I think you have to run quite a lot of artifacts before Thoughtcast even comes close to mimicking treasure cruise. I suppose you could go that route but the question remains how this is better. As you said, you either drop them for later (effectively doing nothing) or you immediately crack them (impossible T1) and they become the worst kind of cantrip.
You could go for more artifacts and have paradise mantle + retraction helix as infinite combo, but I'm afraid it doesn't really make you less vulnerable to the format's answers. Maybe even more vulnerable due to splash hate from affinity as it will probably become more popular now.
So far I've still been happily goldfishing my 'new' list, so I'm quite excited to try it out this weekend. I also changed my sideboard to account for the expected metagame having more control and BGx by these changes:
-2 Path to Exile
-1 Silence
+1 Gigadrowse
+1 Guttural Reponse
+1 Leyline of Sanctity
I expect Linvala to be less prevalent and am not very worried about other creatures (or I can handle those with izzet charm, slaughter pact, abrupt decay and fiery justice) so I cut the paths. I do expect more BGx so I added the 4th leyline and I expect more control so the response is back in the wishboard. Gigadrowse, as mentioned in this thread, seems pretty nice against control specifically and is quite similar to silence against the rest, so I'm also trying that one out.
if 20 cards is viable maybe i'll switch over to that down the road for vision of beyond. I never used dig through time so i'm only replacing the TC.
- milling wish- just never seemed like something i'd rather avoid at all costs. particularly since it use to be the linch pin of the deck. though fatestitcher really changed that up.
what i fear the dreaded 1 dork situation where that is your only mana and you need to cantrip out of it. IF one is using Ideas unbound, i think its essential to hit an extra blue in advance. 4 cerulean brings up to 12 possible ways to get that extra blue to pull out of the 1 mana situation.
A build like that theoretically seems very powerful to me.
but one could also cloud key for the spheres instead of using locket of yesterdays, i was speculating something similar might power monastery mentor. doing that with jeskai ascendancy might be a little clunky since it isn't a creature itself.
I play wisps to get to the 2nd mana for wish and dig and mainly, so not that many cards. Except for that, it's by far the worst cantrip, though.
Cloud key seems nice if you want to go that route, but it costs 3 and I don't really see how the combo or the deck in general becomes better from running those rather than blue cantrips. I rarely have mana issues when comboing, but I certainly do have issues generating +cards so I can continue looting (also with cruise, actually. Facing a relic, ooze or other GYhate is pretty painful when you have multiple cruises in hand).
I'm guessing you meant to include my post in one of your quotes. Did you mean you play 4 ideas unbound and the 4th wisp rather than any visions? What are you playing instead of Digs or did you not play those?
With my deck I aimed for being very blue-heavy with green only for caryatid and wish (main deck, that is) so that I could run tons of cantrips to find what I need and keep the combo going (never fizzled so far, unlike some other versions of the deck). I kinda like that visions is fine to use as a cantrip (instant even, very relevant) so it's never dead, unlike cruise which has certainly rotted in my hand before.
Why are you afraid of milling a wish? Even if they extract it, it's not essential to winning and you basically play 7 ascendancies so finding 1 shouldn't be an issue. On average, milling yourself doesn't decrease the chances of finding card x anyway.
So far, reanimating fatestitcher has not prevented me from getting to 20 cards for visions (because I'm so heavy on the cantrips I can usually wait with visions a while) but I can see it being correct to not animate the 2nd or 3rd fatestitcher in order to just have 20 cards to turn visions into ancestral. The beauty is that it doesn't exile the fatestitcher so after drawing 3, you can then proceed with unearthing and going nuts.
Secretly I've wanted to play with visions in this deck a while now, but 7 was just so much easier than 20 that it wasn't realistic to ignore treasure cruise and playing both in the same deck is rather iffy. I'm hoping that with the downfall of delve, gy removal will be less prevalent. If goyf comes back with a vengeance, then probably not, unfortunately. Then again, at least visions will always cantrip.
I was kinda hoping for cruise to be banned but not ascendancy, because I assumed visions would be good enough. Pity Dig also got the axe, but the nombo with visions make it an easy choice at least. My visions were already waiting to get sleeved up so my current list is the above one with these changes:
-4 Treasure Cruise
-2 Dig Through Time
+4 Visions of Beyond
+1 Faithless Looting
+1 Ideas Unbound
It goldfishes rather smoothly, as if nothing happened. The only 'problem' is that when you're really pressed for cantrips, 20 is a lot more to get into your gy than 7 and having multiple manadorks doesn't help with getting 3 cards from visions. Other than that, it still seems good to me. Now the question is whether the meta is better/worse now and to that I currently have no answer. Heavy control is probably not great (though pact and silence are good there) as is Jund, but I suppose UR delver is pretty much gone now and consequently Burn will be less of a problem as well, which is definitely good for us.
I got 2 tournaments coming up this weekend and I'll run that list, even though I think the bannings aren't in effect yet at the time.
Oh, and Gigadrowse does seem interesting against control. Much more of a sure-shot than Silence against counterspells and almost as good against the rest (slower).
Against affinity it seems pretty easy to just go for gifts with elesh norn. I don't see how they win when you have elesh norn out. Leave in all removal to make sure you get to turn 5 to actually do it.
Having seen the worlds matches, I'm pretty sure the storm player just ran quite well. It should be quite hard to win for storm when you remove their combo permanents while they have minimal/no interaction with your combo.
I've only played against storm with a green ascendancy list in which I had silence. Silence gets em pretty good ;). At least, when you're not greedy. I let him cast ritual ritual empty game 3 instead of silencing in response to the 2nd ritual because I was pretty sure I could combo off next turn.
Hm, I'm not sure I understand. What benefit would strand have over misty?
@Lord Hazanko
I understand that you want cantrips that select more than thought scour, but scour is one of the best cantrips in the deck because it mills fatestitcher and fuels delve spells. Really would look for space to fit in the 4th. I'd cut the forest because I can't really think of a situation in which you want to fetch it. Perhaps against blood moon but that cornercase (you have manadorks) is in my opinion not worth diluting your deck with lands that don't cast ascendancy or cantrips.
I changed my manabase to something that I like much better so far.
- Sacred Foundry
+ Hallowed Fountain
-2 Scalding Tarn
+2 Misty Rainforest
Now all my fetches can get all colors and I can get duals for all colors + blue to maximize cantripping potential. The only one that can't be fetched by everything is temple garden but with hallowed fountain I can still fetch white with tarn. With just 1 izzet charm, not being able to go breeding pool (#1 dual I fetch) into sacred foundry to be able to cast both charm and wish is not a big deal.
In Madrid, the last time I played it against opponents, it never mattered that I can remember. Might have fizzled due to a bolt in response once or so, but usually it's fine. In this version you're most likely to cast it on caryatid or when you're going off so that's still fine. In goldfishing it's worse, of course, but even then it's not a big issue because I 'only' play 3 and have tons of other cantrips.
I wouldn't call it necessary, but since I want to cast Dig when comboing off with just a caryatid, it's the only way to go from 1 to 2 mana while continuing the combo. I also like being blue-heavy as it makes the manabase much less painful (though I still have to update that). I don't really see a good alternative to wisps at the moment.
Sure, sprout swarm goes infinite, but they don't have haste so you have to get into a position where you can do this EoT, for which you need 5+ mana. Seems tricky.
I've tried multiple versions (one I played in Madrid, the other Madrid deck, CFB control) and I like green, especially caryatid, so I'm building such a version again. Last tournament I ran a version with 4 birds, 4 caryatid, 4 fatestitcher and 3 izzet charm, but I came to the conclusion that birds, while nice, just die too much and are horrible when comboing. I played 16 land, which made 28 cards of the deck dead for continuing the combo. I actually fizzled multiple times as well, mostly due to that and having too many noncreature spells that don't cantrip. In my case that was silence, slaugther pact (which I did like) and 3 izzet charm. Going down to 1 card in hand is pretty much game over unless you luck out and draw treasure cruise to refill or maybe wish into scarscale ritual.
So I've been gold fishing this deck a bit and I rather like it so far:
Don't mind the sideboard so much, the only thing that matters for gold fishing is ascendancy (and ritual) of course.
My thinking here is that I like more cantrips/selection, so I wanted Sleights. Dig was also great in the CFB version, but the issue is getting to 2 blue when comboing off. Manamorphose doesn't help here (and is often annoying due to costing 2 and being uncastable) so I just cut them for Cerulean Wisps. This allows you to cycle for free and even filter a color in some cases and get up to 2 mana for dig. With only 4 carytid as green manadorks, finding them with dig is nice. Dig is nice to set up anything, anyway.
The explosiveness of this deck is clearly lower than that with 1cc manadorks, but not by all that much and it's way more resilient to bolts and other stuff. I still have to work on the manabase a bit, but other than that I'm quite excited about it. Speaking of the manabase, the 'ideal' sequencing is breeding pool into sacred foundry to have all colors and being able to produce both GW for wish and UR for charm. Unfortunately Sacred Foundry can't be fetched by misty so that is awkward at times. I definitely don't want to go to 4 city of brass anymore. In slightly longer games that's just way too painful and you can't fetch them. I added a faerie conclave because the deck is very blue-heavy now and an additional combopiece that can be played without getting bolted before you can use it.
Looking pretty cool. I once commented at woo's videos I thought the deck seems cool but could use more fatestitchers to make the combo more reliable. Feeling pretty good about that now ;).
To be honest I don't know whether this version is actually better or more resilient than the green version. This deck is clearly slower, has no hexproof dork and no silence, no wishboard and no turn 2 kill. Even t3 is pretty unlikely. I'd classify this more as control with combo finish rather than combo-control. More twin/scapeshift/uwr kiki control than ur storm.
On the other hand, this deck clearly doesn't kill itself and can actually intereact with the opponent, which I suppose is why the pros like it in that meta.
I agree that stuff like become immense has no place in this deck. Even if you win by attacking for lethal most of the time, that only means you combo'd them out and swung for, most likely, easily lethal. Become immense would only be useful if you fizzled sort of and can deal the final 5 like that. If it was just another cantrip, you'd possibly just continue comboing and win anyway.
I recently tried the Madrid build with some minor tweaks and I'm still a bit on the fence about it. On the one hand, 4 fatestitchers make it pretty easy to increase mana mid combo and gives some measure of protection and sorcery speed removal and discard. On the other hand, they're clearly not mana dorks like noble so the deck feels quite a bit slower, definitely game 1. Also, fatestitchers in hand do very little. In the tournament, I played only 2 faithless looting but that was clearly a mistake and I overestimated the downside of card disadvantage from casting looting. Being able to dump a fatestitcher on t1 or t2 is absolutely required to be able to combo t3. If it's not in the gy, it becomes a pretty slow combo and basically useless as manadork 9-12.
I also felt the deck is much more complicated to play well compared to the regular noble/wisp version due to the mana requirements. The old version just went breeding pool into temple garden and you basically had perfect mana. Now you also need red for looting which makes it probably best to have either a sacred foundry in the deck or you have to go steam vents into temple garden. Considering the multiple 1 landers this deck can start with, not having t1 green is pretty risky for future manadork draws and not having blue is obviously very bad.
R3doxNL - congrats on day 2-ing, some nice plays in there too (and some not so nice ones)! GZ
Thanks :). The play in G3 against soul sisters still makes me facepalm :(. Oh well.
As for spellskite vs silence:
Spellskite is only useful if a) they somehow let you untap with it, but you don't have the 1 extra mana for silence AND couldn't combo out last turn, b) they only have 1 answer, which can actually be redirected to spellskite and c) you actually have time to cast it and wait a turn. To me, that sounds like a rather unlikely cornercase.
@TheRogue
So you're playing against BGx, you probe them and they have golgari charm, krosan grip, and 2x decay (I've faced this), what good does spellskite do? You say Silence doesn't stop 90% of the removal for mana dorks, but what makes you think spellskite does? You play spellskite, they kill it and untap. Then what? This happened in a tournament in which I didn't play silence yet, but he left only 3 mana up after playing a bob on T5 or so and I had 6 mana for ascendancy into ascendancy and he died, but had I had silence instead of 2nd ascendancy, it would have been easy to combo off much earlier and not give him more draws for land/threats. As I said in my report, Silence is insane against non-counterspells because they just can't respond to it (no targets yet) and die with all the hate in the world in hand. It's not like any dork they can kill won't be killed until you try to play ascendancy.
Because burn has Eidolon next to a fast clock, I don't think spellskite will do much. You'll at best take 1 dmg less per burnspell and still die horribly to eidolon. I'd rather maindeck Izzet Charm to have an out for that with incidental value from looting and countering stuff. It's probably nice vs twin if you can sneak it into play but considering you're a faster combo deck, I don't really see the point. This is even more true against bogles as they have almost no interaction with you (definitely g1) and we are way faster than them and don't really care about even 10 points of life they might gain.
Besides all that, Silence also has other applications (time walking them, preventing other combos) and actually triggers ascendancy. Spellskite also does nothing against counters.
Hi all, I've been lurking these forums a while now but never felt the urge to post. However, I played in GP Madrid with this deck and liked it a lot. I also made day 2 so I thought I'd share some experiences. To give some background, I've played Modern for around a year now with mostly blue decks (UWR control, UWR resto/kiki, NinjaBearDelver, UR Delver and AngelPod just prior to KTK) as I don't have bob/goyf/liliana and like blue anyway.
I was #221 to play in Day 2 due to a score keeper error day 1 so I'm not registered as ascendancy player #5 in the meta. Fortunately I was able to appeal, have them find the slip and put me in day 2 during pairings (couldn't enter the venue earlier.. horrible organisation to be honest). I lost in R14 at x-4 and ended 10-5, just outside the money.
This is fairly stock (based on Noah Long's updated list in some article I found online), except that I played -2 Noble + 1 Silence + 1 Fatestitcher. I first tried a version with no silence, but at a local tournament in which I played against Ricardo (of Top 4 fame) he suggested 2-3 silence which seemed pretty good. His list was quite similar to Noah's updated list so I took that to another tournament and it did much better. My reasons for playing this version are:
-Noble sucks. It's a worse bird in a sea of bolts.
-No Dryad Arbor. It does nothing.
-Fatestitcher, because it does 4 things:
- Mid-combo get an additional manadork as a 1-card package deal
- Allow you to combo off from an empty board
- Tap blockers
- Tap them out 1st main phase, combo off 2nd main phase
- The thing it doesn't do is accelerate your mana and combo off T2
-Silence is insane against non-counter answers and quite good against counters. It also has other applications to sort of time walk your opponent or protect from hand disruption (cast upkeep). I also used it against Living end in the tournament, which was pretty funny. In addition to that it can be used to loot during comboing.
-Wheel of Sun and Moon allows me to deal infinite against pod / soul sisters. I didn't want to concede to that.
-4 leyline to protect against burn and BGx rather than some number of paths. I saw (and still don't see) a use for paths.
-Nothing fancy to wish for in the SB. I've seen people play crazy stuff up to and including Sphinx's Revelation and it just seems awful to me. It's insanely slow or win-more. I wanted only enablers (ascendancy, scarscale ritual), 1 wincon (flesh // blood), flexible and/or cheap answers (fiery justice, guttural response, wear // tear, abrupt decay) and the wheel to make sure I don't have to scoop to pod or soul sisters with martyr-proc going.
Day 1 I had 1 bye and played against Burn, UR Delver, Zoo, UWR Geist, martyr/mono white hate (?), Scapeshift, Living End and RUG Delver.
Some situations/thoughts:
R2 vs Burn (2-1)
I combo off and end G3 at 1 life (leyline in play). This matchup basically feels like I die to an Eidolon unless they have zero other pressure and/or I have a leyline. Pretty miserable matchup and I felt lucky to win here, though you could also argue the leyline won me the game.
R3 vs UR Delver (1-2)
He's on the draw and goes mountain bolt you so I put him on burn. I T2 wish for decay to get rid of eidolon or, if he doesn't have it, some other creature, but he follows up with Sulfur Falls serum visions and I kick myself. I guess it was ok to wish there to prevent damage (had ascendancy in hand) in case he has eidolon, but not against UR delver. Afterwards when I asked him he said he indeed intentionally tried to trick me into putting him on burn. Nice play. Unfortunately the decay was kinda dead (ascendancy gets countered when I have to go for it) and would have been much better as guttural response which I would have gotten if I put him on UR delver. G2 I easily combo off as he hangs on mana and I see he can't stop me. G3 he flips delver t2 and I hang on 1 land with an insane hand. I don't get there :/.
R4 vs Zoo (2-1)
Nice, a slow(ish) deck, finally :). G1 I easily combo him. G2 he manages to get me low and kill my dorks (sigh) with a scavenging ooze in play. I try to use fatestitcher but he correctly exiles it in response so I die.
G3 he has a pretty bad draw (tapped sacred foundry into dryad arbor) so I put him on a hand with hate. It ends up being a qasali pridemage and wear // tear. I bait the wear // tear and wish for fiery justice to kill his clock and pridemage the turn before I combo him out.
R5 vs UWR geist (2-1)
G1 I combo him and don't remember any specifics
G2 he's doing nothing and I assemble a hand of answers. At some point I decide I have enough mana/answers to go for it, but he has enough answers and I end up with nothing. That was stupid of me as he had no clock whatsoever and I could have just built up more mana/found more answers and go off the turn I could check out his hand again. Fortunately, G3 I combo him out anyway.
R6 vs monowhite life gain (1-2)
This was pretty horrible to lose as it seemed unlosable to me. Afterwards, I suppose this version is not quite as unlosable as he seemed pretty heavy on the hate (thalia, linvala, disenchant, rathed bomb, celestial purge) and also had most of it. G2 he has T2 thalia into T3 ratchet bomb. I try to combo off with 2 dorks in play so I can just go through thalia, but he surprise-ghost quarters himself to find a plains to cast a previously uncastable disenchant. Rough. He follows it up with blowing bomb for 2 (killing my caryatid) and playing another thalia, serra ascendant and a squadron hawk. I wish for a fiery justice to next turn kill his stuff and basically let me win, but he exactly topdecks a martyr to gain 9 life up to 30 and swing for lethal. Ouch.
G3 I misplay horribly by scrying a noble to the bottom after seeing his hand of Thalia, disenchant, 2 purge, squadron hawk) thinking I need to dig for land as I was stuck on 1 with an insane hand except no land. If I keep the noble I guarantee mana and enable the caryatid in hand after which I can cast almost everything and find more land. Instead I never draw another land or dork and die after discarding a few times. Miserable.
R7 vs Scapeshift (2-0)
G1 he's too slow and has no relevant disruption. G2 I see remand and krosan grip. He remands my silence, but I silence again and then go ascendancy into probe to combo him out.
R8 vs Living End (2-1)
I haven't played against living end or thought about their deck for a while and am slightly confused when he leads with T1 grove of the burnwillows, go. Of course the mystery doesn't last long and I realise I can easily combo him out, so I do.
G2 I have a hand with 2x silence, swan song and some cantrips. I silence his first EoT cascader. He then untaps, fetch-shocks himself and cascades again. I somehow think I have to keep a silence for another turn and use swan song to counter his living end, which prompted gets trapped. Oops. If he has dismember I lose my dork when I silence, but at least I live and get a dork back when he cascades again, so I clearly had to silence there to make sure I don't get wrecked. G3 I just combo him out on the play.
R9 vs RUG Delver (2-0)
G1 I combo him out easily.
G2 he is a bit manascrewed as he didn't fetch much blue, making his cryptic dead. He also has leak, pierce, clique and 2 snapcasters however. I bait them all out and the turn before I want to silence kill him, he drew another clique which he casts into his previous clique. I had just serum visioned the turn before and kept 2, which was sleight and silence. I have 2 ascendancy, cantrip and I think fatestitcher in hand, so he can't stop me. In fact, if he lets me draw I kill him on the spot (barring fizzling). Correctly, he chooses not to take anything and I have to wait another turn to get silence. He doesn't draw anything relevant and I silence kill him as he has to tap out for snap pierce.
Day 2 I faced different decks, including 2x pod and 2x merfolk. Bit weird.
Not much exciting stuff springs to mind from day 2 except a few things, including going off through a chalice on 1 on T3. I saw his hand with 2 chalice and nothing else so I played another bird before his chalice would come down. He slams chalice, obviously thinking I'm basically dead, but I proceed to combo him out by virtue of having multiple treasure cruises, plenty of mana, some 2-mana spells and eventually a wish into decay. I jammed some 1-drops into his chalice just to loot and easily killed him. He was not amused, haha.
The other pod matchup I experience the weirdest game of the tournament. G3 I keep a strong hand of cantrip, leyline, dork, ascendancy (or wish) and start with leyline. He's stuck on forest + bird a few turns, until he tries to thoughtseize me. He gets a warning. I proceed to draw leylines and lands and some redundant caryatids while he does nothing and even discards a few times. Then, he decides to cast wall of roots into noble so it's clear he has decay and now decided to just gamble to develop his board. I still haven't drawn another non-leyline, noncreature spell and just sit there. He finds a pod and gets a linvala and reclamation sage to kill 1 of my leylines. I finally draw something useful (a wish), but have to get fiery justice to get rid of linvala and sage. He realises he can attack for 2 in the air with birds and sets a 3-turn clock. He then pods into redcap and tries to target me, for which he gets another warning. I draw nothing and die. Wow.
R14 I play burn and he has good draws including eidolon so I die horribly. Literally had no chance in that match.
To sum it up I think it's interesting to note that I won every G1 except R14. People keep a reasonable hand in the dark but have just no interaction with me (or not enough) or don't even know what's going on, which makes G1 fairly easy. G2 and 3, however, they keep horrible hands just due to having some hate which then either means I have a ton of time or they screw themselves out of the game. Unfortunately, as the many 3-game matches shows, most people do have plenty of relevant hate and considering I deal quite some dmg to myself, they also don't need all that much to clock me. The toughest match I had was against merfolk with chalice on 1 and leaks/spellstutters. It's really tough to beat a clock + strong disruption and contrary to UR delver, such a merfolk deck or UB Faeries can pull that off without messing up their gameplan.
I basically always boarded out the nobles and some number of wisps for Swan Song and/or Leyline. I sometimes also boarded in Decay (burn and against chalice) to make sure I can either kill eidolon without having to wish first or to be able to kill chalice on 2. It's nice to have a noble T1 or 2 to develop mana or combo off, but they (and birds) just die way too easily in this meta. I really liked fatestitcher, but having only 1 is not enough so I'm quite interested in trying the thought scour version. I'm not at all sure that faithless looting is what you want in this deck, however. Losing cards is pretty miserable and unless you can set up a fatestitcher you're at best accelerating treasure cruise which, from my experience, doesn't need all that much help in this deck. Even though wisps are the worst cantrip in the deck, they're nice to cycle for free on a dork in order to hit land or build treasure cruise and sleight of hand is still a decent cantrip. I suppose ascendancy and thought scoure alone are maybe not enough to get fatestitcher into the yard quickly, but neither ideas unbound nor faithless looting appeal to me.
Well, enough sleep deprivation, I hope this was of some use to people :).
You could go for more artifacts and have paradise mantle + retraction helix as infinite combo, but I'm afraid it doesn't really make you less vulnerable to the format's answers. Maybe even more vulnerable due to splash hate from affinity as it will probably become more popular now.
So far I've still been happily goldfishing my 'new' list, so I'm quite excited to try it out this weekend. I also changed my sideboard to account for the expected metagame having more control and BGx by these changes:
-2 Path to Exile
-1 Silence
+1 Gigadrowse
+1 Guttural Reponse
+1 Leyline of Sanctity
I expect Linvala to be less prevalent and am not very worried about other creatures (or I can handle those with izzet charm, slaughter pact, abrupt decay and fiery justice) so I cut the paths. I do expect more BGx so I added the 4th leyline and I expect more control so the response is back in the wishboard. Gigadrowse, as mentioned in this thread, seems pretty nice against control specifically and is quite similar to silence against the rest, so I'm also trying that one out.
I play wisps to get to the 2nd mana for wish and dig and mainly, so not that many cards. Except for that, it's by far the worst cantrip, though.
Cloud key seems nice if you want to go that route, but it costs 3 and I don't really see how the combo or the deck in general becomes better from running those rather than blue cantrips. I rarely have mana issues when comboing, but I certainly do have issues generating +cards so I can continue looting (also with cruise, actually. Facing a relic, ooze or other GYhate is pretty painful when you have multiple cruises in hand).
With my deck I aimed for being very blue-heavy with green only for caryatid and wish (main deck, that is) so that I could run tons of cantrips to find what I need and keep the combo going (never fizzled so far, unlike some other versions of the deck). I kinda like that visions is fine to use as a cantrip (instant even, very relevant) so it's never dead, unlike cruise which has certainly rotted in my hand before.
Why are you afraid of milling a wish? Even if they extract it, it's not essential to winning and you basically play 7 ascendancies so finding 1 shouldn't be an issue. On average, milling yourself doesn't decrease the chances of finding card x anyway.
So far, reanimating fatestitcher has not prevented me from getting to 20 cards for visions (because I'm so heavy on the cantrips I can usually wait with visions a while) but I can see it being correct to not animate the 2nd or 3rd fatestitcher in order to just have 20 cards to turn visions into ancestral. The beauty is that it doesn't exile the fatestitcher so after drawing 3, you can then proceed with unearthing and going nuts.
Secretly I've wanted to play with visions in this deck a while now, but 7 was just so much easier than 20 that it wasn't realistic to ignore treasure cruise and playing both in the same deck is rather iffy. I'm hoping that with the downfall of delve, gy removal will be less prevalent. If goyf comes back with a vengeance, then probably not, unfortunately. Then again, at least visions will always cantrip.
I was kinda hoping for cruise to be banned but not ascendancy, because I assumed visions would be good enough. Pity Dig also got the axe, but the nombo with visions make it an easy choice at least. My visions were already waiting to get sleeved up so my current list is the above one with these changes:
-4 Treasure Cruise
-2 Dig Through Time
+4 Visions of Beyond
+1 Faithless Looting
+1 Ideas Unbound
It goldfishes rather smoothly, as if nothing happened. The only 'problem' is that when you're really pressed for cantrips, 20 is a lot more to get into your gy than 7 and having multiple manadorks doesn't help with getting 3 cards from visions. Other than that, it still seems good to me. Now the question is whether the meta is better/worse now and to that I currently have no answer. Heavy control is probably not great (though pact and silence are good there) as is Jund, but I suppose UR delver is pretty much gone now and consequently Burn will be less of a problem as well, which is definitely good for us.
I got 2 tournaments coming up this weekend and I'll run that list, even though I think the bannings aren't in effect yet at the time.
Oh, and Gigadrowse does seem interesting against control. Much more of a sure-shot than Silence against counterspells and almost as good against the rest (slower).
Having seen the worlds matches, I'm pretty sure the storm player just ran quite well. It should be quite hard to win for storm when you remove their combo permanents while they have minimal/no interaction with your combo.
I've only played against storm with a green ascendancy list in which I had silence. Silence gets em pretty good ;). At least, when you're not greedy. I let him cast ritual ritual empty game 3 instead of silencing in response to the 2nd ritual because I was pretty sure I could combo off next turn.
Hm, I'm not sure I understand. What benefit would strand have over misty?
@Lord Hazanko
I understand that you want cantrips that select more than thought scour, but scour is one of the best cantrips in the deck because it mills fatestitcher and fuels delve spells. Really would look for space to fit in the 4th. I'd cut the forest because I can't really think of a situation in which you want to fetch it. Perhaps against blood moon but that cornercase (you have manadorks) is in my opinion not worth diluting your deck with lands that don't cast ascendancy or cantrips.
I changed my manabase to something that I like much better so far.
- Sacred Foundry
+ Hallowed Fountain
-2 Scalding Tarn
+2 Misty Rainforest
Now all my fetches can get all colors and I can get duals for all colors + blue to maximize cantripping potential. The only one that can't be fetched by everything is temple garden but with hallowed fountain I can still fetch white with tarn. With just 1 izzet charm, not being able to go breeding pool (#1 dual I fetch) into sacred foundry to be able to cast both charm and wish is not a big deal.
I wouldn't call it necessary, but since I want to cast Dig when comboing off with just a caryatid, it's the only way to go from 1 to 2 mana while continuing the combo. I also like being blue-heavy as it makes the manabase much less painful (though I still have to update that). I don't really see a good alternative to wisps at the moment.
I've tried multiple versions (one I played in Madrid, the other Madrid deck, CFB control) and I like green, especially caryatid, so I'm building such a version again. Last tournament I ran a version with 4 birds, 4 caryatid, 4 fatestitcher and 3 izzet charm, but I came to the conclusion that birds, while nice, just die too much and are horrible when comboing. I played 16 land, which made 28 cards of the deck dead for continuing the combo. I actually fizzled multiple times as well, mostly due to that and having too many noncreature spells that don't cantrip. In my case that was silence, slaugther pact (which I did like) and 3 izzet charm. Going down to 1 card in hand is pretty much game over unless you luck out and draw treasure cruise to refill or maybe wish into scarscale ritual.
So I've been gold fishing this deck a bit and I rather like it so far:
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Breeding Pool
1 Temple Garden
1 Steam Vents
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground
1 City of Brass
1 Mana Confluence
1 Gemstone Mine
1 Island
1 Faerie Conclave
Creatures
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Fatestitcher
4 Glittering Wish
3 Jeskai Ascendancy
3 Cerulean Wisps
4 Serum Visions
4 Thought Scour
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Treasure Cruise
1 Silence
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Pact of Negation
1 Izzet Charm
2 Dig Through Time
1 Jeskai Ascendancy
1 Scarscale Ritual
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Wear // Tear
1 Fiery Justice
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
3 Silence
2 Path to Exile
3 Leyline of Sanctity
Don't mind the sideboard so much, the only thing that matters for gold fishing is ascendancy (and ritual) of course.
My thinking here is that I like more cantrips/selection, so I wanted Sleights. Dig was also great in the CFB version, but the issue is getting to 2 blue when comboing off. Manamorphose doesn't help here (and is often annoying due to costing 2 and being uncastable) so I just cut them for Cerulean Wisps. This allows you to cycle for free and even filter a color in some cases and get up to 2 mana for dig. With only 4 carytid as green manadorks, finding them with dig is nice. Dig is nice to set up anything, anyway.
The explosiveness of this deck is clearly lower than that with 1cc manadorks, but not by all that much and it's way more resilient to bolts and other stuff. I still have to work on the manabase a bit, but other than that I'm quite excited about it. Speaking of the manabase, the 'ideal' sequencing is breeding pool into sacred foundry to have all colors and being able to produce both GW for wish and UR for charm. Unfortunately Sacred Foundry can't be fetched by misty so that is awkward at times. I definitely don't want to go to 4 city of brass anymore. In slightly longer games that's just way too painful and you can't fetch them. I added a faerie conclave because the deck is very blue-heavy now and an additional combopiece that can be played without getting bolted before you can use it.
To be honest I don't know whether this version is actually better or more resilient than the green version. This deck is clearly slower, has no hexproof dork and no silence, no wishboard and no turn 2 kill. Even t3 is pretty unlikely. I'd classify this more as control with combo finish rather than combo-control. More twin/scapeshift/uwr kiki control than ur storm.
On the other hand, this deck clearly doesn't kill itself and can actually intereact with the opponent, which I suppose is why the pros like it in that meta.
Tempting..
I recently tried the Madrid build with some minor tweaks and I'm still a bit on the fence about it. On the one hand, 4 fatestitchers make it pretty easy to increase mana mid combo and gives some measure of protection and sorcery speed removal and discard. On the other hand, they're clearly not mana dorks like noble so the deck feels quite a bit slower, definitely game 1. Also, fatestitchers in hand do very little. In the tournament, I played only 2 faithless looting but that was clearly a mistake and I overestimated the downside of card disadvantage from casting looting. Being able to dump a fatestitcher on t1 or t2 is absolutely required to be able to combo t3. If it's not in the gy, it becomes a pretty slow combo and basically useless as manadork 9-12.
I also felt the deck is much more complicated to play well compared to the regular noble/wisp version due to the mana requirements. The old version just went breeding pool into temple garden and you basically had perfect mana. Now you also need red for looting which makes it probably best to have either a sacred foundry in the deck or you have to go steam vents into temple garden. Considering the multiple 1 landers this deck can start with, not having t1 green is pretty risky for future manadork draws and not having blue is obviously very bad.
Thanks :). The play in G3 against soul sisters still makes me facepalm :(. Oh well.
As for spellskite vs silence:
Spellskite is only useful if a) they somehow let you untap with it, but you don't have the 1 extra mana for silence AND couldn't combo out last turn, b) they only have 1 answer, which can actually be redirected to spellskite and c) you actually have time to cast it and wait a turn. To me, that sounds like a rather unlikely cornercase.
@TheRogue
So you're playing against BGx, you probe them and they have golgari charm, krosan grip, and 2x decay (I've faced this), what good does spellskite do? You say Silence doesn't stop 90% of the removal for mana dorks, but what makes you think spellskite does? You play spellskite, they kill it and untap. Then what? This happened in a tournament in which I didn't play silence yet, but he left only 3 mana up after playing a bob on T5 or so and I had 6 mana for ascendancy into ascendancy and he died, but had I had silence instead of 2nd ascendancy, it would have been easy to combo off much earlier and not give him more draws for land/threats. As I said in my report, Silence is insane against non-counterspells because they just can't respond to it (no targets yet) and die with all the hate in the world in hand. It's not like any dork they can kill won't be killed until you try to play ascendancy.
Because burn has Eidolon next to a fast clock, I don't think spellskite will do much. You'll at best take 1 dmg less per burnspell and still die horribly to eidolon. I'd rather maindeck Izzet Charm to have an out for that with incidental value from looting and countering stuff. It's probably nice vs twin if you can sneak it into play but considering you're a faster combo deck, I don't really see the point. This is even more true against bogles as they have almost no interaction with you (definitely g1) and we are way faster than them and don't really care about even 10 points of life they might gain.
Besides all that, Silence also has other applications (time walking them, preventing other combos) and actually triggers ascendancy. Spellskite also does nothing against counters.
I was #221 to play in Day 2 due to a score keeper error day 1 so I'm not registered as ascendancy player #5 in the meta. Fortunately I was able to appeal, have them find the slip and put me in day 2 during pairings (couldn't enter the venue earlier.. horrible organisation to be honest). I lost in R14 at x-4 and ended 10-5, just outside the money.
Anyway, I played this list:
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Breeding Pool
1 Temple Garden
1 Stomping Ground
4 City of Brass
1 Island
Creatures
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Sylvan Caryatid
2 Noble Hierarch
1 Fatestitcher
4 Glittering Wish
3 Jeskai Ascendancy
4 Cerulean Wisps
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Manamorphose
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Treasure Cruise
3 Silence
1 Jeskai Ascendancy
1 Scarscale Ritual
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Flesh // Blood
1 Wear // Tear
1 Fiery Justice
1 Guttural Response
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
3 Swan Song
4 Leyline of Sanctity
This is fairly stock (based on Noah Long's updated list in some article I found online), except that I played -2 Noble + 1 Silence + 1 Fatestitcher. I first tried a version with no silence, but at a local tournament in which I played against Ricardo (of Top 4 fame) he suggested 2-3 silence which seemed pretty good. His list was quite similar to Noah's updated list so I took that to another tournament and it did much better. My reasons for playing this version are:
-Noble sucks. It's a worse bird in a sea of bolts.
-No Dryad Arbor. It does nothing.
-Fatestitcher, because it does 4 things:
- Mid-combo get an additional manadork as a 1-card package deal
- Allow you to combo off from an empty board
- Tap blockers
- Tap them out 1st main phase, combo off 2nd main phase
- The thing it doesn't do is accelerate your mana and combo off T2
-Silence is insane against non-counter answers and quite good against counters. It also has other applications to sort of time walk your opponent or protect from hand disruption (cast upkeep). I also used it against Living end in the tournament, which was pretty funny. In addition to that it can be used to loot during comboing.
-Wheel of Sun and Moon allows me to deal infinite against pod / soul sisters. I didn't want to concede to that.
-4 leyline to protect against burn and BGx rather than some number of paths. I saw (and still don't see) a use for paths.
-Nothing fancy to wish for in the SB. I've seen people play crazy stuff up to and including Sphinx's Revelation and it just seems awful to me. It's insanely slow or win-more. I wanted only enablers (ascendancy, scarscale ritual), 1 wincon (flesh // blood), flexible and/or cheap answers (fiery justice, guttural response, wear // tear, abrupt decay) and the wheel to make sure I don't have to scoop to pod or soul sisters with martyr-proc going.
Day 1 I had 1 bye and played against Burn, UR Delver, Zoo, UWR Geist, martyr/mono white hate (?), Scapeshift, Living End and RUG Delver.
Some situations/thoughts:
R2 vs Burn (2-1)
I combo off and end G3 at 1 life (leyline in play). This matchup basically feels like I die to an Eidolon unless they have zero other pressure and/or I have a leyline. Pretty miserable matchup and I felt lucky to win here, though you could also argue the leyline won me the game.
R3 vs UR Delver (1-2)
He's on the draw and goes mountain bolt you so I put him on burn. I T2 wish for decay to get rid of eidolon or, if he doesn't have it, some other creature, but he follows up with Sulfur Falls serum visions and I kick myself. I guess it was ok to wish there to prevent damage (had ascendancy in hand) in case he has eidolon, but not against UR delver. Afterwards when I asked him he said he indeed intentionally tried to trick me into putting him on burn. Nice play. Unfortunately the decay was kinda dead (ascendancy gets countered when I have to go for it) and would have been much better as guttural response which I would have gotten if I put him on UR delver. G2 I easily combo off as he hangs on mana and I see he can't stop me. G3 he flips delver t2 and I hang on 1 land with an insane hand. I don't get there :/.
R4 vs Zoo (2-1)
Nice, a slow(ish) deck, finally :). G1 I easily combo him. G2 he manages to get me low and kill my dorks (sigh) with a scavenging ooze in play. I try to use fatestitcher but he correctly exiles it in response so I die.
G3 he has a pretty bad draw (tapped sacred foundry into dryad arbor) so I put him on a hand with hate. It ends up being a qasali pridemage and wear // tear. I bait the wear // tear and wish for fiery justice to kill his clock and pridemage the turn before I combo him out.
R5 vs UWR geist (2-1)
G1 I combo him and don't remember any specifics
G2 he's doing nothing and I assemble a hand of answers. At some point I decide I have enough mana/answers to go for it, but he has enough answers and I end up with nothing. That was stupid of me as he had no clock whatsoever and I could have just built up more mana/found more answers and go off the turn I could check out his hand again. Fortunately, G3 I combo him out anyway.
R6 vs monowhite life gain (1-2)
This was pretty horrible to lose as it seemed unlosable to me. Afterwards, I suppose this version is not quite as unlosable as he seemed pretty heavy on the hate (thalia, linvala, disenchant, rathed bomb, celestial purge) and also had most of it. G2 he has T2 thalia into T3 ratchet bomb. I try to combo off with 2 dorks in play so I can just go through thalia, but he surprise-ghost quarters himself to find a plains to cast a previously uncastable disenchant. Rough. He follows it up with blowing bomb for 2 (killing my caryatid) and playing another thalia, serra ascendant and a squadron hawk. I wish for a fiery justice to next turn kill his stuff and basically let me win, but he exactly topdecks a martyr to gain 9 life up to 30 and swing for lethal. Ouch.
G3 I misplay horribly by scrying a noble to the bottom after seeing his hand of Thalia, disenchant, 2 purge, squadron hawk) thinking I need to dig for land as I was stuck on 1 with an insane hand except no land. If I keep the noble I guarantee mana and enable the caryatid in hand after which I can cast almost everything and find more land. Instead I never draw another land or dork and die after discarding a few times. Miserable.
R7 vs Scapeshift (2-0)
G1 he's too slow and has no relevant disruption. G2 I see remand and krosan grip. He remands my silence, but I silence again and then go ascendancy into probe to combo him out.
R8 vs Living End (2-1)
I haven't played against living end or thought about their deck for a while and am slightly confused when he leads with T1 grove of the burnwillows, go. Of course the mystery doesn't last long and I realise I can easily combo him out, so I do.
G2 I have a hand with 2x silence, swan song and some cantrips. I silence his first EoT cascader. He then untaps, fetch-shocks himself and cascades again. I somehow think I have to keep a silence for another turn and use swan song to counter his living end, which prompted gets trapped. Oops. If he has dismember I lose my dork when I silence, but at least I live and get a dork back when he cascades again, so I clearly had to silence there to make sure I don't get wrecked. G3 I just combo him out on the play.
R9 vs RUG Delver (2-0)
G1 I combo him out easily.
G2 he is a bit manascrewed as he didn't fetch much blue, making his cryptic dead. He also has leak, pierce, clique and 2 snapcasters however. I bait them all out and the turn before I want to silence kill him, he drew another clique which he casts into his previous clique. I had just serum visioned the turn before and kept 2, which was sleight and silence. I have 2 ascendancy, cantrip and I think fatestitcher in hand, so he can't stop me. In fact, if he lets me draw I kill him on the spot (barring fizzling). Correctly, he chooses not to take anything and I have to wait another turn to get silence. He doesn't draw anything relevant and I silence kill him as he has to tap out for snap pierce.
Day 2 I faced different decks, including 2x pod and 2x merfolk. Bit weird.
Not much exciting stuff springs to mind from day 2 except a few things, including going off through a chalice on 1 on T3. I saw his hand with 2 chalice and nothing else so I played another bird before his chalice would come down. He slams chalice, obviously thinking I'm basically dead, but I proceed to combo him out by virtue of having multiple treasure cruises, plenty of mana, some 2-mana spells and eventually a wish into decay. I jammed some 1-drops into his chalice just to loot and easily killed him. He was not amused, haha.
The other pod matchup I experience the weirdest game of the tournament. G3 I keep a strong hand of cantrip, leyline, dork, ascendancy (or wish) and start with leyline. He's stuck on forest + bird a few turns, until he tries to thoughtseize me. He gets a warning. I proceed to draw leylines and lands and some redundant caryatids while he does nothing and even discards a few times. Then, he decides to cast wall of roots into noble so it's clear he has decay and now decided to just gamble to develop his board. I still haven't drawn another non-leyline, noncreature spell and just sit there. He finds a pod and gets a linvala and reclamation sage to kill 1 of my leylines. I finally draw something useful (a wish), but have to get fiery justice to get rid of linvala and sage. He realises he can attack for 2 in the air with birds and sets a 3-turn clock. He then pods into redcap and tries to target me, for which he gets another warning. I draw nothing and die. Wow.
R14 I play burn and he has good draws including eidolon so I die horribly. Literally had no chance in that match.
To sum it up I think it's interesting to note that I won every G1 except R14. People keep a reasonable hand in the dark but have just no interaction with me (or not enough) or don't even know what's going on, which makes G1 fairly easy. G2 and 3, however, they keep horrible hands just due to having some hate which then either means I have a ton of time or they screw themselves out of the game. Unfortunately, as the many 3-game matches shows, most people do have plenty of relevant hate and considering I deal quite some dmg to myself, they also don't need all that much to clock me. The toughest match I had was against merfolk with chalice on 1 and leaks/spellstutters. It's really tough to beat a clock + strong disruption and contrary to UR delver, such a merfolk deck or UB Faeries can pull that off without messing up their gameplan.
I basically always boarded out the nobles and some number of wisps for Swan Song and/or Leyline. I sometimes also boarded in Decay (burn and against chalice) to make sure I can either kill eidolon without having to wish first or to be able to kill chalice on 2. It's nice to have a noble T1 or 2 to develop mana or combo off, but they (and birds) just die way too easily in this meta. I really liked fatestitcher, but having only 1 is not enough so I'm quite interested in trying the thought scour version. I'm not at all sure that faithless looting is what you want in this deck, however. Losing cards is pretty miserable and unless you can set up a fatestitcher you're at best accelerating treasure cruise which, from my experience, doesn't need all that much help in this deck. Even though wisps are the worst cantrip in the deck, they're nice to cycle for free on a dork in order to hit land or build treasure cruise and sleight of hand is still a decent cantrip. I suppose ascendancy and thought scoure alone are maybe not enough to get fatestitcher into the yard quickly, but neither ideas unbound nor faithless looting appeal to me.
Well, enough sleep deprivation, I hope this was of some use to people :).