B/R bitter ordeal list

[smasher]

Merge this with the old thread if any mods want to do so. It was a few pages back so I started a new one.

4x smallpox
4x bitter ordeal
4x thoughtseize
4x duress
4x reb
4x ingot chewer
4x greater gargadon
1x demonic tutor
1x vampiric tutor
1x imperial seal
1x demonic consultation

4x dark ritual
4x wasteland
1x strip mine
4x bloodstained mire
4x polluted delta
2x wooded foothills
2x swamp
1x mountain
2x badlands
mox ruby
mox jet
black lotus
lotus petal
mana crypt (not currently in but probably should be, will play 61 cards with it in for now)

I don't think the deck has any auto loss matchups and it has a good game plan against storm combo, time vault, and oath.

The primary goal is resolve bitter ordeal for 2 or more cards, this can easily be done with dark ritual turn one. Fetch, rit, bitter ordeal. The nice thing about bitter ordeal is the gravestorm makes countering the spell really tough to do especially if its for 3+ cards.

Cards that combo with gravestorm

1) wasteland, uncounterable +2 gravestorm.
2) fetches +1 gravestorm
3) Ingot chewer, one red +2 gravestorm
4) Greater gargadon, one red uncounterable gravestorm for x, x= to your permanents.
5) Smallpox, with a double dark rit you can play this and bitter ordeal on the first turn for multiple gravestorm

Smallpox is a way to kill off big robots. Helps in aggro matches as well.
Gargadon gives you a win condition after bitter ordeal and is a nice bomb versus aggro when he comes into play.
Ingot chewer gives some game versus workshop, can be useful against dredge as well to remove bridges. A 3/3 is pretty good against a lot of commonly played aggro/fish creatures as well.

8x duress effects and 4x reb allow you to wait a few turns to set up a bigger bitter ordeal if its needed. It is also helpful to ensure gargadon is going to resolve when you finally remove that last counter. Either by discarding countermagic or reb on their counterspell. 8x duress/thoughteize also give you a way to reliably take a remaining win con that may have been sitting in hand after you bitter ordeal them.

4x tutors essentially gives you 8 bitter ordeals, this hopefully is enough to get it in the first couple turns.

Any hand with fetches/wastes and 1 mana accel card can cast bitter ordeal turn 1 or 2 for enough to make a lot of decks scoop.

10 fetches seem like a reasonable number considering you almost exclusively want to get your actual mana producing land in play while building gravestorm.

I think the sideboard would need some combination of cards to deal with creature based decks and probably a few remaining slots increasing your shop and dredge matches.

possible sideboard could look like
3x darkblast
4x tombstalker
2x extirpate
3x yixlid jailer
3x shattering spree/rack and ruin/goblin welder/viashino heretic etc...

This would give you 7 creatures and 3 more removal for aggro matches.
5 more dredge cards, you could bring in darkblast also if you dont need reb for mana dredge lists.
dark blasts and your 3x red anti artifact cards for shop decks. maybe some number of tombstalkers/extirpates also

I won every game playtested against storm and vault decks that didn't involve them getting a turn 1 tendrils win or turn 1 vault/key active. Therefore none of the board is needed to boost these matches.

The one big weakness this deck has is facing a leyline of the void since black and red don't offer any help in bouncing or destroying it. Leyline hasn't been seeing much play in my area so I might just gun this deck when we get our weekly tournaments going again.

I was trying both phyrexian negator and tombstalker for aggro matches and tombstalker seemed better so he got upped to a 4 of and negator got taken out. I still like the idea of turn one dark rit into negator but it seems pretty weak when you are bringing in negator to help in aggro where they can just block him and make you sac your board. Tombstalkers flying was better than negators trampling as well.

Dredge is fairly common where I play but I think that match should go over in my favor with bitter ordeal, extirpate, jailer, wastelands/stripmine, and ingot chewer.

List needs more testing versus shop decks.

Not sure if this means anything but after a couple weeks of playing this deck multiple people started refusing to play against the deck. I took it as the deck is annoying to play against or they didn't want to bother playing sideboard games and needed to bring in leyline to have a shot at winning.

[vassago]

Eric, you forgot to mention how you are going to deal with Leyline of the Void.   

[smasher]

Eric, you forgot to mention how you are going to deal with Leyline of the Void.   

Yea as stated in the original post the LotV is a dream crusher. Might be reason enough to splash some blue for mystical, ancestral, time walk, and chain of vapor/echoing truths in the board.

[xouman]

Mogg fanatic, gorila shaman, and pulverize seem great in this deck. The problem is that this deck is awesome against combo, quite good against drain decks, but crap against any other.

[Darkenslight]

Would splashing W for Demystify and some other equalising cards be useful?  I'm guessing Balance would be rather strong in this kind of deck, for the mid-late game.

[RecklessEmbermage]

Cool deck.

I'd think mogg fanatic would be more relevant maindeck than greater gargadon, since it kills confidant and other fishes and is better against ichorid in such a creature-light deck.

How about -4 REB, -4 Gargadon, +4 fanatic, +2 tombstalker, +2 crucible of worlds main?

You could take your time to land the tombstalker, and with tutors, you shouldn't have a problem finding it. REB doesn't seem necessary main with 8 pieces of discard and a hard-to-counter win-spell. Especially not if you cut gargadon. Strip-lock seems like a good fit for the deck. I might be wrong though.

[smasher]

pulverize seems pretty nice in the sideboard if nothing else. I've thought about gorilla shaman but chose ingot chewer over him. Mogg fanatic seems like a good fit since so many dark confidants and welders are seeing play and he helps the gravestorm count.

I like the idea to try some white, wispmare would be hot out of the board to deal with leyline. The balance seems like a perfect fit too with white in the deck.

The problem is that this deck is awesome against combo, quite good against drain decks, but crap against any other.

Yeah I feel this is a big issue that needs to fix itself. I already plan on dedicating most of the sideboard to help here. I probably need to make at least a couple maindeck changes to really help. Green would give tarmogoyf out of the board or maindeck and crop rotation maindeck to build up a nice gravestorm for one green. You also get some cheap removal like seal of primordium and reverent silence to deal with leylines after game 1

[smasher]

Cool deck.

I'd think mogg fanatic would be more relevant maindeck than greater gargadon, since it kills confidant and other fishes and is better against ichorid in such a creature-light deck.

How about -4 REB, -4 Gargadon, +4 fanatic, +2 tombstalker, +2 crucible of worlds main?

You could take your time to land the tombstalker, and with tutors, you shouldn't have a problem finding it. REB doesn't seem necessary main with 8 pieces of discard and a hard-to-counter win-spell. Especially not if you cut gargadon. Strip-lock seems like a good fit for the deck. I might be wrong though.

I think fanatic in place of gargadon is a good call to at least try out. Taking out rebs for something seems good, I don't think I want to try the strip/waste lock with crucible although if I add in crop rotation it becomes better.
I'm on the fence about tombstalkers maindeck. It seems worth testing anyway. I was just thinking game 1's I want to focus on always having a good hand to pull off a quick bitter ordeal. Then I can deal with aggro and fish decks out of the board if thats what im up against.

[xouman]

Gargadon is a must in this deck: uncounterable and massive impact for  bitter ordeal. IMHO REB's and pyros are needed, at least 3-4 in total, if not to prevent tinker or so, at least they can protect gargadon from bouncers (it should be your primary wc).


I have been thinking and maybe a red stax is the natural deck for bitter ordeal and gargadon, along with welders, crucibles, smokestacks... and ravager :p Stax provides a hard lock and bitter ordeal could cut any response.

[Beralt]

Intriguing - but Noble Fish seems to be on the rise in my area and would pretty much own this deck.  Massacre in the side might help, as well as Pyroclasm.  It does seem like it would own Oath, Tendrils & Vault winning conditions.

[Almanomada]

Gargadon is a must in this deck: uncounterable and massive impact for  bitter ordeal. IMHO REB's and pyros are needed, at least 3-4 in total, if not to prevent tinker or so, at least they can protect gargadon from bouncers (it should be your primary wc).


I have been thinking and maybe a red stax is the natural deck for bitter ordeal and gargadon, along with welders, crucibles, smokestacks... and ravager :p Stax provides a hard lock and bitter ordeal could cut any response.

  love it...   Bitter Stax

[vassago]

I like the new card that is in Zendikar for this deck, Blood ghast or what ever he is called. The dude whose landfall trigger brings him back.  Could be ok, could be really bad. Just a passing thought.

[Almanomada]

Bloodghast might really work.  combos nicely with Gargadon, especially if you play him- dsac him drop a sac land and sac bloodghast again then sac sacland and sac bloodghast a thrid time.  Could get crazy.  He is  and could fit well with the mana base.

[smasher]

The thing about bitter ordeal is you generally don't need higher than 3 cards removed. This allows you to have one copy countered and take the remaining couple of win cons. Perhaps bloodghast is a reasonable creature to shore up the aggro matches while still being an enabler to ordeal. It's just so easy to cast bitter ordeal for 3-4 cards without doing much but fetching a couple times or fetch + waste/strip already though.

The black stax sounds interesting but if you are trying a lockdown strategy do you need the bitter ordeal as well? I need to throw a few new lists together and get some testing done. I plan to test lists that are very strong against vault, oath, and tendrils while trying to squeeze in cards to increase aggro matches without weakening the main strategy. I think if a list can be developed that gets your aggro matches to at least a 50% shot of winning this deck could be strong contender.

The current configuration of the deck which is in the first post wasn't horrible against aggro but wasn't quite there yet. I found bitter ordeal to not totally suck due to the fact that you can gravestorm up a few copies and remove the biggest creatures like goyfs and the couple removal spells they play giving you a nice advantage. The problem comes in when they have a goyf + another creature in hand that will just race you well before a gargadon can come in play or before you can draw into a couple removal spells.

I'm not totally sold on gargadon in the deck. He is fitting in with the theme of the deck but often I felt he wasn't needed to get to the required 3 card bitter ordeal. The question becomes does he help enough as an enabler while doing what he needs to do for aggro matches? This is where I liked the suggestion of mogg fanatic as he definately helps in both areas and as a bonus is sick against dredge.

I'm on the fence about playing REB's/Pyro's. They do help versus the 3 decks I'm trying to squash out but they seem to feel sub par in aggro matches. Even against a 3 color fish list with blue I don't think they are going to be too effective. 4 Duress and 4 Thoughtseize seems like it could be enough to stall until I can get my bitter ordeal. The discard spells are decent against fish and aggro too. Perhaps another enabler creature similar to mogg fanatic can take the place of the REB's

Anyway just a few thoughts I've been having. I'll try to get some new listed together soon and report back when I get some results in.

[jaeppel]

What about skullclamp in here.  it seems like a way better way to sacrifice doods than gargadon.  constantly building card advantage rather than throwing it all away for a beatstick.

imagine something like play fetch, ghast returns, clamp it, crack fetch, clamp ghast again.  could be sick, but then you need a drastic redesign to use it all with ordeal.dec.

[smasher]

What about skullclamp in here.  it seems like a way better way to sacrifice doods than gargadon.  constantly building card advantage rather than throwing it all away for a beatstick.

imagine something like play fetch, ghast returns, clamp it, crack fetch, clamp ghast again.  could be sick, but then you need a drastic redesign to use it all with ordeal.dec.

The deck does lack a draw engine. While it's not really needed against the targeted decks It would be awesome in aggro matches. I could see a skullclamp/bloodghast version being effective at doing both.

[RecklessEmbermage]

What about skullclamp in here.  it seems like a way better way to sacrifice doods than gargadon.  constantly building card advantage rather than throwing it all away for a beatstick.

imagine something like play fetch, ghast returns, clamp it, crack fetch, clamp ghast again.  could be sick, but then you need a drastic redesign to use it all with ordeal.dec.

The deck does lack a draw engine. While it's not really needed against the targeted decks It would be awesome in aggro matches. I could see a skullclamp/bloodghast version being effective at doing both.

For skullclamp to be good in the aggro match-ups you need creatures that survive being clamped. Or else, you end up spending your mana drawing a bunch of cards, while the opponent runs you over. Bloodghasts chaining into eachother help in this respect, but you'll need like three of them to block or race a single tarmogoyf effectively.

You could side in some additional hate to cut the loose ends. Firestorm comes to mind. Still, my gut as well as my head is telling me that skullclamp isn't the way to go to save this deck from aggro.

Smallpox + tombstalker might not be bulletproof, but at the very least take up far fewer slots.