@@a_fuckin_spacemarine7514 people shit on hearthstone standard all the time as well at least with magic you can play the game in different ways instead of complaining
One other thing Overwhelming Splendor does in shutting down activated abilities is preventing the enchanted player from Cycling/Channeling as they are also activated abilities. No Boseiju'ing the Splendor away! This deck is awesome Seth, thank you!
@@n8ordi3 this is why you always run two Gaia's Blessings or something similar in controll (pun intended) decks. Imagine being stubborn enough to play against a deck that has hardlocked you out of the game, still holding onto some kind of hope. Hope slowly grows as you come to the realization that the opponent has no win condition and that they will mill out before you. Hope turns into a feeling of triumph. You can beat them at their own game, you will mill that bastard out if it takes your whole evening... And then they bust out the double Gaia's Blessing and your heart immediately stops in sheer dread. Much more cruel than any kind of win condition, honestly.
seth: "let's see if arena players can handle Night of Soul's Betrayal with Overwhelming Splendor!" arena player: reads Night, concedes before ever seeing Splendor
I still remember the first time i got 9 Lives Solem locked, when they played the Solemnity i distinctly remember thinking 'and...ur still dead to sprite-dragon on board who cares if it wont grow'. needless to say i was confused at first when they didnt die, I stuck around for 2 more turns wondering why they wouldnt die before finally reading and seeing the interaction...felt like a complete dunce said GG and dipped.
@@kevinwonnacott5150 The modern version of the deck classically used phyrexian unlife for the solemnity lock. Unfortunately PU isn't legal in historic, and I'm assuming nine lives was printed as a "fixed" version of PU so that skullcrack effects aren't punished in historic/pioneer. Idk I think giant is a busted card as is, and the full lock definitely deserves to be in historic.
Yeah when you think about how nine lives refers to what they say about cats you think how it should prevent you from losing the game instead of preventing damage
I do like seeing a prison deck show up in a meta that is largely synergy based like historic, as prison tends to wreck synergy and combo decks. It will be interesting to see if this deck becomes popular enough to warrant a shift in the metagame
Enchantress has been tier 2/3 in historic for the last year or so and this list is largely just a modified enchantress list. So if you want to play this concept in historic it is definitely viable but there are better things you could be doing.
I love how this series is basically like watching a highway man educating people about the dangers of the roads by mugging them 😂 (to be clear, love the content for real)
Actually Seth, I didn't grow up with all these cards but my first intro to magic was my dad's stasis deck. Like my first match ever was vs it. So it's not all roses for us lol
Yeah, me too. I wasn't playing Magic in the early days of, but when I started learning (around OG Ravnica) it was against some friends with really brutal decks like Stasis and Scepter Chant.
There’s something so magical about playing Chalice, passing the turn, waiting several seconds knowing their trying to cast a spell, then watching the opponent hover over Chalice. 😍
The rite of passage all new players much go through. The classic Solitaire moment where you just watch the opponent play the game and you're stuck there because you genuinely want to the see the game end or are to stubborn to quit.
@@ResidentEyebrowAppreciator The point for me is it's a game, meant to be played together one against the other. You can play solitaire on you own, you're big enough
You not getting to play is the win con. It has interaction. It isn't solitaire. If it locks you out from winning then you've lost. Just like any other loss. Would you say the same thing for grapeshot for 20 to the face? That they're just playing solitaire? Valakut and Prime time is solitaire if it beats you? Counter spell? More like.. code for solitaire. It's no different than any other win con.
Remember when there was a 1% chance for Nexus of Fate to not keep looping, so both players were forced to stick around forever to find out who wins... It's good we don't have that anymore. At least now you know when who wins
Thank you for keeping locks alive :) Back in the OG Ravnica days, I built several soft-lock decks, now that I think about it. Had a B/W Dovescape+Teysa+Twilight Drover version, a Muse Vessel+all the land bounce and stealing possible, and the best one, a Dredge list with Zur's Weirding+Firemane Angels to stop any draws. Good times, for me :)
To be fair at least this lock deck doesn't let you have priority at every second of the game while being alt-tabbed and watching UA-cam or whatever cat oven ppl are up to
It has nothing to do with the deck itself and everything to do with the fact the pilot routinely fumbles triggers. A 4 turn game taking 15 min just isn’t enjoyable for me.
I like how there's an enchantment called Ethereal Absoltion that is 2 mana more than Night of sounds betrayal and has been in historic since inception but only now do we have a combo with overwhelming splendor lol
These are the decks I live for. I say it all the time that I like the idea of MTGA but a lot of new magic players dont know the pain of not being able to play the game
I love that in this game about making interesting choices, one of the implicit ways to win is to take away your opponents ability to make any choices. Also this title tho
I would be very frustrated to play against this but can't get enough of seeing Seth play this against others, we need a stream of this top-shelf content
For anyone who is curious: Of the ten games Seth won, he went either 4-1-5 or 4-2-4 (depending on how you categorize M3G3) on actually having to assemble a full lock (the "draws" being games where they scooped it up when he had the ability to tutor up the second part of a hard lock, but didn't actually have all the lock pieces on the board). Prison decks might be too stronk for Arena players. EDIT: That Retrofitter Foundry in the Ninja deck was pretty sweet tech for a deck that wants to run Ornithopters anyway.
I don't think they're too strong. The deck punishes non interactive decks that are just trying to vomit out combo pieces. Discard, hard counters and removal can disrupt a bit of the enchantress gameplan. Aggro decks can get in before the lock. It is brutal when you can't quite get in fast enough though. I do think a smart control/prison opponent would figure out how to punish lack of a wincon (and just let the enchantress player mill themselves out).
Man. Historic really is just way more fun of a format than the midrange piles that are explorer right now. You never know how much you miss combo decks until you see them again.
Wow... that 2nd game against jund... Literally perfect draws for getting all the hand disruption... That's certainly one way to run over enchantress :)
I wish we could get Dovescape and/or Enduring Ideal. Thanks for the awesome lock deck! I LOVE them! Maybe a Leyline for the Sideboard and maybe the new 7 mana replenish (3WWWW Brilliant Restoration I think). On a slide note, when I taught my Brother to play Magic, he played White weenie (this is a little after revised) and I played Stasis...he very nearly quit.
I haven’t even watched this video and no matter what pops up on the screen, I’m building this deck. Edit: just saw the deck. Never mind. No mainboard chalice. Edit: just watched the first game. I retract my previous statement.
I for one I am pro dishing these kinds of magic lessons to the other generation. This deck is very similar to the enchantress I did saw some times back ruling in my local meta, so I saw that epic pwnage in historic coming.
If you are worried about self-mill, why not run a single copy of Approach of the Second Sun? That's a 1 card timer for if an opponent refuses to concede. My favorite lockout on Arena is actually in Historic Brawl. It's such a simple loop with Thassa as the commander. All you need to do is get a Time Warp in the graveyard, and then play a Saiba Syphoner. This sets up a loop, where you can return Time Warp to your hand each end step, to be cast during your next extra turn. You can hit the combo at just 5 mana, as Syphoner has flash. The combo can be slotted into any flicker deck (eg. bant Lagrella or Azorius Yorion, running Teleportation Circle as a redundant recurring flicker).
I like the punked play chalice on one into his own solemnity both players don't read but Seth Omega minded them into thinking the chalice would have counters so he village rites regardless. This video was cathartic.
Seems fun, but a bit light on actual win conditions. You only have 2 destiny spinner and 1 lair of the hydra to win. And you draw more than you opponent. So if your opponent does not scoop to the lock and just passes with removal to your threats you could loose much too easy
I don't like relying only on destiny spinner. 1-2 Hallowed Hauntings (or Sigil of the Empty Throne) are nice to have in the sideboard, maybe mainboard. Also you have to have enough Borrowed Time / O Ring / etc affects to deal with opposing prison pieces.
this deck is getting built now. you made me remember the first time dealt with a OG status deck.....the duel gave me mad props for attempting to try and stall for a chance to win but that damn blue bird.....that damn blue bird gave me blue balls in the form of zero life. god i wish my LGS was still around but sadly time takes all.
That duress into solemnity was totally a kneejerk reaction after losing to it in the first game XD He didn't took time to look at your other cards, he just saw that card and discarded it ^^
Discard all of the lock pieces into the graveyard along with eerie ultimatum/triumphant reckoning with your draw/discard package of choice, play mizzix's mastery on turn four, watch people concede instantly. Literally one of my favorite historic decks.
Another prison deck I've been playing around in standard is jund ponza. I've noticed that a lot of decks run little to no basics so cleansing wildfire is just a stone rain that cantrips. Add 4 copies of the RG land from Kaldheim and the LD saga from the same set, 4 field of ruins and all the removal that jund can pack and you can easily lock your opponents out of the game. There's even druid class in the SB for aggro matchups, they physically can't recover from gaining 3 life off of the weird capena fetches, let alone deal with the big animated land.
Y'know, there's a special place in my heart for decks that have no wincon other than the opponents scooping. Greetings and much love from Meren stax over in the commander format.
I just played a game against this same deck and I stuck through it. Game one they got a nearly complete lock on me with everything with the exception of the immortal sun. I fea of wished an Ugin to my hand and wiped their board winning the first match. Second game I dot destroyed. But in the final match I was able to bounce their solemnity before it’s effect wiped the counters off nine lives allowing me to get the W buy ticking it up to 9. It was a challenge but a very rewarding victory.
Yknow, as a yugioh player who quit that game a year ago and made the switch to magic, this is very funny to me, because seth says that modern magic design is less and less about locking the opponent out, while yuhiohs modern design is the exact opposite of that. Yugioh released a card named „mystic mine“ in 2019 or sth, that completely shuts down the game on its own, and has a reputation for being the worst deck to fight of all time.. yugioh players just take all kinds of shit from konami, meanwhile this is the first time ive really seen something even remotely comparable in magic lol Its cool that this stuff exists, im glad that wizards learned their design lessons for prison pieces though AT LEAST COMPARED TO KONAMI who print stasis effects on cards every second set it feels like..
Haha. I'm doing the reverse. Not giving up completely on magic, just taking a break and trying Master Duel out. It's crazy how much of that game is you just saying no to an opponent.
@@BuckysKnifeFlip its very funny to me to see new people jump into master duel only to realize that almost all the decks involve some form of locking the opponent out from doing anything haha, magic was such a nice shift for me, it felt so much more friendly 😭 Like, even this lock deck in the video requires so much setup.. at least you have to spend multiple turns interacting with your opponent as the trap slowly closes around them, in yugioh you would most probably either sit there for 10 minutes waiting for the opponent and them having every lock piece turn 1, or them setting 5 cards face down and also having you locked out on turn 1. I think thats one of the biggest differences for me to this game haha
@@dauls those are two of my favorites decks in magic. Highly recommend watching how those play to get a real sense of how similar the two games can be in terms of a lockdown. Plus, you get to see Seth's joy in utterly breaking his opponents when he plays lantern control.
Comical how there wasnt a single game vs elves, goblins, monoW lifelink deck :) Or there have been, he just rolled over and edited them out. Peak content
I’ve been playing a creativity lock deck with Acacyn, platinum angle , and shalai to give my platinum angle hexproof and indestructible. There’s a couple answers to it but it’s still pretty fun.
Been doing this with Kaervek and overwhelming spelndor when I still played arena before the whole alchemy bs. Looks like it's gotten some significant buffs since then which kinda makes me want to play it again but I don't want to come back to the hellhole of Arena D=
Destiny Spinner and Lair are both win-cons that only take a few turns to win once the deck gets going though. With that said, that's just 3 cards in this deck that need to be dealt with to effectively guarantee a win via mill.
It kinda reminds me of my first year in mtg, especially reading all that stuff about orim's chant - sceptre. Im not alone, haha! I started in OG zendikar block, and we had a guy in our lgs who played exclusively burn at every fnm and tournament. But he had a hobby of assembling non format stuff like dragonstorm, no modern was around and legacy wasn't a thing at my lgs. And one day i sat to play with him and he played silence - sceptre. I misunderstood the synergy, not countered sceptre and was locked out of the game quickly, sitting with my walls of denial on the field and doing nothing. I play exclusively UWx controls in all formats all the time, and after Arena introduction we had a lot of new players, and they sometimes felt bad about playing against control, ranting that they dont get to play (and i rant about people ranting about interactive deck) - at this moment i wish this new players tried to play against any stax and start complaining about them, not my control xD
This brings me back to my stepdad locking me out of games when we’d play. Hermetic Study + Abyssal Spector was my least favorite combo. Nobody’s heard of those cards, but together they are a nightmare if you’re 16 and just wanna play a dinosaur deck.
I decided to test this in Bo1, because I don't have the patience for how long Bo3 takes. The only change was cutting one Night of Soul's Betrayal so that we could run one Rest In Peace in the main. After getting beaten up pretty hard over the first 20ish games, I started tracking matches after that, so here's a record over the next 37: Loss Mill Loss Mill Loss Burn Loss Burn Win Mono-Black Control Loss RW Hammer Time Win Elves Loss UR Giants Loss Elves Loss Mizzex's Mastery Combo Loss RG Land Destruction Win Mono-Red Storm Loss 250-card Creatureless BG Control Loss RG Land Destruction Win Elves Win RW Hammer Time Loss Lotus Field Control Loss Colorless Control Win Mono-Red Spellslinger Loss Sultai Control Win Mono-Black Lurrus Aggro Loss Burn Win Doom Foretold Loss RG Ilharg Win Mono-White Artifact Aggro Win UW Lurrus Auras Loss UW Lurrus Auras Win UG Merfolk Win UR Burn Loss UR Mill Win Song of Creation self-mill combo Win UW Auras Loss UR Burn Win Mono-Blue Tempo Win Mono-Red Calvalcade Win Mardu Deathtouch Win Elves Conclusions: The deck can't beat any strategy based on milling us out, and has an extremely difficult time with creatureless strategies in general. The single Immortal Sun is not a viable way to deal with planeswalkers, as it's not protected by Sterling Grove and can't be tutored for. Most of the control matches were lost to Planeswalkers, particularly Teferi, Ugin, and one Onyx. We have a really hard time with Burn. I couldn't beat mono-red burn at all, and only beat UR burn once. Obviously the board would help with this, but our answers are still slow. If we play out creatures unprotected, they die immediately, but if we don't then we're too slow to assemble a lock before they kill us around turn 3-4. The nine-lives lock is weak to Stomp even if we get it together quick enough, and the splendor lock takes a long time to set up and they can still burn our face. We have a really hard time with RG Land Destruction. Our ramp is half Sanctum Weavers and half Wolfwillow Havens. The havens become a liability as we get 2-for-1d, while the weavers are slow and get burnt out. The only real hope seems to be going first, sticking first sterling grove and then weaver. Speaking of Sterling Grove - there's so much removal in Bo1 that it's almost necessary to mulligan for a consistent t2 grove. Dropping any of the 2cmc creatures unprotected against any of the black or red decks is basically throwing it away. Consequently, we have a hard time deploying fast enough against the removal-heavy aggro decks, because almost nothing other than Grove or Haven comes down until turn 3. Knowing what your opponent has for potential plays is hugely important to know when it's ok to go shields-down, playing creatures without grove, breaking a grove to tutor, or whether playing Nine Lives will save you or kill you. The losses to the Ilharg deck and the 250 card deck were due to complete surprises by the opponent. There was a loss to RG aggro prior to my tracking that was due to Questing Beast, which completely negates the damage prevention of Nine Lives. We've got great matches against creature-based midrange and some aggro decks, as well as slower creature-combo decks. Goblins and Merfolk are excellent matches. Elves is very dependent on who goes first. We often need to deploy Nine Lives and Solemnity separately on turns 3/4, sucking up a full swing before solemnity comes down in order to stay alive. They usually have archdruid on turn 2 and a big board on turn three, setting up a huge swing on their turn 4. Three of the Elves matches were decided based on whether they were able to swing with 5-8 creatures on turn 4, or 9+ creatures. Night of Soul's Betrayal made the difference in the Calvalcade match, where Overwhelming Splendor made the difference in the matchups against the storm deck and the Song of Creation deck. One of the Elves matchups depended on Splendor as well, as even though I had the Lives/Solemnity lock, they were able to ramp into Ulamog in an attempt to mill me out, until they finally scooped to Splendor. Hope this helps anyone who wants to try this out!
I always forget that Seth 'probably better known as SaffronOlive' is the Stax player of the Goldfish crew. I don't know why, he does some sort of stax or prison video every month or so...
I remember my first FNM back in the day. Second match was against Isochron Scepter. I had only been playing MTG for maybe a couple months with my buddies. It was brutal to say the least, I didn’t even know what a sideboard was yet and my deck had no more than 2 of the same card for a combined cost of about $25
Man Urza block and that time in magic was pretty brutal. It’s pretty impressive the game persevered pretty effectively. I don’t think people appreciate how much more careful WOTC is now. Sure Oko came out but when you look at the cards from urza block oko seems pretty tame. Garfield really had a good idea to make standard “standard” I know people like eternal formats but forcing rotation to prevent power creep and move out of cheesy cards probably saved the game early on.
That's exactly why I play Back to Nature in all my green sideboards. You need to have an answer for enchantment decks even if they are below 1% of meta or you'll have to scoop.
2:20 imagine using a faithless looting effect to get those cards into the graveyard with Brilliant Restoration, then casting Mizzix’s Mastery to cast said Brilliant restoration by turn 4
Oooh enchantress with different prison. Me likey. Guess solitary confinement isn't around? Ixlan's bindings, Gideon's interventions and overwhelming splendor can be pretty mean. I have a playset of nevermore in case you really want to screw with folks.
The only thing "against the odds" about this deck is how some people are still able to win through this MTG equivalent of an iron maiden torture device.
"I think we've taken away opponent's will to play Magic. They're downloading Heartstone as we speak." -- Seth, 2022
27:23
T shirt. Please!!!!!!!!! @mtggoldfish
Damn near choked laughing at that one.
Hearthstone is a better game than standard and alchemy and historic.
@@a_fuckin_spacemarine7514 people shit on hearthstone standard all the time as well at least with magic you can play the game in different ways instead of complaining
"you don't need a win condition if your opponent already thinks you won"
-Art of War
"To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."
LSV not having the win con in his storm deck and bluffing it
(People having fun playing Magic the Gathering)
Seth: Got to put a stop to that immediately.
Seth: "Back in my day, we didn't actually play Magic!"
@@ctomsky "Back in my day, Magic hadn't even been released yet!"
Helping your opponent to not play Magic is also part of the fun.
This sounds like a joke, but it's actually pretty true lol
Feels good knowing I was seven when MtG released.
One other thing Overwhelming Splendor does in shutting down activated abilities is preventing the enchanted player from Cycling/Channeling as they are also activated abilities. No Boseiju'ing the Splendor away! This deck is awesome Seth, thank you!
Ohh, good call! I totally missed that Splendor stops Boseiju. The deck is eve better than I thought!
This isn't Against the Odds, this is Against their Will
LOL
well... some of his opponents could have won if they just passed the turn many times
@@n8ordi3 this is why you always run two Gaia's Blessings or something similar in controll (pun intended) decks. Imagine being stubborn enough to play against a deck that has hardlocked you out of the game, still holding onto some kind of hope. Hope slowly grows as you come to the realization that the opponent has no win condition and that they will mill out before you. Hope turns into a feeling of triumph. You can beat them at their own game, you will mill that bastard out if it takes your whole evening...
And then they bust out the double Gaia's Blessing and your heart immediately stops in sheer dread.
Much more cruel than any kind of win condition, honestly.
Grandpa yelling at kids "Get off my client!". absolutely love it
Lol, yep
seth: "let's see if arena players can handle Night of Soul's Betrayal with Overwhelming Splendor!"
arena player: reads Night, concedes before ever seeing Splendor
You fool, you're trying to lock me with a combo, but I can't even beat one half of it
@@Spaced92Overwhelming Splendor is a "8 mana, I win the game" against most decks unless the opponent has removal for it
I love how Seth keeps referring to lock pieces all as relics of ages past when some pieces are from 2017, 2018, and 2020.
5 years ago?
In my defense, compared to OG lock pieces like Stasis, Blood Moon, Winter Orb and friends the ones we have in this deck are pretty tame.
@@MTGGoldfish I think the deck could be improved by a 1-of Banefire main
@@zirilan3398 I think approach of the second sun might be better?
Seth is a zoomer himself
I still remember the first time i got 9 Lives Solem locked, when they played the Solemnity i distinctly remember thinking 'and...ur still dead to sprite-dragon on board who cares if it wont grow'. needless to say i was confused at first when they didnt die, I stuck around for 2 more turns wondering why they wouldnt die before finally reading and seeing the interaction...felt like a complete dunce said GG and dipped.
I remember the first time it happened and I instantly added Bonecrusher Giant as a 1-of to a bunch of decks
I do always like it when they do a test attack just to make sure they understand it correctly.
@@kevinwonnacott5150 The modern version of the deck classically used phyrexian unlife for the solemnity lock. Unfortunately PU isn't legal in historic, and I'm assuming nine lives was printed as a "fixed" version of PU so that skullcrack effects aren't punished in historic/pioneer. Idk I think giant is a busted card as is, and the full lock definitely deserves to be in historic.
Yeah when you think about how nine lives refers to what they say about cats you think how it should prevent you from losing the game instead of preventing damage
@@kevinwonnacott5150 Negate/Gideon's intervention your Stomp. Man, I rode to Mythic on the back of this lock quite a number of times.
I do like seeing a prison deck show up in a meta that is largely synergy based like historic, as prison tends to wreck synergy and combo decks. It will be interesting to see if this deck becomes popular enough to warrant a shift in the metagame
110% guaranteed it wont
Well, I’m running it now
Enchantress has been tier 2/3 in historic for the last year or so and this list is largely just a modified enchantress list. So if you want to play this concept in historic it is definitely viable but there are better things you could be doing.
The opponent was actually chalice checking you when they got their squirrel countered
I love how this series is basically like watching a highway man educating people about the dangers of the roads by mugging them 😂 (to be clear, love the content for real)
Actually Seth, I didn't grow up with all these cards but my first intro to magic was my dad's stasis deck. Like my first match ever was vs it.
So it's not all roses for us lol
Yeah, me too. I wasn't playing Magic in the early days of, but when I started learning (around OG Ravnica) it was against some friends with really brutal decks like Stasis and Scepter Chant.
@@MTGGoldfish I think there needs ro be a support group for people permantely scarred by stasis decks lol
I remember the days of Orim's Chant Iso Scepter locks with other fun things too.
There’s something so magical about playing Chalice, passing the turn, waiting several seconds knowing their trying to cast a spell, then watching the opponent hover over Chalice. 😍
The accidental BM in the last game killed me. I like Enchantress decks and this was a great callback for a paper player like myself.
The rite of passage all new players much go through.
The classic Solitaire moment where you just watch the opponent play the game and you're stuck there because you genuinely want to the see the game end or are to stubborn to quit.
I just quit, if you're playing something like this and your objective is to make me not play with you then I'm leaving, what's the point
@@treesome3979 that's exactly the point lol
@@ResidentEyebrowAppreciator The point for me is it's a game, meant to be played together one against the other.
You can play solitaire on you own, you're big enough
You not getting to play is the win con. It has interaction. It isn't solitaire. If it locks you out from winning then you've lost. Just like any other loss. Would you say the same thing for grapeshot for 20 to the face? That they're just playing solitaire? Valakut and Prime time is solitaire if it beats you? Counter spell? More like.. code for solitaire. It's no different than any other win con.
Remember when there was a 1% chance for Nexus of Fate to not keep looping, so both players were forced to stick around forever to find out who wins... It's good we don't have that anymore. At least now you know when who wins
Thank you for keeping locks alive :) Back in the OG Ravnica days, I built several soft-lock decks, now that I think about it. Had a B/W Dovescape+Teysa+Twilight Drover version, a Muse Vessel+all the land bounce and stealing possible, and the best one, a Dredge list with Zur's Weirding+Firemane Angels to stop any draws. Good times, for me :)
I can't imagine how salty Arena players must get about this considering how they'll auto-scoop to a T-1 Cauldron Familiar, lol
This is mainly cause the people playing cat oven deck, rope out the clock as long as possible before clicking through each trigger
I'd personally much rather get locked out of the game than have to endure the tediousness of Cauldron Familiar jumping around the zones.
To be fair at least this lock deck doesn't let you have priority at every second of the game while being alt-tabbed and watching UA-cam or whatever cat oven ppl are up to
It has nothing to do with the deck itself and everything to do with the fact the pilot routinely fumbles triggers. A 4 turn game taking 15 min just isn’t enjoyable for me.
It's no salt. It's trauma XD
I like how there's an enchantment called Ethereal Absoltion that is 2 mana more than Night of sounds betrayal and has been in historic since inception but only now do we have a combo with overwhelming splendor lol
Shhhhhh, that’s supposed to be a secret.
We also had kaervek, the spiteful
I was playing with Ethereal Absolution in standard in a creature deck it was always a bomb
that second player got so scared of getting locked that he took the lock piece over the wrath i think
"Opponent: our Splendor is Overwhelming. How do you feel about having nothing?" --Saffron "Savage" Olive
This has such "get off my lawn" energy, I love it.
These are the decks I live for. I say it all the time that I like the idea of MTGA but a lot of new magic players dont know the pain of not being able to play the game
I haven't enjoyed an episode so much in I don't know how long. Thank you so much, Seth, for your tireless teaching of new players about MtG's history.
Wizards teaching plenty of people what it is like not to play magic with the price structure and business model.
I love that in this game about making interesting choices, one of the implicit ways to win is to take away your opponents ability to make any choices. Also this title tho
I would be very frustrated to play against this but can't get enough of seeing Seth play this against others, we need a stream of this top-shelf content
For anyone who is curious:
Of the ten games Seth won, he went either 4-1-5 or 4-2-4 (depending on how you categorize M3G3) on actually having to assemble a full lock (the "draws" being games where they scooped it up when he had the ability to tutor up the second part of a hard lock, but didn't actually have all the lock pieces on the board).
Prison decks might be too stronk for Arena players.
EDIT: That Retrofitter Foundry in the Ninja deck was pretty sweet tech for a deck that wants to run Ornithopters anyway.
I don't think they're too strong. The deck punishes non interactive decks that are just trying to vomit out combo pieces. Discard, hard counters and removal can disrupt a bit of the enchantress gameplan. Aggro decks can get in before the lock. It is brutal when you can't quite get in fast enough though. I do think a smart control/prison opponent would figure out how to punish lack of a wincon (and just let the enchantress player mill themselves out).
@@nmnate I was being a bit goofy (hence saying that they're 'stronk'). There's tons of counter-play, but most people aren't prepared to face them.
Man. Historic really is just way more fun of a format than the midrange piles that are explorer right now. You never know how much you miss combo decks until you see them again.
That ninja's game was great, and he seemed to be enjoying the match, too!
Wow... that 2nd game against jund... Literally perfect draws for getting all the hand disruption... That's certainly one way to run over enchantress :)
I wish we could get Dovescape and/or Enduring Ideal. Thanks for the awesome lock deck! I LOVE them! Maybe a Leyline for the Sideboard and maybe the new 7 mana replenish (3WWWW Brilliant Restoration I think). On a slide note, when I taught my Brother to play Magic, he played White weenie (this is a little after revised) and I played Stasis...he very nearly quit.
I didn't quite understand Dovescape until Seth showed Destiny Spinner + Dovescape... Brutal :D
Dovescape, leyline of singularity, mirror box, mirari's wake, night of soul's betrayal, urborg, kormus bell, glacial chasm, privileged position, unwinding clock, planar portal, seedborn muse, mana reflection, nyxbloom ancient.
I haven’t even watched this video and no matter what pops up on the screen, I’m building this deck.
Edit: just saw the deck. Never mind. No mainboard chalice.
Edit: just watched the first game. I retract my previous statement.
In best of 3 it’s best as sideboard for sure. In best of 1 need em main
Yeah, if we were playing best of one it would be in the main deck.
I for one I am pro dishing these kinds of magic lessons to the other generation. This deck is very similar to the enchantress I did saw some times back ruling in my local meta, so I saw that epic pwnage in historic coming.
Arena Zoomers vs Magic Boomers, the ultimate showdown!
Boomers are generally shitty people so checks out
If you are worried about self-mill, why not run a single copy of Approach of the Second Sun? That's a 1 card timer for if an opponent refuses to concede.
My favorite lockout on Arena is actually in Historic Brawl. It's such a simple loop with Thassa as the commander. All you need to do is get a Time Warp in the graveyard, and then play a Saiba Syphoner. This sets up a loop, where you can return Time Warp to your hand each end step, to be cast during your next extra turn. You can hit the combo at just 5 mana, as Syphoner has flash. The combo can be slotted into any flicker deck (eg. bant Lagrella or Azorius Yorion, running Teleportation Circle as a redundant recurring flicker).
I like the punked play chalice on one into his own solemnity both players don't read but Seth Omega minded them into thinking the chalice would have counters so he village rites regardless. This video was cathartic.
Tried to pull off the mono-white prison deck in MTGA. Love seeing this lockdown deck despite thinking it might be frail vs grixis/esper control
Seems fun, but a bit light on actual win conditions. You only have 2 destiny spinner and 1 lair of the hydra to win. And you draw more than you opponent. So if your opponent does not scoop to the lock and just passes with removal to your threats you could loose much too easy
Oh my sweet summer child, lock decks have the ultimate win con, it's called conceding
I mean, this is a prison deck - winning is STRICTLY secondary to making your opponent miserable.
I'm not sure if there isn't anything better in the Historic card pool but Underrealm Lich could be a 1-of to prevent milling out.
I don't like relying only on destiny spinner. 1-2 Hallowed Hauntings (or Sigil of the Empty Throne) are nice to have in the sideboard, maybe mainboard. Also you have to have enough Borrowed Time / O Ring / etc affects to deal with opposing prison pieces.
Our win condition is our opponent quitting Magic ;)
this deck is getting built now. you made me remember the first time dealt with a OG status deck.....the duel gave me mad props for attempting to try and stall for a chance to win but that damn blue bird.....that damn blue bird gave me blue balls in the form of zero life.
god i wish my LGS was still around but sadly time takes all.
That duress into solemnity was totally a kneejerk reaction after losing to it in the first game XD
He didn't took time to look at your other cards, he just saw that card and discarded it ^^
Discard all of the lock pieces into the graveyard along with eerie ultimatum/triumphant reckoning with your draw/discard package of choice, play mizzix's mastery on turn four, watch people concede instantly. Literally one of my favorite historic decks.
Another prison deck I've been playing around in standard is jund ponza. I've noticed that a lot of decks run little to no basics so cleansing wildfire is just a stone rain that cantrips. Add 4 copies of the RG land from Kaldheim and the LD saga from the same set, 4 field of ruins and all the removal that jund can pack and you can easily lock your opponents out of the game. There's even druid class in the SB for aggro matchups, they physically can't recover from gaining 3 life off of the weird capena fetches, let alone deal with the big animated land.
This is the first thing in a long time that made me want to play Magic again.
Y'know, there's a special place in my heart for decks that have no wincon other than the opponents scooping.
Greetings and much love from Meren stax over in the commander format.
You merely adopted Stax. I was born in it, molded by it. By the time I saw Tron I was already a man.
I just played a game against this same deck and I stuck through it. Game one they got a nearly complete lock on me with everything with the exception of the immortal sun. I fea of wished an Ugin to my hand and wiped their board winning the first match. Second game I dot destroyed. But in the final match I was able to bounce their solemnity before it’s effect wiped the counters off nine lives allowing me to get the W buy ticking it up to 9. It was a challenge but a very rewarding victory.
Hard to believe Seth was using Toxic months before Phyrexia: All Will Be One.
Yknow, as a yugioh player who quit that game a year ago and made the switch to magic, this is very funny to me, because seth says that modern magic design is less and less about locking the opponent out, while yuhiohs modern design is the exact opposite of that. Yugioh released a card named „mystic mine“ in 2019 or sth, that completely shuts down the game on its own, and has a reputation for being the worst deck to fight of all time.. yugioh players just take all kinds of shit from konami, meanwhile this is the first time ive really seen something even remotely comparable in magic lol
Its cool that this stuff exists, im glad that wizards learned their design lessons for prison pieces though AT LEAST COMPARED TO KONAMI who print stasis effects on cards every second set it feels like..
Haha. I'm doing the reverse. Not giving up completely on magic, just taking a break and trying Master Duel out. It's crazy how much of that game is you just saying no to an opponent.
@@BuckysKnifeFlip its very funny to me to see new people jump into master duel only to realize that almost all the decks involve some form of locking the opponent out from doing anything haha, magic was such a nice shift for me, it felt so much more friendly 😭
Like, even this lock deck in the video requires so much setup.. at least you have to spend multiple turns interacting with your opponent as the trap slowly closes around them, in yugioh you would most probably either sit there for 10 minutes waiting for the opponent and them having every lock piece turn 1, or them setting 5 cards face down and also having you locked out on turn 1. I think thats one of the biggest differences for me to this game haha
Check out lantern control from Modern and Stasis and Pox from Legacy for other Prison Decks.
@@dauls those are two of my favorites decks in magic. Highly recommend watching how those play to get a real sense of how similar the two games can be in terms of a lockdown. Plus, you get to see Seth's joy in utterly breaking his opponents when he plays lantern control.
Stax is my go to in Legacy.
Teaching Arena Zoomers are my fave videos keep em coming.
I like that we're incorporating wardrobe changes in the videos now. 👍
I'm glad Chalice is punt-city from both players even on Arena. It's such a universal truth.
Comical how there wasnt a single game vs elves, goblins, monoW lifelink deck :)
Or there have been, he just rolled over and edited them out. Peak content
I’ve been playing a creativity lock deck with Acacyn, platinum angle , and shalai to give my platinum angle hexproof and indestructible. There’s a couple answers to it but it’s still pretty fun.
This is the saltiest deck I’ve seen in awhile on mtg arena and I love it!!!
You are doing the lord's work with this one
Been doing this with Kaervek and overwhelming spelndor when I still played arena before the whole alchemy bs. Looks like it's gotten some significant buffs since then which kinda makes me want to play it again but I don't want to come back to the hellhole of Arena D=
OMFG I am totally making this deck, It looks like SO MUCH FUN
I’ve been playing a green white version of that deck for literally a year now lol it got me to top 10 in historic
I don’t think I’ve had so much joy in others misery than this. Just kept giggling… mostly cause I know how it feels.
I don't think anyone has ever deserved to lose a game more than you in that last one. Very impressive.
It's amazing how many opponents don't realize that they probably win even if you lock them when your deck's smaller than their life total.
Destiny Spinner and Lair are both win-cons that only take a few turns to win once the deck gets going though. With that said, that's just 3 cards in this deck that need to be dealt with to effectively guarantee a win via mill.
That's true, although Destiny Spinner is pretty hard to deal with if we have Sterling Grove going for shroud.
I’m loving the long ep lengths
It kinda reminds me of my first year in mtg, especially reading all that stuff about orim's chant - sceptre. Im not alone, haha!
I started in OG zendikar block, and we had a guy in our lgs who played exclusively burn at every fnm and tournament.
But he had a hobby of assembling non format stuff like dragonstorm, no modern was around and legacy wasn't a thing at my lgs. And one day i sat to play with him and he played silence - sceptre. I misunderstood the synergy, not countered sceptre and was locked out of the game quickly, sitting with my walls of denial on the field and doing nothing.
I play exclusively UWx controls in all formats all the time, and after Arena introduction we had a lot of new players, and they sometimes felt bad about playing against control, ranting that they dont get to play (and i rant about people ranting about interactive deck) - at this moment i wish this new players tried to play against any stax and start complaining about them, not my control xD
Thank you Canadian Highlander for making me aware these kinds of strategies exist
FINALLY THE ALGORITHM HAS BLESSED ME WITH MTGA HISTORIC CONTENT
I think I love your enthusiasm now❤
This brings me back to my stepdad locking me out of games when we’d play.
Hermetic Study + Abyssal Spector was my least favorite combo. Nobody’s heard of those cards, but together they are a nightmare if you’re 16 and just wanna play a dinosaur deck.
Love the title. Teach those youngsters what Mtg is really like! ;-)
And they all laughed at me for playing Gates Tribal...Lol
*Thanks for the Content* !
Holy spaghetti Saph you are a freaking Sith Lord. I for one Stan this till I die.
"it's been generations since wizards as printed lock pieces" *plays deck with one card that's over 5 years old*
Not to mention said card can be replaced with a card that's less than 5 years old
this is why your my favorite mtg youtuber 😆
Insult//Injury through a Nine lives lock is the greatest feeling ever.
I literally haven't laughed so much watching an MTG video in a LONG TIME.
The amount of joy I get watching this deck clearly shows how much of a sadist I am when it comes to magic… haha
I decided to test this in Bo1, because I don't have the patience for how long Bo3 takes. The only change was cutting one Night of Soul's Betrayal so that we could run one Rest In Peace in the main. After getting beaten up pretty hard over the first 20ish games, I started tracking matches after that, so here's a record over the next 37:
Loss Mill
Loss Mill
Loss Burn
Loss Burn
Win Mono-Black Control
Loss RW Hammer Time
Win Elves
Loss UR Giants
Loss Elves
Loss Mizzex's Mastery Combo
Loss RG Land Destruction
Win Mono-Red Storm
Loss 250-card Creatureless BG Control
Loss RG Land Destruction
Win Elves
Win RW Hammer Time
Loss Lotus Field Control
Loss Colorless Control
Win Mono-Red Spellslinger
Loss Sultai Control
Win Mono-Black Lurrus Aggro
Loss Burn
Win Doom Foretold
Loss RG Ilharg
Win Mono-White Artifact Aggro
Win UW Lurrus Auras
Loss UW Lurrus Auras
Win UG Merfolk
Win UR Burn
Loss UR Mill
Win Song of Creation self-mill combo
Win UW Auras
Loss UR Burn
Win Mono-Blue Tempo
Win Mono-Red Calvalcade
Win Mardu Deathtouch
Win Elves
Conclusions:
The deck can't beat any strategy based on milling us out, and has an extremely difficult time with creatureless strategies in general.
The single Immortal Sun is not a viable way to deal with planeswalkers, as it's not protected by Sterling Grove and can't be tutored for. Most of the control matches were lost to Planeswalkers, particularly Teferi, Ugin, and one Onyx.
We have a really hard time with Burn. I couldn't beat mono-red burn at all, and only beat UR burn once. Obviously the board would help with this, but our answers are still slow. If we play out creatures unprotected, they die immediately, but if we don't then we're too slow to assemble a lock before they kill us around turn 3-4. The nine-lives lock is weak to Stomp even if we get it together quick enough, and the splendor lock takes a long time to set up and they can still burn our face.
We have a really hard time with RG Land Destruction. Our ramp is half Sanctum Weavers and half Wolfwillow Havens. The havens become a liability as we get 2-for-1d, while the weavers are slow and get burnt out. The only real hope seems to be going first, sticking first sterling grove and then weaver.
Speaking of Sterling Grove - there's so much removal in Bo1 that it's almost necessary to mulligan for a consistent t2 grove. Dropping any of the 2cmc creatures unprotected against any of the black or red decks is basically throwing it away. Consequently, we have a hard time deploying fast enough against the removal-heavy aggro decks, because almost nothing other than Grove or Haven comes down until turn 3.
Knowing what your opponent has for potential plays is hugely important to know when it's ok to go shields-down, playing creatures without grove, breaking a grove to tutor, or whether playing Nine Lives will save you or kill you. The losses to the Ilharg deck and the 250 card deck were due to complete surprises by the opponent.
There was a loss to RG aggro prior to my tracking that was due to Questing Beast, which completely negates the damage prevention of Nine Lives.
We've got great matches against creature-based midrange and some aggro decks, as well as slower creature-combo decks. Goblins and Merfolk are excellent matches.
Elves is very dependent on who goes first. We often need to deploy Nine Lives and Solemnity separately on turns 3/4, sucking up a full swing before solemnity comes down in order to stay alive. They usually have archdruid on turn 2 and a big board on turn three, setting up a huge swing on their turn 4. Three of the Elves matches were decided based on whether they were able to swing with 5-8 creatures on turn 4, or 9+ creatures.
Night of Soul's Betrayal made the difference in the Calvalcade match, where Overwhelming Splendor made the difference in the matchups against the storm deck and the Song of Creation deck. One of the Elves matchups depended on Splendor as well, as even though I had the Lives/Solemnity lock, they were able to ramp into Ulamog in an attempt to mill me out, until they finally scooped to Splendor.
Hope this helps anyone who wants to try this out!
I always forget that Seth 'probably better known as SaffronOlive' is the Stax player of the Goldfish crew.
I don't know why, he does some sort of stax or prison video every month or so...
I love this deck. I really wish wotc would start printing good staxpieces again.
I pray they never do
😘Stax🫠
The deck you pull out when you see people having fun and think "Absolutely not."
Seth pulled a Kibler at the end there. -> "Set you to 1, go ahead... XD"
I remember my first FNM back in the day. Second match was against Isochron Scepter. I had only been playing MTG for maybe a couple months with my buddies. It was brutal to say the least, I didn’t even know what a sideboard was yet and my deck had no more than 2 of the same card for a combined cost of about $25
Saff I've been running your Urabrask prison deck in explorer and keeping up the lock gameplay style with much success
STAX! STAX! STAX! STAX! STAX!
making a zur stax decks for commander right now. by far the most fun decks to build and pilot.
I have a super janky orzhov deck that splashes red just so I can play Mythos of Snapdax against decks like these. I love it.
Man Urza block and that time in magic was pretty brutal. It’s pretty impressive the game persevered pretty effectively.
I don’t think people appreciate how much more careful WOTC is now. Sure Oko came out but when you look at the cards from urza block oko seems pretty tame.
Garfield really had a good idea to make standard “standard” I know people like eternal formats but forcing rotation to prevent power creep and move out of cheesy cards probably saved the game early on.
I haven't watched this yet, but thumbs up for this entire concept. Low key no cap lock those dirty zoomers frfr.
12:00 The amount of games I’ve lost were “as long as we draw mana it will be fine” was my opening statement.
That's exactly why I play Back to Nature in all my green sideboards. You need to have an answer for enchantment decks even if they are below 1% of meta or you'll have to scoop.
One of my favorite episodes XD
2:20 imagine using a faithless looting effect to get those cards into the graveyard with Brilliant Restoration, then casting Mizzix’s Mastery to cast said Brilliant restoration by turn 4
Now this is what I like to see! Brutal!
33:01 Opponent is living in magical Christmas land, Seth becomes Santa
I love how in match 3 the opponent conceded after getting locked even though they had a good chance of winning by just waiting without doing anything.
Oooh enchantress with different prison. Me likey. Guess solitary confinement isn't around? Ixlan's bindings, Gideon's interventions and overwhelming splendor can be pretty mean. I have a playset of nevermore in case you really want to screw with folks.
That last match had me triggered.
Seth: we have them locked up we will win eventually
Also seth: how do we lose from this position
This is my favorite kind of deck by a wide margin.
The only thing "against the odds" about this deck is how some people are still able to win through this MTG equivalent of an iron maiden torture device.
I have to be honest, while I think it's cool that this style is part of the game's history, I'm kinda glad we don't see it very often these days.
I have a Jace, Unraveler of Secrets + Rule of Law deck and a Drannith Magistrate + Urabrask, Heretic Praetor. They are glorious, when they work.