Hello! is this list updated? Wanna try some treasure/marionette for the FNM and this seems to be a good starting point. Thanks!

Only difference is right now in real life Baral is Hostage Taker. Thinkin bout ditching him.

With these new rivals of Ixalan spoilers supporting the Torment of Hailfire, will that become your main wincon over Marionette Master?

No just run one more. Still gotta think about coneistency and Marionette is a direct loss of life where with torment permanents can be sac'ed as well as hands ditched to help bring the number down so who knows. We still have more to see in the coming weeks. Treasures are lookin like they get a bump but that likely means there will be a more direct way of dealing with them in the set too.

Looks like youre going to have to change your description to #1 on TO as of Dec 9th. Congrats!

So with counterspells and creatures, what's the strategy for beating Temur Energy? When do you play stuff and when do you focus on countering and killing?

jubale Generally speaking with most the energy decks some of the counters come out in favor of hand hate (Harsh Scrutiny, Doomfall,Duress to help to answer the early Attune with Aether or Blossoming Defense, and mid late game any Bristling Hydra, Glorybringer, or The Scarab God. Otherwise the idea is to early game mid game pick where I can and setup Treasures so that turn 6-9 I can try to get to a Marionette Master or otherwise stall long enough to hit that or a Torment of Hailfire to stabilize the late game accompanied with the removal like Bontu's Last Reckoning to help get around the hexproof-iness and late game mass of bodies.

As I don't see it mentioned anywhere (in an admittedly quick look), why no Hostage Takers, if even in the side? Seems like that would be a very good fit in many matchups.

Cool deck! +1 from me!

BioProfDude Hostage Taker was mentioned back in the archives of the comments. He was in here for removal but to be honest in standard he dies wayyyy to easily to burn and such that he never stays out long enough to get real value out of him(I wonder if its the giant KILL ME sign on his back?). And being that standard pretty much is just energy decks. The creatures I'm taking and they get right back just give them more energy to use. So More traditional removal IE Fatal Push (cause everyone loves a treasure sac for revolt push) and Bontu's Last Reckoning cause who doesn't love a board wipe for 3 when you always have mana to use anyway in the form of treasures. Also Hostage Taker while being a pirate and has ETB trigger isn't that great with Siren's Ruse till after he MAYBE stayed alive long enough to cast the stolen creature/artifact in order to steal another.

Hence his removal and deeper focus on actual counters and removal.

Fair enough!

Hello,

Ive been running you decklist for a while and I like to tell you it is awesome. However I wanna ask you some advice when facing ramunanp red I keep losing matches on turn 4.

Side in all the removal and if you feel the matchup gets out of hand based on how you play you can look to up the amount of early counters. Revolutionary Rebuff tends to have a nice home besides Disallow and Essence Scatter. I personally tend to rush the field in getting the early blockers out. Usually once you can get a body out it slows them down.Hostage Taker could have a home for you too. I just prefer using Bontu's Last Reckoning to sweep their field.

Ramunap red in general tends to be a 50/50 with this deck

Also don't forget the Harsh Scrutinys

Newly spoiled 'Vona's Hunger' could be good here

Uncle_Falafel Indeed it could be really good. I already threw the spoiler in the description. Can't wait to see how this deck is gonna turn out after all the spoilers. Super excited to see what kinda support treasure is gonna get

Would you share with me your thought process on the sideboard and when you implement them against the average top 8 meta? For instance when do you add the 4th torment? What do you take out?

So Chasedrk1 if playing against energy decks usually my biggest issue is their Bristling Hydra and Glorybringer so usually hand hate, removal and more late game options come in.

Usually it's

   IN                      OUT

4 Fatal Push --> 2 Glimmer of Genius, 1 Spell Swindle, 1 Essence Scatter

3 Harsh Scrutiny --> 2 Lookout's Dispersal, 1 Disallow

2 Lost Legacy --> 2 Torment of Hailfire

2 The Scarab God --> 1 Panharmonicon, 1 Marionette Master

And the same tends to apply for aggro type decks. I end up having to play a more sit back and respond style but I can usually still build up enough for Marionette Master knockout. In all 50/50 against aggro type decks.

Any other type of spell based decks like GPG and Approach are pretty self explanitory.

   IN                      OUT

3 Essence Scatter --> 3 Duress

Rest of the deck still works fine in counter control.

Otherwise 3RD Torment of Hailfire will come in if someone is targeting the Marionette Master heavily as ahe is main win con.

   IN                      OUT

2 The Scarab God --> 2 Marionette Master

1 Torment of Hailfire --> 1 Marionette Master

Having The Scarab God and another Torment of Hailfire will leave them looking for Marionette Master just for her to never show up and bringing treasure producers back with Scarab to feed a big Torment for game.

And of course how I sideboard just depends on what I see going on, on the other side of the field. So I'd say this is just the theory behind it. It can vary heavily how I play it.

Part of me wants to run Solemnity in here just to shut down energy but it does also shutdown Marionette Master for + 1/+1 Counters and Treasure Map for Landmark counters, but I feel like I could get around it sometimes

Glory bringer is the bane of my FNM existence. Any deck I play except Approach or Demir finds a way to GG with a GB. Sometimes its just nuts. The SB torment through me for a loop. I appreciate your breakdown. It is extremely thorough.

Yeah gb can be a pain but it is funny to spell swindle him

I ran a few rounds with this last night. against aggro, Scarab God was very consistent, however slow to stabilize, most rounds the play was a turn to late. i really feel Hostage Taker in the side board would be vital. big hate and all, the extra turn to stabilize would be huge & taking early curve drops from aggro are easy to play on turn 4 or 5. if you can drop a HT after a Panharmonicon, thats 2 cards exiled.other than that, it played well enough for a control deck against RDW and R/B Aggro. won 1 game per match on my first night playing it. (only played those 2 deck styles for testing). I will be taking it to FNM tonight. I am going to drop the 3rd Torment of Hailfire for a HT in the sideboard. just to give it a bit of testing.

Yesterday I was playing some standard on my local game store. I couldnt beat energy deck; siphoner,rogue refiner gave my opponent a lot of card advantage (I was focusing on counter Cubs). Finally, he told me I should use 2 Search for Azcanta on main. What do you think?

Azcanta is workable in there if you wanna go that route i focus more on the treaure maps to fix draws while using the draw that is there as well as the sirens ruse so try it out and see where you end up

Chasedrk1 I originally had Hostage Taker in here but he always just ends up being killed or burned off almost immediately pretty much killing the real advantage he gives. The other side of it is if those creatures had ETB effects (ENERGY) they end up triggering again (IE Rogue Refiner or Whirler Virtuoso). Anything bigger and they will just usually be able to kill the taker before I get to cast anything. Against most other matchups like Dinos and stuff sure it has its value but it's also a huge target the moment you play it.