Are_you, I still prefer 3 Treasure Cruise in my build. Yeah, I have a tough time casting them on Turns 1-3 when I'm not mid-combo. (I've cast a 4-mana one on Turn 3 before, though!) But I've cast it plenty of times on Turns 4+ against grindy decks before the combo (heck, there will come the day when I use it as counterspell bait), I've virtually never fizzled after casting it mid-combo, and it costs 1 mana in a deck where I commonly combo off with 1 dork.
Magical Xmas Land time. But this is the shell for what me and a friend are trying to brew. Capable (and very unlikely) turn 2 kill. Turn 3 and 4 are a lot more reliable kill turns.
Turn 1: Temple Grove, Arbor Elf
Turn 2: Stomping Ground, Pitch Simian Spirit Guide, Adcendancy, Utopia Sprawl (Untap Elf), Tap Elf, Untap Sprawl, Add 2, Use 1, Utopia Sprawl on same land, Floating 1, untap elf, tap Sprawl, Float 4, Garruk, Untap Elf, Untap Lands. Tap Lands for 4, Arbor Elf on Land, Tap land for 3(7 floating), Sprout Swarm, Untap Elf (2 floating), Elf on Land, (5 floating), Sprout Swarm w/ buyback. Etc. Etc Adnauseum until you get a Chord of Calling to convoke for a craterhoof and win.
Magical Xmas Land time. But this is the shell for what me and a friend are trying to brew. Capable (and very unlikely) turn 2 kill. Turn 3 and 4 are a lot more reliable kill turns.
Turn 1: Temple Grove, Arbor Elf
Turn 2: Stomping Ground, Pitch Simian Spirit Guide, Adcendancy, Utopia Sprawl (Untap Elf), Tap Elf, Untap Sprawl, Add 2, Use 1, Utopia Sprawl on same land, Floating 1, untap elf, tap Sprawl, Float 4, Garruk, Untap Elf, Untap Lands. Tap Lands for 4, Arbor Elf on Land, Tap land for 3(7 floating), Sprout Swarm, Untap Elf (2 floating), Elf on Land, (5 floating), Sprout Swarm w/ buyback. Etc. Etc Adnauseum until you get a Chord of Calling to convoke for a craterhoof and win.
With my Wish Ascendancy Storm list, you don't need that many Forests, Arbor Elf, SSG, or Garruk. In fact, I've pulled off a Turn 2 kill twice and could have pulled off a third against Affinity if I didn't decide to be more conservative and pull off a Turn 3 win.
Of course, the Turn 2 wins tend to go like this:
Turn 1 land, Birds of Paradise
Turn 2 land, Ascendancy, Gitaxian Probe, cantrip, cantrip...Wind Zendikon on Turn 1 land, cantrip, make mana...Glittering Wish, Scarscale Ritual, cantrip...Treasure Cruise, cantrip...Glittering Wish, Debt to the Deathless, swing if they somehow dodged that bullet.
All the Turns 2-3 Magical Christmases add up, especially when I can also throw in Turn 4 Not So Magical Christmases involving Wishing for removal on Qasali Pridemage and Wishing for Slaughter Games instead against Scapeshift. (OK, I win against Scapeshift later, but they practically die the moment I resolve Slaughter Games pre-board.)
If you guys do toward the retraction helix route then the perfect card for you is Pentad Prism. This serves as mana acceleration early on then becomes a "free" spell in the combo. Could use SSG to build up mana to grapeshot them down. SSG also can make a turn 2 ascension possible. For turn 2 win capable. Not likely though.
Goes like this. Play a land and SSG pentad with 2 counters. Remove one for mana guy. Next turn you have 4 mana available.
Blue wisps is also good because it makes an extra mana. The enchantment untaps the guy. You tap it for mana then wisps untaps it again. Effectively generating 2 for only U.
How are you guys fizziling out? If from hitting lands then play something like flame jab or that black one.
I'm going to try to put a list together tonight, I like a lot of things that are happening here and in the Standard version of the deck, and have some of my own ideas. Really want to see if I can get something to work, even if it's a bit janky. Just worried about some of these lists and the situations where you don't draw Ascendancy, do you just lose?
Wish Ascendancy Storm feels like the best combo deck no one is playing right now.
I think this might be a bit premature. After all, the core of the combo hasn't even been released at more than the prerelease! People have literally had 4 days!
Hey before this thread gets any further, you guys should make a primer. Nothing in this deck is likely to be banned and it puts up good T1 results.
I'll spruce up the first page a little bit later tonight. I think one challenge in making a primer is that the deck is so new it doesn't really have certain core yet.
I will also try out 2 Cerulean Wisps instead of 2 Manamorphose. Not being able to cast Manamorphose, because i have only 1 mana sucks. But Wisps can only be used with a creature on board. Well let's try it how it works.
Cerulean wisps does seem like a stronger card for this deck. Both are 'free' spells once you are comboing and both draw a card, but in this deck you are never comboing without at least 1 dork, so Cerulean can chain with only one mana while Manamorphose costs 2. Seems like a simple and solid switch.
I love the concept of this deck! It seems like an unconventional non-infinite non-storm (but possibly storm) deck. Hard to stop besides tons of spot removal and discard (jund seems like an impossible matchup, unless they go discard, dude, dude).
Bloom Tender seems like a very powerful addition, especially since it taps for 4 mana alone with the ascendency out.
I'm not a fan of Cerulean Wisps. I can't cast it unless someone has a creature, and if I target my guy and it dies in response, Wisps gets auto-countered and I don't get to draw a card.
Manamorphose is a bit clunky pre-combo, and it's a bit poor at helping me combo off with 1 dork, but when I need to slam Turn 4 Slaughter Games against combo, Wisps doesn't help me that much, while Manamorphose helps fix colours and cantrips for "free" without needing creatures.
I tested some more against RG Tron, Faeries, and Affinity today to determine whether I should keep some Glittering Wish bullets. I determined that I race Affinity often enough and I'm better off racing Tron, so the LD slot and Fracturing Gust are out. The jury on the anti-counterspells bullet is still out--I had an earlier game where that bullet could have helped, but I got Wish torn out of my hand and a Turn 2 Ascendancy (on the play, so I knew I had to stick Ascendancy that turn) into Turn 3 win in the test games. I don't know whether Bound // Determined or Vexing Shusher (or even Voice of Resurgence, as the Fae notoriously cannot handle a resolved one) is the best.
Wish Ascendancy Storm feels like the best combo deck no one is playing right now. It's like the love child of Legacy TES and Modern UR Storm. I comboed off on Turn 2 again today (vs. UR Storm), and I've comboed off through Qasali Pridemage from Melira Pod. And I think my Scapeshift match-up is better than UR Storm's. When they Turn 2 Pyromancer Ascension, Cryptic Command can still bounce and stop that. When I Turn 2 Wish for Slaughter Games, they lose on Turns 3-4. And I combo off on Turn 2 more often than they do.
I'd say that the best combo deck right now that no one is playing is Breaking Bad Reanimator, but I suppose that this is close.
Alright, so this still needs some work, but I like how it's looking right now. It's capable of turn 3 wins. It doesn't have any acceleration, so you can't really win before turn 3, turn 4 is more common, turn 5 is just about guaranteed. Ideas Unbound is probably the most broken card in the deck. Discarding things is not a huge deal/what you want to be doing. Emrakrul prevents you from decking yourself, and it's possible to hard cast him with Fatestitcher/Chalice/Helix. Helix can also target Wind Zendikon to keep the combo going. The only major issue (and it's major) is you just lose if you don't draw Ascendancy.
@ Life from the Loam/Flame Jab guys - Gaea's Blessing is Modern Legal. Used to be played in Swan Assualt (before cascade was a thing) to loop Dakmor Salvages.
@ Everyone else - Wouldn't Banefire be the optimal win condition? Seems better than trying to get in the redzone, Flesh/Blood, or Grapeshot.
THIS 100X!!! If you don't agree with this then there is no amount of logic that will ever convince you that good, non-oppressive, combos should be allowed. If you don't agree with it then just don't play this game, and you certainly shouldn't feel entitled to make any comment on ban lists ever.
While Banefire is typically the kill-spell of choice for combo decks that make a lot of mana, in this deck, there are a few disadvantages. First, this deck is designed to utilize the power of Glittering Wish, and having a Wishable win-con fits well. Second, Banefire can be nullified by Leyline of Sanctity, which is a reasonably common sideboard card.
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Well, I can saw a woman in two, but you won't wanna look in the box when I'm through.
Dropped the Manamorphose for Think Twice, the fixing hasn't really been relevant, and all the looting makes Think Twice a fuel spell if you're running low on cards. Lowered the mana count, and also going to try a pair of Scarscale Ritual. I don't like the creature requirement, but when it's good, it's good.
Have also been considering Desperate Ravings, the random discard isn't something I like, but it might be better than Scarscale because I can at least cast it when I need to. Having Flashback is a plus.
EDIT: Also using Devil's Play as an alt win con. If it gets discarded, no big deal, if they have Leyline, I win with Emrakrul, or a bunch of giant hasty Fatestichers, just depends on the situation.
Some thoughts after playing this deck (Sam Black's list):
- Glittering Wish solves the issue of not being able to play more than 4 Ascendancies. I thought about Commune with the Gods (it grabs both mana dorks and Ascendancy, and you can play Fatestitcher), but the downside is that you might end up milling your wincon, so you need to play something like Mystic Retrieval. Noxious Revival or Conjurer's Bauble isn't enough, at least not as 1-ofs, because you might end up milling those too. Retrieval can be casted from the graveyard, so that's OK. Or maybe 4 Baubles (which means you need to draw every last card!)?
- Your mana dorks absolutely need to tap for blue. It's how this deck works; you'll be casting cantrips when you combo off, and almost all your cantrips cost 1 blue mana. Birds, Hierarch, Caryatid fit the bill. Sam Black has Arbor Elf, which I don't agree with, since you need Breeding Pool for it to work. Wind Zendikon works (having a blue source is a necessary condition to cast it), but you won't be able to combo off if that blue source is Mana Confluence.
- How many mana dorks should you play? I'd say 12, 4 each of Birds, Hierarch and Caryatid. I mean, this deck has a 2-card engine, of course you'd want to play more copies of either half. Especially when that half costs just 1-2 mana and has a function outside the combo.
- Play lots of cantrips. Never ever go below 4 Sleight, 4 Serum Visions, 4 Gitaxian Probe. Basically every pure combo deck plays 4 Sleight/4 Serum (UR Storm, Ad Nauseam). They're especially crucial since this deck only has 16 lands.
- 3 Treasure Cruise is the right number. It's like Past in Flames in UR Storm: very powerful when you're comboing off, but you don't want to draw it early-game. 3 PIF is the tried-and-tested number in UR Storm, so let's not deviate.
- Mana base: Every land must be able to tap for green. If you can't cast your mana dorks, you can't win. This also means that all your fetches should be Gx - don't bother with Scalding Tarn.
You need Stomping Ground because Hierarch can't tap for red, and Ascendancy has 1 red in its cost. Note that you can also burn a Manamorphose to get red for Ascendancy.
Temple Garden provides white for Glittering Wish and Ascendancy.
No-one plays Gemstone Mine, but I'll make the case for it. It has two minor interactions in this deck: 1) When it's exhausted, it gets binned, so Treasure Cruise has more fodder. 2) You can put Wind Zendikon on a Mine, exhaust it, and return Zendikon to your hand to cast again. The bad thing about Mine is that it sucks as your first land, which will happen relatively often in a 16-land deck.
The first shock you search for should always be Breeding Pool.
- Comboing off: the only spells you want to cast are cantrips, Manamorphose and Glittering Wish. The order of "what color should I generate?" is blue > green > white. Blue for cantrips, which are the most common spells you'll cast. Green for Manamorphose and Wish. White for Wish. Generate red only when you want to cast Grapeshot.
- Comboing off, part 2: Ascendancy triggers.
1) Tap all your mana dorks. Refer above for which colors you should generate.
2) Cast the cantrip. Announce the loot trigger, then the untap trigger.
3) Resolve the untap trigger. Untap your mana dorks.
3x) WHEN CASTING CERULEAN WISPS: Tap the mana dork that you targeted with Wisps for mana.
4) Resolve the loot trigger.
5) Resolve the cantrip.
As far as I know, you can't choose to resolve the cantrip before the loot trigger.
You should ALWAYS use the loot trigger, unless you're at 0 cards and are afraid of milling Grapeshot. You can still win by beats even if you mill Grapeshot though.
- Wish targets: I think it's a waste to play anything that costs 3 or more mana (other than Ascendancy or Slaughter Games), even if it's multicolored, since you have so many SB slots. You might as well play 2x cheap narrow answer instead of 2x 3CMC generic answer; getting the narrow answer isn't a problem because of Wish. And it might be a wishboard, but that doesn't mean that you can't have any mono-colored spells that you'd want to swap out for in the main deck.
- Why only 1 Wind Zendikon? Imo, this should probably be a 3 or 4 of. It allows you to go off with 1 dork in play or the turn you play it rather than a dork, etc.
- Why run Dryad Arbor? Only reason I can really think of is for fetch in response to lili activation but I think I would rather have a more reliable land?
- I think 2 Stomping Ground is probably incorrect. Red is the most useless of all the colors really. White is more important imo. Should be a Temple Garden, 3rd Breeding Pool or another Fetch.
- Do you think Grapeshot is the way to go? I think it actually is probably a waste of a MB space. Why not run all the Win Conditions in the SB as Wish targets (outside of bashing with a 20/20 of course).
Having only 4 fetchable lands shouldn't be a problem imo and it makes your Treasure Cruise's better.
SB
- Why run Bolt and Silence? Wouldn't they be better served as just extra copies of Swan Song and Echoing Truth?
- I think Hid // Seek could just be another Wear // Tear (seems marginally better)
- I like that you have Flesh // Blood as a wishable win condition but I think a second wishable win condition in the board would be a good call (something that uses the stack adn doesn't target a creature so they can't use removal in response). A mulitcolored Fireball effect.
In Summary: -1 Lightning Bolt, -1 Silence, - Hide // Seek, +1 Swan Song, +1 Echoing Truth, +1 Wear // Tear. Would like one more cut to add a multicolored fireball effect. i.e. Clan Defiance
Wind Zendikon isn't necessary because I have 12 mana dorks. I play it as tech, since it lets you go off if you have a Breeding Pool, and you don't have to wait one turn for summoning sickness to clear. Mid-combo, you can stick it on a land (again, hopefully a Breeding Pool) and get more mana and loot once.
On the subject of Zendikons, I think they're worse than mana dorks, because they don't do anything outside the combo. Mana dorks ramp, so you can cycle through your deck for Ascendancy faster. Between 12 dorks and 8 dorks/4 Zendikons I'd pick 12 dorks.
You're right about Dryad Arbor, it's too slow against Liliana and it doesn't tap for green. Should change it to a fetch/Pool/basic Forest.
I think Grapeshot is necessary, it kills for just 2 mana. If you play something like a multicolored X spell as your wincon, you still have to generate enough mana for it. That's not really possible unless you're playing sub-par cards like haste granters (for mana dorks) or Zendikons. Think about it this way, if you play Grapeshot it takes up just 1 slot in your deck, while if you play Zendikons they take up 3-4. Grapeshot is less wasteful.
I play Bolt because there are some things that I want to get rid of permanently, not just bounce (e.g. opposing mana dorks, red Eidolon, assorted hatebears). It might actually be better to go up to 4 Bolts.
Silence, Swan Song, Autumn's Veil are interchangeable as anti-counterspell cards. Silence and Veil beat Counterflux, and Veil is on-color.
I'm not sure how much of each type of counter-hate I should play, so the SB is just a bunch of 1s for now. I think a level-headed (no cute stuff) SB might be:
But Grapeshot is useless until you are ready to win while Zendikon helps you combo out by producing more mana and looting, is an evasive win condition and makes wishable win conditions viable. Obviously it requires testing.
Also, worth noting that Swan Song produces a creature that blocks our 20/20+ when we are on that plan.
The other thing about X spells as wincons is that you can't win with them if all your Zendikons are near the bottom of your deck. Rare, but it happens.
edit: actually, this isn't entirely correct. You can get away with 2 mana dorks and multiple Ascendancies.
From my experience with this deck, it gets bottlenecked on cards more often than mana, so I'd prefer to play cantrips/draw spells over Zendikons.
Against Swan Song you can Wish for removal and get rid of the token. Not a big problem.
Turn 1: Temple Grove, Arbor Elf
Turn 2: Stomping Ground, Pitch Simian Spirit Guide, Adcendancy, Utopia Sprawl (Untap Elf), Tap Elf, Untap Sprawl, Add 2, Use 1, Utopia Sprawl on same land, Floating 1, untap elf, tap Sprawl, Float 4, Garruk, Untap Elf, Untap Lands. Tap Lands for 4, Arbor Elf on Land, Tap land for 3(7 floating), Sprout Swarm, Untap Elf (2 floating), Elf on Land, (5 floating), Sprout Swarm w/ buyback. Etc. Etc Adnauseum until you get a Chord of Calling to convoke for a craterhoof and win.
With my Wish Ascendancy Storm list, you don't need that many Forests, Arbor Elf, SSG, or Garruk. In fact, I've pulled off a Turn 2 kill twice and could have pulled off a third against Affinity if I didn't decide to be more conservative and pull off a Turn 3 win.
Of course, the Turn 2 wins tend to go like this:
Turn 1 land, Birds of Paradise
Turn 2 land, Ascendancy, Gitaxian Probe, cantrip, cantrip...Wind Zendikon on Turn 1 land, cantrip, make mana...Glittering Wish, Scarscale Ritual, cantrip...Treasure Cruise, cantrip...Glittering Wish, Debt to the Deathless, swing if they somehow dodged that bullet.
All the Turns 2-3 Magical Christmases add up, especially when I can also throw in Turn 4 Not So Magical Christmases involving Wishing for removal on Qasali Pridemage and Wishing for Slaughter Games instead against Scapeshift. (OK, I win against Scapeshift later, but they practically die the moment I resolve Slaughter Games pre-board.)
Goes like this. Play a land and SSG pentad with 2 counters. Remove one for mana guy. Next turn you have 4 mana available.
How are you guys fizziling out? If from hitting lands then play something like flame jab or that black one.
I think this might be a bit premature. After all, the core of the combo hasn't even been released at more than the prerelease! People have literally had 4 days!
I'll spruce up the first page a little bit later tonight. I think one challenge in making a primer is that the deck is so new it doesn't really have certain core yet.
Cerulean wisps does seem like a stronger card for this deck. Both are 'free' spells once you are comboing and both draw a card, but in this deck you are never comboing without at least 1 dork, so Cerulean can chain with only one mana while Manamorphose costs 2. Seems like a simple and solid switch.
Bloom Tender seems like a very powerful addition, especially since it taps for 4 mana alone with the ascendency out.
Manamorphose is a bit clunky pre-combo, and it's a bit poor at helping me combo off with 1 dork, but when I need to slam Turn 4 Slaughter Games against combo, Wisps doesn't help me that much, while Manamorphose helps fix colours and cantrips for "free" without needing creatures.
I'd say that the best combo deck right now that no one is playing is Breaking Bad Reanimator, but I suppose that this is close.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
3x Arid Mesa
3x Flooded Strand
4x Hallowed Fountain
1x Island
4x Sacred Foundry
2x Scalding Tarn
4x Steam Vents
1x Devil's Play
4x Faithless Looting
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Ideas Unbound
2x Treasure Cruise
Artifact (4)
4x Everflowing Chalice
3x Manamorphose
4x Retraction Helix
4x Jeskai Ascendancy
4x Wind Zendikon
Creature (5)
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4x Fatestitcher
Can be playtested here: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/ascendancy-wut/
@ Everyone else - Wouldn't Banefire be the optimal win condition? Seems better than trying to get in the redzone, Flesh/Blood, or Grapeshot.
Have also been considering Desperate Ravings, the random discard isn't something I like, but it might be better than Scarscale because I can at least cast it when I need to. Having Flashback is a plus.
EDIT: Also using Devil's Play as an alt win con. If it gets discarded, no big deal, if they have Leyline, I win with Emrakrul, or a bunch of giant hasty Fatestichers, just depends on the situation.
- Glittering Wish solves the issue of not being able to play more than 4 Ascendancies. I thought about Commune with the Gods (it grabs both mana dorks and Ascendancy, and you can play Fatestitcher), but the downside is that you might end up milling your wincon, so you need to play something like Mystic Retrieval. Noxious Revival or Conjurer's Bauble isn't enough, at least not as 1-ofs, because you might end up milling those too. Retrieval can be casted from the graveyard, so that's OK. Or maybe 4 Baubles (which means you need to draw every last card!)?
- Your mana dorks absolutely need to tap for blue. It's how this deck works; you'll be casting cantrips when you combo off, and almost all your cantrips cost 1 blue mana. Birds, Hierarch, Caryatid fit the bill. Sam Black has Arbor Elf, which I don't agree with, since you need Breeding Pool for it to work. Wind Zendikon works (having a blue source is a necessary condition to cast it), but you won't be able to combo off if that blue source is Mana Confluence.
- How many mana dorks should you play? I'd say 12, 4 each of Birds, Hierarch and Caryatid. I mean, this deck has a 2-card engine, of course you'd want to play more copies of either half. Especially when that half costs just 1-2 mana and has a function outside the combo.
- Play lots of cantrips. Never ever go below 4 Sleight, 4 Serum Visions, 4 Gitaxian Probe. Basically every pure combo deck plays 4 Sleight/4 Serum (UR Storm, Ad Nauseam). They're especially crucial since this deck only has 16 lands.
- 3 Treasure Cruise is the right number. It's like Past in Flames in UR Storm: very powerful when you're comboing off, but you don't want to draw it early-game. 3 PIF is the tried-and-tested number in UR Storm, so let's not deviate.
- Mana base: Every land must be able to tap for green. If you can't cast your mana dorks, you can't win. This also means that all your fetches should be Gx - don't bother with Scalding Tarn.
You need Stomping Ground because Hierarch can't tap for red, and Ascendancy has 1 red in its cost. Note that you can also burn a Manamorphose to get red for Ascendancy.
Temple Garden provides white for Glittering Wish and Ascendancy.
No-one plays Gemstone Mine, but I'll make the case for it. It has two minor interactions in this deck: 1) When it's exhausted, it gets binned, so Treasure Cruise has more fodder. 2) You can put Wind Zendikon on a Mine, exhaust it, and return Zendikon to your hand to cast again. The bad thing about Mine is that it sucks as your first land, which will happen relatively often in a 16-land deck.
The first shock you search for should always be Breeding Pool.
- Comboing off: the only spells you want to cast are cantrips, Manamorphose and Glittering Wish. The order of "what color should I generate?" is blue > green > white. Blue for cantrips, which are the most common spells you'll cast. Green for Manamorphose and Wish. White for Wish. Generate red only when you want to cast Grapeshot.
- Comboing off, part 2: Ascendancy triggers.
1) Tap all your mana dorks. Refer above for which colors you should generate.
2) Cast the cantrip. Announce the loot trigger, then the untap trigger.
3) Resolve the untap trigger. Untap your mana dorks.
3x) WHEN CASTING CERULEAN WISPS: Tap the mana dork that you targeted with Wisps for mana.
4) Resolve the loot trigger.
5) Resolve the cantrip.
As far as I know, you can't choose to resolve the cantrip before the loot trigger.
You should ALWAYS use the loot trigger, unless you're at 0 cards and are afraid of milling Grapeshot. You can still win by beats even if you mill Grapeshot though.
- Wish targets: I think it's a waste to play anything that costs 3 or more mana (other than Ascendancy or Slaughter Games), even if it's multicolored, since you have so many SB slots. You might as well play 2x cheap narrow answer instead of 2x 3CMC generic answer; getting the narrow answer isn't a problem because of Wish. And it might be a wishboard, but that doesn't mean that you can't have any mono-colored spells that you'd want to swap out for in the main deck.
4 Mana Confluence
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Sylvan Caryatid
1 Wind Zendikon
1 Dryad Arbor
3 Jeskai Ascendancy
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cerulean Wisps
4 Manamorphose
3 Treasure Cruise
1 Grapeshot
1 Jeskai Ascendancy
1 Hydroform
1 Flesh // Blood
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Silence
1 Swan Song
1 Echoing Truth
1 Assault // Battery
1 Guttural Response
1 Wear // Tear
1 Hide // Seek
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Slaughter Games
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
A few comments/questions:
MB
- Why only 1 Wind Zendikon? Imo, this should probably be a 3 or 4 of. It allows you to go off with 1 dork in play or the turn you play it rather than a dork, etc.
- Why run Dryad Arbor? Only reason I can really think of is for fetch in response to lili activation but I think I would rather have a more reliable land?
- I think 2 Stomping Ground is probably incorrect. Red is the most useless of all the colors really. White is more important imo. Should be a Temple Garden, 3rd Breeding Pool or another Fetch.
- Do you think Grapeshot is the way to go? I think it actually is probably a waste of a MB space. Why not run all the Win Conditions in the SB as Wish targets (outside of bashing with a 20/20 of course).
In summary: -1 Dryad Arbor, -1 Grapeshot, -1 Stomping Ground, +2 Misty Rainforest, +1 Wind Zendikon.
Having only 4 fetchable lands shouldn't be a problem imo and it makes your Treasure Cruise's better.
SB
- Why run Bolt and Silence? Wouldn't they be better served as just extra copies of Swan Song and Echoing Truth?
- I think Hid // Seek could just be another Wear // Tear (seems marginally better)
- I like that you have Flesh // Blood as a wishable win condition but I think a second wishable win condition in the board would be a good call (something that uses the stack adn doesn't target a creature so they can't use removal in response). A mulitcolored Fireball effect.
In Summary: -1 Lightning Bolt, -1 Silence, - Hide // Seek, +1 Swan Song, +1 Echoing Truth, +1 Wear // Tear.
Would like one more cut to add a multicolored fireball effect. i.e. Clan Defiance
On the subject of Zendikons, I think they're worse than mana dorks, because they don't do anything outside the combo. Mana dorks ramp, so you can cycle through your deck for Ascendancy faster. Between 12 dorks and 8 dorks/4 Zendikons I'd pick 12 dorks.
You're right about Dryad Arbor, it's too slow against Liliana and it doesn't tap for green. Should change it to a fetch/Pool/basic Forest.
I think Grapeshot is necessary, it kills for just 2 mana. If you play something like a multicolored X spell as your wincon, you still have to generate enough mana for it. That's not really possible unless you're playing sub-par cards like haste granters (for mana dorks) or Zendikons. Think about it this way, if you play Grapeshot it takes up just 1 slot in your deck, while if you play Zendikons they take up 3-4. Grapeshot is less wasteful.
I play Bolt because there are some things that I want to get rid of permanently, not just bounce (e.g. opposing mana dorks, red Eidolon, assorted hatebears). It might actually be better to go up to 4 Bolts.
Silence, Swan Song, Autumn's Veil are interchangeable as anti-counterspell cards. Silence and Veil beat Counterflux, and Veil is on-color.
I'm not sure how much of each type of counter-hate I should play, so the SB is just a bunch of 1s for now. I think a level-headed (no cute stuff) SB might be:
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Nature's Claim
1 Silence
1 Swan Song
1 Echoing Truth
1 Assault // Battery
1 Guttural Response
1 Wear // Tear
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Slaughter Games
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
Also, worth noting that Swan Song produces a creature that blocks our 20/20+ when we are on that plan.
But, this is the list I would run:
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Sylvan Caryatid
Sorceries (19)
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Serum VIsions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Glittering Wish
3 Treasure Cruise
4 Cerulean Wisps
3 Manamorphose
Enchantments (6)
3 Jeskai Ascendancy
3 Wind Zendikon
Lands (16)
4 Mana Confluence
2 Breeding Pool
2 Temple Garden
1 Stomping Ground
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
1 Jeskai Ascendancy
1 Flesh // Blood
1 Clan Defiance
1 Assault // Battery
1 Guttural Response
1 Wear // Tear
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Bound // Determined
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Slaughter Games
2 Dispel
3 Echoing Truth
edit: actually, this isn't entirely correct. You can get away with 2 mana dorks and multiple Ascendancies.
From my experience with this deck, it gets bottlenecked on cards more often than mana, so I'd prefer to play cantrips/draw spells over Zendikons.
Against Swan Song you can Wish for removal and get rid of the token. Not a big problem.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.