[Deck] U/R OmniTell

[death]

http://i.imgur.com/PxOrXEe.jpg



Update (12.25.15)

U/R Omni-Attack by Luis Martin
(7th place at MKM Series Madrid on 12/19/2015)

Main:
4 Show and Tell
2 Cunning Wish
1 Intuition

3 Omniscience
3 Sneak Attack
3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Griselbrand

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
2 Flusterstorm

2 Lotus Petal
2 Sensei's Divining Top

3 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
1 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Island
1 Mountain
3 Volcanic Island
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All

SB:
1 Release the Ants
1 Intuition
1 Flusterstorm
2 Pyroblast
2 Pyroclasm
1 Sudden Shock
1 Trickbind
1 Wipe Away
2 Blood Moon
1 Through the Breach
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All


U/R Omni-Mastery by death
(0th place at The Source on 12/14/2015)

Main:
4 Show and Tell
3 Mizzix's Mastery
4 Enter the Infinite
3 Intuition

4 Omniscience
2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
2 Preordain
4 Force of Will
2 Izzet Charm
1 Flusterstorm

4 Lotus Petal

3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Island
3 Volcanic Island

SB:
1 Release the Ants
14 open

So this is an untested deck that looks really powerful. You seemingly play 7 Show and Tell/7 Enter the Infinite.... reasons to play this over the Dream Halls version are: 1) this deck is a turn faster and 2) slightly better against discard since you are pitching less.

The deck has ways to deal with DRS, KotR, Teeg, Canonist, Meddling Mage and Chalice of the Void. Overall, I think Mastery is a great addition to the deck, adding resilience against counters and discard, and provides some consistency.

In case it's not obvious, you can dump an Enter the Infinite in the yard via Careful Study/Izzet Charm and copy it via Mastery. Draw your deck > play Petals, cast Show and Tell into double Omniscience and double Emrakul. Take extra turns, win.


Update (1.06.15)

U/R Omni-Tell by chinEsE girl
(3rd place at SCG Columbus on 1/04/2015)

Main deck:
4 Burning Wish
4 Dig Through Time
3 Show and Tell
2 Intuition

4 Omniscience
2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

2 Izzet Charm

4 Force of Will
3 Flusterstorm
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain

2 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
3 Flooded Strand
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn
3 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
3 Island

Sideboard:
2 Defense Grid
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Enter the Infinite
1 Firebolt
1 Massacre
1 Overmaster
1 Pyroclasm
1 Show and Tell
1 Slaughter Games
1 Thoughtseize
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Void Snare
1 Volcanic Spray


U/R Omni-Wish by death
(0th place at The Source on 12/26/2014)

Main deck:
4 Burning Wish
4 Cunning Wish
3 Show and Tell
2 Intuition

4 Omniscience
3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

1 Split Decision

4 Force of Will
3 Flusterstorm
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain

2 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
3 Flooded Strand
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Volcanic Island
4 Island
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All

Sideboard:
1 Show and Tell
1 Intuition
1 Time of Need
1 Overmaster
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pact of Negation
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Noxious Revival
1 Pyroclasm
1 Sudden Shock
1 Enter the Infinite
1 Through the Breach
1 Firemind's Foresight
1 False Cure
1 Beacon of Immortality



http://i.imgur.com/KIXZQ0K.jpg



Show and Tell win:
SnT > Emrakul
SnT > Omniscience > see below

Burning Wish win:
B-Wish > Time of Need > Emrakul
B-Wish > Enter the Infinite: 1) cast your Emrakuls or 2) C-Wish into Firemind's Foresight (see below)

Cunning Wish win:
C-Wish > Intuition > Emrakul
C-Wish > Through the Breach > Emrakul
C-Wish > Firemind's Foresight (C-Wish + SD + BS/Fstorm) > False Cure > Beacon of Immortality
- requires 1 Cunning Wish & Split Decision not in the graveyard
C-Wish > Firemind's Foresight (Intuition + SD + BS/Fstorm) > Emrakul + X card
- in case Cunning Wish meets Surgical Extraction mid-combo

Intuition win:
Intuition > any of the above lines of play or let your opponent choose his/her own poison


Sideboarding is easy as pie: -1 FOW + 1 REB against anything blue.

In response to a removal spell/ability on the stack targeting Omniscience (O-ring, Ashen Rider, Qasali Pridemage, Reclamation Sage), you can just win at instant speed through Firemind's Foresight > False Cure + Beacon of Immortality.

The wishes can be used as reset button to buy time while looking for the other half of the combo (Omniscience): Burning Wish > Pyroclasm or Cunning Wish > Through the Breach.

You have access to 75 cards at any given time and the consistency of a 60-card deck. Its compactness conceals its brokenness and reactive nature. This ranks amongst the most powerful decks as it is but would welcome improvements.


"It kind of feels like something ought to get banned, so I want to take advantage of getting to play these sick-o decks while I have the chance." — Brian DeMars On Blue (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/print.php?Article=29799)



2012 Primer

If someone unfamiliar with the game would ask, “What are the most powerful cards in Magic?” It’s easy for an experienced player to look into the Banned & Restricted list and reply Ancestral Recall, Time Walk and Black Lotus (or maybe 4 Mishra’s Workshop – because it’s unrestricted.) Since this game has these limitations: draw 1 card per turn, swing once, play 1 land and majority of spells cost mana, those cards have the greatest effect relative to their cost. Ancestral Recall nets 3 cards at a cost of :u:. Black Lotus and Mishra's Workshop net 3 mana at a cost of :0: and a land drop respectively. Now let’s say there’s a card with an effect that would allow you to fire spells without paying their mana costs, would you consider it as powerful? Hell, Yes! I’ll take it. When combined with a draw engine that would simply be R-I-D-I-C-U-L-O-U-S. It's been 2 months now that we have Omniscience, it’s time to break some stuff.

Sneak Attack is in the DTB forum courtesy of this new card from M13. About one-third of those decks that made their way into the top 8 are in actuality Omniscience decks camouflaged as Sneak Attack. (Those decks have zero Sneak Attack in their main sixty.) Their successes solidify Omniscience as a deck with an identity, an entirely new combo, which goes to show that it is capable of winning independently of Sneak Attack. Although the concept of an Omniscience hybrid running copies of the red enchantment isn’t totally dismissible as of yet.

Omniscience has seen early play in Sneak Attack shells as straight up swap for Sneak Attack and Boseiju, Who Shelters All replacing Volcanic Islands made the deck invulnerable to permission spells. The mono-blue version retained 4x Emrakul, 4x Griselbrand and played like a traditional Sneak Attack with the advantage of forgoing the “:r::” activation requirement. (You get to swing when you cast Emrakul). Later on when brewers started testing Burning Wish as tutor instead of Intuition, it was realized that the deck has a second path to victory that is via Storm route, much credit to this guy:


I've been thinking about this since I saw Omniscience, though my build looks a bit more like Hive Mind than Dream Halls.

4 Omniscience
3 Show and Tell
2 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul

4 Burning Wish
2 Intuition

4 Brainstorm
4 Preordain
4 Ponder

4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection
3 Spell Pierce

4 Lotus Petal
3 Volcanic Island
7 Fetch
3 Island
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors

Wish Targets
1 Show and Tell
1 Petals of Insight
1 Grapeshot
1 Pyroclasm/Firespout
1 Eye of Nowhere/Silent Departure


The deck has 7 Show and Tells and 7 things to put into play with them, along with 12 cantrips to sort everything out. Show -> Dude obviously isn't as good as Show -> Omniscience usually, but drawing a bunch of cards or having Emrakul in play is rarely bad, especially as the former likely makes sure you win next turn anyways. Griselbrand and Emrakul are also both reasonable plan B win conditions if you get to Omniscience anyways.

The kill, as it works out from Omniscience, is kind of cool. Once it is in play, any of the 3 fatties end the game (Emmy by being Emmy, or Griselbrand drawing you more cards to storm out or drawing you to Emmy). Burning Wish at this point can go get Petals of Insight which gives you infinite storm on its own and then finds you another Burning Wish for Grapeshot, and your cantrips and intuitions all help dig for those card to just end the game.

The deck trades off stone dead cards like Conflux and False Cure/Beacon for the flexibility of Burning Wish, but also the chance to fizzle if you need to cantrip chain to win, though I guess that isn't super different from Dream Halls ending up in situations where it doesn't have cards to pitch to cast Conflux after it combos (Plus, Dream Halls only has 4 Conflux where we have 9 cards that just end the game). I need to test more to figure out how likely an occurrence that is.

~Lennon



The old thread can be found here: Omniscience Combo [M13] (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24088-Omniscience-Combo-M13).

Main Deck
Creatures [4]
2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Griselbrand
Instants [12]
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
Sorceries [16]
4 Burning Wish
1 Personal Tutor
3 Show and Tell
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
Enchantments [4]
4 Omniscience
Others [4]
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Lotus Petal
Lands [20]
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
1 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Volcanic Island
2 Island

Total Number of cards in main deck: 60

Wish Targets
1 Show and Tell
1 Time of Need
1 Petals of Insight
1 Grapeshot
1 Eye of Nowhere


Card selection
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn – used to be a 4-of in decks packing S&T. Not that hot after Karakas gained popularity and the printing of Phyrexian Metamorph and Phantasmal Image.
Griselbrand – (draw 7s) this guy can beat anything except himself when your life is at 7+. Him + Omniscience = GG.
Brainstorm – used to hide combo pieces from discard, cast EOT to set up a combo turn or mainphase to dig one card deeper. Stack your cards wisely and let fetchlands be your friend :)
Force of Will – the policeman of the format.
Daze – for combo decks that want to play the Tempo role, this card alongside Force of Will will help accomplish that.
Burning Wish – they’re there for virtually 7 Show and Tells in the deck, guards against extirpate effects (unlike Intuition), facilitates the Storm win and Wishboard for all occasions (disruption/protection, bounce, mass removal against hate bears). B. Wish can go get Time of Need which can get Emrakul/Griselbrand when you're stuck with a Show and Tell in hand but no ‘target.’ This can come up in long drawn out games.
Personal Tutor – 8th copy of Show and Tell, enables a 2nd turn Show and Tell. Tutoring for Burning Wish + cantrip in hand means auto-win via Storm through Petals of Insight or Griselbrand + Emrakul beatdown through Time of Need when (Omniscience is in play).
Show and Tell – reduces the cost of playing Omniscience/Emrakul/Griselbrand to “:2::u:” (if you need to do broken stuff on turn 2 not turn twenty). Facilitates win through the following lines of play:

S&T > Emrakul
S&T > Griselbrand > draw 7s
S&T > Omniscience > Emrakul (Time Walk, annihilate 6, 15 dmg)
S&T > Omniscience > Burning Wish > Petals of Insight > Grapeshot (∞ dmg)
S&T > Omniscience > Griselbrand > draw 7 into Emrakul (Time Walk, annihilate 6, 22 dmg)
S&T > Omniscience > Griselbrand > draw 7 into Burning Wish > Petals of Insight > Grapeshot
S&T > Omniscience > Burning Wish > Time of Need > Emrakul (Time Walk, annihilate 6, 15 dmg)

Ponder/Preordain – dig and more dig. Pondering before a Brainstorm guarantees that you don’t draw dud. Preordain before anything else.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor – a control element somehow managed to find its way in a combo deck, that’s a first! Because it’s cool seeing him cast off of Omniscience without paying 2UU. But don’t be silly he still can’t be put into play with S&T. Jace 2.0 can BS into nuts and bounce opposing Griselbrand/Emrakul provided opponent doesn’t go off first Omni+Emmy annihilate you. In control matchups Jace 2.0 will take over the game once you start B'storming into oblivion, he can deal with bigger threats or legend-kill opposing Jaces. He is replaceable with Lotus Petals if you’re after speed or for budget reasons.
Lotus Petal – accelerant, turn 1 kill
Ancient Tomb – accelerant, turn 1 kill
City of Traitors – accelerant, turn 1 kill. A pair is enough because it nukes itself when you play another land. Remember: When you use fetchlands or Show and Tell a land, City of Traitors won’t trigger because ‘putting a land into play’ is different from playing a land. You don’t lose City of Traitors this way.
Volcanic Island – 4-of to cast red stuff like Burning Wish, Overmaster, Pyroblast, Red Elemental Blast and Pyroclasm. Why you need 4? Because you want to naturally draw and use them for Burning Wish. Using fetchlands for Island on turn 1 is ideal because you are blanking Stifle/Wasteland from your Tempo opponent.
Petals of Insight – the Storm engine that dodges fatty hate like Humility, Ensnaring Bridge, Gilded Drake, however it is cold to taxing effects like Thalia, Thorn of Amethyst, Trinisphere, Ethersworn Canonist and stuff like Stifle and Flusterstorm. Replay Petals of Insight until you generate sufficient Storm count and find another Burning Wish for Grapeshot.
Eye of Nowhere – catch all answer for pesky permanents including Oblivion Ring, Detention Sphere and whatnot.
Time of Need – replacing Living Wish to free up sideboard space, allows you to alpha-strike with the flying spaghetti monster and demon if the need arises.
Grapeshot – the Storm kill that dodges Gaddock Teeg unlike Tendrils of Agony.

Sideboard choices
1-2 Overmaster – with Personal Tutor/Burning Wish you can split them 1 in maindeck/1 in the SB for flexibility, same goes for Pyroclasm. Reminder: Draws a card during resolution.
1-2 Pyroclasm – a 1R “Wrath of God” in a pinch for hate bears. Inarguably functions as 1R "Time Walk" against decks that try to win with dorks.
3-4 Pyroblast – a very powerful tool when facing countermagic, Meddling Mage, Vendilion Clique, and Jace tMS coming from control decks.
3-4 Envelop – zero play at the moment. They can substitute for run-of-the-mill GY hate (Grafdigger's Cage/Relic of Progenitus/Tormod's Crypt/Surgical Extraction). The card has dual purpose of disrupting their strategy (function of GY hate) and prevent them from disrupting you with Cabal Therapy, IoK/Duress, Thoughtseize, Hymn to Tourach. Targets key spells – Breakthrough, Dread Return, Reanimate, Exhume, Infernal Tutor, Burning Wish and Green Sun's Zenith. To sum it up, a hard counter that works against Dredge/Reanimator/Storm and decks with discard like Nic Fit, Pox and Deadguy Ale as well.


Matchup description
Non-blue aggro – non-interactive decks should be a cakewalk
Non-blue combo – Dredge/Storm and Elves are favorable matchups because you have a chance to either disrupt them at instant speed or go off a turn before they could go off.
Blue-based combo – Show and Tell mirrors are hard to predict as there are many scenarios to consider but whoever gets a hold of Omniscience first has the upper hand. Against High Tide, it’s a race between whoever can assemble a hand that can go off unmolested. Reanimator is swingy but the match falls in our favor once we bring into the equation GY hate.
Aggro-control – Merfolk is unfavorable due to Cursecatcher, Daze, Spell Pierce and Force of Will. Not to mention they can lead off with an explosive Aether Vial start and slow us down with Wasteland. You die in short order because of 8 Lords that give them +1/+1's and Islandwalk unless you win the counter war and plop down Omniscience, swing with Emmy or B. Wish into Grapeshot. RUG Delver is 60/40, Sol-lands invalidate their soft counters, they have to devote all resources (land destruction + counters + threat) into stopping you. Play around FoW and Spell Pierce, Overmaster/Pyros/REBs post-SB'ng own them.
Control – Stoneblade and Miracle control are favorable. Their creature removal suite are dead cards against us (except for Terminus). UW Miracles has a slower clock however and Counterbalance-Top isn't much of a problem since they run very few cards that flip and hit Show and Tell and Petals of Insight. Work around Force of Will and Spell Pierce. Team America-style control is more problematic, aside from countermagic, they run discard and edict effects. Combine those with Jace and Liliana and there you have your worse matchup.


Related Articles:
TCG – Omniscience: The New Show and Tell on the Block (http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=10682) By Colin Chilbert 9/6/2012
CFB – A Legacy of Omniscience (http://www.channelfireball.com/home/feature-article-a-legacy-of-omniscience/) By Florian Koch 08/27/2012
SCG – Fundamentals: What Is Combo? (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/24745-Eternal-Europe-Fundamentals-What-Is-Combo.html) By Carsten Kotter 08/24/2012
SCG – So What Did You Bring To Class? (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/24387-Eternal-Europe-So-What-Did-You-Bring-To-Class.html) By Carsten Kotter 06/29/2012


Feature Matches:
SCGPORT Andrew Morales vs Joseph Naseef (http://blip.tv/scglive/scg-portland-lgc-round-7-joseph-nascef-vs-andrew-morales-6347951) (2-0 Elves)
SCGMIN Troy Thompson vs Daniel Weiser (http://blip.tv/scglive/scg-min-legacy-semifinals-troy-thompson-vs-daniel-weiser-6337404) (2-1 Miracle Control)
SCGMIN Troy Thompson vs Brandon Nelson (http://blip.tv/scglive/scg-min-legacy-rd-8-brandon-nelson-vs-troy-thompson-6337333) (2-1 Esperblade)
SCGNY Travis Allen vs Nicholas Cummings (http://blip.tv/scglive/scg-buffalo-legacy-rd-4b-travis-allen-vs-nicholas-cummings-6283069) (2-0 Merfolk)


Recent Top 8s:
09/09/2012: Andrew Morales (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=9070&iddeck=66253) – Position 5 SCG Open Portland
09/09/2012: Luca Comodi (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=9076&iddeck=66317) – Position 5
08/09/2012: Florian Koch (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=9092&iddeck=66445) – Position 1
02/09/2012: Troy Thompson (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=9037&iddeck=66016) – Position 2 SCG Open Minneapolis
02/09/2012: Joan Garcia (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=9060&iddeck=66181) – Position 3
02/09/2012: Carlos Martinez (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=9060&iddeck=66184) – Position 6
29/08/2012: Ryan Burk (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8986&iddeck=65635) – Position 1
26/08/2012: Emilio Alonso (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8981&iddeck=65604) – Position 2
26/08/2012: Iñaki Jimenez (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=9025&iddeck=65925) – Position 4
19/08/2012: Roberto Di Tucci (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8919&iddeck=65167) – Position 2
18/08/2012: Florian Koch (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8937&iddeck=65291) – Position 1
18/08/2012: Christoph Greune (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8937&iddeck=65293) – Position 3
29/07/2012: Travis Allen (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8801&iddeck=64253) – Position 6 SCG Open Buffalo
28/07/2012: Patrick Feist (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8789&iddeck=64169) – Position 7
21/07/2012: Jose Manuel Diez (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8816&iddeck=64374) – Position 8

[JanoschEausH]

Well written and all, but it makes me really sad, that because of a deck like this non-blue decks can't exist anymore...

[CorpT]

What about the version that uses Cabal Therapy, Academy Rector and Living Wish?

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=48931

[Darkinsanity]

This deck is a lot of fun. I played it a lot today after building it. I was favored against everything I played against except Merfolk. That deck is a pain in the ass to fight against. I guess there is not much to do about that, with the way they mess with your game plan. You can side board in all of the Red Elemental Blasts, but I somehow don't think that it would help that much.

Anyone else have some ideas for that matchup?

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

I think your matchup estimations are somewhat too optimistic, especially given that discard is particularly efficient disruption for this type of Show and Tell list and that total reliance on S&T makes other fattie-decks pretty difficult if you don't find an Omniscience early.
That being said, you should probably link these two articles in the primer:

My article shortly after Omniscience was spoiled that got the deck of the ground:
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/24387-Eternal-Europe-So-What-Did-You-Bring-To-Class.html

Florian Koch's article on how they arrived at their list from the one in my article (basically the list you're suggesting) and how he'd update it (most important improvement: Time of Need instead of Living Wish in the board, freeing up SB space). http://www.channelfireball.com/home/feature-article-a-legacy-of-omniscience/

[ryn ball_2]

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=49112

seeded at top 2 in the recently concluded minnesota scg legacy open :smile:

[xfxf]

I have been testing my decks against Carsten's list since his article, and over the weekend tried out the version from the grand prix (with Jace and Emrakul). I think Carsten's version is stronger against blue decks with Misdirections and Flusterstorm. I don't really understand what shortcomings the "new" version address.

[Kich867]

Well written and all, but it makes me really sad, that because of a deck like this non-blue decks can't exist anymore...

Considering The Rock just beat it in an SCG Open finals, I don't believe this to be the case. Discard, Thalia, and extraction effects are still pretty good against combo.

[death]

What about the version that uses Cabal Therapy, Academy Rector and Living Wish?

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=48931

Academy Rector is fun to play, but that build still lacks resilience, a way to deal with creature hate specifically and consistency.


This deck is a lot of fun. I played it a lot today after building it. I was favored against everything I played against except Merfolk. That deck is a pain in the ass to fight against. I guess there is not much to do about that, with the way they mess with your game plan. You can side board in all of the Red Elemental Blasts, but I somehow don't think that it would help that much.

Anyone else have some ideas for that matchup?

I’m thinking along the lines of Llawan, Cephalid Empress but I still have to put more testing into it.


I have been testing my decks against Carsten's list since his article, and over the weekend tried out the version from the grand prix (with Jace and Emrakul). I think Carsten's version is stronger against blue decks with Misdirections and Flusterstorm. I don't really understand what shortcomings the "new" version address.

First off, an Omniscience deck without Emrakuls (Carten’s version) is definitely missing out. Against aggressive decks, Emrakul is the creature you want to cast with Omniscience when your life total is low because he wins on the spot. Emrakul is uncounterable, an advantage against decks that pack counters (like Mindbreak Trap). Incidentally Emrakul gives protection from mill effects (like Grindstone and Brain Freeze). Secondly, Misdirection and Flusterstorm are only good in paper and against non-aggressive decks. The newer versions ran Dazes which I doubted at first but Daze gets it done. Before and during the combo turn, I usually don’t have mana left to cast Spell Pierce/Flusterstorm to disrupt my opponent or protect my own spells, if there is, I use them to pay for opposing soft counters. With Dazes you can sculpt a hand without fear of being tapped out and not able to respond (why Daze is good in Reanimator). The alternate cost of Daze also protects your duals from Wastelands. Because the deck can suffer from inherent card disadvantage (requires too many cards to combo off), too many “pitch counters” like Misdirection requires too many resources making the counter suite unreliable.


Considering The Rock just beat it in an SCG Open finals, I don't believe this to be the case. Discard, Thalia, and extraction effects are still pretty good against combo.

I think this deck is in better position than your average combo under Thalia, and against discard/extraction effects.

[Kich867]

For sure, it is. I'm just saying you can't point at this deck and say "Wow looks like non-blue decks can't exist anymore".

[nevilshute]

Nice deck primer. I've just assembled a version of this deck. It's fairly close to your version but I splash black for 2x Thoughtseize main deck and Massacre in the sideboard.

A couple of questions, first: you write that Grapeshot is used instead of Tendrils of Agony in order to avoid Gaddock Teeg. I don't get this because Grapeshot's enabler, Petals of Insight, gets hated out by Gaddock... what am I missing?

Secondly, what do you think about running some Gitaxian Probes instead of a Preordain? I presently run: 4x Brainstorm, 4x Ponder, 1x Preordain and 2x Gitaxian Probe (and 2x Thoughtseizes).... It's just extremely nice to know what's on your opponent's hand before going off. Show and Telling and Emrakul into a Knight of the Relquary or directly into a Karakas, or even into another Emrakul sucks big time. The probe doesn't remove their threat but it stops you fizzling and replaces itself.

Also, like someone else wrote, how about running 1x Llawan, Cephalid Empress as a one of in the sideboard to board in vs Merfolk and then be able to go B. Wish -> T.o.Need-> Llawan. Not sure how it will work out in practice but looks good on paper

[emidln]

Why wouldn't you just Burning Wish->Living Wish->Llawan (this even works in g1)? Not saying that Wish->Wish->infinite cmc cards vs merfolk is a good idea, but Wish seems better.

[ThediscoPower]

you might want to add this to the article in here too

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpgnt12/day2#7

especially when that article started this whole thing

Also might want to add that in some situations, you can even play petals of insight as a way to rebuild your hand when your in need of fuel, which makes it even cooler than you average wish target.

Aside from that, has anyone tried a hybrid version running both sneak attack and omni? When there is a Japanese list doing so, the thing that bugs me in it is the fact that they run stifle in it as the other protection spell (say, instead of daze). Is there a specific reason why theses spots aren't spell pierce, or daze, or flusterstorm, or w/e? (the list I am talking about is here: http://amclegacy.sakura.ne.jp/AMC_120.html and made it 5th)

[Koby]

Karakas, Wasteland, Knight of the Reliquary, and Pridemage (on Omniscience) are my thoughts as to why Stifle is used.

[death]

Grapeshot instead of Tendrils of Agony in order to avoid Gaddock Teeg

In case Emrakul gets into trouble and Teeg is in play, you can chain cantrips into B.wish > Grapeshot for a quick finish.

Aside from those mentioned above, the Japanese meta is full of Show and Tell. I think the tech is to just let S&T resolve (instead of fighting over it), put their own enchantment into play then Stifle opponent's Emrakul/pact trigger/Sneak Attack activation.

[lochlan]

In case Emrakul gets into trouble and Teeg is in play, you can chain cantrips into B.wish > Grapeshot for a quick finish.

So you're suggesting a board state where Emrakul is out, is shut down by o.ring/whatever (edit: what is the Teeg deck doing to put Emrakul in trouble, exactly?) he opponent is at a very low life total (presumably from an Emrakul swing and they are still in the game post-annihilator?) and you have Burning Wish in hand or find it with your spare cantrips (which you manage to have even after assembling your pieces)?

That does not sound like a line of play that ever actually happens. I don't see how this counts as "dodging Gaddock Teeg."

Or, perhaps, I am misunderstanding the situation you are describing?

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

So you're suggesting a board state where Emrakul is out, is shut down by humility/o.ring/drake/whatever, the opponent is at a very low life total (presumably from an Emrakul swing and they are still in the game post-annihilator?) and you have Burning Wish in hand or find it with your spare cantrips (which you manage to have even after assembling your pieces)?

That does not sound like a line of play that ever actually happens. I don't see how this counts as "dodging Gaddock Teeg."

Or, perhaps, I am misunderstanding the situation you are describing?

I think he's rather talking about something along the lines of:

Opponent has Teeg and you can't safely go for Emrakul for whatever reason (Intrepid Hero, Ensnaring Bridge, Meddling Mage, Aven Mindcensor against the Time of Need list, Peacekeeper, ability to survive an Emrakul-swing and kill you - perhaps a KotR and 6 lands at at least 16 life - or whatever else). So you Show Omniscience into play, chain a few cantrips, hopefully find a Griselbrand to draw 7-14 more cards or otherwise just chain cantrips into more cantrips, play those, find a Wish, Grapeshot them out.

The main reason to run Grapeshot over Tendrils is that there is no appreciable advantage to be gained by running Tendrils (if you're storming them as planned, they're dead either way) while Grapeshot has a few cornercase advantages. It can serve as another wishable removal-spell in a pinch, works against various (rare) Teeg scenarios and also beats Platinum Angel. Or you could just naturally kill someone who spend 16 life on Sylvan library to disrupt your usual combo-game - which won't happen with Tendrils as you can't hardcast it.

[flounce]

What do people think to Rune-Scarred Demon in the board for the living wish version and tutoring up Emrakul?

Going:

Omniscience->Living Wish->Rune-Scarred Demon->Emrakul. Take an extra turn, attack for 21 in the air?

[JPA]

What do people think to Rune-Scarred Demon in the board for the living wish version and tutoring up Emrakul?

Going:

Omniscience->Living Wish->Rune-Scarred Demon->Emrakul. Take an extra turn, attack for 21 in the air?

Because Emrakul isn't enough? :D Playing the Demon in addition to that is just a waste of SB-slot.

[catmint]

My questions from a sneak attacks perspective. Is my evaluation correct?

Advantages with Omniscience:

1) clunky draws, lots of mulligans (somehow nature of show & Tell decks)
-> 8 slots of clunk are not necessary bad in multiples (Omniscience & Animal for value)
-> Burning wish for Enabler, finisher & protection

2) Karakas, Humility,...
-> obviously solved by storm kill

3) Mana disruption can be effective
-> no sneak attack + activation necessary

4) Limited sideboard space: you can't prepare for Reanimator, Maverick, countermagic,...
-> Wish board for utility & naturally 2 different kills (& real 1 turn kill)

Disavdantages of Omniscience:
1) A bit slower?
-> Show&Tell for Omniscience is a 3 card combo
-> You often have to wish first

2) Pridemage, disentchant,... are a much bigger problem now, since you could play around those with sneak attack and more often just show&tell a creature directly.

3) Seems like discard hurts a bit more, (3 card combo) and random stuff like Meddling Mage or discard of a wished show&tell + extraction for the win.

Am I missing something?
What are your main reasons to play this over sneak&show?

[death]

Speed goes to Omniscience, this deck can go off turn 1-2 thanks to petals and Sol-lands. Sneak Attack has them too, but its tutor Intuition is 3cc while B.Wish is 2cc, 12 cantrips makes it possible to sculpt each turn with this deck unlike in Sneak Attack where u can go into top deck mode, 3R + R is also more expensive.

You already pointed out the reasons, redundancy and speed are what this deck have over Sneak Attack. Not running 4 copies of legendary creatures plus the ability to dodge hate is huge. Also, if an opponent is leaving 2-3 mana open for Disenchant/K.Grip that means they're doing nothing (not winning) and against those you can retain priority after S&T resolves and cast Emrakul/draw 7s with Griselbrand in response, or go straight S&T > fatty.

[lochlan]

Also, if an opponent is leaving 2-3 mana open for Disenchant/K.Grip that means they're doing nothing (not winning) and against those you can retain priority after S&T resolves and cast Emrakul/draw 7 with Griselbrand in response, or go straight S&T > fatty.

It's worth noting that this is only true if there are no ETB triggers. The blowout play for UW is to drop a V.Clique or a Stoneforge off of Show and Tell and then Disenchant while the triggers are on the stack.

Also totally agree about the speed, this deck is much faster than Sneak Attack although its reliance on Show and Tell makes the deck weaker to Oblivion Ring and Angel of Despair.

[dameus]

This deck top decks so well, I'm always tempted to keep borderline hands. I've been both lucky and unlucky when keeping hands such as below, but I wanted to get some other opinions.

What would you do Game 1 on the play with:

1) Island, Gris, Emmy, S&T, Daze, Omni, Brainstorm?

How about:

2) Island, Fetch, Petal, Omni, S&T, FoW, Flusterstorm? (I play 6 fatties main)

Or:

3) City o' T, Petal, Ponder, Burning Wish, Omni, Brainstorm, FoW?

[VeniVidiVici]

The first two hands seem like very easy keeps (hand #2 in particular) and I'd mulligan the third.

[nevilshute]

This deck top decks so well, I'm always tempted to keep borderline hands. I've been both lucky and unlucky when keeping hands such as below, but I wanted to get some other opinions.

What would you do Game 1 on the play with:

1) Island, Gris, Emmy, S&T, Daze, Omni, Brainstorm?

How about:

2) Island, Fetch, Petal, Omni, S&T, FoW, Flusterstorm? (I play 6 fatties main)

Or:

3) City o' T, Petal, Ponder, Burning Wish, Omni, Brainstorm, FoW?

Hand 1 and 2 are keeps imo. In hand 1 if the island had been a dual I would most likely have mulled it though. Hand 2 you have a couple of turns to top deck a fatty or a B.wish. With FoW backup its looking good.

Hand 3, like VVV said, should be mulled. You can't go off and CoT as your only land is not good, even with a petal.

[catmint]

I tend to agree that Omniscience might be the overall better deck. However I think some of you might overestimate the advantages it has.

Omniscience beeing much faster is not correct. Show & tell is a turn 3 combo deck with sometimes nut draws for turn 2 or 1. Omniscience does the same with the difference of needing to resolve a 2 mana (splash color) spell on turn 2 a lot of the time making it transparent for the opponent what is going to happen. That is the disadvantage to the many advantages that Omniscience has. So in speed they will be more or less equal.

I agree 11-12 cantrips is optimal. All I want to do is control my draw...
However saying the deck topdecks good is just wrong. Show&Tell decks topdeck horrible, since multiple combo parts are usually clunk. Omniscince helps a little bit by adapting burning with as a multifunctional enabler and takind advantage of abusing 2 different combo types which can function together (omniscience + creature)

As for the starting hands on the play:
1)Island, Gris, Emmy, S&T, Daze, Omni, Brainstorm?
With Ponder or Preordain instead of brainstorm it would be a good hand, but like this it is closer to the Mulligan for me. If Daze would be a FoW I would mulligan, since daze helps to protect my Turn 2 brainsorm.

2) Island, Fetch, Petal, Omni, S&T, FoW, Flusterstorm? (I play 6 fatties main)
Also a keep: you can disrupt the opponent and hopefully draw burning wish or cantrips.

3) City o' T, Petal, Ponder, Burning Wish, Omni, Brainstorm, FoW?
its like asking if you want to keep a hand without a land :)
petal - ponder for blue source is only acceptable on 4 cards in my opinion.

[lochlan]

Omniscience beeing much faster is not correct.

Do you have any further reasoning behind your claim? I've played both decks quite a bit and 12 cantrips definitely makes the deck faster and more consistent.


Show & tell is a turn 3 combo deck with sometimes nut draws for turn 2 or 1.

You mean Sneaky Show? They're all Show and Tell decks.


Omniscience does the same with the difference of needing to resolve a 2 mana (splash color) spell on turn 2 a lot of the time making it transparent for the opponent what is going to happen.

I don't see what the T2 Burning Wish lines of play have to do with speed. Anyway , opponents are quick to put you on Sneaky Show after you drop a Volcanic and spend a couple turns cantripping. A good player will be able to put you on your deck regardless.


Omniscince [sic] helps a little bit by adapting burning with as a multifunctional enabler and takind advantage of abusing 2 different combo types which can function together (omniscience + creature)

Exactly. The win package is much tighter and more adaptable. You can turn S&T/Wish/Omni into a win and you can turn Emrakul/Wish/Omni into a win...or you can just S&T a fatty.

Omniscience/Wish still runs an 8 card enabler package (including personal tutor--which is really good with Overmaster, by the way), just as many as Sneaky Show...but the enablers are MUCH more flexible. Granted, there are less creatures, but because of the sheer number of cantrips and the flexibility of the win package I have found the low number of creatures to be totally fine. I'm not saying Omniscience is more than perhaps a turn (half a turn?) faster, but it definitely has an edge, and for the exact reasons you've just said. It sucks when you draw into the wrong half of your combo (you might even say it slows you down) but that happens much much less frequently with Omniscience/Wish.

[Koby]

This deck top decks so well, I'm always tempted to keep borderline hands. I've been both lucky and unlucky when keeping hands such as below, but I wanted to get some other opinions.


I played a lot of Sneak Show in high level tournaments, and would like to disagree with your assertion. The deck top-decks horribly. Even with 10-11 cantrips, you still get fucked by mana gluts in the deck. Being a combo deck by nature, you want to run as few as lands as possible to get your combo working. That ultimately means you'll face undesirable mulligans.

[death]

It's a mathematical fact, a deck that can combo off turn 1 would have an average combo turn that is closer to 1 than a deck that cannot. Fact remains, a 5-card nut draw of Petal+Tomb(C.o.T)+S&T+Omni+B.Wish(GriselB) is game. Now let's set aside S&T > fatty, how fast can Sneak Attack end it and with how many cards?


I played a lot of Sneak Show in high level tournaments, and would like to disagree with your assertion. The deck top-decks horribly. Even with 10-11 cantrips, you still get fucked by mana gluts in the deck. Being a combo deck by nature, you want to run as few as lands as possible to get your combo working. That ultimately means you'll face undesirable mulligans.

This deck has more cards in it that actually do something compared to 8x fatties in SA which are dead without enablers and won't even pitch to FoW :( Burning Wish, the tutor, becomes a win condition once Omniscience lands. Each spell basically costs nothing and a single top deck can lead to inevitability. Your argument to run a few lands as possible would favor this deck since Sneak Attack is more mana hungry.

I remember my first goldfish runs felt like sex and it's been a while since goldfishing felt that way.

[Koby]

This deck has more cards in it that actually do something compared to 8x fatties in SA which are dead without enablers and won't even pitch to FoW :( Burning Wish, the tutor, becomes a win condition once Omniscience lands. Each spell basically costs nothing and a single top deck can lead to inevitability. Your argument to run a few lands as possible would favor this deck since Sneak Attack is more mana hungry.

Sneak Show runs 18-19 lands with 4 Petals. This list runs 20 with 2 Petals, for roughly the same amount of mana cards. If you're saying that this deck is less mana hungry than Sneak Show, then it follows that you can realistically cut a land or two. More importantly, the high land count WILL lead to awkward or dead topdecks. My assertion is that lands are the dead weight for both these decks, and minimizing them as much as possible will help long-game consistency.

Sometimes, you have the nuts and you get to play magical christmas land and go off turn 1/2/3.
The rest of the time, you're cantripping into real business, and hate the fact that your deck has to run the cardtype "Land".

The second scenario happens frequently enough, and it's unfortunate that there's a fine line between "too much" and "not enough" land for this deck.

[Esper3k]

It's a mathematical fact a deck that can combo off turn 1 would have an average combo turn that is closer to 1 than a deck that cannot.

This is actually not a fact.

Consider the following deck:

1x Show & Tell
1x Lotus Petal
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Omniscience
1x Burning Wish
1000x Plains

Does this deck have the potential to combo off on turn 1? Yes.
Is the average combo turn of this deck going to be faster than one that cannot? Very unlikely.

Just because you can go off T1 doesn't mean your odds of doing so are good nor does it mean your average combo turn is faster simply because of that potential.

[death]

My bad, I thought it's clear that when you say "deck" that means 60ish cards (unless we're talking about Battle of Wits or Relentless_Rats.dec) and I did fail to mention "competitive."

[Julian23]

Even then, your claim is false. Do we really have to go about the maths on this one? It seems you're proficient enough to figure it out yourself.

Well ok, for example:

10% turn1 kills
20% turn2 kills
65% turn3 kills
5% turn4 kills
Average kill on turn 2.65

0% turn1 kills
50% turn2 kills
40% turn3 kills
10% turn4 kills
Average kill on turn 2.6

[death]

Even then, your claim is false. Do we really have to go about the maths on this one? It seems you're proficient enough to figure it out yourself.

Well ok, for example:

10% turn1 kills
20% turn2 kills
65% turn3 kills
5% turn4 kills
Average kill on turn 2.65

0% turn1 kills
50% turn2 kills
40% turn3 kills
10% turn4 kills
Average kill on turn 2.6

This proves a point but where did these values come from and which decks do they represent? The first one looks like a Painter.dec and the second one looks more like an Oath deck.

[Koby]

This proves a point but where did these values come from and which decks do they represent? The first one looks like a Painter.dec and the second one looks more like an Oath deck.

It was for demonstration purpose. We're interested in your sample goldfish numbers. Those are not listed, so it's hard to validate your claim that this deck has an early fundamental turn compared to Sneak Show or other Show & Tell decks.

Qualitatively, I can agree.
Quantitatively, I need to see some numbers.

[4eak]

Here's a list I've been trying out:

// Lands - 21
5 Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Volcanic Island
4 Ancient Tomb

// Combo Pieces - 10
3 Griselbrand or 3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Omniscience
3 Show and Tell

// Tutors - 8
4 Intuition
4 Burning Wish

// Cantrips - 11
3 Preordain
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

// Permission - 10
3 Misdirection
3 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will

// Sideboard
SB: 1 Pyroclasm
SB: 1 Overmaster
SB: 1 Show and Tell
SB: 1 Petals of Insight
SB: 1 Grapeshot
SB: 1 Living Wish
SB: 1 Griselbrand
SB: 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
SB: 1 Karakas
SB: 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
SB: 4 Grafdigger's Cage

I'm tired of how clunky this deck plays with too much reliance on mana acceleration. I've cut mana acceleration, and frankly, I've not missed it. The deck can't go off on turn 1, but it goes off more consistently in the first 4 turns because it has a more stable manabase. I spend my first couple turns sculpting my hand, and that works.

Omniscience opens up a lot of different plays, and it is a very good card even without a win condition immediately in hand. With so much of the deck devoted to card quality, just getting Omniscience into play (without BW or a Creature in hand) can generally get you there.

I really like having both Intuition and Burning Wish in the deck. I think Intuition is better when you slow down the deck a bit (ymmv), and it provides both consistency and flexibility. You really want to run 3-of any card that matters with Intuition, and I think that forces us to play either Grisel or Emrakul in the main, but not both (we don't have the room for it, although cutting some permission is a possibility).

If you haven't tried it, please test Flusterstorm. It was born for decks like this one. It is excellent at forcing through your combo and not awful at protecting it (against the occasional Disenchant, StP, etc.). This card shines with a stable manabase as well.

Misdirection doesn't seem to see a ton of play either, which is odd, as it does a fine job of forcing through your combo and sometimes protecting it once in play. Pitch magic is particularly good in this deck not just because it costs no mana in your combo, but Omniscience lets you cast it for free once it resolves. With the majority of the deck being blue, I find I am able to consistently pitch twice in many games. Moreover, I often find myself just wanting to tap out (or nearly tap out), play my SnT, pitch magic to force it through, and win. Misdirection does that nicely, and it makes that gameplay occur more consistently.



peace,
4eak

[death]

GriselB is just bettter in this kind of deck but there are situations where you can't afford to pay 7 life or pass and take a beating, while Emrakul off of Omniscience takes the game. You need a way to deal with Clique and Jace (aside from owning the stack) in your 75, like Pyros/REBs, Flusterstorm won't cut it.

[Koby]

There are a few lists floating around trying minor tweaks to the base deck. I would drill down the core to this:

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
1 Personal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
3 Show & Tell
3 Omniscience *
2 Griselbrand *
2 Emrakul *
4 Force of Will

* in hybrid lists, these numbers are shifted around.

I don't think that Daze is part of the core, but the slot that it occupies is. Additional counterspells (Pierce, Flusterstorm, or Daze) all have merit, but the application of each is the important point.
Spell Pierce is reall the catchall, but requires you to slow down by a turn or two.
Daze is the best for tap-out style, but it quickly loses its efficacy and can't be used in setup without making you lose your critical turn.
Flusterstorm is the best post-Omni counter, but can't handle all card type that could interfere. It's better in metagames where there is more spell-based decks like RUG and Storm, rather than Miracles (CB/top) and Maverick/D&T.

[catmint]

Thanks for the support with the math & goldfish argument. Please don't get me wrong - its good to be excited about a deck, but it is also important to evaluate a decks strength objectively.

If I am considering playing omniscience and I read "goldfishing is like sex", "the deck topdecks so well" & "It is much faster than sneak & show" I am thinking there are some people (literally) :tongue: in love with their deck.

If I read the deck is an upgrade to sneak&show because of xyz but still has some issues i am more likely to listen. Anyway I also stated in my posts that I do think it is better than sneak & show.

But coming back to the speed argument where I was asked to specify why I think it is not faster: Yes sneak attack costs 5 mana or 4 mana and a turn, but sneak & show runs 4 show&tell maindeck and 8 targets making it more likely to draw your combo without tutoring and with 3-4 petals (which were common) your chances of playing it turn 2-3 are pretty high. Omniscience does not need more than 3 mana, however tutoring costs a turn. So I don't see this deck coldfishing turn 2 more often than sneak & show, since you would need to draw one of your 3 show&tell.

In general: Having more cantrips and tutoring makes a deck more consistent/resilient/versatile but slower. Compare belcher & TES. Belcher beeing a fast "all-in deck" without controlling the draw. TES casting cantrips, running protection is more reseliant, but slower. In show&tell decks hypergenesis is on the belcher end of spectrum & omniscience is more like TES. The comparision between Sneak&Show & Omniscinece is not that clear, because you can argue "7 show & tells make sure you get it turn 3", but you can also argue "you have to tutor for it often & it is sometimes a 3 card combo so going off before turn 3 will be rare". In terms of goldfish sneak attack+activate is more like turn 3-4, while Show&Tell has the potential to lean more towards 2-3.

This, just as an explanation about my statement concerning the speed of omniscience. It is in fact not relevant since the other discussed factors make the deck a better choice and I would gladly trade some turn 2 comboing% for a more consistent turn 3-4 % perentage & a better win.

[Avez]

Can the Academy Rector-build be discussed here or is it a different deck and deserves a different thread?

[nevilshute]

Can the Academy Rector-build be discussed here or is it a different deck and deserves a different thread?

I would personally welcome a discussion about the rector-build here. I've only played the Burning Wish version myself. Would be great to hear from someone who has played both versions tbh. Purely from a speculative point of view I'd weigh in by saying that I don't like the look of a 4cmc Swords to Plowsharesable combo piece that requires us to either splash white or run Cavern of Souls which would add pressure to an already iffy mana base.

But I'm aware that it has performed at tournaments.

[Julian23]

The Academy Rector is also susceptible to graveyard hate. Not being able to combo out with Rector against Scavenging Ooze is an issue.

I really like giving the engine uncounterability by going Cavern of Souls -> Rector, but in turn, you're now relying on the graveyard, which I think is even worse.

[Darklingske]

The Academy Rector is also susceptible to graveyard hate. Not being able to combo out with Rector against Scavenging Ooze is an issue.

I really like giving the engine uncounterability by going Cavern of Souls -> Rector, but in turn, you're now relying on the graveyard, which I think is even worse.

Well, I guess you have to read the updated text on Rector. It no longer hits the GY. You can exile it when it dies, and thus bypassing all the GY-hate. And you don't rely on the GY as such.

[Claymore]

Unless that text and its interpretation was changed very recently, that's incorrect. "Dies" means "Put into a graveyard from play", and if its not in the graveyard for you to exile it then you can't use the Rector since it has the "If you do" clause.

I've had this ruling a few times against me in tournaments playing Nic Fit.

[Darklingske]

Okay, my bad then. Misunderstood it...

[Esper3k]

The Oracle text currently says:


When Academy Rector dies, you may exile it. If you do, search your library for an enchantment card, put that card onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library.

This is a triggered ability, so the Rector is in the yard at the time trigger goes on the stack.

If it had the wording "instead", it would be a replacement effect (similar to Progenitus) and yes, would skip the graveyard. However, because it's a triggered ability, it's still hitting the yard before the trigger resolves (and is susceptible to yard hate).

[aljiichiban]

Currently testing this deck with 3-3 split of emrakul and griselbrand, 19 lands and a protction package of 4fow/3daze/2 flusterstorm.

Is it possible to have a 3/1 split of omniscience/sneak attack?

What will be the best SB slot in the event that people start boarding in oblivion ring against this deck?

[catmint]

since you only need 3 mana to go off, would it be possible to splash black for discard?

[Koby]

Currently testing this deck with 3-3 split of emrakul and griselbrand, 19 lands and a protction package of 4fow/3daze/2 flusterstorm.

Is it possible to have a 3/1 split of omniscience/sneak attack?

What will be the best SB slot in the event that people start boarding in oblivion ring against this deck?

Ask, and you shall receive:
First place list (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/4278711), hybrid with Sneak Attack. AKA Sneaky Science :laugh:


since you only need 3 mana to go off, would it be possible to splash black for discard?

jacksad's list from 5 days ago, using heavy black splash (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/4310552)

I tested out the Thoughtseize list, and I think it only shines against control the best. Thoughtseize is sort of irrelevant against aggro. It is a nice way to make sure the Show & Tell is going to go off without any surprises however.

[death]

What will be the best SB slot in the event that people start boarding in oblivion ring against this deck?

1. 2 U. Sea (-1 Volc -1 fetch) + 2-4 Thoughtseize

2. Eye of Nowhere (Wishable) + Wipe Away

3. Stifle/Trickbind

4. transformational SB

5. play Dredge

[Koby]

I actually prefer Echoing Truth here. We have to assume some sort of trickery is being brought in, and it answers it for exactly the right amount of time. There's also the option of Chain of Vapor, but that's a liability in case you need to use it after Omni is out.

[Jessenator]

The Sneak Attack version of Omniscience I don't believe is good at all. After running a similar version at a tourney and online play last week, I found the deck to be extremely clunky and unable to find combo pieces for various types of combos. The OmniTell stock list seems to be the best way to use Show and Tell at the moment.

Although I have always been seeing Hive Mind pop up at occasional tourney toppings lately.

[Koby]

The Sneak Attack version of Omniscience I don't believe is good at all. After running a similar version at a tourney and online play last week, I found the deck to be extremely clunky and unable to find combo pieces for various types of combos. The OmniTell stock list seems to be the best way to use Show and Tell at the moment.

Although I have always been seeing Hive Mind pop up at occasional tourney toppings lately.

I'm not sure I follow.

Stock list:
4 Omniscience
4 creatures
+ stock cantrips, BWish, and S&T's

Sneaky list:
3 Omniscience
6 creature
+ 2 Sneak Attack
+ stock cantrips, BWish, and S&T's
- a few conditional counters

How are the added enablers for the Sneak list making the "combo" more clunky? It sounds like external disruption is adding to the complexity of "going off". Is this your experience? Which factors contributed to the disruption/pressure?

[dameus]

But coming back to the speed argument where I was asked to specify why I think it is not faster: Yes sneak attack costs 5 mana or 4 mana and a turn, but sneak & show runs 4 show&tell maindeck and 8 targets making it more likely to draw your combo without tutoring and with 3-4 petals (which were common) your chances of playing it turn 2-3 are pretty high. Omniscience does not need more than 3 mana, however tutoring costs a turn. So I don't see this deck coldfishing turn 2 more often than sneak & show, since you would need to draw one of your 3 show&tell.

In general: Having more cantrips and tutoring makes a deck more consistent/resilient/versatile but slower. Compare belcher & TES. Belcher beeing a fast "all-in deck" without controlling the draw. TES casting cantrips, running protection is more reseliant, but slower. In show&tell decks hypergenesis is on the belcher end of spectrum & omniscience is more like TES. The comparision between Sneak&Show & Omniscinece is not that clear, because you can argue "7 show & tells make sure you get it turn 3", but you can also argue "you have to tutor for it often & it is sometimes a 3 card combo so going off before turn 3 will be rare". In terms of goldfish sneak attack+activate is more like turn 3-4, while Show&Tell has the potential to lean more towards 2-3.

This, just as an explanation about my statement concerning the speed of omniscience. It is in fact not relevant since the other discussed factors make the deck a better choice and I would gladly trade some turn 2 comboing% for a more consistent turn 3-4 % perentage & a better win.

It seems like there's at least 2 perceptions of what "fast" means. You seem to equate fast with the frequency of going off on T2 (or earlier). While others - including me - would define speed in terms of average turn to go off.
The difference leads to disparate assessments of what other cards' effects are. I would say more cantrips/tutors = faster, because having more T3 kills makes the typical S&T deck average combo turn faster. However, those cards (2+ mana tutors in particular) are less useful in increasing T2 (or earlier) kills, and thus "slower" in other's mind.
While I agree that Sneaky Show has a better ability to go off T2 than Omni (due to more petals and 4 vs 3 S&T's main), I would still maintain Omni is a faster deck (avg combo turn) than Sneaky Show due to the much greater ability to go off T3ish with "8" copies of S&T (3 real, 4 wish, 1 P Tutor) and 10 targets (6 fatties (my deck) + 4 Omni's) vs 4 S&Ts (not counting the expensive Tutors or expensive Sneak Attack) and 8 targets (all fatties).
Your last paragraph indicates you might even agree with the "Omni is faster" assertion if "faster" is defined in terms of avg combo turn.

Anyway, I goldfished my deck and had some promising results:
I play a slightly non std deck: 20 lands (4 Sol) + 2 Petals, 6 fatties, only 8 cantrips and 12 control cards + core (no Jace).
F = fatty "kill" O = Omni kill
Out of 25 tries:
1F = 1
2F = 2
2O = 6
3O = 8
4F = 4
4O = 2
6O = 2 (on 1, I got O down T3, but had no finisher)
On 3-in-a-row, I wished for S&T, expecting a fatty "kill" the following turn and top-decked Omni! :smile:

[Koby]

This deck, and other Show & Tell decks all have the capacity to fire off its namesake on turn 1. That makes evaluating the speed of this and other S&T decks goofy.

Qualitatively, I can agree that once Omni hits, the victory condition is more guaranteed than Sneak Show. This is due to the cards being cast rather than simply attacking. That's why getting Omni into play feels faster - you know you've got it once its in.

To really evaluate both decks in terms of speed, we would need to establish frequency of early turn goldfishes, and compare them on that basis. This is a complicated endeavor because cantrips effect the ease of running simple tests (i.e., Sol Land + S&T + victory condition). If someone wants to goldfish several hundred/thousand hands, then we could all certainly benefit from that data.

[death]

20 lands (4 Sol) + 2 Petals, 6 fatties, only 8 cantrips and 12 control cards + core (no Jace).
F = fatty "kill" O = Omni kill
Out of 25 tries:
1F = 1
2F = 2
2O = 6
3O = 8
4F = 4
4O = 2
6O = 2 (on 1, I got O down T3, but had no finisher)
On 3-in-a-row, I wished for S&T, expecting a fatty "kill" the following turn and top-decked Omni! :smile:

Using your raw data with a cut to turn 4 (23 tries) for conformity with our previous figures, the breakdown is:
t1 - 4.35%
t2 - 34.78%
t3 - 34.78%
t4 - 26.09%
Average kill turn - 2.83

I recorded a quick 10 goldfish for comparison, 20 lands (5 Sol) -2 Jace 4 Petals. 1x pile shuffle, then side faro.

turn 3: S&T > Omni + B.Wish > Petals of Insight > Grapeshot
turn 2: Personal Tutor > A.Tomb > S&T > Omni > GriselB > B.Wish
turn 1: City of Traitors + Lotus Petal > S&T > Omni > B.Wish
turn 3: Preordain > Preordain > S&T > Omni > Emrakul
turn 4: Preordain > B.Wish > S&T +FoW backup > Omni > Emrakul
turn 3: Ponder > S&T > Omni (Pass), Preordain > B.Wish
turn 3: Preordain > Ponder > S&T > Omni > GriselB > B.Wish
turn 3: Ponder > B.Wish > S&T +FoW backup > Omni > Emrakul
turn 2: Ponder > S&T +FoW backup > Omni > B.Wish
turn 1: City of Traitors + Lotus Petal > S&T > Omni > Preordain x2 > Ponder (shuffle)
> Ponder (shuffle) > Ponder > GriselB > Ponder > Emrakul > draw 14 > B.Wish
t1 - 20%
t2 - 20%
t3 - 50%
t4 - 10%
Average kill turn - 2.5

I shipped back two hands consisting of BStorm, Daze +5 lands and 2x Fow, Omniscience +4 lands.

If anybody else is willing, especially experienced Sneak Attack pilots, feel free to share your results.

[catmint]

I suggest both of you goldfish a little longer. My experience is that 70 games is a good number. Still the variance kicks in, but numbers are much more realistic!

[phazonmutant]

I would personally welcome a discussion about the rector-build here. I've only played the Burning Wish version myself. Would be great to hear from someone who has played both versions tbh. Purely from a speculative point of view I'd weigh in by saying that I don't like the look of a 4cmc Swords to Plowsharesable combo piece that requires us to either splash white or run Cavern of Souls which would add pressure to an already iffy mana base.

But I'm aware that it has performed at tournaments.

I playtested the 4c version after doing a few small tournaments and lots of playtesting with the stock Burning Wish version. The Rector version has some interesting quirks, but I would definitely not recommend it. Cavern and Therapy allow it to ignore countermagic (or Boseiju + Show and Tell), so it's really good at grinding games against Miracles, but I think that's the only matchup it's actually favored over the Burning Wish version. They don't have Wasteland and try to grind you out with countertop. The other counterspell matchups all have Wasteland and it's too easy to not have the right colors without getting Wasted. Obviously against non-counterspell matchups the deck suffers because you're slower and vulnerable to wasteland and grave hate.

[Di]

FYI, I wrote about the deck about a week ago. Link. (http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=10682) The article is obviously catered to an audience of Legacy newcomers so I didn't feel the need to post it here originally, but it couldn't hurt.

Also, I'll echo 4eak and beg you to run Flusterstorm. It's one of the best cards this deck can use, and it is woefully underplayed from the lists I've seen floating around here.

[rxavage]

FYI, I wrote about the deck about a week ago. Link. (http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=10682) The article is obviously catered to an audience of Legacy newcomers so I didn't feel the need to post it here originally, but it couldn't hurt.

Also, I'll echo 4eak and beg you to run Flusterstorm. It's one of the best cards this deck can use, and it is woefully underplayed from the lists I've seen floating around here.


I'll echo the importance of Flusterstorm, just as I advocated it in SneakShow.

[Final Fortune]

I've been taking this up recently, is there any reason not to /b for Duress to have more mana efficient disruption and perfect information? If you're not playing the Mountain, then you're already exposing your manabase with Burning Wish for Show&Tell.

Furthermore, Overmaster seems better than Flusterstorm vs any aggro-control or control match up if all you're doing is trying to resolve Show&Tell, and it cantrips in the aggro-control and discard.dec match ups. Likewise Misdirection seems amazing when you're going to have even more U cards to discard then Sneak&Show. If you're staying in U/r, I think Gitaxian Probe is awesome at getting you perfect information before you enter into a counter war and cantripping in match ups where you wouldn't need a counter spell.

I don't get Daze at all, that card sucks at resolving your own combo and you aren't Reanimator where you only need 1 land to use it as a disruption spell effectively, and likewise Jace just seems like one of those cute alternate win conditions that just dillutes your deck from actually winning.

Furthermore I don't understand using more than 1xEmakrul and less than 4xGriselbrand at all, Griselbrand is still good off Show&Tell as a 7/7 Flying Lifelink vs the same decks Emakrul is amazing against and I thought the whole point of the deck was to not get butt fucked by Karakas and its ilk in the first place? Yeah Griselbrand requires 8 life to go off, but you go off with Burning Wish half the time anyway so it's not that bad vs. aggro. Also why are you using Lotus Petal at all? You don't have to reach 4 mana for Sneak Attack and you don't get to do the cool Sneak Attack, Griselbrand and draw 7 into Lotus Petal and Emakrul finisher. The critical juncture for the deck is 2 mana for Burning Wish, so you should probably be playing Chrome Mox if you're going to play any accelerant just because you really want to be able to Burning Wish T1, Show&Tell T2 and it gives you another 4 ways to get a Defense Grid into play T1 as well.

I don't really buy the Overmaster in the SB arguments either, why should you bother to wish for Overmaster when you could wish for Show&Tell and just win the game immediately or win it the next turn with the 2nd Show&Tell? Yeah it's more mana efficient in theory, but you have to have 4 mana instead of 3 on your next turn and once they counter your Overmaster you still have no idea whether or not you'll be able to resolve your Show&Tell so really what do you do other than go for it anyway? Wishing for Overmaster is just durdling when you could wish for the 2nd Show@Tell anyway, the only reason a deck like TES ever wishes for protection is because wishing for Diminishing Returns directly is incredibly risky with LED and its combo is always "all in."

4 Force of Will
4 Overmaster
4 Gitaxian Probe

3 Show&Tell
4 Ominiscience

4 Burning Wish
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm

4 Griselbrand
1 Emakrul, The Aeons Torn

4 Chrome Mox
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
8 Fetchlands
4 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Mountain

1 Show&Tell
1 Petals of Insight
1 Grape Shot
1 Time of Need
1 Pyroclasm
1 Shattering Spree
1 Bribery (super secret tech)
4 Flusterstorm
4 Grafdigger's Cage

Yeah ok, it probably drops games vs. TES, Dredge and Reanimator game 1, but TES can be hedged with additional counterspells, Dredge can be hated out and we can use the counterspells and hate for Dredge to deal with Reanimator. I'm a big believer in the flexibility and cantripping power of Overmaster and Gitaxian Probe over Pre-Ordain, because while they may not dig as deep they don't cost you tempo and directly advance your game plan.

I'm not claiming this is the best possible list, but the other lists I've seen are all over the place and I think they should concentrate on the 3 card combo into Burning Wish ftw approach instead of messing around with Emakrul, which is the Achilles Heel of the archetype, and bad shit like Daze and Jace.

[catmint]

I came to the same conclusions about Daze & Jace playing Sneak attack. Jace is only good in control matchups on an empty board with the potential to gain so much card advantage to eventually win with the combo. He also baits counters, but I would run more protection for my actual combo instead.

Daze is bad in protection your own combo except in the very early turns and maybe vs. RUG.

Since you only need to 2U in the combo turn, I think you can stretch the manabase for proactive disruption like Discard or overmaster. To counter back there is nothing like free hard counters like Force of Will & Misdirection.

[Final Fortune]

Yeah, it's like this thread is reliving the sins of the last thread IMO. I'm all for Misdirection, it's better at protecting the deck vs. discard than Overmaster but I find it fumbles vs aggro-control and control more than I'd like because it can't stop Flusterstorm completely and it's so resource intensive to have to pitch U cards for all of your protection spells. Like, you can support Show&Tell Griselbrand with Overmaster and Force of Will on a 5 card hand, but supporting the same hand with Misdirection instead of Overmaster requires 6 and forces you to do stuff like pitch your Omniscience.

I'm pretty sure you can't support Misdirection and Chrome Mox together, and the difference between Misdirection and Overmaster isn't nearly anywhere as big as Lotus Petal and Chrome Mox IMO.

I really like my list as it is, maybe Gitaxian Probe vs Pre-Ordian is debatable, but I feel like 12 dig spells get me durdling when Gitaxian Probe gets me to just win the fucking game right now. The deck is amazingly resilient, the only thing it really sputters on is Pithing Needle and that's assumming a giant Demon isn't enough to win the game or I can't just Wish->Spree into broken mode. In theory, Meddling Mage is pretty much the only card I'm worried about, and who plays Meddling Mage anymore?

I'm also not positive if Chrome Mox is worth it, speed vs consistency is a pretty huge argument if it's a question of trading Chrome Mox for Pre-Ordain, but I usually SB out Chrome Mox for Flusterstorm in like every matchup vs island.dec.

Personal Tutor also sucks amazing ass by the way, god is that card slow as dirt and horribly commital. At least Burning Wish keeps card parody and gives you randomly needed answers.

Edit: Oh, and it probably sucks, but with Gitaxian Probe in the deck I really want to see if I can do anything with Empty the Warrens in the board. If they SB out all of their mass removal for spot removal vs Griselbrand, or more counters, Burning Wish for Empty the Warrens is going to pretty much make them either shit a brick as they scramble to deal with it (and it's not an all in play by us at all) or it's going to force them to counter the Burning Wish.

[catmint]

You want to spend 5RR and a burning wish for 4-6 Goblin Tokens?
And you expect these Goblin Tokens to win? :)

Even Belcher suffers from the fact that 10+ Goblin Tokens on Turn 1 or 2 are sometimes not enough because of the variety of answers.

[Final Fortune]

You want to spend 5RR and a burning wish for 4-6 Goblin Tokens?
And you expect these Goblin Tokens to win? :)

Even Belcher suffers from the fact that 10+ Goblin Tokens on Turn 1 or 2 are sometimes not enough because of the variety of answers.

It's more like 5rr for 8 Goblins, Gitaxian Probe, Chrome Mox, Burning Wish, Empty the Warrens is the usual chain of events for me. They don't necessarily have to win, because you don't commit anymore resources to them than Burning Wish really. But even if it comes by turn 3 or so, a deck like RUG actually has serious problems dealing with 8 Goblin tokens because you're not "all in" on them and they either chump block forever or put the opponent on a clock. Likewise most of the cards that answer Empty the Warrens right now are going to get SBed out game 2, except maybe that new Maelstrom Pulse/Oblivion Ring thingy because it takes advantage of Show&Tell, so they really shouldn't have an easy time answering it. If they keep Terminus in, well, I'll just wish for a more useful card and shit stomp them for having 4 dead cards in the match up.

I know it's definitely not an overpowering play, but like Bribery, it's arguably one of the only cards that lets Burning Wish function entirely as a stand alone threat. I'll probably break down and boot both of those cards for Deep Analysis or some other draw spell that gives me value. I just want to find a card that basically says "you better really think about countering Burning Wish otherwise the spell I'm getting is going to cost you more than 1 counter."

I'm also thinking really hard about Diminishing Returns, it seems pretty unfair vs fair decks in order to be able to top deck my way out of draw go with a Wish -> D7. The deck wants some kind of 4 mana bomb that doesn't require a Griselbrand to be in your hand.

[Koby]

I like the discussion about what works and what doesn't for this deck.

Here's some of my thoughts on the topic:

Daze - sets you back a turn when used defensively, but allows you to get more aggressive with casting Show & Tell earlier into countermagic. Gets better when knowledge of your opponent's hand.
Gitaxian Probe / Thoughtseize - provide information, and with the latter takes away problematic cards that could hurt a Show & Tell - KotR, O-ring, opposing Emrakul/Omni.
Lotus Petal - this one I can answer directly from the Sneak builds. It helps to resolve Show & Tell vs Spell Pierce. It also allows you to cantrip earlier in the first two turns at the cost of a card.
Chrome Mox - this one is an odd one suggested. It's card disadvantage and for a one-time useage, it provides the same as Lotus Petal. It only gets better if you're using it across multiple turns. Is the deck really built to operate much longer than turn 4?
fattie mix - Emrakul is almost always the better card to cast with Omni. You get a time-walk, which matters a lot!! It also removes problematic permanents with annihilate. Griselbrand is still vulnerable to a lot of Legacy removal.
Personal Tutor - I was against this at first too, but then 1 snuck back into my deck. It's really efficient at finding BWish and S&T, so I will leave it as a one of. Going to two copies is too much however.
Overmaster - I had this in my first build of Omni and it felt like drawing a card off the top with no way to filter is significantly worse than Preordain. However, for Final Fortune's build with 4 Overmaster and 4 Probe, I think it might be worth it to test. My results against RUG Delver were less than spectacular.

[Final Fortune]

Lotus Petal is not better than Chrome Mox at all, they break even on card disadvantage but Chrome Mox can be used earlier than Lotus Petal in order to play Burning Wish on turn 1 and Show&Tell on turn 2 off of any 2 land combination. In the event Show&Tell is countered, you haven't lost your accelerant and you can cast your next Show&Tell with more mana on the board i.e. have a better chance to nullify Daze and Spell Pierce.

Griselbrand is 100% better than Emakrul, vs any deck that's prepared for Show&Tell they will either be MDing or SBing Karakas or they will be dropping an Oblivion Ring, now Detention Sphere, off of your Show&Tell and Terminus, now Supreme Verdict, kill Emakrul regardless of his protection. If the opponent has anyway to prevent you from attacking, Maze of Ith, then Emakrul is worthless.

With Griselbrand, you really don't give a fuck whether or not they hit you with Karakas or Oblivion Ring or Terminus etc. because you just draw 7 to 14 cards in response and you either go off immediately or you recast your combo. Emakrul is really shit, the only thing he's good at is dodging Swords to Plowshares and being able to win regardless of your life total, and even vs Swords to Plowshares Griselbrand puts you in good shape because if you played Omniscience you just draw 7 to 14 cards in response and either play another Griselbrand, draw another 7 cards in response and then play Burning Wish and kill him anyway. If all you can do is Show&Tell a Grislebrand into play, well you still get 7 to 14 new cards for 2 cards, 3 mana and 0 to 7 life, which is still pretty fucking good in my book.

Well yeah Gitaxian Probe and Overmaster are going to be worse than Pre-Ordain at digging, the difference is that all thatt Pre-Ordain does is dig for mana where Gitaxian Probe cycles for free and lets you know whether or not you can just win immediately and Overmaster is disruption so you can't really compare it to Pre-Ordain at all.

Emakrul is like really, really bad, I think people have a fundamental misunderstanding of which creature between Emakrul and Griselbrand actually made the Show&Tell archetype not suck.

[Koby]

Lotus Petal is not better than Chrome Mox at all, they break even on card disadvantage but Chrome Mox can be used earlier than Lotus Petal in order to play Burning Wish on turn 1 and Show&Tell on turn 2 off of any 2 land combination. In the event Show&Tell is countered, you haven't lost your accelerant and you can cast your next Show&Tell with more mana on the board i.e. have a better chance to nullify Daze and Spell Pierce.

Griselbrand is 100% better than Emakrul, vs any deck that's prepared for Show&Tell they will either be MDing or SBing Karakas or they will be dropping an Oblivion Ring, now Detention Sphere, off of your Show&Tell and Terminus, now Supreme Verdict, kill Emakrul regardless of his protection. If the opponent has anyway to prevent you from attacking, Maze of Ith, then Emakrul is worthless.

With Griselbrand, you really don't give a fuck whether or not they hit you with Karakas or Oblivion Ring or Terminus etc. because you just draw 7 to 14 cards in response and you either go off immediately or you recast your combo. Emakrul is really shit, the only thing he's good at is dodging Swords to Plowshares and being able to win regardless of your life total, and even vs Swords to Plowshares Griselbrand puts you in good shape because if you played Omniscience you just draw 7 to 14 cards in response and either play another Griselbrand, draw another 7 cards in response and then play Burning Wish and kill him anyway. If all you can do is Show&Tell a Grislebrand into play, well you still get 7 to 14 new cards for 2 cards, 3 mana and 0 to 7 life, which is still pretty fucking good in my book.

Well yeah Gitaxian Probe and Overmaster are going to be worse than Pre-Ordain at digging, the difference is that all thatt Pre-Ordain does is dig for mana where Gitaxian Probe cycles for free and lets you know whether or not you can just win immediately and Overmaster is disruption so you can't really compare it to Pre-Ordain at all.

Emakrul is like really, really bad, I think people have a fundamental misunderstanding of which creature between Emakrul and Griselbrand actually made the Show&Tell archetype not suck.

I'm not sure which is worse - your reading comprehension or evaluation of Emrakul vs Griselbrand in combat. Griselbrand is win-more at every point of the game. If you get him into play, and are in a position to draw 7-14 cards in response to say Karakas, and still win the game - then he wasn't all that relevant to begin with. Every situation where that has come up for me has been under pressure from combat.

Lotus Petal is better for explosive openings. Chrome Mox is better for prolonged games. This deck isn't built for prolonged games, hence it's not worth the loss of 2 cards for 1 extra mana.

[Final Fortune]

I'm not sure which is worse - your reading comprehension or evaluation of Emrakul vs Griselbrand in combat. Griselbrand is win-more at every point of the game. If you get him into play, and are in a position to draw 7-14 cards in response to say Karakas, and still win the game - then he wasn't all that relevant to begin with. Every situation where that has come up for me has been under pressure from combat.

Lotus Petal is better for explosive openings. Chrome Mox is better for prolonged games. This deck isn't built for prolonged games, hence it's not worth the loss of 2 cards for 1 extra mana.

It's not about whether or not the deck is or isn't built for prolonged games, Chrome Mox provides mana over multiple turns where you want to cast Burning Wish for Show&Tell and then either resolve Show&Tell thru' soft counters or Overmaster and Show&Tell on turn 2. Chrome Mox makes your deck faster because you have Burning Wish a turn earlier and it makes your deck harder to disrupt because you have more mana on your following turns to resolve Show&Tell thru' soft counters. It's not theorycrafting, I've playtested it extensively.

Either creature is a win via. Omniscience regardless of whether or not they return them to your hand because you can just recast them again, but Griselbrand is not a loss if they play an Oblivion Ring off of your Show&Tell where Emakrul is because you can just draw 7 to 14 cards in response and then either play another Griselbrand, draw another 7 cards or Burning Wish for the win. Emakrul is the card that people target with their Show&Tell hate because he has no effect on the game state if he's answered other than a Timewalk, if that, where Griselbrand does have an effect on the game state regardless of whether or not he's answered. The only weakness of Griselbrand is that he can be answered by Swords to Plowshares and requires 8 life to activate, but drawing 7 cards for 3 mana and 2 cards or stabilizing your board position with a 7/7 Flying Lifelink is usually enough vs most decks, and it's actually Emakrul that's over kill and not Griselbrand because people are just afraid of what happens if their opponent has the Swords to Plowshares or they can't immediately Time Walk and annihilate the opponent's board. I'm not afraid of getting Swords to Plowshared and having to keep playing Magic, I'm afraid of them Topping into Terminus and winning.

My reading comprehension is fine, I just think you're wrong about Lotus Petal and Emakrul. The entire reason I gave up on Sneak&Show was because I was tired of Show&Tell, Emakrul and the opponent putting a Knight of the Reliquary into play and tutoring for Karakas. The way I build and play the deck, it's basically a Storm deck that gets to beat down with Demons when I can't assemble the 3 card combo. I don't really need the "OP" of Emakrul vs. "fair decks," I can draw 7 cards and keep playing Magic or win with a 7/7 Flying Lifelink vs RUG or aggro just fine, I need the ability to circumvent all of the MD hate from Knight of the Reliquary, Karakas and I'm sure Detention Sphere as soon as it's legal.

Really, the only time I've felt Griselbrand was ever worse than Emakrul was vs Goblins, and even there it's debatable because you have to trade being overrun by Piledriver at 7 life or less or being bounced by Stingscourger and Emakrul doesn't really solve the overrun problem unless you cast him off Omniscience for the Timewalk.

All I'm saying is playtest the deck card for card vs Maverick, I'm pretty sure I'm right about Emakrul being the deck's blind spot.

[Esper3k]

Lotus Petal is not better than Chrome Mox at all, they break even on card disadvantage but Chrome Mox can be used earlier than Lotus Petal in order to play Burning Wish on turn 1 and Show&Tell on turn 2 off of any 2 land combination. In the event Show&Tell is countered, you haven't lost your accelerant and you can cast your next Show&Tell with more mana on the board i.e. have a better chance to nullify Daze and Spell Pierce.

But they don't break even on card disadvantage.

Lotus Petal costs you 1 card to generate 1 mana.

Chrome Mox costs you 2 cards to generate 1 mana.

Yes, Chrome Mox is reusable, but it costs you 1 more card than Lotus Petal does.



If the opponent has anyway to prevent you from attacking, Maze of Ith, then Emakrul is worthless.

Maze of Ith is pretty terrible against Emrakul but actually very awesome against Griselbrand. With Emrakul, you get to Annihilator 6 them every turn until they have to eventually sacrifice their Maze.

[Koby]

SNT's vulnerability with creature plan vs Maverick/Karakas is well known. It's also as miserable as you describe it - which ultimately lead me to change from playing Sneak Show as well. Under this scenario, Emrakul is still better because Karakas is invalidated with Emrakul. That's not the case with Griselbrand.

Suppose you're not in a position to draw 7 card, or your 7 cards whiffs. Now Maverick can just Karakas your Griselbrand on their turn, and attack you as normal. In this case, Griselbrand is worse.

My concern is that Chrome Mox is too much card disadvantage with little to no added benefit over Lotus Petal. Ask yourself honestly how many times you've resolved SNT with next to no cards in hand? What if you also need to fight over a counter with FOW? Would more 2:1 situations (Chrome Mox) help or hurt these game states? I don't think that Chrome Mox is the way to alleviate the mana shortage. I think careful management of lands, or inclusion of another basic (Mountain) is better suited.

[Final Fortune]

SNT's vulnerability with creature plan vs Maverick/Karakas is well known. It's also as miserable as you describe it - which ultimately lead me to change from playing Sneak Show as well. Under this scenario, Emrakul is still better because Karakas is invalidated with Emrakul. That's not the case with Griselbrand.

Suppose you're not in a position to draw 7 card, or your 7 cards whiffs. Now Maverick can just Karakas your Griselbrand on their turn, and attack you as normal. In this case, Griselbrand is worse.

My concern is that Chrome Mox is too much card disadvantage with little to no added benefit over Lotus Petal. Ask yourself honestly how many times you've resolved SNT with next to no cards in hand? What if you also need to fight over a counter with FOW? Would more 2:1 situations (Chrome Mox) help or hurt these game states? I don't think that Chrome Mox is the way to alleviate the mana shortage. I think careful management of lands, or inclusion of another basic (Mountain) is better suited.

Edit: Shit, my bad on Maze of Ith, say Blazing Archon instead?

I prefer having mana acceleration over multiple turns as opposed to only having mana acceleration on the combo turn because it pre supposes you're always going to win the first time you cast Show&Tell, and we all know you don't always win. I learned this lesson when I realized SBing Overmaster was a mistake, because it was better to wish for Show&Tell, cast Show&Tell, get countered and then cast the Show&Tell in hand. You can't do that with Lotus Petal, but you can do that with Chrome Mox. Don't think of Chrome Mox as -2 CA, it's -1 CA because Chrome Mox stays on the board after you wish or after you cast Show&Tell, think of it as an accelerant on turn 1 and "counter target Daze" on turn 2.

The card advantage attrition wars vs aggro-control is a legitimate point, but that's why you SB out Chrome Mox for Flusterstorm the same way you SBed out Lotus Petal for Flusterstorm in Sneak&Show, and I think Chrome Mox is better than Lotus Petal G1 fwiw.

Yeah, I understand your fear that your life total is going to make Griselbrand a liability, but pesonally comming from a Storm background I think being able to "go off" with only 8 life is amazing. Sure, Emakrul is better than Griselbrand with Omniscience on the board vs Karakas and Swords to Plowshares at critical life totals, but it's worse vs every other removal and hate card I mentioned. And when you compare Emakrul to Griselbrand off of only Show&Tell, I think Griselbrand's weakness vs Swords to Plowshares is made up for by its resilience to Karakas, Oblivion Ring, Terminus etc. and there are situations where having the Lifelink will save you when you pass the turn where having annihilator next turn wont help at all so it's really difficult to judge which creature has the more significant board presence. I mean either way you compare annihilator 6 to Draw 7 next turn, your opponent is pretty fucked regardless, and the value of having Lifelink when you pass the turn, or Drawing 7 cards immediately, is easy to miss.

Swords to Plowshares vs Karakas, Oblivion Ring, Terminus aside, I just think that Griselbrand is the less linear threat and feel that being able to draw 7 cards in response to removal and possibly counter said removal regardless of whether or not it's Swords to Plowshares or Terminus etc. just puts Griselbrand above Emakrul because he does more when you don't draw your Omniscience for power overwhelming.

I mean I know the risk of Swords to Plowshares, I just don't think it's really that big of a risk because Swords to Plowsharse was not the card keeping down Sneak&Show.

[catmint]

S&T - Emrakul is the weakest play we can make and should only be done in desperation against Oblivion Ring or Knight decks, but still just wins a shit load of matches and there are enough situations (life-total <10 + opponent plays lightning bolt, Stifle), where you are happy to S&T Emrakul. Casting Emrakul with Omniscience is the strongest play we can make with our maindeck creatures. So calling him a "liability" or "blind spot" is wrong imo.

Trust me from my experience. You don't want to rely on Griselbrands drawing 14. Your life total will be more often in danger than you might anticipate and after that you get basically 1 turn. The 2/2 split looks just rigth for me.

I love Force & Will and MIsdirection and don't want to waste a spell on chrome mox. You cast your cantrips into lands when you need them. I even question the 2 lotus petal since they look kind of random and there is less mana needed than with Sneak & Show. The long and grindy games as an argument for chrome mox is wrong, because you draw lands anyway. and for the acceleration a 1 time effect is fine. If you think about splashing black, petal in fact goes up in value a lot.

[Koby]

We can't agree on the actual card counts required for Chrome Mox then. You're using 2 cards in hand to generate 1 mana. We've already established that land are fucking miserable for this build of Show & Tell. Taking two slots to produce another land (albeit, gaining tempo) is not what this deck can afford to do with its cards in hand.

Let's take an example of using Chrome Mox. We wish to produce the following state:

Turn 1: Land + Chrome Mox, Burning Wish (4 cards)
Turn 2: Land + Show & Tell, Daze, threat (4 cards)

Assuming you're on the play, you are left with zero cards in your hand. The threat can't be Omniscience, since it still requires another enabler to win. The threat can't be Emrakul or Griselbrand, since both are vulnerable to Karakas/O-ring.

How exactly is this situation with Chrome Mox better than Lotus Petal?

[Final Fortune]

We can't agree on the actual card counts required for Chrome Mox then. You're using 2 cards in hand to generate 1 mana. We've already established that land are fucking miserable for this build of Show & Tell. Taking two slots to produce another land (albeit, gaining tempo) is not what this deck can afford to do with its cards in hand.

Let's take an example of using Chrome Mox. We wish to produce the following state:

Turn 1: Land + Chrome Mox, Burning Wish (4 cards)
Turn 2: Land + Show & Tell, Daze, threat (4 cards)

Assuming you're on the play, you are left with zero cards in your hand. The threat can't be Omniscience, since it still requires another enabler to win. The threat can't be Emrakul or Griselbrand, since both are vulnerable to Karakas/O-ring.

How exactly is this situation with Chrome Mox better than Lotus Petal?

Daze? I'll assume you really meant Overmaster and one of those lands is an Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors, and it's perfectly ok to cast Griselbrand into a possible Knight of the Reliquary or Oblivion Ring here because you get to draw back up to 7 cards + Griselbrand in the case of Karakas with ~10-13 life and 4 mana on the board. If you draw into Show&Tell and Omniscience, you can possibly go off next turn with ~ 1 to 6 life remaining because the Knight had to tap out for Karakas and no other creature can really guarantee kill you at that point in the game.

I really think this argument is kind of strange, I mean you couldn't have even wished for show&tell on your first turn and cast show&tell on your second turn without having used Chrome Mox over Lotus Petal at all? Yeah, Chrome Mox isn't going to be the best card vs island.dec, but we're a combo deck that relies on life and racing aggro matters.

Edit: The Griselbrand at 10 life vs. Lightning Bolt and Stifle comments are the kind of thinking that's terrible IMO, if you're at 10 life with Griselbrand on the board vs RUG you just pass the turn, attack next turn, gain 7 life and try to go off. If it doesn't work, you rinse and repeat until you either beat him to death or you go off. Griselbrand shit stomps RUG, just don't play bad and you'll win regardless of whether or not you ever get to activate his ability because a 7/7 Flying Lifelink is still a threat that they can't deal with.

[Koby]

Daze? I'll assume you really meant Overmaster and one of those lands is an Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors, and it's perfectly ok to cast Griselbrand into a possible Knight of the Reliquary or Oblivion Ring here because you get to draw back up to 7 cards + Griselbrand in the case of Karakas with ~10-13 life and 4 mana on the board. If you draw into Show&Tell and Omniscience, you can possibly go off next turn with ~ 1 to 6 life remaining because the Knight had to tap out for Karakas and no other creature can really guarantee kill you at that point in the game.

I really think this argument is kind of strange, I mean you couldn't have even wished for show&tell on your first turn and cast show&tell on your second turn without having used Chrome Mox over Lotus Petal at all? Yeah, Chrome Mox isn't going to be the best card vs island.dec, but we're a combo deck that relies on life and racing aggro matters.

I don't see the need for Chrome Mox under any number of fictitious amount of scenarios. The cost of an additional card is worse for the deck than the momentary gain from Lotus Petal. You've basically informed us that Chrome Mox is only good when you can only use S&T a Griselbrand into play and draw a new hand. I can see the case being made for a storm-version like The Tin-Fin/GriselStorm deck. There, it makes sense since speed and disruption are useful.

I would just slow down and cast Show & Tell to put Omniscience in, then win the game. This seems both safer and you know what kind of disruption you're going to be up against. I would rather cast a reliable Show & Tell on Turn 3 than gamble with it on turn 2.

[BiuBiu]

Chrome Mox: In my opinion Lotus Petal > Chrome Mox in this deck, because of the reasons Koby and the others pointed out before.
Lotus Petal: In Sneak Attack I never wanted less than 4 maindeck. What are your experiences here? Did anyone tested 4 maindeck? Or do we need it at all? In my testing I mostly ran 2. It was allright, but I’m not 100 % convinced here.
Personal Tutor: It seems that most people don’t really like it, because it doesn’t put the card in your hand directly. As far as I’m concerned, I didn’t find it too bad in my testing. It probably shouldn’t replace Brainstorm/Ponder/Preordain, but the ability to put either Show and Tell, Burning Wish or Overmaster (if you got Overmaster in maindeck) on top makes it flexible. You could also get the card same turn with one of the cantrips in some situations (for example if you run Gitaxian Probe and wanted to use it anyway). I tested it as 1-of and even 2-of. Right now I think, it’s allright as 1-of. What do you think? Is it really too slow??
Envelop: Is listed in the primer as sideboard choice. Sounds interesting especially vs discard, but could it really replace „real“ GY-hate?? Wouldn’t it have to compete with Flusterstorm/Spell Pierce also? By the way, discard really hurt a lot in my testing.
REB: 4-of in my sideboard is nearly guaranteed (vs. Control, Delver, Merfolk … … …)
Jace: Sneak Attack also had a short period where some players included Jace. It didn’t establish – could be the same here, I think. I like Jace, but don’t really see his home in this deck beacause of several reasons.
Daze: Most of my testing included Daze. It’s always the same thing with Daze: either it can be extremely good, or it turns into a dead card, depending on the situation. Right now I’m testing to replace it with Overmaster/Flusterstorm. Sure, they cost a mana, so they are slower, but they’re also more secure protecting my Show and Tell. In the Sneak Attack deck I also didn’t run Daze. I think it’s a little better in the Omniscience deck. Still I’m not really convinced. I’m glad to see that others are my opinion as well, because most lists run Daze as 4-of (… but then again: maybe for a good reason…?). Partially it’s a matter of playstyle. Do you think it’s to slow to run 1cmc protection?
Overmaster: I like it a lot! Interesting point from Final Fortune here: 4 maindeck vs 3 maindeck and 1 sideboard. Would you take an Overmaster from a Burning Wish in some situations? I could imagine some situations, but agree that most of the times you would prefer Show and Tell. So would it be worth to keep one in the sideboard for these situations?
Flusterstorm: I think it’s better in this deck than in Sneak Attack. At the moment I also believe it’s better than Spell Pierce here, because it’s more important to protect your Show and Tell than be able to counter some of the hate cards that especially hurt the Sneak Attack deck. But right now I like Overmaster better than Flusterstorm here, even though it costs R, doesn’t pitch to Force of Will and doesn’t hit other things … What do you think?
Gitaxian probe: I’m still testing but I really like it a lot. What do you think about the right number if played? Could it replace some of the other cantrips? I really love the other 12 together right now. Could it be played in addition to them, or could it be too much then? By the way, Thoughtseize would be nice of course, but I really don’t want to add another color.
Emrakul/Griselbrand: 2-2 seemed to be perfect. I’m really amazed how often you can still get both into play, or exactly the one you need at the moment. I wouldn’t maximize the Griselbrand number right now, because against aggressive decks your life total can get extremely low during the first turns already.
Manabase: What are your thoughts about 4 vs 5 sol lands? At the moment I’m running 8 fetchlands, 3 Islands, 1 Mountain, 3 Ancient Tomb, 2 city of Traitors, 3 Volcanics. (2 Lotus Petal). I’m thinking about – 1 Ancient Tomb, + 1 Volcanic…
Shattering Spree: I also keep one in my sideboard, even though I just used it vs an affinity deck so far.

[Final Fortune]

I don't see the need for Chrome Mox under any number of fictitious amount of scenarios. The cost of an additional card is worse for the deck than the momentary gain from Lotus Petal. You've basically informed us that Chrome Mox is only good when you can only use S&T a Griselbrand into play and draw a new hand. I can see the case being made for a storm-version like The Tin-Fin/GriselStorm deck. There, it makes sense since speed and disruption are useful.

I would just slow down and cast Show & Tell to put Omniscience in, then win the game. This seems both safer and you know what kind of disruption you're going to be up against. I would rather cast a reliable Show & Tell on Turn 3 than gamble with it on turn 2.

How are the scenarios for Chrome Mox any more fictitious than the scenarious for Lotus Petal? If the coice is between speed vs. consistency, then I'd rather cut Chrome Mox or Lotus Petal for counters, cantrips or lands and not just trade one for the other MD.

I think the main issue is either a question of playstyle where I'm willing to aggressively cast Show&Tell -> Griselbrand into removal where you're not, the fact that you thought Griselbrand couldn't even be played because of Knight of the Reliquary, Karakas, Oblivion Ring or Swords to Plowshares is telling to me, because I cast Griselbrand into Swords to Plowshares and win regularly vs Maverick.

I also don't think you've playtested the deck or thought the deck thru' enough, for instance you say it's impossible to go off with Omniscience in the above scenario, but it's not impossible because you can replace your Daze, my Overmaster, with Gitaxian Probe and see "hate, no hate," cantrip into a card for Chrome Mox and then go off with Omniscience anyway.

I built the deck to be able to Burning Wish -> Show&Tell, Show&Tell -> Griselbrand efficiently, and that's what it does. It's the worst case scenario win condition when you think about it, and it's still pretty damn good.

[catmint]

Edit: The Griselbrand at 10 life vs. Lightning Bolt and Stifle comments are the kind of thinking that's terrible IMO, if you're at 10 life with Griselbrand on the board vs RUG you just pass the turn, attack next turn, gain 7 life and try to go off. If it doesn't work, you rinse and repeat until you either beat him to death or you go off. Griselbrand shit stomps RUG, just don't play bad and you'll win regardless of whether or not you ever get to activate his ability because a 7/7 Flying Lifelink is still a threat that they can't deal with.

True, bad example. I myself was telling other people the exact same thing in the sneak attack thread. But I was saying: "RUG does not have attacks" against a 7/7 flying lifelink. At ten life we usually have the luxury of attacking ourselves. If your life total is at 4 and you go back to 11, their swing + bolts might just kill you, so you are just stopping them from attacking but have no chance to win except for combing again. Also I have to correct myself - it is not even correct that they don't have attacks against Griselbrand. They might have 3 creatures dealing 10 damage and we are at 5 life. They attack into us and our life total goes to 6. Then they bolt Griselbrand. Against Merfolk if not very early gaining 7 life on the attack won't race them and you can't block at all. Agaist Burn I lost games with Griselbrand because they had a fast goldfish, where I could not draw and spend bolt, fireblast on Griselbrand.

Still, I agree with you that show&tell Griselbrand is the best option if we have to put a creature in play. But show & tell into omniscience into Griselbrand is pretty unimpressive right? :) Here is where Emrakuls is just waaaaaayyyyyy more powerful.

[Final Fortune]

I'm not concerned with whether or not Griselbrand is any more or less powerful than Emakrul with Omniscience on the table, it's like comparing a lighter to a flamethrower when all you're trying to do is light a match, sure Emakrul is better than Griselbrand vs. Karakas in this case but Griselbrand is better than Emakrul vs Blazing Archon in another case etc. etc. etc.

When I build and play this deck, I operate under the worst case scenario, which is Show&Tell -> Creature vs hate and I think even with Swords to Plowshares added to the possible hate cards that Griselbrand can still draw 7 to probably protect himself or at least refill your hand when he doesn't and Emakrul just dies and loses you the game vs everything but Swords to Plowshares.

If you look at Reanimator, it's pretty much a Griselbrand combo deck and it has to use Reanimate in order to put Griselbrand into play, which is a lot of life loss. Reanimator works tho', and this should work too.

I just prefer the non-linear win condition, Griselbrand is so much more difficult to hate than Emakrul. Demons are way cooler than Spaghetti Monsters too IMO, call me a Satanist but I can't help it :p

[Nekrataal]

Finally a seperate thread. I didn't notice it for some time.

I really would like to pick the arguments from 4eak again, because independantly I did the same 2 key things:

- cut acceleration in form of Petals (2 Petals are rather random)
- cut Jace (Jace is not always good)

I quote 4eak " The deck can't go off on turn 1, but it goes off more consistently in the first 4 turns" and that's exactly what happens, mostly turn 4 latest (data below). This also means that Daze is a lot worse because by then an opponent can often just pay for it. The reason for the cut was that those 4 Slots (Jace, petals) seemed either random or not doing something in all matchups. At the same time playtesting Omni-Tell I found that the protection suite is pretty weak compared to what I played before in Sneak Attack and that setup is a little bit more complex as you actually always want to S&T Omni-Tell with something to put right after which technically makes Omni-Tell a three card combo deck.

So for now I play one additional land, one more Griselbrand and two Flusterstorms (could theoretically also be Spell Pierce if the Meta allows for it) in the gained spots. I also play 2 Misdirections and two Spell Pierce in the slots of Daze.

Up to now I played 50 gold-fish games and the results were:

T2: 7
T3: 17
T4: 16
>T4: 10

Approx. 90% of these games I won via Omni-Tell or Omni-Tell drawn by Griselbrand. 10% of wins could only be achieved be actually attacking with Grisel and/or Emrakul. The big difference of course is that in reality you often can have just one Griselbrand activation a turn ...

Personally I would like to talk about one card from all the one's discussed above. I am not a fan of Overmaster at all. It is a too narrow card and the one mana extra can also be spend on a counter like Flusterstorm in the combo turn. Flusterstorm is a much more flexible card in the early game to defend against e.g. Discard.

[Koby]

I also don't think you've playtested the deck or thought the deck thru' enough, for instance you say it's impossible to go off with Omniscience in the above scenario, but it's not impossible because you can replace your Daze, my Overmaster, with Gitaxian Probe and see "hate, no hate," cantrip into a card for Chrome Mox and then go off with Omniscience anyway.


So replace Daze with Overmatser, spend 1 more mana, and topdeck the exact card you need to win? That seems realistic all on turn 2.

[phazonmutant]

A friend just pointed out to me you can cast Ancestral Vision with Omniscience. My first reaction is that it sounds terrible, but that is an interesting interaction. In a combo-control style build it might be good. I would imagine such a build would have more Jace, Pierces instead of Daze or some number of Overmaster, and probably only 3-4 fatties.
Obviously if the goal is to kill ASAP then the card is awful, but I don't think Know and Tell's goal is to kill before t3-4 against decks with counterspells.

[jandax]

You can cast Griselbrand with Omniscience, too...

Merit is merit, but in the end a Draw 7 is better than a Draw 3 once one has Omniscience on the table.

[phazonmutant]

Obviously draw 7 is better, putting things like Jace and Ancestral Vision in the deck are so you have live plays both before and after Show and Tell.
I tested a rough list in 6-game sets against Thresh and Maverick and went 2-4 and 5-1 against Maverick. Ancestral Vision should be at its worst in those two matchups. From experience with other decks, it's insane against all the UW decks and black discard decks even cast normally. I felt like Thresh had a couple of games where it drew above-average (6+ counterspells off of a couple Ponders) and my list was rougher so it should be slightly more even but probably unfavorable (45%). Maverick was very easy. Even when they assembled Thalia t2 + Mom + Karakas, I could beat them.

I'm not at all convinced that it's a better build, but if the deck wants to move into a more controlling role, I was more impressed by it than I thought I would be. It gives the deck more ability to play into the late game and some percent more live draws with Omniscience in play. I think that Omniscience as an archetype is a better late-game combo deck than almost any other because it can run so many basics and play around spell pierce with sol lands and can play Force (the other contender for that title being High Tide). In comparison, Reanimator and TES are abysmal; S&S, Hive Mind, and ANT are ok at grinding.

[Final Fortune]

So replace Daze with Overmatser, spend 1 more mana, and topdeck the exact card you need to win? That seems realistic all on turn 2.

Seriously, what are you going on about?

Starting 7,

Volcanic Island
City of Traitors
Chrome Mox
Omniscience
Burning Wish
Griselbrand
Overmaster

T1 Volcanic Island, Chrome Mox (Omniscience) -> Burning Wish for Show&Tell
T2 Draw, City of Traitors -> Overmaster, Show&Tell (Griselbrand)

Board

Volcanic Island, City of Traitors, Chrome Mox (U), Griselbrand, 18 Life

Hand

1 Drawn Card

If you're on the draw you can replace Overmaster with Force of Will and have 1 mana to pay for Daze and 1 counterspell to counter Spell Pierce off of either of the drawn cards to be able to fuel both Chrome Mox and Force of Will. If you drew Gitaxian Probe instead of Overmaster you can see your opponent's hand, play thru' Daze or you can pass the turn with Show&Tell, Griselbrand and 2 cards in hand. Even on the play, you have a reasonable chance to cast Force of Will if you top deck any U card with 21 (25 if you play Flusterstorm) in 52 cards remaining so ~ 40+ %

It's realistic, it seems you have a problem with your reading comprehension :tongue:

@Overmaster

Overmaster is narrow in the sense that it can't protect you from discard or disrupt your opponent's game plan but it's flexible in the sense that you can "cycle" it vs decks you don't need protection against. It serves the same roll as Flusterstorm vs aggro-control and control, it's just a question of whether or not having 4 less counter spells vs decks like Storm, Reanimator and Dredge etc. is more detrimental than having 4 more cantrips vs. aggro.

The main advantage of Overmaster is the card advantage in situations where you cast it and your opponent has to respond with Force of Will, or you draw out and pay for the Daze, Spell Pierce or Flusterstorm and pass the turn a card up because they really can't afford to let you resolve it. Overmaster absolutely punishes the opponent for playing tax counters and I think it's the best meta specific choice vs. Islands because it's the only card that lets you win the attrition war. If there are no decks that are more unfair in your metagame, Reanimator, Storm, Dredge etc. then MD Overmaster and SB Defense Grid is ridiculously good IMO

I have nothing agaisnt Flusterstorm, if you wanted to MD Flusterstorm and SB Spell Pierce it'd improve your Storm, Reanimator and Dredge match ups, maintain your aggro-control and control match up, weaken your aggro match up and be useful against whatever archetypes are using discard at the moment (Reanimator, Dredge, Esper Stoneblade, Nic Fit?) I could easily be convinced to play 4 MD Flusterstorm, 4 SB Spell Pierce and 1 SB Overmaster, Chrome Mox has good synergy with Flusterstorm because you can almost always Storm 4 in mana tight situations and they can never pay (4) in those windows.

Edit: Does anybody feel like you really need the Time of Need and Emakrul win condition when you're holding Burning Wish? I've never really came across a situation where I couldn't immediately win the game with Grape Shot, the only situation I could think of is Leyline of Sanctity or Runed Halo or maybe it lets you wish for Petal of Insight as a business spell without worrying about nerfing Burning Wish as a kill condition? I just keep getting this nagging feeling that the deck should just accept being a Storm deck and we could do something else better with our MD and SB space.

[Darklingske]

Seriously, what are you going on about?

Starting 7,

Volcanic Island
City of Traitors
Chrome Mox
Omniscience
Burning Wish
Griselbrand
Overmaster

T1 Volcanic Island, Chrome Mox (Omniscience) -> Burning Wish for Show&Tell


Opponent plays FoW: there goes your plan...

[Final Fortune]

Opponent plays FoW: there goes your plan...

I make an even trade between Burning Wish and the card I RFGed for Chrome Mox, keep Chrome Mox on the board to be able to better deal with Daze and Spell Pierce and all I have to do is top deck/cantrip into another Burning Wish or Show&Tell to combo off again, it seems survivable? And the majority of players will probably be greedy and wait to Force of Will the Burning Wish target in order to maximize their tempo advantage anway, how does he know I'm not casting Burning Wish for Overmaster with Show&Tell in my hand? Likewise how do I know he's playing a deck with Force of Will at all?

Yeah, being sent into top deck mode for Show&Tell or another Burning Wish is a problem for us, but it's a risk for him to Force of Will the Burning Wish if I'm already holding Show&Tell because he's under capitalizing on his tempo and trading 2 for 1 for a possibly non-critical card.

I've never actually had my Burning Wish blindly Force of Willed, maybe it's always the right play if it potentially sends me into top deck mode without Show&Tell? Huh, interesting, I'll ask my playtest partners to always Force of Will the Burning Wish and see how much of a difference it makes.

Regardless, I think I'm getting to the point where Spell Pierce is the best all around MD card because it protects the deck from Duress, disrupts other combo decks and counters Counterbalance, Jace and to a lesser extent Sensei's Divining Top, I'm having issues against U/w Miracles with Overmaster and Flusterstorm.

I really want to cut Time of Need and Emakrul from the deck, that 1 SB space really matters and I'm sure I could find something useful for the Emakrul slot, Intuition seems pretty reasonable.

[Nekrataal]

I also think along these lines as I rarely need the flexibility that comes with Living Wish (yes still playing it) and Emrakul/Karakas SB. Actually I was more often going for Karakas than Emrakul but then you could just play Karakas SB and make it a random maindeck card to board in.

The initial idea was that with Omniscience in play and nothing to put but a Wish in hand you are still able to find something via red wish -> green wish -> Emrakul. But actually this situation rarely appears bacasue either you have spend a Wish to find S&T before and don't have one or you directly go storm combo via Petals / Grapeshot if you hold a wish after Omniscience is on the board.

Shortly addressing sideboard choices:

- Boseju: I currently play 2. As my build is more land heavy (no Lotus Petal) as I explained you can board it against slow control decks and exchange speed for savety. Basically a similar strategy you see in some Hive Mind sideboards.

- Magma Jet: I currently testing a split between Pyroclasm (1) and Magma Jet (2). Pyroclasm stays SB to be wished for. Magma Jet gets boarded against typical hate bears. It is targetted which is a disadvantage but it scrys for 2 which can come in handy. Still testing ...

[Final Fortune]

Yeah, Time of Need and Emakrul are being cut for Overmaster and Intuition and I'm MDing Spell Pierces after this weekend's experiences.

With the reliance on Show&Tell, how are you fairing in the Reanimator and Sneak Attack match up? I feel like I'm pretty fucked myself, and that the only way to win the Reanimator and Sneak Attack match up is to Burning Wish for Bribery.

I may end up exchanging Grafdigger's Cage for Faerie Macabre to give me a better hate card vs. Reanimator and not to confilict with the Bribery plan, I think I can take down Dredge with 4 Force of Will, 4 Spellpierce 4 Flusterstorm and 4 Faerie Macabre post-board regardless.

Intuition is so much better than Personal Tutor, it's not even close.

[odabella]

Yeah, Time of Need and Emakrul are being cut for Overmaster and Intuition and I'm MDing Spell Pierces after this weekend's experiences.

With the reliance on Show&Tell, how are you fairing in the Reanimator and Sneak Attack match up? I feel like I'm pretty fucked myself, and that the only way to win the Reanimator and Sneak Attack match up is to Burning Wish for Bribery.

I may end up exchanging Grafdigger's Cage for Faerie Macabre to give me a better hate card vs. Reanimator and not to confilict with the Bribery plan, I think I can take down Dredge with 4 Force of Will, 4 Spellpierce 4 Flusterstorm and 4 Faerie Macabre post-board regardless.

Intuition is so much better than Personal Tutor, it's not even close.


Regarding the Reanimator MU, if we already splashed black, Reanimate could be a good option in the wisboard. Bribery seems a little bit slow.

[Nekrataal]

Reanimator isn't a good MU from my experience with Sneak Attack. Even if you can slow them down with hate G2, you need to resolve S&T in Omnitell and it is always luck what they put in. If they start a counterwar about S&T, their hand is probably not good enough :wink:

Sneak Attack is actually pretty OK. I try to play the control role here and win over Omniscience only. The single card that is dangerous is Sneak Attack. S&T is mostly in our favor as Omniscience is just simply better as what they have. Also we can put the same creatures to nullify what they do. Only if the put Sneak Attack and have red mana open we are in a bad shape. But still then we can just topdeck 2 lands to play Omniscience from S&T ... at GP Gent this was exactly what my opponent was doing to me after I slammed into him with an Emrakul from a showandtelled Sneak Attack.

Went to a tourney yesterday and lost only one match honestly against Canadian. But another one I had to give in to Affinity after not finding anything useful in 14 cards G2 and in 7 cards G3 ... :/ so I went 3:2 (won against UBW Loam Control, White Weenie and ANT)

[Darkinsanity]

This deck is now in the Decks to Beat section. Awesome. I was play-testing against Miracle control, well I was Miracle Control and my friend was using Omniscience, and that match-up is harder on Miracle Control than I thought it would be.

[Jessenator]

This deck is now in the Decks to Beat section. Awesome. I was play-testing against Miracle control, well I was Miracle Control and my friend was using Omniscience, and that match-up is harder on Miracle Control than I thought it would be.

Its extremely hard unless they draw into their miser's Oblivion Ring. Oblivion Ring is insane against this match up.. But besides that they almost will lose every time unless they side in Envelope. Card is nuts right now. We have plenty of time to play around every soft counter they have and if they do exhaust resources on our first attempt, we can sculpt a hand and go off quickly, that is if we don't get Jaced very early.

[Darkinsanity]

Its extremely hard unless they draw into their miser's Oblivion Ring. Oblivion Ring is insane against this match up.. But besides that they almost will lose every time unless they side in Envelope. Card is nuts right now. We have plenty of time to play around every soft counter they have and if they do exhaust resources on our first attempt, we can sculpt a hand and go off quickly, that is if we don't get Jaced very early.

I noticed that with Oblivion Ring, and that is frustrating because there is not much we can do after that except wait to go off again.

[Julian23]

Not of this World.

Protects both Omniscience and Emrakul/Griselbrand against Oblivion Ring, Karakas and whathaveyou. Still, I don't think there's a way to actually add this card to the sideboard without crippling yourself in game2 and 3. It's just too much to ask from a combo deck.

[Guy I Don't Know]

Not of this World.

Protects both Omniscience and Emrakul/Griselbrand against Oblivion Ring, Karakas and whathaveyou. Still, I don't think there's a way to actually add this card to the sideboard without crippling yourself in game2 and 3. It's just too much to ask from a combo deck.

Seven mana is a lot to pay to protect omniscience...

[Bignasty197]

Seven mana is a lot to pay to protect omniscience...

Omni makes it free.

[Koby]

Not of this World.

Protects both Omniscience and Emrakul/Griselbrand against Oblivion Ring, Karakas and whathaveyou. Still, I don't think there's a way to actually add this card to the sideboard without crippling yourself in game2 and 3. It's just too much to ask from a combo deck.

So the 3 card combo now becomes a 4 card combo in the face of disruption post-S&T.

Something tells me that the mulligans after adding NOTW will go horribly wrong.

[Final Fortune]

Protecting Omniscience form Oblivion Ring is a non-starter, the best approach is to be able to Gitaxian Probe them, check for Oblivion Ring and if they have Oblivion Ring play Griselbrand and draw your new hand instead of losing your Omniscience and stalling.

Man, Overmaster has been so good to me in testing vs aggro-control and control that I don't think I can cut it from the MD at this point even if it is worse vs. combo and decks with discard, I think I'm just going "all in" on Overmaster and Defense Grid and just accepting that Reanimator is a lost match up and Storm isn't heavily played, and it's also not an unwinnable match up even if it is played.

Relic of Progenitus should be reasonable vs. Dredge, cantripping hate is swank.

[Darksteel]

The MUD matchup is also a pain. Apparently them dropping a Lodestone Golem means that all spells will cost 1 even with Omniscience in play. Combine that with Chalices @ 1 to shut off cantrips (and even @ 3 to shut off Show and Tell) as well as Metalworker's speed and you have a really annoying matchup.

It definitely makes me want to run Shattering Spree in the board, or Thoughtseize in the board/maindeck. Being able to strip problematic permanents from the opponent's hand before Show and Telling is huge.

On another note, I punted a game against Belcher because I brainfarted and forgot that Belcher itself can be dropped off of Show and Tell and activated in response to anything for the kill. In hindsight, I should have countered the Lotus Petals he cast, but if he had 3 Spirit Guides, there wouldn't have been anything I could have done anyway. It definitely makes me want Pithing Needle or Phyrexian Revoker in the board.

Not of this World was sweet tech in Reanimator and is ridiculous with Griselbrand, but that deck has less required combo pieces. It unfortunately can't protect Omniscience itself, either.

[yankeedave]

I usually run a couple of Wipe Aways in the board, this would solve your Belcher issues, as they don't get the chance to respond.

[menace13]

Not of this World was sweet tech in Reanimator and is ridiculous with Griselbrand, but that deck has less required combo pieces. It unfortunately can't protect Omniscience itself, either.

It CAN protect Omniscience at the cost of free.

[death]

Not of This World can protect Omniscience if the enchantment is already in play. If opponent puts Oblivion Ring/Detention Sphere into play through S&T or cast them targeting Omnicience, you can respond to the trigger by casting NoTW for free but


So the 3 card combo now becomes a 4 card combo in the face of disruption post-S&T.

Obviously the card is also a poor top deck though compared to Burning Wish > Eye of Nowhere or generic bounce spells. I'm not saying the card is awful so don't play it, but there are better options. I'm just saying..

Against Belcher and Battle of Wits, you'd be better off hardcasting Omniscience than Show and Telling it into play lol

[Darksteel]

Oh wow, Not of this World protects PERMANENTS. lol, I've only been using it to protect Griselbrand and other reanimator targets so I just assumed it was creatures only. My mistake.

Anyway, I think a splash of black for Thoughtseize is what I'm going to try. Jacksad's list from MTGO seems like a good place to start.

[lochlan]

Stifle also protects against O.Ring and Karakas but has other uses as well. (Greatly improves the storm match-up, hits miracle triggers, etc.)

And if you run Boseiju (which is an absolute all-star in this deck, for those not aware), Stifle protects it from Wasteland.

This deck definitely wants 3x Stifle in the board, Trickbind is probably fine as well. I've tried out Not of this World in other Show and Tell builds and it's way too narrow.

[sdematt]

NotW is definitely too narrow. I've been running Stifle in my Reanimator Sideboard for a while, and it's been stellar. You want it for the same reasons in here as you do in Reanimator. It's worth testing if you're haven't tried it yet.

Lochlan, you coming to SCG Seattle in November and playing this?

-Matt

[lochlan]

Stifle seems very good in Reanimator, but I think it's even more critical here because of the deck's total reliance on Show and Tell and the vulnerability of that strategy to CITP effects. After all the ridiculous cries to ban Show and Tell people have FINALLY realized that Oblivion Ring (or Angel of Despair) just flat-out beats a resolved Show and Tell--and especially since nobody runs Progenitus in these decks anymore.

And Matt, I'm definitely coming to SCG Seattle, although not sure whether or not I'm playing this deck. It's definitely on the short list.

[Final Fortune]

Stifle seems very good in Reanimator, but I think it's even more critical here because of the deck's total reliance on Show and Tell and the vulnerability of that strategy to CITP effects. After all the ridiculous cries to ban Show and Tell people have FINALLY realized that Oblivion Ring (or Angel of Despair) just flat-out beats a resolved Show and Tell--and especially since nobody runs Progenitus in these decks anymore.

And Matt, I'm definitely coming to SCG Seattle, although not sure whether or not I'm playing this deck. It's definitely on the short list.

You know, Progenitus actually sounds like a decent SB card right now because cutting Omniscience is a pretty serious consideration vs. Detention Sphere.

[BiuBiu]

After a lot of testing, I'm also trying the black splash for discard at the moment. Thoughtseize is really fantastic for the deck.
Overmaster was great for protecting Show and Tell against counters, but couldn't answer other things. There were more things that I would had to counter than I first thought. Flusterstorm could also protect Show and Tell (sometimes), but still didn't hit everything. Spell Pierce was a little bit better here, but could also be played around often. (I've cut the Petals... and tried less tempo, more protection - so at the time I played S&T, they allready had enough lands a lot of times. They also prepare to avoid your S&T and keep untapped, because you don't have another clock or something anyway). Misdirection wasn't bad in addition to the 1cmc soft counters (a lot of blue). Against "blue decks" I tried to get double protection most of the time... To make it short:
Thoughtseize can take away their counters and other annoying things they would put into play with Show and Tell(!) plus you get to look at their hand and can decide, if it's safe for S&T. It can take combo pieces of your opponent, or dangerous creatures in some super-aggresive decks as well. I even took it a lot more times with Burning Wish from the sideboard, than I took Overmaster. If Thoughtseize were blue, it would be the perfect card for the deck :smile: ... still I like it that much, that I think it's worth the splash at the moment. Right now, I also put some Duress next to it. I'm also trying Lim-Dul's Vault, which seems better than Personal Tutor, because it can find everything and sets up your next steps. It's also great with Omnisciece or Griselbrand, and with all the cantrips. By the way, I never want to cut anything from the 4Brainstorm-4Ponder-4Preoradin-package again. (When i tried for example Intuition or Gitaxian Pobe, I tried to cut some Preordains and really was disappointed. But a third Griselbrand felt right in this builds)
For the sideboard, I think Grim Tutor could replace Time of Need in a deck with a heavy black splash. Virtue's Ruin is also a nice option against Maverick...
Regarding the manabase I'm trying a version without the Sol-lands at the moment. It's slower again, but now the deck would need U, R and B...

It would be great to hear your opinion and criticism about this decklist:

Lands (21):

4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
3 Island
1 Mountain
1 Swamp

others (39):

3 Show and Tell
4 Omniscience
4 Burning Wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
2 Lim-Dul's Vault
4 Force of Will
3 Thoughtseize
3 Duress
2 Griselbrand
2 Emrakul

sideboard (15):

1 Show and Tell
1 Petals of Insight
1 Grapeshot
1 Thoughtseize
1 Grim Tutor
1 Shattering Spree
1 Eye of Nowhere
1 Pyroclasm
1 Virtue's Ruin
3 REB
3 Surgical Extraction

Thanks for your help
(maybe it should be - 1 Volcanic + 1 U.Sea and Shattering Spree is maybe no longer necessary)

[ThediscoPower]

After a lot of testing, I'm also trying the black splash for discard at the moment. Thoughtseize is really fantastic for the deck.
Overmaster was great for protecting Show and Tell against counters, but couldn't answer other things. There were more things that I would had to counter than I first thought. Flusterstorm could also protect Show and Tell (sometimes), but still didn't hit everything. Spell Pierce was a little bit better here, but could also be played around often. (I've cut the Petals... and tried less tempo, more protection - so at the time I played S&T, they allready had enough lands a lot of times. They also prepare to avoid your S&T and keep untapped, because you don't have another clock or something anyway). Misdirection wasn't bad in addition to the 1cmc soft counters (a lot of blue). Against "blue decks" I tried to get double protection most of the time... To make it short:
Thoughtseize can take away their counters and other annoying things they would put into play with Show and Tell(!) plus you get to look at their hand and can decide, if it's safe for S&T. It can take combo pieces of your opponent, or dangerous creatures in some super-aggresive decks as well. I even took it a lot more times with Burning Wish from the sideboard, than I took Overmaster. If Thoughtseize were blue, it would be the perfect card for the deck :smile: ... still I like it that much, that I think it's worth the splash at the moment. Right now, I also put some Duress next to it. I'm also trying Lim-Dul's Vault, which seems better than Personal Tutor, because it can find everything and sets up your next steps. It's also great with Omnisciece or Griselbrand, and with all the cantrips. By the way, I never want to cut anything from the 4Brainstorm-4Ponder-4Preoradin-package again. (When i tried for example Intuition or Gitaxian Pobe, I tried to cut some Preordains and really was disappointed. But a third Griselbrand felt right in this builds)
For the sideboard, I think Grim Tutor could replace Time of Need in a deck with a heavy black splash. Virtue's Ruin is also a nice option against Maverick...
Regarding the manabase I'm trying a version without the Sol-lands at the moment. It's slower again, but now the deck would need U, R and B...

It would be great to hear your opinion and criticism about this decklist:

Lands (21):

4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
3 Island
1 Mountain
1 Swamp

others (39):

3 Show and Tell
4 Omniscience
4 Burning Wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
2 Lim-Dul's Vault
4 Force of Will
3 Thoughtseize
3 Duress
2 Griselbrand
2 Emrakul

sideboard (15):

1 Show and Tell
1 Petals of Insight
1 Grapeshot
1 Thoughtseize
1 Grim Tutor
1 Shattering Spree
1 Eye of Nowhere
1 Pyroclasm
1 Virtue's Ruin
3 REB
3 Surgical Extraction

Thanks for your help
(maybe it should be - 1 Volcanic + 1 U.Sea and Shattering Spree is maybe no longer necessary)

That list looks like something I would eventually end up trying out. To give you an idea, right now, my mainboard looks like the original gp gent one, minus jaces and personal tutor, + 3 thoughseize (and the changes to the manabase). So far, I did not get that much test time in, but when I look at your list, I would like to know if you ever had troubles by not being able to alternate cost cast FOW because of the number of blue spells you cut. aside from that, vault looks like something I want to try too, and virtue's ruin seems nice too.

[BiuBiu]

That list looks like something I would eventually end up trying out. To give you an idea, right now, my mainboard looks like the original gp gent one, minus jaces and personal tutor, + 3 thoughseize (and the changes to the manabase). So far, I did not get that much test time in, but when I look at your list, I would like to know if you ever had troubles by not being able to alternate cost cast FOW because of the number of blue spells you cut. aside from that, vault looks like something I want to try too, and virtue's ruin seems nice too.


FoW really felt more reliable in the deck with more blue cards. In this build there are 25 blue cards. The GP Ghent build with your changes has 27 I think(?). You rarely want to pitch S&T: If you want to force your S&T through opposing counters and have another one, it could be (even then not always ... knowing your opponents hand because of a thoughtseize is great for these situations). It always feels safe if you have another S&T or at leat a tutor to back up your first S&T against counter decks (unfortunately not always possible). Another situation where you would pitch S&T is against any spells that could cost you the game otherwise. Sometimes you can't just wait to protect your S&T, but have to counter a keyspell to not lose.

Omniscience you can only pitch (to force through your S&T) if you have another one or Griselbrand or Emrakul. (Of course you could pitch a FoW to another one). Remain the cantrips and tutors. Most of them you want to use early game before FoW to sculpt your hand. Mostly, I did this in a way so that I could keep a cantrip or LDV for FoW if needed. Most of the time that worked. But sometimes you also need that cantrip to search for a combo piece. So sometimes there really are situations where you have a Force but no pitch card, but rather seldom. Would be interresting to hear other's experiences.
(... if you want to board in the Surgicals, it can get even worse with the blue count, they work so nice with the discard that you don't want to board it out really...)

In the Ghent list, there would be Daze instead of Duress I think. Sure, you can pitch Daze, but how did it perform for you otherwise? In a build with Lotus Petals and Sol-lands of course it's better (because opponent will not have that many lands if you use it). I made the experience, that "counter-decks" just won't tap out against us. Even Spell Pierce and Fluterstorm made problems here. Maybe my try with cutting the Sol-lands and Lotus Petals makes the deck too slow? (Against some other combo or aggro decks you also just want to S&T as quick as possible and don't need protection, so round 3 you could be dead already). But I wanted to make the manabase more reliable against Stifle+Wasteland, especially with the black splash now. Many times I had a sol land when I needed a fetchland or basic or Volcanic or U.sea. Sometimes the lifeloss from Ancient Tomb, Thoughtseize, LDV, fetchland and FoW even added up quite quick (considering aggro decks; and if you want to use Griselbrand as soon a possible...). How does your manabase look like?

I like LDV so far, EOT of course. Sure it costs UB and doesn't give you the card directly into your hand, but well, you can't have everything I guess. It can search for everything and set up your next turns as well. It also interacts nicely with Griselbrand, Omniscience and all the cantrips. It pitches to Force...

Virtue's ruin hits KotR... That's the main reason why I prefered it to Massacre for example, but I also want another Pyroclasm to side in! I probably replace the Shattering Spree I had in the sideboard with it, to have 2 Pyroclasms. Decks like Goblins for example can beat you down so quick otherwise... I also think about the eye of nowhere in my sideboard. It looks nice on paper, but with all the discard I never really had to use it. Maybe I should put in more Grave-hate instead?

[rxavage]

I'm trying out a build similar to the one that got 2nd at SCG today in a pretty good sized tourney. Hopefully I'll have a report and some input.

[bfeingersh]

I'm trying out a build similar to the one that got 2nd at SCG today in a pretty good sized tourney. Hopefully I'll have a report and some input.

Were you at DHG? I didn't see you there :( How'd it go?

Is discussion of Saito's Hypergenesis list happening here or elsewhere? I'd like to try it out, if someone has figured a better mana base out.

[rxavage]

Were you at DHG? I didn't see you there :( How'd it go?

Is discussion of Saito's Hypergenesis list happening here or elsewhere? I'd like to try it out, if someone has figured a better mana base out.

Yes I was there, you probably didn't recognize me because I was all groomed up proper. I would've said hello but I only saw you once and I was busy in turns the first rd hoping the High Tide player would whiff. I did not do well, although my losses weren't because of my misplays, the opponents just had it... every time it mattered. I really like the deck, the players removing Jace are crazy, never lost a game when Jace resolved.

Hypergenescience is not a deck I'd want to play against any blue deck, but it looks fun.


Just saw the DHG thread and it appears my 2 losses were to top 8 finishers.

[BiuBiu]

Yes I was there, you probably didn't recognize me because I was all groomed up proper. I would've said hello but I only saw you once and I was busy in turns the first rd hoping the High Tide player would whiff. I did not do well, although my losses weren't because of my misplays, the opponents just had it... every time it mattered. I really like the deck, the players removing Jace are crazy, never lost a game when Jace resolved.

Hypergenescience is not a deck I'd want to play against any blue deck, but it looks fun.


Just saw the DHG thread and it appears my 2 losses were to top 8 finishers.

Doesn't Jace die too quick?
We don't really have creature removal or creatures ourselves (except Griselbrand and Emrakul, and if they're in play our chances for winning are good anyway). Aggro decks, lightning bolts... can kill Jace so easily. I assume, you board them out against such decks? Sure, Jace is nice against control, also with Omniscience in play and even offers an alternate win. Would be great, to hear more about your experiences with Jace in this deck. In which situations wouldn't you play him? Would you (always) pitch him to FoW to resolve S&T?... Maybe I should test Jace again, always loved that card, so I'm open to conviction.

[rxavage]

Doesn't Jace die too quick?
We don't really have creature removal or creatures ourselves (except Griselbrand and Emrakul, and if they're in play our chances for winning are good anyway). Aggro decks, lightning bolts... can kill Jace so easily. I assume, you board them out against such decks? Sure, Jace is nice against control, also with Omniscience in play and even offers an alternate win. Would be great, to hear more about your experiences with Jace in this deck. In which situations wouldn't you play him? Would you (always) pitch him to FoW to resolve S&T?... Maybe I should test Jace again, always loved that card, so I'm open to conviction.

We are highly favoured against aggro, let them waste a turn attacking Jace and I get a Fog and Brainstorm. I will pitch Jace to FoW to resolve SnT if necessary, use him to bait counters or if he resolves look for more protection/threats. The threat of Jace changes the way a lot of players will play against you it seems.

[Darkinsanity]

How is the Goblins match-up? I would think it would be pretty easy since it's mostly just aggro, but I hear some people say otherwise.

[catmint]

Seems like others are thinking about a black splash. If I would go into that direction I would strongly consider Cabal Therapy and Gitaxian Probe. Probe is in general powerful to know how you have to go off and it is not uncommon that our opponents have 2 copies of spell pierce of Force of Will. Discard instead of more speed (petals, sol-lands) seems like an interesting plan to me.

[Final Fortune]

There isn't sufficient MD space in order to play with both Gitaxian Probe and Cabal Therapy in the MD, at most you can play with Gitaxian Probe MD and a Cabal Therapy SB, but is it really any better than an Overmaster already?

I'm on board with Thoughtseize, it improves the Storm, Dredge and Reanimator match ups across the board, altho' I still think the Reanimator match up is damn near unwinnable in my experience. With Detention Sphere becoming a MD Oblivion Ring for all intents and purposes, I think it'll be critically important to be able to clear the way for Show&Tell in the future.

I'm not certain Gitaxian Probe is worth keeping without Overmaster, Thoughtseize is already quite a bit of life loss as it is, you probably end up wanting the 4 Pre-Ordain's instead.

Edit: Actually I guess you could play the Duress, Cabal Therapy, Gitaxian Probe package if you cut the Lotus Petal/Chrome Mox slots. I've been wanting to cut Chrome Mox to 3 for awhile and there's an extra MD slot that can be filled with anything, so that's already 2 slots for Cabal Therapy.

[catmint]

Funny you ask if discard is better than overmaster and then name the Problem of Reanimator & Oblivion Ring.

Both have to do with the opponent having cards in hand which are good if show & tell resolves. Overmaster helps if you cannot resolve show&tell but does nothing against those permanents coming into play loosing you the game.

So the idea of course would be to play discard instead of overmaster because it helps against counterspells and problem cards like Knight, Oblivion Ring,... It also improves the combo matchups where overmaster does nothing.

Of course the mana would be the biggest issue...

[Final Fortune]

Funny you ask if discard is better than overmaster and then name the Problem of Reanimator & Oblivion Ring.

Both have to do with the opponent having cards in hand which are good if show & tell resolves. Overmaster helps if you cannot resolve show&tell but does nothing against those permanents coming into play loosing you the game.

So the idea of course would be to play discard instead of overmaster because it helps against counterspells and problem cards like Knight, Oblivion Ring,... It also improves the combo matchups where overmaster does nothing.

Of course the mana would be the biggest issue...

I understand the difference between discard and Overmaster, otherwise I wouldn't be considering discard in the first place, what I was debating was whether or not SBing a Cabal Therapy was necessary when I was already SBing an Overmaster, because their roles overlap with one another at the cost of SB space.

[Jblaze4lif]

What do you guys think Flusterstorm maindeck?

I was thinking a counter suit of:

4 FOW
4 Daze
1 Flusterstorm

Then 4 REB, 1 Overmaster, 1 Fluster for the sideboard

Is 4 daze really needed? Maybe run 3 and 1 Overmaster main.

I think this deck can fit in 2 Thoughtseize main and 1 in the board.
2 underground Seas should be fine for 2 Duress effects main Plus 1 in the board. The deck runs 8 or more fetch lands plus 2 Lotus petals. It's def worth a shot.

[rxavage]

What do you guys think Flusterstorm maindeck?

I was thinking a counter suit of:

4 FOW
4 Daze
1 Flusterstorm

Then 4 REB, 1 Overmaster, 1 Fluster for the sideboard

Is 4 daze really needed? Maybe run 3 and 1 Overmaster main.

I think this deck can fit in 2 Thoughtseize main and 1 in the board.
2 underground Seas should be fine for 2 Duress effects main Plus 1 in the board. The deck runs 8 or more fetch lands plus 2 Lotus petals. It's def worth a shot.

ATM I have 4 FoW, 4 Daze, 1 Misdirection, 1 Overmaster main with 3 Flusterstorm and another Overmaster in the sb. I may test 4 FoW, 3 Misdirection, 3 Flusterstorm, and 1 Overmaster, which is what I ran in SneakShow and for a while and I was happy.

[Jblaze4lif]

Does anyone think running a basic mountain maindeck necessary? Vs decks with Wasteland of you turn 2 Burning wish without a sol land the Volcanic can get wasted slowing down a turn 3 Show to a Turn 4 show and tell.

This could also hurt being able to cantrip multiple times in a turn.

[death]

Yeah I think the basic Mountain becomes a liability, it won't let you cast Daze (for free), Spell Pierce/Flusterstorm, it turns off your cantrips/Personal Tutor too. If you play your lands right, you can play around Wastelands. This is one of the reasons why I play 4 Lotus Petals, not just for speed and soft counters.

[jandax]

For those toying with the black splash for Thoughtseize et al, what do your sideboards look like?

Massacre seems like another benefit to splashing black, but I agree with previous posts about not being able to fit the Probe/Therapy package in the maindeck for black disruption. One could make room at the cost of things that already go well.

[ThediscoPower]

For those toying with the black splash for Thoughtseize et al, what do your sideboards look like?

Massacre seems like another benefit to splashing black, but I agree with previous posts about not being able to fit the Probe/Therapy package in the maindeck for black disruption. One could make room at the cost of things that already go well.

my sideboard looks like this right now :

1 thoughseize
1 massacre
1 pyroclasm
2 flusterstorm
1 petals of insight
1 show and tell
1 time of need
1 grapeshot
2 pithing needle
1 overmaster
3 red elemental blast

if you want to know, I am running the normal list, plus 2 thoughseize, minus personal tutor (just dont like that card) and minus 1 preordain (that's a test. I remember running 11 cantrips in dream halls, and never really had a problem in always having control on my topdeck. So I am trying that now. I remember I tryed going to 10 cantrips (still in dream halls), and that made the deck work differently(in a bad way), in my opinion. As such, this is why i do not want to go to 10 cantrips, but am open to try 11 cantrips. I'll see how it's going to work out). I used to cut jace before, but it really felt like it left a pretty big hole. Jace was just so good to me, and was also a good thing to put post omniscience in the board. Nothing felt more infuriating as in having nothing to put in with an omniscience in the board, and then drawing a thoughseize. so jace is back, and probably to stay.

[jandax]

How do you board with that list against the following, if you don't mind taking the time to lay it out;

Maverick
Mirror (S&T of all kinds)
Dredge
Reanimator
RUG
Miracles
Goblins
Zoo
Stoneblade

As for my sideboard, I have four GY hate slots, where you have none. The deck is new to me, so I've just been guessing about how to sideboard with the deck

[BiuBiu]

I'm still running the list I posted on 09-21-2012, just trying out 1 Jace instead of 1 LDV (3 Volcanics, 3 U.sea). In the sideboard: -1 Eye of Nowhere -1 Shattering Spree +1 Pyroclasm +1 Pithing Needle at the moment.

In the last days, I played around 20 games. Most against Tres., Esper Blade and Maverick, but also against some other decks.

The playstyle for this list is different to the UR list.

The discard package is working extremely great! For me, this is definitely the way to go right now. Of course thoughtseize > duress here. There are a lot of creatures you would eventually choose (Thalia, Teeg, Blazing Archon, Linvala, Emrakul, Griselbrand, Ethersworn Canonist ... just to name a few, always depending on the situation). The lifeloss turned out to be not too significant (first I was a little worried about it). I didn't test Inquisition of Kozilek because there are so many things with higher CMC...
Turn 1 I usually either discard or Ponder/Preordain. Turn 2 discard + cantrip is great (or B.wish/LDV, sometimes even 2 cantrips). (Sometimes I play around Daze.) Discarding right before S&T is also amazing.
Sometimes I wished, I had a Daze or Pierce, but wouldn't want to trade it for the discard package. There are so many things they can put into play with your S&T (Oblivion Ring/Detention Sphere, Jace, Humility, Ensnaring Bridge, the creatures named above ......), it's just great to throw away their best card.
Gitaxian Probe is not bad, because it lets you see their hand, gets you a card and pitches to FoW. But for me, it didn't do enough - sometimes, I saw that I couldn't S&T, but also couldn't do anything about it. Cabal Therapy is very good in the Rector-build, because it lets you sacrifice the Rector and discard twice. I this deck you don't want to sacrifice a creature. Seriously, I don't see why Probe+Therapy should be better than Thoughtseize(!!!) and Duress(!).
Overmaster is only great against counters. For me, the discard is so flexible that it easily replaces Overmaster. I also thought, I didn't even need it in the sideboard no more, because there is a thoughtseize already. So far, I didn't miss it.

Lim-Duls-Vault is doing a good job. It's great, that it finds everything and pitches to FoW. It's a little slow, that's why it's not totally amazing (2 mana, card not in hand).

The Manabase proved itself to be relatively Stifle+Wasteland-proof. I can hit my landdrop every turn as long as I want and I'm able to get the colors I want (even when fetching basics). I didn't miss the Petals and Sol-lands - but as I said - it's another playstyle than the UR list. I'm not able to S&T before turn 3. This could be a huge downside I have to admit. But turn 3 or 4 I can S&T consistently and relatively safe. Most of the time (if I'm not in danger), I prefer to wait even longer to be more protected (discard again, FoW backup ...).

I prefered Virtue's Ruin to Massacre, because it hits KotR, Linvala, B.Archon, Angel Tokens, Progenitus an others as well. Sure, the speed of Massacre is amazing and it hits the most problematic white hatebears... (Boarding in 2 Pyroclasms against Maverick is also great.)

What about GY-hate in your sideboards? I'm only running Surgicals at the moment. They are so great in combination with the discard, that they can fulfill other purposes as well. But I'm not sure, if its enough.

I'm still not totally convinced with Jace. It won me 1 Game, I had to pitch it to FoW a lot, I wished it would be something else a lot, it was a Brainstorm+3life a lot (which was good in some situations), it was the only thing I could put into play with Omniscience once, it killed another Jace once and baited a counter once. I still have to test it more. My deck is slower, so when I had Jace in hand, at the time I could have casted him, I wanted to S&T already...

...There are so many different situations, that you can't cover everything here....

I'm thinking about a Stone Rain or Raze in the sideboard to destroy Karakas and Maze of Ith, but don't know if it's worth the slot. Probably not necessary.

I made bad experiences with cutting any of the 12 cantrips. This package is just working too well.

When I was testing the UR build, I liked the hybrid versions (including Sneak Attack). First (on paper) I disliked it, but when I tested it, it was running better than I thought!

What do you think about the Grim Tutor instead of Time of Need in my list? (I didn't have to use it very often). I can cast it without green Mana, so I can cast it without Omniscience (or the need of a Tropical or Lotus Petals...). It could get me an Omniscience, or everything else I need. It cost one more mana (and 3 life)...

I saw a list with Tendrils and Past in Flames instead of Grapeshot and Petals of Insight. Why?

I also saw a Whipflare instead of Pyroclasm? why?

Then, I was wondering about a Corrupt in a sideboard, but only 2 U.sea MD?

I was also wondering about the exact purpose of Venser, Shaper Savant in a sideboard?

... maybe someone is so nice to enlighten me.

[menace13]

I was also wondering about the exact purpose of Venser, Shaper Savant in a sideboard?

... maybe someone is so nice to enlighten me.

Venser is bomb against Omni/SnT mirrors, Bounces Teeg/edMage/Etc and Pitches to FoW.

[BiuBiu]

Venser is bomb against Omni/SnT mirrors, Bounces Teeg/edMage/Etc and Pitches to FoW.

ok, that's really nice and it could also bounce Karakas. I guess the ability to bounce a spell is also very relevant? (otherwise you could just use an Eye of Nowhere, which you could find with a B.Wish; an uncounterable Wipe away; or a cheap and versatile Echoing Truth). I'm sure, this deckbuilder knew what he was doing.
edit: oh, because it also bounces Emrakul, right?

[BiuBiu]

How do you board with that list against the following, if you don't mind taking the time to lay it out;

Maverick
Mirror (S&T of all kinds)
Dredge
Reanimator
RUG
Miracles
Goblins
Zoo
Stoneblade

As for my sideboard, I have four GY hate slots, where you have none. The deck is new to me, so I've just been guessing about how to sideboard with the deck

I would also be very interested in how the people here use the sideboard. In some matchups it’s really easy, but sometimes I find it hard to decide, what to take out of the MD. For example I don’t really like to take out Preordains, but often don’t really know what else to take out and just choose them. The cantrip and blue card count of the deck shouldn’t get too low... Against decks without mana denial I think, I can take out a land. Here is how I sideboarded or would. Hopefully someone has some good recommendations for me, could really need some help here.
Maverick:
- 3 Duress
+ 2 Pyroclasm
+ 1 Pithing Needle
(taking Virtue’s Ruin from Burning Wish)
Mirror (S&T of all kinds):
- 1 LDV
- 2 Preordain
- 1 Land
+ 3 Surgical
+ 1 REB
(Discard + Surgical Extraction is a nightmare for S&T. REBs are very good, but I’m worried about the blue card count for FoW and don’t really know what else to board out. Against a heavy discard package as I run myself, I would leave the LDV in MD. If I see Sneak Attack + 1 Pithing Needle)
Dredge:
- 1 LDV
- 1 Preordain
- 1 Jace
- 1 Land
+ 3 Surgical
+ 1 Pyroclasm
Reanimator:
- 1 LDV
- 1 Preordain
- 1 Land
+ 3 Surgical Extraction
RUG:
- 1 Jace
- 1 LDV
- 1 Duress
- 1 Preordain
+ 1 Pyroclasm
+ 3 REB
Miracles:
- 1 LDV
- 2 Preordain
- 1 Land
+ 1 Pithing Needle
+ 3 REB
Goblins:
- 3 Duress
+ 2 Pyroclasm
+ 1 Pithing Needle
Zoo:
- 3 Duress
+ 1 Pithing Needle
+ 2 Pyroclasm
Stoneblade:
- 2 Preordain
+ 2 REB
… that’s it roughly - everything definitly in need of improvement.
By the way, how were the experiences with Stifle?

[ThediscoPower]

I would also be very interested in how the people here use the sideboard. In some matchups it’s really easy, but sometimes I find it hard to decide, what to take out of the MD. For example I don’t really like to take out Preordains, but often don’t really know what else to take out and just choose them. The cantrip and blue card count of the deck shouldn’t get too low... Against decks without mana denial I think, I can take out a land. Here is how I sideboarded or would. Hopefully someone has some good recommendations for me, could really need some help here.
Maverick:
- 3 Duress
+ 2 Pyroclasm
+ 1 Pithing Needle
(taking Virtue’s Ruin from Burning Wish)
Mirror (S&T of all kinds):
- 1 LDV
- 2 Preordain
- 1 Land
+ 3 Surgical
+ 1 REB
(Discard + Surgical Extraction is a nightmare for S&T. REBs are very good, but I’m worried about the blue card count for FoW and don’t really know what else to board out. Against a heavy discard package as I run myself, I would leave the LDV in MD. If I see Sneak Attack + 1 Pithing Needle)
Dredge:
- 1 LDV
- 1 Preordain
- 1 Jace
- 1 Land
+ 3 Surgical
+ 1 Pyroclasm
Reanimator:
- 1 LDV
- 1 Preordain
- 1 Land
+ 3 Surgical Extraction
RUG:
- 1 Jace
- 1 LDV
- 1 Duress
- 1 Preordain
+ 1 Pyroclasm
+ 3 REB
Miracles:
- 1 LDV
- 2 Preordain
- 1 Land
+ 1 Pithing Needle
+ 3 REB
Goblins:
- 3 Duress
+ 2 Pyroclasm
+ 1 Pithing Needle
Zoo:
- 3 Duress
+ 1 Pithing Needle
+ 2 Pyroclasm
Stoneblade:
- 2 Preordain
+ 2 REB
… that’s it roughly - everything definitly in need of improvement.
By the way, how were the experiences with Stifle?

Also, I tryed out stiffle in the deck, and I ended up just hating it. doesn't prevent much, and just seemed not to be useful overall (so many time : ''I need to resolve a show and tell with that guy tapped out, and all I got is a stiffle. Thank you life...'').

now, my sideboard plan as jandax asked

Maverick
- 3 daze
+ 2 pithing needle
+ 1 pyroclasm

(massacre as a wish target)

Mirror (S&T of all kinds)
- 4 daze
- 1 preordain
+ 2 flusterstorm
+ 3 REB

here I just try to upgrade my dazes to REBs and go for a more grindy game. agains sneak attack, I board in needle too, and board in only 1 REB.

Dredge
ok so here, you see, I don't run any graveyard hate, The reason is that, normally, I feel like running 3 surgicals isn't enough against them anyways, and I don't have enough room to run more graveyard hate anyways. So I end up running none and try to fight off their discards with counters, and try to go off before they do.

- 1 preordain
+ 1 pyroclasm

Reanimator

same here. my goal is to fight his discard spells, instead of removing his graveyard.

+ 2 flusterstorm
- 1 preordain
- 1 land
RUG

on the play
- 2 thoughseize
- 1 jace
+ 3 REB

on the draw
- 4 daze
- 1 jace
+ 3 reb
+ 2 flusterstorm

Miracles
- 4 daze
- 1 preordain
+ 2 needles
+ 3 REB

Goblins
- 3 daze
+ 2 pithing needle
+ 1 pyroclasm
Zoo
- 3 daze
+ 2 pithing needle
+ 1 pyroclasm

Stoneblade

- 4 daze
- 1 preordain
+ 2 flusterstorm
+ 3 REB

so now, after testing this version, I think I will try this in the sideboard : - 2 flusterstorm - 1 overmaster + 3 envelop. first, flusterstorm is cool (I love that card), however, it hasn't exactly been the nuts for me. Sometimes, you just need to counter, for exemple, a hymn or something like that, and then you realise that you did not wanted flusterstorm in your hand. In the matchups I boarded them in, most of the time, because I was playing it last, it could have been any other counter, and it still would have worked. For the overmaster, I feel like the sideboard thoughseize is the card I always end up getting anyways, so overmaster just feels like a subpar version at that point. Then, I feel like reanimator and dredge are my least covered matchups. This is why I want to try envelop, as a way to cheaply counter their reanimation/discard spell. it's either that, or dispel, but those don't help against dredge

[Valtrix]

Has anybody tried Vendilion Clique as a SB option? It seems quite great. Unlike discard, you don't need to splash a color. Although it's 3cc, you can get rid of any problematic cards for show and tell, whether it's ORing, counters, Knight, or what have you. Additionally, you can cast it EOT so it's protection that frees up mana during your combo turn and can give you almost perfect information about their hand as well to plan your next turn accordingly.

Granted, I don't really play this deck so it's possible that Clique could just be terrible, but it seems to do a lot of great things.

[death]

The only thing that makes V Clique better than Thoughtseize is the 3/1 body. Granted it's instant speed disruption that can free up mana for the combo turn. But this deck doesn't really need that much mana to cast its combo and can't win on the back of a 3/1 flyer alone. V Clique won't be terrible if it didn't cost 3 and double U. The soonest you're going to get perfect information/nab disruption with it would be turn 3-4, the turn where you should be "going off." Ask yourself this, when you fan an opening seven that can win on turn 2 if unmolested, how much value do you get from V Clique? Isn't a 1cc black (or blue) disruption piece just better? There is urgency to combo off because you do not want to give the other guy momentum, opportunity to draw counter/discard spells, drop lands and interact, combo off ahead of you or clock you to the point where GriselB becomes dead and Emrakul is a turn too late. In Hive Mind, you can get away with running V Clique because life total is irrelevant when you win at the end of your turn. With this deck, life total counts about half the time. Whenever O-Ring/D-Sphere gets widely played, I would rather be caught playing with black splash.

[ThediscoPower]

Has anybody tried Vendilion Clique as a SB option? It seems quite great. Unlike discard, you don't need to splash a color. Although it's 3cc, you can get rid of any problematic cards for show and tell, whether it's ORing, counters, Knight, or what have you. Additionally, you can cast it EOT so it's protection that frees up mana during your combo turn and can give you almost perfect information about their hand as well to plan your next turn accordingly.

Granted, I don't really play this deck so it's possible that Clique could just be terrible, but it seems to do a lot of great things.

played it for some time, and just recently took it out. She was very good for me, but at some point I just realized that it wasn't the card I wanted to play in this deck. The games I pulled her out, the body was usually not such a big thing (I mean, you take out their counter, combo out and kill them with an emrakul...the 3 damage just is useless in the end) and a discard spell instead could have done the same thing in the end. It just is a card that suits better in a control deck, and less in a combo deck.

Now that I think about it, the only game the clique was actually a thing was in a match against sneak show,where the clique actually dealt 12 damage for the win because looking at his hand, I sent his show and tell back in his deck, with emrakul up in his hands. he redraws a show, plays it, I let it resolve and put in play an emrakul myself. After that, I just beat him down with the clique and counter all his attemps at REBing her. That ended up working out, but I don't think that is going to happen often...

[Final Fortune]

This may or may not be a terrible suggestion, but what do people think about playing Talisman of Progress and/or Dominance in the place of Lotus Petal and/or Chrome Mox? If we play 4 Ancient Tomb, we can play Ancient Tomb -> Talisman and either keep mana open for Spell Pierce or immediately Thought Seize or Ponder. It doesn't have the same tempo as Chrome Mox for accelerating Burn Wish -> Show&Tell, Show&Tell but it hits a critical 4 mana for Show&Tell and disruption by turn 2 without costing you any card disadvantage, and you essentially get to accelerate while maintaining your counter wall or cantripping. Even if they Wasteland your Ancient Tomb, you're still on track to Burning Wish or double cantrip on your following turn.

In theory, it seems really strong to me.

[death]

The only place I see where the Talismans are good in is in mono-colored decks with 8 Sol-lands (4 Ancient Tomb 4 City of Traitors) like in Wildfire.dec where you cast them turn 1 with ease and using 1 land majority of the time. In our case, it's less likely that we open with a Sol land unless we play 8 but then we get color-screwed. There are better things to do with mana on turn 2 than tapping both lands to play a Talisman.

[Final Fortune]

The only place I see where the Talismans are good in is in mono-colored decks with 8 Sol-lands (4 Ancient Tomb 4 City of Traitors) like in Wildfire.dec where you cast them turn 1 with ease and using 1 land majority of the time. In our case, it's less likely that we open with a Sol land unless we play 8 but then we get color-screwed. There are better things to do with mana on turn 2 than tapping both lands to play a Talisman.

Have you actually tried it? Other than Burning Wish, we don't have a meaningful turn 2 play other than double cantripping, at which point you still cantrip once as soon as you play Talisman and then cantrip again on your following turn and break even on your total mana production.

I don't necessarily prefer it over Chrome Mox, especially considering it causes you to play your Ancient Tombs before you try to win, but this kind of acceleration seems really viable to me.

[death]

What if you're facing lethal next turn short on lands to go off and you top deck this?

[Dzra]

Has anyone tried something like Eye of Nowhere for problems like Humility and O-Ring (and Detention Sphere)? It being a Sorcery means that it can be Wished out of the board or found using Personal Tutor. The :u::u: sucks, but it is what it is.

[Jozan]

Hi,
I play this deck from a couple of week, not live tournament yet, only test with friends and MWS. This is my deck:

// Lands
2 [TE] Ancient Tomb
4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
4 [B] Volcanic Island
2 [BD] Island
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [EX] City of Traitors
2 [A] Underground Sea

// Creatures
2 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 [AVR] Griselbrand

// Spells
4 [DDI] Preordain
4 [JU] Burning Wish
4 [MM] Brainstorm
3 [NE] Daze
4 [AL] Force of Will
1 [PT] Personal Tutor
3 Show and Tell
4 [M13] Omniscience
2 [V09] Lotus Petal
4 [LRW] Ponder
2 [LRW] Thoughtseize
2 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [US] Show and Tell
SB: 1 [LRW] Thoughtseize
SB: 2 [PT] Pyroclasm
SB: 1 [CHK] Petals of Insight
SB: 2 [DKA] Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 [CHK] Time of Need
SB: 1 [TSP] Grapeshot
SB: 3 [UL] Defense Grid
SB: 2 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 1 [CHK] Eye of Nowhere

I'm trying Defense Grid instead of REB, but I'm not sure yet.
[U]My really problem are discards decks that have more than 3/4 Thoughtseize/Duress/kozilek.
In the MonoU version (that I played before URB) I played 4 Leyline of Sanctity and they was fantastic, but here there isn't space enough. Can you help me, pease?

P.s. I'm sorry for my English...:frown:

[death]

In the primer, I included Envelop in the SB against discard. Or if you prefer, Divert, which is narrower and more conditional. Another option would be Flusterstorm/Spell Pierce.

[KobeBryan]

I have a question...how is this deck stronger than the sneak attack version?

I mean you really cannot cast Omniscience. So your only outlet to drop ANYTHING is show and tell.

But with Sneak show, you have 4 show and tell and 4 sneak attacks as the engine.

[Hanni]

I have a question...how is this deck stronger than the sneak attack version?

I mean you really cannot cast Omniscience. So your only outlet to drop ANYTHING is show and tell.

But with Sneak show, you have 4 show and tell and 4 sneak attacks as the engine.

I'm pretty sure they are running 4 Burning Wish and 3 Show and Tell... so yea, they are all in on Show and Tell, but that seems just as consistent as 4 Show and Tell and 4 Sneak Attack (the list above you has 1 Personal Tutor, too).

If people started running Meddling Mages again, sure. The plan is also a little soft to Surgical Extraction (if the SNT they grab with Burning Wish gets dealth with), but that's besides the point of your question.

[Esper3k]

I think the Sneak Attack hybrid runs the normal 4x Burning Wish / 3 Show & Tell, but just adds 2-3 Sneak Attack as a backup plan?

[ThediscoPower]

I think the Sneak Attack hybrid runs the normal 4x Burning Wish / 3 Show & Tell, but just adds 2-3 Sneak Attack as a backup plan?

yep. but you are cutting one omniscience and adding 1 of each fattie

[death]

Ironic that Omniscience being hellbent on its enabler, Show and Tell, stands out as weakness yet the deck is perceived to be the stronger deck. There's actually more to this discussion if you read a few pages back. I just want to add that each card in the stock list is highly interactive with one another compared to the other deck which runs 8 legendary creatures and with only one mode of operation. Last time I checked, resilience, having a Plan b (alternate win conditon) is desired in a combo deck.

Having thought about it, I am convinced that Sneak Attack doesn't belong in this deck at all. I find that its benefit is quite trivial and there is no such thing as Sneak Attack hybrids, just Omniscience hybrids. People are using the term splash as an excuse to retain the Sneak Attack label when in fact those lists are nothing more than diluted versions of an Omniscience deck, harsh but true.

[The Colonel]

Has anyone else found that Brainstorm is less than stellar in this deck? I almost always find myself wishing it was Ponder or Preordain... especially when I don't have a fetch in play to crack after I brainstorm. I ussually have 1 or 2 cards I want to get rid of and just can't with BS.

[Final Fortune]

Sneak Attack isn't that good without the ability to Griselbrand into Emakrul, and I really don't think you should be playing with Emakrul in an Omniscience deck because it's not particularly good off a Show&Tell vs specific hate, and the entire point of playing an Omniscience deck is to avoid that Show&Tell specific hate as much as possible.

The only real actual downside of relying completely on Show&Tell is that our Reanimator match up is lost, but oh well.

Is everybody else pretty much stuck on Pre-Ordian over Gitaxian Probe?

[Dzra]

The only real actual downside of relying completely on Show&Tell is that our Reanimator match up is lost, but oh well.

If you Show and Tell in an Omniscience and they bring in a random fatty, I'm pretty sure they just lose. If they actually have a decent dude to bring in, Stifle isn't the worst option to simultaneously stop things like O-Rings and Angels of Despair.

[Einherjer]

If you Show and Tell in an Omniscience and they bring in a random fatty, I'm pretty sure they just lose. If they actually have a decent dude to bring in, Stifle isn't the worst option to simultaneously stop things like O-Rings and Angels of Despair.

Sure, lets make a 4card-Combo out of a 3card-Combo... As if "Show and Tell+Omniscience+Anything Good" wasnt enough...we even need Stifle in addition to this...great.... this idea is as great as the one with the Eldrazi-Counter..

Greetings

[ThediscoPower]

Sure, lets make a 4card-Combo out of a 3card-Combo... As if "Show and Tell+Omniscience+Anything Good" wasnt enough...we even need Stifle in addition to this...great.... this idea is as great as the one with the Eldrazi-Counter..

Greetings

you mean not of this world? yeah that card is just bad

[Dzra]

Sure, lets make a 4card-Combo out of a 3card-Combo... As if "Show and Tell+Omniscience+Anything Good" wasnt enough...we even need Stifle in addition to this...great.... this idea is as great as the one with the Eldrazi-Counter.

So is Grixis and discard the right answer? I'm not so keen on that. Or are you saying the deck in general is too rickety? Because that might be.

[Koby]

So is Grixis and discard the right answer? I'm not so keen on that. Or are you saying the deck in general is too rickety? Because that might be.

That was my conclusion. There's just too much hate for it right now to turn the 2-card combo into 3-card, then 4-card just to go off. At that point, Belcher is just flat out better.

[thefreakaccident]

I don't understand how this deck is even competative considering it literally only has 4 ways to put omniscience/emrakul/griselbrand into play.

2 resolved meddling mages beat this deck. With one naming burning wish and one naming show and tell, they simply win, and there is no way to deal with that anywhere in the maindeck. 2x thoughtseize is NOT an out to creatures, and jace is too expensive. I feel like the deck either needs threat (cheat spell) diversification, or a way to deal with problem permanents MD without burning wish.
This has been comming up b/c i've been testing this deck against meddling mage packing blue agro control decks, and 1 mage + counters is usually impossible to beat, and 2 is literally game over in the first game. Pyroclasm also gets countered all day long postboard, so it, as an answer is not only lackluster, but terrible.

Please adress this issue, because meddling mage will often come down the turn before Show, and they generally run more counters than this deck.

[death]

That issue has been anticipated and addressed in the primer. Nothing a mix-and-match of good ol' fashioned Pyro/REBs can't solve.

[thefreakaccident]

So in the case of meddling magi, the deck scoops to hope to blast FTW the next 2 games?
Seems weaker than weak.

[death]

The stock list has Force of Will, Daze, Burning Wish.. it doesn't simply fold pre-sideboarding to a deck that plays 4 Meddling Mage maindeck, if there is such a deck.

[thefreakaccident]

The stock list has Force of Will, Daze, Burning Wish.. it doesn't simply fold pre-sideboarding to a deck that plays 4 Meddling Mage maindeck, if there is such a deck.

That is a weak argument when the other deck is going to be playing either the same quanitiy of permission or even more. This line becomes even weaker when the equipment decks have the option to start packing even more disruption in the form of judges familiar (who carries their equipment like a champ).

[Dzra]

Meddling Mage is great and all, but it can be dealt with fairly easily. I'd be more worried about O-Ring, Angel of Despair, and discard (...or even worse discard + Surgical).

[thefreakaccident]

Surgical extraction is garbage, and O.ring/angel come into play on your own show and tells.

[Dzra]

Surgical extraction is garbage

Surgical Extraction is much more game-ending than Meddling Mage.


O.ring/angel come into play on your own show and tells.

Yeah.
...?

[the_youth]

Hi :). This is my first post here after lurking for some time. I have a legacy event this weekend and have been working on various decks. I believe the meta will be a good place to play this deck. I have come up with the following list:



// Lands
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
4 [U] Volcanic Island
2 [PT] Island (4)
3 [EX] City of Traitors

// Creatures
2 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 [AVR] Griselbrand

// Spells
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [US] Show and Tell
4 [M13] Omniscience
4 [JGC] Burning Wish
4 [FNM] Brainstorm
4 [M11] Preordain
4 [LRW] Ponder
4 [TE] Intuition
3 [MM] Misdirection

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [US] Show and Tell
SB: 1 [CHK] Petals of Insight
SB: 1 [TSP] Grapeshot
SB: 1 [CHK] Time of Need
SB: 1 [10E] Pyroclasm
SB: 3 [FBP] Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 [CHK] Eye of Nowhere
SB: 1 [IA] Anarchy
SB: 2 [TO] Overmaster
SB: 2 [5E] Pyroblast
SB: 1 [AQ] Shatterstorm




1. Daze was underperforming for me so I changed that slot to 3 misdirection for the pseudo 5-7 FoWs. They are also great against black discard which is a major weakness of the deck. The fact that they randomly misdirect cards is just an added bonus.

2. Intuition has been absolutely BONKERS. I am baffled that the stock list do not have this card. It is just another phenomenal tutor to make the deck incredibly consistent. It also is another card that when you have omniscience in play just lets you win. It is also the reason I'm playing 3 griselbrands. I was playing 3 emrakul aswell but I was rarely wanting to tutor for him.


Thoughts and opinions are welcome as I would like to build the optimal list :)

[Jiaozy]

O.ring/angel come into play on your own show and tells.And this is exactly why they're such a disaster.

Wheter you put into play Omniscience or a dude you're in trouble.

With Omniscience you can't play anything for free in response to their triggers except Brainstorms (since good lists play 0/1 Intuition) and Emrakul and Griselbrand are dealt with instantly.

Sure, you can draw 7 with Griselbrand but it's hardly ever optimal to draw 7 and pay 7 life off a S&T that should win you the game.
It also is another card that when you have omniscience in play just lets you win.Having Omniscience in play just lets you win, even without Intuition.

Those spots are better filled with additional protection, not tutoring, because the problem of the deck is that it needs to resolve a single spell (S&T) and if it doesn't, it loses.

[the_youth]

I have yet to see a list with more than 8 protection spells. Intuition has replaced where most people have jace /petals as it always gives you WHATEVER you need. Including more hard permission. And those jace and especially lotus petals did not always win the game.

[Final Fortune]

Intuition is an awesome card in this deck, anyone who says otherwise either hasn't played with it enough or at all, because tutors that double as kill conditions off of Omniscience are busted and I'd play as many as you can manage.

Resolving Show&Tell really isn't the issue, Overmaster is fucking ridiculous because the opponent has to trade his Spell Pierces and Dazes at card disadvantage without knowing whether or not we're actually holding the combo.

I don't think Oblivion Ring is that big of a deal, only Maverick will play it in its SB after Detention Sphere is legal, and Detention Sphere thankfully gets REBed ruthlessly, it actually sucks vs us. fwiw because we can react with Griselbrand in order to draw into REB and disregard it altogether.

You guys really need to cut Emakrul and max Griselbrand, because that's half of your problem vs SB hate as it is, the other half is not playing Omniscience blindly into Oblivion Rings.

[the_youth]

Yes intuition is AWESOME. In so many ways its strictly better than burning wish which is already amazing. I actually like the idea of cutting emrakul as he really is the weakest off of SnT. Have you tested any games without him?

[Hanni]

Meddling Mage naming Burning Wish is nice, because it limits the Omniscience player to the 3 Show and Tells + whatever other tutors (like Personal Tutor), and cuts them off of finding an answer to the Mage.

That doesn't mean Meddling Mage by itself is gg, but it's alot better than alot of the other options that decks with blue and white are using right now, to deal with Show and Tell decks postboard.

Surgical Extraction isn't perfect, but if the Omniscience player uses B Wish to grab SNT, and then the SNT gets discarded/countered and followed up with a resolved Extraction, it is gg.

Most of this isn't really any different than playing against the regular Sneak Attack versions, though.

In fact, the lists with Burning Wish and Omniscience instead of Intuition and Sneak Attack seem alot better suited for dealing with Meddling Mage and Surgical Extraction, at any rate.

[Dzra]

In fact, the lists with Burning Wish and Omniscience instead of Intuition and Sneak Attack seem alot better suited for dealing with Meddling Mage and Surgical Extraction, at any rate.

I think the Burning Wish (and therefore Omniscience) version of Show and Tell is a lot stronger. It remains awkward though that non-Blue decks have so many good options for fighting a resolving Show and Tell (the best probably being Angel of Despair).

[dameus]

Hi :). 2. Intuition has been absolutely BONKERS. I am baffled that the stock list do not have this card. ...

Thoughts and opinions are welcome as I would like to build the optimal list :)

Your mana base is not an improvement on the normal one: 1 basic mtn is good vs wasteland, 4 VI's is more than needed, and a bit too many Sol lands (when you get a great starting hand but with only 2 Sol Lands and no color you'll know what I mean).

Intuition is good (it's in the OP) but it can backfire when your opponent whips out Surgical Extraction. It also doesn't work so well at getting your 2nd S&T after your 1st ends up in the 'yard from discard/counters (assuming 1 still in SB). I like it, but I wouldn't play 4 of 'em.

[ThediscoPower]

Your mana base is not an improvement on the normal one: 1 basic mtn is good vs wasteland, 4 VI's is more than needed, and a bit too many Sol lands (when you get a great starting hand but with only 2 Sol Lands and no color you'll know what I mean).

Intuition is good (it's in the OP) but it can backfire when your opponent whips out Surgical Extraction. It also doesn't work so well at getting your 2nd S&T after your 1st ends up in the 'yard from discard/counters (assuming 1 still in SB). I like it, but I wouldn't play 4 of 'em.

Exactly what I thought about intuition actually. I know I liked the card a lot when I played dream halls, a few months back. However, my problem with that card is that you're usually stuck siding it out most games (because extraction just destroys you, and most decks side in extraction. sometimes, you just can't give them windows to extract you, and intuition almost always calls for an extraction). also never forget that in dream halls, having your show and tell countered wasn't so bad, because you could just go and hardcast dream halls in play anyways. Sometimes, you did not even fight that much over it. In omnitell, it is different. Your show and tells HAVE to resolve. intuitioning for show, having it countered almost means death. so yeah, it's a really good card, but I still would not play more than 2 in a deck that relies way too much on it's different combo pieces to work.

[the_youth]

I would disagree that the mana is not any better.

1. The sol lands become even more of a want when you are running intuition aswell as shoe and tell. The utility of playing around soft counters is also not to be overlooked. Your argument that having 2 is terrible is narrow and shallow logic. The deck has multiple cards where the second one is intrinsically worse than the first. On top of this you only need 1 blue mana source to get off the ground. Making 2 sol land hands decent statistical keeps. I can see changing a volcanic to an island but definitely not a mountain. That is actually strictly worse than having multiple sol lands, something you disagree with.

2. The arguments you make against intuition, other than the surgical arguement, are not good arguments against the card intuition but rather a flaw of the deck in general. However intuition is exactly the card to solve them with. Say they surgical your SnT intuition is now the go to card to find burning wish. While its "weakest" job is finding show and tell it also serves many other roles, ones that not even burning wish can play. It finds omniscience, griselbrand, overmaster, force of will, and I have even used it to find sol lands to play around spell Pierce! Surgical sure is an effective tool against intuition however it is easy to play around and at most only slows you down 1 turn!

I am comfortable with the mana base however I can see cutting 1 sol land for an island. I suggest you test out 4 intuitions for yourself so that you see how much more powerful it makes the deck. It is a 4 of certainly.

[Dzra]

I suggest you test out 4 intuitions for yourself so that you see how much more powerful it makes the deck. It is a 4 of certainly.

Intuition might be fine g1, but considering how susceptible this deck already is to Surgical, I'd plan on boarding it out for g2/3. Even without Surgical though, it basically puts you all in. I need to resolve this Show and Tell or I am durdling until I get a Burning Wish. Finding Show and Tell isn't really a problem for the deck anyways. It's resolving it and not having your permanent blown up.

(Another point in favor of Stifle is that you can respond to the triggers with Griselbrand's draw 7 to help find a Stifle... but it's definitely valid that this just further strains the amount of pieces you need to assemble).

[Final Fortune]

I've never played the deck with more than 1 Emakrul, and I currently don't play the deck with any number of Emakruls, because Emakrul personifies everything that is wrong with the Show&Tell archetype IMO.

Really, Meddling Mage and Detention Sphere aren't an insurmountable problem, they're just another reason to play with Red Elemental Blasts in your SBs, and I actually think Detention Sphere has made U/w decks worse vs Show&Tell because even tho' it's a stronger card than Oblivion Ring vs the field it's a more vulnerable card vs Red Elemental Blast

Surgical Extraction is complete shit and you should be slapped silly for SBing it in vs any deck that doesn't rely on the graveyard at all, and Angel of Despair is not a serious SB card in any deck other than Reanimator.

Any deck not playing U is probably playing W, so pretty much the best all around SB card vs us is Oblivion Ring for being immune to REB and not complete shit vs. everything else.

[Dzra]

Surgical Extraction is complete shit and you should be slapped silly for SBing it in vs any deck that doesn't rely on the graveyard at all

Surgical Extraction is perfection against a deck that relies on one card to win. It's also good at fowling up Brainstorms. Thoughtseize you. Brainstorm in response. Thoughtseize resolves. Surgical you. Hope you didn't want whatever was on top, bro. And if you didn't have a Brainstorm and they grabbed a Show and Tell then you are just about done. Surgical isn't the best anti-GY card, it's the best card for disrupting decks that rely on 1-2 cards to function.


Angel of Despair is not a serious SB card in any deck other than Reanimator.

I feel like Max Tietze didn't win SCG Atlanta by packing 3 dead cards in his SB. Regardless, whether someone sides in Angel of Despair or Oblivion Ring, the effect is much the same (with the exception being that bouncing the Angel doesn't much help the situation). Either way, it's a problem.

[Jiaozy]

I'm starting to doubt that people on this thread post AFTER testing the deck.
It looks like they look at lists and spam stuff, without ever shuffling the deck, because anyone that played the deck for some games and understood how it works should easily see why Intuition is garbage and only good when you have Omniscience in play.

This deck is NOT Sneak and Show, this deck plays VERY differently.

For those that missed a few key concept of the deck, I'll try and explain a few simple things that should be easy to understand.

1- Intuition is AWUFUL for assembling the combo. If they counter/discard/Vendilion the thing you searched for, you're left with half of the ways to win in the yard or out of reach.
This deck doesn't need to find one of the part of the combo like Sneak and Show does. In that deck, if you have the enabler (S&T, Sneak Attack) you grab the dudes and if you have the dudes, you grab the enabler. They also play 8 of each, so having the one you tutored discarded or put on bottom, isn't as devastating as it is for this deck.
With this deck you need to sculpt your hand for the kill because you need protection, Omniscience, S&T and something to do with it, much more like you do with High Tide than Sneak and Show, making the "tutoring" of Intuition very clunky and risky.
Sure, with Omniscience in play and Intuition is an instant win, but only in that case so that's why the correct number isn't above 1 like the most recent lists demonstrate.
It was played in the beginning, but now everyone realized how bad it is, much like people realized how bad Seething Song is in Sneak and Show and cut them.

2- Protection has always been present in more than 8 copies in this deck, be it REB, Overmaster, discard, Defense Grid or more counters, they're part of the deck success, so it's impossible to play the deck with only 8 protection spells.
In the latest lists Overmaster made its way into the MD given how awesome it is against the meta, at worst it cycles, at best it's a protection against everything they can throw at your S&T while in older lists people played UB for the discard or MonoU with more counters.
Either way, all of the lists that did well played additional protection both MD and SB.

3- You shouldn't really play 4 of the same creature, you NEED a split, Emrakul and Griselbrand are both awesome but playing 4 of only one of the two is just plain wrong.
Emrakul's Time Walk is huge with Omniscience and means you win straight away and with Griselbrand's draw-7 you NEVER want to draw into another Griselbrand or two, because thinking they could've been Emrakul to Time Walk and win the next turn will make you want to eat your silly playset of Griselbrand.
That's also due to the fact that..

4- ...S&T for a dude is the most desperate play this deck can make and one you try to avoid like the plague, unless you're absolutely sure they can't deal with your threat or if it's the only way you can try and win a game.
Playing a S&T only to have your creature STP'd, ORing'd, Karakas's or generally removed, means you just wasted the single most precious card in your deck to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING and since Griselbrand and Emrakul can be dealt with in many, many, many ways, even from the MD, that should give you an idea on why that's a bad plan.
You CANNOT afford to waste a S&T, like Sneak and Show can, because they can win with that OR Sneak Attack, but you only have 4 and without them the deck is total shit.

5- Jace, in this deck, is just too good not to be played. Sure, you can play without him and still do well, it's not NEEDED, but it does everything the deck wants to do and also wins games on its own. I won many games on the back of a 2nd/3rd turn Jace, by burying them under CA and assembling the perfect hand for the kill.
It also serves to dig for gas, to sculpt your hand, to take away boring critters like Thalia or Canonist and then go for the win and can also take you out of thight spots like Ensnaring Bridge + Thorn of Amethyst by winning on its own without any other support.

[Final Fortune]

I'm starting to doubt that people on this thread post AFTER testing the deck.


I can pretty much accuse you of the same thing judging from your arguments, especially the Jace is too good not to play bull shit, because he's been tried and dismissed in about every variant of Show&Tell there is already.

Saying you never want to play Show&Tell -> creature unless you have to is the most "no shit" statement I've read in awhile, but pretending Show&Tell -> Griselbrand does nothing vs removal is absolutely fucking ridiculous, because 1) Show&Tell -> Omniscience risks losing the game to Oblivion Ring immediately and 1) Show&Tell -> Griselbrand lets you either draw into Force of Will vs Swords to Plowshares or draw a new hand in order to go off again. If you Gitaxian Probe and see Oblivion Ring, then playing Show&Tell -> Griselbrand is clearly the right play. I never wait for Omniscience to play Show&Tell if I'm holding Griselbrand, I go for it every single time, and I rarely lose because of it even vs hate. Despite having some issues with Swords to Plowshares, which frankly I consider the out come to be the best draw spell ever, Griselbrand is way more resilient vs everything else Emakrul loses the game to.

No one really cares about Swords to Plowshares, its the opponent using your own Show&Tell in order to cheat uncounterable answers onto the board that you have to worry about, and Emakrul does nothing to stop that short of playing around Karakas with Omniscience, which you could do any way by playing Griselbrand, drawing into a Burning Wish (or Inuition) and then killing your opponent.


Playing an Intuition in the deck is fine, it's way better than that shitty Personal Tutor.

[Dzra]

So Personal Tutor, Jace, and Emrakul are bad in the deck. Surgical is bad against the deck. Intuition and Probe are good, run all the Griselbrands. Got it.

[ThediscoPower]

So Personal Tutor, Jace, and Emrakul are bad in the deck. Surgical is bad against the deck. Intuition and Probe are good, run all the Griselbrands. Got it.

that's some way to sum it up lol. I guess it all comes down to personnal preferences. Myself, I hate personnal tutor, like jace, like emrakul, don't think surgical is that bad if you play safe enough and don't get targeted by 1 million discard spells, hate intuition, don't have an opinion on probe but thinks thoughseize does a good job for me, and runs a bunch of griselbrand, just not 4.

I hope you guys still like me. :cry:

[The Colonel]

Just a thought, and I don't beleive anyone has brought it up: What about counterbalance and SDT? It's permenant protection for our spells and having them both out neutralizes the OP's counters except FOW. Top is one of the greatest diggers of all time... don't think anyone can debate that. At the very least with CB you can nab a counterspell from the OP's hand.


Also, I have been running a R/W/U version to a fairly positive degree. I found that the main problem with this deck is finding Omniscience. 3 S&T (+1 on the bored) plus 4 Burning Wish made finding S&T fairly easy but finding Omniscience was fairly difficult. So I went with 2 E-tutors to find the Omnis giving us a grand total of 8 S&T and 6 Omni. I now am able to find both with relative ease. Just food for thought


Also... since I do run white; I have been thinking about Replenish If I go that way then Intuition looks really good to get Omni into play w/o S&T therebye getting around the "there are only 4 cards in the deck that make it work" argument.


Any thoughts?

Counterbalance, Top, Replenish, E-tutor?

[Final Fortune]

I've used Tops in various numbers and have a positive opinion of the card in low numbers, for instance I think 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, 1 Sensei's Divining Top is better than 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder and 1 Pre-Ordain, but once you play Pre-Ordain in high numbers, from ~ 3 to 4x, then the natural card selection of Ponder and Pre-ordain combined with the statistical likelyhood of cantripping into cantrip chains usually tend to be more mana efficient and faster than Sensei's Divining Top while better supporting Force of Will.

So, ask yourself how many cantrips you want to play, if its ~11 play 3 Pre-Ordains and if its ~9 play a Sensei's Divining Top, because Pre-Ordains benefit from a critical mass of cantrips where Sensei's Divining Tops do not.

Counterbalance isn't a good card for Omniscience, because we're full of high casting cost cards to begin with, and we're not trying to prevent our opponent from resolving spells, we're trying to resolve our own spells. I think cards like Force of Will, Misdirection, Flusterstorm, Overmaster and Red Elemental Blast are amongst the best spells you can play, with Red Elemental Blast gaining stock because of Detention Sphere and presumably a return of Meddling Mage.

Defense Grid is pretty good at what it does, but I think there's a limit to how many counter spell specific disruption you can play between Overmaster, Defense Grid and to a lesser extent Red Elemental Blast before you're unable to interact with other combo decks on the stack like Storm and Dredge, Reanimator is just lost regardless IMO.

[Jiaozy]

I can pretty much accuse you of the same thing judging from your arguments, especially the Jace is too good not to play bull shit, because he's been tried and dismissed in about every variant of Show&Tell there is already.You still fail to realize this isn't "every other variant of S&T there is" but it's a combo deck that needs a good hand to go off, not just a couple cards that will win for you.
Saying you never want to play Show&Tell -> creature unless you have to is the most "no shit" statement I've read in awhile, but pretending Show&Tell -> Griselbrand does nothing vs removal is absolutely fucking ridiculous, because 1) Show&Tell -> Omniscience risks losing the game to Oblivion Ring immediately and 1) Show&Tell -> Griselbrand lets you either draw into Force of Will vs Swords to Plowshares or draw a new hand in order to go off again.Except that STP is NOT the only answer to Griselbrand.
If you S&T for Griselbrand and they put into play Reliquary, ORing, Karakas, Gilded Drake or their own Griselbrand, you just wasted one of your 4 ways to win, well done!
And in that case you just payed 7 life and 25% of you win conditions to draw 7!
That's pretty bad.
I never wait for Omniscience to play Show&Tell if I'm holding Griselbrand, I go for it every single time, and I rarely lose because of it even vs hate. Despite having some issues with Swords to Plowshares, which frankly I consider the out come to be the best draw spell ever, Griselbrand is way more resilient vs everything else Emakrul loses the game to.If you consider a good trade off to lose game and draw 7, then Griselbrand and Intuition is the pair cards you want to play, instead if you want to win games you play more protection, cantrip and a split between Emrakul and Griselbrand.

Or maybe every single person in this world that did well with the deck has been lucky and put up results by playing a sub-par deck!
Playing an Intuition in the deck is fine, it's way better than that shitty Personal Tutor.They do a COMPLETELY different job!!
It's like saying "Playing Swords to Plowshares is fine, it's way better than that shitty Gaddock Teeg"!

One is a kill condition with Omniscience in play (only scenario in which Intuition is good) while the other helps you putting the pieces together.
that's some way to sum it up lol. I guess it all comes down to personnal preferences."Personal preference" is always a way to hide poor play choices, bad playtesting against poor opponents and/or bad deckbuilding, because we're not talking about a song or a painting that you may or may not like them!

If a card does what the deck needs, it does so despite anyone's "personal preference", exactly like Jace, Personal Tutor and Emrakul are good in this deck.

Even if you don't like them or want to go "rogue" to show you're an alternative deckbuilder and don't netdeck your lists, those are good cards for the deck and by not playing them (and replacing them with sub-par stuff like 4 Griselbrands, 4 Intuition, cutting Dazes for Misdirection and such things) you just make the deck worse.

Even if it's your "personal preference", the deck is worse than it could be.
So Personal Tutor, Jace, and Emrakul are bad in the deck. Surgical is bad against the deck. Intuition and Probe are good, run all the Griselbrands. Got it.Yep, if you want to be out of the tournament by round 2, that's exactly the way you want your deck built! :laugh:

[jandax]

So is Grixis and discard the right answer? I'm not so keen on that. Or are you saying the deck in general is too rickety? Because that might be.

This is for the thread, not just reacting to Dzra's post in general:

I recently had a nice testing session with the Grixis list, black splashing discard, some basic lands, S.O.P.

Tested against Maverick (packing O-rings in the board), Esper Blade (a Martell version, up to date-ish), TES (Cook version), Goblins (black splash for SB discard, etc), and U/W Miracles.

A few things I noted over the session;
O-Ring and Angel of Dispare are a beating.
Counter/Top nowadays has things in the Three/Four slots to keep you off business.
Jace, while an awesome card, isn't the bee's knees.
O-Ring and Angel of Dispare are a beating.
Screwing with the deck's mana is effective, not quite super effective, but just effective (looking at Thalia, Wasteland, Stifle on a fetch, etc)
There is no other way to win aside from Show and Tell
Everyone seems to be ready for this deck with its one win condition. I looked up lists from this site and tournament results to find ideas for a good sideboard for each test deck, and the cat is just out of the bag.

Show and Know had its good run at Ghent, surprise factor is always welcome, but now with all the hype around the deck and the incessant amount of information and opinionated coverage SCG puts out, everyone is scared of the deck and are packing hate for it.

Also, the deck was consistently losing on the draw. This leads me to assume its best to go back to the U/R version with Sol lands and just play to your own outs, damn the hate. Speed the deck up, play more Griselbrand, pray a lot more.

Or play another deck.

Thoughts?

[Final Fortune]

You still fail to realize this isn't "every other variant of S&T there is" but it's a combo deck that needs a good hand to go off, not just a couple cards that will win for you.Except that STP is NOT the only answer to Griselbrand.
If you S&T for Griselbrand and they put into play Reliquary, ORing, Karakas, Gilded Drake or their own Griselbrand, you just wasted one of your 4 ways to win, well done!
And in that case you just payed 7 life and 25% of you win conditions to draw 7!
That's pretty bad.If you consider a good trade off to lose game and draw 7, then Griselbrand and Intuition is the pair cards you want to play, instead if you want to win games you play more protection, cantrip and a split between Emrakul and Griselbrand.

Or maybe every single person in this world that did well with the deck has been lucky and put up results by playing a sub-par deck!They do a COMPLETELY different job!!
It's like saying "Playing Swords to Plowshares is fine, it's way better than that shitty Gaddock Teeg"!

One is a kill condition with Omniscience in play (only scenario in which Intuition is good) while the other helps you putting the pieces together."Personal preference" is always a way to hide poor play choices, bad playtesting against poor opponents and/or bad deckbuilding, because we're not talking about a song or a painting that you may or may not like them!

If a card does what the deck needs, it does so despite anyone's "personal preference", exactly like Jace, Personal Tutor and Emrakul are good in this deck.

Even if you don't like them or want to go "rogue" to show you're an alternative deckbuilder and don't netdeck your lists, those are good cards for the deck and by not playing them (and replacing them with sub-par stuff like 4 Griselbrands, 4 Intuition, cutting Dazes for Misdirection and such things) you just make the deck worse.

Even if it's your "personal preference", the deck is worse than it could be.Yep, if you want to be out of the tournament by round 2, that's exactly the way you want your deck built! :laugh:

I'm going to explain this to you real slow,

1) Omniscience is a combo deck
2) Omniscience's enabler is Show&Tell
3) Personal Tutor tutors for Show&Tell at sorcery speed and is card disadvantage
4) Inuition Tutors for Show&Tell at instant speed and is card parody while also being a tutor for any other card in your deck and a kill condition with Omniscience

Intuition is better than Personal Tutor

1) Griselbrand is vulnerable to Swords to Plowshares where Emakrul the Aeon's Torn is not, however in the event of a Swords to Plowshares Griselbrand has a non 0 chance of drawing into Force of Will, or any other counter spell, and remaining on the board. In the event Griselbrand does not draw into Force of Will, or any other counter spell, then Show&Tell allows you to draw anywhere from 7 cards to 21 cards after Swords to Plowshares and becomes the best draw spell in the game.

2) Emakrul the Aeon's Torn loses the game to Knight of the Reliquary, Karakas, Detention Sphere, Oblivion Ring or Gilded Drake off of Show&Tell, and it loses the game off of Omniscience to Gilded Drake. Griselbrand trades 2 cards and 7 to 14 life for 7 to 14 cards and doesn't automatically lose you the game vs. Knight of the Reliquary, Karakas, Detention Sphere, Oblivion Ring or Gilded Drake off of Show&Tell, and while Griselbrand is not as good as Emakrul, the Aeon's Torn off of Omniscience vs Knight of the Reliquary and Karakas, it can still respond to Knight of the Reliquary and Karakas by drawing 7 to 14 cards and casting either Burning Wish or Intuition to win the game.

3) Emakrul the Aeon's Torn automatically loses to Terminate, Griselbrand does not automatically lose to Terminate.

4) The only other deck in the format that plays Griselbrand is Reanimator, and Reanimator has strategy superiority vs Omniscience anyway, so it's a lost match up regardless of whether or not we're playing 2 Griselbrand or 4 Griselbrand. Don't play Omniscience in metagames that have a lack of graveyard hate or consequently Reanimator

5) With the exception of Swords to Plowshares, which even in the worst case scenario turns Show&Tell and Griselbrand into +7 cards, and Knight of the Reliquary, which even in the worst case scenario lets you draw into Burning Wish and Inuition to win the game regardless off of Omniscience, Griselbrand is more resilient to every hate card in the format.

6) You may not think 2U, 7 life and 2 cards for 7 cards is a good trade, but I do considering if they actually printed a sorcery card that let you draw 7 cards for 7 life for three mana it'd be banned before it was printed. Obviously you aren't going to win every game they answer Griselbrand with a dedicated hate card, but you still have a chance to win with a new hand, and that's better than automatically losing when they Detention Sphere your Omniscience or Karakas your Emakrul and you're forced to automatically scoop.

What would you rather have, a chance to win with a new hand and a survivable life total, or no chance at all? The deck isn't designed to have to draw Omniscience in order to play its threats, with the exception of Burning Wish, it can be better to not wait for Omniscience and try to win with Griselbrand immediately, or with perfect information from Gitaxian Probe, it can be better to not play Omniscience because losing the game is worse than drawing 7 new cards vs hate.

So, if Swords to Plowshares isn't the problem, why are you playing Emakrul when Griselbrand is better vs everything else?

I don't care whether or not Omniscience is or isn't like every other Show&Tell deck, because frankly I choose to play it as a Storm deck with an aggro-control plan B, Jace, the Mind Sculpter is just an over priced Brainstorm in a deck that wants efficient costed search and disruption. The only reason I make an exception for Intuition is because it's only a 1 of and it doubles as a kill condition, where Jace serves no objective purpose in this deck by itself because you have nothing to protect it with.

I'm sure you could win games and matches by playing 4 Emakrul instead of 4 Griselbrand if you tried, that doesn't mean it's optimal. Show&Tell, like Dredge and Reanimator to a certain extent, are decks with low play skill caps and high power levels that let people make objectively poor deck building decisions and still maintain a high chance of winning. Who is making the objectively best deck building decisions is the only thing we're debating, and I doubt either of us are going to agree with the other at this point.

Edit: And yeah, can you stop pretending Intuition isn't a reasonably costed tutor in a deck playing 5 Sol Lands? Absolutely nobody is playing 4 Inution in their decks and Daze has always been debatable in Sneak and Show, but it's especially bad here because it doesn't protect your primary win condition from disruption at all. A lot of this stuff people already figured out in the Sneak and Show thread from awhile back, and you are just bashing reasonable card choices, like Misdirection of all cards, with no legitimate arguments.

[Jiaozy]

I'm going to explain this to you real slow,

1) Omniscience is a combo deck
2) Omniscience's enabler is Show&Tell
3) Personal Tutor tutors for Show&Tell at sorcery speed and is card disadvantage
4) Inuition Tutors for Show&Tell at instant speed and is card parody while also being a tutor for any other card in your deck and a kill condition with Omniscience

Intuition is better than Personal TutorUsing Intuition as a tutor is a pretty desperate play unless you have triple protection in hand, since you give up 2 out of 7 of your ways to play a S&T just to fetch one and, in the case of counters/Vendilion, you lost 3 out of 7 ways to win the game.

Which is why the right number ranges from 0 to 1 but playing any more than that is just bad deckbuilding.

And also leads to the next point:

S&T for a dude.

You still fail to realize that it's not important wheter or not your dude survives (and Emrakul is WAAAAAY better at surviving than Griselbrand is, btw) but that, if it doesn't, you lost 25% of you win conditions right there, because you simply cannot hardcast Omniscience and those 7 to 14 cards from Griselbrand will hardly ever make up for that 25% of S&T that you just lost.

All of this while giving your opponent an extra turn for no good reason.
2) Emakrul the Aeon's Torn loses the game to Knight of the Reliquary, Karakas, Detention Sphere, Oblivion Ring or Gilded Drake off of Show&TellExactly like Griselbrand does, because you set yourself back a turn and down 7 life and against most decks this isn't the right position to be in, because you have to find another S&T and something else to put into play.
and it loses the game off of Omniscience to Gilded Drake.Omniscience is NOT simmetrical, it's NOT Dream Halls, RTFC.

If you play Griselbrand OR Emrakul with Omniscience, you'll never lose to Gilded Drake either way unless it's like turn 20 because, if you play Emrakul via Omniscience, you Annihilate 6 before their next turn.
Griselbrand trades 2 cards and 7 to 14 life for 7 to 14 cards and doesn't automatically lose you the game vs. Knight of the Reliquary, Karakas, Detention Sphere, Oblivion Ring or Gilded Drake off of Show&Tell, and while Griselbrand is not as good as Emakrul, the Aeon's Torn off of Omniscience vs Knight of the Reliquary and Karakas, it can still respond to Knight of the Reliquary and Karakas by drawing 7 to 14 cards and casting either Burning Wish or Intuition to win the game.IF you have Omniscience in play, Reliquary or Karakas do NOTHING against Emrakul.
Reliquary won't get a chance to activate because you Annihilate 6 before it loses summoning sickness, while, if they bounce your Emrakul, you can cast it AGAIN to get another turn and Annihilate in that turn.
3) Emakrul the Aeon's Torn automatically loses to Terminate, Griselbrand does not automatically lose to Terminate.If it's the same Emakrul, the Aeon's Torn I'm playing with and the english text is the same as the italian one, "Protection from colored spells" saves Emrakul from Terminate.
4) The only other deck in the format that plays Griselbrand is Reanimator, and Reanimator has strategy superiority vs Omniscience anyway, so it's a lost match up regardless of whether or not we're playing 2 Griselbrand or 4 Griselbrand. Don't play Omniscience in metagames that have a lack of graveyard hate or consequently ReanimatorPhantasmal Image is a Griselbrand and if Merfolk vials in a 2 Drop, you're forced to draw 7 and lose 7 or getting your Griselbrand SBE'd to death.
5) With the exception of Swords to Plowshares, which even in the worst case scenario turns Show&Tell and Griselbrand into +7 cards, and Knight of the Reliquary, which even in the worst case scenario lets you draw into Burning Wish and Inuition to win the game regardless off of Omniscience, Griselbrand is more resilient to every hate card in the format.Again, you fail to understand what I write, sorry for my bad english.

With Omniscience it DOESN'T matter which dude you play, since you win before they get another turn anyway.
It DOES matter which creatures you play, tho, because if for 7 life you draw into another 2 Griselbrand and 0 Burning Wish, you wasted 7 life, but if you draw into a Griselbrand and an Emrakul, you WIN.
6) You may not think 2U, 7 life and 2 cards for 7 cards is a good trade, but I do considering if they actually printed a sorcery card that let you draw 7 cards for 7 life for three mana it'd be banned before it was printed. Obviously you aren't going to win every game they answer Griselbrand with a dedicated hate card, but you still have a chance to win with a new hand, and that's better than automatically losing when they Detention Sphere your Omniscience or Karakas your Emakrul and you're forced to automatically scoop.What you don't get of my words is that I deem it a bad play because you give up 25% of your ways to win to draw those seven cards.
It's a desperate move for desperate moments, but it shouldn't be the NORM if you play the deck well.
What would you rather have, a chance to win with a new hand and a survivable life total, or no chance at all? The deck isn't designed to have to draw Omniscience in order to play its threats, with the exception of Burning Wish, it can be better to not wait for Omniscience and try to win with Griselbrand immediately, or with perfect information from Gitaxian Probe, it can be better to not play Omniscience because losing the game is worse than drawing 7 new cards vs hate.The deck is NOT designed to cheat fatties into play, if you want to do that Sneak and Show is way better at doing it playing 8 enablers and 8 creatures opposed to the 4 creatures and 4 enablers of this deck.
This deck is much more High Tide-like as a combo deck, since you need to assemble a few different pieces to win the game.
Emrakul and Griselbrand are just TOOLS for the deck, not the main ways it wins, because with Omniscience Griselbrand is an upgrade to Yawgmoth's Bargain and Emrakul an upgrade to Time Walk and both beat faces.
So, if Swords to Plowshares isn't the problem, why are you playing Emakrul when Griselbrand is better vs everything else?Because with Omniscience, drawing into the 2nd or 3rd Griselbrand is crap, while drawing into an Emrakul is game.

Really, it's as simple as that.
Edit: And yeah, can you stop pretending Intuition isn't a reasonably costed tutor in a deck playing 5 Sol Lands? Absolutely nobody is playing 4 Inution in their decks
4 [TE] Intuition
3 [MM] Misdirection
Daze has always been debatable in Sneak and Show, but it's especially bad here because it doesn't protect your primary win condition from disruption at all. A lot of this stuff people already figured out in the Sneak and Show thread from awhile back, and you are just bashing reasonable card choices, like Misdirection of all cards, with no legitimate arguments.Still, these decks are EXTREMELY different, but if you want to play them the same way, you're free to do so but don't expect any good result.

Sneak Attack can afford to play MissD over Daze because it only needs to protect their dude, NOT their enablers!
They can get a Sneak Attack or S&T countered without losing much because they play 8 cards to cheat dudes into play so they only need to protect their creatures one or two turns to win.

This deck, on the contrary, needs to protect the ENABLER because if one is wasted, then you probably wasted the enabler, the creatures AND the counters.
It's a chain reaction:
-You can't afford to play too many pitch counters because
-They waste too many resources and you need a good hand to play with once Omniscience is in play because
-This deck isn't a regular S&T deck that just cheats fatties into play

[dameus]

Also... since I do run white; I have been thinking about Replenish If I go that way then Intuition looks really good to get Omni into play w/o S&T therebye getting around the "there are only 4 cards in the deck that make it work" argument.


Any thoughts?

Counterbalance, Top, Replenish, E-tutor?

If you're already splashing W, I think 1x Replenish in the SB would be a great Wish target. I wouldn't try any more than that or else you'd have to build around it and you'd probably end up w/ a very different deck.

P.S. Jiaozy 1 FF 0

[Final Fortune]

Using Intuition as a tutor is a pretty desperate play unless you have triple protection in hand, since you give up 2 out of 7 of your ways to play a S&T just to fetch one and, in the case of counters/Vendilion, you lost 3 out of 7 ways to win the game.

Which is why the right number ranges from 0 to 1 but playing any more than that is just bad deckbuilding.

And also leads to the next point:

S&T for a dude.

You still fail to realize that it's not important wheter or not your dude survives (and Emrakul is WAAAAAY better at surviving than Griselbrand is, btw) but that, if it doesn't, you lost 25% of you win conditions right there, because you simply cannot hardcast Omniscience and those 7 to 14 cards from Griselbrand will hardly ever make up for that 25% of S&T that you just lost.

All of this while giving your opponent an extra turn for no good reason.Exactly like Griselbrand does, because you set yourself back a turn and down 7 life and against most decks this isn't the right position to be in, because you have to find another S&T and something else to put into play.Omniscience is NOT simmetrical, it's NOT Dream Halls, RTFC.

If you play Griselbrand OR Emrakul with Omniscience, you'll never lose to Gilded Drake either way unless it's like turn 20 because, if you play Emrakul via Omniscience, you Annihilate 6 before their next turn.IF you have Omniscience in play, Reliquary or Karakas do NOTHING against Emrakul.
Reliquary won't get a chance to activate because you Annihilate 6 before it loses summoning sickness, while, if they bounce your Emrakul, you can cast it AGAIN to get another turn and Annihilate in that turn.If it's the same Emakrul, the Aeon's Torn I'm playing with and the english text is the same as the italian one, "Protection from colored spells" saves Emrakul from Terminate.Phantasmal Image is a Griselbrand and if Merfolk vials in a 2 Drop, you're forced to draw 7 and lose 7 or getting your Griselbrand SBE'd to death.Again, you fail to understand what I write, sorry for my bad english.

With Omniscience it DOESN'T matter which dude you play, since you win before they get another turn anyway.
It DOES matter which creatures you play, tho, because if for 7 life you draw into another 2 Griselbrand and 0 Burning Wish, you wasted 7 life, but if you draw into a Griselbrand and an Emrakul, you WIN.What you don't get of my words is that I deem it a bad play because you give up 25% of your ways to win to draw those seven cards.
It's a desperate move for desperate moments, but it shouldn't be the NORM if you play the deck well.The deck is NOT designed to cheat fatties into play, if you want to do that Sneak and Show is way better at doing it playing 8 enablers and 8 creatures opposed to the 4 creatures and 4 enablers of this deck.
This deck is much more High Tide-like as a combo deck, since you need to assemble a few different pieces to win the game.
Emrakul and Griselbrand are just TOOLS for the deck, not the main ways it wins, because with Omniscience Griselbrand is an upgrade to Yawgmoth's Bargain and Emrakul an upgrade to Time Walk and both beat faces.Because with Omniscience, drawing into the 2nd or 3rd Griselbrand is crap, while drawing into an Emrakul is game.

Really, it's as simple as that.Still, these decks are EXTREMELY different, but if you want to play them the same way, you're free to do so but don't expect any good result.

Sneak Attack can afford to play MissD over Daze because it only needs to protect their dude, NOT their enablers!
They can get a Sneak Attack or S&T countered without losing much because they play 8 cards to cheat dudes into play so they only need to protect their creatures one or two turns to win.

This deck, on the contrary, needs to protect the ENABLER because if one is wasted, then you probably wasted the enabler, the creatures AND the counters.
It's a chain reaction:
-You can't afford to play too many pitch counters because
-They waste too many resources and you need a good hand to play with once Omniscience is in play because
-This deck isn't a regular S&T deck that just cheats fatties into play

The card removal from Intuition is about as pertinent as the card removal from Grindstone, the fact of the matter is that if you don't have a combo piece in your hand in a timely matter you lose the game regardless, the deck isn't desinged to play threat after threat in order to break a counter war, it's designed to protect a single threat to victory.

Yes, it does matter whether or not your S&T creature is Emakrul or Griselbrand because Emakrul is not better at surviving than Griselbrand is verse anything but Swords to Plowshares and Karakas with Omniscience in play, in which case Griselbrand is still capable of protecting itself by drawing into Force of Will, or trading 2 cards for 7 cards without Force of Will, and drawing into Burning Wish or Intuition with Omniscience in play.

The difference between Emakrul and Griselbrand vs Swords to Plowshares and Karakas with Omniscience in play is no where near as big as the difference between Emakrul and Griselbrand vs Oblivion Ring etc. where Griselbrand puts you in a survivable position and Emakrul puts you in a losing position.

Who cares whether or not drawing into Griselbrands after you've already played Show&Tell, Omniscience and Griselbrand are dead cards, you've already won the game at that point by having an unapposed Omniscience and Griselbrand on the board to begin with because you have a new hand and an instant win condition the moment you draw into Burning Wish. At the moment you've played Omniscience and Griselbrand, you've reached inevitabily at that point because you can just attack and draw 7 every turn in order to protect your board state with Force of Wills or immediately kill your opponent with Burning Wish. Drawing into an Emakrul after an Omniscience and Griselbrand is an immediate win, but it's also win more.

Yes, the deck is designed to play Show&Tell -> Omniscience and Creature but that doesn't mean it can't play Show&Tell -> Creature, that game plan is just as effective in Omniscience as it is in Sneak&Show and the fact of the matter is that you have to play the deck that way in the event you either don't draw Omniscience or need a blue card to pitch to Force of Will, Misdirection, Chrome Mox etc.

You need to stop pretending that Emakrul is strictly better than Griselbrand after Omniscience, a Timewalk, a non fatal attack and annihilate 6 aren't necessarily anymore game winning plays than Griselbrand drawing into Burning Wish and killing the opponent without the attack step

By Terminate I meant Terminus, I don't remember what I was trying to say with Gildred Drake so I'll concede the point, but regardless it doesn't matter whether or not it's Gildred Drake or Phantasmal Image because they both either gain control of the creature or legend rule the creature into the graveyard.

I'm kind of tired of arguing these points because neither of us are going to agree with the other, but my main point is that Emakrul isn't significantly better than Griselbrand is vs Swords to Plowshares and Karakas (with Omniscience) while Griselbrand is remarkably better vs all other forms of hate, and I think playing Omniscience as a three card combo deck instead of aggressively playing Show&Tell->Griselbrand will probably lose more games than it will win you by waiting for an additional combo piece. Likewise, you will have to play Griselbrand even when you have Omniscience in your hand a non-zero amount of the time because Omniscience automatically loses to Oblivion Ring where Griselbrand does not, and hopefully you'll know when to play Omniscience to circumvent Gilded Drake, Phantasmal Image etc and when to play Griselbrand in order to trade 2 cards for 7 cards and 7 damage. For the situations where you have to play a creature off of Show&Tell blindly, Griselbrand is the safer choice, and by playing Omniscience -> Griselbrand you get to disregard the attack step where Emakrul does not so the deck is protected from oddities like Peace Keeper, Blazing Archon etc.

[TheSleeper]

Any thoughts on Temporal Fissure as our bounce wish target?

Pro vs Eye of Nowhere: can remove multiple lock pieces. with Omni on the field, you can Petals-Wish-Temporal their entire board.
Con: harder to cast without Omni in play (4U vs UU)

Just thought I'd throw it out there. Am a long time Sneak player who is slowly making the move over to straight Omni.

[Dzra]

Yep, if you want to be out of the tournament by round 2, that's exactly the way you want your deck built! :laugh:

Aw shucks. :wink:


Any thoughts on Temporal Fissure as our bounce wish target?

Unfortunately, it's only good once Omniscience is active whereas Eye of Nowhere is there to bounce the O-Ring and make Omniscience active. Once you have Omniscience going, you should be set.

@ Misdirection - Misdirection is good in other Show and Tell decks because they don't need additional cards to win. They can spend all their resources resolving Show and Tell or Sneak Attack then push a fatty into play and win. Unlike Sneak and Show, Omniscience not only needs Show and Tell to resolve, it still needs enough gas in hand to chain into the win. You can't pitch all your cantrips to Misdirection.

@ Intuition VS Personal Tutor - I can Personal Tutor on t1. If it resolves, I can try to Show and Tell t2/3. If Show and Tell gets countered, I don't lose the game.

I can Intuition on t2/3. If it resolves, I can try to cast Show and Tell t3/4. If they Surgical or if Show and Tell gets countered, my only way to win the game is to use one of my 4 Burning Wishes for a Show and Tell. If that one gets countered, I lose.

If I'm playing Sneak and Show or Dream Halls, Intuition is fine because (long story short) both Sneak Attack and Dream Halls can be hard cast if I run out of Show and Tells.

@ Emrakul VS Griselbrand - These cards function differently in the deck. It's not kill card A and kill card B. Griselbrand is a draw spell. Emrakul is a wincon. Simple. Clean. Fun. And easy.

@ Grixis - When you tried splashing Black, did you cut the Sol Lands? Because I'm pretty sure that's wrong. Ideally, I'd think you'd cut maybe a Sol and a basic or so for 2-3 Undergrounds and 3-4 Thoughtseize. Maybe I just misunderstood, but I'm pretty sure you need the Sol Lands. Another option might be to try the EtBT Sol Lands from Masks... just a thought... but they do tap for color.
Peat Bog Sandstone Needle Saprazzan Skerry

[Jiaozy]

I'm kind of tired of arguing these points because neither of us are going to agree with the otherMe too, so I'll just stop trying to explain the deck to you and let you play it like a regular Sneak Attack deck with mediocre results.
by playing Omniscience -> Griselbrand you get to disregard the attack step where Emakrul does not so the deck is protected from oddities like Peace Keeper, Blazing Archon etc.And by playing Omniscience -> Emrakul you get to disregard the fact that maybe you're on 7 or less life and can't use it to do shit, but you get a Time Walk with a 15/15 attached.

They BOTH win the game off Omniscience, but drawing multiple of each one sucks, so you split them 2/2 to have a chance to see both.
It already sucks seeing both of them when you only play 2, playing 4 of them is just a recipe for disaster.

That is if you play the deck the way it's meant to be, if you play the deck as a worse Sneak and Show with less enablers and fatties then it doesn't matter much because you could replace Omniscience with more dudes!

[BiuBiu]

@ Grixis - When you tried splashing Black, did you cut the Sol Lands? Because I'm pretty sure that's wrong. Ideally, I'd think you'd cut maybe a Sol and a basic or so for 2-3 Undergrounds and 3-4 Thoughtseize. Maybe I just misunderstood, but I'm pretty sure you need the Sol Lands. Another option might be to try the EtBT Sol Lands from Masks... just a thought... but they do tap for color.
Peat Bog Sandstone Needle Saprazzan Skerry

I'm still playing a list similar to the one in post #110 where I cut the sol lands and lotus petal, play 6 discard spells (Thoughtseize and Duress) and 1 Lim-Dul's Vault. 4 FoW are my only counters. Virtue's Ruin, Grim Tutor and Surgical Extration in SB. Manabase:
10 fetchlands
3 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
3 Island
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
A lot of differences to the UR builds. Would be nice to hear some opinions, criticism.

[akabidu]

I dont think im the first, but im the only one I know thats playing UB Omnitell. Its a great deck, been makin 10x0 results easy. I know it doesnt have so much options like the red one, but its a new deck....and no one is prepared for it(sort of). People been thinking its doomsdays, grisel-combo, all sorts of stuff.

[TheSleeper]

I wanted to discuss Deshaun Baylock's list (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=49919) that 5th placed SCG Open Cincinnati, Ohio 07-10-2012:

If we take the following as core:
4 Omniscience
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Griselbrand
4 Burning Wish
4 Ponder
3 Show and Tell

3 Island
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Volcanic Island

His flex slots were:
2 Lotus Petal
4 Daze
3 Gitaxian Probe
1 Personal Tutor
4 Preordain

There has been some discussion over playing Daze. I'd love to see a report to see how he found it. He was the only player with Show & Tell in the Top 25. I wonder if that says this deck is being hated out via SB's (more on this later), the meta has adjusted, people picked up a different deck instead, his list was optimal or a combination of the above.

His SB had pretty standard Wish targets. I wonder how useful the misers Surgical Extraction, Grafdigger's Cage and the 2 Defense Grids were.

Has anyone considered Diabolic Tutor over Time of Need? Assuming you are playing both via Omni, Diabolic dodges countermagic a little better (less vulnerable to Spell Snare, Counterbalance). It also lets you get any card in your deck, particularly good if you have sided in 1-2 SB cards and need them in a pinch. The only benefit I can see of Time of Need is that without Omni, it can still be cast of one of the two Lotus Petals, while Diabolic requires Omni. I'm not sure how often you would wish for TON with Petal without Omni though. Any thoughts?

Taking a quick look at the decks in the Top 16, as far as SB hate goes, we have the following from 15 decks:
1 Cursed Totem
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Sphere of Safety
1 Angel of Despair
1 Humility
1 Oblivion Ring
7 Pyroblast
7 Red Elemental Blast
1 Detention Sphere

On the whole there wasn't as much as I thought there might be. The most common being the generic Pyro/REB, which obviously is good against most blue decks. At this point I don't see Stifle being warranted to counter ETB abilities like that of O-Ring. The fact 10 of the 15 had Force of Will may strengthen the case for Overmaster however.

[Stephan/]

.... playing 3 Griselbrand and 1 Emrakul (for Time of Need in SB).

Of course I S&T in Griselbrand gainst most situations, because a fast Griselbrand just often wins the game - you can't always wait for having a Omniscience with Emrakul (even in 2-2 split) or Omniscience/Griselbrand in late game when you can't afford to pay that 7 life.

Griselbrand is just in most cases the best creature to S&T in. Sure, Omniscience/Emrakul is the nuts and wins most times on the spot, but you just can't wait every time for having both.

I think we can agree that S&T in Emrakul (without Omniscience) isn't the way to go gainst a couple of decks, but you also have to realize that S&T in Omniscience (even with Emrakul in hand) isn't an auto win .... they still might have an Oblivion Ring, Detention Sphere or even just a creature with an etb trigger like Snapcaster or Vendilion Clique and a possibility to destroy your Omniscience at instant speed.
^^ Maybe than you would have wished just to bring in Griselbrand and draw 7 with tigger of Oblivion Ring on the stack.

.... just my two cents :wink:

[Jiaozy]

Taking a quick look at the decks in the Top 16, as far as SB hate goes, we have the following from 15 decks:
1 Cursed Totem
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Sphere of Safety
1 Angel of Despair
1 Humility
1 Oblivion Ring
7 Pyroblast
7 Red Elemental Blast
1 Detention Sphere

On the whole there wasn't as much as I thought there might be.The problem aren't the SB cards the deck might face, but the cards that are already in the MD and that disrupt this deck enormously, from the T16 there are:

44 Force of Will
22 Spell Pierce
16 Daze
4 Cursecatcher
4 Counterspell
6 Vendilion Clique
4 Flickerwisp
4 Thalia
4 Elephant Grass
9 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
9 Cabalt Therapy
1 Iona
1 Detention Sphere
2 Humility (to an extent)
1 Ad Nauseam (as in "the whole deck")

You also didn't count the discard nor the additional countermagic as SB hate, but that's something that also counts in the possible hating you see in game 2.
The deck catches a lot of splash hate from lots of flexible SB cards, so it might have a rough time to do well in a prepared meta.

Also, with Entreat the Angels, the Counterbalance curve now has a playable 3 drop that upped the count from the usual 1-2 to 4-6 depending on the split between Vendilion, Trinket and Entreat.

[Final Fortune]

I'm not certain how these Force of Will and Daze disruption packages are getting Show&Tell to resolve, because while in Sneak&Show decks you have more threats and more cost efficient threats in the form of Sneak Attack compared to Burning Wish -> Show&Tell, you really can't afford for Daze not to be able to protect your Show&Tell if your opponent plays around it because you've already tipped off your hand by wishing for it.

Still not a fan of Lotus Petal, it feels like a vestigial organ of Sneak&Show lists and that combined with a lack of a basic Mountain makes me feel people haven't really figured out the difference between a deck that just plays Show&Tell and Sneak Attack and a deck that has to tutor for Show&Tell.

Still it seems passable, good to see some one else is using Gitaxian Probe, because that card is just ridiculously good.

I still don't understand what Time of Need in the SB accomplishes over just killing the opponent with the Grape Shot combo?

[TheSleeper]

So do we add more protection like Overmaster, Boseiju, Divert, Flusterstorm, REB? More threats like Sneak? More disruption like discard, Blood Moon, City of Solitude, Trinisphere, Choke, Defense Grid? Or just pick up another deck?

[Final Fortune]

So do we add more protection like Overmaster, Boseiju, Divert, Flusterstorm, REB? More threats like Sneak? More disruption like discard, Blood Moon, City of Solitude, Trinisphere, Choke, Defense Grid? Or just pick up another deck?

No, I mean we all have more or less the same ratio of cards and arguing over Spell Pierce vs Flusterstorm or Lotus Petal vs Chrome Mox or Griselbrand vs Emakrul are marginal points, but Daze baffles me because unless it's a question of protecting the deck from the opponent's threats it seems like the absolute worst disruption in order to protect our own threats with and one of the most frequently SBed out cards in the deck for other protection spells.

I've personally found it to be a pretty lackluster card, but every list that places seems to be playing it.

[Jblaze4lif]

I'm not certain how these Force of Will and Daze disruption packages are getting Show&Tell to resolve, because while in Sneak&Show decks you have more threats and more cost efficient threats in the form of Sneak Attack compared to Burning Wish -> Show&Tell, you really can't afford for Daze not to be able to protect your Show&Tell if your opponent plays around it because you've already tipped off your hand by wishing for it.

Still not a fan of Lotus Petal, it feels like a vestigial organ of Sneak&Show lists and that combined with a lack of a basic Mountain makes me feel people haven't really figured out the difference between a deck that just plays Show&Tell and Sneak Attack and a deck that has to tutor for Show&Tell.

Still it seems passable, good to see some one else is using Gitaxian Probe, because that card is just ridiculously good.

I still don't understand what Time of Need in the SB accomplishes over just killing the opponent with the Grape Shot combo?

I believe the Time of need is there just in case the Grapeshot win is not possible like if a Thalia is on the board.

[Stephan/]

I believe the Time of need is there just in case the Grapeshot win is not possible like if a Thalia is on the board.

.... or Gaddock Teeg ^^

btw: I would also not play with Daze - currently playing 4 Fow, 3 Flusterstorm, 3 Overmaster (which aren't that bad as cantrips when you have to play a 'blind' Omniscience

[TheSleeper]

No, I mean we all have more or less the same ratio of cards and arguing over Spell Pierce vs Flusterstorm or Lotus Petal vs Chrome Mox or Griselbrand vs Emakrul are marginal points

Yep agree. Thats why I said 'add', as in, do we need to change the decks configuration around more instead of just hoping the current one gets in there? Or is it fine as is?

[Dzra]

I'm not a big fan of Daze. I like Flusterstorm a whole lot.

And I hadn't thought of cutting Lotus Petal, but that's somewhat interesting. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, but it would add a little more stability/consistency at the expense of some speed.

[TheSleeper]

Has anyone tried breaking down the cards of SnT variants into categories as it is often done in Dredge? It might make lists and variants easier to compare. And as with Dredge maybe more of a consensus as to how many of each is optimal could be reached. Perhaps it is another avenue of discussion as opposed to what specific cards are better in each category (eg daze vs pierce).

Dredge is often broken down into Dredgers, Discard outlets, Graveyard effects, Mana. People might talk about X number of dredgers or mana being optimal.

I've been thinking about how the Show decks could be analysed as such. I came up with the following:
-Assembly (brainstorm, ponder, preordain)
-Protection (force, pierce, flusterstorm, overmaster, daze)
-Enablers (SNT, Sneak, Omni)
-Win Cons (Emrakul, Grisel)
-Mana (land, petals, SSG)

Burning Wish could be listed as assembly, enabler and even win con (in Omni variants). Omniscience is a tricky one because its almost a tier 2 enabler; requiring a tier 1 enabler beforehand (SNT) and win cons afterwards. However if we're only comparing Omni variants to each other where we place these is moot. For now I've listed Wish as both assembly and conditional win con. Perhaps it should only be listed once for clarity.

Example category comparison in practice with two random lists:

Recent SCG list
Assembly: 17 (4 BS, 4 wish, 1 tutor, 4 ponder, 4 preordain)
Protection: 11 (4 force, 3 probe, 4 daze)
Enablers: 7 (3 snt, 4 omni*)
Win cons: 8 (2 Emmy, 2 Grisel, 4 wish*)
Mana: 22 (2 petal, 5 sol, 8 fetch, 3 island, 3 VI)

FinalFortunes page 4 list
Assembly: 12 (4 BS, 4 wish, 4 ponder)
Protection: 12 (4 force, 4 probe, 4 overmaster)
Enablers: 7 (3 snt, 4 omni*)
Win cons: 9 (1 Emmy, 4 Grisel, 4 wish*)
Mana: 24 (4 Mox, 5 sol, 8 fetch, 2 island, 1 mountain, 4 VI)

If this has been done I am not trying to take credit or anything. Just thinking out loud so to speak. Would be interested to know what ratios you guys are testing atm.

[Dzra]

That's not a bad way of looking at things, but I'd argue where you are placing some cards...

Cantrips/Library Manipulation/Tutors: Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, Gitaxian Probe, Jace the Mind Sculptor, Burning Wish, Personal Tutor

Protection: Force of Will, Daze, Flusterstorm, Spell Pierce, Overmaster, Thoughtseize, Cabal Therapy

SnT targets: Omniscience, Emrakul, Griselbrand

Enablers: Show and Tell, Academy Rector

Mana: self-explanatory

I know some things can fall into different categories, but I've just included their main purposes as I see them.

Looking at things this way, I can definitely see the appeal of Academy Rector lists... if only the mana wasn't so horrible.

[Jiaozy]

Looking at things this way, I can definitely see the appeal of Academy Rector lists... if only the mana wasn't so horrible.That, and the fact that with Rector you can be blown out by any kind of graveyard hate there is, since activating/playing any GY hate card will stop the Rector's trigger...

In the "enablers" category I'd just put S&T and maybe Burning Wish, since you can't hardcast Omniscience like Sneak and SHow does with Sneak Attack, so you only have access to 4 S&T to put it into play and win from there.

[Final Fortune]

I believe the Time of need is there just in case the Grapeshot win is not possible like if a Thalia is on the board.

Ah, that makes sense.

Anybody else come to the conclusiong that the deck really doesn't need/want artifact acceleration? Just with the Ancient Tombs and City of Traitors I've managed to still consistently outrace Goblins, which is pretty much the fastest aggro deck in the format, and SBing them out constantly vs aggro-control is a good sign they're not optimal.

[caggii]

I have cut the petals from my list I'm currently playing grixis for main deck discard and sb massacre and extirpate. The massacre has been really good vs Mav,death and taxes and elves (mirror entity version) the ability to sweep for 4 mana vs 6 is huge when dealing with Thalia.

[Odd Mutation]

Hi all,

I don't really understand the 2 Lotus Petals in the deck. I believe the chances on a succesful turn 1 combo are so slim, I took them out and replaced them with a more stable mana source: 1 Tropical Island. It enables you to cast the sideboard Time of Need if necessary/more reliably.

What do you think?

[dameus]

I'm keeping the 2 Petals. They aren't just there for a T1 combo; that's just a bonus. They offer protection vs daze / spell pierce, where the threat that you can pay the extra cost means they often don't actually make you pay it. It's also nice vs LD strategies - rare as they may be. When your basic island gets Sinkhole'd and Wastelands are threatening, knowing you can still Sol land / petal your way out is a comfort. Or sometimes you duress / probe to find the coast is clear and need the 1 extra mana to go off to avoid allowing your opp another draw. They're useful but not essential, and therefore, 2 is a nice number.

[m00se]

I have been testing with Intuition lately and I like it, but I am not comfortable in my ability to play the card correctly. I feel foolish grabbing 3 of the same card unless I know my opponent has no answers.

Does anyone have advice on Intuition strategies or know of an article?

[TheSleeper]

Both recent lists (3rd (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=50184) & 21st (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=50188)) that appeared in Top 32 of SCG Indi had 1 Intuition, 2 Grisel, 2 Emrakul. Is this standard now? I would have thought you'd pack 3 copies of target cards with Intuition or skip the tutor altogether. Can anyone elaborate on this choice?

[m00se]

Both recent lists (3rd (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=50184) & 21st (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=50188)) that appeared in Top 32 of SCG Indi had 1 Intuition, 2 Grisel, 2 Emrakul. Is this standard now? I would have thought you'd pack 3 copies of target cards with Intuition or skip the tutor altogether. Can anyone elaborate on this choice?

I think the 2 Griselbrand and 2 Emrakul are proven but from what I've seen Intuition varies from 0 to 3 copies with more lists running none than any. I include 3 (taking out my last two Petals since mana denial is not in my meta) because it provides the 9-11th wincon when Omniscience hits the board. Not having one of the two creatures or Burning Wish is no longer so crippling when I combo off so I often just Inutition for whatever wincon they want to lose to (1 emrakul, 1 griselbrand, 1 burning wish). Really, 3 Burning Wish probably the safest choice all around since you can grab Petals or Emrakul via Time of Need.

[Final Fortune]

Intuition is a fine card, I've played with any where from 1 to 4 copies in the deck, and I really think it just depends on what kind of acceleration you want to play and when you want to play it, it favors Ancient Tombs and Chrome Mox by quite a bit so you'll have to learn to deal with exposing yourself to Wasteland and card disadvantage.

Provided you're winning with Omnisicence it doesn't really matter which creature it enables IMO, so frankly you can tutor for anything and not really care about what you get.

If Thoughtseize becomes the "go to" disruption card in the deck I think Talisman of Dominance deserves another look.

[Jiaozy]

Both recent lists (3rd (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=50184) & 21st (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=50188)) that appeared in Top 32 of SCG Indi had 1 Intuition, 2 Grisel, 2 Emrakul. Is this standard now? I would have thought you'd pack 3 copies of target cards with Intuition or skip the tutor altogether. Can anyone elaborate on this choice?If you use Intuiton as a tutor you usually search Omniscience or S&T (depending on what you have) because that's how the deck wins, if you already have the Omniscience and the S&T then Intuition becomes an additional win-con because it can fetch Burning Wish.

With the Wish, then, you either go for Time of Need if you can win via combat step or if there's a Thalia on the board preventing you from storm-killing your opponent or grab Petals of Insight if there's no Thalia or if an Ensnaring Bridge/Humility is preventing your combat step win.

[Fuzzy]

I had to ask because it's starting bother me: How this deck can beat Oblivion Rings?

[jandax]

I had to ask because it's starting bother me: How this deck can beat Oblivion Rings?

With Bounce spells that weaken the strategy. O-Ring, Detention Sphere, and Karakas will hose this deck. At least that's what I've come to conclude after playing

[Jessenator]

Why not splash black for 3 Thoughtseizes in the main? You'll always know if they have relevant cards to show in, takes care of Angel of Despair and ORing effects.

[Whippoorwill]

I had to ask because it's starting bother me: How this deck can beat Oblivion Rings?

This became an issue where I play regularly so I tried out 3x Sneak Attack, 1x Emrakul & 1x Griselbrand in the board this past weekend and it worked out great.

Another thing I tried out was 1x Cyclonic Rift main. In the one game where I was going to overload it I ended up just using Sneak Attack to put Emrakul into play for the win. Getting 7 mana isn't an issue for this deck with all the Sol-Lands and it gets around Teeg.

[sillysam71]

Hey guys, I was the 3rd place finish at Indy and I wanted to share a few of my thoughts on the deck moving forward. I went 6-0 in the swiss, going 12-1 in games, and then ID'd the last two rounds into top 8.

Thoughtseize was hot all day. I recommend the black splash for it. I always liked seeing it in my hand and I wished for it quite a few times. It's really good at breaking the mirror, which is a really odd matchup. Being able to discard their fatty before you resolve show and tell allows you to avoid some headaches. I beat the mirror twice during the tournament. It also allows you to grab o-ring or whatever hate they're gonna try to drop with your show and tell, but I didn't run into anything like this during the tournament.

I think I'm going to be cutting Lotus Petal for 2 more lands: one sol, one fetch. The mana is pretty tight as is and I never had a first turn kill. I don't think it's that detrimental to wait an extra turn. I was usually stuck breaking it for red to wish for show and tell and then praying for a land.

Maverick is practicly a bye for this deck. I beat it twice 2-0 with no problems. Even if they have a pridemage out for your omni, you still have priority to drop a big dude...or a second omni. I never wished for the virtue's ruin in the board, not sure if it's necessary.

Daze was sort of suboptimal all day, but the mana can be sort of tight when you're going off, so I'm not sure about it yet. I'm seriously thinking about adding Flusterstorm, though. My loss to High Tide in the Semi's was entirely because he played Flusterstorm. It's really hard for this deck to play through.

Not having 3 of each fatty for intuition isn't a big deal since you usually search for Omni, Show and Tell, or Burning wish to then get Time of Need or Petals. I really think Emrakul and Griselbrand complement eachother well in this deck. Having the option between them is nice. I think the 2-2 split is correct, but it's not that crucial.

Teeg and Karakas don't matter. Teeg only stops the Petals kill and FoW while Karakas just makes you recast your guy through Omni.

The deck isn't all that difficult to play tbh, this was my first tournament playing it and I only goldfished prior to the tournament. Put it together and try it if you haven't yet. It's extremely powerful and I always had free time between rounds.

Also, I had a feature match round 6 vs Miracles that I won 2-0 if anyone wants to check that out.

[Tempus]

Is the Blacksplash worth the less stable manabase?

Also is Intuition worth the slot post board?

How vital is Petal? Is the chance of faster kills worth the oneshotness of the manabase? This might come down to play style I guess.

[m00se]

Why not splash black for 3 Thoughtseizes in the main? You'll always know if they have relevant cards to show in, takes care of Angel of Despair and ORing effects.

I have one Underground Sea for this but keep all my discard in the SB. Basically unless they are playing blue where I'm more worried about the Force than what they have to Show and Tell, I Burning Wish for the Thoughtseize and look for an Angel/O Ring in their hand. A lot of people forget that even decks like Goblins will board in an Angel in these matchups, so when in doubt take a look at their hand.

[Final Fortune]

Is the Blacksplash worth the less stable manabase?

Also is Intuition worth the slot post board?

How vital is Petal? Is the chance of faster kills worth the oneshotness of the manabase? This might come down to play style I guess.

Considering opponent's are using our own Show&Tells against us to their advantage, I think MDing Thoughtseize and SBing a Duress is the right call, it improves our Storm, Reanimator, Dredge and mirror match as well, so we'll just have to take a hit to Wasteland.

[Rekk]

I've been testing the omni list that recently placed in an scg open.
http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=3671&d=222033

the black splash is amazing against u/w cb, and against the random things like o-ring and angel. it feels like it was what the deck was missing in the form of disruption. daze is still a needed evil but at least post board we get rebs.

with junk coming back though i might find room for a misdirection or 2

although one problem i'm having is the the land count feels soooo low.
i might cut one preordain for another fetch/city/ island/ volc/sea

[Apollo]

I'm totally new to this deck, been doing some online testing. Do you typically hold all counterspells back to protect combo against miracle decks or are there any must counter cards (like CB or Top)?

[Rekk]

I'm totally new to this deck, been doing some online testing. Do you typically hold all counterspells back to protect combo against miracle decks or are there any must counter cards (like CB or Top)?

i force the tops because the games usually end up going long. counterbalance itself is tricky considering most lists have so few 3s. personally my feeling is will fight over top cb, and jace, if you force and they force back your show and tell is going to resolve. if you force and they don't force back they probably don't have it, if so then we both just lost a turn and a force of will

[Adan]

I'm totally new to this deck, been doing some online testing. Do you typically hold all counterspells back to protect combo against miracle decks or are there any must counter cards (like CB or Top)?

I think this is correct, there are usually no cards that you definitely have to force except a Vendilion Clique in response to your Show and Tell IF you only have 1 gamewinner to put in your hand.

Forcing SDT is unnecessary, even in view of killspeed because all you basically need to do is resolve 1 spell (aka Show and Tell). From that point on they lose. Things might get a bit more difficult in case they have O-Rings or Detention Spheres main or Sb, but generally, your threat density is higher and they can't win really fast which allows you to cantrip everything together as you need.

If you run Needles in your Sb, you can bring them in to shut down SDTs, but forcing them is unnecessary. Furthermore Jace is a threat they definitely have to handle. If you can land a Jace, you will almost have won as the only thing they can do about it is either land an own Jace (which is susceptible to Daze) or flash a Clique and attack it which blanks it from stealing your fat guy in resp to your SnT.

[phazonmutant]

I had given up this deck for a while because it seemed like its time in the meta had passed, but after testing with black for discard, I'm very very happy with it.

I know someone earlier suggested Cabal Therapy, but especially after coming from ANT, Cabal Therapy is the tits. Here's what I've been testing with, what do you guys think?
2 Lotus Petal
3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Griselbrand
4 Omniscience
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Intuition
4 Burning Wish
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
3 Show and Tell
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
2 Island
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta

// Sideboard
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Eye of Nowhere
1 Grapeshot
1 Petals of Insight
2 Pyroclasm
1 Reanimate
1 Show and Tell
1 Thoughtseize
1 Time of Need
1 Virtue's Ruin

I know a bunch of people have been unhappy with Lotus Petal, but I'm torn. It does help play around spell pierce and get the right color of mana, but at the same time, I've found myself wanting a more stable land manabase. It definitely feels like I need another red source, but I'm worried about the blue source count if I cut something for a basic Mountain or a Badlands. Opinions?

Duress kinda sucks, and Gitaxian Probe sucks at finding business, so maybe I should cut a fatty and a Duress for Preordains? Someone mentioned Sensei's Divining Top, how has that tested?

[Koby]

I would definitely keep Thoughtseize as it still answers problematic creatures (Angel of Dispair, KotR, Venser, Harmonic Sliver, etc).

[Water_Wizard]

Personal Tutor might be worth a shot. I realize that it is card dis-advantage, but it finds a S&T, Burning Wish, or any of your discard.

Personally, I like Thoughtseize. I would run 3 Thoughtseize, with the 4th in the board, and Preordain over Probe. I would also run a full 4 Lotus Petals. Just my style. I think the extra Lotus Petals are crucial given that you are now running a 3-color deck.

So, I would run your base with the following changes:
-1 Emrakul
-4 Cabal Therapy
-4 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Duress
-1 Intuition

+2 Lotus Petal
+3 Thoughtseize
+4 Preordain
+2 Personal Tutor

Personal Tutor is debatable, and could possibly be Overmaster or Duress.

I like the Therapy / Probe plan, but it is essentially a two card combo, because you have no creatures to flashback Therapy.

[Final Fortune]

I really don't think you need Cabal Therapy, when Force of Will, Thoughtseize and Overmaster out of the SB are usually enough.

If you're playing Lotus Petal for acceleration, I think you should reconsider and play Talisman of Dominance instead

[Maximus]

I'm considering playing this deck, but I'm new to the format in general. I have some questions for you (plural).

1. Why are lotus petals in the deck?
2. In what cases do you wish for Time of Need?
3. What decks does this deck lose to?
4. How do you play around the low blue source count against stifle/wasteland decks?
5. What hate cards or strategies does this deck struggle with?
6. Why should I play this deck? Over another combo deck or one of the "fair" decks? For reference, I'm currently playing Team America.

There are probably better ways for me to address these questions on my own, but it won't give me that intuitive feel and experience that you guys have and that's really what I'm going for.

[Water_Wizard]

If you're playing Lotus Petal for acceleration, I think you should reconsider and play Talisman of Dominance instead

Interesting. I assume you've tested this, could you discuss your results a little bit?

At first glance, here are some downsides I see to Talisman:
1) It's a 2 drop - there is no turn 1 combo and it doesn't really help out the turn 2 combo (if you drop sol land on turn 1 and then drop talisman, you could play a land on turn 2 for Show and Tell. I guess you could turn 1 Sol->Talisman->Cantrip, which would be nice.)
2) It doesn't produce red. If we are running Overmaster, Red Elemental Blast, Pyroblast, and Burning Wish, this is an issue.
3) It isn't 'free' mana off of a Griselbrand. If you draw 7 or draw 14 off of a Griselbrand, sometimes you need free mana for a Show and Tell or Burning Wish.

Does your build run Jace? In a Omni-Tell build going more for the mid-game combo, I think Talisman makes a lot of sense.

[Atog]

I'm considering playing this deck, but I'm new to the format in general. I have some questions for you (plural).

1. Why are lotus petals in the deck?
2. In what cases do you wish for Time of Need?
3. What decks does this deck lose to?
4. How do you play around the low blue source count against stifle/wasteland decks?
5. What hate cards or strategies does this deck struggle with?
6. Why should I play this deck? Over another combo deck or one of the "fair" decks? For reference, I'm currently playing Team America.

There are probably better ways for me to address these questions on my own, but it won't give me that intuitive feel and experience that you guys have and that's really what I'm going for.

Hello and welcome! I try answer as many questions as possible. ->

1. They enable 1st turn show and tell / fix mana. Also 3rd turn Jace is nuts against some decks.
2. That is there if get Omniscience on battlefield but you don't have fatty OR opponent has Thalia and you have enought mana to play b.wish (1 mana) and Time of Need (1 mana) so you can fetch emrakul and sweep the board throught thalia.
3. You can lose to anydeck (suprise) but against heavy discard, other combo decks and tempo decks seems to give most problems. Althought, sometimes you get nuts and it really doesn't matter what opponent has. Also against tempo decks (rug) if you can sandbag your show and tells and play thought their soft counters you should be fine, and against discard from combo and other decks if you can counter one or hide keycards with brainstorm you should also be fine.
4. Fetch basics and try play around stifle, you don't necessary need red at all during games so if you get stifled that's allright. Also sandbagging your sol-lands is preferrable if possible.
5. Oblivion Ring, Angel of Despair, Detention Sphere and Harmonic Sliver mostly (thalia and gaddog teeg can be painful, if you see those regularly in your meta, you can run Virtue's Ruin in SB). If you run black splash you can hit with t.seize to all hate cards before going off.
6. Personal preference, seeing opponents face when you go 1st turn sol-land and lotus petal into show and tell showing Omniscience and playing free 15/15 flying spaghetti monster. Also this deck is quite constant and can fight win out of nowhere with couple good topdecks and have good plan b (jace).

[phazonmutant]

Personally, I like Thoughtseize. I would run 3 Thoughtseize, with the 4th in the board, and Preordain over Probe. I would also run a full 4 Lotus Petals. Just my style. I think the extra Lotus Petals are crucial given that you are now running a 3-color deck.
...
I like the Therapy / Probe plan, but it is essentially a two card combo, because you have no creatures to flashback Therapy.

Therapy is a great skill-tester in that it's really not necessary to have hand information to be able to strip a relevant card. I initially hated it in ANT, but it overperformed there. So far it's been solid, but that's multiple people arguing for Thoughtseize. Has anyone played with Therapy at all?
The upside for Therapy is that it can hit multiple cards and doesn't cost life.

I tested a bunch of matches against UW Miracles last night, both of reasonably experienced pilots for our decks, and it felt extremely unfavorable. From previous testing, the most realistic way for me to win was Jace (either baiting counters or winning with it). Why has everyone cut Jace? Do you not have any Miracles in your meta?

[Rekk]

Therapy is a great skill-tester in that it's really not necessary to have hand information to be able to strip a relevant card. I initially hated it in ANT, but it overperformed there. So far it's been solid, but that's multiple people arguing for Thoughtseize. Has anyone played with Therapy at all?
The upside for Therapy is that it can hit multiple cards and doesn't cost life.

I tested a bunch of matches against UW Miracles last night, both of reasonably experienced pilots for our decks, and it felt extremely unfavorable. From previous testing, the most realistic way for me to win was Jace (either baiting counters or winning with it). Why has everyone cut Jace? Do you not have any Miracles in your meta?

the reason i play therapy in ant over therapy in omni:
Ant plays 4 probe 3-4 duress 3-4 cabal therapy: this makes it so you have 7-8 ways to look at their hand before cast cabal therapy, you have 9-11 ways to look at their hand if you have 2 cabal therapies. also most the time you can guess easily the card you are naming. force of will ect ect. where as in omni you are scared of alot, oring, cannonist sometimes. force of will may be the proper name but its too diverse.

[Maximus]

Hello and welcome! I try answer as many questions as possible. ->

Thank you, that's exactly what I was going for.

On Team America, I play against combo decks fairly often, which is admittedly in my favor by a good margin. It's becoming increasingly obvious to me that things like Thoughtseize, Force of Will, and the narrow range of other cards that are good against combo are usually not enough. It seems to me anyway that it's better to be the person playing combo and to exploit this situation (assuming that it is correct to begin with), particularly when you can discard or counter your opponent back. To me, this is the best combo deck because it has access to those cards without losing to graveyard hate. I'm sure no one likes to play Theory The Gathering, but it's just been something I've been thinking about for a week or so.

[Final Fortune]

Interesting. I assume you've tested this, could you discuss your results a little bit?

At first glance, here are some downsides I see to Talisman:
1) It's a 2 drop - there is no turn 1 combo and it doesn't really help out the turn 2 combo (if you drop sol land on turn 1 and then drop talisman, you could play a land on turn 2 for Show and Tell. I guess you could turn 1 Sol->Talisman->Cantrip, which would be nice.)
2) It doesn't produce red. If we are running Overmaster, Red Elemental Blast, Pyroblast, and Burning Wish, this is an issue.
3) It isn't 'free' mana off of a Griselbrand. If you draw 7 or draw 14 off of a Griselbrand, sometimes you need free mana for a Show and Tell or Burning Wish.

Does your build run Jace? In a Omni-Tell build going more for the mid-game combo, I think Talisman makes a lot of sense.

I prefer acceleration like Chrome Mox and Talisman of Dominance because there's a smoothe distribution of mana over multiple turns as opposed to a sudden addition of mana on the single turn you try to go off, being a turn two play isn't really an issue because the only other turn two play in the deck is Burning Wish and it actually "recoups" 1 mana the turn you play it so plays like T1 Ponder, T2 Talisman of Dominance, Thought Seize and T3 "Go off" thru' either a Daze or a Spell Pierce with a Talisman of Dominance and 3 land are really common.

Even tho' the deck doesn't have a particularly high mana curve, I think it benefits more from ramping its mana to disregard soft counters.

[Water_Wizard]

I prefer acceleration like Chrome Mox and Talisman of Dominance because there's a smoothe distribution of mana over multiple turns as opposed to a sudden addition of mana on the single turn you try to go off, being a turn two play isn't really an issue because the only other turn two play in the deck is Burning Wish and it actually "recoups" 1 mana the turn you play it so plays like T1 Ponder, T2 Talisman of Dominance, Thought Seize and T3 "Go off" thru' either a Daze or a Spell Pierce with a Talisman of Dominance and 3 land are really common.

Even tho' the deck doesn't have a particularly high mana curve, I think it benefits more from ramping its mana to disregard soft counters.

Thank you. These are very good points. I will consider Talisman of Dominance for future Omni-Tell builds.

Mahalo!

[dameus]

Thank you. These are very good points. I will consider Talisman of Dominance for future Omni-Tell builds.

Mahalo!

Umm, Dimir Signet is a better version of Talisman of Dominance. I'm not necessarily agreeing with 2 CMC artifact acceleration, though.

[Final Fortune]

Umm, Dimir Signet is a better version of Talisman of Dominance. I'm not necessarily agreeing with 2 CMC artifact acceleration, though.

No, it's not, Dimir Signet requires another mana in order to activate it and therefore doesn't immediately offset half of its cost on turn two by allowing you to cantrip or Thoughtseize your opponent immediately.

[xfxf]

I've been testing the black splash version on pre-board games and the deck seems to be favored against all the top decks including RUG. You can just play defense, sculpt a hand, bait extra Burning Wishes to be countered, discard troublesome cards and have one big turn to end the game. I didn't have many occasions where I was able to land an Omniscience but not able to find a finisher.

Do you guys play with this? I don't see many OmniTell decks doing good in Top8s, I'm curious what's holding this deck back. Are the post board games a problem?

[Water_Wizard]

I've been testing the black splash version on pre-board games and the deck seems to be favored against all the top decks including RUG. You can just play defense, sculpt a hand, bait extra Burning Wishes to be countered, discard troublesome cards and have one big turn to end the game. I didn't have many occasions where I was able to land an Omniscience but not able to find a finisher.

Do you guys play with this? I don't see many OmniTell decks doing good in Top8s, I'm curious what's holding this deck back. Are the post board games a problem?

How many top decks did you play with discard? Discard is becoming more and more of an issue.

Post board games are difficult, especially against decks running SDT because they can float their answer and neuter your discard.

I still think Omni-Tell is well positioned in the current meta, but you are correct, it has not been putting up many top finishes. I thought perhaps this was due to underrepresentation. The deck is either underrepresented or is doing so poorly that it isn't making the standings.

[Rekk]

How many top decks did you play with discard? Discard is becoming more and more of an issue.

Post board games are difficult, especially against decks running SDT because they can float their answer and neuter your discard.

I still think Omni-Tell is well positioned in the current meta, but you are correct, it has not been putting up many top finishes. I thought perhaps this was due to underrepresentation. The deck is either underrepresented or is doing so poorly that it isn't making the standings.

I saw lists cutting the black maindeck and playing stifle and some number of sneaks. The sneaks allow you to play off the top. Which you set up with infi cantrips. Thus beating junk minus vindicate, although abrupt decay can't best sneak. Stifles best oring and terminus. Although trick bind has worth against cb and is free with omni.
Sneak weakens the omni plan but having the omni and burning wish does go over the top. We play 3 omni and 3 gris 2-3 emmy and 2 sneaks burning wish is still around , which is weird with sneak but it still makes them counter show and sneak. Sneak also beats oring if you have mana. Makes me wanna find room for a mountain.
Just realized stifle stops jace from bouncing after a show Emmy. This deck has potential we just need some more interest in working on this decks problems. Although I do wonder if this hybrid will eventually end up as sneak with stifles now makin the cut

[Water_Wizard]

Rekk - I like everything you just said, but shouldn't UW be cutting Terminus? I thought UW removed all of their STP, Terminus, and Supreme Verdict in favor of counterspells and O-ring effects (Venser, Humility, D. Sphere, etc.). Game 1 Stifle is valid for Terminus, but games 2-3, I think Terminus should be boarded out. Stifle also has a nice surprise value. Especially if I were on the play, I would Stifle a fetchland. Against a deck like RUG, Stifling their first fetchland is so powerful - it shuts down Daze, Spell Pierce, and delays their beatdown.

I just looked at Joe Bass's UW deck (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=50674) and he may leave 1 Terminus in vs. Omni-Tell.

Given his list, I would -1 Engineered Explosives, -4 Swords to Plowshares, -1 Supreme Verdict, -2 Terminus, (-8 Total), +1 Disenchant, +3 Red Elemental Blast, +1 Spell Pierce, +1 Vendilion Clique, +2 Venser, Shaper Savant (+8 Total). This leaves 1 Terminus main. UW attempts to stop Show and Tell, not to Terminus the creature after it has come into play.

I like Pithing Needle for SDT. The surprise factor of Stifle may be nice. Plus, it keeps us two colors (more stable mana base). But, discard is more effective.

[xfxf]

I tested against Canadian Threshold, BUG Delver, Miracle Control, Esper Stoneblade, ANT and BUG control with creatures. BUG Control was the worst matchup in my experience. Against Miracles Jace helped a lot, also I was able to land Omniscience and then use cantrips+Jace the same turn to draw into a Burning Wish kill. I used to play High Tide so I think I'm used to playing against discard with combo I suppose. I found it easier to recover from discard with OmniTell because of redundancy. Against Esper I was able to win a game where he cast two Inquisitions to take away a S&T and Burning Wish then cast a Vendilion Clique. I hid my stuff from Vendilion Clique with Brainstorm and was able find another Show&Tell in time because the clock wasn't that fast. I would just complete my missing cards for it and build the deck if only it wasn't kind of dull to play :)

[Rekk]

Rekk - I like everything you just said, but shouldn't UW be cutting Terminus? I thought UW removed all of their STP, Terminus, and Supreme Verdict in favor of counterspells and O-ring effects (Venser, Humility, D. Sphere, etc.). Game 1 Stifle is valid for Terminus, but games 2-3, I think Terminus should be boarded out. Stifle also has a nice surprise value. Especially if I were on the play, I would Stifle a fetchland. Against a deck like RUG, Stifling their first fetchland is so powerful - it shuts down Daze, Spell Pierce, and delays their beatdown.

I just looked at Joe Bass's UW deck (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=50674) and he may leave 1 Terminus in vs. Omni-Tell.

Given his list, I would -1 Engineered Explosives, -4 Swords to Plowshares, -1 Supreme Verdict, -2 Terminus, (-8 Total), +1 Disenchant, +3 Red Elemental Blast, +1 Spell Pierce, +1 Vendilion Clique, +2 Venser, Shaper Savant (+8 Total). This leaves 1 Terminus main. UW attempts to stop Show and Tell, not to Terminus the creature after it has come into play.

I like Pithing Needle for SDT. The surprise factor of Stifle may be nice. Plus, it keeps us two colors (more stable mana base). But, discard is more effective.


In this deck the stifle/ trickbind is strictly defensive. with trickbind you can stop them from using a top (to beat a cb lock) and the stifles are to be used much like the discard. don't use it until your about to kill them, except the stifle beats a floated oring with a top. but im not going to claim i know the best direction with this deck, but i would suggest wotc prints tell and show a 2u sorcery that is show and tell but they can't put in oring effects


http://southfloridamagic.com/archives/101612-top-4-legacy-results
http://www.wizards.com/magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/4557253 (i disagree with alot about this list, but also enjoy alot that this list offers) the 2 intuitions seem like a bit much considering the deck now plays 10 business / tutors (burning, show and tell, sneak, intuition ) the living wish and the trop, you don't want to open yourself up to submerge for a card youll never wish for then cast. 4 lotus petals and probes, probes i dont hate since its good information, but we are digging for individual cards. 4 lotus petals is alotttt of petals, although it makes the deck more explosive i feel as though his list is better off as plain sneak maybe with a burning wish.

don't get me wrong i still love the direction.
i want 1 jace just because its that good. and with 4 petals turn one - two jace is possible. i have won a game off of turn 1 jace plus plus plus. (although i shoulda have brainstormed at least a few times.

[Water_Wizard]

Trickbind turns S&T into a 5 cost combo (and this is in a deck running 19 lands).

I don't think people are bringing in Submerge vs. Omni-Tell, so the Trop shouldn't be an issue in that regard.

Thank you for sharing these decks. it is interesting the directions people are heading and the different variations that are appearing.

As Omni-Tell branches out in different directions, we'll see if a dominant configuration emerges.

I wanted to share this link: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/25150-Too-Much-Information-LA-Atlanta-And-Cincy-Legacy-Opens.html It shows that Omni-Tell was about 5% of the field at SCG LA, Cincy, and Atlanta. Omni-Tell won about 56% of its matches, which is a good figure vs. the field (the best decks win slightly under 60% of their matches.) In the words of the Hatfields, "If Omni-Tell can continue to perform like this, it stands well poised to become a key part of the Legacy metagame."

[Rekk]

Trickbind turns S&T into a 5 cost combo (and this is in a deck running 19 lands).
"

Show and tell (2U)
you put in omni
they put in oring
you cast trickbind (free)