I would be delighted if you did write a portion. I am planning the latest primer as
1 bridge lockdown
2 stax (including armageddon/landkill focus strategies)
3 rw lockdown with twin/combo finish
4 RW hatebear lockdown
I was planning to only briefly discuss hate bears, but if you want to write that bit (credit will be given at the start for contributors- memory lapse wrote a large chunk of the bridge stuff for example). I don't want to step too much on Dr Worm's toes though, as new owner of the OP for D and T (which has a legitimate claim on a lot of lockdown/taxing too), so we need to keep it specifically lockdown strategies involving men, with an emphasis on lockdown. We can also link to the d and t thread, which is only fair. Make sure you keep it practical- use lists you have run or at least established engines like vial, flickerwisp, mangara. The focus of our thread is rw lockdown, not RW combo, so any list will have to have a substantial control element, like the RW list with twin combo finish.
I would say read the current primer, stick to the broad style, and don't go overboard in size terms- we are predominantly a low creature lockdown strategy, so whilst I am happy to put in taxing strategies with creatures, I don't want to attract people who start writing lists with metaphorical white knights etc. ! PM me your stuff and I can work it in at the weekend. The latest version will go live next week I hope.
I have, incidentally played lockdown bears myself- frankly I have played all the d and t variants- it is always fun- my version was always based around flickerwisps, riders, hikori, shoals, ghostly prison and not thalia. Baneslayer is not really a D and T critter in any form, but it makes hatebear lists which run mana accelerants.
I will also include
5 other lockdown decks that are related, but will not go into depth there- such as the re cent enchantment list.
Got a report to prepare- went 3 and a draw at an event tonight.
Beat affinity, a gw beat/token deck and dredge, draw with BW tokens, although I had the last game locked as time was called (had 2 ghostlies down, assemble the legion active, and him with little mana). Magus in hand too.
Deck list with report tommorrow, but it is similar to my last post, containing 2 x permanent tappers, but with a main deck assemble x2 plus a gideon/ajani split and a bottled cloister over land kill 10. No queller or scales tech- wanted to win and maximise flexibility.
I also got to use aura of silence, my new sideboard all star, and won the deciding game vs affinity by reducing it to zero permanents- and not a queller or scales in sight....more tomorrow............
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
This is what I run to 3 wins and a draw last night.
The first point to note- this is less stax based than previous versions. No queller or scales. Less fun, easier to play, more serious as a deck. I would be happy with this version at PTQ level events.
Mulligans: it does not do much mulligan wise. Much less fragile than previous versions. Played a lot of games and got a low mulligan percentage. Partly this is helped by sceptre, halo, o rings and other flexible cards meaning you don't have to mulligan away hands that are nothing but landkill. Finally signets radically reduce screw and allow bust to be more effective.
Assemble- the MVP kill card and defensively strong. Forget the nonbo with magus- losing men you made last turn is not a problem. Stacking the effects correctly is obviously important.
Blood moon- this deck ignores it and could run it in the board. Mystifying maze is very useful however.
No wrath- theoretically with sceptres wrath should be even better, but the meta here is a bit grindy and twin ish. Not much zoo. Affinity exists, but my match up for that is good.
Have cut responses to two- usa is a good match, unusually for any RW counterless deck. The sceptres help a lot, being felxible enough to tap mana and late game gideons etc. if I stop a cryptic with response or boils I tend to win. assemble the legion kills very quickly.....
I ran aura of silence. I can't run stony silence for obvious reasons. Aura is superb against boggles (racors cost 3, which is a lot vs lockdown prison and landkill!), good vs twin (costs 6 and disenchant as they go off), good vs ad nauseam (prisms cost 4, blooms 2), great vs affinity, even when they vomit their hand. The disenchant on a stick is great at stopping all in ravagers.
R1 BW tokens. slighly sub optimal list.
I kill land early doors, draw lots of bolts but flounder as I fail to draw a single prison card.....
G2 I win- early landklill, aura of silence (vs sculler/htp/oring/virtue), orings, prison and an assemble the legion do the job.
G3 I have in the bag- 2 prisons, aura of silence, cloister, double figure life, assemble the legion all on the table, bust in hand- he has 3 lands and a couple of tokens. Time is called- new venue but still 40 min rounds, as per the parent shop.......
1-1
R2 elves
he mulls to 5. Does not hit an elf.
I go t2 landkill,t3, t4, bolts and landkill plus cloister and its game as he finishes under an assembled legion.
G2 even worse for him, bolts, landkill, magus etc.
2-0
R3 dredge-
Game 1 I hit early prison x2 and its a scoop from him
game 2 he tempts a rest in peace out buy leaving a plant zombie in the bin and men on the field. It is actually a misplay, but I fall for it. My rest in peace should
have been held back, but it gets decayed. I should have killed his green source. double ghostly prison is pulsed. He combos off many times reanimating and dredging but my magus is in play, and despite the absence of prisons I survive due to assemble the legion and more importantly before it is laid my two sceptres keep his vengevines at bay repeatedly.
My assemble the legion comes down very late, and eventually I win with an army of 20.......
2-0
r4 affinity
game one on the draw I win- magus and prisons plus landkill as he gets a quick but not lightning start. oring does a number on plating. I see halo too and mystifying maze.
Game 2 I feel good but lose to double plating, despite good early control cards and an assemble the legion down. Gideon was a 5 mana fog, halo was strong.
Game 3 total destruction- I go first and prisons, t2 landkill, magus and bolts, double prison, and some of the remaining landkill and some orings do a job and a half. He ends with zero permanents, I kill his last solitary permanent, an opal, with a ratchet bomb. Did not even see an aura of silence......
2-1.
Final position 10 points, 1st place
thoughts- Still not convinced on ajani and gideon- but the deck is now smooth, low mulliganing and consistent. Scry helps on the lands and is well worth it, cloister is amazingly good, sceptres a missing piece of the jigsaw, mystiying maze ideal if only for etched champions............
Against Decks like 8-Rack Bottled Cloister is a total nonbo, isn't it?
you get your hand back only after their Affliction and Rack has dealt their 3 damage each to you.
But I'm think Cloister isn't in the main for anything but the additional draw it provides.
Well I like drawing a free card a turn in addition to my main draw.......maximising the numbers of flexible cards still laves you with matches where you draw all the landkill or all the bolts. Bottled cloister helps that by drawing 2 cards a turn, not one. Also when you have a game sown up and need to draw a win con when they do not scoop.....
You tend to lay it last, to minimise a risk. Once your hand is clear lay it and win......cards should not build up in hand too often....
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
Latest primer is going up now- leaving the mods to sort out the organisation!
I have expanded it, made the second stax section more like the bridge section for card choices, differentiated between stax and landkill stx, included a section at the end for new material promised by rogueos, and included viomonk's twin approach.........
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
New primer and discussion can be found here. Thanks to drmarkb for handling the rewrites and volunteering to take over the new primer, and thanks to Lapse for maintaining this old one for so long.
Continue your discussion in the new thread.
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Over-Extended/Modern Since 2010
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1 bridge lockdown
2 stax (including armageddon/landkill focus strategies)
3 rw lockdown with twin/combo finish
4 RW hatebear lockdown
I was planning to only briefly discuss hate bears, but if you want to write that bit (credit will be given at the start for contributors- memory lapse wrote a large chunk of the bridge stuff for example). I don't want to step too much on Dr Worm's toes though, as new owner of the OP for D and T (which has a legitimate claim on a lot of lockdown/taxing too), so we need to keep it specifically lockdown strategies involving men, with an emphasis on lockdown. We can also link to the d and t thread, which is only fair. Make sure you keep it practical- use lists you have run or at least established engines like vial, flickerwisp, mangara. The focus of our thread is rw lockdown, not RW combo, so any list will have to have a substantial control element, like the RW list with twin combo finish.
I would say read the current primer, stick to the broad style, and don't go overboard in size terms- we are predominantly a low creature lockdown strategy, so whilst I am happy to put in taxing strategies with creatures, I don't want to attract people who start writing lists with metaphorical white knights etc. ! PM me your stuff and I can work it in at the weekend. The latest version will go live next week I hope.
I have, incidentally played lockdown bears myself- frankly I have played all the d and t variants- it is always fun- my version was always based around flickerwisps, riders, hikori, shoals, ghostly prison and not thalia. Baneslayer is not really a D and T critter in any form, but it makes hatebear lists which run mana accelerants.
I will also include
5 other lockdown decks that are related, but will not go into depth there- such as the re cent enchantment list.
Beat affinity, a gw beat/token deck and dredge, draw with BW tokens, although I had the last game locked as time was called (had 2 ghostlies down, assemble the legion active, and him with little mana). Magus in hand too.
Deck list with report tommorrow, but it is similar to my last post, containing 2 x permanent tappers, but with a main deck assemble x2 plus a gideon/ajani split and a bottled cloister over land kill 10. No queller or scales tech- wanted to win and maximise flexibility.
I also got to use aura of silence, my new sideboard all star, and won the deciding game vs affinity by reducing it to zero permanents- and not a queller or scales in sight....more tomorrow............
1 plain
4 sacred foundry
1 tectonic edge
2 darksteel citadel
2 mystifying maze
4 flagstones of trokair
1 rugged prairie
2 ghitu encampment
2 arid mesa
3 temple of triumph
3 boros signet
4 lightning helix
1 runed halo
2 oblivion ring
4 ghostly prison
3 magus of the tabernacle
2 assemble the legion
1 Gideon Jura
2 sceptre of dominance
1 molten rain
4 stone rain
4 boom // bust
1 Ajani vengeant
1 bottled cloister
2 boil
3 leyline of sanctity
1 ratchet bomb
3 rest in peace
3 aura of silence
1 runed halo
This is what I run to 3 wins and a draw last night.
The first point to note- this is less stax based than previous versions. No queller or scales. Less fun, easier to play, more serious as a deck. I would be happy with this version at PTQ level events.
Mulligans: it does not do much mulligan wise. Much less fragile than previous versions. Played a lot of games and got a low mulligan percentage. Partly this is helped by sceptre, halo, o rings and other flexible cards meaning you don't have to mulligan away hands that are nothing but landkill. Finally signets radically reduce screw and allow bust to be more effective.
Assemble- the MVP kill card and defensively strong. Forget the nonbo with magus- losing men you made last turn is not a problem. Stacking the effects correctly is obviously important.
Blood moon- this deck ignores it and could run it in the board. Mystifying maze is very useful however.
No wrath- theoretically with sceptres wrath should be even better, but the meta here is a bit grindy and twin ish. Not much zoo. Affinity exists, but my match up for that is good.
Have cut responses to two- usa is a good match, unusually for any RW counterless deck. The sceptres help a lot, being felxible enough to tap mana and late game gideons etc. if I stop a cryptic with response or boils I tend to win. assemble the legion kills very quickly.....
I ran aura of silence. I can't run stony silence for obvious reasons. Aura is superb against boggles (racors cost 3, which is a lot vs lockdown prison and landkill!), good vs twin (costs 6 and disenchant as they go off), good vs ad nauseam (prisms cost 4, blooms 2), great vs affinity, even when they vomit their hand. The disenchant on a stick is great at stopping all in ravagers.
R1 BW tokens. slighly sub optimal list.
I kill land early doors, draw lots of bolts but flounder as I fail to draw a single prison card.....
G2 I win- early landklill, aura of silence (vs sculler/htp/oring/virtue), orings, prison and an assemble the legion do the job.
G3 I have in the bag- 2 prisons, aura of silence, cloister, double figure life, assemble the legion all on the table, bust in hand- he has 3 lands and a couple of tokens. Time is called- new venue but still 40 min rounds, as per the parent shop.......
1-1
R2 elves
he mulls to 5. Does not hit an elf.
I go t2 landkill,t3, t4, bolts and landkill plus cloister and its game as he finishes under an assembled legion.
G2 even worse for him, bolts, landkill, magus etc.
2-0
R3 dredge-
Game 1 I hit early prison x2 and its a scoop from him
game 2 he tempts a rest in peace out buy leaving a plant zombie in the bin and men on the field. It is actually a misplay, but I fall for it. My rest in peace should
have been held back, but it gets decayed. I should have killed his green source. double ghostly prison is pulsed. He combos off many times reanimating and dredging but my magus is in play, and despite the absence of prisons I survive due to assemble the legion and more importantly before it is laid my two sceptres keep his vengevines at bay repeatedly.
My assemble the legion comes down very late, and eventually I win with an army of 20.......
2-0
r4 affinity
game one on the draw I win- magus and prisons plus landkill as he gets a quick but not lightning start. oring does a number on plating. I see halo too and mystifying maze.
Game 2 I feel good but lose to double plating, despite good early control cards and an assemble the legion down. Gideon was a 5 mana fog, halo was strong.
Game 3 total destruction- I go first and prisons, t2 landkill, magus and bolts, double prison, and some of the remaining landkill and some orings do a job and a half. He ends with zero permanents, I kill his last solitary permanent, an opal, with a ratchet bomb. Did not even see an aura of silence......
2-1.
Final position 10 points, 1st place
thoughts- Still not convinced on ajani and gideon- but the deck is now smooth, low mulliganing and consistent. Scry helps on the lands and is well worth it, cloister is amazingly good, sceptres a missing piece of the jigsaw, mystiying maze ideal if only for etched champions............
you get your hand back only after their Affliction and Rack has dealt their 3 damage each to you.
But I'm think Cloister isn't in the main for anything but the additional draw it provides.
You tend to lay it last, to minimise a risk. Once your hand is clear lay it and win......cards should not build up in hand too often....
I have expanded it, made the second stax section more like the bridge section for card choices, differentiated between stax and landkill stx, included a section at the end for new material promised by rogueos, and included viomonk's twin approach.........
New primer and discussion can be found here. Thanks to drmarkb for handling the rewrites and volunteering to take over the new primer, and thanks to Lapse for maintaining this old one for so long.
Continue your discussion in the new thread.