For the Vant list I changed one Verdant Catacombs for a Phyrexian tower and one bayou for a forest. It didn't affect the mainboard much, but did open to plays with another sacrifice outlet. As for the sideboard I tried
1 Thrun
3 GSZ
1 Primeval Titan
1 Thragtusk
2 Loam
3 Wasteland
1 Volrath's Stronghold
3 Liliana
I would board out (probably wrong)
4 Pact
4 Led
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Past in Flames
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils
It ran okay. but lacked removal like deeds/decay/pulse. It grinded really well though. But it was still a janky nic fit list with a bunch of rituals, which made me think why push nic fit transform, when we could still get good creatures (Tomb/Oblit) without losing all our sideboard slots and still have a chance to combo off.
I've been looking at a new combination of business spells. Summoner's Pact + Empty the Warrens, specifically. If we can bridge a gap here, somehow, then we can manage a different business suite.
I might have found something that would work. Skullmulcher can be a potential Pact target to combo with Empty the Warrens. The thing is sometimes you don't need Pact with Empty the Warrens. Its a 9 mana combo, but you can exploit LED and Empty in the same hand because you can Empty first, and then float GGG before Pact. The deck has so much mana that this line of play is possible as early as turn 2. It allows us to race other combo decks and aggro decks with fast turn 3's that would prevent us from going for Ad Nauseam. More importantly, when our opponent's drop Batterskull or start to develop a board state that will surely stabilize, we need our business chain to lead to Tendrils. With Skullmulcher, Summoner's Pact allows us to pour all our tokens into a new hand and huge guy. Even better against Miracles, if they play Terminus against us, we can just Pact for it again. In slower games, we can play tricks with Eternal Witness as well to grab Empty the Warrens again. The deck usually fetches a lot of lands, and I find myself with 5 or 6 lands against slower control decks like Miracles. That typically means when they land a Batterskull, you can safely pour your hand into Empty, and hold back on your Pact. Pact can then fuel something with Skullmulcher, or even other business you've already used via Eternal Witness. Also, Entomb can be far more valuable if you draw it while you close on their life total with tokens, because it means Eternal Witness can grab Ad Nauseam, Tendrils, PIF, or Empty the Warrens depending upon how your opponents board state develops.
EDIT:
Skullmulcher might also prove useful in smoothing out hands in which you have mostly mana, creatures, and Summoner's Pact/Tendrils as your business spells. Skullmulcher could allow us to draw extra cards to reach 10 storm.
I've been looking at Doomsday as an alternative to Ad Nauseam. Its incredibly powerful at BBB considering how much mana the deck has. We can run Probes maindeck, which is huge because it means we have more control over how we set up against a stacked hand. Also, Pact + Entomb + Probe is BBBGGG. I just played a couple games and had as much as 10 or 12 mana floating after an IT. I keep thinking this deck doesn't really want to play Ad Nauseam. It generates absurd amounts of mana through Explorers, Dark Rituals, Cullings, and LEDs. I never feel like I don't have enough mana, its more like, I don't have the right combination of business for the amount of mana that I have. Since these are all tutors, we ought to explore different tutor combinations. Doomsday looks the most promising alternative to Ad Nauseam but it requires the deck to restructure, play Doomsday, and drop the 2cc tutors to a minimum of 3 perhaps. Otherwise there won't be room for everything else. Entomb also needs to be slightly more exploitable. If we play Doomsday though, the list will get tight really fast.
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If you really seem to have tons of mana and 'too much' for ad nauseum, what about a single diabolic revelation? I mean, as I haven't had a chance yet to test this new build, I seriously doubt the reliability of generating 11-12 mana outweighs the ability to just win out of nowhere with the lower cc of ad nauseum. However, if it is that reliable, that would serve as a pretty nice target.
Diabolic Revelation doesn't play well with LED or I'd certainly play it. We are talking about 11-12 post IT. We can't crack our LEDs to play Diabolic Revelations X.
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So, I've been goldfish Vacrix's list, and there have been quite a number of times where I've wanted a Wild Cantor. Maybe I'm not as proficient of a pilot with the deck, but from my experiences, I would cut a Veteran Explorer for the card.
Diabolic Revelation doesn't play well with LED or I'd certainly play it. We are talking about 11-12 post IT. We can't crack our LEDs to play Diabolic Revelations X.
I was suggesting diabolic revelation as a single copy, i.e. an ad naseam replacement. IT, crack LED, find diabolic revelation, cast for x=6, proceed to win.
Not only you'll just get more cards from Ad Nauseam, but you still have that 6 mana to spend on cards you get from AdN.
But with revelation, you're cherry picking. You don't need a dozen or 2 cards. If you can't win from zero mana with any 6 cards of your choosing, especially after you've already racked up 4-6 storm, perhaps you're doing it wrong?
Hey guys. I recently stumbled onto SI and it peaked my interest straight away. Guess I just like the idea of being able to win on the first turn. I little more research told me that SI is the most likely deck to win on turn one, although it's apparently quite tricky to pilot at times?
So I'm wanting to buy this deck, but I was wondering what build or version goes off on turn one the most. Also I'm wanting to build a version pretty much with no protection, if I could instead add cards that would bolster the consistency then I will. Because I don't play legacy competitively, just casually with some friends, so FoW wont ever be an issue.
Hey guys. I recently stumbled onto SI and it peaked my interest straight away. Guess I just like the idea of being able to win on the first turn. I little more research told me that SI is the most likely deck to win on turn one, although it's apparently quite tricky to pilot at times?
So I'm wanting to buy this deck, but I was wondering what build or version goes off on turn one the most. Also I'm wanting to build a version pretty much with no protection, if I could instead add cards that would bolster the consistency then I will. Because I don't play legacy competitively, just casually with some friends, so FoW wont ever be an issue.
Be ready to learn how to mulligan with one of the most difficult decks, though. This isn't like Stoneblade where you have a couple lands, some countermagic, and a duder and you can learn how to mulligan fairly quickly. I estimate I goldfished about 300+ hands before I had a strong grasp on what hands to keep and which ones to pitch.
PSI was what I used to play, but you also need to learn how to sideboard correctly if you ever plan on playing outside of your group. I you can't sideboard properly, then you will lose to blue decks just about every time.
It's a fun deck to play, and very rewarding when you master it, but it can also be frustrating at times in comparison to other decks like TES, because when they cast their draw engine (Ad Nauseum), they are most likely going to go off. With this deck, you can draw 16 cards and fizzle. I did that twice in a tourney, with 10 mana floating, didn't draw a win-con, and I was not happy. That usually doesn't (and by usually doesn't I mean almost never) happens with TES.
All in all, you'll have a great time playing it, but if you're just playing casually with friends, I'm not sure you want to build this. They will not enjoy sitting there watching you combo game after game after game, and will not offer to play games against it. Especially if none of them have/play Force of Wills or blue decks in general. A friend of mine had TES built and foiled out for our smaller local Legacy meta (about 15ish people that have real Legacy decks) and outside of tourneys, no one wanted to play with him. He got pretty tired of having a $3,000+ deck in his bag that rarely came out, so he got rid of it. Such is the crux of owning a combo deck. That is why I generally won't recommend building a combo deck unless it is your tertiary Legacy deck for the purposes of rounding out your meta once in awhile, and you understand that it probably won't come out very often.
Just something to keep in mind as this deck isn't terribly cheap (Bayou, LED's, even Cruel Bargains are at $15, etc) to just build and decide you don't like it/never get the chance to play it.
Be ready to learn how to mulligan with one of the most difficult decks, though. This isn't like Stoneblade where you have a couple lands, some countermagic, and a duder and you can learn how to mulligan fairly quickly. I estimate I goldfished about 300+ hands before I had a strong grasp on what hands to keep and which ones to pitch.
PSI was what I used to play, but you also need to learn how to sideboard correctly if you ever plan on playing outside of your group. I you can't sideboard properly, then you will lose to blue decks just about every time.
It's a fun deck to play, and very rewarding when you master it, but it can also be frustrating at times in comparison to other decks like TES, because when they cast their draw engine (Ad Nauseum), they are most likely going to go off. With this deck, you can draw 16 cards and fizzle. I did that twice in a tourney, with 10 mana floating, didn't draw a win-con, and I was not happy. That usually doesn't (and by usually doesn't I mean almost never) happens with TES.
All in all, you'll have a great time playing it, but if you're just playing casually with friends, I'm not sure you want to build this. They will not enjoy sitting there watching you combo game after game after game, and will not offer to play games against it. Especially if none of them have/play Force of Wills or blue decks in general. A friend of mine had TES built and foiled out for our smaller local Legacy meta (about 15ish people that have real Legacy decks) and outside of tourneys, no one wanted to play with him. He got pretty tired of having a $3,000+ deck in his bag that rarely came out, so he got rid of it. Such is the crux of owning a combo deck. That is why I generally won't recommend building a combo deck unless it is your tertiary Legacy deck for the purposes of rounding out your meta once in awhile, and you understand that it probably won't come out very often.
Just something to keep in mind as this deck isn't terribly cheap (Bayou, LED's, even Cruel Bargains are at $15, etc) to just build and decide you don't like it/never get the chance to play it.
A good description of the deck.
However, I would like to comment on our opponents, something I've said quite often actually. When you are playing storm combo against friends, the only proper way to do it is to play against people who are properly prepared to play against you. Playing against your friend's Goblins deck, for example, does not make you an ******* simply because you are playing combo. It makes him an ******* for not preparing for his combo matchup. I've seen builds that play Thalia and all sorts of combo hate post-board. If someone is playing something incompatible, then they are really the one at the loss. If you're in a situation where playing something good would mean that nobody plays with you, well then you have a different problem. In this case, you want to hang out with Legacy players, typically adults with jobs.
I'm paraphrasing, but I've won and lost countless games with PSI and yet I've heard the following thoughts from control players:
"Man I won/lost but damn that was one of the most fun games of magic I've played in a long time."
There were variations on this of course, but it didn't matter if it was local, non-local, big or small tournament. I've had countless people lose to me and still say it was one of the best games they've ever played, if not the best. The PSI grind plan is immensely fun to play but its also hard to play against. Sometimes, it doesn't work. Sometimes, it sets you far over the top and you do something retarded on turn 1 with 3 different 1cc plays. Most of the time, however, you'll find yourself grinding.
In fact, a specific UB Reanimator matchup in a 50+ event that I topped 8 in. He spent too much life reanimating things and paying life after getting hit with a mini-tendrils that I eventually beat him to death in G3 with a Slithermuse, ESG, and Dryad Arbor. He managed to play 1 dude to block, and killed another, but I only needed to hit him for 1. Epic finish.
Also, I've had a lot of fun with my friends at locals back when I lived in SD by switching between Empty the Warrens focused post-board plans, man-plans, grind plans, and protection plans. Most other decks won't allow you to diversify into alternative builds because SI can make business substitutions to maintain is explosiveness, then again, you can also remove business, add protection, and then you build everything into one turn. PSI is actually a very modular piece of machinery. Just look at VANT where it ported something like 37 cards from PSI.
However, I would like to comment on our opponents, something I've said quite often actually. When you are playing storm combo against friends, the only proper way to do it is to play against people who are properly prepared to play against you. Playing against your friend's Goblins deck, for example, does not make you an ******* simply because you are playing combo. It makes him an ******* for not preparing for his combo matchup. I've seen builds that play Thalia and all sorts of combo hate post-board. If someone is playing something incompatible, then they are really the one at the loss. If you're in a situation where playing something good would mean that nobody plays with you, well then you have a different problem. In this case, you want to hang out with Legacy players, typically adults with jobs.
I'm paraphrasing, but I've won and lost countless games with PSI and yet I've heard the following thoughts from control players:
"Man I won/lost but damn that was one of the most fun games of magic I've played in a long time."
There were variations on this of course, but it didn't matter if it was local, non-local, big or small tournament. I've had countless people lose to me and still say it was one of the best games they've ever played, if not the best. The PSI grind plan is immensely fun to play but its also hard to play against. Sometimes, it doesn't work. Sometimes, it sets you far over the top and you do something retarded on turn 1 with 3 different 1cc plays. Most of the time, however, you'll find yourself grinding.
In fact, a specific UB Reanimator matchup in a 50+ event that I topped 8 in. He spent too much life reanimating things and paying life after getting hit with a mini-tendrils that I eventually beat him to death in G3 with a Slithermuse, ESG, and Dryad Arbor. He managed to play 1 dude to block, and killed another, but I only needed to hit him for 1. Epic finish.
Also, I've had a lot of fun with my friends at locals back when I lived in SD by switching between Empty the Warrens focused post-board plans, man-plans, grind plans, and protection plans. Most other decks won't allow you to diversify into alternative builds because SI can make business substitutions to maintain is explosiveness, then again, you can also remove business, add protection, and then you build everything into one turn. PSI is actually a very modular piece of machinery. Just look at VANT where it ported something like 37 cards from PSI.
Very good points. In my experiences, though, when someone says "casual Legacy" I take it to mean one or more of the following:
A) They play a pet homebrew deck of their own, because they can use most any card ever printed.
B) They play a "Tier 1.5 or lower" (I use quotes because, as we all know, a great deal of decks in Legacy that may not be seeing play right now can conquer certain metas or tourneys, and the meta shifts constantly) that is, once again a pet deck.
C) They play budget versions of top tier decks.
In those three cases, I generally find that players that fall within these categories are reluctant to play against "degenerate" decks and most often take their loss once, then never play against combo again.
It takes a certain kind of player (even "serious" players) to actively enjoy sitting across from a combo player, and they are either combo players themselves, or have an interest in combo decks. If this person's meta is filled with these sorts of casual players, or players that would like to learn how to play against combo, then I say press on and build the deck. But sadly, there are quite a few casual players out there that would rather sulk in a corner about how unfair the deck is, say things like "this isn't how the game is supposed to be played", refuse to adapt, and return to their vacuum of decks that turn Craw Wurms sideways.
I understand that may sound a little harsh and bitter, but I am merely speaking from experience. And there isn't anything to say that they are wrong...in regards to themselves and their playgroup. That may not be how they enjoy playing the game, and that's perfectly fine. We all play for different reasons and have different playstyles, which is natural in a game with as much variation as magic.
Bottom line, if you know how your gaming group will react to a combo deck, then more power to you. But if you aren't sure, keep in mind that combo decks tend to clash with many of their opinions on magic. Especially a combo deck that has the capability to frequently combo on turn one.
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I should elaborate. The group I play with doesn't even play with legacy decks, or even close to, for that matter. When I said casual, I mean, like, their the kind of group that buys a deck of cards from the local store on occasion. Except for myself that is, I just got really into Legacy, despite having no one to play against properly. But they are all pretty excepting of it, they know I don't do it cause I want to crush them all in a few turns, it's just because I love the concept of the deck and the style of play. That said, I'd take it easy with this one. The other reason is, because I have no one to verse, I generally like really non interactive decks. So I can atleast sit alone in my room and goldfish the deck for hours on end. As sad as that is.
EDIT:
Just realised I never asked: Is the PSI list on the OP up to date? If not, would someone be able to post or link me to one that is?
Thats how I started, just goldfishing for hours. I like to listen to lectures by guys like Terence Mckenna, Alan Watts, Aldous Huxley, etc. or listen to music. Eventually, the goldfishing just becomes automatic behavior.
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I ported over to this thread from the MTGthesource thread. I'm really liking this deck and plan on making it, but I still have some hard times sideboarding. Could you give me a little advice on what is good when, and why?
Also, just out of curiosity is this deck more or less stable than TinFins, the other main T1 combo in Legacy?
As far as sideboarding goes, you can classify your choices in terms of local and non-local metagames. So if you're planning on going to a lot of locals, things like man plans are excellent against slower control decks like Stoneblade. The grind plan is good against everything, but weaker against RUG since they can play smart and sandbag the Carpet by holding back on Islands. Empty the Warrens game plans are better when you know your local meta well. I generally bring a grind plan to non-local events.
Honestly I have very little experience with Tin-Fins. The deck doesn't attract me because I'd rather brew new storm variants (like VANT) than something that plays Griz, Entomb, Force, Brainstorm, etc. TinFins isn't really designed to be a T1 combo deck. Its just designed to be faster than SNT with more versatile protection (than storm) in the form of permission. PSI is far less stable than TinFins. Griz will almost surely secure you a win. D4's can brick or sometimes you have to wait a turn. Its worth mentioning though that sometimes when you D4 and just draw jank, you can go off again next turn, its just not a turn 1.
As far as further comparisons to TinFins.. I think they have a very weak sideboard and thats the main problem the deck has currently. Then again, its the same problem that most storm variants have currently, even Belcher. People didn't even care about Belcher sideboards until I kept bugging my Belcher buddies in SD to play Carpet of Flowers. Like 3 years later, it caught on and now everyone plays it standard in the board. PSI's sideboard is quite good, though I think there's still potential to optimize. The grind plan is a very unique strategy to pick apart as a control player. Your opponent has to guess about how many Islands to put down in order to negate or play around Carpet. Your opponent has to make guesses also on the depth of transformation considering the deck is a dark horse, so they cannot possibly know what 15 cards you've brought in unless they are very familiar with Legacy and read these forums. You can play tricks like negating Daze with an ESG, laying down Petal/LED and then pour that mana into a Tomb of Urami (uncounterable manplan dude), you can lead with Duress if you expect Daze (or vice versa depending on how you want to play your hand)... there's a lot of choices to be made. Its not as clear cut as it is with other storm combo decks. They are a bit more straight forward and because you have access to cantrips and discard, these decks are not typically difficult to play. Anyone who tells you otherwise has had little experience with storm combo. In general, PSI is a deck for storm players, experienced pilots, and people who want to play something that feels like it has a strong niche that no other deck can occupy. That (rather attractive) niche is the best mulligans of any other deck in Legacy, the fastest deck in legacy, and one of the least played making it a dark horse (the opponent has to guess rather than out play a metagame or format staples). Also, its the only 'glass house' combo deck that has a half-decent sideboard. Belcher's sideboard is mostly horse **** unless you're playing a micro-wishboard, Carpets/Swarms. And that Oops All the Spells deck cannot have a good sideboard because the deck's main structure is so demanding that there is no space such that a 15 card transformation would make a difference, nor supplementing the maindeck with protection/anti-hate. Thus PSI has maintained its niche for the handful of us that play it.
The Wolf/Thallid swap was because I don't own a Wolf, although interestingly, the Thallid can't be screwed by Deathrite Shaman in response to the Undying trigger. The basic Forest is nuts with Veteran Explorer. I played this sideboard:
I decided to experiment with flashback-able removal spells to further abuse Entomb post-board. Grudge deals with Chalice, Trinisphere, Ethersworn Canonist, Lodestone Golem, and Phyrexian Revoker, among other things. Ray is a concession to people playing bad cards like Leyline of Sanctity. Fatigue is a catch-all hatebear answer that I hoped would shore up my lack of Dread of Night. I'm not sure about the respective numbers of my anti-blue cards - perhaps this could be tweaked based on metagame.
I beat Affinity, Hypergenesis, and Shardless BUG (ID'd against the latter but after playing it out I won easily). None of these were overly difficult matchups - although Hypergenesis threatens FOW + Griselbrand (and I did lose to turn 1 Ethersworn Canonist G2 vs. Affinity lol). Regardless, the deck seemed very powerful and much more consistent than any variant of SI that I have played. Culling the Weak sacrificing Veteran Explorer is one of the most powerful plays I have ever seen in Legacy, and allows for some truly absurd early turns. I'll be following the development of this deck eagerly, the maindeck already seems very solid.
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Legacy: UBRGW T.E.S. UUUSpiral Tide
Modern: UBR Grixis Control
EDH: UB Oona, Queen of the Fae
Combo is a part of magic. If you cant deal with combo then your not a magic player.
Nice work man! I'm glad to hear the deck is working.
I've been thinking that the Entomb plan will be good against certain decks post-board. We still have to figure that out. The deck has a lot of inherent complexity because of all the tutor option. Lately I've been thinking if we want to beat bears, we should just transition into a deck that wins because we drop Deed, blow the board, lay down our artifact sources, and then go to town, with a potential back up beats plan (one dude, 7 tutors). Nobody expects you to play Deed, and the basics mean we can crack it for enough quite easily to blow up things. It might even be worth playing in the post-board against control since it blows up things like Jace, Lili, CB, Batterskull, basically we can force a situation where they have to find another win condition, much like we would with Abrupt Decay but Decay isn't quite as good in the aggro matchup because we can't hit multiple targets. This will allow us to blow up as many things as TES would with Burning Wish flexibility. Also, we are way better at slow playing control than the other combo decks because we have more basics, and Explorers for more basics, and that will compliment a boarding plan.
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Nice work man! I'm glad to hear the deck is working.
I've been thinking that the Entomb plan will be good against certain decks post-board. We still have to figure that out. The deck has a lot of inherent complexity because of all the tutor option. Lately I've been thinking if we want to beat bears, we should just transition into a deck that wins because we drop Deed, blow the board, lay down our artifact sources, and then go to town, with a potential back up beats plan (one dude, 7 tutors). Nobody expects you to play Deed, and the basics mean we can crack it for enough quite easily to blow up things. It might even be worth playing in the post-board against control since it blows up things like Jace, Lili, CB, Batterskull, basically we can force a situation where they have to find another win condition, much like we would with Abrupt Decay but Decay isn't quite as good in the aggro matchup because we can't hit multiple targets. This will allow us to blow up as many things as TES would with Burning Wish flexibility. Also, we are way better at slow playing control than the other combo decks because we have more basics, and Explorers for more basics, and that will compliment a boarding plan.
Deed doesn't kill planeswalkers but otherwise this seems like a good analysis. I'm hesitant to drop Decay because CB is still a thing, but Deed seems like something that needs to be explored regardless. I will be playing this deck more in the near future, so hopefully I'll have some more results to report.
Now we're talking! I really like the idea of playing more on precise threat handling with the help of Entomb. But is it a chance that people will SB in gravehate after seeing Entomb G1?
This has already happened to me because we run Past in Flames as well. But think about it this way - if your opponent is boarding yard hate against an aggressive storm combo deck, you're probably already ahead. You can also pre-empt this by just boarding out PIF for Empty the Warrens. Entomb for Ancient Grudge will solve artifact grave hate as well.
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Legacy: UBRGW T.E.S. UUUSpiral Tide
Modern: UBR Grixis Control
EDH: UB Oona, Queen of the Fae
Combo is a part of magic. If you cant deal with combo then your not a magic player.
Entomb will be good for finding flashbackable hate against certain decks, but only against decks like Goblins where you know they don't have that much board space for the combo matchup. Otherwise, these days we can expect at least half a-side board comes in for the combo matchup. I think the power of Entomb gives us a lot of leverage moving into the post-board. Think about it, first we look like Nic Fit for a couple turns as we set up, and then go off as storm combo. But in the process, the opponent will see a lot of our deck if we play Ad Nauseam, and possibly expect some kind of Entomb plan in the post-board. Either way, I think we should develop multiple sideboard transformations simply because we can transform into a deck that loves Entomb, plays Deeds, and reanimates Griz (we can hard cast Griz in many cases). Then we can have a purely non-Entomb based sideboard because we have opponents who expect a graveyard based strategy of some kind because they see Entombs, so they board in dead graveyard hate against us. Then, we can board in some kind of strategy that plays into one of the other tutors. That could mean our post-board focuses on, say, Deeds and Summoner's Pact. It could also focus on a man plan like Phyrexian Obliterator's and Desecration Demons, and additional discard (and like one Deed its too good not to play). We could also focus on a protection plan that incorporates Carpet, Xantid, Thoughtseize, and Abrupt Decay. There are a lot of ways to approach the board. I encourage everyone to try different things because the flexibility of this deck structure provides a unique pilot style. After all, combo is supposed to win game 1 by surprise, and no storm combo deck is better than hiding its strategy than Ad Nauseam that looks like Nic Fit. The game 2/3 is really where the combo player has to thrive and that means finding the strategy that works for you. The man plan has been quite fun to play so far as has the protection plans. I have yet to work with Entomb and Summoner's Pact to see if I can find a good variation. I'll try to get to that today.
I've been looking at Mistcutter Hydra as a potential Pact target in a variation that keeps in the Pacts post-board. Its more than doable if you consider the sheer amount of lands we can get out to pay for Pact triggers. Hydra could be as big as a 8/8 if we are just sitting on a bunch of mana and then draw a Pact when we are trying to deal with a heavy permission suite from something like Stoneblade.
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I played the following hands by keeping every 7 card hand that I drew, even if it lacked the proper components of a good hand. I did this to test how well the deck plays when you aren’t mulliganing. This will be good data for thinking about decks like Pox and heavy discard variants. We want to be able to hold onto as many resources as possible. Thankfully, we are fast enough to beat Pox before they gain momentum, and if they do, well, we have plenty of basics and artifact sources to trigger PIF.
- 20 hands, no mulligans
G1: Turn 1 kill
G2: Turn 3 kill with Therapy
G3: Turn 4 kill with Therapy flashback
G4: Turn 1 kill
G5: Turn 4 kill double therapy flashback
G6: Turn 2 kill with therapy
G7: Turn 4 kill with Therapy flashback (should have mulliganed)
G8: Turn 3 kill with Therapy
G9: Turn 5 kill with therapy (should have mulliganed)
G10: Turn 3 kill with double business
G11: Turn 2 kill with Therapy
G12: Turn 7 kill (PIF) with double Therapy
G13: Turn 2 kill
G14: Turn 5 kill
G15: Turn 4 kill with Therapy
G16: Turn 3 kill
G17: Turn 7 kill (PIF) with triple Therapy
G18: Turn 6 kill with Ad Nauseam
G19: Turn 3 kill with Therapy flashback
G20: Turn 4 kill with Therapy
Avg. turn as a goldfish turn 3.65 (out of 20 hands, no mulligans)
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Luck is a residue of design.
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Hey guys, going to a Legacy Event this Sunday. Unfortunately, I didn't get enough time to gather all of the cards for VANT, so I'll be playing PSI. My current list:
Sorcery (20)
4x Cruel Bargain
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Ill-Gotten Gains
4x Infernal Contract
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Land Grant
2x Tendrils of Agony
Instant (16)
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Culling the Weak
4x Dark Ritual
4x Summoner's Pact
Artifact (15)
4x Chrome Mox
3x Goblin Charbelcher
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal
Creature (7)
1x Deathrite Shaman
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
1x Skyshroud Cutter
1x Wild Cantor
Land (2)
1x Bayou
1x Dryad Arbor
Sideboard (15)
4x Carpet of Flowers
4x Thoughtseize
3x Tomb of Urami
4x Xantid Swarm
The meta is unknown, a new venue for me personally. I don't think I'm missing anything too important, but I'll try to take enough notes for a report when I get back.
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Making an entirely multicolor cube!
Currently Playing: BG PSI BG RUW RAKA CONTROL RUW RUGW SCAPESHIFT RUGW
Nice, your list looks pretty solid. Xantid is really a metagame choice. Xantid Swarms are most effective against Merfolk, but they are also pretty good against Stoneblade. Tombs are most effective against slower control decks like Stoneblade. Thoughtseizes ought to come in against blue combo but don't board in too much or you won't be fast enough to race them. It depends on the combo though. High Tide variants are easier because Carpet is so good. The Show and Tell, Omnitell, Hivemind, etc. decks can win very quickly and without more than a single Island. Only board in Thoughtseize and Xantid here that way Belcher connects. If you were playing more discard disruption you could probably also play Carpet. If your protection can't also disrupt your opponent, its a bit harder to justify boarding in Carpet when they can just ignore your 2nd protection spell. In game 3 on the play, against blue combo, unboard into the maindeck, because racing Force is stronger when you're on the play.
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BUG Pact Spanish Inquisition BUG U Solidarity U
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life: http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
So I played VANT at another local tournament. This time I got crushed 0-3, losing to Stoneblade, Canadian Threshold, and Pox (you may laugh, but mass discard + LD is really bad for this deck lol). It didn't help that the RUG player both boarded in and drew Rough/Tumble despite seeing no sign of ETW (when I had boarded it in thinking myself clever). My hands were quite bad and I mulliganned a lot, but I think I should have mulled more aggressively in several cases as durdly hands just don't do well against discard. The RUG match I didn't really have a chance, mulled a lot and just got overwhelmed with countermagic. Stoneblade I actually could have won G3 if I hadn't boarded out Witness like an idiot (I came up with an extremely convoluted play to win when all I had was Pact and Entomb but was at 1 life). PSA: Never board out Witness.
The conclusion I took from this, as well as some thoughts that were building in my own goldfish testing, is as follows. This deck has too many durdly cards. The Entomb and Pact package are both awesome, but if you draw too many of either (especially duplicate Entombs) your deck doesn't do anything. This happened to me a lot yesterday - I went at least one whole match without seeing LED but drew plenty of Entombs, Pacts, and dudes. Also - and this is key - Past in Flames is quite bad in this deck. Out of TES, ANT, and this build, Past in Flames is by far the worst here despite Entomb, and the reason for that is we lack sufficient rituals to make it good. The other two decks can both cantrip into a stack of rituals which makes PIF insane, we cannot do that and flashing back Culling the Weak is often dodgy because we don't always have that second creature.
There are two solutions to this problem. The first is to play large amounts of red including Burning Wish, Tinder Wall, and Rite of Flame (I assume this is what Direlemming is doing although I haven't seen his list). This would make Past in Flames good as well as make casting Empty the Warrens easier, while alleviating the strain placed on our creature base by playing both CTW and Diabolic Intent (along with Therapy flashbacks). However, we would likely have to axe the Entomb package to make room. The second solution (if we want to stay largely G/B) is Vacrix's worst nightmare: play Cabal Ritual :o. While I'm aware the card is vulnerable to every taxing counter ever, we need another ritual and that's really the only candidate. Threshold is pretty easy to reach in this deck with all the Pacting, Entombing, and sacrificing things. I would suggest cutting an Entomb, an ESG, and one other mystery card (A Pact or a second Entomb maybe) for 3 Cabal Ritual initially. I'd like 4 but making cuts is very difficult. Thoughts?
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Legacy: UBRGW T.E.S. UUUSpiral Tide
Modern: UBR Grixis Control
EDH: UB Oona, Queen of the Fae
Combo is a part of magic. If you cant deal with combo then your not a magic player.
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1 Thrun
3 GSZ
1 Primeval Titan
1 Thragtusk
2 Loam
3 Wasteland
1 Volrath's Stronghold
3 Liliana
I would board out (probably wrong)
4 Pact
4 Led
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Past in Flames
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils
It ran okay. but lacked removal like deeds/decay/pulse. It grinded really well though. But it was still a janky nic fit list with a bunch of rituals, which made me think why push nic fit transform, when we could still get good creatures (Tomb/Oblit) without losing all our sideboard slots and still have a chance to combo off.
I might have found something that would work. Skullmulcher can be a potential Pact target to combo with Empty the Warrens. The thing is sometimes you don't need Pact with Empty the Warrens. Its a 9 mana combo, but you can exploit LED and Empty in the same hand because you can Empty first, and then float GGG before Pact. The deck has so much mana that this line of play is possible as early as turn 2. It allows us to race other combo decks and aggro decks with fast turn 3's that would prevent us from going for Ad Nauseam. More importantly, when our opponent's drop Batterskull or start to develop a board state that will surely stabilize, we need our business chain to lead to Tendrils. With Skullmulcher, Summoner's Pact allows us to pour all our tokens into a new hand and huge guy. Even better against Miracles, if they play Terminus against us, we can just Pact for it again. In slower games, we can play tricks with Eternal Witness as well to grab Empty the Warrens again. The deck usually fetches a lot of lands, and I find myself with 5 or 6 lands against slower control decks like Miracles. That typically means when they land a Batterskull, you can safely pour your hand into Empty, and hold back on your Pact. Pact can then fuel something with Skullmulcher, or even other business you've already used via Eternal Witness. Also, Entomb can be far more valuable if you draw it while you close on their life total with tokens, because it means Eternal Witness can grab Ad Nauseam, Tendrils, PIF, or Empty the Warrens depending upon how your opponents board state develops.
EDIT:
Skullmulcher might also prove useful in smoothing out hands in which you have mostly mana, creatures, and Summoner's Pact/Tendrils as your business spells. Skullmulcher could allow us to draw extra cards to reach 10 storm.
U Solidarity U
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
U Solidarity U
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
U Solidarity U
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
I was suggesting diabolic revelation as a single copy, i.e. an ad naseam replacement. IT, crack LED, find diabolic revelation, cast for x=6, proceed to win.
But with revelation, you're cherry picking. You don't need a dozen or 2 cards. If you can't win from zero mana with any 6 cards of your choosing, especially after you've already racked up 4-6 storm, perhaps you're doing it wrong?
So I'm wanting to buy this deck, but I was wondering what build or version goes off on turn one the most. Also I'm wanting to build a version pretty much with no protection, if I could instead add cards that would bolster the consistency then I will. Because I don't play legacy competitively, just casually with some friends, so FoW wont ever be an issue.
Be ready to learn how to mulligan with one of the most difficult decks, though. This isn't like Stoneblade where you have a couple lands, some countermagic, and a duder and you can learn how to mulligan fairly quickly. I estimate I goldfished about 300+ hands before I had a strong grasp on what hands to keep and which ones to pitch.
PSI was what I used to play, but you also need to learn how to sideboard correctly if you ever plan on playing outside of your group. I you can't sideboard properly, then you will lose to blue decks just about every time.
It's a fun deck to play, and very rewarding when you master it, but it can also be frustrating at times in comparison to other decks like TES, because when they cast their draw engine (Ad Nauseum), they are most likely going to go off. With this deck, you can draw 16 cards and fizzle. I did that twice in a tourney, with 10 mana floating, didn't draw a win-con, and I was not happy. That usually doesn't (and by usually doesn't I mean almost never) happens with TES.
All in all, you'll have a great time playing it, but if you're just playing casually with friends, I'm not sure you want to build this. They will not enjoy sitting there watching you combo game after game after game, and will not offer to play games against it. Especially if none of them have/play Force of Wills or blue decks in general. A friend of mine had TES built and foiled out for our smaller local Legacy meta (about 15ish people that have real Legacy decks) and outside of tourneys, no one wanted to play with him. He got pretty tired of having a $3,000+ deck in his bag that rarely came out, so he got rid of it. Such is the crux of owning a combo deck. That is why I generally won't recommend building a combo deck unless it is your tertiary Legacy deck for the purposes of rounding out your meta once in awhile, and you understand that it probably won't come out very often.
Just something to keep in mind as this deck isn't terribly cheap (Bayou, LED's, even Cruel Bargains are at $15, etc) to just build and decide you don't like it/never get the chance to play it.
Avatar and Banner made by R&Doom of the Ye Olde Sig and Avatar Shoppe
On the topic of Moat:
A good description of the deck.
However, I would like to comment on our opponents, something I've said quite often actually. When you are playing storm combo against friends, the only proper way to do it is to play against people who are properly prepared to play against you. Playing against your friend's Goblins deck, for example, does not make you an ******* simply because you are playing combo. It makes him an ******* for not preparing for his combo matchup. I've seen builds that play Thalia and all sorts of combo hate post-board. If someone is playing something incompatible, then they are really the one at the loss. If you're in a situation where playing something good would mean that nobody plays with you, well then you have a different problem. In this case, you want to hang out with Legacy players, typically adults with jobs.
I'm paraphrasing, but I've won and lost countless games with PSI and yet I've heard the following thoughts from control players:
"Man I won/lost but damn that was one of the most fun games of magic I've played in a long time."
There were variations on this of course, but it didn't matter if it was local, non-local, big or small tournament. I've had countless people lose to me and still say it was one of the best games they've ever played, if not the best. The PSI grind plan is immensely fun to play but its also hard to play against. Sometimes, it doesn't work. Sometimes, it sets you far over the top and you do something retarded on turn 1 with 3 different 1cc plays. Most of the time, however, you'll find yourself grinding.
In fact, a specific UB Reanimator matchup in a 50+ event that I topped 8 in. He spent too much life reanimating things and paying life after getting hit with a mini-tendrils that I eventually beat him to death in G3 with a Slithermuse, ESG, and Dryad Arbor. He managed to play 1 dude to block, and killed another, but I only needed to hit him for 1. Epic finish.
Also, I've had a lot of fun with my friends at locals back when I lived in SD by switching between Empty the Warrens focused post-board plans, man-plans, grind plans, and protection plans. Most other decks won't allow you to diversify into alternative builds because SI can make business substitutions to maintain is explosiveness, then again, you can also remove business, add protection, and then you build everything into one turn. PSI is actually a very modular piece of machinery. Just look at VANT where it ported something like 37 cards from PSI.
U Solidarity U
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Very good points. In my experiences, though, when someone says "casual Legacy" I take it to mean one or more of the following:
A) They play a pet homebrew deck of their own, because they can use most any card ever printed.
B) They play a "Tier 1.5 or lower" (I use quotes because, as we all know, a great deal of decks in Legacy that may not be seeing play right now can conquer certain metas or tourneys, and the meta shifts constantly) that is, once again a pet deck.
C) They play budget versions of top tier decks.
In those three cases, I generally find that players that fall within these categories are reluctant to play against "degenerate" decks and most often take their loss once, then never play against combo again.
It takes a certain kind of player (even "serious" players) to actively enjoy sitting across from a combo player, and they are either combo players themselves, or have an interest in combo decks. If this person's meta is filled with these sorts of casual players, or players that would like to learn how to play against combo, then I say press on and build the deck. But sadly, there are quite a few casual players out there that would rather sulk in a corner about how unfair the deck is, say things like "this isn't how the game is supposed to be played", refuse to adapt, and return to their vacuum of decks that turn Craw Wurms sideways.
I understand that may sound a little harsh and bitter, but I am merely speaking from experience. And there isn't anything to say that they are wrong...in regards to themselves and their playgroup. That may not be how they enjoy playing the game, and that's perfectly fine. We all play for different reasons and have different playstyles, which is natural in a game with as much variation as magic.
Bottom line, if you know how your gaming group will react to a combo deck, then more power to you. But if you aren't sure, keep in mind that combo decks tend to clash with many of their opinions on magic. Especially a combo deck that has the capability to frequently combo on turn one.
Avatar and Banner made by R&Doom of the Ye Olde Sig and Avatar Shoppe
On the topic of Moat:
I should elaborate. The group I play with doesn't even play with legacy decks, or even close to, for that matter. When I said casual, I mean, like, their the kind of group that buys a deck of cards from the local store on occasion. Except for myself that is, I just got really into Legacy, despite having no one to play against properly. But they are all pretty excepting of it, they know I don't do it cause I want to crush them all in a few turns, it's just because I love the concept of the deck and the style of play. That said, I'd take it easy with this one. The other reason is, because I have no one to verse, I generally like really non interactive decks. So I can atleast sit alone in my room and goldfish the deck for hours on end. As sad as that is.
EDIT:
Just realised I never asked: Is the PSI list on the OP up to date? If not, would someone be able to post or link me to one that is?
U Solidarity U
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
I ported over to this thread from the MTGthesource thread. I'm really liking this deck and plan on making it, but I still have some hard times sideboarding. Could you give me a little advice on what is good when, and why?
Also, just out of curiosity is this deck more or less stable than TinFins, the other main T1 combo in Legacy?
Thanks in Advance, Manroe.
Honestly I have very little experience with Tin-Fins. The deck doesn't attract me because I'd rather brew new storm variants (like VANT) than something that plays Griz, Entomb, Force, Brainstorm, etc. TinFins isn't really designed to be a T1 combo deck. Its just designed to be faster than SNT with more versatile protection (than storm) in the form of permission. PSI is far less stable than TinFins. Griz will almost surely secure you a win. D4's can brick or sometimes you have to wait a turn. Its worth mentioning though that sometimes when you D4 and just draw jank, you can go off again next turn, its just not a turn 1.
As far as further comparisons to TinFins.. I think they have a very weak sideboard and thats the main problem the deck has currently. Then again, its the same problem that most storm variants have currently, even Belcher. People didn't even care about Belcher sideboards until I kept bugging my Belcher buddies in SD to play Carpet of Flowers. Like 3 years later, it caught on and now everyone plays it standard in the board. PSI's sideboard is quite good, though I think there's still potential to optimize. The grind plan is a very unique strategy to pick apart as a control player. Your opponent has to guess about how many Islands to put down in order to negate or play around Carpet. Your opponent has to make guesses also on the depth of transformation considering the deck is a dark horse, so they cannot possibly know what 15 cards you've brought in unless they are very familiar with Legacy and read these forums. You can play tricks like negating Daze with an ESG, laying down Petal/LED and then pour that mana into a Tomb of Urami (uncounterable manplan dude), you can lead with Duress if you expect Daze (or vice versa depending on how you want to play your hand)... there's a lot of choices to be made. Its not as clear cut as it is with other storm combo decks. They are a bit more straight forward and because you have access to cantrips and discard, these decks are not typically difficult to play. Anyone who tells you otherwise has had little experience with storm combo. In general, PSI is a deck for storm players, experienced pilots, and people who want to play something that feels like it has a strong niche that no other deck can occupy. That (rather attractive) niche is the best mulligans of any other deck in Legacy, the fastest deck in legacy, and one of the least played making it a dark horse (the opponent has to guess rather than out play a metagame or format staples). Also, its the only 'glass house' combo deck that has a half-decent sideboard. Belcher's sideboard is mostly horse **** unless you're playing a micro-wishboard, Carpets/Swarms. And that Oops All the Spells deck cannot have a good sideboard because the deck's main structure is so demanding that there is no space such that a 15 card transformation would make a difference, nor supplementing the maindeck with protection/anti-hate. Thus PSI has maintained its niche for the handful of us that play it.
U Solidarity U
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Vacrix I top-4d my local playing this list with two small changes:
-1 Young Wolf
-1 Swamp
+1 Tukatongue Thallid
+1 Forest
The Wolf/Thallid swap was because I don't own a Wolf, although interestingly, the Thallid can't be screwed by Deathrite Shaman in response to the Undying trigger. The basic Forest is nuts with Veteran Explorer. I played this sideboard:
2 Xantid Swarm
3 Carpet of Flowers
3 Autumn's Veil
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Crippling Fatigue
1 Empty the Warrens
I decided to experiment with flashback-able removal spells to further abuse Entomb post-board. Grudge deals with Chalice, Trinisphere, Ethersworn Canonist, Lodestone Golem, and Phyrexian Revoker, among other things. Ray is a concession to people playing bad cards like Leyline of Sanctity. Fatigue is a catch-all hatebear answer that I hoped would shore up my lack of Dread of Night. I'm not sure about the respective numbers of my anti-blue cards - perhaps this could be tweaked based on metagame.
I beat Affinity, Hypergenesis, and Shardless BUG (ID'd against the latter but after playing it out I won easily). None of these were overly difficult matchups - although Hypergenesis threatens FOW + Griselbrand (and I did lose to turn 1 Ethersworn Canonist G2 vs. Affinity lol). Regardless, the deck seemed very powerful and much more consistent than any variant of SI that I have played. Culling the Weak sacrificing Veteran Explorer is one of the most powerful plays I have ever seen in Legacy, and allows for some truly absurd early turns. I'll be following the development of this deck eagerly, the maindeck already seems very solid.
UBRGW T.E.S.
UUUSpiral Tide
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
EDH:
UB Oona, Queen of the Fae
Combo is a part of magic. If you cant deal with combo then your not a magic player.
I've been thinking that the Entomb plan will be good against certain decks post-board. We still have to figure that out. The deck has a lot of inherent complexity because of all the tutor option. Lately I've been thinking if we want to beat bears, we should just transition into a deck that wins because we drop Deed, blow the board, lay down our artifact sources, and then go to town, with a potential back up beats plan (one dude, 7 tutors). Nobody expects you to play Deed, and the basics mean we can crack it for enough quite easily to blow up things. It might even be worth playing in the post-board against control since it blows up things like Jace, Lili, CB, Batterskull, basically we can force a situation where they have to find another win condition, much like we would with Abrupt Decay but Decay isn't quite as good in the aggro matchup because we can't hit multiple targets. This will allow us to blow up as many things as TES would with Burning Wish flexibility. Also, we are way better at slow playing control than the other combo decks because we have more basics, and Explorers for more basics, and that will compliment a boarding plan.
U Solidarity U
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Deed doesn't kill planeswalkers but otherwise this seems like a good analysis. I'm hesitant to drop Decay because CB is still a thing, but Deed seems like something that needs to be explored regardless. I will be playing this deck more in the near future, so hopefully I'll have some more results to report.
This has already happened to me because we run Past in Flames as well. But think about it this way - if your opponent is boarding yard hate against an aggressive storm combo deck, you're probably already ahead. You can also pre-empt this by just boarding out PIF for Empty the Warrens. Entomb for Ancient Grudge will solve artifact grave hate as well.
UBRGW T.E.S.
UUUSpiral Tide
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
EDH:
UB Oona, Queen of the Fae
Combo is a part of magic. If you cant deal with combo then your not a magic player.
I've been looking at Mistcutter Hydra as a potential Pact target in a variation that keeps in the Pacts post-board. Its more than doable if you consider the sheer amount of lands we can get out to pay for Pact triggers. Hydra could be as big as a 8/8 if we are just sitting on a bunch of mana and then draw a Pact when we are trying to deal with a heavy permission suite from something like Stoneblade.
U Solidarity U
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
I played the following hands by keeping every 7 card hand that I drew, even if it lacked the proper components of a good hand. I did this to test how well the deck plays when you aren’t mulliganing. This will be good data for thinking about decks like Pox and heavy discard variants. We want to be able to hold onto as many resources as possible. Thankfully, we are fast enough to beat Pox before they gain momentum, and if they do, well, we have plenty of basics and artifact sources to trigger PIF.
- 20 hands, no mulligans
G1: Turn 1 kill
G2: Turn 3 kill with Therapy
G3: Turn 4 kill with Therapy flashback
G4: Turn 1 kill
G5: Turn 4 kill double therapy flashback
G6: Turn 2 kill with therapy
G7: Turn 4 kill with Therapy flashback (should have mulliganed)
G8: Turn 3 kill with Therapy
G9: Turn 5 kill with therapy (should have mulliganed)
G10: Turn 3 kill with double business
G11: Turn 2 kill with Therapy
G12: Turn 7 kill (PIF) with double Therapy
G13: Turn 2 kill
G14: Turn 5 kill
G15: Turn 4 kill with Therapy
G16: Turn 3 kill
G17: Turn 7 kill (PIF) with triple Therapy
G18: Turn 6 kill with Ad Nauseam
G19: Turn 3 kill with Therapy flashback
G20: Turn 4 kill with Therapy
Avg. turn as a goldfish turn 3.65 (out of 20 hands, no mulligans)
U Solidarity U
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Sorcery (20)
4x Cruel Bargain
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Ill-Gotten Gains
4x Infernal Contract
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Land Grant
2x Tendrils of Agony
Instant (16)
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Culling the Weak
4x Dark Ritual
4x Summoner's Pact
Artifact (15)
4x Chrome Mox
3x Goblin Charbelcher
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal
Creature (7)
1x Deathrite Shaman
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
1x Skyshroud Cutter
1x Wild Cantor
Land (2)
1x Bayou
1x Dryad Arbor
Sideboard (15)
4x Carpet of Flowers
4x Thoughtseize
3x Tomb of Urami
4x Xantid Swarm
The meta is unknown, a new venue for me personally. I don't think I'm missing anything too important, but I'll try to take enough notes for a report when I get back.
Currently Playing:
BG PSI BG
RUW RAKA CONTROL RUW
RUGW SCAPESHIFT RUGW
U Solidarity U
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
The conclusion I took from this, as well as some thoughts that were building in my own goldfish testing, is as follows. This deck has too many durdly cards. The Entomb and Pact package are both awesome, but if you draw too many of either (especially duplicate Entombs) your deck doesn't do anything. This happened to me a lot yesterday - I went at least one whole match without seeing LED but drew plenty of Entombs, Pacts, and dudes. Also - and this is key - Past in Flames is quite bad in this deck. Out of TES, ANT, and this build, Past in Flames is by far the worst here despite Entomb, and the reason for that is we lack sufficient rituals to make it good. The other two decks can both cantrip into a stack of rituals which makes PIF insane, we cannot do that and flashing back Culling the Weak is often dodgy because we don't always have that second creature.
There are two solutions to this problem. The first is to play large amounts of red including Burning Wish, Tinder Wall, and Rite of Flame (I assume this is what Direlemming is doing although I haven't seen his list). This would make Past in Flames good as well as make casting Empty the Warrens easier, while alleviating the strain placed on our creature base by playing both CTW and Diabolic Intent (along with Therapy flashbacks). However, we would likely have to axe the Entomb package to make room. The second solution (if we want to stay largely G/B) is Vacrix's worst nightmare: play Cabal Ritual :o. While I'm aware the card is vulnerable to every taxing counter ever, we need another ritual and that's really the only candidate. Threshold is pretty easy to reach in this deck with all the Pacting, Entombing, and sacrificing things. I would suggest cutting an Entomb, an ESG, and one other mystery card (A Pact or a second Entomb maybe) for 3 Cabal Ritual initially. I'd like 4 but making cuts is very difficult. Thoughts?
UBRGW T.E.S.
UUUSpiral Tide
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
EDH:
UB Oona, Queen of the Fae
Combo is a part of magic. If you cant deal with combo then your not a magic player.