There's no reason to be running 11 utility lands, that's greedy as heck. Wasteland is the best utility land, and Troll is integral to the Scam archetype. That's already 7 utility lands.
This is the decklist I built for European Legacy Masters at the start of September, except the list I played had one less utility land as I'm sure you'll be glad to hear :D Unfortunately I didn't play against a single blue deck until round five so it didn't go amazingly XD The SB I ran was: 2 Cursed Totem 1 Damping Sphere 2 Null Rod 4 Plague Engineer 3 Surgical Extraction 3 Tourach, Dread Cantor Glad you had fun with it though, deck feels pretty good and in my testing it was pulping UB scam quite reliably which is why I played it at ELM, thinking it would be lots of Scam but instead people were playing the decks they had reps with instead.
'The opponent played their island first, that's very good'. That line alone should tell people who you are as a magic player. Your teacher vibes just shone through there and you should be proud. 24:00
Before watching, I am always a fan of mono colored decks that want to cast 4 drops just playing a load of basics. Even a single non basic leaves you open to getting wasted
Since I discovered the channel many months ago (pre bowmasters times) my favourite style of decks to see Phil play are those monoblack. Either helm combo (love a good maindeck leyline) or more "fair" builds such as this one just make my day better.
Technically it was always castle locthwain that was an issue, as hive it coming in untapped from your opening hand. Also as you identified 4 mana to activate castle locthwain is alot.
4 for Castle is a lot, but 5 for Hive is even worse. Drawing a card is oftentimes better than a 3/3 menace. And Hive is brutal to draw into when you're trying to turn 3 a Opposition or Plague, or turn 4 a Sheoldred, while topdecking a Castle is fine. Either way, playing two of each is greedy when you've got Wasteland and Troll as 7 utility lands already.
You were certainly not 'deterministically dead' at @35:25 . Opponent's Grafdigger's Cage means they cannot cast spells from the graveyard using Emry. At that point you weren't going to lose the game unless opponent draws an artifact they can put into play (that isn't a 2-drop like Patchwork Automaton). Which is why they activated Urza's Bauble to get 2 looks at a castable artifact (or Seat of the Synod). As it happens, they found a Mishra's Bauble and grew the Cannoneer to lethal, but you would have won that match if they hadn't found that artifact.
That round 1 storm deck is really interesting. It seems like it has a lot of really interesting lines. It also seems like a nightmare to play with how many decisions and different lines you have to navigate
I'm always down for that Mono-B game! No Leylines is weird (just give me time, I'll come to terms with it)... but I was 100% on the Ancient Tomb line of thinking.
Does anyone else have a thing for seeing a deck with the maximum for copies of spells, all one color, with basic lands? There is just something so neat and tidy about it that makes me feel good.
I play a very similar version. Only difference is Dauthi Voidwalker is in the side board and have Hymn instead and am running 2x agadeem’s awakening and 3 less swamps for Chrome Mox.
I dont think the Round 2 - Game 2 hand was a mulligan: you had access to 6 mana, not 5 (troll cycle). That hand could power an insane turn 2: Turn 1: wasteland, cycle troll for a swamp Turn 2 if you draw any black card: swamp, ritual, dauthi. Pitch cast your first grief exiling the newly drawn black card. Cast the second ritual and the second grief. You have a dauthi and a grief in play and your opponent is short 2 Cards. All you needed for this to happen is to draw ANY black card. Even without a black card, that hand was solid
In round 2, game 2 was like instant karma for game 1. Fun intro. Still love Mono Black. The deck still needs to dump Hive, though (I swear it's just as bad as Takenuma, Abandoned Mire).
I'm really not sure about Castle when you're only running 13 swamps. The fact that you're already running Wastelands, Trolls, and Dark Rituals as mana sources really makes it inconvenient. The second copy seems almost greedy when half your lands are utility lands (trolls, wastelands, hive). It's not 4 utility lands, it's 11. Wasteland is a utility land, and it's way better than a 3/3 menace for 5 every turn. Troll is a utility land, and a reanimate target, and is a a strict upgrade over Hive.
Turning those 4 black lands into swamps is crucial i think. I think a strength of the deck is that is has very many reasonable 1 landers you can keep. between pitch+reanimate, trollcycle+reanimate, dark rit+oppo etc. But for that to work, the utility land count needs to be as low as possible. Wasteland is too good in supporting the fast gameplan. So the others should go. Also hive is so nieche, its just not worth. The deck is full of threats. The fact that it opens you up to getting wastelanded alone for me would be a dealbreaker. Let alone possibly being a tapped source when you need it to be untapped. But i think generally this deck looks really fun. Fast paced gameplay but also with a lot of finesse. Hope we get to see a new iteration of that in the future.
I am missing Fatal Push and Fetchlands in this build. It is just to nice to push a Delver in response. And during midgames paired up with fetchlands Fatal Push is still strong. Would add 4 Fetchies.
after jamming mono red aggroo/burn in pioneer for FOREVER I have decided that the Creature lands from D&D set are fucking god awful. They come in late theyre ass and you're no longer on curve, they're only OKAY at most even when you make them into a dude. They're a trap, fuck those lands. They piss me off to no end, they've cost me so many goddamn games at RCQ's
Mono Black is so grindy and so much more pleasing to play, watch and even lose to. ... still waiting for Phil to make Activated Sleeper a staple in legacy though....
I played a similar list but with more removal (sheoldred in side) and for the land only one of castel and hyve and one takenuma that i found being a very good slot for the B utility land
deck is sweet. I do kinda wonder how good sheoldred is in it without the ancient tombs. I feel like the list may want to either put in some number of ancient tombs, or just cut the sheoldreds. obviously they're great with dark rit, but I think only 1 enabler for a fast sheoldred, and only running 20 lands + 4 wastelands makes the card just kinda inconsistent to get to in all but the grindiest of matchups. maybe it could go in the board? idk
A bit unfamiliar with the format, but could it be an option to run 1-2 urborg and 2 ancient tombs instead of the black utility lands? Unsure of how big a downside urborg poses in legacy compared to edh. I know it's not free due to the amount of fetch lands in the format, but I still think it's worth testing, at the very least.
nah basic swamp is way better than urborg purely because of wasteland. like, occasionally helping your opponents mana isn't ideal, but not that big of a concern. but wasteland is one of the foundational pillars of legacy and urborg doesn't offer enough upside to be worth running into it. same with hive (and locthwain but that one also has the etb tapped downside)
Match 2: you are very polite to keep from saying that your opponent got incredibly lucky in game 3 with playing a Chalice (on 2) which stopped nothing and then you drew two 2-mana plays in a row. If you draw land or 1-mana play you just win.
The only 1-mana play that's an out is Dark Ritual, because Reanimate is caged. Meanwhile he's got a dozen 2-drop outs. Still, there are a dozen untapped lands in the deck, and Plague Engineer would have helped. It was unlucky, but the opponent made the right call shutting off half of the outs.
I think you could have responded to the one ring saccing the dauthi casting beseech the mirror saccing greif to cast sheoldred the apocalypse to win the game
U missed the win vs artifact, cappa canoneer . When they went to 1 pre combat you only had to play bowmaster from hand to deal final 1pt of damage....unless im missing something?
Im a mono black enjoyer and yeah its rough dealing with the split i want to do both but i can only play one at a time Question are the transformer cards not in MTGO? Cause a nice one of is starscream
I think the assumption was that the wasteland would be taking out a Saga or artifact land on turn 2. Or they forgot about the swamp because it's not in hand, something like that.
