What about Bloodghast as a pseudo Narcomoeba? It could come out of the board against decks that can bring in extirpate, and with fetchlands you could get off 2 dread returns off in one turn. Now the problem is if they Extirpate your dread returns instead of your Narcos, or if they have two of them. not much to do about that, though, unless you have a full transformitive sideboard.
Well I think the benefit of your deck is that your opponent may not know what to target until game 2. Seeing narcos and dread wont tip a player off that its anything but a dredge variant, and by the time they see a blessing it may be too late and your mebias are getting iona into play in which case they now Have to stop it.
I think it also might make sense to run reanimate in the board as a backup plan. 1 Black is not hard to get...
Why play 2 gaea's blessing? Am i missing something?
I like the idea for the deck as it is not vulnerable to as much creature removal. I have some suggestions though.
You are running too many fatties with no reason. If you are going to combo out, you dont want to have to try over and over again to get a fatty and dread return together as well as 3 narcomoebas, all while not hitting one of the 2 gaeas blessings and having to try all over again. this takes up too much time. A combo deck MUST be fast and consistent, winning you the game THE TURN you combo out. Wake Thrasher is cool, but he does not guarantee a win, and has no evasion or shroud. The deck is too cluttered with dread returns and fatties IMO. It just doesnt work. a TON of people do the same thing in breakfast decks and it messes up the whole deck, you run into consistency issue to the point that the only constant, is inconsistency.
The great thing about this deck is that it can go SO many ways.
I see a win condition similar to cephalid breakfast, as you dont have to run more than one dread return or fatty, and you dont have to run an anger or any off color lands. Simply take your pick on which breakfast win con to use. Ill go with the pestermite version for simplicity.
so at the moment we have...
-3 dread return
-1 gaeas blessing
-2 fatties
This version of the deck is much more streamlined, with a win con that wins you the game on the very same turn, without taking up 7 extra slots. It has much more protection and searches, as well as enough acceleration for a consistent turn 3-4 win, with consistent protection.
I switched to Kiki-jiki, mirror breaker+Pestermite after losing to Swords to Plowshares I was boarding Painter Servant+Iona, Shield of Emeria. I was considering switching to Painter/Iona MD as well as a Grindstone sideplan, but stopped playing the deck.
I played 4x Ancient Tomb, 2x City of Traitors as well since it makes 2nd turn stupid kill. Aphetto Alchemist gave my deck more constancy, since it was a alternative to Monolith that can be RFG to FoW.
Why play 2 gaea's blessing? Am i missing something?
This make the deck 'immune' to grave hate. You mill yourself until you reach a Blessing, then they crack their gravehate. In response you continue tap/untap monolith until you hit the second one. You let it resolves and let the hate resolves as well.
It also helps if you are stucked with a blessing in hand and want it back into your library without a brainstorm :S
God I gotta build this back, now that I own duals
EDIT:
I realised that with Enlightened Tutor, Blue was not mandatory (I was using Fabricate back in the days.)
So I tried a BW list; using Painter/Iona and Painter/Stone. Any thought?
definitely a good combo find. but coming from a cephalid breakfast combo decks perspective it likes like a colorless engine for what that deck does already.
I am curious to see what you do with this.
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So I finally finished packing and got some testing in. I have already updated the OP.
1. Gaea's Blessing had to go. After seeing how easy it is to alter the cards in my hand and realizing that I can start the combo with the Eldrazi still in my hand just fine, I am comfortable going with just one Kozilek or Emrakul or whatever. So no more green. Yay.
2. Flame-Kin Zealot is better than Anger and takes up less space. No more red. Yay.
3. You can do amazingly broken stuff. This is nothing like Breakfast combo. When I finally attack, I have taken every card from his hand that I want to, shut off a color, and destroyed a permanent before attacking for 21 and he has to sacrifice 3 more. Every single time. Or does Breakfast work like that too? I have not seen it played in a long time.
4. I am going off on turn 3 or 4 pretty much always in goldfish. Considering the design, that's about right.
5. Graveyard hate might not work at all against this deck. If I am seeing it right, the most they can get is a single Dread Return because they can force it to be countered. You can respond to a Crypt or Relic just by milling yourself into your Eldrazi. They should never get any cards at all.
6. I have gotten some really good advice so far. Thanks.
on OP:
when do Angel of Despair>Terrastodon? It that Betrays over Pathrazer of Ulamog?
Why do you need 4x Narcomoeba? With 4x Careful Study, 4x Cabal and 4x Thoughseize, with no FoW, I can't figure out :S
Do you think blue is mandatory? It seems like Brainstorm and Careful Study could be ditched for extraspace, maybe testing proved them absolutely needed?
And most importantly, why no stompy lands?
Hey, do dread returning loyal retainers returning emrakul is too stupid?
LOL
Do you really need all this resurection Targets and all 4 Dread Return, when are you reanimating Iona or the Eldrazi (not emrakul why he is in the Deck is clear). I Would cut 1-2 Dread Return and cut Iona and the Pathrazer.
You could pack 3-4 Duress (or 3-4 Ponder) in the Deck instead of them, this would decrease the number of Dead cards you could draw.
The less place the combo uses, the better the combodeck.
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My new houserules:
1. Every player saing exiled or battlefield will be kicked out.
2. Not using you mana deals 2 points of manaburn.
3. Combat damage goes over the Stack and you can freely assign it.
4. Lifelinks does stack and doesn't safe you from dying.
5. Tokens are owned bye the one who has made them.
Everyone thinking M10 will not affect a lot of cards or Limited a lot, either has no clue about magic or has never played limited or is getting paid by wizards to do propaganda.
Yes, it seems you play pretty well around most graveyard removal.
The price you pay is running so many combo pieces. If you cut down on Dread Returns and its targets, you will increase that vulnerability.
All these cards do nothing but combo: Dread Return, creatures, Orb and Monolith. That's 24. That leaves you with 36 slots to build a shell and a manabase. The list looks solid but I bet you have a lot of cards in mind that you would like to add, but can't without cutting down on combo pieces.
Cephalid Breakfast has err.. I don't know, 16? the enablers, moebas, dread return and karmic guide and stuff? I'm not too familiar with it. There's also Cephalid Life which plays Daru Spiritualist as well, and then Starlit Sanctum. It can play around graveyard removal even better than you, because they'll just gain a gazillion life. That's packed with combo pieces as well but they have betters tutors in Worldly Tutor and Living Wish, more flexibility. They also have Aether Vial..
So in short, I agree with a lot of posters above me. There's too many combo pieces. And I have to point out that they're also very narrow in what they do for the deck.
The deck seems like it needs some sort of singleton artifact killer, maybe something with flashback like ancient grudge? I have to imagine that ethersworn cannonist or pithing needle can give this deck fits if done right.
Also, and not much that can be done about it, but dark ritual into sadistic sacrament is pretty much GG isn't it? I have been seeing that pop up in a lot of lists as of late as it hates on ANT really well.
After testing, Terrastodon is not very good for the attack part. I presume that this is the reason many Reanimator decks did not use him. He puts blockers out there and can't remove any. How often are there going to be more than 2 offending permanents (Angel twice) in play if I was able to actually go off in the first place?
It that Betrays over Pathrazer of Ulamog?
It that Betrays has no evasion.
Why do you need 4x Narcomoeba? With 4x Careful Study, 4x Cabal and 4x Thoughseize, with no FoW, I can't figure out :S
I had Force of Will, but then someone pointed out that Extirpate essentially ends the deck. Thoughtseize is better in that case. Also, my blue count keeps getting lower.
Do you think blue is mandatory? It seems like Brainstorm and Careful Study could be ditched for extraspace, maybe testing proved them absolutely needed?
And most importantly, why no stompy lands?
As others have pointed out, there are a lot of dead cards. Brainstorm and Careful Study (but also Cabal Therapy) are there to smooth it all out. And honestly they do a better job of it than I would have guessed. Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors would be groovy if the deck were not three colors.
Hey, do dread returning loyal retainers returning emrakul is too stupid?
No. Not at all. I thought about that a long time before this response. It is almost a brilliant idea. But the timing works against it. Retainers is exposed while you go milling into your Eldrazi, so the nigh-untargetability of Emrakul is moot.
Do you really need all this resurection Targets and all 4 Dread Return, when are you reanimating Iona or the Eldrazi (not emrakul why he is in the Deck is clear). I Would cut 1-2 Dread Return and cut Iona and the Pathrazer.
This is at the heart of what Reinvos is saying as well. In its current form, there are 21 pieces in the combo. That is a lot, to be sure. But there are very few ways to disrupt it. Off my head, you have Extirpate, Krosan Grip, Wheel of Sun and Moon, and Pithing Needle of common SB cards right now. Anything that lets me combo first is going to be 100% useless. I could cut out 3 Dread Returns and 4 creatures right now - no problem. That would leave me with a much more compact combo. But then I have Cephalid Breakfast and I lose much of the redundancy that makes the deck so difficult to fight in the first place. I think the best solution is almost certainly somewhere in between with different fatties available in the board and possibly an extra Dread Return specifically for grave hate.
It does not cost any slots to empty the opponent's hand as long as Emrakul is present. You simply mill into Narcos and Therapies until their hand in empty - which is pretty strong protection. If I were to go the minimalist route, I could cut down to 2 Dread Returns and only Iona and Pathrazer perhaps. Desolation Angel could probably come in from the side or something. This sort of thing requires mountains of testing.
The deck seems like it needs some sort of singleton artifact killer, maybe something with flashback like ancient grudge? I have to imagine that ethersworn cannonist or pithing needle can give this deck fits if done right.
For sure, the SB needs something like that. You won't see those cards before game two. I occasionally have a Mesmeric Orb out without Monolith, and I see a few cards go the graveyard. Well, except for the wrong color part.
Eh, double post is necessary as this is a response to my own post.
I have edited the deck in the OP to reflect the evolution being discussed. The combo package is at 17 cards atm, and most of the resiliency is still present. It can be expanded simply enough in the SB.
I added Ponders which means that I can reduce the land count again. The mana base is getting a bit fragile which means that now Wasteland is a real issue. Anyway, the Inquisitions are really placeholders until I see what is needed. Force of Will is now a possibility again, which would be nice indeed.
Any ideas on Wasteland protection short of "use more basics"? I am thinking a singleton Needle in the main to go with Enlightened Tutor.
looking at the list... i think the deck lacks distruptions and mana source.. you would want to go off on turn 2 or 3 with this since turn 2 an opponent may have landed a hate against you such as artifact hate or nonland ability hates such as phyrexian revoker.. its just IMO.
this is something similiar to a power artifact deck.... speaking of power artifact... why not use it in here as a plan b? though it is resiliant enough, i think it still needs a plan b.
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This is at the heart of what Reinvos is saying as well. In its current form, there are 21 pieces in the combo. That is a lot, to be sure. But there are very few ways to disrupt it. Off my head, you have Extirpate, Krosan Grip, Wheel of Sun and Moon, and Pithing Needle of common SB cards right now. Anything that lets me combo first is going to be 100% useless. I could cut out 3 Dread Returns and 4 creatures right now - no problem. That would leave me with a much more compact combo. But then I have Cephalid Breakfast and I lose much of the redundancy that makes the deck so difficult to fight in the first place. I think the best solution is almost certainly somewhere in between with different fatties available in the board and possibly an extra Dread Return specifically for grave hate.
So, I don't post a lot anymore, but Finn you asked me to test your new deck today, as you do on occasion.
my impressions:
1. I tested against Zoo first. The deck I played against had Teeg in the main. The one game he got him out first, I simply had no way to deal with it and I lost. The deck definitely needs a way to handle pesky permanents. I also let Zoo sb (I had none) and I lost another one to a well-timed Krosan Grip. I lost one more when I had three Thoughtseizes and no gas. I took his critters but he burned me out. But I won the other 7 games since Zoo just did not have much of a way to deal with this deck. It's too linear.
2. Next I tested against TES. My friend Juan is pretty good with it, and we had some pretty interesting games. In the end, I had more discard than he did and I won most of them. Even his SB was not all that useful since he runs Burning Wish. It was something like 8-5 or 8-4. Force of Will would improve this matchup, but I am not complaining.
3. Next up was Goblins. This was pretty easy, as they had only Wasteland to hurt us. I just kept the fetchies unfetched until I needed them. I won most of these as well.
4. Finally I have Merfolk built. I mostly lost these if they had a Vial on turn one because of the clock. But I still won 5-4 even with him sideboarding.
So, thumbs up for the first round of testing.
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This deck can play around graveyard hate like Crypt, Relic, and Spellbomb. But if they crack in response to you untapping your Stone then they can get you. The good news is you should always have your Stone untapped when you mill into your final combo piece.
Having seen the point the deck was at yesterday compared to today, do you feel that Pathrazer + Iona is enough? With the 4 Narcomoebas it is 20 damage but no haste. Also with the 12 cantrips and one Narcomoeba that is expendable, adding four Forces would bring your blue count to 17. Do you think that makes it worth it over Inquisition/Thoughtseize?
Have you thought about taking a page out of old cephalid b and running a singleton Dragon Breath? Won't get you there right away with current build, but could start the annihilation disruption a turn sooner.
It does not cost any slots to empty the opponent's hand as long as Emrakul is present. You simply mill into Narcos and Therapies until their hand in empty - which is pretty strong protection.
Just to be exact you can only discard a maximum of 4 different cards, since the terapies are removed from the game when played via flashback. (The same is true for Dread Return)
About the current list, why are you playing Pathrazer of Ulamong instead of Flame Kin Zealot? Of Course he is the best Eldrazi which can be reanimtaed, but what does he do, he doen't interrupt and needs 3 additional turns to kill.
The Flame Kin Zealot wins the game the moment he is reanimated, pathrazer needs 3 more Turns, Iona also Needs 3 Turns but at least she disrupts the opponent.
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My new houserules:
1. Every player saing exiled or battlefield will be kicked out.
2. Not using you mana deals 2 points of manaburn.
3. Combat damage goes over the Stack and you can freely assign it.
4. Lifelinks does stack and doesn't safe you from dying.
5. Tokens are owned bye the one who has made them.
Everyone thinking M10 will not affect a lot of cards or Limited a lot, either has no clue about magic or has never played limited or is getting paid by wizards to do propaganda.
Pathrazer has sucked for me. I dont know how Kudzu beat Merfolk so much. I find that matchup hard to win. I am wanting a Wrath of God. I can get the fatties out fast enough, but then they Islandwalk me.
Pathraiser is cute, but I feel that stormtide Leviathan might be better. Your creatures are flying or islandwalk, and he is not only protection but unblockable.
I haven't played this, but I love the idea so much I had to jump in...
Seems like whatever the combination of "Horsemen" ends up being it should provide an immediate end to the game, there shouldn't be an opportunity for them to attack, or steal the game away. So how do we do that? We need 20 points (though the more the better!) of Hasted, Evasive, and Shrouded fatty damage. Destroying any problematic permanents on the board that might prevent us from winning outright would be a definite bonus! Yes, we can mitigate their chances of stealing the game away from us by stripping away their hand (at least the relevant threats...) and locking them out of a color with Iona, all of which does alleviate the need for an entire team of shrouded attackers...but we still need haste and evasion. So what combination of fatties on the board delivers that?
Seems like Flame-Kin Zealot takes care of the Haste part.
I suppose a trio of Stormtide Leviathans with a Zealot backing them up would deliver 27 points of hasted unblockable damage.
2 Stormtides, Iona and Zealot? Is Iona necessary if you're going to strip their hand of relevant threats and attack for lethal this turn?
We need a creature that shrouds all our other creatures just to be greedy!
Also, I'm correct in thinking that Emrakul is technically not one of the Horsemen, right? He can never actually get Dread Return'd to the battlefield, right? Or am I an idiot and overlooking something?
Sounds like 2 Emrakul or 1 Emrakul and 1 Kozilek might be needed to prevent the graveyard hate situations described above from wrecking the gameplan. Both maindeck? Or maybe one in the SB when the GY hate comes in game 2?
Very cool thread.
EDIT: Just realized that Naz already suggested: FKZ + Kira, Great Glass Spinner + Stormtide Leviathan + Angel of Despair. Maybe toss a second Stormtide in there instead of Angel in order to bring the damage up from 18 to 21? 18 of which is shrouded/unblockable damage, and the other 3 is shrouded/flying. Plus FKZ's 3 damage would be 24, but it's not evasive. Still, that should get there, right...? Also, I'm realizing that in order to field all these guys you need to play the full 4 Dread Returns...I think. I need to build this already.
Or just play a singleton bridge from below. That solves the damage problem.
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I think it also might make sense to run reanimate in the board as a backup plan. 1 Black is not hard to get...
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I like the idea for the deck as it is not vulnerable to as much creature removal. I have some suggestions though.
You are running too many fatties with no reason. If you are going to combo out, you dont want to have to try over and over again to get a fatty and dread return together as well as 3 narcomoebas, all while not hitting one of the 2 gaeas blessings and having to try all over again. this takes up too much time. A combo deck MUST be fast and consistent, winning you the game THE TURN you combo out. Wake Thrasher is cool, but he does not guarantee a win, and has no evasion or shroud. The deck is too cluttered with dread returns and fatties IMO. It just doesnt work. a TON of people do the same thing in breakfast decks and it messes up the whole deck, you run into consistency issue to the point that the only constant, is inconsistency.
The great thing about this deck is that it can go SO many ways.
I see a win condition similar to cephalid breakfast, as you dont have to run more than one dread return or fatty, and you dont have to run an anger or any off color lands. Simply take your pick on which breakfast win con to use. Ill go with the pestermite version for simplicity.
so at the moment we have...
-3 dread return
-1 gaeas blessing
-2 fatties
+ Karmic Guide, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, and Sky Hussar
this leaves a TON of room for more cantrips/searches as well as protection.
Next we look at combo and the searches.
Enlightened tutor probably has a good place in this deck because it can find either combo piece.
Seeker of Skybreak acting as an alternate combo piece is an option.
Goblin welder is also a very nice option, as it stop counterspells in their tracks and opens up intuition as a more productive option.
with all this in mind, the deck could look something like this.
1 Karmic Guide
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Sky Hussar
3 Narcomoeba
Artifacts- 8
4 Basalt Monolith
4 Mesmeric Orb
Other Spells- 25
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Enlightened Tutor
3 Intuition
2 Orhim's Chant or Pact of Negation
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
1 Gaea's Belssing
4 Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Tundra
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Plains
1 City of Traitors
This version of the deck is much more streamlined, with a win con that wins you the game on the very same turn, without taking up 7 extra slots. It has much more protection and searches, as well as enough acceleration for a consistent turn 3-4 win, with consistent protection.
my 2 cents.
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Seriously, THIS was exactly my very first legacy deck. At first, I had only Orb+Monolith into Narco into Blessing into Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund and a Bladewing the Risen into Dragon Tyrant noobish combo ftw!! lol
I switched to Kiki-jiki, mirror breaker+Pestermite after losing to Swords to Plowshares I was boarding Painter Servant+Iona, Shield of Emeria. I was considering switching to Painter/Iona MD as well as a Grindstone sideplan, but stopped playing the deck.
I played 4x Ancient Tomb, 2x City of Traitors as well since it makes 2nd turn stupid kill.
Aphetto Alchemist gave my deck more constancy, since it was a alternative to Monolith that can be RFG to FoW.
This make the deck 'immune' to grave hate. You mill yourself until you reach a Blessing, then they crack their gravehate. In response you continue tap/untap monolith until you hit the second one. You let it resolves and let the hate resolves as well.
It also helps if you are stucked with a blessing in hand and want it back into your library without a brainstorm :S
God I gotta build this back, now that I own duals
EDIT:
I realised that with Enlightened Tutor, Blue was not mandatory (I was using Fabricate back in the days.)
So I tried a BW list; using Painter/Iona and Painter/Stone. Any thought?
1x Sharuum the Hegemon
4x Painter Servant
3x Narcomoeba
4x Basalt Monolith
4x Mesmeric Orb
2x Grindstone
4x Enlightened Tutor
3x Orim's Chant
2x Gaea's Blessing
2x Dread Return
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Thoughtseize
2x City of Traitors
4x Marsh Flat
1x Verdant Catacomb
1x Arid Mesa
4x Scrubland
1x Swamp
1x Plains
I am curious to see what you do with this.
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1. Gaea's Blessing had to go. After seeing how easy it is to alter the cards in my hand and realizing that I can start the combo with the Eldrazi still in my hand just fine, I am comfortable going with just one Kozilek or Emrakul or whatever. So no more green. Yay.
2. Flame-Kin Zealot is better than Anger and takes up less space. No more red. Yay.
3. You can do amazingly broken stuff. This is nothing like Breakfast combo. When I finally attack, I have taken every card from his hand that I want to, shut off a color, and destroyed a permanent before attacking for 21 and he has to sacrifice 3 more. Every single time. Or does Breakfast work like that too? I have not seen it played in a long time.
4. I am going off on turn 3 or 4 pretty much always in goldfish. Considering the design, that's about right.
5. Graveyard hate might not work at all against this deck. If I am seeing it right, the most they can get is a single Dread Return because they can force it to be countered. You can respond to a Crypt or Relic just by milling yourself into your Eldrazi. They should never get any cards at all.
6. I have gotten some really good advice so far. Thanks.
when do Angel of Despair>Terrastodon?
It that Betrays over Pathrazer of Ulamog?
Why do you need 4x Narcomoeba? With 4x Careful Study, 4x Cabal and 4x Thoughseize, with no FoW, I can't figure out :S
Do you think blue is mandatory? It seems like Brainstorm and Careful Study could be ditched for extraspace, maybe testing proved them absolutely needed?
And most importantly, why no stompy lands?
Hey, do dread returning loyal retainers returning emrakul is too stupid?
LOL
You could pack 3-4 Duress (or 3-4 Ponder) in the Deck instead of them, this would decrease the number of Dead cards you could draw.
The less place the combo uses, the better the combodeck.
1. Every player saing exiled or battlefield will be kicked out.
2. Not using you mana deals 2 points of manaburn.
3. Combat damage goes over the Stack and you can freely assign it.
4. Lifelinks does stack and doesn't safe you from dying.
5. Tokens are owned bye the one who has made them.
Everyone thinking M10 will not affect a lot of cards or Limited a lot, either has no clue about magic or has never played limited or is getting paid by wizards to do propaganda.
The price you pay is running so many combo pieces. If you cut down on Dread Returns and its targets, you will increase that vulnerability.
All these cards do nothing but combo: Dread Return, creatures, Orb and Monolith. That's 24. That leaves you with 36 slots to build a shell and a manabase. The list looks solid but I bet you have a lot of cards in mind that you would like to add, but can't without cutting down on combo pieces.
Cephalid Breakfast has err.. I don't know, 16? the enablers, moebas, dread return and karmic guide and stuff? I'm not too familiar with it. There's also Cephalid Life which plays Daru Spiritualist as well, and then Starlit Sanctum. It can play around graveyard removal even better than you, because they'll just gain a gazillion life. That's packed with combo pieces as well but they have betters tutors in Worldly Tutor and Living Wish, more flexibility. They also have Aether Vial..
So in short, I agree with a lot of posters above me. There's too many combo pieces. And I have to point out that they're also very narrow in what they do for the deck.
Also, and not much that can be done about it, but dark ritual into sadistic sacrament is pretty much GG isn't it? I have been seeing that pop up in a lot of lists as of late as it hates on ANT really well.
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It that Betrays has no evasion.
I had Force of Will, but then someone pointed out that Extirpate essentially ends the deck. Thoughtseize is better in that case. Also, my blue count keeps getting lower.
As others have pointed out, there are a lot of dead cards. Brainstorm and Careful Study (but also Cabal Therapy) are there to smooth it all out. And honestly they do a better job of it than I would have guessed. Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors would be groovy if the deck were not three colors.
No. Not at all. I thought about that a long time before this response. It is almost a brilliant idea. But the timing works against it. Retainers is exposed while you go milling into your Eldrazi, so the nigh-untargetability of Emrakul is moot.
This is at the heart of what Reinvos is saying as well. In its current form, there are 21 pieces in the combo. That is a lot, to be sure. But there are very few ways to disrupt it. Off my head, you have Extirpate, Krosan Grip, Wheel of Sun and Moon, and Pithing Needle of common SB cards right now. Anything that lets me combo first is going to be 100% useless. I could cut out 3 Dread Returns and 4 creatures right now - no problem. That would leave me with a much more compact combo. But then I have Cephalid Breakfast and I lose much of the redundancy that makes the deck so difficult to fight in the first place. I think the best solution is almost certainly somewhere in between with different fatties available in the board and possibly an extra Dread Return specifically for grave hate.
It does not cost any slots to empty the opponent's hand as long as Emrakul is present. You simply mill into Narcos and Therapies until their hand in empty - which is pretty strong protection. If I were to go the minimalist route, I could cut down to 2 Dread Returns and only Iona and Pathrazer perhaps. Desolation Angel could probably come in from the side or something. This sort of thing requires mountains of testing.
For sure, the SB needs something like that. You won't see those cards before game two. I occasionally have a Mesmeric Orb out without Monolith, and I see a few cards go the graveyard. Well, except for the wrong color part.
Eh, double post is necessary as this is a response to my own post.
I have edited the deck in the OP to reflect the evolution being discussed. The combo package is at 17 cards atm, and most of the resiliency is still present. It can be expanded simply enough in the SB.
I added Ponders which means that I can reduce the land count again. The mana base is getting a bit fragile which means that now Wasteland is a real issue. Anyway, the Inquisitions are really placeholders until I see what is needed. Force of Will is now a possibility again, which would be nice indeed.
Any ideas on Wasteland protection short of "use more basics"? I am thinking a singleton Needle in the main to go with Enlightened Tutor.
this is something similiar to a power artifact deck.... speaking of power artifact... why not use it in here as a plan b? though it is resiliant enough, i think it still needs a plan b.
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1 Engineered Explosives and 1 Pithing Needle
or
1 Seal of Removal and 1 Seal of Cleansing
and you could tutor for them with Enlightened Tutor.
Don't forget Leyline of the Void.
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my impressions:
1. I tested against Zoo first. The deck I played against had Teeg in the main. The one game he got him out first, I simply had no way to deal with it and I lost. The deck definitely needs a way to handle pesky permanents. I also let Zoo sb (I had none) and I lost another one to a well-timed Krosan Grip. I lost one more when I had three Thoughtseizes and no gas. I took his critters but he burned me out. But I won the other 7 games since Zoo just did not have much of a way to deal with this deck. It's too linear.
2. Next I tested against TES. My friend Juan is pretty good with it, and we had some pretty interesting games. In the end, I had more discard than he did and I won most of them. Even his SB was not all that useful since he runs Burning Wish. It was something like 8-5 or 8-4. Force of Will would improve this matchup, but I am not complaining.
3. Next up was Goblins. This was pretty easy, as they had only Wasteland to hurt us. I just kept the fetchies unfetched until I needed them. I won most of these as well.
4. Finally I have Merfolk built. I mostly lost these if they had a Vial on turn one because of the clock. But I still won 5-4 even with him sideboarding.
So, thumbs up for the first round of testing.
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UBRGLegacy StormGRBU
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They can also get you by responding to the eldtazi trigger. But that can be avoided by just including another eldrazi.
Just to be exact you can only discard a maximum of 4 different cards, since the terapies are removed from the game when played via flashback. (The same is true for Dread Return)
About the current list, why are you playing Pathrazer of Ulamong instead of Flame Kin Zealot? Of Course he is the best Eldrazi which can be reanimtaed, but what does he do, he doen't interrupt and needs 3 additional turns to kill.
The Flame Kin Zealot wins the game the moment he is reanimated, pathrazer needs 3 more Turns, Iona also Needs 3 Turns but at least she disrupts the opponent.
1. Every player saing exiled or battlefield will be kicked out.
2. Not using you mana deals 2 points of manaburn.
3. Combat damage goes over the Stack and you can freely assign it.
4. Lifelinks does stack and doesn't safe you from dying.
5. Tokens are owned bye the one who has made them.
Everyone thinking M10 will not affect a lot of cards or Limited a lot, either has no clue about magic or has never played limited or is getting paid by wizards to do propaganda.
This has to improve.
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Seems like whatever the combination of "Horsemen" ends up being it should provide an immediate end to the game, there shouldn't be an opportunity for them to attack, or steal the game away. So how do we do that? We need 20 points (though the more the better!) of Hasted, Evasive, and Shrouded fatty damage. Destroying any problematic permanents on the board that might prevent us from winning outright would be a definite bonus! Yes, we can mitigate their chances of stealing the game away from us by stripping away their hand (at least the relevant threats...) and locking them out of a color with Iona, all of which does alleviate the need for an entire team of shrouded attackers...but we still need haste and evasion. So what combination of fatties on the board delivers that?
Seems like Flame-Kin Zealot takes care of the Haste part.
I suppose a trio of Stormtide Leviathans with a Zealot backing them up would deliver 27 points of hasted unblockable damage.
2 Stormtides, Iona and Zealot? Is Iona necessary if you're going to strip their hand of relevant threats and attack for lethal this turn?
We need a creature that shrouds all our other creatures just to be greedy!
Also, I'm correct in thinking that Emrakul is technically not one of the Horsemen, right? He can never actually get Dread Return'd to the battlefield, right? Or am I an idiot and overlooking something?
Sounds like 2 Emrakul or 1 Emrakul and 1 Kozilek might be needed to prevent the graveyard hate situations described above from wrecking the gameplan. Both maindeck? Or maybe one in the SB when the GY hate comes in game 2?
Very cool thread.
EDIT: Just realized that Naz already suggested: FKZ + Kira, Great Glass Spinner + Stormtide Leviathan + Angel of Despair. Maybe toss a second Stormtide in there instead of Angel in order to bring the damage up from 18 to 21? 18 of which is shrouded/unblockable damage, and the other 3 is shrouded/flying. Plus FKZ's 3 damage would be 24, but it's not evasive. Still, that should get there, right...? Also, I'm realizing that in order to field all these guys you need to play the full 4 Dread Returns...I think. I need to build this already.