My thoughts exactly. I wanted to cut green tho. Carpet is weak when you're facing down one island for a whole match. Swarm is great, but its really the only good card green brings. Haven't tested veil however.Originally Posted by Vacrix
Lotus Bloom could act as a decent replacement for Carpet of Flowers in builds that don't run green, such as LGSI and QSI. SITES (and DSI) really lacks the board space due to Burning Wish, but QSI likes to play Meditate EOT and LGSI/PSI can clearly take advantage of it.
I really do think that Carpet is strong though and I wouldn't cut green from PSI, especially since ESG is so strong against Daze and facilitates an earlier Cabal Ritual. If your opponent is limited in the number of lands he can play then its hard for him to land a creature and have mana open for Spell Pierce, BS-->Countermagic, etc. Further, an opponent with one Island cannot Ponder and have mana open for Spell Pierce. The only disadvantage we have here is that the opposing player will grab fewer lands with his cantrips, unless the deck is Merfolk and lacks cantrips entirely. I find when I resolve a Carpet my opponent's clock slows significantly. Thats an advantage both in the fact that it gives you a perpetual initial mana source that isn't vulnerable to Wasteland. Further, Carpet is better in Lotus Bloom in that it is a perpetual source of mana. In a sense, Lotus Bloom gives away too much. Your opponent knows three turns in advance that you will have a Black Lotus. Carpet can actually be used in the spell chain by passing to the second mainphase, unlike Lotus Bloom. Also, in multiples Carpets are ridiculously good because you have enough mana to play around Daze and Spell Pierce relatively easy. Lotus Bloom are only good in multiples if you have them at the same time, while Carpets are good even if you get them off consecutive draw phases. Further, Carpet is a powerful threat that you can resolve on the same turn as another business spell. If you recall, the goal of the post-board PSI plan is to overwhelm the opponent with resources. Its much harder to do that if you go for a business spell on turn 1, and then try again on turn 4, when you could instead go for all your low CC threats like Carpet and say, Duress, in the same turn. When you play two business spells in this way the opponent has to have two countermagic already in hand or else you've set up for the next few turns. Even if the opponent has double FoW, you can recover far more quickly than the control player and top deck a business like Belcher.
I'm taking the stock PSI list to a decent sized tournament tonight. I'll write a report tomorrow.
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.
Unmask/Veil has worked well for me. It seems like 6 tallmen and 3 unmasks is the magic amount to make them both less dead cards. I hate having a bunch of tallmen in my hands and 6 seems like enough to always be able to use culling the weak.
Veil + spirit guide has been a beast in a few situations for me. It seems like in my meta the unmask/veil package works really well. Obviously there have been situations were a swarm may have been better (LED...), but swarm just dies all the time where I play.
As far as leyline and the like go, nature's claim can generally take care of them. It feels like non pact lists don't really work with red, so I just want to try and strengthen the tendrils/belcher plan in my list.
I like the grim tutor. It makes some crap hands playable and I have actually won a lot of games because it can save me from crap d4s where infernal couldn't. It usually just functions as a worse IT, but a functional fifth anyway.
Hill Giant means business.
Yeah, playing 4 Manamorphose might be a little too much. Anyway, there are several times where I can´t get BBB due to ESG in my hand or Chrome Mox only giving me green mana so I thought that would be a good way to fix it. IGG main was a blast all day long. Looping Iggy is just one more absurd way to win the game without being reliant on your D4s. I would never ever play PSI without it. There has also been a situation where I had to discard ToA to an LED and IGG was the only serious way to get it back. Love. it.
Can you guys estimate how important Eternal Witness really is? I only played three or four tournaments with PSI but Witness was useless everytime. The only time it would have won me the game I only had BBB after my D4 and got 3xMana, 1xWitness. If BBB would´ve been BGG I would have won... but you just can never know... the situations where we have a lot of mana floating and go Pact, respons crack LED, get Witness, Profit are very rare I guess. Do you have any other experiences or is it just matchup-dependant?
I'm not running PactSI, although I do agree Carpets may be better in that deck. I'm running Blooms main unless they print something stupid good for this deck soon. (Phyrexian Ritual. B. Sorcery. As an additional cost to cast, sacrifice an artifact. Add BBBB to your mana pool.) I want to cut down on the number of colors I'm running. Most problems I've had with this deck come from off-color mana I didn't have when I needed it, or had too much of when I didn't. On top of being off-color, if they play around Carpet to keep me off mana it throws them off their plan, but it throws me off mine as well.
Having to pay Pact taxes annoyed me to no end, especially when I mostly used it to fetch ESG. I never used Witness more than twice over like a week of goldfishing. When I wasn't fetching ESG, I was fetching a Culling target. Although, this was goldfishing.
After some testing, Lotus Bloom is nuts. It doesn't hurt your turn 1 wins, and if you somehow get stopped, it can refuel you on turn four if you can't go off before then. They really need a grip full of counters to completely stop you at that point. I lost count of how many fourth turn belcher activations I had, in addition to double tendrils wins just because I had the mana.
Last edited by DarthVicious; 11-23-2010 at 01:10 AM.
I'm really interested if this deck can be good (top 8) that it's worth to build it myself. because I got 3 Foil infernal contracts laying around ;) and no one wants to buy this card.
I say build it. It's as fun as you like and quite a lot of time to master the ins and outs, so I think it's like magic body-building (or something). I don't expect too many top 8's though. It seems like about 8 people in the world play it. And of those 8, maybe only 3 are good with it :). The cruel bargains are probably the hardest bit to get together though...
Did you do that tourney Vacrix? It'd be nice to hear how you got on. I'll probably be sleeving it up to a small tournament this weekend too...
The Spanish Tunnel King
My landless build looks better every day. Bloom makes turn 4 the most ridiculous thing you've ever seen, and makes the Show & Tell matchup a joke. Even if you only have 1 Bloom on turn 4 and you use it to play a draw4 it can be enough. Often the Blooms are red herrings as well, people will rely on you needing them to go off and slowplay, then you go off in their face next turn. It also gives you insurance against a draw4 that you can't win now with, like if you draw all business and no mana. I feel it gives the deck the consistency and inevitability it needs. There's a lot more hands that are keepable as well, even though this deck mulligans amazingly.
4 Meditate
4 Pact of Negation
3 Echoing Truth
2 Slaughter Pact
2 ?
This is the board I'm currently testing. Pact is ridiculous because I find that I rarely need to crack LED, unless it is to float mana into a draw4 or to activate Belcher. Sometimes waiting until turn 4 to go off you have to have an answer to permanent based hate. Meditates I bring in for IT against blue and it's very good. I'd like another counterspell of some kind tho.
Im pretty new to SI, after some testing though I came up with this list:
3#Infernal Tutor
4#Burning Wish
4#Lotus Petal
3#Mox Opal
4#Land Grant
1#Tendrils of Agony
1#Tombstalker
3#Cruel Bargain
1#Dryad Arbor
1#Tomb of Urami
1#Bayou
1#Taiga
1#Verdant Catacombs
1#Goblin Charbelcher
4#Shield Sphere
2#Phyrexian Walker
1#Empty the Warrens
4#Dark Ritual
3#Cabal Ritual
4#Chrome Mox
4#Lion’s Eye Diamond
4#Culling the Weak
4#Infernal Contract
1#Mox Diamond
// sideboard
4#Duress
2#Deathmark
1#Reverent Silence
1#Tendrils of Agony
1#Empty the Warrens
1#Diminishing Returns
1#Pyroclasm
1#Hull Breach
1#Tomb of Urami
1#Cruel Bargain
1#Wing Snare
In my experience, I have a lot of games/hands where I miss one solid black mana (land, petal etc). Thats the reason for the Tomb and Fetch. Besides fixing this, the Tomb helps me out against control decks and the fetch also can get me Dryad arbor as culling fodder (LG also can, this helps to cut down on the number of tall men). Due to the higher number of lands and 4xLG I added one Mox Diamond, which functions better then you might expect. I know Belcher gets weaker by adding more land, but I still like it being in there.
I added 1 Tombstalker maindeck. I noticed I couldnt go off on an IT with less then 4 mana floating, which sometimes just is too much. Now I can IT with only BB floating and go for the Tombstalker.
Any advice you guys could give me would be great, because as I said I just startet playing this great deck. The hardest to master of all the decks Ive played so far, but also one of the most fun decks.
I'm kind of curious how the mox diamond is working out for you, it looks kinda clunky. And you've already addressed the belcher with 4 land point, I don't think belcher should be run unless you're running 3>lands, but if it's working it's working. I think the stalker is useless though, because it will never win the game on its own, only maybe g2, but it seems like a 1 trick pony.
Thats an interesting interaction: Mox Diamond + LG/Pact. We can basically support Diamonds because we can use spare Land Grants to lay them down. Its a 2 for 1 of any color though which isn't the best investment. It would be no different then just using a Wild Cantor and ESG to make one mana of any color. If we want that interaction its already available at the cost of 1 slot to create 1 + 4 virtual slots, with the additional utility of being a creature to pitch to Culling the Weak.
It might be useful for supporting Mox Opal though, but I just tried to make a list and its really hard to fit in Diamonds and Opals without cutting something important to the shell.
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.
The problem with only ONE big fat creature in the MD is that it will draw removal like nuts. Seriously, so you cast your tombstalker with little to no cards left in your hand, and satan gets the path to exile or swords in your opponents hand. Big bummer. He also messes with your spell chain sometimes. Along with the blatant dissynergy with ill gotten gains.
Also what's with the random wing snare in the SB? Seems like a terrible wish target since it costs 3RG to kill one flying creature. And boarding it in makes it very hard to find and if you did board it in why not just play plummet at that point? Does the same for 1G but can't be wished for. Usually creatures you want to kill in SI are white or green also so deathmark is acceptable at just B.
I personally don't think mox diamond 2 for 1'ing yourself for a lotus petal type of effect is worth it. It only becomes worth it if you fizzle, and fizzling usually means death to us due to D4's taking out huge chunks of our life.
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Yeah thats a good point, its 2 for 1 but it helps me out on a fundamental issue Im having with this deck. If you look at the current tier 1 decks like Merfolk and Survival decks, even Goblins, they all have one thing in common and thats being very consistent. The need to mulligan with these decks is much lower, you practically can play every hand, with few exeptions. I know SI mulligans well, but lets be honest, if you have to mulligan its never a good thing. Thats were adding a few more lands and 1 or 2 mox diamonds come in. They add consistency. Im on a quest to make this deck less dependent on its opening hand and mulligans, without having to sacrifice in the explosiveness of the deck. But Im still testing this build with Mox diamonds.
First, about the wing snare, its there for 1 purpose: Iona on black. With al the Survival Retainers decks out there its a good thing to have an out maindeck via Burning Wish with the deck. It happened to me the latest tournament, if Iona hits its GG... So you never side it in after game 1, it stays in your sideboard.
Then tell me, what do you do if you can cast IT but don't have 4 mana lying around after you cast it? I know about the problems with IGG thats why this build doesnt play it. Im also missing the point on IGG, please enlighten me about this card. If I can play IT and Im going for an IGG, I need 5 mana floating, 4 to cast it and 1 after so I can cast Dark Ritual. So the only scenario its usefull when you got a Dark Ritual, LED, IT and an additional mana. Looks like a far off chance if you ask me, but maybe Im missing something obvious.
Casting a Tombstalker turn 1 against Merfolk is GG, they dont have any answers to this maindeck. Against goblins also, you can block incoming stuff with Tallmen. Survival is a bit trickier because of plowshares, but I would still take my chances.
But if there is an alternative to the Mox diamond for losing excess LGs please let me know. They obviously help Mox Opal as well.
Im on a quest to make this a consistent top 8 contender. I think the current metagame offers a lot of opportunities for this deck, so lets build something awesome!
4 Pact of Negation
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Slaughter Pact
3 Nature's Claim
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Mox Opal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Shield Sphere
4 Phyrexian Walker
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Tendrils of Agony
This is my most current list. I'll be testing this for the foreseeable future. The sideboard may change.
Last edited by DarthVicious; 11-29-2010 at 02:33 PM.
I am nearly a 100% certain 4 Opals is to many. I would start at 2 and go up.
This looks like it could have potential to replace Nature's Claim in our boards: Gleeful Sabotage
Gleeful Sabotage will often conveniently cost one if you have access to one tallman, making it better than Nature's Claim which forces you to add +1 storm somehow. Further, if you are playing green then with the green splash you can play it for 0 with unused tallmen. Pact-->Dryad, Conspire is pretty awesome. In the worst (goldfish) scenario, you are casting it for 1G.
The drawbacks are that its a sorcery (no Dark Ritual + Nature's Claim tricks against counterbalance) but that is also an advantage for builds that run Burning Wish.
Another advantage it has over Nature's Claim is its ability to still have 2cc yet you can cast it for 1 or even 0 on occassion, allowing you to play around Chalice @0 and 1.
@The Spanish Tunnel King
I played very poorly at the tournament. Its really not even worth writing a report. I just need more practice. I hadn't played in a long time do to school and such. Shame.
@Nonkel
SI mulligans better than any other deck in the format, hands down. Nothing even comes close. When playing, expect yourself to mulligan at least once a match. Thats just how the deck works. You don't lose power by having 1 less card. Actually you just increase your chances of having a good opening hand because the deck needs very little to execute a successful, lethal spell chain. I mulligan to 5 all the time. You just have to practice and get good at it. Something worth mentioning though from the tournament, IT--> Swarm getting me a 2nd Swarm won me a match via Swarm (FoW), Swarm, next turn IT--> Belcher. Next turn activate. Legitimate.
@Darth
I agree 4 Opals is probably too many. I'd roll with 3. Also, are you liking 4 Tendrils? With access to so much multi-color I'd expect you to cut those for Burning Wish or Meditate instead. The list intrigues me though. I look forward to hearing about how it performs.
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.
You probably got the conspire mechanic wrong. It would take two untapped green creatures to conspire a Gleeful Sabotage. This is the nuts in elf combo but really bad here, I think.
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some of my friends sell drugs.
I think you meant cards with Convoke and not Conspire, a convoke green artifact destruction card is : Sundering Vitae.
It's probably fine, nothing too spectacular though. You can easily dodge chalice, but paying 0 for that card is becoming pretty difficult, I can only remember a handful of games where i've had more than 3 tallmen in a non glimpse list. (and it is quite anti synergistic in that kind of list anyway with the convoke mechanic andcc cards.
I guess it could still be worth a try, it's not too bad against counterbalance also if you have the mana to support the 3cc version. It is also an instant, which is better for no-wish.
Having that many multicolor sources looks like you could splash for Meditate or BW, but I had crappy results fishing them. I really only have enough initial sources of multicolor to play one, maybe two off-color cards reliably. I figured relying on casting my anti-hate once for a postboard game is better than trying to come up with a bunch of blue to include Meditate in every spell chain. BW might be different, considering you only need to cast it once or twice. I'm probably not going to test it though.
IMO 4 Opals is a necessary evil, even though it looks bad on paper. Twelve initial sources seem pretty perfect to me, and drawing another Opal or two off draw4s is pretty sweet for the storm count, just like casting Mox without an imprint. By far the only time two Opals sucks is in the opener, and we mulligan better than any other deck in the format.
Having 4 Tendrils is very cool too, they can be imprinted on Mox and it increases the likelihood of the Tendrils x2 win. You can also fit one in for less storm in the middle of a chain to keep going, or to bait a Stifle. I know it seems like a lot of mana, but this deck is certainly capable.
Especially on turn 4... suspending two Blooms turn 1 is ridiculous, and it puts boatloads of pressure on your opponent. I can't believe noone is running this card. Yes, they know you get a Black Lotus in three turns. That makes them think they have time to come up with answers before you go off. This deck can usually go off before then, and if you get stopped, Blooms are like a shot of adrenalin. Or, you could wait until turn 4 against slower decks and completely annihilate them once you have one active. Even getting one or two of them off draw4s isn't horrible, it's like a free insurance policy. They're absolutely fantastic if you fizzle with no rituals left in hand. Just like the Opal, it's a whole lot better than it looks on paper.
You are right about the blooms, they are good but seem unecessary. I just fished a bit with them and sure, it does assure you a turn 4 win and only when you have them in your opener. They do give you fuel, but the point is its not instant fuel and it seems clunky to me.
I realized also when goldfishing that I tend to mulligan and/or draw4 into crap more and it feels like I'd die to a fast clock. Maybe I didn't goldfish enough but it really doesn't feel consistent. Drawing the extra tendrils wasn't as good as drawing anything else in any other version imo, and it does give you some 2 tendrils or 2 belchers openers that are quite annoying. Too much win isnt superior to having more consistency through pact / slithermuse / cantor etc. as far as it seems for the 20 average fishes I did. The chrome mox argument seems pretty invalid as it could have been any other card that gets imprinted if you weren't gonna use it anyway.
I understand the fizzle argument but you have to keep in mind that it cost you 1 or 2 card slots that might have made you win.
I believe that more than 4 opal 4 chrome 4 petal is quite a bit overkill, I'd rather have more business (cut some tendrils or belchers and run the pact package, which makes you much more efficient imo)
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