[Deck Discussion] - Another approach to Keeper 2004

[MaxxMatt]

hi all,

I'm here to discuss a little project about altering a bit the structure of a 4C-Control Deck ( that perfectly function as it is nowdays ) mixing it with the "Old Keeper"

The question that obviously came out is:
WHY on heart do such a thing if 4C-Control function so good even for you?

The number of Blue cards to consistently support FoW is a bit low

In a lot of the proposed and played builds all arouond the worlds the number of blue cards shift from 17 to a maximum of 19 and rarely I see players use 20 blue cards ( that is what I used). In my test, I lose a lot of games because drawing a lot of Skeletal I drew into other Skeletals and other White or Red spell and NO blue cards showed up.
From this perspective, i'm really conservative and pessimist if NOONE of the other players testing with 4c-c all around the world even noticed this possibility. I think that they simply underestimate this fact without thinking too much about it. And pitching Counters over Counters and maybe Broken Blue Cards isn't funny too.


The bombs in the 4c-c are Skeletals and Angels. they both have a great sinergy, but what about taking the cards stand alone? What if that magical sinergy simply canno't be applied in some situation?

Skeletals drawn with no Angels in table and with a low number of life points is really a good way to lose. Maybe, the situation described didn't happen so often, but IMHO, an aggressive use of Skeletals and Fetches and FoWs and CoBs without an Angel on table is a masochistic way of dying in a lot of real game situations, when the opponent can work around your counters and steal your last life point.

Even the Angels itselves, an extremely powerful tool against all the modern aggro and aggro-control decks, are a bad choice against some of the top tier combo decks that NoT use their own attack phase to win.


So, with ONLY this things in mind, me and some other Teammates ( Benga, Chill and other players ) tried to use a more conservative approach to the game, not involving a massive use of those 2 strong cards ( Skeletals and Angels ) but trying to produce a deck that has the LOWEST number of dead cards in his maindeck and that use cards that can be sinergic with the deck but that not HAVE to rely to other cards ESPECIALLY during the mid-late game, when this deck is supposed to win.

This is the skeleton of the deck.


Counters - (8)
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will

Control Board - (4)
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Future Sight
1 Crucibile of the World
1 Mind Twist

Broken Cards - (2)  
1 Yawgmoths' Will
1 Time Walk

Removals - (4)
3 Fire/Ice
1 Balance

Drawers - (7)
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Skeletal Scrying
4 Brainstorm

Tutors - (6)
3 Cunning Wish
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor

Winners - (3)
3 Decree of Justice

Mana - (26)
4 Fetchland
3 Wasteland
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Stripmine
1 Island
3 Undergrond Sea
3 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
1 Library of Alexandria
4 Mox
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus

Sideboard
2 Sword to Plowshares
1 Echoing Truth
2 Rack & Ruin
1 Disenchant
1 Coffin Purge
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Crucibile of the World
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Stifle


This deck is tuned to face a Control, Combo enviroment.
In such a field is crucial NOT to drew dead cards ( StP for example ) and to have a first turn FoW PLUS Blue Card as much as possible.
With so many blue removals, I thought about insering a good tutor to grab them as soon as possible. Three Wishes is the right number to use when some of the specific answers to specific matchups ( Aggro, DARgon ) are in the side and you can need to dispone of them as soon as possible.

Fire/Ices and Decrees are 6 cards that replace themselves in a lot of situations and they help to dig through the deck with consistency while producing secondary effects. I found that Icing Aggressively during the control game can be tricky while you NEED to resolve some of your bombs ( F.S, CoW, Balance, Mindtwist, Y. Will ).

Vampiric tutor is in the maindeck only because of F.S. and CoW.
The chain of tutors to grab it in the side and THEN resolve it and THEN trying to resolve one of that bombs is too slow sometimes. I found rarely a card that can grab anything in the deck useles AND fires can translate Mystical and Vampiric tutor in real tutors, without the loss of the draw. This is a sinergy that should not be too understimated.

The deck, compared to the usual 4C-C has far less "Quantity" ( less massive drawers ) and much more Quality ( more tutors and bombs ). I think that, in a mirror match when the bombs are well protected and the denial is the predominant aspect of the game or against a Combo deck against which you know that his key bombs are not only well protected but can enter in play really fast,  is REALLY important to have the right cards in the right moments and quality in this situation can be more productive than raw quantity, if we know how to use them of course.


my 2 cents
MaxxMatt & Co.

[Toad]

This deck is tuned to face a Control, Combo enviroment.

How? You have less draw spells, less Wastelands, less Gorilla Shamans and more expensive sorcery speed spells (Crucible, Future Sight) than the standard 4cC build. These matchups are won through card advantage and mana denial. Not through EOT or Upkeep Icings... Life loss is irrelevant in these matchups.

I never had problems with drawing multiple Skeletal Scryings against Aggro, even burn based ones. Digging 4 cards deeper at instant speed into Exalted Angels is better than tapping 5 manas at sorcery speed for Future Sight when you want an answer *now*.

Ice does not deal with Arrogant Wurms, Wild Mongrels or Juggernauts.

Skeletals drawn with no Angels in table and with a low number of life points is really a good way to lose.

Relying on topdecks when facing threats with a low number of life points is really a good way to lose, too.

[cssamerican]

Even the Angels itselves, an extremely powerful tool against all the modern aggro and aggro-control decks, are a bad choice against some of the top tier combo decks that NoT use their own attack phase to win.

How is Exalted Angel a weaker threat than Decree of Justice against combo decks? That is just a ridiculous statement! (That is unless you plan on cycling into a Force of Will every time!)

So, with ONLY this things in mind, me and some other Teammates ( Benga, Chill and other players ) tried to use a more conservative approach to the game, not involving a massive use of those 2 strong cards ( Skeletals and Angels ) but trying to produce a deck that has the LOWEST number of dead cards in his maindeck and that use cards that can be sinergic with the deck but that not HAVE to rely to other cards ESPECIALLY during the mid-late game, when this deck is supposed to win.

Crucibile of the World is a dead card to any combo deck that doesn't require one land in play to go off. This would include Dragon, Belcher, and Draw 7. Not to mention, it relies on you having Wastelands or Strip Mine in your graveyard for it to have any real impact at all.

Edited for grammer and clarification

[Razvan]

The deck is interesting, but the problem is you are taking an older deck, discarding the innovation that was done, and pitting it against all the new deck, which are more modern.

Exalted Angel simply breaks games wide open once it hits the table. Even in less stellar decks, such as EBA, an Angel on the table usually spells game over. Forget the synergy with the Skeletal Scrying, just on itself, it's a beast. It puts the game out of reach for aggro, and is devastating in control vs. control matchups, where the life actually does matter, in the end. 3 Fire/Ice will not make up the difference vs. aggro, and it's weaker against control, even if it nails shamans/welders.

Using Crucible (without a full wasteland complement) and Future Sight in it's space is not a good idea. They are 1-ofs, and even if you have tutoring, it's still a meh idea.

Sad as it is to say it, I think this is inferior to 4cControl.

[TheBrassMan]

I like the idea of upping the blue count, but I don't know if this build is really the way to go.  I'll assume Fire/Ice over Swords is a metagame consideration, but when you cut Exalted, the deck already loses a lot against aggro, I'd imagine you're cutting certain matchups pretty close.
Crucible doesn't feel like maindeck material to me, but once again, I'll assume that it works in your meta.

On Future Sight: we've all seen the broken-ness that can happen with this card, I used to play The Shining back in the day, but has the enviornment really slowed down enough to run this?  In the combo matchup, I find that getting up to 5 mana and tapping out are big issues - if the game lasts five turns, I want to be hardcasting FoW before anything else.  Against control, it's basically game over if it resolves, but you're probably better off with a threat that's easier to defend, and isn't such a drain target - with the five mana Future Sight costs, you could draw 4 off Scrying EOT, which is also pretty solid against control.

DoJ seems nice in theory against control because it's uncounterable and draws a card.  In a matchup where both players are stalemated with hands full of counters, DoJ is total gold... but most control matchups don't play out that way.   Consider DoJ against the other two control win conditions, Tog and Angel.   Tog tramples over tokens a lot faster than they add up damage, and the tokens don't have the added life gain which can put the 4 CC player out of reach.  On a side note, keep in mind that DoJ can be Duressed away in the Tog matchup.  DoJ versus Angel is even more one-sided.  If the the 4CC player swings with an Angel every turn (assuming both players are at similar life totals) you need 8 tokens to go all the way, if the tokens swing in first, and for some reason the Angel doesn't block.   In real-game situations, it's even more dramatic.  Granted, your opponent has to resolve the Tog or Angel for this to be an issue, but it's definitely not an impossibilty, especially considering you've cut card drawing for card disadvantage tutors.  Against Combo, DoJ isn't really a fast clock, but the Angel really isn't either, so it's not huge.

I'm not even going to ask about the Mishra's Factory

If control and combo are your only real metagame considerations, why not run a few Duress over randomness like the Future Sight?  You could even go for some extreme metagaming like maindeck REB or MisD... both are options if you really don't want to add more Scrying, but I really don't think you should be running the Crucible/Future Sight/Vampiric Tutor.

[maskedman504]

I think you are running two too many decrees and three too few angels. Old 4cc decks evolved into new 4cc decks because the metagame around which these decks were built altered as well. Future Sight is a bomb, but it still doesn't compare to the massive advantage gained by scrying. You also get to remove your broken cards and wish for them. This engine is so powerful, revolving one large scrying often seals the game. Germbus has a good game versus combo already due to its counter base and wishable answers.

The only matchup where crucible seems to matter is the control matchup, where lands actually matter, but drain still allows them to play big threats. VS. Workshop decks and Dragon, a single wasteland on their workshop or bazaar is usually just as good as recurring a wasteland everyturn, because you can hopefully take the tempo advantage and drop angel or do something else broken. As previously mentioned, I think crucible is a mediocre sideboard card in the mirror, and deserves no place in the MD.

[MaxxMatt]

I exposed this build expecially because for myself 18-19 blue cards are too few and because for Benga the presence of StP since the maindeck is awful.

So mixing my 4C-Control build and his Keeperes-que build we assembled and played this thing a bit.

During our test 2 of the Fire/Ices and Merchant Scroll were Impulses and these cards worked perfectly for Benga but they seemed redundant for me. So I didn't propose that partial builds.

I didn't like the F.S. at all and in my test build it is my second Shaman, but I think that a lot of cards in the proposed build could be swapped for another Shaman if needed.

I liked the sinergies among Vampiric Tutor and A LOT of the cards in this build ( Black Lotus, F.S., CoW, Wastelands, Fire/Ices ) and I respect the results that Benga showed to me after playing a lot this cards, convincing me to prove it in the main ONLY because of F.S. and CoW. and the single Shaman. It rise the rate on resolving faster one of this 2 a bit overcosted permanents. Grabbing one of them of Black Lotus,  resulted me tricky in a lot of situations. When needed it transmute it self in the second shaman.
It would not always be better to have a second shaman maindeck.


Me and him would like to have MORE blue cards for a first turn FoW against Belcher, TPS, DARgon and this build reach this goal.

Agaisnt control decks, having StPs is bad ( infact you side them out ) and Angels 90% of times come into play Morphed. Even in this situation ( Morphed Angel on table ) Fire is better than StP. If Angel hit the board UnMorphed, Wishing for StP in side isn't a bad/impossible move expecially game one.

On the other hand the build can compete with Tog thanks to Denial and Multiple Decrees. A resolved Angel is REALLY better, but trying to resolve it isn't so simple. Post side the number of Skeletals is 2 and the number of ReB is 3 and sometimes it is enough. Anyone of the builds I saw in Germany have 2 Skeletals maindeck and 1 in side. Even post side they have ONLY 1 Skeletal more than this build. More Skeletals I had in the deck More Angels i HAVE to use.

Because I think that DoJ is more "universal" as finisher respect of Angel, I'm constricted on lowering the number of Skeletals. Swapping F.S. for Skeletal can be done without ANY difficulty IMHO and it would transform this build in a build with a "decent" number of Skeletals, keeping high the number of blue cards.

Fires would not kill anyone of the Madness or Slavery creatures, but they can gave you a lot of time on finding Balance. DoJ coupled with Ices can be considered as "some little istant time walks" and they can gave you the needed time to stabilize maybe capitalizing the Denial strategy after which with Balance and/or Y.Will and/or Mindtwist you can be able to win against any aggro deck that is impeded to resolve his beasts.

In this build Wishes are the extreme answers to what canno't be countered or have to be destroyed before Balance or Y. Will or Mind Twist. The entire deck work around those spells and all the others are "the time that you need to resolve them to let somethin win for you".


I though a lot about adding Duress and before of them in my "want" list or he miandeck there are Stifles.  Even if both Duress and Stifle and the higly cc permanents I added to the maindeck can be considered "random", I found that the ones that produce the best/broken effects are F.S. and CoW instead of Stifle and Duress. All the little changes in the maindeck helped to reduce the randomness on their use and helped on resolving them more frequently.


If you look at this deck as a Balance-Mindtwist-Y.Will.dec instead of referring to it as 4C-Control, I think that you all can give it a try and see at least how does it perform.

IMHO it perform differently ( compared with 4c-C ) but has different approaches to achieve the same goals.


MaxxMatt


PS. Mishra Factory is a benga's experiment. Having CoW both maindeck and side we thought about having a good way to "recycle" a possible winner. Swapping it with the 4th Wasteland seemed more solid even to me. Benga and his friends have such an hard-on for this "combo" that they bring it at a tourney and won with  that immortal mishra a lot of games .

[The Hamburgler]

Well, although you went for a more innovative approach, when it comes down to bone, this resembles "The Shining" combo Keeper enough to be it. You just use Future Sight as broken, Crucible of Worlds and a strip effect to slow down, and then Decree or basically anything for the kill. I have been working on tweaking 4cControl, however what you did helps none of the bad matches. Through play testing, I had a hard time with GAT, Madness if they had too many counters or I had too little removal (game one only, U/G madness) and some Combo (Draw7, Dragon and Belcher- game 1 only, game 2-3 are still hard for Dragon and Draw7). To solve the aggro problem I sat down and discussed it with some friends and discussed the problem at hand. Most players utilize FTK in the sideboard as an answer to Arrogants, Mongrels etc... But, I found against madness, that once you play FTK, its over. They get Wonder in the yard and now you have to play Exalted Angel, and resolve it. So, I started testing random things, more Fire/Ice, less Fire/Ice and more FTK, Sword of Fire/Ice in the board and then, I finally came to a conclusion. To beat Madness, and help against Dragon, I did the following with the build:

Ninja Angels.dec- The Hamburgler

Critters:
3 Exalted Angel
2 Gorilla Shaman

Draw:
4 Brainstorm
3 Skeletal Scrying
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Ancestral Recall

Threat Removal:
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Balance

Tutors for Yawgmoth's Will (and those other cards):
3 Cunning Wish
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor

The Combo:
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Walk
(Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus and 56 irrelevant cards)

The Other Busted Cards:
1 Mind Twist
1 Time Walk

Alternate Kill vs. Control:
1 Decree of Justice

Manabase:
4 Tundra
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 City of Brass
1 Library of Alexandria
4 Moxen (-1 Emerald, don’t ask: I’m racist)
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus

Sideboard:
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 FTK
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Ebony Charm*
1 Smother*
1 Gush
1 Stifle
1 Coffin Purge
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Rack and Ruin

Now, the sideboard is the most important thing:
*Ebony Charm: Great card, I use this and Coffin Purge, as you can remove them before the madness creature comes into play, it stops Wonders, Deep Analysis, Dragon, Rectors and helps slow down a fat Yawgmoth's Will. With all these goodness it is good for   there is no reason not to run both Coffin Purge and Ebony Charm.

*Smother: Another important decision. It kills most of what the deck has a problem with, Goblin Welder, ‘Togs, Dryads, Gorilla Shaman (in some scenario's) Xantid Swarm, morphed Angels, Wild Mongrel and Basking Rootwalla.

I use four Tundra's, as I thought three didn't stabilize the WW of Angel enough, and I lost matches in spite of it. The one Decree of Justice is wonderful, ninja blockers, uncounterable win vs. Control, and can make 4/4 bodies that fly to stop and onslaught of creatures from randomaggro.dec.

I use no Fire/Ice, as it s simply not as good as other spot removals. It digs as a cantrip and pitches to Force of Will, but if that's your only argument, then you should know there are better cards to fill the spot. I never had or have a problem with the blue and Force of Will. You generally only cast 1-2 per game (depending on the match up) and if you still have a problem with it, test out Duress.

I dropped down to two Volcanic Islands, mainly because there are only 2 red cards main, and 9 (counting fetches) sources to compensate. I mainly wanted to get the 4 Tundra's in there, cause in early Angel is huge against a lot of decks in the format.

All I can see you doing, is making your aggro match up much worse, losing Swords and Angels is quite the cut.

As Toaddy said, you cut Wasteland, mana denial is important, and sorcery speed is suck. STP is much better than Fire/Ice, as it takes care of Dragon. I can't imagine adding a Crucible of Worlds and taking out a Waste effect, and yet you were complaining about the lack of compatibility in the deck, so isn't this a slight contradiction? Nonetheless, you seemed to do the opposite of what the deck really needs.

Sorry if it was a bit long, after a three week hiatus from magic and The mana Drain, its good to be back posting. That’s just my ".02" cents.
- The Hamburgler

[Whatever Works]

I find that changing 4cControl (for the better) is almost impossible at the moment, simply because it is just such a tight deck list. If you drop any lands the deck gets mana screwed (If you have tried to drop a land in testing you will immediatly know what I mean.) So basically the mana base is untouchable (aprox 26-27 cards.) The kill has consistently been in almost 99% of the 4cControl decks 3 angels and a decree of justice (this hasnt changed because logic says 4 angels is over the top, and 2 in opening hand sucks, and decree is worthless early game cept for pitching to force of wi... no wait its white... its just bad early game so its left at 1 to be brainstormed back into the deck.

The decks MUST have cards are a great portion of the deck leaving little room for change. You end up having aproximatly 2-3 card spots to toy around with after count all the bullets in the deck.

The last 2-3 spots also depend on if you run 1 or 2 maindeck gorilla shamans. If you run 2 you only got 2 spots to play with. With those 2 spots you then got to ask yourself do I run Fire/Ice maindeck? if you do you got 1 free spot (though i think the card isnt the best deck choice because of its weakness of helping you in any of your bad matchups.)

My question is why would you want to revert a tier 1 deck thats incredibly solid and stable back to the "old school version?" The deck changed for a reason. I believe the deck evolved (dont like that word much because is was primarily created by zerbus and Company.) to become much more stable the older versions.

Skeletals drawn with no Angels in table and with a low number of life points is really a good way to lose.

If your in this situation your probably going to lose anyway. Its not a lack of synergy its just being in a bad situation. Thats like saying Hulk needs a 4th tog maindeck because your at low life and dont have a tog in play.

me and some other Teammates ( Benga, Chill and other players ) tried to use a more conservative approach to the game, not involving a massive use of those 2 strong cards ( Skeletals and Angels ) but trying to produce a deck that has the LOWEST number of dead cards

This makes sense to a degree, but you have to consider the deck has more synergy then any other deck based on a ratio of how many bullets are included in a deck. There are so many broken cards like balance/mind twist etc. that just say I WIN. It might be a slight compromise, but I believe the I WIN factor is one of the reasons the deck is so good. Some cards are dead at times (mind twist, yawgs will early game), but can you find me any reason not to play them over something with more synergy?

When did Crucible of Worlds get annointed to the status of being a maindeck card? I found that having 1-2 in the sideboard is very strong, but i also found that it does not help 4cControl in alot of its weaker matchups. I would feel more uncomfortable running it maindeck  vs. a deck like charbelcher (to me this seems like a very dead card in many situations.)

With future sight i find that its amazing card thats not a question, but in 4cControl its an I win more card. with the same ammount of mana you can just go ahead and scrye for 4 or play an angel and win.[/quote]

[PucktheCat]

Skeletals drawn with no Angels in table and with a low number of life points is really a good way to lose.

If your in this situation your probably going to lose anyway. Its not a lack of synergy its just being in a bad situation. Thats like saying Hulk needs a 4th tog maindeck because your at low life and dont have a tog in play.

To be fair, Tog wins a lot out of this situation.  It can easily combo out with a top-decked Intuition without giving its opponent another turn.  The ability to do so is the main reason Time Walk is critical to the deck.

I am not sure that the fact that Scrying can't do the same justifies cutting them though.

Leo

[ProZachar]

Now, the sideboard is the most important thing:
*Ebony Charm: Great card, I use this and Coffin Purge, as you can remove them before the madness creature comes into play, it stops Wonders, Deep Analysis, Dragon, Rectors and helps slow down a fat Yawgmoth's Will. With all these goodness it is good for   there is no reason not to run both Coffin Purge and Ebony Charm.

You can't use Coffin Purge type effects to stop Madness.  When a player chooses to discard a card with Madness, he/she can choose to discard the card to the removed from game zone instead of his or her graveyard.  "Instead of" is the key; it indicates a replacement effect, so there is never a time where the Madness card is in the graveyard to be hit with a Purge.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "...as you can remove them before the madness creature comes into play..." but it sounds like you're trying to use Purge and Charm to stop Madness.  You can't do that.

[The Hamburgler]

Prozachar: Are you sure? Some guy trying to get his lvl one certification and I think a lvl 1 judge said I could, then again they didn't have a written copy of the oracle on them   . thanks for your input, I'm putting some more testing in, and i will email a lvl 2-3 judge. We need some new judges, Time Walk targets, Blurred Mongoose can't be targetted with Daze, you lose 2 life from vamp even if it doesn't resolve... I should get my certification one of these days. These judges make O.Js judge look like a Supreme Court Justice   .
- The Hamburgler

[Kowal]

ProZachar is correct.  Please try to get this thread back on topic.

[Ultima]

@Cssamerican

DOJs are better against combo because you can leave counter mana open and cycle in the endstep when you know its safe.  Angels are aweful against combo because their so expensive and make you tap mana in the MP.

[monSt4r]

@Ultima (I was going to quote you, but then I have never seen that on themanadrain so I decided to do it this way)
Angels DO have morph u know ?
3 mana is not such a big number and you can unmorph it easily when you want ... for example drain mana of timetwister or so.
Exalted is not a card to be questioned about.

[Toad]

The win condition does not matter against Combo. You won't cycle a Decree in the first few turns because you are too busy surviving and Brainstorming / Skeletal Scrying for countermagic and mana denial.
2000-2001 builds of Keeeper wrecked Neo Academy even with Morphling as a win condition ... Morphling costs 5, Angel costs 3. Draining a Draw7 gives you a free Angel.

The life gain is even usefull against Combo because It forces them to play more spells before the final Tendrils, making your mana denial stronger and highering their chances of fizzle'ing. That is just a minor bonus though.