Just a thought a buddy and I had last night; we figured splashing red in the decklist for Geistflame or Lightning Bolt (or any other 1cmc burn for that matter) would pretty much garuntee the combo going off on turn 4. Plus, you could always self mill and cast Geistflame from the GY. I really think Snapcaster and Bob would be great additions to this deck as well.
It seems that the same statement has to be on each page of this thread, so:
"This deck does not need combo enablers. Once you get to 5 mana, have Mindcrank in play and successfuly played Guildmage, you can just wait for: opponent play non-permanent spell, discard or removal or Ghost Quarter."
Yes, you need enablers. Your opponent can easily play around the assembled but not enabled combo by doing one of the following:
Swing only with creatures that force Duskmantle Guildmage to chump (not trade), are evasive, or are tokens (they're not cards, so they don't trigger the Guildmage's 1st ability)--this only works if Duskmantle Guildmage cannot kill/trade with any of the opponent's untapped creatures post-swing or the swinging is for lethal (unless the Guildmage chumps)
Pull off the "Exarch" "Twin" combo (Exarch Twin, Twin Pod) (subset of the above point)
Upsettingly, I once lost against RDW after assembling but not enabling the combo by being at 2 life, having my opponent swing Goblin Guide into my Guildmage, me blocking the Guide (duh), activating the Guildmage's 1st ability during declare blockers, then being Bolted in response (I couldn't activate the 1st ability a second time in response).
If you want Duskmantle Guildmage to reliably dodge creature removal, you're casting him and activating his first ability on the same turn (which costs a whopping 5 mana total). You probably don't have enough mana up afterwards to activate his second ability (which does enable the combo), and you won't have enough time to swing with him to enable the combo.
I count Thought Scour and Ghost Quarter as enablers, as I don't normally consider them for combo decks (especially not Ghost Quarter). I tend to use targeted discard too early to use it as an enabler (though it is one in a pinch). I've found spot removal not named Slaughter Pact or Dismember to be either too expensive or too restrictive, and spot removal is inconveniently dead against some decks (RG Artifact Tron tends to go on the Karn Liberated-Oblivion Stone plan against me, for example, so I'm often waiting at the altar for Wurmcoil Engine).
Just a thought a buddy and I had last night; we figured splashing red in the decklist for Geistflame or Lightning Bolt (or any other 1cmc burn for that matter) would pretty much garuntee the combo going off on turn 4. Plus, you could always self mill and cast Geistflame from the GY. I really think Snapcaster and Bob would be great additions to this deck as well.
if you have enough mana to use its activated ability just swing and use its ability and win
@lectrys erm i think enablers are not what you are looking for. counters/backups are what you are looking for. in the olden days of mind's desire storm, combo off + counter back up is almost impossible to beat. in this case just so that the counterspells also put a card into your opponent's graveyard.
blow up mindcrank - if abrupt decay is not the removal used to blow up mindcrank then a normal counterspell (spell pierce, spell snare but i prefer pact of negation) will have their removal into the graveyard and you win. play a academy ruin or buried ruin to get mindcrank back
combat tricks - trade if need to and they will end up with their creature in the graveyard and you win. if not just dont block, swing back next turn and activate the guildmage's ability1 and win
twin combo - they win no matter what if they get the nut draw + mizzium skin. same goes for us too. we win if we get nut draw + counter back up. so to anybody else who say this combo is not as fast or resilient as twin, remember people once said twin is easily disruptible too.
blow up effects that kill your combo pieces which are already in play - dont think thats a problem, but i may be wrong here. on your turn you should have the priority as the active player to activate the ability1 before they try to crack engineered explosives or whatever, whereby anything will result in a loss for them. we do need a plan B here.
grim lavamancer - counter it or kill it
liliana of the veil - i would play around it. forcing your opponent to press +1 instead of pressing -2 by having an aether vial(2), alternatively have another creature at any point of time. alternatively just counter it if they try to play liliana of the veil
karn - turn 3 karn is a nut draw and is also a beating. otherwise digging spells(ancient stirrings, sylvan scryings, maps, spheres, stars) or burn will be used and if mindcrank and guildmage is in play then any of those will be a game loss to them.
flashback - snapcaster mage is a spell and a creature so it can be countered and killed. most flashback spells played are unburial rites and lingering souls. those can be countered and rites is going to put a creature in to play and those can be killed... although miss iona and miss norn are both beatings in their own rights.
that RDW game you were going to lose anyway. 2 life and with a guide beating you, he is just baiting you to tap out and then send that bolt to your head. countering that bolt or killing that guide would have won you that game.
duskmantle guildmage should be the last piece to play, much like you have to play splinter twin AFTER you play pestermite or deceiver exarch. however its best you have 1UB open when you play guildmage so you'll win off any non permanent spells they play or they will be forced to not play, buying you time for you to draw enough lands to activate ability1 and ability2 on the same turn and win. sometimes you just want them to play removal on your guildmage
thought scour is good. enabler, cantrip, digs for mindcrank if you got academy ruin or buried ruin online.
ghost quarter is good. enabler, fetches a land when targetting darksteel citadel for color. hit opponent's vital lands and is a lock with crucible of worlds.
wurmcoil engine is just waiting to get slaughter pact-ed
@sabre from all the testings and card choices i researched, i found that our cards have to either defend the combo via counterspells or creatures that kills opponent's creatures and/or to stall the game until we get the combo online; or disrupt the opponent via discards or removals
all the above mentioned ways work towards a goal and that is to put a card in your opponent's graveyard.
my personal choices are slaughter pact, pact of negation, thought scour and ghost quarter
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Generation 18: First time you see this, change the number up 1 and copy into sig. It's a social experiment.
if you have enough mana to use its activated ability just swing and use its ability and win
But swinging is no where near as reliable as a burn to the face :/ Although I do like the idea of putting Thought Scour instead, as it starts the combo off plus you can use it to maybe self mill yourself to maybe open up more options for a Snapcaster?
@lectrys erm i think enablers are not what you are looking for. counters/backups are what you are looking for. in the olden days of mind's desire storm, combo off + counter back up is almost impossible to beat. in this case just so that the counterspells also put a card into your opponent's graveyard.
blow up mindcrank - if abrupt decay is not the removal used to blow up mindcrank then a normal counterspell (spell pierce, spell snare but i prefer pact of negation) will have their removal into the graveyard and you win. play a academy ruin or buried ruin to get mindcrank back
combat tricks - trade if need to and they will end up with their creature in the graveyard and you win. if not just dont block, swing back next turn and activate the guildmage's ability1 and win
twin combo - they win no matter what if they get the nut draw + mizzium skin. same goes for us too. we win if we get nut draw + counter back up. so to anybody else who say this combo is not as fast or resilient as twin, remember people once said twin is easily disruptible too.
blow up effects that kill your combo pieces which are already in play - dont think thats a problem, but i may be wrong here. on your turn you should have the priority as the active player to activate the ability1 before they try to crack engineered explosives or whatever, whereby anything will result in a loss for them. we do need a plan B here.
grim lavamancer - counter it or kill it
liliana of the veil - i would play around it. forcing your opponent to press +1 instead of pressing -2 by having an aether vial(2), alternatively have another creature at any point of time. alternatively just counter it if they try to play liliana of the veil
karn - turn 3 karn is a nut draw and is also a beating. otherwise digging spells(ancient stirrings, sylvan scryings, maps, spheres, stars) or burn will be used and if mindcrank and guildmage is in play then any of those will be a game loss to them.
flashback - snapcaster mage is a spell and a creature so it can be countered and killed. most flashback spells played are unburial rites and lingering souls. those can be countered and rites is going to put a creature in to play and those can be killed... although miss iona and miss norn are both beatings in their own rights.
that RDW game you were going to lose anyway. 2 life and with a guide beating you, he is just baiting you to tap out and then send that bolt to your head. countering that bolt or killing that guide would have won you that game.
duskmantle guildmage should be the last piece to play, much like you have to play splinter twin AFTER you play pestermite or deceiver exarch. however its best you have 1UB open when you play guildmage so you'll win off any non permanent spells they play or they will be forced to not play, buying you time for you to draw enough lands to activate ability1 and ability2 on the same turn and win. sometimes you just want them to play removal on your guildmage
thought scour is good. enabler, cantrip, digs for mindcrank if you got academy ruin or buried ruin online.
ghost quarter is good. enabler, fetches a land when targetting darksteel citadel for color. hit opponent's vital lands and is a lock with crucible of worlds.
wurmcoil engine is just waiting to get slaughter pact-ed
@sabre from all the testings and card choices i researched, i found that our cards have to either defend the combo via counterspells or creatures that kills opponent's creatures and/or to stall the game until we get the combo online; or disrupt the opponent via discards or removals
all the above mentioned ways work towards a goal and that is to put a card in your opponent's graveyard.
my personal choices are slaughter pact, pact of negation, thought scour and ghost quarter
I tend to deal with Karn and blowing up Mindcrank by attempting to get Spellskite first. Sadly, early Liliana usually makes me sac Spellskite, so my Mindcrank still gets Abrupt Decayed. (I'm currently going for speed and consistency over protection--my only protection is Remand, targeted discard, and spot removal.) I play one Academy Ruins, but it's only good against grindy decks (I'm not sure Jund is grindy enough--it's a little fast), and its colourless mana is a pain.
Flashback spells cast from the graveyard will be exiled no matter what happens to them, so countering them won't work. (Yeah, Jund got annoying when I had to get out the combo without enabling it because of an active Liliana--they got 2 more Spirit tokens and started the beats.)
Anyway, I just made those points because they all show that you (and I) cannot afford to wait to draw an enabler before comboing off. Zoo and Jund kept attacking through the assembled but not enabled combo (they tended to hold back an X/3+ or a token).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I ran out of disruption at the time against RDW (and I had no Spellskite), so I couldn't deal with Bolt or Goblin Guide. Perhaps the better play would have been to just plain trade the Guildmage with Guide and hope to draw into another one...screw it, RDW Bolts me afterwards.
I waited forever for Wurmcoil Engine to appear most games against Tron. I couldn't enable the combo for quite a while in one game. I just replaced Slaughter Pact with Gut Shot for my free enabler slot because Slaughter Pact doesn't work against too many decks. If I play Lotus Bloom or Pentad Prism to increase speed, though, the free enabler slot goes.
Yeah, I also agree that Duskmantle Guildmage has to be played last. I tend to combo off with an enabler in hand, so I'm investing 5 mana (or 3 mana and a Vial at 2--I love the Vial suggestion in this thread; I was using Pentad Prism and it was fine, but I love the surprise factor Vial has and the fear it later brings on, so I've swapped to Vials) into the Guildmage to get him out and activate him in the same turn. That way, he dodges creature removal. Lavamancer isn't so bad against me because I tend to combo off cautiously.
I agree that Thought Scour and Ghost Quarter are staying. Ghost Quarter has been the enabler I use the most often (I aim Thought Scour at myself probably 70% of the time--I drain it really fast if I have GQ in hand or on the battlefield), but Thought Scour is second place. I've rarely used the free enabler slot or targeted discard as enablers (but I've used the free enabler slot more often). Given my cautious play style, 2 mana is too expensive for an enabler for me (that means I need to hit 7 mana instead of 5-6).
I tend to deal with Karn and blowing up Mindcrank by attempting to get Spellskite first. Sadly, early Liliana usually makes me sac Spellskite, so my Mindcrank still gets Abrupt Decayed. (I'm currently going for speed and consistency over protection--my only protection is Remand, targeted discard, and spot removal.) I play one Academy Ruins, but it's only good against grindy decks (I'm not sure Jund is grindy enough--it's a little fast), and its colourless mana is a pain.
Flashback spells cast from the graveyard will be exiled no matter what happens to them, so countering them won't work. (Yeah, Jund got annoying when I had to get out the combo without enabling it because of an active Liliana--they got 2 more Spirit tokens and started the beats.)
Anyway, I just made those points because they all show that you (and I) cannot afford to wait to draw an enabler before comboing off. Zoo and Jund kept attacking through the assembled but not enabled combo (they tended to hold back an X/3+ or a token).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I ran out of disruption at the time against RDW (and I had no Spellskite), so I couldn't deal with Bolt or Goblin Guide. Perhaps the better play would have been to just plain trade the Guildmage with Guide and hope to draw into another one...screw it, RDW Bolts me afterwards.
I waited forever for Wurmcoil Engine to appear most games against Tron. I couldn't enable the combo for quite a while in one game. I just replaced Slaughter Pact with Gut Shot for my free enabler slot because Slaughter Pact doesn't work against too many decks. If I play Lotus Bloom or Pentad Prism to increase speed, though, the free enabler slot goes.
Yeah, I also agree that Duskmantle Guildmage has to be played last. I tend to combo off with an enabler in hand, so I'm investing 5 mana (or 3 mana and a Vial at 2--I love the Vial suggestion in this thread; I was using Pentad Prism and it was fine, but I love the surprise factor Vial has and the fear it later brings on, so I've swapped to Vials) into the Guildmage to get him out and activate him in the same turn. That way, he dodges creature removal. Lavamancer isn't so bad against me because I tend to combo off cautiously.
I agree that Thought Scour and Ghost Quarter are staying. Ghost Quarter has been the enabler I use the most often (I aim Thought Scour at myself probably 70% of the time--I drain it really fast if I have GQ in hand or on the battlefield), but Thought Scour is second place. I've rarely used the free enabler slot or targeted discard as enablers (but I've used the free enabler slot more often). Given my cautious play style, 2 mana is too expensive for an enabler for me (that means I need to hit 7 mana instead of 5-6).
I really think the 3 hard hitting Phyrexian spells should take spots in this deck; Probe, ABlessing, and Gutshot. Sure, you're wasting your life away by using it, but in my experience so far if you can't get the combo off you're ****ed.
Gutshot is a great enabler, seeing as how it's free and lets you combo off with only 3 mana open, saving room for say a Muddle The Mixture or another counter spell. ABlessing is just a ridiculously good card in my opinion, and can protect your investments.
Probe is probe, watch out for their counterspells. Either way though, Ghost Quarter and Thought Scour are here to stay it seems.
***EDIT***
With that said, this is how I figured this deck would play out. I'm not good at formatting decklists on the forum, sorry;
I really feel like the power of Phyrexian mana will allow you to combo off much earlier, and since it's really all or nothing in this deck losing some life to help that combo succeed isn't a big deal. Gut Shot is in there as another enabler for now but I could see it being sideboarded. Apostle's Blessing is sweet, and so is Probe. Muddle the Mixture really helps you get the cards you need in hand and also acts as an awesome counter spell.
The only other addition I could think of that would be very powerful is Bob. Someone suggested it a few pages back and I think it would be sweet, seeing as how its in the 2CMC mark for muddle.
I took Academy Ruins over Buried Ruins only because I feel like you need as much mana as possible to ensure this combo goes off. Sacing lands I dont think is in our best interest when we could be using those lands to fuel our protection/counterspells.
For those that think them having a blocker is going to matter, or them having removal is going to matter. You realize that after you activate the ability, even if they path him or trade creatures, his ability still happens. So unless you're swinging into a goyf on turn 3/4 they are either:
Casting a spell to kill him, which still ends up going to the GY and giving you the win
Trading creatures to kill him, which still ends up going to the GY and giving you the win
Not block or casting, which also triggers mindcrank, thus winning you the game.
Seems like a pretty reasonable win con to me. Just slow play the deck and set up to where you can't lose, similar to a high tide type combo. You don't need the quick win necessarily to combo. Make sure that when you go for it, you are either going to lose next turn or you have so much backup it would be dumb not to.
For those that think them having a blocker is going to matter, or them having removal is going to matter. You realize that after you activate the ability, even if they path him or trade creatures, his ability still happens. So unless you're swinging into a goyf on turn 3/4 they are either:
Casting a spell to kill him, which still ends up going to the GY and giving you the win
Trading creatures to kill him, which still ends up going to the GY and giving you the win
Not block or casting, which also triggers mindcrank, thus winning you the game.
Seems like a pretty reasonable win con to me. Just slow play the deck and set up to where you can't lose, similar to a high tide type combo. You don't need the quick win necessarily to combo. Make sure that when you go for it, you are either going to lose next turn or you have so much backup it would be dumb not to.
This is awesome advice. I guess putting Gut Shot's in the board aren't that neccessary then; maybe in the sideboard for certain situations + another win con.
If that's the case, would stacking up on Counterspells/Protection spells be ideal?
For those that think them having a blocker is going to matter, or them having removal is going to matter. You realize that after you activate the ability, even if they path him or trade creatures, his ability still happens. So unless you're swinging into a goyf on turn 3/4 they are either:
Casting a spell to kill him, which still ends up going to the GY and giving you the win
Trading creatures to kill him, which still ends up going to the GY and giving you the win
Not block or casting, which also triggers mindcrank, thus winning you the game.
Seems like a pretty reasonable win con to me. Just slow play the deck and set up to where you can't lose, similar to a high tide type combo. You don't need the quick win necessarily to combo. Make sure that when you go for it, you are either going to lose next turn or you have so much backup it would be dumb not to.
Against decks with discard, I'm sometimes forced to go off without enablers--for example, I have Mindcrank, Vial at 2, 2 lands on the board, and only a land and a Duskmantle Guildmage in hand, and my opponent casts a topdecked Inquisition of Kozilek. Yeah, I'm dropping the Guildmage with the Vial. Then I promptly lose because my opponent is on BW Tokens and she has Intangible Virtue and tokens out (well, I'm against myself), so she always leaves blockers behind and keeps swinging. She's not casting spells for the rest of the game that aren't permanents, but she has a board and I don't.
In testing, I've found that BW Tokens can actually play around the assembled but not enabled combo pretty easily--certainly easier than Jund can.
To combat all these, I recommend bounce and Apostle's Blessing (Faith's Shield and Disenchant work if you splash white). Spellskite and spot removal (which also help against the above) are likely good enough for the maindeck.
If you have any creature out, apparently you can cast Knack while AD is on the stack, have it resolve, then tap the targeted creature bouncing the target of AD (In this case, most commonly Mindcrack), or you could even bounce the Guildmage.
Maindecking at least 3 copies of Pact of Negation seems completely reasonable for this combo. Solves a lot of those iffy "what if" scenarios. And gives you backup to everything outside of a abrupt decay (which splinter/exarch/mite) loses to as well and they seem to be doing rather well...
Against decks with discard, I'm sometimes forced to go off without enablers--for example, I have Mindcrank, Vial at 2, 2 lands on the board, and only a land and a Duskmantle Guildmage in hand, and my opponent casts a topdecked Inquisition of Kozilek. Yeah, I'm dropping the Guildmage with the Vial. Then I promptly lose because my opponent is on BW Tokens and she has Intangible Virtue and tokens out (well, I'm against myself), so she always leaves blockers behind and keeps swinging. She's not casting spells for the rest of the game that aren't permanents, but she has a board and I don't.
In testing, I've found that BW Tokens can actually play around the assembled but not enabled combo pretty easily--certainly easier than Jund can.
i do not have your list yet so i cannot offer any suggestions for you, but for me i have ratchet bomb and academy ruins to recur. if all else fails, you can try to still race them or go to your trusty sideboard. unfortunately i have not start work on sideboard yet. sorry lol
another direction i can think of is the eternal witness, noxious revival plan. this plan you can thought scour, nephalia drownyard yourself and then get back whatever you want from the graveyard. but that will be BUG... and will lost focus on the combo.
@ntdars im on that direction. spellskite focus on abrupt decay and just recur spellskite for sacrificing to liliana of the veil. ill test apostle's blessing later. im still not convinced on gut shot and gitaxian probe unless the meta shifted to a point where the defining creatures are x/1. probe is just a cantrip.
@ntdars im on that direction. spellskite focus on abrupt decay and just recur spellskite for sacrificing to liliana of the veil. ill test apostle's blessing later. im still not convinced on gut shot and gitaxian probe unless the meta shifted to a point where the defining creatures are x/1. probe is just a cantrip.
I just feel like the ability to watch out for Counterspells for free with a Cantrip before you combo off can be surprisingly good, especially when they're you're convinced they have a Counterspell or Removal in hand so it stops you from piecing together the combo, but they actually don't. I'd at least have it in the sideboard vs Control matchups, maybe not for aggro/combo.
I've been tweaking a little bit to try to find a decent list. I still feel that it's a little weak for the moment but it does win a fair amount of times. I may be working on the wrong lists as well. Here's what I'm testing right now.
The numbers are pretty random but correspond more or less to what I want to have in the deck. Vial is really cool to put in the guildmage for the win. Spellskite and snacpaster add value to the vial as well as ToK that gets rid of extra copies. Bolt is an enabler as well as a very good card in general and with snapcaster. With snapcaster, muddle the mixture is better than infiltrator but the fact that you transmute in sorcery kind of sucks. It's still nice to have a bit of redundancy for the combo.
In general, I feel that this combo needs a third colour to work. UB just has too weak cards in general to do anything good IMO. I miss some real removal like abrupt decay so going BUG is a possibility.
Let me know what you think.
I just don't really understand the point of Snapcaster in your list, if you're trying to combo off on turn 4, then I don't think you should be wasting time casting creatures for more removal, especially when you don't have very many ways to get cards in the GY.
So far I feel like most of the thread is relying on Thought Scour (which can work well both ways for Mindcrank retrieval from the GY) and Ghost Quarter for enablers. I suggested Bolt before too and yeah it's pretty good, but like I said I feel that just getting all the pieces on the board ASAP is what's important.
I tested a little bit with Snapcaster mage as a 2 of which I would fetch with MtM, but it only came in use 2/say 14 games, in which case I still lost. This is all personal opinion by the way, I still like your list and am glad it's working out. I think the one I've built really capitalizes on some of the strats we've thought up in the thread so far, lemme know what you think.
**Second Edit** I also really like the idea of mainboarding Damnation. Board wipes are a pretty good idea. Hell, I'd even think about sticking in Devastation Tide.
The second last version was -4 Lotus Bloom +2 Spellskite +1 IoK +1 Gut Shot.
My playstyle is to assemble Duskmantle Guildmage + Mindcrank + Enabler, cast Mindcrank first on an earlier turn, then unload the Guildmage, activate his ability, and use the enabler on the same turn. Thus, I'm spending 5+ mana (it's now 6 mana since I dropped my free enabler) on a single turn when I slam down the Guildmage. I do so in order to dodge creature removal. Aether Vial can account for 2 of that mana (people behave really differently once you assemble Vial at 2 + Mindcrank + 3+ mana open).
The added speed Lotus Bloom brings does help against Affinity and RDW, from my testing, but less than you'd think.
Spellskite and one IoK were the last cuts because I found I didn't need Spellskite to protect the Guildmage, and IoK wasn't a very good enabler (I tend to use it too early). Spellskite is still pretty good in a lot of match-ups (redirects Abrupt Decay, saves life points against RDW, hoses Scapeshift, etc.), and if I'm becoming the control deck, Blooms will get sided out.
I've found that the second last version did surprisingly badly against RDW and RG Artifact Tron for a combo deck, but it did OK against Jund and surprisingly well against Wafo-Tapa Teachings and other combo (UR Storm, Scapeshift). I'm not sure how differently the current version will behave.
@aspasia there are too little instants/sorceries to support snapcaster mage and too little artifacts to support thirst for knowledg! how is that working out for you? it really shocked me as im seeing a jund spell suite in a combo deck!
you could put in delver of secrets in your transformational sideboard when they side combo hate.
@haryf yeah i pulled that off a couple of times. it works when you have a controllish build and you are able to last that long.
@ntdars you should just try to power it out with mtm and tutor for combo pieces and then use snapcaster mage to flashback that same mtm for maximum value
@lectrys the only time you dont need to protect the guildmage is when you have the combo piece out and 1UB open. it really shocked me to see that our deck is losing to RG tron. that deck are not supposed to crack relic, maps, spheres, stars under pressure from both guildmage and mindcrank.
i been playing this while as a control deck, trying to slow them and stalling them while assembling the combo and/or ticking tezzeret the seeker for its ultimate.
i tried apostle's blessings in the myr superion (beater) role and it worked well. it is an enabler, if you need one lectrys, as well as protection. you could counter abrupt decay if you guys know what i mean. but then all i have left of a plan b is tezzeret the seeker's ultimate.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Generation 18: First time you see this, change the number up 1 and copy into sig. It's a social experiment.
Yes, you need enablers. Your opponent can easily play around the assembled but not enabled combo by doing one of the following:
If you want Duskmantle Guildmage to reliably dodge creature removal, you're casting him and activating his first ability on the same turn (which costs a whopping 5 mana total). You probably don't have enough mana up afterwards to activate his second ability (which does enable the combo), and you won't have enough time to swing with him to enable the combo.
I count Thought Scour and Ghost Quarter as enablers, as I don't normally consider them for combo decks (especially not Ghost Quarter). I tend to use targeted discard too early to use it as an enabler (though it is one in a pinch). I've found spot removal not named Slaughter Pact or Dismember to be either too expensive or too restrictive, and spot removal is inconveniently dead against some decks (RG Artifact Tron tends to go on the Karn Liberated-Oblivion Stone plan against me, for example, so I'm often waiting at the altar for Wurmcoil Engine).
if you have enough mana to use its activated ability just swing and use its ability and win
that RDW game you were going to lose anyway. 2 life and with a guide beating you, he is just baiting you to tap out and then send that bolt to your head. countering that bolt or killing that guide would have won you that game.
duskmantle guildmage should be the last piece to play, much like you have to play splinter twin AFTER you play pestermite or deceiver exarch. however its best you have 1UB open when you play guildmage so you'll win off any non permanent spells they play or they will be forced to not play, buying you time for you to draw enough lands to activate ability1 and ability2 on the same turn and win. sometimes you just want them to play removal on your guildmage
thought scour is good. enabler, cantrip, digs for mindcrank if you got academy ruin or buried ruin online.
ghost quarter is good. enabler, fetches a land when targetting darksteel citadel for color. hit opponent's vital lands and is a lock with crucible of worlds.
wurmcoil engine is just waiting to get slaughter pact-ed
@sabre from all the testings and card choices i researched, i found that our cards have to either defend the combo via counterspells or creatures that kills opponent's creatures and/or to stall the game until we get the combo online; or disrupt the opponent via discards or removals
all the above mentioned ways work towards a goal and that is to put a card in your opponent's graveyard.
my personal choices are slaughter pact, pact of negation, thought scour and ghost quarter
But swinging is no where near as reliable as a burn to the face :/ Although I do like the idea of putting Thought Scour instead, as it starts the combo off plus you can use it to maybe self mill yourself to maybe open up more options for a Snapcaster?
I tend to deal with Karn and blowing up Mindcrank by attempting to get Spellskite first. Sadly, early Liliana usually makes me sac Spellskite, so my Mindcrank still gets Abrupt Decayed. (I'm currently going for speed and consistency over protection--my only protection is Remand, targeted discard, and spot removal.) I play one Academy Ruins, but it's only good against grindy decks (I'm not sure Jund is grindy enough--it's a little fast), and its colourless mana is a pain.
Flashback spells cast from the graveyard will be exiled no matter what happens to them, so countering them won't work. (Yeah, Jund got annoying when I had to get out the combo without enabling it because of an active Liliana--they got 2 more Spirit tokens and started the beats.)
Anyway, I just made those points because they all show that you (and I) cannot afford to wait to draw an enabler before comboing off. Zoo and Jund kept attacking through the assembled but not enabled combo (they tended to hold back an X/3+ or a token).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I ran out of disruption at the time against RDW (and I had no Spellskite), so I couldn't deal with Bolt or Goblin Guide. Perhaps the better play would have been to just plain trade the Guildmage with Guide and hope to draw into another one...screw it, RDW Bolts me afterwards.
I waited forever for Wurmcoil Engine to appear most games against Tron. I couldn't enable the combo for quite a while in one game. I just replaced Slaughter Pact with Gut Shot for my free enabler slot because Slaughter Pact doesn't work against too many decks. If I play Lotus Bloom or Pentad Prism to increase speed, though, the free enabler slot goes.
Yeah, I also agree that Duskmantle Guildmage has to be played last. I tend to combo off with an enabler in hand, so I'm investing 5 mana (or 3 mana and a Vial at 2--I love the Vial suggestion in this thread; I was using Pentad Prism and it was fine, but I love the surprise factor Vial has and the fear it later brings on, so I've swapped to Vials) into the Guildmage to get him out and activate him in the same turn. That way, he dodges creature removal. Lavamancer isn't so bad against me because I tend to combo off cautiously.
I agree that Thought Scour and Ghost Quarter are staying. Ghost Quarter has been the enabler I use the most often (I aim Thought Scour at myself probably 70% of the time--I drain it really fast if I have GQ in hand or on the battlefield), but Thought Scour is second place. I've rarely used the free enabler slot or targeted discard as enablers (but I've used the free enabler slot more often). Given my cautious play style, 2 mana is too expensive for an enabler for me (that means I need to hit 7 mana instead of 5-6).
I really think the 3 hard hitting Phyrexian spells should take spots in this deck; Probe, ABlessing, and Gutshot. Sure, you're wasting your life away by using it, but in my experience so far if you can't get the combo off you're ****ed.
Gutshot is a great enabler, seeing as how it's free and lets you combo off with only 3 mana open, saving room for say a Muddle The Mixture or another counter spell. ABlessing is just a ridiculously good card in my opinion, and can protect your investments.
Probe is probe, watch out for their counterspells. Either way though, Ghost Quarter and Thought Scour are here to stay it seems.
***EDIT***
With that said, this is how I figured this deck would play out. I'm not good at formatting decklists on the forum, sorry;
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/mindcrank-simic/
I really feel like the power of Phyrexian mana will allow you to combo off much earlier, and since it's really all or nothing in this deck losing some life to help that combo succeed isn't a big deal. Gut Shot is in there as another enabler for now but I could see it being sideboarded. Apostle's Blessing is sweet, and so is Probe. Muddle the Mixture really helps you get the cards you need in hand and also acts as an awesome counter spell.
The only other addition I could think of that would be very powerful is Bob. Someone suggested it a few pages back and I think it would be sweet, seeing as how its in the 2CMC mark for muddle.
I took Academy Ruins over Buried Ruins only because I feel like you need as much mana as possible to ensure this combo goes off. Sacing lands I dont think is in our best interest when we could be using those lands to fuel our protection/counterspells.
Casting a spell to kill him, which still ends up going to the GY and giving you the win
Trading creatures to kill him, which still ends up going to the GY and giving you the win
Not block or casting, which also triggers mindcrank, thus winning you the game.
Seems like a pretty reasonable win con to me. Just slow play the deck and set up to where you can't lose, similar to a high tide type combo. You don't need the quick win necessarily to combo. Make sure that when you go for it, you are either going to lose next turn or you have so much backup it would be dumb not to.
@lectrys I would be curious in your "speedy" list.
This is awesome advice. I guess putting Gut Shot's in the board aren't that neccessary then; maybe in the sideboard for certain situations + another win con.
If that's the case, would stacking up on Counterspells/Protection spells be ideal?
Against decks with discard, I'm sometimes forced to go off without enablers--for example, I have Mindcrank, Vial at 2, 2 lands on the board, and only a land and a Duskmantle Guildmage in hand, and my opponent casts a topdecked Inquisition of Kozilek. Yeah, I'm dropping the Guildmage with the Vial. Then I promptly lose because my opponent is on BW Tokens and she has Intangible Virtue and tokens out (well, I'm against myself), so she always leaves blockers behind and keeps swinging. She's not casting spells for the rest of the game that aren't permanents, but she has a board and I don't.
In testing, I've found that BW Tokens can actually play around the assembled but not enabled combo pretty easily--certainly easier than Jund can.
I think I may have actually found a way to deal with Abrupt Decay (rhyme not intended).
Banishing Knack?
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=154350
If you have any creature out, apparently you can cast Knack while AD is on the stack, have it resolve, then tap the targeted creature bouncing the target of AD (In this case, most commonly Mindcrack), or you could even bounce the Guildmage.
Is that a bad idea?
True, but I feel like more people will use AD in response to the activation of the Guildmage ability, could just be intuition though.
I think just running a lot of artifact retrieval from the GY is the best answer to uncounterable AD.
i do not have your list yet so i cannot offer any suggestions for you, but for me i have ratchet bomb and academy ruins to recur. if all else fails, you can try to still race them or go to your trusty sideboard. unfortunately i have not start work on sideboard yet. sorry lol
another direction i can think of is the eternal witness, noxious revival plan. this plan you can thought scour, nephalia drownyard yourself and then get back whatever you want from the graveyard. but that will be BUG... and will lost focus on the combo.
@ntdars im on that direction. spellskite focus on abrupt decay and just recur spellskite for sacrificing to liliana of the veil. ill test apostle's blessing later. im still not convinced on gut shot and gitaxian probe unless the meta shifted to a point where the defining creatures are x/1. probe is just a cantrip.
I just feel like the ability to watch out for Counterspells for free with a Cantrip before you combo off can be surprisingly good, especially when they're you're convinced they have a Counterspell or Removal in hand so it stops you from piecing together the combo, but they actually don't. I'd at least have it in the sideboard vs Control matchups, maybe not for aggro/combo.
I just don't really understand the point of Snapcaster in your list, if you're trying to combo off on turn 4, then I don't think you should be wasting time casting creatures for more removal, especially when you don't have very many ways to get cards in the GY.
So far I feel like most of the thread is relying on Thought Scour (which can work well both ways for Mindcrank retrieval from the GY) and Ghost Quarter for enablers. I suggested Bolt before too and yeah it's pretty good, but like I said I feel that just getting all the pieces on the board ASAP is what's important.
I tested a little bit with Snapcaster mage as a 2 of which I would fetch with MtM, but it only came in use 2/say 14 games, in which case I still lost. This is all personal opinion by the way, I still like your list and am glad it's working out. I think the one I've built really capitalizes on some of the strats we've thought up in the thread so far, lemme know what you think.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/mindcrank-simic/
**Second Edit** I also really like the idea of mainboarding Damnation. Board wipes are a pretty good idea. Hell, I'd even think about sticking in Devastation Tide.
1 Academy Ruins
3 Ghost Quarter
4 Darkslick Shores
2 Sunken Ruins
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Watery Grave
3 Island
2 Swamp
Creatures
4 Duskmantle Guildmage
4 Mindcrank
4 Muddle the Mixture
4 Remand
2 Thoughtseize
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Serum Visions
3 Sleight of Hand
1 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Thought Scour
3 AEther Vial
4 Lotus Bloom
1 Apostle's Blessing
2 Echoing Truth
2 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Infest
2 Dispel
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Go for the Throat
2 Spellskite
The second last version was -4 Lotus Bloom +2 Spellskite +1 IoK +1 Gut Shot.
My playstyle is to assemble Duskmantle Guildmage + Mindcrank + Enabler, cast Mindcrank first on an earlier turn, then unload the Guildmage, activate his ability, and use the enabler on the same turn. Thus, I'm spending 5+ mana (it's now 6 mana since I dropped my free enabler) on a single turn when I slam down the Guildmage. I do so in order to dodge creature removal. Aether Vial can account for 2 of that mana (people behave really differently once you assemble Vial at 2 + Mindcrank + 3+ mana open).
The added speed Lotus Bloom brings does help against Affinity and RDW, from my testing, but less than you'd think.
Spellskite and one IoK were the last cuts because I found I didn't need Spellskite to protect the Guildmage, and IoK wasn't a very good enabler (I tend to use it too early). Spellskite is still pretty good in a lot of match-ups (redirects Abrupt Decay, saves life points against RDW, hoses Scapeshift, etc.), and if I'm becoming the control deck, Blooms will get sided out.
I've found that the second last version did surprisingly badly against RDW and RG Artifact Tron for a combo deck, but it did OK against Jund and surprisingly well against Wafo-Tapa Teachings and other combo (UR Storm, Scapeshift). I'm not sure how differently the current version will behave.
you could put in delver of secrets in your transformational sideboard when they side combo hate.
@haryf yeah i pulled that off a couple of times. it works when you have a controllish build and you are able to last that long.
@ntdars you should just try to power it out with mtm and tutor for combo pieces and then use snapcaster mage to flashback that same mtm for maximum value
@lectrys the only time you dont need to protect the guildmage is when you have the combo piece out and 1UB open. it really shocked me to see that our deck is losing to RG tron. that deck are not supposed to crack relic, maps, spheres, stars under pressure from both guildmage and mindcrank.
i been playing this while as a control deck, trying to slow them and stalling them while assembling the combo and/or ticking tezzeret the seeker for its ultimate.
i tried apostle's blessings in the myr superion (beater) role and it worked well. it is an enabler, if you need one lectrys, as well as protection. you could counter abrupt decay if you guys know what i mean. but then all i have left of a plan b is tezzeret the seeker's ultimate.
- L
"The problem isn't when Scissors says Rock is overpowered, it's when Paper says it is."
-Mark Rosewater
Where is the problem? The combo kills with life loss.