Lands:
3 Karakas
4 Wasteland
2 Horizon Canopy
4 Rishadan Port
2 Flooded Strand
8 Plains
Creatures:
3 Mangara of Corondor
2 Stonecloaker
4 Flickerwisp
2 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Jotun Grunt
3 Silver Knight
Other Spells:
4 Aether Vial
3 Oblivion Ring
4 Mana Tithe
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Umezawa's Jitte
Sideboard:
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Tivadar of Thorn
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Decree of Justice
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Relic of Progenitus |
 Death
and Taxes 2009 (Legacy).
Description of deck by its author
(quoted):
 This deck is unique in a few ways. It is one
of the few versions of D&T that still runs Silver Knight instead of
Serra Avenger, and this decision has nothing to do with beating
Landstill. Rather, it is simply because I wish to consistently beat
Goblins, and having a winnable game one is a large part of that. Sure,
you can luck out with the mana denial strategy, and Flickerwisp some
opposing Aether Vials long enough to build up enough tempo to win.
However, when both decks are performing, the Goblin deck always has
superior tempo due to Goblin Lackey and Goblin Warchief. The green men
also have superior inevitability due to the sheer number of creatures
that Goblin Ringleader and Siege-Gang Commander provide. This means that
D&T's best chances game one are with a Silver Knight carrying a Jitte.
In this sense, Silver Knight and the sideboarded Tivadar of Thorn are
efficient at handling both tempo and inevitability issues.
Most players are happy running Serra Avenger's main,
with a Burrenton Forge-Tender/Cataclysm sideboard plan against the
goblin menace. That's a perfectly fine way to go, as both of those cards
are useful against a variety of decks. I'll even go so far as to admit
that Avengers main could be the more accurate choice, as much as I
dislike the card. However, the 1/1 nature of the Forge-Tenders makes
them vastly inferior at permanently stopping hoards of Piledrivers/Warchiefs
than the 2/2 Knights/Tivadars, and the deck's ability to cast a 4cc
sorcery in time against a blisteringly fast deck that runs four Rishadan
Ports and four Wastelands is less easy than it sounds, and to me it
doesn't sound that easy.
Most lists have also stopped including Mana Tithe,
which could be a mistake. Even if the opponent plays around this card,
the net result is that it slows down the game. For this deck, slower is
better. Many opponents don't expect Tithe, or don't want to lose tempo
playing around an imagined card, and end up walking game-breaking spells
into it. It supplements the deck's general mana denial strategy, making
Rishadan Port relevant longer than it has any right to be. Maindeck
Tithe also helps shore up the matchup against the combo decks, which
have historically been D&T's worst matchup. Rarely does an Iggy player
calculate Mana Tithe mana into his Ill-Gotten Gains loop. Even if he
does, the time he spends playing around Tithe gives you more time to
draw a Canonist, further disrupt his manabase, or simply draw more
Tithes. Most D&T lists instead run Orim's Chant in the sideboard, which
is little use game one and expected game two. An Ad Nauseam player will
usually try to Thoughtseize before going off, making Tithe and Chant
roughly equal in a lot of cases.
Both of these disparities, the Knights and the Tithes,
have different reasoning behind them, yet I'm using the same bit of
theory for both decisions. Whenever I have a deckbuilding problem, I ask
myself the following question: "Is this card slot better served with a
card that involves tempo, or inevitability?" The decision is made clear
with most D&T choices, as the deck's Karakas-Mangara engine supplies
infinite inevitability, so most cards should influence tempo in some
way. There are other times when the decision is much murkier... |
