[Deck] Imperial Bomberman

[Wanderlust]

If we are not running Force of Will OR Cabal Therapy, what's the advantage to running this over Storm? We lose to pretty much everything Storm loses to, but we also lose to creature removal.

(Yes I know you can Cavern of Souls on Auriok Salvagers to get around counters, but I don't think that in and of itself is compelling enough.)

I'm not sure I follow you - I think this deck has different weaknesses from Storm. It's stronger against permanent-based hate - for example, it runs 10+ cheap maindeck answers to Thalia, and doesn't care about Gaddock Teeg or Ethersworn Canonist. It also doesn't care about its own life total. Spell Pierce is substantially worse against us, and Flusterstorm is close to being completely dead. It's possible I missed your point entirely, though - what did you have in mind that they both lose to, other than Force of Will?

EDIT - Just updated the OP with more detailed info, including strengths, weaknesses, sideboard choices, and an updated list.

[Wanderlust]

Got 2nd place at a 24 man tournament today with the list in the opening post! Deck was a blast to play and treated me well all day. Here were the matchups:

Win vs Esper Deathblade 2-0
Win vs BUG Delver 2-1
Loss vs RUG Delver 0-2
Win vs BUG Delver 2-1 (surprised me game two with Null Rod!)
Win vs Miracles 2-1 (all three games were really close - I don't like this matchup overall tbh.)

Semifinals (cut to top 4):
Win vs RUG Delver 2-0

Finals:
Loss vs RUG Delver 1-2 (same opponent I lost to in round 3.)

I brought out Aether Spellbomb in all 7 matches post-board - in 5 of the 7 in favor of Nihil Spellbomb - a sign to me that Aether doesn't belong main and Nihil probably does. I won via the beatdown backup plan in a whopping 3 of the 11 game wins on the day. I'm glad that plan works, but wish I hadn't had to rely on it so often, as it does feel a little sketchy. Pyrite Spellbomb served as "reach" in two of those wins, including once against Miracles in which Lion's Eye Diamond never showed up to the party and I was simply left recurring Engineered Explosives and Pyrite Spellbomb with Salvagers for value. I was honestly always happy to see Lion's Eye Diamond, even in multiples, so for those of you suggesting cutting down on those, I must say I strongly disagree. All in all, the deck felt great and only needed the switch of Nihil and Aether, other than MAYBE trying to fit Ensnaring Bridge back into the board for the RUG matchup, which seemed a bit worse than I thought. Turns out Stifle is pretty good against us.

Cavern of Souls was definitely the MVP of the day.

[.dk]

Is Ensnaring Bridge really the best thing against RUG? I don't particularly like only being able to tutor for it with E-tutors. However, I'm trying to think of anything else that might be a good tool, and I'm not coming up with much that doesn't hurt you as well (Chalice of the Void and Relic of Progenitus were the first that popped into my head since they are tutorable with Trinket Mage). Defense Grid seems good against RUG as well, but has the same problem of only being able to find it with E-tutor. Just struggling to come up with something that fits with the main tutors that the deck is already running.

[Richard Cheese]

I would probably go with Meekstone over Bridge for RUG, since it will affect all their guys and is tutorable with Trinket Mage. My only concern would be that they may be bringing in artifact removal postboard anyway, and Stifle is still a thing.

[Wanderlust]

Great call on Meekstone for RUG!

[Wanderlust]

I took Imperial Bomberman to an SCQ IQ yesterday to a disappointing 2-3-1 finish. Although I made a few mistakes on the day, I also felt like I didn't bring the right sideboard.

2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Meekstone
1 Pithing Needle
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Mangara of Corondor
1 Meddling Mage
4 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Peacekeeper
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Grafdigger's Cage

I faced Null Rod, Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void, and/or Chalice of the Void in 4 of the 6 rounds, and although Mangara + Karakas/Oblivion Ring got there in one round, I desperately wanted more artifact/enchantment removal post-board for most of the day, especially something instantaneous and cheap to dig up with Imperial Recruiter. It seems like Null Rod in particular is having a serious uptick in popularity. I think I'll try to make room for at least an Ingot Chewer, and maybe also a War Priest of Thune or a Wispmare, going forward. EDIT: Ingot Chewer isn't fetchable via Imperial Recruiter, ;-).

Also, this is a whacky idea, but what about Figure of Destiny in place of a couple baubles/spellbombs? It's an okay mana sink for the Bomberman combo, and it contributes to the backup beatdown plan. Probably janky, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

[Mystical_Jackass]

It'd almost be cool if the deck could support green, 'cause you'd get great anti-hate like Quasali Pridemage, Back to Nature, and Reverent Silence. I'm also surprised nobody runs even 1-4x Mother of Runes, just to protect the combo or chump.

EDIT: I guess if you "really" wanted to, you could just axe red and use that creature tutor, you're essentially accomplishing the same thing if you think about it.. you could even sneak in some E. Witnesses if you go the route.

[.dk]

It'd almost be cool if the deck could support green, 'cause you'd get great anti-hate like Quasali Pridemage, Back to Nature, and Reverent Silence. I'm also surprised nobody runs even 1-4x Mother of Runes, just to protect the combo or chump.

I think the problem with Mom is that she doesn't have haste. I might be more inclined for green (like an older build of the deck) and Sylvan Safekeeper for that kind of effect, as you get it immediately.

[Wanderlust]

Splashing green for better sideboard options is totally possible, even while keeping Imperial Recruiter. -1 Plains, -something, +2 Savannah. And we still have Mox Opal supporting all the splashes. I think that's a route very much worth testing.

What are some better anti-Storm options than Ethersworn Canonist #s 2-4? How about Silence, or is that too narrow? Leyline of Sanctity doesn't seem like enough against Storm given the presence of Chain of Vapor/Void Snare in most lists and the fact that it's easy enough for then to Ad Naeseam into one. However, Leyline is amazing against Burn, which seems to be about as prevalent as Storm nowadays....

[Sorcinho]

Creatures (14)

1 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Auriok Salvagers
1 Spellskite
4 Imperial Recruiter
4 Trinket Mage
Lands (20)

2 Ancient Den
1 Great Furnace
2 Plains
3 Ancient Tomb
1 Arid Mesa
4 Cavern of Souls
1 City of Traitors
1 Plateau
1 Tundra
3 Windswept Heath
1 Karakas
Spells (26)

3 Conjurer's Bauble
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Grim Monolith
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Mox Opal
Sideboard

1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Tormod's Crypt
4 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Peacekeeper
1 War Priest of Thune
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Enlightened Tutor

played this list at our local 10 Mann wednesday legacy tournament and have to say this deck is a blast

easy the most fun to play deck i ever played in legacy

went 3:1 in total

played against:

Round1 :BUG Delver 2:1

Game 1 Turn 2 Combo protected by cavern hell yeah , lost game 2 to null rod won game 3 via Beatdown in the last extra turn

Round2 :UWr Miracles 1:2

won game 1 thanks to cavern and a surprise turn 3 combo , lost game 2 to 3 swords to plowshares , and game 3 to counter top + rest in peace + force of will without a cavern

Round3 :ANT 2:1

easy matchup ^^ lost game 1 beacuse he was on the play and had a second turn tendrills kill (i had my own second turn kill on my hand) game 2+ 3 sided in 4 canonist and all the other hate pieces won 2 games by beatdown

Round4 :BUG Delver 2:1

game 1 he had all the dazes and double delver but i managed to find the salvager number 3 in my last turn and killed him via combo
game 2 he had some counters some goyfs some removal a nihil spellbomb and a pithing needle on explosives - too much :D
game 3 was pretty much the same like game 1 he countered some of my stuff but i managed to suprise him with an magus of the moon trough cavern and was able to combo him out before his goyf killed me

changes i think we have to be done are at least one more artefakt/enchantment removal maybe a seal of cleansing and maybe add a nihil spellbomb to the mainboard instead of one of these baubles still not sure about the spellskite there was no time i wanted to fetch him with recruter and never draw him normally .

and we could add a Expedition Map to find ancient tomb or cavern of souls when needed



finally i have to say thank you to you guys for this list so i could finally play my favourite vintage deck in legacy

[Richard Cheese]

Splashing green for better sideboard options is totally possible, even while keeping Imperial Recruiter. -1 Plains, -something, +2 Savannah. And we still have Mox Opal supporting all the splashes. I think that's a route very much worth testing.

What are some better anti-Storm options than Ethersworn Canonist #s 2-4? How about Silence, or is that too narrow? Leyline of Sanctity doesn't seem like enough against Storm given the presence of Chain of Vapor/Vapor Snag in most lists and the fact that it's easy enough for then to Ad Naeseam into one. However, Leyline is amazing against Burn, which seems to be about as prevalent as Storm nowadays....

Green would give you access to Pridemage and Trygon Predator, which is a great card everyone seems to have forgotten about. You could also just run some number of Wear//Tear with your current manabase, which is a really nice flexible option. Seems like Null Rod and Needle will just keep getting more popular as long as Miracles and D&T continue to do well.

Storm seems harder to hate out here, since you can't really profitably run Thalia or Chalice. You could splash green to get Teeg, which saves you from Massacre but you're still hosed by Pyroclasm. With your manabase you could possibly land an early Lodestone Golem and put some serious pressure on that way. If you really want something you can tutor for, there's always Children of Korlis!

[Wanderlust]

changes i think we have to be done are at least one more artefakt/enchantment removal maybe a seal of cleansing and maybe add a nihil spellbomb to the mainboard instead of one of these baubles still not sure about the spellskite there was no time i wanted to fetch him with recruter and never draw him normally .

and we could add a Expedition Map to find ancient tomb or cavern of souls when needed

finally i have to say thank you to you guys for this list so i could finally play my favourite vintage deck in legacy

I'm glad you are enjoying the list! Seal of Cleansing is a great idea - probably better here than Disenchant or Wear//Tear since it can be E. tutored for. And I'm having fun with your Expedition Map idea - in addition to finding Cavern of Souls, it can also find Karakas for Mangara shenanigans. If it's the only 1cc artifact we have around when we combo off, at least instead of doing nothing with the infinite mana we can thin our deck of all lands! And to dive truly off the deep end, we could run a singleton Tolaria West so that Expedition Map could be a really expensive tutor for Lion's Eye Diamond (probably a terrible idea, but hey!)

Wear//Tear

I've been debating Wear//Tear versus Disenchant (and now Seal of Cleansing), and I think I prefer Disenchant or Seal here due to the fact that Null Rod shuts off a good chunk of our red sources (Mox Opal and Great Furnace.) I would be so bummed to have a Wear//Tear in hand against a Null Rod and have no way to cast it.

Storm seems harder to hate out here, since you can't really profitably run Thalia or Chalice. You could splash green to get Teeg, which saves you from Massacre but you're still hosed by Pyroclasm. With your manabase you could possibly land an early Lodestone Golem and put some serious pressure on that way. If you really want something you can tutor for, there's always Children of Korlis!

Children of Korlis is HILARIOUS, totally love it. I'm surprised it doesn't come up as Storm hate more often, seems really good. In addition to hosing Tendrils, it can often even gain back a turn of damage from Empty the Warrens tokens.

[Wanderlust]

Scorcinho, you really got me thinking with the Expedition Map suggestion. The challenge is: find a land that Expedition Map can tutor up that (essentially) wins the game with infinite mana up under Bomberman. Here's what I came up with:

Eye of Ugin -> Emrakul into another turn -> Karakas -> take infinite turns.
Dark Depths
Kessig Wolf Run

Also worth noting is that Sensei's Divining Top + Expedition Map under Bomberman infinite mana wins the game, as you can shuffle your library indefinitely until you find a Pyrite Spellbomb.

EDIT: Cycling a Secluded Steppe (or cracking a Horizon Canopy) after tutoring all of the lands out of your deck with Expedition Map gives you roughly a 45% chance of drawing a win condition (depending on what you've drawn throughout the rest of the game, of course.)

2nd EDIT: Tolaria West -> Mishra's Bauble, loop Mishra's Bauble to look at the top card of your library while shuffling away chaff by looping Expedition Map, cycle Secluded Steppe/Horizon Canopy once there is a win condition on top, win.

So, the real question is: is jumping through all of the hoops to make Expedition Map work actually better than just playing Spellbombs and Conjurer's Baubles?

[Richard Cheese]

My bad, did not look closely enough at your manabase before suggesting wear/tear. Maybe Devout Chaplain? It might be too slow since you can't use it right away, but it works with your manabase, tutorable with Recruiter, and castable off Cavern on Humans.

I guess nobody runs Children because it provides no clock and is super easy to deal with.

[.dk]

Also worth noting is that Sensei's Divining Top + Expedition Map under Bomberman infinite mana wins the game, as you can shuffle your library indefinitely until you find a Pyrite Spellbomb.

Unfortunately, that doesn't work under the current tournament rules, for the same reason that you can't really play Four Horsemen anymore. Non-deterministic looping like that is stalling or slow play or something or other now, if you can't provide a set number of iterations that you will be performing before achieving the condition that you want.

Expedition Map + Eye of Ugin + Emrakul seems like a pretty sweet alternate win condition. I'm also not yet sure how, but I wonder if there are cases that you can use the Emrakul shuffle trigger in the graveyard as an ability, rather than a drawback, like Tin Fins does. Does take up 3 more slots though... wonder if that is worth it. Definitely seems like it is worth testing though.

I also think Seal of Cleansing is a great suggestion as well, since it can be tutored for. Another option could be Aura of Silence. Too bad Serenity hits your side of the board as well....

[Wanderlust]

Unfortunately, that doesn't work under the current tournament rules, for the same reason that you can't really play Four Horsemen anymore. Non-deterministic looping like that is stalling or slow play or something or other now, if you can't provide a set number of iterations that you will be performing before achieving the condition that you want.

A valid concern. So if this came up in a tournament, I would just perform the actions in full rather than saying "hey, it's an infinite loop." I don't think it would take many iterations at all to find one of 15ish win conditions / tutors in a deck with all of the lands tutored out of it - probably a couple shuffles at most. On a bad day.

[.dk]

A valid concern. So if this came up in a tournament, I would just perform the actions in full rather than saying "hey, it's an infinite loop." I don't think it would take many iterations at all to find one of 15ish win conditions / tutors in a deck with all of the lands tutored out of it - probably a couple shuffles at most. On a bad day.

Well, if you don't happen to, you can easily get slow play called on you. I mean, the odds are FAR greater than they are in Four Horsemen, so you're probably right that it is fine.

[Admiral_Arzar]

I played the list in the opening post (swapping Nihil Spellbomb into the main) to a 3-1 record at my local last night. Unfortunately I finished 5th on tiebreakers and missed top 4. I lost in 3 to Infect (he won the roll, seems to be the determining factor here). Beat TES in 3, beat ReAnimator in 2, and beat Shardless BUG in 2. Apparently everyone at my LGS decided to show up with combo, but the deck held up well. I mulled for land a lot but also got flooded a lot which was weird. I felt like there weren't enough cheap shuffle effects as I would just Top into lands continually - not sure what card could fix this though. Grim Monolith was awful and got boarded out, I was never actually happy to draw it. Magus of the Moon was a blowout the one time I actually drew and cast it (game 2 vs. Infect, lol Inkmoth Mountain). Maindeck Nihil Spellbomb and the one-of Karakas saved me vs. ReAnimator. Has anyone considered Faithless Looting in here? I found I often had a lot of superfluous lands and artifacts that I wouldn't care about discarding.

EDIT: Techy play of the night. I was stuck on three lands against ReAnimator with no yard hate but I was holding Peacekeeper, Salvagers, and a Trinket Mage with LED and a Spellbomb in play. He casts Exhume with an Inkwell Leviathan in the yard. In response break LED for WWW, return Auriok Salvagers with Exhume. Activate Salvagers returning LED, crack Spellbomb drawing a card. Untap, combo off.

[Wanderlust]

EDIT: Techy play of the night. I was stuck on three lands against ReAnimator with no yard hate but I was holding Peacekeeper, Salvagers, and a Trinket Mage with LED and a Spellbomb in play. He casts Exhume with an Inkwell Leviathan in the yard. In response break LED for WWW, return Auriok Salvagers with Exhume. Activate Salvagers returning LED, crack Spellbomb drawing a card. Untap, combo off.

That's a beautiful play. I honestly hadn't thought of how good Lion's Eye Diamond is against Reanimator on the Exhume plan. Makes that matchup seem less scary.

Has anyone considered Faithless Looting in here? I found I often had a lot of superfluous lands and artifacts that I wouldn't care about discarding.

Faithless Looting is interesting. I've tried jamming Brainstorm in the deck and haven't loved it, since it doesn't really synergize with Top that well, and it messes up the manabase just enough to be bothersome, but Faithless Looting might be a one-mana "cantrip" that fits here. If some number of Faithless Lootings do make it in, I wonder if it could be worth running a singleton Goblin Welder to tutor up with Imperial Recruiter, and a couple robots, maybe Wurmcoil Engine, like some versions of UR Painter have attempted in the past? (My initial concern is that the deck's curve is already pretty high, so adding 6cmc dudes seems a little greedy.) Maybe Faithless Looting is just fine without trying to go that route, though.

you should probably go down the aggro-combo-control route by messing around with Stoneforge Mystic/Batterskull and a Sword and you can really break the human tutor targets like with Mother of Runes or Meddling Mage to be annoying as hell.

I've finally come around to testing your idea, FinalFortune. Tonight I'll be running the deck at a local with 1x Stoneforge Mystic and 1x Umezawa's Jitte in the main. I want to be able to beat Death and Taxes (which felt really rough previously) and have a better beatdown plan B: Imperial Recruiter -> Stoneforge -> Jitte is insane value, I can't resist giving it a shot. I like that with the addition of just those two cards, the deck can suddenly attack from a totally new angle. I'll also be trying out a board with some green in it (for Gaddock Teeg and a couple Qasali Pridemages) at the expense of Mangara, which has felt too slow at its job.

Worth noting, for Cavern of Souls purposes, is that both Trinket Mage and Qasali Pridemage are Wizards and both Imperial Recruiter and Gaddock Teeg are Advisors, so Cavern can help cast the green dudes post-board while still color-fixing for one half of the tutor package.

[Wanderlust]

So the bad news is I have gone 6-7-1 with this deck over the past 3 events. I've faced a very random metagame, which I don't think is great for this deck, since it is designed to prey upon mostly Tier 1 decks, esp. BUG variants, Delver variants, Blade variants. Only 2 of my 14 matches were against any of those. My losses were to Burn (0-2), Storm (0-2), Death and Taxes (0-2), UB Tezzeret (1-2), Jund Depths (0-2), Elves (1-2), and Dredge (1-2). I think part of the problem is that I haven't tested very much against many of those decks, and accordingly, made some pretty horrendous misplays. Live and learn, I guess. The wins were against RUG Delver (2-0), 4 Color Loam (2-1), Reanimator (2-0), 2x Buried Alive/Vengevine Zombies (2-0, 2-1), and Mono-Green Ramp (2-0). The draw was against Shardless BUG packing Null Rod in the board.

Re: the Stoneforge plan. I tried out 1x Stoneforge, 1x Jitte main - this was a mistake. I found it too inconsistent and situational. If the deck is going to go the Stoneforge route, I think there have to be at least 3 of them plus a Batterskull and a Jitte. But that's tough to fit into the shell, in my opinion, without diluting the deck's main gameplan.

However, I AM totally sold on the green splash - Qasali Pridemage and Teeg help fill so many holes. Given my experience in the past few weeks, here's what I'd run at the next event:

4 Auriok Salvagers
4 Imperial Recruiter
3 Trinket Mage
1 Qasali Pridemage

2 Enlightened Tutor
4 Swords to Plowshares

2 Engineered Explosives
4 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Conjurer's Bauble
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Mox Opal
2 Grim Monolith

4 Cavern of Souls
3 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
2 Ancient Den
2 Great Furnace
1 Arid Mesa
3 Windswept Heath
1 Plains
1 Plateau
1 Tundra
1 Savannah
1 Karakas

Sideboard:
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Meekstone
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Meddling Mage
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Silence (is there anything else that's relevant against both Burn and Storm?)