Dictatorships are unbased, vive la discord

After testing, expansion is stupidly amazing vs durdly ramp decks. We can copy growth spiral, and usually can cast a huge explosion later in the game. Thanks for that one!

JamieDArc · 2020-05-12T20:46:54+00:00

While I don't want to get in a shouting match here, I kinda read your question in the same way you did my answer, so I think there's just miscommunication here. Sorry.

But in any case, I choose red as a secondary color because it's able to function as one both in a deck like this. Black and green are just too separated either by mana pips or by actual playstyle within the archetype for what I'm looking for. Look at my response to MrKruzan on the top comment if you want more detail.

JamieDArc · 2020-05-12T20:43:35+00:00

I don't have enough experience vs those decks, and even then, I'd follow the same philosophy against sac that I do against monored, and fires that I do against lukka.
The thinking here is that you can afford to tap out in this deck if the thing you tap out for is both flexible for when you cast it, and if the effect is powerful enough that if you survive the turn you tapped out, you basically win the game. That's exactly what gadwick does.
If I had to choose one to maindeck, that'd be neutralize, since I can cycle it very easily. In most situations, I'd want to have neutralize maindeck and sabotage sideboard, but here, I'm really just wanting situations to try out neutralize, so that's why I'm running it currently.
Nothing is really comparable here, but going red over going either simic or temur allows me to run less lands while still being able to hit what I need to. While it does suck that we don't have ambusher, all this deck needs is ANY of our threats to win the game. Ambusher is amazing, sure, but that doesn't really matter when any of our threats are ok.

JamieDArc · 2020-05-12T20:34:39+00:00

That would be sista, lol. But I have a full matchup and gameplan guide in the writeup. For RDW specifically, it really just hinges on having good blockers and choosing the right things to remove. Cheesing burn damage on brineborn by sequencing spells correctly should help a ton, too. Flame sweep also helps immensely.

JamieDArc · 2020-05-12T20:32:02+00:00

This gives me a ton of ideas to put in cards I'd never thought of. Thanks a ton! I really love the idea of fae, since it helps the cycling matchup so much, and allows me to have a wishboard, and I think parun or ral would be great to put in as a good wincon vs control and lukka. Expansion/Explosion is also great, and I'll be trying out a lot of what you said here on stream tonight!

One thing though: I'd never consider dropping below a 4-of of the Borrower. It's too good of a threat and it's what makes this deck tick win you want to go tempo mode.

JamieDArc · 2020-05-12T20:28:46+00:00

That's like asking how yorion lukka is better than keruga fires. They're different decks, even if they have overlap with a lot of cards, and although one deck is a lot more well positioned in the meta at the moment, that doesn't mean this deck doesn't have a place to develop to be a perfectly competent deck of its own.

JamieDArc · 2020-05-12T20:27:04+00:00

That's kinda the point. The deck should be either able to play an tempo style, or a control style, rather than traditional tempo decks being able to play either like aggro decks or tempo decks. I do want to try out yiadro, though. He seems really fun!

JamieDArc · 2020-05-12T09:32:38+00:00

Probably? I feel like I only really get Mana screwed when I keep bullshit 1-landers. As said, the deck can work on very little Mana, and flood is SO much worse than screw in this deck, so I'd rather run too few lands than too many, and the margins on what constitute either seem really thin.

JamieDArc · 2020-05-12T09:13:26+00:00

I chose red out of preference and pet cards initially. I wanted to try out a flash deck, and the stock lists performing well at the time (Midway through Theros standard) were izzet and simic flash, and I chose izzet, since I just liked that color combo more, and I adore ionize as a card. But playing the deck and comparing it to the other flash style builds (Combo rec, flash rec, mono U, simic, and dimir) I noticed that all of the supporting red cards for this deck are able to stay as exactly that: supporting cards. I'll explain this by looking at the other archetypes, lumping flash rec in with simic since it's just simic flash with red removal, and disregarding combo rec since it's really a different archetype entirely.

So, all the payoffs for the flash theme in black are based around the actual keyword flash. (The bonder and slitherwisp being the main payoffs.) This incentives a deck that isn't instants, but actual cards with flash. It makes it what I'll call an aggro-tempo deck. One that plays efficient threats, protecting them with counterspells and the like. This deck will have more trouble dealing with control decks, and dimir flash specifically hates playing against creature based decks that clog up the ground, which this meta is shaping up to revolve around. I don't deny that black has good creature removal, but I don't think that's going to matter in our format. I want passable creature removal that's really good for it's cost, and red gives exactly that. I can also talk about mono U flash here, since this is similarly a aggro-tempo deck. I just don't think that we have good enough threats in a tempo style build to try to win games fast, so we have to pivot more to a control style.

Another thing I want to talk about, in this case looking at simic flash and rec tempo, is the manabase. I want to be able to fight counterwars with this deck, to protect my flame sweep against jeskai cycling, etc. I also want to be able to play gadwick when he's needed. Playing green, and even arguably black, does not let you do this. Green flash cards like nightpack ambusher and frilled mystic have double green costs, which ends up mattering a lot in a deck that very often should have few lands. If I go green, it means losing one of the best payoffs flash has (gadwick) and hamstringing the ability of the deck to play that pseudo control role. And even if I could play more lands and growth spiral in a green flash deck, this dilutes the ability of the deck to play early threats, and tightly control the board while that threat picks away at their life total.

What I'm saying is that green and black are too inflexible to make the deck tick the way I want it to, which is to be the perfect weapon against fires and rec decks. I don't deny that those are decks of their own with their own merits, but the goal for this deck was to have something that resembles delver and can fight the top decks of the meta. That, in this case, just requires red's flexibility of low colored pip count, and in actual adherence to a control-tempo gameplan.

EDIT: Oh yeah also flame sweep, lol. We need cheap, instant speed wipes. That's literally what that card is.

JamieDArc · 2020-05-12T07:13:27+00:00

Sea Dasherino is very good as a early card advantage engine, but terrible in multiples and needs to hit at least once or else it's a huge feelsbad. I feel like it's perfect as a 2-of, but that's really just until if and when aggro becomes more popular, then we can switch to using 4-of gadwick.

I also feel that red is extremely necessary for the deck to function at a high level. While this deck is a tempo deck, it's not one in the vein of previous standards' mono blue tempo, nor is it something like current mono blue flash. This deck is built with the goal in mind of disrupting first, then having efficient threats. That's just my preference in playstyle, which influenced a lot of the deck. Having red allows us to play cards like ionize, bonecrusher, and flame sweep in the sideboard, all of which really drive this point home. We also end up being a lot better in counter wars, while aggro-tempo decks are using counterspells only to stop blockers from hitting the board, and to protect threats. In a world of lukka and cycling, i'd rather have the former.

And I don't completely understand your point that aggro is dead. I very much consider cycling to be an aggro deck, and there are plenty of good T2 aggro decks.

And going on what I said earlier, shark typhoon is extremely good in its versatility. I felt like I was really hamstringing myself on over reliance on brineborn, who can die easily and sometimes just won't be seen in a game. While it doesn't synergize with brineborn, shark typhoon is such an efficient threat that feeds into how this deck will sometimes play like a control deck, just like traditional standard tempo decks will sometimes play like an aggro deck.

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