Turbo-Confidant; something new in aggro-control

RThomas · Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 384

EDIT: I had about 15 pages of content, and lost it all. Goddamn the site. Here's the second, crappier version.

Looking through the new Guildpact cards for something new for Goblins, I found two in particular that have some potential in Vintage:

Shattering Spree
R
Sorcery
Replicate R
Destroy target artifact.

How good is this card? If you can afford to dip your deck heavily into red, you could be hitting three or four artifacts with one card. That sounds pretty fucking savage to me, period. It gets around enemy Chalices, Sphere of Resistances, and Trinispheres.

The second card:

Leyline of the Void
2BB
Enchantment
If Leyline of the Void is in your opening hand, you may start the game with it in play.
If a card would be put into an opponent's graveyard, remove it from the game instead.

Excluding my failed Leyline of Lifeforce experiment, the Leylines are a pretty cool inclusion to Magic in general. As far as Type 1 goes; besides the obvious detriment of peeling it off the top somewhere in the game, it's a really solid card that negates a lot of game plans. Since Welder can't work around it like it can with Planar Void, and it negates Yawgmoth's Will altogether, it's probably worthy of being played.

So with combining these cards, and a few random others, I formulated a decklist. I'll paste it now so you don't have to read the rest:

Turbo-Confidant anon

Land
3 Mishra's Factory
3 Mountain
1 Swamp
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Badlands
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland

Creatures
4 Grim Lavamancer
3 Goblin Vandal
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Dark Confidant

Spells
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Black Lotus
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Null Rod
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Darkblast
2 Pithing Needle
4 Duress
4 Shattering Spree

Sideboard
SB: 4 Pyrostatic Pillar
SB: 3 Blood Moon
SB: 3 Threaten
SB: 2 Diabolic Edict
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Null Rod

Red and black? What the deuce? I haven't done much research on the red/black archetype (if it exists), so if I've stolen your deck idea, I apologize. It's my idea now Razz

The basic aim of this deck is to exert a little bit of pressure early on, with well-placed Duresses and REB's, dropping bombs such as Null Rod, Grim Lavamancer, and hitting with Wastes and Needles. It's a bit slow as far as actually dealing 20 damage goes, but it makes up for that in the resources that it denies.

Concerning the manabase, the only concerns I have are with getting color-screwed early on with 8 lands that don't produce colored mana. I went down to 3 Factories and included a 5th fetch, and I'm pretty comfortable thus far. Three Badlands is a fine choice, since none of your spells require double mana, save Leyline (which you don't want to cast anyways!). The power cards are obvious inclusions that aren't the least bit detrimental with Null Rod.

Upon building this deck, I took some time to check out MasterTap's old build of Sligh that took top 16 at a Waterbury about a year ago. His route had been a bit more aggressive, with Jackal Pups, Ankhs, Pillars, and a myriad of burn spells. Because most of the decks in today's environment are able to race you better and more effectively, I'm not sure this is a viable option. Concerning the creatures he ran, I don't like Jackal Pup, because a bad Savannah Lions just doesn't give you enough bang for your buck. Goblin Vandal and Grim Lavamancer are both good options however, so they're in. I've never liked Mogg Fanatic, to tell the truth, because he's just about as useful as Jackal Pup is. However, having an effective way to remove Welder from the board is important in today's meta, so he's in. And of course, since we're playing black in a deck that can obviously support Dark Confidant, he's pretty worthy of inclusion.

Some of the dudes I could have included, but didn't:

Withered Wretch: As I stated above, we're just too heavily into red to play effectively with Wretch, and we already have Leyline, so Wretch is out this time. He may be included later if Leyline doesn't pan out.

Phyrexian Negator: He's pretty good in Turbo-Negator, but he's not as good here. We don't have the luxury of including as many permanents as that deck did, and he just isn't as efficient as Lavamancer or Confidant. I may include him at a later date, but for now, he's cut.

Gempalm Incinerator: Yet another way to kill Welder. We already have infinite ways of doing so.

We're able to take our pick of the litter as far as effective, cheap red and black spells go. Duress is probably an auto-inclusion. For this reason, we could probably include Cabal Therapy. Why not? With this deck, your creatures are far more effective when they stick around for a couple turns. Therapy provides a little more hand control, but it doesn't stop things like Vampiric Tutor, Brainstorm, or Imperial Seal, which really kick this deck in the nuts when they go for stuff like Tinker or Yawgmoth's Will, which is what you'll end up losing to in the first place. Therapy just doesn't make the cut.

We can safely include a set of REB/Pyroblast in the main. Darkblast takes care of most relevant little dudes, and Pithing Needle can put the hurt on Bazaar, Belcher, Welder, and a myriad of other things. My love affair with Null Rod continues, as I have three in the main while rounding out the set in the board. Basically, there are two kinds of decks when it comes to Rod:

1) The deck that hugs you and provides you with your very own plate of hash brownies
2) The deck that dies when Null Rod brings its brownies to your party

I've had very sporadic luck with the latter, so I'll go back to the former as far as deckbuilding goes. I could be including Chalice of the Void here, but I just don't feel it's necessary in tandem with Null Rod, because it sucks on the draw, and Null Rod does everything you want it to anyways. Plus, you really can't set it at anything other than 0 without it becoming a liability.

And of course, the reason I built the deck, Shattering Spree and Leyline of the Void. It's acceptable to run less than four of the Sprees, but not of the Leylines.

Because of the horrible Oath matchup, we're forced to devote much of the board to decks with Oath-like strategies (see: Tinker -> Colossus). As weak as Diabolic Edict may be, we don't have a lot of better options (Terminate can't hit Akroma). Threaten has turned out to be a good foil against non-Akroma fatties, and can reward you if you take a quick aggro route with a swift punch to their groin. MasterTap played Blood Moon in his sideboard, and it looks like a good option, seeing as it shuts down Orchards, Bazaars, Workshops, Academies... most of the relevant lands, anyways. Though it costs three mana, it's worthy of inclusion in my opinion.

The reason I designed this deck was to beat a Stax and TPS-filled meta. Beating the former is assured in all of the disruption spells we pack, but I'm still not sure about the combo matchups. So far, the most successful option I've found is Pyrostatic Pillar. Admittedly, having a Pillar and a Confidant means you'll be losing life quickly, which leaves you vulnerable to a small Tendrils or one quick hit from DSC, but it should be effective enough with other lockdown pieces to swing the game in your favor. REBs and well-placed Duresses are your key in those matchups.

I shouldn't have to express how much this deck owns Stax. Taking a Spree of 3 or 4 to the face is usually game-swinging. You have Null Rod to offset their brokeness, and a jillion ways to deal with Welder. Post-side, you have Blood Moon and a full set of Rods or Needles to deal accordingly. I am very confident in beating Stax on the whole; it's the reason to play this deck, in my opinion.

To cover what you might see with Drain-based control, your aim is to stop Tinker at all costs. This is pretty difficult in the first game; you have to attack their mana by playing quick Null Rods, REBs, and Duresses. Surprisingly, if you can wrangle Needling their fetches on the play, it can leave them in quite a hole that they may not be able to dig themselves out of. You have Leyline of the Void to offset Yawgmoth's Will, and in the event that you do find yourself facing down a Tinkered dude, Lavamancer and Fanatic can provide some emergency relief. Post-side, you've got Edicts, Threaten, and another Null Rod to beat all of their win conditions.

A short report from the tournament that I won with this deck earlier in the night:

Round one vs SSB: Game one, I kill a bunch of artifacts and do somet attacking, but never put any pressure on him, drawing only one land. He finds Belcher and Severance and kills me. Games two and three see him do nothing under Null Rod and Shattering Sprees.

Round two vs vroman stax: Game one I do the Confidant thing and Shattering Spree a couple SoR's, and win quickly. I lose Game two because my MWS fucks up. Game three I start with Leyline, but he Smokestacks me out of permanents. I hold back a land so that he sacrifices Smoky, and rebuild quickly, using Spree and Darkblast to kill quickly.

Round three vs Sensei Sensei: He takes Game 1 with a unanswered Future Sight and no disruption on my part. Games 2 and 3, I have in excess of 12 cards that prevent him from comboing out, and win easily.

Altogether, I have to admit that I haven't put forth much effort into this yet, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to just put this out there and leave it at that. I feel that this is a strong, albiet overlooked color combination that can overwhelm the opponent with hate and force them to make decisions that can leave themselves at a loss. I advise you to try out this deck and see if you like it. Since this is simply an overnight project, I've most likely overlooked some variables; so if you see a gaping hole in the deck's strategy (besides the Oath matchup), please bring them out into the open. When it comes to the innovation of Magic's oldest and finest format, I'm always on the lookout for potentially great stuff. I think this could be a big step as far as aggro-control goes.

By the way, if anyone can figure out a better name for this deck, let me know. Turbo-everything seems to get old Rolling Eyes

Eliminator · Joined: 03 Sep 2004 Posts: 59

Name the deck "Dirty Bird", because your deck reminds me of the 1977 Atlanta Falcons, allowing the fewest points over a 14 game season yet missing the playoffs. (Red and black are the colors of the Atlanta Falcons, as well)

Stryfe- · Joined: 25 Feb 2006 Posts: 72

i was the stax player in round 2. first of all that deck raped me. In game 2 my opening hand was workshop, mox, mox, trini. go, turn 2 bazzar play welder off the mox ruby and saph.

Any i thought of a really really blunt idea vs oath. Cranial Extraction. lol maybe u wanna try it i dunno. seems ok when u have REB and duress to handle counters. Nice job for inventing a potential archtype.

RThomas · Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 384

A couple prospective problems that I've spotted with the deck:

Too much hate

With an excess of 23 hate cards in the main, and more in the side, the deck could possibly become a victim of simply hating the other deck too much, and not actually accomplishing anything. Too often have I just sat back in a game and held down the opponent, while I was unable to do anything. Giving the opponent turns to sculpt a hand and beat you is unacceptable.

Vulnerability to Combo

I've got to accept it, the deck isn't exactly a shining star against fast combo without Chalice of the Void. Mogg Fanatic and Goblin Vandal just don't do enough in this matchup, and you'll often times find yourself lacking in the disruption department early on, which is when they'll win anyways.

Cold_Zero · Joined: 11 Sep 2005 Posts: 2

Isnt jackal pup something for the deck? i think it can speed up the kill considerably. Perhaps instead of the vandals, as you already have shattering spree. But nice deck, perhaps i'll bring it to a tourney someday. ( If you can play it unpowered, that is.)

Anti-Christ · Joined: 13 Feb 2006 Posts: 46

This is just a hate deck and the problem with hate decks is that they sacrifice playing broken cards and broken plays and focus on preventing the opponent from winning instead of them winning. You should have a good mix between the two and this deck doesn't have it. Your win conditions are Confidant, Factory and Lavamancer. Which two can be Darkblasted and the third be wastelanded or strip mined.
Also Leyline imo is not worth running 4 of maindeck over say Tormod's Crypt, or Phyrexian Furnace. Reason being is that you need Leyline in your opening hand and even then, they could just bounce it to your hand and chances are you won't be able to replay it because they would either take it from your hand or counter it.
Add some more win conditions. And this is be named Hate.dec because truthfully this is all that it's aimed at doing.

ant900 · Joined: 11 Oct 2004 Posts: 2484 Location: somewhere

why dont you call it pure hatred?

RThomas · Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 384

I appreciate those of you who have been cordial enough to make assessments on the deck.

Cold_Zero · Joined: 11 Sep 2005 Posts: 2

Okay, im going to give the deck a try in a tourney here in holland. I have no power, so my first question to you guys is: Should i play "fake" power like Mox diamond, or just play the hate? Also, a lotta decks are unpowered. There will be like 50 to 70 % powered decks, so 50 to 30 % will be unpowered, like foodchain and r/g beatz. Im my sideboard im now playing 3 jitte and 4 smother to deal with these matches, will that be sufficient?

A card i've been thinking about is slith firewalker. It can end games quicker than any other threat in this deck.

So, any suggestions?

Koloran · Joined: 22 Oct 2005 Posts: 11

I dont think this deck can contend with any "first turns" that often occur in our little vintage world. In reality, most people play the proven decks. So your looking at alot of Tendrils combo, Control, Stax, and Fish. Thats about it as far as good players are concerned.

So with that said, any Turn 1 Trini'sphere, or Turn 1 tinker is pretty much GG. Not to mention getting combo'd out 1st or 2nd turn. You of all people should know that everyone and there mom is playing Tendrils right now, and you have no way to stop it other then leyline, which they can remove pretty easily since you have no real clock.

Toshi · Joined: 16 Oct 2004 Posts: 22

I like the deck, but how do you feel about Hymn to Tourach. I don't see any reason why you're list couldn't afford it, and abuse it.