Post-July Parfait

[Pimpz0r]

I'm heading down to Las Vegas this saturday for a type one tournament at Toyz in the Attic, and I am expecting a Combo-heavy environment.  Traditional Parfait builds just don't have the ability to cope with lots of Combo, so Iuewen and I propose this list:

//The Mana [22]
9x Plains
2x Scrubland
1x Plateau
1x Swamp
1x Mountain
3x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
1x Sol Ring
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Jet

//The Engine [12]
2x Land Tax
2x Eternal Dragon
2x Tithe
4x Scroll Rack
2x Claws of Gix

//The Disruption [13]
4x Orim's Chant
2x Seal of Cleansing
1x Aura of Silence
4x Duress
2x Blood Moon

//The Rest [13]
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Sacred Mesa
3x Replenish
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Balance
1x Ivory Mask
1x Demonic Tutor

//The Sideboard [15]
1x Jester's Cap
2x Story Circle
3x Abolish
3x Tormod's Crypt
2x Humility
4x OPEN

The first thing you may notice is the presence of both Black and Red.  We feel that Duress is good enough to warrant splashing Black, and Blood Moon is simply a must.  Requiring a third color from our mana base while maintaining a high number of basic land becomes more difficult, and Library of Alexandria and Serra's Sanctum have to be cut.  As such, it becomes no big deal to add a second Blood Moon.  The Eternal Dragons and Tithes allow us to run Scrubland and Plateau, and we feel we need to include a maindeck Swamp and Mountain as targets for Land Tax.  The addition of Black makes it easy for us to use Demonic Tutor, and Parfait can certainly benefit from more tutoring.

We are not sure what to run in the six open spots in the sideboard.  With Aggro becoming less of a threat (at least Aggro that can be stopped with Story Circle) we decided to move the Story Circles to the board.  Tormod's Crypt is obviously there to stop RectorTrix, and Abolish is just a great card.

Any suggestions on the build or what we should run in our sideboard?

EDIT: made maindeck changes (-1 Eternal Dragon, -1 Land Tax, +1 Scroll Rack, +1 Replenish) and modified sideboard (-2 OPEN, +2 Humility)

[PsychoCid]

The biggest question is why run Parfait when Combo is the big hit?  I've heard Mono-Blue (or, you know, a spin off) does well versus the new combo decks.  This seems to be a lot more logical.

However, when BrianB won our local tournament with Parfait, his manabase included only 1 Scrubland, 1 Plateau, and 1 Swamp as the oddballs.  I don't think I'd want to go beyond that, really, as the deck is -very- white mana hungry (which means I also don't know how well the deck can support a fourth Duress, even with the 2nd Scrubland--but it may be worth both slots, so feel free with that).  3 normal moxen plus Mox Diamond (which you seem to be missing--it's quite a standard card) are what I think should be assisting the Ring and Lotus.

Scroll Rack is the card in your engine that is to be feared.  For this reason I tolerate no less than four in what is to be a competetive Parfait build.

I think you're really overdoing the manasmoothing.  Brian ran 3 Land Tax and 3 Tithe.  This was before Dragon was heard of, slightly.  K-Run has been running 3 Tax 2 Tithe 1 Dragon--this sounds about right, to me.  Other space can go to Diamond and maybe an extra Plains.

You're missing your board sweepers!  While I can understand that you're expecting mainly combo, running into TnT or anything else where these are key cards (...anything but combo...) might be end game. I preferred to see 2 Humility for some time, as it was clearly better than 2 Moat or the standoffish combo of Humility plus Moat.  However, seeing the deck in action causes me to nod in approval to spending space on one each, using Claws to pull you out on top when need be.  Unless you don't run into any TnT at all, Wrath can stay out.

I can see that you're running a full 8 spell hate cards with reason, and given that beyond your first 4 they are really weak, this might be your biggest sign that Parfait is not what you want in your hands at this tournament.

[Iuewen]

Nonetheless, he is determened to run Parfait, so we are making it as competetive as possible, under said circumstances.

I tend to agree on the rack issue. We should probably go up to 4.

Running less than 4 duress never entered discussion... I suppose going down to 3 could be bearable, but not much less than that.

Wraths are getting worse and worse in todays enviroment, as such they have been cut. Humility is definately still an option, and we were thinking of boarding 2 of them. I don't think I like the moat option, but we will keep it in mind.

We ran all of the manasmoothing to assure that we got that black mana for a turn 1-2 duress as often as possible. Vs any combo, that can spell life or death for parfait, as once it gets going, there really isn't much of a way to stop it. Perhaps it is a little too much, but further testing is needed in that respect.

And, finally, we feel that the mox diamond is a little to card disadvantageous with as much chopping away at the engine as we are doing. It may still go back in, but not likely unless we find that we need more colored sources.

[Magimaster]

Humility is a key card. It shuts down Welders and Rectors, as well as anything else that uses creatures for the kill. I've always had 2 in my build.

4 Scroll Racks help combat all the hand-rapage going around.

I'll take a breakdown of your list, section by section :

//The Mana [22]
9x Plains
2x Scrubland
1x Plateau
1x Swamp
1x Mountain
3x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
1x Sol Ring
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Jet

Mana looks good. I don't know about supporting Mox Diamond...all lands seem to be crucial in your build. 12 White sources, 11 taxable lands, 3 different colors seems pretty stable. I've been struggling with a good 3 color manabase for a while (Duress + Blood Moon!). If I was to cut a card from your manabase, it would probably be a Wasteland, seeing as how you've upped the NB hate in the form of Blood Moon.  

//The Engine [12]
2x Land Tax
2x Eternal Dragon
2x Tithe
4x Scroll Rack
2x Claws of Gix

Cut a Dragon. Those things are clunky. You use them once, and then you won't be able to take advantage of it's recurring ability until 10 zillion turns later. I would add another Land Tax. It will help smooth your manabase a little, and make up for the loss of the Dragon's search ability.

//The Disruption [13]
4x Orim's Chant
2x Seal of Cleansing
1x Aura of Silence
4x Duress
2x Blood Moon

Cid is right, 4 Duress is too much. How often do you expect a B in your opening hand? Sometimes, I enjoy playing stuff like my Taxes first turn so as to ensure that I have the mana to drop that Blood Moon 3rd turn or even earlier when playing against a deck that absolutely fears it. If you wanna continue running 4 Duress, I would upp the amount of B mana sources in your manabase.

//The Rest [13]
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Sacred Mesa
3x Replenish
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Balance
1x Ivory Mask
1x Demonic Tutor

You've cut Argivian Finds   oh well, something had to give. However, I have always run Tormod's Crypt main in my deck (among other artifact goodness) and being able to recur that thing several times would seem backbreaker against so many decks nowadays. Aside from Blood Moon, there are really no powerful enchantments to recur with Replenish, save the ability to be able to recur 2 Seals or something. However, usually when you Replenish you want to win, and in conventional Parfait builds, this was the case. Casting Replenish would net you something like 2 extra Taxes, Humilities and Story Circles, Seals etc. and without Sanctum to abuse this in aiding your pony factory to crank out the 7 nation army, I don't see the point in running 3 Replenish's. If you can find room for Crypt main (which I would take a good look at) then perhaps giving Find's another test run would suffice?

//The Sideboard [15]
1x Jester's Cap
2x Story Circle
3x Abolish
3x Tormod's Crypt
2x Humility
4x OPEN

Sideboard is good. However, I don't like that lone Jester's Cap. Do you think you'll actually be able to find that lone Cap in your deck, and then manage to resolve it (without the help of Finds no less) in time to actually make a difference against the decks you want it in against? You've already got the 4 Chants main, so I would just max out on the Blood Moons, Crypts, maybe Abolish and possibly even Abeyances. The disruption of choice nowadays is Sorcery speed, and Chants effectively act as Time Walks (as always) but a Chant during upkeep may be all you need, hence why I suggested the Abeyance.

sorry if I seem a little disjointed in this writing, its kind of late. but power to you   I hope you do well, keep Parfait alive.

To be honest, I've put Parfait away for a little bit and started tweaking around with my Sui again.