mono red painter discussion/innovation

[BigMac]

After i heard about the painter/grindstone combo i was set on playing it. I saw the blue/red control version but did not really like it. So i started on my own mono red version. First of all my decklist:

8 mountains
4 Great Furnace
2 Ancient Tomb

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt

4 Grindstone
3 Tormods Crypt

4 Painters Servant
3 Scarcrone
4 Goblin Welder
4 Imperial Recruiter
3 Magus of the Moon

3 Goblin Lore
3 Control of the court

4 Pyroblast
3 Red Elemental Blast

Sideboard
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Magus of the Moon
2 Blood Moon
1 Tormods Crypt
4 Active Volcano
3 Shattering Spree
3 lava Dart

About the cardchoices:
painter/grindstone main kill, theme of the deck so no discussion. Both you play 4 as you need to get them asap.
magus of the moon is really good as you are mono color and your artifactland remain just that, artifact land.
goblin welder is just so good if you lose a counterwar or if you have a streak of bad luck with your draw engine.
Imperial recruiter finds any critter you need, seems like a nobrainer to play.
Scarecrone, this is one a lot of discussion will be on but i like it very much. It can keep your painter from stp by saccing it and drawing a card and then return it to play again if you have 4 manas. If you have loads of mana you have a draw engine backup plan.

Tormods crypt seems a nobrainer as well as so many decks play with either darksteel colossus or gaeas blessing. Main deck you have a gameplane against ichorid as well as combo with this one and magus.

Goblin lore and control of the court are your draw enginge. Most people will argue that they do not like those cards because of the randomness. But i will say 2 things. Timing and digging. You need to dig fast with this deck to either find grindstone or welder or recruiter if you do not have them and this will find them. Chances are you will get one or more of the desired cards very soon. And the central cards you mostly can weld back in if you have to discard them. And all of that for 2 mana.

The reb and pyroblast are fro protection against counters and against everything when a painter hits the table.

Sideboard i am still working on. But so far it has some promising results.

Comments?

[Darkenslight]

Would Gamble be aq better option for you, as it's Demonic with random discard from hand, instead of the Goblin Lore etc?  If so, thyat would free up four more slots or so.

[Noah_33]

I also was wondering why Gamble wasn't in the deck. It seems like the perfect fit. Also Wheel of Fortune seems like it would be fine in here. It has great sinergy with Goblin Welder and finds you combo faster.

[Troy_Costisick]

Would Gamble be aq better option for you, as it's Demonic with random discard from hand, instead of the Goblin Lore etc?  If so, thyat would free up four more slots or so.

I have to second the use of Gamble, here.  It's great with Welder who also gives you protection vs. DSC and Platz.  I think you could easily drop the number of Grindstones if you include 4 Gambles in your build, and that would give you more room to add some more control pieces.

Peace,

-Troy

[Jaynel]

Have you considered Faerie Macabre a singleton for Imperial Recruiter to grab?

[BigMac]

Gamble was in my original build. When i tested with it and played with it it was more often than once just a dead card in your hand. You never want to draw into one when your hand is almost empty and you really need something. So late game more often than not it is just a dead draw and you dont need that with this deck. Goblin lore lets you dig fast. Lets say you hand is empty and you draw land, recruiter, welder, ReB which is pretty possible. You have a 75 percent chance of getting a better card. If you draw gamble it is just dead.
Another reason not to play gamble is to get more in your graveyard to get better use out of welder and scarcrone. With goblin lore and control the court you fill you graveyard with more cards so you get better use of your graveyard critters.

Gamble as to find what you need together with welder makes it good. And early game you would prefer it over goblin lore. But to assure yourself to have one early game you need to pack 4 and that means really bad draws mid and late game. But i think this is a personal preference if you want to play this or not.

Most of hte time you are the control player. If you realise that you will understand to get welder and/or painter up as quickly as possible. Scarcrone is very well to get early on as well. Getting painter up and running is critical cause of your control plan with the 7 ReB/pyro. More than once i went all the way beating with a couple of little critters due to early painter with protection.

Another card i tried early on was Wheel of fortune but that was always the first card to get sided out. You dont want to give your opponent a full hand again.

Two reasons this deck works is that the amount of critterdecks is minimal in vintage and you have maindeck counters against all blue spells.


About faery macabre. I have never even considered it as an option as you barely need it. The 3 tormod crypts work great. And as you dig deep fast you will find one easilly enough. Getting an active welder again is key to this control plan. And as Colossus never even hits the graveyard you cannot get rid of it with this card, only blessing. And lets face it, more people are playing colossus.

The sideboard is still pretty shaky. The Extra Blood moons and magus of the moon are good but you almost never play with all 6 of them.
The extra blast i would like to have main deck but dont know what to cut for it.
The active volcanos i never boarded in so can become something else.
the 3 shattering spree's are very good and will probably get a number 4.
the extra crypt is very good when you need it.
the 3 lava darts are when you play another goblin welder deck. You really need to kill that one. This card works well with forgotten lore as you can play it with little cost from your graveyard when you need it.

So you pretty much have 4 slots open in your sideboard.

gamebreakdown:
combo:
get out your crypt and magus as soon as possible. This will slow them down for sure. With painter on the board you have more counters than they have so you should be able to pull it out of the fire.
Post boarding some extra bloodmoons and crypt.
You will do nothing against a turn 1 kill if opponent starts, that is something you will need to be comfortable with. But nowadays it is not as common as it used to be so i am cool with that and will take it. When you start game one you have a good chance. But without turn 1 kills you are in pretty good shape. If you know they play the tinker colossus combo as well or alone, get your combo and beat him to death. If he plays tinker colossus grind him or do it with a draw spell on the stack. Timing is everything here.
50/50 at best.

cerebral assassin
With your tormod crypt main deck you have a pretty solid gameplan against this deck. I would say very favourable, especially after boardign in your shattering sprees. Important other cards are your magus and painter with ReB effects.
Very favourable machup.

Stax
With your welders and your discardplan i think this is a good machup. Again the magus will do you proud when you play him. After boarding the sprees make it an even better matchup. Especially as this is somewhat slowish. And you have less to fear from wastelands.
Favourable matchup

Oath
This one is tricky but doable.Having an early painter and/or an early magus is critical here. If there is an oath on the board get rid of it with a ReB or Pyroblast after playing painter or reb the critters and crypt the graveyard with the critters in it. As long as you manage to keep oath from the table you habe a fighting chance. The new dragon can be ReBed with painter in play but Akroma still is to much. A possibility would be to play some StP sideboard and some Red/white lands. But then you ned to play fetches. So that is something to think about for this matchup. Most important card to get up fast is magus or bloodmoon.
i would say 40-60.

Control slaver
As long as you manage to keep triskelion of the table you will win. Lava dart is important in this game. If you get your combo on the table you will win. magus is not as important as a good player will get basics anyways. getting a welder first is also a good thing. As you have a load of ReBs mainboard you have a very good plan against his counters. So make sure to take your time before making decission. He plays a slow deck so take your time as well. You play more critters but his are bigger. After boarding spree is very good as well.

Ichorid or dredge decks
Your mainboard crypts will help you a lot. Getting a fast welder and a crypt will win you the game. Magus will help as well getting his bazaar out of the way. So you have all 3 games a good plan against the deck. As you play a lot of critters he will need his bridges and you have some ways to get rid of them with welder.
A little favourable due to the maindeck crypts.

fish and other critterdecks
As you play a lot of critters yourself you can buy yourself the time you need to combo out. Especially usefull is the scarecrone/painter recurring drawengine/blockmode you can get into. Will get you cards and will keep him at bay long enough to become deadly with grindstone.
Very favourable.

This concludes this session. If you have more comments or questions do not hesitate to ask.

[meadbert]

What about the Bazaar/Squee engine?  It has strong synergy with the rest of your draw engine.

[BigMac]

That indeed is something i need to look at but my first impression is that it will not work that good together with magus of the moon. And most matches you need the early magus or the early mana so turn 1 bazaar is not that good. It is good for digging, but i see synergy problems.

[MafiaBass]

And most matches you need the early magus or the early mana so turn 1 bazaar is not that good. It is good for digging, but i see synergy problems.

I disagree. Taking advantage of Bazaar while you have it is likely a great idea for this deck. I mean, worst case scenario it a mountain on turn 2 or 3. The only potential issue I see is a turn 1 Bazaar preventing you from dropping Magus on turn 1 when you could otherwise do so. If nothing else, it's definitely worth a try.

[Qasur]

I have to agree that Bazaar seems like a nobrainer include here.

Also, you've been pretty defensive towards any improvement on your deck. I feel you posted it only garner positive responses instead of possible advancing feedback, AKA: positive criticism.

As for what has been said, I'll echo: Bazaar seems really good here. First off, just like Red Stax, Bazzar + Welder create a crazy combinatin of good plays, that sometimes it just simpley overcomes your opponent's ability to do anything. Especially when the only spells you need to resolve are moxen or CotV. Speaking of CotV, I feel you need to include a few copies. This deck doesn't look like it can handle Storm at all because you run no 1cc black disruption and no FoW, making anything you play resolve. Despite having 7 Red Counters for blue spells, that just means holding up 1 extra mana in order to resolve your threats, which isn't bad, but since it's not free, relies on needing lots of mana in play (3 for Painter and 4 for grindstone.)

I will say that I do like the deck. First off, it's non-colored, so you're very safe from Wastelands not setting you back into the stone age (even if you had 4 Bazaars with your Great Furnaces, you'd still be running an enumerous amount of basics and could never get land-locked versus (possible recurring) Wastelands.

I think with Bazaars, you might make the simple cut of -1 Grindstone and -3 Goblin Lore for 4x Chalice of the Void instead. You do play Tormod's Crypt in the main, but that's for fear of Oath or something else. If people do run Darksteel... sweet, they get one turn to win. If you have least 1 mana up after milling everything else, I'm sure you could find a way to REB/Pyro their Yawgmoth's Will.

Also, I feel -3 Tormod's Crypt and +3 Simian Spirit Guide would make the hands better and easier to use REB/Pyro as defensive pseudo-"Fow" once you resolve a quick painter. Plus, holding SSG+REB after tapping out to mill leave that "hidden" counter for a possible game-winning Yawgmoth's Will (if they're holding it and it wasn't milled.) I would probably try to fit a 4th SSG too, but I don't know what to but. If you still fear Gaea's Blessing, then run 3-4 Tormod's Crypt in the board, and sideout Chalices.

EDIT: Also, about hitting Darksteel with T-Crypt... it's impossible. He has a replacement effect that says "If he would be put into a graveyard from anywhere, do something else." Meaning as he would be attempted to be put in the g'yard, he wouldn't, and gets revealed, then shuffled back into the deck. So, you never have opportunity to Crypt him. Only able to crypt Blessings, as they trigger AFTER hitting graveyard from library.

[BigMac]

EDIT: Also, about hitting Darksteel with T-Crypt... it's impossible. He has a replacement effect that says "If he would be put into a graveyard from anywhere, do something else." Meaning as he would be attempted to be put in the g'yard, he wouldn't, and gets revealed, then shuffled back into the deck. So, you never have opportunity to Crypt him. Only able to crypt Blessings, as they trigger AFTER hitting graveyard from library.

I know, but having them only draw DSC every turn pretty much is game as well, even if they manage to discard it every turn.

As i said, i need to try out the bazaar in the deck. It absolutely seems good. I only vented my own worries about the non compatibility with magus. But it probably is a better draw engine than goblin lore as you get to choose which cards to discard. With magus you have the extra mana for whatever needs you desire. So i am not discarding the idea at all.

I also like the idea of main deck chalices. But to cut the crypts for it, i don't know about that one. I would need to find the space somewhere though. But together with the knowing what to discard pile from bazaar i could cut some things i think. Definitely worth a go.

I am not overly fond of the monkeys though. Most of the time i can wait one turn to play painter or just play him with off colour manasources and protect him with a mountain. As i wrote earlier, most of the time i am the control deck so take your time.

[Suicideking]

I think sword of fire and ice is too good not too play in some number in this deck.  If you equip it on a painter that thing is a house.  Even without a painter its still good to equip.

Scarecrone seems really weak.  I'd rather just run jugs and bring the pain asap.

[Qasur]

I would definitely try a few SSG's... I think 3 at first will show a few advantages.

More than just being able to cast REB w/out lands, it also lets you go Turn 1 Bazaar, activate, pitch 3 cards, remove SSG, cast Welder + Mox/CotV. That just sets up a ridiculous second turn welder explosion, especially if the welded card is the Grindstone, not the Painter. Either way, it just produces some good quick speed. And always, it's fodder to pitch to Bazaar if you've already got the goods in hand.

@Tormod's Crypt: I can see your point for them, but the reason for not main-decking them is that usually Painter doesn't need them. Most U/r builds aren't running but maybe 1 as a Game 1 target, but that's it. If you end up facing Oath, then you need to decide which build they are. If they're Tyrant Oath, then you're golden. If they're Dragon-Oath, then you're going to lose game 1 unless you get Painter online on like turn 1 AND you're holding lots of REB/Pyros (they become insane vindicates that can target oath.)

[wiley]

I think sword of fire and ice is too good not too play in some number in this deck.  If you equip it on a painter that thing is a house.  Even without a painter its still good to equip.

Scarecrone seems really weak.  I'd rather just run jugs and bring the pain asap.

Just don't name blue or red right?  Becuase then the sword would fall off painter pretty quickly.

[Suicideking]

I think sword of fire and ice is too good not too play in some number in this deck.  If you equip it on a painter that thing is a house.  Even without a painter its still good to equip.

Scarecrone seems really weak.  I'd rather just run jugs and bring the pain asap.

Just don't name blue or red right?  Becuase then the sword would fall off painter pretty quickly.

Yeah im an idiot.  For some reason i thought that worked.  Sword of light and shadow has some potential with its return abilities.

I think this deck will always suffer from te fact that if you dont have premium hands you will get blown out by other decks.  It really doesnt appear to have a way to stop combo, and drain decks should be able to out control you.

[mr.grim]

in the end i think the best idea is  to just add a stone and painter to a shop build .

[Liam-K]

A few immediate concerns upon reading the thread:

This deck doing something seems HEAVILY reliant on getting "cute tricks" online, which is historically a bad bet in Vintage, especially when the components are fairly awful by themselves.  After the first two turns, which you ought to be using to effect the game state, your hand is small and your "draw engine" is an overcosted cantrip without some sort of graveyard interaction.  Your "control package" is prohibitively narrow without a Painter's Servant, and your Grindstones are useless without him.  Your Scarecrones seem terrible in general, but especially so when you're not fueling him with goblin lores.  Painter's Servant himself is irrelevant in isolation (except when he lets your opponent pitch a land to FOW).  Welder almost looks consistently strong enough to consider independent by comparison, which is not a good sign.

The collateral damage you take in the metagame is outright massive.  Null Rod, grave hate, artifact hate, weenie hate, and Chalice are all a beating.  That's so many cards that are good against you, and with the possible exception of weenie hate they're all everywhere.

The disruption suite shows no focus.  REB is for obvious reasons, tcrypt appears necessary to defeat blessing, and moon man is often strong, but they don't compliment each other well.  The lack of Wasteland seems especially bizarre and as I think I saw mentioned above, Chalice.  Waste, Chalice, and Magus together drastically increase the chances of your disruption being relevant by attacking the same resource.

Painter/Grinder looks awfully lonely as a win condition.  Swinging with one power dorks is a horrible plan B, and giving your opponent such a crucial weakness to exploit is always disastrous.  If I were playing against this list, my strategy would be simply keep Painter off the table while I set up my win, which appears to cripple you so thoroughly that I could expect to go largely unmolested for the time it'd take me to end the game.  Seems like you're guaranteed to fight an uphill battle to line up synergies while defending a keystone permanent, and any lapse in that effort results in you trying to race with a couple 1/x's.  Not a pleasant prospect.



Please feel free to explain what I missed anywhere I made an incorrect assumption.

[BigMac]

Please feel free to explain what I missed anywhere I made an incorrect assumption.

It is true, all true. Having your painter blasted by a ReB is a bit cruel and it happens. having a FoW played with a land pitched is a bit cruel. Then again assuming that keeping painter of the board being your primary target is a good strategy. I see just a few problems with that. I can look for them, i can recur them with both welder and scarecrow, and i play four so chances are i will draw one or the other very soon, either with the cantrip as you describe it, or with the bazaar engine i will be trying shortly.

Facts are indeed in your favor. A lot of people do play artifact hate, do play chalices, do play graveyard hate. But the beauty of it is, all of it can be destroyed with a simple pyro or ReB with painter in play. Without painter a lot of decks rely solely on blue spells for their drawengine. You can counter that anyways.
And then there was creature removal. Then again, this is vintage, not that many creatures, not that important, so not to many people playing those, so not to big a concern.

You say pounding of 1 a turn is not to much and will give you enough time. Then again getting pounded by 4 1/x critters is getting annoying. Especially when you do not have to many things to get rid of them. Sure, you could try and set up your win. But unless you use all black spells and black tutors it is going to be hard with a blue drawengine almost dead due to ReBs.

This all seems a bit bitter. But i have won more games due to little critters going all the way than from my combo. Never forget that little critters can go all the way. But i also know that fast combo is probably getting the best of me if i do not have a killer opening. But that is true of virtually every deck out there. Sure this seems a fairly straightforward gameplan. And sure it is easily disrupted when you know how. But knowing how it is disrupted gives you the edge to play so you can protect your key cards. This is where skill becomes important. Now i am not saying that i am a good player. But i have won on luck as well as on skill. I also lost due to luck and skill. But it is a fun deck to play and it is hilarious to stomp somebody to mush with little critters knowing they cannot play their DSC due to an instant kill if they do.

About the wastes. I do not seem to find the place for those, but otherwise they would be included. But having the magus is almost as good as most decks really rely on the many colours they play and will have instand dead cards and dead draws after magus is played.
About scarecrow, sure it may seem week, but will win you games if only because people do not understand that that card can bring back your painter. And that card can protect painter from StP as well. just a thought.

Then again you didn't miss much, and you missed loads.

[Soon-Man]

I liked the idea of this deck so i tried it out. I mixed a few things around, just too see how things played out. I didn't actually test this deck, i just goldfished till the deck felt like it was moving fast enough. Here is the list I arrived at:

Lands
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Ancient Tomb
5 Mountain

Creatures
4 Magus of the Moon
4 Imperial Recruiter
4 Goblin Welder
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Painter's Servant
3 Squee, Goblin Nabob

Spells
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
3 Grindstone
1 Black Lotus
2 Pyroblast
4 Red Elemental Blast
4 Gamble

Side Board
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Null Rod
3 Electrostatic Bolt
3 Rack and Ruin
1 Pyroblast


Like I said, I haven't really tested it. Just godlfished it. I did run a couple games on MWS against myself against a couple deck, which is how i made the board.