I'm probably missing something but how is Entomb into Past in Flames business? Once you cast Past in Flames the Entomb in your graveyard can tutor for Tendrils of Agony but the Tendrils of Agony wont have flashback? Every time the Entomb is business argument comes up, Summoner's Pact and Eternal Witness seem to be a part of that equation.
Sometimes you Therapy, see shit you'd rather not, and Diabolic Intent while still holding cards, so you can set up AdN on the following turn. If they counter DI/AdN then you have the option to go for PIF with Entomb. Other times, you are holding the Tendrils/PIF and you search for the other one because the deck simply has that much mana. Sometimes its business because you've filled up your yard with your business into their countersuite already. Its saved me a couple times when I've been sitting on like 6 or 7 lands thanks to multiple Explorer triggers.
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Expect me or die. I play SI.
Mmm, I'm going to avoid it for as long as possible and test other things just because I think other things need to be tested, I was experimenting with the tutors in the deck compared to the cantrips and found myself liking Grim Tutor and disliking Sensei's Divining Top as far as the flex slots go. I also missed the second Ad Nauseam and think I either want it back or 2 Grim Tutor because there are a lot of starts where you open with a Cabal Therapy on turn one and then follw up with an Empty the Warrens + Flashback.
Deathwish is a poor man's substitute and I'm not sure how good Diminishing Returns is in this deck to be honest. Diabolic Intent is like the MVP of this deck as either a win condition or a set up card, sacrifing a Veteran Explorer and searching for Lion's Eye Diamond is a pretty insane play because you can instantly Infernal Tutor afterwards.
I looked at Death Wish already.. it wasn't too effective. Also, I tried adding in Death's Shadow. I swear one day I will get it to work.. probably with Berserk or something or perhaps in a Doomsday pile.
Anyway.. I found some potential creatures to experiment with with GSZ:
Child of Alara
This card looks good if you are going to run the playset of GSZ. The multitude of sac effects mean that you can use it to blow up with board, and it also beats for 6 trample. I think this card could potentially be a mainboard card; its good to have a random out and turn a spare GSZ into a business spell if you hit late game and either want to reset the board or just get in for there for the win.
Wolfir Silverheart
If you were to play a 'man plan' transformation, I'd play a couple of these guys since they turn spare Explorers/ESGs into beasts. And you can find them with Summoner's Pacts if you are in a situation with a lot of lands in play.
Terastodon
This card is something I'd consider for a post-board transformation like I mentioned above. It can potentially get 18 power on your side if you blow up your own stuff, and it also has the option of getting rid of troublesome permanents.
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Expect me or die. I play SI.
Still messing around with this, one of the things I've found so far is that I SB out Summoner's Pact so often that I think I'm going to cut it entirely, the 5 extra Spirit Guides are ok but the tutor for Dryad Arbor and costing a land drop is really weak and commital compared to Green Sun's Zenith. Most of this decks appeal is the ability to outlast and out resource your opponent's, so I think just concentrating on building up the manabase and digging with Sensei's Divining Top makes a lot more sense and if you miss the bodies for your sacrifice outlets then you just add Xantid Swarms but so far I've gotten away with adding Bayou.
Also Natural Order is the best man plan ever, swap Ad Nauseam for Past in Flames and Empty the Warrens for Progenitus and watch them cry.
I hadn't found Summoner's Pact to be a problem usually because you can often pay the upkeep of 2GG with extra lands you get from Explorer. But in the GSZ build I see your point. Natural Order looks like it will be incredible, post-board. Child of Alara as well.. board sweepers are going to be huge as well in a lot of situations. What's your build look like lately? Balancing it and the sideboard doesn't look easy. I'll do some testing later today and see what happens.
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Expect me or die. I play SI.
Summoner's Pact isn't a problem, it's just underwhelming and I'd prefer not to pass a turn after tutoring for a Veteran Explorer because a lot can happen in a turn. Summoner's Pact is a card that you're going to use when you want speed, that doesn't really seem to be what we're going for here when we can build a manabase and flashback a Cabal Therapy. We have like 14 creature equivalents in this deck and only 8 cards that need them in order to function, which makes Summoner's Pact a bit redundant considering I have 3 more Xantid Swarms in the board.
Right now, I've got
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ad Nauseam
2 Grim Tutor
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Diabolic Intent
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Xantid Swarm
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Dark Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Verdant Catacombos
4 Bayou
4 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Dryad Arbor
That's 59 cards, I keep fiddling with the ratio of Ad Nauseams and Sensei's Divining Tops and Grim Tutors (right now I have 1 Grim Tutor as the 60th card) because it's a careful balance between consistency and speed. I think I like 1 Ad Nauseam and 2 Grim Tutor tho', i've had some near misses flipping that 2nd Ad Nauseam.
I had to use Summoner's Pact for Elvish Spirit Guide so often that my intuition was that the deck really needs a way to ensure its second land drop more than it needs a way to find green creatures.
It may only be a matter of time until Brainstorm and Ponder find their way into the list, but I'd like to avoid that if possible, Top keeps the manabase durable if the deck a bit slow.
My guess is you'll probably end up playing Chrome Mox based on your current list. Otherwise, you'll find it difficult to hit enough mana sources after you play Ad Nauseam. This is why I liked having Pact. It helped in the post-AdN hands.
13 business seems like too much to me. I'd say you were spot on with Tops. In fact, I'd think that playing +1 Underground Sea, +4 Brainstorm would be a better way to find your business instead of trying to play extra business spells to reach consistency, much like ANT's approach. GSZ as extra shuffle effects seems good. Perhaps a split between Brainstorms and SDTs. I like Top, but without DD sometimes too many Tops without Brainstorm is a bad thing. I'd think more Brainstorms than Tops. My original list played Brainstorm. I'd give it a try. You should also try to cut Bayou's as well for Misty Rainforests. Grim Tutor costs too much, even with all the extra mana in this deck. Being able IT/DI early for spare resources on turn 2 is awesome. Grim Tutor on turn 3, not so much.
I like that your list has 4 GSZ/4 Therapy/1 Swarm as protection. Pretty dope, compressed protection package.
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Expect me or die. I play SI.
I've been debating a lot of the numbers and card choices in the deck, as soon as we cut Summoner's Pact we become a worse Ad Nauseam deck but I think we should look at Ad Nauseam the same way ANT looks at Ad Nauseam as a secondary engine vs discard decks for Infernal Tutor and the primary engine for Diabolic Intent where Empty the Warrens is too slow on turn 2 because you need a creature and the Past in Flames is impossible when you can't recur Summoner's Pact anymore.
That got me thinking that this is probably an Ill Gotten Gains deck, where the presence of Xantid Swarm and flashback Cabal Therapy lets us circumvent the drawback on turn 2. T1 Cabal Therapy, T2 Veteran Explorer and we get to tutor for and cast Ill Gotten Gains, flashback Cabal Therapy and then finish the chain with the lands we put into play. If they play Deathrite Shaman no problem, we still have a turn before she loses summoning sickness or we can shit Goblins with Empty the Warrens or get sick with Ad Nauseam.
So we cut 2 Grim Tutor for 1 Ill Gotten Gains and then we carefully consider the number of Sensei's Divining Tops and Chrome Mox in the deck ... I'm guessing 3 Top and 2 Mox.
Generally I just feel like the original manabase was a little to land light for Green Sun's Zenith, those 2 Bayou made a world of difference. I think with an open SB we can incorperate all of these ideas together, for instance Pact and ESG in the MD, 4 Tops and 3 Xantid Swarms in the SB and then whatever graveyard engine we think best replaces the 2nd Ad Nauseam.
I'm still brewing and figuring out the card choices and numbers, so far all I'm certain of is that if you want to play Green Sun's Zenith then the land count has to go up.
Think I'm going to mess around with 1 Ill Gotten Gains, 1 Chrome Mox and 4 Sensei's Divining Top on MTGs under the assumption we never want to draw Chrome Mox and drawing a second Sensei's Divining Top isn't that bad with 12 shuffle effects. The deck just needs that "glue" card that gives it consistency and I don't want to play Brainstorms and expose myself to Wastelands. I'm going for attrition not speed so Brainstorm isn't really the right card I'm looking for. I may try some crazy shit like Plunge into Darkness or Tainted Pact or Night's Whispers but I'm pretty sure Top is just better.
I've been playing the following PSI list for a little while now with moderate success. I know the deck has recently been moving in a different direction, but I still like playing this.
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
1 Deathrite Shaman
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Skyshroud Cutter
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Wild Cantor
SB: 4 Carpet of Flowers
SB: 4 Duress
SB: 3 Tomb of Urami
SB: 4 Xantid Swarm
It's a pretty stock list, but I wasn't sure about the sideboard that I made. Here are a few questions:
Should I have Cabal Therapy instead of Duress?
Is Xantid Swarm better than Autumn's Veil?
Is mixing the grindplan with the manplan silly?
Thanks!
Maybe you wanna flip the 4 becher / 1 ToA into 4 ToA / 1 Belcher. You have 2 forest cards in the deck a just 4 card that take them out.
and for the man plan...i like the idea but just 3 tombs seems a bit poor. Maybe 6-8 mans would be right!
GC.
I feel that most of the time postboard vs. blue comes from forcing through a belcher and just activating it over and over again until they die. Occasionally I can bait out their forces and just combo off normally, but generally I am truly grinding; using my D4s as random CA instead of chaining them, trying to outdamage my opponent, not combo off. Yes, I lose a little explosiveness with 4 belchers, but I think I make up for that by having a crazy strong game against blue. I'll test your changes.Originally Posted by GoldenCid
The way I use it, Tomb is just part of the grind plan (tries to outdamage my opponent). I'd love to hear why more "men" are necessary!
I guess another question is this: what exactly does the manplan seek to do?
Thanks a lot for the response!
Last edited by rhinoflipper; 03-19-2014 at 07:16 AM.
I'm not expert on the deck, but man plan tries to souprise the oponent with a fast very harmful creature. Most of deck which run StP or spot creature removal will side them out in order to side in other more useful cards. In a general way the man plan makes cards like spell pierce or flusterstorm less valuable for you oponent. Not to mention that if you got BBBB in you pool tomb is an uncountereable 5/5 flying demon!
Anyway winning with storm or with a guy is almost the same difficult because probably your opo will cast counter magic targeting rituals and other spells...however the idea is good.
Now....wich men are the best? i dont know...I like Phyrexian Negator because you can simply go for petal, DR and negator for the win. I like tomb too!!!
Other are Phyrexian Obliterator and Tombstalker.
GC.
That makes sense. I think I understand how to do the manplan, but how would you suggest I do a full grindplan? I imagine it might use Lotus Bloom or Autumn's Veil, but I don't really know.
Thanks again!
Mm....i think that question could be better answered by vacrix or finalfortune
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4 carpet of flowers
4 Lotus bloom though some numbers of tomb are fine too depending on the matchups you're expecting.
4/3 split of duress/thoughtseize/autums veil
Ok, this sounds good. Am I correct in saying that postboard, my plan is to resolve belcher and eat away at my opponents' life? Since I board out a lot of explosive cards, am I really trying to win with tendrils? If I am correct, then wouldn't swarms be better than veil?
Thanks!
Maybe you could show us how you side in order to help / lear in the best form.
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You can play Swarms if you want, as I said it depends on the matchup you're going to face. If you're playing against tempo decks with lightning bolt the swarm is no good, they will keep them in, in anticipation of the swarm and to fasten their clock.
If all you're facing are slow blue decks like Miracles, Blade-Control or something like High Tide swarm is good.
Boarding.. well start by cutting the Pact-stuff since you don't want to pact versus blue.
4 Summoners Pact
4 Culling the Weak
1 Skyshroud Cutter
1 Wild Cantor
1 Ill-Gotten Gains (sucks without an active Swarm/Veil)
4 more to go which now varies a lot imho.
You could shave 1-2 ESG, 1 d4, the Tendrils, the Empty, the Arbor, 1 tutor.
it does depend what deck your opponent plays and what hes seen so far.
Did you kill him with ETW/does he expect it? If yes he will board something -> you can cut it.
Is his deck slow enough for a natural Tendrils, using his storm count? Leave it in.
Typically I do:
-4 culling
-4 pact
-4 esg
-1 cutter
-1 cantor
-1 arbor
+everything
Against Thresh, I leave my tombs out and leave in usually esg.
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