You are already in contention for 1st, why do you want to win all your rounds?Originally Posted by kikoo
Concerning Ravenous Trap. I' ve tested it in the slot of Slaughter Pact, and it is a metagame choice. If Dredge is a relevant contendant in your metagame, play Ravenous Trap in that slot (anyway, if this is the situation, the biggest number of Ionas will be reanimated by dredge players). But it seems that reanimator is reappearing where I play, and this is why Slaughter Pact is my my sideboard. If both, dredge and reanimator, are relevant in you area then I 'd suggest playing ravenous trap, you can even fight reanimator with your countermagic (preventing Iona), something that could be less useful against Ichorid Players.
Greetings,
Iņaki.-
Ravenous trap will not stop reanimator unless it's Buried Alive. If this a concern, it can be dealt with 2 Slaughter Pacts. One scroll target maindeck, one as a wish target. Solid reanimator lists with FoW/Daze/Thoughtseize are just as hard to fight with countermagic as ichorid with recurring Therapies.
Merchant Scroll cannot go for Slaughter Pact.
Greetings,
Iņaki.-
I'm still half asleep, lol. Well I guess in game 2, your best bet will be to side in all Pierces. Then Scroll for Wish and hope for the best.
That is with 1 S. Pact and 1 Ravenous Trap in the 15.
Don't worry, it happened to me also. The first time I saw the decklist I thought "how didn't anyone tried a Krosan Grip in the main?". The first time I tried to fetch it with the scroll I realised why... lol
The difference is that I had my scrolls since 1999 so clearly I wasn't thinking.
Can anyone please explain how to mulligan properly with this deck? Also, what are some of the possible ways to go off, what you should aim for before casting Time Spiral and after resolving it? I'm quite new with combo decks. I'm getting a hang of it but I want to hear from more experienced players.
My basic mulligan rules against unknown opponents:
- Keep almost every hand with at least one land (and less than 4) and a bunch of cantrips.
- Don't keep 1-landers if you don't have a cantrip
- Most hands that already have 3-4 lands, High Tide/Merchant Scroll and Time Spiral can be kept
- The worst cards in your opening hand are untap-effects, CWish and Zenith - count them as a mulligan already when evaluating if you should ship that hand
A lot of these things change when you know what you're playing against (against aggro you usually want one untap-effect for the turn 3 win, against control you'd rather have countermagic than actual High Tides/Time Spirals, etc) but they're good guidelines for game 1 I think.
Pre-Spiral what you aim for is pretty simple: At least three lands, a High Tide and a way to make six mana to cast your Spiral (fourth land, untap-effects). Your whole goal is to resolve a Spiral after having cast a High Tide, you're not trying to set up anything else (though floating mana and extra-Tides are obviously appreciated). You'll obviously want to avoid dieing before you can Spiral/stop things that keep you from casting Spiral. If you're able to tap the opponent out with Turnabout during his endstep that's usually good, too - you are giving them a new hand, after all.
As for what to do post-Spiral, that's more difficult and seems playstyle-dependant. In NBS the basic plan is as follows: Play all the High Tides you can, use untap-effects to make mana then Zenith yourself for 10+ (always leave at least six mana available - six mana is Merchant Scroll->Turnabout). The new cards should allow you to either win directly or Zenith yourself again for at least twenty cards, at which point you should then be able to target the opponent for lethal.
So that is what you should be evaluating your post-Spiral hand for. Play any High Tides, use cantrips to dig up more High Tides, untap-effects and Merchant Scrolls. If it becomes clear you won't be able to go for the Zenith-Win because you're unlucky or because you had to use up to many untap-effects before you found the necessary High Tides, resolve as many Tides as possible and cast another Time Spiral netting more mana and see if you can finally win with Zenith with that new hand.
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I just got back into magic because of the unbanning of Time Spiral, immediately thinking of a deck similar to this. I did a lot of testing and it's a very consistent deck. I have only fizzled three times in the around 300 times I casted a tide + spiral in the same turn. There are not a lot of good hate cards against you, the only ones that are played that are worrying are Ethersworn Canonist, the blue trap, Gaddock Teeg and Counterbalance (which is not hate against you specifically but a very hating card for our deck). The white Leyline is not very good against us, I don't mind people bringing it in, I consider it almost a dead card, since it allows us to combo even though we cannot kill them yet, after we make bazillions of mana and draw a lot of cards we can just bounce it via Cunning Wish. I'm playing a deck similar to Mon's deck, with 2 maindeck Counter Spells. Here is my list:
13 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Meditate
1 Intuition
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Pact of Negation
2 Counterspell
4 Time Spiral
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Retraced Image
4 Preordain
3 Merchant Scroll
3 Cunning Wish
3 Turnabout
4 High Tide
4 Ponder
SB: 1 Blue Sun's Zenith
SB: 2 Pact of Negation
SB: 1 Turnabout
SB: 2 Wipe Away
SB: 1 Rebuild
SB: 4 Spell Pierce
SB: 1 Brain Freeze
SB: 1 Chain of Vapor
SB: 2 Snap
I will make some movies with MWS to deal with some of the questions people have asked here. I would like to have some feedback on those videos, but also on the decklist I'm currently playing. I want to fit in a meditate in my board again but I'm not sure what to throw out. Retraced Image is too good not to play, I consider it to be much better than Cloud of Faeries or Candelabra. It is good to accelerate against aggro, but it's even better at letting you combo post-spiral much more consistently, dropping one or two islands more is huge with several tides and turnabouts. I just added a 5th fetchland, which has good synergy with Brainstorm and Ponder obviously.
Edit: This is my first post, how do I add card tags? I did it, but is there no button for it?
I will show you the 3 paths to victory using Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, Blue Sun's Zenith and Brain Freeze.
But first, my categorized decklist from the old [Spiral Tide] thread:
Bomb: 4 High Tide (Amy Weber)
Cantrips: 4 Brainstorm/3 Ponder/3 Preordain
Untappers: 4 Time Spiral/3 Turnabout/3 Candelabra of Tawnos
Tutors: 4 Merchant Scroll/3 Cunning Wish
death's (4): 1 Impulse/1 Intuition/1 Blue Sun's Zenith/1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Countermagic: 4 Force of Will/3 Pact of Negation
Lands: 14 Island/4 Scalding Tarn
Toolbox
The aim of the deck is to cast High Tide(s) and Time Spiral by turn 4 against beatdown or later against slower decks.Code:1 Turnabout 1 Stroke of Genius 1 Meditate 1 Brain Freeze 11 meta slots
For my mulligan decisions, I usually want a hand with High Tide and Time Spiral, or either one with Merchant Scroll or Intuition.
As Mon has pointed out, you can keep a hand with one land as long as you have a bunch of cantrips. In an ideal manner, you go
Turn 1: drop Island, cast a cantrip for more lands. You need to drop a land every single turn.
Turn 2: Merchant Scroll for High Tide (or Turnabout or Force of Will if you have High Tide); or for Intuition if you didn't draw Time Spiral
Turn 3: Intuition for Time Spiral or High Tide; or you may Cunning Wish for Turnabout (or Ravenous Trap or Mindbreak Trap to buy time)
Turn 4: tap Island, High Tide, tap 3 Island for, cast Turnabout, floating more
In between these turns, if you have Force of Will, you may counter spells that will kill you or deter you from going off. You may use Turnabout on possible attackers during their upkeep or shut down opponent's mana at the end of their turn to prevent them from interfering.
After the first Spiral, your goal is to generate more mana. You do this by casting cantrips to find Tides and Turnabout, or use Merchant Scroll to put them directly into your hand. Once you get to 15 mana, you win from there by casting Emrakul and taking an extra turn (if you draw it, with my list). Otherwise, cast Blue Sun's Zenith (Stroke of Genius, I miss you grandpa!) targeting yourself for a pile of High Tides, Turnabout, Merchant Scroll, or Cunning Wish. If you draw the Emrakul at this point you can still cast him (saving you time in the round), cast your High Tides (before tapping an Island please), Scroll for more Tides and cast them, then tap all your Islands and Turnabout them, tap your Islands and Turnabout them, Cunning Wish for Turnabout.. repeat! Now once you have 53+3 [(60 cards in opponents deck not counting his land drops - 7 cards he drew from Spiral) + 3 Zenith's casting cost] you can now Stroke your opponent to death. Alternatively, if you have played 16 spells already, you can Wish for Brain Freeze, with 18 storm count you can mill the 54 cards in your opponent's deck. I would only do this if he doesn't have Stifle, Trickbind or any of the legendary Eldrazis that will shuffle back his library.
I have Emrakul, Blue Zenith as main win conditions. As I mentioned in the old thread, I find Brainfreeze as a dead card in the main 60, without it having the ability to win on the spot. Well, you can use it for messing up CB lock or Doomsday stacks occasionally and that's it.
You will notice I did not deliberately mention Candelabra of Tawnos in the play above, which is by the way broken when all you want is untap lands and cast Zenith (Stroke) or Time Walk + Obliterate (Emrakul). You will discover that once you start goldfishing. In its place you can run 3 Retraced Image or 4 Cloud of Faeries + 1 Snap.
Another peculiar aspect of my list (and egosum's) is that we ALWAYS run 3 Cunning Wish. This card will pull you out of tight situations. You can fetch Turnabout when you need mana, or Stroke when you need to refill, or Meditate to generate storm or refill for only 3cc, or fetch Brainfreeze as a win con, or fetch an answer from the sideboard to put you ahead in board position. Against Extirpate, you can side out 1 High Tide and then Wish it back. This card also abuses Cloud of Faeries (for builds that have them) by fetching a Snap or Echoing Truth from the sideboard.
I just wanted to note that Chalice at one is a GREAT hate card against us and is widely played (at least in my meta). I've been testing against Dragon Stompy and White Stax and the former is a nightmare to play against. It has Chalices, trinispheres, Blood moon and Magus of the moon as hate cards and normaly puts a very quick clock alongside them.
You cannot win with a chalice at 1 on the table. Solidarity can. We cannot with all the cantrips and the combo enabler with a CMC of 1.
Against white Stax is easy to just counter the armaggedon effects and find the wish, but against Dragon Stompy there's no time. That deck (and its uses against counterbalance) is the reason I've been testing 1 Cryptic command instead of the snap I was playing maindeck. What do you think?
My deck actualy:
4 High Tide
4 Time Spiral
4 Turnabout
3 Cloud of Faeries
4 Merchant Scroll
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
4 Brainstorm
4 Preordain
3 Ponder
3 Counterspell
1 Pact of Negation
4 Force of Will
1 Cunning Wish
1 Cryptic Command
10 Fetches
1 Tropical Island
8 Island
Sideboard:
1 Brain Freeze
1 Rebuild
1 Unknown-- What do you think is the best wishable option?
4 Spell Pierce
3 Krosan Grip
3 Snap
Edit: Excuse me I made a mistake writting the list. I forgot the Blus Sun's Znith
Last edited by Zinch; 03-04-2011 at 04:00 PM.
Sideboard:
1 Hurkyl's Recall / Echoing Truth
1 Rebuild
Against Chalice@1, maindeck a Hurkyl's Recall or Echoing Truth. You can scroll then cast it. You may also Cunning Wish for Rebuild if there is a second Chalice@2. I'm just showing how a deck that plays 4 Merchant Scroll/3 Cunning Wish can be versatile and resilient.
Yeah I obviously forgot about Chalice. It is very good indeed. Dragon Stompy is a tough matchup indeed. I suggest playing a 2nd rebuild in the sb if its a big part of your meta, boarding one in to scroll for. However, if that is the case, I would prefer to play monoblue to be able to cut back on the fetches because more islands = more win versus blood moon/magus.
Same thing can be said about Stifle. Decks that play them (CT, TA, NH) may not be popular in some areas but they do exist. Fetch + shuffle effects are invaluable with Brainstorm and Ponder, however being caught unprepared is an ugly thing. The lifeloss is also relevant against extremely fast aggro or burn. I wouldn't recommend going beyond 6 fetchlands.
Quoted for truth. You should try to minimize self-damage in order to gain extra turns against aggressive decks while setting up.
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@Mon and Death:
Thank you for the replies. Very helpful. Your posts should be added in the first page. Cheers.
zeroeight, you're welcome.
@ Trentemoller, for hate bears and chalice decks, I suggest making room for 2 more cards:
1 Hibernation - Gaddock Teeg, hits Natural Order (Progenitus) and Green Zenith decks
1 Hurkyl's Recall - Ethersworn Canonist, artifact-based decks (affinity, MUD, Stax, Dragon Stompy)
These ones you already have,
1 Rebuild - same as above, leave out as Wish target
2 Wipe Away - for Counterbalance, Meddling Mage, Leyline of Sanctity
Chain of Vapor looks kinda crappy, also that second Snap.
My sideboard is a stockpile of redundant bounce spells and I am thinking of cutting out Echoing Truth.
While Chain of Vapor sucks against Chalice, I think the reduced 1 mana makes it better than Echoing Truth in my eyes. Just being able to wish for chain and bounce eot for 4 mana is huge, or just with 3 mana and then doing it on your own turn can help too. How would you change my SB with my same MD list?
Current SB:
SB: 1 Meditate
SB: 1 Blue Sun's Zenith
SB: 2 Pact of Negation
SB: 1 Turnabout
SB: 2 Wipe Away
SB: 1 Rebuild
SB: 4 Spell Pierce
SB: 1 Brain Freeze
SB: 1 Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 Snap
@zeroeight: you're welcome.
@Death: I disagree quite massively with a lot of the things you've been saying in these last posts:
Candelabra is far from broken, it's never anything but a worse Turnabout at best outside of 2 circumstances:
- You try to go off on turn 2 (which I don't think is worth trying usually and in that case Cloud of Faeries is actually better)
- You've played it turn 1/2 and want to go off turn 3. At that point it saves you one (1) mana on Turnabout.
Sure, it's the closest thing to another Turnabout if you want that, but it's far from great. Also 3 Cloud of Faeries on their lonesome are working perfectly fine in their stead, not need to play a full 5 crappy untap-effects (4 Cloud + Snap).
Fetchlands: 6 Fetchlands probably is the worst. You will still regularly draw one to get Stifled but you'll also still regularly miss one when you need a cheap shuffle-effect. The extra-speed with which you dig through your library by having more fetches and therefore seeing more cards will win you far more games than the one point of life you saved by running 6 instead of 9 Fetches.
Let's go over this in an organized way:
The number of games you win on 1-3 life while having drawn 1-3 of the islands you play instead of a fetch is the upper limit of games you gain as an advantage from having fewer fetches. Let's call this number X so that it's easier to refer to.
The number of games you lose because you can't shuffle after Brainstorm/Ponder and therefore see fewer cards because you run Islands not Fetches is next. Let's call it Y.
For your assertion that having more than six Fetches is not worth it to be correct, X would need to be bigger than Y. Considering I can count the number of games I've lost to exactsies so far on one hand running NBS (9 Fetches currently, by now I've played maybe 200 games) and I remember missing shuffle-effects to maximize Brainstorm + other cantrip on turn 2 in a far higher number of games (with 9 Fetches, mind you), I'm pretty sure Y is significantly bigger than X and what you're saying is nothing but rationalization for "man losing so much life to my lands sure feels bad".
This leaves us with Stifle/Blood Moon issues to raise X over Y. To be reasonably sure that you won't get stifled, you need to have a significant number of games in which you crack no Fetches at all. Aside from how much worse this is if you don't play against Stifle (no shuffles), that means you'd have to run far less than six Fetches. How do I know? Because a ton of decks only have six Fetches and still get stifled out of the game with regularity.
As for Blood Moon, the only deck running it that also has the acceleration to play it before it doesn't make the slightest difference any more is Dragon Stompy. To make a difference there, (considering you need at least three Islands to go off and you need to do so fast because DS has a relevant clock) you'd need to run draw no more than a single Fetch. The only way to make reasonably sure that's the case would again be running significantly fewer than 6 Fetches.
Considering how strongly that impacts your cantrip-shuffles during every single game you play and the comparative scarceness of Stifle/Moon, I highly doubt that you really get an over-all advantage out of cutting fetches to avoid Stifle/Moon.
Now in the Retraced Image-builds there is a utterly convincing argument for running as few Fetches as possible, but that isn't what you were talking about.
Finally, the specialized bounce-spells, particularly Hibernation, are a waste of space in here while Snap is actually very good. The only thing Hibernation really does is give you an answer to Prog, everything else the Snaps you dislike so much does far better. If the opponent invests his resources into getting out an early Prog you should be able to take a single hit and kill them.
Instead of trying to solve hatebears with specialized stuff you don't really need and that sucks monkey balls if your draw it while going off (Hibernation, Hurkyls) you could be boarding a bunch of Snaps, speed your deck up immensely - especially if you run Faeires not Candelabra - AND have a bunch of solutions for hatebears.
I can see where Hurkyl's might come in handy against the Chalice-decks once in a while but honestly, I'd rather M-Scroll for Rebuild either way so that I don't eat Chalice @ 2 the turn after I Scroll (first time they'll usually have four mana usually, too). More Rebuild > Hurkyls.
The only bounce spells that really make sense in the board imo are
- Wipe Away (if you don't run green for Grip)
- Rebuild
- maybe Chain of Vapor/Echoing Truth - though Chain seems better because it's cheaper - if you play somewhere where the aggro-decks board non-creature hate - though I have yet to see that happen. They all seem to have either Teeg or Canonist.
I don't have low self-esteem, I have low esteem for everyone else. -Daria
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