Living wish really adds something to the deck.
Aside from tutoring the win condition or SB hate, there's also protection:
Living Wish into Cavern of Souls, makes Spy or Informer uncounterable (and one mana cheaper from the land itself).
From there, it's basically like DDD, play all your therapy's and Dread Return for the maniac pile, with little to no interaction from your opponent.
1-4 bridges would enable enough creatures for the dread return.
OR:
Going all in with 4 bridges net's you 4 zombies per sacrifice to build a big army and win through attacking with a DR-ed Flame-Kin Zealot.
sorry man, why not UB with Mana Severance ??
Combo 11
4x Living Wish
4x Undercity Informer
3x Balustrade Spy
Mana Fix 8
4x Manamorphose
4x Wild Cantor
Mana 32
4x Dark Ritual
4x Rite of Flame
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Summoner's Pact
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Lotus Petal
4x Tinder Wall
Deck Dreck 9
4x Narcomeba
1x Dread Return
1x Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1x Laboratory Maniac
1x Angel of Glory's Rise
1x Cabal Therapy
If you go the Belcher-style route you need to combo asap, otherwise you risk losing to random crap like active Deathrite Shaman. Summoner's Pact, Wild Cantor, Manamorphose and Lotus Petal all gives you ways to generate your single black mana (along with saccing LED in response to Living Wish if it comes to that). The list may be more optimal with some number of Chrome Mox in place of Wild Cantors (currently 16 initial mana sources), but I don't think a full set is correct.
LED easily corrects the problem that combo pieces are stuck in hand for Dread Return setup, and at the same time removes the need for multiple Cabal Therapy to get them into the yard. I can definitely dig it. Only concern is that using it makes the deck super soft to Force of Will.
Does LegacyStudent's list want/need any Chrome Mox to further provide IMS?Reading is tech.
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Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
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The issue with simply adding more IMS is that the deck also needs a black source to be able to cast the wincon.... so you need both an IMS AND a black source in your hand. Currently the count stands at 16 for both, (90.08% of opening with at least 1 in hand) so I'm not convinced cutting black sources for IMS improves turn 1 consistency. There is the situation where LED counts as a black source when you are casting Living Wish though, so technically the black source percentage is actually slightly higher than 90.08%. You might be able to get away with cutting a Cantor... an alternative might instead be cutting a Dark Ritual or Tinder Wall for Chrome Mox. I haven't crunched the percentages on average mana generated per hand, but it might be correct to boost IMS count that way.
Does Avenging Druid make any sense here?
Perhaps something like:
4 Lotus Petal
4 Mox Opal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Undercity Informer
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
3 Ornithopter
2 Phyrexian Walker
2 Culling the Weak
2 Grim Monolith
1 Dread Return
4 Narcomoeba
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
3 Avenging Druid
Compared to my list, you've cut Cabal Ritual for Rite of Flame. With the 8(+4) Spirit Guides, I've usually been able to make the colorless part of Cabal Ritual, or just as often pin it under Chrome Mox. I did test a list with Rite of Flame, and I'm pretty sure that the one I posted above is the "fastest" that I've seen / tested.
There's definitely arguments to be made for a slower combo, either with Veteran Explorer, Reanimates, or Mana Severance, but under the premise that this deck is another variation of SI in that it's all-in and very, very fast, I think it's actually a pretty solid contender.
I think I prefer Living Wish over Avenging Druid because even though it requires more mana, it doesn't require a guy to connect the next turn. I'm also skeptical of the Tall Men-Culling manabase. I just don't think that it works consistently better than a Spirit Guide-Pact-Manamorphose manabase, but I haven't tested that Grim Monolith version, to be fair.Originally Posted by rufus
Yeah, this deck pretty much packs it in to BUG with Force maindeck. It seems like it should rebuild pretty well after 1 Force, though. There's a strong argument to be made for Pact of Negations out of the board because it stops Force if you're not going for Living Wish and Surgical if you didn't have to crack LED (so that excludes some kills with the Undercity Informer). Another good suggestion post-board is Goblin Charbelcher. Not sure if that requires boarding in more mana sources or not.Originally Posted by Koby
Languages and dates for every set. For all you true pimps.
Here's my list. It wins on turn 1 pretty consistently.
http://deckstats.net/deck-1858360-9c...7126abc64.html
LED + Living Wish/Infernal Tutor gives you 15 win-cons.
Summoner's Pact fetches ESG or wild cantor.
Progenitus off the board to be pitched to chrome mox in an emergency. Also good against show and tell.
Mimeoplasm kill dodges swords, bolt, stifle, etc.
Edit: Carrion Feeder = Informer
Bloodghast = Spy
nudon, I was skeptical because Manamorphose has been so good for me, but your list looks very reasonable too. Having additional black spells to pin under Chrome Mox is great, although Infernal really requires LED in hand. I only tested 15 games or so, so I can't really say which list is better.
I really think that a Bridge from Below in the main is necessary. It allows you to still kill when you have to get Informer and there's a Narc and a combo piece in hand. Maybe I'm playing too scared, but I'm dubious that the 16th kill card is going to make that much of a difference.
As far as the kill goes, the Cephalid Breakfast thread I'm sure has debated the pros and cons of each kill to death. The Lab Man kill can respond to a Plow by just tapping another wizard and gets around Leyline of Sanctity, but the Mimeoplasm kill is very reasonable too.
Languages and dates for every set. For all you true pimps.
You must have 1 bridge from below and 2 cabal therapies in the deck.
1 Bridge allows you to sacrifice narcomebia to cabal therapy to target yourself for cards you need for the combo, sitting in your hand.
The best human card drawer for this deck is alchemist's apprentice. Its the only 2 CC human that says draw a card.
After some more tweaking, here's my updated list:
Balustrade Spy = Bloodghast, Undercity Informer = Carrion Feeder
http://deckstats.net/deck-1859003-ca...47e8ba1e7.html
I agree that having that 1 Bridge instead of the 4 Narc helps. The second therapy (can also sac Balustrade Spy) is nice for protection and getting extra cards out of hand too.
I like Wild Cantor more than Manamorphose because I really want to know if I should mull or not. I'll always mull if there is no win-con in my opening 7, usually 6 too depending on my hand.
Edit: Chrome Mox also helps you get rid of that extra inferno tutor/informer/spy/narc/wish in your hand to go hellbent.
As protection I would think about oldschool Unmask then Force of Will.
I would like to think Entomb, Shallow Grave, and even a single Griselbrand (to draw 7 if you're short on mana) would give a fighting chance in this deck. Why only one Cabal Therapy?
It can be used as protection, of course. If the opponent is stupid enough to let you combo out thinking they will disrupt you after the fact, you just sac a duder to strip the answer out of their hand before you Dread Return. And, on the play, you can hit Force of Will or Spinal Tap, depending on the deck.
I like the possibility of using Unmask as a free disruption spell that can also be used to imprint Mox when it's dead. At this point, I think designing the deck to be able to beat a non-Threshold blue deck would be the goal.
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Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
My Legacy stream
My MTG Blog - Work in progress
I've been interested in this deck ever since I saw a brew abusing it posted in Adam Prosak's thread. This was before Balustrade Spy was spoiled, so the deck didn't feature it, but I've had good results testing with it. Here's what I'm currently working with.
Kill Conditions:
4x Balustrade Spy
3x Undercity Informer
1x Goblin Charbelcher
Mana:
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Manamorphose
4x Lotus Petal
4x Chrome Mox
4x Lions Eye Diamond
4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
Tutor:
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Living Wish
Combo:
4x Narcoameoba
1x Angel of Glory's Rise
1x Lab Maniac
1x Dread Return
1x Azami Lady of Scrolls
1x Bridge from Below
1x Phantasmagorian
2x Cabal Therapy
I really like the Charbelcher plan as an alternate kill con, and in my testing with the deck sans spy, it was a very relevant interaction, (For those interested, the Spyless Deck was -4 Spy -1 Bridge -1 Therapy +4 Gitaxian Probe +2 Street Wraith).
I haven't tested out the Summoners Pact package yet, but I am interested in it.
I plan on testing this against RUG Delver, Fish, and UW Stoneblade. The Spyless version performed well against Deadguy Ale, and passably against miracles.
Any feedback is appreciated.
Here's the updated deck I've been tinkering with (Carrion Feeder = Informer, Bloodghast = Spy):
http://deckstats.net/deck-1861018-a5...ae23367e1.html
Maindeck Pact of Negations give you a fighting chance against FoW. Turn 1 combo kill % very high. The only very rare case when 2 combo cards in hand is a problem is 2 of the 3 narcs are stuck. Even then, you can still combo out with Balustrade Spy.
SB:
1 Bloodghast - Tutored with wish
1 Cavern of Souls - Tutored with wish
2 Cabal Therapy - Great against control and works with combo
2 Pact of Negation - To fight blue
4 Leyline of Sanctity - Protection from discard and possibly storm
3 Abrupt Decay - Utility to deal with deathrite shaman, scavenging ooze, rest in peace, etc.
2 Nature's Claim - Utility and to deal with leyline of the void, rest in peace
Edit: Replace the Pact of Negations MD and SB with Unmasks
- Creates black mana with Chrome Mox
- Helps Infernal Tutor get Hellbent by pitching extra infernal tutors/informers/spies
http://deckstats.net/deck-1861376-5c...af78f80ae.html
Last edited by nudon; 01-23-2013 at 03:45 PM.
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