Okay. Before I dive into this idea that I have, I'm going to post a little disclaimer because I can already foresee certain comments being posted if I don't.
Disclaimer: This idea is based off of a combo deck that uses Fluctuator. It's nothing new and it's a combo deck that's been looked at in the past and found to be too fragile for any serious tournament play. However, I've been intrigued by the idea behind the deck and it's got the gears in my brain turning. I thought, perhaps, with new cards to choose from today (as opposed to the original lists that came out years ago), maybe something fun and decently competitive could be built from the original idea.
So. Before anyone posts anything, I know there are better options in terms of choosing competitive decks to play in legacy. This isn't the best choice of a deck if you want to go hardcore in Legacy tournaments but this isn't a casual thread either. This is about building a deck that is competitive enough to not get completely stomped in local tournaments where people do play good decks (but still not probably as good as the stuff played in a Starcity Legacy Open). It's also about the fun of building and playing a deck that's just a little bit different from what everyone else is playing.
Here's how the deck works. For the first game, you try to win ASAP by comboing out on turn 3 or so. This is achieved by dropping two lands and then a Fluctuator and cycling all of your cards away for free until you inevitably run into the other non-cycling cards in your deck which are the remaining Fluctuators, Songs of the Damned, Lotus Petal, Autumn's Veil, Haunting Misery and Darigaaz's Caldera. Once you have those, you can begin going off.
Ideally, on your third turn, drop Caldera, returning a cycling land to your hand (which you can then cycle if need be). Tap Caldera for green and play Autumn's Veil. That's your combo protection. Your hope is that it forces your opponent to have at least two counterspells to stop your combo. Then drop Lotus Petal, cracking it for black to play Songs of the Damned (or Dark Ritual if you prefer to run that instead) to play Haunting Misery for the win.
Because the deck runs 28 creatures, you're likely to have enough creatures in your graveyard to make it an instant win. Surprise! This is not a deck that's seen often and my bet is that this deck can sneak some 1st game wins in simply because your opponents have no idea what you are doing. That's the beauty of it.
But what about second and third game? The cat's out of the bag and this ship's bound to sink once your opponents side in all of their hate. That's why this combo has never been competitive. This means we have to do something serious in terms of sideboarding for the second and third games. My proposition is to run a transformative sideboard like the one above so that the deck then looks like the following, post-sideboard.
Now the deck is tuned so you can play it like a completely different animal. You still want to resolve a Fluctuator if you can but after that, you are playing a different game.
Cycle creatures when you can and want to or even play them as chump blockers. When you need to you can cycle cards away and have a fairly decent chance at running into one of the Spell Pierce. In fact, before dropping your combo piece, you'll probably have run into at least one or two Spell Pierce or Miscalculation. Whenever you are ready, you can drop a Songs of the Damned and play Twilight's Call to return your creatures from the grave to the battlefield. The awesome thing about this is that you only need six creatures in your grave to pull off. But that's still six creatures you drop onto the field! Rinse and repeat as necessary until you win.
Dromar's Cavern helps keep you from getting colored screwed while also letting you bounce a cycling land back to your hand. One fun thing I like to do is tap my cycling land for mana, drop a Cavern and cycle. Then, if I run into a card like Scion of Darkness, I have one mana floating to cycle him with and a free Cavern to tap for black to drop my Songs and Twilight's Call.
It's still fairly weak to hate, especially grave hate or Wasteland or even simply having Fluctuator countered but it's not quite as fragile as the straight up combo list.
So that's the gist of my idea. It could use some fine tuning no doubt. I just wanted the challenge of building something different and seeing if it could become good enough for small tournament play.
I'd love suggestions! Cost is not an issue so suggest whatever. I'm also not opposed to completely different ideas for design. I'm really just wanting to explore different ways that Fluctuator can be successfully used in a deck.
I would also have one card like Exsanguinate in there to be your first win con. Just make sure to leave 3 mana available to play Haunting Misery as backup. To stop this, they would still need two counters, but it takes up less non-cycling space. I suggest Exsanguinate because as far as this deck is concerned it is the same as Consume Spirit, but it will allow you to play the deck in a multiplayer game as well.
Running 14 non-cycling cards is going to hurt as you will stall out and have to wait more turns to finish. Much more so than the 8 non-cycling that I run. I'd love to get that down to 7 or 6 if I could. But I would also like to include one Pact of Negation.
Non-cycling cards I run.
4x Fluctuator
1x Lotus Petal
1x Songs of the Damned
1x Exsanguinate
1x Haunting Misery
I am planning on adding 4 Gitaxian Probe to replace 4 cycling cards with. It is basically just a Street Wraith (not a bad idea to run 4 of those too) that lets you see the opponent's hand as well.
Edit: Also wouldn't Elvish Spirit Guide be better than the Caldera? That would give the chance of a turn 2 Fluctuator + Autumn's Veil instead of having to wait till turn 3.
Exsanguinate is a great card and I run it in my more classic Fluctuator combo list. Here's the problem with it that I see, though. First, it adds another non-cycling card to the list. This might be okay if it contributed greatly to the deck but I don't think it's necessary actually.
In general, I think of adding a second kill card to this deck as protection. However, adding Exsanguinate does not require the opponent to use two counters. A smart player will take a quick look at that Songs of the Damned you dropped and how much mana it's going to net you and counter that instead. Now you're stuck with an Exsanguinate that is useless and a Haunting Misery which is probably going to require you to drop at least one more land before being able to be hard cast.
I run Haunting Misery over Exsanguinate because it is cheaper. Dealing 20 damage with Haunting Misery requires 20 creatures in your grave but dealing 20 with Exsanguinate requires 22 creatures in your grave. Depending on how your deck is stacked, this could mean the difference between victory and defeat.
That said, I think Caldera and Autumn's Veil offer the best protection I can think of. Caldera is a land so it can't be countered (except for Stifle or something) and then the mana it produces is used to play Autumn's Veil before I ever drop Lotus Petal or Songs of the Damned or any of my combo pieces. This forces my opponent to have an answer for both Autumn's Veil and the combo. It's not fool proof but it's the best I've come across for this.
I also want to point out that I am running only 8 non-cycling lands in my list, not 14. Post sideboard is when I run 14 non-cyclers but at that point the deck is no longer meant to be played like a combo deck. Instead, I play it more like aggro control. I start hard casting some of my creatures, cycling cards to get more creatures and counter spells as well as Songs' and Twilight's Calls. True. You do "wall" up more easily. There's no way you are going to cycle through your whole deck. But you don't need to because second and third game, you play slower and more carefully. When you get the chance, you can drop Twilight's Call for one mana, effectively, to bring back a chunk of creatures from your graveyard. That's when you try to swing the game.
I guess I should have been more clear about how to play each and when to use your sideboard. Against aggro or fast combo, you want to stay with the combo list so you can race them. Against aggro control, control or a deck that's sided hate in against you, you want to use your sideboard to bring some control into the game on your side. At this point, you are just trying to hold off and win over the long haul.
At least, that's how I see it being played. Your thoughts?
Edit: I forgot to comment on a few things that I wanted to. I really like the idea of using Elvish Spirit Guide. It's still fairly difficult to counter because it requires something like Stifle (which I think is surprisingly underplayed) to counter it and it offers the possibility of a second-turn win. However, while Caldera does slow your clock down to turn three, I really like the level of consistency it adds to the deck. It gives you another cycling card so it's almost like you are running a deck with only 7 non-cyclers and this decreases the chance of getting "walled" up.
I would not recommend Gitaxian Probe for this deck. This deck needs to run a high level of creatures to increase consistency. The fewer cycling creatures you run, the less likely it will be for you to get enough creatures into the grave when you want to combo. I think Street Wraith is better and I run it in my classic Fluctuator list. Cards like Gitaxian Probe and Street Wraith are really only helpful when you get a bad hand, though. They increase your chances of drawing into a Fluctuator. The downside is that they really hurt. Running four means there is a very high chance that you will be taking 8 damage when you cycle through your deck.
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Force of Will is kind of like duct tape. Stick it in a deck and it will fix all your problems.
What would a game of Magic between Harry Potter and Voldemort look like?
I built a Fluctuator deck many, many years ago and the problem I ran across was running dry from pitch cards... So I used Restless Dreams therefore your not confined in playing with cycling lands...
I accidently counted the Guilded Lights and Miscalculations as non-cyclers.
You make a lot of good points. This sure isn't an easy deck to put together, haha. To make it competitive at least. I would personally play this deck as a balls to wall combo deck. At least mainboard. I haven't put too much thought into a SB besides at least one Pact of Negation, haha.
What I really like about the Probe is that you can see if you are going to run into a counter and if so, you can try and play around it. I chose two because the first one might get hit by a Mental Misstep, which is a good thing. One less MM to hit Veil and Songs.
I build a Fluctuator deck once. I ended up decommissioning it because it was the least fun I've ever had playing magic. The combo requires approximately no thinking, punishes conservative play, and folds to literally any form of disruption in the metagame. You are playing a deck with no search that cannot win unless you manage to search and resolve 1 of 4 cards in the deck. And even winning was no fun :-/, because the combo was so dull. I'm certainly interested in seeing what a new design looks like, though.
Soldier, Restless Dreams is a very interesting card. Do you still have a list for your Fluctuator deck that ran this?
lancelot123, if you don't mind, I'd love to put your deck up on tappedout.net briefly (all credits to you for the list, of course) to goldfish it a few times. I'd like to see how often it goes off turn two and three. I think I'm also really warming up to Gitaxian Probe too. The more I think about it, the more I like that you are running it as a 2-of.
In fact, I'm also wondering if it wouldn't be better to swap the Spell Pierce out for something like Cabal Therapy or Duress for the post board games. Those would also have great synergy with Gitaxian Probe.
Tarkus, I do have to agree that Fluctuator combo decks are traditionally some of the least interactive decks ever built. You literally ignore your opponent and go solitaire by shifting through your cards. However, that's what I think is exciting about trying to build a sideboard that lets Fluctuator get a lot more interactive in the second and third games. It's not something your opponent's expect.
EDIT: I'm also wondering about the possibility of using something like Complicate. I wouldn't mind using it instead of Miscalculation. The only problem is, that Complicate definitely would not work for the first game and the SB already seems crammed for space (though still very open for changes). Still something to consider.
As for Cabal Therapy, I love that card and I'm very biased with it in that I will always say yes, haha. So, I would like to see what everyone else thinks.
A long, long time ago in an other website (Wizards.com) there was several players (including myself) that was working of Fluctuator. I'm not actually sure what happen, I believe the card was banned in type 1.5 or something and then I recall years later Fluctuator is removed from the banned list.
The design of the deck was to use the cycling combo on turn 1 and to protect yourself...
So we used Dark Ritual, Songs of the Damned, Lotus Petal, Haunting Misery, Drain Life and Restless Dreams.
Restless Dreams becomes an important part of the combo because you are allowed to discard all non-cycling cards in return for more cycling cards so you can draw out more cards from your deck. Therefore you not limited to cycling cards, so you can play: 4 Ancient Tomb and 4 City of Traitors. And since there's a good number of blue cycling creatures we could play Force of Will.
lancelot123, I played 10 games with your list and recorded the turn that I goldfished and the amount of life I had left after comboing.
Here's the scores:
1. Turn 6, 12 Life
2. Turn 5, 16 Life
3. Turn 10, 14 Life
4. Turn 4, 12 Life
5. Turn 3, 14 Life
6. Turn 3, 14 Life
7. Turn 4, 14 Life
8. Turn 4, 12 Life
9. Turn 4, 14 Life
10. Epic Fail... didn't even finish
The first three games were rough because I had to mulligan and was not getting good hands. Game three was particularly tough because I mulligan'd down to 5 and still couldn't get a decent hand. The next six games, I had decent to good hands and the deck performed very consistently. The final game I drew absolutely dump hands, not ever seeing Fluctuator and with my last two hands of five and four, not even drawing a land. In that case, I should have kept one of my earlier hands and just hoped to draw into a Fluctuator.
I didn't goldfish my list today because I've done it already in the past. I don't have any numbers but I think it might be just a pinch more consistent than your list, lancelot123, but only slightly so. And that's because Caldera gives me one more cycler in a pinch.
Soldier, I like the idea behind your list but I couldn't get it to work. I kept walling up with non-cyclers I couldn't get rid of and wasn't ready to combo off until turn 6 or after, most games. Maybe I was just having bad luck with it. Either way, I like the ideas incorporated into your list and I'm wondering if it could be successfully blended with one of the more traditional lists.
bganns, your list is kind of going in the direction I think we want to go but I also don't understand some of your choices. Even with Restless Dreams, I'm not sure why you want to run so many Drain Lifes and Twilight's Calls. To me, that just seems to reduce consistency. I also feel like I'm missing something but I don't understand why you are running Noxious Revival and why you are running Scrubland. I'd love to hear your explanation for those!
// Creatures
4 Viscera Dragger
4 Jungle Weaver
2 Disciple of Malice
2 Disciple of Law
4 Primoc Escapee
4 Barkhide Mauler
4 Ridge Rannet
4 Yoked Plowbeast
// Spells
2 Twilight's Call
1 Restless Dreams
3 Songs of the Damned
4 Fluctuator
1 Regrowth
1 Haunting Misery
I take out the drain lifes because twilight's in the pass and kill in one atak of the creters is much beter, the regrowth is in as a secure agains counters, and work as third twilight and secound haunting, the bayous is in the deck but i dont pretend use then in my real deck because i don't have them, in their place i will problaby put any other bg land, is strange but they are necessarie in the deck rs
Why not run 3 Darigaaz's Caldera instead of the Bayou? They are cheaper to buy and accomplish what the Bayou does with the added benefit of returning a cycling land to your hand to serve as an extra cycler. Caldera doesn't come into play tapped, can be used immediately and you can even tap the land that it returns for mana before returning it to your hand.
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Force of Will is kind of like duct tape. Stick it in a deck and it will fix all your problems.
What would a game of Magic between Harry Potter and Voldemort look like?
Soldier, I like the idea behind your list but I couldn't get it to work. I kept walling up with non-cyclers I couldn't get rid of and wasn't ready to combo off until turn 6 or after, most games. Maybe I was just having bad luck with it. Either way, I like the ideas incorporated into your list and I'm wondering if it could be successfully blended with one of the more traditional lists.
I was kind of calling cards from the top of my head, I do remember it took a few months to fine tune and it was quite fast once done! Though the deck suddenly became obsolete when Fluctuator was banned, so we scraped the deck. I believe the banning was based from DCI not liking how the Fluctuator can mill thru your deck and it was one of those workshop base decks... sorry, I dont know the actually story. I just remember feeling diappointed when the card got banned and then feeling happy when it was legal in Legacy but didnt feel the need to build the deck again.
Soldier, thanks again for all of your help! That looks like a decent list and I'm definitely going to try it out. Thanks for mentioning that I was missing Lotus Petals in my last list. I meant to put them in and forgot to.
Anyways, I decided to try working on a slower, somewhat more stable build. Here's what I came up with. This is basically just an alteration of my post-sideboard list in the very first post. It's not meant to combo ASAP.
Not sure but I think I might be dialing into something here. I want to make a few changes after testing but overall the list felt pretty good. I must say I absolutely love Twilight's Call. It's incredible to have a card that works with Songs of the Damned and only requires six creatures in the graveyard but also can be cast as an instant. Finally, it becomes more powerful in the late game when you have more creatures in the grave. It's powerful, flexible and often doesn't use up all the mana I get from Songs of the Damned which means I can do extra things with that mana. For example, I was able to drop Restless Dreams, discard a couple cards to return a few creatures to my hand, recycle them and then play Twilight's Call.
There's also strong synergy between Gitaxian Probe and Cabal Therapy and also between Cabal Therapy and Viscera Dragger. Play Songs, then play your Cabals, unearth any Visceras you have in your grave and Cabal again.
It's probably just luck but I played a couple games against a classic, tournament Merfolk deck and went 2-0 against it. Wastelands really could have been an issue but I never saw a single one either game. So again, it might have been luck but I was still very happy with the wins.
If I were to make any adjustments to the above list, I think I'd drop one Restless Dreams for an additional Gitaxian Probe and drop two cycling creatures (maybe a couple Disciples) for 2 more Viscera Dragger.
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Force of Will is kind of like duct tape. Stick it in a deck and it will fix all your problems.
What would a game of Magic between Harry Potter and Voldemort look like?
MadcatSowega: why dont run any of the big fat monsters since you are using the twinligth? and i has tinking that dures is perfect for the deck since creatures almost never mater.
bganns is right. Being able to play Twilight's Call as an instant is incredibly helpful. I know of some old Fluctuator decks that used Living Death successfully though so I will give it a try.
Edit: bganns, I try not to run too many of the high cost creatures because they are effectively dead cards in my hand. There's no way to get around it, Fluctuator decks are suicide decks because they rely on a starting hand with Fluctuator to play a good game. I try to alleviate the situation by filling my deck with one and two cost creatures that can be played as chump blockers if I'm stalling for turns to get a Fluctuator or something like that. I've found that I'm still able to beat my opponent pretty handily when bringing so many creatures out with Twilight, even if they are smaller. In this case, I think the larger creatures may be win-more cards. However, you evade mass removal cards like Firespout and Pyroclasm which are two cards I fear. The Cabal Therapies should help me get cards like that out of my opponents hand before they can use them, though.
Also, I feel like Cabal is better than Duress in this instance because we can use it twice by dropping a creature or unearthing a Viscera Dragger. That let's us take more cards out of the opponent's hand than Duress can. Also, Gitaxian Probe is in my list to help take the guess work out of what your opponent has in his/her hand.
No, seriously. Why would playing Call as an instant ever matter with this deck? You combo off the instant you land fluctuator which will be during one of your main phases.
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Asking people to remove quotes in their signatures is tyranny! If I can't say something just because someone's feelings are hurt then no one would ever be able to say anything! Political correctness is stupid.
No, seriously. Why would playing Call as an instant ever matter with this deck? You combo off the instant you land fluctuator which will be during one of your main phases.
Except, the list that you are looking at is a post sideboard list. My main deck runs all the Fluctuator basics like Lotus Petal, Songs of the Damned, and Haunting Misery and it does try to combo off the turn that I drop Fluctuator.
The problem with Fluctuator decks, however, is that they are so easy to disrupt. This is why traditionally, they are not good enough to be competitive. A typical Fluctuator list may be able to win you the first game but there's no way it's going to carry you through the second and third games of the match because everyone sides in all of their hate against you.
Soldier is right, if Fluctuator is ever going to work, we have to think outside of the box and do something that no one's ever done before with it. That's what I'm trying to do with the Twilight's Call list. It sacrifices some of the speed and explosiveness of a traditional list for a little more control. The turn that I drop Fluctuator, I might not combo off. Instead, I might end up unloading Cabal Therapy on my opponent then pass the turn.
The reason Twilight's Call is great as an instant is because it gives you some flexibility. You can cast it in response to your opponent declaring attackers and then block with your new creatures, killing their's (which I know Living Death more effectively accomplishes the same thing). However, if you know you can take the damage, you can let your opponent attack all out, thinking he's safe, then drop Call at the end of their turn. Now, they have no blockers and you are able to attack on your turn. Casting Call on their turn gives them less time to dig up a solution to deal with the army you just dropped. They are less prepared respond to it.
I think being able to use Twilight's Call as an instant is really useful. But I see the alternative too. Living Death is more efficient removal and cheaper to cast.
EDIT: It's a pretty risky, but I'm tossing around the idea of running something like Death Wish so you can tutor for whatever kill spell/toolbox card you want.
Thought I'd post a brief update on my work on the Fluctuator Combo deck. Basically, my work on this deck is on hiatus because it just isn't good enough for competitive play and right now I'm out of ideas on how to improve it.
The problems with this deck right now are:
1. Inconsistent starting hands because of the need to have a Fluctuator in that starting hand.
2. Vulnerability to any sort of counterspells. This deck needs Fluctuator to work and without it, the deck sucks. All your opponents really need to do is counter your Fluctuator when you try to play it and you are a sitting duck until you draw another.
3. Vulnerability to grave hate. Any and all grave hate does a number to this deck.
That said, my most recent list is changed up a bit from the last list I posted on here so I will go ahead and share it for anyone who may be interested in working on a Fluctuator deck further.
This list runs 4x Viscera Dragger for their interaction with Cabal Therapy. It also runs one Enlightened Tutor which can either tutor up a Fluctuator or Tombstone Stairwell which is a new alternate win-con to Twilight's Call. It was mainly included because it can be tutored up with Enlightened Tutor. Enlightened Tutor is in here to help increase the chances of drawing a good starting hand because if you end up with an Enlightened Tutor in your hand, it may be almost as good as having Fluctuator, provided you have the right lands. Tombstone Stairwell is included so that Enlightened Tutor has some other use than tutoring up Fluctuator and isn't always a dead card in your hand after you've got a Fluctuator down.
I'd include more Enlightened Tutor but that decreases the consistency of the deck by filling it with more non-cycling cards.
I wish I could think of ways to improve this deck but I'm doubtful of how much better this deck can get. Fluctuator and cycling cards have always been a cool concept to me but it's just too fragile to be competitive, IMHO.
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Force of Will is kind of like duct tape. Stick it in a deck and it will fix all your problems.
What would a game of Magic between Harry Potter and Voldemort look like?
Chaosworm, I'm not denying that that list looks quite solid, especially if your goal is to combo off quick. However, even your list struggles with the same issues. Grave hate, counters and inconsistent starting hands eat these decks alive. I'm not saying this deck isn't good but I have a hard time seeing how this could be competitive in a Legacy world filled with loads of blue counters running rampant. All your opponent really needs to do is counter Fluctuator and your screwed.
With my list, I tried to take a different route with the deck by adding one Enlightened Tutor to subtly improve starting hands and Cabal Therapy to hopefully keep the deck safe. There's nothing like Caballing your opponent two, three or four times in one turn, thanks to Viscera Dragger. Unfortunately, my list got all of this at the trade for speed. My list is also hurt by grave hate a bit more than yours is, I think.
I like Tendrils of Agony as a kill though because that is a bit more resilient to counters. Your opponent would have to have something like Mindbreak Trap or Stifle to stop it.
I just wish there were some way to reliably protect Fluctuator. If there were, this deck could be pretty solid.
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Force of Will is kind of like duct tape. Stick it in a deck and it will fix all your problems.
What would a game of Magic between Harry Potter and Voldemort look like?
this is the fluctuator deck deck i have come up with
4x cloud faeries
4x disciple of grace
4x disciple of law
4x disciple of malice
4x sandbar merfolk
4x lord of extinction
1x empty catacombs
4x miscalculation
4x song of the damned
4x dark ritual
4x fluctuator
4x lotus petal
2x bitter ordeal
4x polluted mire
4x remote isle
4x slippery karst
1x drifting meadow sideboard
2x bitter ordeal
4x clear
2x drifting meadow
4x mindlock orb
3x lhurygoyf
Yeah, I also would love to see Fluctuator become competitive but the more I've tried to get it there, the more I realize it will probably be some time before it will get there, if it ever will.
So far I haven't really seen anything spoiled yet in Innistrad that would be useful to this deck but we can still hope!
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Force of Will is kind of like duct tape. Stick it in a deck and it will fix all your problems.
What would a game of Magic between Harry Potter and Voldemort look like?
Disclaimer: This idea is based off of a combo deck that uses Fluctuator. It's nothing new and it's a combo deck that's been looked at in the past and found to be too fragile for any serious tournament play. However, I've been intrigued by the idea behind the deck and it's got the gears in my brain turning. I thought, perhaps, with new cards to choose from today (as opposed to the original lists that came out years ago), maybe something fun and decently competitive could be built from the original idea.
So. Before anyone posts anything, I know there are better options in terms of choosing competitive decks to play in legacy. This isn't the best choice of a deck if you want to go hardcore in Legacy tournaments but this isn't a casual thread either. This is about building a deck that is competitive enough to not get completely stomped in local tournaments where people do play good decks (but still not probably as good as the stuff played in a Starcity Legacy Open). It's also about the fun of building and playing a deck that's just a little bit different from what everyone else is playing.
So without further ado, here's my idea.
Pre-Sideboard:
4x Blasted Landscape
4x Polluted Mire
4x Drifting Meadow
4x Remote Isle
1x Darigaaz's Caldera
2x Slippery Karst
Creatures:
4x Disciple of Grace
4x Disciple of Law
4x Disciple of Malice
4x Keeneye Aven
4x Primoc Escapee
4x Sandbar Merfolk
2x Viscera Dragger
2x Shimmering Barrier
2x Gilded Light
3x Miscalculation
1x Autumn's Veil
The Combo:
4x Fluctuator
1x Songs of the Damned
1x Lotus Petal
1x Haunting Misery
4x Dromar's Cavern
2x Scion of Darkness
3x Songs of the Damned
3x Spell Pierce
3x Twilight's Call
Here's how the deck works. For the first game, you try to win ASAP by comboing out on turn 3 or so. This is achieved by dropping two lands and then a Fluctuator and cycling all of your cards away for free until you inevitably run into the other non-cycling cards in your deck which are the remaining Fluctuators, Songs of the Damned, Lotus Petal, Autumn's Veil, Haunting Misery and Darigaaz's Caldera. Once you have those, you can begin going off.
Ideally, on your third turn, drop Caldera, returning a cycling land to your hand (which you can then cycle if need be). Tap Caldera for green and play Autumn's Veil. That's your combo protection. Your hope is that it forces your opponent to have at least two counterspells to stop your combo. Then drop Lotus Petal, cracking it for black to play Songs of the Damned (or Dark Ritual if you prefer to run that instead) to play Haunting Misery for the win.
Because the deck runs 28 creatures, you're likely to have enough creatures in your graveyard to make it an instant win. Surprise! This is not a deck that's seen often and my bet is that this deck can sneak some 1st game wins in simply because your opponents have no idea what you are doing. That's the beauty of it.
But what about second and third game? The cat's out of the bag and this ship's bound to sink once your opponents side in all of their hate. That's why this combo has never been competitive. This means we have to do something serious in terms of sideboarding for the second and third games. My proposition is to run a transformative sideboard like the one above so that the deck then looks like the following, post-sideboard.
Post-Sideboard:
4x Blasted Landscape
4x Drifting Meadow
4x Dromar's Cavern
3x Polluted Mire
4x Remote Isle
Creatures:
4x Disciple of Grace
4x Disciple of Law
4x Disciple of Malice
2x Keeneye Aven
2x Primoc Escapee
4x Sandbar Merfolk
2x Scion of Darkness
2x Viscera Dragger
3x Miscalculation
3x Spell Pierce
The Engine:
4x Fluctuator
4x Songs of the Damned
3x Twilight's Call
1x Autumn's Veil
1x Darigaaz's Caldera
2x Gilded Light
1x Haunting Misery
2x Keeneye Aven
1x Lotus Petal
1x Polluted Mire
2x Primoc Escapee
2x Shimmering Barrier
2x Slippery Karst
Now the deck is tuned so you can play it like a completely different animal. You still want to resolve a Fluctuator if you can but after that, you are playing a different game.
Cycle creatures when you can and want to or even play them as chump blockers. When you need to you can cycle cards away and have a fairly decent chance at running into one of the Spell Pierce. In fact, before dropping your combo piece, you'll probably have run into at least one or two Spell Pierce or Miscalculation. Whenever you are ready, you can drop a Songs of the Damned and play Twilight's Call to return your creatures from the grave to the battlefield. The awesome thing about this is that you only need six creatures in your grave to pull off. But that's still six creatures you drop onto the field! Rinse and repeat as necessary until you win.
Dromar's Cavern helps keep you from getting colored screwed while also letting you bounce a cycling land back to your hand. One fun thing I like to do is tap my cycling land for mana, drop a Cavern and cycle. Then, if I run into a card like Scion of Darkness, I have one mana floating to cycle him with and a free Cavern to tap for black to drop my Songs and Twilight's Call.
It's still fairly weak to hate, especially grave hate or Wasteland or even simply having Fluctuator countered but it's not quite as fragile as the straight up combo list.
So that's the gist of my idea. It could use some fine tuning no doubt. I just wanted the challenge of building something different and seeing if it could become good enough for small tournament play.
I'd love suggestions! Cost is not an issue so suggest whatever. I'm also not opposed to completely different ideas for design. I'm really just wanting to explore different ways that Fluctuator can be successfully used in a deck.
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Running 14 non-cycling cards is going to hurt as you will stall out and have to wait more turns to finish. Much more so than the 8 non-cycling that I run. I'd love to get that down to 7 or 6 if I could. But I would also like to include one Pact of Negation.
Non-cycling cards I run.
4x Fluctuator
1x Lotus Petal
1x Songs of the Damned
1x Exsanguinate
1x Haunting Misery
I am planning on adding 4 Gitaxian Probe to replace 4 cycling cards with. It is basically just a Street Wraith (not a bad idea to run 4 of those too) that lets you see the opponent's hand as well.
Edit: Also wouldn't Elvish Spirit Guide be better than the Caldera? That would give the chance of a turn 2 Fluctuator + Autumn's Veil instead of having to wait till turn 3.
Thanks for your comments! Here are my thoughts.
Exsanguinate is a great card and I run it in my more classic Fluctuator combo list. Here's the problem with it that I see, though. First, it adds another non-cycling card to the list. This might be okay if it contributed greatly to the deck but I don't think it's necessary actually.
In general, I think of adding a second kill card to this deck as protection. However, adding Exsanguinate does not require the opponent to use two counters. A smart player will take a quick look at that Songs of the Damned you dropped and how much mana it's going to net you and counter that instead. Now you're stuck with an Exsanguinate that is useless and a Haunting Misery which is probably going to require you to drop at least one more land before being able to be hard cast.
I run Haunting Misery over Exsanguinate because it is cheaper. Dealing 20 damage with Haunting Misery requires 20 creatures in your grave but dealing 20 with Exsanguinate requires 22 creatures in your grave. Depending on how your deck is stacked, this could mean the difference between victory and defeat.
That said, I think Caldera and Autumn's Veil offer the best protection I can think of. Caldera is a land so it can't be countered (except for Stifle or something) and then the mana it produces is used to play Autumn's Veil before I ever drop Lotus Petal or Songs of the Damned or any of my combo pieces. This forces my opponent to have an answer for both Autumn's Veil and the combo. It's not fool proof but it's the best I've come across for this.
I also want to point out that I am running only 8 non-cycling lands in my list, not 14. Post sideboard is when I run 14 non-cyclers but at that point the deck is no longer meant to be played like a combo deck. Instead, I play it more like aggro control. I start hard casting some of my creatures, cycling cards to get more creatures and counter spells as well as Songs' and Twilight's Calls. True. You do "wall" up more easily. There's no way you are going to cycle through your whole deck. But you don't need to because second and third game, you play slower and more carefully. When you get the chance, you can drop Twilight's Call for one mana, effectively, to bring back a chunk of creatures from your graveyard. That's when you try to swing the game.
I guess I should have been more clear about how to play each and when to use your sideboard. Against aggro or fast combo, you want to stay with the combo list so you can race them. Against aggro control, control or a deck that's sided hate in against you, you want to use your sideboard to bring some control into the game on your side. At this point, you are just trying to hold off and win over the long haul.
At least, that's how I see it being played. Your thoughts?
Edit: I forgot to comment on a few things that I wanted to. I really like the idea of using Elvish Spirit Guide. It's still fairly difficult to counter because it requires something like Stifle (which I think is surprisingly underplayed) to counter it and it offers the possibility of a second-turn win. However, while Caldera does slow your clock down to turn three, I really like the level of consistency it adds to the deck. It gives you another cycling card so it's almost like you are running a deck with only 7 non-cyclers and this decreases the chance of getting "walled" up.
I would not recommend Gitaxian Probe for this deck. This deck needs to run a high level of creatures to increase consistency. The fewer cycling creatures you run, the less likely it will be for you to get enough creatures into the grave when you want to combo. I think Street Wraith is better and I run it in my classic Fluctuator list. Cards like Gitaxian Probe and Street Wraith are really only helpful when you get a bad hand, though. They increase your chances of drawing into a Fluctuator. The downside is that they really hurt. Running four means there is a very high chance that you will be taking 8 damage when you cycle through your deck.
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In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
You make a lot of good points. This sure isn't an easy deck to put together, haha. To make it competitive at least. I would personally play this deck as a balls to wall combo deck. At least mainboard. I haven't put too much thought into a SB besides at least one Pact of Negation, haha.
This is what I'm thinking at the moment:
4 Blasted Landscape
4 Polluted Mire
4 Drifting Meadow
4 Remote Isle
2 Slippery Karst
1 Elvish Spirit Guide
Creatures:
4 Disciple of Grace
4 Disciple of Law
4 Disciple of Malice
4 Keeneye Aven
4 Primoc Escapee
4 Sandbar Merfolk
3 Viscera Dragger
2 Shimmering Barrier
2 Street Wraith
1 Autumn's Veil
Misc:
2 Gitaxian Probe
The Combo:
4 Fluctuator
1 Songs of the Damned
1 Lotus Petal
1 Haunting Misery
What I really like about the Probe is that you can see if you are going to run into a counter and if so, you can try and play around it. I chose two because the first one might get hit by a Mental Misstep, which is a good thing. One less MM to hit Veil and Songs.
lancelot123, if you don't mind, I'd love to put your deck up on tappedout.net briefly (all credits to you for the list, of course) to goldfish it a few times. I'd like to see how often it goes off turn two and three. I think I'm also really warming up to Gitaxian Probe too. The more I think about it, the more I like that you are running it as a 2-of.
In fact, I'm also wondering if it wouldn't be better to swap the Spell Pierce out for something like Cabal Therapy or Duress for the post board games. Those would also have great synergy with Gitaxian Probe.
Tarkus, I do have to agree that Fluctuator combo decks are traditionally some of the least interactive decks ever built. You literally ignore your opponent and go solitaire by shifting through your cards. However, that's what I think is exciting about trying to build a sideboard that lets Fluctuator get a lot more interactive in the second and third games. It's not something your opponent's expect.
EDIT: I'm also wondering about the possibility of using something like Complicate. I wouldn't mind using it instead of Miscalculation. The only problem is, that Complicate definitely would not work for the first game and the SB already seems crammed for space (though still very open for changes). Still something to consider.
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As for Cabal Therapy, I love that card and I'm very biased with it in that I will always say yes, haha. So, I would like to see what everyone else thinks.
The design of the deck was to use the cycling combo on turn 1 and to protect yourself...
So we used Dark Ritual, Songs of the Damned, Lotus Petal, Haunting Misery, Drain Life and Restless Dreams.
Restless Dreams becomes an important part of the combo because you are allowed to discard all non-cycling cards in return for more cycling cards so you can draw out more cards from your deck. Therefore you not limited to cycling cards, so you can play: 4 Ancient Tomb and 4 City of Traitors. And since there's a good number of blue cycling creatures we could play Force of Will.
Off hand... the deck was something like
4 City of Traitors
4 Crystal Vein
4 Lotus Petal
4 Fluctuator
4 Restless Dreams
4 Force of Will
1 Dark Ritual
1 Drain Life
1 Haunting Misery
1 Songs of the Damned
Rest were cycling cards (mostly blue creatures)
I hope this helps and good luck!!!
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
// Lands
4 Polluted Mire
4 Drifting Meadow
4 Blasted Landscape
2 Crystal Vein
2 Crypt of Agadeem
1 Slippery Karst
1 Remote Isle
2 Scrubland
// Creatures
4 Barkhide Mauler
4 Yoked Plowbeast
4 Ridge Rannet
4 Primoc Escapee
2 Disciple of Grace
2 Disciple of Law
4 Jungle Weaver
4 Viscera Dragger
// Spells
4 Fluctuator
1 Noxious Revival
1 Songs of the Damned
2 Restless Dreams
2 Drain Life
3 Twilight's Call
Almost evry game is game win in the third turn
Here's the scores:
1. Turn 6, 12 Life
2. Turn 5, 16 Life
3. Turn 10, 14 Life
4. Turn 4, 12 Life
5. Turn 3, 14 Life
6. Turn 3, 14 Life
7. Turn 4, 14 Life
8. Turn 4, 12 Life
9. Turn 4, 14 Life
10. Epic Fail... didn't even finish
The first three games were rough because I had to mulligan and was not getting good hands. Game three was particularly tough because I mulligan'd down to 5 and still couldn't get a decent hand. The next six games, I had decent to good hands and the deck performed very consistently. The final game I drew absolutely dump hands, not ever seeing Fluctuator and with my last two hands of five and four, not even drawing a land. In that case, I should have kept one of my earlier hands and just hoped to draw into a Fluctuator.
I didn't goldfish my list today because I've done it already in the past. I don't have any numbers but I think it might be just a pinch more consistent than your list, lancelot123, but only slightly so. And that's because Caldera gives me one more cycler in a pinch.
Soldier, I like the idea behind your list but I couldn't get it to work. I kept walling up with non-cyclers I couldn't get rid of and wasn't ready to combo off until turn 6 or after, most games. Maybe I was just having bad luck with it. Either way, I like the ideas incorporated into your list and I'm wondering if it could be successfully blended with one of the more traditional lists.
bganns, your list is kind of going in the direction I think we want to go but I also don't understand some of your choices. Even with Restless Dreams, I'm not sure why you want to run so many Drain Lifes and Twilight's Calls. To me, that just seems to reduce consistency. I also feel like I'm missing something but I don't understand why you are running Noxious Revival and why you are running Scrubland. I'd love to hear your explanation for those!
Here's a new, prototype list I want to test soon.
4x Cloud of Faeries
4x Drifting Djinn
4x Keeneye Aven
4x Pendrell Drake
4x Primoc Escapee
4x Sandbar Merfolk
4x Sandbar Serpent
1x Haunting Misery
3x Restless Dreams
Land (18)
4x Blasted Landscape
4x Drifting Meadow
3x Dromar's Cavern
4x Polluted Mire
3x Remote Isle
3x Force of Will
3x Songs of the Damned
Artifact (4)
4x Fluctuator
Not sure yet if I've terribly hurt the consistency of the deck. Let's hope not!
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Lands
4 Slippery Karst
1 Remote Isle
4 Blasted Landscape
4 Drifting Meadow
4 Polluted Mire
3 Bayou
// Creatures
4 Viscera Dragger
4 Jungle Weaver
2 Disciple of Malice
2 Disciple of Law
4 Primoc Escapee
4 Barkhide Mauler
4 Ridge Rannet
4 Yoked Plowbeast
// Spells
2 Twilight's Call
1 Restless Dreams
3 Songs of the Damned
4 Fluctuator
1 Regrowth
1 Haunting Misery
I take out the drain lifes because twilight's in the pass and kill in one atak of the creters is much beter, the regrowth is in as a secure agains counters, and work as third twilight and secound haunting, the bayous is in the deck but i dont pretend use then in my real deck because i don't have them, in their place i will problaby put any other bg land, is strange but they are necessarie in the deck rs
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I was kind of calling cards from the top of my head, I do remember it took a few months to fine tune and it was quite fast once done! Though the deck suddenly became obsolete when Fluctuator was banned, so we scraped the deck. I believe the banning was based from DCI not liking how the Fluctuator can mill thru your deck and it was one of those workshop base decks... sorry, I dont know the actually story. I just remember feeling diappointed when the card got banned and then feeling happy when it was legal in Legacy but didnt feel the need to build the deck again.
Suggestion:
4x Cloud of Faeries
4x Drifting Djinn
4x Keeneye Aven
4x Pendrell Drake
4x Primoc Escapee
4x Sandbar Merfolk
4x Sandbar Serpent
1x Haunting Misery
3x Restless Dreams
Land (16)
4x Blasted Landscape
4x Ancient Tomb
4x Crystal Vein
4x Polluted Mire
4x Force of Will
1x Dark Ritual
Artifact (7)
3x Lotus Petal
4x Fluctuator
I do remember some players were testing with Skeletal Scrying, Shattered Crypt and Insidious Dreams with Song of the Damned and had some success. Although Death Denied looks better then Shattered Crypt and the combo requires lots of thinking since your doing several things at once.
I do want to stress that you need Lotus Petal in your deck.
The most effective I recall (which is also the most high risk) had only 1 lotus pedel, 1 dark ritual, 1 haunting misery and 1 Restless Dreams.
I've also tested it with ESG's and Land Grant with little success.
To tell you the truth, if you want Fluctuator to work you need to look outside the box first...
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
Anyways, I decided to try working on a slower, somewhat more stable build. Here's what I came up with. This is basically just an alteration of my post-sideboard list in the very first post. It's not meant to combo ASAP.
4x Disciple of Grace
4x Disciple of Law
4x Disciple of Malice
2x Keeneye Aven
4x Primoc Escapee
4x Sandbar Merfolk
2x Viscera Dragger
3x Songs of the Damned
Artifact (4)
4x Fluctuator
Land (18)
4x Blasted Landscape
4x Drifting Meadow
3x Dromar's Cavern
4x Polluted Mire
3x Remote Isle
3x Cabal Therapy
2x Gitaxian Probe
3x Restless Dreams
3x Twilight's Call
Not sure but I think I might be dialing into something here. I want to make a few changes after testing but overall the list felt pretty good. I must say I absolutely love Twilight's Call. It's incredible to have a card that works with Songs of the Damned and only requires six creatures in the graveyard but also can be cast as an instant. Finally, it becomes more powerful in the late game when you have more creatures in the grave. It's powerful, flexible and often doesn't use up all the mana I get from Songs of the Damned which means I can do extra things with that mana. For example, I was able to drop Restless Dreams, discard a couple cards to return a few creatures to my hand, recycle them and then play Twilight's Call.
There's also strong synergy between Gitaxian Probe and Cabal Therapy and also between Cabal Therapy and Viscera Dragger. Play Songs, then play your Cabals, unearth any Visceras you have in your grave and Cabal again.
It's probably just luck but I played a couple games against a classic, tournament Merfolk deck and went 2-0 against it. Wastelands really could have been an issue but I never saw a single one either game. So again, it might have been luck but I was still very happy with the wins.
If I were to make any adjustments to the above list, I think I'd drop one Restless Dreams for an additional Gitaxian Probe and drop two cycling creatures (maybe a couple Disciples) for 2 more Viscera Dragger.
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Zirath: Twinlight can be played as instant
Edit: bganns, I try not to run too many of the high cost creatures because they are effectively dead cards in my hand. There's no way to get around it, Fluctuator decks are suicide decks because they rely on a starting hand with Fluctuator to play a good game. I try to alleviate the situation by filling my deck with one and two cost creatures that can be played as chump blockers if I'm stalling for turns to get a Fluctuator or something like that. I've found that I'm still able to beat my opponent pretty handily when bringing so many creatures out with Twilight, even if they are smaller. In this case, I think the larger creatures may be win-more cards. However, you evade mass removal cards like Firespout and Pyroclasm which are two cards I fear. The Cabal Therapies should help me get cards like that out of my opponents hand before they can use them, though.
Also, I feel like Cabal is better than Duress in this instance because we can use it twice by dropping a creature or unearthing a Viscera Dragger. That let's us take more cards out of the opponent's hand than Duress can. Also, Gitaxian Probe is in my list to help take the guess work out of what your opponent has in his/her hand.
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Except, the list that you are looking at is a post sideboard list. My main deck runs all the Fluctuator basics like Lotus Petal, Songs of the Damned, and Haunting Misery and it does try to combo off the turn that I drop Fluctuator.
The problem with Fluctuator decks, however, is that they are so easy to disrupt. This is why traditionally, they are not good enough to be competitive. A typical Fluctuator list may be able to win you the first game but there's no way it's going to carry you through the second and third games of the match because everyone sides in all of their hate against you.
Soldier is right, if Fluctuator is ever going to work, we have to think outside of the box and do something that no one's ever done before with it. That's what I'm trying to do with the Twilight's Call list. It sacrifices some of the speed and explosiveness of a traditional list for a little more control. The turn that I drop Fluctuator, I might not combo off. Instead, I might end up unloading Cabal Therapy on my opponent then pass the turn.
The reason Twilight's Call is great as an instant is because it gives you some flexibility. You can cast it in response to your opponent declaring attackers and then block with your new creatures, killing their's (which I know Living Death more effectively accomplishes the same thing). However, if you know you can take the damage, you can let your opponent attack all out, thinking he's safe, then drop Call at the end of their turn. Now, they have no blockers and you are able to attack on your turn. Casting Call on their turn gives them less time to dig up a solution to deal with the army you just dropped. They are less prepared respond to it.
I think being able to use Twilight's Call as an instant is really useful. But I see the alternative too. Living Death is more efficient removal and cheaper to cast.
EDIT: It's a pretty risky, but I'm tossing around the idea of running something like Death Wish so you can tutor for whatever kill spell/toolbox card you want.
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The problems with this deck right now are:
1. Inconsistent starting hands because of the need to have a Fluctuator in that starting hand.
2. Vulnerability to any sort of counterspells. This deck needs Fluctuator to work and without it, the deck sucks. All your opponents really need to do is counter your Fluctuator when you try to play it and you are a sitting duck until you draw another.
3. Vulnerability to grave hate. Any and all grave hate does a number to this deck.
That said, my most recent list is changed up a bit from the last list I posted on here so I will go ahead and share it for anyone who may be interested in working on a Fluctuator deck further.
4x Disciple of Grace
3x Disciple of Law
4x Disciple of Malice
2x Keeneye Aven
4x Primoc Escapee
4x Sandbar Merfolk
4x Viscera Dragger
4x Blasted Landscape
4x Drifting Meadow
3x Dromar's Cavern
4x Polluted Mire
3x Remote Isle
Enchantment (1)
1x Tombstone Stairwell
4x Fluctuator
Sorcery (8)
3x Cabal Therapy
2x Gitaxian Probe
1x Restless Dreams
2x Twilight's Call
Instant (4)
1x Enlightened Tutor
3x Songs of the Damned
This list runs 4x Viscera Dragger for their interaction with Cabal Therapy. It also runs one Enlightened Tutor which can either tutor up a Fluctuator or Tombstone Stairwell which is a new alternate win-con to Twilight's Call. It was mainly included because it can be tutored up with Enlightened Tutor. Enlightened Tutor is in here to help increase the chances of drawing a good starting hand because if you end up with an Enlightened Tutor in your hand, it may be almost as good as having Fluctuator, provided you have the right lands. Tombstone Stairwell is included so that Enlightened Tutor has some other use than tutoring up Fluctuator and isn't always a dead card in your hand after you've got a Fluctuator down.
I'd include more Enlightened Tutor but that decreases the consistency of the deck by filling it with more non-cycling cards.
I wish I could think of ways to improve this deck but I'm doubtful of how much better this deck can get. Fluctuator and cycling cards have always been a cool concept to me but it's just too fragile to be competitive, IMHO.
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With my list, I tried to take a different route with the deck by adding one Enlightened Tutor to subtly improve starting hands and Cabal Therapy to hopefully keep the deck safe. There's nothing like Caballing your opponent two, three or four times in one turn, thanks to Viscera Dragger. Unfortunately, my list got all of this at the trade for speed. My list is also hurt by grave hate a bit more than yours is, I think.
I like Tendrils of Agony as a kill though because that is a bit more resilient to counters. Your opponent would have to have something like Mindbreak Trap or Stifle to stop it.
I just wish there were some way to reliably protect Fluctuator. If there were, this deck could be pretty solid.
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4x cloud faeries
4x disciple of grace
4x disciple of law
4x disciple of malice
4x sandbar merfolk
4x lord of extinction
1x empty catacombs
4x miscalculation
4x song of the damned
4x dark ritual
4x fluctuator
4x lotus petal
2x bitter ordeal
4x polluted mire
4x remote isle
4x slippery karst
1x drifting meadow
sideboard
2x bitter ordeal
4x clear
2x drifting meadow
4x mindlock orb
3x lhurygoyf
So far I haven't really seen anything spoiled yet in Innistrad that would be useful to this deck but we can still hope!
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