I've been thinking about a deck like this for a while now and I was wondering if anyone has considered a red splash for blood moon and a win con like assemble the legion. Seems to me that if the pillow fort is set up, which blood moons helps with, that assemble the legion could just take over a game.
I've been thinking about a deck like this for a while now and I was wondering if anyone has considered a red splash for blood moon and a win con like assemble the legion. Seems to me that if the pillow fort is set up, which blood moons helps with, that assemble the legion could just take over a game.
I've thought of it, but went for the blue splash in the end for Monastery siege as a way to help smooth out my draws. The problem I have with Blood moon is while it sometimes is amazing, it sometimes does absolutely nothing, and the deck already has enough components like that as it is.
I've been thinking about a deck like this for a while now and I was wondering if anyone has considered a red splash for blood moon and a win con like assemble the legion. Seems to me that if the pillow fort is set up, which blood moons helps with, that assemble the legion could just take over a game.
I've thought of it, but went for the blue splash in the end for Monastery siege as a way to help smooth out my draws. The problem I have with Blood moon is while it sometimes is amazing, it sometimes does absolutely nothing, and the deck already has enough components like that as it is.
Fair enough. I agree that Blood Moon sometimes does nothing at all, but there are other times where it will steal games that you have no business winning. I guess it would come down to a meta call. In my meta a blood moon would go a long way. There aren't too many people who seem to be ready for them main deck.
Hi! I've recently played this deck with the blue splash in a tournament and I enjoyed it. The tournament didn't go so well but I give that mostly to my inexperience with the deck. No one I played had mass removal to the enchantments back to nature or fracturing gust but it made me think how this deck overcomes that. The only solutions I could find was naming the card with nevermore or Elspeth, knight-errant ultimate. Is it worth running gitaxian probes and peeks to look at player's hands before naming something with nevermore?
Colonnade for me gets pathed alot so then no win con's
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Kekule_the_Magician on the inclusion of Devouring Light in a TurboFog Deck:
Quote from Kekule_the_Magician »
As a person who typically plays very creature oriented decks, I HATE when an opponent has Devouring Light. It is infuriating to finally get through with a creature on to have it exiled.
I've come to hate White in general now because it gets everything to the point where it is almost unfair. White has boardwipes (Wrath of God, End Hostilities), targeted exile and removal (Devouring Light, Banishing Light, Last Breath), lifegain spells, lifelink, low cost/high power enchantments and auras, flying creatures; my goodness what don't they get!?
Question: what made you all choose to go this route rather than Enduring Ideal? About a week back I found myself wanting to jam Ghostly Prison and Leyline of Sanctity into the same deck to prevent 99% of opponents from ever winning the game, and eventually came up with a mono-White enchantment prison deck, but I ultimately decided that Enduring Ideal made too much sense not to run.
Are there any reasons in particular not to run it other than the 7 CMC?
Gtron : lost miserably : tooth and nail, emrakul and so on with the mana to pay to attack
mono U tron : same
Mirror match : conceaded after 20 min doing nothing
I'm not overwhelmed by the deck yet... how did you guys do against tron and such?
maybe the blue version packs more punch?
From my experience, Tron is pretty much our worst match up. They can pay most of our taxing effects, and they have mainboard ways of dealing with enchantments (Karn, Ugin, O-Stone). Stony Silence out of the board helps, but it's still rather unfavorable regardless.
Putting this deck together at the moment. since path doesnt really fit that great anyone ever think of cards like gaurd duty or burden of guilt or does the deck want the cards to be broader then dealing with just one creature? Also silence possibly to get you through an early turn were you miss an enchantment drop..just thoughts hope to have more to add to the discussion soon when i start playing/testing.
Hello.
I noticed this thread has a number of ideas and cards in common with some RW lockdown lists and Enduring Ideal, two favourite archetypes of mine.
Like all decks that try to build a prison I guess the two main issues are blowouts due to mass removal (rare), and sodding Tron or Combo decks that are non critter related. Plus those that block by assembling a twin combo.
One thought I had in mind was to go GW, using root maze and some flexible cards that deal with non critter permanents, land inlcuded, from green's significant arsenal of such cards, in addition to the usual taxes- G prisons,S fields, Spheres etc. I was thinking of keeping critters down to finks only levels- Ram always seems a bit rubbish to me- dying to wrath, needing to stick around to gain life, never trading.
Anyone tried such a deck?
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Well firstly, I am only not sold on RAM because of the decks I build often run wrath effects.
Secondly - RW has lots of options- no version has a must have, perhaps bridge is the closest. The others are all excellent cards that make many versions, but not all- Moon is bad in the landkill decks for example.
On U- good luck- I wish we had Pendrell Mists. Dissipation field looks good though, and Monastery Siege is the nuts at fixing. Exhaustion may be usable.
My Enduring ideal deck, which I reported on in the EI thread, is basically Pillow Fort with Ideal x4, Dovescape and Form of the Dragon over Sigil. The scry lands worked well in that- I would avid mono u if I were you.
The problems Mono W fort has is that the redundancy is greater than most RW builds.
In RW extra cards can be drawn more easily- Outpost Siege- and extra removal spells can often be thrown at the enemy. In mono W there is redundancy amongst cards that are not taxes. Extra Prisons- great- extra Storage Matrices- not so stellar. This redundancy can be overcome to a certain extent with cards like Blind Obedience- awesomely good anyway with Matrix- so that extra spells at least do something.
I was hoping for GW prison to work for the following reasons
(a) Finks is an ideal critter for Nykthos if we use it.
(b) Green offers permanent removal for non critters- creeping mold, bramble crush etc. Much better vs blasted Tron decks, and with Surgical extraction in the board gives the opportunity to make them suffer in a way most non landkill prison decks don't.
(c) It also offers Explore for acceleration, and Guttural response for bloody Crytpics, the enemy of all Prison decks.
(d) Courser is an enchantment critter if we use fetches.
(e) The root maze/suppression field synergy could be really nasty if we don't. Fetches put lands into play tapped, come into play tapped themselves, and cost two to activate. Sounds spicy. Blind obedience makes root mazes 2/3/4 do some work. Storage matrix and the usual white taxes could choke them. Suppression field is the nuts vs affinity, twin, vials, GQs, and fetches. So basically all the meta budget mono r burn or mono g stompy.
(f) Choke could choke heavy island builds.
(g) Mana dorks or Walls of roots could do some acceleration into cards like Plow Under or Primal Command.
(h) I was thinking of Magus of the tabernacle as another possible tax.
Lots of reasons to go g, many in the bargain bins......
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oh, one more point- I want to avoid Nevermore and its ilk. Halo is fine- you know what to name- it is on the table more often than not. Nevermore you are gambling and every deck has a plan B.
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Care to share a decklist drmarkb and what do you think about mana ramping with Trace of Abundance?
I am working on said beastie.
I started off with a GW devotion shell and the usual taxes (4 GP, 2 x Sphere, halos), plus the 4 root maze, 4 suppression field tech.
I added in a 2 world queller/ 3 magus package and a storage matrix+ blind obedience it seemed really strong at first in locking down games regardless of the order, provided the root maze or Supp field hits early.
I have used a couple of Finks in the build too- the only other critters- they play well as they can be sac'd to Queller and still give value and interact with my own sweepers, which I have been using at 1/2 copies.
Mana is easy to sort out-much easier than RW that needs to run GQuarters/tech edeges in some number- I have started at 24 lands total, inc 4 temples, and have been wavering between 3/4 copies of Shrine (NB temples seem terrible but if all lands enter CIP tapped due to root maze I get value with them where my opponent doesn't). Of course the rest is as expected - Plains, shocks, Forests, Nykthos. I have yet to add Flagstones in as I want to be certain the deck will be a deck running Queller, and not just a taxes deck that may run a couple of Magus. The devotion works as well as ever - I am running Leylines as well and again Finks is a good card here, - you can always lay it rather than waiting to see more as you have to with Runed halos sometimes. There is little to do with the Nykthos mana. I need to try Heliod here as it could be absolutely fantastic with the mana, whilst having an obvious nonbo with Magus, by the time Heliod is making dudes in large numbers the devotion mana pays for them in theory.
The issue has been the rest of the deck-the few support slots- Primal Command has been ok, Plow under distinctly not so.
I have experience of Queller/Tabernacle of Pendrell Vale (oops, I mean Magus;)) decks in Modern as RW lockdown- and their enemy is ALWAYS the U tempo decks (vapor snag), Tron decks and their wipes (Rift/O stone-all is dust depending on what variety we are talking about)and also the binary nature of the support cards- Boom//Bust for example is either a nutty t2 start, late game winner or nothing special. The green version offers the Root Maze tech and support cards that give more options but can still go after lands if needed.
Sorry I can't give a more precise deck list but that is where I am at. When it solidifies I will post. But I am also working on RW lockdown (which has received a boost via Outpost Siege), Legacy decks and have a couple of other decks I am working on- eg. GW martyr proc variant with infini combo Archangel/feeder combo. Time is limited, as ever.
M
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Oh and I forgot to mention- I have not tried ramping of any sort - not sure it is that important if we are doing stuff t1/t2. More important in decks that win early and win big like 'shift and in decks where the early stuff is limited. Needs to be tested, really.
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Going first is the best tech, t2 Halo/T3 Prison/T4 Wrath or prison 2/t5 sphere is strong.
- celestial flare is good board tech, though- they don't see it coming if you look dejected enough - and Vines of V won't save their dude.
They expect Spellskite, which does work though. CF/SK are both nuts v boggles as well, CF is little use against anything else, Skite is good vs twin.
Path obviously strong, though ramping them early hurts.
Eidolon of Rhetoric is decent t3 support if you have had a good t1/2. You have Nodes to come in which can do a job. It functions as a body, stops Mutagenic+ Pump.
Other off the wall options- fogs- Kami of Falso hope? or Ethereal Haze/Dawn Charm. False Hope Kami can be recursed if you run either Emeria engines or Debtor's knell over Luminarch ascension. You could add a small Martyr/kami package / engine here. Does wonders for some matches, gives plan B.
Ensnaring bridge + white shoals is decent if a bit wacky.
Story circles work to an extent, but are later game.
Suprression field works on the lands early on if you run it.
Gut shot works on the men- on your turn obviously, but I would not fancy it.
Trinisphere on t2 is great if you can make that into your build. Good vs Cascade/Storm too.
Going first is the best tech, t2 Halo/T3 Prison/T4 Wrath or prison 2/t5 sphere is strong.
- celestial flare is good board tech, though- they don't see it coming if you look dejected enough - and Vines of V won't save their dude.
They expect Spellskite, which does work though. CF/SK are both nuts v boggles as well, CF is little use against anything else, Skite is good vs twin.
Path obviously strong, though ramping them early hurts.
Eidolon of Rhetoric is decent t3 support if you have had a good t1/2. You have Nodes to come in which can do a job. It functions as a body, stops Mutagenic+ Pump.
Other off the wall options- fogs- Kami of Falso hope? or Ethereal Haze/Dawn Charm. False Hope Kami can be recursed if you run either Emeria engines or Debtor's knell over Luminarch ascension. You could add a small Martyr/kami package / engine here. Does wonders for some matches, gives plan B.
Ensnaring bridge + white shoals is decent if a bit wacky.
Story circles work to an extent, but are later game.
Suprression field works on the lands early on if you run it.
Gut shot works on the men- on your turn obviously, but I would not fancy it.
Trinisphere on t2 is great if you can make that into your build. Good vs Cascade/Storm too.
I feel that Porphyry Nodes is our best option for removal as they kill EVERYTHING eventually and by EVERYTHING I MEAN EVERYTHING.
Rule of Law I think is a better Eidolon of Rhetoric as it doesn't die to removal, but doesn't synergise well with the Noves. I've tried the story circle but the deck just doesn't want to leave mana open in the early stages of the game.
Debtor's Knell has always been a card I've really wanted to play but I feel that the version of my deck doesn't have enough removal to be effective. Either I need more wraths or some spot removal, I'm not sure if the Nodes will do the job.
Knell is good in devotion + 4 Leyline builds- comes down t5 regularly.
Nodes is a decent enough to very fine card, depending on what deck you are playing. I have always found it to be highly effective in the right builds, but not stellar vs Infect in this specific case, which was what I meant by it only "doing a job" in this instance. Even in my W/U Enduring Ideal prison list I don't actually use Nodes- it simply is not right in that list, despite superficially ticking the boxes. It is a very good card, criminally underrated for years. Always fancied it in a deck with Indestructible dudes- it does not kill Indestructibles. Something like a switched on Heliod or a Predator Ooze card.
Vis-a-vis infect...
T2 - Play Nodes
T3- They walk over with the 1/1, mutagenic, Vines, random pump GG or just 2 pumps, leave it on one with an Inkmoth down that hides away from Nodes and nabs you.
Realistically a prison deck beats Infect if its mid game. Their win is normally t3/4 or not at all.
Technically Eidolon dies to Path/Wrath, and maybe Lilly other than things that kill Rule of Law and Eidolon anyway- Decay, Pridemage, Golgari charm. If my opponent is double bolting it, let the good times roll! Bolting it after a block and it has sort of done its job. I agree Rule can be better, though. Eidolon is a decent blocker and can be bought in to shore up Zoo matches, Rule is less fragile in general. Pay your money, take your choice as it were. Both great cards.
Irritatingly in my last PPTQ I saw bucketsful of Abrupt decays and Golgari charms- 0 path, and only my own sweepers. Yep- more main deck Golgari Charms than PTE!
Story Circle is a mid game card, and should be treated as such, for the reasons you suggest. Certainly it is good in some prison builds, not good in others. Being able to deal with Boggles with SC set to green is nice, though.......
I've updated my sideboard, so there are 3x Path to Exile available. I'm otherwise happy with the main deck as it is.
Great card, maindeckable of course, not super/brilliant against Infect though in my experience of prison decks. Always good to have in hand, might be enough with Halo backup, but remember they do run Vines, which is the issue.
[Another card of interest is Favour of the Mighty. Makes their guy, if it is the only one, pro everything. Hilarious tech-pump that, my friends! Works better vs twin. Not suggesting it here, just worth noting for future reference- in the right hatebear deck it is effective as a board card.]
Might just be a question of getting the right critical mass of early game spells to make G2 and 3 in your favour....
Incidentally how is Luminarch Ascension for you? Do you keep track of it's performance? I took mine out of all my prison decks once I tracked them and found that the card only won games I felt I was already winning- admittedly it gave a fast clock and turned a fair few draws into wins, but it never turned defeats into wins. Different builds and decks of course.
I added Luminarch Ascension because last time I played the deck at my local game store, I often sided that card in versus most of the decks. Sometimes the games got very very grindy (I actually lost 2 games because I eventually milled myself, as I couldn't attack through my enemy's team) and I thought Luminarch Ascension would be good in those situations. On another note: It's also very decent against control decks, which can pressure them quite a lot. If your opponent happens to be casting Slaughter Games at you and they take Sigil of the Empty Throne out of your deck, you simply can't win if you don't already have one in play, so Luminarch Ascension is also another type of wincon.
I am all for diversifying wincons, 100% - very wise as sometimes a SG effect sneaks past prison defenses- just that is one I have never found to be great in any prison deck- only in that as I said above it is at its worst in prison's worst matches. That said it does finish matches quickly sometimes that would grind out. It does pressure control decks. I actually like Blind obedience as a win con II- and Heliod- all synergise with cards in the deck.
PS you should never be milled by games going long with a copy or two of Mistveil plains, unless your opponent works out they can't win early and goes after your bin.....
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It is a great card. Restricting twin's window is decent. Combo with a single storage matrix- itself a good card with taxes- is very good too. It is better if you run men yourself, but it is a valid choice if you don't. In a long game where there is lockdown a BO wins and causes scooping as people realise that eventually it will get them. The mid game disruption is good if you get matrix down, but the main thing is the life gain. We go long. RW prison builds often use Helix to gain life. The way we play BO often gains a chunk of life for often little noticeable cost, whilst making the twin combo less explosive.
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They can still cast Mite/DEciever at the end of our turn and combo on theirs even if we have BO out.
If BO is out the have to make the comes into play tapped tokens in our turn after @EOT effects have stacked, and then untap all the men in theirs, and attack.
If they combo in their turn- they make infinite men- but the men themselves are tapped- although the last one can untap itelf- each untap on the token is "spent" continuing the combo,and the token is tapped.
BO won't stop the combo, but it means they must combo in the window I have described above. Combo-ing at any other time won't do much.
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They can still cast Mite/DEciever at the end of our turn and combo on theirs even if we have BO out.
If BO is out the have to make the comes into play tapped tokens in our turn after @EOT effects have stacked, and then untap all the men in theirs, and attack.
If they combo in their turn- they make infinite men- but the men themselves are tapped- although the last one can untap itelf- each untap on the token is "spent" continuing the combo,and the token is tapped.
BO won't stop the combo, but it means they must combo in the window I have described above. Combo-ing at any other time won't do much.
I'm bad at this game. Last night I came 4th at an FNM. I used the same list as before if you want I can write a report at some point later on.
Always interested in Prison decks. If the stuff is not applicable to my deck, it could be appropriate for others that I run.
I am getting more confident in my build and will put up a full list soon, it seems to have become a GW devotion/enchantment deck with a critter based Stax component- Supp Field, Root Maze, Magi, Quellers etc. with support men that synergise- in some way Finks, for example..
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They can still cast Mite/DEciever at the end of our turn and combo on theirs even if we have BO out.
The nice think about BO is it allows you a turn to react to them playing Splinter Twin to resolve something to deal with the combo, of which this deck runs a plethora of options. It also grinds like hell, and most opponents generally take it for granted and will generally let it sit and slowly gain you value through extort. It also acts as a win condition that isn't combat damage related, which does matter in some matches. BO also can just be randomly good when you're playing against Burn and Affinity as well.
I have had a lot of success with BO in RW critterless lockdown. It combines with Storage Matrix, which itself combines with GP and other cards.
The matrix, however, is not stellar on its own. BO is decent on its own- an optional tax that keeps us out of the red zone and makes every other spell played a pinger, which is vital in grindy games, a win con in its own right. Cast (twenty +/- X) spells, we win, where X= the amount of self inflicted damage/lifegain their deck does to itself.
I am having a lot of success with BO in GW Prison.
The issues I am having are
(a) I am using Sup Field and Root Maze, which are dead-ish late game in grindy matches.
(b) the Tron match is awful, as ever for prison decks game one, but in this case I can't fix it game 2 - no Sowing Salts, not enough acceleration into Primal Commands. GQs are ok but have anti-synergy with SF, and Stony Silence might be great vs Tron but it is better if the time that it buys is used for either winning the game or crippling them, which is possible in red but not green.
(C) the ability to grind is good but not better even than it is in Enduring Ideal decks (which have the option of monastery siege to filter bad draws), despite the latter's wincons being dead draws
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I have had a lot of success with BO in RW critterless lockdown. It combines with Storage Matrix, which itself combines with GP and other cards.
The matrix, however, is not stellar on its own. BO is decent on its own- an optional tax that keeps us out of the red zone and makes every other spell played a pinger, which is vital in grindy games, a win con in its own right. Cast (twenty +/- X) spells, we win, where X= the amount of self inflicted damage/lifegain their deck does to itself.
I am having a lot of success with BO in GW Prison.
The issues I am having are
(a) I am using Sup Field and Root Maze, which are dead-ish late game in grindy matches.
(b) the Tron match is awful, as ever for prison decks game one, but in this case I can't fix it game 2 - no Sowing Salts, not enough acceleration into Primal Commands. GQs are ok but have anti-synergy with SF, and Stony Silence might be great vs Tron but it is better if the time that it buys is used for either winning the game or crippling them, which is possible in red but not green.
(C) the ability to grind is good but not better even than it is in Enduring Ideal decks (which have the option of monastery siege to filter bad draws), despite the latter's wincons being dead draws
Suppression field is a card I constantly think about dropping from the deck honestly. It can sometimes be absolutely amazing, but other times it does absolutely nothing and it almost always sucks to draw late game. Without it, we can run our own fetchlands and Ghost Quarters/Tec Edges.
I personally play with the U splash, so I have no experience with Root maze, but I feel like the card is a trap. It + BO along with Storage Matrix sounds amazing in theory, but at least Storage matrix and BO do things on their own, while Root Maze just slows down the game for everyone without providing you with any sort of advantage unless you manage to draw a Matrix.
I have had a lot of success with BO in RW critterless lockdown. It combines with Storage Matrix, which itself combines with GP and other cards.
The matrix, however, is not stellar on its own. BO is decent on its own- an optional tax that keeps us out of the red zone and makes every other spell played a pinger, which is vital in grindy games, a win con in its own right. Cast (twenty +/- X) spells, we win, where X= the amount of self inflicted damage/lifegain their deck does to itself.
I am having a lot of success with BO in GW Prison.
The issues I am having are
(a) I am using Sup Field and Root Maze, which are dead-ish late game in grindy matches.
(b) the Tron match is awful, as ever for prison decks game one, but in this case I can't fix it game 2 - no Sowing Salts, not enough acceleration into Primal Commands. GQs are ok but have anti-synergy with SF, and Stony Silence might be great vs Tron but it is better if the time that it buys is used for either winning the game or crippling them, which is possible in red but not green.
(C) the ability to grind is good but not better even than it is in Enduring Ideal decks (which have the option of monastery siege to filter bad draws), despite the latter's wincons being dead draws
Suppression field is a card I constantly think about dropping from the deck honestly. It can sometimes be absolutely amazing, but other times it does absolutely nothing and it almost always sucks to draw late game. Without it, we can run our own fetchlands and Ghost Quarters/Tec Edges.
I personally play with the U splash, so I have no experience with Root maze, but I feel like the card is a trap. It + BO along with Storage Matrix sounds amazing in theory, but at least Storage matrix and BO do things on their own, while Root Maze just slows down the game for everyone without providing you with any sort of advantage unless you manage to draw a Matrix.
I should mention that Maze allows me to play Temples without disadvantage and that I run 4 Viridian Emissaries, which ramp me against aggressive strategies, making the Magus of the Tabernacle play really much stronger than it should be. It also turns 'queller soft locks into rather harder ones, keeping them at whatever mana they have when you start land munching.
I agree Maze is a potential trap, and I do believe the Pillow Fort deck's natural colours are W/u, 100%, but also that this strongest version should not be a Queller/Magus/Matrix type deck.
I already run Enduring Ideal, an almost identical deck with Ideals. Its a pillow fort prison with a couple of uncastable/hard to cast top end "I win" enchantments+ 4 ideals. Take those six away and add in a little more support and you have an excellent Prison shell that works well (I wish I had found Heliod before my last pptq, BTW). I have had many sweeps before the Ideal. The Prison lock is probably better than most Magus type build for the reason that you blank their critter removal, can justifyably play Supreme Verdict, and have access to Monastery Siege which increases your chances of getting the right prison piece for the decks you are against, and allows late game dead draws to be filtered.
My main aim in the Root Maze version is to make the best shell for the Tax/Queller version. I think the Maze offers an opportunity to improve on the mono white version.
Also I agree about Field in that it is a frustrating late draw, although it can be come relevant with Queller land kill, esp against Pridemage running decks. It, incidentally, is great vs affinity, and has been highlighted by Karsten on SCG as a potential Legacy build around with SF. The main problem, as ever, is the landkill is not as good in green/white as it should be, although Primal Command has been stellar and can edge the deck in front. If only we could access 'geddon.
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Commander
U Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive
RG Zilortha, Strength Incarnate
WB Amalia Benavides Aguirre
Fair enough. I agree that Blood Moon sometimes does nothing at all, but there are other times where it will steal games that you have no business winning. I guess it would come down to a meta call. In my meta a blood moon would go a long way. There aren't too many people who seem to be ready for them main deck.
Commander
U Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive
RG Zilortha, Strength Incarnate
WB Amalia Benavides Aguirre
Colonnade for me gets pathed alot so then no win con's
Are there any reasons in particular not to run it other than the 7 CMC?
Commander
U Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive
RG Zilortha, Strength Incarnate
WB Amalia Benavides Aguirre
I noticed this thread has a number of ideas and cards in common with some RW lockdown lists and Enduring Ideal, two favourite archetypes of mine.
Like all decks that try to build a prison I guess the two main issues are blowouts due to mass removal (rare), and sodding Tron or Combo decks that are non critter related. Plus those that block by assembling a twin combo.
One thought I had in mind was to go GW, using root maze and some flexible cards that deal with non critter permanents, land inlcuded, from green's significant arsenal of such cards, in addition to the usual taxes- G prisons,S fields, Spheres etc. I was thinking of keeping critters down to finks only levels- Ram always seems a bit rubbish to me- dying to wrath, needing to stick around to gain life, never trading.
Anyone tried such a deck?
Secondly - RW has lots of options- no version has a must have, perhaps bridge is the closest. The others are all excellent cards that make many versions, but not all- Moon is bad in the landkill decks for example.
On U- good luck- I wish we had Pendrell Mists. Dissipation field looks good though, and Monastery Siege is the nuts at fixing. Exhaustion may be usable.
My Enduring ideal deck, which I reported on in the EI thread, is basically Pillow Fort with Ideal x4, Dovescape and Form of the Dragon over Sigil. The scry lands worked well in that- I would avid mono u if I were you.
The problems Mono W fort has is that the redundancy is greater than most RW builds.
In RW extra cards can be drawn more easily- Outpost Siege- and extra removal spells can often be thrown at the enemy. In mono W there is redundancy amongst cards that are not taxes. Extra Prisons- great- extra Storage Matrices- not so stellar. This redundancy can be overcome to a certain extent with cards like Blind Obedience- awesomely good anyway with Matrix- so that extra spells at least do something.
I was hoping for GW prison to work for the following reasons
(a) Finks is an ideal critter for Nykthos if we use it.
(b) Green offers permanent removal for non critters- creeping mold, bramble crush etc. Much better vs blasted Tron decks, and with Surgical extraction in the board gives the opportunity to make them suffer in a way most non landkill prison decks don't.
(c) It also offers Explore for acceleration, and Guttural response for bloody Crytpics, the enemy of all Prison decks.
(d) Courser is an enchantment critter if we use fetches.
(e) The root maze/suppression field synergy could be really nasty if we don't. Fetches put lands into play tapped, come into play tapped themselves, and cost two to activate. Sounds spicy. Blind obedience makes root mazes 2/3/4 do some work. Storage matrix and the usual white taxes could choke them. Suppression field is the nuts vs affinity, twin, vials, GQs, and fetches. So basically all the meta budget mono r burn or mono g stompy.
(f) Choke could choke heavy island builds.
(g) Mana dorks or Walls of roots could do some acceleration into cards like Plow Under or Primal Command.
(h) I was thinking of Magus of the tabernacle as another possible tax.
Lots of reasons to go g, many in the bargain bins......
I am working on said beastie.
I started off with a GW devotion shell and the usual taxes (4 GP, 2 x Sphere, halos), plus the 4 root maze, 4 suppression field tech.
I added in a 2 world queller/ 3 magus package and a storage matrix+ blind obedience it seemed really strong at first in locking down games regardless of the order, provided the root maze or Supp field hits early.
I have used a couple of Finks in the build too- the only other critters- they play well as they can be sac'd to Queller and still give value and interact with my own sweepers, which I have been using at 1/2 copies.
Mana is easy to sort out-much easier than RW that needs to run GQuarters/tech edeges in some number- I have started at 24 lands total, inc 4 temples, and have been wavering between 3/4 copies of Shrine (NB temples seem terrible but if all lands enter CIP tapped due to root maze I get value with them where my opponent doesn't). Of course the rest is as expected - Plains, shocks, Forests, Nykthos. I have yet to add Flagstones in as I want to be certain the deck will be a deck running Queller, and not just a taxes deck that may run a couple of Magus. The devotion works as well as ever - I am running Leylines as well and again Finks is a good card here, - you can always lay it rather than waiting to see more as you have to with Runed halos sometimes. There is little to do with the Nykthos mana. I need to try Heliod here as it could be absolutely fantastic with the mana, whilst having an obvious nonbo with Magus, by the time Heliod is making dudes in large numbers the devotion mana pays for them in theory.
The issue has been the rest of the deck-the few support slots- Primal Command has been ok, Plow under distinctly not so.
I have experience of Queller/Tabernacle of Pendrell Vale (oops, I mean Magus;)) decks in Modern as RW lockdown- and their enemy is ALWAYS the U tempo decks (vapor snag), Tron decks and their wipes (Rift/O stone-all is dust depending on what variety we are talking about)and also the binary nature of the support cards- Boom//Bust for example is either a nutty t2 start, late game winner or nothing special. The green version offers the Root Maze tech and support cards that give more options but can still go after lands if needed.
Sorry I can't give a more precise deck list but that is where I am at. When it solidifies I will post. But I am also working on RW lockdown (which has received a boost via Outpost Siege), Legacy decks and have a couple of other decks I am working on- eg. GW martyr proc variant with infini combo Archangel/feeder combo. Time is limited, as ever.
M
- celestial flare is good board tech, though- they don't see it coming if you look dejected enough - and Vines of V won't save their dude.
They expect Spellskite, which does work though. CF/SK are both nuts v boggles as well, CF is little use against anything else, Skite is good vs twin.
Path obviously strong, though ramping them early hurts.
Eidolon of Rhetoric is decent t3 support if you have had a good t1/2. You have Nodes to come in which can do a job. It functions as a body, stops Mutagenic+ Pump.
Other off the wall options- fogs- Kami of Falso hope? or Ethereal Haze/Dawn Charm. False Hope Kami can be recursed if you run either Emeria engines or Debtor's knell over Luminarch ascension. You could add a small Martyr/kami package / engine here. Does wonders for some matches, gives plan B.
Ensnaring bridge + white shoals is decent if a bit wacky.
Story circles work to an extent, but are later game.
Suprression field works on the lands early on if you run it.
Gut shot works on the men- on your turn obviously, but I would not fancy it.
Trinisphere on t2 is great if you can make that into your build. Good vs Cascade/Storm too.
Knell is good in devotion + 4 Leyline builds- comes down t5 regularly.
Nodes is a decent enough to very fine card, depending on what deck you are playing. I have always found it to be highly effective in the right builds, but not stellar vs Infect in this specific case, which was what I meant by it only "doing a job" in this instance. Even in my W/U Enduring Ideal prison list I don't actually use Nodes- it simply is not right in that list, despite superficially ticking the boxes. It is a very good card, criminally underrated for years. Always fancied it in a deck with Indestructible dudes- it does not kill Indestructibles. Something like a switched on Heliod or a Predator Ooze card.
Vis-a-vis infect...
T2 - Play Nodes
T3- They walk over with the 1/1, mutagenic, Vines, random pump GG or just 2 pumps, leave it on one with an Inkmoth down that hides away from Nodes and nabs you.
Realistically a prison deck beats Infect if its mid game. Their win is normally t3/4 or not at all.
Technically Eidolon dies to Path/Wrath, and maybe Lilly other than things that kill Rule of Law and Eidolon anyway- Decay, Pridemage, Golgari charm. If my opponent is double bolting it, let the good times roll! Bolting it after a block and it has sort of done its job. I agree Rule can be better, though. Eidolon is a decent blocker and can be bought in to shore up Zoo matches, Rule is less fragile in general. Pay your money, take your choice as it were. Both great cards.
Irritatingly in my last PPTQ I saw bucketsful of Abrupt decays and Golgari charms- 0 path, and only my own sweepers. Yep- more main deck Golgari Charms than PTE!
Story Circle is a mid game card, and should be treated as such, for the reasons you suggest. Certainly it is good in some prison builds, not good in others. Being able to deal with Boggles with SC set to green is nice, though.......
Great card, maindeckable of course, not super/brilliant against Infect though in my experience of prison decks. Always good to have in hand, might be enough with Halo backup, but remember they do run Vines, which is the issue.
[Another card of interest is Favour of the Mighty. Makes their guy, if it is the only one, pro everything. Hilarious tech-pump that, my friends! Works better vs twin. Not suggesting it here, just worth noting for future reference- in the right hatebear deck it is effective as a board card.]
Might just be a question of getting the right critical mass of early game spells to make G2 and 3 in your favour....
Incidentally how is Luminarch Ascension for you? Do you keep track of it's performance? I took mine out of all my prison decks once I tracked them and found that the card only won games I felt I was already winning- admittedly it gave a fast clock and turned a fair few draws into wins, but it never turned defeats into wins. Different builds and decks of course.
I am all for diversifying wincons, 100% - very wise as sometimes a SG effect sneaks past prison defenses- just that is one I have never found to be great in any prison deck- only in that as I said above it is at its worst in prison's worst matches. That said it does finish matches quickly sometimes that would grind out. It does pressure control decks. I actually like Blind obedience as a win con II- and Heliod- all synergise with cards in the deck.
PS you should never be milled by games going long with a copy or two of Mistveil plains, unless your opponent works out they can't win early and goes after your bin.....
If BO is out the have to make the comes into play tapped tokens in our turn after @EOT effects have stacked, and then untap all the men in theirs, and attack.
If they combo in their turn- they make infinite men- but the men themselves are tapped- although the last one can untap itelf- each untap on the token is "spent" continuing the combo,and the token is tapped.
BO won't stop the combo, but it means they must combo in the window I have described above. Combo-ing at any other time won't do much.
Always interested in Prison decks. If the stuff is not applicable to my deck, it could be appropriate for others that I run.
I am getting more confident in my build and will put up a full list soon, it seems to have become a GW devotion/enchantment deck with a critter based Stax component- Supp Field, Root Maze, Magi, Quellers etc. with support men that synergise- in some way Finks, for example..
Commander
U Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive
RG Zilortha, Strength Incarnate
WB Amalia Benavides Aguirre
The matrix, however, is not stellar on its own. BO is decent on its own- an optional tax that keeps us out of the red zone and makes every other spell played a pinger, which is vital in grindy games, a win con in its own right. Cast (twenty +/- X) spells, we win, where X= the amount of self inflicted damage/lifegain their deck does to itself.
I am having a lot of success with BO in GW Prison.
The issues I am having are
(a) I am using Sup Field and Root Maze, which are dead-ish late game in grindy matches.
(b) the Tron match is awful, as ever for prison decks game one, but in this case I can't fix it game 2 - no Sowing Salts, not enough acceleration into Primal Commands. GQs are ok but have anti-synergy with SF, and Stony Silence might be great vs Tron but it is better if the time that it buys is used for either winning the game or crippling them, which is possible in red but not green.
(C) the ability to grind is good but not better even than it is in Enduring Ideal decks (which have the option of monastery siege to filter bad draws), despite the latter's wincons being dead draws
I personally play with the U splash, so I have no experience with Root maze, but I feel like the card is a trap. It + BO along with Storage Matrix sounds amazing in theory, but at least Storage matrix and BO do things on their own, while Root Maze just slows down the game for everyone without providing you with any sort of advantage unless you manage to draw a Matrix.
Commander
U Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive
RG Zilortha, Strength Incarnate
WB Amalia Benavides Aguirre
I should mention that Maze allows me to play Temples without disadvantage and that I run 4 Viridian Emissaries, which ramp me against aggressive strategies, making the Magus of the Tabernacle play really much stronger than it should be. It also turns 'queller soft locks into rather harder ones, keeping them at whatever mana they have when you start land munching.
I agree Maze is a potential trap, and I do believe the Pillow Fort deck's natural colours are W/u, 100%, but also that this strongest version should not be a Queller/Magus/Matrix type deck.
I already run Enduring Ideal, an almost identical deck with Ideals. Its a pillow fort prison with a couple of uncastable/hard to cast top end "I win" enchantments+ 4 ideals. Take those six away and add in a little more support and you have an excellent Prison shell that works well (I wish I had found Heliod before my last pptq, BTW). I have had many sweeps before the Ideal. The Prison lock is probably better than most Magus type build for the reason that you blank their critter removal, can justifyably play Supreme Verdict, and have access to Monastery Siege which increases your chances of getting the right prison piece for the decks you are against, and allows late game dead draws to be filtered.
My main aim in the Root Maze version is to make the best shell for the Tax/Queller version. I think the Maze offers an opportunity to improve on the mono white version.
Also I agree about Field in that it is a frustrating late draw, although it can be come relevant with Queller land kill, esp against Pridemage running decks. It, incidentally, is great vs affinity, and has been highlighted by Karsten on SCG as a potential Legacy build around with SF. The main problem, as ever, is the landkill is not as good in green/white as it should be, although Primal Command has been stellar and can edge the deck in front. If only we could access 'geddon.