Need to Increase the Threat Density of RB Deck

[LUPO]

Greetings,

I have been working on a Red Black semi-fish deck.  Here is the list:

4 Gorilla Shamman
4 Withering Wretch
4 Phyrexian Dreadnaught

4 Illusionary Mask
2 Umezawas Jitte
   
2 Chains of Mephistopholies
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
4 Dark Ritual
2 Rack and Ruin
1 Yawgmoths Will
1 Burning Wish
4 Duress
1 Tainted Pact
1 Vampric Tutor

1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Badlands
1 Mountain
1 Snow Covered Mountain
1 Swamp
1 Snow Covered Swamp
4 Wasteland
1 Stripmine

I am very happy with the card choices as the deck is accomplishing what i wanted it to.  The major problem that I am experiencing is that it is far too threat light.  I do a great job of disrupting my opponent and often find myself in control, but nothing to do with it.  MY goal in building was to go for card selection as opposed to card quantity, as evidecned by the lack of draw.  My thought was to increase the number of tutors in the deck, given I have the entire slot of restricted tutors, there really was only one option left, Spols of the Vault.  I have been hesitant to run the spols as they are obviously risky and this is by no means a 1 turn combo deck that can afford to be reckless with its life.  The three cards that I like most about the deck are the chains, the gorilla shamman and the withering wretch, the environment is ripe right now to be hit by those cards.  I am finding that matches against the mana drain decks are generally good, as the disruption plus their inherent slow-ness gives me time to muscle out a mask/dreadnaught, but the problem comes against decks that will not give me such a generous amount of time.  Against fish/WTF or really any aggro in general, it basically comes down to my disruption working as expected (and theirs doing the same) and if I can draw the naught mask combo.  It is as simple as that, masknaught I win, no masknaught I lose.

I have tried the tainted pact as a more safe tutor, but it just isnt cutting it.  I need to either up the threat count, or increase the tutoring potential.

Lets see what we can do.

Mike

[silvernail]

Well your grip seems to like with faster aggro decks, and right now pyroclasm and or Engineered Explosives are the two answers people are using alot, largely due to their effectiveness. i would personally run 2 EE over the 2 Jittes because the jittes require you to attack, and with only 8 creatures in the deck ( naughts dont count as you can only use them with mask and in that case you should just win anyways ) having a jitte target might not happen in time.

Also how useful is your burning wish what side targets do you have for it? Would it work better as another tainted pact?

The key to your deck is the mask/naught combo; you are combo not a semi fish like deck. your goal is to stall your opponent until you can combo out. Explosives would be infinite times better for you in that regard than jittes.

 Now mind you if you wanted more threats phyrexian negator is possible, but vs aggro he isnt good, and this goes to show why more threats arent nessicarily the answer vs aggro. They pack threats, so you need to either win faster than they do or stop their threats. your combo can win faster than they do so your left to find answers to their threats.

[shade88]

I don't think you're threat density issues necessarily come from having too few threats. You do have 4 masks, 4 naughts, and effectively 5 tutors to find them. If you are finding this to just not be enough, try adding some negators, shades ( you only have 2 color producing lands that only produce red), lavamancers, etc.

The main issue with your deck is that it doesn't have any card drawing, at all. You are running into the problem every deck with a good amount of disruption and even a decent amount of threats has, you disrupt and play threats, but then you fizzle, not because of a lack of threats, but card drawing. Perhaps you could consider wheel of fortune, necropotence, night's whisper, or skeletal scrying. They would greatly help you find your threats after you have disrupted the opponent.

A few other notes. With 6 total tutors, are 2 rack and ruin really necessary, the same could be said about chains of mephistopheles, but I don't know your meta.

Finally, 2x umezawa's jitte seems greatly out of place. Mox monkey is going to die if you equip him, wretch is going to die. And lord knows a jitted dreadnaught is overkill.

[onelovemachine]

2Umezawa's Jitte
2Rack and ruin
1tainted pact
1burning wish
1diabolic edict.....

Worst fish deck EVARRRR.

You know better than to post like this. - Bram

[LUPO]

Shade and Silvernail,

I want to Thank you.  Your posts were actually constructive, unlike some others whose names I will refrain from mentioning.  I take your messages to be that I have a collection of 60 good cards, but not a deck.  The Jittes are bad, but how can i replace them?  All of the cards in the deck serve a purpose and I doubt I will hit resistance from the T1 community when I say that they are all good cards, but what I MUST do is turn these 60 cards into a top tier deck.  How can I do it???

[Mordred]

Being that by chosing to go with a BR Mask-naught deck I think that you have to cut down on the randomness of some cards (simply that you can't rely on a powerfull draw engine and get away with running 1 ofs like CS or something)

While cards like Jitte, Chains, Diabolic Edict and Yawgmoth's Will can be powerfull, I'm just not sure they're the correct calls for this deck.

This deck reminds me a lot of a UBR Goblin deck that New Castle, my friend and I designed.  When we were thinking about what type of disruption to run we came to a descion.  Our only draw/psuedo draw power was Ringleaders and Ancestral...so whatever disruption we used had to be a 3 or 4 of, and it had to stack, meaning that 1 Bloodmoon is good, but 2 Bloodmoons is crap; 1 Chains of Mephstopheles is good, but 2 is better (although overkill, but you get my point)

By running 4x Shaman, 4x Duress and 5x Strip Effects the Rack and Ruins and the fast mana accel needed to blow up a Needle or something, you have almost enough disruption to hold off people long enough for a 12/12 Trampler to run them over.  In all honesty I don't think you need Withered Wretch or the 2 Jittes or 2 Chains.  Once again the last 2 ofs I mentioned just seem to Random.

Perhaps you were thinking of Wretch when playing against Welder decks that will weld out Naughts, but by freeing up slots you can run Skeletal Scrying...an awesome card that will take care of this issue, whether it gets countered or naught. (so funny)

Take a deep breath and listen to my idea here:  Cut Yawgmoth's Will (and probably Wish as I assume Wish is incase Will gets Consult-pwnd) If you run Skryings, your yard isn't going to be huge, you're not running Timewalk or Ancestral, and most important, you can't put Dreadnaughts into play under mask on a Will turn.

Perhaps try something like this: Cut the following cards (11) 4 Withered Wretch, 2 Chains, 2 Jitte, 1 Y. Will, 1 Burning Wish, 1 Tainted Pact.  And bring in something close to this 4 Skeletal Scrying, 4 Nights Whisper, 1 Necropotence, 1 Mox Emerald, 1 Mana Crypt.  If you really want to be saucy, and since your running 4 Shaman and 5 Strips, you could run 2-3 Rhystic Tutor and cut the appropriate # of Nights Whisper.

You know when you're a professional Mask-Naught player when you get people to scoop to face down Gorilla Shaman  

Edit: My friends been playing with Illusionary Mask for a long time, I onced scooped in playtesting to a face down Bayou and face down Birds of Paradise, I died a little inside.

[alban]

I really wouldn't cut the wretches. They are gamewinning in a lot of matchups; they almost eliminate an will, wreck dragon and welder. IMO they're one of the best black creatures in the game nowadays.

[Blitzbold]

Back in the days when Germany's Dülmen was the Vintage tournament to play at in Germany I once used a fairly similar deck to place 9th out of more than 100 players. Instead of red my old deck splashed blue for power, Stifle and Brainstorm. Here is the old list. Note that it is from December 2003 and has not been updated with cards from the latest sets. However, the strategy behind both decks is the same.

3x Phyrexian Negator
3x Nantuko Shade
4x Dark Ritual
4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
1x Demonic Consultation
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Yawgmoth's Will
4x Brainstorm
2x Stifle
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Time Walk
4x Illusionary Mask
4x Phyrexian Dreadnought

1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Strip Mine
4x Wasteland
4x Underground Sea
4x Polluted Delta
7x Swamp

SB 2x Masticore
SB 3x Chalice of the Void
SB 3x Tormod's Crypt
SB 3x Nevinyrral's Disk
SB 2x Back to Basics
SB 2x Hurkyl's Recall

Some alterations to the deck I made some weeks later was the inclusion of 2 Gorilla Shaman in the place of 1 Shade and 1 Brainstorm if my memory is right. The inclusion of some Badlands made the mana base a bit worse, but the Ruby provided additional speed.

I would not recommend playing Hymn to Tourach nowadays and they probably should be replaced with better disruption, but the rest of the deck still seems fine to me. It might need more artifact acceleration, but Dark Ritual usually was enough for the first turns, as the deck's mana curve is really low. I finally gave up on the deck when I wasn't able to consistently deal with a tinkered-for Platinum Angel during a small tournament and getting a very good offer for selling the Masks 

Brainstorm and Ancestral improved the chance of finding the missing pieces when holding either Mask or Dreadnought. An early Negator or even Shade has to be answered and the disruption both decks contain provides additional pressure when attacking both their mana and their hand.

[LUPO]

I can see the wish, edict, and jittes going.  I am a bit more hesitant to drop the will because I am running dark ritual to help power it.  The chains are in my opinion one of the most underused cards in the game.  Perhaps it is because the world just explodes if there are two of them in play, but the chains was one of the first cards in the deck and I designed the deck to function with a chains in play, hence the lack of draw.  Maybe i need to up the count.

Anyone have any thoughts on spoils?

[Milton]

I think you have two different decks rolled into one.  Generally, that's not good.

Do you want to find the Naught/Mask combo fast and kill an opponent quickly, or do you want uber-disruption, like Shaman, Wretch and Chains that hose other deck strategies?  Right now you have a deck that is trying to do everything and, in doing so, has some weaknesses.

I am in agreement with Mordred in that some of your card selection seems very rando.  Two rando Rack and Ruins.  Two rando Jittes.  The rando Burning Wish.  The Chanis.  These cards don't seem to fit well in your deck strategy.  Let's say you have done a great job of disrupting your opponent.  You have Wasted and Duressed and you have a Gorilla Shaman in play.  Your opponent starts to stabalize after turn four or five.  They start to stabalize, develop a hand, develop a mana base and play threats.  Meanwhile you are drawing Rack and Ruins, Chains or Wretches. 

You have the disruption to slow-down the game and land early blows to your opponent's mana base and hand.  Then what?    Conventional wisdom suggests you do two things:  Find your combo kill, or continue to apply pressure with consistant beats.  The thing is, both require some substantial card drawing... card drawing which you don't really have.

So, pull the Chains.  Pull the Jittes.  Pull the Rack and Ruins.  That's what sideboards are for.  Immagine a sideboard like this:

4 Chains (that would be just so frightingly good!)
3 Rack and Ruin
Then any combination of
Tormod's Crypts or Wretches
Red Blasts
Bloodmoons
Pithing Needles
Cursed Scrolls (anti-fish TECH!)
Engineered Explosives
Powder Keg
Diabolic Edict
Terror (underrated and fun!)

Putting the Racks, Wretches and Chains in the board frees-up just a ton of space.  It leads to more consistant draws against decks, also.  I mean, do you really want to be drawing Wretches when your opponent is playing Fish?  Or Oath?  Or Mono-blue?  Against Slaver, sure it's good, but your 4 Shaman and the ton of disruption are enough to keep active Welders at bay.  Don't you think?

Then, you have space in your deck.  Space for card drawing.  Space for better, more efficient, more utilitarian creatues.  Or even space for more tutors, if you really want to go that route.

Also, if you don't have the Emerald and Sapphire, I would proxy them, cut the Petal and straighten out the mana base a little bit. 

Best of luck, and let us know how it progresses.

[Mordred]

I don't think you need Spoils.  The only deck I've ever used Spoils in are decks running 3-4 disruption cards, so basically combo decks hell-bent on turn one kills.  You run enough disruption to not have to put the game on the line over finding a Mask or Naught at instant speed.

[LUPO]

Had a chance to play a few games yesterday. For another creature,  Heath Kami might not be a bad choice.  While digging through cards, I stumbled upon Unearth, and have been intreagued by it.

Thoughts?

[LUPO]

Here are the changes that I made,

Much better deck now.

I am going to stick with the Jittes and the Chains as they are both just wreking balls.  I added in

4 hearth kami

and removed

1 Diabolic Edict
1 Tainted Pact
2 Rack and Ruin

Only maindeck answer to colossus now is the wush or a dreadnaught (not really and answer so to speak).  But I like it much more now that there are actually things to equip the Jittes too.

LUPO

[Astro]

have you considered cutting the the Mask combo and adding Negators, Lavamancers, Mesmeric Fiendand fishy type creatures?  Also, I feel 3 main deck Chains would the right number.  Maybe even 4.