[Deck] Spanish Inquisition (B/x Storm Combo)

[Darklingske]

Hello everyone,

is there an up-to-date list available? I find the lists in the openingpost a tad bit outdated. Or is it just me?

[Vacrix]

Updated the primer a bit. I'll be getting to a more indepth update sometime soon. I've just been quite busy with an incalculable number of things.


However.. there is an updated list now right above the sample hands list.

[Darklingske]

Great! Thanks a lot!!

Oh, and do keep up the amazing job Vacrix!

[Ricardio]

Any tips against tempo decks? I always have a hard time for some reason. And post board keepable hands.

[Vacrix]

Your game plan against Tempo in Game 1 is simply to force an early win. Extra stacked hands can push through sometimes if you slow play though, for example, if you were to put your opponent on Tempo before you even sit down because you scouted. For example.. a hand thats doubled up on a few different things, so a hand like Petal, Chrome Mox, Drit, D4, IT, LED, D4

This hand is stacked. You have quite a bit of mana to work with. 2 initial black sources, post-Mox you have 2 business. If you get one more ritual then you can push through a FoW.. however, if I were on the play, I'd probably try for an early D4 with the option of IT/LED as a backup plan later on.. however if you're on the draw, you can only play around Pierce + Daze, via LED. This means your 8th card lets you know whether or not to play out some of your perps and try to play around an assumed FoW, Spell Pierce as the general worst case scenario when you're T1 on the draw. If you draw a ritual, then you're good to go. If you draw an ESG, sometimes you can just try to play around Daze. If you draw a LED, you should probably wait another turn for a mana source that way you have the option to D4, then IT + LED + LED into EtW, assuming the D4 gets countered and then IT gets Spell Pierced. If you don't draw something you want, then dumping the LED to pay for a Spell Pierce looks pretty attractive, given its Game 1 against Tempo and you want to win asap.

In game 2/3, I'd suggest trying to keep a hand that gives you a solid accelerant. Lotus Bloom is good, Carpet is good. Either one makes playing around Tempo's soft permission much easier. Even Lotus Bloom, which is a one shot acceleration is quite good as it draws countermagic before you even go off, and compliments LED nicely for x8 conditional Black Lotus. 4x Duress and 3x Thoughtseize help you pave the way with your perps to resolve a business spell sooner.. however all this really depends on the matchup.

Against BUG Tempo, they usually play more lands than RUG.. this makes Carpet of Flowers much better, so you can actually grind with your business. Against RUG though, you want to strip the FOW's with discard and then resolve one business spell through some soft permission, ideally a Belcher, but if you expect the Tempo player to have a hand stacked with permission, you best save the Belcher as the last spell. Against RUG, you don't actually want your D4s to resolve too often because it puts you usually down to having to win on the next turn, or the turn the D4 resolves. Your life total winds up being too low and vulnerable to reach.

UR Tempo is probably the worst, but the metagame doesn't really favor it right now. They have the most reach because they don't slow down to play Goyf/Goose. In that matchup, you really, like really don't want a mid-late game D4..


In general against control, though, always play your Carpets/Blooms first, then play disruption, then play D4s, then ITs, then Belchers. ITs can be good for doubling up on Carpet of Flowers against slower control decks.. but a single Daze tends to waste that plan when you try it against Tempo. I prefer ITs finding Belchers against Tempo. With Blooms, Carpet, and LEDs, and even Cabal Rituals once you hit threshold, the deck has an absurd amount of mana in game 2/3 if you mulligan well. However, if they attack that plan by countering an early Carpet, I tend to treat that as my protection. They run a serious risk of holding only Spell Pierce, for example. If you're play is ESG/Carpet turn 1, I've had that countered before, and then just Petal/Drit/D4 my way into a lot of perpetual resources etc. or just a straight up win. In general, I've won more games against people that try to attack Carpet and Bloom instead of the rest of the deck, not knowing that its still dangerous without these resources. So if your opponent is forced to make a choice between countering a spell that costs G or 0... vs. a spell that costs BBB or 4.. we don't waste our other acceleration options like Drit, Crit, LED, on those cards.. not to mention the x7 discard suite. The Tempo players safest bet is to engage the grind plan and hope the deck bricks.. which is how they tend to approach the matchup when they see you draw 4 cards and then pass the turn instead of killing them. Well.. thats what you want. The grind plan sacrifices speed for consistency, so usually a D4 is just more resources for you and ideally win conditions.



EDIT:
Also, if you like, you can just play x7-8 man plan creatures instead if you want to make a business substitution. It might actually be the best idea for the current metagame. RUG is still amazing. UW is dying and that means so is Swords to Plowshares. BUG control's spot removal can't hit Phyrexian Obliterator.. and RUGS reach is useless. Desecration Demon also looks pretty good as a 6/6 flying for 2BB.

[Sockosensei]

@Vacrix

How does the Lotus Bloom Plan stack up vs the previous Grind Plan?
I sold my Blooms about a month before you mentioned testing it...

[slave]

Hey dudes.

I love this deck. Been playing this deck on and off for a while.
But I have a question for all of you.

I thought I'd give TES, ANT, Belcher etc. a go and see what pro's & con's I could take from each of them compared to PSI.
And I gotta admit, I cam back to this deck with a smile every time. PSI just seems more fun to play, and I found TES to be kinda deflating in comparison. I understand PSI is a dangerous deck, and that versions like TES are more resilient to hate, but PSI just makes me want to play the deck. All the others felt kinda "take it or leave it".

Does anyone else feel this way about other Storm atlernatives?

[CabalTherapy]

I ve been playing this deck for a while but then I sold most of the cards. Now I am going to rebuild it and I try to find a solid list.
Currently, I am testing this list. Please comment on it.

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Wild Cantor
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Bayou
1 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Summoner's Pact
3 Manamorphose
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Past in Flames
1 Odious Trow
4 Land Grant

[Sockosensei]

I ve been playing this deck for a while but then I sold most of the cards. Now I am going to rebuild it and I try to find a solid list.
Currently, I am testing this list. Please comment on it.

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Wild Cantor
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Bayou
1 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Summoner's Pact
3 Manamorphose
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Past in Flames
1 Odious Trow
4 Land Grant

Welcome back to SI!
Having 1x Empty the Warrens would give you a strong option for 'in-between' hands. IGG > PiF in most cases, but running both is also an option.

I suggest starting with
-1 Tendrils
-1 PiF
-1 Odious Trow (sad to see it go as I'll miss my opponents' WTF expressions)

+1 Empty
+1 IGG
+1 Deathrite Shaman

Are you running the old grind plan, the newer Lotus Bloom plan, or a manplan?

[CabalTherapy]

But is Empty the Warrens not too weak when Summoner's Pact was cast before?
The shaman looks pretty good. The Trow is just still in there, simply because I am not in the possession of the shaman.
I am still not sure if PiF is really weaker than IGG.

My SB contains some random protection cards and manland plan.
4 Duress
3 Unmask
4 Contagion
4 Tomb of Urami

Welcome back to SI!
Having 1x Empty the Warrens would give you a strong option for 'in-between' hands. IGG > PiF in most cases, but running both is also an option.

I suggest starting with
-1 Tendrils
-1 PiF
-1 Odious Trow (sad to see it go as I'll miss my opponents' WTF expressions)

+1 Empty
+1 IGG
+1 Deathrite Shaman

Are you running the old grind plan, the newer Lotus Bloom plan, or a manplan?

[Sockosensei]

But is Empty the Warrens not too weak when Summoner's Pact was cast before?
The shaman looks pretty good. The Trow is just still in there, simply because I am not in the possession of the shaman.
I am still not sure if PiF is really weaker than IGG.

My philosophy when playing PSI is to clean up in game one against all but the decks with Force in hand. The IGG loop just wins
Or it makes you 18 T1 goblins while also Mind Twisting your opponent. PiF is much stronger when the game goes longer and graveyards fill up, hence great out of the board in a grind plan. It's not out of the question to run both, IMO.

EtW is poor after a Pact, certainly. It also shines at other times. Feel free to read up as it's been discussed to death.

My SB contains some random protection cards and manland plan.
4 Duress
3 Unmask
4 Contagion
4 Tomb of Urami

I've never run anything like that so perhaps another poster could comment.

[anotherday]

Seeing as how the PSI list is pretty much optimized, how about some more sideboard tech?
Multani's Presence - A little narrow, but seeing as how PSI's biggest problem is blue, why not make them pay with each counter?
Epochrasite - Kind of slow but it's a recurring 4/4 threat after the first time it goes to the graveyard. It easily gets outclassed by our other postboard man-plan options and even opposing Tarmogoyfs but it allows you to keep a few Cullings MD for games 2-3.
Ancestral Vision - It facilitates the grind plan pretty well if drawn early enough but I can see it being dead if drawn too late or midway through a chain. Costing also doesn't really help much either.

Just throwing ideas out there. I don't have the means to test my ideas, at least not yet, but I'm working on it. Also, I haven't read through the entire thread yet so apologies if the cards I suggested have already been discussed. I just finished reading the entire thread at Salvation so I'll start on this one soon.

P.S. I just was digging through my old box of magic cards the other day and lo-and-behold, I found my ALMOST completed PSI deck! I misplaced it about 3 years ago and kind of forgot about it. Imagine my surprise when I flipped through the deck and discovered my PLAYSET of LED's! . I bought them back when they were 30 bucks a pop and I thought THAT was already highway robbery. For the maindeck, all I'm really missing are 4 IT's, 4 Pacts, a Cruel Bargain, and a Bayou. Luckily I pulled a Overgrown Tomb out of a Ravnica pack a while back so that'll hold me down for a while. The Legacy scene here in MN is pretty active and hardcore. The last tournament I went to (over a year ago) also had a guy playing what looked to be LGSI so I know the deck isn't totally unknown up here.

[CabalTherapy]

My philosophy when playing PSI is to clean up in game one against all but the decks with Force in hand. The IGG loop just wins
Or it makes you 18 T1 goblins while also Mind Twisting your opponent. PiF is much stronger when the game goes longer and graveyards fill up, hence great out of the board in a grind plan. It's not out of the question to run both, IMO.

EtW is poor after a Pact, certainly. It also shines at other times. Feel free to read up as it's been discussed to death.

Thank you for the answer. I will definetly test both of the options.
Still unsure about EtW but I will also give it a try.

[Final Fortune]

Updated the primer a bit. I'll be getting to a more indepth update sometime soon. I've just been quite busy with an incalculable number of things.


However.. there is an updated list now right above the sample hands list.

There are a few mana base configurations in the primer that I think you either failed to consider or mention, a couple of people replaced the Land Grant, Goblin Charbelcher and Artifact Creature configurations with Swamps, Empty the Warrens and Kobolds circa 2007 in order to improve the consistency of the deck by playing 7 lands that didn't reveal your hand and couldn't be destroyed by permission and Wasteland and imprintable creatures for Chrome Mox in order to be able to cast Cabal Ritual without exiling black cards.

I know BW played a list on Apprentice that was like,

4 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill Gotten Gains
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cabal Therapy
8 Kobolds
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
7 Swamp

and remember at least one variation with Empty the Warrens and Duress replacing Ill Gotten Gains and Cabal Therapy.

[CabalTherapy]

I have goldfished a bit and tested against Burn which is by far not the optimal test partner but nevertheless I reached my favourite list:

4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
3 Tendrils of Agony
2 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Chrome Mox
2 Manamorphose (still not sure about that)
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Odious Trow (don't have shaman)
1 Wild Cantor
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou

[CabalTherapy]

Sorry for doubleposting here.
I have played a Legacy torunament yesterday with around 30 players in my local meta.
My list was the one from the post before: changes -1 Manamoprhose, +1 Tinder Wall

SB
3 Unmask
2 Duress
3 Empty the Warrens
3 Nature's Claim
4 Tomb of Urami

Round 1 against GB Shaman.dec
I keep a solid hand but without starting mana. I simply hope that he doesn't Duress me or whatever.
He playes Ooze and Vampire Nighthawk, I draw a Lotus Petal and go off with Tendrils for 20 at his head.
The second game was a bit annoying. I goldfished against myself for about 10 minutes and just draw senseless spells. After going down to 1 I lay down Belcher. He plays Goyf and I lose after drawing one more Bargain. In the last game I go off in my second turn and win with third turn Belcher.
2:1
1-0

Round 2 against Jund
He starts with Bayou > Shaman and I know that I can just goldfish a bit and with the game. I fizzle afterwards in the second game and move on to the third. I play Bayou and pass the turn. He plays Duress > Summoner's Pact and Surgical Extraction > Summoner's Pact. Mhhhmm... After a combination of Duress, Thoughtseize and Hymn to Tourach there is no chance to win the game with 2 LEDs and 2 Spirit Guides in Hand.
1:2
1-1

Round 3 against UW Countertop
I have to play against an well-known legacy player in our meta. I win the dice roll and simply kill him with turn 1 Belcher with Bayou in play and Arbor in Hand. I don't know that he plays but he knows my deck and is very surprised to see someone playing it. Nevertheless he has 2 FoW, 1 Spell Pierce and a Counterbalance in the second game: scoop. We both take a mulligan to six in the third game and I start off in my second turn with Bayou > Petal > DRitual > DRitual > IGG, discarding a Infernal Tutor and a Culling the Weak. He has no Force and I can pick up the Rituals and the Tutor > Charbelcher without Mana for the activation. He plays land go and I draw a Spirit Guide and then a Cabal Ritual. I think that I can wait one more turn and kill him in response to one of his action. He casts a Clique in my next draw step and in response to that I remove my Guide, tap Bayou, cast CRitual and activate Belcher for about 30 damage.
2:1
2-1

Round 4 against SneakShow
I try to go off in my second turn but he has a Force for my Infernal Tutor and everything he wants in his hand, so we move to the second game. I try to kill him on turn one but I just can lay down Belcher with two Moxen and one Bayou in play= second turn kill. In the final game we both take a mulligan to six and he starts with land > Brainstorm > Petal. I draw something good (can't remember) and go off with 2 Leds and Infernal into Infernal into Tendrils for 24.
2:1
3-1

Round 5 against Dredge
Well, I don't want to write about this round because it was my fault to keep a weak six and do nothing. In the next game I try to go off in my first turn (senseless, he holds a slow hand) and fizzle after the first Contract.
0:2
3-2

Nevertheless, I am satisfied with my result in this tournament. I placed 9th or something like that but it doesn't matter. Winning against Countertop and SneakShow on turn 1 was pretty a pretty cool experience for me. I will play this deck regularly in the future.

[Final Fortune]

I've been experimenting with different versions of SI and I think I've created the best possible MD for the Pact SI variant,

4 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Ill Gotten Gains or Past in Flames or Empty the Warrens
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Chancellor of the Annex
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Pact of Negation
4 Elivish Spirit Guide
1 Deathrite Shaman
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor

That's right, MD Chancellor of the Annex, imagine having a card that prevents the opponent from casting Thoughtseize on his first turn and Force of Will on your first turn vs BUG and preventing the opponent from casting Spell Pierce, Brainstorm or Ponder and leaving Force of Will as his only out on the play vs RUG with the SB plan of boarding out your Chancellor of the Annex and 3 Elvish Spirit Guide for Xantid Swarm and 3 more Bayou vs any aggro-control deck that doesn't play Lightning Bolt or any control deck that doesn't play Thoughtseize aka U/W Stoneblade or Miracles.

Small tip, but lands in your SB are completely OP compared to a lot of the other SBing plans I've seen, once the deck switches to lands and swarms vs aggro-control on the draw or just SBs out disruption for lands when on the play vs anything without Force of Will game 2 it's pretty much the most efficient way you could play the deck for either resiliency or a pure gold fish.

The look on your opponent's face when you show him Chancellor of the Annex and then blow him out of the game is fucking priceless

[.Ix]

I think you meant 4 Summoner's Pact instead of Pact of Negation in that list, since you said "Pact SI".

I never thought of running Chancellor in this deck, but it definitely makes sense. Interesting tech, there. Is it too hard to make 7 mana now that Chancellor is in the deck? I assume that's the reason for having no Charbelchers in the main.

[emidln]

I think you meant 4 Summoner's Pact instead of Pact of Negation in that list, since you said "Pact SI".

I never thought of running Chancellor in this deck, but it definitely makes sense. Interesting tech, there. Is it too hard to make 7 mana now that Chancellor is in the deck? I assume that's the reason for having no Charbelchers in the main.

Lack of Belcher and playing Chancellor are just indicators that the person putting together the list has no idea what drives the deck or the pressures that form the rules for card selection.

The deck will only improve if you can do one of three things:

(1) increase initial mana sources in the necessary colors (this is currently black, due to point 2)
(2) increase the explosiveness due to better net acceleration (this means improve on (possibly by duplicating) dark ritual and culling the weak, red rituals are not good enough yet)
(3) better business spells (see the experiment SAINT)

If you compare SI to the other two fast glass cannons, you see these three points emphasized.

Belcher fixes one by basing itself in R/G. This means more real initial mana sources (ESG, SSG, Summoner's Pact, Chancellor of the Tangle sometimes) complementing Petal/Mox/Land Grant/Land. It exchanges raw explosiveness of Culling the Weak and Dark Ritual for redundancy and more available copies of its acceleration (Rite of Flame and Tinder Wall are very close for example, the various forms of Desperate/Pyretic Ritual). Now that it's in red, easy ability to cast ETW and Burning Wish over Infernal Tutor follows.

This isn't to say that Belcher evolved from SI. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that if you want to build moderately effective glass cannons, you must balance these factors. You can look at the All Spells deck in the same way. It has the best business spells of any deck (4 mana, gg x8) and then makes decisions based on that (it still has a black mana requirement, but not as heavy as SI, so Culling the Weak isn't as attractive given the constraints it imposes (the creature in play).

That said, free Force Spike is a lot worse than Pact of Negation or Cabal Therapy because it doesn't work if it's not in your opening hand. Something I learned very early on with SI was patience. Against some control decks, things won't get significantly worse for you as the game progresses. The ability to grind via redundant business spells, generate obscene mana, and in certain versions, to defeat multiple copies of spells via Cabal Therapy meant that waiting until turn 6 was completely reasonable. I still found my free wins vs aggro, but I was successful against control too. Eventually, other pilots learned the same lessons and the gravitation towards sideboard cards like Carpet of Flowers and better maindeck win conditions like Goblin Charbelcher began.

The reason that Belcher is an auto-include in the deck has to do with recognizing that chaining Draw4s isn't a good strategy, mathematically speaking. Needing a particular mix of mana and business each time when digging relatively little into a large deck yields poor odds. Drawing Tendrils at the right time might as well be drawing Draco, Mountain Goat, or Little Girl. Drawing a Belcher is fine at any point. Further, it doesn't require the giant build-up that Tendrils takes. This makes it perfect for grindy battles that often ensue once your opponent realizes that a single Force of Will didn't yield a concession.

[Final Fortune]

Lack of Belcher and playing Chancellor are just indicators that the person putting together the list has no idea what drives the deck or the pressures that form the rules for card selection.

The deck will only improve if you can do one of three things:

(1) increase initial mana sources in the necessary colors (this is currently black, due to point 2)
(2) increase the explosiveness due to better net acceleration (this means improve on (possibly by duplicating) dark ritual and culling the weak, red rituals are not good enough yet)
(3) better business spells (see the experiment SAINT)

If you compare SI to the other two fast glass cannons, you see these three points emphasized.

Belcher fixes one by basing itself in R/G. This means more real initial mana sources (ESG, SSG, Summoner's Pact, Chancellor of the Tangle sometimes) complementing Petal/Mox/Land Grant/Land. It exchanges raw explosiveness of Culling the Weak and Dark Ritual for redundancy and more available copies of its acceleration (Rite of Flame and Tinder Wall are very close for example, the various forms of Desperate/Pyretic Ritual). Now that it's in red, easy ability to cast ETW and Burning Wish over Infernal Tutor follows.

This isn't to say that Belcher evolved from SI. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that if you want to build moderately effective glass cannons, you must balance these factors. You can look at the All Spells deck in the same way. It has the best business spells of any deck (4 mana, gg x8) and then makes decisions based on that (it still has a black mana requirement, but not as heavy as SI, so Culling the Weak isn't as attractive given the constraints it imposes (the creature in play).

That said, free Force Spike is a lot worse than Pact of Negation or Cabal Therapy because it doesn't work if it's not in your opening hand. Something I learned very early on with SI was patience. Against some control decks, things won't get significantly worse for you as the game progresses. The ability to grind via redundant business spells, generate obscene mana, and in certain versions, to defeat multiple copies of spells via Cabal Therapy meant that waiting until turn 6 was completely reasonable. I still found my free wins vs aggro, but I was successful against control too. Eventually, other pilots learned the same lessons and the gravitation towards sideboard cards like Carpet of Flowers and better maindeck win conditions like Goblin Charbelcher began.

The reason that Belcher is an auto-include in the deck has to do with recognizing that chaining Draw4s isn't a good strategy, mathematically speaking. Needing a particular mix of mana and business each time when digging relatively little into a large deck yields poor odds. Drawing Tendrils at the right time might as well be drawing Draco, Mountain Goat, or Little Girl. Drawing a Belcher is fine at any point. Further, it doesn't require the giant build-up that Tendrils takes. This makes it perfect for grindy battles that often ensue once your opponent realizes that a single Force of Will didn't yield a concession.

Or I choose to emphasize imprinting black mana on chrome mox and drawing tendrils instead of of belchers off draw fours so I can win before summoners pact triggers as opposed to needing 7 mana to cast and activate belchers only to flip a land. I dont mind a single Belcher in the MD or multiple in the board but let's not pretend belcher is strictly superior to tendrils.

I am not a fan of waiting to go off with pact si, the deck doesn't hit land drops or sculpt its hand without investing significant resources to do so. I don't know whether or not the MD is strictly better with chancellor as opposed to veil, but even if you just SBed chancellor for being on the play vs bug or on the draw vs jund having access to a free force spike is a much bigger deal in terms of the cost efficiency of your disruption than your post would suggest. I strictly disagree with the notion that a combo deck can't improve its match ups by having better disruption, Autumn's Veil and to a lesser extent Unmask after the printing of the B/G creatures gave the deck more reliable disruption because Summoner's Pact could be used to cast either as opposed to Cabal Therapy or Xantid Swarm.

Pact of negation doesn't work with lions eye diamond and cabal therapy is sub par without lands, a more traditional version with swamps, kobolds and therapy can grind, but land grant and summoners pact are an all in strategy by design. fwiw carpet of flowers is worse than just boarding in lands, which is why I've side lined belchers. Regardless, I don't really give a shit about belchers, I find they misfire an unacceptably high% of the time but if you want to gamble with that and pact good luck. All I know is my win % with chancellor vs bug is higher than with veil and pushing the deck as hard as possible on turn 1.