Well here's the list I'm currently running, haven't done much other than just goldfishing, but it can do turn 4 pretty consistently. Turn 3 is possible and turn 5 is expected.
Prophetic Prism is something I'm really never unhappy to see, It draws up front during set up, doesn't waste itself for an early reshape, and cycles nicely once KCI is out.
The problem with elsewhere flask is that if you use it to pre-combo, you don't get to draw from it with reward. Its only real saving grace compared to prism is that it can sac its self, but its not like we're winning without KCI or Reshape anyway. Its also a bit of a nonbo with Ghost Quarter
Not playing Mox Opal because of budget (shucks), as such Mind Stone is a necessity for this deck if it wants a prayer of going off turn 3
EDIT:
Actually, on testing a bit, swapping out the prisms and 2 spheres for terrarions is doing pretty good. Having a star/terrarion in hand with KCI on the field is probably the most broken thing this deck can do, and having 8 of that as opposed to just 4 and 4 mediocre ones really doesn't compare
Instead of Mind Stone an Prism I would play 2 Terrarions and 1 Serum Visions. Next without Mox Opal u want more than 16 lands and Blue mana is the most important. Soo I would run:
4 Citadel
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Adarkar Wastes
1 Plains
7 Island
And Wipe Away is bad. It is hard to get UU before combo turn.
Geez, you guys all seem to be trying to get the deck to work EXACTLY like it used to - and using some less-than-optimal card choices to do so. That is just IMHO, of course, but also my experience - I played the old Time Sieve deck A LOT in tournaments, and I was a fan of the old Eggs build too.
Without Second Sunrise, the deck has to adapt - and be just plain different than what it was. The fundamentals are the same - play a bunch of artifacts, draw your deck, kill the opponent in an excruciating manner - but the actual strategy of play is pretty different. Now Krak-Clan Ironworks is absolutely necessary to make the deck work, and that changes the way it plays significantly.
Here is my list - yes, I cut Serum Visions, Gitaxian Probe, and Sleight of Hand, and yes, I am aware that it looks almost identical to Conley Woods' build (that's a coincidence - we probably just came to the same conclusions):
One thing I really like about Codex Shredder is that it can be both the kill and the facilitator - something that took me awhile to realize. The basic idea is that if you have 2 Codex Shredders, a KCI, and enough non-drawing artifacts to get to 9 mana (at least one W- usually a Lotus Bloom or Mox Opal), you can retrieve a Faith's Reward from your graveyard, sac all the artifacts, mill your opponent 1 card, cast the Reward, and rinse and repeat.
Yes, that means repeating it 60 or more times - yes, a lot more than with the Spellbomb method. But the really cool thing is that there are no conditionals within the loop - meaning, according to the rules, you can define it as a loop, unlike with the original setup which required drawing cards and therefore actually going through the motions. The loop, as convoluted as it is, is identical and must be identical every time - and therefore you can define it as repeating, say, 1,000 times. If there is an Eldrazi involved, call a judge - usually, though this takes a particular reading of the rules, you can get them to say that by the laws of probability there will eventually be a state where the last card(s) in the deck would be the Eldrazi in question. Now that becomes an interesting call - but it is, AFAIK, doable.
(if there is a lot of Tron and/or decks that abuse Emrakul around you, add the Scepter back in - or a single Disciple of the Vault, or some other method that tickles your fancy.)
Interestingly, it is all still at instant speed with the Faith's Reward method...
This is my decklist:
4x Faith's Reward
3x Open the Vaults - 7 Sunrise effects are more than enough.
4x Serum Visions - Helps in set up and combo turn digging to mana/Sunrise effect cards. I don't know how people can play without it?
4x Reshape - Can tutor Bloom and KCI for mana. Very often it is tutor for Ichor Wellspirng to draw many cards.
4x Chromatic Star
4x Chromatic Sphere - obvious egg is obvious
3x Conjurer's Bauble - I really like shuffling "Sunrises" to library. And response to Ooze/Extraction targeting Pyrite Spellbomb
2x Terrarion -better than Elsewhere Flask becouse it is cheaper. Helps getting WW or UU after t4 tapout to Ironworks.
4x Ichor Wellspring - Heart of the deck. With Wellspring + Ironworks in table it is hard to lose.
4x Krack-Klan Ironworks - Always want it on battlefield. It nicely catch countermagic (letting resolve KCI is 90% game over) 4 is must in.
4x Lotus Bloom - always want it in opening, can catch Remand or Mana Leak, resolves problems with colored mana in KCI engine. 4 is must in.
1x Pyrite Spellbomb - Best win con ever, only Spellbomb can draw a card. Let kill at instant speed. Also response to hatebears like Thalia, Canonist or Gaddock Teeg.
I'm playing only 1 win con becouse during combo turn I really want to draw important cards, not something I'll use after drawing all my library. Banefire, Laboratory Maniac, Grapeshot, Emrakul are nice, but they can't do 1 thing that should all deck do - they can't set up your win. I'm thinking about Codex Sheder after side, becouse of infinite loop, but for now Spellbomb with card drawing is enough.
4x Mox Opal - 4 must in. Let u play insane T1 Citadel, Egg, Opal, another egg. Help with colored mana.
4x Darksteel Citadel
4x Ghost Quarter
1x Plains
6x Island
Sideboard:
4x Leyline of Sanctity - deals with burn, discard and sometimes other combo decks like Storm or Mill.
4x Echoing Truth - deals with permanent hate especially Stony Silence.
1x Pithing Needle - tutorable response to Relic, Tormod's Crypt etc. Sometimes stops other combo decks.
1x something - depends on metagame, can be Cyclonic Rift, Codex, Erase, Steel Sabotage, Nihil Spellbomb etc.
3x Silence - deals with countermagic.
2x Swan Song - deals with countermagic. Swan song is aditional tool to fight with combo decks like Renimator or Scapeshift. Can also counter RiP and Stony Silence and Splinter Twin ;]
Deck is really consistent, t4 is 95% win, t3 wins are also often. Eggs have good match up against Pod, Jund style decks and Tron, which is more than enough to fight in current metagame.
Twincast is a mistake with KCI - u often have problems with producing WW for Opens, and u want to make for example WW for Open and UU for Twincast. Ok, there will be some games where u will have this, but too many times u won't have something - colored mana or sunrise effect.
About KCI I started playing with 3 copeis but realized, that I almost always wanted to draw it during my combo turn. KCi is a card our opponent must have response, so it nicely can catch counterspells, discard and artifact removal post side.
Silence main is nice, when in your metagame is a lot of Ux mid range and control decks. Normally Eggs can play around counters like Remand or Mana Leak, only thing is to know how to play in problematic match ups.
Codex is nice, but when u have a lot of mana and some eggs u probably win. And personally I have when I want to draw eggs to build my winning combo and I draw too many blanks.
On sunday, i'll play GPT Prague with Eggs, maybe I will write a report after it.
I played Grand Prix Trial to Prague (39 players) and ended on second place losing in finals becouse of lack of 1 mana to cast Open the Vaults ;] I'll write small report tomorrow, now I have to go to bed
I've tested this quite a few times, and it seems that we draw LOTS of cards once we start, and we literally have no control over it. Ichor draws when it enters and when it dies, Prism when it enters, Star when it dies. Once we start looping, we start digging, but at some point we will have to sacrifice less artifacts so we don't deck out, and even then it will be hard (Conjurer's does not help prevent this).
The ones we do have control over are Conjurer's, Sphere, Mind Stone and Spellbomb (which we use for damage 99.9% of the time). These are the only ones that we have control over, but at times we are forced to use them to draw. Ichor by itself gets a little silly, so to prevent us from decking ourselves once we have combo'd, maybe a few Mishra's Bauble or a 1-of Elixir of Immortality. You'd have to be careful when playing Elixir though, as you could potentially screw yourself if you do it wrong. I feel it would only be used after a successful Faith's/Vault to put all the spells back in. Mishra's also allows us to draw without paying for anything in the early game, and I think that could be quite useful.
Spells that reduce mana costs are a waste of time in this deck: the point it to make enough mana to do the combo, so you don't need reducers as the clog up your deck and slow you down. What we DO need though is more wincons: a Jund that ramps out Slaughter games T3 takes out Pyrite, and now we have no wincon. Disciple is not applicable due to Path and Decay, so I think our best bets are including a 1-of Banefire and a 1-of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. This gives us enough wincons that drawing into one shouldn't be a problem, and them getting removed no longer becomes one either. These options also cannot be countered, and Emrakul is not easily answered (plus we hard-cast him, so we get the extra turn), while getting the mana for either of these isn't all that hard. This also means we don't have as many of those moments where we have to waste a Reshape on getting Pyrite.
As for sideboard, WE NEED Chalice of the Void! Stony Silence is in fact a card, and it gets played a lot in the board due to Affinity decks. Well, this hurts us too, as it shuts down nearly EVERYTHING. Siding in Chalice vs a white-running deck is perfectly fine, and 4 mana isn't that hard to produce for us. I still think a few Spell Snare in the side would be good as well, because Chalice does no good if The have already cast Stony. A couple of Sanctity probably wouldn;t hurt either, as having it start out in play isn't nearly as bad as your opponent forcing you to discard a necessary piece to combo off.
As for what else would be in our board, I'd have to test to see other weaknesses the deck has. So far, I have yet to lose with the deck as is. I love this combo, and I think it can still be great even without Sunrise!
I'm not sure if you like Scepter for the fun factor, or if you're using it to prevent G1 losses to karn.dec, but if it's mostly to beat Tron, you could just run Nihil Spellbomb, which is much better and has much more utility in general, and costs less, while sometimes cantripping. Also, KCI should win with almost any sort of decent draw - the exception is when you run out of artifact-based cantrips to find your ETV or Faith's Reward, which the spellbomb gives you a slightly increased chance of finding.
I'm also not sure why you would dilute the deck with cards such as silence - I don't play this deck a ton locally, but the kind of hate that seems to beat this deck is permanent-based, like Stony Silence or Rest in Peace or DRS/Ooze, etc. I'd rather have no "protection" g1 other than maybe that above-mentioned Spellbomb, along with a good sb. This deck pretty consistently combos between turns 3-5 (I mean, really, t4, but it has a decent amount of give in both directions), and rarely fizzles, so why dilute it with cards that may kill you if you draw them early in your combo when you just needed another artifact-cantrip?
I feel like this may be why you haven't been impressed with KCI, which is mindblowing to me. KCI, if it resolves, just ignores most counterspells (since it generates a huge pile of mana and draws a bunch of cards) and the 4 cards you want to hit with it are your 2 chromatics Ss, Wellsprings, and Terrarion - you shouldn't even need to bother looping with Bauble, for example, so why would you have it.
As I promised this is my small report.
I played that list:
4x Faith's Reward
3x Open the Vaults
4x Reshape
4x Serum Visions
4x Chromatic Star
4x Chromatic Sphere
4x Conjurer's Bauble
1x Terrarion
4x Ichor Wellspring
4x Krark-Clan Ironworks
4x Lotus Bloom
1x Pyrite Spellbomb
4x Mox Opal
4x Darksteel Citadel
4x Ghost Quarter
6x Island
1x Plains
Side:
4x Leyline of Sanctity
4x Echoing Truth
4x Swan Song
2x Pyroclasm
1x Pithing Needle
There was 39 players, so we played 6 rounds + top 8.
1 round GW Auras
I started tournament paired with my friend, I even helped him in deckbuilding hour before first round We won roll, but couldn't kill me on turn 4. He passes and never got his fifth turn. After side match up becomes more difficult, he put in 2 RiP and 3 Stony Silence.
Side out: 1 KCI, 1 Ichor Wellspring, 1 Serum Visions, 1 Terrarion.
Side in: 4 Echoing Truth
In G2 he started with Bogle and 2 ethernal armors on it, than on turn 4 he played stony silence. I was low on life and had to try to combo, while i didn't have any mana engine online. I bounce SS with Echoign truth and try to combo but fizzled.
G3 was less scary, my opponent mulligan, than kept slow hand without hate. I easily made mini loop on turn 4 to draw some cards (I had 2 Echoign Truths and 4 mana open, so I could wait to be sure I won't fizzle again). I bounce lethal Kor Spiritdancer attack and draw all my library next turn.
2:1 in tournament 1-0
Round 2 UWR Mid Range
G1 was very easy for me. I played T1 Citadel, Egg, Mox, Egg and pass. T2 Ichor. T3 KCI with was countered. T4 second KCI which resolves. I stared saccing artifacts to make huge amount of mana. My opponent didn't want scoop after drawing half of my library, so I showed him my win con and 3 sunrise effects which was enough
Side out: 1 KCI, 1 Ichor Wellspring, 1 Serum Visions, 1 Terrarion, 1 Mox Opal.
Side in: 3x Swan Song, 2x Echoing Truth
G2 was quick. Opponent played T2 Rest in Peace, T3 Vendilion, T4 Restoration Angel and attack for 6 each turn. I didn't find my Truth to deal with RiP.
G3 I sided in third Truth to deal with problematic enchantment. My opponent muligan to hate, but he didn't find enything. On turn 4 I had in table Mox Opal, 2 GQ, 1 Island and 3 eggs. Opponent on my end of turn played Restoration Angel. In resp I saced eggs and crack my quarters and played Faith's Reward. Let Angel resolve, than I bounced it with truth (had Swan Song and another Truth in hand to deal with untap and play RiP). After untap my opponent played Enginered Explosives for 1 and cracked it forcing me to sac my eggs to draw some cards. But he kept only 1 island untapped, so it was great chance for me. On my turn I played Reshape for Blooms twice and cats Open the Vaults ending match.
2:1 In tournament 2-0
Round 3 Affinity
This time I had to race. Luckily I won roll Still my opponent had explosive start with T1 cranial Plating and attack next turn for 7. I was worried that he can have second Plating and kill me on turn 3, so I tried to combo with 3 land and mox casting KCI and only 2 eggs. Topdecking Ichor Wellspring with Reward in hand was enough to draw my library. First T3 win on that tounrament ;]
Side out: 1 KCI, 1 Ichor Wellspring, 1 Serum Visions, 1 Terrarion
Side in: 3x Echoing Truth, 1 Pithing Needle
My opponent agresively muligans to 5 cards, but didn't find what he wants. He tappout in his third turn and I hd very storng hand, so 1 more time I won on turn 3. Ichor + KCI is very powerful combo ;]
2:0 In tournament 3-0
Round 4 Jund
THis is nice match up for me. I very fats cats eggs on battlefield and wait until I can and draw from hellbent mode Jund players can't do a lot with it.
G1 was very stange, my opponent kept 1 lander with shaman + liliana and he mises 2 landdrops. It was enough for me to set up (I had 2 blooms on suspend t1 and 3 eggs on battlefield). After small loop on turn 4 I easily win on turn 5.
Side out:1 KCI, 1 Ichor Wellspring, 1 Serum Visions, 1 Terrarion
Side in: 4 Leyline of Sanctity
G2 started with Leyline on turn 0 and again 2 blooms on t1. But this time I had to deal with t2 Liliana. Becouse of her I had only 2 eggs in play (not 4) and was worried about my combo stability. But 1 more time KCI + Ichor Wellspring helped to set up first loop, in second I found Open the Vaults and easily win.
2:0 In tournament 4-0
R5 and R6 ID.
I ended in first place after swiss. Great news for combo player, who always want to start!
1/4 finals WW Hatebears
This is my really bad mu - Thalia can stop me for a long time, Leonin Arbiter + Aven Mindcensor blocks my Reshape and Ghost Quarter. I started with T1 Bloom and played lands and eggs until t4. It was strange, but my opponnent kept hand without hate, I easily made t4 mini loop to set up 100% win on t5.
G2 was much harder for me. T3 Thalia slowed me a lot, luckily I had little flood with many Darksteel CItadels and Mox Opal, so I could fight with it. after attack in T5 I was on 1 life. In end of turn I bounced 2 Leonin Arbiters with Echoing Truth. After untap and draw I tried to crack Quarter on my Island my in resp my opponent showed my Aven Mindcensor. I fail to find in 4 cards. I had to rely on my topdecks. Cracked bauble drew KCI - my probably best card under Thalia. I played it, sac some Citadels, than crack Chromatic Shperes to make some colors. My last egg found Pyroclasm! I tapped Mox fo red and kill all oponents creatures, but returned finks forces me to make combo in this turn. I had Open the Vaults in hand, but with onlu 1 white mana and Ichor Wellspring. I had to draw something with my best engine. Luckily I found Faith's Reward! Played it and win 2 minutes after it.
2:0 In tournament 5-0-2
Semifinals Affinity
1 more time I had to play with guy I destroyed in third round of swiss. I started so G1 was very common, he tries to kill me on turn 3, didn;t do it so I ended game on turn 4.
Side plan the same.
G2 was also boring, only with 1 nice play. I was thinking about playing T1 Pithing Needle naming Cranial Plating remembering G1 in swiss, but didn't do it. My opponent played all-in and on turn 3 saced all artifacts to Ravager and than to attacking Inkmoth Nexus. Next turn I played Needle naming Inkmoth and game was over.
2:0 In tornament 6-0-2
Final 4C Gifts
This is probably nice mu for me, but in finals I had a lot of bad luck.
G1 I kept nice hand with 3 eggs, Bloom, 2 lands and Reward. After T1 Bloom and egg, My opponent played Riven's Crime (discarded land) and T2 Thoughtseize which put to gave my Reward. After many turns of set up I was drawing only lands, Mox Opals and Blooms. My opponent played Liliana, than cast Lingering Souls with flashback and start attacking. 1 turn befoe liliana's ultimate I tried to draw something cracking eggs but found only more lands.
Side out:1 KCI, 1 Ichor Wellspring, 1 Serum Visions, 1 Terrarion, 1 Mox Opal
Side In: 3 Leyline of Sanctity, 3 Echoing Truth (I knew he had 2 Stony Silence + Iona)
G2 was better for me, I made T4 mini loop, and I think I will be able to win on that turn, but my opponent played extirpate exiling all my Rewards. With 4 draws, only Bloom an Mox Opal as mana sources and only 3 Sunrsie effects in deck I didn't want to try combo. Luckily my opponent was stacked on 3 lands. Next turn I topdecked Leyline and decide to shot GQ finding Plains and with help of Mox Opal play it. It was best play ever, I stopped opponent's discard and Gifts. I had enough time to set up and finally find Open for the win!
G3 started with 1 Bloom, 2 eggs, Reward and 3 lands. Obv my opponent had Thoughtseize discarding my sunrise effect. On my turn 4 I had a lot of lands in play, Bloom active and 3 eggs in play. My opponent put fourth land and passes. Lats turn he played Liliana and discard from it Gifts which could be a signal he has another Gifts in hand. I didn't want to fight with Iona, so i tried to combo from the top. That was very frustrating but with 2 mana in pool and Bloom in play I drew Open the Vaults.. I had to pass the turn and pray I would have chance to untap. Krosan Grip in ending destroying my Bloom and Liliana in play was game over. My op had Gifts in hand, but didn't have baisic Island in deck, so he couldn't find it with his ghost quarter and cast Gifts
I lost in finals becouse of 1 mana. Just 1 mana, drawing Open 1 card before or topdeck Reward and I would win. But this is magic, this is combo deck - sometimes u have to fizzle
Deck is very powerful, have a lot of great match ups, but it's very very hard to play.
I think that this deck doesnt't have to play more than 1 win con, also doesn't have to play crazy Mind Stone + Propheric Prism and Codex. Combo now is very consistent, just playing it u can't make any mistakes. Only perfect play can give any results. I'm playing eggs for 1,5 year and still making little mistakes sometimes. Deck is hard, but u will love it, when u understand how It all works.
Firstly I wanted to play 3 baubles and 2 terrarions but I didn't find second copy but still Terrarion is great but only with KCI. Without it this is terrible topdeck during combo. And shuffling played sunrise effects is very important - often on combo turn I have to draw sunrise effect from the top, having 6 or 7 ciopies to draw it is huge difference! I think I will keep split 4 - 1.
Thoughtcast is just bad in this deck. Will be played for U only when u already have a lot of action on battlefield. Serum Visions helps to find missing pieces before combo (especialy draw in T1 trying to find Bloom). Thoughtcast even in combo turn digs in only 2 cadrs while Visions can draw, than scry 2 (for example on combo turn when I want to find sunrise effect I always want to draw Visions - that scry is like another draws with at least 1 egg on battlefield. Strongly reccomend draw with scry effects!
Silence main is bad idea becouse there aren't many blue based decks in modern right now. Ok it could be good for UWR and Scepsfhit but for nothing more. Swan Song is much better becouse we have more U sources than W one. Can counter countermagic and any other cards like Scapeshift, Splinter Twin, Goryo's Vengeance, Jund Charm etc. Post side can also counter Stony Silence and Rest in Peace. Silence is just worse.
Ichor Wellspring + KCI is our best combo, we really have to play 4 copies both. And when u draw your library it doesn't matter how u will win, becouse it will be infinite loop. Pyrite can draw a card, this is too important not to play it. Also can kill hatebears, which can win games!
I think Codex as win condition would be enough in world without Eldrazi - too many times I lose just becouse where was something that shuffles my opponents library back. Also milling gives our opponent upkeep, for example to kill us with burn spell. I want to play as many good combo cards as possible, playing more than 1 win con is wasting slots to more important cards. And Spellbomb will be better than anything else so I even not thinking about changing it now. Tested many differnt win cons and always was worse thand Pyrite.
This is my version of eggs that I have been getting very good results from. Something I have not seen anyone else really do is put tezzeret the seeker in the deck. He is amazing in here. Can tutor for any artifact as a -4, and then be returned with faith's reward. Afterwords his ability can be used again, and again, until you hit a critical board state and win by using him for the last time with his +1 and using time sieve to swing for a lot the next turn for the win. Lotus bloom is essential. Tezzeret works better than reshape for tutoring it and comboing. The deck consistently combos off turn four.
You may also notice that the urza lands are in here as well. They do two things. One, misdirect your opponent into believing that you are playing tron the first few turns potentially, and two, ramp your mana until you find an iron works.
The sideboard needs some work. The matchup I am by far having the most trouble with is twin. If anyone has any ideas to help improve that matchup I would greatly appreciate it. Otherwise, the deck is fairly resillent to almost anything else and is very reliable.
Main Deck
1x Aether Spellbomb
4x Chromatic Sphere
4x Chromatic Star
1x Codex Shredder
1x Grinding Station
2x Ichor Wellspring
4x Krark-Clan Ironworks
4x Lotus Bloom
1x time sieve
1x Mox Opal
4x Prophetic Prism
4x Adarkar Wastes
2x Darksteel Citadel
4x Urza's Mine
4x Urza's Power Plant
4x Urza's Tower
4x Open the Vaults
4x Serum Visions
4x Faith's Reward
2x Tezzeret the Seeker
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
A couple of days a go, I picked up one decklist of Egg's and started to build one for playing in MTGO (only option for me, since in Angola we don't have an Active Magic Community).
I was playing Living End and Soul Sisters, so this deck looks great for me!
For the few testings I have made online, the deck seems really nice, and it will get better, since I stop making some stupid mistakes!
Wow neat, I didn't know people were playing this after the thread initially got so few replies. Just randomly browsed through the listings and saw my thread on the first page. Very cool, I'm glad to see people playing it and some even doing well. I don't goto big tournaments but I do play FNM which is occasionally Modern and I've managed to take them down pre and post legendary changes with my list, so I consider that a success. I've made the deck enough of a local boogeyman that the storm players sideboard Quicken as tech against me (Quicken/Grapeshot right before I win).
I like some of the changes to the list, but they seem to reduce consistency as far as probability goes, although they increase resiliency to disruption so many that tradeoff is worth it. The thing I'm mainly on the fence over is 4 Mox Opals, it helps accelerate, but additional copies are mostly dead mid combo and they come in at the expense of card draw. Without having done the math on it yet, it seems to me like going 3 cards deep with Serum Visions is better than having 2 more mana (1 from the opal, 1 from the Visions).
I do agree with moving away from Revival, there's too much graveyard hate for it, however that reduces you to 6-7 sunrises (4 Open the Vaults is definitely too many) which just goes back to reinforcing that more card draw is needed optimally because Twincast isn't an option with OtV.
On Codex Shredder I agree it has a time attraction to it, but you still have to go through the combo multiple times to get the shredder. If the deck ever becomes popular again I think there's a legitimate reason to encourage this route in tournaments but otherwise it's considerably worse than pyrite spellbomb. The spellbomb only requires 1 card vs the shredders 2. The spellbomb is better early in the combo as well, although the shredder is better mid combo so they're probably equal in that regard.
Swan Song is huge for this deck, when it got spoiled I made sure to pick up a set. It's probably the best protection for combo, and the best protection against non pod combo in the format. I'm sure it will hold that title for a long time.
If I get some time this weekend I'll play with the numbers a bit. Sadly, I didn't work probabilities out in a spreadsheet when I originally put the list together, so I'll have a bit of extra work.
I've tested this quite a few times, and it seems that we draw LOTS of cards once we start, and we literally have no control over it. Ichor draws when it enters and when it dies, Prism when it enters, Star when it dies. Once we start looping, we start digging, but at some point we will have to sacrifice less artifacts so we don't deck out, and even then it will be hard (Conjurer's does not help prevent this).
If you can count you'll never deck yourself. Once your library is getting low, count it. It's public information and you're allowed to do this. Once you know how many cards are left set your next sunrise up to draw the appropriate number of cards. Once you're in the kill stage of the combo you're putting 1 card in your library and drawing 1 card per iteration so you never deck.
Spells that reduce mana costs are a waste of time in this deck: the point it to make enough mana to do the combo, so you don't need reducers as the clog up your deck and slow you down. What we DO need though is more wincons: a Jund that ramps out Slaughter games T3 takes out Pyrite, and now we have no wincon. Disciple is not applicable due to Path and Decay, so I think our best bets are including a 1-of Banefire and a 1-of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.
It's been awhile so I can't be sure, but I think somewhere in the OP I mentioned having a secondary wincon in the board to play around hate. Laboratory Maniac is pretty much optimal for that role. It takes 1 slot, gets around things like Leyline, and best of all if you combo and then play it, it's unbeatable. If you use Chromatic Sphere to draw your opponent never gets priority to kill him. It's only weakness is drawing it and someone exiling it from your hand.
As for sideboard, WE NEED Chalice of the Void! Stony Silence is in fact a card, and it gets played a lot in the board due to Affinity decks. Well, this hurts us too, as it shuts down nearly EVERYTHING. Siding in Chalice vs a white-running deck is perfectly fine, and 4 mana isn't that hard to produce for us. I still think a few Spell Snare in the side would be good as well, because Chalice does no good if The have already cast Stony. A couple of Sanctity probably wouldn;t hurt either, as having it start out in play isn't nearly as bad as your opponent forcing you to discard a necessary piece to combo off.
This really goes back to Swan Song. As soon as I get a chance to look at this deck again I fully intend on figuring out a way to cram 4 Swan Songs MB without disrupting the combo, or atleast on a sideboard plan to allow for 4 of them when it's needed.
I could possibly change the Landbase around to support an extra source in the form of Hallowed Fountain, but that would cause me to have a singleton of Scalding Tarn and Misty Rainforest which aren't as efficient with Open the Vaults and Krark-Clan Ironworks. I also would rather have a better option of drawing into Darksteel Citadel when I have a Mox Opal for a more explosive turn.
I guess that testing for the Fetchlands would be worth it, but I have been very successful at my LGS on multiple occasions, but I am willing to put them into the deck if I have to.
This is exactly like the manabase in the OP. I would change it accordingly once I have done some testing and probably some spreadsheets to fix the manabase in the needed manner if I feel like these are the wrong numbers.
Krark-Clan Ironworks is a great card overall, don't get me wrong. I just always felt like it was almost always an unneeded card in multiples. I never played anymore than 2 in a single game. I would rather have protection for the combo than have excessive mana producers that are a dead card in multiples for me. Having 2 at least ensures that I draw them early enough within the combo and have a chance to have them in my opening hand.
Terrarion was always a lackluster [CARD]Ichor Wellspring[/CARD} unless I drew it early enough. I would rather have a land most of the time and I just feel more comfortable with 16 lands instead of 15. This was going to be the card to cut anyways, since it was the card I sideboarded out most of the time in any occasion.
Silence. I chose this card over Swan Song just for my sake since I stopped most of the needed card before they were able to bother me, either stopping my opponent's turn before I go off when they would either play Disciple of the Vault or just to slow down Affinity early enough so that I didn't have to force myself to go off. And it stops both Shadow of Doubt and Mana Leak in UWR when I am on the draw.
The sideboard is basically an iteration of the Second Sunrise sideboard because it hit most of the corners that I was worried about when I took this deck to my LGS and it also worked against most brews that I might not have seen coming. I took advice on the Chalice of the Void from this page earlier on just to test it out. I haven't gone back on it. It is a great card against Affinity in a god-drawn hand where it does what I need it to perfectly. I am willing to take it out, though, if I have to.
Chalice of the Void will counter our spells! I don't think it is good idea.
I read your posts and I'm happy that someone wants to play eggs I will make short explanation about my card choices. I made some changes to list I put on last page.
Manabase:
4x Darksteel Citadel
4x Ghost Quarter
7x Island
1x Plains
3x Mox Opal
I'm playing 16 lands now instead of 1 Opal, becouse there are too many match ups where u want to have 4 mana to cast KCI. Having multiple Mox Opal draw let me play KCI but only once, which is not good when I want to bait Remand or Mana Leak. 4 Citadels are must in becouse it gives us extra mana with KCI and it is nice target for Reshape. And of course helps with explosive openings with Mox Opal. About fetchlands maybe I would play 1 but not more - I want to have anything to find with Ghost Quarter during combo, having 6 or less basic lands is not a good idea.
Eggs:
4x Chromatic Star
4x Chromatic Sphere
4x Conjurer's Bauble
4x Ichor Wellspring
1x Pyrite Spellbomb - it's our only win condition pre side. Having more than 1 is wasting slots. And bomb is the best becouse it can draw a card
Core:
4x Faith's Reward
3x Open the Vaults
4x Reshape
4x Serum Visions
1x Gitaxian Probe
Nothing Special exept Probe. I cut Terrarion, becouse too many times it was just irritating drawing it without KCI online, having information about opponent's hand is really nice. And combo T1 Serum Visions with scry put Lotus Bloom on top and then Probe and suspend it is broken.
Rutials
4x Lotus Bloom
4x KCI
Nothing special. KCI is too good to not play 4 copies. U always want to play it, so u have to increase chances to draw it. Sometimes u side out 1 against faster decks, but for many match ups it is too important. It baits countermagic, let us sac Wellspring all day and so on. Don't play less than 4!
Sideboard:
4x Leyline of Sanctity
4x Swan Song
4x Echoing Truth
1x Banefire
1x Pithing Needle
1x Cyclonic Rift
I added another win condition becouse it can win for example with Rest in Peace on the battlefield, and gives us free wins when opponents after game 1 realize, that they can pain with fetchlands and duals all day, becouse when I combo I can deal 10000 dmg. I won many games just sacing everything with KCI and shot Banefire for lethal
Needle is too important not to play it, it is tutorable response to Relic and Scavenging Ooze.
I play Cyclonic Rift as a metacall - too many decks in Warsaw play Stony Silence and RiP as only hate for me.
Despite 1-3 drop on Grand Prix Prague with eggs (match ups like Mono u Faeries and Jund which game 2 and 3 has singleton Rakdos Charm in hand witout my Leyline or Nykthos ramp which won roll and kill me on turn 4 and after side t4 with Relic on battlefield - obv I mulled to 5..) I still play it, still make good results in my local metagame. Combo is really strong and really hard to play. I wait for any results, if u won something playing eggs write it here! We can show people that 1 ban is not enough to stop us!
Chalice of the Void will counter our spells! I don't think it is good idea.
I read your posts and I'm happy that someone wants to play eggs I will make short explanation about my card choices. I made some changes to list I put on last page.
That is exactly what I was thinking when I was using it. I never actually drew it during any matchups, so I can't really say that it was helpful. I only used it incase.
And having Krark-Clan as a 4-of doesn't seem all that great to me, I would rather have a Ichor Wellspring or an egg, something that nets me a card. At least when I have it at two, I can draw it and I usually do. I never went back on my decision of lowering the number of them and my chances of fizzling have decreased. For me, I just don't play more than two since I drew them to consecutively and they just never did anything in multiples.
I will add in a Gitaxian Probe next week. I could probably post a report of my last LGS standings, though.
I could possibly change the Landbase around to support an extra source in the form of Hallowed Fountain, but that would cause me to have a singleton of Scalding Tarn and Misty Rainforest which aren't as efficient with Open the Vaults and Krark-Clan Ironworks. I also would rather have a better option of drawing into Darksteel Citadel when I have a Mox Opal for a more explosive turn.
4 KCI is an absolute must have. It is very important to minimize the fizzle rate and with only 2 KCI it is very high. If you attempt to combo on turn 4 and have 3 eggs you will have seen 13 cards. You're only 38.9% to see KCI. KCI isn't necessary to combo since you can still cast Open the Vaults on a great draw or Faith's Reward on one that's not so great, but sooner or later you need the mana in order to have sufficient card draw, the sac outlet adds more card draw as well. In two iterations in this scenario you'll probably get 4 more cards on the second iteration (+1 egg, sacrificing the rest). So you're 38.9% to find your KCI on the first iteration, then 16.5% on your second. Combined this is only a 48.98% chance to find a KCI. If you don't have it by the second iteration your fizzle rate is considerably higher
At 4 KCI this scenario plays out as 63.4% on the first iteration and 30.8% on the second iteration for 74.68%. The failure rate is more than cut in half.
I guess that testing for the Fetchlands would be worth it, but I have been very successful at my LGS on multiple occasions, but I am willing to put them into the deck if I have to.
For now I still advocate my manabase. The fetchlands are dual purpose serving as additional white sources as well as extra Ghost Quarters. GQ is very important to the deck not just to thin, and provide extra mana but to shuffle. There's a considerable difference between running 4 of this effect and running 6 of it. Pre Sunrise bannings actually ran 8 of the effect (4 GQ 4 fetch) and would have run more if there wasn't an efficiency tradeoff, since each fetch is 1 less card you can thin. Operating in a world where you can make a million mana off of citadel sacrifices or turn on Mox Opal on turn 1 is nice as an ideal but in practice it's less than optimal.
Running 4 Mox Opals would push this further in the Citadel direction but I remain unconvinced (for now) that you want 4 Opals because they're of very limited value mid combo. You get a 1 shot 2C out of one mid combo and that is it. That said, I do believe the correct number is more than one (which is unfortunate for me as I only own one).
On the Terrarion debate, I don't like it. Prophetic Prism fills that slot much better. It costs 1 more mana but it's more useful early. What matters in this deck is the first three iterations of the combo. After every iteration beyond the first it gets easier and easier to generate mana and you draw more and more cards. If you're going to fizzle it almost always happens within those first three. As such a card needs to be evaluated by what it does during those initial iterations. A card like Terrarion doesn't draw cards before you combo, and it doesn't draw cards mid combo until you have KCI (or use a Reshape on it). The competing cards like Prophetic Prism draw you a card to start which is a big deal. A T2 Prism helps find your pieces while setting up. Terrarion doesn't.
Chalice of the Void will counter our spells! I don't think it is good idea.
Chalice at 0 seems like the only time it would be good. At 0 you're essentially trading Mox Opal for Mox Opal+Ornithopter+Memnite. The problem with 0 is that it's only good T1 on the play. If you don't have it in your opening 7 (11.7% chance with 1 chalice) you're diluting your deck.
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4 Ghost Quarter
4 Darksteel Citadel
6 Island
2 Plains
Sunrises - 8
4 Faith's Reward
2 Open the Vaults
2 Noxious Revival
Dig - 7
4 Reshape
2 Serum Visions
1 Gitaxian Probe
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Conjurer's Bauble
Big Mana - 8
4 Krark-Clan Ironworks
4 Lotus Bloom
Two-Drops - 8
4 Ichor Wellspring
2 Prophetic Prism
2 Mind Stone
Wincon - 1
1 Banefire
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away
3 Silence
1 Blind Obedience
1 Defense Grid
1 Pithing Needle
1 Grafdigger's Cage
Prophetic Prism is something I'm really never unhappy to see, It draws up front during set up, doesn't waste itself for an early reshape, and cycles nicely once KCI is out.
The problem with elsewhere flask is that if you use it to pre-combo, you don't get to draw from it with reward. Its only real saving grace compared to prism is that it can sac its self, but its not like we're winning without KCI or Reshape anyway. Its also a bit of a nonbo with Ghost Quarter
Not playing Mox Opal because of budget (shucks), as such
Mind Stone is a necessity for this deck if it wants a prayer of going off turn 3
EDIT:
Actually, on testing a bit, swapping out the prisms and 2 spheres for terrarions is doing pretty good. Having a star/terrarion in hand with KCI on the field is probably the most broken thing this deck can do, and having 8 of that as opposed to just 4 and 4 mediocre ones really doesn't compare
My first set was Future Sight. I'm still playing.
4 Citadel
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Adarkar Wastes
1 Plains
7 Island
And Wipe Away is bad. It is hard to get UU before combo turn.
Without Second Sunrise, the deck has to adapt - and be just plain different than what it was. The fundamentals are the same - play a bunch of artifacts, draw your deck, kill the opponent in an excruciating manner - but the actual strategy of play is pretty different. Now Krak-Clan Ironworks is absolutely necessary to make the deck work, and that changes the way it plays significantly.
Here is my list - yes, I cut Serum Visions, Gitaxian Probe, and Sleight of Hand, and yes, I am aware that it looks almost identical to Conley Woods' build (that's a coincidence - we probably just came to the same conclusions):
4x Chromatic Star
2x Codex Shredder
4x Ichor Wellspring
1x Jester's Scepter
4x Krark-Clan Ironworks
4x Lotus Bloom
4x Mox Opal
4x Terrarion
4x Reshape
4x Faith's Reward
4x Adarkar Wastes
4x Darksteel Citadel
4x Ghost Quarter
3x Island
2x Plains
Actually, that is my MTGO build - for my "paper" build, -1 Jester's Scepter, +1 Codex Shredder.
One thing I really like about Codex Shredder is that it can be both the kill and the facilitator - something that took me awhile to realize. The basic idea is that if you have 2 Codex Shredders, a KCI, and enough non-drawing artifacts to get to 9 mana (at least one W- usually a Lotus Bloom or Mox Opal), you can retrieve a Faith's Reward from your graveyard, sac all the artifacts, mill your opponent 1 card, cast the Reward, and rinse and repeat.
Yes, that means repeating it 60 or more times - yes, a lot more than with the Spellbomb method. But the really cool thing is that there are no conditionals within the loop - meaning, according to the rules, you can define it as a loop, unlike with the original setup which required drawing cards and therefore actually going through the motions. The loop, as convoluted as it is, is identical and must be identical every time - and therefore you can define it as repeating, say, 1,000 times. If there is an Eldrazi involved, call a judge - usually, though this takes a particular reading of the rules, you can get them to say that by the laws of probability there will eventually be a state where the last card(s) in the deck would be the Eldrazi in question. Now that becomes an interesting call - but it is, AFAIK, doable.
(if there is a lot of Tron and/or decks that abuse Emrakul around you, add the Scepter back in - or a single Disciple of the Vault, or some other method that tickles your fancy.)
Interestingly, it is all still at instant speed with the Faith's Reward method...
4x Faith's Reward
3x Open the Vaults - 7 Sunrise effects are more than enough.
4x Serum Visions - Helps in set up and combo turn digging to mana/Sunrise effect cards. I don't know how people can play without it?
4x Reshape - Can tutor Bloom and KCI for mana. Very often it is tutor for Ichor Wellspirng to draw many cards.
4x Chromatic Star
4x Chromatic Sphere - obvious egg is obvious
3x Conjurer's Bauble - I really like shuffling "Sunrises" to library. And response to Ooze/Extraction targeting Pyrite Spellbomb
2x Terrarion -better than Elsewhere Flask becouse it is cheaper. Helps getting WW or UU after t4 tapout to Ironworks.
4x Ichor Wellspring - Heart of the deck. With Wellspring + Ironworks in table it is hard to lose.
4x Krack-Klan Ironworks - Always want it on battlefield. It nicely catch countermagic (letting resolve KCI is 90% game over) 4 is must in.
4x Lotus Bloom - always want it in opening, can catch Remand or Mana Leak, resolves problems with colored mana in KCI engine. 4 is must in.
1x Pyrite Spellbomb - Best win con ever, only Spellbomb can draw a card. Let kill at instant speed. Also response to hatebears like Thalia, Canonist or Gaddock Teeg.
I'm playing only 1 win con becouse during combo turn I really want to draw important cards, not something I'll use after drawing all my library. Banefire, Laboratory Maniac, Grapeshot, Emrakul are nice, but they can't do 1 thing that should all deck do - they can't set up your win. I'm thinking about Codex Sheder after side, becouse of infinite loop, but for now Spellbomb with card drawing is enough.
4x Mox Opal - 4 must in. Let u play insane T1 Citadel, Egg, Opal, another egg. Help with colored mana.
4x Darksteel Citadel
4x Ghost Quarter
1x Plains
6x Island
Sideboard:
4x Leyline of Sanctity - deals with burn, discard and sometimes other combo decks like Storm or Mill.
4x Echoing Truth - deals with permanent hate especially Stony Silence.
1x Pithing Needle - tutorable response to Relic, Tormod's Crypt etc. Sometimes stops other combo decks.
1x something - depends on metagame, can be Cyclonic Rift, Codex, Erase, Steel Sabotage, Nihil Spellbomb etc.
3x Silence - deals with countermagic.
2x Swan Song - deals with countermagic. Swan song is aditional tool to fight with combo decks like Renimator or Scapeshift. Can also counter RiP and Stony Silence and Splinter Twin ;]
Deck is really consistent, t4 is 95% win, t3 wins are also often. Eggs have good match up against Pod, Jund style decks and Tron, which is more than enough to fight in current metagame.
About KCI I started playing with 3 copeis but realized, that I almost always wanted to draw it during my combo turn. KCi is a card our opponent must have response, so it nicely can catch counterspells, discard and artifact removal post side.
Silence main is nice, when in your metagame is a lot of Ux mid range and control decks. Normally Eggs can play around counters like Remand or Mana Leak, only thing is to know how to play in problematic match ups.
Codex is nice, but when u have a lot of mana and some eggs u probably win. And personally I have when I want to draw eggs to build my winning combo and I draw too many blanks.
On sunday, i'll play GPT Prague with Eggs, maybe I will write a report after it.
The ones we do have control over are Conjurer's, Sphere, Mind Stone and Spellbomb (which we use for damage 99.9% of the time). These are the only ones that we have control over, but at times we are forced to use them to draw. Ichor by itself gets a little silly, so to prevent us from decking ourselves once we have combo'd, maybe a few Mishra's Bauble or a 1-of Elixir of Immortality. You'd have to be careful when playing Elixir though, as you could potentially screw yourself if you do it wrong. I feel it would only be used after a successful Faith's/Vault to put all the spells back in. Mishra's also allows us to draw without paying for anything in the early game, and I think that could be quite useful.
Spells that reduce mana costs are a waste of time in this deck: the point it to make enough mana to do the combo, so you don't need reducers as the clog up your deck and slow you down. What we DO need though is more wincons: a Jund that ramps out Slaughter games T3 takes out Pyrite, and now we have no wincon. Disciple is not applicable due to Path and Decay, so I think our best bets are including a 1-of Banefire and a 1-of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. This gives us enough wincons that drawing into one shouldn't be a problem, and them getting removed no longer becomes one either. These options also cannot be countered, and Emrakul is not easily answered (plus we hard-cast him, so we get the extra turn), while getting the mana for either of these isn't all that hard. This also means we don't have as many of those moments where we have to waste a Reshape on getting Pyrite.
As for sideboard, WE NEED Chalice of the Void! Stony Silence is in fact a card, and it gets played a lot in the board due to Affinity decks. Well, this hurts us too, as it shuts down nearly EVERYTHING. Siding in Chalice vs a white-running deck is perfectly fine, and 4 mana isn't that hard to produce for us. I still think a few Spell Snare in the side would be good as well, because Chalice does no good if The have already cast Stony. A couple of Sanctity probably wouldn;t hurt either, as having it start out in play isn't nearly as bad as your opponent forcing you to discard a necessary piece to combo off.
As for what else would be in our board, I'd have to test to see other weaknesses the deck has. So far, I have yet to lose with the deck as is. I love this combo, and I think it can still be great even without Sunrise!
"Nothing tears up a group of friends faster than a session of Mario Party." ~ ForsakenM~
Extra Info:
EDH, Modern, Anything with Planechase
Cockatrice Name: ForsakenM
I'm also not sure why you would dilute the deck with cards such as silence - I don't play this deck a ton locally, but the kind of hate that seems to beat this deck is permanent-based, like Stony Silence or Rest in Peace or DRS/Ooze, etc. I'd rather have no "protection" g1 other than maybe that above-mentioned Spellbomb, along with a good sb. This deck pretty consistently combos between turns 3-5 (I mean, really, t4, but it has a decent amount of give in both directions), and rarely fizzles, so why dilute it with cards that may kill you if you draw them early in your combo when you just needed another artifact-cantrip?
I feel like this may be why you haven't been impressed with KCI, which is mindblowing to me. KCI, if it resolves, just ignores most counterspells (since it generates a huge pile of mana and draws a bunch of cards) and the 4 cards you want to hit with it are your 2 chromatics Ss, Wellsprings, and Terrarion - you shouldn't even need to bother looping with Bauble, for example, so why would you have it.
Anyway, this may not help, but maybe it does.
I played that list:
4x Faith's Reward
3x Open the Vaults
4x Reshape
4x Serum Visions
4x Chromatic Star
4x Chromatic Sphere
4x Conjurer's Bauble
1x Terrarion
4x Ichor Wellspring
4x Krark-Clan Ironworks
4x Lotus Bloom
1x Pyrite Spellbomb
4x Mox Opal
4x Darksteel Citadel
4x Ghost Quarter
6x Island
1x Plains
Side:
4x Leyline of Sanctity
4x Echoing Truth
4x Swan Song
2x Pyroclasm
1x Pithing Needle
There was 39 players, so we played 6 rounds + top 8.
1 round GW Auras
I started tournament paired with my friend, I even helped him in deckbuilding hour before first round We won roll, but couldn't kill me on turn 4. He passes and never got his fifth turn. After side match up becomes more difficult, he put in 2 RiP and 3 Stony Silence.
Side out: 1 KCI, 1 Ichor Wellspring, 1 Serum Visions, 1 Terrarion.
Side in: 4 Echoing Truth
In G2 he started with Bogle and 2 ethernal armors on it, than on turn 4 he played stony silence. I was low on life and had to try to combo, while i didn't have any mana engine online. I bounce SS with Echoign truth and try to combo but fizzled.
G3 was less scary, my opponent mulligan, than kept slow hand without hate. I easily made mini loop on turn 4 to draw some cards (I had 2 Echoign Truths and 4 mana open, so I could wait to be sure I won't fizzle again). I bounce lethal Kor Spiritdancer attack and draw all my library next turn.
2:1 in tournament 1-0
Round 2 UWR Mid Range
G1 was very easy for me. I played T1 Citadel, Egg, Mox, Egg and pass. T2 Ichor. T3 KCI with was countered. T4 second KCI which resolves. I stared saccing artifacts to make huge amount of mana. My opponent didn't want scoop after drawing half of my library, so I showed him my win con and 3 sunrise effects which was enough
Side out: 1 KCI, 1 Ichor Wellspring, 1 Serum Visions, 1 Terrarion, 1 Mox Opal.
Side in: 3x Swan Song, 2x Echoing Truth
G2 was quick. Opponent played T2 Rest in Peace, T3 Vendilion, T4 Restoration Angel and attack for 6 each turn. I didn't find my Truth to deal with RiP.
G3 I sided in third Truth to deal with problematic enchantment. My opponent muligan to hate, but he didn't find enything. On turn 4 I had in table Mox Opal, 2 GQ, 1 Island and 3 eggs. Opponent on my end of turn played Restoration Angel. In resp I saced eggs and crack my quarters and played Faith's Reward. Let Angel resolve, than I bounced it with truth (had Swan Song and another Truth in hand to deal with untap and play RiP). After untap my opponent played Enginered Explosives for 1 and cracked it forcing me to sac my eggs to draw some cards. But he kept only 1 island untapped, so it was great chance for me. On my turn I played Reshape for Blooms twice and cats Open the Vaults ending match.
2:1 In tournament 2-0
Round 3 Affinity
This time I had to race. Luckily I won roll Still my opponent had explosive start with T1 cranial Plating and attack next turn for 7. I was worried that he can have second Plating and kill me on turn 3, so I tried to combo with 3 land and mox casting KCI and only 2 eggs. Topdecking Ichor Wellspring with Reward in hand was enough to draw my library. First T3 win on that tounrament ;]
Side out: 1 KCI, 1 Ichor Wellspring, 1 Serum Visions, 1 Terrarion
Side in: 3x Echoing Truth, 1 Pithing Needle
My opponent agresively muligans to 5 cards, but didn't find what he wants. He tappout in his third turn and I hd very storng hand, so 1 more time I won on turn 3. Ichor + KCI is very powerful combo ;]
2:0 In tournament 3-0
Round 4 Jund
THis is nice match up for me. I very fats cats eggs on battlefield and wait until I can and draw from hellbent mode Jund players can't do a lot with it.
G1 was very stange, my opponent kept 1 lander with shaman + liliana and he mises 2 landdrops. It was enough for me to set up (I had 2 blooms on suspend t1 and 3 eggs on battlefield). After small loop on turn 4 I easily win on turn 5.
Side out:1 KCI, 1 Ichor Wellspring, 1 Serum Visions, 1 Terrarion
Side in: 4 Leyline of Sanctity
G2 started with Leyline on turn 0 and again 2 blooms on t1. But this time I had to deal with t2 Liliana. Becouse of her I had only 2 eggs in play (not 4) and was worried about my combo stability. But 1 more time KCI + Ichor Wellspring helped to set up first loop, in second I found Open the Vaults and easily win.
2:0 In tournament 4-0
R5 and R6 ID.
I ended in first place after swiss. Great news for combo player, who always want to start!
1/4 finals WW Hatebears
This is my really bad mu - Thalia can stop me for a long time, Leonin Arbiter + Aven Mindcensor blocks my Reshape and Ghost Quarter. I started with T1 Bloom and played lands and eggs until t4. It was strange, but my opponnent kept hand without hate, I easily made t4 mini loop to set up 100% win on t5.
Side out:1 KCI, 1 Ichor Wellspring, 1 Serum Visions, 1 Terrarion, 1 Conjurer's Bauble
Side in: 4x Echoing Truth, 2x Pyroclasm
G2 was much harder for me. T3 Thalia slowed me a lot, luckily I had little flood with many Darksteel CItadels and Mox Opal, so I could fight with it. after attack in T5 I was on 1 life. In end of turn I bounced 2 Leonin Arbiters with Echoing Truth. After untap and draw I tried to crack Quarter on my Island my in resp my opponent showed my Aven Mindcensor. I fail to find in 4 cards. I had to rely on my topdecks. Cracked bauble drew KCI - my probably best card under Thalia. I played it, sac some Citadels, than crack Chromatic Shperes to make some colors. My last egg found Pyroclasm! I tapped Mox fo red and kill all oponents creatures, but returned finks forces me to make combo in this turn. I had Open the Vaults in hand, but with onlu 1 white mana and Ichor Wellspring. I had to draw something with my best engine. Luckily I found Faith's Reward! Played it and win 2 minutes after it.
2:0 In tournament 5-0-2
Semifinals Affinity
1 more time I had to play with guy I destroyed in third round of swiss. I started so G1 was very common, he tries to kill me on turn 3, didn;t do it so I ended game on turn 4.
Side plan the same.
G2 was also boring, only with 1 nice play. I was thinking about playing T1 Pithing Needle naming Cranial Plating remembering G1 in swiss, but didn't do it. My opponent played all-in and on turn 3 saced all artifacts to Ravager and than to attacking Inkmoth Nexus. Next turn I played Needle naming Inkmoth and game was over.
2:0 In tornament 6-0-2
Final 4C Gifts
This is probably nice mu for me, but in finals I had a lot of bad luck.
G1 I kept nice hand with 3 eggs, Bloom, 2 lands and Reward. After T1 Bloom and egg, My opponent played Riven's Crime (discarded land) and T2 Thoughtseize which put to gave my Reward. After many turns of set up I was drawing only lands, Mox Opals and Blooms. My opponent played Liliana, than cast Lingering Souls with flashback and start attacking. 1 turn befoe liliana's ultimate I tried to draw something cracking eggs but found only more lands.
Side out:1 KCI, 1 Ichor Wellspring, 1 Serum Visions, 1 Terrarion, 1 Mox Opal
Side In: 3 Leyline of Sanctity, 3 Echoing Truth (I knew he had 2 Stony Silence + Iona)
G2 was better for me, I made T4 mini loop, and I think I will be able to win on that turn, but my opponent played extirpate exiling all my Rewards. With 4 draws, only Bloom an Mox Opal as mana sources and only 3 Sunrsie effects in deck I didn't want to try combo. Luckily my opponent was stacked on 3 lands. Next turn I topdecked Leyline and decide to shot GQ finding Plains and with help of Mox Opal play it. It was best play ever, I stopped opponent's discard and Gifts. I had enough time to set up and finally find Open for the win!
G3 started with 1 Bloom, 2 eggs, Reward and 3 lands. Obv my opponent had Thoughtseize discarding my sunrise effect. On my turn 4 I had a lot of lands in play, Bloom active and 3 eggs in play. My opponent put fourth land and passes. Lats turn he played Liliana and discard from it Gifts which could be a signal he has another Gifts in hand. I didn't want to fight with Iona, so i tried to combo from the top. That was very frustrating but with 2 mana in pool and Bloom in play I drew Open the Vaults.. I had to pass the turn and pray I would have chance to untap. Krosan Grip in ending destroying my Bloom and Liliana in play was game over. My op had Gifts in hand, but didn't have baisic Island in deck, so he couldn't find it with his ghost quarter and cast Gifts
I lost in finals becouse of 1 mana. Just 1 mana, drawing Open 1 card before or topdeck Reward and I would win. But this is magic, this is combo deck - sometimes u have to fizzle
Deck is very powerful, have a lot of great match ups, but it's very very hard to play.
I think that this deck doesnt't have to play more than 1 win con, also doesn't have to play crazy Mind Stone + Propheric Prism and Codex. Combo now is very consistent, just playing it u can't make any mistakes. Only perfect play can give any results. I'm playing eggs for 1,5 year and still making little mistakes sometimes. Deck is hard, but u will love it, when u understand how It all works.
Thoughtcast is just bad in this deck. Will be played for U only when u already have a lot of action on battlefield. Serum Visions helps to find missing pieces before combo (especialy draw in T1 trying to find Bloom). Thoughtcast even in combo turn digs in only 2 cadrs while Visions can draw, than scry 2 (for example on combo turn when I want to find sunrise effect I always want to draw Visions - that scry is like another draws with at least 1 egg on battlefield. Strongly reccomend draw with scry effects!
Ichor Wellspring + KCI is our best combo, we really have to play 4 copies both. And when u draw your library it doesn't matter how u will win, becouse it will be infinite loop. Pyrite can draw a card, this is too important not to play it. Also can kill hatebears, which can win games!
I think Codex as win condition would be enough in world without Eldrazi - too many times I lose just becouse where was something that shuffles my opponents library back. Also milling gives our opponent upkeep, for example to kill us with burn spell. I want to play as many good combo cards as possible, playing more than 1 win con is wasting slots to more important cards. And Spellbomb will be better than anything else so I even not thinking about changing it now. Tested many differnt win cons and always was worse thand Pyrite.
You may also notice that the urza lands are in here as well. They do two things. One, misdirect your opponent into believing that you are playing tron the first few turns potentially, and two, ramp your mana until you find an iron works.
The sideboard needs some work. The matchup I am by far having the most trouble with is twin. If anyone has any ideas to help improve that matchup I would greatly appreciate it. Otherwise, the deck is fairly resillent to almost anything else and is very reliable.
Main Deck
1x Aether Spellbomb
4x Chromatic Sphere
4x Chromatic Star
1x Codex Shredder
1x Grinding Station
2x Ichor Wellspring
4x Krark-Clan Ironworks
4x Lotus Bloom
1x time sieve
1x Mox Opal
4x Prophetic Prism
4x Adarkar Wastes
2x Darksteel Citadel
4x Urza's Mine
4x Urza's Power Plant
4x Urza's Tower
4x Open the Vaults
4x Serum Visions
4x Faith's Reward
2x Tezzeret the Seeker
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Sideboard
1x Banefire
3x Defense Grid
4x Echoing Truth
1x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Obelisk of Alara
1x Pithing Needle
1x Runed Servitor
1x Tormod's Crypt
1x Torpor Orb
1x witchbane orb
This deck is actually different from how Poach Eggs play out. And also has a different deck thread.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=505790
I like some of the changes to the list, but they seem to reduce consistency as far as probability goes, although they increase resiliency to disruption so many that tradeoff is worth it. The thing I'm mainly on the fence over is 4 Mox Opals, it helps accelerate, but additional copies are mostly dead mid combo and they come in at the expense of card draw. Without having done the math on it yet, it seems to me like going 3 cards deep with Serum Visions is better than having 2 more mana (1 from the opal, 1 from the Visions).
I do agree with moving away from Revival, there's too much graveyard hate for it, however that reduces you to 6-7 sunrises (4 Open the Vaults is definitely too many) which just goes back to reinforcing that more card draw is needed optimally because Twincast isn't an option with OtV.
On Codex Shredder I agree it has a time attraction to it, but you still have to go through the combo multiple times to get the shredder. If the deck ever becomes popular again I think there's a legitimate reason to encourage this route in tournaments but otherwise it's considerably worse than pyrite spellbomb. The spellbomb only requires 1 card vs the shredders 2. The spellbomb is better early in the combo as well, although the shredder is better mid combo so they're probably equal in that regard.
Swan Song is huge for this deck, when it got spoiled I made sure to pick up a set. It's probably the best protection for combo, and the best protection against non pod combo in the format. I'm sure it will hold that title for a long time.
If I get some time this weekend I'll play with the numbers a bit. Sadly, I didn't work probabilities out in a spreadsheet when I originally put the list together, so I'll have a bit of extra work.
Sodek - Why no fetchlands?
If you can count you'll never deck yourself. Once your library is getting low, count it. It's public information and you're allowed to do this. Once you know how many cards are left set your next sunrise up to draw the appropriate number of cards. Once you're in the kill stage of the combo you're putting 1 card in your library and drawing 1 card per iteration so you never deck.
It's been awhile so I can't be sure, but I think somewhere in the OP I mentioned having a secondary wincon in the board to play around hate. Laboratory Maniac is pretty much optimal for that role. It takes 1 slot, gets around things like Leyline, and best of all if you combo and then play it, it's unbeatable. If you use Chromatic Sphere to draw your opponent never gets priority to kill him. It's only weakness is drawing it and someone exiling it from your hand.
This really goes back to Swan Song. As soon as I get a chance to look at this deck again I fully intend on figuring out a way to cram 4 Swan Songs MB without disrupting the combo, or atleast on a sideboard plan to allow for 4 of them when it's needed.
4 Mox Opal
4 Chromatic Star
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Conjurer's Bauble
4 Ichor Wellspring
2 Krark-Clan Ironworks
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Reshape
4 Faith's Reward
3 Open the Vaults
2 Silence
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Darksteel Citadel
7 Island
1 Plains
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Echoing Truth
1 Swan Song
2 Pithing Needle
2 Silence
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Blind Obedience
The relative changes that I have made to the mainboard, from Sodek's List, are:
-2 Krark-Clan Ironworks
-1 Terrarion
+2 Silence
+1 Island
I could possibly change the Landbase around to support an extra source in the form of Hallowed Fountain, but that would cause me to have a singleton of Scalding Tarn and Misty Rainforest which aren't as efficient with Open the Vaults and Krark-Clan Ironworks. I also would rather have a better option of drawing into Darksteel Citadel when I have a Mox Opal for a more explosive turn.
I guess that testing for the Fetchlands would be worth it, but I have been very successful at my LGS on multiple occasions, but I am willing to put them into the deck if I have to.
Changes to the mana base if I do:
-2 Darksteel Citadel
-1 Island
+1 Misty Rainforest
+1 Scalding Tarn
+1 Hallowed Fountain
This is exactly like the manabase in the OP. I would change it accordingly once I have done some testing and probably some spreadsheets to fix the manabase in the needed manner if I feel like these are the wrong numbers.
Krark-Clan Ironworks is a great card overall, don't get me wrong. I just always felt like it was almost always an unneeded card in multiples. I never played anymore than 2 in a single game. I would rather have protection for the combo than have excessive mana producers that are a dead card in multiples for me. Having 2 at least ensures that I draw them early enough within the combo and have a chance to have them in my opening hand.
Terrarion was always a lackluster [CARD]Ichor Wellspring[/CARD} unless I drew it early enough. I would rather have a land most of the time and I just feel more comfortable with 16 lands instead of 15. This was going to be the card to cut anyways, since it was the card I sideboarded out most of the time in any occasion.
Silence. I chose this card over Swan Song just for my sake since I stopped most of the needed card before they were able to bother me, either stopping my opponent's turn before I go off when they would either play Disciple of the Vault or just to slow down Affinity early enough so that I didn't have to force myself to go off. And it stops both Shadow of Doubt and Mana Leak in UWR when I am on the draw.
The sideboard is basically an iteration of the Second Sunrise sideboard because it hit most of the corners that I was worried about when I took this deck to my LGS and it also worked against most brews that I might not have seen coming. I took advice on the Chalice of the Void from this page earlier on just to test it out. I haven't gone back on it. It is a great card against Affinity in a god-drawn hand where it does what I need it to perfectly. I am willing to take it out, though, if I have to.
I read your posts and I'm happy that someone wants to play eggs I will make short explanation about my card choices. I made some changes to list I put on last page.
Manabase:
4x Darksteel Citadel
4x Ghost Quarter
7x Island
1x Plains
3x Mox Opal
I'm playing 16 lands now instead of 1 Opal, becouse there are too many match ups where u want to have 4 mana to cast KCI. Having multiple Mox Opal draw let me play KCI but only once, which is not good when I want to bait Remand or Mana Leak. 4 Citadels are must in becouse it gives us extra mana with KCI and it is nice target for Reshape. And of course helps with explosive openings with Mox Opal. About fetchlands maybe I would play 1 but not more - I want to have anything to find with Ghost Quarter during combo, having 6 or less basic lands is not a good idea.
Eggs:
4x Chromatic Star
4x Chromatic Sphere
4x Conjurer's Bauble
4x Ichor Wellspring
1x Pyrite Spellbomb - it's our only win condition pre side. Having more than 1 is wasting slots. And bomb is the best becouse it can draw a card
Core:
4x Faith's Reward
3x Open the Vaults
4x Reshape
4x Serum Visions
1x Gitaxian Probe
Nothing Special exept Probe. I cut Terrarion, becouse too many times it was just irritating drawing it without KCI online, having information about opponent's hand is really nice. And combo T1 Serum Visions with scry put Lotus Bloom on top and then Probe and suspend it is broken.
Rutials
4x Lotus Bloom
4x KCI
Nothing special. KCI is too good to not play 4 copies. U always want to play it, so u have to increase chances to draw it. Sometimes u side out 1 against faster decks, but for many match ups it is too important. It baits countermagic, let us sac Wellspring all day and so on. Don't play less than 4!
Sideboard:
4x Leyline of Sanctity
4x Swan Song
4x Echoing Truth
1x Banefire
1x Pithing Needle
1x Cyclonic Rift
I added another win condition becouse it can win for example with Rest in Peace on the battlefield, and gives us free wins when opponents after game 1 realize, that they can pain with fetchlands and duals all day, becouse when I combo I can deal 10000 dmg. I won many games just sacing everything with KCI and shot Banefire for lethal
Needle is too important not to play it, it is tutorable response to Relic and Scavenging Ooze.
I play Cyclonic Rift as a metacall - too many decks in Warsaw play Stony Silence and RiP as only hate for me.
Despite 1-3 drop on Grand Prix Prague with eggs (match ups like Mono u Faeries and Jund which game 2 and 3 has singleton Rakdos Charm in hand witout my Leyline or Nykthos ramp which won roll and kill me on turn 4 and after side t4 with Relic on battlefield - obv I mulled to 5..) I still play it, still make good results in my local metagame. Combo is really strong and really hard to play. I wait for any results, if u won something playing eggs write it here! We can show people that 1 ban is not enough to stop us!
That is exactly what I was thinking when I was using it. I never actually drew it during any matchups, so I can't really say that it was helpful. I only used it incase.
And having Krark-Clan as a 4-of doesn't seem all that great to me, I would rather have a Ichor Wellspring or an egg, something that nets me a card. At least when I have it at two, I can draw it and I usually do. I never went back on my decision of lowering the number of them and my chances of fizzling have decreased. For me, I just don't play more than two since I drew them to consecutively and they just never did anything in multiples.
I will add in a Gitaxian Probe next week. I could probably post a report of my last LGS standings, though.
4 KCI is an absolute must have. It is very important to minimize the fizzle rate and with only 2 KCI it is very high. If you attempt to combo on turn 4 and have 3 eggs you will have seen 13 cards. You're only 38.9% to see KCI. KCI isn't necessary to combo since you can still cast Open the Vaults on a great draw or Faith's Reward on one that's not so great, but sooner or later you need the mana in order to have sufficient card draw, the sac outlet adds more card draw as well. In two iterations in this scenario you'll probably get 4 more cards on the second iteration (+1 egg, sacrificing the rest). So you're 38.9% to find your KCI on the first iteration, then 16.5% on your second. Combined this is only a 48.98% chance to find a KCI. If you don't have it by the second iteration your fizzle rate is considerably higher
At 4 KCI this scenario plays out as 63.4% on the first iteration and 30.8% on the second iteration for 74.68%. The failure rate is more than cut in half.
For now I still advocate my manabase. The fetchlands are dual purpose serving as additional white sources as well as extra Ghost Quarters. GQ is very important to the deck not just to thin, and provide extra mana but to shuffle. There's a considerable difference between running 4 of this effect and running 6 of it. Pre Sunrise bannings actually ran 8 of the effect (4 GQ 4 fetch) and would have run more if there wasn't an efficiency tradeoff, since each fetch is 1 less card you can thin. Operating in a world where you can make a million mana off of citadel sacrifices or turn on Mox Opal on turn 1 is nice as an ideal but in practice it's less than optimal.
Running 4 Mox Opals would push this further in the Citadel direction but I remain unconvinced (for now) that you want 4 Opals because they're of very limited value mid combo. You get a 1 shot 2C out of one mid combo and that is it. That said, I do believe the correct number is more than one (which is unfortunate for me as I only own one).
On the Terrarion debate, I don't like it. Prophetic Prism fills that slot much better. It costs 1 more mana but it's more useful early. What matters in this deck is the first three iterations of the combo. After every iteration beyond the first it gets easier and easier to generate mana and you draw more and more cards. If you're going to fizzle it almost always happens within those first three. As such a card needs to be evaluated by what it does during those initial iterations. A card like Terrarion doesn't draw cards before you combo, and it doesn't draw cards mid combo until you have KCI (or use a Reshape on it). The competing cards like Prophetic Prism draw you a card to start which is a big deal. A T2 Prism helps find your pieces while setting up. Terrarion doesn't.
Chalice at 0 seems like the only time it would be good. At 0 you're essentially trading Mox Opal for Mox Opal+Ornithopter+Memnite. The problem with 0 is that it's only good T1 on the play. If you don't have it in your opening 7 (11.7% chance with 1 chalice) you're diluting your deck.