Sideboard options

Read about the history of the deck in Part 1 and the maindeck in Part 2.

Despite being a mono blue deck, you have a number of decent options for the sideboard. I will be running through a number of cards and their applications—tailor to suit!

A sample sideboard

Tormod’s Crypt

Likely the best all-round graveyard hate that this deck has access to thanks to getting round Chalice and being tutorable by all of your tutors including Trinket Mage. If you’re expecting a lot of BR reanimator, you may want to find room for some Faerie Macabre, but Faerie Macabre fails this deck when it comes to dealing with Eldrazi titans’ shuffle effects. You need a way to respond to the shuffle clause that will exile the opponent’s entire graveyard so that you can still combo off. Tormod’s Crypt does this nicely while not requiring any mana on the combo turn itself. I like having access to three copies of it for the decks where you really want it in your opening hand, but don’t feel as though you need to bring in all three copies against decks like Sneak and Show—you have up to 9 tutors for it, after all.

Back to Basics

An extremely powerful card against a number of decks, including Czech Pile, Lands and Eldrazi. It can hamstring you slightly too, but the upside is usually worth it—you play enough islands that you’re very likely to be able to play your spells in the long run. I don’t think I’d run fewer than two in the board and would also consider running three, despite the anti-synergy with sol lands.

Echoing Truth

A good catch-all answer to things like Pithing Needle, Phyrexian Revoker and Sorcerous Spyglass that would stop you from comboing off, as well as being good against reanimator and hordes of tokens. I started with one copy of this, but found it flexible enough to want an additional copy.

Ensnaring Bridge

You have the option of running more copies of this in the sideboard, which I think is advisable. In the matchups where it shines, having access to more copies is good both in terms of trying to ensure you will draw one and as insurance against one getting destroyed.

Llawan, Cephalid Empress

At first glance, Llawan might look a bit too cute, if you assume that it’s only a combo with Painter. (Name blue and watch your opponents never cast a creature again!) However, she is actually very good against the fair BUG-based decks even without a Painter in play. She deals with Leovold, Emissary of Trest, Baleful Strix, Shardless Agent and Delver of Secrets while being immune to Abrupt Decay.

In non-blue matchups, the combo with Painter can be a tricky lock to get out of, particularly for decks like Eldrazi.

Mindbreak Trap

As for most decks, Mindbreak Trap is an option. I’m not sure how much I actually like it in the deck—your pro-active answers to storm in form of Chalice and Lodestone are less vulnerable to getting stripped from your hand with discard. On the other hand, having extra answers to the all-in combo decks that functions on their turn one on the play is good enough that it’s always worth considering.

Flusterstorm

Being a 1-mana counterspell that gets around Chalice (the original gets countered—the copies do not) means that Flusterstorm bears considering as extra interaction against fair blue decks and unfair decks alike. Having it as a trump in counter-wars over important spells is nice, and it’s obviously good against storm. Unlike other counterspells, it’s also reasonable against targeted discard, which can present an issue for the deck.

Sorcerous Spyglass

Discussed in detail above, Spyglass is good enough in some matchups that you may want another copy.

Walking Ballista

A card that I have at various times played in the maindeck, Walking Ballista is a Trinket Mage-able piece of removal against decks like Death and Taxes and Elves. With all the sol lands, your chances of making a Ballista for x=3 or even x=4 are decent. It looks fairly clunky, but your options in mono-blue against Death and Taxes are fairly sparse, and Ballista deals cleanly with Mother of Runes, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Flickerwisp, Phyrexian Revoker and more. If expecting to face a decent amount of DnT, finding space for a second isn’t the worst idea.

Padeem, Consul of Innovation

Discussed briefly in the Spellskite section in part 2, I like Padeem against any deck trying to grind you out by trading one-for-one. You will almost always have an artifact with an equal or higher converted mana cost, and fortunately even when you don’t, the effect is one-sided. When you have key artifacts that you want to protect, like Ensnaring Bridge, Padeem is better than Spellskite due to being harder to kill. Of course, this comes at the cost of a sizeable four mana. Sol lands mitigate this, of course, but sometimes he will be doing two little to late. You also don’t get any value if he doesn’t survive until your upkeep, so try and sequence things such that you get at least one extra draw.

Vedalken Shackles

I have at various times tried Vedalken Shackles in this deck. It’s cool, but it is very slow—probably just too slow against the decks you’d consider it for. Still, it is a powerful effect and a good one to have in the back of your mind when building a sideboard for a deck with 12–13 Islands.

Meekstone

Fetchable with Trinket Mage, Meekstone shuts down big creatures that might otherwise spell your hasty demise, like Tarmogoyf, Reality Smasher, and Gurmag Angler. Unfortunately, sometimes taking one hit from each creature that comes down will be enough to kill you. This has led me to cutting Meekstone for the moment, but it’s another good one to know about.

Defense Grid

Being a combo deck, you may want Defense Grid to help you combo out. Castable off just a sol land, the Grid can be played out proactively to stop your opponents from messing with you. On the other hand, it also screws with your Force of Will and means you’ll likely have to cast Whir of Invention and Thirst for Knowledge on your turn. In light of this, probably not worth a slot.

Lion’s Eye Diamond

Another card that I’ve had in the maindeck at various points, three mana happens to be just the right number to activate Grindstone. Since you can fetch it with Trinket Mage, you can set up turns where you combo out very quickly from almost no board position. It also has a niche use in cutting down your hand size if you need to hide behind a Bridge and can be used to improvise. On the other hand, a lot of the time it will do not a lot. Force of Will and LED are also not a combo per se.

Sphere of Resistance/Thorn of Amethyst

These taxing effects come in handy against storm decks, if you feel that the matchup needs any help. They’re quicker to deploy than something like Lodestone Golem.

Chill

Chill does work against burn, mono-red sneak, moon stompy and ruby storm decks. It’s possible that those matchups are good enough without Chill that it’s unnecessary (and in the case of ruby storm it could well be too slow), but the option is there. A fun thing to do is to name red for Painter’s Servant, making everything cost two more. Since this affects your spells too, it’s mostly not the right play. But it sure is cool!

Trinisphere

Another typical stax/prison artifact, Trinisphere is no fun for a lot of decks. It’s easy enough for us to play around it because we have sol lands, but it does slow us down too and may not be high enough impact to be worthwhile.

Vendilion Clique

A decent disruptive option that’s also a clock, Vendilion Clique is probably too slow for the current legacy metagame, and 1UU isn’t ideal with all the sol lands. Nevertheless, they remain an option for the deck should it find itself in need of a way to pressure decks like Sneak and Show.

Other options

Talisman of Dominance/Talisman of Progress

Until recently, I was running one each of Talisman of Dominance and Talisman of Progress. They started life as Lotus Petals. Then they became Mox Diamonds. Then I cut them in favour of Search for Azcanta—see part 2. Lotus Petals never felt good as you frequently want colour fixing for Whir more than you want ramp. Mox Diamonds can be awkward, particularly given that you don’t run that many lands. Hands that have sol lands and Mox Diamonds can be particularly awkward, although pitching City of Traitors to Mox can be good.

The talismans are castable off a sol land and provide mana by themselves, unlike signets. It’s possible that the fact that they are painful sources of mana in a deck that already runs four Ancient Tomb isn’t ideal, but I think that the benefits over signets are just enough to justify them if the deck wants non-land mana sources. It’s nice, for example, to be able to cast Thirst for Knowledge off a sol land + a talisman.

However, they make for horrible topdecks later in the game. The deck doesn’t care as much about artifacts as Tezzerator and they don’t enable turn one Chalices, so their utility was always somewhat limited. Nevertheless, they remain an option if you want some extra mana sources/a little bit of ramp.

Lodestone Golem

Lodestone Golem is another disruptive artifact that plays well with sol lands and Chalice. If you have a Chalice on one, Lodestone Golem can be extremely difficult to remove for many decks. He is a quick clock against decks like Sneak and Show while disrupting their gameplan. Great against storm, too, of course, and trades with Gurmag Angler.

On the other hand, Lodestone Golem is not hugely synergistic with a number of the deck’s spells. Although we play a lot of artifacts, adding a tax to planeswalkers, whirs, and Force of Will is not ideal. With Chalice and Force, the storm matchup is already pretty decent, and other unfair decks can struggle against one or both of Sorcerous Spyglass and Ensnaring Bridge. In light of this, I’ve recently cut Lodestone to make room for cards that will hopefully improve the fair matchups like Grixis Delver and Czech Pile in Ratchet Bomb and Thopter Spy Network. On the other hand, Lodestone gets better the more ways you have of constraining your opponents’ mana, making him great with Back to Basics out of the board. That and it’s a sweet card, and well worth considering if you’re expecting Sneak and Show or other decks against which you want a quick disruptive clock.

Glint-Nest Crane

You have just enough artifacts that I would consider the rate of finding one with a Crane to be acceptable. With 20 artifacts in the deck, you have an 81.9% chance that there will be an artifact in the top four. I have tried Glint-Nest Crane as a way to increase creature count when testing the next card on this list, namely…

Smuggler’s Copter

On paper, Smuggler’s Copter looks like a good fit. It helps dig you to the combo, trades with Delver, and can pressure opposing planeswalkers. The tricky thing is finding enough ways to crew it. Frank Karsten suggests a minimum of 13 creatures for 2 copies of a vehicle. In practice, this is difficult to achieve while maintaining high artifact and blue counts, but it’s something I’d like to test further, perhaps in conjunction with Thopter Spy Network because that seems like a sweet combo. Always have crewing fodder, get to loot and draw? Yes please.

Closing thoughts

I don’t have the time or sufficient actual play-data to go into detail about matchups here, but it’s something I’m working on, so look out for that at some point in the future. If reading this article inspires you to play with the deck, feedback or data about matchups is especially useful and would be much appreciated!

In general, because it has access to both Force of Will and Chalice of the Void, the deck has game against pretty much everything in the format. Being able to close the game out on the spot with the combo will also give you free game wins when your opponent can’t deal with it. In many cases, the threat of the combo is enough to force your opponent to make otherwise sub-optimal plays.

I recently took this deck (just a few cards off the build above) to 2nd place at a local 64-player legacy event. I went 5-1 in the swiss, making me top seed going in to the top 8. In the swiss I faced Storm, Mono-Red Sneak, Eldrazi Post, UB Reanimator, Burn and BR Reanimator, with the only loss coming to Eldrazi Post. In the top 8, I won the quarter-finals against Czech Pile, avenged the Eldrazi Post loss in the semis and lost the finals to Czech Pile. Unfortunately, as far as actually writing a report goes, my notes are extremely minimal and my memory of the matches is adversely affected by the fact that I didn’t go to bed the night before the tournament. Still, I had an absolute blast with the deck and picked up a Volcanic Island.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this primer—props and thanks if you made it through all 7,500 words. I’d love to hear what you think, whether you love it or think it’s the worst painter deck you’ve ever seen. I intend to keep playing and refining the deck and would welcome any input and ideas. If you’ve played the deck or think you might want to and have questions, get in touch and let’s have a chat! Find me on reddit at u/itsjustjasper, on the Source as jasper and on MTGO as JustJasper.

As usual, if anyone has any colourful ideas for deck names, let’s hear ‘em. Bonus points for puns on art, artists, or painting.

Editors note: Last night Rich Shay played Jasper’s list to a 5-0 on MTGO. You can find the VOD here for now.

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