Adding Red to Paradoxical Outcome
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I haven't tested this yet, but I thought that maybe PO decks could try staying Esper and running some number of Collective Brutality. It deals with a lot of the creatures which could be problematic (Lavinia, Thalia, Revoker etc) while also being a disruption spell when appropriate. It doesn't get Mental Misstep-ed, which could be positive too.
I don't think that Collective Brutality is better than Pyroblast, but it is a good option if you don't want to lose Black or White, and you don't want to add a fourth colour.
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Why do you need red? White has better answers to Lavinia /stony silence and Pyroblast while good is much weaker in a deck without MM.
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@macdeath Not sure if you have been playing the deck since Lavinia has become legal but it has not been fun. There has been a lot of hate for PO but if you stick with the deck then you can play through it.
Lavinia is attacking the deck from a different angle and the crazy I counter everything - Xerox decks are playing 2-3 copies of her with infinite counters. It is making the game play a bit dull.
I was looking at red for a different way to attack and protect the go off. There is no one size fits all with PO. There is still a debate over whether or not to play Vault/Key and or Library of Alexandria.
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@jeb-springfield So, I looked into this a bit and Collective Brutality is a Sorcery, which is very relevant. Moment of Craving is a garbage Standard card but it is an instant which may work better.
Obviously, Swords to Plowshares does more work but it cost 1 so, I am thinking of testing Snap.
Snap is not great but it is an instant and you get to untap on resolution so, you get value on main phase or EOT. Thoughts?
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I'm not sure that's the route to fight Lavinia. When I played it in my bug survival list, it was completely useless the games it would come in because the PO player had karakas. A simple solution to Lavinia, Leovold and other legends (such as oath targets). If you will splash more colors to deal with that, I think simply adding more karakas to the SB (having 2 is enough, and if things get out of control you could have 3 I guess) is enough. Also, it's not counterable and if you would play REB/Pyro to kill it, your opponent would probably have some combination of misstep/fow/flusterstorm to counter that spell you spent a splash to fit in, instead of the land that in the worst case scenario is a plains. And I think the odds of your opponent drawing the 2 land destruction uncounterable spell is less than they countering your REB. Or simply having the second lavinia in hand (which would be useless against karakas).
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And against shops to kill revoker, you will have counters and 3 hurkyl's recall, which I think sounds like enough. I don't think for PO the artifact destroying cards are better than recall, as you want 2 things: use it to avoid dying or to just bounce every piece of hate they got so you combo on your turn. And dack sounds pretty bad for it too, you are not a xerox deck that when you dack one of their artifacts you can also kill other or have some blocks, so that you grind them out. It's not your gameplan and I don't think it will work. And also, if you steal revoker or something like that, it still does it's job.
That all being said, I don't think the splash is discarded as a good idea. I'm just saying that for those problems, there are better solutions which don't require an extra color.
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@gutocmtt Thanks for that analysis. After some more testing, it looks like I can play cards like Snap or even just more Swords to Plowshares on the board to get rid of her. What is interesting is I switched Blightsteel Colossus for Inkwell Leviathan and it is working very well
The Esper mix is probably the best mix for now.
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@moorebrother1 Whoa, that's some cool tech. Against jeskai xerox seems like all you need to do is avoid mentor getting on the field, and it also kinda tricks on them letting you resolve tinker when they have dack/stp for blightsteel.
The problem is it is straight up worse against some decks like shops, dredge, survival. I mean, it can be testing well, but against survival for example, colossus is usually game (unless you played it too late or you can't target their phantasmal on colossus), while leviathan would take 3 extra turns to maybe close out the game. Maybe it's a good card to leave on the SB and make tinker better against fair blue decks?
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@gutocmtt I usually do not even play Blightsteel against shops because of meta-morphor. The Xerox decks are really annoying right now and I can usually fight to resolve a tinker. Dredge can usually stall through a Blightsteel and I usually do not win unless it’s turn one.
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@moorebrother1
Lavinia is just another hate card that you must answer in order to go off. Stony Silence has a similar effect on the deck and was already pretty much ubiquitous. All you have to do is diversify your answers /Threats.Aren't Karakas and STP better than what red brings to the table though? Also, Mentor is really good in the matchups where Outcome isn't as good and white is better at helping you fight Stony Silence.
I personally wouldn't want to play the deck without Key Vault and LoA.
Key naturally synergizes with the deck and key vault is far more resilient than tendrils (especially when Lavinia slots replace Stony slots).
Library can make or break a game and even if it's only relevant 10-15% of the time, still worth the inclusion over another random land.If you think Xerox is "really annoying right now", you probably weren't playing when Mentor, Gush, Probe and Dig Through Time were unrestricted. The current versions of Xerox have way less inevitability due to having worse win conditions and being far less consistent at outdrawing other decks (which limits their ability to maintain a counter wall and to find their silver bullets).
Shop lists rarely have more than 1-2 Metamorphs in a deck that lives of the top of its deck. You also have more Hurkyl's recalls than they have metamorphs to help make your Blightsteel effective in the matchup.
Tinker has never been a great answer to dredge and isn't in the deck for that matchup. It's meant as a backup plan when facing hate.
Inkwell is better vs blue decks, but again that's not the matchup where you want Tinker. It's a lot worse than BSC in the matchups where you tend to rely on tinker. -
@moorebrother1 The way I see it, the appeal of Pyroblast is that it is a removal spell for a resolved Lavinia, whilst also being a counterspell - meaning that it is less likely to be a dead card in your hand.
I thought of Collective Brutality because it is similar in that regard. As a removal spell, it hits a wider variety of hateful creatures than Pyroblast does which is positive, but it is certainly limited in this respect. I think it's real appeals is that it can double as a way to take counterspells from your opponent's hand - something which a dedicated removal spell - like Swords - can't do.
Not being an Instant is certainly a drawback, but I really don't want to put removal spells in to a PO deck. Sideboard, sure, but not in the main deck.
It could be that I'm totally wrong, and it turns out that it's correct to run main deck removal, but that would surprise me given that the deck is so focused on being as efficient as possible in its current iteration.
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@macdeath Let's just say that you and I may be having different experiences playing PO lately.
I have several versions of the deck and I have tried all of the various strategies. I started this thread because, while I am playing Lavinia in my PO deck several other decks are also playing her. It is just another hate card but a card that must be answered in a different way.
If someone times a Notion Thief the right way, I'll just scoop and let that game go but those matches are very rare. What is not so rare lately is Survival Lavinia and Xerox Lavinia with all kinds of back up.
Xerox decks have gotten faster as well. Most are running at least 2 Pyromancer with Mentor and Snapcaster plus Lightning Bolt.
Pyroblast alone my not answer these threats but it is approaching the problem from a different angle.
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Using Pyroblast is playing right into Xerox players' hands. You're not going to come out on top the majority of the time you play Pyroblast. They will usually out-counter you, and make Elemental tokens while they do so. Karakas is one of the best options right now; it goes under their primary strategy of picking fights on the stack, while generating tokens. It may not be a bad idea to put two in the sideboard for consistency.
I get that Karakas feels bad, but currently it's an unfortunate necessity for combo decks because of the increasing amount of powerful creatures available. It hits almost all the problem creatures like Thalia, Lavinia, etc. Worst case scenario, Karakas produces white mana.
I have not been impressed by Swords recently. Swords is Misstep fodder more often than I'd like, and too often it does nothing.
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3 days ago: "I think PO players need to add Red". Later same day: "I am not a fan of red in PO". Hmm. Anyway, I don't think PO players need to add red. Karakas is the best answer to Lavinia, but I wouldn't worry too much about Lavinia long term tbh.
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@griselbrother I think you nailed this thread and the reason for it's existence. I have decided to go all in on PO. That does not mean that I am not brewing other stuff but until something really changes I want to master the card and any deck that is good with this card in it.
I am not the thepowernine, but I am pretty good with the deck. I have many flavors of the deck and I try to play for fun and for maximum carnage.
With all of that said, I want this deck to remain tier 1 and this was a knee jerk reaction to both the VSL and the current meta on MTGO.
Running an extra Karakas and 2 or 3 Swords on the board is doing the trick. I am also going to experiment with Dimir Charm and Snap in my janky builds.
