Meadbert's ArcaneDenial.dec v.2

[heiner]

Looking at Meadbert's thread I fell in love with the Arcane Denial.dec. However, I immediately thought that the dec is not optimal so far. The Time Vault combo is just too good to not add, and the synergy of the baubles and Thoughtcast should be obvious. This dec draws soo many cards its not even funny. By turn 3 you have often drawn half of your dec. As the dec is soo agressive pitch magic becomes better than Mana Drain. Thats why I have dropped to three. It still is a very good card though when slowrolling. I quickly threw together the SB its just the regular stuff. It should also be possible to run a third color like red.

I have learned that Arcane Denial and baubles (on their own) are no bad cards at all. With so many artifacts there is always something to pitch for Arcane. As a counterspell Arcane is quite strong vs. combo decs as they tend to spend most of their hand to bring that bargain into play or whatever. This way you make up for the card disadvantage and you have 4 more first turn disruption as 4x FoW is normally not enough vs. combo. Baubles let you cycle through your dec very fast making it kind of a 52 card dec. This allows to play a low amount of lands as you can still keep 1 land, 2 bauble hands. It also increases the chances to draw into your goodies like Ancestral and Yawg. Tolarian Academy is the nutz in this dec.

// Lands
    2 Polluted Delta
    4 Seat of the Synod
    1 Tolarian Academy
    4 Underground Sea

// Fast Mana
    1 Black Lotus
    1 Mox Emerald
    1 Mox Jet
    1 Mox Pearl
    1 Mox Ruby
    1 Mox Sapphire
    1 Sol Ring
    1 Mana Crypt
    1 Mana Vault

// Win
    1 Darksteel Colossus
    1 Voltaic Key
    1 Time Vault

// Massive Draw
    1 Ancestral Recall
    1 Brainstorm
    1 Merchant Scroll
    4 Thirst for Knowledge
    4 Arcane Denial
    4 Thoughtcast
    4 Urza's Bauble
    4 Mishra's Bauble

// Disruption
    4 Force of Will
    3 Mana Drain
    2 Misdirection

// Restricted
    1 Demonic Tutor
    1 Time Walk
    1 Tinker
    1 Vampiric Tutor
    1 Yawgmoth's Will

//Sideboard
   4 Pithing Needle
   3 Tormods Crypt
   4 Hurkyl's Recall
   2 Duress
   2 more slots

[kkoie]

I have a few questions:

-  What makes this a better choice over Shaymora?  Both seem to thrive on massive draw, at a glance though I see that Shaymora might have a better matchup against aggro-decks than this one (at least compared to this deck!).  I don't see much in ArcaneDenial.doc that helps much against Fish and other annoying aggro decks.  I am just having difficulty finding pro's for this vs. Shaymora.  They both have about the same # of counters, and the draw engines are similar (though I think Shaymora's draw pile is better, fewer cards, approx. similar quantity drawn).

- Why DSC instead of Inkwell?

[grandpoohbah19]

- Why DSC instead of Inkwell?

Because with all those baubles it's highly unlikely you're going to have any artifacts in your graveyard to weld it out for...

What makes this better than Ichorid?

What makes this better than Tezz?

Oh wait, those comments are sort of pointless. Maybe I should instead offer constructive criticism on what I feel are flaws in the list or potential improvements that could be made... man, thats just so much harder.

[Diakonov]

- Why DSC instead of Inkwell?

Because with all those baubles it's highly unlikely you're going to have any artifacts in your graveyard to weld it out for...

What?

What makes this better than Ichorid?

What makes this better than Tezz?

Oh wait, those comments are sort of pointless. Maybe I should instead offer constructive criticism on what I feel are flaws in the list or potential improvements that could be made... man, thats just so much harder.

Not exactly, he does have a point.  I don't think he was trying to immediately rule this deck idea out.  It does appear that this deck might have issues against aggro.  What happens if they land a Null Rod?  It shuts down 23 cards in the deck, and there is absolutely no way for this deck to deal with it other than Tinker>DSC.  You could argue that the counter spell density should account for that, but I would skeptical nonetheless. 

He's also right that the number of slots taken up by draw components is much higher in this than Shaymora, so it is going to have less versatility. 

I think the concept is still an interesting one, though.  Currently it looks a bit fragile to stand as a solid control deck.

[Explosion]

Is Thoughtcast really going to work with this deck? In order for it to be decent, you need 3, preferably 4 artifacts on board. You plan to pop the baubles to cycle them, or counter them with Arcane Denial, so it seems like you'll often be playing Thoughtcast as a Counsel of the Soratami, or even Inspiration! On the other hand, if you're keeping baubles on the board to make Thoughtcast efficient, you're hurting yourself as far as information is concerned. Since they're "slowtrips," you can't even pop them in response to a killer spell to draw into control elements.

The deck itself is an interesting concept, but I honestly don't see Thoughtcast as working out. Vintage decks are packed with artifacts, but we don't play Thoughtcast because it's not reliably efficient, and it's a Sorcery. Do you really see the benefit of cheap Thoughtcasts worth the pain of having to play baubles and wait for your cards?

That, and Baubles make mulligan decisions really tough. When you pull 2 or 3 in an opening hand, you have no idea what you're really looking at. Does this deck have enough resilience to deliver, or will it just be mulligan hell?

[JDawg13]

I think you're making a mistake by adding artifact lands, Vault/Key, and Thoughtcasts to meadbert's original list.  You're just opening yourself up to get blown out by an early Null Rod.  Wasteland is also very strong against this deck, acting as Strip Mine.  meadbert's original list may not be optimal or even tournament-worthy, but I think you're taking it a number of steps in the wrong direction with these changes.

EDIT: I should caveat my opinion by saying that your changes could work, but only if you were certain that the metagame you were playing in was very light on Null Rod strategies.

[heiner]

Shaymora and this dec play out completely different, you cant really compare them. The one is a real control dec this is much more comboish. And, Meditate and Remora are both really bad vs. creatures so I do not see any advantages for shaymora on this side besides running a better mana base.

Thoughtcast is played. Rich Shay just used it together with artifact lands to win ELDs mox and Chapustaz has done quite well with it as well.

Of course Null Rod is a real beating vs. this dec but there are always cards that destroy a dec. I will not dillute my dec stategy just because of a single card.

I can only suggest sleaving this up and testing it. Its a lot more powerful as it may seem on first glance.

@Explosion: Thoughtcast is actually pretty strong. Imagine such a mediocre hand: Sead of the Synod, mox, Thoughcast, bauble, brainstorm, Misd, TfK. You can cast the Thoughcast 1stt urn with ease, and you have drawn 5 new cards by the next turn and can just continue to chain draw spells.

[FlyFlySideOfFry]

Shaymora and this dec play out completely different, you cant really compare them. The one is a real control dec this is much more comboish. And, Meditate and Remora are both really bad vs. creatures so I do not see any advantages for shaymora on this side besides running a better mana base.

Thoughtcast is played. Rich Shay just used it together with artifact lands to win ELDs mox and Chapustaz has done quite well with it as well.

Of course Null Rod is a real beating vs. this dec but there are always cards that destroy a dec. I will not dillute my dec stategy just because of a single card.

I can only suggest sleaving this up and testing it. Its a lot more powerful as it may seem on first glance.

@Explosion: Thoughtcast is actually pretty strong. Imagine such a mediocre hand: Sead of the Synod, mox, Thoughcast, bauble, brainstorm, Misd, TfK. You can cast the Thoughcast 1stt urn with ease, and you have drawn 5 new cards by the next turn and can just continue to chain draw spells.

Shaymora actually adresses the weakness in the aggro matchup by maindecking Sowers/Old men in addition to the vastly superior mana base.

Thoughtcast was being played in Tezz lists because Tezz only had TfK as a draw engine and the few extra draw spells dominated the mirror match. Running 2 playsets of unrestricted powerful draw engines (backed by the restricted bombs) is more than enough without slapping in a playset of the weakest playable draw spell in Vintage.

That is like saying you won't run graveyard hate because it dillutes your deck strategy. Sure you can fold to Ichorid, but why?

I'm pretty sure the point of tmd.com is to post ideas and then back them up rather than just saying "this may look arbitrarily suboptimal and I have no valid reason for running it but test it please."

So if your opponent drops turn 1 Null Rod or Gorilla Shaman you go to game 2?

Don't get me wrong I love meadbert's bauble/denial engine. It looks really cool and I'm almost positive it can be tweaked to be a top contender. I just don't see why you would butcher yourself by running Thoughtcast and the crap mana base necessary to support it.

[kkoie]

You say Arcane denial.doc is more combo-ish than Shaymora.  Yet you really don't have anything in the deck thats combo-ish that Shaymora doesn't have as well.  I wonder in your testing, how this list compared to meatberts list.  I noticed his had EtW.

[heiner]

Thoughtcast was being played in Tezz lists because Tezz only had TfK as a draw engine and the few extra draw spells dominated the mirror match. Running 2 playsets of unrestricted powerful draw engines (backed by the restricted bombs) is more than enough without slapping in a playset of the weakest playable draw spell in Vintage.

Everybody ran 12 draw spells in the 4 Brinstorm aera. The problem of multiple draw engines is that they do not fit the mana curve. For example you cannot run 4 TfK and 4 Meditate. 4 additional draw spells that cost 1 mana like Thoughtcast are perfect. Drawing 2 cards for 1 mana is broken.

That is like saying you won't run graveyard hate because it dillutes your deck strategy. Sure you can fold to Ichorid, but
So if your opponent drops turn 1 Null Rod or Gorilla Shaman you go to game 2?

Are you still in the ninetees? Where you played Weissman.dec and you had answers for any situation? Todays decs do not play solutions because it is just more efficient to remove the opponent or counter the hate. If it resolves you have bad luck. Thats how it is. I have lost games vs. Jesters Cap but I will still not play 4 win conditions.  So if I face one Null Rod dec I am ok with loosing one game vs Rod and win the other two.

Don't get me wrong I love meadbert's bauble/denial engine. It looks really cool and I'm almost positive it can be tweaked to be a top contender. I just don't see why you would butcher yourself by running Thoughtcast and the crap mana base necessary to support it.

Thoughcast is soo broken with all these 0 casting cost artifacts it is almost better than arcane denial. You have soo many artifacts you can probably play without the lands and it will be still good.

[heiner]

You say Arcane denial.doc is more combo-ish than Shaymora.  Yet you really don't have anything in the deck thats combo-ish that Shaymora doesn't have as well. 

Shaymora plays like this:
Land, Remora, go. Land, go. Land, go. Land, go EOT Meditate.

ArcDenial does this:
land, bauble, bauble, mox, thoughtcast, go, draw 4. 2nd turn: bauble, arcane denial, go, draw 3, play EOT mystical for yawgwill. Turn 3 play Yawgwill, draw gazilions of cards and win the game.

How is that not different?

[FlyFlySideOfFry]

Thoughtcast was being played in Tezz lists because Tezz only had TfK as a draw engine and the few extra draw spells dominated the mirror match. Running 2 playsets of unrestricted powerful draw engines (backed by the restricted bombs) is more than enough without slapping in a playset of the weakest playable draw spell in Vintage.

Everybody ran 12 draw spells in the 4 Brinstorm aera. The problem of multiple draw engines is that they do not fit the mana curve. For example you cannot run 4 TfK and 4 Meditate. 4 additional draw spells that cost 1 mana like Thoughtcast are perfect. Drawing 2 cards for 1 mana is broken.

Thoughtcast doesn't ever cost 1 unless you're already winning. You shouldn't be casting all your baubles since you run 4xTfK and 4xArcane Denial that you should be pitching them to. Seat of the Synod is a horrible card unless you expect nothing but Drain mirrors for 8 rounds.

That is like saying you won't run graveyard hate because it dillutes your deck strategy. Sure you can fold to Ichorid, but
So if your opponent drops turn 1 Null Rod or Gorilla Shaman you go to game 2?

Are you still in the ninetees? Where you played Weissman.dec and you had answers for any situation? Todays decs do not play solutions because it is just more efficient to remove the opponent or counter the hate. If it resolves you have bad luck. Thats how it is. I have lost games vs. Jesters Cap but I will still not play 4 win conditions.  So if I face one Null Rod dec I am ok with loosing one game vs Rod and win the other two.

That is such a horrible comparisson. Even at its peak Jester's Cap wasn't run as often as Null Rod is now and when it was most decks actually DID sideboard for a total of 4 win conditions just in case post-board. Null Rod on the other hand is run as a playset in 40%+ of an average metagame. Do you plan to dodge 40% the metagame for 8 rounds? You don't need answers for every situation but blatantly losing to most decks is just a terrible choice. Drain mirrors should already be favorable why ruin your odds against every other deck to slightly improve that matchup?

Don't get me wrong I love meadbert's bauble/denial engine. It looks really cool and I'm almost positive it can be tweaked to be a top contender. I just don't see why you would butcher yourself by running Thoughtcast and the crap mana base necessary to support it.

Thoughcast is soo broken with all these 0 casting cost artifacts it is almost better than arcane denial. You have soo many artifacts you can probably play without the lands and it will be still good.

Omg Elvish Piper is sooo broken in a deck with lots of big creatures you should throw in a bunch of big creatures and a playset of Pipers. With it in play you don't even need more than one land it would be so pro!!11!!

I'm willing to help people working on this deck but if you're not going to provide actual reasons for what seems like obviously terrible choices then I'm not going to bother responding again.

[kkoie]

You say Arcane denial.doc is more combo-ish than Shaymora.  Yet you really don't have anything in the deck thats combo-ish that Shaymora doesn't have as well. 

Shaymora plays like this:
Land, Remora, go. Land, go. Land, go. Land, go EOT Meditate.

ArcDenial does this:
land, bauble, bauble, mox, thoughtcast, go, draw 4. 2nd turn: bauble, arcane denial, go, draw 3, play EOT mystical for yawgwill. Turn 3 play Yawgwill, draw gazilions of cards and win the game.

How is that not different?

The above is a bad comparison.  For one thing, while Shaymora is playing draw go its also netting a ton of cards for every mox/spell their opponent plays outside of creatures.  In addition it's drawing into crazy cards like Commendeer which is broken beyond reason if it resolves against something good. Your deck has one win condition which scoops to Swords or Path to Exile.  Shay's has more than one outlet.  I suggest you proxy up a Shaymora list and test it out some in comparison to your ArcDenial list.

[Mantis]

This deck looks good in a Drain mirror and doesnt die nearly as hard to REB and Aggro as Shaymora does. That does make the deck a bit more vunerable to Rod and Mox Monkey. That said, I fail to see how this is better than Chapuzas Thoughtcast Tez, that seems like a more appropiate comparison than to Shaymora. Could you elaborate on that?

[Diakonov]

Heiner:

I know that you've received a lot of criticism here, but remember the point of posting a list in the first place is to attract criticism to hopefully improve your list.  Being defensive is fine, but you haven't really conceded anything yet.

If we were to take this one step at a time, I strongly urge you to find a way to deal with Null Rod.  There is no reason not to run 1 bounce spell that can be easily tutored for.  To be completely honest, I think that still won't be enough, and you probably ought to reevaluate your artifact density.  You don't need to take anybody's word for it, just test a Fish match-up with a competent opponent about a dozen times.  I would be shocked if you didn't have issues there.

[the boogie man]

You could also try spell snare. it lso counters goyf, confidant, time vault, and a host of other spells.

[heiner]

Omg Elvish Piper is sooo broken in a deck with lots of big creatures you should throw in a bunch of big creatures and a playset of Pipers. With it in play you don't even need more than one land it would be so pro!!11!!

I'm willing to help people working on this deck but if you're not going to provide actual reasons for what seems like obviously terrible choices then I'm not going to bother responding again.

I dont even know why I answer such a ridiculous argument: Elvish. Piper. is. not. broken. Drawing 2 cards for U is. And yes if you would have tested this dec you would have seen that Thoughcast is always 1U or U.

You (like anybody) havent provided ANY help so far so I wont cry if you do not respons again. Criticism is fine but only if you propose help as well.

@kkoie: I didn't say that this dec is better than shaymora just that it plays out completely diferent. Mantis is correct that this is much more than chapustaz tez. Which dec is better is a hard question to answer and very dependent on the meta your playstile and so on.

Thoughtcast doesn't ever cost 1 unless you're already winning. You shouldn't be casting all your baubles since you run 4xTfK and 4xArcane Denial that you should be pitching them to. Seat of the Synod is a horrible card unless you expect nothing but Drain mirrors for 8 rounds.

Not true. Please test the dec before you talk such nonsense. Thoughtcast is ALWAYS 1U or U. You always play the bubbles if you have THoughcast as you will draw into more.

Some more words about Thoughcast: People are stating that it is good in Chapuztaz dec and bad in this. WTF? This dec plays a lot more artifacts than Chapuztax so why should it be worse in here? Thoughcast is really good in here (better than TfK and ArcDenial)

@Mantiz: Yes your are correct this much more similar than chapuztaz dec. It is just even more all in. So if you want to play a bad mana base anyway I would go for this dec. 11-12 draw spells is not too much. This dec here wins often turn 2 or 3, so its almost a combo dec. (with winning I mean that you have full grip of the game after YWill.

@Diakonov: Null Rod really isn't that bad. The problem with Null Rod is that it is played in bad decs. Ive tested 20 games vs. Fish variants and never had real problems. Sure they won a game from time from time when they started and had Null Rod 2nd turn with FoW backup but I always won 2 out of 3. The thing is that Null Rod is the only card you are really afraid of you can savely ignore the rest of the dec. Fish decs cannot handle brokeness very well in the first turns which this dec has a lot.

Red Stax on the other hand was a beating. THey have Mox Monkey and Chalice (much worse than Nullrod), Crucible/wasteland recursion, and spheres. Spheres are pretty bad as you want to dump your hand early and start drawing and it just sucks to pay for baubles.

[kkoie]

Ok, all other observations aside, what I personally would like to know is, why only one win condition?  And why is it DSC over inkwelll?  With all of the draw you have loaded in the deck, I don't understand why you don't throw in a storm-spell as an alternate win.  It just seems too risky to assume tinker for dsc will do it every time.

[meadbert]

The card Uba Mask is a wrecking ball against Arcane Denial.dec in general.  I am not sure what can be done about that.

[Implacable]

The card Uba Mask is a wrecking ball against Arcane Denial.dec in general.  I am not sure what can be done about that.

Sideboard's been the only solution so far.