Stonehorn Lockdown

thank you very much sir! :D

yeah gideon's lawkeeper has been troubling me. idk if i should play it or not. but thanks a lot on the compliment! :D
i just saw stonehorn sitting in the pile of cards i didn't play, and was like "wow. holy shit. this is godly"

yeah i've got 4 vensers, but getting gideon will be a pain, lucikly he's at 19.99 at the time of this comment. i'll have to snag him now before he skyrockets! :o

it's the manlands i'm concerned about honestly, I don't have any of them, and everyone i know who played caw-blade plays extended too and are playing caw-blade there.... lol. :(

thanks for the compliment though! :D

gideon is at $14.00 as of days ago and and is probably not going anywhere up. as for the deck, interesting combo. i never thought of him with vensner, only mimic vat. on another note, revoke doesn't work against twin because it's a sorcery. however, i've been thinking and i'm not sure, but could you target the deciever with apostles blessing giving it pro-red. not sure if that would work but whatever.

eh, i'm not 100% sure, and honestly i think i prefer just straight up countering or locking them down, it doesn't matter how many they have if they can't attack with them, or if i tap them down or if they all attack gideon. plus, my sb is even rougher against splinter twin because of extraction, negate and spellskite.

ebay has some good prices on cards. Although I don't feel safe using that site. If they are going into sleeves it doesn't matter I suppose.

i use tcgplayer.com. in fact, if you click on card names when on mtgvault, scroll down to the bottom, and click (on the very bottom)," view (card name here) at magiccards.info. on the right, it will display tcgplayer's listing of cards from their many vendors. the actual site is easy to navigate, and has excellent prices.

thank you very very much! :D I appreciate it! :P and i'll be sure to check out your deck. :)

in tournament play where i'd expect to see a lot more control being played, i'd probably drop the roils and what not to play 4 spellskite MB - UB control is rough on this deck. :./

I'm also thinking to drop Deceiver Exarch and put 4x Squadron Hawks the I'll have 3x Sword of Feast and Famine and 1x Sword of War and Peace in the sideboard.

i completely forgot o-ring was back. thanks for that! xD haha

but no yeah, if he were 3 mana though... he would be wayyyy too powerful, and at 4 when i've got exarch and other things in the 3 drop slot, i think i'll be fine. dismember does kill him though, which is very mean. I'm just not sure how many decks will be playing it, though if there are a lot, i'll be MB'ing it for condemn.

all i'll check out your deck right away, but you put the "edit deck" link in. :P haha. xD i'll still find it though! :D

and yeah, i think it should focus from creature control to counter magic control fairly quickly post - SB, i'm just really afraid of UB control. A friend suggested grand abolisher to stop UB from becoming too powerful as they'll have to use killspells during their turn, and things can't be countered, but i'm not sure. what are your thoughts? :)

Dismember is currently (arguably) the most potent form of removal available to black (in standard). I can't imagine any competent MBC that doesn't run at least a pair.

Bouncing for exiling priority, I know its a stretch but exiling a steel overseer is a good play, then exiling a tezz is better. :) because the aggro is rough to deal with, but tezz's ultimate something I can't deal with besides roil.

It's all about tempo (or disrupting it). In slothosaurus's example, if Oblivion Ring is the only answer to Steel Overseer currently in your hand, it would disrupt your opponent's tempo (building creatures of P/T beyond mana efficiency for whichever turn they may be on); however, you may not wish to use your Oblivion Ring on Steel Overseer because you know there will be a bigger threat approaching in another few turns. The ability to exile and retarget as it enters the battlefield is critical in that regard -- as with the above example, 2-3 turns of no Steel Overseer is enough to disrupt your opponent's tempo, perhaps giving you time to destroy his otherwise cheap/weak artifacts (Memnite) in combat. The damage is already done, now you can refocus your Oblivion ring to another threat.

Other examples would be exiling a non-land mana source, delaying a ramp deck from getting it's big beater into play, and then retargetting that big beater once it is in play. At that point they have enough mana to cast big beaters, so locking down a mana source is no longer necessary. Once again you're disrupting their tempo.

I like the idea of this deck but it seems very slow sorry to say. I think you have too many high mana costing cards without anything really to back them up before you can get them out or ramping to them. Venser and Gideon are both 5 cmc since I'm not really seeing any ramping here, it will be at least turn 5 before you can get either of them out. by that time you could have lost the game or be well on your way to losing it. The concept of the deck is great and I'm sure it's a lot of fun though.


Also watch out for anyone playing Torpor orb because that card completely shuts down almost everything about this deck. :(

yeah wall of omens is nice, but i really try to focus on board control and the prison - esque theme in this deck, so i'm running deceiver exarch instead of wall of omens, i think as a venser target, he's much better, espeically when i have to spend the first 4 turns locking down, wall of omens isn't as awesome as exarch or o-ring.

but thanks, i like it.
as for master splicer? idk, if anything i'd run wing splicer, as i can skip their combat phase then fly over them from the ground.

actually though, that could be a build. here. i'll make one right now.

http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=207956

something along the lines of that. better win con.
i chose not to run with precursor b/c with dismember and black running so rampant, and the love green has been getting lately, and all the anti-artifact BS, copying it for the golems would be too much of a pain in the butt.

what do you mean the particular combo i created?
i definitely think that it's a bit on the creature control side. maybe too much, but that can and will be easily switched up depending on what i see in the meta, just switching SB and MB around.

one friend told me gideon and venser + stonehorn and day was wayyyyy too much creature control, and i might agree with him, but i'm not 100% sure. it really depends, like i said, on the meta and how it plays out until october.

however, all i'm really losing is colonnade, as preordain can be replaced by ponder. condemn and into the roil can be replaced by dismember and/or other white removal / draw.


OR, as one friend sugested, with this SuperFog - esque deck, throwing in 3x of the new jace could win the me game. easy, because they can't really attack. xD lol

thanks for the compliment though, i really appreciate it! :D

awesome! if you do, or actually plan to and aren't just saying that, let me know asap and PM me or add me as a friend or whatever on mtgvault.com and we can talk about how it played out.

just realize that depending on if the meta at your local FNM is very control-esque, drop 2 condemns and 3 day for 3 spellskite and 2 negate. :) at least that's what i'd do, or any combination there of. :)

hope you enjoy! :D and i'm really glad that this was your first post (it says ThisisSparta (1 posts)) and it made my day that your first post was on my deck. Thank you so much, and thanks to every one else who has been awesome and provided constructive criticism. :) you have no idea how much i appreciate it! :D

yeah, fetch lands are a no-no, when i can't do anything until turn 2 or 3, i'm basically screwed if i run fetch lands (though i'd love to because i strongly believe in deck thinning.)
and sun titan is very, very cool, i think i'd love to see him, but honestly, i'm much more concerned about splinter twin that could go off on t4 and if they're on the play, i'm screwed. so i need revoke existence and roils SB instead.

at least those are my thoughts.

also, i'm a strong fan of never, ever running 1ofs unless you have an awesome tutor (like 1of sword in caw-blade or something.) so idk. originally the SB had 3 sun titans, 3 magnets, and 3 tec edges, just to absolutely destroy valakut. it also didn't run sphinx but instead ran 3x ponder and 3x preordain.

i'm also interested in gideon's lawkeeper as well as (maybe, and this one is up for debate) 2x or 3x chalice, and replace them with tec edge if i need to game2.

sun titan for o-rings and exarchs are very nice though....... very very nice... good point. and for tec edge.

He can also be used to return Spellskite to the battlefield after having redirected a spell or ability that would destroy it.

By fetch land I meant a fast fetch, such as Misty Rainforest and Marsh Flats.

And I know what you mean about running one-of's, I used to be the same. I like consistency, and I cannot consistently expect to draw a single Sun Titan over something else. However, with Preordain and Into the Roil, and later Consecrated Sphinx.. I don't think it'd be too much of an issue.

Lawkeeper would make a good addition, IMO, in place of Exarch. After rereading the abilities, Venser returns a permanent to the battlefield at the beginning of your next EoT step. Almost immediately after is your opponent's untap step, with no significant need for a tapped permanent in between. Frost Titan still works, as it causes the permanent not to untap during the next untap step, but Exarch does not confer that ability.

Exarch is only really useful to tap out the opponent when you first cast it. Otherwise the only use provided with Venser is to untap one of your lands or creatures to have available during your opponent's turn. It's a tough call though, because of your mana curve that one extra land might be very useful. I'd say more often than not, though, Lawkeeper would be better.

I definitely agree with it being able to bring back in spellskite, which is a HUGE plus, but as Ill tend to take a lot of damage, if they have only one or two creatures, or I need to tap down their blue mana to protect myself from counter magic. Not to mention exarch can flash in and block, which is very necesary against bloodthirst decks and early tempered steel aggro. It's just very useful,


Also, I meant the same thing by deck thinning. Marsh flats takes a card out, which is awesome. and will help me draw other things I need. Its just the math of it.

Also, I knew this guy was insane the second I read him in the spoilers. Im glad other people see how interesting and unique he is.

I was actually kind of curious about that too. Even without it stacking, its still a solid card and a great card! :D
I didn't even look hard at him in the spoilers because I didn't think that that at 4 mana he'd be worth playing in anything. Oh boy was I mistaken though. I'm glad someone else saw him though. I figured the combo would have already been everywhere but I didn't see it anywhere... I have all the cards on preorder the day they come out, and I'm very excited to play it. I'll 100% play it in the next TCQ, but I might sworn around some of the MB and SB for different metagames. This is more FNM built where as adding spellskite and possibly tec edge MB will be better at a tcq just because I'll be seeing very different types of decks.

The original SB had 3 Tec edge and 3 sun titans, but I think sun Titan might be worth playing against a control matchup (as I doubt UW control will see a ton of play but UB will see a lot more I'd say) to bring back the spellskites and tarpits that you mentioned, I just feel like is rather play more counter magic instead of after the fact retrieval when they'll have plenty of open mana to counter a sun Titan. :/ idk.

After another run against UB control I realized that I'm perfectly fine having them play inquisition t1, Its not a strong play against me

yeah no, he was certainly in the original option of cards, but as he dies so easily, and i'd rather spend that turn 1 preordaining, he won't see use until t3 when i'd want the mana for an o-ring or an exarch. depending on my local FNM meta i'll MB him or SB him. I've already preordered a playset of lawkeepers, just for this deck.

If anything to help against aggro, I think throwing in another exarch would be my best bet, he's much more versatile as he can untap my own things, and as he can tap down their blue mana for leaks to ensure my t4 stonehorn.

I also believe venser is probably my favorite planeswalker ever, he's just so fun. chalice is also something up for debate, as is gideon's avenger (i had him in a build i tested where I took out stonehorn and just used venser's -1 with gideons avenger and ran 4 gideon and 4 magnets. He ended up being beyond godly with venser's -1 ability, but was too easily doom bladed / throated.


ya know? i had to cut some really serious stuff in this deck to keep the "lockdown" theme around. i didn't run dismember, oust, roil MB, spellskite MB, as well as some other things like friggin tumble magnet.

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In my final response to the lawkeeper thing though. I have 2 things to say. I will almost always stabilize at 4 mana, with day and/or stonehorn. If not, i'll get it by turn 5 (and if i'm not dead by then, then i'll have been bouncing / exiling so many things that it'll be like i've already stabalized.) i think that a much better plan would be to play 1x more exarch, as it'll help with the 3mana flash in for a tap and block. It seems more versatile, and I honestly don't think lawkeeper is that great of a card in my deck where you have to pay the mana for it every turn. where at 3 i've got o-ring and exarch, at 4 i've got day and stonehorn, at 5 i've got venser and gideon, and at 6 i've got sphinx and frost titan. I just don't see lawkeeper fitting into the curve as smoothly as one more exarch, nor do i find it as useful as i'll have to hold back my entire lockdown strategy b/c of lawkeeper. just doesn't seem worth it to me.

thumbs up are always awesome! but yeah, kred can kill me turn 2 with a perfect hand, i just have to make sure i too have a perfect hand. xD or a SB. i mean. glistner elf buff is wicked against me, as is kred and goblin tribal. UB control is mean too.

i just don't exactly know how to make the deck faster without sacrificing the integrity of the deck's lockdown post t4.

thanks, i was actually really shocked that i didn't see the combo anywhere else, and most of the faster decks right now that aren't red rely on attacking creatures (primeval titan [for valakut the molten pinnacle] and exarch + splintertwin combo.) they both go off turn 4 and i have answers for both of them, very solid answers.

maybe throw some spellskite in MB? idk... the lawkeeper just doesn't seem like he'd be active enough...

idk though, think how aweful it would be to throw in silence for my deck? :D hahaha, t1 silence, t2 silence, t3 exarch block, t4 begin the lockdown. i don't know how any deck could survive that...

well, killspells obviously, but that's besides the point. xD

or maybe i could throw in wall of omens MB? for the draw and the defender? it would certainly help out against a lot of decks... idk, i'll throw together another version of it and see how it runs.

thanks again for the compliment, i really appreciate it. I'm certainly no genius magic player, i just happened to be the first one to post the combo onto a website and get it some attention. I'm sure a thousand other people saw it before me. :) i mean, idk, i could be the first, but i highly, HIGHLY doubt that.

hahaha, yeah, far from invincible. you need a lot of counter magic to stop black's killspells, and there doesn't seem to be enough room in the deck to fit it all. :/ which is very, very, VERY sad. leyline and augrey owl was an awesome idea, and so was halimar depths, i'll have to check into those! :D
really though, it's the doom blade / throat / dismember thing that i'm so concerned about, honestly, i might have to end up running 4x MB just b/c i see black everywhere these days.

i'm not 100% sure how you'll fair against heavy aggro though to be honest, with no gideon and no day, idk how you'll deal with glistner infect, infect in general, BB vamps, BR vamps, and tempered steel. :/

haha and yeah, i'm glad to have the idea get some exposure. I'm not a skilled enough player to perfect it, but that's why i'm so glad it's on the front page of mtgvault.com. It means that someone will come along and fix it. I definitely need spell pierce and spellskite MB though, maybe even negate (probably negate)

right not after testing for the past hour against different UB control decks, i realized that dropping 3 wall of omens for 3 spellskites and dropping 2 roils for spellskite and negate MB might be 100% worth it. the deck is just too weak without it.


Honestly though, it makes my day when people leave comments like that! :D I'm really proud of being the first person that i know of on mtgvault or on mtgsalvation to have figured it out and gotten publicity for it, and i hope if you ever do play anything like it at a tcq, just name is stonehorn lockdown. it seems like a really suiting name for the deck. :) lol

also - like i said in previous comments, i have all the cards for my build coming in the mail / trades in the next few days, so next atlanta TCQ i'll be playing it up! :D and at my next FNMs. :P lol

anyways, thanks again for making my day, i loved the comment. and i love the augrey owl and halimar depths idea, in case you don't have out a stonehorn, it really helps.

i'm already weak enough to UB control as it is, and doom blade or dismember on that guy is just aweful, as for the second one, i thought about it, but i'd rather play frost titan, as i already have my spell count tied up and i don't run enough win-cons as it.

i really like it, and wurmcoil is an awesome plan, great card. mimic vat MB is a bit awkward, but it depends on your meta. i'd run more gideon and day over that. day is really powerful, i also don't know if you'll have enough to take out splinter twin consistently. 4 wall of omen might also be overkill, and probably pre-SB instead of real MB, but it depends mostly on your meta i suppose.

your UB control looks solid aside from the fact that it lacks real consistency, running less than 3of that you can't tutor for generally aren't an awesome idea. at least from my experience. (though 2 of dismember is often a good plan, and it's okay to 2 of's if you have lots of draw and you'll only use the card late game)

but yeah, torpor orb does shut it down, luckily, torpor orb is generally an aweful card against everything besides this deck. xD and it certainly won't be MB material, and a good SB against me would be more kill spells, not torpor orb, at least imo (aggro decks won't be afraid enough to use torpor orb of anything)

ehhh--- As cool as sundial is, I honeslty don't think the card is half as good as people make it out to be. Although there are brutally awesome combos with it, I agree, the decks with it, I feel, lack consistency.

as far as your deck goes, here's what I think of each card and it's interaction w/ others.

sundial + venser + card_name_here ==> exile your own shit to death, no good. but cool with a few cards in here such as exarch. which can be exiled with venser, brought back at the end of their turn, letting you tap down something to swing in with and not be blocked by gideon (but that's a stretch, and you're missing gideon. which seems awful. xD he's too good to pass up, and has too much synergy with venser.) Also. glimmerpoint is with venser only imo, no need for sundial. it seems like sundial and venser aren't meant to worth together with any other 3 card combos, which is nice.

sundial + x. ==> Cool for protecting a lot of your cards, like colonnade, and cool against their tricks like giant growth or something on a blocker maybe? or something like that. also, well, obviously godteir with mimic vat.

venser + x ==> cool to rest counters on... on wait. :( fun with glimmerpoint stag though. :D and to bounce a sun titan then be able to day then bring back your spellskite or something maybe? cool with o-ring too, to bring it back, or to exile something else. :)


Idk. I feel like the deck is trying to do a few too many different things at once and spreads itself a bit too thin. I on the other hand focused too much on attacking lockdown with a variety of cards which all work very well together and provide lots of consistency, but in doing so, opened myself up to a few cards that will wreck me.
If i were to make suggestions, I'd say to either run gideon, drop the spellskites, and play either mangnets or into the roil, possibly stonehorn. which i obviously really dig. xD lol.
Also no manlands seems odd. I just don't see many win-cons here besides after a very very long time, exiling everything they have and then swinging with sun titan...
Also maybe it might not be a bad idea to throw out or less of mana leak? I find that in my stonehorn lockdown deck, mana leak shows up too inconsistently for me to make the most of it. I ran up to 4 just recently, aka, today, to see if that helped and it did a little, but as this isn't a counter-magic control like UB or UW or UU (haha) normally is, leak is just too little counter magic to rely on it, it'd be better imo to just have something awesome and hold onto in your hand bluffing it as a counter. XD

also - i guess i didn't notice this before, but being able to end your turn is awesome alone in a control deck. honestly. they go to cast something EOT or whatever, and you're just like no. but abolisher would be more useful than sundial for that, or honestly, you could just run didmember. xD or baneslayer or something... idk...


All in all though, I like the deck, I just think it's spreading itself too thin. I'd focus it down to one form of control with a minor splash of another, and add a few more reliable win cons and even out the curve of your control. where as mine starts at 3, and is very slow (though we've had to get used t3 4/4 LL Vig lately... control hasn't always been like that, btw...)

So basically.
1. Focus things down. :)
2. Ways to protect your focus while hurting them at the same time. (sometimes best D is a good O, remember that [aka, sometimes dismember is better D than leak]) :D
3. add more win cons. xD

like i said though, just my personal tips, i really do dig the deck though. :D

because day'ing away a primeval and a lotus cobra is the worst (good matchup) targets for day. other than that, i've still got taking out 4 vamps, 4 artifacts from tempered steel, a hero of bladehold and some other white weenies, etc. etc. etc...

other than that, I adore the day + gideon combo as it's so versatile and generally just a very very powerful combo, not to mention it lets me swing in with my colonnade, frost titan, and what untroubled by blockers. day + gideon + all attack + frost titan to tap down a land to hold back bigger threats, then swing in for 6 with gideon, swing again next turn with gideon and with frost titan tapping down his new creature, rinse and repeat for the win. Day is a big part of those gameplanes.

honestly though, I really would love to drop a few things to try to run anti-artifact/enchantment mainboard.


As i'm sure you noticed testing it out, UB control is my worst matchup, probably followed by pyromancer's ascension, then UW control with a low creature base, then BB control (not BB aggro) then splinter twin, then valakut, then creature heavy decks just the shit living shit rocked out of them.

However, just because those are the list of my worst matchups, besides pyromancer's ascension, these decks still run creatures, and that's their win-con. I can still very quickly and efficiently remove that win-con from the game, and slowly win the game.

Looking at the scg open this weekend (16 + 17th) all but 2 of the decks in the top 16 had creatures as their win-con. one being a heavy planeswalker UW control and the other being pyro twin. day of judgement is often a very, very powerful choice. even if it only hits 1 big target and 2 weak targets, that's still 100% worth it. Also - the build here is more FNM based, and I expect to see a lot of heavy creature decks at my FNM. (though I do have plans to develop the deck competitively too, switching a few things here and there)

yeah, i've tested against valakut and MB I actually seem to be able to hold him off through stall long enough to take care of him and keep the lock down high enough, though often times on game 2 or 3 they'll get 2 valakuts and then harrow + rampant growth for game... Also, I played once against a guy playing valakut with genesis wave who waved in 5 mountains and another primeval... that was a big loose. :( leyline might see some play, but looking at the SCG open results from this weekend, valakut only made 12th and 13th of the top 16... idk.

also, i do agree that pyromancer's ascension is aweful and horrible and no good for me, but seeing as the top 16 at scg open this weekend had quite a few artifacts and enchantments that many decks were built around, I'm not sure that playing instant speed destroy/exile artifact/enchantment MB would be an aweful idea.

sea gate oracle is cool I guess, but I really need exarch's tap-down ability against splinter twin and hero of bladehold.

I'm developing the deck for competitive play, and the SB and MB will generally switch up greatly depending of i'm at playing seriously or at an FNM.

----

Out of curiosity though, how did you do? And what did people say about the deck?

I did pretty good, made a few crucial mistakes with the deck because I'm still learning how to play it well but I ended up 4-1. I played against a Valakut and beat it with lockdown/leylines and I lost against a very control heavy U/W with no creatures. I played against a Pyromancer just for fun and got the crap kicked out of me lol.

And it was the most fun I've had playing a deck in a while. People saw the lockdown and just laughed and one dude who had a creature based deck just said "Well... fuck" and scooped lol.

And theres a LOT of Valakut where I play so I guess I'm biased when I made this. And I just use Celestial Purges and counters against Twin.

I gotta say.. I'm absolutely lovin the deck though!

oh shit man, so yoiu actually did that well?!? :D
Yeah, the cards for me come in tuesday, and there's free standards around me on thursday nights, friday nights, and sunday afternoons. I'll be going to all of them to play test the deck.

I'm not sure how I feel about leyline SB, or really what i'd take out, but i'm 100% sure that i need to drop some crap SB to run more anti-enchantment mainboard. ascension and tempered steel can just be too much of a beating, and if it's instant speed it will help with the twin matchup too. very versatile.

and yeah, it's really fun to see people just scoop after they see one of the combos going and the synergy created mid-late game. my friend plays vamps and was super excited to have a pulsetracker, kalstria highborn, and 2 nighthawks with 3 lands in his opening hand. then after game 4, so on game 5, i exarched him t3 with flash in and blocked and he said "you know what man. fuck it. i'm not playing you anymore."

Hahaha yeah I kinda love this deck and it's ability to piss people off. Creature based decks are just done for. I played my buddies b/g landfall/ramp deck and beat him 7 games in a row with this. It's actually a really good deck, he just can't do much if he can't attack.

And yeah I was surprised how well I did even though I was just learning it. I also played against a Tempered Steel deck for fun and it went alright. If they can't get a good start and kill me by turn 4, its all downhill for that deck. But sometimes it was just too fast.

You'll have to let me know how you do once your cards come in. It's a blast to play!

thanks, i've put a good bit of time into refining it, but it's only really refined for what i expect to see based on the Cincinnati results, and hasn't taken into account rouge decks i might see like grand architect or UB control (which as it didn't make it in the top 16 of cincinatti, i guess it's still a slightly rouge deck).