Decks that could find a niche in the current meta

[timmy]

My team and I were discussing possible old archtypes that may comeback because of the current control/workshop heavy enviroment.

The first was landstill, we saw this at our last friday tournament as 3 landstill decks made top8.
It seems to be an awesome choice against oath as you play only manlands for beaters.  Against workshop if you can drain into nevy disk, it can be game against workshop.  The problem with this deck wat the fact that it dies to most aggro decks, as people found out when they played me with madness, there was very little they could do. In fact I didn't lose a game to landstill.  However there is a very small amount of aggro right now so that doesn't seem to be much of a problem

Another deck that we thought might come back is masknaught.
The disruption in the deck should allow you to be able to drop an early mask against control, this will give control nightmares and should help you win handily.  After all dropping a 12/12 trampler or 2 should be able to take on a tiny, little akroma, or spirit of the night.
Against workshop things may be a little more tricky.  You would want to get out a first turn mask, before they can drop a trinisphere.  You would also need to make sure that you don't discard or lose any artifacts as welders can be a nightmare.  On the other hand, welder shouldn't stay on the table long against any black deck.  Finally this deck will also benefit very much from a little spell called nights whisper.  Giving this deck a better draw engine will greatly improve its competitiveness.
i might even play this for the power tourney so watch out  

The finally deck we discussed is very controversial
and that deck is...
suiblack.

Yes, suiblack can and did own control, dropping an early negator or nantuko shade can spell game over.  However there are a couple main problems with this deck, first it only has proactive hate, therefore if a control deck can topdeck an oath of druids, before its too late, monoblack will lose.  Also this deck has trouble with workshop decks.  Its main strategy is to go faster than its opponent, and if they can drop a workshop and lots of other acceleration this isn't going to happen.  However in the next couple weeks if workshop decks begin to dwindle and are replaced by landstill and oath decks then I believe that suiblack could jump into the meta for a couple weeks and do well before it gets hated out

Any thoughts on these decks or possibly other decks that might come back.

[Matt]

Any thoughts on these decks or possibly other decks that might come back.

I ask this in all seriousness: has any deck EVER come back once it's truly dead (and not just out of fashion like Keeper/4CC is)?

People tried to make TNT work forever, but it's just never done anything since Stax got big. Suicide has never crawled out of its grave. Sligh and Stompy suffered the same way.

I guess monoblue works. But I cannot think of any other example.

[An_American_Heart]

mono blue really isn;'t even a good example.  It was unexpected at first.  now it's subpar at best.

[andrewpate]

I guess you could say that Fish is like this.  But it is so far removed from the original deck with Lord of Atlantis that I wonder why we even still call it that.

[Joblin Velder]

I've been running suicide black for a number of months (what can I say, I have a soft spot for it). With Workshop decks being as popular as they are, sui has a really tough time. It needs to race the deck if it intends on winning but with workshops, the deck has a hard time doing so. In addition, black has zero artifact destruction spells.

The only way I've been able to make sui's game better is to splash green. Access to Pernicious Deed, oxidize and naturalize make the deck much stronger, though probably not a contender.

[Necrologia]

I ask this in all seriousness: has any deck EVER come back once it's truly dead (and not just out of fashion like Keeper/4CC is)

What about Oath? Sapphire Oath was a serious contender years ago, and then died out due to it's weakness against decks that packed few creatures. Orchard obviously fixes that flaw making the deck much more stable.

It seems like an appropriate time to ask, seeing as how 2 of the most recent decks making headlines were last seen facing down keeper decks packing Braingeyser and Undiscovered Paradise.

Sui, however is dead for the forseeable future. The reason the deck died in the first place was that it couldn't handle Workshop aggro. The way the deck won was by dropping a quick fatty, so decks like TnT that dropped bigger fatties faster, and with more back up to boot were near auto-losses. I fail to see how a field of juggies is ever good for negator and friends.

[everythingitouchdies]

black has zero artifact destruction spells.

Black has Gate to Phrexia and Phyrexian Tribute to Destroy artifacts. Granted, not the best choices, but they do exist.

On a more thread subject oriented note, it takes new cards to reinvent, not just revive, old decks. Oath is back because of Forbidden Orchard. Mono U came back because new cards had warped the metagame. Fish was reborn because it was given a new creature base.

EITD

[Covetous]

Sui == crap.  That has been true for a while.  Even when 4cc was big, you'll notice that sui never won a tourney.  Splashing white, green or red makes sui less than the complete crap it could be, but overall don't waste your time.  Your insights on landstill leave out the existence of forchard--you don't need to play creatures for oath to activate due to stupid little spirit tokens.  Nonetheless, landstill is fairely strong due to chain of vapor/disk/annul in the main plus more fun toys in the SB.  However, all the nonbasic hate you should expect to see might make you sad when you play vs. crucible/waste.dec

Mask has always been one of those decks, like TnT, that people try to make powerful but is just inherently unstable.  Some canuck have a mono-U mask deck that they say is good, but I know very little about it.  Mask often has the same problems as sui--too many proactive answers (this especially applies to mono-B mask).  Think of mask as sui but good.  The same problems apply--too much incidental artifact hate in the field to succeed.  Most old decks, in fact, suck.  Many of them evolved during an era when good decks weren't as good as the good decks of today.  Thus, most old decks really need an overhaul to be competitive currently, and such an overhaul might completely change the deck so that it is merely a shadow of its former self--not really the same deck at all.

[bebe]

That some Canuk is me. And it is blue with a green splash which allows it a good game against Oath, Control and aggro ( the sideboard  is a transformational Oath side that ws created before Orchards and Oath became popular to make it autowin against Fish, aggro and FCG - this needs readjusting now). I have consistently beat Control, Fish, WtfR, Madness and FCG. The deck is not as good against trinispheres - but what is?  It is also a crap shoot against combo. Here is the rub though - now that Oath has arrived I can take the same build and use six cards instead of eight to achieve similar explosive starts. BTW, I have alweays worked around artifact hate well and now that enchantment hate might be replacing some of it the deck gets better not worse as it has fallen off the radar. We will be running a Black Lotus tournament here this month and I will be playing the newest version of the deck.
Ray (razor) has had some success with his new Landstill build recently aswell and it very well might come back.
The sleeper deck will be some form of Sligh/burn I believe. Red has the weapons to take on the top decks in the field but it needs to be properly metagamed and FCG is not the answer. We have been fooling around with these decks for awhile but until JP stops laughing at me I will keep trying tp improve them.

[jpmeyer]

Hey, I wasn't laughing at you, I was uh, laughing with you!

[Outlaw]

I believe out of all the decks you have mentioned, Landstill is the only one with the ability to return to an actual contender.  It packs the stuff to deal with the top decks right now, Draining into a Nevvys > Aggro, Workshop, Say good bye to your oath and your oathed creature.  As someone said earlier, it packs annul and chain of vapor which are geared towards killin off oath even more.   Landstill has the ability to abuse crucible as many other decks do, but to a high level (all your kill is lands!).  

Decks like masknaught, and suiblack are just dead decks.  Sui has never done well at a tourney, and it loses to a resolved spell.  Masknaught looses to nullrod or damping matrix, and welders eat it alive.

[Smmenen]

I still think the archetype that is the most underplayed is Combo.  Storm combo continues to put up excellent numbers all year in Dr. Sylvan's stats - yet SO FEW Americans play combo at all.  Those that do play TPS but rarely branch out to MeanDeath or Belcher.

The archetype has THE MOST potential as it is the most underexplored.  There are have been dozens of GAT iterations.  If people had put as much effort into Storm as they have GAT, we'd have more interesting Combo decks to play with.

For chrimmy's sake.  Belcher got 3rd Place at Gencon in Trinisphere.field.

[Mixing Mike]

What I want to know is where are all the Belcher decks, and TPS, and Dragon?  Why aren't these decks getting the attention they deserve?

[Revvik]

The main reasons the mentioned combo decks aren't being highly played (Belcher, TPS, and Dragon) vary.

Belcher is horribly inconsistent.  Hell, one friend of mine runs a R/G Beatz deck (has for over a year) that fails to lose to combo decks like these on a regular basis - he only recently lost one single match (since Belcher's inception) due to sickness.

TPS takes a remarkable amount of skill, and can even then the player can get hosed by his own deck, not to mention the fact that a control player (control is hot right now) knowing the key counter spells can disrupt him long enough to stabilize and win.

Dragon is too easily hated out by single card strategies that are good not just against "D4RGON:" Ground Seal stops welders dead, Tormod's Crypt aggravates the unprepared 'tog player - and Echoing Truth is seeing much more sideboard use.

[Mixing Mike]

So fix those problems.  All I said was attention, not 'why isn't X deck dominating'.

I really wish I knew enough about one of those decks to start a thread like rozetta did for TPS.

[[supa_t(im)]]

What if we mixed Landstill with Mask?  Make like a U/B version with tutors and manlands.  It would still have the control that blue offers, but also the disruption of black.

If they shut down the combo, you go into landstill mode and beat down with manlands.

I remember someone placing in the top 20 at Dulmen with something similar a while back.  Maybe it has some promise.

What do you think?

[CaptainPlanet.dec]

What if we mixed Landstill with Mask?  Make like a U/B version with tutors and manlands.  It would still have the control that blue offers, but also the disruption of black.

If they shut down the combo, you go into landstill mode and beat down with manlands.

I remember someone placing in the top 20 at Dulmen with something similar a while back.  Maybe it has some promise.

What do you think?

I built that on the Wizards Board like 4-6 months ago. It's pretty good, but it didn't really do anything in the meta that was outstanding.

EDIT: Here's the list we had.

Broken Stuff///10
R Ancestral Recall
R Timetwister
R Timewalk
R Demonic Tutor
R Vampiric Tutor
R Demonic Consultant
R Tinker
4 Illusionary Mask

Kill///11
4 Phyrexian Dreadnaught
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Fairie Conclave

Control///17
1 Strip Mine
2 Stifle
2 Nevynral's Disk
4 Standstill
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will

Draw///4
4 Brainstorm

Mana///17
R Mox Jet
R Mox Sapphire
R Black Lotus
R Sol Ring
R Mana Crypt
R Lotus Petal
1 Swamp
2 Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta

Sideboard///15
1 The Abyss
4 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Eater of Days
4 Wasteland/3 Misdirection 1 Stifle
3 Echoing Decay

[Mixing Mike]

Try what you want, but I personally don't think working on the Oath vs. Fish matchup from the Fish side is very productive for the metagame.  Sometimes you have to choose when you can't play a deck anymore, or when you just have to accecpt bad matchups.  You don't have to win every match to win a tournament.

[[supa_t(im)]]

I built that on the Wizards Board like 4-6 months ago. It's pretty good, but it didn't really do anything in the meta that was outstanding.

EDIT: Here's the list we had.

Broken Stuff///10
R Ancestral Recall
R Timetwister
R Timewalk
R Demonic Tutor
R Vampiric Tutor
R Demonic Consultant
R Tinker
4 Illusionary Mask

Kill///11
4 Phyrexian Dreadnaught
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Fairie Conclave

Control///17
1 Strip Mine
2 Stifle
2 Nevynral's Disk
4 Standstill
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will

Draw///4
4 Brainstorm

Mana///17
R Mox Jet
R Mox Sapphire
R Black Lotus
R Sol Ring
R Mana Crypt
R Lotus Petal
1 Swamp
2 Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta

Sideboard///15
1 The Abyss
4 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Eater of Days
4 Wasteland/3 Misdirection 1 Stifle
3 Echoing Decay

oh yeah, now I remember it.

Do you still think it has merit?  My first impression was that spot removal would be better than disk in this build, but I'm not sure.

[andrewpate]

Possibly, but it would have to be very good spot removal.  Without access to red for Rack and Ruin or green for Oxidize, you are left with some really suboptimal choices, like Phyrexian Tribute or something.  Without testing but just comparing to experience with regular Landstill, I doubt that the virtues of the red or green spells would be worth the splash.  As good as my experience has been with 3-color Landstill, that would take valuable slots away from going off with Mask.

[[supa_t(im)]]

Then what about a U/R Mask-still variant.  That way it can run Burn (bolt or fire/ice) for spot removal.  Then it would have access to artifact removal, for those pesky null rods.

I have a feeling this has been done before as well. . .

Maybe something like:
Broken Stuff///8
R Ancestral Recall
R Timetwister
R Timewalk
R Tinker
4 Illusionary Mask

Kill///11
4 Phyrexian Dreadnaught
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Fairie Conclave

Control///20
1 Strip Mine
2 Stifle
4 Standstill
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
3 Fire/Ice
2 Lightning Bolt

Draw///4
4 Brainstorm

Mana///17
R Mox Ruby
R Mox Sapphire
R Black Lotus
R Sol Ring
R Mana Crypt
R Lotus Petal
1 Mountain
2 Island
4 Volcanic Island
4 Polluted Delta

SB///15
4 REB
3 BEB
3 Rack and Ruin
3 Wasteland
2 Stifle

I took out the tutors and disk for some burn.  Not tested, so I don't know if this helps at all.  I wasn't really sure if disk was needed.  SB looks a little janky I think.

I hope I'm not hijacking the thread, should I move this?

[ctthespian]

UW I think is the better choice for the metagame.  It has STPs and disks to contend with Oath, can sideboard in serenity to deal with workshop and slaver variants and moat and crypts or even humilty to deal with madness.  IF you go with Landstill this would be the plan or even making the hybrid UGW Landstill with it's own oath transformation in the board.  Also it still runs stifles and the possibility of chalice in the board for storm combo.

-Keith

[CaptainPlanet.dec]

Then what about a U/R Mask-still variant.  That way it can run Burn (bolt or fire/ice) for spot removal.  Then it would have access to artifact removal, for those pesky null rods.

I have a feeling this has been done before as well. . .

Maybe something like:
Broken Stuff///8
R Ancestral Recall
R Timetwister
R Timewalk
R Tinker
4 Illusionary Mask

Kill///11
4 Phyrexian Dreadnaught
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Fairie Conclave

Control///20
1 Strip Mine
2 Stifle
4 Standstill
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
3 Fire/Ice
2 Lightning Bolt

Draw///4
4 Brainstorm

Mana///17
R Mox Ruby
R Mox Sapphire
R Black Lotus
R Sol Ring
R Mana Crypt
R Lotus Petal
1 Mountain
2 Island
4 Volcanic Island
4 Polluted Delta

SB///15
4 REB
3 BEB
3 Rack and Ruin
3 Wasteland
2 Stifle

I took out the tutors and disk for some burn.  Not tested, so I don't know if this helps at all.  I wasn't really sure if disk was needed.  SB looks a little janky I think.

I hope I'm not hijacking the thread, should I move this?

I had at one point splashed Red for Fire/Ice and Shrapel Blast. Blast finishes off usaully after a single Naught swing, and can kill Angels.

Ubr MaskStill

Broken Stuff///10
R Ancestral Recall
R Timetwister
R Timewalk
R Demonic Tutor
R Vampiric Tutor
R Demonic Consultant
R Tinker
4 Illusionary Mask

Kill///13
4 Phyrexian Dreadnaught
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Fairie Conclave
2 Shrapel Blast

Control///16
2 Fire/Ice
2 Nevynral's Disk
4 Standstill
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will

Draw///3
3 Brainstorm

Mana///17
R Mox Jet
R Mox Sapphire
R Mox Ruby
R Black Lotus
R Sol Ring
R Mana Crypt
2 Island
2 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta

Sideboard///15
1 The Abyss
4 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Eater of Days
4 Wasteland
3 Echoing Decay

The thread is here

The deck at Dulem was someone who was working on it with me. It's Arkeld.

[c hurrle]

I admittedly haven't read this whole thread and someone may have already touched on this, but Landstill using manlands to evade Oath is kind of silly. The whole reason that Oath is back in vogue is that Champions of Kamigawa has a card called Forbidden Orchard. You can use manlands all day, but your spirit tokens still don't turn into lands at EOT...

[MIZEnhauer]

ctthespian,  I posted a list of U/W/G oath and it did not get very good reception here.  It was veiwed as a subpar version of both decks.  You cant combine Landstill's strategy with another decks strategy becasue you dilute the strategy of both decks.
Sorry for Spelling.

[Mixing Mike]

So say that to the MaskStill deck.  Diluting the strategy all day in that one, oh yeah.

What about Intuiton-slaver decks?  Combining Tog and Slaver must dilute that strategy too.  What about Cerebrial Assassin?  Dragon's draw engine and Welders is a really bad idea.[/end sarcasm]

Can I just ask you what the fuck you are talking out when you say 'diluting strategies'?

[Zherbus]

He means that if you take away from one deck strategy to accomidate another, it obviously becomes less focused (or saturated) and therefore is diluted.

[Mixing Mike]

Oh I know that, I was trying to get him to realize that his point was totally obscure.  I think that it's been proven enough that combining two decks properly produces a much better deck in the long run.

[MIZEnhauer]

The examples you are giving arer quite different.  You are giving examples were you take out one part of a deck for a clearly superior part of another deck.  You are talking about draw engines mostly.  You can't combine two decks win condition because then the deck is less focused and does'nt really "know" what it's doing.

[andrewpate]

As I recall didn't MadDragon do pretty well for awhile?  Even TPS started out as basically putting the Storm kill into Neo-Academy.  This has been done many times.