Parfait after Mirroden

[Chen]

After taking a look at the Mirroden spoiler several cards immediately stood out as being perfect for Parfait.

Goblin Charbelcher: For a deck that thins its land so much this is a much faster kill than Sacred Mesa. Also doesn require a ton of mana to use like Mesa, which is good for a deck that wants to keep its number of lands in play low so it can Tax.

Isochron Scepter: Works with all of Parfaits instants: Orim's Chant, Swords, Argivian Find and possibly even Enlightened tutor. Can work with Abeyance as well after sideboarding and could possibly warrant the inclusion of Disenchant in the deck.

Chrome Mox: Parfait tends to be rather redundant so the cost is not as crippling as some decks. Also gives more artifact mana for Parfait to use, which again works wellin keeping the deck's lands in play low.

Chalice of the Void: Not sure if this should be included maindeck or not, but its a definate sideboard answer to Long.dec and Academy, both of which were very poor matchups for Parfait.

Extra-Planar Lens: Not sure about this one either, but it seems decent with the amount of plains the deck has and again helps keeping the in-play land count down.

Here's the current decklist I've been working with:

Post-Mirroden Parfait

Engine (9):
4 Land Tax
3 Scroll Rack
2 Zuran Orb (or 1 Orb 1 Claws of Gix)

Removal (10):
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Aura of Silence
1 Balance
1 Tormod's Crypt

Protection (6):
2 Humility
4 Orim's Chant

Utility (9):
1 Extra-Planar Lens
2 Isochron Scepter
4 Argivian Find
2 Blood Moon
1 Enlightened Tutor

Kill (4):
2 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Goblin Trenches
1 Eternal Dragon (not sure about this slot)

Mana (22):
2 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring
2 City of Traitors
1 Strip Mine
2 Mountain
11 Plains

As mentioned, Im not too sure on the Eternal Dragon slot nor the Extra-Planar Lens slot. I suppose I could replace at least one of these with a single Chalice since it could come in handy. I hadnt really worked on a sideboard yet, but it would be something along the lines of:

4 Abolish
4 Abeyance
1 Mountain
4 REB (not sure if 3 mountains supports this well enough)
2 Chalice

[mrieff]

6 red mana sources is not a lot.
I dont think trenches is therefore optimal in this build.

Eternal dragon+Scroll Tax seems a bit too much imo. If you were to ran plateau's you could fetch them with the dragon however. And they'll make Charbelcher more effective.

[MarkPharaoh]

Run Sacred Mesa over the Trenches, it's a lot better in this kind of deck.

[Maxx Matt]

I think that Goblin Charblecher must be the only kill condition of the deck

Why dont use disenchant in the deck to abuse the scepter???

[TracerBullet]

I'm blanking on the name, but the white Arcane Laborotory should definately merit a slot in the board.

[rozetta]

Firstly I _must_ ask: why no black lotus? You can perform stupidly broken early-game plays with lotus/find.

I'd think that the trenches might be better off as either a moat (although I see already have 2 humility there) or decree of justice depending on the way you're going with this. I suppose the same might go for the dragon, since tax should hopefully already get you all your land fairly quickly, and under humility, he's going to be a 1/1.

Charbelcher has to be an excellent win condition in this deck and remember: the ruling goes that if you don't have a land in your deck, it'll do as much damage as you have cards in the deck and then you can stack things the way you want when you put the cards back on the "bottom" of your library. The ruling is mentioned here, at least:

http://www.themanadrain.com/cgi-bin....t=10715

on the 4th posting of that thread.

In this respect, 2 mountains is sufficient, since you're probably going to be able to kill in one turn regardless of whether the mountain is in your deck or not.

As far as the lens goes, it depends on whether you're going to want to run decrees. Since it's a mid to late game card, and most of your cards are pretty cheap (also, given the acceleration of the moxes), it'll only be needed for big effects.

Replenish might be a sideboard possibility, depending on the amount of control we see post-mirrodin.

Finally, it might not be a bad idea to test the Chalices in main. It seems they're going to be good against a lot of decks.

One more thing - you have something like 17 maindeck artifacts, so I thought a tolarian academy might be good to throw in just on the off-chance you draw it. On the other hand, parfait hasn't even run Serra's Sanctum for a while, so maybe the experts have a different opinion on this. Not to mention, if you are running any non-basics, you can't reliably fetch all the land out of the deck to make charbelcher a reliable one-hit win, so city of traitors and strip mine might also be problematic in this respect.

I like the idea of this deck post-mirrodin, and the build you posted looks quite strong already.

[badapple]

Have you tested Weathered Wayfarer yet?  I realize it has piss-poor synergy with humility, but against control and combo it can fetch a waste or strip every time they drop a land.  Some good.  Against aggro it can get maze of ith if you want to go that far.  Library is another good target.
Has anyone played this guy in any deck?

[Bastian]

I do. In white weenie I sometimes like to use Weathered Wayfarer to get me Maze of Ith since it's quite similiar to using Ramosian Sergeant and Whipcorder, except the Maze is free to activate, it only costs W to get it to hand and it's not as easily destroyed as the Whipcorder can be.

It has been a great combo in some matches like Hulk or Vengeur Masqué.

[Chen]

Ok lotsa responses, lets see now:

TracerBullet: I had completely forgotten about that arcane lab thing. Though Im wondering whether Chalice does the same thing as it does in the side (ie hose combo, slow/halt control)

Rozetta: Only reason for no Lotus is that I dont have one IRL. Otherwise, for sure it would be there. I like the idea of Decree of Justice, and I may just try running two of those over the Dragon and Trenches. Im going to try these with the Lens next time I do any playtesting.

In general, I am finding some problems with the non-basics in the deck, especially the strip mine, so thats coming out for another basic of some sort. Im torn on the Cities however. I really like the acceleration I can get from them but I've had them halt the Charbelcher kill more often than not, so Im probably going to test replacing them with 1 plains 1 mountain.

[Os-Vegeta]

Chen,

You know, this is an interesting topic.  I have a few comments:

1) I would add at least one more Chrome Mox - the acceleration you get is just that important.  4 is too much, but 3 sounds optimal.
2) If you're going to run Isochron Scepter, 2 seems too low of a count to me - you're not Keeper where you can just tutor or draw into a Scepter easily. 3 seems like a more optimal amount here.
3) Never ever run 1 Claws and 1 ZOrb.  You'll always draw one when you want the other.  Run 2 ZOrb or 2 Claws.  
4) I see how Trenches fit in, but I'd really rather have a third Charbelcher.
5) Extra-Planar Lens as a one-of just doesn't seem too good, and really the card itself seems a bit mediocre.  
6) If you're running Isochron Scepter, run at least 2 Disenchant in the main deck.
7) Test Chalice in the main deck.  You may end up really liking the results you get.

[rozetta]

I played around with some ideas last night and found some things out which I'd like to share. Here's the list I tried:

//Engine: 10
4 Land Tax
4 Scroll Rack
2 Zuran Orb

//Scepter Engine: 17
3 Isochron Scepter
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Disenchant
4 Orim's Chant
2 Argivian Find

//Other: 6
2 Humility
1 Balance
1 Enlightened Tutor
2 Extraplanar Lens

//Kill: 5
2 Decree of Justice
3 Goblin Charbelcher

\\Mana: 22
4 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond
1 Mox Pearl
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mountain
12 Plains

1) I cut the auras for 4 disenchants and upped the scepters to 3. It was very good. Now you have quick access to scepter with either stop, disenchant or orim's chant. I don't know if 3 scepter is too much, but it seemed fine so far. One could maybe be cut for some additional utility.

2) It seemed that 4 Chrome Mox was actually good. Simply replacing plains with chrome moxes, added to the fact that you have 24 white cards to imprint (and a lot of redundancy) allow you to play with very little land (in some cases, 0), making active land tax extremely likely.

3) I cut the Blood Moon. While it is a good card against a lot of decks, I'm just wondering if it might be better sideboard, since decks are a little too fast for it right now.

4) Somewhat similar as in arguement 3 for Tormod's Crypt. With only 1 maindeck, it might just be a better option to sideboard 3 of them.

5) Running the full 4 scroll rack means you see one quickly. Others can be taxed away or cast later for added search.

6) I upped the Charbelchers to 3. That way, you'll see one while you still have plenty of cards in the deck. I think this deck can try and win a lot quicker than traditional parfait. As an aside, it can at least be used to take out creatures or chip away at your opponent's life total while you're waiting to get rid of all your lands.

7) Added 2 x Decree of Justice for extra win conditions.

8) Removed 2 Argivian Find, since we're not running seals or auras, there's less to fetch back from the graveyard.

9) Upped Extraplanar Lens to 2. These are definitely good!

I know the mana count is very low, but as long as you can get a tax out early, you should draw into more quality cards, and it should be a little easier to tax out all your land for a quick kill off the charbelcher.

This is a purely theoretical build, since I only goldfished it to make sure the deck was functioning smoothly with the changes, but I wanted to post the ideas for some reference.

As for sideboard ideas:

3 Tormod's Crypt
2 - 3 Blood Moon
x Abeyance
x Replenish
x Rule of Law
Maybe second sunrise versus decks with deed/meltdown?

Edit: I made some small changes to the decklist\n\n

[Blofeld]

I think that Rule Of Law is good enough for maindeck slots right now, as it completely shuts down storm decks, and slows other decks enough to make this new twist on parfait viable.

I think 2-3 Charbelchers is enough for win conditions - the soldier plan seems clunky to me - and as Mesa isn't our kill anymore, I suggest ditching Extraplanar Lens - it just doesn't do enough - it might as well be 1 Mana Crypt + 1 Mana Vault - Parfait likes this sort of mana more.

As for the classic discussion of Claws vs. Zuran, I think that Claws need to get back in the deck - it allows us to easily get rid of Rule Of Law the turn we 'go off'.(yes! Parfait can in fact go off now! )

Saccing the Rule Of Law is preferably done after a Chant is resolved, allowing the Parfait player to safely play a land, 1-2 mana artifacts and a Charbelcer + activate it = win.
Also - it let's us play Mana Crypt without having to sweat too much.

A first or second turn Aura of Silence or Rule Of Law can be HUGE vs. most of the current field - this is fairly likely with 3-4 extra Moxen in the deck. I've upped the Aura count in order to make this more likely.

Here is what I'm currently testing:

4 Land Tax
4 Scroll Rack
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Orim's Chant
4 Argivian Find

4 Aura Of Silence
2 Claws Of Gix
2 Humility
1 Story Circle
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Balance
1 Replenish

3 Rule Of Law
2 Blood Moon
2 Goblin Charbelcher

10 Plains
2 Mountain
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Diamond
4 Chrome Mox

SB:
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Ivory tower
3 Abolish
2 Replenish
2 Story Circle
1 Rule Of Law

[Chen]

I do agree with both Rozetta and Os-Vegeta in going up to 3 scepters. I've upped my count to three and I've havent hit a situation where i've drawn a scepter without a useful instant to imprint on it.

Even with the increased scepter count I think Aura's are definately necessary, mainly for the way they slow down the fast artifact decks around. I'd consider going to 3 Aura/2 Disenchant. The blood moons are defiantely good in my metagame, so I feel they are quite necessary maindeck.

Blofeld: I like the decklist you have, except for the fact that you arnt running any Scepters. With so many good instants to imprint on it, its almost perfect for Parfait. Also, I've been finding that story circle is just too slow vs most decks and does pretty much nothing vs. Artifact decks. I am tending to like the claws of Gix over the zuran orbs especially when Im sideboarding in Chalices or Rule of Law. Getting rid of these is sometimes quite necessary and the Claws are great for this.

Rule of Law is definately strong vs a lot of decks but I dont know what I'd cut for it maindeck. The only places I'd have for it would be the Decrees and Lens, but these have been working very well in my testing (see next paragraph). The card is good though and will be in the sideboard for sure if I cannot find room for it maindeck.

As for the win condition, I am currently testing 2 Decrees and 2 Charbelchers and its working quite well. The Single lens is working pretty well too, and I'd like to be able to fit another in but I cant find the room for it. Granted the main kill of Charbelcher is fast, but the decree can get a bunch of blockers out which is nice, especially with humility on the table. And if you really need to, you can cycle it early if you're just digging for answers.

[Crater Hellion]

tithe kicks ass with scepter.

[Razor]

Random concepts K-Run and I considered as soon as the spoiler was published.

Isochron Scepters are generally at odds with Replenishes.  I suggest building separate versions focussed on breaking the Instants with Scepters or the Enchantments with Replenishes.

Scepters with imprinted Tithe are good, so maybe run a couple Plateau to fetch with Tithe.  When Land Tax doesn't resolve you'll surely want Blood Moon to resolve.

Extraplanar Lenses don't help Charbelchers at all so use them only in versions winning with either Sacred Mesas or Decrees.  Great synergy with Snow-Covered Plains and Land Tax/Rack.

Chrome Moxen rawk - Maindeck Academy?

Blood Moon is a worthy maindeck bomb.  Mountains' synergy with Charbelcher is added reason to run it.

Rule of Law SB vs.Combo?

Are Buyback spells still meta-common enough to warrant use of Claws of Gix over Zuran Orb?

Only testing will tell.

[shlnmnk]

threw together this deck during the week so I would have something a little different to play against the type 1 crew over here. the list isnt tuned, and i didnt play a lot of games. 2 games against keeper, 3 against sligh. but the deck was fun to play and seems to have quite a bit of potential.

4 land tax
4 scroll rack
4 tithe
3 isochron scepter
4 swords to plowshares
4 orims chant
2 argivian find
2 disenchant
2 aura of silence
2 blood moon
2 humility
1 enlightened tutor
3 goblin charbelcher
2 zuran orb
1 balance

1 sol ring
3 chrome mox
1 mox diamond
1 lotus petal
1 black lotus
1 mox pearl
1 mox ruby

2 mountains
9 plains

thats the list I ran. might be off by one card tops.

both of the games I won against keeper. fully powered keeper, also ran 2 basic islands, maindeck dis-blow. his comment was I had too many spells he needed to counter. both games were won by forcing the moon onto the table and killing with belcher before he could get an answer.

against sligh I went down 2-1. one of the games I lost due to an error in the last few turns of the game. If played correctly I could have got the zorb I needed to have enough life to belch one more time for the win.

I did play about 10 games with an earlier version of this list that didnt run red for blood moon. I played against mono black aggro. (duress, hymn, sinkholes, hypnotics), an unpowered dragon combo deck, and sligh. won all the games against mono black and dragon. lost one out of 3 to sligh.

Nobody on the boards really knows me, so whether anyone wants to hear any of this info or not, I will leave it up to you.    If anyone out there is working on a list I would love to see it.

[Chen]

Well I've completely reversed my stance on Rule of Law not being maindeck worthy. Its a serious problem vs. most workshop decks and does help vs. control. Claws of Gix are needed when playing with them though, since you need to be able to get rid of them sometimes. Also, despite their usefulness in some cases, the Decrees really arnt cutting it, overall. They need the lenses to really work and similarly, the lenses are only really good with the Decrees. So I've been trying out the following list which seems to be doing a bit better:

--- Parfait (61 Cards) ---

Engine (9):
4 Land Tax
3 Scroll Rack
2 Claws of Gix

Removal (10):
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Aura of Silence
2 Disenchant
1 Balance

Protection (6):
2 Humility
4 Orim's Chant

Utility (12):
3 Isochron Scepter
3 Argivian Find
2 Tithe
2 Rule of Law
2 Blood Moon
1 Enlightened Tutor

Kill (3):
3 Goblin Charbelcher

Mana (21):
2 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring
3 Mountain
12 Plains

[Blofeld]

That's a very nice list Chen - Almost the same as mine, but with the Scepters added. (and modified accordingly --> Disenchant > Aura)

I'm not sure which build is better, but my theory on imprint cards in general is that cards like 'Moronic' Scepter, Extraplanar Lens, Chrome Mox, Soul Foundry etc. are generally begging to be destroyed 2 for 1. The card itself AND the imprinted card can be dealt with in a single blow - Almost like creature enchantments - you lose one and the other goes away as well.
Any of the following cards achieve this: Null Rod, Naturalize, Powder Keg, Seal Of Cleansing, Aura Of Silence, Rack And Ruin, Disenchant, etc. (and one or more of these are played in almost any deck!)
I dislike this carddisadvantage, even if a Scepter makes up for the lost card advantage in a few turns. But it's still hard to decide if the imprint cards mentioned are good enough. I believe that the tempo gained from the Chrome Mox is worth it, but the others I'm not so sure about...

I hope to hear more testing results.
(just random thoughts here...*shrugs*)\n\n