Is this deck seriously competitive enough to actually take to a tourney? Feels too much like a glass cannon. And I've never seen a deck like this in a top8 of a tournament.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not 'dissing' the deck, I really like it, and I would like to run it and help develop it (I am almost done gathering the necessary cards), I just want to know what is up with it. I don't see how this is in Established to be honest.
Belcher is more of a glass cannon type of deck than SI is. Belcher's only MD protection consists of 3 empty the warrens and your opponent not playing around them by countering the spell to get to 4 mana. And SI is less of a glass cannon because you can't beat SI with a single counterspell unless that spell is infernal tutor with a cracked LED in response. Sure they can counter a d4, but that's just two cards typically a dark ritual and a d4. The reason you don't see SI in tournaments much is because it is a very skill intensive deck and people would just rather play belcher because the deck is so easy to pilot.
And yes, it is competitive enough to take to a tourney.
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Chemically, SI is equivalent to Belcher. It does the same thing, only better. Belcher tries to go off turn 1 ASAP, but usually thats into EtW for tokens, making it more often than not a turn 3 combo deck. Belcher top8's should be evidence enough, but if thats not enough, scope deck check. People do top8 with it... when its played. I completely wrecked my local meta with it for like 2 years. I'm also on deck check twice. There are many mislabels of the deck too since its not too popular. Some deckcheck listings have called it Iggy Pop or Belcher so deckcheck isn't really indicative of all of them.
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I've found that the Pact list is impossible to play with. Either it's not too good, or I'm not too good (but I'm certainly humble enough to admit that it's probably the latter of the two). I played hundreds of games of Solitaire with the deck and wasn't able to combo out once. So, if anyone has any advice on that front, I'd be grateful to be able to hear it.
I've been trying out the Land Grant List, and I'm loving it because I feel like I'm actually able to play it. Though, I don't have much experience in Legacy--What kind of decks would you want to side all of those creatures in for? What do you side out?
Yeah a list of tips, do's and don'ts would be helpful. I know the main post covers some issues, but there are many situations in which I wish I had advice from an experienced player of the deck. Are there any matches we can watch online?
I've found that the Pact list is impossible to play with. Either it's not too good, or I'm not too good (but I'm certainly humble enough to admit that it's probably the latter of the two). I played hundreds of games of Solitaire with the deck and wasn't able to combo out once. So, if anyone has any advice on that front, I'd be grateful to be able to hear it.
I've been trying out the Land Grant List, and I'm loving it because I feel like I'm actually able to play it. Though, I don't have much experience in Legacy--What kind of decks would you want to side all of those creatures in for? What do you side out?
Ummmm are you mulliganing? Post the exact list you play or is it the exact Pact SI list from the OP? Also, I've finally figured SI out. You don't try to force the turn 1 combo every single game because you often don't have the right cards to do so at least in my goldfishing. Waiting until turn 2 or turn 3 to combo out isn't illegal or anything but can be quite valuable sometimes. Like if you play xantid swarm turn 1 and pass, turn 2 is completely right because you get protection via swarm and a whole untap step which this deck loves to do with its permanents.
Also, have you ever played any other storm combo deck? If you haven't SI is probably going to be very difficult since the skill level needed to pilot the deck optimally is very high.
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Ummmm are you mulliganing? Post the exact list you play or is it the exact Pact SI list from the OP? Also, I've finally figured SI out. You don't try to force the turn 1 combo every single game because you often don't have the right cards to do so at least in my goldfishing. Waiting until turn 2 or turn 3 to combo out isn't illegal or anything but can be quite valuable sometimes. Like if you play xantid swarm turn 1 and pass, turn 2 is completely right because you get protection via swarm and a whole untap step which this deck loves to do with its permanents.
Also, have you ever played any other storm combo deck? If you haven't SI is probably going to be very difficult since the skill level needed to pilot the deck optimally is very high.
I will once again state that this is admittedly my first venture into storm, so even I take my criticisms with a grain of salt.
I took the Pact list from the OP that was used in the example hands, switched out the Verdant Catacombs for Land Grants, and switched out two Xantid Swarms for one Skyshroud Cutter and one Wild Cantor.
I've been mulliganing and the ilk, but I suppose I really just have no idea what I'm doing. After being told that the deck could win 65% of the time on turn one, I was getting frustrated that I couldn't even luck my way into a win even if I waited two or three turns. The biggest issue I was having with the list was that I never had the correct colors for my mana. Elvish Spirit Guide was driving me insane because it couldn't make black mana, and half of the cards in the deck were basically worthless to imprint on Chrome Mox because they didn't cause it to produce black mana. But as you said, it's probably from lack of experience. At the same time though, I feel like the Land Grant List is if nothing else, much more playable for me; however, the way that I've been playing the Land Grant List (Which I copied and have been playing solitaire with exactly as it is listed) is such that I feel more like I'm playing BG Charbelcher with the Tendrils of Agony as my backup condition, and I'm not sure that I'm supposed to be doing that, given that the deck in question only plays one Charbelcher but has 3 Tendrils of Agony. As an aside, should I wait to activate Charbelcher until I've got both my lands out of my deck? Oddly enough, every game of solitaire so far where I activated Charbelcher with 1 Bayou in my deck has seen that one Bayou 11 cards down.
You can either go for belcher win or tendrils win. It isn't wrong to go for the belcher win unless you're facing a blue deck with countermagic to counter the charbelcher. Blind belching is always going to be a game of chance if there's one land in your deck, go for it I'd say and hope you get 20 or more cards. I've done that and dealt over 30 damage before.
On elvish spirit guide making mana. You try to use green mana for wild cantor filtering, manamorphose if you run it and Namida you should maybe try to fit 4 manamorphose in your list. It helps with goldfishing a lot because summoner's pact/ESG becomes black mana then or blue if you run slithermuse. And your win con's are tutorable so you can go for either kill if you get LED + IT or mana plus dude plus diabolic intent. Or just drawing tendrils off a D4 and killing them with it in hand without needing to tutor it.
When deciding to go for a turn 1 win with PSI Nayon if you feel you have enough resources to go off turn one go for it. And by resources I mean lots of black mana and business spells like maybe a tall man, tutors, D4's, or if you simply have belcher in hand I've had that happen where I play like RG belcher and dump my hand into it to activate it turn 1.
Also with the imprint on chrome mox problem. You can try running a singleton odious trow since pact can fetch it and you can then tap it for black or if you really need to green mana. I'm trying to find a spot for trow personally in my 60 but there's the decision of what to cut for it which is quite difficult since this is a combo deck.
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PSI
Business
1 Slithermuse
2 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
Mana
1 Eternal Witness
1 Odious Trow
1 Wild Cantor
1 Skyshroud Cutter
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
I did some testing today. So far, the list works pretty smoothly. I haven't played magic in like 4 weeks or so as I was on vacation, but I can still consistently get the turn 2 kill. Keep in mind guys, you only need the turn 1 against so many decks, namely, Stax, control, discard, and combo. Everything that doesn't do something relevant in the first few turns to disrupt your gameplan is like shooting fish in the bucket. I usually let my opponents play first in this matchup as going off with 8 cards is much easier than attempting with 7 (or fewer if you mull). In that case, I'd first practice going for a turn 2 avg. than pushing the T1's. Even I have to play this deck fairly consistently to get to the point at which I can be competitive in a tournament.
@ video ideas... I really did want to put some vids up. Forbiddian managed to do that for UWT on the source. I've been meaning to talk to him about how I could go about doing it, but ATM MWS doesn't work on my comp anyway. I might just record some with a normal camera of me vs. a friend IRL.
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I took out Diabolic Intent and added manamorphose, took out xantids added a single trow, and added IGG and 2 extra tendrils, and the T1 win rate went up immensely.
The only problem I have now is that I overextend T1 and if I do that I can't win T2.
FoW and Spell Pierce can give you problems, but about half the time you will just run into Daze. I really hope Madness becomes popular. It has extremely narrow answers for us. 4 Force doesn't get there against us. You might 'overextend into a spell chain on the first turn', but often you can play through their Daze, and with perpetual resources, you are ensured a 2nd attempt. Especially once you get Carpet of Flowers.
I also dropped Diabolic Intent from my list. It was good on occassions but in general I preferred my old configuration. The Belcher option is simply too strong an option to pass on.
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All right, I'm understanding the Pact list more--Apparently between giving up on it and deciding to play the Land Grant List, I became competent. What is your sideboard looking like? I haven't tried it out yet, but I like most of the sideboard for the Pact list in the first post; However, do you think that the two extra Bayou out of the side would ever be necessary? (This may or may not be me trying to rationalize only needing to go out and get one Bayou.) I can't think of any situation other than fearing Wasteland, but I'm not sure that the deck cares that much--you can only tap your land once when you're going off, after all.
Bayou can be cut from the SB especially if you no longer run xantid swarm MD you can replace the 2 bayou with 2 xantid's. I always like to have xantid as a 4 of in the board because he beats up spell pierce hardcore and other stuff like fireblast after you chain some D4's together you are at a susceptible life total to get burned out. But people generally don't know how to play against SI because it is a very rare deck to get paired against although its numbers have risen a little bit since mystical tutor got axed people just don't want to devote time to learning one of the hardest decks to play in the format and would instead opt for something easy to play like zoo or goblins.
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H5: Pact, Pact, Chrome Mox, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Cruel Bargain, Infernal Contract
Pact--> Odious Trow, Chrome Mox (Trow) (B), Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Infernal Contract
Draw 4: Land Grant, Land Grant, Pact, Culling the Weak
Land Grant--> Dryad Arbor, Culling the Weak (BBBB), Infernal Contract (B)
Draw 4: Manamorphose, Eternal Witness, Slithermuse, Chrome Mox
Pact-->ESG, Pact--> ESG, Manamorphose (BBU) drawing Culling the Weak, Chrome Mox (Culling the Weak) (BBBU), Slithermuse
Draw 6: LED, ESG, Pact, Manamorphose, ESG, Lotus Petal
LED, ESG, Pact--> ESG, ESG (GGG), Manamorphose--> (BGG) drawing Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual (BBBGG), Lotus Petal (BBBBGG), Eternal Witness (BBB)--> (breaking LED in response for UUU) Slithermuse (BB)
Draw 7: Land Grant, Chrome Mox, Bayou, Infernal Tutor, Tendrils of Agony, Infernal Contract, Cabal Ritual
Chrome Mox (Infernal Tutor) (BBB), Cabal Ritual (BBBBBB), Tendrils for 44
is it just me or does this sample turn 1 win from the primer exile 5 elvish spirit guides?
otherwise i really love this primer and i read every word of it
i am really interested in testing this deck and seriously considering bringing it to a tournament
i can't wait to see the list with tinder walls that the primer mentions it sounds promising
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I'm putting this out there, I'm really not a fan of the Pact based lists, and it seems a few others aren't either. The main weaknesses of the Pact lists are the reliance on Slithermuse and the not so great control matchup. I have talked with Emidln, and a couple friends of Colby (original designer) that I met at a pre-realease, and they weren't such fans of the pact version either. I have done a lot of testing with several Pact lists, but I was never as satisfied as i am with the Land Grant list:
This list was proposed by B.C. and I feel it's the most solid build still. Empty the Warrens is a clutch card, it's really nice main deck, since it doesn't take 10 storm to win the game, normally like 6-7. Another huge advantage is the SB plan, vs blue based control (not merfolk though) the plan is:
-4 Phyrexian Walker
-4 Shield Sphere
-4 Culling the Weak
-1 Goblin Charbelcher
-1 Tendrils of Agony
-1 Infernal Contract
+4 Tomb of Urami
+4 Duress
+4 Xantid Swarm
+3 Tombstalker
This way you lose some of the combo, but still have most of it, and in addition you get disruption and big 5/5 flyers (opponents normally SB out removal). Then G3 is a mind game (if there is one), but I normally go back to my pre SB configuration. Try this version, I think it's more solid than the Pact ones.
Canonist isn't much of a pain if you play Empty the Warrens, since decks that play Cannonist don't have the fastest clock, it's easy to drop some artifacts then EtW for 10+ tokens, which is waht I normally do. But ya, discard is a beating, and Trinisphere is gg, as is Chalice at 0. Our only option is to race it, even dedicating SB slots it's still not guaranteed, they'd be better to help us vs control.
I'm putting this out there, I'm really not a fan of the Pact based lists, and it seems a few others aren't either. The main weaknesses of the Pact lists are the reliance on Slithermuse and the not so great control matchup. I have talked with Emidln, and a couple friends of Colby (original designer) that I met at a pre-realease, and they weren't such fans of the pact version either. I have done a lot of testing with several Pact lists, but I was never as satisfied as i am with the Land Grant list:
This list was proposed by B.C. and I feel it's the most solid build still. Empty the Warrens is a clutch card, it's really nice main deck, since it doesn't take 10 storm to win the game, normally like 6-7. Another huge advantage is the SB plan, vs blue based control (not merfolk though) the plan is:
-4 Phyrexian Walker
-4 Shield Sphere
-4 Culling the Weak
-1 Goblin Charbelcher
-1 Tendrils of Agony
-1 Infernal Contract
+4 Tomb of Urami
+4 Duress
+4 Xantid Swarm
+3 Tombstalker
This way you lose some of the combo, but still have most of it, and in addition you get disruption and big 5/5 flyers (opponents normally SB out removal). Then G3 is a mind game (if there is one), but I normally go back to my pre SB configuration. Try this version, I think it's more solid than the Pact ones.
Canonist isn't much of a pain if you play Empty the Warrens, since decks that play Cannonist don't have the fastest clock, it's easy to drop some artifacts then EtW for 10+ tokens, which is waht I normally do. But ya, discard is a beating, and Trinisphere is gg, as is Chalice at 0. Our only option is to race it, even dedicating SB slots it's still not guaranteed, they'd be better to help us vs control.
I believe the advantage of the pact list is that you can win before they try to disrupt you. How fast is the LG list? Also notice that the list I posted is a hybrid of both. It performs as fast as pact but it is more reliable than pact.
I believe the advantage of the pact list is that you can win before they try to disrupt you. How fast is the LG list? Also notice that the list I posted is a hybrid of both. It performs as fast as pact but it is more reliable than pact.
The Land Grant based list is a little slower, but it's barely noticeable. You still have a ridiculously high win percentage (50-60 percent turn 1), but if your draw 4 fizzles you can untap and try again next turn, vs summoner's pact killing you. It's non-dependance on Slithermuse is a benefit too, because although on the play Slithermuse is a draw 7, on the draw it's probably a draw 5 or 6, and going all in on for 5 blind cards doesn't normally end well. I haven't tested your list, it looks a lot like the old Pact lists though first proposed by Breathweapon. If you want a Slithermuse, I'd cut a charbelcher, 2 is unnecessary because tendrils is just more consistent, but one is good as a surprise around hate.
Has anyone tested out Last chance as a way to get another shot at going off before your opponent get's a turn if your on the play?
I have a few laying around and am working on building the hybrid list you posted NaYoN but thought that it might be worth looking into. I would have to get the simian spirit guides and switch the list up a bit and I was wondering if getting another turn to try and combo off was worth the change?
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Don't get me wrong, I'm not 'dissing' the deck, I really like it, and I would like to run it and help develop it (I am almost done gathering the necessary cards), I just want to know what is up with it. I don't see how this is in Established to be honest.
And yes, it is competitive enough to take to a tourney.
Currently Playing:
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I've been trying out the Land Grant List, and I'm loving it because I feel like I'm actually able to play it. Though, I don't have much experience in Legacy--What kind of decks would you want to side all of those creatures in for? What do you side out?
Ummmm are you mulliganing? Post the exact list you play or is it the exact Pact SI list from the OP? Also, I've finally figured SI out. You don't try to force the turn 1 combo every single game because you often don't have the right cards to do so at least in my goldfishing. Waiting until turn 2 or turn 3 to combo out isn't illegal or anything but can be quite valuable sometimes. Like if you play xantid swarm turn 1 and pass, turn 2 is completely right because you get protection via swarm and a whole untap step which this deck loves to do with its permanents.
Also, have you ever played any other storm combo deck? If you haven't SI is probably going to be very difficult since the skill level needed to pilot the deck optimally is very high.
Currently Playing:
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I will once again state that this is admittedly my first venture into storm, so even I take my criticisms with a grain of salt.
I took the Pact list from the OP that was used in the example hands, switched out the Verdant Catacombs for Land Grants, and switched out two Xantid Swarms for one Skyshroud Cutter and one Wild Cantor.
I've been mulliganing and the ilk, but I suppose I really just have no idea what I'm doing. After being told that the deck could win 65% of the time on turn one, I was getting frustrated that I couldn't even luck my way into a win even if I waited two or three turns. The biggest issue I was having with the list was that I never had the correct colors for my mana. Elvish Spirit Guide was driving me insane because it couldn't make black mana, and half of the cards in the deck were basically worthless to imprint on Chrome Mox because they didn't cause it to produce black mana. But as you said, it's probably from lack of experience. At the same time though, I feel like the Land Grant List is if nothing else, much more playable for me; however, the way that I've been playing the Land Grant List (Which I copied and have been playing solitaire with exactly as it is listed) is such that I feel more like I'm playing BG Charbelcher with the Tendrils of Agony as my backup condition, and I'm not sure that I'm supposed to be doing that, given that the deck in question only plays one Charbelcher but has 3 Tendrils of Agony. As an aside, should I wait to activate Charbelcher until I've got both my lands out of my deck? Oddly enough, every game of solitaire so far where I activated Charbelcher with 1 Bayou in my deck has seen that one Bayou 11 cards down.
As I said, vids of someone playing or more sample hands like in the OP would be really helpful.
Also, most of the top8's on deckcheck seem to be LGSI.
On elvish spirit guide making mana. You try to use green mana for wild cantor filtering, manamorphose if you run it and Namida you should maybe try to fit 4 manamorphose in your list. It helps with goldfishing a lot because summoner's pact/ESG becomes black mana then or blue if you run slithermuse. And your win con's are tutorable so you can go for either kill if you get LED + IT or mana plus dude plus diabolic intent. Or just drawing tendrils off a D4 and killing them with it in hand without needing to tutor it.
When deciding to go for a turn 1 win with PSI Nayon if you feel you have enough resources to go off turn one go for it. And by resources I mean lots of black mana and business spells like maybe a tall man, tutors, D4's, or if you simply have belcher in hand I've had that happen where I play like RG belcher and dump my hand into it to activate it turn 1.
Also with the imprint on chrome mox problem. You can try running a singleton odious trow since pact can fetch it and you can then tap it for black or if you really need to green mana. I'm trying to find a spot for trow personally in my 60 but there's the decision of what to cut for it which is quite difficult since this is a combo deck.
Currently Playing:
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PSI
Business
1 Slithermuse
2 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
Mana
1 Eternal Witness
1 Odious Trow
1 Wild Cantor
1 Skyshroud Cutter
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
I did some testing today. So far, the list works pretty smoothly. I haven't played magic in like 4 weeks or so as I was on vacation, but I can still consistently get the turn 2 kill. Keep in mind guys, you only need the turn 1 against so many decks, namely, Stax, control, discard, and combo. Everything that doesn't do something relevant in the first few turns to disrupt your gameplan is like shooting fish in the bucket. I usually let my opponents play first in this matchup as going off with 8 cards is much easier than attempting with 7 (or fewer if you mull). In that case, I'd first practice going for a turn 2 avg. than pushing the T1's. Even I have to play this deck fairly consistently to get to the point at which I can be competitive in a tournament.
@ video ideas... I really did want to put some vids up. Forbiddian managed to do that for UWT on the source. I've been meaning to talk to him about how I could go about doing it, but ATM MWS doesn't work on my comp anyway. I might just record some with a normal camera of me vs. a friend IRL.
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The only problem I have now is that I overextend T1 and if I do that I can't win T2.
Also, countermagic might be a problem.
I also dropped Diabolic Intent from my list. It was good on occassions but in general I preferred my old configuration. The Belcher option is simply too strong an option to pass on.
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Currently Playing:
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Also, discard is painful too but it's alright if it's not too extreme like Hymn + Duress t1
Also, Trinisphere is pain.
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1 Dryad Arbor
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Eternal Witness
1 Odious Trow
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Chrome Mox
4 Cruel bargain
4 Culling the Weak
4 Dark Ritual
4 Infernal Contract
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Summoner's Pact
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Land Grant
2 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
2 Manamorphose
No sideboard yet.
I wanna put in 1xSlithermuse in there, but I don't know what to cut.
is it just me or does this sample turn 1 win from the primer exile 5 elvish spirit guides?
otherwise i really love this primer and i read every word of it
i am really interested in testing this deck and seriously considering bringing it to a tournament
i can't wait to see the list with tinder walls that the primer mentions it sounds promising
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4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Land Grant
3 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
2 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Shield Sphere
4 Phyrexian Walker
2 Tendrils of Agony
2 Empty the Warrens
1 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Duress
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Tomb of Urami
This list was proposed by B.C. and I feel it's the most solid build still. Empty the Warrens is a clutch card, it's really nice main deck, since it doesn't take 10 storm to win the game, normally like 6-7. Another huge advantage is the SB plan, vs blue based control (not merfolk though) the plan is:
-4 Phyrexian Walker
-4 Shield Sphere
-4 Culling the Weak
-1 Goblin Charbelcher
-1 Tendrils of Agony
-1 Infernal Contract
+4 Tomb of Urami
+4 Duress
+4 Xantid Swarm
+3 Tombstalker
This way you lose some of the combo, but still have most of it, and in addition you get disruption and big 5/5 flyers (opponents normally SB out removal). Then G3 is a mind game (if there is one), but I normally go back to my pre SB configuration. Try this version, I think it's more solid than the Pact ones.
Canonist isn't much of a pain if you play Empty the Warrens, since decks that play Cannonist don't have the fastest clock, it's easy to drop some artifacts then EtW for 10+ tokens, which is waht I normally do. But ya, discard is a beating, and Trinisphere is gg, as is Chalice at 0. Our only option is to race it, even dedicating SB slots it's still not guaranteed, they'd be better to help us vs control.
I believe the advantage of the pact list is that you can win before they try to disrupt you. How fast is the LG list? Also notice that the list I posted is a hybrid of both. It performs as fast as pact but it is more reliable than pact.
The Land Grant based list is a little slower, but it's barely noticeable. You still have a ridiculously high win percentage (50-60 percent turn 1), but if your draw 4 fizzles you can untap and try again next turn, vs summoner's pact killing you. It's non-dependance on Slithermuse is a benefit too, because although on the play Slithermuse is a draw 7, on the draw it's probably a draw 5 or 6, and going all in on for 5 blind cards doesn't normally end well. I haven't tested your list, it looks a lot like the old Pact lists though first proposed by Breathweapon. If you want a Slithermuse, I'd cut a charbelcher, 2 is unnecessary because tendrils is just more consistent, but one is good as a surprise around hate.
I have a few laying around and am working on building the hybrid list you posted NaYoN but thought that it might be worth looking into. I would have to get the simian spirit guides and switch the list up a bit and I was wondering if getting another turn to try and combo off was worth the change?