Parfait builds.

[kl0wn]

Quote (j_orlove @ Oct. 29 2002,07:54)Oh, and I have a WB mesa if you want to make the deck more ghetto  

Ha ha ha.

Actually, BB Mesas are more ghetto than WB ones, since the WBs are more difficult to come by, being from Anthologies and all.

I guess it probably would do a serious mind job on your opponent if every card in your deck were white-bordered though.

I also use white sleeves to give my opponent a pounding headache before I play my first Revised plains.

[Remikaly]

I have been playing parfait for quite some time, and after a bit of a hiatus I have decided to come back into the fold.  I have been reading this thread for a while now too, and I fully agree that Parfait is a different deck in each and every metagame.  The main problem that I have in adapting parfait to suit my needs is that I have NO power, and I don't see any power either (maybe a mox emerald from one guy).  I DO see expensive cards like mana drain, duals, etc, but I face a largely aggro field.  With that in mind, I have rebuilt my Parfait, with some new modifications inspired by this thread.  My old Parfait relied a bit more on the one-sided armageddon play to get hordes of land into play (balance/geddon, crypt, birth).

4 Land Tax
3 Scroll Rack (thanks kl0wn)
2 Zuran Orb

3 Orim's Chant (soon to be 4)
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Wrath of God
1 Moat
1 Humility (will have one soon)

1 Ivory Tower
1 Ivory Mask
2 Aura of Silence
1 Seal of Cleansing
2 Sacred Mesa
2 Story Circle
2 Replenish
3 Argivian Find
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Worship
1 Balance
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Soldevi Digger
1 Planar Birth
1 Energy Field

1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal (new)
1 Wasteland (new)
1 Strip Mine
1 Serra's Sanctum
1 Island
14 Plains

You're probably saying "Worship?!?!?" but it allows for more aggressive play with mesas, because sometimes the time limit is an issue, and also because it's another card that just shuts some decks down.  It has saved me a game, and it would have won me another if it hadn't been blasted.  It'll probably come out for Karmic Justice when I get it, because lots of enchantment hate is started to get boarded.  The island/energy field thing has saved me a few times vs. aggro for those times when you can't quite find a wrath, and can be an auto-win as well.  I see it as being similar to the Blood Moon/Mountain tech, but that isn't really necessary because of a general lack (but not complete lack) of non-basics in my area.  Blood Moon/Mountain is very likely going to end up in my sideboard.  The E.Field/Island may leave if I don't need it this weekend, with those main slots taken up by... um... something.  Mox Diamond if I can get it, and a Black Lotus/Mox Pearl/Library if I win the lottery.  The sideboard is a constantly changing thing.  It may just look a little like this...

1 Karma
1 Light of Day
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Karmic Justice (plenty of tranquility and such)
1 Replenish
1 Abeyance
1 Blood Moon
1 Mountain
1 Aura of Silence
2 Abolish
1 Black Vice? (could be a nasty surprise against control)
1 Ivory Tower
1 Wrath of God (Swords tend to get overrun by hordes)
1 Planar Birth (Flashfires is VERY likely)

I'm sure it all seems kinda weird, but my environment is also weird.  The SB is just about completely reworked, so I'll have to see how that goes.  I'd like to hear all input, keeping in mind my powerless meta and such.  I'm also looking to change the name from Parfait, as the current Worship/E.Field thing makes it odd.  Parfait also sounds kinda fruity .

[kl0wn]

I have to make a comment here about Karmic Justice vs. enchantment destruction and hosers.

I think in that type of situation, a Replenish is much better than Karmic Justice. Granted you don't get to blow up a ton of your opponent's permanents when he uses mass enchantment removal, but you do get all of your enchantments back and effectively nullify whatever your opponent used to get rid of them.

As an additional bonus, you can also use it to return countered enchantments to play, whereas Karmic Justice does nothing in this area.

Just about the only situation in which Karmic Justice is better than another Replenish is against Aura Fracture, but the fact that your opponent (who is most likely playing Keeper) has to screw his fragile mana base to activate it early makes up for it.

[K-Run]

I think the best is Karmic Justice + Replenish.

The card is mostly used vs mono-u's disks. A resolved Justice is so annoying for the disk player... You end up destroying most of his lands. This is usually game.

Of course, Replenish is a game winner too, but someone who has a disk in play doesn't have to use as many counters as he did, and it might be harder to resolve the White Will.

[Raven]

I have questioned useing Library of Leng for awhile now. It's a turn 1 drop vs suicide or even keeper and can save you alot of heart ache. Especially from those Duress/Hymn happy players, or keeper decks that like to pull fast mindtwists, or early balance.

It can also save you from your own balance, and the great thing is that you can toss out the cards you dont want to your grave (Like enchantments, setting up for a replenish), and only keep the ones you want by putting em ontop of your deck. Or put all of em ontop, and you got the option of either shuffeling your deck on your upkeep from land tax, or drawing into the cards you put ontop.

The obvious advantages are being able to land tax freely everyturn till you amass a 15+ Card hand, makeing for some really big scroll racks, or some really crazy life gain from ivory towers. It's almost like an early Ivory Mask in a sence, saveing your key cards from hand disruption. And for those who run Ivory towers, well its just fruity. And being able to tax up all your plains and not haveing to worry about discarding all your lands.


It stops duress/hymn/mind twist/balance/hypnotic specter, and probably more I'm not thinking about. And it's 1 colorless mana, what more could you ask for?

Now obviously this probably wont be worth your while unless your one who likes to run ivory towers. This card just makes you invincible combo'ed with the towers, not even a morphling assualt can take you down. But the real question is does it alter the game? We kinda ruled out cards like Ivory tower cause it's a card that doesn't really help you to win, it just makes you win more in an already winning situation. But by running this with towers, think of the life security we gain vs controll. It becomes another must counter card. And it can alter the game if you drop it early vs a suicide player, or a keeper player with a broken hand.

My fear is that the mana curve will become too powder keg prone. With Ivory Towers/Library of Leng, you become weak to powder keg for 1, although a keg takeing out these cards would inturn save your 2 casting cost scroll rack, it would put your opponent in a difficult situation of what to do. So the obvious disadvantage of running Leng/Towers is that alot of people run Kegs, and these die to keg. But they would inturn tave your Scroll Racks, so it's another blessing in disquise. And lately I have been feeling that my Arkivakian Finds don't get enough use, since 3 Main Deck replenish is enough to feed my recursion hunger, the addition of Leng/Towers would make Arkivakian Finds even more usefull than they already are.

But the biggest question is what would you drop to make room? And it would probably make the deck alittle less inconsistant by dropping a few cards to make room. And also you weaken replenish as a card because your diluting the deck with more artifacts and less enchantments. I guess we should try and find an equillibrium here. But testing proves all, and I think I'm gonna try it.

Your thoughts?

[K-Run]

I tried Library of Leng and found out it was horrible. Just another card that you really want to draw in only a few specific occasions. Should be a "I Win More" card, but IMO it's rather "I Win Less".

[Magimaster]

Okay, all this crazy talk of Parfait has got me interested in it

I devised a build here which is mighty similar to K-Run's latest build, save a couple of cards :

Parfait

1x Balance
2x WoG
4x StP
2x Story Circle
1x Humility (thinking of going 2:1 in favor of Humility's over Story Circle)
1x Ivory Tower
2x Zuran Orb
2x Sacred Mesa

3x Scroll Rack
4x Land Tax
1x Enlightened Tutor
4x Argivian Find
2x Aura of Silence
1x Seal of Cleansing
1x Karmic Justice
1x Ivory Mask
2x Orim's Chant
2x Replenish
1x Soldevi Digger
1x Tormod's Crypt

3x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
1x Sol Ring
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mox Diamond
1x Black Lotus
14x Plains

no SB yet, I'll figure that out later.

Some tech I was thinking of :

- Having 2 Humility's. These things are BOMBS against anything with creatures. Since Story Circle doesn't stop the Juggernaut and friends, perhaps another Humility might be in order?

- 2 Replenish's. Having just 1 copy just makes it too unreliable, while having more than that means you have too much (Argivian Finds bring back alot of important stuff by themselves). Thinking about it.

- I will try Karmic Justice for a bit. Seems funky.

Also, as I have decided to build this IRL, I have decided also to make it entirely WB where applicable, in true kl0wn fashion

I did some cool analysis thingy with 6 of the decks last night (Razor's, Project 5's, K-Run's, Kl0wns, Rogue's, and mine) but I'm at school right now so I don't have it. I'll post it up later, it's pretty interesting.

PeAcE

[Rogue]

The most interesting thing about all the the builds is the current leaning twoard 3 racks. I adopted this a long time ago, and I have-NEVER-looked back. I can shuffle back the extra racks, and seeing one is very important.
Magimaster-You will notice the 2 humilities in my build. They are just really nasty, and as I see it, you are probably going to lose to combo game 1 anyways. Also, where is the library? I hope that was a mistake...
Karmic justice-Unless hate is rampant, I just can't see it. Game 2 it is retarted, but game 1 it just sits there. I agree with K-run though, when combined with replenish it is really mean.
More than 1 replenish main-Klown sees plenty of good control. As for the rest of us, If you don't, I can't see more than 1. It is nice to have in game 1 against control, and various instances where it will "just win", but seeing them when you want your humility is just weak.
The differences in peoples builds-A lot of this occurs with your metagame. However, I think a lot of this also occurs when people do well with a card(read: me with planar birth/ivory tower) and don't see a need to branch out and see if the card is really better than the other options. While K-Run and Klown are almost certainly better with parfait than I am(read:experience), I would not run either of their builds, because they are not right for my metagame. I simply take their ideas and formulate them into a deck which is best suited for my own.

[Magimaster]

Rogue : The LoA was not a mistake. I decided to proxy a Lotus (I don't own one) and I don't feel like proxying a LoA for fear of "over-proxying". It's just kinda cheesy.

I'll eventually break down and buy one. One day... and it has a special spot on that decklist

As for formulating a decklist...here's what I did

I took 5 builds I found on this thread (Razors, Project 5, K-run, kl0wn's) and compared what they had MD with each other.

It looks better in MS word, but I guess it's okay here too.

First column is Razors, then Project 5, K-Run, kl0wn and Rogue, and then me

                        
Balance        1   1   1   1   1   1
Wrath of God      2   2   2   2   2   2
StP         4   3   4   3   4   4
Moat         1   1   0   0   0   0
Humility      1   1   1   1   2   1
Story Circle      2   2   2   1   2   2
Pariah         0   1   0   0   0   0
Ivory Tower      1   2   2   0   2   1
Zuran Orb      2   2   2   2   2   2   
Sacred Mesa      2   2   2   2   2   2

Scroll Rack      2   3   2   3   3   3
Land Tax      4   4   4   4   4   4
Enlightened Tutor   1   1   1   1   1   1
Argivian Find      4   4   4   4   4   4
Aura of Silence   3   3   2   3   2   2
Seal of Cleansing   0   0   1   0   1   1
Karmic Justice      1   0   1   0   0   1
Ivory Mask      1   0   1   1   0   1
Planar Birth      0   0   0   0   1   0
Orim’s Chant      2   3   2   4   2   2
Replenish      1   2   1   3   1   2
Soldevi Digger   1   1   1   0   1   1
Tormod’s Crypt   0   0   1   1   0   1
Phyrexian Furnace   0   2   0   0   0   0
Blood Moon      0   0   0   1   0   0

Wasteland      4   3   3   2   3   3
Strip Mine      1   1   1   1   1   1
LoA         1   0   1   1   1   0            
Sol Ring      1   1   1   1   1   1
Lotus Petal      1   0   1   0   1   1
Mox Pearl      1   0   1   1   1   0
Mox Ruby      0   0   0   1   0   0
Mox Diamond      1   1   1   1   1   1
Black Lotus      0   0   1   1   1   1
Serra’s Sanctum   1   0   0   0   0   0
Plains         13   14   13   13   13   14
Mountain      0   0   0   1   0   0

yup. Looks like crap. But it showed how people's decklists were actually very different. Kl0wns was the most deviant(for obvious reasons) but noone else's even came close to matching each other. They all had their secret tech. I based my build on K-Run's build.

[Rogue]

I don't think most people's versions were actually that different. The number of chants and replenish were the most deviant. Generally though, the builds were at least fairly similar. Some things which stuck out to me:
3 racks in 4 of 6 decks-The wave of the future, imho. As far as I can see, it just makes sense.
5 out of 6 with ivory mask-The card is good maindeck, and I will be putting mine back where it belongs.
Lack of moat-Gone from the archetpye for good? I run 2 humility over the moat and humility, and it may be shaping up that way for most others as well. I will almost certainly never take moat out of my board, but it's value is certainly less than what it once was.
This list was compiled from combining the results of magimaster's survey, and is basically an "average" parfait deck.
        13 Plains
        3 Wasteland
        1 Strip Mine
        1 Library of Alexandria
        1 Lotus Petal
        1 Mox Diamond
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Black Lotus
        2 Sacred Mesa
        1 Soldevi Digger
        1 Tormod's Crypt
        4 Land Tax
        3 Scroll Rack
        2 Zuran Orb
        2 Story Circle
        1 Humility
        1 Ivory Mask
        1 Ivory Tower
        2 Aura of Silence
        1 Seal of Cleansing
        4 Swords to Plowshares
        4 Argivian Find
        2 Orim's Chant
        2 Replenish
        2 Wrath of God
        1 Balance
        1 Enlightened Tutor
Some things were obviously ommitted/changed around a bit, but this is about what the average deck would look like(I can't exactly include .5 seal of cleansing or .16 mountains). It actually looks like it would be good for a random metagame.

[Raven]

I don't understand all the lists dropping Orim's Chants. It is never a dead card in the controll matchup, and it pulls its own weight in the aggro matchup by timewalking for you, so that you can survive to turn 3-4 and drop that bomb humility/wrath of god/story circle/ect... And it is even somewhat good in the combo match, by screwing with there timeing tricks.

I think Orim's chant is like StP, I will always run 4 main deck.

I can understand alot of people useing 2 aura of silence and 1 seal of cleansing. As for Humility, I run 2 maindeck now. The card is just, pardon my french, bullshit. Replenish is good and bad, it's a great mid game play, but horrible to draw early on. And it is basically dead weight in the aggro match. But a bomb in controll, I think 2 Is enough for me.

[kl0wn]

Orim's Chant is the most versatile card in your deck in every single matchup.

Against aggro, it is a Time Walk.

Against control, it is an Abeyance for W.

Against combo, it is a Time Walk and an Abeyance for W.

Combo is the matchup where Chant is just about the most important card in your deck. It buys you precious turns that you need to set up your defenses. Combo is also any Parfait deck's worst nightmare.

Let's do the math now:
Chant is best against combo. Combo is Parfait's worst matchup.
Chant is always useful against any deck in existence.

With these things in mind, I have no clue why everyone doesn't run 4 in their main deck.


Regarding Replenish's uselessness against aggro, keep in mind that you can use Replenish to recur Auras and Seals to wreak havok on your opponent's artifacts and enchantments. Also, you can use Replenish to recur Sacred Mesa if your aggro opponent somehow manages to kill it or if you're not paying attention and forget to pay the upkeep (this is not a good reason, but it makes the deck a little more forgiving of mistakes). Replenish is never dead against aggro.

Replenish is not even dead against Stompy since they have Lyrists to kill your enchantments (but what Parfait player worries about Stompy?).

Against any Mono-B, they have a buttload of disruption that will knock your enchantments into your graveyard, so Replenish comes in handy there. Example: Your opponent Duresses you and sees that you have a Replenish and a Humility in your hand; which does he take? It doesn't matter as they both have the same end result.

Against Sligh, you can recur an Aura to take out Cursed Scrolls until you can get an Ivory Mask in play. After SB, you use them to recover from Anarchy.


The way I look at Hype is that my Finds are there to recur my Scroll Racks and Land Taxes early on, but the Replenishes are there to bring back my big bomb enchantments later in the game until my opponent has no resources left to defend himself and I win. The high number of Replenishes allows me to be more liberal with my use of Argivian Find. Also, because of the extra recursion, I was able to cut Soldevi Digger (instead of needing to dig Finds back into my library late game, I can just cast Replenish and win) as it was only useful against Mono-U anyway.

[ZoneSeek]

I'm a former Parfait player that now plays Enchantress, and I must say that Argivian Find really shines in Parfait. Why? Here's why:

1. The biggest advantage is that it's like playing 4 Regrowths, for cheaper, at instant speed. This fact alone is bound to give control a huge nightmare, and help out any matchup with disruption (nearly all).

2. Find naturally makes your sac-enchantments (read: Aura) more gravy, essentially becoming 1WWW disenchants; expensive, but useful.

3. With Lotus around, each find can become a white Dark Ritual. Find the Lotus (costs W), play, sac for WWW.

If you get Duressed and your aggro opponent sees Replenish and Humility, it's lose-lose. The same situation happens with Argivian Find. If they see Find and Tax, or Find and Rack earlier, you still have the upper hand.

I'm a bit out of my league, because it's been so long since I've played parfait, but Replenish shines in the deck the same way it does in Enchantress; it makes all of control's efforts to quiet you null and void once it resolves. I honestly don't blame kl0wn for playing more than 1. They counter your threats, one after one, until finally you threaten with an EOT Find, Chant them during your turn, and Replenish for the win. The same thing happens in Enchantress, only with Duresses.

[Shade]

I don't quite understand the inclusion of a single Seal of Cleansing in the deck when you could run a superior 3rd Aura of Silence instead.  Sure, the Seal costs one less to play, but with only 1 copy do you really see it often enough in that one earlier turn that it is better to run than a 3rd Aura?  This question is directed to those with the 2 Aura/1 Seal configuration.

[Raven]

Well I see that one seal often enough to make it usefull. It's easier to use a find and recast a seal of cleansing than find a aura back into play. And the added ability on Aura really hasn't proven it's worth to me lately, and I have been questioning running 3 seal of cleansings instead.

1 more white mana for a nearly useless ability. I don't really understand it. But then again I havn't played against a mox heavy deck in awhile and I'm sure Aura is good vs those matches. When all there moxes become 2 casting cost rather than 0. I'm gonna test 3 seals and see if I don't miss the auras.

And I never said I questioned why kl0wn ran more than 1 replenish. I even run more than 1, I just think 3 might be a bit much for my meta. 2 is the primo number for me.

[leviat]

I think that Aura of Silence vs Seal of Cleansing is really a meta-game choice but:

Seal of Cleansing:

Pro: Cheaper to cast
Con: None

Aura of Silence:

Pro: Wrecks enchantress, slows down TnT, annoying as snot for any Moxen heavy deck.
Con: Costs one more W to cast.

In my opinion, I would run one or the other but not both. But I can see the point about Seal being easier to "Find" into play.

[kl0wn]

Aura over Seal is vital against Combo as it slows them down and buys you a couple of precious turns.

Seal does come out a whole turn earlier, but if you just need to blow up artifacts/enchantments, you have Abolishes to do the job (post SB).

I understand that I may worry too much about combo, but I hate feeling like I have no chance in hell of winning a tournament just because someone is playing Academy and keeps getting paired against all the bad aggro decks.

The possibility of the mirror match comes into play as well (God forbid this ever happens). Aura of Silence becomes one of the most important cards in your deck as it causes nearly every card in your opponent's deck 2 more mana to play. This is very advantageous, as in order to have a chance against you, they need to play into your Land Taxes and let you outdraw them.

Unfortunately, I have only played the mirror match once and can't comment on it from experience any more than saying "the first person to cast Aura of Silence wins".

Has anybody else tested the mirror?

[K-Run]

In the light of the recent discussions, it's clear that everyone's Parfait is the reflect of the metagame. I usually play in a heavy aggro environment, but this weekend, I'm going to a tournament in MTL and I know there's more control there. That's why I'm going to remove an Ivory Tower and replace it with a third Scroll Rack.

1 Seal/2 Aura works fine for me. I like the extra option when I'm tight on mana.

I played the mirror once and yes, it's usually who played Aura first who wins.

[kl0wn]

Quote (K-Run @ Oct. 31 2002,14:23)...I'm going to remove an Ivory Tower and replace it with a third Scroll Rack.

MU HU HA HA HA!!!

j00 j0in5 t3h d4rk sid3z0r!!

 

[Magimaster]

Yay!


I just did some testing. I tested a couple of games against random aggro decks, and I tested heavily on 2 matchups :

Nether Void and MonoBlue (Non-Phid)

First, the NetherVoid match :

SOOOOOOOOOO EASY! I barely broke a sweat. I made dozens of play errors, he thrashed my hand, made the super Will, and all it took was a humility, wrath, story circle...X..XXx.XX.xxX...you get the picture to just steal the game. I was holding back the entire deck with my pinky finger. I'll admit, he was only using 2 Nether Voids, and in a couple of the matches he did get suboptimal starts, but to be fair I mulled quite a bit as well (always went second thanks guys). His build other than that seemed fairly generic. After this match, I concluded that Parfait has it easy against aggro decks.

Soo...based on a good 1.5 - 2 hours of testing, I decided that Parfait is tooo strong against aggro.

Enter : Mono Blue

I used a revised build for this. I teched it more out towards control (ala. hype style). I was expecting him to use a Multi-colored control variant (ie. Keeper and the like) but alas, I prepared myself.

I'll just describe one of our games :

I go second. Nothing out of the ordinary first couple of turns. He merchants for Ancestral. Using Argivian Find + Lotus, I bait a Mesa into play (MVP). He gets a Morph out 2 turns after, and it's stall stall stall for a loooong time. We just build up our mana. I don't get a Tax out till a long time. He kegs a couple of times and manages to swing for a few. I get LoA, and since we're just sitting there getting fat, I slowly build up my hand so I can start hitting the draw for 1 pipe. Morph kills 2 Ponies a turn while I chip in the occasional 1 damage. He also does the ocasional keg and stalls pony production, effectively bringing us back to square 1. I manage to bait him into tapping out, and Plow his Morph. He casts another one *sigh* and the cycle continues. He gets a B2B in play for few turns stalling the Library, but we fight over it for a bit and eventually I manage to kill it. He twistered somewhere along the way, but I resolved a crypt and blew it in response so he didn't get any of his Timewalk Ancestral brokenness back.

Then came the deciding moment. He draws his Capsize. Capsize with buyback on my Mesa. Resolves. I don't have any seals or Aura's in play.

Next turn (by this time I have Tax/Rack in play and an Active library) I draw from lib, tax, rack away all the uneccesssary jank, and prepare my plan of attack. I have 10+ lands untapped, 10+ cards in hand. He has about 8 lands untapped, 5 or 6 cards in hand. Battle time.

I start out by casting a Mesa. Countered. Fair enough. I cast a Digger. Resolves. I can't remember what I did next, but all I know was soon, I had 6 mana left, and he had 3 - 4 mana or so. I had a Replenish, Orim's Chant, Balance, Mesa, and Argivian Find in hand, and he had 4-5 cards in hand. I knew one of them was a Capsize. Gamble time. I knew that if I went into next turn with that capsize, he would buyback a whole bunch of my land (he had a monolith in play) and it would soon be over from there. Then, he made a play error.

I cast Find. I was aiming for the Lotus, for more mana or possible bait to force a Mesa through. He MISDIRECTS it onto my seal. I bring the seal back to my hand. Cast it. Resolves. Cast mesa, he CAPSIZES it, and I blow it up in response. Capsize fizzles. If he had just let me get the Lotus, there would have been no way for me to stop him from continuosly bouncing my mesa's. He corrected my play error for me.

From there, it was game. I still had replenish in hand  and next few turns, I replenished all my crap back into play, made the Armada of Pony and went for the Alpha Strike. It was a good game, but I think his worst error was misdirecting the Find onto the seal.

Still, I was overjoyed at the XP I gained from this match.

Total match time : 1+ hours


I was using a heavily modified build of Hype (a level above). I reduced the number of anti-aggro cards, and upped the anti-control measures.

Level2.deck

1x Strip Mine
1x Black Lotus
1x Sol Ring
1x Library of Alexandria
1x Mountain
14x Plains
3x Wasteland
1x Mox Diamond

3x Replenish
4x Argivian Find

1x Soldevi Digger
1x Blood Moon
1x Ivory Mask
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Story Circle
1x Seal of Cleansing
2x Aura of Silence
3x Orim's Chant
1x Tormod's Crypt
3x Sacred Mesa
1x Humility
1x Balance
1x Wrath of God
3x Swords to Plowshares
2x Zuran Orb

3x Scroll Rack
4x Land Tax


no SB


- I upped the Mesa count to 3. This allowed me to be more aggresive in casting it.

- Cut down a wrath  and a plow  to make room for the Blood Moon and the extra Mesa.

- 1x Wasteland and 1x Plains *should* be a Mox Ruby and Pearl. Trying to find room for a petal.

Rico Suave suggested to me the use of Thran Lens in the SB to fight against stuff like Anarchy, Dystopia, Washout. Seems like a nice trick  might actually implement it.

well, that was my night of Magic. comments?

PeAcE

[Saucemaster]

Interesting results.  I've been playing against a Void player quite a bit recently, and while I definitely think it's a favorable matchup for Parfait, it wasn't nearly so easy for me as it seems to have been for you.  I attribute this to a couple things: 1) I'm still learning Parfait, though I'm starting to get a much better grip on the deck recently--witness my "Playing Parfait" thread in the Vintage forum.  2) The Void player is just plain better than I am.  I recently got back into the game and I still need some practice playing in top form.  It didn't help that of the last 5 games we played, while I won the first two fairly easily, the last three included 2 first-turn Necro and a 2nd-turn Necro for him.  Nothing much I could do about that, though I certainly tried (and almost pulled out the 2nd-turn Necro match).  He even got past my Story Circle when he Ported and Sinkholed enough of my mana to keep me unable to stop the two Negators and Spectre he had in play--even with my active Land Tax.  As I realized in the Vintage thread, however, I don't mulligan aggressively enough.  

The Mono-blue match, actually, I've found (in limited testing) actually pretty simple, but long.  Very, very long.   I worry about facing this matchup in an actual tournament, as even with quick play I don't see it going even a full two games, barring an unanswered turbo-morphling.

[Raven]

The thing about the mono blue match is that Parfait will win almost 75+% of the time, given the fact that you have unlimited time to play vs the monoblue. But in tournaments we have time limits so it makes it harder.

My T1 scene has life rules. Where if the games run too long, it goes to who has the most life. And this is probably the only reason I keep ivory towers in my Sideboard. Cause I just fart around game 2 and gain as much life as possible. It's rather cheap I know, but hey, if the mono-blue players are gonna be asses and take extra long turns on purpose to try and expire time, I'm gonna be a cheap mofo and turn the deck into turbo life gain.

Has anyone else ever had problems with opponents being dicks and takeing VVVEERRRYYY slow turns on purpose? In one case my opponent actually refused to end his turn, he said he was gonna sit there till time expired. So I had a judge come over and boot him from the tourney. Then he tried to tell the judge that I was lieing and he never said that, and that he had just passed the turn over to me. But then everyone around me who had heard this whole thing told the judge that I was right.

[kl0wn]

I have experienced many draws due to my opponents playing extra slowly, even with Sligh. Something is seriously wrong when Sligh takes longer turns than Parfait/Hype ("hmm...which Mountain do I play? Do I Bolt or Incinerate? Do I attack when I have the only creatures on the board, or do I save my pup to block his hasted creatures?").

Last Saturday I even went 1-1-2 because of people playing slowly.

I didn't even finish the first game of my first match (against an Enchantress deck) because each of my opponent's turns took about 5 minutes. Of course, he was totally inexperienced with the deck (as in he had never even so much as played a game with it before). I had him in the perfect position to be decked as well, since he had no more land in his deck and all I had to do was Balance away the land he had in play.

My second draw was right after it against a goblin sligh deck. He was about to die on the next turn when the final extra turn was over. I even had Humility/Ivory Mask/Zuran Orb/Story Circle/Sacred Mesa out and their was no possible way for him to win, but he wouldn't concede for some reason...
This was also allegedly due to inexperience.

For those of you who were wondering, my one loss was to a hate-packing URphidian deck. Yes, if you terrorize your environment (meaning losing to nothing but Academy for over a month) for long enough, everyone will start devoting more than half of their sideboards to just taking you out ("screw winning, screw everyone else, I'm not going to lose to that damn white deck again").

[j_orlove]

Quote
For those of you who were wondering, my one loss was to a hate-packing URphidian deck. Yes, if you terrorize your environment (meaning losing to nothing but Academy for over a month) for long enough, everyone will start devoting more than half of their sideboards to just taking you out ("screw winning, screw everyone else, I'm not going to lose to that damn white deck again").

I wasn't wondering. He posted in the UrPhid thread in this mill about beating you. Heh. Go check out his tech there.

If your opponents stall, that should be penalized.

[Razor]

thombligh (URphidian) is one of the first players of late to recognize that blue-based decks have to be versatile enough to handle enchantment threats, too.  Popular enchantments like Abyss may not matter, but Sacred Mesa, Humility, Karmic Justice, and Story Circle sure might.  And why not, blue-based Control decks have traditionally been multi-coloured in order to be versatile.

Disks have generally been dropped by blue-based Control decks for the past 1-2 years; using Kegs instead.  For the past year or more decks like Parfait, Hype and Enchantress have been abusing this lack of enchantment control to destroy blue.  Even RG Zoo has begun to use Enchantments like Stormbind and Words of War to kill opponents.  Kegs are not enough any more.  Abyss and Sylvan Library are not the only maindeck enchantments out there.

I think this stems from a slow T1 metagame shift over the years from permanents (ie.creatures, artifacts and especially enchantments) to spells (ie.instants and sorceries).  Fewer enchantments were played in T1 decks circa 2001 than ever before, in my humble opinion.  However, several rogue deckbuilders have blazed ahead lately with innovative decks promoting permanents over instants.

So, I am not surprised that Control players (such as thombligh) are coming to the realization that their fully-tuned  blue-based Control netdecks were weak against permanent-based decks because this has been the case -for several years-.

As blue-based Control players begin to shore-up their decklists against permanent-based decks (like Parfait for example) which decks will they become more vulnerable to?

My hunch is Aggro.  Even as blue-based Control decks drop Cunning Wish and Teferi's Response in lieu of Capsize #2 and Kegs in lieu of Disks fast Aggro decks (like Stompy, SuiBlack and Sligh will begin to shine.  The changes in blue-based disruption may even help Combo decks.

These changes in blue-based deck disruption may lead to the addition of more colours than just red which does not help blue handle enchantments much better than blue does with Capsize (Anarchy?).  Splashed green and white will reduce the all-too-common impact of cards like Back to Basics and Blood Moon.  Realized, this reduction in nonbasic hate would help 5-colour decks like Keeper.

So, kudos to rogue deckbuilders everywhere for helping to force blue-based Control players everywhere to rethink their  decklists of 2001.

[kl0wn]

The beauty of the situation is that once the U-based control decks start worrying about game-breaking enchantments in addition to everything else, they dillute their potency. Additionally, decks using these bomb enchantments are generally obscure, so people don't really prepare for them. Has anyone ever heard of Parfait making top 8 in any major event?

Outside of local environments, the decks that U-based control are really worrying about are TNT, Mask and Gro if Chapin shows up.

One of Parfait's and Hype's greatest advantages is its ability to totally come out of left field and catch everyone unprepared. I still don't anticipate any major changes being made to U-based control in order to deal with the Mono-W threat due to it's obscurity.

The fact is that until it starts sweeping major tournaments, nobody will pay much attention to Mono-W control. Parfait is still a great distance from sweeping major tournaments since most people elect to play other decks. Nobody has fully adopted the Hype philosophy (aside from yours truly) either, so that too is quite a ways away from sweeping anything major.

[Mordecai]

I recently began playing a deck that is somewhat similar in nature and function to Parfait, and our infamous blue player, who's played blue successfully for 5 years or so now, splashed green for Naturalize just so he could have something to kill my precious enchantments.  And his deck is performing much better almost across the board, so maybe this *isn't* such a good thing.

[Saucemaster]

I'd agree with kl0wn here--I don't see the blue-based control decks taking too much notice of Parfait or Enchantress (I mention them both b/c we were talking about "bomb enchantments").  Frankly, most of the players in my area disdain Parfait.  To a certain degree, of course, I'm happy with this, as it means they'll underestimate it, but it can become very annoying.

The only enchantment hate I see on control's part in my meta is almost all geared toward fighting TnT's Survivals, frankly.

[Equal Damage]

"Has anyone else ever had problems with opponents being dicks and takeing VVVEERRRYYY slow turns on purpose? In one case my opponent actually refused to end his turn, he said he was gonna sit there till time expired. So I had a judge come over and boot him from the tourney. Then he tried to tell the judge that I was lieing and he never said that, and that he had just passed the turn over to me. But then everyone around me who had heard this whole thing told the judge that I was right. "

I have had that problem for years... and with many tourney rules leaning toward allowing for such nonsense (ie time limits and life as a deciding factor) I am not sure there is a good way of handling... its hard not to notice a sligh player taking 5 mins per turn but it is hard to notice a parfait player stalling in an already long game.  Basically this is a question of sportsmanship, which is hard to enforce.

Mono blue has been weak for a while now.  Luckily there are a pile of players still playing Sui in fear of Mono U and its as brittle as hell.

What razor said brings to mind the big debate over what broke Type 1 and what to do about it... Some say restrict FoW or Mana Drain (if that is the case its the Drain hands down) but the real fix would be to unrestrict strip mine.  The power of blue only came along with Tempest and the hated Wasteland.  Without 4 strips its real hard to get around the 2 blue open conundrum.  If they unrestrict it i think we could all get back to playing magic and not this strange how not to play blue magic we have been in for the past few years.

Sorry... bit off topic there... In all the games i have played against parfiat or its variants (a horse is a horse... unless of course that horse is Mr.Ed), the Chant has given me the worst headaches... when you have the parfait player on the ropes... either countered or destroyed enough of his annoying bits and are ready to make a push, there is the chant... judicious use of it is powerful.  Luckily many people are not so judicious.

Equus Albus




 

[Radjammin]

But mono blue is far from a problem for parfait?  It's when Suicide and Red take 5 min turns.  Like they don't know what to do.

They attack, that's all they do.  Your turn starts, do I have cards in my hand, then I play them, then I attack.

Now you say done.