R/B beats

[xouman]

Let's organize a bit. Which are the cards you want to start with? Confidant/duress, I suppose. And then? Shaman/coating/magus. For turn 3 heretics, creature killers, an equipment... Summarizing:

T1-Instant impact in the game (confidant can be considered instant impact because your advantage starts in the next turn. usually a win if played in turn 1 and survives)
T2-Long term attacking, specially manabase.
T3-Control elements.

With 2 moxen, no wastelands and a slow engine (coating + something else) I'd probably play these costs:

16-Cost 1
12-Cost 2
9-Cost 3
23-mana sources

that's 16+24+27 = 67 => 1.1 CC per card, so confidant would draw about 18 cards before dying.

Cost 1: 4 duress+4 gorilla shaman+2 goblin welder + 2 grafdigger's cage+ 2 shattering spree +1 vampiric tutor +1 grim lavamancer
Cost 2: 4 liquimetal coating + 4 dark confidant +2 rakdos charm +1 demonic tutor +1 rathi
Cost 3: 3 magus of the moon + 3 viashino heretic + 1 royal assassin +1 sofi +1 sword of light and shadow

This ressembles a bit your first list. I would like to see faithless looting or SDT to filter a bit and assembly magus/coating engine asap, but I understand it's a fringe card. Still it would take off unneded lands/coatings/confidants/shamans... are lots of cards you don't want to have in multiples.

Only 5 direct outs to tinker + 2 tutors. viashino can kill opponent if it's already low on life. Could be enough
Quite MUD hate, but little acceleration. You can be quickly buried, and a revoker on heretic could be fatal.
Oath is winnable on the play, but hard most of the time. Magus would be late taking green mana, duress and cage are best tools.
Dredge is REALLY hard, but a rakdos in hand would make it possible with magus and/or cage.
Blue feels winnable if they are not in explosive mode.
Aggro and fish would totally depend on our draws. Magus is devastating in these pairings (they play few basics), as assassin, lavamancer and equipments. Coating+viashino or welder/gorilla would seal most of the games.

Not my desirable list, but meets most of your premises

[TheWhiteDragon]

I guess looking at my original list, what changes would you make?  That's probably the easiest way to go about it.  Granted this will be mainly theoretical since I don't suppose anyone tested my list.  What specific cards would you cut and why, and what cards would you add as a replacement?  My sb is totally open for change beside the +3 cages.  What other 12 cards would you use in a B/R list such as mine?

[xouman]

Yesterday I went to a small event (18 people) with the non-coating list (I felt it was too open after these discussions). It was quite tested, but I got and underwhelming 1-4 (and the win was a bye).

I lost to jace-tarmo deck (with gush and tendrils). I kept a hand low on mana but with T1 cage and COTV (I didn't know the guy). I drew the third mana source on turn 5, and there already were a 6/7 tarmo and a jace. He said COTV shut lotus and mox in initial hand.
Next one he played a T2 trygon or so. I mulliganed to 5 with 4 lands and a wurmcoil (1 or 0 mana sources before). My first 2 draws where more lands.

Coating would have been good to take tarmo (with spree or heretic). Shaman would have eaten a mox (if dropped) but I would have faced a T1 jace, so much worse than cotv. in the second coating would have been eaten by trygon if I dropped it before heretic or shattering spree. In general, artifact hate alone wouldn't have done anything. I played 3 or 4 REBs, and against tarmo my main plan was to block it with artifacts and change with welder (not the best plan I know), kill it with lightning from the beginning, deathtocuh with wurmcoil... I couln't play any of the 6 moons, and I didn't see any basic land in his side. Just bad luck, I thought


In the next match I faced new Menendian's deck. One turn oath in his side was too hard for me. In second match I  mulliganed and could have won the match but I condeded after facing a griselband and only having 1 mana source by turn 3 or 4. I was simply too angry.

In this match duress would have been great, but coating engine would have been veeeeeery slow. Rakdos charm would be a great tool since he also played ETW and could have sealed the deal. He hastily used wishes to fetch artifact destruction. shaman would have killed most of his manabase, but too slow, cotv was my best card here.


In third match I lost to T1 BSC, won with T1 cotv0, T2 cotv2, and lost to T1 jace. He played oath and coating engine would have been too slow again

Fourth round was a bye for me

in fifth match I lost to RUG delver. I mulliganed to 6 with a bad keep and 4 with a crap hand. he played delvers, vendillions, bolts, trygons... bolts and trygons really hurt coating engine. On the other side, royal assassin would have been great if there was a way to protect it from bolts (greaves???).


Too fast decks for BR liquimetal. I really think I could have done much more with monored with normal draws but I hadn't draw worse in lots of years.


Oath has to be addressed. Duress helps, but only on the play. Cage is not enough as it's well expected by oath players. Welder could recur it but usually having summoning sickness is fatal (greaves again???)

SOFI was horrible all day. I never had creatures to attack, and i discarded sofi to looting all the time. While equipped creature dodge jace's unsummon, dropping a CC3 creature means equiping it the next turn (in your BR shell 5 mana is quite hard to achieve), giving time to jace.

I'd play rebs to fight tinker and jace. I simply didn't draw any, only one but the guy topdecked oath. Liliana would have been good imho, confidant so-so, magus enormous but only played 2 in all the event, and the second was too late against rug player.


I'm not optimistic to say the truth. liquimetal needs a slow field, not well prepared against artifacts as it is now. let's wait some months so people forget of mud

[vaughnbros]

Xouman I think your recent result shows how weak of a choice it is to build around an artifact, in your case chalice of the void and in white dragon's case liquid metal.  Workshops isn't going anywhere for a long time.  Its been stationed as one of the best decks of the format for the last few years now you have to build as though its a main stay.  To make this deck successful I think the better route is to go with as few artifacts as possible.  The key here is try and find the right combo for your meta game of hand disruption, mana disruption, and answers to broken stuff.  When I get more time later in the week I'll try and do a write up for all the options for these 3 categories of cards.

[TheWhiteDragon]

I found a few things in your post confusing, so I'll address each separately.  One thing to take from the results is that chalice can be strong, especially @0 on turn 1 - but it is not an answer, only a stall.  If the opponent isn't holding a hand that depends on lotus, then it's not broken.  It is essentially playing a 4-of to stop a restricted card (stopping a mox is not so big unless they keep a mostly mox hand).

Yesterday I went to a small event (18 people) with the non-coating list (I felt it was too open after these discussions). It was quite tested, but I got and underwhelming 1-4 (and the win was a bye).

I'm not sure playing a non-liquimetal monored deck can equate the performance of a 2 color, liquimetal deck.  You can notice some similarities/differences, but it's not really an equal comparison.  Lines of play are very different.

I lost to jace-tarmo deck (with gush and tendrils). I kept a hand low on mana but with T1 cage and COTV (I didn't know the guy). I drew the third mana source on turn 5, and there already were a 6/7 tarmo and a jace. He said COTV shut lotus and mox in initial hand.
Next one he played a T2 trygon or so. I mulliganed to 5 with 4 lands and a wurmcoil (1 or 0 mana sources before). My first 2 draws where more lands.

That's a really bad mulligan rate overall in this post, but I think it points to 3 things - 1) Your mana curve is too high.  My list has MANY 1 mana or 2 mana plays where yours tries to push out moon effects and loses card advantage through early looting where you are "digging" for mana at the cost of pitching your later castable cards.  It seems you're waiting on the 3rd mana a lot - and 6 mana is just way too much for this deck.  2) Wastelands + 17 mana keeps you off the colors you need and is nothing vs basic lands.  Running 4 caverns in those slots gives you + 4 mana of any color for critters and dodges all the missteps, FoWs, etc which I'm sure you ran into a lot facing those blue decks. 3) you are sorely missing solid draw spells like 2 mana uncounterable Bob and tutors for your answer cards.

Coating would have been good to take tarmo (with spree or heretic). Shaman would have eaten a mox (if dropped) but I would have faced a T1 jace, so much worse than cotv. in the second coating would have been eaten by trygon if I dropped it before heretic or shattering spree. In general, artifact hate alone wouldn't have done anything. I played 3 or 4 REBs, and against tarmo my main plan was to block it with artifacts and change with welder (not the best plan I know), kill it with lightning from the beginning, deathtocuh with wurmcoil... I couln't play any of the 6 moons, and I didn't see any basic land in his side. Just bad luck, I thought.

That does seem a bit like bad luck, but I think the loss of answers just for stopping turn 1 Jace was not worth it.  Liquimetal + spree/rakdos is a turn 2 or 3 play that can blow up jace, tarm, or oath.  Trapper and assassin are very good against the trygons.  SoFI and greeves can eat a Jace FAST, so I never care if they get off one brainstorm for 4 mana.  The artifact mana main alone may not have helped much, but as you pointed out, rakdos is versatile.  Spree is only 2 slots and are as useful as the maindeck hurkylls blue runs vs non-shop decks.  A 1cc critter with a SoFI is brutal vs blue decks and safe from bolts.

In the next match I faced new Menendian's deck. One turn oath in his side was too hard for me. In second match I  mulliganed and could have won the match but I condeded after facing a griselband and only having 1 mana source by turn 3 or 4. I was simply too angry.

Emotions are never a good variable to include in any deck.  If you could have won but quit, that's not good.  Turn 1 oath IS a problem, but you can't play creatures into it.  In the case of oath, the duress (or seize) is HUGE and the extirpate can really drive a nail in their plan.  You can't even compare non-duress deck with a duress deck in this matchup.  The difference is night and day.  Also, your chalice doesn't do much in this match unless you get 4 mana on turn 1 and know to cast it @2 instead of 1 or 0.  Duress/seize is a blind turn 1 play that can have huge dividends for 1 mana.  In the event they land oath and no orchard, you have to try to stick a liquimetal (or now a ratchet bomb as I have added that) and blow it up.  Darkblast helps to kill their first token too.  It's a tough match, but you're really handicapping yourself by not playing discard.  REB sucks vs oath for the most part.

In this match duress would have been great, but coating engine would have been veeeeeery slow. Rakdos charm would be a great tool since he also played ETW and could have sealed the deal. He hastily used wishes to fetch artifact destruction. shaman would have killed most of his manabase, but too slow, cotv was my best card here.

coating + heretic or shaman would have been very slow - but not coating + spree.  That's a turn 2/3 play that you can make uncounterable by replicating spree.  Even so, duress is the biggest play here.  Often I tutor for cage and drop cage (but the versions I play against run 2 main Show and Tell-so even that is futile).  Trapper helps vs the golden gun version.  Almost nothing will help vs the griselbrand version except keeping oath out of their hand with discard.

In third match I lost to T1 BSC, won with T1 cotv0, T2 cotv2, and lost to T1 jace. He played oath and coating engine would have been too slow again

Almost every deck not running FoW loses to turn 1 BSC.  I don't even see lilliana taking down a turn 1 BSC without rituals.  We don't have hurkylls/steel sabotage, so we're handicapped there.  I tried edict for a while, but stingscourger is just better (same cost and can be uncounterable off cavern).  Chalice does seem good here, but again only if you know to drop it at 2 and can do so quickly.  T1 jace is not nearly the threat when you have uncounterable 1/2cc creatures.  Your curve is heavy at 3 and reaches to 6 with no 2 drops.  A SoFI/greeves on cheap critters kills jace fast, but even a steady stream of 1/2 drops can keep Jace from building up or just brainstorming all day.  It makes him go the unsummon/fateseal route which gives you some time to drop the equipment or a liquimetal + spree.

Fourth round was a bye for me

in fifth match I lost to RUG delver. I mulliganed to 6 with a bad keep and 4 with a crap hand. he played delvers, vendillions, bolts, trygons... bolts and trygons really hurt coating engine. On the other side, royal assassin would have been great if there was a way to protect it from bolts (greaves???).

SoFI is the bees knees vs RUG.  Trapper/assassin handle trygons well.  Rakdos can also screw up their snapcaster plays, and I often extirpate their first lightning bolt which VASTLY swings the match in our favor (basically killing 8x lightning bolt with snapcasters).  Liquimetal has been weaker in that match overall, but I don't see chalice helping any either (chalice @1 IS good in that match, but you run no caverns, so can't cheat through it).

Too fast decks for BR liquimetal. I really think I could have done much more with monored with normal draws but I hadn't draw worse in lots of years.

I don't understand this, because you said you were playing monored without liquimetal....doesn't make sense here.

Oath has to be addressed. Duress helps, but only on the play. Cage is not enough as it's well expected by oath players. Welder could recur it but usually having summoning sickness is fatal (greaves again???)

Agreed.  Oath and storm are my hardest matchups yet.  I'm not sure simple lightning bolts really help this much either.  All three of the lists posted here really have nothing fantastic against storm or oath (the 4 cage list probably has a 1-up here, but no duress to force it through or protect it)

SOFI was horrible all day. I never had creatures to attack, and i discarded sofi to looting all the time. While equipped creature dodge jace's unsummon, dropping a CC3 creature means equiping it the next turn (in your BR shell 5 mana is quite hard to achieve), giving time to jace.

I can't see this, but I suspect it again comes down to running cc3 critters instead of 1/2cc.  A shaman with a SoFI is perfectly acceptable.  An SSG with SoFI IS slow.  I run 18 critters and 3 equipment - 12 of those critters costing 2 or 1.  The equipment has never been an issue for me there.  The monored version really is high on CC and depends on Moon sealing the deal - which it often does not in a world where basics are heavily played (because of what Vaughnbros pointed out about shops).

I'd play rebs to fight tinker and jace. I simply didn't draw any, only one but the guy topdecked oath. Liliana would have been good imho, confidant so-so, magus enormous but only played 2 in all the event, and the second was too late against rug player.

bad luck on your mulligans/draws - but bob and tutors really help here.  REB is a nice call vs blue in sb, but I think I might want extra discard even more to hit the oaths as well as the jace/tinker.  Stingscourger is a huge sb card vs oath and tinker.dec, especially when uncounterable.  Lilliana seems worth looking at, but is really slow vs turn 1 tinker/oath.  Again, I don't see either doing anything against griselbrand.  Duress is again the winner here.

I'm not optimistic to say the truth. liquimetal needs a slow field, not well prepared against artifacts as it is now. let's wait some months so people forget of mud

[xouman]

@vaughnbros: I agree, despite not having full dependancy on artifacts I drawn crap all day, keeping 1 or 2 decent hands, and my artifacts were easily destroyed by shattering spree and trygon. If I play moon deck again I'd probably play null rod and/or cotv (probably both) but no golems or metamorphs, even when they are awesome: lots of things destroy them. The problem is there are lots of things to hate. Oath must be addressed very different from tendrils, or MUD.

@TheWhiteDragon: Yes, costs 3 and 4 didn't help. But let me explain, I only have mana troubles in first match with a 7 cards keep. My mulligans where becayse I only had 1 mana source, or no red source at all (I played 12 mountains, ruby and lotus). And I had about 10-11 mulligans in 9 matches.

Confidant is clearly a great card to have, and I will play it all day if it was red. But he won't have helped in first match (tarmo 6/7 + jace), he would have been GREAT in second game (a poor 5 cards keep, he would have recovered against single trygon), he would be useless against new Menendian's deck, useless against T1 tinker, and poor against T1 jace + early oath. In the last match against rug confidant would have been better, but I mulliganed to poor 6 and a decent 4 card hand (if 4 card can be decent). All around bad pairings, confidant is great in slow environments and that was not the time.

yes, reb is poor against oath, duress is far better. but reb is better against tinker or jace, and that was first cards I saw from Round 3 oath player.

jace is easily killed with greaves or sofi, but not when other player maindecks tarmos or is into oath plan.


Posted on: Yesterday at 12:58:59 PM Posted by: TheWhiteDragon
Insert Quote
I found a few things in your post confusing, so I'll address each separately.  One thing to take from the results is that chalice can be strong, especially @0 on turn 1 - but it is not an answer, only a stall.  If the opponent isn't holding a hand that depends on lotus, then it's not broken.  It is essentially playing a 4-of to stop a restricted card (stopping a mox is not so big unless they keep a mostly mox hand).

Quote from: xouman on Yesterday at 05:31:15 AM
Yesterday I went to a small event (18 people) with the non-coating list (I felt it was too open after these discussions). It was quite tested, but I got and underwhelming 1-4 (and the win was a bye).
I'm not sure playing a non-liquimetal monored deck can equate the performance of a 2 color, liquimetal deck.  You can notice some similarities/differences, but it's not really an equal comparison.  Lines of play are very different.

Quote from: xouman on Yesterday at 05:31:15 AM
I lost to jace-tarmo deck (with gush and tendrils). I kept a hand low on mana but with T1 cage and COTV (I didn't know the guy). I drew the third mana source on turn 5, and there already were a 6/7 tarmo and a jace. He said COTV shut lotus and mox in initial hand.
Next one he played a T2 trygon or so. I mulliganed to 5 with 4 lands and a wurmcoil (1 or 0 mana sources before). My first 2 draws where more lands.
That's a really bad mulligan rate overall in this post, but I think it points to 3 things - 1) Your mana curve is too high.  My list has MANY 1 mana or 2 mana plays where yours tries to push out moon effects and loses card advantage through early looting where you are "digging" for mana at the cost of pitching your later castable cards.  It seems you're waiting on the 3rd mana a lot - and 6 mana is just way too much for this deck.  2) Wastelands + 17 mana keeps you off the colors you need and is nothing vs basic lands.  Running 4 caverns in those slots gives you + 4 mana of any color for critters and dodges all the missteps, FoWs, etc which I'm sure you ran into a lot facing those blue decks. 3) you are sorely missing solid draw spells like 2 mana uncounterable Bob and tutors for your answer cards.

Quote from: xouman on Yesterday at 05:31:15 AM
Coating would have been good to take tarmo (with spree or heretic). Shaman would have eaten a mox (if dropped) but I would have faced a T1 jace, so much worse than cotv. in the second coating would have been eaten by trygon if I dropped it before heretic or shattering spree. In general, artifact hate alone wouldn't have done anything. I played 3 or 4 REBs, and against tarmo my main plan was to block it with artifacts and change with welder (not the best plan I know), kill it with lightning from the beginning, deathtocuh with wurmcoil... I couln't play any of the 6 moons, and I didn't see any basic land in his side. Just bad luck, I thought.
That does seem a bit like bad luck, but I think the loss of answers just for stopping turn 1 Jace was not worth it.  Liquimetal + spree/rakdos is a turn 2 or 3 play that can blow up jace, tarm, or oath.  Trapper and assassin are very good against the trygons.  SoFI and greeves can eat a Jace FAST, so I never care if they get off one brainstorm for 4 mana.  The artifact mana main alone may not have helped much, but as you pointed out, rakdos is versatile.  Spree is only 2 slots and are as useful as the maindeck hurkylls blue runs vs non-shop decks.  A 1cc critter with a SoFI is brutal vs blue decks and safe from bolts.

Quote from: xouman on Yesterday at 05:31:15 AM
In the next match I faced new Menendian's deck. One turn oath in his side was too hard for me. In second match I  mulliganed and could have won the match but I condeded after facing a griselband and only having 1 mana source by turn 3 or 4. I was simply too angry.
Emotions are never a good variable to include in any deck.  If you could have won but quit, that's not good.  Turn 1 oath IS a problem, but you can't play creatures into it.  In the case of oath, the duress (or seize) is HUGE and the extirpate can really drive a nail in their plan.  You can't even compare non-duress deck with a duress deck in this matchup.  The difference is night and day.  Also, your chalice doesn't do much in this match unless you get 4 mana on turn 1 and know to cast it @2 instead of 1 or 0.  Duress/seize is a blind turn 1 play that can have huge dividends for 1 mana.  In the event they land oath and no orchard, you have to try to stick a liquimetal (or now a ratchet bomb as I have added that) and blow it up.  Darkblast helps to kill their first token too.  It's a tough match, but you're really handicapping yourself by not playing discard.  REB sucks vs oath for the most part.

Quote from: xouman on Yesterday at 05:31:15 AM
In this match duress would have been great, but coating engine would have been veeeeeery slow. Rakdos charm would be a great tool since he also played ETW and could have sealed the deal. He hastily used wishes to fetch artifact destruction. shaman would have killed most of his manabase, but too slow, cotv was my best card here.
coating + heretic or shaman would have been very slow - but not coating + spree.  That's a turn 2/3 play that you can make uncounterable by replicating spree.  Even so, duress is the biggest play here.  Often I tutor for cage and drop cage (but the versions I play against run 2 main Show and Tell-so even that is futile).  Trapper helps vs the golden gun version.  Almost nothing will help vs the griselbrand version except keeping oath out of their hand with discard.

Quote from: xouman on Yesterday at 05:31:15 AM
In third match I lost to T1 BSC, won with T1 cotv0, T2 cotv2, and lost to T1 jace. He played oath and coating engine would have been too slow again
Almost every deck not running FoW loses to turn 1 BSC.  I don't even see lilliana taking down a turn 1 BSC without rituals.  We don't have hurkylls/steel sabotage, so we're handicapped there.  I tried edict for a while, but stingscourger is just better (same cost and can be uncounterable off cavern).  Chalice does seem good here, but again only if you know to drop it at 2 and can do so quickly.  T1 jace is not nearly the threat when you have uncounterable 1/2cc creatures.  Your curve is heavy at 3 and reaches to 6 with no 2 drops.  A SoFI/greeves on cheap critters kills jace fast, but even a steady stream of 1/2 drops can keep Jace from building up or just brainstorming all day.  It makes him go the unsummon/fateseal route which gives you some time to drop the equipment or a liquimetal + spree.

Quote from: xouman on Yesterday at 05:31:15 AM
Fourth round was a bye for me

in fifth match I lost to RUG delver. I mulliganed to 6 with a bad keep and 4 with a crap hand. he played delvers, vendillions, bolts, trygons... bolts and trygons really hurt coating engine. On the other side, royal assassin would have been great if there was a way to protect it from bolts (greaves???).
SoFI is the bees knees vs RUG.  Trapper/assassin handle trygons well.  Rakdos can also screw up their snapcaster plays, and I often extirpate their first lightning bolt which VASTLY swings the match in our favor (basically killing 8x lightning bolt with snapcasters).  Liquimetal has been weaker in that match overall, but I don't see chalice helping any either (chalice @1 IS good in that match, but you run no caverns, so can't cheat through it).

I just failed to guess the metagame, the pairings were far what I expected. BR would have been a wiser choice, but drawing like I did it would be difficult to win 1 or 2 rounds... And liquimetal engine would have been too slow for sure, by turn 2 I was clearly down in every match but the one I won.

[TheWhiteDragon]

I'm not sure how Reb is better than duress. If you play first, you will pull their tinker or jace.  If you play second, you're not stopping turn 1 tinker anyway.  If you have mana before he casts tinker, then duress and pull it.  If they aren't playing blue, you can still yank a ton of good stuff.

Bob is awesome....yes, he is not the answer to turn 1 tinker, oath, jace, or tarm...but neither is anything.  No R/B card you can play will stop turn 1 tarm, BSC AND Jace in one card.  Other decks play bob for another reason, not because he's an answer.

SoFI/greeves kill jace, but loses to oath....yes.  Name me the card that beats jace and oath in a single card.  Calling out the weakness of each card against its worst match is not getting anywhere.  ANY creature is bad vs oath (except pridemage) so I don't see the argument there.  In fact, SoFI is not the worst vs oath as you can equip the token, deal 3 damage, draw a card, and kill the token - effectively giving you a timewalk. Not ideal, but in the 2 cards you draw before he can EoT token you, maybe you draw liquimetal + spree.  I don't think there are any particularly great cards, but pointing out that a single card can't beat ALL strategies by itself is akin to saying mountain is terrible against tinker, so we shouldn't play mountains.

Liquimetal needs a bit of time to set up, it's true, but then it can really lock up a game.  Cards like duress buy you that time.  Bob gives you CA so you can accelerate your gameplan.  Not every deck is going to drop the turn 1 bomb you have no answer for unless you play no disruption (like no duress/seize).  Even with duress sometimes they play turn 1 mox, island, lotus, tinker with FoW backup....whatcha gonna do?  Nothing short of FoW will beat the turn 1 nuts on the draw.  If you want a turn 0 answer to oath, tinker, tarm, and jace in a single card, play blue - it's called FoW.  There is no other card that can do that, especially not in B/R.

You had bad draws, granted - but part of that is due to running colorless lands like waste and tomb and a ton of 3-6cc cards with few 1cc and no 2cc.  The other problem being you have no discard to stop the opponent's plan and no tutors to grab your answer cards.  If you let your opponent just goldfish while you drop mountains, then you'll get rolled every time.  I really dislike the SSG plan too.  You play tomb, SSG, SSG, golem.  Your opponent plays land, mox, claim.  You just got 3-for-1nd.  SSG is a one shot boost that makes you go all in.  I dislike all-ins. 

And again, the blue decks won't be nearly as imposing if you run caverns.  Uncounterable critters are awesome.  See how good blue playing tarm/trygon does against cavern + assassin/trapper.

Now, I'm not saying my deck would have pwned that tourney, but what I am saying is B/R caverns has HUUUGE advantage over monored with giant robots.

[xouman]

I agree that Bob is a top card. He does not answer anything, but helps drawing answers. In a couple of turns he has gained CA by himself, and every turn he improves your game state. in control matches (slow matches) he is one of the best cards to have. But what does he do against 2 oath decks, and one jace deck (defended with tarmos and trygons)? Against RUG he is quite good, but facing 2 delvers AND a vendillion his life loss could be a pain. I agree that confidant/gorilla + sofi is great, but critters can be bolted before I equip, trygons destroy equipment... still it's the best pairing of all 4, but mulliganing in both matches didn't help.

Yes, I cannot figure any BR card that helps against Oath and Jace. Well, the bests cards I can think of are duress or tgz, or MoM making difficult having green mana or double blue. I'm happy casting MoM against oath as long as oath is not in the battlefield. Confidant is a risky choice since maybe they are keeping it in hand. Golem is also playable, since it increases oath cost and puts a severe clock.

I'm not afraid of a single jace most of the time. I'm afraid of jace + creatures. Your list is far better against jace than mine, no doubt about that.

Yes, we both agree Liquimetal engine is brutal once in play. Duress buys time, confidants and tutors fetch for it. But in a very speedy meta, it is needed to find more aggresive ways to find it and answers to insta-losses.

And before continue defending my card choices, this was my list

4 cotv
2 grafdigger's cage
2 lightning bolt
4 faithless looting
3 goblin welder
2 pyrexian revoker
3 magus of the moon
3 blood moon
3 pyrexian metamorph
1 sofi
1 trinisphere
4 lodestone golem
1 memory jar
2 wurmcoil engine

8 lotussolcryptmoxen
1 tolarian academy
4 ancient tomb
12 mountain

No wastelands, no ssg, that configuration is when I play unpow and that was a proxied event. I won't play jar or wurmcoil without mana artifacts, and I would include crucible (to lock with strip/waste, and recover lands discarded with looting)

11 cc1 cards, plus 4 cotv (at 0 when it's in initial hand). Just 2 cc2, because cotv comes at 2 when possible (LOTS of great vintage cardss cost 2). 11 cc3 cards, 5 of them can be paid with colorless mana. golems are easily payable. wurmcoil were usuallly playable by turn 4 even with a mulligan to 5, and I never drae jar in all the day, but it's the card that I like less. 17 lands, 5 of them giving multiple mana and 12 basic lands feels quite stable. I have goldfished tons of times and it's hard to need a mulligan. In fact I'd play less lands, but mulligans are quite hard for this deck without confidants or bombs. besides, looting is a great mana fixer, grabbing extra lands or discarding it. metamorphs and wurmcoils are easily discarded first turns, and welder can bring them in later.
4 cotv, 6 moons, 1 trini and 2 revokers are 13 quick hosers. 2 cage, 3 welder, 2 lightning, 3 metamorph face lots of troubles. Golem usually wins by itself, facing nearly any creature, returning with welder, slowing lots of decks. Wurmcoil was expected to face tarmos and muds, but only draw it against oath in play, and the second time was against a trygon in play.

Tarmos, trygons, delvers and vendillions suffer to assassin. But still it's one card (plus tutors) against jace, lightnings, and besides first player's plan A was gush tendrils.

Summarizing, your BR is better against oath and has better tools against jace. But still having 1of's makes it low reliable and it's not a convenient deck in that metagame. in fact, a heavy oath metagame needs a very different approach i think

[TheWhiteDragon]

First...what is tgz?

I have tried tinkering with a few of your card choices in my deck.  I have swapped out trapper for a 3rd welder.  I tried cutting extirpate, 1 rakdos charm, 1 sofi, and 2 confidant for 3 faithless looting, memory jar, and steel hellkite (much better answer to fish/oath/trygon than wurmcoil).  It's cute.  The bad part is I lose 2 main answers to dredge as such...and looting is often not a great play when I have only useful things in hand (bob is almost always good). It also can be countered by misstep/pierce/fluster which are normally dead cards against me.  Bob is usually uncounterable for me and can carry equipment.

I DO like the recurrable dragon.  Jar is nice too, but underwhelming since I can't go broken.  With greeves however, I can cast welders and use jar 4 times in a turn until I hit dragon and then haste him as well.  But this plan is a bit random and makes me force in lootings which aren't always great.

A big issue I found is the need to slow moxen from storm/blue.  Chalice seems good and extras are good with looting, but chalice @ 1 or 2 is as much a pain for duress, looting, critters, liquimetal, tutors to make only chalice@ 0 worth it.  Null rod is no option due to coating, and I like coating's ability to kill all permanents too much.  Just adding off color moxen is worse than chalice because my broken is not as good as an opponent's broken.  I'm more control and weenies.

I think I may just add dragon and 1 looting for extirpate and 1 sofi...and swap rathi trapper for welder #3.  But then I still have the issue of fast mana from my opponent.  Thoughts?

[xouman]

tgz: thoughtseize

Hellkite - Wurmcoil were my main choices. In fact I bought hellkite before wurmcoil. But finally I kept wurmcoil by these reasons:

-If destroyed/welded, i have 2 3/3 great critters. With a destroyed hellkite I don't have anything. This is the main advantage.
-It helps my life count. Crypt and tombs are hard, and delvers can take my last lives quickly. Dredge also makes lives matter.

On the other side hellkite kills most creatures, moxen, oath (if helkite is played before oath, hard but not impossible). And you get a point with trygon, the match I mulliganed to 5 I kept a turn 4 wurmcoil but trygon made it useless. Overall speaking Hellkite is better in first match, but probably worse in second and third matches, except when opponent plays trygon.

Another creature worth considering is Myr battlesphere. the 4 tokens stay even if you bounce/exile it, and puts a heavy clock. 7 mana hurt more than 6 (in my deck 6 was really castable by turn 4), and lacks some versatility, but in your deck could be better. with greaves battlesphere attacks for 8+4 in the first turn, and tokens equipped with sofi could win the game themselves.

Looting is a versatile card, but I won't sacrifice confidants for it. I only play it in T1 when I don't have welder or to set T2 magus. If i have good hand, looting stays in my hand happily. If you already have 3 lands in play by turn 3, you can discard any excess of lands. It diggers for answers. And if countered... that's a 1 for 1, and you can just play it again! Yes, I get it countered sometimes, but rarely troubles me.

COTV is quite tricky. I dropped nearly all cc2 cards (apart from 2 revokers) to play safely for 2. Against gush or dredge it's better at 1, but against any other pairing at 2 is devastating. for 0 is great on the play, so-so later. It generates great card advantage until opponent can get ride of it. drawing a hand with 2 or 3 chalices can be gg if opponent does not have counterwall. trinisphere complements it. shaman is also good, as it eats moxen played before cotv.

about fast mana from your opponent... cotv, shaman, MoM hit hard. besides duress takes relevant cards, buying time. This is one approach I'd try BR:

4 duress
4 faithless looting
3 goblin welder
3 gorilla shaman
2 shattering spree
1 vampiric
4 dark confidant
4 liquimetal coating
2 rakdos charm
1 demonic tutor
1 lighting greaves
3 viashino heretic
1 sofi
1 wurmcoil engine
1 steel hellkite
1 myr battlesphere
1 myconsyth lattice

1 sol ring
1 mana crypt
1 black lotus
1 mox jet
1 mox ruby
4 wastelands/mishra's factory/caverns
4 badlands
1 strip mine
5 fetch
2 mountain
2 swamp


sideboard
4 cages - oath, dredge, even drain decks...
2 engineered explosives - etw, moxen, dredge tokens, fishes...
3 extirpate - taking duressed oaths, dredge...
2 crucible of worlds - recovering wastelands, card advantage with looting. not sure about this inclusion, seems weak.
4 goblin bombardment - oath, maybe fish or dredge. very weak though...
I miss rebs, and lightnings.

this list has no impact on other player creatures apart from liquimetal engine. well, it has factories to block creatures (remember factory is a 3/3 blocking), sofi to improve blockers and it's not hard to have liquimetal in play by turn 4-5. I dropped caverns for factories because I don't own them, for sorceries and because factories are usually better against oath, mud and some fishes, besides being artifacts themselves to use with welder (you can respond to a wasteland on factory welding it for any artifact). If you don't like factories, wastelands can be a great option too. And caverns are welcome too against chalices or counters, of course

it lacks cages. maybe you can cut a looting and a land (23 sources can be too much if you are not playing wastelands) for a couple, but they hurt your welders into robot. also yawgmoth's will can seal lots of matches, maybe it's worth inclusion... it would help oath and dredge for sure.

i dropped magus to go the liquimetal way. besides with lattice in play (making shaman instant armageddon, and spree just a machine gun), mom is useless. however if you play caverns, mom improves

cotv is out because it was bad at 1 and 2. shaman is the answer to moxen, and viashino/spree help too.

this list is very slow, but it's the best liquimetal approach I've found thinking a bit. It goes 'All in', loses the versatility of your original deck and it's easily hateable (surely this word doesn't exist, sorry), but will seal lots of games and looks wonderful against mud. It seems a bit weak against blue, specially jace and snapcasters, so wastelands/factories would help in a different way. The aggro pairing seems better than before, liquimetal is easy to assemble and welded robots crush aggro.

[TheWhiteDragon]

That last list looks interesting, but it really just scoops to dredge or oath and has a hell of a time vs blue.  Cages (at least 1 to tutor for) I find necessary, but that last approach relies so much on welder/looting/fatty.

Thus far from my original list I have cut 1 bob, 1 sofi, 1 greeves, 1 surgical extraction, 1 trapper, 1 rakdos, 1 shaman...and added 2 sensei top, 1 heretic, 1 assassin, 1 welder, 1 looting, 1 hellkite.  Looting is not something I want often, but it combos well with a few cards.  The top helps dig, so I'm safe dropping 1 shaman.  Shatterskull blocks critters all day, so he's as good as assassin for being a wall and has the bonus of being a fast clock.  Dragon just gives me an answer to big critters, weenies, trygon, and all manner of cheap permanents.  I've liked having him as a backup plan so far.  I don't care if he gets destroyed.  I just weld him back. His ability + flying seem to give him the nod over wurm at least for now.

My sb is still in flux.

Here's my updated list:

// Lands
    4  Bloodstained Mire
    1  Badlands
    3  Mountain
    4  Swamp
    4  Cavern of Souls

// Creatures
    3  Dark Confidant
    4  Magus of the Moon
    3  Gorilla Shaman
    3  Goblin Welder
    3  Viashino Heretic
    2  Stinkweed Imp
    

// Spells
    4  Liquimetal Coating
    1  Mox Ruby
    1  Black Lotus
    1  Sol Ring
    1  Mox Jet
    1  Grafdigger's Cage
    1  Mana Crypt
    1  Demonic Tutor
    1  Darkblast
    1  Vampiric Tutor
    2  Shattering Spree
    4  Duress
    1  Rakdos Charm
    2  Sword of Fire and Ice
    1  Nihil Spellbomb
    1  Sensei's Divining Top
    2  Engineered Explosives

// Sideboard
SB: 3  Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1  Sword of Fire and Ice
SB: 2  Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 (open slots)
SB: 2  Stingscourger
SB: 4  Thorn of Amethyst
SB: 1  Stinkweed Imp
SB: 1  Extirpate

**edit** updated list as of 10/27/12 changes

[TheWhiteDragon]

So I've done a bunch more testing and have been beating storm pretty handily with thorns.  The deck isn't terrible just on its own merit without thorn.  Duress and magus seem to cause problems as well as shaman eating mana and welder killing their plan b.

Fish has become more of a problem, though.  Missteps counter my spells, ooze eats my welder tricks and becomes bigger than my beaters even with SoFI.  Trygon/kitaki/pridemage kill my coatings/hellkite/SoFI.  Noble/vial give speed against my mana denial.  Plow handles any of my critters, including assassin.  Snapcaster surprise blocks and gives them extra plows.  I am considering 3x perish in the sb, but they'll just flusterstorm it.  Any advise on how to beat noble fish?

I tried lord of shatterskull, but came back to assassins and upped 1 heretic.  Heretic is inherently strong vs golems and such, and adds one more critter killer with coating.  His body has been significant in blocking 2/1s and dodging fire/ice and darkblast.  Shatterskull has similar benefits, but can't take down things like emakrul, griselbrand, or fliers and is a turn (or more depending on that 4th mana) slower than either heretic or assassin.  The assassins perhaps aren't the best options, but I'm hard pressed to find cheaper/better.  The extirpate has been neat at times, but offers little against fish (good vs oath/dredge/storm/welder/snapcaster - but meh vs anything else).  It's never stellar, but decent in some matches.  I might try a second SoFI in that spot or even another thoughtseize.

**edit** update:  I found that engineered explosives is insanely good.  I originally thought it only killed creatures and artifacts like powder keg.  It's a faster version of ratchet bomb vs fish that doesn't fall to flusterstorm (but ratchet is still useful with welder recursion and not so much for EE) .  I suppose steel sabotage hurts it, but it's a nice sweep.  sweeping vials/nobles for 3 mana in the early game is nice too.  The ratchet bombs were just too slow against pridemages and trygons.  I still think perishes in the sb are not bad, but I did swap out assassins altogether for heretics (better vs shops) and with liquimetal, they kill any creature.  They are also a nice body to block 2/2s and 2/1s.  I've updated my list above with the current changes.

[xouman]

I already recommended a couple of EE in my last list, even I don't play them (in a mono red list is kind of stupid, you want them at 0 or 2, not 1). I'm not sure that's the best play since you already play a good number of permanents, but it can often make 2x1 and works with welder sweeping zombies, etw goblins, moxen...

I think thorns in your list are better than in mine, because I already rely a lot on artifacts. I used to play pyrostatic pillar, quite hard for storm decks, but bad against other combo decks.

Noble fish was one of my worst pairings before oath got popular. Trygon and tarmo were my main concerns, and vendillion and snapcaster were hard too. Lord of batterskull pass was my solution, I increased bolts to 2-3, but the best card has always been COTV at 2. I have won matches by playing a T1 magus and seen them scooping. I've won matches by using shaman+welder+coating. I've used welder plus golem/metamorph to buy lots of time. Jaya ballard was a nightmare for them, always countered or sworded. REBs counter snapcasters/vendillions/trygons. Viashino is great if they play SFM, crap otherwise. I like to play 1-2 pyrokinesis, very useful in early turns to deal with anything. The most important tool in this pairing is knowing who is the beatdown: the noble player. take care of best cards (sofi, big guys, removal) and be very wise with life loss.

[TheWhiteDragon]

I already recommended a couple of EE in my last list, even I don't play them (in a mono red list is kind of stupid, you want them at 0 or 2, not 1). I'm not sure that's the best play since you already play a good number of permanents, but it can often make 2x1 and works with welder sweeping zombies, etw goblins, moxen...

I think thorns in your list are better than in mine, because I already rely a lot on artifacts. I used to play pyrostatic pillar, quite hard for storm decks, but bad against other combo decks.

Noble fish was one of my worst pairings before oath got popular. Trygon and tarmo were my main concerns, and vendillion and snapcaster were hard too. Lord of batterskull pass was my solution, I increased bolts to 2-3, but the best card has always been COTV at 2. I have won matches by playing a T1 magus and seen them scooping. I've won matches by using shaman+welder+coating. I've used welder plus golem/metamorph to buy lots of time. Jaya ballard was a nightmare for them, always countered or sworded. REBs counter snapcasters/vendillions/trygons. Viashino is great if they play SFM, crap otherwise. I like to play 1-2 pyrokinesis, very useful in early turns to deal with anything. The most important tool in this pairing is knowing who is the beatdown: the noble player. take care of best cards (sofi, big guys, removal) and be very wise with life loss.

I tried the shatterskull, and ran into the same issue as assassin - he'd go farming.  Plows are a beating.  Also, 6 mana over 2 turns was also slow.  Heretic on his own isn't fantastic vs fish, but he can kill vials and null rods which is big.  If you land a liquimetal too, he blows up every critter and mana source.  The early rush was the problem...like on turn 3 when I would stare down a noble, ooze, and 2 pridemages (ooze swinging for 5).  The sweeper @2 was REALLY nice.  The fact it hits oath too is great since fast oath was a problem.  It's been useful in several matches.

Stony silence was another issue altogether - thus the 2 dystopia.  Maybe not the best card, but it handles stony as well as most of noblefish's critters and oath too.  Not terrible overall.  I have not been amazed by chalice.  My fish opponents tend to run more vials than null rod, so it was a speed bump to them while cutting me off coating.  It has uses, but thorns were just better vs storm and EE was like a one sided wrath vs fish, buying me the time to win.  I dismissed EE in lieu of ratchet bomb at first, thinking EE didn't hit enchantments.  Now I know it is great.  

Update#2:  I had some trouble with snap/bob/bcs/vault-key with swords.  BUW.  Darkblasts bought me time and welder/shaman held a stalemate for a bit...but eventually, 8 plows later, I had dredged most of my deck and finally got overrun while my darkblast got countered for 5 consecutive turns.  Thorn helped in the first couple turns, then did nothing as they hit 14 mana.  Ideas?

[xouman]

EE does not work killing stony silence: it's hit itself :p Same for ratchet bomb, sylvok replica... I don't usually face stony silence, but my main tool against it it's cotv2. However I played tombs, sol ring, crypt and ssg, even when playing unpowered. I understand that 4 mana could be too late in your build If you need to kill stony silence, black has few tools, but I've found Quagmire Druid. 1 mana too costly to be really interesting, but it kills oath and stony silence. Still there are too few enchantments played in vintage to be worth playing it. cotv it's also ok against vials in your deck: vial should be destroyed easily! If there are a lot of white decks in your meta, play Anarchy: I played it when White Trash was at its best, but now few people play white permanents.

if i face bt T3 a noble, 2 qasalis and 1 ooze, I'll lose. I could rely on moons to avoid green mana before noble, and revoker/bolts to prevent mana from noble hierarch. Golem trades with any qasali/ooze (until it gets too strong). but in that scenario ooze would kill me is opponent has green mana.

for UBw, I won't address swords but snapcasters/bobs. the problem with those 4 swords is that the opponent gets them quickly with confidant and reuses them with snapcaster. I'll play rebs to counter snapcasters, hitting jaces and other potential targets. Or you can side in cages against any snapcaster deck. However how many UBw decks will you face? less than a 10% for sure.

[TheWhiteDragon]

EE does not work killing stony silence: it's hit itself :p Same for ratchet bomb, sylvok replica... I don't usually face stony silence, but my main tool against it it's cotv2. However I played tombs, sol ring, crypt and ssg, even when playing unpowered. I understand that 4 mana could be too late in your build If you need to kill stony silence, black has few tools, but I've found Quagmire Druid. 1 mana too costly to be really interesting, but it kills oath and stony silence. Still there are too few enchantments played in vintage to be worth playing it. cotv it's also ok against vials in your deck: vial should be destroyed easily! If there are a lot of white decks in your meta, play Anarchy: I played it when White Trash was at its best, but now few people play white permanents.

if i face bt T3 a noble, 2 qasalis and 1 ooze, I'll lose. I could rely on moons to avoid green mana before noble, and revoker/bolts to prevent mana from noble hierarch. Golem trades with any qasali/ooze (until it gets too strong). but in that scenario ooze would kill me is opponent has green mana.

for UBw, I won't address swords but snapcasters/bobs. the problem with those 4 swords is that the opponent gets them quickly with confidant and reuses them with snapcaster. I'll play rebs to counter snapcasters, hitting jaces and other potential targets. Or you can side in cages against any snapcaster deck. However how many UBw decks will you face? less than a 10% for sure.

Those are good points.  I've liked dystopia in the rare stony silence match.  REBs may be better overall.  I think I'm trying to make my deck good vs everything, but BUw and stonies are RARE.  I may just have to let those fringe matches go.

[xouman]

Those are good points.  I've liked dystopia in the rare stony silence match.  REBs may be better overall.  I think I'm trying to make my deck good vs everything, but BUw and stonies are RARE.  I may just have to let those fringe matches go.

This is related with what I said few days ago: in a unknown metagame, this deck gets really poor (and monored even worse). Blue control decks rely on counterspells, usefult against anything, but red-black control is harder: you have to play more oriented responses, because outside moons and cages most cards are focused on responding specific menaces.

When creating a deck like this it's very important to know which decks are played, and their responses to your hate. For example, I must be carefult with chewers, basic lands, batterskull, oath... mud is quite popular (30%) and there are usually 10% of dredge decks, but not more. cards as reb or lightning are usefult against most of the field. but those utility cards should be always be after the core of the deck (in this case, liquimetal and artifact hate)

[TheWhiteDragon]

Those are good points.  I've liked dystopia in the rare stony silence match.  REBs may be better overall.  I think I'm trying to make my deck good vs everything, but BUw and stonies are RARE.  I may just have to let those fringe matches go.

This is related with what I said few days ago: in a unknown metagame, this deck gets really poor (and monored even worse). Blue control decks rely on counterspells, usefult against anything, but red-black control is harder: you have to play more oriented responses, because outside moons and cages most cards are focused on responding specific menaces.

When creating a deck like this it's very important to know which decks are played, and their responses to your hate. For example, I must be carefult with chewers, basic lands, batterskull, oath... mud is quite popular (30%) and there are usually 10% of dredge decks, but not more. cards as reb or lightning are usefult against most of the field. but those utility cards should be always be after the core of the deck (in this case, liquimetal and artifact hate)

This in effect gets at the reason for the core of my deck.  Artifact hate is good, as many strategies utilize artifacts (vault/key, BSC, shop decks, null rod, vial, crucible) but the liquimetal is meant to make that already useful hate good vs ANYTHING that relies on permanents.  The strategy actually works fairly well against anything permanent based.  My oath match is actually not terrible considering I'm a creature deck.  It's actually very winnable unless they open mox, orchard, oath (which they do seem to do 80% of games).  Against critters, I'm doing fairly well.  Against shops, I own them.  Against dredge, i am hanging fairly well g1 and much better g2/3.  Against decks with straight counters and a few bombs, I'm ok because of caverns.  The problem decks are bob/snapcaster builds (which are essentially spells with a body) that have removal (bolt/plow), combo (tinker/tendrils) and a ton of draw/counter.  The thorns have helped vs storm, but the deck is in a bad position to handle cards that don't rely on permanents and can either combo (vault/key), monster (BSC/inkwell), or beatdown (bob/snapcaster) with their own removal (darkblast/plow/bolt/fire).  The fact that they can play a strategy almost devoid of permanents makes the game move onto the stack instead of the battlefield - and that's where I have a tough time.  Reb/duress are decent, but when they have a ton of counters and can't use them on my critters (cause of cavern) they are left with a counter wall to protect their threats and counter liquimetals.  The stack is just a tough spot to win the war.  I think here is where I need the most boost.

As I said in the beginning, my metagame is everything honestly.  I see golden gun oath, griselbrand oath, gushbond tendrils, drain tendrils, intuition/bob/snapcaster tendrils (or vault/key/BSC), fatestitcher dredge, red stax, aggro shops, U/R standstill, RUG delver, tinker/tezz, noble fish, and BUG fish (and BUw combo fish), burning wish long,  and a few fish of random colors with stony silence.  Occassionally a random white weenie or goblins or whatever trying to crack into vintage.  No dragon or reanimator for the most part.

The tough part is beating all of those with 1 deck.

[serracollector]

Wouldn't sword of feast and famine be good in your list?  Maybe even more so than SOFI?

1)  When they discard gives you targets for extract/extirpate.

2) Untaps your lands so you can reuse Mox Monkeys/Change equips/Cast more spells. For example, eat some moxen, swing, untap, cast MOM, etc etc.

3)  Gets your around Goyfs and Bobs, Goyfs probably being the bigger issue sans turning it into an artifact and destroying it.

Otherwise I really like the list.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Wouldn't sword of feast and famine be good in your list?  Maybe even more so than SOFI?

1)  When they discard gives you targets for extract/extirpate.

2) Untaps your lands so you can reuse Mox Monkeys/Change equips/Cast more spells. For example, eat some moxen, swing, untap, cast MOM, etc etc.

3)  Gets your around Goyfs and Bobs, Goyfs probably being the bigger issue sans turning it into an artifact and destroying it.

Otherwise I really like the list.

I considered this sword when I thought of SoFI.  It is very good vs goyfs, but that's about it.  As of now, I cut extractions and only have 1 extirpate main.  I liked the discard and had 4 extirpate effects in the beginning, which made this sword REALLY tempting.  The plus was fighting goyf, but the downsides were:

1) when my opponent pitches a card of his choice, he can pitch crap - or have an empty hand - or pitch something he WANTS to get rid of (like BSC).  But when I hit with SoFI, I ALWAYS have a use for card drawing.
2) SOFI kills Bob just as well as SOFF.  If I swing and he blocks, 3/3 > 2/1.  If he doesn't block, I shoot the bob, deal 4, and draw 1 (they ALWAYS block).
3) There is little in the way of black/green removal that gets played, but bounce, bolts, fire/ice, lavamancer seem everywhere.  Most green fish decks run plow/path, which neither sword dodges.
4) A SoFI on the table makes any creature I cast a nightmare for Jace, who seems more prevalent than goyf.
5) SoFI has the advantage of picking off welders and things that wouldn't be chumpers but have killer abilities.
6) Snapcasters, delvers, and decks that abuse bolt effects and blue beaters hate a SoFI, but laugh at SoFF.
7) Green fish decks can race SoFF, but SoFI gives me gas and picks off their smaller exalted critters one at a time (with goyf/ooze being the exceptions)
8) My deck is extremely low cc overall and I dump my hand crazy fast.  Extra mana that I can't float through attack phases don't help nearly as much as extra cards in hand to cast or extra damage to the face to speed my clock.

Both swords have merit, but in looking over a meta in general (take into account all possible decks), SoFF has utility mainly against goyfs alone, whereas SoFI has power vs many decks.

With that said, I often teeter on adding another Sword - but I've been tinkering with the whole faithless looting/steel hellkite thing which hasn't been that bad actually.

**edit**
I tried the 2nd SoFI by cutting grim lavamancer, and I've been happy so far.  SoFI is usually a bit slower, but I rarely need lavamancer on turn 1 anyways (and still have darkblast for the turn 1 bob).  SoFI just has so many upsides and makes all of my creatures a huge threat.  Lavamancer was not nearly as threatening and could be a vanilla 1/1 sometimes if I didn't crack fetches.  For taking out Weenies, SoFI gets the job done and has more of an upside.  With 3 welders, it's also hard to kill permanently like a lavamancer.  Dredging or looting into SoFI with active welder is the bees knees too.

I also have no extirpate effects anymore.  I swapped out the last effect for a single nihil spellbomb.  Recurable with welder is nice and the non-color mana ability to turn 1 erase a grave is hug.

[xouman]

I agree that SOFI is the best sword in this deck. The blue/green may be the second one (aggressive milling and a wolf), and the white/black (life gain plus recover creatures) the third. But red and blue prevent direct damage plus bouncing, most common removal effects other than STP. Besides, this is the best sword to kill confidants (they block or die). It's the most control oriented sword.

[TheWhiteDragon]

I've found the 2 of them are better than 1 + lavamancer.  There has been no time outside of stony silence where I preferred lavamancer over a SoFI.  They are just a beating.  I beat Goblins 2-0 today on the back of fast sword.  After sb, I had 3 (drew 1 in both my opening hands).  I was able to block his piledriver for the kill turn 2, then attack and shoot his cheiftain, then equip the shaman I dropped off my draw for more blocking fun.  Add those + EEs and goblins had trouble.

[xouman]

welder is one of the best creatures to play, and only for R. It's as offensive as defensive. However it's quite vulnerable and can't really be the core of a winning deck (but it can be a serious part of course). One of my favourite creatures along with MoM.

I always wondered if it would work nicely with stinkweed imp (great blocker, discard it with looting to dredge it and gather welder food). Too much dependant on grave, I suppose.

[TheWhiteDragon]

I really considered SW Imp after your first suggesting of it.  In theory, it's a helluva blocker.  Also, not only is he synergy with welder, but moreso SoFI.  He becomes something that you really have to block, but also something that you really don't want to block.  I may try to squeeze one in somewhere, or maybe sb vs critter decks.  Not a bad idea.  I do see welder as a side plan, and I don't want to become grave dependent.  Right now the deck plays a little grave, a little artifact dependency, and a little on the battlefield with weenies.  It really doesn't go so all-in on any one strategy which I think is ideal.

[xouman]

Ummm, nice synergy between SW imp and sword, hadn't thought of it. Not only it's a bad idea to block it, most of the time it's unblockable being a flyer. 5 damages plus a card it's good i'd say.

All-in vs versatility. Best decks go all-in, most of the time. MUD locks you with artifacts. Dredge discards a lot, obtaining resources from grave. Storm decks manipulate and draw until they can have the combo turn. Control decks are another song, though. A slow, control flavoured deck must be prepared to fight most strategies, while being solid itself. However it has to be stable with its answers, or you would lose a lot of matches because of "bad luck". Besides, play 4x of best cards is often a good idea, even when they are bad at multiples. However, being hard to counter, or making dead lots of opponent's cards is ideal when piloting rogue decks (that's my idea of card advantage :p)

Being unpredictable is specially good in 2nd and 3rd matches, but it's important not to lose focus imho.

[TheWhiteDragon]

I think the deck as it is now has a unique focus in that, whether using dredgers or welder tricks, spells or weenies, or artifacts and abilities, the deck tries to "destroy the battlefield".  It has several ways of killing artifacts, critters, lands, and even enchantments and planeswalkers.  If it is some permanent, I can kill it or turn it off without too much hassle.  The stack becomes more of a problem, and without duress/caverns, I think the deck would be impossible to play.  The grave is another area to tackle, but rakdos and nihil and cage really help there.  Also grave decks are usually dependent on bazaar, which I can kill on the battlefield.  Right now thorns have been my only saving grace vs storm/gush.  Being able to drop a sphere turn 1, buying me the time to land MoM or monkey to eat moxen on turn 2 has been HUGE.  Without thorn, it was a really hard matchup, but not so much with thorns.  Increasing heretics vs assassins has actually been the best anti-critter move.  They block 2/1s all day and blow up anything bigger with liquimetal and kill golems on their own.  Welder has been better than I thought for liquimetaling and welding out a permanent for something like an eaten mox.   Solid all around.  Still nnot sold on looting/hellkite, but it's broken when it works.

[xouman]

Ummm, yes, destroying permanents seems a legit goal. You have cards to buy time or card advantage, but the main goal is asfixiate manabase, being able to destroy played permanents. I like it.

How many turns do you usually take to have active gorilla/viashino/welder + liquimetal coating? It seems that coating is the bottleneck, as there are quite options for destroying artifacts, but few to change permanents into artifacts. And coating is dead by itself

[TheWhiteDragon]

Ummm, yes, destroying permanents seems a legit goal. You have cards to buy time or card advantage, but the main goal is asfixiate manabase, being able to destroy played permanents. I like it.

How many turns do you usually take to have active gorilla/viashino/welder + liquimetal coating? It seems that coating is the bottleneck, as there are quite options for destroying artifacts, but few to change permanents into artifacts. And coating is dead by itself

Coating is definitely dead by itself (outside of phantasmal image!), but that's why there are SOOO many cards that deal with artifacts.  3 heretic, 3 welder, 3 shaman, 2 spree, 1 rakdos, 2 EE (EE kills artifact-made land).  Typically I have active permanent destruction by turn 2-3 if I draw a coating.  Bigger permanents I usually kill by turn 3-5.  With the disruption, I can usually get time to get to turn 5.  I'll kill fast artifacts, have welder protection vs tinker, and duress helps too.  Magus and grave hate help slow the game as well.  I do take a good amount of damage, but usually stabalize around 10 life and then start destroying everything my opponent can play (whether by blowing it up as an artifact, or turning it off with MoM, or trumping it with SoFI or hellkite).  Imp still looks like a really nice stall, but I can't find a spot for it.  Thorn has been great, but I'm curious to see slaughter games vs combo g2/3.

[Vennie]

EE kills artifact-made land

This is definitely not true, coating says in addition to it's other types. so the lands are still lands and ee specifically says non-land. That is also the reason ee does not kill an animated factory or any other manlands.

[TheWhiteDragon]

EE kills artifact-made land

This is definitely not true, coating says in addition to it's other types. so the lands are still lands and ee specifically says non-land. That is also the reason ee does not kill an animated factory or any other manlands.

Good catch.  This is true.  Still, I think 12 ways of removing stuff is pretty good for the 4 liquimetals.  Nice to know EE doesn't work though.

I also ended up cutting hellkite/looting for 2 stinkweed imps.  The imps are great vs trygons or any fish, are a beating with a SoFI, and aid welder with their dredge while being a permanent blocker/threat.  Dragon was nice, but sat in my hand too often.  Looting never was great.  I edited my list (posts above) to reflect the change.

Still need help vs storm.