[Deck] Spanish Inquisition (B/x Storm Combo)

[Vacrix]

- Spanish Inquisition -

- Introduction –

You’ve heard of the Spanish Inquisition, right? In 1500’s, tribunal officers went door-to-door asking the question “Is Jesus Christ divine?” hoping to purge Spain and Portugal of Jews and Christian heretics. Well, SI and its derivatives ask a similar question: “Do you have Force of Will?”

No we SI players aren’t purposely beating the shit out of Jews and Christian Heretics. Actually, we just indiscriminately beat the shit out of anyone that doesn’t play Force of Will.

Unfortunately, you don’t get to torture your opponents either while they scream for repentance. It’s over very quickly. We are kind.

Actually, this is merely a hilarious coincidence and was not how the deck got its name. Rather, the creator, Colby Evenpence, chose to name it the Spanish Inquisition because he planned on winning so quickly that his opponents would say "I wasn't expecting that," then Colby could reply, "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!" Sadly, nobody ever expects SI because only a handful of people play it in real life. Next to Solidarity and NLS, SI is considered one of the hardest decks to master in the entire format. In fact, most people doubt its viability simply because they don’t understand how it works.

Spanish Inquisition’s greatest strength and the reason to play it instead of another deck is its unmatched speed. SI is by leaps and bounds the fastest deck in the format; not even Belcher or Hulk Flash can hold a candle to it. In particular, PSI pushes +60% turn 1 kills in the hands of skilled pilot while I and a few other pilots have claimed as high as 70% turn 1 kills. However, there isn’t one set list you ought to play. There are several lists each with slightly different supplemental strategies. Each list is capable of consistently going off by turn 3 and due to the nature of its unique draw 4 engine, SI and its variants mulligan better than any other deck in the format. These claims might seem outrageous at first glance; however, the secret to the consistency at speed kills lies in SI’s ability to go off with relatively few resources. While a deck like Belcher will often invest its initial 5-7 cards going off, SI can go off with as few as 3 cards (i.e. Lotus Petal, Dark Ritual, Cruel Bargain). Therefore, mulligans become powerful when the new 6 need only yield a few redundant resources to facilitate a lethal spell chain. In theory, the deck can win on the first turn after a mulligan to 3, and I've finally done so Aug '10. In addition to great mulligans, investing few resources also enables SI to go off multiples times. A draw 4 that yields jank will still yield 4 cards worth of resources. A few topdecks later, SI can easily explode again. This principle also applies to countermagic. A single piece of countermagic will not keep SI down. Even if SI doesn’t get to keep the resources from its draw 4 (like in the previous case), it will often still have resources in its hand to go off again in a few turns.

All SI variants play the following shell:

4 Cruel Bargain (D4)
4 Infernal Contract (D4)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
X Tendrils of Agony (ToA)
0-4 Lion’s Eye Diamond (LED)
0-4 Infernal Tutor (IT)

As I mentioned before, SI runs a unique draw 4 engine but it also runs a unique piece of acceleration that facilitates this engine: Culling the Weak. Culling the Weak adds a whopping BBBB to your mana pool at the expense of a creature. Storm combo that runs creatures? What you say?

Different lists run different culling fodder. The original list ran this configuration:
4 Phyrexian Walker
4 Shield Sphere

Back in the day when Goblins was the dominant aggro deck, these so called Tallmen acted as both Culling the Weak fodder for acceleration, Cabal Therapy fodder for protection, and blockers to give you a few turns to comfortably set up the kill against aggro. They are still quite good at holding creatures at bay for the first couple turns; however, the advent of Zoo made this plan significantly weaker. A few of the lists still play this configuration, but in early 2008, Breathweapon shared a truly innovative list that did not run a single Tallman from the old configuration. Instead he ran the following configuration:
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Vine Dryad
4 Summoner’s Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide

The configuration is known as the Pact list. Instead of laying down Tallmen as potential blockers, the Culling the Weak fodder instead acted as protection against Daze and facilitated a better chance at an early Cabal Ritual.

Also, in 2008, Pulpfiction suggested that Manamorphose be run in the Pact list. It was immediately added in as a tuning mechanism, turning your draw 4 into a draw 5 as well as color fixing with Elvish Spirit Guides. The Manamorphose slots in the Pact list are now considered flex slots but in my experience it makes goldfishing a little easier.

The Pact list got a facelift in 2010 when theresurrection shared his list, which further abused Summoner’s Pact with the following three cards:
1 Eternal Witness
1 Odious Trow
1 Wild Cantor

Odious Trow quickly proved its worth as a replacement for Vine Dryad. Though Vine Dryad could remove spare Land Grants, Summoner’s Pacts, and Elvish Spirit Guides, Odious Trow could be cast with spare green mana OR spare black ritual mana. Also, Trow enabled Summoner’s Pact to fetch a black card to imprint on Chrome Mox.

Wild Cantor acted as either Culling the Weak fodder or as a color fixer for opening hands without a starting black source like ESG + Pact or x2 Pact. I dropped it from my build but it’s a fine replacement for Manamorphose or even Odious Trow.

Eternal Witness is a very tricky piece of theresurrection’s build. With enough spare mana it could be cast to return whatever was necessary to continue the spell chain whether it be the win condition, acceleration, starting mana, or business. Previously unplayable draw 4’s like Tallman x2, LED x2 were now playable with Pact, ESG, LED x2; play both LEDs, remove ESG, then play Pact for Eternal Witness, breaking the LEDs in response for BBBGGG. Then return business to your hand to keep the spell chain going.

At some point in my own testing of the Pact list, I became fascinated with D7 effects like Diminishing Returns and Slithermuse. I removed some of the MD win conditions from Pact SI and replaced them with Burning Wish. The list was fantastic at first, but after more testing it proved to be more volatile than I was comfortable with. Recently, Direlemming began testing his own variation on this Burning Wish build with maindeck Tinder Walls. This build is still being fine-tuned but it is very promising.

Obviously SI wins with Tendrils of Agony; however, the faster lists also play either Empty the Warrens or Goblin Charbelcher as an alternative win condition. The original Land Grant SI and Pact SI tend to play Goblin Charbelcher while SITES always plays EtW. QSI used to play Brainfreeze in the board and sometimes plays EtW postboard as well.

Another defining characteristic of SI is known as the IGG loop, originating in the old school combo deck IGGY Pop. The IGG configuration looks like this:
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
2 Ill-Gotten Gains
X Tendrils of Agony

First you would play some acceleration, usually Dark Ritual, to begin the loop. Then you would play Lion’s Eye Diamond, followed by Infernal Tutor, breaking the LED in response for BBB. Then you find Ill-Gotten Gains, play it, and return Dark Ritual, Lion’s Eye Diamond, and Infernal Tutor to your hand. This play would allow you to build up storm, and then repeat the loop, eventually finding Tendrils of Agony for the win. IT + LED would also allow you to go for Empty the Warrens or Belcher, depending on the situation.

IGG also serves another purpose. If played on the first turn, IGG acts as a pseudo-Mindtwist, forcing the opponent into a mulligan to 3. It would be virtually one sided as well since you can drop mana sources, tallmen, LED’s, etc, and then return acceleration and/or business to your hand. This play is particularly strong because it turns back the opponent’s clock significantly, especially considering you could drop tallmen to hold whatever creatures the opponent had at bay. In 2010, I suggested replacing Ill-Gotten Gains with Slithermuse. I found that games where I would play IGG as Mindtwist, I would much rather not go into topdeck mode. If IGG resolved against control, then why would I bother going into topdeck mode when I could simply win with Slithermuseon the spot? I tried out Slithermuse in the Pact list and absolutely loved it. Unfortunately, the Pact list is the only list where it is playable because you have such a high chance of going off on the first few turns of the game. If you have to wait a turn it becomes a D5 instead of a D7. I didn’t find it difficult to win after drawing 7 cards instead of completing the IGG loop. Also, it would allow me to still get the win when I had the ‘wrong ritual’ in the graveyard. Returning something like Dark Ritual, LED, IT is certainly strong, but when your acceleration is Cabal Ritual or Culling the Weak, the IGG loop doesn’t always work because you may not have enough mana floating after you cast IGG. Slithermuse makes more opening hands keepable than in the IGG version, and it also has an occasional interaction with Culling the Weak. However, its gets weaker if you are on the play or if you don’t go off in the first few turns of the game. It’s a personal choice though and I don’t recommend it unless you are very comfortable piloting the Pact list.

Now, not every SI variant plays this IGG configuration. The list that doesn’t is the anti-control list known as Quasi-Spanish Inquisition (QSI). Its not nearly as fast but has a pretty consistent kill rate between turns 2 and 3. As you can probably imagine, the IGG loop is terrible against control; its akin to putting all your eggs in one basket, banking on the opponent not having an answer for IT, as well as giving the opponent back their countermagic through IGG. QSI takes a different approach:
4 Meditate
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

The QSI list also plays Underground Seas and Polluted Deltas to facilitate multiple attempts at a lethal spell chain. Meditate at the end of turn is one of QSI’s strongest plays against control. Either your opponent uses up his counterspell and you can go off after you untap, or you can go off on your turn with 11 cards in hand. Brainstorm and Ponder allow you to sculpt a decent hand before you go off or help you dig deeper on your combo turn. QSI also plays a good protection suite:
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Shield Sphere
4 Phyrexian Walker

Often you should just name Force of Will or Counterbalance. Tallmen enable you to play the flashback. Therapy is an excellent piece of protection because you can use it twice if you need to go off more than once or you can remove multiple pieces of protection from your opponents hand before going off. The tallmen also enable you to block for the first few turns of the game while you play your cantrips, protection, and hit your land drops.

- How to Play -

Due to the volatile nature of the draw 4 engine, SI is a very difficult deck to play. Whenever you have invested resources into a draw 4, you must constantly evaluate the odds. How much business is left in the deck? What do you need to continue the spell chain? Do you have mana floating? These are obviously very important questions, but there are two questions that are significantly more important:
- Should I mulligan?
- Should I continue the spell chain?

As I mentioned earlier, SI mulligans better than any other deck in the format; its one of SI’s greatest strengths. Knowing when to mulligan and when to keep is crucial to playing SI. When looking at your 7, you ought to quickly identify initial mana sources, business, and acceleration. If you cannot identify a keepable hand quickly, your opponent might put you on combo and mulligan for hate.

Now, trying to explain how to play SI is entirely list dependent. A PSI line of play will be completely different from a QSI line of play. In general, I will speak of the faster lists. QSI is a completely different animal but it is not hard to judge how to play QSI if you learn first how to play the faster, more volatile lists.

In game 1 against an unknown opponent, you should try to get a fast hand. If your hand is all mana sources and acceleration, you might want to mulligan that hand for a hand that can go off on the first turn. Then again, a hand with perpetual resources can be very powerful. Getting down some early land and Chrome Mox will allow you to go off multiple times. Such hands with perpetual resources are great against control because they allow you to go for the throat more than once, while one-time-use mana sources like Lotus Petal only allow you to go off once. If you can scout ahead and put your opponent on a deck, then you can better decide how to mulligan. In general, you should let non-disruptive aggro play first, and even non-disruptive combo like Belcher. Being on the draw makes going off much easier. Against control, try to win before they have access to resources other than FoW. If you are on the draw against control, try to mulligan into a hand with perpetual resources, or a hand that requires few resources to go off, or a hand with protection (if you play it).

Now, SI’s speed is its greatest strength, on the field and off the field. Against non-FoW decks, your games will likely be brief. I’ve had matches end in less than 5 minutes. That gives you a lot of time to scout and put players on decks, even watch them board. In smaller tournaments where scouting is actually relevant, fast games work to your advantage because your opponents will not be able to see what you are playing or how you are boarding. Even if you are known as ‘the SI guy’ in a local metagame, the MD and the SB are both very flexible and allow you to play different tech whenever you feel like it.

- Boarding -

One of the most common tech players switch between is playing a post-board protection plan or a man-plan. Protection plans vary quite a bit but they usually run a few of the following cards:
- Cabal Therapy
- Duress
- Unmask
- Pact of Negation
- Xantid Swarm

Cabal Therapy and Xantid Swarm see the most play because both provide protection in more than one instance; however, Therapy can sometimes miss and requires you to play multiple creatures while Swarm is vulnerable to creature removal. Unmask and Pact are both free protection, but Pact of Negation is bad with LED and Unmask requires you to pitch something.

Recently, Autumn’s Veil was unveiled in the M11 spoiler. This is the best protection spell we could have ever hoped for. Not only is it a virtual Orim’s Chant, protecting our spell chains from countermagic, it doesn’t have to be played before we go off. If the opponent responds to a spell with FoW, we can respond with Veil. Once Veil resolves, FoW can no longer legally target your spell. In that sense, we aren’t forced to play Veil until we need to. This is a huge advantage as we might need the Veil to imprint on Chrome Mox later in the spell chain or we might need the green source to play a Cabal Ritual. It also protects our Xantid Swarms from blue and black removal (though this is marginal as we usually encounter white removal STP or PtE).

The man-plan, pioneered in LGSI by B.C., runs a configuration of a few of the following cards:
- Tomb of Urami
- Tombstalker
- Avatar of Discord
- Phyrexian Negator
- Phylactery Lich
- Death’s Shadow

Phyrexian Negator was great in the days of Landstill but it doesn’t see much play these days. Death’s Shadow is decent as a 1 of’; you need to lose life before its playable so its not good to see these guys in multiples. Tomb of Urami is easily the best part of the man-plan. After the first game, the opponent will usually let you play your acceleration and try to counter the business. Unfortunately for them, you can drop your Tomb after you hit 4 mana and then crack it. I have yet to test Lich but it looks pretty good. Avatar of Discord is probably the worst, second only to Negator, for obvious reasons. Tombstalker requires cards in the grave, but conveniently you can remove the rituals and mana sources you use to accelerate into it.

In addition to protection spells and man-plan, there are several utility spells that the SI board can use.
- Dark Confidant
- Carpet of Flowers
- Death Mark
- Rebuild
- Wipe Away
- Chain of Vapor

Dark Confidant is great; drawing an extra card each turn allows you to sculpt a great hand against control. It can also be pitched to Culling the Weak or Cabal Therapy. Carpet of Flowers is amazing tech. It acts as both a potential ritual mid combo and as a perpetual resource to facilitate multiple attempts at going off. Carpet has errata that enables you to choose which main phase you’d like to add the mana. So if your opponent has a few islands and you play it in your mainphase while going off, you can pass to your 2nd mainphase to add mana like a ritual. Its bad against Daze because then the opponent will have fewer islands, but even adding just 2 mana per turn is worth it in SI. Death Mark is great for taking out hatebears like Meddling Mage, Ethersworn Cannonist, and Gaddock Teeg. Usually you can just win before these guys hit play, but if a deck like Bant Survival or UW Tempo packs both bears and countermagic, it becomes a much stronger choice post-board. Rebuild is usually played in QSI as an answer to Trinisphere and Chalice of the Void. Wipe Away is QSI’s answer to CB. Chain of Vapor is good both as a potential storm generator and as an answer to hatebears. Chain of Vapor can generate storm in QSI by playing out some artifacts, and then sacrificing lands to bounce the artifacts back to your hand. A few of these utility cards are usually run in addition to the man plan or the protection plan.

- Lists -

The different versions of SI are as follows. I will provide some example list but please note that each list is particularly flexible.
- The Original List (SI) -
Colby Evenpence’s original list with some outdated tech.
SI
Initial Mana Sources
4 Land Grant
2 Bayou
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox

Tall Men
4 Ornithopter
4 Phyrexian Walker
4 Shield Sphere

Acceleration
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

Business
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
4 Diabolic Intent
2 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Tendrils of Agony

SB
4 Naturalize
4 Massacre
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Defense Grid

- Land Grant SI (LGSI) –
Emidln and Team Blitzkrieg’s variation on the original list. It plays minimal protection in the form of Cabal Therapy, usually plays a man-plan post-board, and plays Goblin Charbelcher as an alternative kill condition. It has a 50% turn 1 kill rate.
LGSI
Initial Mana Sources
2 Bayou
4 Land Grant
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox

Tallmen
4 Phyrexian Walker
4 Shield Sphere

Acceleration
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

Protection
4 Cabal Therapy

Business
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
4 Infernal Tutor
2 Ill-Gotten Gains
3 Tendrils of Agony
1 Goblin Charbelcher

SB
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Tomb of Urami
4 Tombstalker
3 Phylactery Lich

- Glimpse SI (GSI) –
Iranon’s variation on the LGSI that runs Glimpse of Nature as a supplemental draw engine. It’s a little faster than the classic LGSI list but foregoes protection for this additional speed boost.
GSI
4 Land Grant
2 Bayou

4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak

4 Shield Sphere
4 Phyrexian Walker
2 Ornithopter

4 Infernal tutor
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
2 Glimpse of Nature
2 Ill-Gotten Gains

3 Tendrils of Agony
1 Goblin Charbelcher

- SI-TES –
A variation on LGSI that drops Charbelcher for Empty the Warrens and Land Grant for a Fetchlands/Badlands suite. The current lists also play Burning Wish. It has about a 40% turn 1 kill rate but can often just land an early Empty the Warrens and win on turn 2.
SITES
Business
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Empty the Warrens
2 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract

Acceleration
4 Crimson Kobolds
3 Kobolds of Kher Keep
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Badlands
1 Bayou

SB
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Balance of Power
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Deathmark
1 Meltdown
1 Shattering Spree
1 Reverent Silence
1 Thoughtseize
3 Xantid Swarm
3 Autumn’s Veil

- Quasi-SI (QSI) –
Emidln’s variation (props to Marit for contributing an updated list) on SI that lacks the IGG loop, but plays Meditate and cantrips to improve the control matchup. It has a relatively low turn 1 kill rate but kills consistently on turns 2/3.

QSI
Lands
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea

Creatures
3 Phyrexian Walker
4 Shield Sphere

Spells
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
3 Cruel Bargain
3 Meditate
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Dark Ritual
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Infernal Contract
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Ponder

SB
1 Meditate
4 Dark Confidant
4 Rebuild
2 Island
2 Wipe Away
2 Swamp

- Pact SI (PSI) -
Breathweapon’s variation on LGSI that plays Summoner’s Pact and Elvish Spirit Guide in place of the tallmen. It is the fastest list with a turn 1 kill rate of 60-65%.
PSI
Business
1 Slithermuse
2 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain

Mana
1 Eternal Witness
1 Odious Trow
2 Manamorphose
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor

SB
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Duress
2 Goblin Charbelcher
2 Tomb of Urami

- Draw-7 SI (DSI) -
An experimental variation on PSI that Direlemming and I have been working on that runs Burning Wish and Infernal Tutor, which adds additional speed through a D7 engine in the wishboard. Its still in its developmental stages but the most recent list is pushing a 70% turn 1 kill rate.
No list available ATM. Still in developmental stages.

- Potential Tech -
This is a section for tech you can use in your lists that may not necessarily be in any of the conventional lists. If something isn't on this list that you think could go here, give it a test and tell us about it.

Null Profusion - Decent as a 1'of engine. Works better in Land Grant lists
Manamorphose - Color fixing cycler
Living Wish - Facilitates a wish board in PSI
Death Wish - A decent supplement to Infernal Tutor
Grim Tutor - See above
Oxidize - Artifact removal
Slaughter Pact - Creature removal
Serum Powder - Improve mulligans post-board
Pact of Negation - Free protection
Unmask - Free protection
Defense Grid - Protection that doesn't die to creature removal
Planar Void - Cheap way to hose decks that like graveyards
More to come...

- Matchups -
This section is entirely list dependent. I will have some basic percentages up at some point but I will leave it blank for the moment. Just know that the close to PSI the list is, the worse it probably is against control. SITES falls in the middle, and QSI is great against control.

- Suggested List -

PSI
Business - 19
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain

Mana - 41
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Wild Cantor
1 Skyshroud Cutter
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor

SB - 15
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Duress
3 Thoughtseize


This is the list I would suggest. The maindeck has many Pactmen options. Deathrite Shaman is a much better version of Odious Trow since we can keep it in against Threshold as an occasional bomb that shrinks their yard and softens our life total. Skyshroud Cutter is a 0cc creature if you've played Bayou, Dryad Arbor is 0cc if you haven't played Bayou. Wild Cantor is a fantastic color fixer. Empty the Warrens > Slithermuse since EtW can stay in post-board, gives us maindeck outs to a few hate pieces like Leyline of Sanctity. IGG is better than PIF because its pretty much an autoloop. 4 Charbelcher is necessary for the post-board plan. You board out your Pacts/Pactmen/Culling package for timebomb acceleration like Lotus Bloom and Carpet. They aren't as explosive initially, but they provide you with a much better long game against control as you pound at their hand with disruption. Thoughtseize is actually quite good since it can take bears and Vendillion Clique. Clique + Karakas against a UW variant on top of all their hard permission is pretty tough to work around.



- Sample hands -

- PSI Sample Hands -
PSI
Business
1 Slithermuse
2 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain

Mana
1 Eternal Witness
1 Odious Trow
2 Manamorphose
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor


Color added for clarity.

H1: Pact, Pact, Dark Ritual, Land Grant, Cruel Bargain, Culling the Weak (mull to 6)
Land Grant--> Bayou, Dark Ritual, Cruel Bargain
Draw4: Infernal Tutor, Infernal Tutor, Cabal Ritual, Chrome Mox
Chrome Mox (IT), Pact-->ESG, Pact--> Odious Trow, ESG--> Trow, Culling the Weak (BBBB), Cabal Ritual (BBBBBBB), Infernal Tutor--> Tendrils for 22.

Notice that another line of play allows you to go first for Culling the Weak line of play, then Dark Ritual, which allows you to Infernal Tutor for Cabal Ritual for extra storm.
Also, please note that I have not played either of the 2 Pacts until after I’ve drawn 4. This is not always the optimal play. Considering Culling the Weak is already in hand, we know that we are going to play Pact-->ESG and Pact-->Odious Trow; however, I played this hand more conservatively. If played a Bargain into no Business, then it might be a better plan to wait until you draw a business spell, having already had Bayou in play. The other option is to fetch those 2 cards out of your deck and play Culling the Weak before you play the D4. This increases your chances of not drawing those cards off the D4 itself. The other down side to this would be not having access to the Eternal Witness line of play if you drew a topdeck like LED, LED, Trow, Lotus Petal. It’s a trade off and ultimately up to the pilot, who should take into account if he needs a win now situation, or a more conservative line of play.

H2: ESG, Lotus Petal, Infernal Contract, Tendrils, Cabal Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Infernal Tutor
ESG, Lotus Petal (BG), Cabal Ritual (BBB), Cabal Ritual (BBBB), Infernal Contract (B)
Draw 4: LED, Chrome Mox, Chrome Mox, Cabal Ritual
Chrome Mox (Tendrils) (BB), Chrome Mox (nothing), Cabal Ritual, LED, Infernal Tutor (breaking LED in response for BBB) --> Tendrils for 20.

Notice that another line of play allows you to imprint Cabal Ritual on Chrome Mox, and Infernal Tutor for Belcher. You will be mana short of activating it, but you already have 2 mana in play and mostly mana sources in the deck. Yet another option would be to break LED for UUU and find Slithermuse, drawing 7 cards.

H3: ESG, Tendrils, Manamorphose, Chrome Mox, Dark Ritual, Infernal Contract (mull to 6)
ESG, Chrome Mox (Tendrils) (GB), Manamorphose (BB) draw--> Tendrils of Agony, Dark Ritual (BBBB), Infernal Contract (B)
Draw 4: Pact, Chrome Mox, LED, LED
LED, LED, Chrome Mox (Tendrils), Pact (breaking LED’s for GGGBBB) --> Eternal Witness--> Infernal Contract (BB)
Draw 4: Tendrils of Agony, Infernal Contract, Culling the Weak, Land Grant
Land Grant--> Dryad Arbor, Culling the Weak (BBBBB), Tendrils for 24.

H4: Pact, Pact, Pact, Slithermuse, Lotus Petal, LED (mull to 6)
Pact--> ESG, Pact--> ESG, Pact--> ESG, LED, Lotus Petal (GGGU), Slithermuse (breaking LED in response for BBB)
Draw 7: Culling the Weak, Tendrils of Agony, Tendrils of Agony, Chrome Mox, Infernal Tutor, Land Grant, Culling the Weak
Land Grant--> Dryad Arbor, Culling the Weak (BBBBBB), Chrome Mox (Culling the Weak) (BBBBBBB), Tendrils for 20.

H5: Pact, Pact, Chrome Mox, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Cruel Bargain, Infernal Contract
Pact--> Odious Trow, Chrome Mox (Trow) (B), Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Infernal Contract
Draw 4: Land Grant, Land Grant, Pact, Culling the Weak
Land Grant--> Dryad Arbor, Culling the Weak (BBBB), Infernal Contract (B)
Draw 4: Manamorphose, Eternal Witness, Slithermuse, Chrome Mox
Pact-->ESG, Pact--> ESG, Manamorphose (BBU) drawing Culling the Weak, Chrome Mox (Culling the Weak) (BBBU), Slithermuse
Draw 6: LED, ESG, Pact, Manamorphose, ESG, Lotus Petal
LED, ESG, Pact--> ESG, ESG (GGG), Manamorphose--> (BGG) drawing Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual (BBBGG), Lotus Petal (BBBBGG), Eternal Witness (BBB)--> (breaking LED in response for UUU) Slithermuse (BB)
Draw 7: Land Grant, Chrome Mox, Bayou, Infernal Tutor, Tendrils of Agony, Infernal Contract, Cabal Ritual
Chrome Mox (Infernal Tutor) (BBB), Cabal Ritual (BBBBBB), Tendrils for 44

H6: Pact, ESG, Manamorphose, Dark Ritual, Infernal Tutor, LED (mull to 6)
Pact--> ESG, ESG, Manamorphose (BB)--> Land Grant, Land Grant--> Bayou, (BBB), Dark Ritual (BBBBB) LED, Infernal Tutor (breaking LED in response for UUU) (BBBBBU) --> Slithermuse (0)
Draw 7: Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal, Lotus Petal, ESG, Land Grant, Infernal Tutor, Chrome Mox
Chrome Mox (Land Grant), Petal x2 (BBBBG), ESG, (BBBBGG), Dark Ritual (BBBBBBGG) Infernal Tutor--> Tendrils for 24.

H7: Land Grant, Land Grant, LED, Dark Ritual, Chrome Mox, Goblin Charbelcher (mull to 6)
Option 1:
T1: Land Grant-->Dryad Arbor, pass
T2: Draw Chrome Mox, Land Grant--> Bayou (BG), Dark Ritual (BBBG), LED, Belcher, activate for the kill.
Option 2:
T1: Land Grant--> Bayou, Chrome Mox (Land Grant) (BG), Dark Ritual (BBBG), LED, Belcher, activate for 28.

The first option has less risk of a misfire. Even so, you have both Land Grant and Bayou in play in option 2, which means you have a high probability of a 2nd activation if the first misfired.

H8: Lotus Petal, Dark Ritual, Cruel Bargain, Infernal Contract, Tendrils of Agony, Land Grant (mull to 6)
Lotus Petal (B), Dark Ritual (BBB), Infernal Contract (0),
Draw 4: Culling the Weak, Culling the Weak, Chrome Mox, Belcher
Land Grant--> Dryad Arbor, Chrome Mox (Tendrils) (B), Culling the Weak--> Arbor (BBBB), Infernal Contract (B)
Draw 4: Bayou, Pact, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual
Dark Ritual (BBB), Pact--> Odious Trow (BB), Culling the Weak (BBBBB), Cabal Ritual (BBBB BBBB), Belcher, activate for the kill

H9: Land Grant, ESG, Infernal Contract, Cabal Ritual (mull to 4)
T1: Land Grant--> Bayou, ESG (GB), Cabal Ritual (BBB), Infernal Contract
Draw 4: Land Grant, Belcher, Culling the Weak, Culling the Weak
Pass
T2: Draw--> LED
Land Grant--> Dryad Arbor, Culling the Weak (BBBB), Belcher, LED, activate for the kill

H10: Infernal Contract, Infernal Contract, Culling the Weak, Lotus Petal, Cabal Ritual, ESG, Dark Ritual
Lotus Petal, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Infernal Contract (B)
Draw 4: Infernal Tutor, Pact, Pact, Dark Ritual
Dark Ritual (BBB), Pact--> Dryad Arbor, Culling the Weak (BBB BBB), Pact--> ESG (BBB BBB G), Infernal Contract (BBB G)
Draw 4: Infernal Tutor, Cabal Ritual, Chrome Mox, Culling the Weak
Chrome Mox (Culling the Weak) (BBBB G), Infernal Tutor--> Cabal Ritual (BBB), Cabal Ritual (BBB BBB), Cabal Ritual (BBB BBB BBB), Infernal Tutor--> Tendrils for 30.

Old Threads:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?6099-%5BDeck%5D-Spanish-Inquisition-%28B-x-Storm-Combo%29
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=58807

[Vacrix]

reserved for matchups and sample hands

[Hanni]

Actually, this is merely a hilarious coincidence and was not how the deck got its name. Rather, the creator, Colby Evenpence, chose to name it the Spanish Inquisition because he planned on winning so quickly that his opponents would say "I wasn't expecting that," then Colby could reply, "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!"

Awesome. I approve of this primer.

[TheSleeper]

This is fantastic - thanks Vacrix!

Which of the above lists would you class as the 'easiest' to learn (even if sacrificing some speed)? I know you once mentioned a version of PSI that had more manamorphose in it. Would be good for newcomers to know where best to start.

[Vacrix]

It really depends on your playstyle (glasshouse vs. slowroll) and familiarity with storm. SI-TES is probably the easiest though. Usually you will just play one D4 into EtW for like 20 tokens and win on turn 2. Its a very easy to list to learn on IMO. There aren't too many intricate lines of play, not even an IGG loop. Just BW + LED into Tendrils or a D7 or IT into Tendrils/EtW/BW. My plan is to have 10 sample hands up for each basic list in order to show basic play and the more intricate puzzles people run into, especially in the more convoluted lists like PSI.

[Gocho]

Wow! Great Primer.

EDIT:
The hands plays are very useful, but I think that you use 5 ESG in your H5 and forgot to cast Dark Ritual before the fisrt Draw spells in your H3 and H6 hands ;)
I need 4 Cruel Bargain ASAP :D

[Vacrix]

Nope there are definitely only 4. One of the plays is Pact--> ESG and one is just ESG. So one is RFGing it. I'll definitely fix the Dark Rituals in H3/H6.
Yes pick up your Bargains ASAP before they skyrocket. I'm getting flooded with PM's about this deck. Just post your suggestions/questions/comments/ideas here guys.

Also, given the rising popularity of New Horizons, I'm considering adapting my board to include 4 Planar Void. It functions as a virtual Duress because they have to counter it. If they don't, their clock shrinks to an unspeakable speed. Depending on who played first, it might completely shut down their clock, leaving them with 0/1 Goyfs and 0/0 Terravores, and 2/2 KoTRs.

[routlaw]

My New Horizons board has Meddling Mages for the extra combo beatz, but sane people are going to take out Engineered Explosives against combo (while leaving in Plowshares for Swarm/Bob) and not bring in Grip, and those are the only two non-counter answers for Planar Void.

Meddling Mage is also not a common SB choice for NH, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. I play it because I have a lot of Ichorid in my meta and MM is anti-combo "splash damage" that just wrecks them.

[Vacrix]

Sure, the point is that you can't put on a clock quickly, lay down creatures, counter protection spells, AND blow EE for 1. It makes you work much harder and make tougher calls with your cantrips. Besides, nobody plays this deck. I don't expect you to even remember what I'm boarding in if you ever play me. The deck is a dark horse. Its too hard to play to ever get more than a handful of people playing it. Even in its glory days, I think we had a grand total of 10 people playing different versions. Maybe with so many ANT players grasping at straws we will have more.

However, you do bring up a good point. The new list I suggested doesn't really have all too many outs for MM. I'm actually thinking about cutting something in the board for Cabal Pit. SI's grave fills up to 7 almost as fast as it does in Dredge. Having initial black sources that also get rid of bears seems pretty good.

[routlaw]

I bought my Cruel Bargains this morning!

I would just try to combo out against NH if you have Swarm/Veil up or play a "longer game" with Confidant. New Horizons intentionally trades a fast clock for massive board control inevitability. Sometimes, after boarding, they'll go down to nine creatures if they don't have Meddling Mage-you can take the EE out, but you sure as heck can't take out any of the blue package against combo and you can't take out plow due to swarm/Bob.

Which means if you need to board in four cards you might can afford to take out a land (since you can't get hosed by wasteland), so if you have four or five combo hate cards in your board, you might have to start losing Terravores (which really aren't that impressive in combo MU anyway).

[B.C.]

Vacrix has inspired me to get back in the game, so I've been doing a little work with the latest versions of SI. Here are my impressions so far:

1) I don't like Slithermuse. It's expensive, off color, and the effect is unreliable (just like Windfall always was in Vintage).
2) Summoner's Pact scares the shit out of me. I know it is fairly versatile and can do some crazy powerful stuff, but it says "you lose the game" on it. That's going to come up eventually, especially since there is pretty much no way to pay the "don't lose" cost.
3) The most important card added since I last played this deck (Gencon 2007) is Dryad Arbor. Being able to Fetchland, Land Grant, or Pact for a free creature is unbelievably powerful.
4) I can do without Charbelcher, but I need my Empty the Warrens. It's much too good not to have in the bag.
5) Xantid Swarm maindeck is awesome.

Based on these observations, I am currently throwing around a list that looks a little something like:

1 Bayou
1 Badlands
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Crimson Kobolds
2 Elvish Spirit Guide
2 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Infernal Contract
3 Cruel Bargain
4 Burning Wish
3 Infernal Tutor
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard:
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Cruel Bargain
1 Infernal Tutor
some other stuff...

Testing so far has been pretty solid. I'll try to update with some stats or sample hands or something.

[Vacrix]

Vacrix has inspired me to get back in the game, so I've been doing a little work with the latest versions of SI. Here are my impressions so far:

1) I don't like Slithermuse. It's expensive, off color, and the effect is unreliable (just like Windfall always was in Vintage).
2) Summoner's Pact scares the shit out of me. I know it is fairly versatile and can do some crazy powerful stuff, but it says "you lose the game" on it. That's going to come up eventually, especially since there is pretty much no way to pay the "don't lose" cost.
3) The most important card added since I last played this deck (Gencon 2007) is Dryad Arbor. Being able to Fetchland, Land Grant, or Pact for a free creature is unbelievably powerful.
4) I can do without Charbelcher, but I need my Empty the Warrens. It's much too good not to have in the bag.
5) Xantid Swarm maindeck is awesome.

Based on these observations, I am currently throwing around a list that looks a little something like:

1 Bayou
1 Badlands
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Crimson Kobolds
2 Elvish Spirit Guide
2 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Infernal Contract
3 Cruel Bargain
4 Burning Wish
3 Infernal Tutor
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard:
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Cruel Bargain
1 Infernal Tutor
some other stuff...

Testing so far has been pretty solid. I'll try to update with some stats or sample hands or something.
Thanks. I like being an inspiration.
To answer your concerns..
1. Slithermuse is great in the Pact list. I don't recommend it if you aren't comfortable replacing the IGG but I feel that IGG is really a crutch and it only works well if you have way too much mana floating already (via Crit), redudant resources for Culling the Weak, or Dark Ritual. 4/12 times you don't have the proper ritual to make it work unless you are sitting on x2 LED, in which case, why not just go for a D5-D7? At least, this is the justification, with the occassional interaction with Culling the Weak. More notably, it is completely immune to the random grave hate that players bring in, anticipating IGG. Also, I won a game off its back once after breaking LED in response against reanimator player who was at 1 life after Dryad Arbor beat down. I had 2 creatures to attack through his Iona on the next turn for the win. IGG would not have won this game. Also, its allowed me to keep way more opening hands and is hardly a dead draw mid combo while IGG sometimes is. Its ultimately a preference though. Also, Windfall is banned in Legacy for a reason; its awesome. I'm willing to play it at 3U. :D
2. Someone at MTGS had a similar concern..
Yes you will die to Pact sometimes. However, this doesn't even always happens. Hell one time in a tournament I only raised the storm count to 20 only to meet FoW on the 10th copy from Dredge post-board. I was sitting on Chrome Mox and LED. I break the LED and tap mox to save myself. 3 Turns later, I have the following hand: Infernal Tutor, Dark Ritual, LED --> GG
You aren't always out of the game if you have extra resources
Also, you can be careful with Pact. In hands where you are uncertain whether or not you can combo off, you shouldn't play it. In all in hands against stax where its purely a race, go all in and hope for the best. The deck will bail you out most of the time just because the resources are so redundant that you'll often find what you need if you have some mana floating after a blind D4 + LED or something risky like that. Also, you don't necessarily have to keep hands with Pact. If you know your opponent is playing control in game 1 from scouting or something, then mulligan for hand that doesn't need it, or if that hand is great, something like Lotus Petal x2, Dark Ritual x2, D4 x2, Pact, then keep that shit cause you will certainly have many options and many attempts at a spell chain, using Pact possibly on the following turn as Daze protection. Also, the deck now bails you out better than it ever did when it ran tallmen. The Eternal Witness line of play has made previously horrible hands with Pact playable. Further, keep in mind that Pact doesn't even stay in against control in games 2/3. You board it out for Carpet of Flowers, a much stronger choice against control.
3. Yes Arbor is awesome. I think that Autumn's Veil is a far more important addition to the deck, giving us access to x8 protection post-board that also protects the IGG loop, and if occassional bounce on Swarm.
4. EtW is awesome. SI-TES is looking pretty strong atm. Keep in mind that decks like popular Tempo based control like New Horizons pack MD Stifle these days, which is good against EtW and not so much against Belcher. Just something to think about but in general I agree that EtW is stronger. Belcher, however, is very strong in SI. I can't say how many games I've won by baiting with D4's, and then using Carpet to resolve a Belcher.
5. Yes it is.

Your list looks like a pretty solid SITES hybrid. IDK if A split between ESG and SSG is the right call. You have way more need for red than green, needing your red for Burning Wish, and especially EtW post-board when you bring in 2 more against control. If you had Autumn's Veil in the post board then maybe this split will be more justified. Even so, I'm curious to see how it works out for you. Definitely post share your results, stats, etc.

[Aleksandr]

Awesome primer.

I really wish that the Crzuel Bargains were a bit cheaper, because this deck looks really funny and strong.

[kicks_422]

Yeah, that's really the only thing that's holding me back from getting this deck together.

And, in initial MWS testing, Autumn's Veil has been awesome.

[FredMaster]

Props for the great primer, Vacrix. I'm seriously considering to finally buy myself those draw-4s and start playing this glass-cannon.

[rleader]

Troll and Toad had a bunch of them for $12 last week. I only bought one to finish my set; I was surprised to find that they had gone down in price. :shrug:

[Iranon]

Excellent summary.

Something about the match-ups and reasons to play SI: To have a noticable edge against the deck, an opponent needs a relevant number of tools to survive turn 1-2 AND a relevant number of tools to put the game away quickly. A conventional clock with counter backup is not usually enough - decks like Merfolk will usually run out of counters before SI runs out of threats.
Details differ from version to version, but SI typically has either tall men to buy time or Spirit Guides to make playing around Daze-like effects easier.

Likewise, any amount of heavy duty hate that shuts down SI for good is irrelevant if the opponent dies before they play it.To use the most icnoic example: Turn by turn, percentage chances of Stax doing something gamewinning < SI killing outright < Stax doing something relevant that may very well win. If they don't run free counters in addition to the lock pieces, it never gets much worse than a coinflip... and most prison decks dilute their lockdown for various tools that won't be relevant here.

*

Something to the kill percentages themselves: Players report very different ones, and it's not entirely dependent on the list. SI features a lot of card draw, a relatively small number of initial black mana sources and usually little tutoring/filtering before going off. This means shuffling habits make a huge difference. I'm emphatically not referring to intentional deck stacking, simply to the fact that full randomisation through manual shuffling isn't possible. The frequent complaints about the MWS shuffler - and SI has been accused of being awesome IRL and unplayable on MWS - are more likely to result from being accustomed to less then perfect randomisation than faults of the algorithm.

Some reported turn-1-percentages on the play are higher than theoretical chances of having both initial mana and possibly sufficient business (e.g. a single IGG or Tendrils is never sufficient irrespective of mana; a single draw4 may be) even assuming a couple of mulligans. And, of course, hands that can go off don't always win immediately.
Nevertheless: even with randomisation through MWS or something similar, a fast list should have an about even chance to kill on turn 1 without pushing the deck (e.g. you'd keep a turn-2 kill with some redundancy) and topping 60% is certainly possible with many. Something like QSI and versions relying heavily on Empty the Warrens naturally aren't optimised for first-turn kills but they can certainly pull them off and provide other benefits.

@ Vacrix and others claiming higher achievable turn-1 percentages: Have you been able to reach these in something like MWS? Naturally, that won't reflect tournament conditions as well but comparing goldfishing results from different people working on different versions is very difficult if an obvious source of error is having a higher impact than the list.

*

Regarding the Glimpse list: I'd like to point out that the second IGG is questionable. For best anti-goldfish-performance this would be a 3rd Glimpse, in the real-world it may be a second IGG/Belcher or whatever throw-in you think may be useful.

[unicoerner]

Hi,
i am really not an expert in playing Storm Combo, but goldfished your "Pact SI (PSI)" a bit. All testing was done on mws. I did some work on this list, not knowing if it`s good or not: +1 Bayou -1 Land Grant -3 Diabolic Intents -1 Witness +2 Manamorphose + 1 Tendrils +1 Odious Trow

Problems i had while I aprrox goldfishes 10 times with 7 cards hand not mulliganning:
1) I had lots of hand with 0 black mana ( LED not counted as black mana)
2) I often lacked the creature on turn 1 to get the Culling off
3) On turn 2 i often lacked the mana or the 2nd creature to get the 2nd Culling off ( Culling is too foten dead)
4) Even with Manamorphose Slithermuse is hard to cast

Pros: We can often start Xantid go and then go off on turn 2, but whiffing is still possible

I don`t love Odious yet...

But like i said i am a big noob

[Vacrix]

@Iranon
Percentages in MWS have massive fluctuations. Even so, you can still get an accurate depiction of how the deck plays. Once you know the theory well, you can pilot it well IRL, hence the tendency toward better percentages IRL than on MWS and its shitty shuffler. I pile shuffle every single hand I draw, without exception, even mulligans. Its been work out.
As for percentages in general, I don't like them. In my matchup analysis I won't be giving any. Percentages vary so much from person to person that stating them accurately would only have a point if I tested against an optimal pilot of both decks. The fact is, this deck is a dark horse. Almost nobody knows how to play against it properly and I doubt that will change, even if the number of people playing it rises from 1(me) to 20. The deck beats other players as often as they beat themselves playing against it, especially when you factor in discard. Honestly, people pick the right card less than half the time. I'll talk about strategy and counter strategy in the matchups (not finished just yet), but again, I don't believe in percentages unless its in goldfishing.
For the record, the first big tournament I played SI at I took 3rd, losing to Stax due to a play mistake. That tournament really sold me on the deck though. I had a ridiculous number of turn 1 kills, can't recall exactly how many but it was really unbelievable.

@unicoerner
Your edits don't make too much sense. I don't have a list that has Land Grant and Diabolic Intent. I think that you accidentally switched the 2 lists. Decks that play Land Grant should ALWAYS play Belcher. Otherwise, you might as well play more lands like in the Diabolic Intent list. I got rid of Belcher in the lands list (which is experimental ATM, I'll be testing it today), and added Diabolic Intent to open up more Slithermuse lines of play. Cutting Witness is a tough call. I prefer it because it makes more D4's keepable. Manamorphose will help you goldfish initially, color fixing and cycling one card deeper, but I'm sure you will drop it as you become more familiar with PSI.

I took me about 20 tries to figure out how to go off with the classic LG list. Its all about the mulligans, knowing when to pass the turn, etc. You will rarely go off with your initial 7 in all 10 hands. Maybe about half the time, if not less. The deck still goes off turn 1 with 5 and 6 cards. Don't be afraid to mulligan. Sometimes I just practice mulliganing like 100 times to make sure I know the opening hands. It doesn't even take that long because you aren't actually playing it out.
If you find that you have few hands with initial black, you can run Wild Cantor so you have the line of play Pact--> Wild Cantor + Pact/ESG for initial black. Also, Pact-->Trow + Chrome Mox works as well.
You should have no problem going off with Culling the Weak in a list with 15 tallmen... unless you are keeping your opening 7.
Slithermuse is not going to be cast often. I tend to hold my Lotus Petals in hand for this exact reason. Usually your line of play will be Diabolic Intent/Infernal Tutor + LED --> Slithermuse. LED gives you the UUU you need to cast it. Manamorphose has enabled me to cast it a few times as well, as does Wild Cantor.

Again, you cannot play this deck if you cannot mulligan. SI mulligans better than any other deck in the format. You best use that to your advantage.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

I'm kind of tempted to pick this up (mostly due to the sexiness of Autumn's Veil), but I have like.. zero experience playing combo.

It's attractive to me because I already own 1 Bayou, 1 Badlands, 2 Chrome Mox, and 1 LED... So the money I'd have to drop on it would be pretty manageable. Also, it seems like it's currently even better positioned to catch people with their pants down than it was before (due to all the pissing and moaning about "Oh, the Mystical Tutor ban nerfed combo... "Guess I can drop my sideboard hate?")

However, since I'm not really experienced playing any sort of Storm combo list, is this an overly ambitious deck to try to start on? Are there some builds that are easier to learn than others? Is maindeck Manamorphose enough of a reliable crutch to let me get some wins while I learn the ropes?

[Volrath]

Has there been any succesfull lists with Null Profusion?, i really like the card (not yust because it has a qoute from Volrath).

I've been testing this allot on MWS and the deck shits all over me for some reason, never had that problem with TES..

I play Emidln list with the man plan SB, how do you usually side with this list?

Also, i have had my beasties stp'ed more then yust once with the man plan list, could eviscarater be an option? the 5 life loss should not be that much of an biggie since their clock isnt as fast.

thnx

[Vacrix]

0 experience playing combo would make picking this deck up ambitious. Then again, this was my first real legacy deck. I just played random control decks up until 2006. I'm sure you can handle it. As far as combo is concerned it tries to chain D4's together like Solidarity but with the volatility of Belcher. Playing those decks might help out with familiarizing yourself with combo, and they are fun to goldfish anyway. I managed to pick up TES, Belcher, and Solidarity fairly easily after playing SI for so long.

Start on SITES. That will enable you to be more familiarized with the way the deck works since you will usually just be playing a basic BW --> EtW, D4-->EtW, BW-->D7, and the occassional D4 chain --> ToA.

@Volrath
It will occassional shit on itself, like most decks. Its just more noticeable in SI because you are literally playing the whole game in one turn. I can't see Zoo's manabase shitting on itself when you have good mulligans.
Null Profusion was supposed to be pretty good from what I've heard. If you cast it, you pretty much win, but you need to play it in LGSI or else Lands are dead draws. Its probably pretty good in Iranon's Glimpse list as well.
If you want help on siding give me some specific matchups because unfortunately their are far too many for me to list as a whole. In general though if you want a decent man plan config...
OUT
-2 Tendrils of Agony
-2 Infernal Contract
-2 Ill-Gotten Gains
-4 Land Grant
-2 Culling the Weak
-2 Phyrexian Walker
-1 Goblin Charbelcher
IN
+4 Tomb of Urami
+4 Xantid Swarm//Phylactery Lich
+4 Tombstalker
+2 Carpet of Flowers
+1 Bayou

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

Regarding SI/TES, why does this version play a wish-board exactly (while some lists do not)? Maybe I'm misjudging, but Burning Wish doesn't seem so good that you'd inherently want to use it if you were in red... Isn't Empty the Warrens the real reason to play the red splash in the first place? Are there other sideboards that makes sense for the SI/TES list, or is the wish-board just the obvious choice in some way I'm missing?

(My comments here are probably somewhat based on my initial reaction that I want to use Land Grant and a man-plan sideboard if I can get away with it and still have a comparatively retard-proof learning curve... And it just seems so freaking cool to play a black/green Storm deck. Also though, one of the things that attracts me to this is it looks blazingly fast if I can get good with it, and significantly less fragile than Belcher, as far as glass-cannons go. It just seems like a wish-board kind of dilutes the speed of the deck somewhat.)

[Vacrix]

Burning Wish opens up an amazing line of play that the deck never had before. TES also used it for a while if you recall via IT --> Slithermuse, BW--> Diminish Returns. This opened the deck up to a way to quickly refill its hand with something as simple as Mana Source x2, IT/BW, LED. That's 4 cards worth of resources to draw 7 cards, or potentially 5-6 on the draw. It makes Culling the Weak that much dangerous. If you add Culling the Weak to those 4 cards, you have 3 extra black mana worth of resource to use with either a D4 into 4 new sources, potentially another BW or IT to try to refill that 7 because you still have LED remaining. The other option is wait with Burning Wish into EtW, counters Burning Wish, resolve EtW anyway from hand. Hands like Lotus Petal Dark Ritual D4 can draw you 4 cards, but having access to a 4 card combination that draws 7 is just savage. IT and BW both accomplish this through LED, otherwise you can't get the blue, on rare occasions. This is MUCH easier in the Summoner's Pact version actually. If you like the D7 board, you could play business via Muse's. I tried a x4 Muse, x4 Burning Wish, x4 Infernal Tutor, x1 Tendrils of Agony, x1 Empty the Warrens x1, (15 business), configuration, with Wild Cantor and x4 Manamorphose. It might work better with a maindeck Tinderwall actually. Direlemming has been having a lot of good results with them. I might try that build again.

EDIT:
Also, D7 lines of play are stronger in SI than they were in TES because of the way SI goes off. Having 3 cards within 7 off a Diminishing Returns will allow you to dig 4 cards deeper to find a use for the other 4 cards of resources you have in hand. This is why they are successful when TES dropped them (mainly, -1 Slithermuse from the board) only running 11 business total. In TES it became more of an oh shit button or a speed cannon against aggro (some pilots claim diffferent luck with their top 7. SI players have had much better luck with them due to playing more business, in fact its a preferred line of play if you can pull it off.

[marit]

I think it should be said, from Emidln's original primer, that this deck can be taken up without prior combo experience. Way back in the day when the deck was brand new (I'm talking 4+ years), before I even got into competative legacy, this deck really fascinated me. Emidln's old primer said the only way to get proficient with the deck was practice, so I shuffled it up on MWS and played my heart out. In the beginning, I thought the deck was terrible, all the clunky draws, and poor mulligans, but I kept pushing forward. And after a while, it just clicked. My turn one wins skyrocketed, and I can glance at a hand and instantly know to keep or not (pre SB). If anyone wants to pick this up but is scared of it, just make it on MWS and play your heart out. It'll click, and that's all there is to it. Also, a good starting place would be this list:

2 Bayou
4 Shield Sphere
3 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Phyrexian Walker
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Goblin Charbelcher
2 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Land Grant
4 Culling the Weak
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
2 Empty the Warrens
2 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Chrome Mox
SB: 4 Duress
SB: 4 Tomb of Urami
SB: 4 Xantid Swarm
SB: 3 Autumn's Veil

I don't see it in the opening post, but I still believe this list is the strongest (I'm not a fan of PSI, but I'm glad it works for people.) Post SB the control matchup gets much better, even winnable. And lastly, I don't like the MD xantid swarm in this meta, with zoo running around everywhere, I feel like the control hate cards should be in the SB.

[unicoerner]

This is my main right now:

Lands
2 [U] Bayou
1 [FUT] Dryad Arbor
3 [JGC] Windswept Heath

// Creatures
4 [AL] Elvish Spirit Guide
1 [MOR] Slithermuse
4 [SC] Xantid Swarm
1 [EVE] Odious Trow

// Spells
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
2 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
4 [FUT] Summoner's Pact
4 [PT] Cruel Bargain
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [EX] Culling the Weak
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [5E] Dark Ritual
4 [OV] Infernal Contract
2 [SHM] Manamorphose

Any comments?

[dragonstout83]

I pile shuffle every single hand I draw, without exception, even mulligans. Its been work out.


That's exactly his point; pile shuffling isn't shuffling, it's basically stacking your deck, so all you're doing (and what many people sadly do) is less random than the MWS shuffler.

[Dark Ritual]

You are required to riffle shuffle or whatever its called in sanctioned tournaments. Therefore, I generally pile shuffle then overhand shuffle to randomize the deck. Pile shuffling in tournaments is only illegal if that is the only way you shuffle your deck without doing anything else to sufficiently randomize your deck order.

[Vacrix]

@unicoerner
I goldfished the same list last night except
-1 Bayou
-2 Manamorphose
+2 Diabolic Intent
+1 Fetch

Its blazing fast. Still working out the Diabolic Intent lines of play. Having access to so many tallmen makes for some pretty insane lines of play. Infernal Tutor and Diabolic Intent are sometimes good ways to get up the storm count, grabbing a 2nd Culling the Weak. I still haven't decided if everything in it is the right call. Its still a little volatile but MD Xantid Swarm is so nice.

Marit is right. You really can learn it if you dedicate yourself to it.

I shuffle like Dark Ritual does, pile shuffling followed by 7 riffles. It randomizes it well, usually.

[claudio.r]

Vacrix, is there any build of this deck that can survive well without LEDs ? I love this kind of the deck, but it seems that all of them need LED to be effective, and i'm a little bit tired of playing Tide.

If you had no LED's would you recommend any build of this deck ?

[Vacrix]

QSI lacks the IGG, IT, LED configuration, so yes, certainly you can play without LED. LED is very explosive though. Its better in the fast builds where going all in with IT or BW + LED is profitable. QSI is anti control. I discuss it in the primer so I'd read through that to get an idea of how it plays.

[whidye]

Here is a list I've been liking:

4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Eternal Witness
1 Slithermuse
1 Odious Trow
1 Tinder Wall

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
3 Manamorphose

3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Summoner's Pact


For my personal style, I like manamorphose - sometimes lets you dig 5, cast slithermuse easier and convert the tinder wall mana. I have experimented with 2 ToA and 1 EtW. Still unsure.

[TheSleeper]

I'd previously collected all the pieces for Pact SI, but having never fully dedicated myself to it, found it hard sometimes to juggle the mana, particularly the colours. Anyways, I thought what the heck I'll chuck Land Grant SI into MWS and see how it goes. Wow! Soo much easier to goldfish for me! Having access to the 2nd IGG makes getting to storm count 10 a cinch, and basically being all black means I don't have to worry about when to filter my colours etc etc.

Game 2 say you're playing a non-Blue deck (lets say Zoo). Would you keep the deck together, or swap in the 'man-plan'? I guess if they have combo hate and they brought it in, you might catch them off guard with men. Would you bother doing that against Zoo, or just play combo Game 2 again, and if they hate you out, go Men in Game 3? Just wanting some more information on how to play this archetype in a tournament situation.

[marit]

Game 2 say you're playing a non-Blue deck (lets say Zoo). Would you keep the deck together, or swap in the 'man-plan'? I guess if they have combo hate and they brought it in, you might catch them off guard with men. Would you bother doing that against Zoo, or just play combo Game 2 again, and if they hate you out, go Men in Game 3? Just wanting some more information on how to play this archetype in a tournament situation.
Against a non blue deck, you want to keep the deck how it is, and just race the hate. The only exception is if you see the zoo deck playing Mindbreak Trap. I lost to that card twice at a tourney, cause I couldn't see it coming, and couldn't to anything. If you suspect it I would recommend bringing in 4 Duress and 3 Autumn's Veil, probably going -1 Tendrils -2 Walker -1 Culling -1 Draw4 -1 Belcher -1 SSG, or something to that effect.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Autumn's Veil does nothing against Trap, just saying. But you're definitely right with saying one should just race the hate. This deck is in general to fast for most hate anyway. Chalice @ 0 is quite fast and decks packing Chalice can easily land Chalice @ 1 first turn as well. That's why I feel most comfortable playing SITES. Burning Wish is just so great, it does everything you need, from getting mainboard hate, to building up storm or to simply kill with Tendrils for 14 and then Grapeshot for the win.

[Vacrix]

Why would Veil do nothing against trap? Veil gives all your spells protection from Trap, which targets your spells to exile them.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Veil prevents them from being countered, Trap just exiles them.

[Vacrix]

Ah I misread the card. I thought it said that spells and creatures you control have shroud from blue and black spells.

Even so, Mindbreak Trap is a horrible card against storm because the most popular builds run maindeck discard. Its really only good against SI and Belcher, and thats only if SI isn't running a discard protection suite, which it often does. I'm the exception to that rule.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

Ok... So I have a question. Based on the things I've been reading, I think I want the list I test to have the following characteristics:

-As far as main-deck kill-switches, since I think flexibility/unpredictability would be an asset when playing this deck, I want to use a mix of Tendrils and ETW. Probably like 2 Tendrils, 1 Warrens, if that makes sense...

-As far as dual lands, I'd like to use 1 Bayou, 1 Badlands (because, conveniently, that's precisely the amount I own of each one. Lol.)

-I want to use Burning Wish, but not dedicate my whole sideboard to the wishboard. I would probably keep extra business in there (ie one or two more extra kill-switches and Diminishing Returns. The rest of the wishboard would be some anti-hate stuff (ie Meltdown, Deathmark, probably some more stuff that's not occurring to me atm.) I want some extra room in the sideboard if I can get it and still have a jazzy wishboard. Could anyone describe to me what the must-have cards would be to include in a Burning Wish-based sideboard and what's more of a meta call or whatever?

-I want to use Land Grant, because it just seems hella smooth, and I want the mana concerns to be the least of my worries while I'm trying to pick this deck up. I'm not interested in using Summoner's Pact, at first impression. Pact lists just look kind of unwieldy to me, and it seems in general like a less useful free spell than Land Grant... Maybe someone wants to weigh in on this question?

-I want Tomb of Urami in the sideboard, possibly also either Phylactery Lich and Tombstalker, in some combination or another.

-As far as protection in the sideboard, I'd like to use some mix of Xantid Swarm, Autumn's Veil, and Duress (or does Thoughtsieze maybe make more sense, since it can also preemptively kill hate bears?)

-I might like to squeeze some Manamorphoses into there, since as I said, I want the mana to be a non-issue while I learn to play the deck.

...So. In general, my question is, does this sound like something I could manage to turn into a cohesive deck, or am I using too many different ideas at once? Does it sound like I don't have enough room in my sideboard to accomplish all the different things I want from it? (those things being small wish-board, man-plan, and some combination of Autumn, Xantid, and Duress protection...) If anyone were to be able to give me a viable sample decklist that had all (or most of) those characteristics I just described, they'd kinda be my hero right about now. Anyhow, thanks for bearing with me while I try to wrap my head around the idea of this strategy. Peace y'all.

[TheSleeper]

Can someone explain to me the purpose of splitting win conditions up between two storm cards (Empty & Tendrils)? When is Empty the Warrens better? Maybe I'm missing something. I guess with Empty you can get a storm of 7-8 and still win, but with Tendrils you need it to be the 10th spell. Still, I dunno. Maybe I'm just greedy, but I'll take Tendrils & Belcher over Empty the Warrens every time. Guess it depends on the meta and which hosers people run. I'd rather just have to worry about FoW and be able to forget about Moat/Ghostly Prison/Tabernacle/Explosives/Elephant Grass/Firespout/Sharpshooter/Engineered Plague etc.

I know not all of those are commonly seen; I'm not trying to be a dick. I used to play Belcher and have lost a number of matches because the tokens just didn't get there. To be fair, they did get it done a lot too. Not sure I made a point after all that!

Can anyone comment on the differences between the Kobolds/Wish version and the LGSI version? Basically both have free-men to enable Culling. I'm guessing Wish is more resilient since you can answer hate, but maybe slower?

[Dark Ritual]

You can play summoner's pact and land grant in the same list at least my list incorporates both as 4 ofs quite effectively. I just put it together and goldfished it today and it was getting a lot of turn 1 kills when I goldfished it. I really like summoner's pact though, the card is just amazing with LED and it combos so well with the rest of the deck when you use it as a tutor for slithermuse, cracking LED in response for UUU is probably going to leave you with some mana floating after you cast the slithermuse in the form of black mana usually because summoner's pact into slithermuse is just so powerful a play and generates so much storm as well as card advantage, because lets face it on turn 1 if you slithermuse against someone its like a one sided wheel of fortune or it says draw 5 cards for 3U which is extremely powerful in Pact Land Grant SI. And if you can leave a blue floating you can potentially recur slithermuse with eternal witness also very powerful but maybe overkill when you can simply return an infernal tutor or another draw4 or something to continue the spell chain into a lethal tendrils or a belcher activation.

Also Duke Knight trying to incorporate a man plan and protection plan into one sideboard sounds iffy. I'd either go all out protection plan or all out man plan with 4 urami's, 4 tombstalker's, 4 phylactery lich, and 3 death's shadow. Incorporating both makes the overall plan weaker against certain decks. Then again I could be wrong and both could be incorporated, I'm not claiming to be the expert on all things concerning SI since I recently picked up the deck myself.

[Jodahae]

Summoner's Pact can only seach for a green creature, be mindful of that. It cannot be used as a Slithermuse tutor, otherwise you would indeed have the most broken draws.

But i do agree that Muse on the play is perhaps one of if not the strongest play the deck can make.

[Vacrix]

Yes, you cannot Pact--> Slithermuse. Pact gets you Wild Cantor if you want to make that play but thats all. I've dropped one Xantid from the maindeck in favor of Cantor ATM. Its been better overall. For the record, I frequently make the play to recur Slithermuse post-D7 with Eternal Witness. I've been making this play a lot too. Diabolic Intent/Infernal Tutor + LED is beast.

[Dark Ritual]

Yep that is definitely me misreading summoner's pact. It can only get green creatures. *sigh* no wonder I was winning so much games turn 1 because pacting for slithermuse with LED on board is just bah roken as hell but an illegal play. I'll be changing my list to include diabolic intents right now, seems essential being able to tutor for slithermuse or whatever card you need and having sick synergy with LED as well all know. Wild cantor should probably be in my list as well, as a 1 of because it generates storm and sacks for any color of mana specifically blue mana for slithermuse.

[cb4]

Here is my current list. I guess it would fall into the "SITES" catagory.

// Lands
2 [A] Bayou

// Creatures
4 [LG] Kobolds of Kher Keep
4 [PLC] Simian Spirit Guide
3 [LG] Crimson Kobolds

// Spells
4 [7E] Infernal Contract
4 [PT] Cruel Bargain
4 [EX] Culling the Weak
4 [A] Dark Ritual
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
3 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
4 [MM] Land Grant
1 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
2 [MR] Goblin Charbelcher
4 [JU] Burning Wish

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
SB: 1 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
SB: 4 [SC] Xantid Swarm
SB: 3 [M11] Duress
SB: 1 [M11] Time Reversal
SB: 1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
SB: 1 [NE] Reverent Silence
SB: 1 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [10E] Deathmark

[jrsthethird]

I just started goldfishing this list:

4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Eternal Witness
1 Slithermuse
1 Odious Trow
1 Tinder Wall
1 Wild Cantor

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
2 Manamorphose

3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Summoner's Pact

I never played any form of Storm Combo before but this list is fun as hell to play. I haven't tested against any decks yet, so I haven't noticed the relevance of lacking MD Xantid, so any advice on that would be appreciated. Also, Manamorphose is always awkward when I draw it, I want to replace it with something else but I don't know what. 2 Xantids seems like a good call, but where to I put the other 2 Xantids? I really like having Wild Cantor, he helps to fix mana and Storm like Manamorphose, but it's tutorable so you don't often draw it when you don't want it (compared to never wanting to draw Manamorphose, ever!).

Also, I have no clue where to start with the sideboard. I like the idea of a man-plan (with Phylactery Lich, he's an awesome card), but I don't know where to start since I haven't played any matchups. I'm pretty certain this deck can rock every single deck in the format pre-board (except U.dec), but I don't know for certain if there are any non-U decks to worry about.

Obviously sideboarding is important against blue decks, so a little insight on strategy against popular, problematic archetypes. I'm assuming that a man-plan SB and a regular SB play differently so an example of each with a basic explanation would be useful.

I'm not sure if any of this is in the primer but if it is I missed it, so feel free to point it out if so. If not, any advice would be appreciated!

Also, opinions of Leyline of Sanctity? This seems like GG to us, so how do we play around it?

[TheSleeper]

Also, opinions of Leyline of Sanctity? This seems like GG to us, so how do we play around it?

Unless I'm missing the revelation I dont see this card showing up in high numbers of archetypes. And the man-plan just ignores it anyways. IF (and thats a big if) it became a major problem, there is always something like Nature's Claim I guess.

[Vacrix]

I just started goldfishing this list:

4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Eternal Witness
1 Slithermuse
1 Odious Trow
1 Tinder Wall
1 Wild Cantor

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
2 Manamorphose

3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Summoner's Pact

I never played any form of Storm Combo before but this list is fun as hell to play. I haven't tested against any decks yet, so I haven't noticed the relevance of lacking MD Xantid, so any advice on that would be appreciated. Also, Manamorphose is always awkward when I draw it, I want to replace it with something else but I don't know what. 2 Xantids seems like a good call, but where to I put the other 2 Xantids? I really like having Wild Cantor, he helps to fix mana and Storm like Manamorphose, but it's tutorable so you don't often draw it when you don't want it (compared to never wanting to draw Manamorphose, ever!).

Also, I have no clue where to start with the sideboard. I like the idea of a man-plan (with Phylactery Lich, he's an awesome card), but I don't know where to start since I haven't played any matchups. I'm pretty certain this deck can rock every single deck in the format pre-board (except U.dec), but I don't know for certain if there are any non-U decks to worry about.

Obviously sideboarding is important against blue decks, so a little insight on strategy against popular, problematic archetypes. I'm assuming that a man-plan SB and a regular SB play differently so an example of each with a basic explanation would be useful.

I'm not sure if any of this is in the primer but if it is I missed it, so feel free to point it out if so. If not, any advice would be appreciated!

Also, opinions of Leyline of Sanctity? This seems like GG to us, so how do we play around it?
IDK why you wouldn't want to draw Manamorphose ever. The deck has green mana falling out of its ass. As long as you have black floating, and either ESG or Pact, you should have the green to color fix. Actually Manamorphose is rarely dead in my hand. I can't recall a time when I couldnl't cast it when I needed to. If you don't like it though, play something else in its place. Also, I wouldn't recommend running so many tallmen unless you plan on taking advantage of them. Odious Trow and Cantor are usually redundant. Tinderwall is alright but its better if you are running Burning Wish, which is pretty powerful:

DSI:
Business (18)
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Slithermuse
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain

Mana: (42)
1 Wild Cantor
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
3 Tinder Wall
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Chrome Mox
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor

SB
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Balance of Power
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Meltdown
1 Deathmark
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Xantid Swarm
2 Carpet of Flowers

Not finalized but here's something for people to test. Direlemming is still playing around with a good build, slightly different than mine with great results, no fizz's and 70% turn 1's. LED's are absolutely nuts. Tinderwalls give you access to a lot of red, which is great post-board when you need someway to cast EtW. Direlemmnig list looks like this:

Results so far have been very encouraging. We have sufficient bomb density and ability to generate initial mana from non-land sources, that IGG is almost never a dead draw, be it opening 7 or mid chain.

Current list:

Business (19)
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Slithermuse
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Infernal Contract
3 Cruel Bargain
1 Ill Gotten Gains
1 Eternal Witness

Mana: (41)
1 Wild Cantor
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
2 Tinder Wall
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
1 Skyshroud Cutter
3 Chrome Mox
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor

SB
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Balance of Power
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Cruel Bargain/IGG
1 Grape Shot
4 Carpet of Flowers
1 Duress

Following the success of IGG main, I'm testing if it's worth a slot in the wishboard as well. Probably in place of D4.

I'm pushing 70% T1 with this list; no fizzles in the last 50 games, even on a mulligan to 4. Keep in mind it's impossible to separate me becoming a better SI pilot from actual deck improvements. It may well be, some past incarnation is objectively (or for your playstyle) better. The other issue with my results is, they are mostly goldfishing which can lead to optimizing for the wrong qualities. My thinking here is, being a glass cannon has more to do with (in)consistency than strategy.
Skyshroud Cutter is an interesting choice. Its basically a green kobold. Your opponent gaining 6 life is trivial when you are normally playing tendrils for 30+ on turn 1. Maindeck IGG is a playstyle choice. I also prefer to keep the full playset of D4's maindeck.

[marit]

At the above post, if it's pushing 70% kill turn 1, how many of those are caused by grabbing Diminishing Returns? When I play the deck I find that's a pretty common play, and it's really risky, giving them a second chance to draw a FoW or Daze. Also, what do you count Slithermuse and the sorcery in the wish board as? Do I draw upto 7 again?

[Vacrix]

Well against control it depends. You don't need to grab Dreturns against control if you can just go EtW for 20 tokens, which is often the case with PSI. If you played Summoner's Pact, you are in a win now situation. Burning Wish flexible in that respect. Also, Balance of Power is there against control as a virtual Slithermuse to avoid the possibility of your opponent drawing a second FoW.

I'm not sure what you mean by your last question. Slithermuse is Slithermuse in both lists. Direlemming prefers having access to both IGG and Slithermsue with IT. I prefer opening up that extra slot for an additional Tinderwall, and prefer the extra D4 for the full double playset.

[marit]

I see. What I meant by the last question though is that if I'm goldfishing and I go IT->LED->Slithermuse, do I assume my opponent is still at 7 and draw upto that many cards? What if it's turn 2 or 3, what's the rule for how many cards Slithermuse nets? I draw upto 7 on the play turn one, but after that I go -2 a turn as my rule, and Slithermuse loses a lot of its effectiveness.

[Vacrix]

Well if you are on the play then your opponent will probably have 7 cards in hand unless they mulligan. I usually first draw 5 cards whenever I use it to try to see if I can go off with only 5. Even if you are passing the turn on the play, your opponent will draw an extra card so even if they play land creature, you will still draw 6.

[Iranon]

Unanswerable leylines that singlehandedly prevent us from winning are not acceptable. An opponent willing to mulligan down to one if necessary has a 87% chance of putting the game away on turn 0. This is a theoretical probability, not an empirical result inflated by players' chronic inability to truly randomise their decks. So... blow them away in game 1, and they still have a 75% chance of walking away with the match on the back of a mere 4 sideboard cards.
We shouldn't allow opponents to let the game degenerate in their favour - that's our job when playing fast combo.

Fortunately, it's not a big issue for many versions. Red versions have Empty the Warrens and Burning Wishes. Versions that can draw the entire deck (enabled by something like multiple Glimpse of Nature or Null Profusion) can defeat it without going overboard with answers.

*

Regarding limited man plans: I don't like real creatures here. Tombs may be an option if you need more initial mana sources as well, Wishes can fetch other useful stuff in a pinch. Death Wish for Death's Shadow makes the latter immediately castable and it's quite good considering how much control SI has over its life total.

[yankeedave]

Well if you are on the play then yoru pppoent usuallys drso liek 6 acrds cause theyl darw na eactra. otherswis i usualldy traw 7 cadrds.

Best. Typing. Ever.

[Vacrix]

Best. Typing. Ever.
Sorry lol. I probably shouldn't have said anything. I can't type to save my life after a good night of beer pong.

@Iranon
People have established in most threads about that leyline that its bad. I don't think we will run into it, for the reasons you mentioned. EtW is an acceptable alternative if we can't just remove it. Reverent Silence from the Wishboard is also a decent answer.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

Best. Typing. Ever.

Methinks someone hit a spot of the sauce last night... Lol

EDIT: Gawddamn ninjas!!

DOUBLE EDIT: @Iranon: I think the Death Wish for Death's Shadow idea is kind of intriguing... But I can't really tell at first blush if it's cute as a fox, or well... just cute. Anyways, I'm interested what your argument against the man plan sideboard option is. You mention that you don't like it, but why not? Takes up too much space in the sideboard? Not effective in our problem match-ups? I'll buy that you probably have a good reason, I'm just curious what it is. And it seems to me that Tomb of Urami, and maybe to a somewhat lesser extent, Phylactery Lich, are pretty good options for us.

[Vacrix]

Actually Death Wish for Death's Shadow post-D4 isn't that bad. It would be an 8/8 for B. Thats actually a pretty good oh shit button if you think about it.
In general the man plan has been made a much weaker option because people keep their removal in for Xantid Swarm. The thing is your opponent can't have removal and countermagic for everything. We might want to explore it again. Its still unconventional even if people know about it. The majority of players who encounter storm will expect some kind of discard suite post-board or something.

[Iranon]

@ DukeDemonKn1ght: I don't like weakening Plan A (Tendrils to the face, preferably on turn 1), and if I do so I'd prefer the inclusion to save my bacon in a variety of situation.

A midsized creature doesn't help plan A at all and is rather narrow effect. Tomb of Urami is also an initial mana source so it has a place in plan A. Against decks that can attack our initial mana or that trade card for card without putting the game away, having more permanent mana sources is a major asset.
Similarly, Death Wish can fetch a midsized creature if that's all what we want from it, but it can also conclude plan A by fetching a lethal Tendrils or high-end business, or get rid of roadblocks making Plan A possible in the first place.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

So, has anyone tried putting together a list that runs Death Wish? I'm tinkering with the idea myself right now, basically in a Land Grant type of shell, but it doesn't quite make sense to me yet. Also, I'm having a hard time finding space for the full playset of Death Wish in the main deck... Any thoughts from anyone what a "DWSI" list would look like?

Or is Death Wish just not strong enough compared to Burning Wish to actually be worth it? (Besides letting you wish for Goblin Charbelcher, Autumn's Veil, Xantid Swarm, Tomb of Urami, Death's Shadow, and Slithermuse, I can't think of other things that Burning Wish couldn't grab. And I'm not entirely sure how many of the cards I just mentioned are juicy wish-targets anyways...)

EDIT: Also, on a different note, has anyone tried fucking around with Veteran Explorer as a one-of in a Summoner's Pact based list? He's probably pretty risky against control, since you may give them the relevant mana to set-up or to counter one of your spells.... Also, he would require squeezing two basic lands into the list, but that in itself doesn't seem so impossible. But against any other deck, it seems pretty sweet to have a creature that gives you free acceleration when he hits the grave, especially since the two basics will give you fodder to try to go off again if you need to. Is it just too much of a corner-case scenario, or am I actually onto something here?

[Vacrix]

In general, you ought to run Burning Wish over Death Wish. SI can do disgusting things with both, but getting access to red isn't particularly difficult when you have Fetchlands, Lotus Petals, and SSG's in a list like SITES. I think a few people have successfully run 1-2 Death Wish maindeck.

Veteran Explorer is certainly intriguing. The good thing about him is that he finds you lands even if your Culling the Weak or Diabolic Intent gets countered. In general, though, I haven't been too impressed so far with Lands in PSI. Even in goldfishing, its just hasn't been worth it. He's mad mana advantage if you also have a sacrifice outlet in hand and could make the land build more viable. I think the Land Grant/Belcher configuration is actually much better against control.

On the topic of Veteran Explorer, consider the following:
Lotus Petal, Dark Ritual, Cruel Bargain, ESG, Pact, Pact, Culling the Weak
Pact--> Veteran Explorer (VE), ESG--> VE, Lotus Petal, Culling the Weak, fetch Swamp Swamp, (BBB,BBB) floating...

The only problem with this play is that Pact + ESG effectively adds you 2 additional black to your mana pool so its effectively just converting GG into BB, but we can already do that with Manamorphose, and we get to draw a card. So its not a bad play but you have to think about the opportunity costs here. What cards are you giving up to play 1 VE and 2 Swamps? Swamps are usually going to be dead while you are trying to chain D4's together and VE will only be good if you have enough sac outlets. Usually you will only hit one land drop with SI because you are constantly going off turn 1, especially with PSI. I don't think its worth it, but feel free to test it and see how it goes.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

Well, after trying to take into account all the information flying around on this thread, I've come up with the following list. Feedback is gladly accepted:

Business:
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
4 Infernal Tutor
3 Tendrils of Agony
1 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Ill-Gotten Gains

Accel:
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

Sacrificial Lambies:
4 Shield Sphere
4 Phyrexian Walker

Protection:
4 Cabal Therapy

Land:
4 Land Grant
2 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor

SIDEBOARD:
So far, this is all I'm sure about:
4 Xantid Swarm
3-4 Autumn's Veil
2-3 Carpet of Flowers
0-4 Tomb of Urami
0-3 Phylactery Lich (is this guy worth it, or am I just attracted to the shiny newness?)
0-3 Deathmark/ Nature's Claim (is this just me being paranoid?)
0-4 Empty the Warrens

So there you have it. I'm going for consistency at the expense of a little bit of speed with my list, so please keep that in mind when giving feedback. I'm not entirely sure whether or not the maindeck IGG is necessary and/or a good idea... Is there anything that I should replace that with?

EDIT: Also, has anybody thought about Maelstrom Pulse as potential sideboard tech? Like, maybe just one in the sideboard in a version that runs Burning Wish? Sure, it costs a bit mana-wise (and money-wise), but I think the versatility might push it over stuff like Deathmark, Meltdown, etc in some lists that don't mind killing on turn 2-3...

[Iranon]

That looks almost perfect. Personally, I'm not convinced about Dryad Arbor here...while it can be useful Therapy/Culling fodder, I'm not sure it's worth weakening Infernal Tutor, Goblin Charbelcher and Land Grant's primary function (useful starting mana). Note that you can't imprint it even though it's green.

The sideboard looks a bit one-dimensional in its focus against countermagic, but since 'no change, go for the throat' is a viable option against most other things that's not a huge problem.

All in all: a few things I don't like, but definitely playable.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

That looks almost perfect. Personally, I'm not convinced about Dryad Arbor here...while it can be useful Therapy/Culling fodder, I'm not sure it's worth weakening Infernal Tutor, Goblin Charbelcher and Land Grant's primary function (useful starting mana). Note that you can't imprint it even though it's green.

The sideboard looks a bit one-dimensional in its focus against countermagic, but since 'no change, go for the throat' is a viable option against most other things that's not a huge problem.

All in all: a few things I don't like, but definitely playable.

If I were to cut the Dryad Arbor, what do you think would be best? Slithermuse? Second Ill-Gotten Gains?

Also, I completely see what you mean about the sideboard... I think one-dimensional is a good way of describing the problem. There are a couple options I can think of to get a better sideboard. Probably the most compelling would be to replace Cabal Therapy with Burning Wish and have a silver-bullet style sideboard: Deathmark, Meltdown, etc.

Another thing I've been thinking of is potentially replacing Phyrexian Walker with maindeck Xantid Swarm, but I have the feeling I'd have to somehow add more green mana to the deck... Also, Swarm is kind of a shitty culling target (since you don't gain as much acceleration from it.)

Even if I keep the maindeck the way it is, I think the sideboard needs work. Does anyone have any tech they want to share? Also, out of the cards I listed as potential sideboard options, which are too good not to use, and which can fall by the wayside?

[the resurrection]

Mana
3 ESG
4 LED
4 D.Ritual
4 C.Ritual
4 Culling the weak
4 mox
4 Petal
4 Land grant
1 Arbor
1 bayou
Draw/Tutor
8 Draw4
4 Manamorphose
4 I.Tutor
4 pact
Business
1 Trow
1 Cantor
1 Witness
1 IGG
1 Belcher
2 Tendrils
Sideboard
1 Dosan, the falling leaf
1 ESG
1 Uktabi Orangutan
4 Carpet Flowers
4 Oxidize
1 Naturalize
2 Tomb of Urami
1 Bayou

Sideboardplans:
U-based decks: -4 Cabal ritual -1 Wild Cantor + 1 Dosan, the falling leaf +4 Carpet flowers
Thoughts: Playing pact in SI is the same dilemma as in LEDdredge; you will board it out g2 and g3 and replace it with Swarm or aggressive creatures. With 4 Morphose and 4 Carpet Flowers we should be able to cast Dosan, which is a must counter for every u.deck. Dosan has also protection from spell snare and spell pierce and forces the opponent, if he cannot counter him to cast problematic STP and bolts. Produce a lot of mana and try to trick the opponent.

Aggro loam/ Stax:
Game1: win the dice roll
Game2: +3 Oxidize +1 Naturalize + 1Uktabi Orangutan + 1 ESG + 3 Lands -4 Lotus Petal -1 IGG -1 EW - 1 Belcher - 1Pact -1 Chrome mox
Thoughts: They will take mulligan to chalice. We don't know if they cast them with [1] or [0] counters.
[0]: Lay down your lands and try to get access to [Draw4] Oxidize.
[1]: pact-> Orangutan
Game3: + 1 ESG + 1 Uktabi Orangutan -1 Cantor - 1 Witness
Thoughts: Try to cast Mox, Petal, Lands and wait for business or get the perfect hand

I went on a small tournament today to test the deck and it's sideboard. 15 persons, 4 rounds.

Zoo
Game 1. I don't know what he's playing, but he expects burn (I played it last time). I won the dice roll and mulled to 5--> Land, D.Ritual, Mox,IGG, Belcher.
Keep--> turn 1 belcher. he nacatl. Turn 2 draw LED :smile:--> He (at 2 Life) casts a Teeg, playing Lighning Helix, and beat me to 4 life. I found the 3rd Mana in the last moment and killed him for 35.
Game 2. He begins with Nacatl again. I fear Teeg/Thorn and begin with draw 4 -->10 Life --> pass. He beats me down to 4 life again, I found IT and managed Tendrils for 20 Life. Note: without Cantor(pact) wouldn't that be possible

Bant with CB, without Survival and NO
Game1. Because everyone in the room knows that I'm playing >Belcher<, he takes mulligan to force. I kept a hand with a lot of startmana and 2 Draw4s. He begins with top.
During 10- 15 Turn's (arbor beat him to 13 Life:tongue:!) I tried to built up a solid manabase (collectiing rituals, IT and draw4's). Because he doesn't really know my deck he wastes his counters on the startmana, in hope to draw his CB's (Top is online). At 3 Life I made around 15 mana, played around his counters and Tendrils him for 28.
Game2. Played around his counters and killed him Turn 5 or 6

Goblins R/G
A bye matchup. I know that I would facing Gobbos.
Game1. I don't know what I've done.Won the dice roll and hold that hand: Land grant, 3 draw4,3 manamorphose. I played Land grant Turn 1--> pass-->waste--> EPIC FAIL
Game2 on the play, mull to 6 killed him Turn 3 via IGG before his creatures would overrun me.
Game3 he begins and I draw a storm 9 hand. The next 3 turns I drew useless Draw4s and a turn later the last piece of my combo. I play LED he response on IT with Grip, l0l. GG

Dreadstill !!!, yeah
Game 1: I fear a lot of counters. He begins and take mulligan to counters and plays seat of synod. I drew that hand: 3 D.Ritual, morphose, pact, LED. Keep. Draw IT. Alll in, because it will be become certainly much worse each turn-->tried to trick him. I play IT in the end and he response with spell snare (his only counter)...
Game 2. Tons of counter and hate cards,18 counters, 3 waste, 3 balance, 2 explosives, lands and draw

In the end bad Opp. Score and misses a wasteland.

I will cut Morphose and put them to the SB, because they are really hard to master. You don't know what you have if they are on your hand, on the other side they are nice with EW and draw4s. Morphose will be 3 therapy and 1 ESG. I will board them against Bye-matchups, combo and stax.
Cantor was always a free slot, but today he surprised me and won me 2 games. Store mana, change color, get threshhold or Storm 2 for free with pact are in my opinion to good.

@ everyone I know that my english is bad:cool:
@Vacrix
I tested S.Muse. In combination with IT/LED (Turn 1-2) great, but most of the time just a weaker Meditate. If Muse would be black I would certainly play it, but the fish is blue and makes you more dependent on Morphose/Cantor/Petal

[Swordfish]

Game3 he begins and I draw a storm 9 hand. The next 3 turns I drew useless Draw4s and a turn later the last piece of my combo. I play LED he response on IT with Grip, l0l. GGl

His play is not possible, you MUST keep priority after playing IT in order to sac LED, if you don't keep it, opponent doesn't need grip, he just says ok and your IT resolves without saccing LED.



EDIT: Also, has anybody thought about Maelstrom Pulse as potential sideboard tech? Like, maybe just one in the sideboard in a version that runs Burning Wish? Sure, it costs a bit mana-wise (and money-wise), but I think the versatility might push it over stuff like Deathmark, Meltdown, etc in some lists that don't mind killing on turn 2-3...
It's too slow, lists that don't mind killing on T2/3 aren't called SI imo. Unnatural speed and people's unfamiliarity with SI are only reasons to play it.

and to contribute to thread a bit, i see that some people are overloading their SB with "man-plan". When you SB out 8 cards for 8 mans, your comboing potential lowers significantly and things like Phylactery Lich aren't strong enough - people will probably keep swords for Xantid Swarm anyway...

[TheSleeper]

DukeDemonKn1ght - I'd probably just stick to the Land Grant SI list in Vacrix primer. No need to weaken Belcher by adding a Dryad Arbor, not until you're familiar enough with the list enough to start tweaking.

I was testing LGSI (no SB's) yesterday with a friend playing Dragon Stompy. That is a pretty rough matchup! I would put it at 60/40, although we only played about 12 games. Depends a lot who is on the play and how good the hand you keep is. Sometimes you will have a decent hand, but maybe not enough to warrant going off so you have to 'risk' passing turn and hoping they don't lay down a Trinisphere. From memory here are some games:

Me: Turn 1 Storm on the play
Him: Turn 1 Trinisphere, beat down
Me: Turn 1 Cabal for Trinisphere (hit it), go off 2 turns later
Him: Turn 1 Chalice for Zero, theoretically we can get around it (Belcher), but I didn't. Another game I let all my zero artifacts be countered so build up threshold, got a Cabal Ritual into Draw4 off, but alas I fizzled.
Me: Turn 1 Belcher on the play
Him: Turn 1 Blood Moon, I Storm two turns later. Blood Moon doesn't hurt us that much depending on your hand.

Trinisphere > Chalice @ 0 > Blood Moon. If they Trinisphere before you go off, you've basically lost IMO. It makes it quite an intense matchup, as you're both mulliganing aggressively. We were both surprised how quick LGSI could be however when played balls to the wall. I recommend testing a matchup like this because it will teach you to mull hard, and go off asap, as opposed to playing a non-disruptive aggro deck which is almost a bye. I'm interested in testing post-SB where I can bring in the man-plan and see what happens.

Anyone else got thoughts/experience vs. Stompy decks?


and to contribute to thread a bit, i see that some people are overloading their SB with "man-plan". When you SB out 8 cards for 8 mans, your comboing potential lowers significantly and things like Phylactery Lich aren't strong enough - people will probably keep swords for Xantid Swarm anyway...

True but as above you might only man-plan against decks where combo'ing off is very difficult, thus you at least have another avenue to victory. If they have no hate/disruption, just keep MD as is. And if they have swords, they will probably swords the Xantid Swarm, not realising you have beefier men incoming. At least I assume that is the theory. You might lose game 2 and can go back to Combo Turn 1 in Game 3.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

DukeDemonKn1ght - I'd probably just stick to the Land Grant SI list in Vacrix primer. No need to weaken Belcher by adding a Dryad Arbor, not until you're familiar enough with the list enough to start tweaking.

I was testing LGSI (no SB's) yesterday with a friend playing Dragon Stompy. That is a pretty rough matchup! I would put it at 60/40, although we only played about 12 games. Depends a lot who is on the play and how good the hand you keep is. Sometimes you will have a decent hand, but maybe not enough to warrant going off so you have to 'risk' passing turn and hoping they don't lay down a Trinisphere.

Trinisphere > Chalice @ 0 > Blood Moon. If they Trinisphere before you go off, you've basically lost IMO. It makes it quite an intense matchup, as you're both mulliganing aggressively. We were both surprised how quick LGSI could be however when played balls to the wall. I recommend testing a matchup like this because it will teach you to mull hard, and go off asap, as opposed to playing a non-disruptive aggro deck which is almost a bye. I'm interested in testing post-SB where I can bring in the man-plan and see what happens.

Anyone else got thoughts/experience vs. Stompy decks?




I would imagine that if you're running the version with maindeck Burning Wish, you could get around it pretty easily, wishing for Shattering Spree, Meltdown, etc. You might want to test that version as well.

Here's my conundrum though, on a different note: I'm starting to think that I'd like to splash both red and green in this deck. Basically, the main cards I want access to are Burning Wish, Xantid Swarm, Empty the Warrens, and Autumn's Veil. (Obviously Wish and ETW are the only two of those that I would run in the main.) I'm thinking Tinder Wall also at least deserves testing, in a list that's using both colors. It's hard to figure out the best way to work the mana base though. And if I can't make a mana-base that supports two splash colors, I basically have to give up. Obviously Land Grant doesn't really work out, because I'd have to run Taiga in order to get red mana with it. And I'm thinking non-black duals don't really cut it. I'm thinking It would probably require 6-8 lands maindeck. Seems to me the options are either duals and fetches or duals and Gemstone Mine. Not sure which is better.

Is it just asking for too much to expect the mana-base to work with two splash colors, or do y'all think I could work it out? Does Gemstone Mine seem like a good option? Or should I go for fetches, since they will thin the deck?

EDIT: If I needed more rainbow lands and didn't want to take City of Brass pain, I could probably also run 1-2 Undiscovered Paradise, since the drawback is pretty negligible if you don't give a shit about making land drops and want the game to be over this turn or the next one.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I'm running a manabase of 3 Verdant Catacombs, 1 Underground Sea, 1 Badlands and 1 Bayou, and so far it worked out quite nice. Underground Sea because of mainboard Meditate and Diminishing Returns / Slithermuse (not sure which of them I want to play in the long run). Sea is usually the first land I fetch. For reference, my list:

//Lands
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
1 Underground Sea
3 Verdant Catacombs

//Creatures
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Kobolds Of Kher Keep
4 Simian Spirit Guide

//Spells
4 Burning Wish
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Chrome Mox
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Culling The Weak
4 Dark Ritual
1 Diminishing Returns / Slithermuse
3 Infernal Contract
2 Infernal Tutor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Meditate
2 Tendrils Of Agony
1 Empty The Warrens

//Sideboard
3 Autumn's Veil
1 Deathmark
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Duress / Thoughtseize
1 Empty The Warrens
1 Grapeshot
1 Infernal Contract
1 Meltdown
1 Reverent Silence
1 Shattering Spree
1 Tendrils Of Agony
2 Xantid Swarm

So far I love mainboard Diminishing Returns. The card I'm least happy with is definitely mainboard Empty The Warrens. Maybe I'll cut it for another Infernal Tutor or another Tendrils, but I'm not sure, deserves more testing.
And about Dragon Stompy / Chalice Aggro in general. I hate the matchup. It seems like they're always opening with Trinisphere or double Chalice against me. I think Faerie Stompy is our worst Matchup postboard. They have Cahalice, Trinisphere, Force and a guite fast clock.
Dragon Stompy is much easier, since you can just go off on the play.

[Iranon]

If I were to cut the Dryad Arbor, what do you think would be best? Slithermuse? Second Ill-Gotten Gains?

Can't say really - I often have a 59-card deck with a fluctuating slot - e.g. a second IGG when expecting to see a lot of discard, another Belcher if I expect anti-storm cards like Ethersworn Canonist, a singleton Death Wish if I'm wary of something that'll singlehandedly win if unanswered but not enough to do some actual sideboarding...


Also, I completely see what you mean about the sideboard... I think one-dimensional is a good way of describing the problem. There are a couple options I can think of to get a better sideboard. Probably the most compelling would be to replace Cabal Therapy with Burning Wish and have a silver-bullet style sideboard: Deathmark, Meltdown, etc.

Adding red for Wishes and at least 1 maindecked EtW is certainly an option. If you like the thought of a silver bullet sideboard but aren't willing to make as many concessions for it, 1-2 Death Wishes allow you to keep playing the Land Grant version. Giving up a lot of sideboard space for 1-2 Wishes may seem odd, but SI arguably doesn't need much of a regular sideboard anyway.
Even Living Wish may work - you have several efficient-but-situational win conditions at your disposal, various destroy-x creatures, a high-end draw effect in Slithermuse and protection in the form of Xantid Swarm.


Another thing I've been thinking of is potentially replacing Phyrexian Walker with maindeck Xantid Swarm, but I have the feeling I'd have to somehow add more green mana to the deck... Also, Swarm is kind of a shitty culling target (since you don't gain as much acceleration from it.)

Tried this and was... less than impressed with it. This applies to both replacing robots and running them in addition in a Glimpse-heavy list.


Even if I keep the maindeck the way it is, I think the sideboard needs work. Does anyone have any tech they want to share? Also, out of the cards I listed as potential sideboard options, which are too good not to use, and which can fall by the wayside?

I don't like Autumn's Veil very much because it's a little limited. Unlike Chant or Swarms, it doesn't help against Chant, Stifle, Mindbreak Trap. I also don't like removal unless I can tutor up the right one (without throwing my hand away...); losing because I got the wrong answer instead of a random threat means I shot myself in the foot.

[Vacrix]

Sideboardplans:
U-based decks: -4 Cabal ritual -1 Wild Cantor + 1 Dosan, the falling leaf +4 Carpet flowers
Thoughts: Playing pact in SI is the same dilemma as in LEDdredge; you will board it out g2 and g3 and replace it with Swarm or aggressive creatures. With 4 Morphose and 4 Carpet Flowers we should be able to cast Dosan, which is a must counter for every u.deck. Dosan has also protection from spell snare and spell pierce and forces the opponent, if he cannot counter him to cast problematic STP and bolts. Produce a lot of mana and try to trick the opponent.

Aggro loam/ Stax:
Game1: win the dice roll
Game2: +3 Oxidize +1 Naturalize + 1Uktabi Orangutan + 1 ESG + 3 Lands -4 Lotus Petal -1 IGG -1 EW - 1 Belcher - 1Pact -1 Chrome mox
Thoughts: They will take mulligan to chalice. We don't know if they cast them with [1] or [0] counters.
[0]: Lay down your lands and try to get access to [Draw4] Oxidize.
[1]: pact-> Orangutan
Game3: + 1 ESG + 1 Uktabi Orangutan -1 Cantor - 1 Witness
Thoughts: Try to cast Mox, Petal, Lands and wait for business or get the perfect hand

I went on a small tournament today to test the deck and it's sideboard. 15 persons, 4 rounds.

Zoo
Game 1. I don't know what he's playing, but he expects burn (I played it last time). I won the dice roll and mulled to 5--> Land, D.Ritual, Mox,IGG, Belcher.
Keep--> turn 1 belcher. he nacatl. Turn 2 draw LED :smile:--> He (at 2 Life) casts a Teeg, playing Lighning Helix, and beat me to 4 life. I found the 3rd Mana in the last moment and killed him for 35.
Game 2. He begins with Nacatl again. I fear Teeg/Thorn and begin with draw 4 -->10 Life --> pass. He beats me down to 4 life again, I found IT and managed Tendrils for 20 Life. Note: without Cantor(pact) wouldn't that be possible

Bant with CB, without Survival and NO
Game1. Because everyone in the room knows that I'm playing >Belcher<, he takes mulligan to force. I kept a hand with a lot of startmana and 2 Draw4s. He begins with top.
During 10- 15 Turn's (arbor beat him to 13 Life:tongue:!) I tried to built up a solid manabase (collectiing rituals, IT and draw4's). Because he doesn't really know my deck he wastes his counters on the startmana, in hope to draw his CB's (Top is online). At 3 Life I made around 15 mana, played around his counters and Tendrils him for 28.
Game2. Played around his counters and killed him Turn 5 or 6

Goblins R/G
A bye matchup. I know that I would facing Gobbos.
Game1. I don't know what I've done.Won the dice roll and hold that hand: Land grant, 3 draw4,3 manamorphose. I played Land grant Turn 1--> pass-->waste--> EPIC FAIL
Game2 on the play, mull to 6 killed him Turn 3 via IGG before his creatures would overrun me.
Game3 he begins and I draw a storm 9 hand. The next 3 turns I drew useless Draw4s and a turn later the last piece of my combo. I play LED he response on IT with Grip, l0l. GG

Dreadstill !!!, yeah
Game 1: I fear a lot of counters. He begins and take mulligan to counters and plays seat of synod. I drew that hand: 3 D.Ritual, morphose, pact, LED. Keep. Draw IT. Alll in, because it will be become certainly much worse each turn-->tried to trick him. I play IT in the end and he response with spell snare (his only counter)...
Game 2. Tons of counter and hate cards,18 counters, 3 waste, 3 balance, 2 explosives, lands and draw

In the end bad Opp. Score and misses a wasteland.

I will cut Morphose and put them to the SB, because they are really hard to master. You don't know what you have if they are on your hand, on the other side they are nice with EW and draw4s. Morphose will be 3 therapy and 1 ESG. I will board them against Bye-matchups, combo and stax.
Cantor was always a free slot, but today he surprised me and won me 2 games. Store mana, change color, get threshhold or Storm 2 for free with pact are in my opinion to good.

@ everyone I know that my english is bad:cool:
@Vacrix
I tested S.Muse. In combination with IT/LED (Turn 1-2) great, but most of the time just a weaker Meditate. If Muse would be black I would certainly play it, but the fish is blue and makes you more dependent on Morphose/Cantor/Petal
I have no problems with people playing IGG over Slithermuse. Just know that I prefer Slithermuse at the moment.

Wasn't Odious Trow redundant w/ MD Cantor?

Also, I really like the idea of boarding in Dosan and keeping Summoner's Pact. How well does it work? Sinking 3 mana looks a little hard unless you have Carpet of Flowers.

The other idea I had, which could be cheaper if incorporated correctly would be Pact-->Xantid Swarm.. if we could somehow give it haste. On a similar note of random creatures to fetch out with Summoner's Pact, it occurred to me the other day that Pact + LED --> Groundbreaker. It gives you some reach against control if your opponent screws you out of your tokens with EE.


Anyone else got thoughts/experience vs. Stompy decks?
With SITES, Burning Wish into removal or just go for a fast win.
With QSI, board in your extra lands and then cantrip into post-board Rebuilds.
With PSI, win before you have to deal with their shit. Sometimes you have the resources to play through Chalice @ 0 or 1.
With LGSI, play the man plan or win fast.

[ScatmanX]

"Goblins R/G
A bye matchup. I know that I would facing Gobbos.
Game1. I don't know what I've done.Won the dice roll and hold that hand: Land grant, 3 draw4,3 manamorphose. I played Land grant Turn 1--> pass-->waste--> EPIC FAIL
Game2 on the play, mull to 6 killed him Turn 3 via IGG before his creatures would overrun me.
Game3 he begins and I draw a storm 9 hand. The next 3 turns I drew useless Draw4s and a turn later the last piece of my combo. I play LED he response on IT with Grip, l0l. GG"

g3: he cannot respond IT with Grip, because you dont pass the priority back to him. It goes: IT--> priority continues with you--> crack LED.

[the resurrection]

His play is not possible, you MUST keep priority after playing IT in order to sac LED, if you don't keep it, opponent doesn't need grip, he just says ok and your IT resolves without saccing LED.
Thank you guys. Nice to know. He responded with Grip after I played pact, sry. But I failed anyway XD, but the next time I'm prepared


Wasn't Odious Trow redundant w/ MD Cantor?
No. Both creatures have different roles. Trow is the 2nd Ctw target after Arbor or the 1st after Bayou, he gets imprinted by mox and gives you addional storm if you have just B in your pool, or (I'am testing now) as an addional discard effect if therapy is in the grave. Cantor is 3rd Ctw target or the 2nd after Bayou->Trow, change G into B (I made around 100 goldfishes and I needed this effect about 10-13%), creates addional storm (with IGG) without wasting a manasource, getting threshhold or he saves mana


Also, I really like the idea of boarding in Dosan and keeping Summoner's Pact. How well does it work? Sinking 3 mana looks a little hard unless you have Carpet of Flowers.
Morphose will help you to get GG. The dosan boarding plan works against decks that play just 8 counters. Get the combo and trick them or collect enough mana and throw out "Chant". Against Dreadstill I wasn't able to do something, while I crushed the deck g2 and g3 in the past via Urami, Tombstalker. But this SBplan is still in work.


The other idea I had, which could be cheaper if incorporated correctly would be Pact-->Xantid Swarm.. if we could somehow give it haste.
One year ago I did the same. I've looked for every green/black/red cards to give swarm haste XD... I found nothing.

On a similar note of random creatures to fetch out with Summoner's Pact, it occurred to me the other day that Pact + LED --> Groundbreaker. It gives you some reach against control if your opponent screws you out of your tokens with EE. With the full playsets of ESG and Morphose an intresting option, but a creature that is much more intresting is Uktabi-Sceada (http://www.magiccards.info/query?q=!Uktabi-Sceada). He's a funny stormengine. Play pact-> Sceada-> attack--> Now you have made 3 virtual spells !!! Culling target and another funny thing: make Tendrils for 9, draw pact next turn and cast him (just kidding, but this might work in RL)

[Vacrix]

How do you board then against U.dec if you want to add the Carpets? I usually board out Pact for Carpet.

Uktabi Drake actually looks pretty sexy. The fact that it adds +1 virtual storm might make it a pretty good outlet for a sticky situation. I think, though, that he will be pretty hard to use IRL. Switching between phases is going to make floating mana more difficult, especially if you want to attack with it before you play Culling the Weak for the extra virtual storm copy.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

So, any thoughts from anyone whether it would be viable to try to make a :b::r::g: manabase work? The idea would be to be able to splash for all the bombs: namely Burning Wish (and a little sideboard suite to go with it), Xantid Swarm, Autumn's Veil, and probably also some number of Empty the Warrens. Tinder Wall might also be worth exploring...

I was thinking that Gemstone Mine might be a good way to try to make this feasible. Probably running 6-8 lands. Do y'all think this would be feasible, or would I just be too prone to color screw? (Advice from someone with some experience playing this deck please. Help!)

[Vacrix]

A while back I played SSG over Chrome Mox. If you are looking to build a glasshouse, then it might look something like this:



Business (15)
1 Slithermuse
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Burning Wish
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain

Mana (45)
1 Tinderwall
1 Wild Cantor
4 Manamorphose
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
Its a little business light.

I think that the Rainbow lands plan is weak. Having access to fetches opens you up to the possibility of Dryad Arbor. As you can probably see, there aren't too many initial black sources. I switched out Chrome Mox for SSG. It works, and you have slightly more Daze protection, but you really need that Wild Cantor in there to color fix for black. Also, it completely foregoes IT for BW. I tested something like this a while back and it worked pretty well. I don't think its as good as the others lists to be honest, but give that a go and see if you like it. I'd tweak something along those lines before trying the traditional tallman builds. They just don't have the flexibility that PSI does.

[Jodahae]

Picked up PSI after talking with Vacrix at the last Knightware.
Really pleased with the deck so far, the biggest hurdle for me to figure out so far has been to either run fetches or land grant.

Grant being a spell makes it alot easier to get hellbent for infernal, where as i have had some awkward draws where fetches have kept me off it. Any thoughts on this ? I have considered a split but that just seems redundant and wrong, i figure i should pick and stay with one or the other.

In addition I like experimenting with 2 xantid in the main, i really feel that it gives you the ability to craft a hand that you may have otherwise had to go all in on. An example as to my current preference for fetches comes from the often crafty play of fetching for my bayou to play swarm, my opponents when not familiar with the fact that i am storm will often put me on rogue and let swam sit, which buys all the time in the world to craft a beautiful hand.
My current list

Land
4 x Verdant Catacombs
2 x Bayou
1 x Dryad Arbor

Mana
4 x Lotus Petal
4 x ESG
4 x Summoners Pact
4 x Dark Ritual
4 x Cabal Ritual
4 x Culling the Weak
4 x Chrome Mox
4 x LED

Business
4 x Cruel Bargain
4 x Infernal Contract
4 x Infernal Tutor
1 x Eternal Witness
1 x Odious Trow/Wild Cantor - Havent been able to nail down which is better for me
2 x Manamorphose
2 x Xantid Swarm
1 x Slithermuse
2 x Tendrils of Agony

[Rood]

Was going to make a new thread for this since I feel it's a bit different from SI but here's my list I've been testing on and off the past few weeks

// Lands
11 [PT] Swamp (4)

// Creatures
4 [AL] Shield Sphere
4 [VI] Phyrexian Walker
1 [R] Ornithopter

// Spells
4 [4E] Dark Ritual
4 [EX] Culling the Weak
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [ALA] Ad Nauseam
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [V09] Lotus Petal
2 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
3 [MR] Chrome Mox
3 [PS] Diabolic Intent
4 [ARE] Duress

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [5E] Nevinyrral's Disk
SB: 3 [M10] Deathmark
SB: 3 [FUT] Pact of Negation
SB: 2 [UD] Powder Keg
SB: 3 [RAV] Dark Confidant
SB: 1 [M11] Deathmark

Pretty much it's been really cool so far for me. It doesn't play any splash colors I designed it that way so it's impossible to scoop to Wasteland/Stifle. It's also extremely fast.

[Volrath]

Why 11 Swamps?, even the fetchland lists only play 6 orso lands.

[Rood]

Worked for me with 11 Swamps my initial list ran 12 but I cut it down to 11 to fit in the full set of Duress. It also helps against control to be able to make a couple few land drops as oposed to trying to burn out your resources just to get mana to play spells. Since I don't run Pact I can't tutor for mana either.

[Aleksandr]

Very strange build. How do the four of AdN + double ToA work together? Don't you lose to bad flips from time to time?

[kicks_422]

Was going to make a new thread for this since I feel it's a bit different from SI but here's my list I've been testing on and off the past few weeks
(decklist)

A less budget version of this: Mono-Black Storm (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?16989-Mono-Black-Storm)

I agree that it has its merits. Never gotten around to testing it with Infernal + LED though, but I definitely approve of it.

[Rood]

Very strange build. How do the four of AdN + double ToA work together? Don't you lose to bad flips from time to time?

Very rare do you fizzle once AdN goes off. I think maybe over 300 games I've played I've fizzled maybe 3 times. It's really actually not an issue at all.

[kicks_422]

The average cc of the deck is much lower than other AdNauseam decks, if you compute for it.

How is 4 MD protection working for you? I've got 8 in the MD, but with those many bombs in the deck, I can see dropping the Therapies.

[GhekoN]

Hi, i am very interested into Spanish Inquisiotion and i have a little appeal for you: Can someone recommend me a good list WITHOUT Lion's Eye Diamond?
I have all cards or can buy ( i have near all base deck and also burning wishes, pacts etc. ) all cards of every version here, but i cant afford LED's in the moment. My metagame is Zoo/Loams/Merfolks( a lot of )/Standstills/Elfes/Dredge, so i think something between control-oriented and fast version.
Thanks!

Only non-LED version i see is this-

Lands
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea

Creatures
3 Phyrexian Walker
4 Shield Sphere

Spells
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
3 Cruel Bargain
3 Meditate
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Dark Ritual
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Infernal Contract
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Ponder

SB
1 Meditate
4 Dark Confidant
4 Rebuild
2 Island
2 Wipe Away
2 Swamp


Is it still actual? Because after some my testing, often i have big storm, but i cant find final tendrils.

[jrsthethird]

Vacrix, have you played in any tournaments lately? I'd like to see a tournament report or something, with an idea of how you sideboard for blue matchups. I've bee playing around with Direlemming's D7 list that you posted, except I've been trying a Cabal Therapy in the board instead of Duress.

Also, what do we do about artifact hate, like Canonist, Chalice, Thorn? I'm thinking of putting a Deathmark in the board against Canonist, Teeg, and Meddling Mage, but I realized that Teeg can be handled with Grapheshot and Mage on Tendrils can be handled with either Grapheshot or ETW, so Deathmark seems unnecessary. I saw Meltdown in a previous list, seems like an ok option, but have you considered Deconstruct? It's essentially a free spell/storm count, and it avoids blowing up your own Moxes/LEDs.

[Vacrix]

I haven't played magic in like 3 weeks. I've been on the East coast attending various fencing camps and kinda travelling around visiting relatives. I will attend my local events regularly, but I switch back and forth between Solidarity and SI.

Death Mark is great. Feel free to run it if you are running into a lot of bears. Against most decks, you don't really care about bears though, you can usually just race them. Diluting the deck with cards that don't help your combo is a little inhibiting in that list. Bears only become a problem if you run into a good control deck. Decks like UWT and some survival lists pack both perma hate and FoW. Thats really where you get tripped up by bears. A deck like QSI, though, really has to board in some removal because its so slow.

@Ghekon
Yes that version is a real version. If you are looking for a budget deck though, Underground Seas aren't exactly the cheapest cards around. You do sometimes have trouble finding ToA. Its a much harder list to play if you aren't experienced with SI. Other lists run crutch cards like IT and BW that let you be much more lazy with your mana and spells. With QSI, you really have to do a lot of calculation.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

I kind of like the idea of Deconstruct. Maybe I'm misjudging here, but it seems to me like the decks that we would want to blow up multiple artifacts against in the first place are Stax and Stompy variants. I would think that in these matches, being able to nuke one artifact is going to be as good as nuking multiples about 9 times out of 10.

However, this is just a first reaction to the idea.

[Volrath]

But GGG is useless, you cant cast anything of it.

[Vacrix]

Yes, GGG is a hard to certainly hard to use. However, a while back someone suggested Orochi Leafcaller to make use of mad mad green mana. Even if we could convert it to make it free, getting to the point at which you can cast 2G with a Chalice of 3sphere down isn't as easy as it sounds.

[Vacrix]

Just wanted to share something amazing. This just happened, while I was testing PSI on the draw (where you can mulligan more aggressively because you get an extra card).
Mulligan no initial mana 7 into, no business 6 into, no business 5, into no initial mana 4, into:
Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Infernal Contract
Draw: Land Grant
Land Grant--> Bayou, Dark Ritual x2, Infernal Contract
Draw 4: Summoner's Pact, Culling the Weak, Infernal Tutor, Infernal Contract
Summoner's Pact-->Odious Trow, Culling the Weak, Infernal Contract
Draw 4: Cabal Ritual, Slithermuse, Summoner's Pact, Infernal Contract
Summoner's Pact--> ESG, Cabal Ritual, Infernal Contract
Draw 4: Eternal Witness, Tendrils of Agony, Land Grant, Cabal Ritual
Cabal Ritual, Land Grant, Tendrils of Agony for 28

I don't think I've ever done something that profoundly amazing with SI. Mull to 3, win turn 1 on the draw.



In other news, I'm also testing this board ATM:
x4 Xantid Swarm/Autumn's Veil
x3 Duress
x4 Carpet of Flowers
x2 Tomb of Urami
x2 Goblin Charbelcher

[Vacrix]

In other news, I'm also testing this board ATM:
x4 Xantid Swarm
x3 Duress
x4 Carpet of Flowers
x2 Tomb of Urami
x2 Goblin Charbelcher

This board is amazing. Just tested it against New Horizons about 5 full matches. I won 3 of them, and every game I lost, without exception, was a very close game. A few of those games were just to Belcher misfires as well so there was a little bad luck in that case. Then again, boarding in 2 lands doesn't necessarily increase your chances of getting a good Belch. In that case, I might switch those Tombs to Birds of Paradise. Both act as an initial B, even if its a turn slower, while providing Culling fodder and a potential chump blocker. After learning how to manipulate this list, I'm getting turn 3-5 protected kills consistently. I goldfished it for a while in addition to playing these games, trying to play through 1 countermagic. It can. I'm very happy with the maindeck as well, same one I've been playing:

PSI
Business
1 Slithermuse
2 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain

Mana
1 Eternal Witness
1 Odious Trow
2 Manamorphose
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor

This is how I'm boarding out:
-4 Summoner's Pact
-3 Tendrils of Agony
-2 Manamorphose
-1 Land Grant
-1 Dryad Arbor
-1 Slithermuse
-1 Odious Trow
-1 Eternal Witness
-1 Culling the Weak
(-15)
+15 board vs. U.dec

It works so well that I might just start playing this over Solidarity. I've always loved the Merfolk matchup, where Tomb of Urami is even better. I'd imagine that the Merfolk matchup would be even better than the New Horizons matchup because the usual builds don't have an answer for Xantid Swarm or Tomb. In short, I'm very satisfied and I highly suggest anyone who is playing the Pact list to test this SB ASAP, cause its seriously tearing shit up right now. Its even difficult to play against when you know what the opponent is playing. You might think, I'll play mana denial, and then the opponent is just sitting on a lot of mana, while sometimes you think, I'll counter the business and then your opponent has heavy business. After I explained it to my friend on New Horizons, he still wasn't sure what to counter, and it was often the wrong thing just because I know how to bait out what he should counter that way I can play my hand on my terms.

[Philipp2293]

As slower control seems to be on the rise, and these decks sometimes run Meddling Mage in the SB, do you just hope they name Tendrils?

Also, I'm not too happy about the tombs with a 4 Belcher/0 Tendrils configuration, how often do you fizzle postboard?

[Vacrix]

Yes. You hope they name Tendrils. And it works. Seriously, the control players expect you to board out the Belchers because they can be countered. Actually, if they resolve, its usually GG. If I see MM though I will keep in Tendrils, or if I expect MM. Often at least in smaller tournaments, you playing SI will finish in like the first 20 minutes, whether or not you win or lose, allowing you to see how your opponents will board.

Post-board I'm actually not fizzling because you don't need to keep the spell chain complete. All you need to do is keep acquiring more resources until you can eventually land a game winning threat. So I might D4, play Xantid Swarm, and pass. Then D4 again, then win. So basically you might 'fizz' more implying that your spell chains are shorter, but your wins are significantly more consistent. Basically, you just try to find LED + IT --> Belcher, or Belcher, usually with a protection spell in there somewhere. The only fizzing that has been happening is from Belcher misfires, likely from my boarded in Tombs. I like the Tombs because they provide a different line of attack, but they might not be worth it at the end of the day if my plan is just to use Belcher.

Also, this deck actually loves playing against slower control (exception = CB). These aggro control matchups are the problem matchups (even though the game plan is fairly good against them). I'm only losing games to countermagic + fast clock. Medium speed (turn 6-7) clocks aren't cutting it because I'm still able to go off between turns 3-5 fairly consistently.

[TheSleeper]

Vacrix: With that SB-out plan, the deck shell is the same as the Land Grant SI list minus 4 x ESG. Could that deck then implement a similar SB (instead of its fallback 'man-plan')? Just wondering which direction to go in with LGSI. I appreciate you're not testing that list per se, but figure you might have an insight.

[Vacrix]

I doubt you could do the same thing. ESG is too strong. It allows you to cast both Carpet of Flowers and Xantid Swarm, and acts as Daze protection. I'd still advocate a man plan for LGSI.. unless you want to play protection in the MD and then SB ESG's in. Otherwise it really is hard to cast the stuff from the board. You just don't have enough green sources.

[pandaman]

Just wanted to share something amazing. This just happened, while I was testing PSI on the draw (where you can mulligan more aggressively because you get an extra card).
Mulligan no initial mana 7 into, no business 6 into, no business 5, into no initial mana 4, into:
Dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Infernal Contract
Draw: Land Grant
Land Grant--> Bayou, Dark Ritual x2, Infernal Contract
Draw 4: Summoner's Pact, Culling the Weak, Infernal Tutor, Infernal Contract
Summoner's Pact-->Odious Trow, Culling the Weak, Infernal Contract
Draw 4: Cabal Ritual, Slithermuse, Summoner's Pact, Infernal Contract
Summoner's Pact--> ESG, Cabal Ritual, Infernal Contract
Draw 4: Eternal Witness, Tendrils of Agony, Land Grant, Cabal Ritual
Cabal Ritual, Land Grant, Tendrils of Agony for 28

I don't think I've ever done something that profoundly amazing with SI. Mull to 3, win turn 1 on the draw.



In other news, I'm also testing this board ATM:
x4 Xantid Swarm/Autumn's Veil
x3 Duress
x4 Carpet of Flowers
x2 Tomb of Urami
x2 Goblin Charbelcher

You realise that you now have to amend your opening post, because you got the mull to 3 turn 1 kill that's been eluding you :cool: That is indeed ridiculous!

[Vacrix]

Finally updated the PSI list, and yes the mull to 3 section as well.


Also, this synth intrigues me immensely:
Summoner's Pact + Cabal Therapy

Together, they can make 5 storm if you enable Summoner's Pact-->Uktabi Drake
Drake counts for 2 storm (discussed a few pages back) because it counts as a spell and can swing for 2. Pact counts as 1, and Cabal Therapy counts as 2 if you sacrifice Drake after playing it. All for the cost of BG and those 2 cards. This would allow PSI to play significantly smaller spell chains on occasion, much in the same way LED and IT make goldfishing easier. x4 Pacts are already maindeck, but I'm going to try to explore different ways to add Pacts into the MD, possibly to increase the avg. goldfish rate or improve consistency while providing protection.

[Iranon]

That's quite a sweet interaction... but all in all, I see Therapy working better in old-fashioned robot builds because you consistenty have free flashback targets.

*

Regarding random roadblocks: I hate making my deck less consitent by running narrow answers I may not need, especially since 'just race them' is an acceptable strategy against many problems. However, I also hate losing outright to random junk.
One reason I love Glimpse (and have gone to 3-4) is that it doesn't slow me down while giving me the ability to draw my entire deck... this in turn means even a single Wish will be available when opponents try to inhibit our ability to win (some form of shroud, Meddling Mage on a win condition etc).

*

Even without a 'draw-everything' tech: I really, really, really don't think we can just ignore Leyline of Sanctity. We can deal with other cards that we can't race (like Force of Will and Mindbreak Trap) because if an opponent mulligans aggressively for these, we have an excellent chance of winning the ensuing battle of attrition.
Not so if the 0-mana card shuts us down for good: A rational opponent who lost game 1 could gamble on our inability to deal with Leyline and mulligan down to 1 if they don't get it earlier. I don't play the most consistent turn-1 deck to give my opponent a 87% chance for turn-0 wins, on the back of 4 cards (which translates into at least a 75% chance of losing both post-board games after we won game 1. If the rest of our opponents' deck is relevant at all, expect match percentages less than 10% in our favour.)

Leyline of Sanctity isn't that narrow that I'd expect it to be entirely unplayed. We'd be gambling on our opponent's inability to make the game degenerate into statistics vastly in their favour... which stirkes me as both risky and arrogant.

[Silent Requiem]

I'm a Solidarity player, not an SI player, but I follow this thread because SI is just such an interesting deck - somebody brought one into the meta recently and I knew at once that I had (for the first time) just encountered a deck almost as awesome as Solidarity.

Anyway, Leyline of Sanctity is being played. I had a Rock opponent mull into 3 of them in a recent tournament. That shut me down hard (I only have two bounce spells in the maindeck). I've also given some serious thought to sideboarding it against fast combo (such as SI and Belcher) because Swarm shuts out my counter magic.

I'm not saying that it will become ubiquitous, but I do agree that it is something you should expect to see from time to time.

-Silent Requiem

[ktkenshinx]

Leyline of Sanctity isn't that narrow that I'd expect it to be entirely unplayed. We'd be gambling on our opponent's inability to make the game degenerate into statistics vastly in their favour... which stirkes me as both risky and arrogant.

I have been testing this deck since MT's banning in July, and I agree that Leyline will see play. I do not believe it will be as widespread as some people fear, especially because decks like Zoo and CounterTop are more likely to use Gaddock Teeg and Ethersworn Canonist as their storm stoppers. That said, it is a great inclusion in the GB sorts of decks, like that which silent requiem faced. What's the solution? Add more goblins (Empty the Warrens). There are a number of reasons to use this win condition as an alternative to Tendrils, even if we ignore Leyline's presence. Here are the big ones.

1. Spell chain length
Tendrils requires what I like to call an "extended" spell chain, one that must necessarily be longer than the number of cards in your opening hand. Empty the Warrens does not. While Warrens benefits from extended spell chains, it does not require them. That means even subpar draws off of your Draw4s can give you the win, as long as you can cast Warrens.

2. Rite of Flame: Ritual redundancy
It always surprises me how much non-black mana I can use without having any left over. Those little colorless manas here and there really add up:
Eternal Witness
Cabal Ritual
Infernal Tutor
Slithermuse
Tendrils of Agony
Belcher/Empty the Warrens
The Rites become lethal accelerants with Empty the Warrens, as they actually power out your kill card directly. This gives you double the reason to include them.

3. Force of Will remains
An assumption of this deck is that it does not do great against the midrange aggro-control hybrids packing both a clock and FoW. In the wake of GP Columbus, it seems that those decks are going to be around for a bit. Empty the Warrens gives you an alternative option in this matchup. How does EtW improve a FoW matchup? Your spell chain can be shorter. That means you can pause a spell chain to disrupt or prepare for disruption, if need be. Imagine that you are running Duress or Autumn's Veil as your maindeck or SB answer. Let's say that you resolve a D4 with only 1 mana left in the pool. Your opponent intends on countering your next ritual or mana source to stop your progress. If you are running an ETW win, you can stop right there, pass the turn, disrupt your opponent next turn, and you can still Empty a pretty damn big warren on their face. If you had Tendrils, however, you may not have enough resources to be lethal AND play around disruption.

-ktkenshinx-

[Vacrix]

@Iranon
87% chance at 0 wins isn't true. I've beaten my opponent to death with Elvish Spirit Guides and Slithermuse before. Long story short... I played them against Dragon Stompy and he shut down his own mana base with Blood Moons and Trinisphere.

Leyline of Sanctity is extremely janky and it won't see much play. Its strictly worse than Mindbreak Trap in every single way. Trap doesn't need to be in your opening hand.. and you don't have to mulligan into a oblivion and lay it down, only to be a sitting duck against anyone running EtW. It won't see play because it doesn't stop Belcher or TES, like at all, and those are the decks you will actually run into. TES can setup an EtW fairly easily while Belcher is playing EtW anyway 7 out of 11 times (due to those win conditions). So.... nobody will play it. Its also terrible against Solidarity, ANT and DDFT because they have ways to bounce it. Its ONLY good against SI and ONLY if we choose not to play post-board anti-hate, which I don't because I want a good blue matchup. I consider myself a good enough pilot to consistently race bears, and I do. If you really feel the need to play hate post-board.. you can. I considered throwing a singleton creature that I could fetch out with Summoner's Pact to deal with something like Leyline. ATM I'm just trying to optimize a better SB to beat U.dec. So far its been working great. I've been primarily testing against New Horizons. Game 1 is tough since he runs FoW, but I'd say its a coinflip that I'm winning about half the time. Games 2 and 3 I'm usually able to setup the Belcher kill. After the initial playtesting, I explained my post-board plan and he started naming Belcher with Meddling Mage. Now its harder but he doesn't always draw MM. Even double Force doesn't get there against this post-board plan. He cantrips all day long but Carpet of Flowers is a threat itself, often allowing me to cast D4's for free.

Also.. NOBODY expects SI so why would people prepare for it in their board? Even if Leyline is good against SI (in particular me because I've chosen not to prepare for it), an insignificant number of people play SI in the first place. Everyone who is playing storm hate ought to play something better. Those who run it are likely bad players who won't know the difference... and I don't expect these players to get very far into the tournament in the first place, so why prepare for players I won't be playing?

Excuse me if my boarding plans come across as arrogant Iranon. I'm not preparing for Mindbreak Trap either. I think its better to prepare for U.dec since we will probably face it a lot.

@ktkenshinx
Yes EtW is good. Long spell chains aren't always necessary if you are playing Belcher. My post-board plan against control is actually to avoid long spell chains because they require a lot of resources that you probably won't have against control. Instead I aim to use D4's just to amass more and more resources until you can eventually land a protected Belcher or IT--> Belcher. Its working out really well so far.

If you really want to play EtW play it. You can graft it into any of the builds. I can't say I've tried Rite of Flame at all, but I'd imagine that you could fit it in somewhere. Tinderwall is probably better though, especially in the Pact list where it functions as a potential red source for Burning Wish.

EDIT:
If you are afraid of Leyline, run Reverent Silence.

@Silent Requiem
I think SI and Solidarity are equally awesome, both in their own way, as I play both all the time. :P

[Iranon]

You're right about Leyline not being a true turn-0-win given that you run creatures with power greater than 0. Dryad Arbour, Slithermuse and a few Spirit Guides against an initially handless opponent may make for a fun game, but I'm pretty sure I won't like the odds.

I agree Leyline of the Void isn't the best anti-storm card overall, but I still fear it - people may consider it useful against plenty of non-storm decks. Out of interest, which pact-able creature were you considering?

[Vacrix]

Well theresurrection played Uktabi Orangutan in his list. It doesn't stop Teeg, but it does remove something like Thorn. I don't like it because it can't get rid of Cannonist, because you can only play 1 spell per turn so you can't use Pact to fetch it out.

I'm going to try some Dark Confidants in my post-board plan and see how that goes.

Also, I'm very intrigued about a post-board plan that keeps Summoner's Pact's in. Cabal Therapy + Pact is very strong, protecting our combo and adding 5 storm, while Pact-->Dosan the Falling Leaf has seemed to work out for theresurrection in his build. Having that flexibility looks pretty strong and could be better than the SB I'm currently playing,.

[jrsthethird]

Vacrix, I've been testing the QSI build from the OP and I'm liking it so far. I'm getting more consistency than I was with PSI, and I've been beating blue decks pretty often which feels good. Do you have any suggestions to change that list at all?

[Jonathan Alexander]

Dark Confidant is incredible against everything except aggro with burn. I tested it in SITES a few weeks ago and I really loved it. I just boarded out Kobolds, a single Culling and another random card for some Confidants and some Xantid Swarm. Creature-based combo is the shit, seriously. Attacking with Swarm and saccing it for Culling later is another really nice line of play. The only thing I didn't really like about Confidant is that we're playing a bunch of expensive spells. But apart from that Confidant is a house. I tried Confidant with more lands and without Draw 4's and even then i consistently won on turn three of four with at least a single discard spell played before but usually with Xantid Swarm attacking. I still have to test Confidant + Cabal Therapy. I somehow completely missed the fact that I can use Confidant as Therapy fodder. Maybe the list wouldn't need Xantid Swarm anymore then. I was planning to test this within the next few days.

[Vacrix]

@Jona
Legit, I'll get right on testing Confidant then in PSI. Its definitely a house in SITES. I assume that you are playing Therapy maindeck, and Xantid/Confidant's post-board.

@jrsthethird
I actually get more consistency out of PSI, but thats probably because I'm very, very familiar with the list. I'm very liberal about what people play. Just play what suits your playstyle. QSI is definitely baller against control. EOT Meditates are very nice lines of play.

I wouldn't change anything in the list ATM unless you want to alter the board. Marit suggested that board to me because the deck needs that post-board to beat Stax and Stompy. If you don't expect to encounter any of those in your metagame, you can alter the board accordingly.

[jrsthethird]

Yeah, the only matchup I had trouble with was Stax. I couldn't find any Rebuilds games 2 or 3. :(

[Jonathan Alexander]

@ Vacrix
Yeah, you're right. I might pick that up again to pilot the deck in a Merfolk heavy metagame. But then I might even go for Confidants mainboard or something, I'm not sure yet. Anyway, this is the list I'm gonna test this weekend:

//Lands
2 Badlands
1 Bayou
4 Wooded Foothills

//Creatures
4 Crimson Kobolds
1 Dryad Arbor

//Spells
4 Burning Wish
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Chrome Mox
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Culling The Weak
4 Dark Ritual
1 Empty The Warrens
4 Infernal Contract
3 Infernal Tutor
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Tendrils Of Agony

//Sideboard
4 Dark Confidant
1 Deathmark
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Duress
1 Empty The Warres
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Meltdown
1 Reverent Silence
1 Shattering Spree
1 Tendrils Of Agony
2 Xantid Swarm

I'm not sure about IGG though. It might become the fourth Infernal Tutor because against decks like Zoo I just want to be as fast as possible. But maybe boarding in IGG is even better than boarding in Infernal, because first turn IGG is nothing to scoff at especially since nobody is playing Mindbreak Trap. And even if they're packing Leyline I can still go for Empty The Warrens after IGG. Turn one 16+ should be enough to race aggro. By the way, I love using IGG as disruption to set up a second turn kill. Like you already pointed out, this deck can easily win with 3/4 cards in hand. Other decks can't do that.

[Vacrix]

Yeah, the only matchup I had trouble with was Stax. I couldn't find any Rebuilds games 2 or 3. :(
Then you can try mulliganing aggressively for them instead of attempting to cantrip into them, which is usually fairly difficult anyway given that Chalice @ 1 shuts down your cantrips. Thankfully, Stax and Stompy see far less play these days. I think there is only 1 Stompy guy in my meta.

@ Jona
Likely you should board in both IGG and the 4th IT against aggro. EtW isn't as strong against aggro as it is against combo. Speaking of which, have you tried +2 EtW -2 Swarm? Post-board EtW's are really strong against control.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Yeah, you're right, I'd love to side in both against aggro, but I don't know what to cut for Infernal. I might cut Meltdown 'cause I'm wishing for Shattering Spree almost always when I have to deal with Artifacts. Adding more Empty The Warrens to the board is something I have thought about aswell but at first I'm gonna try out Swarms. I'm kind of afraid of not having enough creatures for Cabal Therapy and Culling The Weak. And I think Swarm is better with Confidant because both are creatures that have to be dealt with, otherwise their winning games on their own. That means the blue players have to keep in their removal. If they don't, their going to lose. Revealing Warrens with Confidant hurts aswell. And I don't like Warrens that much anymore because Engineered Explosives are everywhere. Empty The Warrens really shines against Merfolk, though. Even eight tokens turn one usually means you're going to win.

[Vacrix]

Well you can cut the EtW and 1 SSG from your MD to fit in Infernal and IGG.

Also, you keep referencing Cabal Therapy but I don't see it in your list.


Today, I rediscovered a creature that looks extremely good in the post-board.

Omnath, Locus of Mana
Theory:
- Stores mana. Exploiting each turn of resusable resources as much as possible. Makes playing/activating Belcher much easier.
- Swings. If you can get Carpet going, you get more damage as you store mana. 2 mana each turn is reasonable; a turn 4 clock.
- Huge Blocker. Decks like Merfolk need lords to deal damage while you are setting up. Swinging in with a few small guys isn't going to get there, which gives you lots of time to set up. The same can be said of New Horizons, which usually will be beating with only 1 or 2 creatures at a time.
- Mana denial protection. Spell Pierce and Daze become less relevant with all the spare mana to be had. Wasteland becomes more relevant to turn off the lands from producing said mana.
- LED. Omnath's clock can get significantly faster with spare mana.
- Xantid Swarm. Omnath is a must remove threat. It can beat your opponent's face or help you set up and ignore mana denial. Xantid Swarms become greater threats because they could be STP bait to protect an Omnath, or vice versa.
- Culling Fodder. For the combo turn.
- Trinisphere. It certainly doesn't help you play around it completely but would provide a body to smash face and make the Stax player frugal with his Tombs. It also builds up spare mana to convert to Black so you can use your D4's or IT to find Belcher.


If it works how I expect it to work, then it interacts perfectly with the current post-board plan that I'm testing.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Oh yeah, that's my bad. The list I posted was only 57 cards, I forgot to write down the Therapies. So the list I tested was like this:

//Lands
2 Badlands
1 Bayou
4 Wooded Foothills

//Creatures
4 Crimson Kobolds
1 Dryad Arbor

//Spells
4 Burning Wish
4 Cabal Ritual
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Chrome Mox
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Culling The Weak
4 Dark Ritual
1 Empty The Warrens
4 Infernal Contract
3 Infernal Tutor
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Tendrils Of Agony

//Sideboard
4 Dark Confidant
1 Deathmark
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Duress
1 Empty The Warres
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Meltdown
1 Reverent Silence
1 Shattering Spree
1 Tendrils Of Agony
2 Xantid Swarm

The mainboard was a blast. Turn one protected kills are the shit. I did some testing against Reanimate and Dredge but I didn't get to test against Merfolk. Anyway, I was winning turn one most of the games and don't think I'll change the mainboard at all. I didn't like Confidant that much anymore, though. The list I tested it in at first was a bit slower and I had a boarding plan that was like boarding out 8 Draw 4s and another random card and boarding in 4 Confidants, 2 Swarms and 3 Duress. If you board like that, he's really good but otherwise the lifeloss is just too much, even in goldfishing. I'm going to test -4 Confidants +2 Swarms +2 Warrens in the board, I guess that should work out better.
I hope to post some more testing results within the next few days.
Oh, and by the way, did you test out Omnath already? I don't see him being that good since he only keeps green mana. He seems to be huge with Carpet Of Flowers though.

[PanderAlexander]

Today, I rediscovered a creature that looks extremely good in the post-board.

Omnath, Locus of Mana


Hope to see you at Knightware this upcoming Sunday to test it Ben, along with the San Diego crew.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

I came up with sort of a tweak on the SI/TES list that's in the primer, I was wondering what people thought of it. Basically the idea is to have a version that's a tad slower, but should be able to gather resources over the course of a couple turns before going off, ideally pretty well protected. Or, most of the time, be able to go off ASAP if you feel pressed. Anyhow, list:

2 Badlands
1 Bayou
1 Swamp
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Marsh Flats
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Tomb of Urami

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Chrome Mox

3 Shield Sphere
2 Manaforge Cinder
3 Crimson Kobolds

2 Cabal Therapy

4 Burning Wish
2 Infernal Tutor
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
2 Empty the Warrens
2 Tendrils of Agony


...The sideboard would likely be pretty similar to what the primer list for the SI/TES version has. Maybe a couple variations. I'd probably try to fit in 1-2 more Cabal Therapy in there to round out the 2 in the main.

Anyways. I realize I'm not exactly reinventing the wheel here. But what do y'all think of the main-deck?

EDIT: A couple points:

* I put in the main-deck Tomb of Urami as an additional measure against control decks, since I figure usually they'll let Infernal Tutor resolve to try to be able to counter your win-con. Then you get to go "muahaha," and bust on their face with a pseudo-Tombstalker.

* I feel like Manaforge Cinder has potential, since he mana-fixes Chrome Mox, and he mana-fixes pretty nicely while he's in play. Kind of a shame it doesn't work with Carpet of Flowers though. Lol.

* Basic Swamp is anti-Wasteland tech. It seems kind of worthwhile, imho. But I may want to cut a land eventually, I'm not sure. Tomb of Urami would probably get the axe first.

* I realize Shield Sphere doesn't work with Chrome Mox, but I think it's worthwhile because it's the shit against aggro, giving you a couple turns to set up comfortably instead of having to go in blind.

Anyhoo.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I came up with sort of a tweak on the SI/TES list that's in the primer, I was wondering what people thought of it. Basically the idea is to have a version that's a tad slower, but should be able to gather resources over the course of a couple turns before going off, ideally pretty well protected. Or, most of the time, be able to go off ASAP if you feel pressed. Anyhow, list:

2 Badlands
1 Bayou
1 Swamp
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Marsh Flats
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Tomb of Urami

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Chrome Mox

3 Shield Sphere
2 Manaforge Cinder
3 Crimson Kobolds

2 Cabal Therapy

4 Burning Wish
2 Infernal Tutor
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
2 Empty the Warrens
2 Tendrils of Agony


...The sideboard would likely be pretty similar to what the primer list for the SI/TES version has. Maybe a couple variations. I'd probably try to fit in 1-2 more Cabal Therapy in there to round out the 2 in the main.

Anyways. I realize I'm not exactly reinventing the wheel here. But what do y'all think of the main-deck?

EDIT: A couple points:

* I put in the main-deck Tomb of Urami as an additional measure against control decks, since I figure usually they'll let Infernal Tutor resolve to try to be able to counter your win-con. Then you get to go "muahaha," and bust on their face with a pseudo-Tombstalker.

* I feel like Manaforge Cinder has potential, since he mana-fixes Chrome Mox, and he mana-fixes pretty nicely while he's in play. Kind of a shame it doesn't work with Carpet of Flowers though. Lol.

* Basic Swamp is anti-Wasteland tech. It seems kind of worthwhile, imho. But I may want to cut a land eventually, I'm not sure. Tomb of Urami would probably get the axe first.

* I realize Shield Sphere doesn't work with Chrome Mox, but I think it's worthwhile because it's the shit against aggro, giving you a couple turns to set up comfortably instead of having to go in blind.

Anyhoo.


The problem I see with this list (by the way, I goldfished it a few times to see how it works out) was that it's not as fast as regular SITES but still lacks protection. Two Therapies are far from enough and Tomb Of Urami seems bad mainboard. Another issue I had was the amount of fizzles. Because your list has a lot of creatures and lands the draw 4's draw into nothing quite often.

I don't know what you need the basic Swamp for. There are basically four reasons to pass a turn with SI:
1. You're playing a protection spell turn one. If it gets countered, you usually still go for it in turn two. If they should waste your land it's basically a timewalk for you 'cause your opponent shouldn't be doing anything else on his turn (and assuming you're on the play, you're Daze and Spell Pierce proof). No reason to fetch for a basic Swamp here.
2. You're playing against aggro and passing the turn will only be good for you since you'll see one more card and they can't do anything that's bad for you (except it's Zoo and they're on the play, they could drop Gaddock Teeg). No reason to fetch for a basic Swamp here.
3. You fizzled or it's better interrupt the spellchain 'cause you have a save kill next turn. I agree Wasteland might be relevant here but it should still be a timewalk for you.
4. You're killing via Empty The Warrens. Wasteland doesn't matter at all. I'm pretty sure you won't get wasted in this situation.

Having this in mind, I'm not sure why you would want to sculpt your hand since your not playing any cantrips to actually sculpt your hand. You're rather waiting than gathering resources. I think you should rather play TES. It's better at sculpting hands and is a great choice for today's meta. You should only play SI if you're planning to win on the first two turns of the game, speed is its only advantage over other combo-decks.

[Iranon]

I'm very reluctant to include more lands or other cards that are dead(ish) in draw-4s - we lose consistency as well as speed. If you want the ability to set up a comfortable turn 3-ish kill with a lot of redundancy, you probably want to run blue for cantrips.

[Jodahae]

Has anyone tried playing Tukatongue Thallid in any PSI lists looking to utilize Cabal Therapy.

I have found him to be invaluable, I started testing after it was mentioned Ukutabi drake--->Cabal seemed strong, but when i found this little guy he just seems to have everything. He smooths out both culling and cabal therapy and leaves a copy behind, this allows for smoother draw4 chains as well as hyper explosive double culling starting hands.

His 2 1/1's for G was too much to pass up, his only downside being not a black source to imprint far out ways how well he plays with this deck,

give it a shot if your looking to smooth out your culling hands or you want to play therapy in the main, i think you will find hes a great addition.

[Vacrix]

Hope to see you at Knightware this upcoming Sunday to test it Ben, along with the San Diego crew.
Yup hope to see you there too. Not sure just yet if I can make it but I'll talk to my team and see who is free.

@DukeDemonKn1ght
Manaforge Cinder is horrible. Its costs you resources, and its ability will be irrelevant most of the time. Lotus Petal, SSG, Chrome Mox, and your entire land base are going to be more than enough if you are worried about color fixing for Red. I'd make these changes -1 EtW, -2 Manaforge Cinder, +2 Cabal Therapy, +1 Shield Sphere.

In general, SITES can't do much 'sculpting'. You can lay down some lands and play some protection, and then go off, but you can't throw back cards you don't want or anything because you lack cantrips. If you want to play something that takes it time for the first few turns, QSI is a great option as it runs x8 cantrips. TES is just as good but obviously for different reasons.

@Jodahae
I really like the idea of Tukatongue Thallid. He will also chump on occasion, twice, to buy you some time, much in the same way Odious Trow + Land + Chrome Mox will stall a single goyf for a long time (pulled this off against New Horizons actually).
Whats your PSI list look like? Are you running Cabal Therapy maindeck?

[Jodahae]

My maindeck right now looks like this:

1x Bayou
1x Dryad Arbor

4x Land Grant
4x Lotus Petal
4x Chrome Mox
4x Summoners Pact
4x Spirit Guide
1x Tukatongue Thallid
1x Eternal Witness

4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Culling the Weak
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Cruel Bargain
4x Infernal Contract
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Cabal Therapy
1x Ill Gotten Gains
1x Goblin Charbelcher
2x Tendrils of Agony

Right now its slimmed down to an almost toolbox approach to storm, I have 16 bombs in the deck versus what i believe is the standard 18. Im not sure if Therapy's have to be in the main it was just something i was trying out, they are taking the slots for 2x manamorphose, 1x Slithermuse and /Belcher . If i can come up with a board that i like ill probably move Therapy to the board and get back those slots. But thallid has been awesome for me as of late, he chumps for multiple turns, and really lets me abuse my culling the weak. I originally cam across the thallid because i was looking for a 1 drop with persist but he was the closest thing i could find.

*edited post, am not running muse at the moment, trying to see if Iggy improves its consistancy with thallid, trying to play through hands relying on Iggy backing culling and action to abuse thallid. Plus i realized i need 2x tendrils for the dire imprint if necessary.

[Vacrix]

That list looks pretty good. 16 business really is light though. You might want to consider cutting something for the 2nd Belcher.

Considering that Thallid allows us to explore additional sacrifice outlets, we should take a look at Diabolic Intent again. Obviously it allows you to play both Culling the Weak and Diabolic Intent using the same creature. Another subtle trick is the ability to create mana if you need it via: Thallid, Diabolic Intent--> Culling the Weak, so for the investment of BBG and Pact + Diabolic Intent you can create BBBB. Its not a completely broken play but it will probably come in handy at some point.




Aside, this is a little random but a while back someone put forward the idea to include Natural Order and Progenitus. The idea still intrigues me. Its only like 5 slots, though its obviously be more reliable as a post-board plan.

[agliophobia]

1 Slithermuse
2 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
1 Eternal Witness
1 Tukatongue Thallid
2 Xanthid swarm
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor

SB
3 Rebuild Stax heavy meta
2 Xantid
4 Natural Order
1 Progenitus
3 cabal therapy
3 Carpet of Flowers

I tested out natural order and it works really smoothly when you sideboard but you just need to up the creature count so you can reliably get off natural order. Let me know what you think of my list I run xanthid main board cause there is a lot of decks that splash blue. I think with the natural order route you need more creatures then the regular list runs to make sure you can hit it reliably.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

Just a random idea, because I haven't really been testing the QSI list much yet, but I was wondering if anyone's tried Erayo's Essence as a sideboard option? Seems like he would be pretty easy to "flip," he offers you some pretty great protection, he even disrupts your opponent while they try to develop their gameplan (in case you want to slowroll a bit before you go off), and at worst, you can sacrifice him to Therapy or Culling.

Any takers, or is this another bad idea of mine for tech for this deck?

[agliophobia]

It could possibly work ill test it out. I have a few problems with erayo. to flip her she would have to be second or third spell you play. The problem with 3rd is if your opponent cast something in response and Erayo enters the battlefield there is no way to flip her that turn. ill test in my main board as a 2 of and see how i find her but as i said my real problems is that she has to be at the latest the 3rd spell u play that turn or honestly xantid is a better creature cause he cuts off all your opponents plays and removal that would kill xantid would also kill the erayo before you could flip her which is a triggered ability so people can in response kill her.

[Vacrix]

I've played a few hands with x2 Thallid. The thing is beastly. Infernal Tutor + Culling the Weak + Summoner's Pact can create quite a bit of mana. I've also dropped a few WC's to see if Diabolic Intent is any good.

Erayo... has been thrown around before. Its usually worse than Xantid Swarm, makes Goyf +2/+2, and requires a blue source. Empty the Warrens works much better.

[sam.]

I really liked the idea of Thallid, so I replaced Uktabi Drake (which was never really necessary since the deck tends to get enough storm already).

I can't help but feel Diabolic Intent would shine when Thallid is played, so here's a draft of a PSI list with both:

PSI
Business
1 Slithermuse
2 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Tendrils of Agony
3 Infernal Tutor
2 Diabolic Intent
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain

Mana
1 Eternal Witness
1 Odious Trow
1 Tukatongue Thallid
2 Manamorphose
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
3 Cabal Ritual
3 Culling the Weak
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor

SB
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Duress
2 Goblin Charbelcher
2 Tomb of Urami

What I did here from the OP list is cut a Cabal Ritual for the Tukatongue Thallid, and an Infernal Tutor and Culling the Weak for two Diabolic Intent. That might be the wrong thing to do when Culling the Weak takes advantage of Thallid, but I think increasing the number of "additional cost: sac a creature" cards and outlets balances fine. I also took out an Infernal Tutor which also could be wrong, but again Diabolic Tutor takes the place of that and can get, well, anything, especially after a Draw4.

[Jodahae]

Your list looks strong, Ive cut manamorphose slots from my current build to facilitate diabolic intent, morphose was the weakest of cards often not need to color fix me for muse and really presenting me with some questionable opening hands,i.e. i could keep cause if i morphose into business then im good but if i hit gas im gonna lose.

Having a full set of IT is ideal i think, its one of the strongest cards/plays the deck can make, often i find just using it to double dip on ritual effects is fantastic. Especially now that thallid is making culling so much of a stronger play, I have had double IT hands so i ramp and IT for culling. cast and kill thallid twice and proceed to spew my hand.

[Vacrix]

Went undefeated at my local. I didn't win though.. because I got 2 byes in a row. Possibly a case of being too lucky?

I played the list from the O.P with the same board I've been testing (with Tomb not Omnath).

Match 1
Bye
1-0

Match 2
Bye
I know this isn't supposed to happen. The guy running the program that pairs everyone even tried to repair and it gave me the bye again so we just kept the same pairings.
2-0

Match 3: Faeries UGW
Game 1: I lead with IT--> Slithermuse with B floating, draw 7, into a lethal Tendrils.
Game 2: I lead with Tomb of Urami, Duress. He plays Spell Pierce. Next turn I play Duress, he counters with Spellstutter Sprite. Then I lay down Chrome Mox on green, and Chrome Mox on black, and try to play Belcher. He plays FoW. Next turn I play Carpet of Flowers. Then, I use mana from Carpet 2nd mainphase to crack Tomb of Urami. My Urami token allows me to comfortably set up, protecting me as a wall against his small, equipment-less Faeries. I’m at 4 life and he’s a few guys short of racing me. 3 turns later or so, I have 3 Carpets of Flowers out. I use 2 of them to add 4 mana to my mana pool, and play a D4, which gets FoWed. I play another, to which he has no answer. I play another Carpet of Flowers, pass to my 2nd mainphase, use the other 2 Carpets to add enough mana to play Belcher and activate for the win.
3-0

Match 4: Weird BG Shit
Game 1: He leads with Polluted Delta. I think he might be playing blue. I play Land Grant for Bayou, Dark Ritual, Cruel Bargain. I start chaining some D4’s together until I have only B floating. I can try for Belcher this turn but I would have to use Summoner’s Pact. I have plenty of resources so I decide to play it safe. I use the remaining mana to play Odious Trow (so basically I trolled that whole turn for like 15 minute). Then I use Culling the Weak to play and activate Belcher on my next turn.
Game 2: He leads with Cabal Therapy on Belcher. He gets it and I had a lethal Belcher kill in my hand. A few turns later he plays Hymn and gets ToA and IT out of my hand. He then extirpates away my Belchers. I had played Odious Trow and Dryad Arbor already which beat him down to 16 until he play Damnation. I know he is extremely slow so I wait until I have 8 cards, and then go off with a lot of mana, and Pact-->Eternal Witness-->IT-->IT-->Tendrils
4-0

Overall, I haven't really decided if my night was satisfying. I biked something like 10 miles to play in this FNM and I only got to play twice. The SB plan worked well, though I must say Faeries have a far from intimidating clock.

@sam.
Why would you drop Culling the Weak to 4? Its far too good a piece of acceleration to cut. Even Cabal Ritual I would hesitate to cut. You can always go from 3 to 4 ESGs. Also, Manamorphose is a flex slot. If anything, adding more tutors means you need fewer win conditions. You can cut Tendrils down to 2 as well.

I tested DI briefly and I wasn't extremely impressed. It did some cool things with Thallid but I have yet to abuse it to its full potential. I need to test it some more.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

So, I couldn't find the "Beating your head against a wall on MWS" thread, so this seems like the next-most-appropriate place to post the following humorous snippet:


<CAREGA> kp
<DukeDemonKn1ght> Thinking
<DukeDemonKn1ght> kp
DukeDemonKn1ght plays Land Grant from Hand
DukeDemonKn1ght reveals a Culling the Weak
DukeDemonKn1ght reveals a Cabal Therapy
DukeDemonKn1ght reveals a Ill-Gotten Gains
DukeDemonKn1ght reveals a Shield Sphere
DukeDemonKn1ght reveals a Cruel Bargain
DukeDemonKn1ght reveals a Infernal Tutor
<DukeDemonKn1ght> Ok?
<CAREGA> omg
<System> Player Lost

[Vacrix]

Count on that happening often. If you'd prefer you can advertise that you are playing a storm combo variant and want to test against control. Testing against aggro can get mundane anyway just because its usually a breeze.

[DerFern]

So, I´ve been playing DDFT / NLS / whatever you wanna call it for quite some time now and was just impressed of the speed SI has. I tested SITES a few times and got frustrated quite soon since it is extremely explosive but simplies fails against any FoW or Spell Pierce. That´s why I wanted to play PSI, traded everything needed for the deck (except for 1 Slithermuse, which is in mail right now) and goldfished a whole lot of games yesterday. To be honest, it fizzled about 80% of my goldfished games, which is reaaaally frustrating! Maybe I played the deck wrong, but I guess most of it seems to be a no-brainer.
So, regarding this I do have a really general question:

If I can get to BBB (not more) on turn one and have a draw4 in hand, should I go for it?
If I should and if I have a LED in hand, should I crack it in response?

I know it is quite hard to answer these questions without knowing the rest of the cards in hand, but the bottom line is: play a draw 4 without mana floating? If you need mana floating, is it worth to discard the rest of your hand?

These were situations I faced in about 3/4th of my games, so a genereal advice should be helpful. Thank you so far!

[DireLemming]

If I can get to BBB (not more) on turn one and have a draw4 in hand, should I go for it?
If I should and if I have a LED in hand, should I crack it in response?
1) Depends. If you want a hard and fast rule, it's better to wait/draw (this rule holds roughly until you need such rules).

2) Yes. Unlike NLS/DDFT where you set up and go off, with SI you predominantly chain D4s into unknown. The engine is also the setup (and vice versa). From this perspective, drawing 4 with 3 mana floating is nearly ideal situation as it is very likely you will be able to continue the chain further. Things like achieving threshold and getting rid of dead cards (to enable hellbent) makes it even more potent.

[Vacrix]

So, I´ve been playing DDFT / NLS / whatever you wanna call it for quite some time now and was just impressed of the speed SI has. I tested SITES a few times and got frustrated quite soon since it is extremely explosive but simplies fails against any FoW or Spell Pierce. That´s why I wanted to play PSI, traded everything needed for the deck (except for 1 Slithermuse, which is in mail right now) and goldfished a whole lot of games yesterday. To be honest, it fizzled about 80% of my goldfished games, which is reaaaally frustrating! Maybe I played the deck wrong, but I guess most of it seems to be a no-brainer.
So, regarding this I do have a really general question:

If I can get to BBB (not more) on turn one and have a draw4 in hand, should I go for it?
If I should and if I have a LED in hand, should I crack it in response?

I know it is quite hard to answer these questions without knowing the rest of the cards in hand, but the bottom line is: play a draw 4 without mana floating? If you need mana floating, is it worth to discard the rest of your hand?

These were situations I faced in about 3/4th of my games, so a genereal advice should be helpful. Thank you so far!
Well in game 1, Spell Pierce will only be relevant half the time (dice roll), and one FoW usually won't be enough to stop you for good. Then sometimes you can just go for EtW, and other times you will protect your turn with Cabal Therapy. I wouldn't say the deck fails against conventional countermagic. Where you get tripped up is in the case that your combo turn is stopped by countermagic, and then you have to deal with a lock piece (like UWT). Otherwise, you are just trading with the opponent. Say for instance, you play a land, Dark Ritual, and Cruel Bargain. If your opponent responds with FoW, then you traded 2 cards for 2 cards, because you get to keep the land. Thats not a bad trade really. Sometimes you will have to invest more resources like Culling the Weak, and Cruel Bargain, but that allows for the potential for Dark Ritual + D4, or Cabal Therapy before your Bargain, so its still strong against control if you have other resources. So if your opponent stops your first D4, whatever; you have more resources in hand and possibly resources on the board already.

As for your questions, they both need to be taken in context. What are you playing against? I like to go for it against control, even if I can't win that turn, but I try to play around Daze. If I go for the early D4, then I get more resources, and really the games you beat control are the ones where you can lay down the most perpetual resources. If I can get a Land and a Chrome Mox then I can usually force a business spell through and set up the Belcher kill. This is even easier post-board when you board in more perpetual resources. Xantid Swarm is perpetual protection if it resolves, though its obviously a little vulnerable to removal. Carpet of Flowers is a gem that usually wins games if it resolves. The deck has so much business that even 1 extra mana per turn is significant, while producing 2 or 3 per turn (or multiple Carpets) lets you play stuff for free without investing any resources from your hand. The trick here post-board is to play 2 threats on the first turn, counting on one eating a FoW. So some combination of Carpet of Flowers, Xantid Swarm, Duress, and D4's.

Blind LED's depend entirely on what is in your hand and what has already been played. You will usually have to do a little calculation here to determine the likelihood of drawing business. Then again, I really enjoy the Eternal Witness line of play. If you have something in your hand like, LED, Pact, Lotus Petal, I'd probably hold on to that just because you can leave open Pact-->Eternal Witness, breaking LED for GGG. Sometimes you just draw all mana sources. Then again, if you are playing SITES then you forgo the Ewit line of play in favor of EtW and Cabal Therapy tactics.

Knowing this for certain is entirely situation dependent though. The more you play the deck, the more familiar you are with how to push the deck in sticky situations like the ones you describe.

[TheSleeper]

Agree with the other guys it depends on the situation, however since that is not a useful answer in and of itself, I'll elaborate:

-against a non-disruptive Aggro deck, I'd probably wait. You don't have to win this turn or anything, you have a couple to draw into extra goodness.
-against highly-disruptive decks Aggro (think Dragon Stompy) I'd go for it. A 3sphere or Chalice is something I don't want to fight through.
-against Blue-based control, I'd probably go for it but I'd probably leave the LED (if I had some other cards in hand - if I had none then yes crack it). Infernal Tutor is best when you have hellbent obviously. Like Vacrix said if they force its a 2-for-2, and if they don't, great!

[Jonathan Alexander]

Agree with the other guys it depends on the situation, however since that is not a useful answer in and of itself, I'll elaborate:

-against a non-disruptive Aggro deck, I'd probably wait. You don't have to win this turn or anything, you have a couple to draw into extra goodness.
-against highly-disruptive decks Aggro (think Dragon Stompy) I'd go for it. A 3sphere or Chalice is something I don't want to fight through.
-against Blue-based control, I'd probably go for it but I'd probably leave the LED (if I had some other cards in hand - if I had none then yes crack it). Infernal Tutor is best when you have hellbent obviously. Like Vacrix said if they force its a 2-for-2, and if they don't, great!

Well, against non-disruptive aggro it depends. If it's Turn 1 I'd just wait, but otherwise I think I'd go for it, since they're laying down critters and stuff. Gaddock Teeg from Zoo comes to mind. But as long as you're not taking any risks by waiting (like giving the blue-player a chance to drop a land) you should wait. You don't lose anything, you just see more cards and can make more landdrops.
Against combo I would go for it aswell, but this can be very risky. As long as your opponent isn't playing chant-effects it's less risky to wait but you can still be killed turn one. The possibility of being killed on turn one is even higher when you fizzle, 'cause you lose to hands like Petal, Ritual, LED, Infernal -> Tendrils.

[Jodahae]

So has anyone found the time to test the deck in any larger tournaments, i know i missed the last knightware which is usually a good testing ground for things, Im interested to see how the deck is truly performing after the mystical tutor banning.

Most of my play is on workstation and it seems like there's a fair amount of interest in the direction of the deck, just want to see if anyone has actually ventured out into the real world with it recently.

[Vacrix]

I also missed the last Knightware, unfortunately due to a lack of transportation. As for recent top8's at larger tournaments... one guy on MTGsal recently topped 8 but it was at a local event.

DTB -
Strong matchups:
Goblins - they can't really do shit except race. pretty much a bye.
Zoo - harder than goblins because of Teeg but still a bye unless they have a really dedicated sideboard.
TES - at the very least this matchup is 50/50 because of the dice roll. otherwise, you can mini-tendrils to make them set up the IGG loop while you set up the Belcher kill. even with access to chant, I don't find this deck particularly intimidating.
Merfolk - A resolved Xantid Swarm is game. They play lots of islands. Tomb of Urami usually gets there. I'd say this is actually a strong matchup.
Landstill - They have an unspeakably slow clock. This gives you tons of time to setup and acquire enough resources to overwhelm them.

50/50 Matchups:
New Horizons - Swords hurts making this a harder matchup than Merfolk. In general though I'd say this matchup is better than 50/50 just because people usually don't know how to play against it.
Bant Aggro - See above. Its a similar matchup.

Weak Matchups:
Counterbalance - Obviously a weak matchup. You can still opt to race Force. Sometimes CB players will keep a hand with Turn 2 Counterbalance without FoW or sometimes Daze + CB, and underestimate your clock. Sucks for them. Duress is strong here.

I might be playing with PSI at a tournament this weekend. Then again I might opt to play Solidarity instead since there have been plenty of blue players there lately..

[sam.]

@sam.
Why would you drop Culling the Weak to 4? Its far too good a piece of acceleration to cut. Even Cabal Ritual I would hesitate to cut. You can always go from 3 to 4 ESGs. Also, Manamorphose is a flex slot. If anything, adding more tutors means you need fewer win conditions. You can cut Tendrils down to 2 as well.

I tested DI briefly and I wasn't extremely impressed. It did some cool things with Thallid but I have yet to abuse it to its full potential. I need to test it some more.

I know it's just so insane, but I thought with more sac outlets, it would become a dead card frequently. After testing, though, DI was WAAAY worse. The deck is already sick with draw4's and IT/LED, so I moved away from the list I had posted.

I do like Tukatongue Thallid for Culling the Weak itself, plus it's a blocker at the same time.

I feel like anything DI would want to do, a list made around Burning Wishes would just do better.

[the resurrection]

So has anyone found the time to test the deck in any larger tournaments
200 people, 8 rounds
Round 1 Counterbalance
G1 I duress him T1 and saw 4 counters. T3 he activates CB
G2 See G1

Round 2 MUC
G1 I duress him and took his Force and killed him on the same turn
G2 Won around T20 through traps, force daze, stifle, CS :)

Round 3 Zoo
G1 Killed him on T2
G2 See 1

Round 4 Zoo
G1 I won the dice roll and feared counters. All in. Killed him T1.
G2 T1 Duress and found a Teeg on his hand. l0l
G3 Mulligan 4. I was forced to start the combo on T3 and found nothing in my Draw 4's

Round 5 Goblins
G1 Turn-1-Kill
G2 T1 chalice [0], T2 chalice [1]
G3 T2 He playes Chalice [0] and Lackey Turn 1. T3 I tried to play around his Chalice and found again nothing in my Draw's.

Drop

[Vacrix]

Ouch. Thats rough. How is Dosan working out for you?

Also, why would you bother with Duress against Zoo? They always play Teeg.
Hell I'm confused now. Whats your list look like now? Your G1 against MUC says you are running MD Duress.

[the resurrection]

Also, why would you bother with Duress against Zoo? T1 is was on the play and I thought my opp. was playing bant. I discovered a turn later that he was playing Zoo.
Dosan makes the hardcontrol (without CB) matchups much more easier.



4 Land Grant
4 Lotus petal
1 bayou
1 dryad arbor
3 Chrome mox
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 lion's eye diamond
4 Duress
4 cabal ritual
4 dark ritual
4 culling the weak
4 Infernal tutor
4 Infernal Conract
4 cruel bargain
1 IGG
4 pact
2 Tendrils
1 belcher
1 Witness
1 Trow
1 cantor
SB
4 naturalize
1 Dosan, the falling leaf
4 manamorphose
1 bayou
1 Tomb of urami
4 carpet flowers

Right now, I'm testing this list. Belcher has gone :(, but I believe that fetchlands are stronger than LG.


4 Verdant catacombs
4 Lotus petal
1 bayou
1 dryad arbor
3 Chrome mox
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 lion's eye diamond
4 Duress
4 cabal ritual
4 dark ritual
4 culling the weak
4 Infernal tutor
4 Infernal Conract
4 cruel bargain
1 IGG
4 pact
2 Tendrils
1 death wish
1 Witness
1 Trow
1 cantor
SB
1 Dosan, the falling leaf
3 birds of Paradise --> Against Staxx and lands, for Pulse
1 swamp
1 Slaughter pact --> DW target
1 death shadow --> I'dont know if it works, has anyone experience with it ?
4 carpet flowers
3 Maelstrom pulse --> destroys everything
1 krosan grip --> for CB

[Vacrix]

I wouldn't cut Chrome Mox man. Its just too good against control.

I did ALOT of testing with a fetchlands list. It just gives your opponent the option to shut down your lands with Stifle allowing them to instead save all their other countermagic for the business spells. Also, you will run into problems sometimes when you have 2 lands in hand and can't make the IT line of play because its not a Land Grant. The beautiful thing about land Grant is that you can cast it and not find a land if you want to just get rid of it or add to the spell count. Also, its convenient to invest your resources into Belcher because you can dilute the maindeck with all sorts of extra protection without having to worry about getting a long spell chain into Tendrils, even setting up the IGG loop is still putting all your eggs into one basket. Its really easy to play a protected Belcher.

Besides, often times I can just ghost control players in G1 simply because the maindeck is optimized to win fast consistently.

Maelstrom Pulse is a huge investment. Why play that over more discard or Nature's Claim? Both serve their purpose for 1CC.

Also, why are you boarding in Manamorphose? Play around Chalice? I'm thinking you could probably board in something better.

[the resurrection]

I wouldn't cut Chrome Mox man. Its just too good against control.
I nerver missed the 4th Chrome mox, I replaced him with an ESG to make Witness stronger. Against Staxx/Lands (G2) mox is useless, against U we board CFlower.
@ fetchlands
of course LG is in an extremly fast version better, but a list with 4 protection spells is in most cases a turn slower and gives your opp. more time to interact in the game.
+ you can play around wasteland
+ surprise your opp. with Arbor--> block lacky or canonist
+ you don't miss your landdop if you're on the play, that can be problematic with LG
+ No information to your opp.
+ Gives false information to your opp. especially if you begin with duress.
+ basic swamp
- No Belcher
- sometimes the IT problem
- 1 Life

It just gives your opponent the option to shut down your lands with Stifle allowing them to instead save all their other countermagic for the business spells. Land Grant can be snared, dazed or pierced, your opp. knows your next actions and will certainly use his drawspells to find more counters. I think a Stifle on a fetchland is better than on tendrils, isn't it ?


Maelstrom Pulse is a huge investment. Why play that over more discard or Nature's Claim? Both serve their purpose for 1CC. I know. Games against Lands or Staxx are long and double Chalices aren't rare. During the game we have enough time to build up our manabase and hurt them with our removal.


Also, why are you boarding in Manamorphose? Play around Chalice? I'm thinking you could probably board in something better.
To be faster than other decks, like Ichorid, TES or goblins, because my list can be slow sometimes and to make the Staxx matchup better. That were my thoughts, but there are better alternatives.

[Vacrix]

Actually I'd say that Chrome Mox is really important to winning the Stax matchup. Laying down resources right away is such a huge asset. And against U.dec you want as many staying mana sources as well. Having to invest something like Lotus Petal or ESG x2 + Manamorphose makes trading with countermagic less profitable for the control player. If we get to keep our Chrome Mox and then invest Ritual + D4, vs. FoW + Blue card, then we are even. If you are investing a Lotus Petal though, then its a 2 for 3 instead of a 2 for 2, which can make all the difference in the long run.

Stifle on a fetchland actually isn't better than a Stifle on Land Grant. The point is that you can't even get to the point at which you can even cast a lethal Tendrils if you lose your LG. This won't happen all the time, but you can play around Stifle with Belcher.

Malestrom Pulse looks decent against Stax. It would be significantly better if you could cast it off of a Ritual. I like Tomb of Urami for that matchup just because a turn 1, 4 turn evasive clock is a pretty good bet. Belchers are great too.
If you really want to beat Stax though, Seeds of Innocence looks much stronger. Getting to GG might be hard.. but in a Stax heavy metagame, I'd probably want to board in more Bayous anyway. Also, you'd normally think that your opponent might be gaining a shit ton of life here... but usually Stax is liberal with its lifetotal, especially when it already has a lock piece out.

[B.C.]

Mox Opal {0}
Legendary Artifact
{Tap}: add one mana of any color if you control 3 or more artifacts.

Memnite {0}
Artifact Creature - Construct
1/1

Sweet holy Jesus. I am officially interested in this deck again.

EDIT:

You could definitely realistically run a 0-land version of this deck now. Right now I'm trying out a 1-land version similar to what I ran several years ago:

4 Mox Opal
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 LED
4 D Rit
4 C Rit
4 Culling the Weak
4 Memnite
4 Shield Sphere
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
2 Tendrils
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Goblin Charbelcher
2 Slithermuse

I was skeptical of Slithermuse before, but now I think Mox Opal (another way to make U) makes it really really good.

[Vacrix]

Wow, Mox Opal is definitely abusable in some version of SI. It looks best in the tall man lists, but with longer spell chains I think its even playable as a 2'of or something in PSI.

In that list, I'm not sure that x4 Mox Opal is the right call. You don't want dead cards in hand off your draw4's unless you can sacrifice one of the Mox's some how so that you can take advantage of the other Mox's you might draw. It looks better as a 2 or 3'of.

Memnite I'm not so optimistic about. It looks far more abusable in some sort Glimpse of Nature + Retract deck. x12 tallman is probably too many if you aren't also running something like Diabolic Intent.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I don't think Memnite and Mox Opal will be good in SI. Mox Opal might be playable in QSI, but I don't think it really makes the cut. Memnite on the other hand seems cute, but it doesn't do anything we don't already have. I mean it trades with Goblin Lackey, but seriously, Goblins is a bye. Even with Glimpse it does nothing we don't already have. If Skullclamp was legal, things would look differently, but it isn't, so whatever.
Anyway, yesterday I figured there's little reason too run one of the slower SI-lists over traditional TES. It might be a playstyle-choice but in my opinion TES is basically strictly better. It might be a bit slower and less versatile but it has better protection and better ways to set up. Plus it isn't as draw-dependant as SI is, which is really good.
With that in mind I slightly changed my list. I cut Simian Spirit Guides, Kobolds, two lands and changed my protection suite. I threw in Summoner's Pact, Elvish Spirit Guides, Pact targets and Xantid Swarm.
I came up with the following list:

//Lands
1 Bayou
4 Misty Rainforest

//Creatures
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Slithermuse
1 Tinder Wall
1 Tukatongue Thallid
1 Wild Cantor
2 Xantid Swarm

//Spells
4 Burning Wish
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Chrome Mox
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Culling The Weak
4 Dark Ritual
1 Empty The Warrens
3 Infernal Contract
3 Infernal Tutor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Tendrils Of Agony

//Sideboard
1 Diminishing Returns
3 Duress
1 Deathmark
3 Empty The Warrens
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Reverent Silence
1 Shattering Spree
1 Tendrils Of Agony
2 Xantid Swarm

I really like it, but I'm not entirely sold on Tukatongue Thallid. In general this is the flex-slot in my list. I didn't really need until now. At first I had Eternal Witness in that slot but in about 50 testgames I used only once and it was often just a dead card clogging my hand. Then I tried out Skyshroud Cutter but I didn't like that one either, it's a bit too situational. Then I switched to Tukatongue Thallid and it has at least been okay. I think the next thing I'll try out is just adding the third Xantid Swarm mainboard.
The sideboard. Well basically I just kept the board I've been playing with SITES. So far I used exactly three cards from the board: Tendrils, Ill-Gotten Gains and Diminishing Returns. I guess it needs a bit more tweaking and a bit less wish-targets since the deck has become a lot faster. But to be honest I really don't know were to start. We'll see, maybe I'l be doing some more testing today. But so far I've been really happy with the list, it actually feels more like SI again and less like playing worse-protected TES, so that's pretty cool.

[the resurrection]

Mox opal will be very nice in the oldschool list. Memnite is bad.

Made 3rd at my local tournament.
Lost to Dreadstill
Won games against MBC, D&T, merfolk

[B.C.]

Ok, Memnite might not actually make much of a difference, especially considering the goal of the deck. Robots with bigger asses are still probably the way to go.

For anyone still skeptical about Mox Opal, please playtest with it a little. I've been playing around with a 4x build (listed above), and it has been completely awesome. I always have at least 3 artifacts in play, and drawing multiples doesn't suck as bad as you would think, because by that point you are probably already rolling. Slithermuse is also pretty awesome with Mox Opal. I'm thinking about bumping up the count to 3x.

[the resurrection]

@ BC
What about Ancient Stirrings ? With such a high artifact count, it's a an Impulse for G.

[Dark Ritual]

I'm thinking of building a different sort of glimpse SI list once SoM comes out...there will be 16 0 costing artifact creatures post SoM at minimum and mox opal would be good in a list with 16 tallmen all of which are artifacts. Glimpse would be an insane engine with 16 tallmen and if you resolve two glimpses with some tallmen in hand it is basically GG's since you can draw so many cards to combo out with. I'll playtest it a little when I have some spare time and try to tweak some numbers around. And thanks for the retract idea Vacrix; retract would be like an ancestral recall in a list with glimpse and lots of tall men and it raises the storm count dramatically since it bounces all your chrome moxen, mox opal, tallmen, petals, and LED's allowing you to get bonus points when you tendrils some for 80+ damage lol. It also accelerates mana with chrome mox being tapped for mana and then getting the bounce back and then replaying it to provide more mana.

[Vacrix]

I don't think Memnite and Mox Opal will be good in SI. Mox Opal might be playable in QSI, but I don't think it really makes the cut. Memnite on the other hand seems cute, but it doesn't do anything we don't already have. I mean it trades with Goblin Lackey, but seriously, Goblins is a bye. Even with Glimpse it does nothing we don't already have. If Skullclamp was legal, things would look differently, but it isn't, so whatever.
Anyway, yesterday I figured there's little reason too run one of the slower SI-lists over traditional TES. It might be a playstyle-choice but in my opinion TES is basically strictly better. It might be a bit slower and less versatile but it has better protection and better ways to set up. Plus it isn't as draw-dependant as SI is, which is really good.

I really like it, but I'm not entirely sold on Tukatongue Thallid. In general this is the flex-slot in my list. I didn't really need until now. At first I had Eternal Witness in that slot but in about 50 testgames I used only once and it was often just a dead card clogging my hand. Then I tried out Skyshroud Cutter but I didn't like that one either, it's a bit too situational. Then I switched to Tukatongue Thallid and it has at least been okay. I think the next thing I'll try out is just adding the third Xantid Swarm mainboard.
The sideboard. Well basically I just kept the board I've been playing with SITES. So far I used exactly three cards from the board: Tendrils, Ill-Gotten Gains and Diminishing Returns. I guess it needs a bit more tweaking and a bit less wish-targets since the deck has become a lot faster. But to be honest I really don't know were to start. We'll see, maybe I'l be doing some more testing today. But so far I've been really happy with the list, it actually feels more like SI again and less like playing worse-protected TES, so that's pretty cool.
I'm not sure yet where Mox will fit in, but it looks good right now even just as a 1'of in any list with tallmen.

SITES and QSI are arguably just as good as TES is in the hands of a skilled pilot. You forget that being draw dependent in this case is a very good thing. In SITES you have the option to trade Ritual + D4 with the opponents FoW + blue card. If it goes through you just acquired +2 cards worth of resources, and you can continue that until ToA, EtW, or IT... or play some drawn protection. The ability to go off every 2 or 3 turns puts the control player under mad pressure to constantly come up with countermagic. TES doesn't have that luxury as it usually goes for one big turn. Even with cantrips, TES can't rebuild as fast as SI can because SI doesn't have to invest as many resources into its combo turn. Remember, TES is a business light combo deck. SITES is also faster than TES, and can support Cabal Therapy. QSI is actually SI designed to beat control. Much like TES, it also runs cantrips so that it can setup and it also plays a Cabal Therapy protection suit. Unlike TES, it has access to EOT Meditates and can apply the same pressure with D4's that SITES can due to a more land-focused manabase, unlike the LG lists.
TES obviously has its merits as well but I wouldn't dismiss slower lists as inferior to TES.


For anyone still skeptical about Mox Opal, please playtest with it a little. I've been playing around with a 4x build (listed above), and it has been completely awesome. I always have at least 3 artifacts in play, and drawing multiples doesn't suck as bad as you would think, because by that point you are probably already rolling. Slithermuse is also pretty awesome with Mox Opal. I'm thinking about bumping up the count to 3x.
Nice. Let me know how you alter your list so I can test it after this weekend. I can't test Mox at the moment because I'm preparing for a tournament later tonight.


I'm thinking of building a different sort of glimpse SI list once SoM comes out...there will be 16 0 costing artifact creatures post SoM at minimum and mox opal would be good in a list with 16 tallmen all of which are artifacts. Glimpse would be an insane engine with 16 tallmen and if you resolve two glimpses with some tallmen in hand it is basically GG's since you can draw so many cards to combo out with. I'll playtest it a little when I have some spare time and try to tweak some numbers around. And thanks for the retract idea Vacrix; retract would be like an ancestral recall in a list with glimpse and lots of tall men and it raises the storm count dramatically since it bounces all your chrome moxen, mox opal, tallmen, petals, and LED's allowing you to get bonus points when you tendrils some for 80+ damage lol. It also accelerates mana with chrome mox being tapped for mana and then getting the bounce back and then replaying it to provide more mana.
I worked on a non-SI Glimpse list a while back than ran Retract and Glimpse, but it just turned into a Kobold list because I didn't have enough artifacts dudes to take advantage of Retract. Scapegoat is just as good, but you lose -1 dude. You could also use Shared Discovery.

[prgmctan]

Hey Vacrix, I'm completely new here, but I've been following this thread for a couple days. I'm running a modified version of the listed you posted somewhere back on page 5 or so. I haven't gotten to test against anyone yet, so for now I've just been goldfishing. When you said that you could conceivably go off every 2-3 turns, I'm wondering how true that actually is. If I understand it correctly, you can only use your draw 4's four times. If you use it a 5th time, it kills you. Also, even if you use it twice, you're at 5. It's fine if you're combo-ing, but if you fizzle, I'm wondering how often you just die next turn. Anyway, really enjoyed the primer and discussion and I hope to eventually get all the cards needed and start playing it.

[Jodahae]

I find that the life loss due to D4's isnt a problem, as if you are playing against aggro you can slow down and craft a hand that can go all in after a turn or two following a draw 4. More than 1 D4 though against aggro and yes you may find yourself in a tight spot, but even if you lose your first game it should be relatively easy to rebound g2 and 3. Against control they lack so few legitimate threats that even after a d4 or even two they still have a glacially slow kill, usually 2 or more swings.

On mox opel, i really like it. I personally play PSI so im looking at using a 2x probably, but for other variants its looking extremely promising, i am especially interested in seeing some glimpse decks developed to abuse all the tall men now available.

[Dark Ritual]

I also saw shared discovery today in the common's bin and thought "This card is tech in a creature heavy build of SI sure I'll tap 4 dudes to draw 3 for U. You probably don't want 4 though; I'll try it as a 2 of my the glimpse list I'm developing. Scapegoat would be retract numbers 5-8 if I need that many retract effects; Personally I'll try 2 in the first list I goldfish because having your hand clogged wouldn't be a good thing because retract while useful on the defense with tall men might be a dead card at times.

Mox opal looks promising though.

Shared discovery is going to see some play though which I find funny because at first I thought the card was utter jank; now I can actually abuse it in SI of all decks. That is some really sweet tech though.

[prgmctan]

So I was thinking that as a way for us all to learn how to play this deck better, we could post the ways we've fizzled and others could take a look to see if it could have been played differently. Thoughts?

[nodahero]

So a fewquick scenario based questions if I may.

When playing LGSI if you have the following opening hand do you keep versus blue and non-blue and also, if you keep do you imprint Rit or Draw 4 on Mox? and also do you go for it first turn on the play or wait for the extra card?
The hand is:
2x Dark Ritual
2x BBB Draw 4
2X Tallmen
1x Chrome Mox

PS With the following opening hand do you Land Grant->Bayou->Dark Rit-> Draw 4 or do you Cabal Rit->Draw 4? On the play and also the draw. Thanks.
1x Land Grant
1x Dark Rit
1x BBB Draw 4
1x Cabal Therapy
1x Tallman
1x Infernal Tutor

PPS Is the following a mull hand?
2x BBB Draw 4
2x LED
2x Tallmen
1x Chrome Mox
1x Cabal Ritual

[the resurrection]

1. Depends on your opponent.
If it's an deck like Zoo I would lay down the tallman and wait 1,2 or 3 turns.
Against U you should wait for your 8th card before you start the chain.
If you want to go all-in T1, you should imprint your Draw4.

2.
LG->DR-> Draw4
To start with DR is always better than CR. Another thing that you can do is LG->DR->CR->draw 4 (If therapy should be a ritual)

3. Depends again
against Zoo keep -> Tallmen. On the draw keep. On the play against U-> mulligan.

[prgmctan]

Is Xantid Swarm more effective than Autumn Veil?

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

I get the feeling a lot of these questions would be answered by playing against an actual opponent a few times (rather than just goldfishing). Just use MWS or something.

To give the guy above me a non-facetious (and fairly obvious) answer though, Veil is really, really good because you can use it in response to a counterspell. On the other hand, Swarm is a perpetual resource for you, and he will either eat a counter or force them to dig for removal (which they may have boarded out, in which case mwahahah...) Swarm is also good because you don't have to keep mana open for using it on your fundamental turn. However, it's a little less inexorable because of the whole "dies to removal" thing. So basically: it's kind of a toss-up?

EDIT: Also, I'm liking Mox Opal a lot, at least on paper, haven't tested with it yet. Anyways though, adding mana of any color, and not eating two cards out of our hand (versus Chrome Mox)... These are pretty insane incentives to tweak some lists a bit to include this thing, I think. I don't think it will replace Chrome Mox, but I'm pretty sure they seem awesome together, in decks that use sacrificial robots.

[B.C.]

So a fewquick scenario based questions if I may.
When playing LGSI if you have the following opening hand do you keep versus blue and non-blue and also, if you keep do you imprint Rit or Draw 4 on Mox? and also do you go for it first turn on the play or wait for the extra card?
The hand is:
2x Dark Ritual
2x BBB Draw 4
2X Tallmen
1x Chrome Mox


That's a keeper. Regardless of what you're playing against. I would imprint a D4, then to DRit, DRit, Draw4. It is always better to Draw4 with extra black mana floating. If you know for sure that your opponent is playing blue, I suppose you could save your second DRit, but I would rather just go for it. If possible, don't wait for them to play a land otherwise you have to worry about Daze, Spell Pierce, Spell Snare, and Stifle.



PS With the following opening hand do you Land Grant->Bayou->Dark Rit-> Draw 4 or do you Cabal Rit->Draw 4? On the play and also the draw. Thanks.
1x Land Grant
1x Dark Rit
1x BBB Draw 4
1x Cabal Therapy
1x Tallman
1x Infernal Tutor

Is that Cabal Rit or Cabal Therapy? If it's the former, I would go LG, Bayou, DRit, CRit, Draw4. If it's the latter, I would go LG, Bayou, Therapy, Robot, Flashback for something important. Draw 4 on your second turn.



PPS Is the following a mull hand?
2x BBB Draw 4
2x LED
2x Tallmen
1x Chrome Mox
1x Cabal Ritual
Mulligan.

[DerFern]

I played PSI for the first time yesterday at our local tournament (12 players, 4 rounds) and went 3-1, ending up third. My only loss was against Ninja-Faeries-Fish-whatever.dec with FoW, Daze, Sprites, Standstill, Stifle and postboard Spellpierce, Mage, everything-he-needed. Even boarding the 15card sideboard from a few pages back did not help me at all since I played the guy several times before and he knew I would bring Xantid Swarm. So no chance of winning here...
I guess I only made one major play mistake when I did not pool UB with manamorphose to evoke my Slithermuse on turn one (with Storm 6) against Zoo. Anyway, I won that match, because... you know... it was Zoo.

After testing the deck last friday I was kind of unsure if this is the right deck for me but these doubts are gone. It plays kind of like Belcher but is more versatile and it is so much fun to chain more and more D4s into each other.

Some questions, though:
-is there an update to the sideboard against blue.dec? I boarded 15 cards yesterday and had the Belcherkill quite fast. Anyway, since I boarded those Tomb of Urami, I fizzled with Belcher twice. I don´t think this is the best way when our main kill condition postboard is Belcher, especially since Land Grant won´t find the Tomb.
-any idea, how we could squeeze some enchantment or artifact removal into our board? There were two guys yesterday who had Leyline of Sanctity in their board. There is nothing we can do against that...
-is it just me or is the Staxx-matchup horrible?! We tested a whole lot of games against PSI and it was nearly unwinnable. Chalice 0 really ruins our day.

[Vacrix]

You don't have to board in all 15 cards but I feel more comfortable doing so against decks like New Horizons where my first Belcher target can be my opponent's only fatty, as you are usually only dealing with 1, sometimes 2, then go for the throat on the next Belch. You won't always have that luxury, though, and those Tomb of Urami slots could just as easily be EtW considering you are boarding in Carpet of Flowers.. and we now have access to a new Mox as well. In fact, I'll probably start testing that new config in the near future. Either way, Faerie's and ninja's are usually a very slow clock. Tomb of Urami is strong here as it serves as a wall to let you set up your Belcher kill. I haven't had trouble beating these decks.
Tomb is great against Stax, Merfolk, and discard.

Squeeze what you like into your board to adapt to your metagame. I don't encounter many bears or permanent based removal in my metagame because its very combo light (I'm basically the only combo player) so I haven't bothered with permanent removal. You can easily fit in a few Nature's Claim and I would advise that you do this if you are having to deal with Leyline or something. Also, EtW really looks like a great SB contender at the moment and that happens to also be an answer to Leyline.
Stax is bad as its pretty good against combo in general, but we are fast enough that Stax has to get either Chalice at 1 or Trinisphere to beat us. If you want in a heavy, heavy stax metagame, you could board in more Bayous and Seeds of Innoncence. You can play around Chalice @ 0 sometimes with Land Grants and ESG's. Tomb of Urami is also good here as it provides you with more starting mana to reach 3 to blow Trinisphere, or go for a 4 turn clock.

EDIT:
For the record, double Mox Opal isn't as horrible as we might think at first glance. The 2nd Mox still gives you +1 Storm and +2 cards to the graveyard to support Cabal Ritual.

[jandax]

Would Phyrexian Walker/Shield Sphere up the value of Opals in such a deck? I know you can't chain mana due to the Legendary rule but as said it still ups the storm count and feeds thingies in the graveyard. Also it depends on what list one is running.

I've build SITES and am practicing with that particular build but it'd be good to hear others' opinions on where it could benefit

[Vacrix]

Absolutely, tallmen make Opal playable more often, though I think that Mox will often in non-tallmen lists just function as a Lotus Petal, as we can play out Mox Opal, Lotus Petal, LED, and then we only have Mox Opal remaining afterwards. No problems there though as it provides us with any color meaning initial Black for rituals, initial green for Xantid/Carpet, initial red for EtW, or initial blue for Slithermuse.

It definitely looks strong in SITES and even QSI.



Aside, Dark Ritual (or Barl, Artificer on MTGS) and 7H0R (MTGS) have come up with a pretty good variation on Iranon's GSI that runs Reprocess as an out to take advantage of tallmen as well as used Bayous, and Mox Opals. This is the most updated but still underoptimized list we are working with:

GSI
Creatures - 16
4 Memnite
4 Shield Sphere
4 Phyrexian Walker
4 Ornithopter

Business - 15
1 Reprocess
1 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Diabolic Intent
4 Glimpse of Nature

Mana - 29
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Land Grant
4 Lotus Petal
3 Mox Opal
2 Bayou

Its business light (15), but Diabolic Intent is much stronger than IT as you don't need hellbent to get the engine going, and Reprocess is tech with the rest of the deck. Its far worse against Chalice at 0, and it lacks ESG to play around Daze, but Mox Opal is going to be extremely powerful and we can block aggro all day long if we need to set up, making more G1 opening 7's keepable against aggro.

The post-board will be difficult to configure as the maindeck synthesis pretty much needs every piece for it to work. Ideas??

[Gocho]

In my tests with a similar list, Glimpse doesn't seem a good card because I can't get more than 2 creatures to use it. 3 if I have luck. But I don't play Bargain.

I like Reprocess, I must try it, but I think that Diminishing Returns could give you more cards than Reprocess. Same cost, but U. How many cards do you draw with it in your tests?

My last approach is Retract and Hurkyl. You play 27 0cc artifacts (and can up the count with others) so you can reach lethal storm with a single Retract easily.

[Dark Ritual]

I find storm count to never be an issue with this list of SI. I find that I am usually drawing a lot of cards off of glimpse or just the cruel bargain's and the thing about the list is that you can play every single card in the list on the combo turn land grant later on is a dead card however you can simply play the land grant to up the storm count since the list lacks chrome mox due to all the artifact cards being dissynergystic with chrome mox. Mox opal is pretty much strictly better in the glimpse list I'm developing; I never have trouble with its metalcraft drawback and it being legendary hasn't been a problem and I am running 4. Reprocess helps it as well; tapping it for mana then sacking it to draw a card off reprocess is golden because you'll probably draw at least 3 artifacts when you cast reprocess. I like the singleton reprocess I wouldn't add more though. AN is an interesting idea but if you cast a D4 then you cast AN it is risky since you are at 10 or less life. Sure you could go nuts with it sometimes but sometimes it could be a weak card in your hand.

Diminishing returns is a lot worse in the GSI list I'm developing than reprocess. I have drawn more than 7 cards sometimes due to the fact with an active glimpse they essentially cycle for 0 mana due to all creatures costing 0 mana in the list. There is some dissynergy I have sometimes encountered between all the sacrifice effects for tallmen and reprocess; if you are just starting the spell chain and use culling the weak to get to the mana needed to cast reprocess you usually don't have a lot of dudes on board. But like you said vacrix mid to late in the spell chain the card is a monster that can draw you so much cards it isn't even funny. I also love how good diabolic intent is in the GSI list. It is exactly like demonic tutor because you always have dudes to sack to it that cost 0 mana. Same with culling the consistency is incredible and when you are always able to cast those cards I find you can tendrils for 20 very easily. Heck I can lethal tendrils someone after just one D4 off of diabolic intent and some mana accel which is amazing in the GSI list; there is so much mana in there you can get to 6 mana very easily to go diabolic intent -> tendrils you after any amount of draw be it glimpse, reprocess, or just good old D4's.

There is only one problem with the list thus far. Being able to cast glimpse mid combo. For that we have mox opal and lotus petal, both 4 ofs or land grant -> bayou if we haven't gotten our land for the turn yet. Infernal tutor is bad in the GSI list because you can't get hellbent without LED very easily due to us lacking chrome mox you can sometimes get stuck with a glimpse of nature in hand due to being unable to cast it.

If we cut tallmen for other things I'd be all for trying -2 memnite +2 elvish spirit guide. Elvish guide can sometimes act as a tall woman if you have tons of mana or it can be useful midcombo to play another glimpse to draw even more cards.

Also on diminishing returns. It costs blue mana and this sometimes matters if you don't go diabolic intent sacking LED in response or if you draw it off a D4 or something you can usually not cast it until you get petal and opal whereas reprocess you can play off of rituals very easily. Retract and hurkyl's recall are nice for generating lots of storm and CA with an active glimpse but also require blue mana. Hurkyl's might be a really good SB option though; board in a tropical island or two and it acts as anti hate as well as a really good draw spell after you have dealt with their hate be it chalice, 3sphere, or sphere effects like thorn of amethyst, sphere or resistance, etc. etc.

[Vacrix]

Do we have any data yet on GSI? I'm curious...

Also, I'm brainstorming different lists for those interested:

GSI
Creatures - 12
4 Memnite
4 Shield Sphere
4 Phyrexian Walker

Business - 15
1 Reprocess
1 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Slithermuse
4 Diabolic Intent
4 Glimpse of Nature

Mana - 33
3 Manamorphose
2 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Lotus Petal
3 Mox Opal
1 Wild Cantor

Just my thoughts put to words. I have no idea if this is good or not but the thought intrigues me. Its not even really SI anymore because it lacks D4's but it has a similar acceleration base. Thoughts?

[Jodahae]

Im trying to come up with a few cards that might fit the board to deal with artifacts and enchantments, primarily Counterbalance and Chalice of the void/trinisphere, currently im going back and forth between natures claim as a default answer to both, and reverent silence as a solo enchantment answer.

Claim is great if im not looking at a chalice at 1 and if there a balance but no top, and obviously silence has been stellar for cb/top but im more open to artifact hate

Wondering what others are trying and if anyone has had any success with seal of primordium, its a heaver mana investment but its a little harder to hit for cb/top and its a permanent for stax.

Thanks

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Just curious, who believes Memnite is a better choice for the slot than Ornithopter? What's the difference, why is one better than the other. Any debate on it?

Also, I've been looking and can't seem to find a PSI list or a Null Profusion SI list. I'm wanting to try them both out to see which is the "best" in my opinion. Is Glimpse SI a pretty solid choice? I'm trying to find out how the lists operate so I can make my own version, but I keep coming up short on acceptable lists to test with.

I've tried:

8 Draw-4 version
12 Draw-4 version (Blue added for Meditate)
4 Draw-4 version with Diabolic Intents instead of Draw-4's 5-8

I hate the 12 draw-4 version, 8 draw-4 version got me bolted pretty much every time I tried to win with it, and I was moderately happy with the heavy tutor version, but it's not a very solid list IMO. Any help is appreciated.

-ABC

[DarthVicious]

Any one test Sundering Vitae in a list with more tallmen? Seems like it could be free to cast with enough in play. The only thing it doesn't really help against is Trinisphere.

I think Nature's Claim may be better though.

[Iranon]

Personally, I love the combination of draw-4s and Glimpse - you can very often draw the entire deck without the need for heavier tools.

[Dark Ritual]

I like deconstruct more than sundering vitae because it is always free if it resolves. I also find enchantments to usually not be of much annoyance due to the speed of PSI sure if countertop is established with mana up you want something to kill enchantments but it shouldn't get to that point.

[DarthVicious]

I like deconstruct more than sundering vitae because it is always free if it resolves.

Good call, forgot about that card. It's even free if it's destroying Trinisphere, which is probably the reason the card would be in the board in the first place. Can also be used to destroy tapped Opals so you can play another one untapped. Along with stuff like Chalices... and... you know, other artifacts.

[TheSleeper]

Memnite vs. Ornithopter is interesting, I would have thought the 'thopter got the nod though. Ability to block flying > a 1/1. Unless you are facing a control deck where you can get in two points of damage, reducing your required storm count to 9.. but we want to go off before turn 3 usually or we'd be playing a different deck.

[kicks_422]

Do we have any data yet on GSI? I'm curious...

Also, I'm brainstorming different lists for those interested:

GSI
Creatures - 12
4 Memnite
4 Shield Sphere
4 Phyrexian Walker

Business - 15
1 Reprocess
1 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Slithermuse
4 Diabolic Intent
4 Glimpse of Nature

Mana - 33
3 Manamorphose
2 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Lotus Petal
3 Mox Opal
1 Wild Cantor

Just my thoughts put to words. I have no idea if this is good or not but the thought intrigues me. Its not even really SI anymore because it lacks D4's but it has a similar acceleration base. Thoughts?

Why the 4 Slithermuse? I'd like to hear your reasoning for that, over say, a a Draw 4... As well as why only one of each of Tendrils and Belcher. Also... no land?

[Vacrix]

Theory
This variant is business light (15) and has an easy time emptying its hand. Slithermuse allows you to refill your hand like a D7 and for an initial investment of 1 more than a D4, you can draw 1-3 more cards. It also contributes to Glimpse if you've already played it. Finding U shouldn't be hard with access to so much colorfixing.
Tendrils and Belcher only need to be 1'ofs because Diabolic Intent is so flexible. No-land makes Belcher a much stronger WC. A landless build intrigues me.

Memnite vs Ornithopter. I don't know how often that extra damage will really matter, but it does even out the fetchland lifeloss rather nicely.

To tell the truth, GSI intrigued me at first, but these Glimpse-focused variants are probably too volatile to be viable.

Sundering Vitae vs. Nature's Claim vs. Deconstruct
Deconstruct is only 'free' if you can hit 3 mana, provided you can also spend GGG which isn't always easy in PSI as most spells cost B and post-board colorfixing dilutes the deck.
Sundering Vitae might cost less but you have to run tallmen. I like that it dodges Chalice at 1 and CB unless they have 3 ontop. Good find.
Nature's Claim is a good answer if you know you will be running into something like Ethersworn Cannonist, Thorn of Amythest, CB, or Trinisphere. Its bad if you are dealing with Chalice at 1 or Gaddock Teeg. For the record, I've played Dark Ritual, had my opponent look at the top of his library with Top, can't find 1, Tap Top, I respond with Nature's Claim, proceed to win.

@Secretly.A.Bee
There is a PSI list in the primer. I don't have a Null Profusion list at the moment because I found them to be too volatile.

[DarthVicious]

Theory
This variant is business light (15) and has an easy time emptying its hand. Slithermuse allows you to refill your hand like a D7 and for an initial investment of 1 more than a D4, you can draw 1-3 more cards. It also contributes to Glimpse if you've already played it. Finding U shouldn't be hard with access to so much colorfixing.
Tendrils and Belcher only need to be 1'ofs because Diabolic Intent is so flexible. No-land makes Belcher a much stronger WC. A landless build intrigues me.

Memnite vs Ornithopter. I don't know how often that extra damage will really matter, but it does even out the fetchland lifeloss rather nicely.

To tell the truth, GSI intrigued me at first, but these Glimpse-focused variants are probably too volatile to be viable.

Sundering Vitae vs. Nature's Claim vs. Deconstruct
Deconstruct is only 'free' if you can hit 3 mana, provided you can also spend GGG which isn't always easy in PSI as most spells cost B and post-board colorfixing dilutes the deck.
Sundering Vitae might cost less but you have to run tallmen. I like that it dodges Chalice at 1 and CB unless they have 3 ontop. Good find.
Nature's Claim is a good answer if you know you will be running into something like Ethersworn Cannonist, Thorn of Amythest, CB, or Trinisphere. Its bad if you are dealing with Chalice at 1 or Gaddock Teeg. For the record, I've played Dark Ritual, had my opponent look at the top of his library with Top, can't find 1, Tap Top, I respond with Nature's Claim, proceed to win.



I'm testing a build with only 1 Dryad Arbor as a land, and I don't use it as a land. I use it as a 0cc Pactable tallman. I'm not running Land Grant, and I don't intend to.

At first I also wanted to run a Glimpse list, but I discovered without a resolved Glimpse, those creatures kinda sit around and don't accomplish anything. Just about anybody who's seen just about any Glimpse-based list is going to counter it when they see it.

I have Pacts, Spheres, Cantor, Arbor, and rarely Spirit Guides and Witness to use as tallmen. Postboard Confidant and Xantid can join the cast list. Vitae would probably not cost less for me to play when I would want to play it, but then again I have been noticing there are times when I wish I had a creature or two in play. I may need to put the Walkers back in, or a Tukatongue.

While fishing I noticed that I almost never went for Slithermuse. I either had the mana and stormcount for Tendrils, or I went for Belcher and passed the turn. I know thats not always the best thing to do considering they get a full turn to deal with Belcher, but I'm also still getting used to the deck.

I'm liking Infernal Tutor somewhat, then again I'm heavy on business still. I wish there was another black ritual I could be running, I'd prolly cut the number of Demonic Tutor wannabes down.

I may include some artifact hate on my board due to CounterTop and Chalice being such a pain, but that's all the changes I'd make to the board. Bob, Belcher, Carpet, Swarm. The reason I chose these cards is they are all threats to control in their own way. I'd rather run threats than answers, although Bob is kinda meh.

Maybe I could add more tallmen along with Songs of the Damned, and replace Bob with Vitae.

...

I can't believe I just suggested Songs of the Damned...

[Vacrix]

Keep in mind that Dryad cannot be a Pactable tallman because it doesn't count toward your Glimpse count; its not a spell.

Exactly. Those creatures can't really do anything without Glimpse. They are just inactive, virtual-street wraiths wasting space. Thats why Iranon didn't have a Glimpse focused list, he simply supplemented the LGSI engine with Glimpse by replacing the protection with more gas. Now that we have access to Mox Opal, we can probably optimize a new list, but its going to take a lot of testing and it will probably still be inferior to PSI in terms of speed because clearly we have to forgo protection for this engine.

I wouldn't worry about Belcher, pass the turn. I do that all the time if I can't go straight for the throat.

Song of the Damned doesn't work as well as advertised, unfortunately. It looks really cool but you rarely have more than 1 dude in your yard most of the time unless you wanted to play with x4 Reprocess, x4 Diabolic Intent or something, which still looks rather volatile.

[DarthVicious]

Keep in mind that Dryad cannot be a Pactable tallman because it doesn't count toward your Glimpse count; its not a spell.

Exactly. Those creatures can't really do anything without Glimpse. They are just inactive, virtual-street wraiths wasting space. Thats why Iranon didn't have a Glimpse focused list, he simply supplemented the LGSI engine with Glimpse by replacing the protection with more gas. Now that we have access to Mox Opal, we can probably optimize a new list, but its going to take a lot of testing and it will probably still be inferior to PSI in terms of speed because clearly we have to forgo protection for this engine.

I wouldn't worry about Belcher, pass the turn. I do that all the time if I can't go straight for the throat.

Song of the Damned doesn't work as well as advertised, unfortunately. It looks really cool but you rarely have more than 1 dude in your yard most of the time unless you wanted to play with x4 Reprocess, x4 Diabolic Intent or something, which still looks rather volatile.

I'm not running Glimpse. I wanted to, but I figured I'd be better off getting used to PactSI and letting my brother find out how terrible his Glimpse Elves homebrew is. I'll update my list I posted on the stormboards when I finally get home from work.

On another note, I tested this a few games against my friends Bant Countertop. When he gets Countertop online turn 2 every time and he always starts the game by Forcing my initial Draw4 it's real fun. However, it was easier for me to play this deck and mindfuck him than it ever was running AdN or DDFT. And it's faster than the TES list I tested.

[Jodahae]

@Vacrix
What ever became of the D7 B/G/R SI variant you and @direlemming where working on, I would be interested to know if any progress has come about?

Has anyone played Multani's Presence to combat CB and Chalice at 0. It seems like a hit or miss card, if it lands against CB it should feed you enough resources to string together a win, and against chalice it would allow you to cycle your dead cards, draw new and increase threshold/storm all at the same time.

[the resurrection]

Has anyone played Multani's Presence to combat CB and Chalice at 0. It seems like a hit or miss card, if it lands against CB it should feed you enough resources to string together a win, and against chalice it would allow you to cycle your dead cards, draw new and increase threshold/storm all at the same time.

:-*
I'll test Multani's Presence. Seems strong.

[Jonathan Alexander]

@Vacrix
What ever became of the D7 B/G/R SI variant you and @direlemming where working on, I would be interested to know if any progress has come about?

Has anyone played Multani's Presence to combat CB and Chalice at 0. It seems like a hit or miss card, if it lands against CB it should feed you enough resources to string together a win, and against chalice it would allow you to cycle your dead cards, draw new and increase threshold/storm all at the same time.

I'm still playing around with that list, look at post 146. It seems to be quite nice and I think this version is fitting my playstyle the best but I don't have much time to test right now because of school and stuff. And I'm still not sure about the flex-slot (Tukatongue Thallid in the list from post 146), might aswell be a Duress or any other random card. There's a lot you can throw in there, for example Eternal Witness but I never liked her in SI, she always seemed too clunky and didn't win the game. You might want to try Land Grant instead of fetches, but I don't like to get my initial mana countered and lands are really important against control. I think that Vacrix pointed out already that you can basically play whatever you want in SI, there is no best list, not even a best type of list. This is not like most of the decks to beat which have like 2-4 flex-slots and there's a lot more stuff to be discovered/tested. Just pick a random list and tweak it until it fits your playstyle. Personally I believe that SITES is the best starting point since it can play almost everything SI wants and therefore is the most flexible version of SI. By playing SITES you can easily figure out which aspects you like and which you don't. It's also the best version to get into SI in my opinion.

[DarthVicious]

Has anyone played Multani's Presence to combat CB and Chalice at 0. It seems like a hit or miss card, if it lands against CB it should feed you enough resources to string together a win, and against chalice it would allow you to cycle your dead cards, draw new and increase threshold/storm all at the same time.

I've tested it a bit. It helps against CB, but by no means is it reliable. Against non-CB blue its mildly useful, as it only draws you cards when they decide to counter. Against Chalice on the other hand, it can draw you so many cards it's almost another win condition, especially in multiples. It's dead against a lot of other decks though, but that's the nature of a sideboard card.

So, yeah. If you expect a lot of Chalices, put this in your board. I have a playset sitting around in my binder for just the occasion.

[The Spanish Tunnel King]

Hey guys. I thought I would stop lurking and have a post (first one - woop). I've been playing legacy for a while with Enchantress and then decided to pick Spanish Inquisition up (talk about a change of pace... :)), and i've been playing that for while, although only once in a serious tournament (where I came mid table). I play a fairly standard land grant list (lots of control in the meta, and not having at least one maindecked answer to FoW seems a bit.... silly).

So....... a few questions-

Is the sideboarding suggested for the pact list also good for the land grant lists? (I still remain terrible at sideboarding tbh...) My current sideboard is 4x xantid swarm, 4x deathmark (I find them useful on the draw against, well the cannonist...), 4x carpet of flowers, 3x natures claim (yes some ppl use the white leyline here every now and then...).

On keeping hands - What is a good hand against control? Game 1 would you mull aggressively to the duress if you knew they were playing control, or keep a turn 1 regardless (just in case....) or keep a hand full of business (say.... 2x cruel bargin, 1x inf tutor, 1x lotus petal, 1x rit, 2x shield sphere) knowing that the game might go long and it gives you a good chance of multiple attempts at going off before being eaten by a tarmagoyf or ninja fairy or something?

How much do you think the win percentages go up by going to an unknown meta (where we are truly unexpected ^^)? Where ppl know I might play it they tend to bring folders of mindbreak traps and canonists for the sideboard, and ALWAYS mull to force, soooo my turn 1s against 'real ppl' is pretty low (I even psyked myself out of a few when it turns out they didn't have the force and I was trying to play around it.... (sadface))

Is the land grant list viewed pretty much as obsolete? All people seem to talk about here is the pact list (which is fun and can do RIDICULOUS things - I remember playing against death and taxes with it- play some stuff, make a belcher, tendrils for 60, retain priority, activate belcher = lolz), but never seemed as good or even consistent for/to me (and I REALLY wanted to make it work...)

All in all I love the deck though. I tend to be able to try and go off maybe twice in the first 3 turns (although this is sometimes not enough against control - especially if they have a clock). I used to play Hatred back in the day and I think this deck maintains that same deck philosophy that I loved. Turn 1 duress. Turn 2 ninja your face off. I think it plays a lot like poker too (which I also love) - you tend to have to play the person, not the board position. It makes for some tense and exciting games. Even with no permanents on your side of the board lol.

Much love to you all!

PS one day I'll sleeve up my Enchantress in my SI sleeves and when I get my hand i'll say things like 'hmmm.... looks like a turn 1 to me' then watch them mull to oblivion for the force, then open with forest, wild growth, go. LOL

[Vacrix]

Glad to have you here.

Sideboarding depends on your list. Quite often the classic LG builds play maindeck Cabal Therapy, in which case you only need to board in x4 more protection to get a fair amount. You don't want too much protection because then your spell chains will be weak.

LG isn't obsolete per se; you should play whatever list suits your experience/skill level with the deck. Whether or not an SI variant is obsolete is mostly determined by how well you pilot it. Honestly I can't see myself playing the Land Grant list simply because I know how to play the Pact list and it does everything LG does only better, especially the post-board plan. Access to ESG opens up the avenue to Carpet of Flowers or Xantid Swarm quite often while Pact makes goldfishing much smoother. I think people freak out when they read the 'lose the game' line in the text. It rarely happens if you know how/when to use it and it often saves your ass due to Eternal Witness tricks. LG is still a great list though. Pretty much everyone in the thread plays his own variant of either PSI, SITES or LGSI. I don't think anyone is rocking QSI at the moment since TES is easier to play.

Win percentages in an unknown meta depend on a lot of variables, namely, your piloting skills and the frequency of control. Non-FoW.dec is often just a bye.

A good hand against control also depends on many factors. Does your opponent put you on storm combo? That makes 'mulligan for FoW' more likely. In game 1, I usually try to go for a fast win. If you have access to Cabal Therapy, you can play that first to protect your combo turn. In general though:
Chrome Mox +
Dark Ritual +
Culling the Weak +
Lion's Eye Diamond +

Lotus Petals -
Land Grant -
Cabal Ritual -

+'s indicate you want these cards against control while -'s indicate that you do not want them as much. Chrome Mox is strong because its a perpetual resource. It allows you to make multiple attempts at a spell chain. Dark Ritual and Culling the Weak are both excellent pieces of acceleration that are usually easy to protect from Daze. LED is ridiculous against control; as you bait with your D4's, you can pile up LED's until you can IT for Belcher and win. Petals are non-perpetual and therefore not as good as Chrome Mox as initial mana while Land Grant reveals to your strategy to the opponent. Cabal Ritual is good once you have Threshold but otherwise its too hard to protect from Daze, requiring 3 initial mana sources instead of 2.

In game 2/3, try to play a double threat on the first turn. The Pact list does this really well post-board; the deck slows down its actual kill but maintains its effective speed by doing something powerfully relevant on the first turn.
I like to make plays in some combination of (Duress/Xantid Swarm/Carpet of Flowers/D4) + (Duress/Xantid Swarm/Carpet of Flowers/D4). Even if your opponent has FoW, you have still gained the upper hand from the exchange by adding a tactical piece to your equation:
- If Carpet is your piece, then it allows you to play around Daze fairly consistently, and paying 2 for Spell Pierce is not uncommon either. From there you can bait with D4's. If your opponent counters the D4's then your opponent is losing his countermagic. Usually 4 FoW are the only 4 hard counters you will run into (exception being Landstill) so after about 2 D4's I've usually exhausted all of my opponent's resources. Then you can either IT for Belcher or just play out Belcher and win. If your opponent doesn't counter the D4's than you acquire more resources, play more protection, and then effectively resolve Belcher.
- If Xantid Swarm is your piece, then your opponent basically must come up with STP or he will lose in short order.
- If Duress is your piece, make sure to play it first. If it resolves, take your opponent's countermagic/lock piece and resolve your 2nd piece protected. If Duress is countered, your opponent isn't likely to have a 2nd piece of protection so play your 2nd piece protected.
- If D4 is your piece, you can just continue to storm off and win, or acquire more resources and play protection until you can stick a Belcher.

This strategy is fairly straight forward in the Pact list because the list runs ESG. ESG allows you to cast Carpet and Xantid with relative ease, and play around Daze. It will be harder to execute this strategy in an LG list with scarcer green sources.

[kicks_422]

I find the Glimpse lists with Mox Opal to cute for my taste. I'm still rocking this list:

// Lands
1 [R] Bayou
1 [FUT] Dryad Arbor

// Creatures
4 [AL] Elvish Spirit Guide
1 [EVE] Odious Trow
1 [FD] Eternal Witness

// Spells
4 [PT] Cruel Bargain
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MM] Land Grant
4 [MI] Infernal Contract
4 [FUT] Summoner's Pact
4 [EX] Culling the Weak
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [US] Dark Ritual
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
2 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
2 [MR] Goblin Charbelcher
4 [SHM] Manamorphose

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [SC] Xantid Swarm
SB: 4 [M11] Autumn's Veil
SB: 4 [US] Carpet of Flowers
SB: 3 [ALA] Naturalize

Nothing fancy, just a streamlined Pact SI list. I board like this:

Against anything with Blue:

+4 Carpet/Swarm/Veil
-4 Pact
-1 Trow
-1 Witness
-2 Culling the Weak
-4 Manamorphose

And against anything with Chalice/3Sphere/Thorn:

-3 Manamoprhose
+3 Naturalize (unless you can suggest something else here?)

[Vacrix]

I find the Glimpse lists with Mox Opal to cute for my taste. I'm still rocking this list:

// Lands
1 [R] Bayou
1 [FUT] Dryad Arbor

// Creatures
4 [AL] Elvish Spirit Guide
1 [EVE] Odious Trow
1 [FD] Eternal Witness

// Spells
4 [PT] Cruel Bargain
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MM] Land Grant
4 [MI] Infernal Contract
4 [FUT] Summoner's Pact
4 [EX] Culling the Weak
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [US] Dark Ritual
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
2 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
2 [MR] Goblin Charbelcher
4 [SHM] Manamorphose

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [SC] Xantid Swarm
SB: 4 [M11] Autumn's Veil
SB: 4 [US] Carpet of Flowers
SB: 3 [ALA] Naturalize

Nothing fancy, just a streamlined Pact SI list. I board like this:

Against anything with Blue:

+4 Carpet/Swarm/Veil
-4 Pact
-1 Trow
-1 Witness
-2 Culling the Weak
-4 Manamorphose

And against anything with Chalice/3Sphere/Thorn:

-3 Manamoprhose
+3 Naturalize (unless you can suggest something else here?)
I've realized that Cabal Ritual is pretty bad vs. control. You might want to board those out and keep Culling the Weak in. If you think about it this way, its much harder to play around Daze and Spell Pierce, even Wasteland when you are using Cabal Ritual. You simply need to invest more resources to get an insufficient amount of mana. PSI doesn't really fill up its graveyard with fetches or cantrips so it relies on a long spell chain to make Cabal's profitable plays. But against control.. you don't need long spell chains. You need short bursts of acceleration to put you in a dominate position. Cabal Ritual requires either the investment of another ritual, or 3 initial mana sources to play around Daze, vs Dark Ritual and Culling the Weak's investment of 2 initial mana sources. Also, keep in mind that you are boarding in +4 creatures so you still have access to plenty of tallman to make Culling's effective. You just have to take calculating risks when sacrificing a Xantid Swarm.

You lack post-board Belchers. I find that increasing the post-board Belcher count is extremely strong. More often than not, you make a powerful play combination on the first turn. After that initial turn, you are usually well set up to resolve a 3 or 4 mana business spell in a few turns. Keeping Tendrils in increasing the likelihood of you having dead business without a spell chain. I prefer to bait and build up resources until I can push a Belcher through.

Naturalize is good if you expect Chalice in your metagame. Otherwise, Nature's Claim gets the job done pretty well. I often Tendrils for way more than 20 so +4 life shouldn't be a big deal when the spell itself contributes to +1 storm.

How have you been liking Autumn's Veil? I've opted to play Duress instead for the moment just because I sometimes run into Counterbalance and a Scepter Chant in my meta.

[kicks_422]

Never thought about that re: Culling vs. Cabal. I'll board out 2 Cabal instead of 2 Culling from now on.

I want to fit inextra Belchers, but I don't know where to put them in.

As for Autumn's Veil, I've been liking them so far. That said, I don't really think they're much better than having Duress in there. I'll continue playing them, and then I'll see if a Duress would have been just as good in the situations when I cast them.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I've been playing with Duress most of the time and I really liked it. Though I have to admit that started out with SITES where Duress is obviously easier to cast, but even in Pact/Draw7 SI I found Duress to be more versatile and whenever I had a random mainboard slot, I just threw in a Duress. You could also try out Cabal Therapy, I really liked them in testing. When running Therapy, you might consider playing Skyshroud Cutter or something, I'm not sure if Drayd Arbor is enough.
If you're going to replace Autumn's Veil with Duress, you could maybe cut one or two Naturalize for additional Goblin Charbelchers. Again, I'm not sure here, 'cause I'm generally playing SI-lists with Burning Wish and therefore don't sideboard that often.
Anyway, I wondered if Guttural Response has been tried out. It looks quite good especially for Draw7-SI and I definitely wanted to try it out but I don't have access to all my SI-stuff right now so I wanted to know what you guys think about it.

[kicks_422]

OK, I've changed my board to"

4 Xantid Swarm
4 Carpet of Flowers
2 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Duress
1 Squire

I really don't know what to put in that 15th slot. Maybe Empty the Warrens?

Awesome thing happened with Pact SI yesterday in testing. My hand was raped hard by mono-black discard shenanigans (first turn Ritual into Seize/Hymn, next turn Hymn, etc.) and then both Bayou and Arbor got destoyed. All I had in play were 3 LED's and 1 Lotus Petal, he had a pesky Vampire Nighthawk and a Tombstalker, with 30-ish life. I was at 2.

I topdecked Summoner's Pact. Pact, resp sac LED's, grab Witness, return Infernal Tutor and Belch him for the win.

I have officially joined Team SI.

[Vacrix]

Gutteral Response is inferior to Autumn's Veil. It basically does the same thing only Veil protects the entire spell chain. You can make clever plays to get around countermagic by responding to your opponents response.
Example:

In play, Chrome Mox, Lotus Petal

Me: Summoner's Pact, Dryad Arbor, Culling the Weak, D4
Opp: Spell Pierce
Me: Dark Ritual
Opp: Spell Pierce
Me: Autumn's Veil

The same situation can be carved with Daze, FoW, and Cursecatchers, etc.

@kicks422
Depends on your metagame. If you expect some occasional bears, Death Mark or Tainted Pact are good for extra slots. If you expect a lot of Merfolk/Madness, Tomb of Urami is a silver bullet as they completely lack removal. If you expect Thorn, then I'd play Nature's Claim. You can cut 1 Duress to open up 2 slots.

That Pact play is pretty tight. I've made a few like that before. Its definitely pretty sick winning from seemingly nothing.

For the record, I'm currently testing, from the primer PSI list:
-1 Odious Trow
-1 Tendrils of Agony
-2 Manamorphose
+1 Wild Cantor
+1 Skyshroud Cutter
+2 Goblin Charbelcher

I'm hoping to open up some space in the board for Empty the Warrens.

[TheSleeper]

Sorry if I've asked this before regarding LGIS, say vs a disruptive deck like Dragon Stompy, which cards would you board out for man-plan? Reasoning is basically a trinisphere/chalice @ 0 or 1 is really going to hurt, meanwhile they have no relevant creature removal. I'm thinking something like:

-3 Tendrils
-1 Belcher
-2 IGG
-4 Phyrexian Walker

+4 Tomb of Urami
+4 Tombstalker
+3 Phylactery Lich

Do you need all 8 tall-men for CtW? If so, what to take out instead of Walker?

Edit: Actually perhaps you leave in the Belcher as you probably have a few turns to cast/activate it.

[lorddotm]

Read Goblin Charbelcher...


Now read Tomb of Urami.



Notice how well they work together?

[Vacrix]

Sorry if I've asked this before regarding LGIS, say vs a disruptive deck like Dragon Stompy, which cards would you board out for man-plan? Reasoning is basically a trinisphere/chalice @ 0 or 1 is really going to hurt, meanwhile they have no relevant creature removal. I'm thinking something like:

-3 Tendrils
-1 Belcher
-2 IGG
-4 Phyrexian Walker

+4 Tomb of Urami
+4 Tombstalker
+3 Phylactery Lich

Do you need all 8 tall-men for CtW? If so, what to take out instead of Walker?

Edit: Actually perhaps you leave in the Belcher as you probably have a few turns to cast/activate it.
I like to keep Belcher in as well. Cutting Walker is questionable now that Lich has joined the man plan. Without Walker, you will be sitting on 16 artifacts. I don't think that is enough to support Lich, unfortunately. If you want to play Lich, instead of cutting the Walkers and Belchers you should try cutting some of your D4's. As bomb as D4's are, once your opponent has a lock piece, you will have a lot of trouble casting them. IT is stronger in this respect as it can just give you the fast win, ie, IT-->Tombstalker/Belcher. So post-boarding, your business will be more like:
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Tomb of Urami
4 Tombstalker
3 Phylactery Lich
1 Belcher

20 Business is even more than your conventional 18. Thats more than enough to land a turn 1 bomb. You'll prefer to see your other business to D4's in this matchup as you just want to land an early threat anyway not storm off. I'd board like so:
-3 Tendrils of Agony
-2 Ill-Gotten Gains
-4 Infernal Contract
-1 Phyrexian Walker


Read Goblin Charbelcher...


Now read Tomb of Urami.



Notice how well they work together?
One is a silver bullet against Merfolk and UG Madness (ie. non-white Aggro Control) while they other is a bomb against control, provided you play the post-board tactics I've discussed many times. Nobody is forcing you to board both of them in together, either way, I've played them both post-board successfully for quite some time now. I usually board out -1 Dryad Arbor and then add 2 Tombs. You still have a pretty good chance of getting lethal with Belcher, especially with access to Land Grant to find the singleton Bayou. Its a playstyle call though. I'm comfortable enough with the list to play both post-board, but I wouldn't recommend it to a new player. Its good for my meta, Merfolk/Faerie heavy these days. If I encountered more permanent based hate I'd probably play Nature's Claim or Tainted Pact in those slots.

[kicks_422]

I don't know about cutting Trow. Trow has saved my ass a number of times as Pact-able Chrome Mox fodder for black.

I do see the merits of running the full 4 Belchers in the MD thoguh. Something I'll try out as well, for more board space more than anything.

[DarthVicious]

Veil only protects against spells. If it helped against cursecatchers and CB it'd be a lot better. It's still good though.

I've decided running more cards that help our plan is better than running cards that stop them from disrupting it. Threats > Answers, in general. This entire deck is a threat by itself.

I've been tweaking the list I have posted on the storm boards. I'm not posting it here just yet, but its nice. It'd be better if I could run 8 lotus petals, but whatever. I'm still looking for something to replace SSG with.

[kicks_422]

For the record, I'm currently testing, from the primer PSI list:
-1 Odious Trow
-1 Tendrils of Agony
-2 Manamorphose
+1 Wild Cantor
+1 Skyshroud Cutter
+2 Goblin Charbelcher

I'm hoping to open up some space in the board for Empty the Warrens.

Vacrix, I tried this as well. I cut Manamorphose for the full 4 Belchers MD and 2 more Pact/Infernal targets (right now, I run 1 Trow, 1 Cantor, 1 Witness, 1 Muse).

There are times I miss Manamorphose, and overall I think the deck's functioning a bit "clunkier". Perhaps it's because I keep on getting all the wrong Pact-able men in my hand in the opening hand or off of D4's. Also, with that many Belchers, I kind of feel taht sometimes I'm just running a bad Belcher deck.

Additionally, I didn't know what to do with the added 2 slots in the SB.

[Vacrix]

Vacrix, I tried this as well. I cut Manamorphose for the full 4 Belchers MD and 2 more Pact/Infernal targets (right now, I run 1 Trow, 1 Cantor, 1 Witness, 1 Muse).

There are times I miss Manamorphose, and overall I think the deck's functioning a bit "clunkier". Perhaps it's because I keep on getting all the wrong Pact-able men in my hand in the opening hand or off of D4's. Also, with that many Belchers, I kind of feel taht sometimes I'm just running a bad Belcher deck.

Additionally, I didn't know what to do with the added 2 slots in the SB.
Well technically you are running a GOOD Belcher deck, a deck that isn't a slave to turn 2/3 goblin token wins.

Manamorphose will generally make the deck a bit more streamlined as its really just a tuning mechanism.

You could easily play Nature's Claims in those 2 added slots, or if you expect Chalice in your meta (ie. Stompy, Aggro Loam, etc), then Multani's Presence looks decent. I'd run those 2 slots as flex slots depending on how your meta shifts.

[Dark Ritual]

Deconstruct is the best card against trinisphere if anyone argues otherwise they are most likely wrong because deconstruct is free true it only gives you GGG back after spending 2G but green mana is useful in some ways like paying for pactable trows to sack to culling and then there's always e. witness to cast off of that because against trinisphere decks they often don't pack blue so you don't board out the pact.

Sometimes goblin charbelcher the card is really meh for me because it doesn't imprint on chrome mox and I can't cast + activate it on the same turn but I can see the reasons for going up to 4 MD. And SI in the hands of a skilled pilot is strictly better than belcher ever will be because it has about the same turn 1 win % as belcher does if not higher. And goblins win on turn 3 at the earliest with belcher decks unless there is a very long spell chain involving diminishing returns into another burning wish into 20+ goblin tokens but this rarely happens. Turn 3 is much more doable with EtW's tokens.

[DarthVicious]

I've cut Meditates for more win conditions. Finding that single blue mana can be such a hassle, and it's just to draw 4 cards. If it could win the game somehow it'd be a lot better. Makes me wish Pain's Reward didn't suck.

I've never tested Deconstruct, that initial three mana kinda turns me off to the card. And the fact that my non-Pact list doesn't use green mana well. I do have a couple Dragon Stompy players floating around my meta, so maybe it merits some testing.

Having ten win conditions and eight draw4s allows me to still win with a little consistency and mindfuck them at the same time. Belcher kill game 1 leads me to board out belchers and their hate is useless when I Tendrils them out game 2. Just an example, I probably wouldn't board out Belchers. Not often.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I've basically always played this deck with Burning Wish and to be honest I rarely need most of my wishtargets like Meltdown and Reverent Silence. They just don't make that much of a difference. I think your focus when playing this deck should be winning as soon as possible. Against stuff like Dragon Stompy, you'll lose against Trinisphere unless they got an abysmal hand, since if they can land turn one Trinisphere, they usually can land some kind of threat turn two. Faerie Stompy is this deck's worst matchup, but nobody plays Faerie Stompy. Counterbalance is often too slow, even when paired up with other countermagic. The odds of them being able to counter our first attempt to go off and then land Counterbalance on turn two are worse than the odds of us being able to go off turn one and then being able to Burning Wish for Reverent Silence. Plus SI often even maindecks some kind of disruption. I lose more games because I fizzle than because of my opponent disrupting my gameplan. I found storm combo to be more intimidating than CounterTop. Another rather bad matchup is Reanimate. They can counter our attempt to go off on turn one and still reanimate Iona on turn two. We can't handle Iona on black. We can pray to be able to cast Empty The Warrens for 8+ tokens without using our rituals, but good luck with that. Anyway, Reanimate is another matchup you won't face that often anymore, so this doesn't actually matter.
I actually managed to pick up the deck again and I made a few changes to my list. Like I stated before, I figured that aiming for maximum speed game one is generally the best thing to do. The deck doesn't ever set up, it goes off. Therefore I'm playing a rather business-heavy version right now and I really like it so far. This is my list:

//Lands
1 Bayou
4 Misty Rainforest

//Creatures
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Slithermuse
1 Tinder Wall
1 Wild Cantor


//Other Spells
4 Burning Wish
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Chrome Mox
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Culling The Weak
4 Dark Ritual
1 Empty The Warrens
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
3 Infernal Contract
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Summoner's Pact
2 Tendrils Of Agony

//Sideboard
1 Deathmark
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Duress
3 Empty The Warrens
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Infernal Contract
1 Reverent Silence
1 Shattering Spree
1 Tendrils Of Agony
4 Xantid Swarm

There's not much else to say about it. Against control I board out Slithermuse, Ill-Gotten Gains and Summoner's Pact for 2 Empty The Warrens and 4 Xantid Swarm. I still have the same amount of business but don't have to go all-in with Summoner's Pact. I also don't have to go all-in on a single spell chain but can rather go off bit by bit, often resulting in spell chains with about four or five elements which either end in Empty The Warrens or kill the opponent cumulatively.
I'm not entirely sure about Infernal Tutor or Infernal Contract sideboard. It really depends which is better to have in the sideboard. Maindeck Ill-Gotten Gains is pretty good by the way.
Here are a few sample hands:

Hand 1: Lotus Petal, Chrome Mox, Chrome Mox, Lion's Eye Diamond, Dark Ritual, Cruel Bargain, Elvish Spirit Guide. Keep.
Lotus Petal, Dark Ritual, Cruel Bargain into Burning Wish, Burning Wish, Misty Rainforest, Bayou.
Could've been better but whatever. Storm 3, ten life, no mana floating.
Chrome Mox (imprint Burning Wish), Chrome Mox (imprint nothing), Lion's Eye Diamond, Bayou, exile Elvish Spirit Guide, Burning Wish, crack Lion's Eye Diamond, Empty The Warrens for 16 tokens. Note that you can also wish for Diminishing Returns if it's of importance to win immediately, but I'd rather go for Warrens game one.

Hand 2: Misty Rainforest, Elvish Spirit Guide, Elvish Spirit Guide, Lotus Petal, Burning Wish, Infernal Contract, Lion's Eye Diamond. Keep, but possible mull. I'm usually too lazy to mull, except my hand is atrocious.
Misty Rainforest for Bayou, going to 19.
Lotus Petal, Exile both Spirit Guides, Lion's Eye Diamond, Burning Wish for Diminishing Returns (eight tokens are rather slow).
Landdrop made, no mana floating, storm 4, Bayou is untapped. New hand: Lion's Eye Diamond, Summoner's Pact, Summoner's Pact, Misty Rainforest, Dark Ritual, Cruel Bargain, Tendrils Of Agony.
Dark Ritual, Summoner's Pact for Elvish Spirit Guide, Summoner's Pact for Tinder Wall (could as well be Wild Cantor), Lion's Eye Diamond, Exile Elvish Spirit Guide, Tinder Wall, sacrifice Tinder Wall, Tendrils for 20.

Hand 3: Misty Rainforest, Misty Rainforest, Dryad Arbor, Cruel Bargain, Slithermuse, Tendrils Of Agony, Lion's Eye Diamond. This is a clear mull.
New hand: Dark Ritual, Culling The Weak, Infernal Contract, Elvish Spirit Guide, Summoner's Pact, Lion's Eye Diamond.
Summoner's Pact for Wild Cantor, exile Spirit Guide for Wild Cantor, sacrifice Wild Cantor for Dark Ritual, Infernal Contract into Elvish Spirit Guide, Tinder Wall, Infernal Tutor, Misty Rainforest.
Storm four, ten life, no mana floating.
Misty Rainforest for Bayou, exile Elvish Spirit Guide for Tinder Wall, Culling The Weak, Lion's Eye Diamond, Infernal Tutor for Ill-Gotten Gains, in response sacrifice Lion's Eye Diamond for BBB.
Storm eight, nine life, BBBBB floating.
Ill-Gotten Gains for Dark Ritual, Lion's Eye Diamond and Infernal Tutor.
Storm nine, nine life, BBBBB floating.
Dark Ritual, Lion's Eye Diamond, Infernal Tutor for Tendrils Of Agony, in response sacrifice Lion's Eye Diamond for BBB.
Tendrils for 26.

In other news, I'm currently working on several lists with Ad Nauseam. They're somewhere between SI and Vintage Ad Nauseam Tendrils. They're definitely fun to play, but I'm still looking for a way to reliably get turn one Ad Nauseam. I'm not playing any cantrips right now, because I feel they only slow me down. There are basically two issues I have with the list that looks the most promising: I sometimes just die off Ad Nauseam and I sometimes don't get it. As soon as I found out how to improve this, I'll share a list. Anyway, turn one Ad Nauseam with Pact Of Negation backup is busted.

[The Spanish Tunnel King]

Glad to have you here.

Sideboarding depends on your list. Quite often the classic LG builds play maindeck Cabal Therapy, in which case you only need to board in x4 more protection to get a fair amount. You don't want too much protection because then your spell chains will be weak.

LG isn't obsolete per se; you should play whatever list suits your experience/skill level with the deck. Whether or not an SI variant is obsolete is mostly determined by how well you pilot it. Honestly I can't see myself playing the Land Grant list simply because I know how to play the Pact list and it does everything LG does only better, especially the post-board plan. Access to ESG opens up the avenue to Carpet of Flowers or Xantid Swarm quite often while Pact makes goldfishing much smoother. I think people freak out when they read the 'lose the game' line in the text. It rarely happens if you know how/when to use it and it often saves your ass due to Eternal Witness tricks. LG is still a great list though. Pretty much everyone in the thread plays his own variant of either PSI, SITES or LGSI. I don't think anyone is rocking QSI at the moment since TES is easier to play.

Win percentages in an unknown meta depend on a lot of variables, namely, your piloting skills and the frequency of control. Non-FoW.dec is often just a bye.

A good hand against control also depends on many factors. Does your opponent put you on storm combo? That makes 'mulligan for FoW' more likely. In game 1, I usually try to go for a fast win. If you have access to Cabal Therapy, you can play that first to protect your combo turn. In general though:
Chrome Mox +
Dark Ritual +
Culling the Weak +
Lion's Eye Diamond +

Lotus Petals -
Land Grant -
Cabal Ritual -

+'s indicate you want these cards against control while -'s indicate that you do not want them as much. Chrome Mox is strong because its a perpetual resource. It allows you to make multiple attempts at a spell chain. Dark Ritual and Culling the Weak are both excellent pieces of acceleration that are usually easy to protect from Daze. LED is ridiculous against control; as you bait with your D4's, you can pile up LED's until you can IT for Belcher and win. Petals are non-perpetual and therefore not as good as Chrome Mox as initial mana while Land Grant reveals to your strategy to the opponent. Cabal Ritual is good once you have Threshold but otherwise its too hard to protect from Daze, requiring 3 initial mana sources instead of 2.

In game 2/3, try to play a double threat on the first turn. The Pact list does this really well post-board; the deck slows down its actual kill but maintains its effective speed by doing something powerfully relevant on the first turn.
I like to make plays in some combination of (Duress/Xantid Swarm/Carpet of Flowers/D4) + (Duress/Xantid Swarm/Carpet of Flowers/D4). Even if your opponent has FoW, you have still gained the upper hand from the exchange by adding a tactical piece to your equation:
- If Carpet is your piece, then it allows you to play around Daze fairly consistently, and paying 2 for Spell Pierce is not uncommon either. From there you can bait with D4's. If your opponent counters the D4's then your opponent is losing his countermagic. Usually 4 FoW are the only 4 hard counters you will run into (exception being Landstill) so after about 2 D4's I've usually exhausted all of my opponent's resources. Then you can either IT for Belcher or just play out Belcher and win. If your opponent doesn't counter the D4's than you acquire more resources, play more protection, and then effectively resolve Belcher.
- If Xantid Swarm is your piece, then your opponent basically must come up with STP or he will lose in short order.
- If Duress is your piece, make sure to play it first. If it resolves, take your opponent's countermagic/lock piece and resolve your 2nd piece protected. If Duress is countered, your opponent isn't likely to have a 2nd piece of protection so play your 2nd piece protected.
- If D4 is your piece, you can just continue to storm off and win, or acquire more resources and play protection until you can stick a Belcher.

This strategy is fairly straight forward in the Pact list because the list runs ESG. ESG allows you to cast Carpet and Xantid with relative ease, and play around Daze. It will be harder to execute this strategy in an LG list with scarcer green sources.

Wow. It's nice to get a speedy reply from someone with a lot more experience with the deck :). So, I felt inspired after this to 'man up' and go back to the pact list, mainly on the strength of those sideboarding strategies. The maindeck took a bit of getting used to again. I might drop the slithermuse and eternal witness for something, as they tended to kill me as much as they bailed me out of different situations (but I was only running 2 manamorphose, so maybe I should go up to 4... hmm.... (I do love to tinker.....).

I REALLY did love the siding though :). It was nice to see control players contorting around wondering what to counter rather than me wondering what to bait with for a change ;). The one thing I will say though is I lost 1 game to killing someone with the random belcher in game 1, and then he opened with turn 1 pithing needle (belcher) and then turn 2 pithing needle (lions eye diamond) having probably put me on some mad variant of goblin charbelcher. So.... It was down to Urami, but he couldn't quite make it (getting him down to 5 before I died (Jace bounced him (sadface)). With this in mind I will definately put some natures claims in the side. Maybe 2 instead of duresses. Any other ideas about getting around annoying enchantments/artifacts? Would be nice to find some room for Empty the Warrens off the if it could be supported with the 'manabase' as an additional man-plan?

I was maybe going to try a few 'doomsdays' as additional bombs although I must admit this is just because I just got some black bordered ones together...

Peace out

The Spanish Tunnel King.

PS I just read my last sentence back, and even as I did it sounds like a bad idea.... lol

[Dark Ritual]

The opponent can pithing needle all these cards without you caring:

Lotus Petal
Chrome Mox
Lion's Eye Diamond
Grim Monolith
Mox Opal

They're all mana abilities so you can still activate them. Pithing needle reads: As Pithing Needle enters the battlefield, name a card.

Activated abilities of sources with the chosen name can't be activated unless they're mana abilities.

Had it happen on Saturday where a guy needled chrome mox and I was just like suuuuuuure. Then I played chrome mox and tapped it for mana and he's like "You can't" and I say "It only affects nonmana abilities. Pithing needle is not like null rod otherwise I'd be screwed." It didn't play out exactly like that but yeah next game he named belcher and I didn't care since I tendrils'd him out easily. Too bad you can't imprint artifacts on chrome mox...

[Sintheros]

I was thinking of getting into this deck. The PSI version on the primer looks interesting enough, but that particular list looks like it would have trouble with the white Leyline.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I was thinking of getting into this deck. The PSI version on the primer looks interesting enough, but that particular list looks like it would have trouble with the white Leyline.

You can easily run Deconstruct in the board. Or win via Empty The Warrens. Or run Burning Wish, like in the DSI lists. Being able to play Burning Wish for Reverent Silence is pretty good here, since you can just combo off until you got at least storm ten, 3BBR in pool and a forest in play. With storm eight and 4RR in pool you could also just wish for Empty The Warrens, swinging for 20 the next turn. This is also possible with Infernal Tutor as long as you have Empty The Warrens maindecked. SI is able to win games from nothing and against a lot of hate. You just have to know your options, play tight and maybe get a bit lucky. You can basically tune the deck for every expected meta, it's more versatile than most other decks, even most storm combo. There will always be a viable list that suits your playstyle.

[Vacrix]

I was maybe going to try a few 'doomsdays' as additional bombs although I must admit this is just because I just got some black bordered ones together...
I've been thinking about a similar strategy as I also have a playset.

SB:
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Doomsday
4 Duress
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Shelldock Isle

I'd think our game would be much better against CB if we expect a CB heavy metagame. Unfortunately we don't have the maindeck tools or the sideboard space to craft more than the Emrakul pile but baiting with D4's into Doomsday sounds savage in SI. Drawing Emrakul kinda sucks but limiting ourselves to one makes the chance of drawing it very low, especially if we are baiting with D4's instead of reaping the resources from our draws.


Also, I'm working on a list that takes advantage of Death's Shadow.

SI - Grim Reaper
Business 22
4 Pain's Reward
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Death's Shadow
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-Gotten Gains

Acceleration 38
1 Eternal Witness
1 Odious Trow
4 Culling the Weak
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Summoner’s Pact
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor

Sideboard 15
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Goblin Charbelcher
2 Duress
1 Slot

vs. U.dec
OUT 14
-4 Infernal Tutor
-4 Summoner’s Pact
-2 Cabal Ritual
-1 Tendrils of Agony
-1 Ill-Gotten Gains
-1 Odious Trow
-1 Eternal Witness


IN 14
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Goblin Charbelcher
2 Duress

I had often overlooked Pain's Reward as an unplayable POS; however, if you don't get to draw the cards, then your opponent loses life. This is huge if we can find some fast way to deal a lot of damage. Conveinently, Death's Shadow is only playable if our life totals are low and the deck is the best around at doing that quickly. Further, Death's Shadow doubles as acceleration as a tallman for B that pitches for Culling the Weak and Chrome Mox. Pain's Reward either works like a Draw4, which is great already as we can play it now using ESG's mana, or it makes the opponent lose a lot of life allowing us to take advantage of Death's Shadow as a fast clock. Further, Death's Shadow can be an excellent backup plan against bears.

Moreover, Death's Shadow allows us to Bluff on offense. Imagine we have a scenario in which I threaten Pain's Reward. I'm already at 10 life from a previous draw 4. If the opponent bets 9 life to keep me off the draw, then I can kill him with Death's Shadow because Pain's Reward will put him at least at 11 life. You can also disguise the true nature of the deck by being clever with Chrome Mox.

Obviously Pain's Reward is bad if you are at 5 life from your D4's, but its great from either 10 or 20 life. I have no testing data yet to support this idea but I will get on it as soon as I can.



Now Pain's Rewards is really a double edge sword. The opponent will firstly, not know what you are playing if you lead with it. He might point a counter at it or rationalize the situation that you need it to win and pay a lot of life to gain the card advantage, allowing you go for the Death's Shadow line of play, which can be made very, very easily via IT + LED or just hard casted. Then again, the other outcome is that the opponent doesn't pay much life. Either way, we have a solid game plan and will basically mindfuck every opponent we play, especially when we have an unconventional postboard plan.



EDIT:
Further, at low life Death's Shadow becomes an amazing topdeck, something that will allow us to put down some meat to block Goyf and friends as well as swing in for the finish against an unprotected opponent (like in the Landstill or CB matchup where creatures are fewer).

[Jonathan Alexander]

Doomsday adds a lot more versatility to the deck. But I think it doesn't fit the deck. How often will baiting for countermagic until resolving Doomsday be better than simple discard? In general, protected turn two kills are good enough against blue decks. You only need about a single Duress and an extra Ritual more than if you go off unprotected. But you can cast Duress off almot any land the turn before you go off.
I also don't like Doomsday without the ability to immediately win with it. But this might absolutely be me not fully understanding the Counterbalance matchup. I rarely play it since it's not important in my meta. Most blue decks I play against are either tempo or Merfolk, and sometimes stuff like Show And Tell and Reanimate. Against all of them going off as fast as possible game one and discard postboard are the best strategies.
Pain's Reward is a card that I've thought about before but to be honest I dismissed it before I actually tested it. That list with Death's Shadow definitely looks interesting. What's the average amount of life you pay for Pain's Reward? And do you have any results yet?

I did some testing with my list from post #201 by the way. Some serious testing. I basically did nothing else today, and these are my results:
Average turn one win percentage is around 40%. It would be better if I hadn't played poorly during the last part of the testing session.
Around 10% of all games are won via Empty The Warrens. I think this proves that the card is worth playing.
Another 30% of all games were turn two kills. Sometimes this is too slow, but against most decks (protected) turn two IGG-kills are good enough.
The remaining games were shit. I mostly lost due to bad mulligan decisions on my part or mulligans in general. I had like four or five games in a row where I mulliganed to four.

Playing two Tendrils maindeck is good. It was the last thing I changed to the deck and I would have lost some games without having the second copy.
I never wanted the maindeck Empty The Warrens to be Tendrils.
Burning Wish is really good, but I almost only use it to get Tendrils, Ill-Gotten Gains or Diminishing Returns.
Having Ill-Gotten Gains both maindeck and sideboard improves the deck.
Both Tinder Wall and Wild Cantor are worth playing. I'm frequently using both of them.
I sometimes want to have Skyshroud Cutter. I dislike pacting for Wild Cantor or Tinder Wall to use Culling The Weak just because I already played a land.
I sometimes want to cut lands.
I sometimes want Misty Rainforest to be Land Grant.
The deck wins against everything non-blue, non-Belcher. The only exception is Zoo dealing nine or more damage until turn two, which happens from time to time.

I hope to be able to play a few more games this week. Please note that I'm pretty exhausted right now, but I wanted to share my results. I'm sorry if something I'm saying doesn't make sense.

[Sintheros]

Vacrix, that Death's Shadow list is 62 cards.

[The Spanish Tunnel King]

Doomsday adds a lot more versatility to the deck. But I think it doesn't fit the deck. How often will baiting for countermagic until resolving Doomsday be better than simple discard? In general, protected turn two kills are good enough against blue decks. You only need about a single Duress and an extra Ritual more than if you go off unprotected. But you can cast Duress off almot any land the turn before you go off.
I also don't like Doomsday without the ability to immediately win with it. But this might absolutely be me not fully understanding the Counterbalance matchup. I rarely play it since it's not important in my meta. Most blue decks I play against are either tempo or Merfolk, and sometimes stuff like Show And Tell and Reanimate. Against all of them going off as fast as possible game one and discard postboard are the best strategies.

Hey. Yeah, to be honest I think you're right about it probably not being better than a simple discard effect (sadly). But if you could float a shed-load of mana (maybe 7...), a doomsday followed by a draw4 would be game via the storm route too (esp with LEDs etc). And on the same turn to boot (I guess you might need a IGG maindecked too...) and would give you a nice out against some of the more awkward matches by: T1 duress T2 ritual doomsday T3 Emerakul. Not to mention you could surprise some show and tell player with your own Emerakul. Lol. It wins against counterbalance because they can't counter it (put in to play via shelldock isle) and blows everything up straight away because you get the extra turn. And fighting through an active counterbalance/top (if you've taken a gamble on a 'slow' hand or fizzled or got forced once or whatever) is actually a nightmare (esp game 1).

All in all, it is probably not optimal, or might make another deck entirely, but I might put together something like a hybridised SITES/doomsday list and take it for a spin. I might even put a show and tell on the side ^^. I'll let you'all know how it works out...

The Spanish Tunnel King

[kicks_422]

Death's Shadow? Pain's Reward? Doomsday?

Why? What was wrong with Pact SI? I'd like to know why there's such a need for drastic innovation when the deck's been performing great as it is.

[DarthVicious]

Doomsday brings versatility, but it may be too demanding for this deck. QSI might be able to use it better given that it already runs more blue, then meditates and the shelldock package may not be too much to ask for.

I'm going to have to go ahead and agree on Pain's Reward. Giving your opponent choices is not something we want to be doing, even if they lose x life from it. It's also horrible later on in a spell chain.

I have been a huge fan of Death's Shadow since its printing, and it's tailor-made for this deck. Perfect for the man plan, effortlessly castable, and imprints black on mox.

I've been testing Warrens as my business spells 17-20 with SSG MD, and having three colors aggravates me to no end. It's nice when it works, but I'm going back to IT and walkers. Birds over cantors.

[The Spanish Tunnel King]

Death's Shadow? Pain's Reward? Doomsday?

Why? What was wrong with Pact SI? I'd like to know why there's such a need for drastic innovation when the deck's been performing great as it is.

Of course the list is pretty awesome, but I personally find that I need to innovate/tinker with my decks to keep up with metas and to just keep the deck fresh. Maybe its a personal thing. If some big tournament is coming up (sadly not so often here in the UK), then I'll go with a fairly base list that i'm really comfortable with (or play enchantress ^^). Who knows what will come of messing around a bit with the lists? After all PactSI seems to have been a huge innovation from the original LGSI list. Innovation is a good thing :).

As for doomsday, in some fairly limited testing it didn't seems to up the odds against counterbalance that much at all. Maybe a little on the draw..... But if you can get an early/protected doomsday off you might as well have just gone off anyway, and it dilutes the sideboard a bit too much...

And for anyone interested, it seems like the PactSI sideboard does fit quite well into the original LGSI lists. Lots of green sources after imprinting various green things on moxes or resolving a carpet of flowers. There is also a bit more space on the side because the duresses are 'pre-boarded'. This means i've gone for empty the warrens off the side (seems more sensible to beef up the man-plan against the layline rather than trying to disenchant it). I've not had any trouble casting EtW (as a 2 of) or any green source problems :). But I do use Kobalds instead of the walker set up new, so maybe that helps... And it leads to turn 1 - Kobalds of Kher Keep, the question 'Do you scoop?' and then tendrils based fun :).

Keep rocking the turn 1's ppl!

The Spanish Tunnel King

[kicks_422]

Found a chink in the impenetrable armor I thought I had with Pact SI - resolved permanents.

Found myself COLD to a resolved Gaddock Teeg - had no way in my 75 to handle that when the Zoo player dropped it on Turn 2 going first. I turn 1'd him Game 3 though, for the 2-1 win.

Next match was against some U/W control variant. Lost Game 1 closely due to a bad draw 4 (needed just one extra mana to Tendrils him out). Won Game 2 off the back of Xantid Swarm. Game 3 he dropeed a Turn 0 Leyline of Sanctity - and once again, I'm COLD.

My SB's like this:
4 Duress
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Carpet of Flowers
2 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Dosan, the Falling Leaf

What can I do? Thinking of replacing the Duress with Thoughtseize for hate bears, and then maybe an Empty the Warrens for Dosan?

It's either that or I just switch to the straight-up man plan - 4 Tombstalker, 4 P.Lich, etc.

[the resurrection]

What can I do?
- 4 MD protection
- If you fear Gaddock, play Therapy
- Cut Dosan for removal

[Admiral_Arzar]

Found a chink in the impenetrable armor I thought I had with Pact SI - resolved permanents.

Found myself COLD to a resolved Gaddock Teeg - had no way in my 75 to handle that when the Zoo player dropped it on Turn 2 going first. I turn 1'd him Game 3 though, for the 2-1 win.

Next match was against some U/W control variant. Lost Game 1 closely due to a bad draw 4 (needed just one extra mana to Tendrils him out). Won Game 2 off the back of Xantid Swarm. Game 3 he dropeed a Turn 0 Leyline of Sanctity - and once again, I'm COLD.

My SB's like this:
4 Duress
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Carpet of Flowers
2 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Dosan, the Falling Leaf

What can I do? Thinking of replacing the Duress with Thoughtseize for hate bears, and then maybe an Empty the Warrens for Dosan?

It's either that or I just switch to the straight-up man plan - 4 Tombstalker, 4 P.Lich, etc.

I had the same problems with PSI, which eventually led me to play versions with Burning Wish instead. However, if you want to continue playing that list, run a couple of Empty the Warrens in the board, and replace Duress with Thoughtseize.

[Dark Ritual]

If you expect troublesome permanents in PSI you just have to include deathmark and/or nature's claim. You design your SB to fit your metagame. For what you mentioned I suggest your SB go like this:

4 Thoughtseize
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Carpet of Flowers
2 Nature's Claim
1 Deathmark

That way gaddock teeg shouldn't be a problem and you can draw into nature's claim if they lay it turn 0 while you're comboing out or if you have it in your opener great. Same with a resolved teeg you draw into the deathmark during combo.

I don't like doomsday in SI it seems to be unneeded and uses up a lot of board space. True it can be done but is it better than just a normal protection plan i.e. duress, carpet, xantid swarm etc. etc.

[Hand_of_God]

I was just wondering if anyone has explored the idea of Pyromancer Ascension in SI? and also if there are any updates about the draw seven version of the deck.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I was just wondering if anyone has explored the idea of Pyromancer Ascension in SI? and also if there are any updates about the draw seven version of the deck.

Note that DSI basically shouldn't be named DSI here. It does nothing really special that other lists can't do nor does it have any draw seven that isn't played in other variants. It's rather Pact SI with Burning Wish and Slithermuse maindeck. The only real draw seven is Diminishing Returns off the wishboard. It's the list I personally like the most as it can do a lot of different tricks to get to enough storm. You often only have to play a single draw four to win the game, because you have lots of mana and tutors. I think my list from post #201 is the newest one. The statisticts from post #207 are slightly off by the way. I did a lot of testing that day and during the last 50 or so games I was pretty exhausted and kept hands I shouldn't have kept, Burning Wished for Diminishing Returns when I should've gotten Empty The Warrens and so on. My actual turn one percentage is around 60%, not counting Empty The Warrens kills. Counting Empty The Warrens it's slightly above 70%. The fizzle rate is roughly 5%. I think this is okay, other decks fizzle as well, not only combo, it's just that nobody says "look at that Merfolk player, he fizzled" when he just drew five lands or something. This is the luck factor of the game.
As for Pyromancer Ascension, to me it seems cute. The effect is quite cool, but until you profit from it you will have cast at least six spells, not counting starting mana. You have to cast Pyromancer Ascension, four spells to get the counters on it (or you could have something like three Dark Ritual, okay) and then you have to cast another spell that will get copied. Here you just could have played another business spell or ritual, whatever you copied. Most of the time you will cast 8+ spells until you profit from it. Why not just cast Tendrils Of Agony, Empty The Warrens or a tutor for one of these? On top of that it's basically one of the worst possible draws mid-chain. It's almost as bad as drawing extra lands. I'd always play real business/rituals.

[Dark Ritual]

I was just wondering if anyone has explored the idea of Pyromancer Ascension in SI

Oh please stop that has got to be one of the worst suggestions ever....pyromancer ascension has to be built around to be good with cards like brainstorm, manamorphose, preordain...so many cards but as a topdeck in the spell chain it is horrid as Jona pointed out because of so many reasons. And overall it seems very unneeded it doesn't do anything the deck can already do without it. And you open yourself up to enchantment hate needlessly. And if you do build around the card it is no longer SI but pyromancer ascension combo.

Sorry for ripping on you in the opening sentence of this post.

[Hand_of_God]

Not a problem for the rip. I am trying to piece together this deck and run with it as my legacy deck and I was just thinking of things that may work with it and had not seen a post with the ascension in it.

[Vacrix]

Ascension isn't even a business spell. It amplifies all your spells, but the point is you have to play a bunch for it to be effective, and without a deck design that can really abuse it. Its for another deck. Suggestions are welcome but make sure that you explain them in detail instead of just suggesting we try something new. In the details you will probably find your answer.

[DarthVicious]

Played in the Vestal tourney yesterday, 138 people. Depressing 3-4 and skipped out on the last round to get food.The surprising part is I wasn't the only SI guy there, and I sat next to the other one in the first round. Last time I talked to him, he was 4-1 and hadn't faced a blue deck. He must've made it up past the blue into the Survival Vengevine bracket. I faced two fish decks, one AdN, Goblin combo, and my brothers black/red deck. I seriously shook up one fish guy in the first round by winning with tendrils turn 1 game 1, even after he accidentally revealed both a pierce and a force while shuffling. This deck intimidates people. Never got shut out by anybody, and every game I lost but one came from my own mistakes or failed draw4s. Mostly my own mistakes, like getting a lotus petal spell pierced before attacking with swarm. Stupid mistakes. Still happy with the performance of the deck, but I have some concerns. Against permission, it can get very tough to rebuild if they counter our rituals. I'm wondering how to best combat that, as we only have twelve total in the deck. Dark Confidant? I heard rumors of scars block printing another black ritual along the lines of culling for artifacts, but I doubt it will become reality. Beyond that, I'm trying to get the list to monoblack plus artifacts. Therapy for protection out of the board, with lotus bloom out of the board as an extra 'ritual' against permission decks. Might be too slow considering we have to wait til 4th turn to get it if we suspend it first turn, but if it hits the board it almost guarantees either a win or a spell chain into one.

4 Mox Opal
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Shield Sphere
2 Phyrexian Walker
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
3 Birds of Paradise
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
3 Infernal Tutor
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Tendrils of Agony
4 Goblin Charbelcher

4 Death's Shadow
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Carpet of Flowers
3 Deathmark

Birds were only ok when I had no other initial mana. Xantid swarm ruled, Carpet was meh because the only times I boarded it in they stopped fetching islands after the first. Never saw hatebears, but I knew they were running around. The Shadow from the board was my answer to stuff like Leyline, and sometimes I actually did attack with it. One guy shit his pants when I played two draw4s and dropped two shadows at 8/8 turn 1. I want to cut the green completely and bump up the walkers and infernals to 4, and add who knows what else in the empty slot. Swarms and carpets may become Cabal Therapy and lotus bloom, but I'll have to test the bloom first.

[marit]

I was the other SI player, and went a sad 4-3 then dropped. I started out 4-1 but lost a squeaker to merfolk because he topdecked a second coralhelm commander in g3 after i thoughtseized the first one. Then I lost to g/w survival because g2 my draw 4 fizzled and he went T2 teeg, then g3 I shoulda mulled but didn't because if i topdecked any mana source I woulda won, but i drew another land grant (I played a 1 land version) and he dropped Teeg again turn 2. I dropped after that, but here are my matchups:

2-0 vs Lands

0-2 vs Dredge (i drew all my win conditions, no fuel)

2-0 vs Aggro Loam

2-0 vs B/g Aggro

2-1 vs Zoo

1-2 vs U/b Merfolk

1-2 vs G/W Survival

I made a few mistakes that costed me some games, but there's only one way to get better with the deck. In total I had 6 turn 1 kills, so that was pretty fun. I really like the deck, and am def gonna play it more, to see what's underperforming.


// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
1 [B] Bayou

// Creatures
4 [AL] Shield Sphere
4 [VI] Phyrexian Walker
1 [MOR] Slithermuse

// Spells
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
4 [MM] Land Grant
4 [EX] Culling the Weak
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [B] Dark Ritual
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
1 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
2 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
4 [MI] Infernal Contract
4 [PT] Cruel Bargain
1 [MR] Goblin Charbelcher
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [SOM] Mox Opal

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
SB: 4 [SOK] Tomb of Urami
SB: 4 [SC] Xantid Swarm
SB: 3 [FUT] Tombstalker

[1maarten1]

Hi everybody! I recently started to play this deck, and I have a couple of questions! First of all, I use the ''standard'' PSI maindeck list from the opening post, I want to become more familliar with the deck before I start changing stuff in the maindeck.

But my questions are about the sideboard:
1. I dont really know that well what I can take out of the main deck in which matchup
My sideboard was at first the sideboard from the primer, but since there are quite some Gaddock teeg's in my meta I needed some changes.

So I think there are 2 options here (please correct me if I am wrong :))
1. Going for the man-plan, in my case that would be 4 tomb of uramni, 3 tombstalker (or is this overkill?) And what is the verdict on Death's shadow?
2. Playing cards like Deathmark / Nature's claim to beat the hate.

For me 4 xantid swarm and 4 Duress are 8 slots that have to be in the sideboard, no thoughtseize since I simply dont have the money or the cards for it atm. So the other 7 slots are flexible.

What do you guys suggest :)?

I would really apreciate some help here since the deck is pretty hard to play, but very fun so I am stoked to get started playing with it :)!

~maarten

[marit]

Hi everybody! I recently started to play this deck, and I have a couple of questions! First of all, I use the ''standard'' PSI maindeck list from the opening post, I want to become more familliar with the deck before I start changing stuff in the maindeck.

But my questions are about the sideboard:
1. I dont really know that well what I can take out of the main deck in which matchup
My sideboard was at first the sideboard from the primer, but since there are quite some Gaddock teeg's in my meta I needed some changes.

So I think there are 2 options here (please correct me if I am wrong :))
1. Going for the man-plan, in my case that would be 4 tomb of uramni, 3 tombstalker (or is this overkill?) And what is the verdict on Death's shadow?
2. Playing cards like Deathmark / Nature's claim to beat the hate.

For me 4 xantid swarm and 4 Duress are 8 slots that have to be in the sideboard, no thoughtseize since I simply dont have the money or the cards for it atm. So the other 7 slots are flexible.

What do you guys suggest :)?

I would really apreciate some help here since the deck is pretty hard to play, but very fun so I am stoked to get started playing with it :)!

~maarten

I can't answer your questions about what to sideboard for the pact version because I don't play it, but for the non-pact version the plan is to not sideboard unless they're playing blue. The goal is to race the hate, teeeg take 2 turns to hit play, that gives you 8 cards to resolve belcher, tendrils or EtW. This applies to the pact version too, any permanent based hate should be raced. With blue it's a full 15 card SB, -4 Culling the Weak, -8 Artifact Creatures, -1 CHarbelcher, -1 Slithermuse, -1 Tendrils, +15 sideboard. I don't think the man plan is used in the pact version, the pact version palys something like carpet of flowers, xantid swarm, autumn's veil and things like that. Hopefully Vacrix can clear that up for you though.

[marit]

Hi everybody! I recently started to play this deck, and I have a couple of questions! First of all, I use the ''standard'' PSI maindeck list from the opening post, I want to become more familliar with the deck before I start changing stuff in the maindeck.

But my questions are about the sideboard:
1. I dont really know that well what I can take out of the main deck in which matchup
My sideboard was at first the sideboard from the primer, but since there are quite some Gaddock teeg's in my meta I needed some changes.

So I think there are 2 options here (please correct me if I am wrong :))
1. Going for the man-plan, in my case that would be 4 tomb of uramni, 3 tombstalker (or is this overkill?) And what is the verdict on Death's shadow?
2. Playing cards like Deathmark / Nature's claim to beat the hate.

For me 4 xantid swarm and 4 Duress are 8 slots that have to be in the sideboard, no thoughtseize since I simply dont have the money or the cards for it atm. So the other 7 slots are flexible.

What do you guys suggest :)?

I would really apreciate some help here since the deck is pretty hard to play, but very fun so I am stoked to get started playing with it :)!

~maarten

I can't answer your questions about what to sideboard for the pact version because I don't play it, but for the non-pact version the plan is to not sideboard unless they're playing blue. The goal is to race the hate, teeeg take 2 turns to hit play, that gives you 8 cards to resolve belcher, tendrils or EtW. This applies to the pact version too, any permanent based hate should be raced. With blue it's a full 15 card SB, -4 Culling the Weak, -8 Artifact Creatures, -1 CHarbelcher, -1 Slithermuse, -1 Tendrils, +15 sideboard. I don't think the man plan is used in the pact version, the pact version palys something like carpet of flowers, xantid swarm, autumn's veil and things like that. Hopefully Vacrix can clear that up for you though.

[Jonathan Alexander]

When I'm playing DSI, I'm not even boarding that much, but I have Burning Wish maindeck. I usually board out Summoner's Pact, Ill-Gotten Gains and one Infernal Tutor against anything blue. Against aggro I sometimes board out Infernal Tutor or Empty The Warrens for the second Ill-Gotten Gains, but usually not. I think that marit is absolutely right in saying that permanent based hated should be raced.
Oh and by the way, I don't like the man-plan that much. It's better to board in stuff that supports your game plan rather than stuff that doesn't fit it at all. Xantid Swarm is a really good card to bring in, since it draws removal (makes them tap out), can win games on its own, is castable off one land and can be sacrificed to Culling The Weak. The second best card to bring in when playing SI is Empty The Warrens in my opinion. It's awesome against a lot of decks packing blue right now. You obviously don't want to see Engineered Explosives, but you can easily race Firespout. Merfolk can't do anything against Warrens for 8-10 tokens turn one.

[1maarten1]

When I'm playing DSI, I'm not even boarding that much, but I have Burning Wish maindeck. I usually board out Summoner's Pact, Ill-Gotten Gains and one Infernal Tutor against anything blue. Against aggro I sometimes board out Infernal Tutor or Empty The Warrens for the second Ill-Gotten Gains, but usually not. I think that marit is absolutely right in saying that permanent based hated should be raced.
Oh and by the way, I don't like the man-plan that much. It's better to board in stuff that supports your game plan rather than stuff that doesn't fit it at all. Xantid Swarm is a really good card to bring in, since it draws removal (makes them tap out), can win games on its own, is castable off one land and can be sacrificed to Culling The Weak. The second best card to bring in when playing SI is Empty The Warrens in my opinion. It's awesome against a lot of decks packing blue right now. You obviously don't want to see Engineered Explosives, but you can easily race Firespout. Merfolk can't do anything against Warrens for 8-10 tokens turn one.

Hmm valid points! Thanks alot! For me 4 xantid swarm and duress have been doing great, I also have a question about the function of the 2 goblin charbelcher in the sideboard in the opening post, in what matchup would you want to board these in?

@Jona
So you prefer EtW over Charbelcher? I haven't tested enough to make such decisions on my own yet, but I'll certainly keep it in mind.

And what are your thought on Autumn's veil? I might want to run it over carpet of flowers. So then I would look at a board like this:
4 duress
4 xantid swarm
4 autumn's veil

And then 3 slots that are a bit flexible, maybe something like 2 Tomb of Urami (because of its synergy with belcher) and maybe 1 charbelcher or 1 EtW (or would this only be worth it if you run multiple copies?)

Thanks alot for the help already!

[Vacrix]

I made a few mistakes that costed me some games, but there's only one way to get better with the deck. In total I had 6 turn 1 kills, so that was pretty fun. I really like the deck, and am def gonna play it more, to see what's underperforming.
6 Turn 1's out of 17 games is strangely low for PSI considering what you were playing against. Are you happy with your build?

@1maarten1
Stuff that comes out in PSI:
-4 Summoner's Pact
-2 Tendrils of Agony
-2 Manamorphose
-1 Slithermuse
-1 Eternal Witness
-1 Odious Trow
-1 Cabal Ritual
-1 Land Grant
-1 Dryad Arbor
-13 Total
+4 Carpet of Flowers
+4 Xantid Swarm
+3 Duress
+2 Belcher

Thats the generic board. I've switched from Death Mark in my board. Against aggro I board in +2 Belcher, +2 Death Mark, -2 Manamorphose, -1 Eternal Witness, -1 Slithermuse, if I expect bears. The Belchers help you get a more consistent win because you are not trying to resolve a long spell chain. Rather, you just go for Belcher and then wait for mana to activate. Usually you can activate in a turn or two. You can't afford to wait to play WC's when you have hatebears to deal with. At least rituals and mana sources are still playable despite a hatebear like Teeg or Cannonist.

Duress comes in if you expect an opponent like Aggro Loam to mulligan for Chalice in Game 3. They can't do shit if you take that piece of hate. -2 Manamorphose, -1 Eternal Witness.

In general, board in Belchers if you ever expect to race hate, which is often the case in game 2. -2 Manamorphose, +2 Belcher in that case.

[1maarten1]

6 Turn 1's out of 17 games is strangely low for PSI considering what you were playing against. Are you happy with your build?

@1maarten1
Stuff that comes out in PSI:
-4 Summoner's Pact
-2 Tendrils of Agony
-2 Manamorphose
-1 Slithermuse
-1 Eternal Witness
-1 Odious Trow
-1 Cabal Ritual
-1 Land Grant
-1 Dryad Arbor
-13 Total
+4 Carpet of Flowers
+4 Xantid Swarm
+3 Duress
+2 Belcher

Thats the generic board. I've switched from Death Mark in my board. Against aggro I board in +2 Belcher, +2 Death Mark, -2 Manamorphose, -1 Eternal Witness, -1 Slithermuse, if I expect bears. The Belchers help you get a more consistent win because you are not trying to resolve a long spell chain. Rather, you just go for Belcher and then wait for mana to activate. Usually you can activate in a turn or two. You can't afford to wait to play WC's when you have hatebears to deal with. At least rituals and mana sources are still playable despite a hatebear like Teeg or Cannonist.

Duress comes in if you expect an opponent like Aggro Loam to mulligan for Chalice in Game 3. They can't do shit if you take that piece of hate. -2 Manamorphose, -1 Eternal Witness.

In general, board in Belchers if you ever expect to race hate, which is often the case in game 2. -2 Manamorphose, +2 Belcher in that case.

This is very helpfull! Though what if your opponent goes turn 0 Leyline of Sanctity? I figured maybe 1 EtW in the board might help against that, or is leyline so underplayed thats not worth to waste slots on?

So your sb looks like:
4 xantid swarm
4 carpet of flowers
3 duress
2 goblin charbelcher
2 deathmark

And if you want to have an out vs leyline -2 deathmark, +1 duress +1 EtW? Or would 2 natures claim just be better?

~maarten

[Vacrix]

Leyline is horrible. People will never use it to prepare for Storm combo because they are really preparing for decks like TES, Belcher, and ANT which can all play around Leyline with EtW, with the exception of shitty ANT lists. Leyline might be great against SI, but more so against PSI than SITES which packs Burning Wish and EtW. Otherwise, I'd play Nature's Claim then in your board if you are expecting Permanent based hate of that sort like Ethersworn Cannonists, Thorn of Amythest, Chalice, CB, etc. Death Mark is usually safer because you more often run into bears than you run into non-bear perma-hate. EtW is more difficult to support if you don't have access to red. You might be able to IT + LED into it, or use Lotus Petals or Manamorphose but thats a stretch if you want to pursue that strategy on a consistent basis. I would just run x2 Nature's Claim in the board, but not because you fear Leyline, but because you expect non-bear hate. So I suggest that you figure out what people sideboard in your metagame and develop your post-board accordingly.

[marit]

6 Turn 1's out of 17 games is strangely low for PSI considering what you were playing against. Are you happy with your build?

I was more than happy with my build. I didn't mulligan as aggressively as I normally would because I figured I'd have time vs decks with no disruption, which is definitely the better call. Why mull to 6 when you've got 3-4 turns to topdeck 1/30+ mana sources or 1/20 business spells? Also, I could have turn 1'd zoo G2 but I chose to play around mindbreak trap instead, which admittedly was the wrong play, I should have just IGG looped. Also vs the G/B deck I got hit with disruption when I had potential turn 1 hands. Also against merfolk I got hit with FoW and Daze G1. Tournament settings aren't goldfishing sadly, there will be disruption which will not give you the fabled 60-70% turn 1 win. Also in the last 2 games vs merfolk I SB'd, which makes turn 1 less likely. The only card I question was Slithermuse, but he needs more testing.

[Iranon]

@1maarten1: SI draws a lot of cards, lacks filtering and usually relies on an open-ended path to a kill rather than a winning combination. This means any concession compromises speed and stability more than it does in other decks.

However: If you can't win around a Leyline and your opponent gambles on this, you are bending over and dropping your pants. They can mulligan to 1 for a 87% chance of seeing one. Win game 1, get turn-1 wins they can't answer otherwise in every single game... and you'll still lose the match 3 times out of 4. If their deck contains anything else of any relevance, the match percentage will likely be in the single digits.

A single EtW won't be terribly reliable, a build with several wishes can get around the problem. If you're truly worried about thins that prevent the final kill rather than going off in the first place, I'd recommend a build that can draw the entire deck and runs at least 1 wish.

[Vacrix]

I made a few mistakes that costed me some games, but there's only one way to get better with the deck. In total I had 6 turn 1 kills, so that was pretty fun. I really like the deck, and am def gonna play it more, to see what's underperforming.
Actually another way to get better is to stay for the whole tournament. Even if you start the night 0-3, keep playing so that you can get practice playing competitively. Goldfishing and saying that you are going to race bears is completely different once you are actually playing against someone. The same goes for the control matchup. You really need as much experience as possible to master the deck to your potential.

[kusumoto]

I've been playing LGSI lately. My current list...

4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Elvish Spirit Guide
3 Phyrexian Walker
3 Shield Sphere
4 Land Grant
2 Bayou
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
4 Infernal Tutor
3 Tendrils of Agony
1 Slithermuse
2 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Grim Tutor
2 Ill-Gotten Gains

SB
3 Nature's Claim
3 Deathmark
4 Unmask
4 Autumn's Viel
1 Elvish Spirit Guide

This seems like it has been working well for me. I really don't like having 8 tallmen, so I play 6. I have almost never had trouble casting Culling the Weak and tallmen are usually dead draws otherwise. Any thoughts on this and the list in general?

[Vacrix]

Interesting list. I haven't tried the Veil/Unmask config yet. How is it working out for you?

Take a look: PSI takes 3rd, losing to Countertop (a nasty looking list at that):
http://deckcheck.org/?x=8QRflGWV2M4iF31hlGRfiaiaN4N4vd

I like that he plays Thoughtsieze. It takes bears, unlike Duress. I'm definitely going to give it a try.



Also, Lotus Bloom intrigues me immensely. Imagine this post-board in PSI:
SB
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Empty the Warrens
3 Slot

Lotus Bloom allows us to explode. We can probably have enough business spells in the deck post-board to play 3 business spells post-board on one, huge turn 4. Pushing business through by sheer power of resources looks like its worth trying.

[DerFern]

Take a look: PSI takes 3rd, losing to Countertop (a nasty looking list at that):
http://deckcheck.org/?x=8QRflGWV2M4iF31hlGRfiaiaN4N4vd

I like that he plays Thoughtsieze. It takes bears, unlike Duress. I'm definitely going to give it a try.

Thanx :) more to be posted tomorrow...

[marit]

I've been playing LGSI lately. My current list...

4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Elvish Spirit Guide
3 Phyrexian Walker
3 Shield Sphere
4 Land Grant
2 Bayou
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
4 Infernal Tutor
3 Tendrils of Agony
1 Slithermuse
2 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Grim Tutor
2 Ill-Gotten Gains

SB
3 Nature's Claim
3 Deathmark
4 Unmask
4 Autumn's Viel
1 Elvish Spirit Guide

This seems like it has been working well for me. I really don't like having 8 tallmen, so I play 6. I have almost never had trouble casting Culling the Weak and tallmen are usually dead draws otherwise. Any thoughts on this and the list in general?

Your list is pretty solid, I have a few questions about it though. I'm not such a fan of the Elvish Spirit Guides, if you were to run spirit guides I'd recommend Simian, because then you can add 1-2 Empty the Warrens, which in addition to being great vs control, also gives you an out or Leyline of Sanctity or other such cards. How is Grim Tutor working you? 1BB is pretty expensive, what do you normally fetch with it? And why 2 Charbelcher? Charbelcher is the secondary win condition, the main win is tendrils. I use belcher if it just falls into my lap, or if there is a Meddling Mage naming tendrils, or some other hate that belcher can get through. Other than that though, looks solid, though I'm not so sure about only 6 tall men, but whatever works.

[DerFern]

And why 2 Charbelcher? Charbelcher is the secondary win condition, the main win is tendrils. I use belcher if it just falls into my lap, or if there is a Meddling Mage naming tendrils, or some other hate that belcher can get through.

Even though I play a very different list (see the link above) I disagree. Most of my wins have been on the back of Belcher, which is really huge. Anyway, those both lists play out really different so arguing about different win conditions might not be effective.

So, I played PSI last monday at our local tournament. Lately I have been playing DDFT most of the time, but our meta is really full of hardcore control decks, all packed either with the tempo package or Counterbalance. That´s why I chose PSI this time, just to be faster than they are. The list played out really great, but I would cut one more IT for something like another Chrome Mox or something like that. Most of the time IT has been a dead draw and I never wanted to see it in my D4s. 2 ToA, one IGG and 2 Belcher are my win conditions of choise, since this always gave me enough business to get the game.

[1maarten1]

How did you like that 1 IGG? And 4 manamorphose? I play 2 now, and I havent found the urge to play more then that, I might go -1 IT +1 IGG.

And yes @kusumoto
How does that Autumn's veil + Unmask package work for you atm?

[DarthVicious]

Also, Lotus Bloom intrigues me immensely. Imagine this post-board in PSI:
SB
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Empty the Warrens
3 Slot

Lotus Bloom allows us to explode. We can probably have enough business spells in the deck post-board to play 3 business spells post-board on one, huge turn 4. Pushing business through by sheer power of resources looks like its worth trying.

My thoughts exactly. I wanted to cut green tho. Carpet is weak when you're facing down one island for a whole match. Swarm is great, but its really the only good card green brings. Haven't tested veil however.

[Vacrix]

Lotus Bloom could act as a decent replacement for Carpet of Flowers in builds that don't run green, such as LGSI and QSI. SITES (and DSI) really lacks the board space due to Burning Wish, but QSI likes to play Meditate EOT and LGSI/PSI can clearly take advantage of it.

I really do think that Carpet is strong though and I wouldn't cut green from PSI, especially since ESG is so strong against Daze and facilitates an earlier Cabal Ritual. If your opponent is limited in the number of lands he can play then its hard for him to land a creature and have mana open for Spell Pierce, BS-->Countermagic, etc. Further, an opponent with one Island cannot Ponder and have mana open for Spell Pierce. The only disadvantage we have here is that the opposing player will grab fewer lands with his cantrips, unless the deck is Merfolk and lacks cantrips entirely. I find when I resolve a Carpet my opponent's clock slows significantly. Thats an advantage both in the fact that it gives you a perpetual initial mana source that isn't vulnerable to Wasteland. Further, Carpet is better in Lotus Bloom in that it is a perpetual source of mana. In a sense, Lotus Bloom gives away too much. Your opponent knows three turns in advance that you will have a Black Lotus. Carpet can actually be used in the spell chain by passing to the second mainphase, unlike Lotus Bloom. Also, in multiples Carpets are ridiculously good because you have enough mana to play around Daze and Spell Pierce relatively easy. Lotus Bloom are only good in multiples if you have them at the same time, while Carpets are good even if you get them off consecutive draw phases. Further, Carpet is a powerful threat that you can resolve on the same turn as another business spell. If you recall, the goal of the post-board PSI plan is to overwhelm the opponent with resources. Its much harder to do that if you go for a business spell on turn 1, and then try again on turn 4, when you could instead go for all your low CC threats like Carpet and say, Duress, in the same turn. When you play two business spells in this way the opponent has to have two countermagic already in hand or else you've set up for the next few turns. Even if the opponent has double FoW, you can recover far more quickly than the control player and top deck a business like Belcher.


I'm taking the stock PSI list to a decent sized tournament tonight. I'll write a report tomorrow.

[kusumoto]

Unmask/Veil has worked well for me. It seems like 6 tallmen and 3 unmasks is the magic amount to make them both less dead cards. I hate having a bunch of tallmen in my hands and 6 seems like enough to always be able to use culling the weak.

Veil + spirit guide has been a beast in a few situations for me. It seems like in my meta the unmask/veil package works really well. Obviously there have been situations were a swarm may have been better (LED...), but swarm just dies all the time where I play.

As far as leyline and the like go, nature's claim can generally take care of them. It feels like non pact lists don't really work with red, so I just want to try and strengthen the tendrils/belcher plan in my list.

I like the grim tutor. It makes some crap hands playable and I have actually won a lot of games because it can save me from crap d4s where infernal couldn't. It usually just functions as a worse IT, but a functional fifth anyway.

[DerFern]

How did you like that 1 IGG? And 4 manamorphose? I play 2 now, and I havent found the urge to play more then that, I might go -1 IT +1 IGG.

Yeah, playing 4 Manamorphose might be a little too much. Anyway, there are several times where I can´t get BBB due to ESG in my hand or Chrome Mox only giving me green mana so I thought that would be a good way to fix it. IGG main was a blast all day long. Looping Iggy is just one more absurd way to win the game without being reliant on your D4s. I would never ever play PSI without it. There has also been a situation where I had to discard ToA to an LED and IGG was the only serious way to get it back. Love. it.

Can you guys estimate how important Eternal Witness really is? I only played three or four tournaments with PSI but Witness was useless everytime. The only time it would have won me the game I only had BBB after my D4 and got 3xMana, 1xWitness. If BBB would´ve been BGG I would have won... but you just can never know... the situations where we have a lot of mana floating and go Pact, respons crack LED, get Witness, Profit are very rare I guess. Do you have any other experiences or is it just matchup-dependant?

[DarthVicious]

I'm not running PactSI, although I do agree Carpets may be better in that deck. I'm running Blooms main unless they print something stupid good for this deck soon. (Phyrexian Ritual. B. Sorcery. As an additional cost to cast, sacrifice an artifact. Add BBBB to your mana pool.) I want to cut down on the number of colors I'm running. Most problems I've had with this deck come from off-color mana I didn't have when I needed it, or had too much of when I didn't. On top of being off-color, if they play around Carpet to keep me off mana it throws them off their plan, but it throws me off mine as well.

Having to pay Pact taxes annoyed me to no end, especially when I mostly used it to fetch ESG. I never used Witness more than twice over like a week of goldfishing. When I wasn't fetching ESG, I was fetching a Culling target. Although, this was goldfishing.


After some testing, Lotus Bloom is nuts. It doesn't hurt your turn 1 wins, and if you somehow get stopped, it can refuel you on turn four if you can't go off before then. They really need a grip full of counters to completely stop you at that point. I lost count of how many fourth turn belcher activations I had, in addition to double tendrils wins just because I had the mana.

[Alexeezay]

I'm really interested if this deck can be good (top 8) that it's worth to build it myself. because I got 3 Foil infernal contracts laying around ;) and no one wants to buy this card.

[The Spanish Tunnel King]

I'm really interested if this deck can be good (top 8) that it's worth to build it myself. because I got 3 Foil infernal contracts laying around ;) and no one wants to buy this card.

I say build it. It's as fun as you like and quite a lot of time to master the ins and outs, so I think it's like magic body-building (or something). I don't expect too many top 8's though. It seems like about 8 people in the world play it. And of those 8, maybe only 3 are good with it :). The cruel bargains are probably the hardest bit to get together though...

Did you do that tourney Vacrix? It'd be nice to hear how you got on. I'll probably be sleeving it up to a small tournament this weekend too...

The Spanish Tunnel King

[DarthVicious]

My landless build looks better every day. Bloom makes turn 4 the most ridiculous thing you've ever seen, and makes the Show & Tell matchup a joke. Even if you only have 1 Bloom on turn 4 and you use it to play a draw4 it can be enough. Often the Blooms are red herrings as well, people will rely on you needing them to go off and slowplay, then you go off in their face next turn. It also gives you insurance against a draw4 that you can't win now with, like if you draw all business and no mana. I feel it gives the deck the consistency and inevitability it needs. There's a lot more hands that are keepable as well, even though this deck mulligans amazingly.

4 Meditate
4 Pact of Negation
3 Echoing Truth
2 Slaughter Pact
2 ?

This is the board I'm currently testing. Pact is ridiculous because I find that I rarely need to crack LED, unless it is to float mana into a draw4 or to activate Belcher. Sometimes waiting until turn 4 to go off you have to have an answer to permanent based hate. Meditates I bring in for IT against blue and it's very good. I'd like another counterspell of some kind tho.

[Nonkel]

Im pretty new to SI, after some testing though I came up with this list:

3#Infernal Tutor
4#Burning Wish
4#Lotus Petal
3#Mox Opal
4#Land Grant
1#Tendrils of Agony
1#Tombstalker
3#Cruel Bargain
1#Dryad Arbor
1#Tomb of Urami
1#Bayou
1#Taiga
1#Verdant Catacombs
1#Goblin Charbelcher
4#Shield Sphere
2#Phyrexian Walker
1#Empty the Warrens
4#Dark Ritual
3#Cabal Ritual
4#Chrome Mox
4#Lion’s Eye Diamond
4#Culling the Weak
4#Infernal Contract
1#Mox Diamond

// sideboard
4#Duress
2#Deathmark
1#Reverent Silence
1#Tendrils of Agony
1#Empty the Warrens
1#Diminishing Returns
1#Pyroclasm
1#Hull Breach
1#Tomb of Urami
1#Cruel Bargain
1#Wing Snare

In my experience, I have a lot of games/hands where I miss one solid black mana (land, petal etc). Thats the reason for the Tomb and Fetch. Besides fixing this, the Tomb helps me out against control decks and the fetch also can get me Dryad arbor as culling fodder (LG also can, this helps to cut down on the number of tall men). Due to the higher number of lands and 4xLG I added one Mox Diamond, which functions better then you might expect. I know Belcher gets weaker by adding more land, but I still like it being in there.

I added 1 Tombstalker maindeck. I noticed I couldnt go off on an IT with less then 4 mana floating, which sometimes just is too much. Now I can IT with only BB floating and go for the Tombstalker.

Any advice you guys could give me would be great, because as I said I just startet playing this great deck. The hardest to master of all the decks Ive played so far, but also one of the most fun decks.

[marit]

Im pretty new to SI, after some testing though I came up with this list:

3#Infernal Tutor
4#Burning Wish
4#Lotus Petal
3#Mox Opal
4#Land Grant
1#Tendrils of Agony
1#Tombstalker
3#Cruel Bargain
1#Dryad Arbor
1#Tomb of Urami
1#Bayou
1#Taiga
1#Verdant Catacombs
1#Goblin Charbelcher
4#Shield Sphere
2#Phyrexian Walker
1#Empty the Warrens
4#Dark Ritual
3#Cabal Ritual
4#Chrome Mox
4#Lion’s Eye Diamond
4#Culling the Weak
4#Infernal Contract
1#Mox Diamond

// sideboard
4#Duress
2#Deathmark
1#Reverent Silence
1#Tendrils of Agony
1#Empty the Warrens
1#Diminishing Returns
1#Pyroclasm
1#Hull Breach
1#Tomb of Urami
1#Cruel Bargain
1#Wing Snare

In my experience, I have a lot of games/hands where I miss one solid black mana (land, petal etc). Thats the reason for the Tomb and Fetch. Besides fixing this, the Tomb helps me out against control decks and the fetch also can get me Dryad arbor as culling fodder (LG also can, this helps to cut down on the number of tall men). Due to the higher number of lands and 4xLG I added one Mox Diamond, which functions better then you might expect. I know Belcher gets weaker by adding more land, but I still like it being in there.

I added 1 Tombstalker maindeck. I noticed I couldnt go off on an IT with less then 4 mana floating, which sometimes just is too much. Now I can IT with only BB floating and go for the Tombstalker.

Any advice you guys could give me would be great, because as I said I just startet playing this great deck. The hardest to master of all the decks Ive played so far, but also one of the most fun decks.

I'm kind of curious how the mox diamond is working out for you, it looks kinda clunky. And you've already addressed the belcher with 4 land point, I don't think belcher should be run unless you're running 3>lands, but if it's working it's working. I think the stalker is useless though, because it will never win the game on its own, only maybe g2, but it seems like a 1 trick pony.