[Deck] Seismic Swans

[4eak]

Seismic Swans is an interesting combo. There are a couple ways to go about building around this combo, and they all tend to be on the slow end. Slowness isn't always wrong though, particularly if you maintain some resilience and control that other combo decks don't have.

Here is a decklist:

// Lands - 39
1 Stomping Ground
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool
1 Steam Vents
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Arid Mesa
2 Gemstone Caverns
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Halimar Depths
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Reliquary Tower
1 Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree
1 Academy Ruins
4 Dakmor Salvage

// The Build Around Cards - 8
4 Swans of Bryn Argoll
4 Seismic Assault

// Raw Card Advantage - 5
1 Life from the Loam
4 Treasure Hunt

// Cascade Pseudo-[Tutor + Mind's Desires] - 8
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Captured Sunlight

// Sideboard
SB: 4 Firespout
SB: 3 Life from the Loam
SB: 4 Oblivion Stone
SB: 4 Punishing Fire

You want to get Swans and Seismic Assault into play, and then use your lands to either stabilize the board or combo your opponent out. Assault is the most important card to have in play - the deck can play nicely with just it in play.

The high land count is very important. It makes Treasure Hunt and Loam very good. But, it is also important for the combo. You want to have very high odds to draw 2 lands off Swans when you Seismic assault it. Dakmor Salvage is amazing; you discard it to Seismic targeting Swans, and you can dredge it and draw another card alongside it. With enough cards in your library, you can easily turn 1 Salvage into 10 lands to combo your opponent out on the spot.




peace,
4eak

[tsabo_tavoc]

What a lovely deck:laugh:

I don't get the City-Tree and Ruins. If colourless lands are affordable, I would try Inkmoth Nexus or Mutavault first.

The SB has too many Aggro hates, but lacks Artifact (Pithing Needle) destructions.

Also, I guess this deck has a hard time for mulligan.

[4eak]

The manabase needs some work. I'm still trying to find something I like. I'm not a huge fan of the man-land route, but it may be the way to go still.

Artifact destruction seems unnecessary. Oblivion Stone handles everything. Going out of my way to handle needle on O-Stone also seems like more work than it is worth.

I'm not sure about mulligan strategies at this point. I think it can mulligan pretty effectively if it wanted though. One Treasure Hunt can refill your hand.

I'd like better ways to get Swans into play. Treasure Hunt is fantastic in this deck, and perhaps that can be leveraged with higher-CC Cascaders to improve the odds of getting Swan into play. I'm not sure.


peace,
4eak

[Phoenix Ignition]

I tried making swans work, it is harder without ways to stop them from just plowing your dude. Two card combos can be like that. Treasure hunt does not have even a decent chance of netting you 10 cards by the way, here's some math if you want, but it will usually be 3ish cards.
http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg820/scaled.php?server=820&filename=distribution.jpg&res=medium

[Maveric78f]

I tried making swans work, it is harder without ways to stop them from just plowing your dude.
You just have to play it with 2/3 lands in hand and respond to the opponent's removal/plow.


Treasure hunt does not have even a decent chance of netting you 10 cards by the way, here's some math if you want, but it will usually be 3ish cards.
I think you may have misread him. He never claimed Treasure Hunt would net that many cards.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Yep, misread, salvage =/= treasure hunt. Still, I think Swans without decent cantrips is going to be a clunky 2 card combo.

[optml]

My thoughts are that it is just too slow.
What do you do for the first 2 - 3 turns? (assuming you don't draw Treasure Hunt)
If you say Man-Lands aren't the way forward, it just seems to me that you are waiting for a few turns to get mana, then playing cascade or seismic and then next turn swans. Can this get faster than a 4th turn win?

I don't mean to be negative, as I think the combo is cute. I just don't see it working. I would be instead tempted to go for fewer lands, and instead focus on Salvage (nice!) and "brainstorm" effects, (ponder equivalents if you like) in which you place a land on top of your library. Also, 4 life-from the loam with fetch lands seems like a good way.

Less focussed on the cascade (which I think at 4 mana and no mana accel is just slow).

Perhaps:

Lands: Perhaps 30 including 12 fetchlands
4 MD LftL
-4 Treasure Hunt
+4 Condescend
+4 Serum Visions
+2 Selective Memory
+4 Mana Leak

Something like that so that you can disrupt a bit. Also, I would take out all the cascade cards

Perhaps even throwing in something like the following to ensure that if you do resolve swans, you can combo out
+4 Lightning Bolt
+4 Magma Jet

Just my 2 cents

[perm]

This seems like the most fragile combo ever. You suffer against enchantment hate, storm hate, creature hate, counters and hand disruption more than other combos due to the many pieces, gaddock teeg...

[fyrisen]

Creature hate does absolutley nothing, you only discard another land in response if he removes/kills the Swan.
BBE and Captured Sunlights main function is to either get an Assault or a Tresaure Hunt. The latter can easily feth a Swan if needed or an Assault.
Counterspells are the hardest to fight, just because we can't make repsonses and shenanigans. But we can filter alot with Tresaure Hunt and the cascade spells.
Teeg does nothing since Assault only has a CMC of three, so it really only stops Captured Sunlight.

The hardest hate card to fight is by far Leyline of Sanctity. Therefore some kind of permanent or enhancement removal should be played. I'd suggest Beast Within or K-Grip. Oblivion Stone is just to slow, narrow and clunky.

[Alexeezay]

For Enchantment/Artifact hate against Leyline etc., I think Seal Of Primordium is a good one. It's never a problem if you cascade into it.

How necessary is the Punishing Fire combo? I guess it's nice with Swans so I'm gonna try it out.

[Mackan]

Necroing the thread a bit.... I put together a list on modo and felt it was allright. It's like miracles, but worse. Not sure if it has any real upside over traditional miracles. I will brainstorm with it during today's stream at twitch.tv/svmtv after the downtime today if anyone wants to help me tune it. List;

4 sensei's divining top
4 lightning bolt
4 brainstorm
4 counterbalance
4 chain of plasma
2 snapcaster mage
2 vendilion clique
2 seismic assault
4 simian spirit guide
4 swans of bryn argoll
4 force of will
2 volcanic island
4 scalding tarn
4 flooded strand
2 arid mesa
2 mountain
8 island

1 annul
1 swan song
2 red elemental blast
2 pyroblast
2 flusterstorm
1 pithing needle
2 surgical extraction
1 tormod's crypt
3 pyroclasm

[Davran]

Necroing the thread a bit.... I put together a list on modo and felt it was allright. It's like miracles, but worse. Not sure if it has any real upside over traditional miracles. I will brainstorm with it during today's stream at twitch.tv/svmtv after the downtime today if anyone wants to help me tune it. List;

4 sensei's divining top
4 lightning bolt
4 brainstorm
4 counterbalance
4 chain of plasma
2 snapcaster mage
2 vendilion clique
2 seismic assault
4 simian spirit guide
4 swans of bryn argoll
4 force of will
2 volcanic island
4 scalding tarn
4 flooded strand
2 arid mesa
2 mountain
8 island

1 annul
1 swan song
2 red elemental blast
2 pyroblast
2 flusterstorm
1 pithing needle
2 surgical extraction
1 tormod's crypt
3 pyroclasm

I think you've got the wrong forum...a large portion of your list is not modern legal.

[Mackan]

I think you've got the wrong forum...a large portion of your list is not modern legal.

Def. right, I searched and ended up in the wrong forum. Sorry.

[Maconcrack]

Seeing this thread pop up got me interested enough to make an account here and brew up a newer list, but due to the fact that I haven't seen someone pilot this combo in 5 years, and that BBE is banned in modern, the list is obviously pretty rough.

//Creature (6)
4 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Swans of Bryn Argoll

//Enchantment (4)
4 Seismic Assault

//Instant (3)
1 Ad Nauseam
2 Lightning Bolt

//Sorcery (10)
4 Glittering Wish
2 Pyroclasm
4 Treasure Hunt

//Land (37)
4 City of Brass
1 Forest
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Halimar Depths
1 Lavaclaw Reaches
1 Mountain
1 Plains
4 Raging Ravine
3 Stirring Wildwood
4 Tendo Ice Bridge
4 Vivid Crag
2 Vivid Creek
2 Vivid Grove
2 Vivid Marsh
2 Vivid Meadow

SB: 2 Abrupt Decay
SB: 2 Lightning Helix
SB: 2 Maelstrom Pulse
SB: 2 Qasali Pridemage
SB: 2 Supreme Verdict
SB: 2 Swans of Bryn Argoll
SB: 1 Wall of Denial
SB: 2 Wear // Tear