Oops, All Spells! (Formerly The Rogue Hermit)

[catmint]

I agree with you Vacrix that even if it becomes playable it will be worse then SI or Belcher, but making it slower is surely not a way to make it work. You still loose to a Deathrite Shaman and a FoW and just give them more time to get those online.

[Bahamuth]

100% T1 kills on the play wouldn't make this deck viable.

Yes it would. With 100% turn 1 wins you would easily be favored against any reasonable field of Legacy decks. There are not nearly enough cards that interact with this deck.

Its a combo deck that loses to both countermagic or graveyard hate. The opponent always has something to board in against you. Throw a rock, and the glass house falls apart.

Current lists here are just trying to outrace SI and Belcher for viability.. and thats foolish. This Rogue Hermit deck can probably push as high as 70% turn 1 kills once fully optimized.. but it doesn't matter if you don't have a post-board plan.. and you'll still be worse than Belcher because you also lose to graveyard hate as well as any other semblance of distruption..

I agree with this. The deck should be able to board into a glass cannon that does not rely on the graveyard. If we can manage to do that and have a decent consistency, this deck could be very strong.

The best way to go about building this deck is for a much slower combo. I'd say more along the speeds of Reanimator.

I disagree. If you try to build a slow version of combo, you will end up with decks that are inevitably worse than other slow combo.

[QUOTE=Vacrix;700942]it wouldn't matter if you got 90% T1 kills if you got 10% autoloss.. because of that 90% against a blue deck.. you have a 50% chance of winning the coinflip, which turns on Daze/Pierce/BS. An opponent, lets say RUG which has high blue card count around 26-27 cards, has a good 40% chance of getting both Force/Blue card in hand. In general, glass houses like these only have about a 20% chance of killing a blue player outright. You can't outrace Force.. and even when you aren't playing against Force, you can't outrace a turn 1 basically.. any card they play in their sideboard. Pithing Needle? Graveyard hate? Storm hate? It all works against this deck.[\quote]

A lot of graveyard hate actually doesn't work against this because it's too slow. The only things that work are Surigcal Extraction, Extirpate and Crypt basically. Additionally, it's very possible that you can board into some sort of Empty the Warrens plan that's very strong against blue decks.

You can reduce the combo by a single card by the way. -1 Azami, -1 Lab Maniac +1 Fiend Hunter. Here's how it goes:
Mill your deck
DR Angel
Wild Cantor, Informer and Fiend Hunter
Fiend Hunter removes Angel
Sac Cantor for mana
Sac Fiend Hunter to Informer to mill opponent
Angel enters play again and triggers
repeat




I'm currently trying to build a program that can goldfish this deck. That should help immensely with determining what build is the most consistent, and if the deck is any good compared to Belcher.

[nudon]

70% is not great because this is pure glass canon test. Beside 30% auto scoop up, if opponent has a hard counter or has a discard on play, that pretty much means auto lose as well. And thinking about sideboard plan dealing with all sort of threats give me headache. So I will skip that for now and work on getting the best T1 kills ratio.

Okay, here is my deck list for those numbers:

Win cons: 8
4 Undercity Informer
4 Balustrade Spy

Engines: 12
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
3 Narcomoeba
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
1 Bridge from Below

Mana Source & Fixer: 40
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Summer's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
4 Wild Cantor


Here is the record for the testing, 1 = combo, 0 = nobo.
7 cards: 25/50
0011111010
1100110000
0111101110
1010101101
1000110100

6 cards: 18/50
0001000011
0010001110
1010010100
0000000000
1101110101

5 cards: 8/50
1000001000
0000010010
0000000000
0000000000
0010110100


If you wonder why so many Cabal Therapies, I don't know either. I guess I got lazy from testing different builds before I did this one. A couple of them could be Inferno Tutors for better result. I will cut down a couple Wild Cantors for more tutors in the next version.

Another note, just to clarify I don't count 1st turn Undercity Informer > 2nd turn activation as a win. Many things could happen in one turn, STP, bounce, burn. Thus to keep it straight forward, either now or never.

From the data i felt 50 is the minimum requirement for goldfishing a build. Too often I thought I hit a gold mine by looking the T1 win ratios of a build in the first 10 or 20 hands then hit a nobo string or vice versa. I will definitely do 100 once the deck is more optimized.

Thanks for your input tianyuan but I think your testing is a statistical anomaly. I tested sample 7-card hands and found only 6/50 were turn 1 kills. This may have been due to variance as well but I'm skeptical that a turn 1 kill occurs anywhere near 70% of the time when you only have 8 win-cons in your deck. The probability of having at least 1 of 8 win-cons with a 7-card hand is only 65%. Granted you can mulligan down into a win-con but it seems unlikely you'll always have the correct mana to play your win-con in every scenario.

I also agree 50 is the minimum requirement for goldfishing because there is so much variance.

[JDK]

You can reduce the combo by a single card by the way. -1 Azami, -1 Lab Maniac +1 Fiend Hunter. Here's how it goes:
Mill your deck
DR Angel
Wild Cantor, Informer and Fiend Hunter
Fiend Hunter removes Angel
Sac Cantor for mana
Sac Fiend Hunter to Informer to mill opponent
Angel enters play again and triggers
repeat

Interesting find. After sideboarding you could run Dragon Breath + Sutured Ghoul to overcome a possible Leyline of Sanctity without investing mana and cards like Chain of Vapor (credit to Climax).

[Bahamuth]

Interesting find. After sideboarding you could run Dragon Breath + Sutured Ghoul to overcome a possible Leyline of Sanctity without investing mana and cards like Chain of Vapor (credit to Climax).

No you cannot, because there's no hope of viability for this deck if it cannot board into a deck that doesn't depend on the graveyard.

[JDK]

Well, that's true, unfortunately. :(

[nudon]

I tested again with 4 Infernal Tutors:

7 cards: 39/100
10001 00000
01011 01110
00101 00011
10000 00000
00000 10000

01011 11011
11010 00010
01001 00010
11111 10000
01101 10000


6 cards: 33/100
10000 11101
00001 00011
11011 00001
10011 10000
10010 11010

01000 10001
10001 00010
01000 00000
11100 10000
10100 10000


5 cards: 11/100
00100 10000
00000 00110
00000 00000
00000 00000
00100 00100

00000 00000
00000 00000
00000 10100
01000 00100
00000 00010


Even at 100, the result flutuated a lot. The first 50 of 7 card hand hit all time low. 15/50 = 30%. Then the latter 50 goes back to normal T1 win ratio level. 6 cards and 5 cards hand are around average ratios.

1 - (61% * 67% * 89%) = 64%

Not as good as last time but still within reasonable range.

A couple thing I noticed during the test:
1) Infernal tutor did help me achieve about ten T1 wins in 300 games.
2) Plenty of times I am one initial black mana away from winning. Holding 2 rituals, a LED and a win con but no black mana. :(
3) About 6 times, I have only 3 mana to cast Undercity Informer but could wait a turn to untap Chrome Mox in order to go off. I count these as 0 though.
4) About 6 times, I have 2 LED, and a Chancellor in open hand but no win con.


The deck list for this testing:

Win cons: 12
4 Undercity Informer
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Infernal Tutor

Engines: 10
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
3 Narcomoeba
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
1 Bridge from Below

Mana Source & Fixer: 38
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Summer's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
2 Wild Cantor


My current thought on manaless build is to win as fast & consistent as possible 1st game. Then SB some trolls to deal with desperate grave hates and counters, leyline against discard.

Storm hate couldn't stop LED + Spirit Guides kill. Pithing Needle couldn't stop Balustrade Spy. (SB Sutured Ghoul + Dragon Breath in case Needle Azami). So they are fair games.

Perhaps squeeze some Pact of Negation MD to deal with FOW if they are rampant.

I tried your list again just in case and still only got 13/50 t1 kills with an opening hand of 7 cards (much less than 25). I think you might want to retest your deck. Also, I'm not sure what kind of results my build would get under your testing. If you want to try it, you can find it here:

http://deckstats.net/deck-1886312-35...03aa3ce25.html

[tsabo_tavoc]

You can reduce the combo by a single card by the way. -1 Azami, -1 Lab Maniac +1 Fiend Hunter. Here's how it goes:
Mill your deck
DR Angel
Wild Cantor, Informer and Fiend Hunter
Fiend Hunter removes Angel
Sac Cantor for mana
Sac Fiend Hunter to Informer to mill opponent
Angel enters play again and triggers
repeat

Nice find, but it is a loss against Emrakul.dec, Progenitus.dec, Colossus.dec.

[phazonmutant]

100% T1 kills on the play wouldn't make this deck viable. Its a combo deck that loses to both countermagic or graveyard hate. The opponent always has something to board in against you. Throw a rock, and the glass house falls apart.

Take a look at Pact SI as a good example. The only reason the deck can justify not playing protection is by having a post-board plan that compliments a dense business suite. This is why Classic Belcher lists might as well just run Islands in their post-board.. SI, on the other hand, has 18-19 business spells to abuse with cards like Carpet of Flowers and Lotus Bloom; taking out the explosive acceleration like Culling the Weak and Summoner's Pact for a slow roll strategy.. as well as protection spells so that you can actually out play an opponent.

Current lists here are just trying to outrace SI and Belcher for viability.. and thats foolish. This Rogue Hermit deck can probably push as high as 70% turn 1 kills once fully optimized.. but it doesn't matter if you don't have a post-board plan.. and you'll still be worse than Belcher because you also lose to graveyard hate as well as any other semblance of distruption..

I don't see a reason the deck can't transform into something with more protection or non-graveyard business. Some combination of Charbelcher, Carpet of Flowers, and discard seems good and quite playable. We're working on the t1 percentage right now because, frankly, it's easier to goldfish. Once the set comes out, we can get some tournament data on sideboard. So you raise a valid concern, but we simply haven't had enough time with the deck to solve it.

The best way to go about building this deck is for a much slower combo. I'd say more along the speeds of Reanimator. Why is everyone trying to run 0 land? You don't have to run 0 land... As Emidln was saying on the first page.. you probably want Mox Opal, and you probably want tallmen to support it.. which means you probably want Culling the Weak and Cabal Therapy. People should try reading my posts, I already talked about a potential direction to take this deck (but I've no time to work on it atm).

I've tried 4-5 different builds for 50+ games each with the artifact tallmen, Vine Dryad, even Dryad Arbor. None of them are consistent enough to be better than the other builds posted.
Instead of crying that people aren't listening to you, why don't you actually prove us wrong? I did read and respond to your previous post by trying to build a couple lists, but completely failed. Obviously, figuring out how to make it work with more than 0 lands is either non-intuitive or not good.

And with a 1 card combo.. why not slow down and secure the kill? Sacrifice multiple creatures ie. tallmen. + Narcomoebas. Also.. the combo kill takes up ALOT of unnecessary space. I'd probably try something simpler.

What is a simpler combo kill? Multiple have been suggested, are they all bad?

I understand that this deck (Grinder? Anyone?) is more or less competing with your baby, but there's no reason to get antagonistic. If you think there's a better way to approach how to break them, I would encourage you to build a list.

--

Bahamuth, thanks for posting the Fiend Hunter kill. I saw it in the comments for the Prosack article and it was a really out-of-the-box, cool suggestion. Agreed that it's probably not woth shaving the slot.

--

So the big questions for the current builds are:
- Is Manamorphose worth a couple of slots (still...)
- Is Chancellor of the Tangle consistent enough?

Re: Chancellor, why is that guy better than Tinder Wall? They're both +1s in a non-combo color. Tinder Wall is worse in multiples turn 1, but much better off the top.

Props to nudon and tianyuan2k4 for goldfishing hundreds of games and posting data.

A bit of an aside to you two, does Infernal Tutor translate to something weird in Chinese? I've seen both of you misstype "Inferno" on a few posts.

[nudon]

I don't see a reason the deck can't transform into something with more protection or non-graveyard business. Some combination of Charbelcher, Carpet of Flowers, and discard seems good and quite playable. We're working on the t1 percentage right now because, frankly, it's easier to goldfish. Once the set comes out, we can get some tournament data on sideboard. So you raise a valid concern, but we simply haven't had enough time with the deck to solve it.



I've tried 4-5 different builds for 50+ games each with the artifact tallmen, Vine Dryad, even Dryad Arbor. None of them are consistent enough to be better than the other builds posted.
Instead of crying that people aren't listening to you, why don't you actually prove us wrong? I did read and respond to your previous post by trying to build a couple lists, but completely failed. Obviously, figuring out how to make it work with more than 0 lands is either non-intuitive or not good.



What is a simpler combo kill? Multiple have been suggested, are they all bad?

I understand that this deck (Grinder? Anyone?) is more or less competing with your baby, but there's no reason to get antagonistic. If you think there's a better way to approach how to break them, I would encourage you to build a list.

--

Bahamuth, thanks for posting the Fiend Hunter kill. I saw it in the comments for the Prosack article and it was a really out-of-the-box, cool suggestion. Agreed that it's probably not woth shaving the slot.

--

So the big questions for the current builds are:
- Is Manamorphose worth a couple of slots (still...)
- Is Chancellor of the Tangle consistent enough?

Re: Chancellor, why is that guy better than Tinder Wall? They're both +1s in a non-combo color. Tinder Wall is worse in multiples turn 1, but much better off the top.

Props to nudon and tianyuan2k4 for goldfishing hundreds of games and posting data.

A bit of an aside to you two, does Infernal Tutor translate to something weird in Chinese? I've seen both of you misstype "Inferno" on a few posts.

Actually, I think fiend hunter is interesting enough that shaving 1 slot might be worth it in some builds. However, maniac kill allows shaving 2 slots for the board. I have 2 manamorphose in my build currently because it filters into black mana. Also, there are times where I need to wait a turn after I've wished for balustrade spy. Getting that extra draw off playing living wish helps (compared to cantor).

Chancellor generates green mana, which is relevant to cast living wish. It also pitches to chrome mox so it's virtual c/a.

Oops, I mistyped infernal tutor by accident. For awhile, I actually thought that was the name of the card so I'm trying to re-program my brain. I actually live in Los Angeles haha.

[alphastryk]

Nice find, but it is a loss against Emrakul.dec, Progenitus.dec, Colossus.dec.

This makes me wonder is we could just board a progenitus and draw every game after the first. I feel like that is probably illegal somehow.

[The Informer]

The Informer - welcome to The Source! However, instead of regaling us with the details of your list, why don't you try to explain why the design choices you mention (like no LED) make sense despite the findings of multiple people on this thread.

Phazonmuant, sure. I see a couple of advantages and some disadvantages to not running LED. One, of course, is the deck is more budget friendly and likely to become more popular because it is cheaper to pick up. So if it works as well, I'm all for that. As far as the playing goes, playing LED locks you into playing tutors so you can crack the LED in response. That's good, but in the other list posted, for example, there are 8 tutors (4 Infernal Tutor, 4 Living Wish). Those slots mean less room for mana. LED is not really mana unless you can use it with a tutor. So when you mulligan down to 4 or 5, it's just that much more unlikely you'll draw the mana you need to go off because if you find an LED, you still need to find a tutor in order to make the LED function as mana.

A big disadvantage, however, of not running LED, is that it potentially limits the transformational sideboard. Doing a Belcher sideboard has the advantage of eschewing the graveyard, which I like. But if you don't run LED, you may not have enough mana to get up to the 7 mana required for Belcher plus activation. However, if you have enough sideboard slots and want to put the Charbelcher plus Infernal Tutors plus LEDs all in the Board, you could do that. But I think as a maindeck choice, I'd rather have more mana and less tutor slots. I think the numbers that I'm testing support this choice, but I will have to get back to you with more specifics on those numbers (win percentages on T1, for example).

[tianyuan2k4]

I tried your list again just in case and still only got 13/50 t1 kills with an opening hand of 7 cards (much less than 25). I think you might want to retest your deck. Also, I'm not sure what kind of results my build would get under your testing. If you want to try it, you can find it here:

http://deckstats.net/deck-1886312-35...03aa3ce25.html

I did a quick run: (* = could have won if it's Cantor instead of Manamorphose, I count it as a win)

52/100
11*00 01001
00010 01001
01010 00101
11001 01011
10001 11111

10110 01111
10111 01110
00001 01000
11111 00101
01001 01001

Pretty solid list. Our decks aren't that different. Especially my latter one with 4 Infernal Tutor. Both decks have 11+ win con and 36 Mana. To get below 40% T1 win is quite random. I will record 6 and 5 card hand for your list when I have time.

A bit of an aside to you two, does Infernal Tutor translate to something weird in Chinese? I've seen both of you misstype "Inferno" on a few posts.

In China, Infernal = Fatties, Inferno = Hotties. Now you see why I use the latter one.


Edit:

Here is 6 card T1 win ratio for Nudon's deck:
39/100
10010 11010
00000 00101
10001 10101
01000 11000
00000 00100

00000 00010
00100 10000
00100 00010
11000 01110
00010 01001


5 card T1 win:
7/100
00000 00000
10000 00000
01100 00000
00000 00000
00000 00000

00000 00000
00000 00000
00100 00000
11000 10000
00000 00000

Put all three together:

1 - (48% * 61% * 92%) = 73%

I think the 5 card one is an abnomaly. Usually it should be 10%+.

Anyway, Chancellor really shines in the 6 card test, at least 5 games it's crucial for T1 win.

Nudan your deck is really solid .

[Ziveeman]

Hey guys,

I was featured in Adam Prosak's article that went up last night (the first Undercity Informer decklist he posted on the article was taken from my blog). We've been talking about the deck for awhile since I mentioned it on his stream. For reference, this was the list that achieved a roughly 30-40% T1 win rate that he mentioned on his article. Since then, there are a ton of changes you guys have made that would probably make it much more consistent than the list I have.

4 Undercity Informer
4 Balustrade Spy

1 Dread Return
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
4 Narcomoeba

1 Cabal Therapy
1 Phantasmagorian

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Chrome Mox

4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Rite of Flame

3 Manamorphose
3 Pact of Negation
3 Gitaxian Probe
1 Wild Cantor

Definitely not an optimal list. Yeah, I ran with Pact of Negations maindeck, which definitely contributed to the lack of a higher T1 win rate - but you do have many t2 and t3 protected wins with one or two Pact of Negation which was sweet. I'm pretty sure that Rite of Flame needs to be Tinder Wall because they do the same thing, but you can cast a Tinder Wall off of a Summoner's Pact -> Elvish Spirit Guide.

RE: LEDs/Tutor/Wish being in the deck - Do you guys find yourself with too many win conditions in hand? How often are you guys mulliganing? While I included Wish/Tutor initially because Balustrade Spy hadn't been spoiled yet, I went down to the 8 win condition configuration (and took out LED as a result). However, I'm more inclined to include Wish over Tutor (because Wish is probably slightly better if you don't have LED). Joe Lossett's Belcher article calculated that 4 Belcher/4 Wish/2 Warrens is a more optimal build than 4 Belcher/4 Wish/3 Warrens or just 4 Belcher/4 Warrens, so perhaps we could just emulate that with something like 4 Undercity Informer/3 Balustrade Spy/3 Living Wish. Perhaps we could quantify the deck's mana much in the way he does so in the article.

Also, I goldfished Chancellor of the Tangle for a couple of hands and he's great in some situations (especially when you can use him to generate mana, then imprint him on Chrome Mox), but there are many situations when you really do have to pass the turn, and after that, he's just absolutely terrible. If you mulligan down and you have him but can't generate the 4 mana (for example, you can only generate 3 with him) and you're forced to pass the turn, you need two more turns before you can go off again. While I'd like to keep the T1 win % high, perhaps Chancellor sacrifices too much percentage points if we find ourselves not going off T1.

[whienot]

This makes me wonder is we could just board a progenitus and draw every game after the first. I feel like that is probably illegal somehow.

That would be incredibly awesome, but I don't think that works. Spy and Informer both reveal X, then place into graveyard. You would reveal your deck, then place it into the graveyard at which point Progentus reshuffles.

Otherwise, I would have no issues winning all my matches 1-0-73.

[tianyuan2k4]

Also, I goldfished Chancellor of the Tangle for a couple of hands and he's great in some situations (especially when you can use him to generate mana, then imprint him on Chrome Mox), but there are many situations when you really do have to pass the turn, and after that, he's just absolutely terrible.

Well, with all these mana source you could hardcast it. It gets even better when your two LED + 1 Chancellor vs. opponent's three leylines and four extractions.

Seriously this deck can go different directions. Pushing this deck to its limit is just one way to approach. At least we could study the numbers for now until we learn more from actually game play experience.

[gkraigher]

That would be incredibly awesome, but I don't think that works. Spy and Informer both reveal X, then place into graveyard. You would reveal your deck, then place it into the graveyard at which point Progentus reshuffles.

Otherwise, I would have no issues winning all my matches 1-0-73.

How does progenitus cause a draw??

[phazonmutant]

How does progenitus cause a draw??

It doesn't, but if the Grinders had been templated to mill until they hit a land instead of reveal until they hit a land then mill, you would mill Progenitus infinitely, so it would force a draw.

[catmint]

RE: LEDs/Tutor/Wish being in the deck - Do you guys find yourself with too many win conditions in hand? How often are you guys mulliganing? While I included Wish/Tutor initially because Balustrade Spy hadn't been spoiled yet, I went down to the 8 win condition configuration (and took out LED as a result). However, I'm more inclined to include Wish over Tutor (because Wish is probably slightly better if you don't have LED). Joe Lossett's Belcher article calculated that 4 Belcher/4 Wish/2 Warrens is a more optimal build than 4 Belcher/4 Wish/3 Warrens or just 4 Belcher/4 Warrens, so perhaps we could just emulate that with something like 4 Undercity Informer/3 Balustrade Spy/3 Living Wish. Perhaps we could quantify the deck's mana much in the way he does so in the article.

Also, I goldfished Chancellor of the Tangle for a couple of hands and he's great in some situations (especially when you can use him to generate mana, then imprint him on Chrome Mox), but there are many situations when you really do have to pass the turn, and after that, he's just absolutely terrible. If you mulligan down and you have him but can't generate the 4 mana (for example, you can only generate 3 with him) and you're forced to pass the turn, you need two more turns before you can go off again. While I'd like to keep the T1 win % high, perhaps Chancellor sacrifices too much percentage points if we find ourselves not going off T1.

I came to similar conclusions concerning the lower number of win conditions. Altough living wish has it's upside beeing able to run 8 spy maindeck adds up the the T1%, so I would go for 8 spy, 2 infernal, 0 Led.

Concerning taking a draw if you miss 1 mana. Question is what is more likely ~50% chance to add draw 1 mana but giving the opponent time or mull. Chancellor sucks if you have to do that on the other hand if you max out on acceleration its less likely to happen. =)

[rufus]

...
Also, I goldfished Chancellor of the Tangle for a couple of hands and he's great in some situations (especially when you can use him to generate mana, then imprint him on Chrome Mox), but there are many situations when you really do have to pass the turn, and after that, he's just absolutely terrible. If you mulligan down and you have him but can't generate the 4 mana (for example, you can only generate 3 with him) and you're forced to pass the turn, you need two more turns before you can go off again. While I'd like to keep the T1 win % high, perhaps Chancellor sacrifices too much percentage points if we find ourselves not going off T1.

SSG may be superior.

I'm pretty sure that repeatedly grinding over Emrakul, The Aeons Torn is going to get a judge called on you. [cards]Death Cultist[/card] or something similar would solve the problem. Of course, that also eliminates the advantage.

A route that I haven't seen discussed here is Sylvan Tutor/Worldly Tutor + Freetrip + LED. Is there some fundamental problem with that approach?