Though I like beating down, solitary confinement is an interesting option. What should I combine it with to actually win the game?
Path to exile has the very substantial upside of turning on land tax. Sphinx of the steel wind, darksteel colossus and a plethora of hasty monsters have been rearing their heads in my meta. I'll keep tariff in mind if I start seeing inkwells, progenitae and empyrial archangels.
If you do go for a slow, controlling win, the traditional plan is to use Kjeldoran Outpost. Obviously, we can do better now, and Elspeth is a similar path to victory.
If I were running solitary confinement though, I would absolutely go for the new white ascension from zendikar.
Luminarch ascension would be hilarious and finding out whether it's actually playable in a not-so-broken meta would be interesting. Still, I think the utterly defensive deck is a different project and also very, very far from my daily hunting grounds, so to speak. I'm probably not the right guy for building nor playing that deck.
I think what you have started here would do better to push the aggro-control elements rather than make it a more full blown control deck like traditional "Parfait" lists were that ran little-to-no-creatures. Given the meta you're playing in and assuming that you don't have access to 'Goyfs or Noble Heirarchs otherwise they'd be on the list somewhere here are some random comments.
If I had goyfs, there would be some in there, but hierarch? I hadn't considered it (possibly because I find 15 dollars a stupid price for a manabird), but I don't think I would run it. The deck has more important things to do turn one. #1 usually being vial and #2 sneaking in some disruption or playing land tax, depending on the situation.
Simian Spirit Guide seems really out of place. You can't use him to cast Teeg, Pridemage or True Believer at all and those seem like the backbone of your creature package. After turn one SSG loses a lot of umph in helping you get stuff into play. He's almost better as an on-color land. Unless you can directly replace him with Elvish Spirit Guides I'd cut them for some more useful and stable mana producers.
Hehe. SSG of course being ESG. You're probably the first person to notice it too.
I'm pretty sure that atleast a few of those should be mox diamond though, and will be proxying and testing a mix of the two to find out. Maybe I even should go up to 3 diamond and 2 ESG or something like that?
Have you given
Empyrial Armor a try? It use to be a main stay in several of the old aggro Tax-Rack
lists back in the day.
Empyrial armor is a hilarious suggestion. I used to be so respectful of that card when I was young. Still, I doubt that shaving off one mana makes it better than jitte in any match-up. If my board was full of soltari or fliers, I could possibly board one. The deck is trying to play tightly and conservatively, prefering to vial in its creatures and miss land drops. Going banzai with creature enchantments just seems out of character.
I'll go and read that article right now, by the way.
What type of combo are you facing in your meta that this deck needs help with?
It can be pretty much anything. The last time we got together: Helm of awakening/Top/Brainfreeze, Hermit druid-->Sutured ghoul, Painter/Grindstone, Elfball, Burn (which is more combo: burn or elves?) and Time vault (UB tezzeret).
I do think I've got most of that covered, and am more concerned about more interactive decks, like Rock or Merfolk, but if you have any suggestions, I'll be all ear. We have one player in particular that is notorious for burning his way to the semifinals, and I'd like ideas on how to make this strong against burn -Just to keep it logged in memory.
Ronom Unicorn and STP would probably be good additions to your SB.
I was considering viridian zealot, but am currently leaning towards abolish, since zealot is only good with active vial and abolish is kinda cheap. If enchantments somehow become more important than artifacts, kami/unicorn may very well deserve a few spots.
I'd really like to find a more elegant solution to aggro than stp and 4 paths should cover the "broken play into fatty" menace.
Keep plugging away at it. Looks like the start of a fun deck in an equally interesting metagame. Some of the funnest Vintage games I've played in were no power/no proxy environments. Enjoy it!
Thank you. I will!
I enjoy what you have been doing with TMWA, by the way.
