Quote from WendingI'll take both your posts as concessions. Your defeat is clear.
This guy is the new fattyluvboat...
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- DaR
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Member for 14 years, 3 months, and 22 days
Last active Mon, Jan, 8 2018 19:51:05
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Crack a Codex Shredder to get back the non-artifact you want to hand, then Academy Ruins to put the Shredder back on top to redraw and replay it. For 8 mana (1 Shredder, 5 activate, 1U put shredder on top) you can rebuy any card every turn.
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Infect is generally miserable for any RG Valakut deck, and is probably one of the main reasons these decks don't start edging into the top tier. You can easily devote 10+ cards of your sideboard and still not have a good infect matchup. It basically comes down to Chalice on 1 in the first turn or two or bust. Very occasionally the absolute god draw of Bolts, Angers and Sudden Shocks can give you just enough time to combo kill them. Some people go so far as to run Fog just for the Infect matchup.
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Round 1, I choked out an Affinity player 2-1, against decent draws. Game 1 he had no answer, game 2 he got under me and killed me before I got anything going, and game 3 a turn 4 Leviathan into a turn 5 choke sealed the deal.
Infect in round 2 just blew me out. First game was my bad, as I did the math wrong and took a Might of Old Krosa over a Become Immense, and died to an Inkmoth attack. Game 2 he brought in counters and I was unable to find enough action or disruption before I died to infect critters. 0-2
Sadly, rounds 3 and 4 I ran into back to back decks with mainboard Path to Exile.
Round 3 was Soul Sisters, who pathed most of my creatures and even under the Stormtide moat was able to gain enough life to keep ahead of an 8/8 block and then finally won on the back of Serra Ascendants and/or Squadron Hawks wearing Sword of Light and Shadow. In that game I probably did between 80 and 100 damage with a single Stormtide, but he just kept gaining it back. 1-2
Round 4 was UW Control, and despite landing early chokes in two games, basic plains plus Glacial Fortresses let him path every creature I ever played. Game 3 he pathed all 3 Tasigurs, 2 Mandrills, and both Leviathans, between casting and snapping back paths. 1-2 again.
Overall it felt pretty consistent, but lacking a good answer to removal hurts. I'm inclined to pull the Spreading Seas in the board and replace them with a set of Surgical Extractions and/or Blossoming Defense. Possibly a few Dispels as well. Anything that would let me stop removal spells and then get rid of them permanently.
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I'm a combo player at heart, and the core idea of Hulk combo has always intrigued me, and I've run it a few time before (the last time being about 5-6 months ago), and with the recent noise, I pulled it back out and ran it through a couple of FNMs. The list I ran was a pretty standard Makeshift Mannequin build, with the only major change being a 3rd Mannequin over a 4th Izzet Charm, as my experience with Grishoalbrand is that there's a balance needed between dig and things to dig to.
Setting the Stage
My local meta is reasonably competitive (Mox Boarding House, in the Seattle area), and we've got a pretty good mix of deck types and the crowd is usually between 35 and 50 people for FNM and a smaller crowd of 15-30 for Thursday night Modern, with a fixed 4 round format, with payout by record. I ran the deck for a few weeks, and all told I think I played around 15 matches with the deck.
Additionally, as with all combo decks, I tend to keep my cards on my desk and goldfish while I'm waiting for things to happen. I've probably goldfished a couple hundred hands by this point.
My experiences were not been all that great. It can win games. It can even win matches. But I've found it very inconsistent overall, even compared to decks like Goryo's with Shoals.
Deck Upsides
The pros of the deck seem very nice on paper.
The fact that it almost never fizzles once there's a hulk in play is a huge bonus compared to Grishoalbrand and similar. I think I failed to go off successfully twice in all my games, once through operator error (I sequenced triggers wrong in one of my first games back on the deck), and once through a having to run out a hulk into open white mana facing lethal on board and he did, in fact, have the Path. That's definitely better than my fizzle rate with Grishoalbrand, which is probably closer to 10-15%.
The fact that it can win at instant speed is great. It never came up, but the fact that you can win with a pact trigger on the stack let me be fairly aggressive with those, unlike many combo decks, where not being able to pay for pact is actually just game over.
Deck velocity is also fantastic; I routinely had seen a full 1/3rd to half my deck by turn 4 or five. Taigam's Scheming is not a card for most decks, but here it's extremely good. Basically an Ancient Stirrings with even more upsides. Enough so that I actually am considering a Grixis build of Goryo's with Scheming as a way to dump reanimation targets in the bin.
Mana was very easy to deal with. Not needing black mana until turn 3 or 4, I think I averaged about one game in about 20 that I had any mana issues at all, which is honestly better than most decks. The sheer amount of dig and looting helps make sure you get exactly enough.
The deck is nicely resilient to non-grave oriented hate. Hand disruption and even counterspells don't go that far with the amount of dig power and resiliency. I had no issues finding reanimation spells. Since I chose to run a 3rd Mannequin over a 4th Izzet Charm, I had maybe one game where I had everything else and failed to find a reanimation spell. Even being thoughtseized and countered rarely put me off more than a turn or two.
Unlike Grishoalbrand, this deck does not need a decent life total when going off. As long as you're not dead, the combo is going to succeed, and being at 1 life makes no difference than being at 20 as to your success rate.
Deck Downsides
However, it's clearly not all upsides, or everyone would be playing it.
First, the deck is very reliant on a few pieces. If it doesn't see a hulk, the chances to assemble the combo manually are abysmally low. I had probably a good half dozen games where by random chance, I simply didn't see any Hulks after multiple schemings, visions, lootings, and charms. With 2 each Body Doubles and Reveilarks, those aren't too hard to find, but with only 1 Mogg Fanatic, you can very easily dig for turns on end and not find it.
Another downside is that while resistant to non-graveyard hate, it's basically completely cold to persistent grave hate. You can fight through crypts and bogs and usually even Relics, but Grafdigger's Cage, Leyline of the Void and Rest In Peace require that you draw into your one or two of sideboard hate cards like Echoing Truth, or be lucky enough to be able to Swan Song or Steel Sabotage it on the way down, and only then can you start actually setting up your combo. And if they can win a counter fight over your answer? You're just done. Grave Titan beats are about your only plan B, and that's really more like plan F (and this, in fact, is one reason to keep Grave Titan over Thopter Engineer or Venser, as neither of those are going to win you a game if your combo is shut off by grave hate you can't remove)
Likewise, if they've got a Slaughter Games or Surgical and can hit Hulk, the game is almost certainly done. An extract effect on Body Double or Reveilark is usually game over, too.
Once your opponents know what's up, the deck is pretty easy to hate out.
Despite the compactness of the core combo, it doesn't have a ton of interaction either. Prior to going off, maybe 1 Lightning Axe if you're running it main and the Izzet Charms. Some of the linear aggro decks can easily match this combo for speed against a goldfish (which this deck basically is). Yeah, extremely rarely the deck gets the god hands that kill on T1. It can get T2 kills every so often (I think I had maybe 2 over about 35 games). T3 Hulk kills are pretty common. But infect, burn, and affinity can all kill on T3, too.
Some of the more common combo decks can also match it in speed. Bloom Titan and Grishoalbrand can kill Hulk on T2 more often than Hulk will kill them on the same, and probably have similar T3 kill rates, and they have at least some degree more interaction (Titan has lands which gain life, make blockers, etc, Grishoalbrand can gain 11 or more life at instant speed and some builds pack hand disruption). Storm is probably a half turn slower, and not much more interactive, but can win through some amount of grave hate.
Conclusion
All in all, my recent experience pretty much proved what I'd found during my previous outings with the deck. Taigam's Scheming is an improvement to the deck, but despite that, the reliance on Hulk to get things going and needing the graveyard to combo makes this deck more inconsistent and easier to hate out than many of the other top pure combo decks already in the format. Its advantages just don't balance out the problems with assembling the combo that has only 4 primary starter pieces. Barring the banning of cards out of either Bloom Titan or Grishoalbrand, I'd be unlikely to take Hulk Footsteps combo to any sort of event beyond an FNM.
Things this deck needs to be a tier one contender, in my opinion:
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I'm a combo player at heart, and the core idea of Hulk combo has always intrigued me, and I've run it a few time before (the last time being about 5-6 months ago), and with the current noise I pulled it back out and ran it through a couple of FNMs.
Setting the Stage
My local meta is reasonably competitive (Mox Boarding House, in the Seattle area), and we've got a pretty good mix of deck types and the crowd is usually between 35 and 50 people for FNM and a smaller crowd of 15-30 for Thursday night modern, with a fixed 4 round format, with payout by record. I ran the deck for a few weeks, and all told I think I played around 15 matches with the deck.
Additionally, as with all combo decks, I tend to keep my cards on my desk and goldfish while I'm waiting for things to happen. I've probably goldfished a couple hundred hands by this point.
My experiences were not been all that great. It can win games. It can even win matches. But I've found it very inconsistent overall, even compared to decks like Goryo's with Shoals.
Deck Upsides
The pros of the deck seem very nice on paper.
The fact that it almost never fizzles once there's a hulk in play is a huge bonus compared to Grishoalbrand and similar. I think I failed to go off successfully twice in all my games, once through operator error (I sequenced triggers wrong in one of my first games back on the deck), and once through a having to run out a hulk into open white mana facing lethal on board and he did, in fact, have the Path. That's definitely better than my fizzle rate with Grishoalbrand, which is probably closer to 10-15%.
The fact that it can win at instant speed is great. It never came up, but the fact that you can win with a pact trigger on the stack let me be fairly aggressive with those, unlike many combo decks, where not being able to pay for pact is actually just game over.
Deck velocity is also fantastic; I routinely had seen a full 1/3rd to half my deck by turn 4 or five. Taigam's Scheming is not a card for most decks, but here it's extremely good. Basically an Ancient Stirrings with even more upsides. Enough so that I actually am considering a Grixis build of Goryo's with Scheming as a way to dump reanimation targets in the bin.
Mana was very easy to deal with. Not needing black mana until turn 3 or 4, I think I averaged about one game in about 20 that I had any mana issues at all, which is honestly better than most decks. The sheer amount of dig and looting helps make sure you get exactly enough.
The deck is nicely resilient to non-grave oriented hate. Hand disruption and even counterspells don't go that far with the amount of dig power and resiliency. I had no issues finding reanimation spells. I chose to run a 3rd Mannequin over a 4th Izzet Charm, and had maybe one game where I had everything else and failed to find a reanimation spell. Even being thoughtseized and countered rarely put me off more than a turn or two.
Unlike Grishoalbrand, this deck does not need a decent life total when going off. As long as you're not dead, the combo is going to succeed, and being at 1 life makes no difference than being at 20 as to your success rate.
Deck Downsides
However, it's clearly not all upsides, or everyone would be playing it.
First, the deck is very reliant on a few pieces. If it doesn't see a hulk, the chances to assemble the combo manually are abysmally low. I had probably a good half dozen games where by random chance, I simply didn't see any Hulks after multiple schemings, visions, lootings, and charms. With 2 each Body Doubles and Reveilarks, those aren't too hard to find, but with only 1 Mogg Fanatic, you can very easily dig for turns on end and not find it.
Another downside is that while resistant to non-graveyard hate, it's basically completely cold to persistent grave hate. You can fight through crypts and bogs and usually even Relics, but Grafdigger's Cage, Leyline of the Void and Rest In Peace require that you draw into your one or two of sideboard hate cards like Echoing Truth, or be lucky enough to be able to Swan Song or Steel Sabotage it on the way down, and only then can you start actually setting up your combo. And if they can win a counter fight over your answer? You're just done. Grave Titan beats are about your only plan B, and that's really more like plan F (and this, in fact, is one reason to keep Grave Titan over Thopter Engineer or Venser, as neither of those are going to win you a game if your combo is shut off by grave hate you can't remove)
Likewise, if they've got a Slaughter Games or Surgical and can hit Hulk, the game is almost certainly done. An extract effect on Body Double or Reveilark is usually game over, too.
Once your opponents know what's up, the deck is pretty easy to hate out.
Despite the compactness of the core combo, it doesn't have a ton of interaction either. Prior to going off, maybe 1 Lightning Axe if you're running it main and the Izzet Charms. Some of the linear aggro decks can easily match this combo for speed against a goldfish (which this deck basically is). Yeah, extremely rarely the deck gets the god hands that kill on T1. It can get T2 kills every so often (I think I had maybe 2 over about 35 games). T3 Hulk kills are pretty common. But infect, burn, and affinity can all kill on T3, too.
Some of the more common combo decks can also match it in speed. Bloom Titan and Grishoalbrand can kill Hulk on T2 more often than Hulk will kill them on the same, and probably have similar T3 kill rates, and they have at least some degree more interaction (Titan has lands which gain life, make blockers, etc, Grishoalbrand can gain 11 or more life at instant speed and some builds pack hand disruption). Storm is probably a half turn slower, and not much more interactive, but can win through some amount of grave hate.
Conclusion
All in all, my recent experience pretty much proved what I'd found during my previous outings with the deck. Taigam's Scheming is an improvement to the deck, but despite that, the reliance on Hulk to get things going and the graveyard to combo makes this deck more inconsistent and easier to hate out than many of the other top pure combo decks already in the format. Its advantages just don't balance out the problems with assembling the combo that has only 4 primary starter pieces. Barring the banning of cards out of either Bloom Titan or Grishoalbrand, I'd be unlikely to take Hulk Footsteps combo to any sort of event beyond an FNM.
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4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
3 Obzedat, Ghost Council
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
2 Griselbrand
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
Sorceries:8
4 Ideas Unbound
2 Lingering Souls
2 Unburial Rites
Instants:15
1 Dispel
3 Path to Exile
4 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Negate
3 Remand
2 Gifts Ungiven
1 Murderous Cut
1 Drowned Catacomb
3 Flooded Strand
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Godless Shrine
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
1 Marsh Flats
1 Plains
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Temple of Deceit
2 Temple of Enlightenment
2 Watery Grave
2 Mangara of Corondor
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Terastodon
2 Thoughtseize
1 Damnation
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Wrath of God
1 Dispel
1 Path to Exile
2 Negate
1 Dismember
1 Gifts Ungiven
Having Gifts let me play around with certain 1-ofs for testing. Thirst for Knowledge, Delay, Geist of Saint Traft, and a few others have been in and out of the main and side as tests.
Overall it's been a lot of fun to play, and I've not done worse than 2-2 in a fairly competitive 4 round FNM with it. There's an insane variety of lines to play, which keeps it interesting, unlike a lot of the more linear combo decks I tend to gravitate towards.
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I've been playing Griselbrand Reanimator variants as my main Modern deck for almost 2 years now. I started with the RB Fury version, played with Grixis Fury for a while, then explored a bunch of different versions including using the Goryo/Griselbrand combo in both DredgeVine and Delver shells, trying to shore up the problematic match ups.
In my experience, the classic Red/Black and Grixis Fury variants have a number of big problems. One, they absolutely require an attack step to win. They can't go off, in entirety, at instant speed, and any sort of removal, bounce, or tap spell prevents you from winning. Two, they suffer in the face of counterspells, especially if the opponent has more than 2 or 3 in the course of the game. Finally, if they are stopped prior to combo via either one or two, they have a very difficult time rebuilding for another go.
With decks like Twin and Grixis Control being among the most common and consistent decks in the format, it gives the traditional Emrakul/Fury based variants a lot of rather unfavorable matchups. Twin has tap down effects in Exarch, Pestermite, and some post-board Cryptics, plus counters. Grixis Control has ridiculous number of counters, and even more Cryptics. On top of all that, you've got a somewhat of a crapshoot matchup against aggressive linear damage decks like Burn and Affinity, because you will often be too low in life to activate Griselbrand enough for a reliable win, if you can't go off in the first few turns.
By contrast, the Shoal version fixes, or at least improves, a lot of these qualities. Splice onto Arcane gives you the chances to power through counterspell walls. Nourishing Shoal in particular also gives you time against linear aggro decks and reduces the chance of fizzling once you start to go off. Borborygmos Enraged gives you a win con that does not require attacking and can operate entirely at instant speed to take advantage of the opponent tapping out, mitigating the effect of bounce, removal, and tap down effects and even counters to some extent. Even Worldspine Wurm on a breach at least leaves behind tokens against many forms of removal.
The downside to the Shoal version is that it's still not the most consistent deck around, and the shell is large and filled with subtly interlocking parts. Tinkering with it too much removes the very parts you need to make it work. Removing too many green spells (Borborygmos, Manamorphose, etc) means your Shoals become far less good for powering through counters and gaining life. Too few and you'll actually start to fizzle entirely a lot more often. Ditto the removing the fast mana. Replacing Borborygmos with something like Lightning Storm also means you can no longer go off at instant speed, and if your Storm is countered, you have no way to recover it on future turns, unlike Borby who can usually be reanimated from the grave again to complete the combo. Even replacing your fatties with Emrakul or Atarka puts you back to relying on an attack step to win.
It's not that modifications can't work. It's just there's a pretty big burden of proof if you strip out large chunks of the deck to make room for pet cards or alternatives. I certainly tinker enough. But despite that, I keep coming back to the base Shoal version with only a few card difference here and there.
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If you've got a Goryo's Vengeance, you'll want a pitch effect (Faithless, Voices, Lightning Axe, etc), or to be on the draw with a good reanimation target like Griselbrand and a Goryo's already in hand (so you can draw then discard, then reanimate on turn 3 at latest). If you have Goryo's and a target, but no pitch effect, weigh how many turns it's going to take you to get up to 8 in hand to discard. If it's more than 3 or 4, ship the hand. Goryo's and a looting card is much better to keep, as any target or further lootings all enable your hand.
If you've got a Through the Breach, you'll want at least 1 form of fast mana and possibly a Nourishing Shoal to splice it onto if you're playing the shoal variant. A breach on turn 5 is generally not good enough versus any of the linear aggro decks in the format like Affinity, Infect, or Burn, and probably not good enough versus any combo decks like Twin or Scapeshift. If you're playing a variant with more interaction (such as Durward's RB variant with lots of discard, or a Grixis version with lots of Lightning Axes and Izzet Charms) to clear early drops for time, you can keep a hand that goes a little longer.
Be wary of having too many looting effects. Faithless and Izzet Charm are net card disadvantage when cast from hand and Faithless is only neutral when flashed back. Tormenting Voice is card neutral. Only Night's Whisper in most decks is any sort of card advantage. If you've got a hand that's 3 or 4 land, 2 Faithless, and a Voice, it's really hard to tell what that's going to turn into. It could be perfect, it could be crap.
Also don't forget those discards are not optional. If your hand is 3 good cards and Faithless, when you cast Faithless to draw 2 if they're both good you're going to have to pick 2 of those 5 good cards to discard. Nothing hurts more than having to pitch something like an SSG or Desperate Ritual and then fizzling when you go off because you didn't draw into more.
I tend to err on the side of the mulligan in when I have too many looting cards. Better a strong 5 or 6 than a soft 7 that only might turn into a strong 5 or 6 after you've spent 3 cards and 4 mana on it. Because for me, it inevitably turns into a crappy 5 on turn 3, after spending all my good early dig cards.
Beyond that, like any regular combo deck that relies on the 4+4/4+4 type formula, you want as many combo pieces as you can get, or draw/discard effects like Faithless/Voice/Izzet Charm to get to them as you can. If you're on the shoal version, remember that Shoals are basically dead in hand unless you've also got a Wurm or at least a Manamorphose or spare Borborygmos to pitch to it. If you're on Fury of the Horde, that's also dead in hand unless you've also got the full combo. Soul Spikes are a little more flexible. Manamorphose, redundant copies of Breach or Vengeance, Desperate Ritual, any lands beyond 3 or 4, those are all effectively dead cards unless your hand can already go off. Worldspine Wurms are mostly dead unless you've got a Shoal or Breach (though they can serve as discard fodder for Looting/Voice as they'll at least shuffle back in). If you've got more than 2 dead cards, strongly consider mulliganing, especially if you don't have a looting effect.
This is ultimately a fast combo deck. If your hand of 6 or 7 doesn't actively do anything by turn 4, you probably should mulligan. Once you hit 5 you have to start putting up with sloppier hands. In those cases looting effects are better than dead cards, with a slight priority on Faithless, just because you get to draw before choosing what to discard.
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You need to start with Simian Spirit Guide and a Faithless Looting, and then to have or draw into the following four cards: an untapped land that makes black, a second Guide, a Goryo's Vengeance and Griselbrand. Optionally, you can use a Manamorphose with any untapped land, instead of an untapped black land.
Basic outline is the same as nonja mentioned. Turn 1, exile SSG for the Looting, discarding the Griselbrand. Then play your land, exile the second SSG, use manamophose if necessary, and play Goryo's.
In the RB or Grixis versions, you then generally attack, draw 21 cards, and hope that gets you either your Soul Spike or Fury of the Horde sequence in order to pitch 2 extra cards to either attack again or drain enough life in order to draw more cards to drain/attack again, until your opponent is dead.
The shoal version can also kill at this point, but the downside is that needing the 2nd SSG on turn 1 it makes going off a little harder, as you need to eventually draw both of the remaining 2 SSG in order to kickstart the Desperate Ritual chain needed to make enough mana to get a Borborygmos into play. If your SSG are too far down and your Shoals don't line up with your Wurms, you can actually fizzle.
As far as getting Borborygmos into play, the goal is to either cast Desperate Ritual or, better, splice it onto a Nourishing Shoal. In an early combo, almost every line starts with exiling 2 SSG, while later lines you may have extra untapped land. Splicing Ritual lets you then cast it again to get up to 4 mana. 4 mana lets you use Tormenting Voice instead of Faithless to discard Borborygmos, then Manamorphose into Goryos. 4 mana is also relevant because it actually opens the line of being able to splice Through the Breach onto another Shoal, which can be done at instant speed, unlike the Faithless/Voice route. Some people, including myself, have tried running a 1-of Lightning Axe or Funeral Charm as another source of instant speed discard, needing only 3 total mana (Manamorphose RR into BB, use a R or B for Axe/Charm, then the other B and 1 for Goryo's).
Splicing generally occurs in only 2 situations. First is when comboing out, as I described. The other is when you're up against a deck with heavy counter spells. Twin, UWR Control, some builds of Scapeshift, etc. In those cases you'll often sacrifice a Shoal (usually exiling something like Manamorphose and not Wurm) or a Desperate Ritual at their end step in order to splice on a Goryo's or Breach. They'll be forced to counter (and hopefully tap out), then you untap and cast the spell again. It basically lets you increase the effective number of reanimation spells.
On the very rare occasion, you may use splicing to cheat the mana cost on Through the Breach. You can Shoal, then splice Breach, to save 1 mana. And if you've got Rituals and/or SSG, that can lead to a turn 3 or even turn 2 Breach, which may put the game away before they have a chance to mount any opposition. I've Breached a Wurm early on more than one occasion, because hitting for 15 and leaving 15 power on board is usually a win. The downside to this sort of line is that you'll basically empty your hand, and if your kill fails due to a Path to Exile or Vapor Snag or surprise Pact of Negation, you will be in for a long slog to get back to another go, as you'll usually have spent almost every card in your hand.
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This list pretty much exactly illustrates what I was saying. You've made your manabase more difficult (adding 2 lands that cause pain when tapping for colors, and 4 additional lands that enter tapped, aside from reducing the effective number of red sources), for a net gain of 2 copies of Crackling Doom (since you could play 4 Foul-Tongues which have the same CMC and easier color requirements but otherwise do the same thing). If you go up to 4 Draconic Roars to replace those last 2 Dooms, you still have the same overall number of removal spells (and slightly lower average cmc and much easier colors), very slightly less offensive burn, and somewhat more lifegain.
Basically, you'd have to have a massively stronger sideboard to make up for the mana consistency you're losing mainboard. mrisaiahc's suggestion of Erase is obviously good, though I don't know if 3 are necessary. Kolaghan's Command already hits Whip of Erebos, which is the number 1 enchantment this deck doesn't want to see, and Downfall, Crux, and Sac effects all hit Courser, which is probably number 3 after Mastery of the Unseen, which is number 2. Secure the Wastes is interesting, but I feel that card is either win-more or do-nothing, depending on the matchup.
There's already more burn and direct creature removal spells in straight BR in standard than we can reasonably fit in this deck. And already enough very strong and reasonably efficient game ending threats to fill out the 10-12 slots a deck like this wants. There's also already more hand disruption and board control than you would reasonably want in this deck at one time. In order to want to splash for a color, it has to offer something this deck does not inherently do (or do as well as it could).
I just don't see the white splash adding enough to make it worth the instability in mana. Crackling Doom is great, but not enough better than Foul-tongue Invocation to be worth extra colors. So the only thing it's really offering is enchantment removal, which is not something worth mainboarding.
If you were going to splash in this deck, it would almost certainly be for Blue. That would give you access to counters like Silumgar's Scorn and Negate, and card draw/filtering like Dig Through Time. At that point, though, you're probably going to eventually merge archetypes with the UBx Dragon control decks.