additional of extra mana acceleration and Magus of the Moon were both promising. That brought me to try the next list:
Hateful 8 v4
I was interested to see how well an extremely light splash would go, and the answer was, in fact, quite well. Magus gave the deck a very strong tutor target against the three color midrange decks of the format, Eldrazi, and Lands. The Magus was a bit of a nonbo with Ghost Quarter and Path to Exile though. The mana denial portion of this deck was pushed pretty hard, resulting in it being extremely strong when on the play or with Chrome Mox in the opener. Hands without Chrome Mox and being on the draw made the deck loose some oomph though. Keeping that I mind, I tried the following:
Hateful 8 v5
I thought that putting a few Spirits in the deck might smooth and the draws a bit, giving me another viable two drop that still contributed to the prison plan. This version didn’t feel quite right, so I explored things with another two drop…
Hateful 8 v6
This deck denied mana extremely efficiently, but it absolutely could not deal with opposing threats. A Goyf that slipped through gave this deck fits. It also suffered from the problem of being significantly better on the play than on the draw. I wondered it I should try another approach on acceleration, resulting in this terrible deck.
Hateful 8 Maverick Hybrid v7
I figured it would be wonderful to consistently accelerate out cards like Sanctum Prelate and Aven Mindecensor, and I wasn’t wrong. However, I sacrificed the toolbox option of Green Sun’s Zenith, which was perhaps one of the best reasons to play Maverick in the first place. Some of this deck’s draws felt unbeatable, while others really fell flat. I abandoned that one pretty quickly.
Hateful 8 v7
I then returned to a list closer to first iteration. I cut the double red cards of Shawn’s build that I wasn’t fond of previously, and tried out a few new things. Angel of Invention was a nod to the fact that I really needed a tutorable finisher to balance out all of the prison pieces. It underperformed, unfortunately. It traded with a flipped Delver or a Baleful Strix, which was really disappointing. As an anthem effect, it was quite good; pumping a board of prison pieces and swinging for a surprise lethal attack stole me a few games. It did some silly things with Flickerwisp, but it rarely actually ran away with the game like I imagined it might.
Jailer Control
Throughout this testing process, I realized that I *really* liked Palace Jailer. It was taking over games and providing a one-sided Howling Mine in many matchups. My opponents were regularly misplaying against it, assuming it was like Banisher Priest, and it turned every Recruiter into a potential cantripping removal spell. I tried pushing that idea a little further; I wanted to make a Place Jailer deck rather than a deck with Palace Jailer in it, and this list was the result.
Repeatedly blinking Palace Jailer is pretty much unbeatable for the fair decks of the format. To make it to that point, the deck placed a full playset of Path to Exile in addition to the normal removal. Palace Jailer allowed the deck to refuel after using removal early on. The deck struggled a little bit with Shardless, as Baleful Strix and Shardless Agent kept the threats flowing and could overwhelm my removal. I abandoned this idea, but I could see Palace Jailer finding a home in a similar shell. It might fit better as a central card in some sort of Angel Stompy deck with a Moat to hide behind.
Alrighty, that’s all I’ve got for today. I’m currently working on learning the MTGO client so that I can start producing D&T content. So excuse me while I go and jam some drafts while I learn how to hold priority and all that jazz…
