Originally Posted by Seraphus
I am surprised quite a bit by the lack of Cunning wish, it seems like a very easy inclusion, you already have 3 win conditions main deck, which seem like they could easily be replaced by 3 Cunning Wish. Maybe I am stuck on older thinking about this deck, but until you are able to win, you don't really want to see brainfreeze at all right?
@turingTested on twitter
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これは水である。
I was scouring for cards for a different deck when I came across this card that was released last year:
Ancient Excavation
UB 2
instant
Draw cards equal to the number of cards in your hand, then discard a card for each card drawn this way.
Basic landcycling 2
Black isn't a typical splash for us, but that's two effects we would find useful, no? Tutor for an island for 2, OR Super Brainstorm for 4? If we cast this EoOT 4, wont we combo out like 99.9% of the time on turn 5?
@ Seraphus:
1) Have you tried "Grip of the Roil" ? (better than repeal when target is CMC > 1; inferior when you use it on SCM). I like splitting
2) I like "Thing in the Ice" as a 4-of as a SB tech (improve D&T a lot)
Legacy & Homebrew **ONLY**
Brown Stax
Rainbow SWAT
Dimir Mill
Morph my Ride
Wally Wallah
Corona Syndrome
Have you really found Grip to be worth it? Considering that Repeal can also take things off the board (Chalice of the Void, Sphere of Resistance, Thalia, Eidolon, Leovold etc). When you include the bounce-your-own snapcaster interaction as well I don't think this replacement makes much sense.
Well I used to play Telekinesis before Grip.
At some point my split was:
- 2/3 Repeal
- 2 Snap
- 1/2 Grip
The card is less versatile than repeal for sure but when Eldrazi was more than rampant, grip pulled me out of some bad spot.
Definitely less needed now :-)
Legacy & Homebrew **ONLY**
Brown Stax
Rainbow SWAT
Dimir Mill
Morph my Ride
Wally Wallah
Corona Syndrome
Mind you, Repeal can only Bounce Chalice on != 1.
True, for some reason I thought the target was cmc X or less.
Cunning wish issue:
It's a very demanding card to have; I mean, you are required to build a SB around it and your desired spell is a x+3cmc if it is not countered - 1 Brain Freeze maindeck is essencial and cannot be put only on SB; BSZ, is something that you can use within the combo phase or before of it and as a win condition. Cunning Wish has its advantages however, the advantages of having these 2 cards are better than CWish's. Plus the fact that you want your C.Wishes to be really effective - using it to fetch a draw cards card or whatever card you already have on maindeck is like a waste of resources IMO. The power of Snapcaster goes beyond anything seen in Solidarity for many many years, that includes the fact that your effectiveness of cantrip and finding your option during and off combo is really good.
Now, Repeal:
The bounce effect is must more useful than a don't untap+draw - you will be able to manipulate Snapcaster with it, any other non-creature permanent (besides chalice on x=1); I mean it is much easier to send something off than just tapping it.
The Snapcaster+Repeal play happens within combo as cantrips and recycle of cards when instead of having, for example, a bunch load of mana cards (tide reset etc) lying in your hand you can generate mana but you don't have many options in drawing; it can also happen as a control play when blocking and bounce or for a digging action pre-combo due to the multiple 1cmc cards.
Now, I do admit that Chalices stompy deck with t1 chalice are a pain but, post board they are easy - Eldrazi are slightly harder if they get a few pieces of pressure, clocking the match but snap+snapcaster do the job IMO.
Don't you like visions of beyond? Playing with 2 bf and 2 remand MD, visions >>peek IMO.
1 opponent's spell+tide+reset+ counter+cantrip, play bf, mill 15 (+other cards opponent's grave) (bf continue on stack) and you have 3-4 ancestral recall MD. Continue combo with recalls, after remand in bf on stack and bf again for gg ^^
I'm enjoying culling scales (i use 3 SB) against Death and Texas and other decks with many creature. Culling scales>>> thing in ice this deck IMO.
Hmm, it seems a little stretch regarding the visions+BF strategy. Why would you prefer to split you combo in half? Plus, you want those 1 mana cantrips to be useful on turn 1-2 so you can adjust the mana and hand needs; in that stage of combo you have done the job, your opponent is probably dead - bored for sure
Which are the spells we try to successfully make through counters? HT, Reset and Meditate - right? So, if you have those already resolved there's no need to add up strategies and other things cause they are cool (not being mean here, just saying that the Visions' requirements are not simple and we should keep the few simple things that work on this deck).
Even looking at your strategy - Peek is a card that many people don't understand how much value it has in this deck. It's not the reveal the hand thing, it is the fact that it is a t1 card with multiple effects on it that will allow us to: 1) cantrip/sculpting hand, 2) get info regarding what are we playing against and how is it going to affect our long term strategy, 3) it can be better than a FoW pre-combo, since you know exactly the odds of combo successfully once you peeked your op hand, and 4) it's a valid and useful Snapcaster target.
I am really phobic about non-instant speed cards in this deck, my advice (and it's something I am testing atm) is to take the 2 BEB's on my SB and replace them for 2 Rapid Hybridization , they add value to Repeal as it will always be a 1cmc cantrip (obvious that is not a perfect strategy, but the functional/abilities part of the creatures is solved and we can exercise control on the table)
I played Culling scales in Stax. The card is good but slower than thing in the ice.
If you try against the bug control decks out there you'll see that getting a resolved leovold out of contention with culling scales is nearly impossible and you'll be dead by that time.
Nevertheless, culling scales does handle non creature permanents.
To be honest I think it requires more tests on both sides but take into account that Titi kills more often than not. This also helps you having easier and faster G2 and G3, which is definitely something to be acknowledged for.
Legacy & Homebrew **ONLY**
Brown Stax
Rainbow SWAT
Dimir Mill
Morph my Ride
Wally Wallah
Corona Syndrome
looks like I just found a secondary legacy deck to build. I love this.
well mate, just don't give up - resilience is the key cause you will feel that this will suck pretty soon you start using the deck
So, I was testing a little bit more, and now that the meta post top-ban is starting to get pretty much established, I believe that the deck cannot perform its usual strategy of gaining time for the 4-6 land drops. I mean, with Deathrite Shaman is in 70-80% of decks and honestly I believe we cannot overcome the game by making time when he robes us of every tool and advantage that snapcaster brought to the deck. Therefore I came up with a list focus on speeding up and pure combo:
// 60 Maindeck
// 3 Creature
3 Snapcaster Mage
// 39 Instant
4 High Tide
4 Reset
2 Snap
2 Repeal
4 Brainstorm
2 Peek
4 Force of Will
2 Brain Freeze
1 Turnabout
4 Meditate
2 Flusterstorm
2 Opt
3 Impulse
2 Ghostly Flicker
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
// 18 Land
2 Flooded Strand
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Polluted Delta
12 Island
// 15 Sideboard
// 2 Creature
SB: 2 Vendilion Clique
// 13 Instant
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Mindbreak Trap
SB: 2 Rebuild
SB: 3 Ravenous Trap
SB: 2 Rapid Hybridization
SB: 1 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 2 Hydroblast
SB: 1 Repeal
I believe that we can eventually incorporate Words of Wisdom back to the deck, but it is too soon to tell that for sure. Meanwhile, guys, show some love and if you can play with the list and comment about it, cheers
what's the sense in 2xGhostly Flicker when you can play 2 more Snap and 1 more SCM?
Im guessing its to flicker either two lands or a land and a snapcaster mage.
Different CMC with the same mathematical result (it overlaps snare and chalice), also it does not fizzle (or it's not counter on resolution due to double targeting); but yes you can at least -1 Ghostly +1 Snap
Also, I forgot this part (the most important one), I mention that the idea behind this new list is the combo focus and acceleration of its "clock". Ghostly works with or without Creatures/Snapcaster, like James mentioned, but it is not without a context that I do mention this. Snap needs more to be efficient in a 3 land drop combo turn.
As I said, I believe the deck is all about strategies and knowing really well which are the options you have.
First off, much thanks to Seraphus for the lists -- during the DTT-era, I had more fun with this deck than I've ever had and as soon as I saw the Top ban, I started thinking about picking it up again and was glad you all did the heavy lifting on the lists.
I've been annoying people on xmage with Seraphus' list from the previous page (-1 Peek, +1 Opt was my only change). This list is consistent and easy to combo -- my fizzle rate is very low when I can actually get to the point of going for it. I was initially skeptical of no Cunning Wish, but after playing around with a 3x Wish list, I 100% agree on leaving them out. They are just too slow and the toolbox isn't powerful enough (I couldn't find a "card advantage" option to leave in the SB as you need all 4 meditates maindeck -- without DTT they are your only actual card draw. Plus wishing for Surgical Extraction/Trap often isn't fast enough against the new GY decks)
After playing some games, I went up to 4 Force main (cutting Turnabout and 1 Repeal) have been happy with that. Losing to Chalice feels real bad and Force is really our only out. So my current maindeck is very similar to what you just posted (+2 opt +2 remand, -1 peek, -1 turnabout, -2 ghostly flicker). Hadn't thought of trying Ghostly Flicker before -- nice idea!
Deck still has the same problems it did back then -- namely, blue decks with discard. Both Grixis and BUG feel awful, as they are bringing Therapy/Thoughseize/Hymn along with Force/fluster/pyroblast. Combined with surgical extractions, post-board feels almost impossible to combo. And of course, there's a new problem -- Leovold, though the 5 maindeck bounce spells make him manageable, and the Opt+Impulse config lets you keep cantripping away.
For that reason, I've adopted Ralf's Thing in the Ice SB plan (over Venser + 2 Cliques) b/c it's strong against discard and bounces hatebears. I've also added a Surgical Extraction over Ravenous Trap to fight the omni-present RB Reanimator and for extra utility against other combo.
Really wish we had another good CA option -- I got desperate enough to test Vision Skeins (surprise! it's terrible), Careful Consideration (surprise! it's terrible) and even a "mill yourself to power Flash of Insight and Accumulated Knowledge" (surprise! ... you get the picture).
Last thing for folks who want to give it a spin: Remand and Repeal are amazing on the play (they play deathrite, you untap and repeal it, or remand their 3 drop) and VERY lackluster on the draw (they play deathrite, you helplessly watch them resolve their 3 drop, then lose), so keep that in mind with sideboarding.
No guys, Flicker untaps 2 lands OR 1 SCM and 1 land
Snap untaps 2 lands AND takes you back a SCM.
To recast it you are just 1 mana shorter then with Flicker but Snap is so much better and versatile. You can also hold SCM in hand for after Brain Freeze (into Quicken, into PiF. Which is the only way to make the deck competitive, imho)
Cunning Wish, also, is very overrated. You don't need versatility you need consistency.
4 Meditate
4 Hightide
4 Reset
2 Brain Freeze
2 Quicken
1 Merchant Scroll (why not? with Quicken around)
2 PiF
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Brainstorm
4 Impulse
1 Urza's Rage
1 Split Decision
2 Cunning Wish (just to grab Freeze or Rage in SB)
4 FoW
3 Snap
18lands with 2 volcanic
If you are looking for the fastest version of this deck, you may want to look at the green splash. Hunting Pack offers a reasonable chance of going off on turn 3.
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