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Iranon
02-22-2008, 07:41 PM
I've been fiddling around with compact combos a lot lately, trying to build new decks around them or throwing them into existing decks that looked like they could support them... with varying results.

For giggles I decided to try if you could effectively hedge your bets and include several of them in the same deck hoping to get a decent goldfish average.
Combining Buried Alive/Reanimate with the combo used in Cephalid Breakfast seemed the logical first step as both can fetch Kiki/Hussar for the actual kill. Then I tacked on anything from Doomsday to Trix. The whole thing was largely unsuccessful: No room for disruption, and the multiple avenues didn't speed the thing up much considering a lack of effective acceleration and filtering.

I decided to try doing it the other way round, run those wonderful black rituals and see what I can do with it. Think a Spanish Inquisition shell, with instant wins instead of mass draw. No draw-4s means no massive life loss, no need for all mana to be black and no need to build storm outside a game-ending loop... so robots + Culling the Weak were abandoned in favour of a full set of Spirit Guides.

The working name comes from having 3 separate game-winning combos.

***

The (rough) list:

*Mana*

2 Bayou
4 Land Grant
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Spirit Guide

*Kill*

4 Infernal Tutor
2 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens

4 Buried Alive
4 Reanimate
1 Karmic Guide
1 Pestermite
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

4 Goblin Charbelcher

*Filler*

3 Street Wraith


***


I think a detailed explanation of individual cards is redundant; efficient acceleration and efficient self-contained kills. Apart from the filler, which is almost assuredly not ideal. If I had to decide on a list to play in a tournament, I'd probably go for Thoughtseize for at least a little protection. Spoils is out because the RFG clause would make that elegible only for Belcher, which is our slowest and most expensive kill. Blood Pet or Wild Cantor would help the mana side of the deck a little, but it would pretty much be the weakest slot hence I'm using Wraiths for now.
Burning Wish would require a rework of the deck, and I haven't been able to do that in a satisfactory manner so far.

Then, there's the question if the chosen combos were the correct ones.

***

How does this pile play then? Well, good things first: It is faster than Belcher and comparable to an SI list built for speed and pushed hard. Slightly slower in my testing so far, but I am fairly confident about playing and mulliganing SI, which I can't say for this pile yet. Good enough for an early and unrefined version.
The deck is quite good at going for the throat twice... attempt a turn 1/2 kill, if running into a counter try again on turn 3-4. Much of the permanent-based combo hate like Meddling Mage, True Believer, Chalice or taxing effects are of limited effectiveness even without dedicated protection.

Ok, now for the bad part. The lack of cantrips, real tutors and draw spells means that it is impossible to dig oneself out of a hole; a hand that does nothing but turns lethal from any one of a dozen topdecks is fairly common and would be a lot more impressive if one could stack the odds in one's favour.
Graveyard hate and removing cards directly from the library is quite problematic.
Goblin Charbelcher is often a less than satisfactory win condition. Belcher, go is generally a weaker start than in other decks.

***

Some feedback would be very much welcome.

Deep6er
02-22-2008, 08:15 PM
A very interesting start. My recommendations here are varied, so I'll try to split them up in order to make sure they're separate.

Firstly, it seems to me that the Buried Alive + Reanimate kill is too clunky. It takes up 11 slots which is far too many. Considering the 3 "filler" slots, that means that I would have 14 slots to work with. Starting from this point, my advice is as follows.

1) 4 Auriok Salvagers + 4 Chromatic Stars + 2 Chromatic Sphere + 4 Worldly Tutor.

This allows you to also have the Salvagers kill, since you already run LED, you can also use this one. On another note, you can replace the Worldly Tutors with Living Wishes. That would theoretically open you up to another combo as well. But, more importantly, it would allow you to answer troublesome permanents. The best part is that you don't need to run the Spellbomb. You already have Storm cards in your deck!

... Damn. I've got to go. When I have some time tomorrow, I'll finish outlining my points. There are a couple more. I'll try to finish it tomorrow. All I can say now is that this is interesting, and will hopefully work out.

FoolofaTook
02-23-2008, 12:39 AM
It looks very interesting. Any plan to play around Force of Will? The Iggy recursion thing tends to get countered at the tutor part when Leylines of The Void is not in play.

BreathWeapon
02-23-2008, 11:13 AM
It looks very interesting. Any plan to play around Force of Will? The Iggy recursion thing tends to get countered at the tutor part when Leylines of The Void is not in play.

Considering his mana base, all he can do is use Unmask or Pact of Negation and then tutor for Goblin Charbelcher or Empty the Warrens.

As an aside, this looks similar to SI/Belcher decks I built in 07.

4 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill Gotten Gains
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide

Deck number one trades the robots, a Bayou and Cabal Therapy for Summoner's Pact, Elvish Spirit Guide, Dryad Arbor and Xantid Swarm. The idea is that either Land Grant -> Dryad Arbor or Summoner's Pact -> Dryad Arbor could set up the creature + Culling the Weak combo on turn one while Summoner's Pact, Elvish Spirit Guide and Xantid Swarms could set up creatures during the chain to cast Culling the Weak again. Cabal Therapy is/was terrible in the Land Grant version of SI, but Xantid Swarm has 4 additional mana sources than Cabal Therapy to resolve it before casting a Land Grant thanks to Elvish Spirit Guide. Elvish Spirit Guide also protects Land Grant from Daze and helps resolve Cabal Ritual, Goblin Charbelcher and the IGG chain.

I tried cutting the Xantid Swarms for Pact of Negation and a Wild Cantor, figuring that Pact of Negation was the ideal disruption and one additional green creature was sufficient for casting Culling the Weak a second time. I found having a tutorable Chromatic Sphere was pretty awesome, which led me to this pile of jank.


"Suicide Pact"

4 Serum Powder
4 Spoils of the Vault
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Pact of Negation
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Wild Cantor
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

Which is literally the fastest combo deck in the format, if it weren't for the fact that you can randomly just kill yourself.

I thought both of these decks were promising, neither of them used a third combo, but Summoner's Pact opens up the Gamekeeper Combo and the higher mana threshold could support Tombstalker or Minion of the Wastes out of the SB. There's also the possibility that Slithermuse could be stupid good with Cabal Ritual.

Any way, if you're running black based storm combo, those mana base ideas may/may not be useful. I never ran all the way with the idea, but I definitely think something is there.

Mister Agent
02-23-2008, 02:35 PM
I actually like the list Iranon but I have an question do you think black discard could fit well in your combo deck? Considering black discard can more then likely help you in the threshold and control matchups.

Iranon
02-23-2008, 03:30 PM
@ Deep6er: An interesting suggestion. The spares are less dead than the Kiki combo, but it looks a little slow compared to a two-card combo for 2bb. The mana requirements seem stiffer than Belcher, and that's already not mana-efficient enough for my liking.
I'm especially wary of Worldly Tutor out of a similar concern for speed. Doomsday really pushes up the percentage of turn 2 kills and seems easier; while it requires a fair amount of chaff it's a one-card combo (barring mana requirements) and therefore slot-efficient on the whole.

Now that I think of it... Doomsday + Salvagers might be a fine choice for a different multiheaded monster. Hmm.



@ FoolofaTook: No special plans against Force, unfortunately... as I said, the Wraiths probably should be something else. Xantid Swarms if the biggest expected trouble is countermagic or Thoughtseize for a more general use... I'd prefer Thoughtseize because getting creatures stuck in hand can be a problem. The deck often gets a second shot in short order (hopefully one that doesn't include IGG) though.



@ Breathweapon: Interesting lists. The first one looks good even though Contracts without robots looks as if it really really increases the pressure to win quickly - has that been a problem?
I'm not sure how the second can be all that fast... it runs a ridiculous amount of mana but the sole win condition is expensive.

Apparently, any decks advertised as 'fastest thing in the format' look incredibly dodgy to other people... the fastest SI derivate I tested features Glimpse of Nature of all things.

@ Agentfunk: I think so, and it's quite welcome anyway. The Reanimate kill is the most efficient, and it becomes more reliable if we have more ways of getting rid of uncastable creatures in hand.

BreathWeapon
02-23-2008, 04:29 PM
The first list is a turn 1 combo deck, I don't believe in the hide behind a robot while top decking approach to SI, it just lets Counterbalance etc. resolve. If I plan on using a more staggered approach, I prefer a mono B list with Cabal Therapy and 7 lands. Land Grant doesn't really let you set up any way, because you can't protect your mana sources with Cabal Therapy. The first list is really god damn fast tho', I was gold fishing it with -4 Swarms, -4 Belchers, + 4 Pact of Negation, +3 Tendrils and +1 Wild Cantor and getting 50+ this morning. Dropping the 8 robots for 8 "spirit guides" just lets you haul ass and play thru' Force and Daze. I'm really conflicted about the Belchers, you can usually draw/tutor for both lands, but misfiring with one sucks. I may just keep them in the SB in order to bring them in for disruption that's other wise worthless against aggro.

The second list is really dodgey, most of its speed comes from the flexibility of Spoils. There's no way I'd ever play it seriously, but it's fairly disgusting when it works.

Grant/Pact definitely seems to be a viable way to support Culling the Weak, I really don't have any empirical evidence to say that it's strictly better, but G mana is a lot better than dead robots in theory.

Aggro_zombies
02-23-2008, 07:26 PM
Isn't that one 4/3 flying dude from Dissension better than Pestermite? Pestermite bites it to Plague, shutting off one kill route...since you're already vulnerable to Needle in both kills, it seems like Needle + Plague = autolose for you. Also, Fire in response to the 'mite trigger shuts off the creature combo. Some of the best Thresh decks these days are red splash for tempo control, running Stifle (stops your combo for one turn) and Pyroclasm in the board for aggro (rapes the creature kill). The 4/3 flying guy (Sky Hussar or something?) will at least survive 'clasm and is pretty sizable in combat, which buys you time to find another Reanimate. Or you could simply beat down for the win.

Iranon
02-24-2008, 04:14 AM
Very true, but Sky Hussar is almost impossible to hardcast and having it stuck in your hand sucks. If those Wraiths become Thoughtseizes, Sky Hussar is probably better.

Aggro_zombies
02-24-2008, 04:25 AM
Very true, but Sky Hussar is almost impossible to hardcast and having it stuck in your hand sucks. If those Wraiths become Thoughtseizes, Sky Hussar is probably better.
I'd recommend making the switch, and not just so you can retool the creature combo. Thoughtseize gives the deck a way to check if the coast is clear before it risks its combo, a bit like Chant in TES. Duress may also be a contender in the sideboard to back up Thoughtseize if you find yourself facing Thresh or control.

Deep6er
02-24-2008, 01:37 PM
OK, sorry for the delay.

Back to my points.

2) -3 Street Wraith, +3 Tooth and Nail.

Green mana is available, and using Tooth and Nail, you can tutor up and play the Kiki-Jiki + Pestermite kill.

3) -14 cards (the ones I mentioned previously) +4 Sensei's Divining Top, +4 Helm of Awakening, +2 Savannah (going up to 4 lands), +4 Enlightened Tutor.

Integrating Sensei's Divining Top would allow you to have a better midgame against decks that stopped the first try, but would also allow you to find your answers post board. With the increased land count, it also means that Top is useful outside of trying to Sensei, Sensei them out of the game. Alternately, you could use the Helms as Lockets of Yesterdays, because LED will discard excess Tops. Both Helm and Locket would allow the other combos to function more efficiently as well.

OK, so that's about it. Sorry about the delay again. Best of luck developing this deck, very cool idea.

Cavius The Great
02-24-2008, 05:16 PM
OK, sorry for the delay.

Back to my points.

2) -3 Street Wraith, -1 Buried Alive, +4 Tooth and Nail.

Green mana is available, and using Tooth and Nail, you can tutor up and play the Kiki-Jiki + Pestermite kill. Also, it doesn't have to interfere with the Buried Alive + Reanimate function because you don't even have to cut a Buried Alive necessarily. You could just run 3 Tooth and Nails.

3) -14 cards (the ones I mentioned previously) +4 Sensei's Divining Top, +4 Helm of Awakening, +2 Savannah (going up to 4 lands), +4 Enlightened Tutor.

Integrating Sensei's Divining Top would allow you to have a better midgame against decks that stopped the first try, but would also allow you to find your answers post board. With the increased land count, it also means that Top is useful outside of trying to Sensei, Sensei them out of the game. Alternately, you could use the Helms as Lockets of Yesterdays, because LED will discard excess Tops. Both Helm and Locket would allow the other combos to function more efficiently as well.

OK, so that's about it. Sorry about the delay again. Best of luck developing this deck, very cool idea.

Don't you mean -4 Buried Alive -4 Reanimate, +4 Tooth and Nail and 4 of something else? It seems with Tooth and Nail you would free up slots and have no need for the Reanimator combo peices. That was my assumption about your initial concerns. I assumed you were trying to cut down on combo peices. I'm rather confused at this point. I also think that nine mana is a little much, but I could be wrong.

Iranon
02-24-2008, 06:21 PM
I don't quite understand how Tooth and Nail would be playable when Belcher is pushing it in terms of mana cost. I would much rather retain the ability to kill on turn 1 roughly half the time.

I'm not sure how viable the whole concept of packing all sorts of different combos into one deck is; I think it would have to be a balls-to-the-wall turn 1-2 deck though. Otherwise we'd end up with something not faster than Cephalid Breakfast, with nowhere near the control tools or library manipulation to ensure consistency.

Aggro_zombies
02-24-2008, 07:07 PM
Well, Tooth and Nail is an interesting idea, but I agree with Iranon here that it would be best to either go for speed (graveyard route) or consistency / power (Tooth and Nail route). Personally, I'm in favor of speed since the slower a combo deck becomes, the more it must play like a control deck to win. As the game drags on the number of potential disruptions to your combo increases in both variety and number, and after turn three or so this deck will have to be able to answer Counterbalance as well as Threshold's assorted other counters and discard or Needles out of other decks. Even if you draw all the right answers there's still the risk that a well-timed topdeck will catch you with your pants down and cost you the game. The best answer to situations like that is simply to ensure that they don't happen to begin with, by giving your opponent the narrowest "game window" possible. Tooth and Nail is nice and all, and will win the game if it resolves, but it costs :9::g::g: to play it entwined in a deck that will never realistically be able to get to eleven mana in its first few turns, even with artifact cheats.

BreathWeapon
02-24-2008, 08:09 PM
At best, you can ramp up to 6 non-LED mana consistently, any 3rd win condition has to work under that guide line. I think Auriok Salvagers is your only reasonable option, 8 Spheres are just going to be a hell of a lot better than 4 Buried Alives and 4 Reanimates or any other jank you could add.

Deep6er
02-25-2008, 12:42 AM
Actually, an entwined Tooth and Nail only costs 9 mana. Not 11. Secondly, it was meant to be as a three of to supplement the Buried Alive + Reanimate combo. Theoretically, it was meant to be another kill that wouldn't take any slots that were being used for core purposes. It also means that you would have a stronger second kill because you inevitably draw mana when they've foiled the first combo attempt. I think it might be worthwhile to investigate simply because already playing the Buried Alive + Reanimate combo means that you already have the creatures that you're planning on getting with Tooth and Nail in your deck.

Iranon
02-25-2008, 06:46 AM
It would be nice to include a win that didn't eat up additional slots... but from my testing the mana engine falls very very short of the requirements of T&N. We would require multiple Dark Rituals, making this a timely kill only with the most perfect of hands.

Mana remains the main limitation from my experience; colours other black, green and maybe a smidgeon of red are hard to obtain in a Belcher-friendly manabase. This has been my biggest problem with alternative kills.

Having said that, I'd love to be proven wrong and see a version that addresses these issues.

emidln
02-25-2008, 07:15 AM
It seems that playing Pestermite over Sky Hussar makes you vulnerable to Mogg Fanatic. Has this been an issue?

Iranon
02-27-2008, 11:31 AM
Somewhat; after all Mogg Fanatic or Seal of Fire out means I can't attempt the combo at all. As I said, I'm pretty sure Sky Hussar is better if we run even a smidgeon of Discard for protection, and might be anyway. The main reason I put down Pestermite is that, as long as a combo deck I'm working on is still rather unrefined, I try to avoid losing to myself before worrying about the opponent at all.

For actual tournament play, I'd go -1 Pestermite, -3 Street Wraith, +1 Sky Hussar, +3 Thoughtseize. The Wraiths are mostly a relic from the time when I included Doomsday in the deck, an efficient 1-card kill that would come into effect next round. Wraiths gave the opportunity to kill immediately if mana allowed.
The main reason they're still on the list is that they are decent filler and I can't think of more cards that helps plan A (win on turn 1) without weakening other parts of the deck.

For a tournament, I'd probably go -3 Streeth Wraith, -1 Pestermite, +1 Sky Hussar, +3 Thoughtseize... see my above rationale for not submitting the list like that.

freakish777
02-27-2008, 12:38 PM
How about the following:

1 Bayou
1 Savannah
4 Land Grant
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Spirit Guide

4 Infernal Tutor
4 Ill-Gotten Gains
3 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens

4 Goblin Charbelcher

4 Street Wraith
4 Orim's Chant
2 Abeyance


Splashing white for Chant and Abeyance seems very worthwhile. It gives you outs to other combo decks, and it provides control decks with must counter cards. Also, Krosan Grip should be in the board.

Iranon
03-01-2008, 04:03 AM
Hmm. That version relies very very heavily on the Ill-Gotten Gains loop, and still has no way to find the missing components. I'm also not sold on slashing white for protection when that creates colour trouble - if we give up an initial black mana source, a Taiga would at least make Belcher and Empty the Warrens marginally better.

***

Talking about Empty the Warrens... if forgoing protection is feasible, a full set of Empty the Warrens seems interesting instead of running cycling blanks. While not winning outright, it would be another cheap and compact way to do something gamebreaking. I'll get back to that after I tested it more.






***EDIT: Results are in***

I finally got around to recording a small sample of 100 goldfish games, with a list emphasising Empty the warrens (-1 Bayou, -3 Street Wraith, +1 Taiga, +3 Empty the Warrens). Truth be told, I didn't find the results too encouraging even though I could have done better (I had a few instances of 'this hand... I don't think it does what you think it does'). Compared to my earlier data, it's slightly faster than TES but overall slower than Belcher, let alone SI pushed to its limits. It's also on the lower end of the totem pole as far as consistency is concerned, although that depends to some extent on myself counting anything slower than a turn 4 kill as a failure.

Total kills in 50 games on the play, 50 on the draw:

Turn 1: 18
Turn 2: 28
Turn 3: 25
Turn 4: 16
Fail: 13

On its defence, all but 2 fails had a Belcher or a goblin horde in play, and I often would have been able to go for the throat twice in case of counters and the deck isn't shut down easily by permanent-based hate. Not requiring a large investment to kill is definitely nice. Still, I think the numbers aren't very impressive for a disruptionless deck wrestling a goldfish.