Oops, All Spells! (Formerly The Rogue Hermit)

[phazonmutant]

http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/tcg/products/gtc/6ie4ilpo2k_en.jpg http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/tcg/products/gtc/gagqof3lss_en.jpg
Here's a deck idea from the Gatecrash spoilers. There's two "Hermit Druids" in the set, how can we abuse them?

This deck has evolved significantly from the initial list (posted below). There's a great variety of ways to build the deck, and the optimal build is still being discovered.
To the best of my knowledge, this is the most optimal core from among different builds like TallMen+Mox Opal, TallMen+Culling, Tutorless, Land Grant, LED-less.

Core (39):
4 Undercity Informer
3 Balustrade Spy
4 Living Wish
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
3 Kill Cards (e.g. Azami, Lady of Scrolls; Laboratory Maniac; Angel of Glory's Rise)
3 Narcomoeba
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return

In addition to this package, there's a large variety of different cards that you can add. The recommended additions for maximum consistency in turning a man into a kill:
1 Narcomoeba
1 Bridge From Below

This allows you to combo even if a Narcomoeba and another combo piece are in your hand (~5% of games).

The best mana package so far has included:
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Wild Cantor

This package gives you 4 more G Initial Mana Sources and 1 color-fixing source. Because this deck can't run Land Grant, this package is suggested for fixing colors and adding IMSs.

From there, there's a few slots (~6-10) to add more protection, more rituals, or more fixing.
Cards to consider:
Infernal Tutor
Tinder Wall
Rite of Flame
Manamorphose
Cabal Therapy
Pact of Negation
Unmask


My current list:
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual

4 Summoner's Pact
1 Wild Cantor
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Laboratory Maniac
4 Narcomoeba
1 Bridge From Below
1 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy

4 Undercity Informer
3 Balustrade Spy
4 Living Wish
3 Infernal Tutor

// Sideboard
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Swamp
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Balustrade Spy
1 Wild Cantor
1 Ingot Chewer
1 Wispmare
4 Nature's Claim
3 Goblin Charbelcher



-- original post --

I think the best base is Mono-B Belcher (http://manadeprived.com/attacking-back-with-mono-black-in-legacy/). After tweaking a couple of different builds, this seems to be the most consistant:
// Mana
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Mox Opal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Cabal Ritual

// Enablers
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Undercity Informer
4 Infernal Tutor
2 Street Wraith

// Tall Men
4 Phyrexian Walker
4 Shield Sphere
2 Ornithopter

// Combo Pieces
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Laboratory Maniac
3 Narcomoeba
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return

I tried out a build that cut the LEDs and Infernal Tutors for more Street Wraiths and a Land Grant package, but Mox Opal was less consistant and you had to mulligan more to find the combo pieces. This build is a little short on IMSs though.

The raw turn kill numbers (for all the different builds I tested):
1: 6 (29%)
2: 3 (14%)
3: 7 (33%)
4+: 5 (24%)

Keep in mind this was on the play, with untuned lists, and almost certainly poor mulliganing. I feel like the deck has a lot of potential, but I'm not sure where to go from here. Give this list a spin! It's pretty silly.

[.dk]

Another possibility might be Gustha's Scepter (can't take credit for that one - @Wanderlust and I have been discussing how to break these as well). It works well to turn on Mox Opal, as well as allowing you to use LED to generate mana to cast your kill condition. Not exactly sure how to fit it in there - but if there is a way, it might not be awful since this is really a 1 card combo.

One other thing to consider might be to actually run some lands. If you're running Tallmen, you can activate Informer a couple times potentially by saccing them if you end up hitting a land. Haven't figured out quite the right way to do that yet, but there may be something there. This might work better with a Land Grant version and a singleton Bayou or something to be able to run Summoner's Pact and Young Wolf like SI does.

[phazonmutant]

Another possibility might be Gustha's Scepter (can't take credit for that one - @Wanderlust and I have been discussing how to break these as well). It works well to turn on Mox Opal, as well as allowing you to use LED to generate mana to cast your kill condition. Not exactly sure how to fit it in there - but if there is a way, it might not be awful since this is really a 1 card combo.

That's pretty sweet! I suspect that it's not what we want because it means you have to pass the turn, but not unreasonable.


One other thing to consider might be to actually run some lands. If you're running Tallmen, you can activate Informer a couple times potentially by saccing them if you end up hitting a land. Haven't figured out quite the right way to do that yet, but there may be something there. This might work better with a Land Grant version and a singleton Bayou or something to be able to run Summoner's Pact and Young Wolf like SI does.

I did try a build with Land Grant and it definitely wasn't awful. You're right that if you have the 3-drop and extra men you don't have to worry about lands in deck. The way I built it I felt like I had to mulligan more because I didn't have Infernal Tutor to find a kill, but maybe it's still better.
I don't like Summoner's Pact here because it doesn't find the combo pieces.

[emidln]

The issue with Land Grant/Bayou is on hands when you have Spy instead of Informer. Obviously you're finding Informer off Infernal Tutor, but 33% of the time, you have to have drawn a five outer (Land Grants + Bayou). Those aren't miserable odds, but it's a non-zero chance of fizzling as well when you execute perfectly. That said, Informer can easily abuse spare Narcomoebas to get a 2nd flip even without Tall Men. I think the Tall Men are probably necessary to enable Mox Opal though.

[emidln]

Also pretty sure that you need the 4th Narco. Even if you don't draw one, drawing anything else and using Informer leaves you unable to kill your opponent (needing 1 creature for therapy + 3 for dread return) unless you have a tall man.

[Megadeus]

Oh man this deck looks awesome. I definitely will be testing this.

[Ziveeman]

This is what a couple of people and I have been working on. Again, it's pretty untuned.

4 Undercity Informer
4 Balustrade Spy

1 Dread Return
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
4 Narcomoeba

4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Manamorphose
1 Wild Cantor
3 Summoner's Pact
2 Pact of Negation
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Phantasmagorian
1 Cabal Therapy

The colors are certainly a problem, so monoblack certainly has some merit over this list.

[rufus]

One thing I was wondering about is running Fatestitcher or Lingering Souls as a complement to the Narcomoebas. A blue splash also opens up the possibility of playing Transmute Artifact/Reshape -> Lotus Bloom

Diabolic Intent synergizes with the tall man plan.

Since the magic number is :b::3:, Grim Monolith could work for you.

[Greenpoe]

LED looks weak unless you have Infernal. I think -4 LED, -4 Infernal, 2 Street Wraith for +4 Monolith, +4 Diabolic, +2 Pact of Negation could work. Or, going -1 Ornithoper, +1 Skyshrouder Cutter/Elvish Spirit Guide, +2 green Pact depending if you'd want additional Tallmen or additional mana. Phantasmagorian sounds pretty necessary too.

[phazonmutant]

The issue with Land Grant/Bayou is on hands when you have Spy instead of Informer. Obviously you're finding Informer off Infernal Tutor, but 33% of the time, you have to have drawn a five outer (Land Grants + Bayou). Those aren't miserable odds, but it's a non-zero chance of fizzling as well when you execute perfectly. That said, Informer can easily abuse spare Narcomoebas to get a 2nd flip even without Tall Men. I think the Tall Men are probably necessary to enable Mox Opal though.

I tested 43 games with a Land Grant build, and the win distribution was very bimodal. I won 19 games on turn 1, but straight-up lost 13 games because I either tried to go for it without Land Grant'ing for Bayou or because I mulliganed to oblivion and went to turn 5+. So I think pretty conclusively you're right that Land Grant is bad.


Also pretty sure that you need the 4th Narco. Even if you don't draw one, drawing anything else and using Informer leaves you unable to kill your opponent (needing 1 creature for therapy + 3 for dread return) unless you have a tall man.

Yeah, you're absolutely right there.


One thing I was wondering about is running Fatestitcher or Lingering Souls as a complement to the Narcomoebas. A blue splash also opens up the possibility of playing Transmute Artifact/Reshape -> Lotus Bloom

Diabolic Intent synergizes with the tall man plan.

Since the magic number is B3, Grim Monolith could work for you.

Transmute is a very interesting plan. If you could come up with a list and run it through the goldfish a few times, it would be interesting to hear how it performs.
I don't like Grim Monolith over other options because it's only a +1 and you still need to produce B. I think Cabal Ritual and Tinder Wall, possibly even Rite of Flame are better - Cabal Rit because it makes B and the latter 2 because they only cost 1.


LED looks weak unless you have Infernal. I think -4 LED, -4 Infernal, 2 Street Wraith for +4 Monolith, +4 Diabolic, +2 Pact of Negation could work. Or, going -1 Ornithoper, +1 Skyshrouder Cutter/Elvish Spirit Guide, +2 green Pact depending if you'd want additional Tallmen or additional mana. Phantasmagorian sounds pretty necessary too.

You're right that LED kinda sucks without some sort of tutor. Even without tutors, though, it's been useful multiple times for activating Undercity Informer because you only have to get to 2B before playing LED. LED is a powerful-enough effect that I think you want to play a build with Tutors. Also keep in mind that Skyshroud Cutter requires a Forest to cast.

Ziveeman , I like where you're going with your list. I had been working some more on a list before I saw yours, and our lists are actually looking pretty similar. You and .dk are definitely right that Summoner's Pact is very necessary as an IMS, and Manamorphose is pretty necessary to fix mana problems. I really don't like that you're playing fewer than 4 Summoner's Pact; it's been so essential to winning games and multiples are almost never bad. It's either a +1 or a color-fixer with Wild Cantor.

So after goldfishing a whole bunch, here's some data

BG version No Bayou
1 18 (43%)
2 5 (12%)
3 6 (14%)
4+ 5 (12%)
lose 8 (19%)
Mulligans
1 1 2 1 2 4 1 2 4

BG version No Bayou Living Wish
1 20 (38%)
2 13 (25%)
3 5 ( 9%)
4+ 6 (11%)
lose 9 (17%)

I didn't record mulligans very consistantly, or at all for the second list, but it seems like the deck is very capable of mulliganing to 5 or 4 and winning. The format I'm using is if I had to mulligan, I record how many times (mull to 6 = 1). From what it looks like, those numbers are not awful at all, for an untuned deck and an inexperienced pilot.

The versions without Living Wish had LEDs and Tinder Walls. The list I'm currently most satisfied with is this one, essentially based on Pact SI:
// Mana
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
4 Manamorphose

// Enablers
4 Balustrade Spy
3 Undercity Informer
3 Living Wish
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Wild Cantor

// Combo Pieces
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Laboratory Maniac
4 Narcomoeba
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return

// Wishboard
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Undercity Informer
1 Bayou


Living Wish has actually been castable, and while it may look weird to only have 3 in the deck, it may even be not-wrong. There was an article in the Belcher thread by some guy who ran the numbers and it was "correct" for Belcher to only play 3 Burning Wishes (along with 3 Empties and 4 Belchers).

Culling has been very good when I can cast it because it gets +3 black mana, but it's definitely rotted in my hand a fair bit because I don't really have any tall men. There's a ton of awkward lines that I had to do with Wild Cantor and Tinder Wall and Culling.

[Greenpoe]

For G2/G3, you'll see grave hate coming in, so how about using Bitter Ordeal or Charbelcher to dodge the hate postboard? You could have a "transformational" sideboard of sorts, siding out the 9 or so combo pieces (Dread Return + friends) and siding in your new win-con. Charbelcher looks a lot better because it obviously just wins by itself while dodging the hate, while Ordeal means a 2-card combo (although with Ordeal, you could get some funny wins with a gravestorm of just 6 or so vs. decks like ANT, TES, Miracles, Turbo Eldrazi, etc.). If anyone could build a manageable Transmute Artifact/Reshape+Lotus Bloom list, you could grab Belcher off that as well.

For your Wish-board, consider Lab Maniac (in case you run into Leyline or something, you could try and go for the combo + Wish for Maniac to win on your next turn, not ideal but its a thought). Also, Khalni Garden looks slightly better than Dryad Arbor (Arbor can be Wasted, but not a 0/1 token) - I imagine there's some obscure situation where this difference could matter.

[.dk]

We were messing around with this a bit tonight - one thing that might not be terrible if you are running a full compliment of Cabal Therapy is a copy of Bridge from Below. Especially if therapy is your only protection, it can allow you to sac your Narcomoeba's to therapy, and still have zombies to sac to Dread Return.

Our list obviously wasn't tuned either, but here's something else interesting that happened. We were running Land Grants with a Bayou - but managed to cast the Spy to start milling. We weren't totally sure how we would keep going since it wasn't informer... we ended up milling into a couple informers, a couple spies, 2 narcomoeba's, a Bridge from Below, and the singleton Dread Return. If we were running 2 Dread Returns, it would have won on the spot.

So that got me thinking - how reasonable is it to go for a full compliment of Bridges and Dread Returns and just reanimate the Spy a couple times to blow through any lands you might have in your deck?

Just for reference, we were messing with a version that was using Entomb and Reanimate/Exhume as a potentially easier way to get the Spy into play.

[phazonmutant]

We were messing around with this a bit tonight - one thing that might not be terrible if you are running a full compliment of Cabal Therapy is a copy of Bridge from Below. Especially if therapy is your only protection, it can allow you to sac your Narcomoeba's to therapy, and still have zombies to sac to Dread Return.

Our list obviously wasn't tuned either, but here's something else interesting that happened. We were running Land Grants with a Bayou - but managed to cast the Spy to start milling. We weren't totally sure how we would keep going since it wasn't informer... we ended up milling into a couple informers, a couple spies, 2 narcomoeba's, a Bridge from Below, and the singleton Dread Return. If we were running 2 Dread Returns, it would have won on the spot.

So that got me thinking - how reasonable is it to go for a full compliment of Bridges and Dread Returns and just reanimate the Spy a couple times to blow through any lands you might have in your deck?

Just for reference, we were messing with a version that was using Entomb and Reanimate/Exhume as a potentially easier way to get the Spy into play.

Haha, we had come to the same conclusion about Bridge. It's just necessary when you draw a Narc and have a combo piece in hand.

If you can figure out how to fit in Bridges, Dread Returns, and lands, that would be pretty hot. The idea of reanimating spy a bunch is...sweet, awesome, crazy, take your pick.

I tested a few more lists - ones with Simian Spirit Guide, Rite of Flame, ones with the above and no Living Wish, and finally one with Simian Spirit Guide and Living Wish. This so far is the most consistant list I've come up with.

Data:

BGr with Living Wish, 8 Spirit Guides, no Culling
1 24
2 13
3 11
4+ 7
lose 5
Mulligans
1 3 3 1 3 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 1 1 3 1 2 2 1 2 1 2 1 1 3 3 2 2 2 3 2 1 2 3 2
Living Wish Kills
6

// Mana
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
3 Tinder Wall
4 Manamorphose

// Enablers
3 Balustrade Spy
4 Undercity Informer
3 Living Wish
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Wild Cantor

// Combo Pieces
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Laboratory Maniac
4 Narcomoeba
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
1 Bridge from Below

// Wishboard
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Balustrade Spy
1 Bayou

Cutting the Culling for more IMSs is definitely great, and Living Wish has been reasonable. You definitely want the all of the 3-mana guy main because that helps LED be more live.

As far as mulliganing goes (and this may be obvious to everyone but me :rolleyes:), just count the number of "outs" you have to turn the hand into a kill. If it's above 20 on 7, keep, if it's above like 12 on 6-5, keep, otherwise mull. It's helped my mulliganing decisions quite a bit.

[Ziveeman]

I really think Pact of Negation needs to be present in some form maindeck. Force of Will is bonkers against this deck because we don't have a fallback of Empty the Warrens that completely dodges Force (and is the reason why you have to Force of Will Rituals against Belcher, not just the final spell).

With this list below, I have approx ~30% win rate on turn 1, and in addition, approx ~30% of all wins with having one or more Pact of Negations in hand. Even if the deck is a tiny bit slower, I think it's worth it to not be totally dead to a single Force in game 1.

4 Undercity Informer
4 Balustrade Spy

1 Dread Return
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
4 Narcomoeba

1 Cabal Therapy
1 Phantasmagorian

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Chrome Mox

4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Rite of Flame

3 Manamorphose
3 Pact of Negation
3 Gitaxian Probe
1 Wild Cantor

Summoner's Pact is insane in this deck. Ramp or filtering is basically all I wanted.

Now that I have the pacts, the Living Wish version looks appealing, but again, I'm a fan of Pact of Negation maindeck.

As far as the SB goes, I definitely think Belcher + LED (if LED isn't maindeck already) is a good way to go. Perhaps Empty the Warrens too.

[Cybey]

@Ziveeman: Would it be an idea to run a single Dosan the Falling Leaf (sideboard?) to return that to the battlefield as well, so your opponent doesn't have a chance to kill your Maniac? Or isn't that even a problem?

Also you could use Council of Advisors (yes, is Human), Merchant of Secrets (yes, is Human) or Gryff Vanguard instead of Azami, Lady of Scrolls so you will be less sensitive to (for example) Pithing Needle.

[phazonmutant]

I really think Pact of Negation needs to be present in some form maindeck. Force of Will is bonkers against this deck because we don't have a fallback of Empty the Warrens that completely dodges Force (and is the reason why you have to Force of Will Rituals against Belcher, not just the final spell).

With this list below, I have approx ~30% win rate on turn 1, and in addition, approx ~30% of all wins with having one or more Pact of Negations in hand. Even if the deck is a tiny bit slower, I think it's worth it to not be totally dead to a single Force in game 1.
...
As far as the SB goes, I definitely think Belcher + LED (if LED isn't maindeck already) is a good way to go. Perhaps Empty the Warrens too.

I would prefer to just be a faster combo maindeck against the current field full of discard decks, but Pact of Negation is not unreasonable either. It feels like the deck already mulligans a ton, so expecting it to have Pact of Negation with any consistancy seems like it's asking too much, but I'll give your list a shot tomorrow.

For the sideboard, Belcher makes sense, definitely including Pacts if they're not main, and Leyline of Sanctity can be quite good.


So that got me thinking - how reasonable is it to go for a full compliment of Bridges and Dread Returns and just reanimate the Spy a couple times to blow through any lands you might have in your deck?

Just for reference, we were messing with a version that was using Entomb and Reanimate/Exhume as a potentially easier way to get the Spy into play.

Dammit .dk, I need to go to bed! Stop giving me sweet ideas to test! Ran through a few iterations. I didn't have the time to actually compile data, but this list feels pretty reasonable after 15ish goldfishes:
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Narcomoeba
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Dread Return
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Bridge from Below
1 Bayou
4 Land Grant
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
4 Animate Dead
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
2 Exhume
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Wild Cantor
4 Summoner's Pact

It feels inconsistant as hell to basically be going for a 3-card combo - definitely IMS- and "in"-light - but it seems to respond well to mulliganing all the way to 4. I think it's a bit slower than the belcher list, but it kills reasonably consistantly by t3. The cleanup step is clutch.

[Vacrix]

I see this deck going a completely different direction..

You have the option with Informer to sacrifice as many creatures as you choose. That means you can actually play land, as long as you are sure you can activate it multiple times. So... Veteran Explorer looks rather attractive. Forgo Land Grant, play basics that you can fetch out with Explorers, Diabolic Intent, Cabal Therapy, tallmen... it might have fewer turn 1 kills.. but its not like other decks in the format don't already specialize in turn 1 kills without also exposing their entire graveyard. I'd imagine it would be a full turn faster than Dredge, play protection.. and have a better long game against graveyard hate since you can sit on an Informer til you get rid of the hate with, say, a Living Wish toolbox. Playing land gives you time to set up the combo. I want to stress that you don't need to hit your entire graveyard for a deck like this to do ridiculous things. As Emidln was saying, you can pop your Narcomoebas once you mill them to mill more.

Entomb looks like a very versatile tutor. You can turn it into a creature by finding Narcomoeba, a protection spell with Therapy, on occasion find a land in order to mill deeper, Informer if you have Reanimation, and obviously if you play Entomb, you'll want to play at least one Golgari Gravetroll in the case that you want to slow play like Dredge.

[catmint]

Looks like the deck is also loosing to surgical extraction so a different sideboard route and/or Pact of negation (in addition to discard which migth only be cast when the gy is already targetable by extraction) is surely a good idea.

[phazonmutant]

I see this deck going a completely different direction..

You have the option with Informer to sacrifice as many creatures as you choose. That means you can actually play land, as long as you are sure you can activate it multiple times. So... Veteran Explorer looks rather attractive. Forgo Land Grant, play basics that you can fetch out with Explorers, Diabolic Intent, Cabal Therapy, tallmen... it might have fewer turn 1 kills.. but its not like other decks in the format don't already specialize in turn 1 kills without also exposing their entire graveyard. I'd imagine it would be a full turn faster than Dredge, play protection.. and have a better long game against graveyard hate since you can sit on an Informer til you get rid of the hate with, say, a Living Wish toolbox. Playing land gives you time to set up the combo. I want to stress that you don't need to hit your entire graveyard for a deck like this to do ridiculous things. As Emidln was saying, you can pop your Narcomoebas once you mill them to mill more.

Entomb looks like a very versatile tutor. You can turn it into a creature by finding Narcomoeba, a protection spell with Therapy, on occasion find a land in order to mill deeper, Informer if you have Reanimation, and obviously if you play Entomb, you'll want to play at least one Golgari Gravetroll in the case that you want to slow play like Dredge.

I can see how that direction could be quite powerful, but I really don't know how to build it. When I tried putting a list together, I just couldn't fit all the pieces. Do you have a suggested list? I definitely value any insight you have on this deck given how much work you've put into SI.

I was originally proposing a new Belcher (style) deck because that's the most obvious way to take it. Clearly these new cards are powerful, we just have to be smart enough to solve them.

[alphastryk]

Man, this deck is sweet.

I really feel like you need Living Wish to have enough business (well, some tutor at least, and I think thats the most efficient).

[blaat]

Living wish really adds something to the deck.

Aside from tutoring the win condition or SB hate, there's also protection:
Living Wish into Cavern of Souls, makes Spy or Informer uncounterable (and one mana cheaper from the land itself).
From there, it's basically like DDD, play all your therapy's and Dread Return for the maniac pile, with little to no interaction from your opponent.
1-4 bridges would enable enough creatures for the dread return.
OR:
Going all in with 4 bridges net's you 4 zombies per sacrifice to build a big army and win through attacking with a DR-ed Flame-Kin Zealot.

[TheG]

sorry man, why not UB with Mana Severance ??

[alphastryk]

sorry man, why not UB with Mana Severance ??

While that would make the deck more stable, it becomes a 2 card combo instead of 1. It may be correct to play a slower UB shell with more protection, but now you need 2 cards to kill.

[LegacyStudent]

Combo 11
4x Living Wish
4x Undercity Informer
3x Balustrade Spy

Mana Fix 8
4x Manamorphose
4x Wild Cantor

Mana 32
4x Dark Ritual
4x Rite of Flame
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Summoner's Pact
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Lotus Petal
4x Tinder Wall

Deck Dreck 9
4x Narcomeba
1x Dread Return
1x Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1x Laboratory Maniac
1x Angel of Glory's Rise
1x Cabal Therapy

If you go the Belcher-style route you need to combo asap, otherwise you risk losing to random crap like active Deathrite Shaman. Summoner's Pact, Wild Cantor, Manamorphose and Lotus Petal all gives you ways to generate your single black mana (along with saccing LED in response to Living Wish if it comes to that). The list may be more optimal with some number of Chrome Mox in place of Wild Cantors (currently 16 initial mana sources), but I don't think a full set is correct.

[alphastryk]

The list may be more optimal with some number of Chrome Mox in place of Wild Cantors (currently 16 initial mana sources), but I don't think a full set is correct.

I think you definitely want a nonzero # of chrome moxes. Wild Cantor doesn't provide mana by itself, only converts it. My experience so far is that IMSs are your weak point with this deck, and cannot imagine not plays 3+ Chrome Mox.

[Koby]

LED easily corrects the problem that combo pieces are stuck in hand for Dread Return setup, and at the same time removes the need for multiple Cabal Therapy to get them into the yard. I can definitely dig it. Only concern is that using it makes the deck super soft to Force of Will.

Does LegacyStudent's list want/need any Chrome Mox to further provide IMS? Reading is tech.

[LegacyStudent]

The issue with simply adding more IMS is that the deck also needs a black source to be able to cast the wincon.... so you need both an IMS AND a black source in your hand. Currently the count stands at 16 for both, (90.08% of opening with at least 1 in hand) so I'm not convinced cutting black sources for IMS improves turn 1 consistency. There is the situation where LED counts as a black source when you are casting Living Wish though, so technically the black source percentage is actually slightly higher than 90.08%. You might be able to get away with cutting a Cantor... an alternative might instead be cutting a Dark Ritual or Tinder Wall for Chrome Mox. I haven't crunched the percentages on average mana generated per hand, but it might be correct to boost IMS count that way.

[rufus]

Does Avenging Druid make any sense here?

Perhaps something like:

4 Lotus Petal
4 Mox Opal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Undercity Informer
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
3 Ornithopter
2 Phyrexian Walker
2 Culling the Weak
2 Grim Monolith
1 Dread Return
4 Narcomoeba
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
3 Avenging Druid

[phazonmutant]

The issue with simply adding more IMS is that the deck also needs a black source to be able to cast the wincon.... so you need both an IMS AND a black source in your hand. Currently the count stands at 16 for both, (90.08% of opening with at least 1 in hand) so I'm not convinced cutting black sources for IMS improves turn 1 consistency. There is the situation where LED counts as a black source when you are casting Living Wish though, so technically the black source percentage is actually slightly higher than 90.08%. You might be able to get away with cutting a Cantor... an alternative might instead be cutting a Dark Ritual or Tinder Wall for Chrome Mox. I haven't crunched the percentages on average mana generated per hand, but it might be correct to boost IMS count that way.

Compared to my list, you've cut Cabal Ritual for Rite of Flame. With the 8(+4) Spirit Guides, I've usually been able to make the colorless part of Cabal Ritual, or just as often pin it under Chrome Mox. I did test a list with Rite of Flame, and I'm pretty sure that the one I posted above is the "fastest" that I've seen / tested.

There's definitely arguments to be made for a slower combo, either with Veteran Explorer, Reanimates, or Mana Severance, but under the premise that this deck is another variation of SI in that it's all-in and very, very fast, I think it's actually a pretty solid contender.


Does Avenging Druid make any sense here?

I think I prefer Living Wish over Avenging Druid because even though it requires more mana, it doesn't require a guy to connect the next turn. I'm also skeptical of the Tall Men-Culling manabase. I just don't think that it works consistently better than a Spirit Guide-Pact-Manamorphose manabase, but I haven't tested that Grim Monolith version, to be fair.


LED easily corrects the problem that combo pieces are stuck in hand for Dread Return setup, and at the same time removes the need for multiple Cabal Therapy to get them into the yard. I can definitely dig it. Only concern is that using it makes the deck super soft to Force of Will.

Yeah, this deck pretty much packs it in to BUG with Force maindeck. It seems like it should rebuild pretty well after 1 Force, though. There's a strong argument to be made for Pact of Negations out of the board because it stops Force if you're not going for Living Wish and Surgical if you didn't have to crack LED (so that excludes some kills with the Undercity Informer). Another good suggestion post-board is Goblin Charbelcher. Not sure if that requires boarding in more mana sources or not.

[nudon]

Here's my list. It wins on turn 1 pretty consistently.
http://deckstats.net/deck-1858360-9c22d336571fb2e3328ef3a7126abc64.html

LED + Living Wish/Infernal Tutor gives you 15 win-cons.
Summoner's Pact fetches ESG or wild cantor.
Progenitus off the board to be pitched to chrome mox in an emergency. Also good against show and tell.
Mimeoplasm kill dodges swords, bolt, stifle, etc.

Edit: Carrion Feeder = Informer
Bloodghast = Spy

[phazonmutant]

nudon, I was skeptical because Manamorphose has been so good for me, but your list looks very reasonable too. Having additional black spells to pin under Chrome Mox is great, although Infernal really requires LED in hand. I only tested 15 games or so, so I can't really say which list is better.

I really think that a Bridge from Below in the main is necessary. It allows you to still kill when you have to get Informer and there's a Narc and a combo piece in hand. Maybe I'm playing too scared, but I'm dubious that the 16th kill card is going to make that much of a difference.

As far as the kill goes, the Cephalid Breakfast thread I'm sure has debated the pros and cons of each kill to death. The Lab Man kill can respond to a Plow by just tapping another wizard and gets around Leyline of Sanctity, but the Mimeoplasm kill is very reasonable too.

[gkraigher]

You must have 1 bridge from below and 2 cabal therapies in the deck.

1 Bridge allows you to sacrifice narcomebia to cabal therapy to target yourself for cards you need for the combo, sitting in your hand.

The best human card drawer for this deck is alchemist's apprentice. Its the only 2 CC human that says draw a card.

[nudon]

nudon, I was skeptical because Manamorphose has been so good for me, but your list looks very reasonable too. Having additional black spells to pin under Chrome Mox is great, although Infernal really requires LED in hand. I only tested 15 games or so, so I can't really say which list is better.

I really think that a Bridge from Below in the main is necessary. It allows you to still kill when you have to get Informer and there's a Narc and a combo piece in hand. Maybe I'm playing too scared, but I'm dubious that the 16th kill card is going to make that much of a difference.

As far as the kill goes, the Cephalid Breakfast thread I'm sure has debated the pros and cons of each kill to death. The Lab Man kill can respond to a Plow by just tapping another wizard and gets around Leyline of Sanctity, but the Mimeoplasm kill is very reasonable too.

After some more tweaking, here's my updated list:
Balustrade Spy = Bloodghast, Undercity Informer = Carrion Feeder
http://deckstats.net/deck-1859003-ca2d6686de5fda82ec7434947e8ba1e7.html

I agree that having that 1 Bridge instead of the 4 Narc helps. The second therapy (can also sac Balustrade Spy) is nice for protection and getting extra cards out of hand too.

I like Wild Cantor more than Manamorphose because I really want to know if I should mull or not. I'll always mull if there is no win-con in my opening 7, usually 6 too depending on my hand.

Edit: Chrome Mox also helps you get rid of that extra inferno tutor/informer/spy/narc/wish in your hand to go hellbent.

[Fatal]

As protection I would think about oldschool Unmask then Force of Will.

[laststepdown]

I would like to think Entomb, Shallow Grave, and even a single Griselbrand (to draw 7 if you're short on mana) would give a fighting chance in this deck. Why only one Cabal Therapy?

[alphastryk]

Why only one Cabal Therapy?

Cabal Therapy is not being used as protection here, but as a way to discard an extra combo piece stuck in your hand.

[MaximumC]

Cabal Therapy is not being used as protection here, but as a way to discard an extra combo piece stuck in your hand.

It can be used as protection, of course. If the opponent is stupid enough to let you combo out thinking they will disrupt you after the fact, you just sac a duder to strip the answer out of their hand before you Dread Return. And, on the play, you can hit Force of Will or Spinal Tap, depending on the deck.

[Koby]

I like the possibility of using Unmask as a free disruption spell that can also be used to imprint Mox when it's dead. At this point, I think designing the deck to be able to beat a non-Threshold blue deck would be the goal.

[Upstate Jimmy]

I've been interested in this deck ever since I saw a brew abusing it posted in Adam Prosak's thread. This was before Balustrade Spy was spoiled, so the deck didn't feature it, but I've had good results testing with it. Here's what I'm currently working with.


Kill Conditions:

4x Balustrade Spy
3x Undercity Informer
1x Goblin Charbelcher

Mana:
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Manamorphose
4x Lotus Petal
4x Chrome Mox
4x Lions Eye Diamond
4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual

Tutor:
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Living Wish

Combo:
4x Narcoameoba
1x Angel of Glory's Rise
1x Lab Maniac
1x Dread Return
1x Azami Lady of Scrolls
1x Bridge from Below
1x Phantasmagorian
2x Cabal Therapy


I really like the Charbelcher plan as an alternate kill con, and in my testing with the deck sans spy, it was a very relevant interaction, (For those interested, the Spyless Deck was -4 Spy -1 Bridge -1 Therapy +4 Gitaxian Probe +2 Street Wraith).

I haven't tested out the Summoners Pact package yet, but I am interested in it.

I plan on testing this against RUG Delver, Fish, and UW Stoneblade. The Spyless version performed well against Deadguy Ale, and passably against miracles.

Any feedback is appreciated.

[nudon]

Here's the updated deck I've been tinkering with (Carrion Feeder = Informer, Bloodghast = Spy):

http://deckstats.net/deck-1861018-a52ab8c9889753acf8299deae23367e1.html

Maindeck Pact of Negations give you a fighting chance against FoW. Turn 1 combo kill % very high. The only very rare case when 2 combo cards in hand is a problem is 2 of the 3 narcs are stuck. Even then, you can still combo out with Balustrade Spy.

SB:
1 Bloodghast - Tutored with wish
1 Cavern of Souls - Tutored with wish
2 Cabal Therapy - Great against control and works with combo
2 Pact of Negation - To fight blue
4 Leyline of Sanctity - Protection from discard and possibly storm
3 Abrupt Decay - Utility to deal with deathrite shaman, scavenging ooze, rest in peace, etc.
2 Nature's Claim - Utility and to deal with leyline of the void, rest in peace

Edit: Replace the Pact of Negations MD and SB with Unmasks
- Creates black mana with Chrome Mox
- Helps Infernal Tutor get Hellbent by pitching extra infernal tutors/informers/spies

http://deckstats.net/deck-1861376-5c44908601423151b0b7da5af78f80ae.html

[gkraigher]

Alchemist's Refuge vs Azami, Lady of Scrolls

refuge is castable and lets you draw a card.

azami, lady of scrolls lets you get around a swords to plowshare that would otherwise cost you the game. you can tap both azami and lab maniac in response. refuge will kill you if your opponent swords maniac in response.

for that reason, i would assume 1 azami should be in the board.


Why is Phantasmagorian being included in this deck? seems like cabal therapy is a lot more versatile, and with 1 bridge from below and 4 narcomebias you should be fine.

[catmint]

Never played combo so suggestions might be stupid...

1) Instead of Living Wish for creature (6 Mana) wouldn't it better to play maindeck charbelcher (7 mana). Also alternative to GY kill...

2) instead of multiple cabal therapy, wouldnt Pact of Negation maineck be better since it is free and can hit also extraction, removal and whatever else might stop you? Also it seems like some black cards won't be needed in multiples so the 1st unmask looks better than the 2nd cabal therapy.

3) Normal/Reactive sideboard cards (decay, red-blast, xantid swarm) like in combo where you have lands might not be playable - in general it feels you cannot side a lot. If people in G2 think their FoW or GY hate will save the day, is there a transformational SB possible which dodges this hate? (Empty the warrens, spanish inquisition stuff, multiple mini tendrils)

[alekill]

Talking to my friend who plays SI he is saying we need to run deathrite shaman so that we summoners pact for it and imprint it on our chrome moxen so that there are more initial black mana sources.

I am going through sample hands of nudon's list and I have to agree.

[Upstate Jimmy]

So far I've been digging Manamorphose quite a bit in the deck. Turning Spirit Guides into black mana is awesome, and that it cycles is just gravy. I'm Also a big fan of running the 1 Belcher Main Deck, and putting 3 in the side. Still figuring out side board though. The one change I made to the list I posted is cutting the Phantasmagorian for the 3rd therapy, which I'm quite happy about. I'll update you all on how matches turn out after testing.

[Greenpoe]

1) Instead of Living Wish for creature (6 Mana) wouldn't it better to play maindeck charbelcher (7 mana). Also alternative to GY kill...


This sounds like a really good idea, since it'd free up SB space (i.e., SB Belchers being maindeck=+4 slots, and +1 slot from not having to SB the rogue), and gives you the full 8 Informers MD, and gives you a "plan B" in the main.

[nudon]

Never played combo so suggestions might be stupid...

1) Instead of Living Wish for creature (6 Mana) wouldn't it better to play maindeck charbelcher (7 mana). Also alternative to GY kill...

2) instead of multiple cabal therapy, wouldnt Pact of Negation maineck be better since it is free and can hit also extraction, removal and whatever else might stop you? Also it seems like some black cards won't be needed in multiples so the 1st unmask looks better than the 2nd cabal therapy.

3) Normal/Reactive sideboard cards (decay, red-blast, xantid swarm) like in combo where you have lands might not be playable - in general it feels you cannot side a lot. If people in G2 think their FoW or GY hate will save the day, is there a transformational SB possible which dodges this hate? (Empty the warrens, spanish inquisition stuff, multiple mini tendrils)

1. 1 mana makes a BIG difference in this deck since only dark ritual and LED generate more than 1 extra mana (unlikely to hit threshold with cabal ritual). Belcher can't be pitched to chrome mox, meaning it's dead in multiples. Also, belcher requires 4 mana up front before you can activate LED instead of 2 (very important). Belcher doesn't play well with summoner's pact either. Lastly, you don't need an alternate kill game 1. The only benefits I can think of are ~2 extra SB slots and it's colorless (fairly irrelevant since you have so many green sources and wild cantor/manamorphose).
2. The cabal therapy allows you to sac narcomoebas, tokens from bridge, and/or balustrade spy to get combo cards out of your hand. It doubles as protection and can be pitched to chrome mox for black mana or unmask. I can see pact of negation being ok but not worth it for me considering it might stop you from getting hellbent for tutor and you don't need blue mana.
3. Don't know but things I can think of are empty the warrens, belcher, and dare I say even hive mind.


Talking to my friend who plays SI he is saying we need to run deathrite shaman so that we summoners pact for it and imprint it on our chrome moxen so that there are more initial black mana sources.

I am going through sample hands of nudon's list and I have to agree.

Thanks for trying my list. :) Deathrite shaman (odious trow before) also doubles as an extra utility body in SI. This deck can't really do that because we don't have lands. Mana fixing is important so you can stick a Progenitus in the deck if you want to go down that route. However, it's unlikely you'll have a summoner's pact and no spirit guides, lotus petals, and spare black cards (to pitch to chrome mox).

[Upstate Jimmy]

So in gold fishing with my list, I've discovered that you always want to mull to black mana. The deck is so threat dense that, if you can assemble the mana, getting a threat shouldn't be a problem. Drawing into a proper sequence of mana cards, however, is a far dicier proposition. With that in mind, ALWAYS imprint a black card on Chrome Mox (at least the first one), as not being able to cast Infernal Tutor/Rituals is way too big a liability.

Another play I've really liked is living wishing for Cavern of souls, if you have a threat already in hand. It gives you a permanent mana source, (something this deck loves) and allows you to thumb your nose at counter magic.

I also remain an advocate of 1x Charbelcher in the main. This deck's combo folds to an active Deathrite Shaman, and having a MD out is something really important IMO.

As for results, so far my list has about a 33% T1 kill rate in goldfishing, with kills coming by T4 at the latest.

Still working on a SB. So far I have 3x Charbelcher, 1x Therapy 1x Swamp, 1x Cavern of Souls and 1x Informer with 8 slots to spare. Cards I'm considering are Gitaxian Probe, Pyroclasm, Abrupt Decay, Leyline of Sanctity, Dismember, Leyline of the Void and Angel of Despair (To get cute with living wish vs. Show and Tell).

I'm curious if anyone has goldfished or played post board games with the Rogue Deck and, if so, what they chose to take out and how well the deck performed.

[Dessyreqt]

Has Hapless Researcher been considered? Pre-combo, he's basically U: draw a card and will help you get to your win conditions, post combo, he's a human and a wizard and each one represents an additional 2 attempts at winning the game in response to something.

Maybe it's overkill, I don't know.

[laststepdown]

Personally I would just run more Cabal Therapies than Phantasmagorian. If you don't want to run any free disruption for some odd reason, Phantasmagorian gets *all* the combo pieces out of your hand if necessary. Other than that, Therapy has much more utility outright. I've tested a little of my Shallow Grave build, it's actually decent if they counter your druid. Entomb has also been cheaper than Living Wish to tutor with. Personally, I don't mind running 3 or up to 4 Therapy, and a single Phantasmagorian as I run Entomb.

[phazonmutant]

Never played combo so suggestions might be stupid...

1) Instead of Living Wish for creature (6 Mana) wouldn't it better to play maindeck charbelcher (7 mana). Also alternative to GY kill...

2) instead of multiple cabal therapy, wouldnt Pact of Negation maineck be better since it is free and can hit also extraction, removal and whatever else might stop you? Also it seems like some black cards won't be needed in multiples so the 1st unmask looks better than the 2nd cabal therapy.

3) Normal/Reactive sideboard cards (decay, red-blast, xantid swarm) like in combo where you have lands might not be playable - in general it feels you cannot side a lot. If people in G2 think their FoW or GY hate will save the day, is there a transformational SB possible which dodges this hate? (Empty the warrens, spanish inquisition stuff, multiple mini tendrils)

Those are good questions. I tested with Belcher as opposed to Living Wish and/or Infernal Tutor and it was very difficult to fire. nudon makes several other good points.

I'm not sure what the best protection suite is. Pact of Negation makes sense to me though.

Transforming to Tomb of Urami and a pile of Dread Returns might be a way to hybridize a SI board plan with the main plan. That way you can attempt to Dread Return the Spy if you hit an Urami. Sounds pretty bad, though.

----

So overall thoughts:
- The deck definitely seems to want at least 12-16 business spells, including some sort of tutor and LED package.
- The 8 Spirit Guide + 4 Pact plan seems most consistant in getting IMSs

It seems where people are still working is primarily the sideboard, but also what combination of Living Wish and Infernal Tutor is correct and whether the deck needs Manamorphose or Tinder Wall.

As far as Deathrite Shaman goes, I haven't had a problem with colors when playing with 4 Manamorphose, but that's definitely a reasonable consideration. For the most part I've found Wild Cantor to be just fine at fixing colors.

One last thing - the deck name! It sucks, sorry about that. But a friend came up with an awesome suggestion:

HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN

[GradStudentGuy]

Those are good questions. I tested with Belcher as opposed to Living Wish and/or Infernal Tutor and it was very difficult to fire. nudon makes several other good points.

I'm not sure what the best protection suite is. Pact of Negation makes sense to me though.

Transforming to Tomb of Urami and a pile of Dread Returns might be a way to hybridize a SI board plan with the main plan. That way you can attempt to Dread Return the Spy if you hit an Urami. Sounds pretty bad, though.

----

So overall thoughts:
- The deck definitely seems to want at least 12-16 business spells, including some sort of tutor and LED package.
- The 8 Spirit Guide + 4 Pact plan seems most consistant in getting IMSs

It seems where people are still working is primarily the sideboard, but also what combination of Living Wish and Infernal Tutor is correct and whether the deck needs Manamorphose or Tinder Wall.

As far as Deathrite Shaman goes, I haven't had a problem with colors when playing with 4 Manamorphose, but that's definitely a reasonable consideration. For the most part I've found Wild Cantor to be just fine at fixing colors.

One last thing - the deck name! It sucks, sorry about that. But a friend came up with an awesome suggestion:

HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN

I am almost 100% certain that Manamorphose is required. You only have 8 IMS of black in the deck which is really low. At least 20% of my hands would have changed a loss into a win if I had that card . It also gives you more live draws to get black mana. 12 vs 8 is huge. The only question is what needs to be cut for it. I have also been toying with unmask as a discard spell. Its can protect your combo or kick the key cards out of your hand. It also does not require an IMS.

Also if you want a different name why not try Snaps . It is a breakfast Cereal after all. I could live with the name Breakfast Snaps since it is a faster version of the breakfast combo.

[Megadeus]

57th street Rogue Dog Villains

[nudon]

Those are good questions. I tested with Belcher as opposed to Living Wish and/or Infernal Tutor and it was very difficult to fire. nudon makes several other good points.

I'm not sure what the best protection suite is. Pact of Negation makes sense to me though.

Transforming to Tomb of Urami and a pile of Dread Returns might be a way to hybridize a SI board plan with the main plan. That way you can attempt to Dread Return the Spy if you hit an Urami. Sounds pretty bad, though.

----

So overall thoughts:
- The deck definitely seems to want at least 12-16 business spells, including some sort of tutor and LED package.
- The 8 Spirit Guide + 4 Pact plan seems most consistant in getting IMSs

It seems where people are still working is primarily the sideboard, but also what combination of Living Wish and Infernal Tutor is correct and whether the deck needs Manamorphose or Tinder Wall.

As far as Deathrite Shaman goes, I haven't had a problem with colors when playing with 4 Manamorphose, but that's definitely a reasonable consideration. For the most part I've found Wild Cantor to be just fine at fixing colors.

One last thing - the deck name! It sucks, sorry about that. But a friend came up with an awesome suggestion:

HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN

Infernal tutor is definitely the worse win-con in the deck because it's conditional (requires LED or god hand) so I cut 2. I started testing with street wraith and like it a lot. It lets you play a 56 card deck, pitches to chrome mox for black mana, and doesn't require any initial mana investment like manamorphose. Here's my current list. I put my unmasks in the SB because I think it's important to be fast game 1 before deathrite shaman/scavenging ooze becomes a problem. Lastly, I'd much rather play Wild Cantor before Manamorphose. Red mana from Tinder wall is really bad...

//Gatecrash Cards
4 Undercity Informer
3 Balustrade Spy

//Mana Fix with Pact
1 Wild Cantor

//Mana Generation
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual

//Draw & Tutors
2 Infernal Tutor
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Living Wish
4 Street Wraith

//Protection
2 Cabal Therapy

//Combo
3 Narcomoeba
1 Bridge from Below
1 Dread Return
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls

//Sideboard
1 Balustrade Spy
1 Cavern of Souls
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Unmask
3 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Dismember
2 Nature's Claim
1 Karakas
1 Bojuka Bog

[gkraigher]

Nudon,

I like your version of the deck, although I think you need the 4th narcomebia to insure going off. If you have 1 narcomebia in hand and use undercity informer, you only have 2 creatures.

I hate to bring this up, due to the $$$ cost of the card, but would grim tutor be better than infernal tutor?

Another thing,

Sutured Ghoul
Dragons Breath
vs.
Azami, Lady of Scrolls
Lab Maniac
Angel of Glory Rise

The two cards frees up a slot maindeck. The three cards gets around 1 swords to plowshares or 1 abrupt decay.

[MaximumC]

Nudon,

I like your version of the deck, although I think you need the 4th narcomebia to insure going off. If you have 1 narcomebia in hand and use undercity informer, you only have 2 creatures.

I hate to bring this up, due to the $$$ cost of the card, but would grim tutor be better than infernal tutor?

Another thing,

Sutured Ghoul
Dragons Breath
vs.
Azami, Lady of Scrolls
Lab Maniac
Angel of Glory Rise

The two cards frees up a slot maindeck. The three cards gets around 1 swords to plowshares or 1 abrupt decay.

Hah, look out, The Mana Drain is leaking.

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=44954.30

I'm actually very fascinated by the differences between the Vintage and Legacy versions of this build. Legacy, not having access to the Power Nine, seems to be taking a more LED + Tutor approach to the thing. Vintage is eschewing that in favor of superior acceleration. The neat thing that both decks actually compete against largely the same hate. I wonder which one will end up the better deck...?

[Namida]

I started testing with street wraith and like it a lot. It lets you play a 56 card deck, pitches to chrome mox for black mana, and doesn't require any initial mana investment like manamorphose.

"56-card deck" cards are awful, *especially* in glass cannons. Whatever benefits you're getting from playing "less than 60 cards" are outweighed by the fact that mulligan decisions are harder with cards in your deck that are effectively mystery cards in your opening hand. In a deck that is as opening hand dependant as this one, I think "56-card deck" and "pitches to Chrome Mox" aren't good enough reasons to include this in a deck over a card that actually does something, given the drawback of making it that much harder to do evaluate what is the most important decision in a deck like this.

[nudon]

Nudon,

I like your version of the deck, although I think you need the 4th narcomebia to insure going off. If you have 1 narcomebia in hand and use undercity informer, you only have 2 creatures.

I hate to bring this up, due to the $$$ cost of the card, but would grim tutor be better than infernal tutor?

Another thing,

Sutured Ghoul
Dragons Breath
vs.
Azami, Lady of Scrolls
Lab Maniac
Angel of Glory Rise

The two cards frees up a slot maindeck. The three cards gets around 1 swords to plowshares or 1 abrupt decay.

Thanks gkraigher. Actually, bridge from below will generate 2 tokens from the 2 narcomoebas that hit the graveyard and you'll still be able to combo off. The only scenario it becomes problematic is if you have 2 narc/bridge in hand. Even then, there are quite a few outs: combo with wish/tutor/spy or pass turn on the draw to discard bridge.

I haven't tested grim tutor but I imagine it being worse than infernal tutor because 1 mana makes a big difference. An alternative to grim tutor would be transmuting dimir house guard if someone wanted to try that.

I think 1 extra slot in the deck is more than worth it to dodge swords, decay, maze, moat, humility, etc.

[nudon]

"56-card deck" cards are awful, *especially* in glass cannons. Whatever benefits you're getting from playing "less than 60 cards" are outweighed by the fact that mulligan decisions are harder with cards in your deck that are effectively mystery cards in your opening hand. In a deck that is as opening hand dependant as this one, I think "56-card deck" and "pitches to Chrome Mox" aren't good enough reasons to include this in a deck over a card that actually does something, given the drawback of making it that much harder to do evaluate what is the most important decision in a deck like this.

I actually agree with you on this. The problem is there aren't really that many good options to fill out the rest of the deck. I'm not a fan of manamorphose for the same logic. Unmask and infernal tutor #3 and 4 are often dead when you have any of your other kill options in hand.

Edit: my previous build was -4 street wraith, +2 infernal tutor, +2 unmask fyi.

[Namida]

I actually agree with you on this. The problem is there aren't really that many good options to fill out the rest of the deck. I'm not a fan of manamorphose for the same logic. Unmask and infernal tutor #3 and 4 are often dead when you have any of your other kill options in hand.

Edit: my previous build was -4 street wraith, +2 infernal tutor, +2 unmask fyi.

The 56-card deck idea as I understand it is that you want to play free cards in your deck to gain a higher ratio of high-impact cards, but I think that this is the sort of thing that only makes any sense when you've maxed out on high-impact cards. I don't think you've maxed out on the number of high-impact cards in your deck.

In any case...To me, it is unacceptable to lose from mulliganing a hand with Street Wraith in it or from keeping a sketchy hand and praying that Street Wraith becomes what you need it to be.

If I must lose some games due to my deck's construction, I would rather lose because I built my deck to be as redundant as possible and ended up drawing redundant copies of cards like Unmask and Infernal Tutor that actually have a function in my deck. I don't want to lose because I added Street Wraith and blinded myself from actually seeing what my opening seven looks like--and for what? To affect the deck's construction in ways that shouldn't matter (you never want Street Wraith in your opening hand and you hope that you rarely if ever have to actually play Magic against your opponent and be in a situation where your library's threat ratio would matter). Making your deck less consistent by removing actual game-ending threats like Infernal Tutor for the sake of playing cards that are effectively a crapshoot in cardboard form is the wrong way to go, in my mind. I think it is important to know what your cards do in a deck that aims to use basically its entire opening hand to win ASAP.

[nudon]

The 56-card deck idea as I understand it is that you want to play free cards in your deck to gain a higher ratio of high-impact cards, but I think that this is the sort of thing that only makes any sense when you've maxed out on high-impact cards. I don't think you've maxed out on the number of high-impact cards in your deck.

In any case...To me, it is unacceptable to lose from mulliganing a hand with Street Wraith in it or from keeping a sketchy hand and praying that Street Wraith becomes what you need it to be.

If I must lose some games due to my deck's construction, I would rather lose because I built my deck to be as redundant as possible and ended up drawing redundant copies of cards like Unmask and Infernal Tutor that actually have a function in my deck. I don't want to lose because I added Street Wraith and blinded myself from actually seeing what my opening seven looks like--and for what? To affect the deck's construction in ways that shouldn't matter (you never want Street Wraith in your opening hand and you hope that you rarely if ever have to actually play Magic against your opponent and be in a situation where your library's threat ratio would matter). Making your deck less consistent by removing actual game-ending threats like Infernal Tutor for the sake of playing cards that are effectively a crapshoot in cardboard form is the wrong way to go, in my mind. I think it is important to know what your cards do in a deck that aims to use basically its entire opening hand to win ASAP.

Thanks for the input. After some more thought, I think my original list of +2 infernal tutor, +2 unmask, -4 street wraith is better as you suggest. Chrome mox and unmask mitigates having redundant copies of win-cons. Unmask also helps me get closer to hellbent too. Also can't say enough about unmasking a FoW.

[metamet]

What's the reason for playing Street Wraith > Gitaxian Probe? Uncounterability?

[alphastryk]

What's the reason for playing Street Wraith > Gitaxian Probe? Uncounterability?

More importantly, I would think, it makes black with Chrome Mox.

Any thoughts on using Chancellor of the Tangle as another green IMS? I'd forgotten about it, but Carsten mentioned it in his list on SCG today.

[Megadeus]

I did like his kill condition. It is a little bit more compact than the lab maniac kill.

[rufus]

...
Any thoughts on using Chancellor of the Tangle as another green IMS? I'd forgotten about it, but Carsten mentioned it in his list on SCG today.

It's pretty dead as a top-deck or free-trip, so it really only makes sense if you're going with the all-in turn 1 game plan. SSG might be a better choce.

[jrw1985]

So, Hermit Druid is going to be unbanned now, right?

[Upstate Jimmy]

My personal pet name for the deck is "Captain Hammer" because Captain Hammer is a jerk, and you are kind of being one when you play with this deck and win on T1 (But a man's got to do what a man's got to do........).

Nudon, I really like your SB, especially the bojuka bog and the karakas. Have you considered putting a swamp in there? I ask because I currently have one in my wish board, and it's actually been fairly relevant in helping me go off. For reference, this is what I'm currently working with.

Kill Conditions:
4x Balustrade Spy
3x Undercity Informer
1x Goblin Charbelcher
Mana:
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Manamorphose
4x Lotus Petal
4x Chrome Mox
4x Lions Eye Diamond
4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
Tutor:
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Living Wish
Combo:
4x Narcoameoba
1x Angel of Glory's Rise
1x Lab Maniac
1x Dread Return
1x Azami Lady of Scrolls
1x Bridge from Below
3x Cabal Therapy (Doubles as Protection)

SB:
1x Swamp
1x Cavern of Souls
3x Goblin Charbelcher
1x Undercity Informer
9x?


So far in gold fishing, the list wins 90% of the time by T3 50% of the time on T1. I've said it already on this thread, but I think the essential thing required to play this deck right is to mull to black mana. With LED lists like mine and Nudon's, you are incredibly threat dense, so as long as you can assemble the mana, you should be able to go off.



Going to experiment with running Summoners Pact + Cantor Over Manamorphose and perhaps shaving a Narcoameoba. So far manamorphose has been quite good to me, but I'm curious whether the Summoners pacts make the list faster. How's unmask been working out in everyone's testing?

Happy Hammering!

[Darkenslight]

I think the deck's name should be "PSYCH!" because it's the demented bastard offspring of Dredge and Belcher.

In addition, is there any potential in playing Mox Opal in some quantity (probably 1-2)?

[Eldar]

I don't know how relevant it is, but if you are looking for a swamp in the board why not just play Cabal Pit, it still taps for black and in a bind can kill canonist, jailer, teeg, thalia, other hatebears. As another aside also, if worrying about hatebears you can play Haakon and Inversion to get around it

[phazonmutant]

Going to experiment with running Summoners Pact + Cantor Over Manamorphose and perhaps shaving a Narcoameoba. So far manamorphose has been quite good to me, but I'm curious whether the Summoners pacts make the list faster. How's unmask been working out in everyone's testing?

Happy Hammering!

I've been happy with Manamophose, especially in lists that run Tinder Wall. It seems like a lot of the more recent lists just don't have enough mana. Summoner's Pact has been amazing as both an IMS and a color-fixer, I think it's a must-include.

Shaving a Narc is really bad idea. There's a ton of cards you don't want to draw, and having only 3 Narcs will greatly increase your chances of not being able to kill by dropping a grinder. Cutting a Bridge would be the first thing to shave if you wanted to shave the kill conditions.


The 56-card deck idea as I understand it is that you want to play free cards in your deck to gain a higher ratio of high-impact cards, but I think that this is the sort of thing that only makes any sense when you've maxed out on high-impact cards. I don't think you've maxed out on the number of high-impact cards in your deck.

In any case...To me, it is unacceptable to lose from mulliganing a hand with Street Wraith in it or from keeping a sketchy hand and praying that Street Wraith becomes what you need it to be.

If I must lose some games due to my deck's construction, I would rather lose because I built my deck to be as redundant as possible and ended up drawing redundant copies of cards like Unmask and Infernal Tutor that actually have a function in my deck. I don't want to lose because I added Street Wraith and blinded myself from actually seeing what my opening seven looks like--and for what? To affect the deck's construction in ways that shouldn't matter (you never want Street Wraith in your opening hand and you hope that you rarely if ever have to actually play Magic against your opponent and be in a situation where your library's threat ratio would matter). Making your deck less consistent by removing actual game-ending threats like Infernal Tutor for the sake of playing cards that are effectively a crapshoot in cardboard form is the wrong way to go, in my mind. I think it is important to know what your cards do in a deck that aims to use basically its entire opening hand to win ASAP.

Definitely agree with this. I tested Gitaxian Probe and Street Wraith in the early builds, and it was very bad from an empirical standpoint, and I think you give a very good theoretical reason why they're bad.

There's plenty of cards that are contenders like Tinder Wall and Manamorphose, some number of Tutors, etc, that adding more randomness to the deck to play with the statistics a tiny bit doesn't make sense.


Does anyone think it's worth it for me to write a primer? If this deck is ever going to be moved to Established, it will have to be done, but it's a bit of a waste if the deck never goes anywhere. In other words, do you think this deck has the potential to be a real deck in the format?

Another deck name idea that I just thought of - the mechanic this is abusing is (unofficially) called "Grinding" (MaRo talked about it in one of his articles). So why don't we call the deck Grinder?

[MaximumC]

Does anyone think it's worth it for me to write a primer? If this deck is ever going to be moved to Established, it will have to be done, but it's a bit of a waste if the deck never goes anywhere. In other words, do you think this deck has the potential to be a real deck in the format?

Another deck name idea that I just thought of - the mechanic this is abusing is (unofficially) called "Grinding" (MaRo talked about it in one of his articles). So why don't we call the deck Grinder?

Couldn't hurt, but first things first. We have a deck that borrows vulnerabilities from both Belcher and Dredge, but is potentially faster. Can we demonstrate a list that is consistent and more resilient to hate than those lists? To be viable, I feel like Hobo has to be reliably capable of dealing with:

(1) On the play: Force of Will, Leyline of the Void, Surgical Extraction, Faerie Macabre
(2) On the draw: All the above plus Grafdigger's cage, Rest in Peace, Tormod's Crypt (and similar artifacts), Thalia (and other sphere effects), Blood Moon, Trinisphere, Spell Pierce (and other one cc counterspells).

If we can brew a list that does that, it's a real thing. If not, then this list is just another glass cannon. I think we can, though.

[GradStudentGuy]

Another deck name idea that I just thought of - the mechanic this is abusing is (unofficially) called "Grinding" (MaRo talked about it in one of his articles). So why don't we call the deck Grinder?

I was thinking more in line "Breakfast Snaps" as its a breakfast deck that is just super fast.

[MaximumC]

I was thinking more in line "Breakfast Snaps" as its a breakfast deck that is just super fast.

We should be innovative. Let's not just recycle the same old tired names from days of yore; let's mix up the terminology! Heck, even "Grinder" is novel. Besides, all the breakfast decks use Cephalid and we don't. Do they even call the Basalt Monolith + Mesmeric Orb version "breakfast?"

[Megadeus]

We should be innovative. Let's not just recycle the same old tired names from days of yore; let's mix up the terminology! Heck, even "Grinder" is novel. Besides, all the breakfast decks use Cephalid and we don't. Do they even call the Basalt Monolith + Mesmeric Orb version "breakfast?"

I believe that is "The Four Horsemen". So no

[nudon]

My personal pet name for the deck is "Captain Hammer" because Captain Hammer is a jerk, and you are kind of being one when you play with this deck and win on T1 (But a man's got to do what a man's got to do........).

Nudon, I really like your SB, especially the bojuka bog and the karakas. Have you considered putting a swamp in there? I ask because I currently have one in my wish board, and it's actually been fairly relevant in helping me go off. For reference, this is what I'm currently working with.

Kill Conditions:
4x Balustrade Spy
3x Undercity Informer
1x Goblin Charbelcher
Mana:
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Manamorphose
4x Lotus Petal
4x Chrome Mox
4x Lions Eye Diamond
4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
Tutor:
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Living Wish
Combo:
4x Narcoameoba
1x Angel of Glory's Rise
1x Lab Maniac
1x Dread Return
1x Azami Lady of Scrolls
1x Bridge from Below
3x Cabal Therapy (Doubles as Protection)

SB:
1x Swamp
1x Cavern of Souls
3x Goblin Charbelcher
1x Undercity Informer
9x?


So far in gold fishing, the list wins 90% of the time by T3 50% of the time on T1. I've said it already on this thread, but I think the essential thing required to play this deck right is to mull to black mana. With LED lists like mine and Nudon's, you are incredibly threat dense, so as long as you can assemble the mana, you should be able to go off.



Going to experiment with running Summoners Pact + Cantor Over Manamorphose and perhaps shaving a Narcoameoba. So far manamorphose has been quite good to me, but I'm curious whether the Summoners pacts make the list faster. How's unmask been working out in everyone's testing?

Happy Hammering!

Thanks Jimmy! I thought about adding a swamp in the event there's a informer/spy and cabal therapy in our hand and can't combo off yet. However, I don't think it does enough to warrant a sb slot since I'd rather go for cavern of souls most of the time. Summoner's Pact + Cantor is a must I think. Unmask is ok but probably the worst card in the deck.

Shaving a narc before bridge is correct in my opinion because bridge can potentially generate more than 1 token (in conjunction with cabal therapy) whereas narc will always be 1 body. Also, I've gone back to the mimeoplasm kill because I fear stifle more than leyline of sanctity. Lastly, I like Undercity Spy as the deck name. :)

Edit: I forgot cavern doesn't turn on dark ritual so I think 1 swamp is reasonable. Also, you want the single spy in the board because it lets you turn on cabal therapy while informer is better maindeck because of LED.

[Upstate Jimmy]

I actually prefer informer in the board precisely because of LED. You can crack LED in response to casting living wish, and then be able to cast him, an interaction I've abused quite a bit in my goldfishing.

Also, I'm officially 100% on board with Manamorphose. In testing, the card is a brick house, and when I cut them and a Cabal Therapy for Pact + Cantor, I wasn't really that impressed.

As for Summoners Pact being an auto include, I'm pretty leery about the card, as I don't like the idea of straight up dying to force of will. When I tested against Miracles with an earlier version of the list, it didn't take me that long to reassemble the combo after I was forced out, so it's not as if we're just dead if someone stops us from going off.

With that in mind, I am interested in bringing Pact + Cantor in against decks without access to Counter Magic, I just don't have much of an idea what I'd cut from the main. Any suggestions?

Also, while Cabal Pit does seem like an interesting choice over Swamp, I've never once reached threshold with this deck, (except after I've gone off :tongue:) so I'm not sure if its worth it.

Something I'm going to experiment with next is Whispmare + Ingot Chewer in the wish Board. Has anyone else tried the invoke creatueres?

As for writing a primer, I think we may want to wait until the deck has put up a result before doing so. Once that happens, I say let's go wild.

[Oiolosse]

Paradigm Shift seems interesting. Low CC and in line with mana severance. Afterall, the graveyard only (at least from that activation) contains one land but it is shuffled randomly..

Also, somebody made teh comment that we can activate Informer more than once in a turn and after Nacro's and Tallmen are considered I think several land is okay. I would like to have the time to calculate the expected number of cards flipped before the first land given X land in the deck. Then find the the prob of generating enough tokens and mana to roll along until certain combo pieces are acquired.

Songs of the Damned? In creature heavy build this could be a great mid combo boon, instant too!

[John Cox]

anyone else catch on to leyline of anticipation yet? you can win turn zero and win in response to grave hate.

[nudon]

I actually prefer informer in the board precisely because of LED. You can crack LED in response to casting living wish, and then be able to cast him, an interaction I've abused quite a bit in my goldfishing.

Also, I'm officially 100% on board with Manamorphose. In testing, the card is a brick house, and when I cut them and a Cabal Therapy for Pact + Cantor, I wasn't really that impressed.

As for Summoners Pact being an auto include, I'm pretty leery about the card, as I don't like the idea of straight up dying to force of will. When I tested against Miracles with an earlier version of the list, it didn't take me that long to reassemble the combo after I was forced out, so it's not as if we're just dead if someone stops us from going off.

With that in mind, I am interested in bringing Pact + Cantor in against decks without access to Counter Magic, I just don't have much of an idea what I'd cut from the main. Any suggestions?

Also, while Cabal Pit does seem like an interesting choice over Swamp, I've never once reached threshold with this deck, (except after I've gone off :tongue:) so I'm not sure if its worth it.

Something I'm going to experiment with next is Whispmare + Ingot Chewer in the wish Board. Has anyone else tried the invoke creatueres?

As for writing a primer, I think we may want to wait until the deck has put up a result before doing so. Once that happens, I say let's go wild.

Cracking LED in response to living wish to play informer is very risky if you can't sacrifice it that turn. It leaves the informer open to all sorts of removal. If it were me, I'd want at least 1 extra mana in conjunction with the LED so I can finish the game. In that respect, spy would better since I can sac him to therapy. 4 informers MD is better in case you have 3 mana + LED.

Swamp is nice because it's wasteland-proof. I don't see why you would want to evoke creatures when you can just play their equivalent instant speed versions.

[John Cox]

The evoke creatures are good because you can get them with living wish, they also kill opposing bridges and get around thorn of amethyst.

[phazonmutant]

The evoke creatures are good because you can get them with living wish, they also kill opposing bridges and get around thorn of amethyst.

I definitely like Ingot Chewer. Making W to cast Wispmare seems tricky, but the opportunity cost is so low that you might as well throw it in the board too.

Regarding Leyline of Anticipation - it seems awesome...but not really needed. Unlike Vintage, there's very few Prison decks or decks with quad Leyline of the Void. I suspect that Unmask, Pact of Negation, and Nature's Claim are better board cards.


I actually prefer informer in the board precisely because of LED. You can crack LED in response to casting living wish, and then be able to cast him, an interaction I've abused quite a bit in my goldfishing.

Also, I'm officially 100% on board with Manamorphose. In testing, the card is a brick house, and when I cut them and a Cabal Therapy for Pact + Cantor, I wasn't really that impressed.

As for Summoners Pact being an auto include, I'm pretty leery about the card, as I don't like the idea of straight up dying to force of will. When I tested against Miracles with an earlier version of the list, it didn't take me that long to reassemble the combo after I was forced out, so it's not as if we're just dead if someone stops us from going off.

With that in mind, I am interested in bringing Pact + Cantor in against decks without access to Counter Magic, I just don't have much of an idea what I'd cut from the main. Any suggestions?

I tested both configurations of which man to have in the board, and I found Informer to be vastly better maindeck. Think about it this way. The vast majority of our mana sources are +1s, so the additional mana upfront (i.e. before LED, which is just a ridiculous card) is much more than 33% more mana. It's more like 75% more mana because of issues with having all the cards in hand. Therefore, you want to maximize the configuration that allows you to only need 3 mana.

Your reservations about Summoner's Pact are reasonable. The deck does reload quite well. I'm just very nervous about consistancy with 4 fewer IMSs and a color-fixer. The deck seems to be all-in, so maybe it's a reasonable risk to be all-in like that. SI does it somehow.

[GradStudentGuy]

I definitely like Ingot Chewer. Making W to cast Wispmare seems tricky, but the opportunity cost is so low that you might as well throw it in the board too.

Regarding Leyline of Anticipation - it seems awesome...but not really needed. Unlike Vintage, there's very few Prison decks or decks with quad Leyline of the Void. I suspect that Unmask, Pact of Negation, and Nature's Claim are better board cards.



I tested both configurations of which man to have in the board, and I found Informer to be vastly better maindeck. Think about it this way. The vast majority of our mana sources are +1s, so the additional mana upfront (i.e. before LED, which is just a ridiculous card) is much more than 33% more mana. It's more like 75% more mana because of issues with having all the cards in hand. Therefore, you want to maximize the configuration that allows you to only need 3 mana.

Your reservations about Summoner's Pact are reasonable. The deck does reload quite well. I'm just very nervous about consistancy with 4 fewer IMSs and a color-fixer. The deck seems to be all-in, so maybe it's a reasonable risk to be all-in like that. SI does it somehow.

This deck plays like dredge, its all in the first game and only really a force will or discard stop will stop it . I almost always have an extra spirit guide to pay for taxing counters. Daze or spell pierce are mute game one and even more so on the play. A single un cracked LED pays for just about any soft counter. You only need to win one out of the two sideboard games. They will board in more counters or graveyard hate. Just take out some of the tutors and put in the pacts of negation and unmasks. You will steal a game most of the time by doing this if you mulligan aggressively. This deck mulligans very well unlike belcher, since the magic mana count is only four and does not need mana bridges. Its super easy to top deck more mana sources after a mulligan once you have a win condition and a sideboard card in hand. I have won many games going down to four or five cards. This deck hands down feels faster then the Spanish Inquisition or Belcher. Also show and tell is a funny match up. They will put your win condition into play for you sometimes.

[John Cox]

Regarding Leyline of Anticipation - it seems awesome...but not really needed. Unlike Vintage, there's very few Prison decks or decks with quad Leyline of the Void. I suspect that Unmask, Pact of Negation, and Nature's Claim are better board cards.


No the way it works is you run a second dread return. Post board they try to tormod's crypt, surgical extract, ravenous trap (etc) you, and you dread return in response. The only hate you care about is leyline of the void and jailer.

[gkraigher]

As far as names are concerned, I really like "Black Jack." That's what this deck reminds me of more than playing magic.

[whienot]

No the way it works is you run a second dread return. Post board they try to tormod's crypt, surgical extract, ravenous trap (etc) you, and you dread return in response. The only hate you care about is leyline of the void and jailer.

Interesting find. Assuming all players play appropriately, what if they Crypt/Relic/Spellbomb you with Bridge triggers on the stack?

[John Cox]

Interesting find. Assuming all players play appropriately, what if they Crypt/Relic/Spellbomb you with Bridge triggers on the stack?

That is something I didn't think about, you can play around it by making tokens with cabal therapy, if you had two bridges you could slow play it with cabal therapy to out play that issue. But a second bridge makes this a bit bloated.

[phazonmutant]

That is something I didn't think about, you can play around it by making tokens with cabal therapy, if you had two bridges you could slow play it with cabal therapy to out play that issue. But a second bridge makes this a bit bloated.

I think a smart player will find ways to combat us, no matter what. They still have to draw the cards, though. The clear criterion is minimizing interactivity while maximizing speed. I think mulliganning to a Leyline + a kill + having more bloat in the deck is not the way to go, but definitely could be wrong.


Updated the OP to more accurately reflect current lists. If you have any criticisms, please let me know!

[Opaco]

If counterspells like FoW are a problem, what about Leyline of Lifeforce?. Unlike belcher this combo is harder to stop countering mana ramp than the kill and our kill is a creature. While comboing out Therapy could clear the way for the Dread Return. The problem is that it does nothing against graveyard hate and for protecting Living Wish/Infernal Tutor (but neither do Pact of Negation if LED is involved).

I think it has been mentioned before, but I would consider Tomb of Urami in the sideboard, either for a transformational sideboard but more as a Living Wish target that can be used instead of the Swamp for black mana or for an alternate wincon.

[GradStudentGuy]

If counterspells like FoW are a problem, what about Leyline of Lifeforce?. Unlike belcher this combo is harder to stop countering mana ramp than the kill and our kill is a creature. While comboing out Therapy could clear the way for the Dread Return. The problem is that it does nothing against graveyard hate and for protecting Living Wish/Infernal Tutor (but neither do Pact of Negation if LED is involved).

I think it has been mentioned before, but I would consider Tomb of Urami in the sideboard, either for a transformational sideboard but more as a Living Wish target that can be used instead of the Swamp for black mana or for an alternate wincon.

Leyline of Lifeforce does not add to much to the deck. We already doge spell pierce and daze very well due to spirit guides and LEDs. Last Time I played against RUG it took two FOW and a Daze to stop the combo. Pact of negation is what this deck needs since you can draw into it. Leylines are just a trap since they are completely dead draws for this deck. I have been happy with my Abrupt Decays in my board to fight chalice of the voids, the natures Claims to fight random artifact hate and Leylines. Pact of Negation also works very well against surgical extraction.

I also Love deathrite shaman in place of wild cantor. You can imprint him on chrome mox for black and green. His is searchable via pacts. Finally you can hard cast him. I have played him turn one off a spirit guide. You then can feed off your opponents fetch lands for the rest of the game for an extra additional black source. It also will force them to keep in creature removal since he can win the game via the attack step.

[Upstate Jimmy]

I'm with Grad Student Guy about Leyline of Lifeforce, but for a slightly different reason. Even if we stick a Leyline, players will just counter our mana sources. It's for that reason that, although I have only goldfished this scenario, I believe that when you are going for cavern of souls from the wish board, you should cast enough rituals to cast your win con once cavern is in hand, because if you don't that force of will will just take out your mana instead.

That being said, I still think leyline of Sanctity might have a place in this deck. Targeted Discard is a big game against us, and pact of Negation doesn't do anything against it, while Leyline just shuts it down.

Out of curiosity grad Student guy, how hard has it been for you to cast abrupt decay? I ask because in goldfishing with the deck, getting two spare mana that aren't being used for going off can be a bit of a challenge.

[nudon]

I think a smart player will find ways to combat us, no matter what. They still have to draw the cards, though. The clear criterion is minimizing interactivity while maximizing speed. I think mulliganning to a Leyline + a kill + having more bloat in the deck is not the way to go, but definitely could be wrong.


Updated the OP to more accurately reflect current lists. If you have any criticisms, please let me know!

Phazonmuant, your MD looks a lot like mine now. The only difference is +2 unmask, +1 inferno tutor, -2 cabal therapy, -1 narcomoeba. I haven't worked on the deck last two days but I'll see what I can do with it today. I'm actually leaning towards 4 cabal therapy too because the scenario of having chrome mox turn 0 and cabal therapy in hand is quite common. Unmask isn't great because it's card disadvantage. My 4th inferno tutor is kind of a filler for the time being because I'm not sure what else to put in. I don't think the 4th narcomoeba is necessary but I can see use for it. Have you tested your SB? How do the belchers work for you?

[GradStudentGuy]

I'm with Grad Student Guy about Leyline of Lifeforce, but for a slightly different reason. Even if we stick a Leyline, players will just counter our mana sources. It's for that reason that, although I have only goldfished this scenario, I believe that when you are going for cavern of souls from the wish board, you should cast enough rituals to cast your win con once cavern is in hand, because if you don't that force of will will just take out your mana instead.

That being said, I still think leyline of Sanctity might have a place in this deck. Targeted Discard is a big game against us, and pact of Negation doesn't do anything against it, while Leyline just shuts it down.

Out of curiosity grad Student guy, how hard has it been for you to cast abrupt decay? I ask because in goldfishing with the deck, getting two spare mana that aren't being used for going off can be a bit of a challenge.

If you opponent has chalice at 0 or 1 you need to take care of the card before the combo. So it does not matter how much mana you spend. It also is a nice answer to crypt or relict when blue decks sideboard them in. Game one it fine to go the all in turn one combo. The next two games especially on the draw you do not want to do this against any blue deck. Waiting for the pact of negation or the extra spirit guide or two is almost always worth it. In these game you should bait counters by casting your lotus petals and chrome moxes early as if they where just land. This leaves space in you hand to draw more mana to fight through the non hard counters. This method also plays around fluster storm and mind break trap. Between 3x Unmasks and 4x Pacts most of the time you can force through against any counter magic as long as it before turn four.

[ManyCookies]

Why is Spy in the board rather than Informer? Isn't Informer strictly better in our deck (barring weird scenarios like needing Spy as a Dread Return body if you draw two Narco's)?

[nudon]

Here's my latest list after some tweaking:

http://deckstats.net/deck-1878948-b15d88b5e4be0cee79fa173e2f946b6e.html

Post board in general: -2 infernal tutor, -1 angel of glory's rise, -1 azami, lady of scrolls, -1 summoner's pact, +2 thoughtseize, +2 unmask, +1 goblin charbelcher
- Your opponent will be boarding out all their removal spells so I think it's safe to depend on your maniac by himself
- The nature's claim come in if you know they are running leyline of the void
- The rest of the deck are generic wish targets

Let me know if you guys have suggestions.

[nudon]

Why is Spy in the board rather than Informer? Isn't Informer strictly better in our deck?

Both require 4 mana to cast after living wish (you don't want to leave informer hanging around for removal) but spy can be sacrificed to cabal therapy.

[catmint]

Did you already find real reasons (except for freaking funny) to play it over belcher?
To me belcher looks a lot more consistent (not dead cards), therefore better T1 & T2 win% and also able to recover with a couple of draw steps due to not drawing shit. Also belcher is less hurt by disruption (countermagic & Gy hate).

[GradStudentGuy]

Did you already find real reasons (except for freaking funny) to play it over belcher?
To me belcher looks a lot more consistent (not dead cards), therefore better T1 & T2 win% and also able to recover with a couple of draw steps due to not drawing shit. Also belcher is less hurt by disruption (countermagic & Gy hate).

This deck wins without targeting your opponent or an attack step which are huge pros . Sometime empty the warrens does not win the game. With this deck if the opponent lets you finish the combo you always win. This deck feels faster at least to me then Belcher and yes you do have to mulligan more with this deck.

[darkice]

Maybe add to sideboard leyline of void And helm of obedence only need 5 Mana for helm

[nudon]

Maybe add to sideboard leyline of void And helm of obedence only need 5 Mana for helm

I actually tried this in one of my earlier builds and it doesn't work well because it's a two-card combo. Goblin charbelcher or anything else that only requires mana is probably the way to go.

[phazonmutant]

Phazonmuant, your MD looks a lot like mine now. The only difference is +2 unmask, +1 inferno tutor, -2 cabal therapy, -1 narcomoeba. I haven't worked on the deck last two days but I'll see what I can do with it today. I'm actually leaning towards 4 cabal therapy too because the scenario of having chrome mox turn 0 and cabal therapy in hand is quite common. Unmask isn't great because it's card disadvantage. My 4th inferno tutor is kind of a filler for the time being because I'm not sure what else to put in. I don't think the 4th narcomoeba is necessary but I can see use for it. Have you tested your SB? How do the belchers work for you?

I haven't tested the sideboard at all, it's purely theory. Once the set comes out, we should be able to get some real tournament data on the sideboard.


Both require 4 mana to cast after living wish (you don't want to leave informer hanging around for removal) but spy can be sacrificed to cabal therapy.

That's a good reason. Another is that LED is powerful enough to want to include in the deck (especially for its interaction with Infernal Tutor), and having 4 Informers main maximizes LED. It's come up pretty often.


Did you already find real reasons (except for freaking funny) to play it over belcher?
To me belcher looks a lot more consistent (not dead cards), therefore better T1 & T2 win% and also able to recover with a couple of draw steps due to not drawing shit. Also belcher is less hurt by disruption (countermagic & Gy hate).

Excellent question. I'm not a Belcher expert by any means, but I think that this deck is a bit faster but reloads slightly worse, as you point out. Hopefully that's mitigated because this deck has more business, but maybe that's just incorrect.
I think people are excited by the potential for the deck as much as its actual numbers right now. Right now we have turn win percentages about on par if not better than Belcher and the deck has existed for a week. Belcher took a long time to get consistent, and this deck is enough different that its unique lessons need to be learned. If we can solve the issues, it seems reasonable to suppose that this deck can incorporate more disruption or be consistently faster or both, even postboard.

[GexxX]

I haven't been testing the Deck yet, but from a more or less mathematical point this Deck looks superior to belcher in a variety of points.
1. You play "real" Tutors which find the win. Not like Burning Wish on EtW.
2. Four mana to kill someone looks very much like an improvement, although it is 6 with a tutor to find any of the rogues. Burning Wish in Belcher finds EtW most of the time, which most likely gets there, but sometimes just does not.
3. Black Rituals are superior to the red ones. Period. With more mana generated Tutors get better.
4. Disruption in form of Discard. Might seem a little odd considering the Rogue/Tutor could get countered and 4 therapys doesn't mean they will end up in your first seven all to often, but if they do the blue matchup looks significantly better on paper.

I personally think this Deck looks great and it hopefully is worth spending time. I know many of you - like myself - own a variety of legacy staples, but not everyone does. Finding a cost-efficient Deck is a great thing to introduce new players to the Format. And to be honest, who doesn't like killing someone on turn 1? It just seems logical to try and push the Deck for the sake of us all :P

[catmint]

I haven't been testing the Deck yet, but from a more or less mathematical point this Deck looks superior to belcher in a variety of points.
1. You play "real" Tutors which find the win. Not like Burning Wish on EtW.


Belcher does not have a problem of not having enough win-cons. Belcher consists of 11 wincons, 1 Land, 44 mana accelerators and 4 cantrips (gitaxian probe). I goldfished belcher quite a bit and you play it in a way to basically always go off turn 1. Sometimes you keep a hand which has a very high chance of going off with 1 draw step.

Having more protection and having a “sure” kill and not “just” some tokens can be an argument. (Altough the storm mechanic’s strength forcing the opponent to use FoW on the “2nd ritual” is also a strong argument, whereas FoW can just be used on the wincon against this deck causing you to loose afterwards almost certainly).

But before arguing about the advantage of the kill or having protection this deck needs to proof to go off T1 90+%. Looking at the results from people goldfishing with something like ~30% T1, 30% t2, 20% t3, 20% T4+ does not make the deck viable. This are viable stats for a deck playing lands, cantrips and protection like storm or show&tell. Belcher and this deck cannot give the opponent a couple of turns where you do nothing except drawing, playing chrome mox, lotus petal and maybe a cabal therapy. If you do that you will just loose to a brainstorm into FoW, a thalia or a deathrite shaman.

I would love if this decks becomes viable – even if it is “worse” than belcher it can be viable for the “unknown & surprise factor”. But I am critical on the work done so far (maybe not enough has been shared) because as I said imo the T1% has to be super high, which is a challenge given the % to start with 1 of your 9 dead cards is 70% and in 28% of the times you start with virtually 5 cards. That might be ok because if you use summoners pact (free tutor) you basically only have to bring up 3B and 1 out of 12 wincons.

[The Informer]

Here's my latest list after some tweaking:

http://deckstats.net/deck-1878948-b15d88b5e4be0cee79fa173e2f946b6e.html

Post board in general: -2 infernal tutor, -1 angel of glory's rise, -1 azami, lady of scrolls, -1 summoner's pact, +2 thoughtseize, +2 unmask, +1 goblin charbelcher
- Your opponent will be boarding out all their removal spells so I think it's safe to depend on your maniac by himself
- The nature's claim come in if you know they are running leyline of the void
- The rest of the deck are generic wish targets

Let me know if you guys have suggestions.

Hi, this is my first post on The Source. I was following the discussion and decided to join in. I like your list. Mine is similar except does not run LEDs or Infernal Tutors (although I have the cards). Instead, runs Manamorphoses and Rite of Flame, and I also have one Chancellor of the Tangle left in there (was building from Carsten Kotter's list on StarCityGames). Chancellor is interesting. If you want to mulligan a lot to find your 7-8 spies, he is nice for an extra mana source, and with Chrome Mox he gives you 2 mana from one card, which is excellent. But I think you need more than 8 spies, so a tutor is necessary, and thus some Chancellors got cut. Also, my kill condition is different (using The Mimeoplasm kill because that guy is really cool, although if I expected to run into Leyline of Sanctity I might switch. But I think style points count too, at least when there isn't a big tournament. Plus, you can side into Mimeoplasm plus Ball Lightning and kill that way if you want to dodge some hate and play into other hate. That's my style I think).

The only other thing I wanted to add was to discuss Signal the Clans (from Gatecrash, a card which no one has yet mentioned). At first I misread it, and thought that I could search for 3 Balustrade Spies and put one in my hand, so it was pretty nuts. Then I re-read the card. It's worse than I thought, since you have to search for 3 creatures with different names for it to do anything at all. But it is not that bad even so. Search for one spy of each name and a Wild Cantor. 2/3 times you get what you want. 1/3 of the time you get a Cantor and recoup one of the two mana spent to play the spell. So not bad. Keep in mind that if Wizards ever prints a third functional duplicate of these guys, you can get that one too, meaning you could play up to 16 of them in that case. This card may not be the best here, after testing, but it is better than Gamble, as that will usually yield only a 50% success rate vs. 2/3. Infernal Tutor may just be better for an in deck tutor, but I have not tested that one here yet. Definitely if you plan to Charbelcher out of the board, then Signal the Clans won't be that useful.

[phazonmutant]

Belcher does not have a problem of not having enough win-cons. Belcher consists of 11 wincons, 1 Land, 44 mana accelerators and 4 cantrips (gitaxian probe). I goldfished belcher quite a bit and you play it in a way to basically always go off turn 1. Sometimes you keep a hand which has a very high chance of going off with 1 draw step.

Having more protection and having a “sure” kill and not “just” some tokens can be an argument. (Altough the storm mechanic’s strength forcing the opponent to use FoW on the “2nd ritual” is also a strong argument, whereas FoW can just be used on the wincon against this deck causing you to loose afterwards almost certainly).

But before arguing about the advantage of the kill or having protection this deck needs to proof to go off T1 90+%. Looking at the results from people goldfishing with something like ~30% T1, 30% t2, 20% t3, 20% T4+ does not make the deck viable. This are viable stats for a deck playing lands, cantrips and protection like storm or show&tell. Belcher and this deck cannot give the opponent a couple of turns where you do nothing except drawing, playing chrome mox, lotus petal and maybe a cabal therapy. If you do that you will just loose to a brainstorm into FoW, a thalia or a deathrite shaman.

I would love if this decks becomes viable – even if it is “worse” than belcher it can be viable for the “unknown & surprise factor”. But I am critical on the work done so far (maybe not enough has been shared) because as I said imo the T1% has to be super high, which is a challenge given the % to start with 1 of your 9 dead cards is 70% and in 28% of the times you start with virtually 5 cards. That might be ok because if you use summoners pact (free tutor) you basically only have to bring up 3B and 1 out of 12 wincons.

Regarding the percentages:
(a) I think current lists are a bit faster than the numbers I posted, but also I'm the only one who's posted numbers. I'm still learning to play the deck (of course), so I've been experimenting with what's keepable, meaning you can expect maybe a 5-10% bump in the hands of an experienced pilot. So I'd estimate that t1 win % is 40, maybe 50%.
(b) The "t2", "t3" numbers really just mean 1 draw step, 2 draw steps, etc. So your argument that Belcher pilots will often keep a hand that's likely to win with 1 draw step if they've mulliganed is non-unique. This deck draws pretty live. Much like Belcher, though, sometimes you mulligan to 4 and have to hope to mise.
(c) There's no deck that has a 90% chance to go off turn 1. More realistic numbers I've heard are 50-60% for Belcher, 60% for SI.
(d) The dead cards can definitely be frustrating, but the difference between 4 and 7 is massive (when you don't draw LED), especially when you get to play Dark Ritual. You just need fewer cards.

The Informer - welcome to The Source! However, instead of regaling us with the details of your list, why don't you try to explain why the design choices you mention (like no LED) make sense despite the findings of multiple people on this thread.

[catmint]

(c) There's no deck that has a 90% chance to go off turn 1. More realistic numbers I've heard are 50-60% for Belcher, 60% for SI.
You are right. The go off% of belcher is lower that 90% and of course the actual "win%" of the turn is even lower. However what I meant with "go off" is not winning, but either getting some goblins or casting belcher without activation (Belcher usually can't be dealt with so you have time to draw for the mana). Getting a hand which is able to "go off" by that definition is keepable. If you are missing only 1 mana you can keep it as well since the chance is around 70% to get there with 1 draw step. To achieve this state of "wincon + mana (incl. 1 draw step for a missing mana") is done pretty consistently by belcher.

It also does happen that belcher mulligans to oblivion and/or takes a draw step missing doing nothing until turn 3 (which basically means loosing to itself by my definition of a glass cannon) but this percentage is very low. In my testing with Undercity I often ended up with a hand doing nothing and my chances to draw what I need were pretty bad - so I mull and mull and from what I saw the deck looses a lot more to itself than belcher. Not to mention that taking 1-2 draw steps hurts this deck more than belcher because there are 9 dead cards in the deck, deathrite is common and should not be active and giving the opponent time to find FoW hurts more.

Looking foward to be proven wrong. :)

[MaximumC]

The only other thing I wanted to add was to discuss Signal the Clans (from Gatecrash, a card which no one has yet mentioned). At first I misread it, and thought that I could search for 3 Balustrade Spies and put one in my hand, so it was pretty nuts.

Signal the Clans is super terrible. If you want to tutor creatures, Eldrami's Call is what you want. WG, tutor a creature into your hand. No muss, no fuss. In this deck, though, generating WG seems like a pretty big problem. I don't see it.

[Upstate Jimmy]

Catmint, I'd highly suggest that when making mulliganing decisions with this deck, you mull to black mana. It's a lot easier to find a threat in this deck than it is to assemble the mana, (I know, broken record, but it bears repeating.) I also find that this deck mulls well. T1 wins off mulls to 5 and six are not uncommons. Recently, I managed a T4 Goldfish on the draw after I mulled to 3. I know, goldfishing isn't the same as playing actual magic, but I think its significant that this deck can race burn, even after mulling nearly to oblivion.

I'm running this thing through a gauntlet with friends this weekend, and will share my results once I've finished. Out of curiosity, is anyone going to battle with this at SCG Atlanta? (I am taking this bad boy to Edison).

[tianyuan2k4]

I have done many solitaire open hands win (7 cards, first turn) testing with different builds for this deck. Basically I do 50 tests for one build on MWS, then switch to another one.

The result is actually rather similar (and disappointing) that I got approximately 50% 1st turn win from 7 cards hand for all of them. However I do get some insights from the testing:

1) Wild Cantor > Manamorphose: There are plenty of times I stuck with 1 spirit guide, 2 ritual and a MANAMORPHOSE in open hand. I start to ask my self Card advantage or I win, which one do I want?

2) Gitaxian Probe / Street Wraith: Since the decks has 50% 1st turn win ratio w/o them and they make mulligan decision harder, do not include them.

3) Infernal Tutor + Living Wish: about 5% chance (2~3 out of 50) they do matter. There are plenty of time I could win if they are an extra mana source or color fixer. Such as Chancellor of the Tangle, Wild Cantor. Need more testing for sure.


Now I am working on the mulligan ones. Such as 6 cards and 5 cards 1st turn win for different builds. The one I tested with 4 Chancellor + 4 Wild Cantor and no Tutor/Wish build so far is:
7 cards: 25/50 = 50%
6 cards: 18/50 = 36%
5 cards: 8/50 = 16%

The probability of getting 1st turn win = 1 - (50% * 64% * 84%) = 73%

Not great but there are plenty of rooms for improvement. If this deck gets to above 80% 1st turn kill that would be pretty cool.

[nudon]

Belcher does not have a problem of not having enough win-cons. Belcher consists of 11 wincons, 1 Land, 44 mana accelerators and 4 cantrips (gitaxian probe). I goldfished belcher quite a bit and you play it in a way to basically always go off turn 1. Sometimes you keep a hand which has a very high chance of going off with 1 draw step.

Having more protection and having a “sure” kill and not “just” some tokens can be an argument. (Altough the storm mechanic’s strength forcing the opponent to use FoW on the “2nd ritual” is also a strong argument, whereas FoW can just be used on the wincon against this deck causing you to loose afterwards almost certainly).

But before arguing about the advantage of the kill or having protection this deck needs to proof to go off T1 90+%. Looking at the results from people goldfishing with something like ~30% T1, 30% t2, 20% t3, 20% T4+ does not make the deck viable. This are viable stats for a deck playing lands, cantrips and protection like storm or show&tell. Belcher and this deck cannot give the opponent a couple of turns where you do nothing except drawing, playing chrome mox, lotus petal and maybe a cabal therapy. If you do that you will just loose to a brainstorm into FoW, a thalia or a deathrite shaman.

I would love if this decks becomes viable – even if it is “worse” than belcher it can be viable for the “unknown & surprise factor”. But I am critical on the work done so far (maybe not enough has been shared) because as I said imo the T1% has to be super high, which is a challenge given the % to start with 1 of your 9 dead cards is 70% and in 28% of the times you start with virtually 5 cards. That might be ok because if you use summoners pact (free tutor) you basically only have to bring up 3B and 1 out of 12 wincons.

In order to make the number of win-cons the same as belcher (11), I've removed the infernal tutors and now have the following list:
http://deckstats.net/deck-1885565-65b904c1457e5a05a30c0e0644d64f8d.html

I tested the deck 25 times and got the following results:
T1 kill: 14, 56%
T2 kill: 3, 12%
T3 kill: 4, 16%
T4+ kill: 4, 16%

Though I didn't keep track, a few of those games I was able to play cabal therapy off a chrome mox as well. Thus, I think the deck has a lot of potential once tweaked further. Granted, deathrite shaman is a thing so those T1/T2 kill rates need to improve. I think reducing infernal tutors really helps too because my hand is not as cluttered.


Hi, this is my first post on The Source. I was following the discussion and decided to join in. I like your list. Mine is similar except does not run LEDs or Infernal Tutors (although I have the cards). Instead, runs Manamorphoses and Rite of Flame, and I also have one Chancellor of the Tangle left in there (was building from Carsten Kotter's list on StarCityGames). Chancellor is interesting. If you want to mulligan a lot to find your 7-8 spies, he is nice for an extra mana source, and with Chrome Mox he gives you 2 mana from one card, which is excellent. But I think you need more than 8 spies, so a tutor is necessary, and thus some Chancellors got cut. Also, my kill condition is different (using The Mimeoplasm kill because that guy is really cool, although if I expected to run into Leyline of Sanctity I might switch. But I think style points count too, at least when there isn't a big tournament. Plus, you can side into Mimeoplasm plus Ball Lightning and kill that way if you want to dodge some hate and play into other hate. That's my style I think).

The only other thing I wanted to add was to discuss Signal the Clans (from Gatecrash, a card which no one has yet mentioned). At first I misread it, and thought that I could search for 3 Balustrade Spies and put one in my hand, so it was pretty nuts. Then I re-read the card. It's worse than I thought, since you have to search for 3 creatures with different names for it to do anything at all. But it is not that bad even so. Search for one spy of each name and a Wild Cantor. 2/3 times you get what you want. 1/3 of the time you get a Cantor and recoup one of the two mana spent to play the spell. So not bad. Keep in mind that if Wizards ever prints a third functional duplicate of these guys, you can get that one too, meaning you could play up to 16 of them in that case. This card may not be the best here, after testing, but it is better than Gamble, as that will usually yield only a 50% success rate vs. 2/3. Infernal Tutor may just be better for an in deck tutor, but I have not tested that one here yet. Definitely if you plan to Charbelcher out of the board, then Signal the Clans won't be that useful.

Thanks, welcome to the Source! Mimeoplasm kill is totally fine (he's actually my edh general) in my opinion. However, one of the benefits of running maniac is you can side out angel and azami since your opponent will be taking out all his removal spells anyways and you have cabal therapy flashback just in case. As pointed out, I don't think signal the clans helps but out-of-box thinking is what this is all about so suggestions are welcomed haha.

[gkraigher]

Can we please start calling this deck "Black Jack"

[Upstate Jimmy]

Nudon, I'm curious about your decision to cut the Infernal Tutors. In gold fishing I've found them to be essential in fetching win cons, especially when paired with LED. I also like it that they can find you Belcher if you need to win through GY hate and that it provides black for Chrome Mox. Still, if its working well for you, I may experiment with cutting them as well.

Also, here is my current SB:

4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Pact of Negation
2 Dismember
2 Nature's Claim
1 Swamp
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Undercity Informer

[nudon]

Can we please start calling this deck "Black Jack"

I still like undercity spy but black jack is cool too. :)


Nudon, I'm curious about your decision to cut the Infernal Tutors. In gold fishing I've found them to be essential in fetching win cons, especially when paired with LED. I also like it that they can find you Belcher if you need to win through GY hate and that it provides black for Chrome Mox. Still, if its working well for you, I may experiment with cutting them as well.

Also, here is my current SB:

4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Pact of Negation
2 Dismember
2 Nature's Claim
1 Swamp
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Undercity Informer

http://deckstats.net/deck-1886312-352d0e9a7e6ba53544ae7c203aa3ce25.html

Originally I cut infernal tutor to make a better comparison with belcher. After some testing, I'm going to keep this change because I realized infernal tutor is always achieving hellbent in ANT/TES but has trouble in our deck thanks to so many combo pieces. However, our deck plays out like belcher so I think we should be fine with 11 win-cons too as long as we mulligan aggressively into a win-con (down to 3/4 if necessary though it'll probably be a loss).

The next change I made was adding chancellor of tangle (thanks to The Informer). It is essentially elvish spirit guide #9-12 (pact is 5-8) and has been working much better than I anticipated. It's a terrible top-deck but a lot of the cards in our deck are so this deck tries to maximize going off turn 1. I think this is especially necessary due to metagame (i.e. deathrite shaman).

Post board, you can board out the chancellors for more therapies and unmask/pact of negation.

I tested my list 50 times and got the following results:
T1 kill: 29, 58%
T2 kill: 5, 10%
T3 kill: 8, 16%
T4+ kill: 8, 16% (auto-loss)

[catmint]

...
3) Infernal Tutor + Living Wish: about 5% chance (2~3 out of 50) they do matter. There are plenty of time I could win if they are an extra mana source or color fixer. Such as Chancellor of the Tangle, Wild Cantor. Need more testing for sure.
...

I agree. Getting to 6 mana seems very optimistic and with 8 creatures & 4 pact you have 12 wincons. Multiple pacts are not bad fetching up wild cantor wheras multiple 2 mana tutors can only be chrome moxed. Since the initial black mana is an issue as well as getting up to 4 mana I agree that more acceleration and fixing should have priority over wincon 13-16. I like the chancellor a lot netting 2 mana with crome mox.

Btw.: the numbers you posted would make the deck viable imo... I hope this was no variance or you cheating to yourself. :) Mind posting the list you got up to 70% T1 kills?

[JDK]

I agree. Getting to 6 mana seems very optimistic and with 8 creatures & 4 pact you have 12 wincons.
Why are Pacts wincons? Don't you mean Living Wishes, as the Pact cannot search for black creatures?

[catmint]

my bad - i was wondering why people don't play it. :laugh:
I guess pact can then only fix mana with cantor and accelerate with tinder wall. So we need to include a at least 1 tutor for sure. Being able to cast living wish with green is an advantage, but with infernal tutor you can play the full 8 creatures maindeck and get a 1of Belcher if the GY route is blocked.

[alphastryk]

my bad - i was wondering why people don't play it. :laugh:
I guess pact can then only fix mana with cantor and accelerate with tinder wall. So we need to include a at least 1 tutor for sure. Being able to cast living wish with green is an advantage, but with infernal tutor you can play the full 8 creatures maindeck and get a 1of Belcher if the GY route is blocked.

Most importantly, pact is an initial mana source via Elvish Spirit Guide.

[Upstate Jimmy]

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/25582_Unveiling-Oops-All-Spells.html


People should check out the Prosak Article.

I don't like his MD, (as I'm a fan of Tutors and LED in the main) but he has some interesting analysis. The most interesting thing I found about the deck was his spoils of the vault Belcher sideboard, which I'm considering testing out. For my pactless LED Version this would mean.

-4 Narcoameaoba
-1 Angel of Glory's Rise
-1 Laboratory Maniac
-1 Azami Lady of Scrolss
-1 Dread Return
-4 Balustrade Spy


+4 Spoils of the Vault
+3 Goblin Charbelcher
+4 Summoners Pact
+1 Wild Cantor

Wishboard of Swamp, Cavern and Informer Stays the same.

Alternatively, instead of Spoils of the Vault, I'd considering running Rite of Flame in its place.

I think the most important question this deck faces is whether or not it wants a reactionary SB or a transformational one. Winning games 2 and 3 are going to be the big challenge this deck faces, and settling on the optimal path to do this I think is key. Hopefully testing will shed some insight into this.

[tianyuan2k4]

Btw.: the numbers you posted would make the deck viable imo... I hope this was no variance or you cheating to yourself. :) Mind posting the list you got up to 70% T1 kills?70% is not great because this is pure glass canon test. Beside 30% auto scoop up, if opponent has a hard counter or has a discard on play, that pretty much means auto lose as well. And thinking about sideboard plan dealing with all sort of threats give me headache. So I will skip that for now and work on getting the best T1 kills ratio.

Okay, here is my deck list for those numbers:

Win cons: 8
4 Undercity Informer
4 Balustrade Spy

Engines: 12
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
3 Narcomoeba
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
1 Bridge from Below

Mana Source & Fixer: 40
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Summer's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
4 Wild Cantor


Here is the record for the testing, 1 = combo, 0 = nobo.
7 cards: 25/50
0011111010
1100110000
0111101110
1010101101
1000110100

6 cards: 18/50
0001000011
0010001110
1010010100
0000000000
1101110101

5 cards: 8/50
1000001000
0000010010
0000000000
0000000000
0010110100


If you wonder why so many Cabal Therapies, I don't know either. I guess I got lazy from testing different builds before I did this one. A couple of them could be Inferno Tutors for better result. I will cut down a couple Wild Cantors for more tutors in the next version.

Another note, just to clarify I don't count 1st turn Undercity Informer > 2nd turn activation as a win. Many things could happen in one turn, STP, bounce, burn. Thus to keep it straight forward, either now or never.

From the data i felt 50 is the minimum requirement for goldfishing a build. Too often I thought I hit a gold mine by looking the T1 win ratios of a build in the first 10 or 20 hands then hit a nobo string or vice versa. I will definitely do 100 once the deck is more optimized.

[catmint]

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/25582_Unveiling-Oops-All-Spells.html


People should check out the Prosak Article.

I don't like his MD, (as I'm a fan of Tutors and LED in the main) but he has some interesting analysis. The most interesting thing I found about the deck was his spoils of the vault Belcher sideboard, which I'm considering testing out. ...


Suggesting a 52 card deck shows that he did not really play it imo. Pretty bad...
But I like the sideboard ideas. Beeing transformational was my idea from the beginning, since siding anti-hate looks hopeless to me. :laugh:

[Vacrix]

But before arguing about the advantage of the kill or having protection this deck needs to proof to go off T1 90+%. Looking at the results from people goldfishing with something like ~30% T1, 30% t2, 20% t3, 20% T4+ does not make the deck viable. This are viable stats for a deck playing lands, cantrips and protection like storm or show&tell. Belcher and this deck cannot give the opponent a couple of turns where you do nothing except drawing, playing chrome mox, lotus petal and maybe a cabal therapy. If you do that you will just loose to a brainstorm into FoW, a thalia or a deathrite shaman.

I would love if this decks becomes viable – even if it is “worse” than belcher it can be viable for the “unknown & surprise factor”. But I am critical on the work done so far (maybe not enough has been shared) because as I said imo the T1% has to be super high, which is a challenge given the % to start with 1 of your 9 dead cards is 70% and in 28% of the times you start with virtually 5 cards. That might be ok because if you use summoners pact (free tutor) you basically only have to bring up 3B and 1 out of 12 wincons.

100% T1 kills on the play wouldn't make this deck viable. Its a combo deck that loses to both countermagic or graveyard hate. The opponent always has something to board in against you. Throw a rock, and the glass house falls apart.

Take a look at Pact SI as a good example. The only reason the deck can justify not playing protection is by having a post-board plan that compliments a dense business suite. This is why Classic Belcher lists might as well just run Islands in their post-board.. SI, on the other hand, has 18-19 business spells to abuse with cards like Carpet of Flowers and Lotus Bloom; taking out the explosive acceleration like Culling the Weak and Summoner's Pact for a slow roll strategy.. as well as protection spells so that you can actually out play an opponent.


Current lists here are just trying to outrace SI and Belcher for viability.. and thats foolish. This Rogue Hermit deck can probably push as high as 70% turn 1 kills once fully optimized.. but it doesn't matter if you don't have a post-board plan.. and you'll still be worse than Belcher because you also lose to graveyard hate as well as any other semblance of distruption..


The best way to go about building this deck is for a much slower combo. I'd say more along the speeds of Reanimator. Why is everyone trying to run 0 land? You don't have to run 0 land... As Emidln was saying on the first page.. you probably want Mox Opal, and you probably want tallmen to support it.. which means you probably want Culling the Weak and Cabal Therapy. People should try reading my posts, I already talked about a potential direction to take this deck (but I've no time to work on it atm). The current deck designs will not be able to eliminate the 'kill yourself' factor. Even a good PSI pilot will kill himself once in 50 games.. but seeing numbers like 24% loss.. 16% auto loss.. it wouldn't matter if you got 90% T1 kills if you got 10% autoloss.. because of that 90% against a blue deck.. you have a 50% chance of winning the coinflip, which turns on Daze/Pierce/BS. An opponent, lets say RUG which has high blue card count around 26-27 cards, has a good 40% chance of getting both Force/Blue card in hand. In general, glass houses like these only have about a 20% chance of killing a blue player outright. You can't outrace Force.. and even when you aren't playing against Force, you can't outrace a turn 1 basically.. any card they play in their sideboard. Pithing Needle? Graveyard hate? Storm hate? It all works against this deck.

And with a 1 card combo.. why not slow down and secure the kill? Sacrifice multiple creatures ie. tallmen. + Narcomoebas. Also.. the combo kill takes up ALOT of unnecessary space. I'd probably try something simpler.


EDIT:
I've tried to get Recross the Paths to work for years. That article was just shitty. It basically pulled its ideas directly from this thread instead of thinking about how to actually get the deck to work and not be terrible. Recross the Paths doesn't work. Its janky and inconsistent.

[tianyuan2k4]

I tested again with 4 Infernal Tutors:

7 cards: 39/100
10001 00000
01011 01110
00101 00011
10000 00000
00000 10000

01011 11011
11010 00010
01001 00010
11111 10000
01101 10000


6 cards: 33/100
10000 11101
00001 00011
11011 00001
10011 10000
10010 11010

01000 10001
10001 00010
01000 00000
11100 10000
10100 10000


5 cards: 11/100
00100 10000
00000 00110
00000 00000
00000 00000
00100 00100

00000 00000
00000 00000
00000 10100
01000 00100
00000 00010


Even at 100, the result flutuated a lot. The first 50 of 7 card hand hit all time low. 15/50 = 30%. Then the latter 50 goes back to normal T1 win ratio level. 6 cards and 5 cards hand are around average ratios.

1 - (61% * 67% * 89%) = 64%

Not as good as last time but still within reasonable range.

A couple thing I noticed during the test:
1) Infernal tutor did help me achieve about ten T1 wins in 300 games.
2) Plenty of times I am one initial black mana away from winning. Holding 2 rituals, a LED and a win con but no black mana. :(
3) About 6 times, I have only 3 mana to cast Undercity Informer but could wait a turn to untap Chrome Mox in order to go off. I count these as 0 though.
4) About 6 times, I have 2 LED, and a Chancellor in open hand but no win con.


The deck list for this testing:

Win cons: 12
4 Undercity Informer
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Infernal Tutor

Engines: 10
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
3 Narcomoeba
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
1 Bridge from Below

Mana Source & Fixer: 38
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Summer's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
2 Wild Cantor


My current thought on manaless build is to win as fast & consistent as possible 1st game. Then SB some trolls to deal with desperate grave hates and counters, leyline against discard.

Storm hate couldn't stop LED + Spirit Guides kill. Pithing Needle couldn't stop Balustrade Spy. (SB Sutured Ghoul + Dragon Breath in case Needle Azami). So they are fair games.

Perhaps squeeze some Pact of Negation MD to deal with FOW if they are rampant.

[catmint]

I agree with you Vacrix that even if it becomes playable it will be worse then SI or Belcher, but making it slower is surely not a way to make it work. You still loose to a Deathrite Shaman and a FoW and just give them more time to get those online.

[Bahamuth]

100% T1 kills on the play wouldn't make this deck viable.

Yes it would. With 100% turn 1 wins you would easily be favored against any reasonable field of Legacy decks. There are not nearly enough cards that interact with this deck.

Its a combo deck that loses to both countermagic or graveyard hate. The opponent always has something to board in against you. Throw a rock, and the glass house falls apart.



Current lists here are just trying to outrace SI and Belcher for viability.. and thats foolish. This Rogue Hermit deck can probably push as high as 70% turn 1 kills once fully optimized.. but it doesn't matter if you don't have a post-board plan.. and you'll still be worse than Belcher because you also lose to graveyard hate as well as any other semblance of distruption..

I agree with this. The deck should be able to board into a glass cannon that does not rely on the graveyard. If we can manage to do that and have a decent consistency, this deck could be very strong.



The best way to go about building this deck is for a much slower combo. I'd say more along the speeds of Reanimator.

I disagree. If you try to build a slow version of combo, you will end up with decks that are inevitably worse than other slow combo.

[QUOTE=Vacrix;700942]it wouldn't matter if you got 90% T1 kills if you got 10% autoloss.. because of that 90% against a blue deck.. you have a 50% chance of winning the coinflip, which turns on Daze/Pierce/BS. An opponent, lets say RUG which has high blue card count around 26-27 cards, has a good 40% chance of getting both Force/Blue card in hand. In general, glass houses like these only have about a 20% chance of killing a blue player outright. You can't outrace Force.. and even when you aren't playing against Force, you can't outrace a turn 1 basically.. any card they play in their sideboard. Pithing Needle? Graveyard hate? Storm hate? It all works against this deck.[\quote]

A lot of graveyard hate actually doesn't work against this because it's too slow. The only things that work are Surigcal Extraction, Extirpate and Crypt basically. Additionally, it's very possible that you can board into some sort of Empty the Warrens plan that's very strong against blue decks.

You can reduce the combo by a single card by the way. -1 Azami, -1 Lab Maniac +1 Fiend Hunter. Here's how it goes:
Mill your deck
DR Angel
Wild Cantor, Informer and Fiend Hunter
Fiend Hunter removes Angel
Sac Cantor for mana
Sac Fiend Hunter to Informer to mill opponent
Angel enters play again and triggers
repeat




I'm currently trying to build a program that can goldfish this deck. That should help immensely with determining what build is the most consistent, and if the deck is any good compared to Belcher.

[nudon]

70% is not great because this is pure glass canon test. Beside 30% auto scoop up, if opponent has a hard counter or has a discard on play, that pretty much means auto lose as well. And thinking about sideboard plan dealing with all sort of threats give me headache. So I will skip that for now and work on getting the best T1 kills ratio.

Okay, here is my deck list for those numbers:

Win cons: 8
4 Undercity Informer
4 Balustrade Spy

Engines: 12
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
3 Narcomoeba
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
1 Bridge from Below

Mana Source & Fixer: 40
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Summer's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
4 Wild Cantor


Here is the record for the testing, 1 = combo, 0 = nobo.
7 cards: 25/50
0011111010
1100110000
0111101110
1010101101
1000110100

6 cards: 18/50
0001000011
0010001110
1010010100
0000000000
1101110101

5 cards: 8/50
1000001000
0000010010
0000000000
0000000000
0010110100


If you wonder why so many Cabal Therapies, I don't know either. I guess I got lazy from testing different builds before I did this one. A couple of them could be Inferno Tutors for better result. I will cut down a couple Wild Cantors for more tutors in the next version.

Another note, just to clarify I don't count 1st turn Undercity Informer > 2nd turn activation as a win. Many things could happen in one turn, STP, bounce, burn. Thus to keep it straight forward, either now or never.

From the data i felt 50 is the minimum requirement for goldfishing a build. Too often I thought I hit a gold mine by looking the T1 win ratios of a build in the first 10 or 20 hands then hit a nobo string or vice versa. I will definitely do 100 once the deck is more optimized.

Thanks for your input tianyuan but I think your testing is a statistical anomaly. I tested sample 7-card hands and found only 6/50 were turn 1 kills. This may have been due to variance as well but I'm skeptical that a turn 1 kill occurs anywhere near 70% of the time when you only have 8 win-cons in your deck. The probability of having at least 1 of 8 win-cons with a 7-card hand is only 65%. Granted you can mulligan down into a win-con but it seems unlikely you'll always have the correct mana to play your win-con in every scenario.

I also agree 50 is the minimum requirement for goldfishing because there is so much variance.

[JDK]

You can reduce the combo by a single card by the way. -1 Azami, -1 Lab Maniac +1 Fiend Hunter. Here's how it goes:
Mill your deck
DR Angel
Wild Cantor, Informer and Fiend Hunter
Fiend Hunter removes Angel
Sac Cantor for mana
Sac Fiend Hunter to Informer to mill opponent
Angel enters play again and triggers
repeat
Interesting find. After sideboarding you could run Dragon Breath + Sutured Ghoul to overcome a possible Leyline of Sanctity without investing mana and cards like Chain of Vapor (credit to Climax).

[Bahamuth]

Interesting find. After sideboarding you could run Dragon Breath + Sutured Ghoul to overcome a possible Leyline of Sanctity without investing mana and cards like Chain of Vapor (credit to Climax).

No you cannot, because there's no hope of viability for this deck if it cannot board into a deck that doesn't depend on the graveyard.

[JDK]

Well, that's true, unfortunately. :(

[nudon]

I tested again with 4 Infernal Tutors:

7 cards: 39/100
10001 00000
01011 01110
00101 00011
10000 00000
00000 10000

01011 11011
11010 00010
01001 00010
11111 10000
01101 10000


6 cards: 33/100
10000 11101
00001 00011
11011 00001
10011 10000
10010 11010

01000 10001
10001 00010
01000 00000
11100 10000
10100 10000


5 cards: 11/100
00100 10000
00000 00110
00000 00000
00000 00000
00100 00100

00000 00000
00000 00000
00000 10100
01000 00100
00000 00010


Even at 100, the result flutuated a lot. The first 50 of 7 card hand hit all time low. 15/50 = 30%. Then the latter 50 goes back to normal T1 win ratio level. 6 cards and 5 cards hand are around average ratios.

1 - (61% * 67% * 89%) = 64%

Not as good as last time but still within reasonable range.

A couple thing I noticed during the test:
1) Infernal tutor did help me achieve about ten T1 wins in 300 games.
2) Plenty of times I am one initial black mana away from winning. Holding 2 rituals, a LED and a win con but no black mana. :(
3) About 6 times, I have only 3 mana to cast Undercity Informer but could wait a turn to untap Chrome Mox in order to go off. I count these as 0 though.
4) About 6 times, I have 2 LED, and a Chancellor in open hand but no win con.


The deck list for this testing:

Win cons: 12
4 Undercity Informer
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Infernal Tutor

Engines: 10
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
3 Narcomoeba
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
1 Bridge from Below

Mana Source & Fixer: 38
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Summer's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
2 Wild Cantor


My current thought on manaless build is to win as fast & consistent as possible 1st game. Then SB some trolls to deal with desperate grave hates and counters, leyline against discard.

Storm hate couldn't stop LED + Spirit Guides kill. Pithing Needle couldn't stop Balustrade Spy. (SB Sutured Ghoul + Dragon Breath in case Needle Azami). So they are fair games.

Perhaps squeeze some Pact of Negation MD to deal with FOW if they are rampant.

I tried your list again just in case and still only got 13/50 t1 kills with an opening hand of 7 cards (much less than 25). I think you might want to retest your deck. Also, I'm not sure what kind of results my build would get under your testing. If you want to try it, you can find it here:

http://deckstats.net/deck-1886312-352d0e9a7e6ba53544ae7c203aa3ce25.html

[tsabo_tavoc]

You can reduce the combo by a single card by the way. -1 Azami, -1 Lab Maniac +1 Fiend Hunter. Here's how it goes:
Mill your deck
DR Angel
Wild Cantor, Informer and Fiend Hunter
Fiend Hunter removes Angel
Sac Cantor for mana
Sac Fiend Hunter to Informer to mill opponent
Angel enters play again and triggers
repeat

Nice find, but it is a loss against Emrakul.dec, Progenitus.dec, Colossus.dec.

[phazonmutant]

100% T1 kills on the play wouldn't make this deck viable. Its a combo deck that loses to both countermagic or graveyard hate. The opponent always has something to board in against you. Throw a rock, and the glass house falls apart.

Take a look at Pact SI as a good example. The only reason the deck can justify not playing protection is by having a post-board plan that compliments a dense business suite. This is why Classic Belcher lists might as well just run Islands in their post-board.. SI, on the other hand, has 18-19 business spells to abuse with cards like Carpet of Flowers and Lotus Bloom; taking out the explosive acceleration like Culling the Weak and Summoner's Pact for a slow roll strategy.. as well as protection spells so that you can actually out play an opponent.

Current lists here are just trying to outrace SI and Belcher for viability.. and thats foolish. This Rogue Hermit deck can probably push as high as 70% turn 1 kills once fully optimized.. but it doesn't matter if you don't have a post-board plan.. and you'll still be worse than Belcher because you also lose to graveyard hate as well as any other semblance of distruption..

I don't see a reason the deck can't transform into something with more protection or non-graveyard business. Some combination of Charbelcher, Carpet of Flowers, and discard seems good and quite playable. We're working on the t1 percentage right now because, frankly, it's easier to goldfish. Once the set comes out, we can get some tournament data on sideboard. So you raise a valid concern, but we simply haven't had enough time with the deck to solve it.


The best way to go about building this deck is for a much slower combo. I'd say more along the speeds of Reanimator. Why is everyone trying to run 0 land? You don't have to run 0 land... As Emidln was saying on the first page.. you probably want Mox Opal, and you probably want tallmen to support it.. which means you probably want Culling the Weak and Cabal Therapy. People should try reading my posts, I already talked about a potential direction to take this deck (but I've no time to work on it atm).

I've tried 4-5 different builds for 50+ games each with the artifact tallmen, Vine Dryad, even Dryad Arbor. None of them are consistent enough to be better than the other builds posted.
Instead of crying that people aren't listening to you, why don't you actually prove us wrong? I did read and respond to your previous post by trying to build a couple lists, but completely failed. Obviously, figuring out how to make it work with more than 0 lands is either non-intuitive or not good.


And with a 1 card combo.. why not slow down and secure the kill? Sacrifice multiple creatures ie. tallmen. + Narcomoebas. Also.. the combo kill takes up ALOT of unnecessary space. I'd probably try something simpler.

What is a simpler combo kill? Multiple have been suggested, are they all bad?

I understand that this deck (Grinder? Anyone?) is more or less competing with your baby, but there's no reason to get antagonistic. If you think there's a better way to approach how to break them, I would encourage you to build a list.

--

Bahamuth, thanks for posting the Fiend Hunter kill. I saw it in the comments for the Prosack article and it was a really out-of-the-box, cool suggestion. Agreed that it's probably not woth shaving the slot.

--

So the big questions for the current builds are:
- Is Manamorphose worth a couple of slots (still...)
- Is Chancellor of the Tangle consistent enough?

Re: Chancellor, why is that guy better than Tinder Wall? They're both +1s in a non-combo color. Tinder Wall is worse in multiples turn 1, but much better off the top.

Props to nudon and tianyuan2k4 for goldfishing hundreds of games and posting data.

A bit of an aside to you two, does Infernal Tutor translate to something weird in Chinese? I've seen both of you misstype "Inferno" on a few posts.

[nudon]

I don't see a reason the deck can't transform into something with more protection or non-graveyard business. Some combination of Charbelcher, Carpet of Flowers, and discard seems good and quite playable. We're working on the t1 percentage right now because, frankly, it's easier to goldfish. Once the set comes out, we can get some tournament data on sideboard. So you raise a valid concern, but we simply haven't had enough time with the deck to solve it.



I've tried 4-5 different builds for 50+ games each with the artifact tallmen, Vine Dryad, even Dryad Arbor. None of them are consistent enough to be better than the other builds posted.
Instead of crying that people aren't listening to you, why don't you actually prove us wrong? I did read and respond to your previous post by trying to build a couple lists, but completely failed. Obviously, figuring out how to make it work with more than 0 lands is either non-intuitive or not good.



What is a simpler combo kill? Multiple have been suggested, are they all bad?

I understand that this deck (Grinder? Anyone?) is more or less competing with your baby, but there's no reason to get antagonistic. If you think there's a better way to approach how to break them, I would encourage you to build a list.

--

Bahamuth, thanks for posting the Fiend Hunter kill. I saw it in the comments for the Prosack article and it was a really out-of-the-box, cool suggestion. Agreed that it's probably not woth shaving the slot.

--

So the big questions for the current builds are:
- Is Manamorphose worth a couple of slots (still...)
- Is Chancellor of the Tangle consistent enough?

Re: Chancellor, why is that guy better than Tinder Wall? They're both +1s in a non-combo color. Tinder Wall is worse in multiples turn 1, but much better off the top.

Props to nudon and tianyuan2k4 for goldfishing hundreds of games and posting data.

A bit of an aside to you two, does Infernal Tutor translate to something weird in Chinese? I've seen both of you misstype "Inferno" on a few posts.

Actually, I think fiend hunter is interesting enough that shaving 1 slot might be worth it in some builds. However, maniac kill allows shaving 2 slots for the board. I have 2 manamorphose in my build currently because it filters into black mana. Also, there are times where I need to wait a turn after I've wished for balustrade spy. Getting that extra draw off playing living wish helps (compared to cantor).

Chancellor generates green mana, which is relevant to cast living wish. It also pitches to chrome mox so it's virtual c/a.

Oops, I mistyped infernal tutor by accident. For awhile, I actually thought that was the name of the card so I'm trying to re-program my brain. I actually live in Los Angeles haha.

[alphastryk]

Nice find, but it is a loss against Emrakul.dec, Progenitus.dec, Colossus.dec.

This makes me wonder is we could just board a progenitus and draw every game after the first. I feel like that is probably illegal somehow.

[The Informer]

The Informer - welcome to The Source! However, instead of regaling us with the details of your list, why don't you try to explain why the design choices you mention (like no LED) make sense despite the findings of multiple people on this thread.

Phazonmuant, sure. I see a couple of advantages and some disadvantages to not running LED. One, of course, is the deck is more budget friendly and likely to become more popular because it is cheaper to pick up. So if it works as well, I'm all for that. As far as the playing goes, playing LED locks you into playing tutors so you can crack the LED in response. That's good, but in the other list posted, for example, there are 8 tutors (4 Infernal Tutor, 4 Living Wish). Those slots mean less room for mana. LED is not really mana unless you can use it with a tutor. So when you mulligan down to 4 or 5, it's just that much more unlikely you'll draw the mana you need to go off because if you find an LED, you still need to find a tutor in order to make the LED function as mana.

A big disadvantage, however, of not running LED, is that it potentially limits the transformational sideboard. Doing a Belcher sideboard has the advantage of eschewing the graveyard, which I like. But if you don't run LED, you may not have enough mana to get up to the 7 mana required for Belcher plus activation. However, if you have enough sideboard slots and want to put the Charbelcher plus Infernal Tutors plus LEDs all in the Board, you could do that. But I think as a maindeck choice, I'd rather have more mana and less tutor slots. I think the numbers that I'm testing support this choice, but I will have to get back to you with more specifics on those numbers (win percentages on T1, for example).

[tianyuan2k4]

I tried your list again just in case and still only got 13/50 t1 kills with an opening hand of 7 cards (much less than 25). I think you might want to retest your deck. Also, I'm not sure what kind of results my build would get under your testing. If you want to try it, you can find it here:

http://deckstats.net/deck-1886312-352d0e9a7e6ba53544ae7c203aa3ce25.html

I did a quick run: (* = could have won if it's Cantor instead of Manamorphose, I count it as a win)

52/100
11*00 01001
00010 01001
01010 00101
11001 01011
10001 11111

10110 01111
10111 01110
00001 01000
11111 00101
01001 01001

Pretty solid list. Our decks aren't that different. Especially my latter one with 4 Infernal Tutor. Both decks have 11+ win con and 36 Mana. To get below 40% T1 win is quite random. I will record 6 and 5 card hand for your list when I have time.


A bit of an aside to you two, does Infernal Tutor translate to something weird in Chinese? I've seen both of you misstype "Inferno" on a few posts.In China, Infernal = Fatties, Inferno = Hotties. Now you see why I use the latter one. :tongue:


Edit:

Here is 6 card T1 win ratio for Nudon's deck:
39/100
10010 11010
00000 00101
10001 10101
01000 11000
00000 00100

00000 00010
00100 10000
00100 00010
11000 01110
00010 01001


5 card T1 win:
7/100
00000 00000
10000 00000
01100 00000
00000 00000
00000 00000

00000 00000
00000 00000
00100 00000
11000 10000
00000 00000

Put all three together:

1 - (48% * 61% * 92%) = 73%

I think the 5 card one is an abnomaly. Usually it should be 10%+.

Anyway, Chancellor really shines in the 6 card test, at least 5 games it's crucial for T1 win.

Nudan your deck is really solid . :smile:

[Ziveeman]

Hey guys,

I was featured in Adam Prosak's article that went up last night (the first Undercity Informer decklist he posted on the article was taken from my blog). We've been talking about the deck for awhile since I mentioned it on his stream. For reference, this was the list that achieved a roughly 30-40% T1 win rate that he mentioned on his article. Since then, there are a ton of changes you guys have made that would probably make it much more consistent than the list I have.

4 Undercity Informer
4 Balustrade Spy

1 Dread Return
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
4 Narcomoeba

1 Cabal Therapy
1 Phantasmagorian

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Chrome Mox

4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Rite of Flame

3 Manamorphose
3 Pact of Negation
3 Gitaxian Probe
1 Wild Cantor

Definitely not an optimal list. Yeah, I ran with Pact of Negations maindeck, which definitely contributed to the lack of a higher T1 win rate - but you do have many t2 and t3 protected wins with one or two Pact of Negation which was sweet. I'm pretty sure that Rite of Flame needs to be Tinder Wall because they do the same thing, but you can cast a Tinder Wall off of a Summoner's Pact -> Elvish Spirit Guide.

RE: LEDs/Tutor/Wish being in the deck - Do you guys find yourself with too many win conditions in hand? How often are you guys mulliganing? While I included Wish/Tutor initially because Balustrade Spy hadn't been spoiled yet, I went down to the 8 win condition configuration (and took out LED as a result). However, I'm more inclined to include Wish over Tutor (because Wish is probably slightly better if you don't have LED). Joe Lossett's Belcher article (http://blog.mtgdeals.com/oarsman/rebuilding-legacy-charbelcher/) calculated that 4 Belcher/4 Wish/2 Warrens is a more optimal build than 4 Belcher/4 Wish/3 Warrens or just 4 Belcher/4 Warrens, so perhaps we could just emulate that with something like 4 Undercity Informer/3 Balustrade Spy/3 Living Wish. Perhaps we could quantify the deck's mana much in the way he does so in the article.

Also, I goldfished Chancellor of the Tangle for a couple of hands and he's great in some situations (especially when you can use him to generate mana, then imprint him on Chrome Mox), but there are many situations when you really do have to pass the turn, and after that, he's just absolutely terrible. If you mulligan down and you have him but can't generate the 4 mana (for example, you can only generate 3 with him) and you're forced to pass the turn, you need two more turns before you can go off again. While I'd like to keep the T1 win % high, perhaps Chancellor sacrifices too much percentage points if we find ourselves not going off T1.

[whienot]

This makes me wonder is we could just board a progenitus and draw every game after the first. I feel like that is probably illegal somehow.

That would be incredibly awesome, but I don't think that works. Spy and Informer both reveal X, then place into graveyard. You would reveal your deck, then place it into the graveyard at which point Progentus reshuffles.

Otherwise, I would have no issues winning all my matches 1-0-73.

[tianyuan2k4]

Also, I goldfished Chancellor of the Tangle for a couple of hands and he's great in some situations (especially when you can use him to generate mana, then imprint him on Chrome Mox), but there are many situations when you really do have to pass the turn, and after that, he's just absolutely terrible.
Well, with all these mana source you could hardcast it. It gets even better when your two LED + 1 Chancellor vs. opponent's three leylines and four extractions.

Seriously this deck can go different directions. Pushing this deck to its limit is just one way to approach. At least we could study the numbers for now until we learn more from actually game play experience.

[gkraigher]

That would be incredibly awesome, but I don't think that works. Spy and Informer both reveal X, then place into graveyard. You would reveal your deck, then place it into the graveyard at which point Progentus reshuffles.

Otherwise, I would have no issues winning all my matches 1-0-73.

How does progenitus cause a draw??

[phazonmutant]

How does progenitus cause a draw??

It doesn't, but if the Grinders had been templated to mill until they hit a land instead of reveal until they hit a land then mill, you would mill Progenitus infinitely, so it would force a draw.

[catmint]

RE: LEDs/Tutor/Wish being in the deck - Do you guys find yourself with too many win conditions in hand? How often are you guys mulliganing? While I included Wish/Tutor initially because Balustrade Spy hadn't been spoiled yet, I went down to the 8 win condition configuration (and took out LED as a result). However, I'm more inclined to include Wish over Tutor (because Wish is probably slightly better if you don't have LED). Joe Lossett's Belcher article (http://blog.mtgdeals.com/oarsman/rebuilding-legacy-charbelcher/) calculated that 4 Belcher/4 Wish/2 Warrens is a more optimal build than 4 Belcher/4 Wish/3 Warrens or just 4 Belcher/4 Warrens, so perhaps we could just emulate that with something like 4 Undercity Informer/3 Balustrade Spy/3 Living Wish. Perhaps we could quantify the deck's mana much in the way he does so in the article.

Also, I goldfished Chancellor of the Tangle for a couple of hands and he's great in some situations (especially when you can use him to generate mana, then imprint him on Chrome Mox), but there are many situations when you really do have to pass the turn, and after that, he's just absolutely terrible. If you mulligan down and you have him but can't generate the 4 mana (for example, you can only generate 3 with him) and you're forced to pass the turn, you need two more turns before you can go off again. While I'd like to keep the T1 win % high, perhaps Chancellor sacrifices too much percentage points if we find ourselves not going off T1.

I came to similar conclusions concerning the lower number of win conditions. Altough living wish has it's upside beeing able to run 8 spy maindeck adds up the the T1%, so I would go for 8 spy, 2 infernal, 0 Led.

Concerning taking a draw if you miss 1 mana. Question is what is more likely ~50% chance to add draw 1 mana but giving the opponent time or mull. Chancellor sucks if you have to do that on the other hand if you max out on acceleration its less likely to happen. =)

[rufus]

...
Also, I goldfished Chancellor of the Tangle for a couple of hands and he's great in some situations (especially when you can use him to generate mana, then imprint him on Chrome Mox), but there are many situations when you really do have to pass the turn, and after that, he's just absolutely terrible. If you mulligan down and you have him but can't generate the 4 mana (for example, you can only generate 3 with him) and you're forced to pass the turn, you need two more turns before you can go off again. While I'd like to keep the T1 win % high, perhaps Chancellor sacrifices too much percentage points if we find ourselves not going off T1.

SSG may be superior.

I'm pretty sure that repeatedly grinding over Emrakul, The Aeons Torn is going to get a judge called on you. Death Cultist[/card] or something similar would solve the problem. Of course, that also eliminates the advantage.

A route that I haven't seen discussed here is [cards]Sylvan Tutor/Worldly Tutor + Freetrip + LED. Is there some fundamental problem with that approach?

[Upstate Jimmy]

I think Sylvan and Worldy Tutor might be worth exploring. Most builds here have nixed cantrips, but a build that runs them might want the cards. The main issue I see with possibly including them is that this deck doesn't appear to have trouble finding win cons (in fact, many people have cut back on them). Issue number 1 is the mana, which both tutors don't address.

[phazonmutant]

I think Sylvan and Worldy Tutor might be worth exploring. Most builds here have nixed cantrips, but a build that runs them might want the cards. The main issue I see with possibly including them is that this deck doesn't appear to have trouble finding win cons (in fact, many people have cut back on them). Issue number 1 is the mana, which both tutors don't address.

That's a good point. I threw a list together and after a couple of iterations, this seemed pretty solid, actually. Its t1 off of cantrips was good, but the LED-Cantrip-Tutor combo didn't happen very often.

4 Undercity Informer
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Worldly Tutor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Manamorphose
4 Street Wraith
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
1 Wild Cantor
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Narcomoeba
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Cabal Therapy
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Dread Return
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls

I didn't record statistics, but it seemed like it mulliganned much less and had a fairly equivalent t1 rate. You just have to be very aggressive with the cantrips.

[rufus]

That's a good point. I threw a list together and after a couple of iterations, this seemed pretty solid, actually. Its t1 off of cantrips was good, but the LED-Cantrip-Tutor combo didn't happen very often.


How else does it use the LED?

[GradStudentGuy]

How else does it use the LED?

I think people are missing the point of LED. I am not just playing hands with this deck , I am playing matches against real opponents. LED is key to get past daze and spell pierce.

[nudon]

I did a quick run: (* = could have won if it's Cantor instead of Manamorphose, I count it as a win)

52/100
11*00 01001
00010 01001
01010 00101
11001 01011
10001 11111

10110 01111
10111 01110
00001 01000
11111 00101
01001 01001

Pretty solid list. Our decks aren't that different. Especially my latter one with 4 Infernal Tutor. Both decks have 11+ win con and 36 Mana. To get below 40% T1 win is quite random. I will record 6 and 5 card hand for your list when I have time.

In China, Infernal = Fatties, Inferno = Hotties. Now you see why I use the latter one. :tongue:


Edit:

Here is 6 card T1 win ratio for Nudon's deck:
39/100
10010 11010
00000 00101
10001 10101
01000 11000
00000 00100

00000 00010
00100 10000
00100 00010
11000 01110
00010 01001


5 card T1 win:
7/100
00000 00000
10000 00000
01100 00000
00000 00000
00000 00000

00000 00000
00000 00000
00100 00000
11000 10000
00000 00000

Put all three together:

1 - (48% * 61% * 92%) = 73%

I think the 5 card one is an abnomaly. Usually it should be 10%+.

Anyway, Chancellor really shines in the 6 card test, at least 5 games it's crucial for T1 win.

Nudan your deck is really solid . :smile:

Thanks tianyuan. The results you got are better than what I got. I think each person's different method of play-testing/evaluating also dictates what kind of results you get. Nonetheless, it does explain why I was unable to duplicate some of the numbers you got.


Hey guys,

I was featured in Adam Prosak's article that went up last night (the first Undercity Informer decklist he posted on the article was taken from my blog). We've been talking about the deck for awhile since I mentioned it on his stream. For reference, this was the list that achieved a roughly 30-40% T1 win rate that he mentioned on his article. Since then, there are a ton of changes you guys have made that would probably make it much more consistent than the list I have.

4 Undercity Informer
4 Balustrade Spy

1 Dread Return
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
4 Narcomoeba

1 Cabal Therapy
1 Phantasmagorian

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Chrome Mox

4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Rite of Flame

3 Manamorphose
3 Pact of Negation
3 Gitaxian Probe
1 Wild Cantor

Definitely not an optimal list. Yeah, I ran with Pact of Negations maindeck, which definitely contributed to the lack of a higher T1 win rate - but you do have many t2 and t3 protected wins with one or two Pact of Negation which was sweet. I'm pretty sure that Rite of Flame needs to be Tinder Wall because they do the same thing, but you can cast a Tinder Wall off of a Summoner's Pact -> Elvish Spirit Guide.

RE: LEDs/Tutor/Wish being in the deck - Do you guys find yourself with too many win conditions in hand? How often are you guys mulliganing? While I included Wish/Tutor initially because Balustrade Spy hadn't been spoiled yet, I went down to the 8 win condition configuration (and took out LED as a result). However, I'm more inclined to include Wish over Tutor (because Wish is probably slightly better if you don't have LED). Joe Lossett's Belcher article (http://blog.mtgdeals.com/oarsman/rebuilding-legacy-charbelcher/) calculated that 4 Belcher/4 Wish/2 Warrens is a more optimal build than 4 Belcher/4 Wish/3 Warrens or just 4 Belcher/4 Warrens, so perhaps we could just emulate that with something like 4 Undercity Informer/3 Balustrade Spy/3 Living Wish. Perhaps we could quantify the deck's mana much in the way he does so in the article.

Also, I goldfished Chancellor of the Tangle for a couple of hands and he's great in some situations (especially when you can use him to generate mana, then imprint him on Chrome Mox), but there are many situations when you really do have to pass the turn, and after that, he's just absolutely terrible. If you mulligan down and you have him but can't generate the 4 mana (for example, you can only generate 3 with him) and you're forced to pass the turn, you need two more turns before you can go off again. While I'd like to keep the T1 win % high, perhaps Chancellor sacrifices too much percentage points if we find ourselves not going off T1.

Do you know Adam personally? Chancellor is really good if you've maxed out on the IMS and mana-fixing. If you have more win-cons, it's definitely not as strong. Unless you're running 4x probe, 4x wraith, and 4x manamorphose, I think 8 win-cons is way too little. Right now I have 11 win-cons and it's actually been working pretty well.

[tianyuan2k4]

I think each person's different method of play-testing/evaluating also dictates what kind of results you get.This one's T1 kill has a very straight forward goldfishing goal. It's either have enough mana + win con or not. Very linear. Just need more test result for reliable data.

I realized yesterday I already tested your list from mtgsalvation. I did a quick fifty 7 card hand goldfish and I got 20/50 (40%) T1 win, but I knew the result varies because average for 11~12 win con should be around 45%~50%. Today's test (52%) proved I am right. :smile:



That's a good point. I threw a list together and after a couple of iterations, this seemed pretty solid, actually. Its t1 off of cantrips was good, but the LED-Cantrip-Tutor combo didn't happen very often.

4 Undercity Informer
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Worldly Tutor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Manamorphose
4 Street Wraith
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
1 Wild Cantor
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Narcomoeba
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Cabal Therapy
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Dread Return
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls

I didn't record statistics, but it seemed like it mulliganned much less and had a fairly equivalent t1 rate. You just have to be very aggressive with the cantrips.This list seems promising. I will test and post my result tomorrow.

[Ziveeman]

Do you know Adam personally? Chancellor is really good if you've maxed out on the IMS and mana-fixing. If you have more win-cons, it's definitely not as strong. Unless you're running 4x probe, 4x wraith, and 4x manamorphose, I think 8 win-cons is way too little. Right now I have 11 win-cons and it's actually been working pretty well.

Yeah I know Adam from back when he lived in AZ.

I'll probably test a 10/11/12 win-con list tomorrow or later this week when I have time. Looking back, 8 win-cons probably is in fact too little. The advantage of this deck over Belcher is that even if you draw all of the Spies/Informers, it's still much easier to generate the 4 mana than Belcher. Sometimes with Belcher you have to pitch a hand because it contains 4 mana and 3 win cons...but with this deck it's good enough.

[Darkenslight]

I think Deathrite Shaman has a place in this deck, being typically both a permanent mana source and fantastic Imprint material (seeing as everyone is saying that the problem is producing Black mana. However, the larger issue is card-space.

[phazonmutant]

I think Deathrite Shaman has a place in this deck, being typically both a permanent mana source and fantastic Imprint material (seeing as everyone is saying that the problem is producing Black mana. However, the larger issue is card-space.

Deathrite is definitely appealing to randomly draw into against a live opponent. But from what it's felt like in testing, I've never really wanted Deathrite. Pact for Cantor or Pact for Deathrite both fix mana and all Cantor requires is that you have one of your many redundant spells to imprint on Chrome Mox for it to work equally well.

[Holly]

Haven't tested anything so far but a random thought:

Has anyone of you tried to run something with Land Grant (& 1 Bayou)?
While it indeed does suck with the Spy and can cause Belcher to fizzle it would really help with getting started.
I think you most likely have to cut the Spy and play as winconditions something like
3 Informer (which you can use again with Narcamoeba, Tallmen (for Mox Opal)?)
3-4 Living Wish
3-4 Infernal Tutor

or
4 Informer
4 Belcher
3-4 Tutor
But I guess in this case, why not simply play real Belcher..


I guess you could play maindeck informer, wish & tutor,
sideboard Belcher, discard and carpet of flowers. All their gy-hate would be useless and you'd have some amount of discard vs counters..
Of the t1 kill % would drop by some amount but I guess you get some kind of resilence versus blue.

[The Informer]

In order to make the number of win-cons the same as belcher (11), I've removed the infernal tutors and now have the following list:
http://deckstats.net/deck-1885565-65b904c1457e5a05a30c0e0644d64f8d.html

I tested the deck 25 times and got the following results:
T1 kill: 14, 56%
T2 kill: 3, 12%
T3 kill: 4, 16%
T4+ kill: 4, 16%

Though I didn't keep track, a few of those games I was able to play cabal therapy off a chrome mox as well. Thus, I think the deck has a lot of potential once tweaked further. Granted, deathrite shaman is a thing so those T1/T2 kill rates need to improve. I think reducing infernal tutors really helps too because my hand is not as cluttered.



Thanks, welcome to the Source! Mimeoplasm kill is totally fine (he's actually my edh general) in my opinion. However, one of the benefits of running maniac is you can side out angel and azami since your opponent will be taking out all his removal spells anyways and you have cabal therapy flashback just in case. As pointed out, I don't think signal the clans helps but out-of-box thinking is what this is all about so suggestions are welcomed haha.

Thank you, Nudon, for the welcome and the testing. From my testing yesterday without Infernal Tutors I also got around the same, with a 58% turn one kill out of 50 matches. Having some way to kill Deathrite Shaman will be nice, but Phyrexian Revoker is one I had also thought of with the Living Wish plan. It gets Bolted pretty easily though, so it's hard to let it stick around for a turn, which may be necessary in some cases because of the high mana costs to combo out in 1 turn (8 mana with a Spy and Living Wish in hand in this case).

Right now, I want to figure out the sideboard plan. I don't know how good the Charbelcher sideboard is, but it is appealing because it dodges GY hate. Does anyone who has tested the Belcher sideboard have more ideas on how good it is?

As for outside the box thinking, I think maybe a beatdown sideboard might work as well. It doesn't win on turn 1 or anything, but it will not be expected by an opponent. It just depends on whether we can design an effective one. I'll get back to you after some testing on that one...

[The Informer]

I think Sylvan and Worldy Tutor might be worth exploring. Most builds here have nixed cantrips, but a build that runs them might want the cards. The main issue I see with possibly including them is that this deck doesn't appear to have trouble finding win cons (in fact, many people have cut back on them). Issue number 1 is the mana, which both tutors don't address.

In my testing, these tutors were bad for the reason that they don't put the card in your hand. So all the mana you have left over for the turn empties the mana pool. In my testing, Signal the Clans was superior to these if you are looking for an "in-deck" tutor.

[Barook]

As for name suggestions, what about Cloak and Dagger, since it's all about Rogues and killing out of nowhere?

[Upstate Jimmy]

We should test this card.


http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=158773

Going off with an extra red or green mana isn't uncommon for this deck, and this could be a viable option for us.

Also, in terms of the beatdown plan, this may be too outside the box but what about Phyrexian Obliterator? Our deck can get to 4 black mana pretty easily, and if he resolves, much of the format is cold to him. Might not be worth it, but something to consider.

[Herjan]

We should test this card.


http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=158773

Going off with an extra red or green mana isn't uncommon for this deck, and this could be a viable option for us.


I was thinking about Autumn's Veil which is similar (if not better), but pre-board I don't know if we have enough space to play 3-4 copies of the card, and post-board Pact of Negation seems a better choice.

[tianyuan2k4]

That's a good point. I threw a list together and after a couple of iterations, this seemed pretty solid, actually. Its t1 off of cantrips was good, but the LED-Cantrip-Tutor combo didn't happen very often.

4 Undercity Informer
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Worldly Tutor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Manamorphose
4 Street Wraith
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
1 Wild Cantor
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Narcomoeba
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Cabal Therapy
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Dread Return
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls

I didn't record statistics, but it seemed like it mulliganned much less and had a fairly equivalent t1 rate. You just have to be very aggressive with the cantrips.

I did a quick test for 7 card hand T1 win
11011 01001
11111 00001
10000 00010
00011 11101
00100 11000

20/50 = 40% If adding mull to 6 card it's probably 60%. The problems with this build during my test:
1) Gitaxian Probe + Street Wraith: They make mull decision difficult, especially when I am only missing one piece and have 2 or 3 free draws in my hand.
2) Worldy Tutor + Free draws: it works, but only two in fifty games. Perhaps need more test for reliable results.

[phazonmutant]

I did a quick test for 7 card hand T1 win
11011 01001
11111 00001
10000 00010
00011 11101
00100 11000

20/50 = 40% If adding mull to 6 card it's probably 60%. The problems with this build during my test:
1) Gitaxian Probe + Street Wraith: They make mull decision difficult, especially when I am only missing one piece and have 2 or 3 free draws in my hand.
2) Worldy Tutor + Free draws: it works, but only two in fifty games. Perhaps need more test for reliable results.

Both those points make sense. It was worth a shot, but I doubt it's actually better than other builds. Thanks for doing the number crunching!



Also, in terms of the beatdown plan, this may be too outside the box but what about Phyrexian Obliterator? Our deck can get to 4 black mana pretty easily, and if he resolves, much of the format is cold to him. Might not be worth it, but something to consider.

I do like the idea transforming into a man-plan. I don't think Obliterator is the card, though. We have relatively few ways to make lots of B mana - the builds right now are tuned to make 1 B and lots of random colors.
One card that I've had my eye on is Tomb of Urami. SI likes it because people generally won't counter your rituals, and then they can't counter Tomb. It does have the problem of needing to get up to 5 mana and because our kill involves creatures, I'm not sure people will actually take out all their removal.

From the SI thread, potentials they've looked at:
- Tomb of Urami
- Tombstalker
- Avatar of Discord
- Phyrexian Negator
- Phylactery Lich
- Death’s Shadow
- Dark Confidant

Of these options, I like Tomb and Bob the most. They even work fairly well together.

--
Re: Gutteral Response and Autumn's Veil - I'm just not excited by those cards because you probably don't have room for them maindeck (and if you do, Pact of Negation would be better), and they also don't stop any graveyard hate postboard.

[tianyuan2k4]

Both those points make sense. It was worth a shot, but I doubt it's actually better than other builds. Thanks for doing the number crunching!No at all. I love numbers.

Talking about numbers, I was thinking about the best number of wincon to be included in this deck. Assuming you only want to see one or two wincons in your open hand. (Too many wincons means no mana to cast one) I used Magic Probability Calculator from MTGS to calculate this. Note that this only gives you a basic idea of drawing a wincon in open hand. Having a wincon doesn't mean you have enough mana or proper color to cast it.

So here is the table for the 7 card hand:
http://imageshack.us/a/img560/2511/7card.jpg

6 card hand:
http://imageshack.us/a/img580/5886/6card.jpg

Basically it means if you put 8 wincons in a deck, and your open hand has 7 cards, you have 35% chance seeing no wincon, 42% to see 1 wincon, 19% to see 2 wincons, 4% to see 3 wincons.

Now for the best chance to see 1 or 2 wincons in 7 card hand: 11, 12, 13 = 67%

The best for 6 card hand: 13, 14, 15 = 68%

Again, having a wincon doesn't mean you could cast it. This is just mere basic probability data.

[stygian87]

No at all. I love numbers.

So here is the table for the 7 card hand:
http://imageshack.us/a/img560/2511/7card.jpg

6 card hand:
http://imageshack.us/a/img580/5886/6card.jpg


Have you done this data break down for percentages of cycle cards and mana production?

[stygian87]

I'm pretty sure that Rite of Flame needs to be Tinder Wall because they do the same thing, but you can cast a Tinder Wall off of a Summoner's Pact -> Elvish Spirit Guide.



Joe Lossett's Belcher article (http://blog.mtgdeals.com/oarsman/rebuilding-legacy-charbelcher/) calculated that 4 Belcher/4 Wish/2 Warrens is a more optimal build than 4 Belcher/4 Wish/3 Warrens or just 4 Belcher/4 Warrens, so perhaps we could just emulate that with something like 4 Undercity Informer/3 Balustrade Spy/3 Living Wish. Perhaps we could quantify the deck's mana much in the way he does so in the article.


Ziveeman The biggest plus to Rite of Flame will is the bonus for drawing multiples but I like Tinder Wall due to Summoner's Pact as well, to go along with that how do you feel about adding more copies of Wild Cantor and dropping 2 copies of Chrome Mox? Joe Lossett did say that the one thing he found was less Chrome Mox's was optimal saying "It is inefficient, and you never want to see two copies in your hand." I don't know if this correlates over to this build but it seems worth the test.

[catmint]

I did reduce chrome mox to 3 and played with multiple instances for cantor to guarantee black mana for dark ritual and think it is correct. CHrome mox especially also has the problem that you cannot imprint a combo-piece and is often dead. My goldfish results were more or less equal to the others so i did not bother posting.

[nudon]

Thank you, Nudon, for the welcome and the testing. From my testing yesterday without Infernal Tutors I also got around the same, with a 58% turn one kill out of 50 matches. Having some way to kill Deathrite Shaman will be nice, but Phyrexian Revoker is one I had also thought of with the Living Wish plan. It gets Bolted pretty easily though, so it's hard to let it stick around for a turn, which may be necessary in some cases because of the high mana costs to combo out in 1 turn (8 mana with a Spy and Living Wish in hand in this case).

Right now, I want to figure out the sideboard plan. I don't know how good the Charbelcher sideboard is, but it is appealing because it dodges GY hate. Does anyone who has tested the Belcher sideboard have more ideas on how good it is?

As for outside the box thinking, I think maybe a beatdown sideboard might work as well. It doesn't win on turn 1 or anything, but it will not be expected by an opponent. It just depends on whether we can design an effective one. I'll get back to you after some testing on that one...

Yeah living wish into revoker probably isn't too great against jund. Other than that, I think it could be useful. Games 2 and 3, it could be fairly safe against most decks I think, granted you have the mana to play everything. Yeah, I think most people have similar turn 1 win % of about 50-60% right now so it's important to work on the board. I think a transformational board is probably the way to go because it's going to be an uphill climb fighting all the gy hate and splash damage from storm hate.


I did reduce chrome mox to 3 and played with multiple instances for cantor to guarantee black mana for dark ritual and think it is correct. CHrome mox especially also has the problem that you cannot imprint a combo-piece and is often dead. My goldfish results were more or less equal to the others so i did not bother posting.

I agree 3 chrome moxes is probably the correct number. However, I'll probably reflect that on my build once I'm more confident the mana fixing is there and we have enough black sources to go off consistently. Chrome mox can actually imprint 1 narcomoeba/therapy if necessary. They can be useful for imprinting chancellor for explosive starts too.

[Upstate Jimmy]

Not to be too blunt, but I think cutting any number of Chrome Mox from this deck is a terrible idea.

The Belcher article talks about 3 metrics: Mana, kill condition and initial mana. Belcher can afford to cut back on Chrome Mox because it has other (and better) intial mana sources: Taiga, Land Grant, Lotus Petal, Simian Spirit Guide and Chrome Mox all turn on their ritual chain. Of these cards, Chrome Mox is definitely the least effective for the purpose of guranteeing a T1 kill if you are trying to get to 7 Mana (more on that later).

Now let's look at Undercity.dec (Captain Hammer to me). In terms of cards that we have to make black mana (necessary to win the game) and utilize our rituals (often how we win) the choices are: Lotus Petal, Wild Cantor, Manamorphose, Summoners Pact, Living Wish and Chrome Mox.

Of all these cards, the only intial mana source more efficient than Lotus Petal is Chrome Mox. Wild Cantor Requires you to have one of eight cards in your deck (the spirit guides) to use. Manamorphose cantrips but requires a two mana investment, one of which must be one of those eight cards. For Summoners Pact you also need one of the spirit guides to make black mana (fetching wild cantor) while Living Wish is a situational mana fixer, working as mana disadvantage when fetching a swamp, but allowing for incredible mana advantage and fixing when paired with LED (sac in response to casting).

Now let's look at Chrome Mox. Chrome Mox can make black mana when paired with 23 cards in my version of the deck (I run 4x infernal tutors) and it is a mana source when paired with 44 cards in the deck, (for this calculation I am excluding All artifacts and all 4 pieces of the combo, although there are corner cases where it is correct to imprint Azami or Angel of Glory's Rise)

That's a whole lot more efficient and flexible than any other mana fixer we have access to besides lotus petal.

Plus, Chrome Mox has even more advantages than this.

As the only resuable mana source we have, besides living wished lands, Chrome Mox sometimes gives us the option to cabal therapy before we go off. It also works really well with infernal tutor, as it can more easily allow you to go hellbent. Perhaps even more importantly, cracking LED with a Chrome Mox on the field allows you to wish or tutor for undercity informer with zero mana in the pool. While this is a risky play (it turns on their creature removal) if they don't have it, you win when you untap, which is nothing to sneeze at.

The counter argument is that two Chrome Mox in hand is bad, and I would agree with you: For every deck but this one.

We are trying to get to 4 mana. Two imprinted Chrome Mox gets us 50% there, 75% if you want to risk exposing undercity to a removal spell for a turn. That's huge. It also allows us to do nifty things, such as casting manamorphose without fear of fizziling, making living wish for a land mana ADVANTAGE and making it really easy to get hellbent for infernal tutor.

Two moxen also means that if we fizzle, unlike with any other card in the deck, we'll still be 50%-75% the way there. Contrast that with Belcher, where two Chrome Mox will only get you 2/7 of the way there. Double Chrome Mox often sets us up to either win, or be one draw step away from winning. That doesn't appear to be the case with Belcher.

That being said, properly using Chrome Mox in this deck is a subtle art. The first Chrome Mox should generally be imprinted on black mana, but if you draw a second, that isn't necessarily the case. It's also generally incorrect in my goldfishing to imprint a spirit guide, as it'll net you more mana imprinting a non mana producing card, and holding the second Chrome Mox in your hand until you get a good imprinting target is often correct.


My point is this: Chrome Mox is a pillar of the deck. It is our second most explosive initial mana source, and by far our most resiliant. It is an automatic 4 of.

[tianyuan2k4]

Have you done this data break down for percentages of cycle cards and mana production?By cycle cards you mean Gitaxian Probe, Street Wraith? These cards are not good for this deck imo. One or two Manamorphoses are fine, but that wouldn't have any significant impact on the percentages.


I tried a build with three Infernal Tutor and four Living Wish. Not much success. Only got 47/100 T1 win with 7 card hand. However, there are some occasions in goldfishing I was hoping the Inferno Tutor in my hand is Cabal Ritual. So which one is better? The 4th Cabal Ritual or the 3rd Infernal Tutor?

So I used a wild card that it could be Infernal Tutor or Cabal Ritual to test. Here is the result I got:

50 times I have the wild card in my open 7 card hand:
I would win if it's Cabal Ritual: 6
I would win if it's Infernal Tutor: 6
I win regardless it's ritual or tutor: 16
No way to win at all: 22

:eyebrow: I thought the 4th ritual is better before testing.


Here is the deck list for the testing:

Win cons: 13
4 Undercity Informer
3 Balustrade Spy
4 Living Wish
2 Infernal Tutor

Engines: 10
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
4 Narcomoeba
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
1 Bridge from Below

Mana Source & Fixer: 36
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Summer's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
3 Cabal Ritual
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
1 Wild Cantor

Wild Card: 1
1 Cabal Ritual or Infernal Tutor

[John Cox]

You guys are going in an interesting direction with this, I don't personally use tutors or LEDs in my list, but if I did my list would look something like this,

4 Undercity Informer
4 Balustrade Spy
4 infernal tutor

1 flame-kin zealot
4 Narcomoeba
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
3 Bridge from Below

4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Summer's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Wild Cantor

Not that far off from your lists. Try wild cantor as more than a singleton, he's great!

For reference my list is,

4 Undercity Informer
4 Balustrade Spy
4 serum powder

1 flame-kin zealot
4 Narcomoeba
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
3 Bridge from Below

4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Rite of Flame
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Wild Cantor

[whienot]

Try wild cantor as more than a singleton, he's great!

I concur. With 12 effective spirit guides, 4x Cantor is excellent at generating the initial black source.

[catmint]

Serum Powder looks very weak.
Assume you have Powder + a combo piece...Sometimes it is a free mull, but maybe that would not have been necessary with 1 more card. Powder can be played in vintage dredge where you want a bazar and the rest does not really matter. But if you have a specific combo it does not look useful.

[stygian87]

In terms of cards that we have to make black mana (necessary to win the game) and utilize our rituals (often how we win) the choices are: Lotus Petal, Wild Cantor, Manamorphose, Summoners Pact, Living Wish and Chrome Mox.


I personally haven't been running living wish or infernal tutors.. Living Wish is such a toss up to me, I feel like it can be such a dead to neutral card in your hand and if I were to run them I wouldn't run 4 and I would cut back on the necessary kill cards (Undercity Informer & Balustrade Spy) with that said I feel in order to get the most out of Chrome Mox we need to have more targetable black spells. Cabal Ritual is one card I have been dancing around quite a bit its a 2 for +1 (black mana, could mean running Chrome Mox) and is that better then Tinder Wall 1 for +1 or additional Wild Cantor our ability to obtain black mana doesn't change. I also feel running 4 Manamorphose is correct.

Does anyone have any information regarding Cabal Ritual, Tinder Wall, additional Wild Cantor or Manamorphose?

I apologize this is such verbal vomit but it's quite the topic to wrap your head around and get all your thoughts clear and concise : )

[Upstate Jimmy]

No problem Stygian, we're all trying to optimize our builds here and these are the questions we need to ask.

I've been running 4x Manamorphose 4x Cabal Ritual for awhile, and have been very happy with the results. Cabal Ritual is +1 mana and that mana is black which is where you want to be 99.9% of the time. I could see cutting back to 3 in some builds, but I personally like the x4. And you are right, it is a fine thing to imprint onto a chrome Mox.

As for manamorphose, I like it, but it is a tricky card. Its cantripping + mana fixing can win you the game out of nowhere, although when to pull the trigger on it can be a tough call sometimes. It also pairs well with living wish as, if you are digging with it, you can recoup some of your mana investment by wishing for a swamp or cavern.

I'd also reccomend running some number of living wishes or infernal tutors. Wishes can fetch mana (including cavern of souls if you want to get tricky), win conditions and pair well with LED. Same with Infernal Tutors, which also imprint well onto Chrome Mox. The main reason to run these cards of course is LED, which can give you an explosive amount of mana as well as dump any combo pieces you happen to have in hand. Infernal Tutor + Lotus Petal + Lions Eye Diamond + Dark Ritual is a T1 kill by itself. 3 Spirit guides, a Living Wish and LED is also a T1 kill. It's for this explosiveness that I'd highly reccomend you take a look at running either wishes or tutors (or both).


I don't use wild cantor, but plenty of people here have had a lot of success with it, so he's definitely worth exploring.

Hope this is helpful, and good luck!

[tianyuan2k4]

Does anyone have any information regarding Cabal Ritual, Tinder Wall, additional Wild Cantor or Manamorphose?

Cabal Ritual is the best of the four. Cabal Ritual enabled so many T1 kills for me. Definitely a 4 of.

Tinder Wall is not good in multiples. And it doesn't provide black mana. I have tried it as 1 of and 3 of. It's not helping.

Wild Cantor I tried 4 of. Even though the deck do miss black mana to go off sometimes, The scenario I could have win with a Wild Cantor instead of a tutor is about 1 or 2 in 100 games. Not as useful as I thought it is. 1 of for Summoner's Pact to fix color worked the best for me.

Manamorphose is like Upstate Jimmy said, kinda tricky but useful in some occasions.

[John Cox]

Cabal Ritual is the best of the four. Cabal Ritual enabled so many T1 kills for me. Definitely a 4 of.

Tinder Wall is not good in multiples. And it doesn't provide black mana. I have tried it as 1 of and 3 of. It's not helping.

Wild Cantor I tried 4 of. Even though the deck do miss black mana to go off sometimes, The scenario I could have win with a Wild Cantor instead of a tutor is about 1 or 2 in 100 games. Not as useful as I thought it is. 1 of for Summoner's Pact to fix color worked the best for me.

Manamorphose is like Upstate Jimmy said, kinda tricky but useful in some occasions.

The great thing about cantor is that it's one mana from your esg/ssg/pact or chrome mox and gets you black mana, for mana morphose to work you need two junk mana. That's the exact situation this deck is trying to avoid. Keep in mind you only need one black mana so using tinder wall or rite of flame is a viable option over cabal ritual (not saying it's the best idea) if you want to get the most out of cantor because it imprints for red/green. Living wish might actually be better than infernal now that I think about it for that reason.

[tianyuan2k4]

The great thing about cantor is that it's one mana from your esg/ssg/pact or chrome mox and gets you black mana, That's exactly what I thought when I test 4 cantors build. After 300+ goldfishes, I realized it's a corner case in a situation that I am just one black mana away from going off. It's about 1 or 2% to have a hand like that. The deck already has 4 Summoner's Pact in case I really need cantor. Thus I start to drop cantor from 4 to 3 to 2 to 1.


Keep in mind you only need one black mana so using tinder wall or rite of flame is a viable option over cabal ritual (not saying it's the best idea)I tried that idea before. Swapped Cabal Ritual with Tinder wall or Rite of Flame. After another 200 goldfishes, I often found myself in a situation like petal/mox > dark ritual > tinder wall or rite of flame... :frown: I need Cabal Ritual.


Living wish might actually be better than infernal now that I think about it for that reason.Actually I am often unable to empty my hand even though I am able to achieve 6 mana without LED (with help of Dark Ritual). Getting black mana is usually not the problem when you already have 6 mana, but to fulfill that Hellbent requirement is. Thus Living wish is better than Infernal tutor imo.

[John Cox]

That's exactly what I thought when I test 4 cantors build. After 300+ goldfishes, I realized it's a corner case in a situation that I am just one black mana away from going off. It's about 1 or 2% to have a hand like that. The deck already has 4 Summoner's Pact in case I really need cantor. Thus I start to drop cantor from 4 to 3 to 2 to 1.

I tried that idea before. Swapped Cabal Ritual with Tinder wall or Rite of Flame. After another 200 goldfishes, I often found myself in a situation like petal/mox > dark ritual > tinder wall or rite of flame... :frown: I need Cabal Ritual.

Actually I am often unable to empty my hand even though I am able to achieve 6 mana without LED (with help of Dark Ritual). Getting black mana is usually not the problem when you already have 6 mana, but to fulfill that Hellbent requirement is. Thus Living wish is better than Infernal tutor imo.

Yeah on the cabal ritual part, that's where wild cantor shines. you could play that hand out as mox/petal for tinder wall, -> cantor->ritual-> win.
I agree on living wish though. It seems great (although I have not tested it).

[stygian87]

Living wish might actually be better than infernal now that I think about it for that reason.

I don't like having to Living Wish for 2.. I mean Cavern is ok but counters are virtually non issues and grabing a land is a waste or grabing a kill the Living Wish might as well just be a kill card?


That's exactly what I thought when I test 4 cantors build...

Swapped Cabal Ritual with Tinder wall or Rite of Flame...

Did you by any chance try and run 4 Wild Cantors with Tinder and/or Rite of Flame only ask because it would make Wild Cantor easier to play thus finding that one black mana unless that's not the issue and I missed it.

[tianyuan2k4]

Did you by any chance try and run 4 Wild Cantors with Tinder and/or Rite of Flame only ask because it would make Wild Cantor easier to play thus finding that one black mana unless that's not the issue and I missed it.For that I don't remember. I did thousands goldfishing. I probably did but I am not sure. However, I am curious about your list with 4 Wild Cantors + Tinder wall/rite of flame. I would really like to test that and see how it goes.

[John Cox]

For that I don't remember. I did thousands goldfishing. I probably did but I am not sure. However, I am curious about your list with 4 Wild Cantors + Tinder wall/rite of flame. I would really like to test that and see how it goes.


I'm using them in my turbo budget vintage list at the moment

4 Undercity Informer
4 Balustrade Spy
4 hermit druid

1 flame-kin zealot
4 Narcomoeba
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
3 Bridge from Below

4 tinder wall
4 Chrome Mox
1 mana crypt
1 Lotus Petal
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Wild Cantor


A port would be,

3 Undercity Informer
4 Balustrade Spy
4 living wish
1 flame-kin zealot
3 Narcomoeba
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
3 Bridge from Below
4 lion's eye diamon
4 tinder wall
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Wild Cantor

Rite of flame is probably better than tinder wall, I'm just using tinder wall because it imprints green and is fetchable with pact.

[stygian87]

am curious about... 4 Wild Cantors + Tinder wall/rite of flame. I would really like to test that and see how it goes.

Same here the synergy seems there.. Why Living Wish though I truly do not see the overwhelming value?



Rite of flame... I'm just using tinder wall because it imprints green and is fetchable with pact.

Pact makes tinder strictly better due to synergy if you ask me, T1 is key

[John Cox]

Infernal imprints for black which is awesome, but getting hellbent isn't. Living wish makes it so you can use the tutor with out needing an LED.

[stygian87]

Soo this is where I'm hovering at the moment so you know where I'm coming from:

1x Angel of Glory's Rise
1x Azami, Lady of Scrolls
4x Balustrade Spy
4x Cabal Ritual
1x Cabal Therapy
4x Chrome Mox
4x Dark Ritual
1x Dread Return
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Gitaxian Probe
1x Laboratory Maniac
4x Lotus Petal
3x Manamorphose
4x Narcomoeba
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Street Wraith
4x Summoner's Pact
4x Undercity Informer
4x Wild Cantor

I am so tempted to run 51 for 4 Manamorphose.

Don't know about the Rites & Tinder build but I'd drop Cabal Ritual and some number of Moxs to try it..

[nudon]

That's exactly what I thought when I test 4 cantors build. After 300+ goldfishes, I realized it's a corner case in a situation that I am just one black mana away from going off. It's about 1 or 2% to have a hand like that. The deck already has 4 Summoner's Pact in case I really need cantor. Thus I start to drop cantor from 4 to 3 to 2 to 1.

I tried that idea before. Swapped Cabal Ritual with Tinder wall or Rite of Flame. After another 200 goldfishes, I often found myself in a situation like petal/mox > dark ritual > tinder wall or rite of flame... :frown: I need Cabal Ritual.

Actually I am often unable to empty my hand even though I am able to achieve 6 mana without LED (with help of Dark Ritual). Getting black mana is usually not the problem when you already have 6 mana, but to fulfill that Hellbent requirement is. Thus Living wish is better than Infernal tutor imo.

I started with 4 cantors as well and am now back down to 1 too. The most I would run is probably 2. Living wish allows me to filter my mana pretty cleanly that's usually not a problem. I prefer manamorphose now because allows me to attempt to combo (filtering into 1 black and 1 green) if I have double chrome mox out or extra spirit guides and no black mana and leaves me the option of living wish into a swamp and trying again next turn.

I'm not a fan of tinder wall because red mana is terrible. I agree cabal ritual is auto 4x.

Living wish also makes good use of all that extra green mana.

[gkraigher]

tinder wall seems awful in this deck. its a worse rite of flame.

[alphastryk]

tinder wall seems awful in this deck. its a worse rite of flame.

Not worse, better. Easier to cast, as you have more green IMSs than red ones. Definitely not exciting though, and neither of them is very good.

Would it be possible to fit in Insist as protection from force of will?

[stygian87]

Not worse, better...







Okay so apparently I was dreaming about this last night but I woke up with a thought and this may be looking back a little bit but I feel it may be worth mentioning or possibly looking at but has anyone considered Culling the Weak along side Wild Cantor and Tinder Wall??

I had put off Culling the Weak due to the sac requirement and Wild Cantor for the 1 for 1 but with Tinder Wall and Wild Cantor I think it could be better and more reliable possibly even more then Cabal Ritual. neither Tinder Wall of Wild Cantor are difficult to cast either... other synergies(maybe too janky):

Wild Cantor: Converts mana to black, tutorable with Summoner's Pact, Imprintable on Chrome Mox (Con is 1 for 1)
Tinder Wall: Tutorable with Summoner's Pact, Imprintable on Chrome Mox, 1 for 2
Culling the Weak:1 for 3! Imprintable on Chrome Mox!

[The Informer]

Both those points make sense. It was worth a shot, but I doubt it's actually better than other builds. Thanks for doing the number crunching!

I do like the idea transforming into a man-plan. I don't think Obliterator is the card, though. We have relatively few ways to make lots of B mana - the builds right now are tuned to make 1 B and lots of random colors.
One card that I've had my eye on is Tomb of Urami. SI likes it because people generally won't counter your rituals, and then they can't counter Tomb. It does have the problem of needing to get up to 5 mana and because our kill involves creatures, I'm not sure people will actually take out all their removal.

From the SI thread, potentials they've looked at:
- Tomb of Urami
- Tombstalker
- Avatar of Discord
- Phyrexian Negator
- Phylactery Lich
- Death’s Shadow
- Dark Confidant

Of these options, I like Tomb and Bob the most. They even work fairly well together.

--
Re: Gutteral Response and Autumn's Veil - I'm just not excited by those cards because you probably don't have room for them maindeck (and if you do, Pact of Negation would be better), and they also don't stop any graveyard hate postboard.

Glad people like the beatdown plan, and those are good beatdown options.

The one I originally had in mind is Myr Superion (2 mana for a 5/6)! I side in Superion and 2-3 Burning-Tree Shaman. Just drop 5-7 power on the board on turn 1 and hope it gets there. It's been surprisingly okay and is way bigger than a Goyf on turn 1. Nice thing about this plan is that you can keep in the combo in the deck and have both threats be viable.

I like Phylactery Lich though, sounds promising :).

[Ziveeman]

Glad people like the beatdown plan, and those are good beatdown options.

The one I originally had in mind is Myr Superion (2 mana for a 5/6)! I side in Superion and 2-3 Burning-Tree Shaman. Just drop 5-7 power on the board on turn 1 and hope it gets there. It's been surprisingly okay and is way bigger than a Goyf on turn 1. Nice thing about this plan is that you can keep in the combo in the deck and have both threats be viable.

I like Phylactery Lich though, sounds promising :).

Another option for the beatdown plan is Treacherous Pit-Dweller.

[stygian87]

this may be looking back a little bit but I feel it may be worth mentioning or possibly looking at but has anyone considered Culling the Weak along side Wild Cantor and Tinder Wall??

I tested this by taking out Cabal Ritual for Culling the Weak (just to see how it ran) and ran Tinder Wall I was not completely happy.. either I didn't have a black source or I didn't have a creature to sac.. (I'm sure this has already been realized) Cabal Ritual is better but Culling the Weak can just end games and being able to run both effectively would be great I just feel you'd need to cut too much because you would want to run 4 Wild Cantors, 4 Tinder Walls, and you may even want to run 4 Burning-Tree Emissary over Manamorphoses for more creatures?

Thoughts:
1x Angel of Glory's Rise
1x Azami, Lady of Scrolls
4x Balustrade Spy
4x Cabal Ritual
1x Cabal Therapy
4x Chrome Mox
4x Dark Ritual
1x Dread Return
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Gitaxian Probe
1x Laboratory Maniac
4x Lotus Petal
4x Narcomoeba
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Culling the Weak
4x Summoner's Pact
4x Tinder Wall
4x Undercity Informer
3x Wild Cantor

Took out Manamorphose and Street Wraith.. think it's too Cycle light, comments?

[TheSobe33]

Hi guys,

I've been reading this thread with a lot of interest. I've been looking for a 'budget' legacy combo deck for awhile and this seemed perfect. One thing I am confused about is the use of Lion's Eye Diamond and Infernal Tutor. It seems to be the general consensus that LED and IT must be used in this deck, while I don't see how they benefit. Attempting to get hellbent seems like a lot of work to me, where aggressive mulliganing and knowing the in and outs of what is needed to go off would just work better.
To be honest, I have been testing the list that Prosak had up on starcity, with pretty good results (~45% T1 kills, ~58% T2 out of 300 hands tested). I understand the concerns many have about running cyclers (probe and wraith), but I would only keep a hand if I had most of what I needed to go off: 3 mana(at least one of which was B or the ability to get B). The cyclers enable us to dig deeper into the deck without potentially throwing away a really good hand that is only one card away from a kill.
Well, I'm just curious, if anyone could fill me in. I admit that I could be totally off base, as I'm sorta new to these type of decks, having played control for quite awhile. Thanks for the feedback

[Begle1]

Lion's Eye Diamond combos very nicely with Infernal Tutor... You cast Infernal Tutor, and in response you sacrifice the Lion's Eye Diamond and are forced to discard your hand. Now Infernal Tutor resolves, sees that you have no cards in your hand, and you get to look for any card in your library. And you have three mana floating from the Lion's Eye Diamond, so you can also cast the card you're getting with the Tutor.

There are several decks using the synergy between the two cards in Legacy.



This deck is legitimate. Better than Belcher or Storm. I see the banhammer coming fast and hard. And so needless, too. It was obvious as soon as the new cards were spoiled that this would be a thing.

[nudon]

Hi guys,

I've been reading this thread with a lot of interest. I've been looking for a 'budget' legacy combo deck for awhile and this seemed perfect. One thing I am confused about is the use of Lion's Eye Diamond and Infernal Tutor. It seems to be the general consensus that LED and IT must be used in this deck, while I don't see how they benefit. Attempting to get hellbent seems like a lot of work to me, where aggressive mulliganing and knowing the in and outs of what is needed to go off would just work better.
To be honest, I have been testing the list that Prosak had up on starcity, with pretty good results (~45% T1 kills, ~58% T2 out of 300 hands tested). I understand the concerns many have about running cyclers (probe and wraith), but I would only keep a hand if I had most of what I needed to go off: 3 mana(at least one of which was B or the ability to get B). The cyclers enable us to dig deeper into the deck without potentially throwing away a really good hand that is only one card away from a kill.
Well, I'm just curious, if anyone could fill me in. I admit that I could be totally off base, as I'm sorta new to these type of decks, having played control for quite awhile. Thanks for the feedback

As stated, LED allows infernal tutor to go hellbent and find informer/spy in your deck. However, infernal tutor is not as good in this deck compared to others in my opinion because it is very difficult to go hellbent without LED due to all the combo pieces. Instead, I run living wishes in my current build to go with LED:

http://deckstats.net/deck-1886312-352d0e9a7e6ba53544ae7c203aa3ce25.html

They are really good for providing extra win conditions and can search up a cavern of souls/swamp/etc for utility as well. Also, living wish does not have the restriction of needing to go hellbent. There are many times I can combo off without LED. My t1 kills (as well as many other lists posted here) are pretty good (~50-60%). T2 kills on average are over 70% for reference. I don't like Prosak's list because I think 8 win-cons isn't enough to consistently go off. Some lists I've seen run both infernal tutor and living wish but I'm satisfied with my list for now.

[Philipp2293]

What's your main boarding plan if you board into the Belcher plan?

[Upstate Jimmy]

This is my current board, which combines both a reactive and a transformtaional board.

3x Goblin Charbelcher
4x Spoils of the Vault
4x Pact of Negation
1x Swamp
1x Cavern
1x Ingot Chewer
1x Undercity Informer

Swamp, Cavern, Chewer and Informer are all wishboard. For the transformation, the combo comes out and is replaced by Belchers and spoils (I also run a Charbelcher Main).

If I suspect I can race a deck, but they have force, the current plan is to take out some numbers of tutors and manamorphose for pact, as well as maybe sub in a Balustrade spy for another Charbelcher.

[John Cox]

Hey just came to a eureka moment. You can use entomb + unearth to put an undercity informer out. This opens up a whole new angle, and solidifies the current one.

[catmint]

This deck is legitimate. Better than Belcher or Storm. I see the banhammer coming fast and hard. And so needless, too. It was obvious as soon as the new cards were spoiled that this would be a thing.

trolling?
Deck will be a "for fun" deck and might even go 3-1 at your locals with a lot of luck. Won't be a viable deck unless we have been missing something.

A cheap 2 card como (Entomb-Unearth) won't solve the consistency issues - might even make it more inconsistend altough you could use unearth as a ritual if you have a tinder wall.

[stygian87]

Hey just came to a eureka moment. You can use entomb + unearth to put an undercity informer out. This opens up a whole new angle, and solidifies the current one.


The problem is getting B mana.. If you want to run reanimator run something like this:

http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/deck_tech_reanimator_tendrils_.html

[The Informer]

trolling?
Deck will be a "for fun" deck and might even go 3-1 at your locals with a lot of luck. Won't be a viable deck unless we have been missing something.


I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. This deck could be good; it has existed for 1-2 weeks maximum, and still needs tooling, time, and good pilots. At this point it is clearly not dominating everything, and I think it will be a long time, if ever, before a key piece of this deck gets banned in Legacy. Think about how powerful Show and Tell was, putting up results, and Show and Tell is still in the format. So, I don't see any bans coming here, at least nothing foreseeable in the short term. That is not to say this deck can't become quite good with the right build and the right pilots. I don't think we are there yet.

[StoneColdEffy]

What about a SB like:
4 Pact of Negation
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Empty the Warrens
3 Leyline of Sanctity

Empty the Warrens seems like the best SB transformation since it takes up the least number of space (even storm for like 4 or 5 is good enough). People will most likely not counter your rituals since they will want to hold counters for your Spy/Informer then you can blowout with Leyline. The small space that EtW takes up allows you to play Leylines and Pacts, Leylines for MUs with lots of discard and Pact for MUs with light counter

[leegoo]

Hey just came to a eureka moment. You can use entomb + unearth to put an undercity informer out. This opens up a whole new angle, and solidifies the current one.

This was the list I posted on the Storm Boards. Certainly not tuned, but Entomb being able to grab Bayou out of your library is useful. Flashing back Unburial Rites also gives you a use for LED. You could probably find room for a random fatty main or sb to have a "plan b" as well.

1x Angel of Glory's Rise
1x Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1x Bayou
1x Bridge from Below
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Chrome Mox
4x Dark Ritual
1x Dread Return
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Entomb
1x Laboratory Maniac
4x Land Grant
3x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal
3x Manamorphose
4x Narcomoeba
4x Reanimate
4x Summoner's Pact
1x Unburial Rites
4x Undercity Informer
2x Unearth
1x Wild Cantor

You probably want to find room for Spy in some number as well... and likely the 4th manamorphose (maybe even LED#4)

[Bahamuth]

Why is no one running Belchers mainboard? If you run anything more than 8 Informers and the required dead cards, you cannot even board out of the strategy.

[MatsT]

@leegoo: Running Bayou ruins the entire combo. Unless you get a land grant you can't even win. Entomb plus Unearth is a two-card combo so it's mostly useless anyway compared to the normal ways to win. If you think 7 creatures plus 4 Living Wish is too little you can run Infernal Tutor.

@Bahamuth: Belcher requires 7 mana which is more than the 11 existing ways we have to win (seven of them cost 4 and four of them cost 6). Replacing Living Wish with Charbelcher is not out of the question, but it also prevents us from playing utility cards like Cavern of Souls. The plan isn't really to ever board completely out of the strategy.

[Bahamuth]

@Bahamuth: Belcher requires 7 mana which is more than the 11 existing ways we have to win (seven of them cost 4 and four of them cost 6). Replacing Living Wish with Charbelcher is not out of the question, but it also prevents us from playing utility cards like Cavern of Souls. The plan isn't really to ever board completely out of the strategy.

If you don't board out of the strategy, then there's no way the deck will ever be better than R/G Belcher, as you fold to way too many cards.

[leegoo]

@leegoo: Running Bayou ruins the entire combo. Unless you get a land grant you can't even win. Entomb plus Unearth is a two-card combo so it's mostly useless anyway compared to the normal ways to win. If you think 7 creatures plus 4 Living Wish is too little you can run Infernal Tutor.

@Bahamuth: Belcher requires 7 mana which is more than the 11 existing ways we have to win (seven of them cost 4 and four of them cost 6). Replacing Living Wish with Charbelcher is not out of the question, but it also prevents us from playing utility cards like Cavern of Souls. The plan isn't really to ever board completely out of the strategy.

IT is garbage... Living wish is only marginally better. I don't think the reanimator strategy is the way to go, but there's a list to work from if somebody has the interest. Running bayou is probably an unfortunate necessity if you aren't running tallmen/opal.

[MatsT]

If you don't board out of the strategy, then there's no way the deck will ever be better than R/G Belcher, as you fold to way too many cards.

That's simply not true. When you are on the play there are extremely few ways to interact with the deck. Thoughtseize/Crypt/Relic etc does very little since they're simply too slow. Leyline is difficult yes, but right now very few if any decks play Leyline. Force of Will is of course an issue, but you could bring in Pact of Negation, use Cabal Therapies or Living Wish for Cavern to try to get around it. Surgical extraction can be handled similarly. When you are on the play (or have a slow draw) Thoughtseize can be a problem, but you could use things like Leyline of Sanctity to protect yourself (also stops Nihil Spellbomb or Tormod's Crypt). I also didn't say that we shouldn't bring in Charbelcher, I just say we probably shouldn't take out the entire main combo. It's fully possible to take out 4 cards from the main deck for Charbelchers without completely skipping the main plan. If you draw a Charbelcher and 7 mana you win with that, but if you don't there's still a decent chance they didn't draw their hate.

The reason RG Belcher isn't really a viable deck isn't that it gets hated out, it is that it simply folds to itself too often. There are plenty of combo decks that are easier to hate than RG Belcher but that are still better since they are more consistent. The fact that this is easier to hate doesn't mean that it's worse.

[catmint]

The reason RG Belcher isn't really a viable deck isn't that it gets hated out, it is that it simply folds to itself too often. There are plenty of combo decks that are easier to hate than RG Belcher but that are still better since they are more consistent. The fact that this is easier to hate doesn't mean that it's worse.

The stats of loosing to itself are also way better for Belcher than for Undercity Spy. The only advantage undercity spy has over belcher is that once comboed out the win does not depend on a bunch of tokens getting there.

[phazonmutant]

The stats of loosing to itself are also way better for Belcher than for Undercity Spy. The only advantage undercity spy has over belcher is that once comboed out the win does not depend on a bunch of tokens getting there.

For the record, I think the ways for decks to interact quickly enough with Empty is more or less as common as the fast grave hate for this deck. BG decks run Deathrite and Engineered Plague, random decks run EE, Miracles runs Terminus and Detention Sphere. Hell, some Show and Tell decks even can tutor for Clasm preboard.
People have cut their grave hate a lot.

At SCG Atlanta, I heard about I think 3 people playing this deck, but none did well. I didn't talk to any of them, but at least some of them were running the bad Prosack list from what I heard.

[nudon]

What's your main boarding plan if you board into the Belcher plan?

I haven't had the time to test it but I was thinking about boarding 4 belchers into the living wish slot. I don't think it's a good idea to fully board out of the laboratory maniac win-con. Maybe something along the lines of -4 living wish, -1 angel of glory's rise, -1 azami, +4 goblin charbelcher, +2 cabal therapy.


IT is garbage... Living wish is only marginally better. I don't think the reanimator strategy is the way to go, but there's a list to work from if somebody has the interest. Running bayou is probably an unfortunate necessity if you aren't running tallmen/opal.

I agree IT is garbage in this deck but I think living wish is decent. Running bayou completely wrecks the combo because there will be many times where you can't get the land out of the deck. I've playtested this and it doesn't work.

[Bahamuth]

That's simply not true. When you are on the play there are extremely few ways to interact with the deck. Thoughtseize/Crypt/Relic etc does very little since they're simply too slow. Leyline is difficult yes, but right now very few if any decks play Leyline. Force of Will is of course an issue, but you could bring in Pact of Negation, use Cabal Therapies or Living Wish for Cavern to try to get around it. Surgical extraction can be handled similarly. When you are on the play (or have a slow draw) Thoughtseize can be a problem, but you could use things like Leyline of Sanctity to protect yourself (also stops Nihil Spellbomb or Tormod's Crypt). I also didn't say that we shouldn't bring in Charbelcher, I just say we probably shouldn't take out the entire main combo. It's fully possible to take out 4 cards from the main deck for Charbelchers without completely skipping the main plan. If you draw a Charbelcher and 7 mana you win with that, but if you don't there's still a decent chance they didn't draw their hate.

The reason RG Belcher isn't really a viable deck isn't that it gets hated out, it is that it simply folds to itself too often. There are plenty of combo decks that are easier to hate than RG Belcher but that are still better since they are more consistent. The fact that this is easier to hate doesn't mean that it's worse.

I wrote a program that can goldfish Belcher. In 10000 goldfishes for 7, 6 and 5 cards, I found that Belcher can win on turn 1 in 78% of it's games. I don't know what kind of numbers this deck will get (I'll get working on that soon), but I doubt it's much higher than this deck.

You list a bunch of cards you think you can beat, but the exact same thing holds for Belcher, except that it's in general better against counters. If this deck cannot board into a non-graveyard strategy, I think it would have to have an insane winrate.

[plimplam]

I've been testing this:

4 Undercity informer
4 Balustrade spy
3 Worldly tutor

4 Gitaxian probe
4 Street waith

4 Elvish spirit guide
4 Simian spirit guide
4 Summoner's pact
4 Dark ritual
3 Cabal ritual
4 Manamorphose
1 Wild cantor

4 Lotus petal
4 Chrome mox

1 cabal therapy/phantasmagorian
1 Dread return
4 Narcomoeba
3 Manyac combo

Side 1:

4 Goblin charbelcher
4 Lion's eye diamond
4 Spoils of the vault
3 Pact of negation

Side 2:

4 Goblin charbelcher
4 LED
4 ETW
3 Seething song

Thoughts ??

[catmint]

I've been testing this:

....

Thoughts ??

I think your post is not optimal. Wordly tutor, cycling cards and SB plans have been discussed. If you want to discuss further (which is totally welcome), the best thing is to explain why you tested with this specific choices and what your results and conclusions are and/or whic open questions you would like other people to adress (after reading through the thread of course).

[tianyuan2k4]

I wrote a program that can goldfish Belcher. In 10000 goldfishes for 7, 6 and 5 cards, I found that Belcher can win on turn 1 in 78% of it's games. I don't know what kind of numbers this deck will get (I'll get working on that soon), but I doubt it's much higher than this deck.
Interesting. I have a standard Belcher deck for sometime but never got 78%. I mean in order to win turn 1, I need 7 mana + Belcher. That's much harder than making 4 mana + 1 informer/spy. Unless counting ETW for 14 goblins as T1 win, I just don't see the possibility of 78% T1 win with regular belcher. What's your criteria for T1 win by the way?

[Bahamuth]

Interesting. I have a standard Belcher deck for sometime but never got 78%. I mean in order to win turn 1, I need 7 mana + Belcher. That's much harder than making 4 mana + 1 informer/spy. Unless counting ETW for 14 goblins as T1 win, I just don't see the possibility of 78% T1 win with regular belcher. What's your criteria for T1 win by the way?

Of course I am counting tokens as a turn 1 win. I even count dropping Belcher win mana in play as a turn 1 win, since the deck rarely ever loses from those positions.

[Upstate Jimmy]

Bahamuth, I always run 1 misers Belcher in the MD, and it's been working out very well. I also run 3 more belcher in the side, to diversify threats post board, as well as four spoils of the vault, for use in the full Belcher transformation. I was testing against Jund last night (kept the combo in, but took out 1 spy, 1 living wish and 1 infernal tutor), and the ability to win through a T1 Nihil spell bomb in post board games is awesome, (managed that twice).

[nudon]

Bahamuth, I always run 1 misers Belcher in the MD, and it's been working out very well. I also run 3 more belcher in the side, to diversify threats post board, as well as four spoils of the vault, for use in the full Belcher transformation. I was testing against Jund last night (kept the combo in, but took out 1 spy, 1 living wish and 1 infernal tutor), and the ability to win through a T1 Nihil spell bomb in post board games is awesome, (managed that twice).

Jimmy, what cards do you board out for the full belcher transformation? I count at least 15 cards you need to take out (7 informers/spies and 8 combo pieces).

[Upstate Jimmy]

For the Full Transform I take out all 4 Combo Pieces, 4 Narcoameobas, and 4 Balustrade spies. I bring in 4 Spoils, 3 Belcher, 4 Pact of Negation and an Undercity Informer. The informer comes in because, even though he's just chrome mox fuel, unlike Balustrade Spy or Dread Return he is theoretically castable, and you don't want to bring in anything else from the wish board (although theoretically you could make a case for bringing in chewer).

For reference, here's the Board.

4 Pact of Negation
3 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Spoils of the Vault
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Swamp
1 Ingot Chewer
1 Undercity Informer

The only time I could see doing the full transform is when facing excellent graveyard hate + force of will and/or Leyline of the void.

Against good permanent based hate that's not leyline (deathrite, relic, crypt, rest in peace) the current plan is just to side out a spy, an infernal tutor and a living wish to add 3 Belchers (I run 1 main). That way you have both the option of racing their hate, and winning through it.

Against Force of Will decks, and decks that run non permanent based hate (surgical, expatriate, faerie macabre) the current plan is to board in pacts, and 1 belcher, and take out some number of wishes, tutor and manamorphose. Siding in more than 1 belcher here might also be a good idea, depending on hate density.

At the moment, I think the full transform should only happen when the combo is cut off on two fronts: Speed (they have force) and quality hate.

Also, is anyone going to play at SCG Edison next weekend? I'm brining my list there to battle, so hopefully I do yah'll proud. (knock on wood)

[Claymore]

I find this deck very interesting and wanted to cross post something that might be relevant, from the Belcher thread user Final Fortune:


Belcher isn't exactly an archetype that cares about what it's going to top deck, if you don't have Leyline of Sanctity and/or Chancellor of the Annex in your SB then you're going to coin flip vs Jund. All that matters is that you're playing the most efficient card for the job at any moment in time, if you brick on your 8th card on the draw so be it - I think a 0 mana counter to Force of Will is worth it.


It's the core 52 cards with Pyretic Ritual and Chancellor of the Tangle and the 15 is 1 Empty the Warrens and 14 different disruption/protection slots - a mix of Pyroblast, Guttoral Response, Autumn's Veil, Xantid Swarm, Leyline of Sanctity and Chancellor of the Annex depending on the meta.

It's not theoretical, I've used the white disruption cards in Belcher for awhile to good effect, not preparing for discard in this metagame is just incredibly stupid, especially when preparing for discard is more effective than preparing for counterspells in terms of your disruption's cost efficiency.

[Ziveeman]

Prosak's version (+1 Phantasmogorian, so 61 cards) of the Undercity Informer deck got 2nd at a Magic-League trial:

http://magic-league.com/deck/80329/legacy.html#Burrito Breakfast194361

1 Dread Return
1 Grim Monolith
4 Manamorphose
4 Summoner's Pact
2 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Dark Ritual
4 Street Wraith
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Narcomoeba
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Wild Cantor
1 Laboratory Maniac
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Phantasmagorian
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Undercity Informer
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal

4 Pact of Negation
4 Unmask
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Chain of Vapor

Looks like it beat Cloudpost, Esper Stoneblade, and Jund, losing to a BUGr Tempo deck in the finals.

[nudon]

Finally had some success with creating the sb (same MD as before):
http://deckstats.net/deck-1936417-06372dff303e367e372084ec8b141c61.html

SB: 1 Balustrade Spy - sac to therapy
SB: 1 Cavern of Souls - anti-blue
SB: 1 Swamp - mana fix
SB: 1 Ingot Chewer - game 1 silver bullet
SB: 1 Phyrexian Revoker - game 1 answer to DRS/scavenging ooze
SB: 2 Nature's Claim - anti-gy hate
SB: 4 Chancellor of the Annex - could be pact of negation/unmask but synergizes with belcher more and better on the draw against discard
SB: 4 Goblin Charbelcher - possible game 3 transformation to beat heavy gy hate/counters

[Upstate Jimmy]

Annex looks spicy. I might have to try that out. Also, last of my cards came in the mail today. SOOOO PUMPED!

[nudon]

I find this deck very interesting and wanted to cross post something that might be relevant, from the Belcher thread user Final Fortune:

Thanks Claymore. The suggestions of chancellor of the annex seems to help a lot. Unlike pact of negation, it isn't dead with LED or on the draw against gy hate/discard.


Annex looks spicy. I might have to try that out. Also, last of my cards came in the mail today. SOOOO PUMPED!

Nice, good luck! I actually removed the 2 nature's claim as well and now have a 3-3 split between leyline of sanctity and chancellor of the annex. Both aren't great if you have 2 copies in the opening hand.

In general, here's my sb decision against the current meta of jund: -1 azami, -1 angel of glory's rise, -2 manamorphose, -2 chancellor of the tangle, +3 leyline, +3 chancellor of the annex. The 4 belchers come in whenever your opponent has a large amount of gy hate, leyline of the void, or macabre.

[Kaslan]

Any thoughts on this version of the combo ?

It was 4 Tutor effects and some disruption and I think that the mana production of this version is more stable


12 Metalcraft and food for therapy-Culling the Weak-Diabolic Intent

4 Phyrexian Walker
4 Shield Sphere
4 Ornithopter

12 mana

4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Mox Opal


8 ramp

4 Culling the Weak
4 Dark Ritual


4 tutor
4 Diabolic Intent

16 combo

4 Narcomoeba
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Undercity Informer
1 Dread Return

8 disruption spells
4 Pact of Negation
4 Cabal Therapy

[rakevinwr]

Any thoughts on this version of the combo ?

It was 8 Tutor effects and some disruption and I think that the mana production of this version is more stable


12 Metalcraft and food for therapy-Culling the Weak-Diabolic Intent

4 Phyrexian Walker
4 Shield Sphere
4 Ornithopter

12 mana

4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Mox Opal


8 ramp

4 Culling the Weak
4 Dark Ritual


8 tutor

4 Summoner's Pact
4 Diabolic Intent

16 combo

4 Narcomoeba
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Undercity Informer
1 Dread Return

4 discard

4 Cabal Therapy

Why run Summoner's Pact in this version? You have no green creatures :)

[Kaslan]

Why run Summoner's Pact in this version? You have no green creatures :)

Oups ! my bad, I should read the cards better next time.

[The Informer]

Also, is anyone going to play at SCG Edison next weekend? I'm brining my list there to battle, so hopefully I do yah'll proud. (knock on wood)

I am planning on attending and trying out this deck but I'm getting sick so I'm not sure if I'll make it. If so, I'll see you there, and good luck with it.

[Smmenen]

Infernal tutor is definitely the worse win-con in the deck because it's conditional (requires LED or god hand) so I cut 2. I started testing with street wraith and like it a lot. It lets you play a 56 card deck, pitches to chrome mox for black mana, and doesn't require any initial mana investment like manamorphose. Here's my current list. I put my unmasks in the SB because I think it's important to be fast game 1 before deathrite shaman/scavenging ooze becomes a problem. Lastly, I'd much rather play Wild Cantor before Manamorphose. Red mana from Tinder wall is really bad...

//Gatecrash Cards
4 Undercity Informer
3 Balustrade Spy

//Mana Fix with Pact
1 Wild Cantor

//Mana Generation
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual

//Draw & Tutors
2 Infernal Tutor
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Living Wish
4 Street Wraith

//Protection
2 Cabal Therapy

//Combo
3 Narcomoeba
1 Bridge from Below
1 Dread Return
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls

//Sideboard
1 Balustrade Spy
1 Cavern of Souls
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Unmask
3 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Dismember
2 Nature's Claim
1 Karakas
1 Bojuka Bog


This is almost exactly what I would play.

Since Legacy allows 4 LED, Living Wish/LED basically becomes what Burnning Wish/LED was to Vintage combo in 2003.

I would seriously consider 4 Leyline of the Lifeforce in the sideboard, though instead of some of the other disruption you have in there.

[nudon]

This is almost exactly what I would play.

Since Legacy allows 4 LED, Living Wish/LED basically becomes what Burnning Wish/LED was to Vintage combo in 2003.

I would seriously consider 4 Leyline of the Lifeforce in the sideboard, though instead of some of the other disruption you have in there.

Thanks! That was actually an older version of my current list: http://deckstats.net/deck-1937230-d523727e321783d2c0851a31895cf8b5.html

//Win Conditions
4 Undercity Informer
3 Balustrade Spy
4 Living Wish

//Mana Fixing
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Wild Cantor
2 Manamorphose

//Mana Generation
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual

//Combo
2 Cabal Therapy
4 Narcomoeba
1 Dread Return
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Laboratory Maniac

//Sideboard
SB: 1 Balustrade Spy
SB: 1 Cavern of Souls
SB: 1 Swamp
SB: 1 Ingot Chewer
SB: 1 Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 3 Leyline of Sanctity
SB: 3 Chancellor of the Annex
SB: 4 Goblin Charbelcher

Leyline of lifeforce seems like a good card to run alongside chancellor of the annex. I can probably safely take out the chewer, revoker, and 1 leyline of sanctity/goblin charbelcher for it.

[Smmenen]

That looks much better, although I'm leaning towards 3 Therapy, 2 Bridge, 3 Narco for reasons you will understand. Otherwise, almost exactly what I'd play.

[rakevinwr]

I really like the wish for cavern of souls play.

Then with cabals we get to rip apart counter magic.

[nudon]

That looks much better, although I'm leaning towards 3 Therapy, 2 Bridge, 3 Narco for reasons you will understand. Otherwise, almost exactly what I'd play.

Thanks very much for the feedback Stephen. I was reluctant to add bridge initially with 4 narcomoebas but a 3-2 split is nice and makes the 3rd therapy way better in case we have to pitch azami/angel to chrome mox. I cut the manamorphose because while it can be a life saver, it often does nothing. Here's my updated board:

SB: 1 Balustrade Spy
SB: 1 Cavern of Souls
SB: 1 Swamp
SB: 3 Leyline of Lifeforce
SB: 3 Leyline of Sanctity
SB: 3 Chancellor of the Annex
SB: 3 Goblin Charbelcher

Most of the board decisions are fairly straight-forward. FYI, I'm a Cal graduate ('09), something I think you can appreciate. :)

[Realize]

Sorry guys, "The Rogue Hermit" just isn't cutting it for me. I miss hermit druid as much as the next longtime player and I even play a signed copy of him in my Glissa EDH (don't worry, I play 24 basics with him, I'm not evil), but I don't think he should be the namesake for this deck. Me and some buddies on MTGSalvation have been name name brewing and I think I came up with the perfect name: Dead Drop.

We brewed up the names Rogue, Spy hard, Undercity spy and grindhouse, which all have some merit but don't quite fit. Rogue is okay, but too vague. Spy Hard doesn't mention the Informer side of things, and yet Undercity Spy is a bit too blunt and stumbling. Grindhouse doesn't catch the genre of the deck, as any grindhouse film afficionado will attest. Dead Drop, however, does fit. It's simple yet elegant.

For those out of the know, a dead drop is a hidden location used by covert operatives to secretly transfer objects or information. Both informers and spies would use dead drops.

Dead Drop captures both the elements of espionage and the physical act of dropping the whole library into the Graveyard, quite literally a drop into death. The work "dead" evokes the all in black side of the deck. Dead Drop marries the mechanical function of the deck to the intangible necessity for fitting flavor.

Dead drop is a name truly worthy of such a novel deck design.

[nudon]

I really like the wish for cavern of souls play.

Then with cabals we get to rip apart counter magic.

Yeah, cavern gives the deck a fighting chance against FoW game 1. Though not frequent, those situations do occur. The swamp off living wish is actually more important in my experience because it will often turn on dark/cabal ritual. I've done this quite often in my goldfishing.

Those therapies can also be played from the hand occasionally due to chrome mox or swamp off living wish. They also help bin removal if you decide to board out azami/angel (though opponents will probably board out at least some of their removal games 2/3).

[phazonmutant]

Sorry guys, "The Rogue Hermit" just isn't cutting it for me. I miss hermit druid as much as the next longtime player and I even play a signed copy of him in my Glissa EDH (don't worry, I play 24 basics with him, I'm not evil), but I don't think he should be the namesake for this deck. Me and some buddies on MTGSalvation have been name name brewing and I think I came up with the perfect name: Dead Drop.

We brewed up the names Rogue, Spy hard, Undercity spy and grindhouse, which all have some merit but don't quite fit. Rogue is okay, but too vague. Spy Hard doesn't mention the Informer side of things, and yet Undercity Spy is a bit too blunt and stumbling. Grindhouse doesn't catch the genre of the deck, as any grindhouse film afficionado will attest. Dead Drop, however, does fit. It's simple yet elegant.

For those out of the know, a dead drop is a hidden location used by covert operatives to secretly transfer objects or information. Both informers and spies would use dead drops.

Dead Drop captures both the elements of espionage and the physical act of dropping the whole library into the Graveyard, quite literally a drop into death. The work "dead" evokes the all in black side of the deck. Dead Drop marries the mechanical function of the deck to the intangible necessity for fitting flavor.

Dead drop is a name truly worthy of such a novel deck design.

So you're telling me you made an account specifically to bitch about the name of a thread? Without having read the rest of the thread? This is "quite literally" the dumbest post I've ever read.
I've said the name sucks, other people have said the name sucks, but no one can agree on a name. What the thread definitely doesn't need is a lecture on the history on dead drops.


Anyway,
So you guys are boarding in Chancellor of the Annex and Goblin Charbelcher as a package? What do you usually cut for the Leylines?
If you drop Leyline of the Life Force t0, aren't people just going to counter your mana sources or Dread Return? Doesn't seem like it would be more effective at getting around hate than Pact of Negation.

[nudon]

So you're telling me you made an account specifically to bitch about the name of a thread? Without having read the rest of the thread? This is "quite literally" the dumbest post I've ever read.
I've said the name sucks, other people have said the name sucks, but no one can agree on a name. What the thread definitely doesn't need is a lecture on the history on dead drops.


Anyway,
So you guys are boarding in Chancellor of the Annex and Goblin Charbelcher as a package? What do you usually cut for the Leylines?
If you drop Leyline of the Life Force t0, aren't people just going to counter your mana sources or Dread Return? Doesn't seem like it would be more effective at getting around hate than Pact of Negation.

I'll usually board in chancellor of the annex no matter what because it's versatile (good against counters, discard, and gy hate). For me, goblin charbelcher comes in game 3 for living wish if gy hate was a big problem game 2 (i.e. faerie macabre/leyline of the void). Depending on the matchup, I'll probably cut a few living wishes and chancellor of the tangles and maybe a cabal therapy.

They won't be able to counter dread return because you can sac narcomoebas to flashback therapies first. Having mana sources countered, while not great, is much better than having your informer/spy countered since fewer resources were wasted. Careful play can probably mitigate the risk of getting 2 for 1 on getting countered. There's definitely merit to using pact of negation in place of leyline of lifeforce but I chose the leyline because it plays well with LED.

[nudon]

To make sideboarding easier, I've gone back to a 4-1 narc/bridge split. This allows me to cut 1 therapy and 1 bridge while still allowing me to get combo pieces out of my hand. Therapies are reduced games 2/3 since they won't do much except against counters. I'll typically board in 3-6 cards (assuming belcher doesn't come in). The other 4 cards cut (if 6) will probably come from a combination of chancellor of the tangle, living wish, and a second cabal therapy. Below is my latest list for reference:

http://deckstats.net/deck-1950502-934907686724c599595d39d7fa1e2226.html

//Win Conditions
4 Undercity Informer
3 Balustrade Spy
4 Living Wish

//Mana Fixing
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Wild Cantor

//Mana Generation
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual

//Combo
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Narcomoeba
1 Bridge from Below
1 Dread Return
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Laboratory Maniac

//Sideboard
SB: 1 Balustrade Spy
SB: 1 Cavern of Souls
SB: 1 Swamp
SB: 3 Leyline of Lifeforce
SB: 3 Leyline of Sanctity
SB: 3 Chancellor of the Annex
SB: 3 Goblin Charbelcher

[Realize]

So you're telling me you made an account specifically to bitch about the name of a thread? Without having read the rest of the thread? This is "quite literally" the dumbest post I've ever read.
I've said the name sucks, other people have said the name sucks, but no one can agree on a name. What the thread definitely doesn't need is a lecture on the history on dead drops.


This. This is gold. Well Mr. Muant, You specifically state that you've said the name sucks. You then rail against someone solving your problem and coming up with the fitting name.

Did you see this Ben Williams chap calling the deck "Oops! All Spells!" Seriously! These are the sorts of travesties that occur when people don't set aside their differences and give decks good names. Bitching without offering solutions is inarguably bad. I didn't bitch, I solved your shit. Do your part and fix the name.

Jesus Muant, it's exactly this sort of vitriol that made me think it's not worth signing up for the source for so many years. MTGSalvation has just as many dumbasses, but at least over there they're not the people who started the thread. Why do you think I didn't read the thread? I've been turn one comboing people with SI for years. I bust Belchers for breakfast. Go do your research on Dead Drops and I won't have to lecture you.

Your list is pretty sweet - one of the better one's I've seen - by the way. My dumbass comment is relegated solely to your deck name aptitude.

The deck still needs something to push it over the top. This weekend is its only chance to surprise the meta completely. The future will rely on the same old cyclicism that every other deck faces.

[twndomn]

Starcitygames has already picked this deck on the radar:

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/25582_Unveiling-Oops-All-Spells.html

SCG Edison, the deck is now collecting results.

[Barook]

SCG Edison, the deck is now collecting results.
There wasn't even a single one in the Top 16.

What went wrong?

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

There wasn't even a single one in the Top 16.

What went wrong?

You're a strictly worse SI/Belcher deck that loses to Grafdigger's Cage, Tormod's Crypt and co.

[nudon]

There wasn't even a single one in the Top 16.

What went wrong?

Many of the decks took the Prosak route and played only 8 win-cons, which I think is incorrect. Having only 8 win-cons equates to a 35% chance of not having one of your rogues in the opening 7. I'm not a big fan of mulling down to 6 once every 3 games. Furthermore, there are many combo pieces (narc, maniac combo, bridge, therapy) that are dead cards most of the time. Creating black mana is often tricky so there still is a lot of work needed for this deck to be viable. The potential is there since I think the speed of this deck rivals that of belcher (if not faster). However, it is far from a finished product.

[ManyCookies]

Disappointing considering the representation, but three things to note:

a. We're still tuning/finding the right mix. Belcher is very close to optimized at this point, while we still have a few variants running around. And though it's not exactly a difficult deck, our pilots have less experience with their deck than most of the field. I saw at least one probably non-optimal play on camera.

b. Belcher/SI don't always place with similar field numbers (and have traditionally been a meta call). We only had a single Blecher/SI deck in the Top 16 here.

c. This is one tournament and one data point. Even well established decks don't always place (save Esper Stoneblade, which has been lurking in the Top 8 for like 3 months now. :tongue:)

[Smmenen]

This deck got 17th place, although it was not nearly as good as Nudon's list. I'm writing an article for EC on this archetype for both Vintage and another for Legacy.

[The Informer]

There wasn't even a single one in the Top 16.

What went wrong?

I played this deck today at SCG Edison. Brief report on what went right and wrong for me:

The good:
The deck is capable of some powerful kills. I had 2 or 3 matches where it was just turn 1 wins both games in a row. Matches are over quickly, giving time to rest.

The bad:
1) I didn't pilot the deck particularly well. I made a couple of play mistakes involving Bridge from Below, and my sideboard and side boarding for this deck are very much a work in progress. Stuff like when to bring in Leyline of Sanctity, when to bring in bounce or Pithng Needles, etc. I used mostly a reactive and not transformational sideboard for this event, as I didn't feel that Belcher was consistent out of the board. I'm still looking for ways to improve the sideboard, and I feel there is a lot of room for improvement. I finished somewhere in the middle of the road today.

The okay:
Mulligans were not terrible. For this event, I had tested both Living Wish build and cycler build and went with one closer to the cycler lists. I had Pact of Negation main, which was unnecessary for this meta, which didn't turn out to be blue heavy. It would have been fine in the board. In a field that is more blue heavy, I would keep it in the main.

The hate:
Here is the graveyard and other hate I battled through today: Force of Will, Nihil Spellbomb, Deathrite Shaman, surgical extraction, Thalia, Daze, Thoughtseize, Cabal Therapy. No Leyline of the Void, and no Rest in Peace (although there were some in the tourney). Daze was ineffective, the rest were effective. Hardest to face was Surgical Extraction, with Thoughtseize and Cabal Therapy a close second. Had to try to beat down with Undercity Informer and tried beat with Street Wraith when key pieces were extracted. Hilarious, except I lost that game. I think a reactive sideboard is still possible, but you have to be a stone-cold expert on the format and very good at reading the situation and ballsy enough to leave out hate for Deathrite Shaman if the situation calls for it and bring it in when necessary. Going forward, the number one thing I will have to address with this deck is how to sideboard vs. all the GY hate and to try to find a good balanced sideboard vs. Thoughtseize on the draw. Four white Leylines were what I went with here, but I generally didn't get too greedy and mulligan to them if I had a 7 card hand with a win in it. That strategy tended to pay off vs. inexperienced opponents and failed with more experienced ones who would usually mulligan to a Thoughtseize or Nihil Spellbomb. If I find a transformational sideboard which I feel is effective enough vs. the field, I'll go with it. I'd like to find something that leaves a few slots for reactive cards as well, since sometimes that's all you really need.

Summary:
That's about it. I faced half fair decks like Jund, BUG, Junk, and a High Tide deck, Dredge, and Reanmator. There seemed to be a lot of combo decks there, and a lot of fair type decks like the above listed ones. If anyone has questions, feel free to ask.

[rakevinwr]

I saw one play on camera against High Tide where the pilot lost because he had to imprint Chrome Mox with Summoner's Pact. What do you guys think about running a creature like DRS as a target for summoner's to imprint as black mana on the Mox? Something like Slitherhead would work just as well but I like the idea that if we ever do cast DRS he can work as a mana source.

After seeing the plays this weekend it seemed to me like Living wish will be needed in some form or another for grabbing Cavern of Souls from the SB. similarly I really like Chancellor of the Annex in a counter heavy meta.

[Tlbwars]

So.... do i build this deck or Belcher !? ... :rolleyes: (competitive/fun point of view) :cool:

[gkraigher]

I saw one play on camera against High Tide where the pilot lost because he had to imprint Chrome Mox with Summoner's Pact. What do you guys think about running a creature like DRS as a target for summoner's to imprint as black mana on the Mox? Something like Slitherhead would work just as well but I like the idea that if we ever do cast DRS he can work as a mana source.

After seeing the plays this weekend it seemed to me like Living wish will be needed in some form or another for grabbing Cavern of Souls from the SB. similarly I really like Chancellor of the Annex in a counter heavy meta.

What is DRS?? Is it deathrite shaman?

[nudon]

I saw one play on camera against High Tide where the pilot lost because he had to imprint Chrome Mox with Summoner's Pact. What do you guys think about running a creature like DRS as a target for summoner's to imprint as black mana on the Mox? Something like Slitherhead would work just as well but I like the idea that if we ever do cast DRS he can work as a mana source.

After seeing the plays this weekend it seemed to me like Living wish will be needed in some form or another for grabbing Cavern of Souls from the SB. similarly I really like Chancellor of the Annex in a counter heavy meta.

Unless you're running the living wish package (absolutely necessary in my opinion) and want to reuse your mana next turn for spy, there's almost no reason to imprint chrome mox with summoner's pact. Though I didn't see the match, I heard he had either a dark ritual or cabal therapy he could have pitched to mox as well. Hearing this, I feel the pilot either made mistakes or just picked up the deck after seeing the article on scg without actually testing. Though I don't think it's necessary, DRS would probably be the way to go if you feel you needed that 1 extra creature to pitch to mox as you stated.

As I've stated before, grabbing cavern is a really nice luxury but grabbing the swamp from the sb is usually more relevant if you've already got informer/spy in your hand or a second wish. Chancellor of the annex is a must in the sb (at least 3). It's good against almost every hate except crypt, macabre, and leyline of the void.

[nudon]

What is DRS?? Is it deathrite shaman?

Yes

[rakevinwr]

Unless you're running the living wish package (absolutely necessary in my opinion) and want to reuse your mana next turn for spy, there's almost no reason to imprint chrome mox with summoner's pact. Though I didn't see the match, I heard he had either a dark ritual or cabal therapy he could have pitched to mox as well. Hearing this, I feel the pilot either made mistakes or just picked up the deck after seeing the article on scg without actually testing. Though I don't think it's necessary, DRS would probably be the way to go if you feel you needed that 1 extra creature to pitch to mox as you stated.

As I've stated before, grabbing cavern is a really nice luxury but grabbing the swamp from the sb is usually more relevant if you've already got informer/spy in your hand or a second wish. Chancellor of the annex is a must in the sb (at least 3). It's good against almost every hate except crypt, macabre, and leyline of the void.

Nudon, thanks for the reply!

Looking back at the video you are correct, and the pilot made the mistake of waiting to go off against a blue deck giving him time to dig for Force.

Picked up my Chancellors yesterday, what cards would you recommend boarding on to bring them in? Manamorphose? Or something like Street Wraith.

[nudon]

Nudon, thanks for the reply!

Looking back at the video you are correct, and the pilot made the mistake of waiting to go off against a blue deck giving him time to dig for Force.

Picked up my Chancellors yesterday, what cards would you recommend boarding on to bring them in? Manamorphose? Or something like Street Wraith.

Here's a rough guide how I would sb.
Any U/x deck:
+3 chancellor of the annex, +3 leyline of lifeforce, -1 therapy, -1 bridge, -4 chancellor of the tangle

Jund, Junk, BUG tempo, decks with heavy discard:
+3 chancellor of the annex, +3 leyline of sanctity, -1 therapy, -1 bridge, -4 chancellor of the tangle

Combo, fair decks without discard:
+3 chancellor of the annex (leyline of sanctity if TES/ANT), -2 therapy, -1 bridge

The belchers come in game 3 for wish if he had macabre or leyline of the void. If you want me to give advice on a list you have, please post. Hope this helps! :)

Here's my list for reference:
//Win Conditions
4 Undercity Informer
3 Balustrade Spy
4 Living Wish

//Mana Fixing
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Wild Cantor

//Mana Generation
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual

//Combo
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Narcomoeba
1 Bridge from Below
1 Dread Return
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Laboratory Maniac

//Sideboard
SB: 1 Balustrade Spy
SB: 1 Cavern of Souls
SB: 1 Swamp
SB: 3 Leyline of Lifeforce
SB: 3 Leyline of Sanctity
SB: 3 Chancellor of the Annex
SB: 3 Goblin Charbelcher

[Smmenen]

Here's a rough guide how I would sb.
Any U/x deck:
+3 chancellor of the annex, +3 leyline of lifeforce, -1 therapy, -1 bridge, -4 chancellor of the tangle

Jund, Junk, BUG tempo, decks with heavy discard:
+3 chancellor of the annex, +3 leyline of sanctity, -1 therapy, -1 bridge, -4 chancellor of the tangle

Combo, fair decks without discard:
+3 chancellor of the annex (leyline of sanctity if TES/ANT), -2 therapy, -1 bridge

The belchers come in game 3 for wish if he had macabre or leyline of the void. If you want me to give advice on a list you have, please post. Hope this helps! :)

Here's my list for reference:
//Win Conditions
4 Undercity Informer
3 Balustrade Spy
4 Living Wish

//Mana Fixing
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Wild Cantor

//Mana Generation
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual

//Combo
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Narcomoeba
1 Bridge from Below
1 Dread Return
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Laboratory Maniac

//Sideboard
SB: 1 Balustrade Spy
SB: 1 Cavern of Souls
SB: 1 Swamp
SB: 3 Leyline of Lifeforce
SB: 3 Leyline of Sanctity
SB: 3 Chancellor of the Annex
SB: 3 Goblin Charbelcher

I think your list is pretty much perfected at this point, but I still have two suggestions:

1) Shouldn't the SB creature be Undercity Informer, and not Balustrade Spy? If you are generating mana with Chancellor, etc, you should have the cheaper creature in the sideboard, shouldn't you? It is easier to Living Wish and cast Informer on turn one than LW + Spy. Or is your rationale that you will probably play the creature the following turn in one shot? All of my testing has been Vintage so far, but my intuition is that you want the cheaper creature in the sideboard and force it through on turn one. I guess the concern, though, is that a player will try to kill it with removal or burn, and so you may just wish to wait to play it if you can't activate it. In vintage, you can easily resolve it and activate it on the next turn...

2) I still prefer the 3 Narco/2 Bridge split for one very important reason: If I'm going to draw one of those five cards in my opening hand, having 2 Bridge increases your chance of having a black card to imprint on Chrome Mox. That's my split in the Vintage deck. I understand your point about sideboarding, which is well taken. One of the things I like about Spy is that you only need 2 Narcos in the GY with it in play to Dread Return.

[nudon]

I think your list is pretty much perfected at this point, but I still have two suggestions:

1) Shouldn't the SB creature be Undercity Informer, and not Balustrade Spy? If you are generating mana with Chancellor, etc, you should have the cheaper creature in the sideboard, shouldn't you? It is easier to Living Wish and cast Informer on turn one than LW + Spy. Or is your rationale that you will probably play the creature the following turn in one shot? All of my testing has been Vintage so far, but my intuition is that you want the cheaper creature in the sideboard and force it through on turn one. I guess the concern, though, is that a player will try to kill it with removal or burn, and so you may just wish to wait to play it if you can't activate it. In vintage, you can easily resolve it and activate it on the next turn...

2) I still prefer the 3 Narco/2 Bridge split for one very important reason: If I'm going to draw one of those five cards in my opening hand, having 2 Bridge increases your chance of having a black card to imprint on Chrome Mox. That's my split in the Vintage deck. I understand your point about sideboarding, which is well taken. One of the things I like about Spy is that you only need 2 Narcos in the GY with it in play to Dread Return.

1. In the scenario where I have 5 mana and cannot fully cast spy off wish, I think it's better to just use tangle's mana to cast living wish and wait a turn than leaving informer exposed to removal for a full turn. The deck already loses to FoW (without therapy/cavern backup) so I don't want to open myself up to bolt, swords, dismember, etc too. Also, there are many situations where LED serves as that 4th mana to activate informer. Having 4 informers MD maximizes this play. In addition, spy in the sb gives you 4 additional chances to pitch narcomoeba(s) to chrome mox without fear of fizzling (as noted by you). Finally, you still have the option to swap informer out for spy games 2 and 3 if they don't have removal.

2. Like you said, the main advantage of having 2 bridges is an extra card to imprint chrome mox for black mana. You also get extra tokens in most cases to sac to therapy to see what they're playing. However, that advantage is negated if the opponent is smart and scoops in response to therapy game 1. It was a personal preference but I wanted to give myself more options post-board for the plethora of hate coming my way. Either way is probably fine I think.

Hopefully this deck isn't perfected just yet since I don't feel it's as consistent as belcher at this point haha.

[alphastryk]

I think your list is pretty much perfected at this point, but I still have two suggestions:

1) Shouldn't the SB creature be Undercity Informer, and not Balustrade Spy? If you are generating mana with Chancellor, etc, you should have the cheaper creature in the sideboard, shouldn't you? It is easier to Living Wish and cast Informer on turn one than LW + Spy. Or is your rationale that you will probably play the creature the following turn in one shot? All of my testing has been Vintage so far, but my intuition is that you want the cheaper creature in the sideboard and force it through on turn one. I guess the concern, though, is that a player will try to kill it with removal or burn, and so you may just wish to wait to play it if you can't activate it. In vintage, you can easily resolve it and activate it on the next turn...

2) I still prefer the 3 Narco/2 Bridge split for one very important reason: If I'm going to draw one of those five cards in my opening hand, having 2 Bridge increases your chance of having a black card to imprint on Chrome Mox. That's my split in the Vintage deck. I understand your point about sideboarding, which is well taken. One of the things I like about Spy is that you only need 2 Narcos in the GY with it in play to Dread Return.

1) Having the maximum number of the Informer main allows you to use LED as a 4th mana to go off. That has come up a lot more than wishing for the combo man and being short one mana, with a chrome mox in play.

2) I definitely agree on the split being 3/2 for improving chrome mox.