MTG Salvation

Exactly! If nexus is the last card and you have enough lands to cast it, you can take infinite turns. Although you do lose if you don't have a way to win from there

Nexus of Fate has been a great card in my list at least. Endstep Nexus is often GGs, which is how it should be for 7 cmc spells. But it's also guaranteed inevitability (Like Jace too) in that you win if the game goes on forever. So having control cards that just-so-happen to be Lab-Mans, even without the combo pieces (e.g. Demonic Consultation), spawns true control decks that don't really care for any finishers. It's a cool archetype that wasn't supported before!

Quote from wtwlf123 »

Oracle is also playable in quite a few places. But the Jace and the Maniac I feel are too narrow, and would only ever see play in the combo deck.

Both Doomsday and Inverter of Truth are also quite narrow, and would likely also be combo-exclusive cards.

I agree with everything you've said except for Jace. I actually had the exact same opinion on Jace before I tried it. It seems clunky, but it has played out so much better than I thought. It has seen plenty of play without the combo over here. It's not the best option by any means, but it's a fine Coercive Portal Variant. I wouldn't advocate for it without the combo, but I don't try and wheel it like I do for many combo pieces because people pick it up and play it!

I think one of the important things to understand is that both Demonic Consultation and Tainted Pact are much more playable outside of the combo than they look. Tainted Pact much more than Consultation to be clear. Consider the following:

1 - You can ALWAYS stop when you hit the first basic. Meaning that Tainted Pact, if you don't want to take any risk, is at worst "draw a basic land".
2 - If you really need a specific set of cards, "exile the top N cards that are not the specific cards that you need" is actually a good card. It's pretty similar to "Scry 1, repeat N times", except if you aren't bottoming everything, you draw the card you want.
3 - If you don't really need a specific set of cards, but a basic is unacceptable, then you can cast it like Anticipate. The probability of hitting two of the same basic in the top 3 in a deck with 8 basics of two colors is under 20%. And I would argue that's the worst case manabase.

Conclusion: Tainted Pact is a generically good card that I believe most cubes should include even without this combo. And part of that, in my opinion, is motivation to run the combo. The only deck I tend to exclude pact from is mono-B aggro.

Demonic Consultation is much better in the combo of course, and much worse without it. But let's still evaluate it outside of the mill-yourself-combo:

1 - This card should only be played in combo decks, since that's where the maximal ceiling of tutoring is, which helps the math check out to be worth it.
2 - Let's say a game of cube has gone pretty late. So there's 24 cards left in your library. If there is a card in your deck that reads "win the game" (e.g. Twin combo, persist combo, sneak attack, etc.), then casting Demonic Consultation reads "75% you win, 25% you lose". Those odds are good.
3 - On the other side of the same math, if you're a blue deck and your opponent is casting something that reads "win the game", a 1cmc instant tutor that says "25% I lose, 75% I counter my opponent's game winning spell -- those odds are really closer to say 35% and 65% because you can't burn through your whole deck" is a good card.

Conclusion: Demonic Consultation ends up in sideboards a good chunk of the time. But blue-based combo decks tend to play it. These decks often have looting effects to mitigate dead cards as well as ways to set up the library (e.g. Brainstorm, Scroll Rack, Top, JTMS, etc) to also mitigate the risk of Consultation. I will splash this card in my URb Twin deck. I will play it in Sneak Attack. I consider it in even versions of BR Wildfire and Reanimator. Is it the best card, no. But it's more playable than cards like Pestermite outside of its respective combo deck.

As a last note, because I feel like I have to keep saying it, if you want to support this archetype you should definitely play Nexus of Fate. There's a large difference between 2 and 3 cards that support a combo. At 540, this brings the probability of seeing a combo piece from 88% to 96%!

I have been playing this since the release of THB and it has been AWESOME!

1 - Tainted Pact can be played like an Impulse variant in almost every black deck.
2 - While Thassa's Oracle and Jace aren't the best cards, they're fine playables. Much more so than Twin counterparts.
3 - Laboratory Maniac is too bad to include IMO, but Nexus of Fate also has redundancy here for infinite turns!

I don't include Doomsday or Inverter of Truths (might add inverter). I think in general you should add Necropotence instead of Doomsday because it can be played outside this deck, but also can burn through your whole library. Similarly, Doom Whisperer is great with it. I also have Hermit Druid for a bit more redundancy, and that card has seen plenty of play in GB reanimator and general G midrange.

There's a lot more redundancy than it looks, and I strongly suggest trying it out. One of my favorite control decks I've ever drafted had zero creatures and Oath of Druids. Oath of Druids lategame would take infinite turns because of Nexus of Fate!