Skilled Maniac
Skilled Maniac is a highly synergistic blue combo deck that wins via the Laboratory Maniac + Thought Lash combo or via Skilled Borrower with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker on top of the library.
It is very resilient as it has a lot of digging power, a very good protection suit and most of its combo pieces are not dead on their own.
The current deck list as of 7/1/2014:
4 Thought Lash
4 Long-Term Plans
4 Skill Borrower
3 Laboratory Maniac
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Griselbrand
4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection
2 Spell Pierce
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
7 Island
4 City of Traitors
2 Ancient Tomb
Sideboard:
3 Culling Scales
3 Defense Grid
3 Counterbalance
3 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Devastation Tide
1 Misdirection
1 Psychic Theft
Ways to Victory:
Plan A: Thought Lash + Laboratory Maniac: Mill your whole library with Lash and win in your draw step or with Brainstorm/Ponder/Gitaxian Probe/ Sensei's Divning Top
Plan B: Skill Borrower + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker on top of the library: Make an arbitrary number of tokens at the opponents end step and win with your next attack
Plan C: Skill Borrower + Griselbrand on top of your library: draw 7 or 14 cards and go for Plan A/B afterwards
Card Choices:
Maindeck:
4 Thought Lash: the deck is the perfect home for this card and I am always happy to see it in my opening grip.
In contrast to many other cards that are part of a combo, it 's not dead on its own. In fact, it buys several turns against fair decks and some unfair decks (e.g. Infect) to establish one of the combos.
Its applications:
1) Thought Lash + Laboratory Maniac: Plan A
2) Thought Lash + Skill Borrower: lets you find any card of your deck and sets up a Kiki-Borrower
3) turns Sensei's Divining Top into a digging machine
4) turns Long-Term Plans into a pseudo Vampiric Tutor
3 Laboratory Maniac: it is the only combo piece (in addition to the obvious Kiki-Jiki and Griselbrand) that is kind of dead alone. You definately want to draw a Maniac during the game, but you don't want to have it in your opening seven most of the time. Considering all the cantrips that can reliably find it and the fact that it pitches to FoW and Misdirection, 3 seems to be the right number.
4 Skill Borrower: in this shell it can unfold its full potential. An unanswered Skill Borrower is a huge threat. With the help of cantrips, Thought Lash and Long Term Plans it can win games out of nowhere.
Moreover, it helps to clear the way for Laboratory Maniac as it is a magnet for creature removal.
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker: part of Plan B
1 Griselbrand: part of Plan C
4 Long-Term Plans: tutor for every card of your deck that spells Short Term Plans with the help of Ponder/SDT/Brainstorm/Gitaxian Probe/Thought Lash and can set up a Grisel- or Kiki-Borrower
4 Brainstorm: In this deck its power level rises to a new dimension.
In addition to its well-known uses it can set up a Grisel-Borrower on turn 1 and acts as instant speed protection once the Lab/Lash combo is assembled.
4 Sensei's Divining Top: outstandingly good in this deck:
1) SDT+ Thought Lash (s.o.)
2) SDT + Skill Borrower: blanks creature removal as soon as Borrower loses summoning sickness
3) acts as uncounterable (!) instant speed protection once the Lab/Lash combo is assembled
4) enables the Top/CB soft lock out of the sideboard
5) enables the Top/Culling Scales soft lock out of the sideboard
6) enables Miracle cards out of the sideboard
3 Gitaxian Probe: a big help for the right sequence of your spells, lets you adapt your game plan to the opponents hand, checks if the coast is clear for Grisel-/Kiki-Borrower and the all-in-ish Lab/Lash combo, gets cards faster into your hand that were tutored up with Long Term Plans and enables T3 kills (T2 LabMan, T3 Lash, Probe)
4 Ponder: digs for combo pieces, lands and protection, strengthens the resiliency of the deck
4 Force of Will: self-explanatory
3 Misdirection: pushes through combo pieces and protects Skill Borrower and Maniac from removal
2 Spell Pierce: deals with troublesome cards like Jitte, Liliana, Needle and co.
4 City of Traitors, 2 Ancient Tomb: help to power out Skill Borrower, LabMan, Long Term Plans and Thought Lash, enable much faster kills
7 blue fetchlands: shuffle Brainstorm-, Ponder- and SDT-garbage away, randomly turn Borrower into a monster
Cards to consider for the sideboard:
Culling Scales: good against hatebears, Counterbalance and Liliana, soft lock with SDT (target SDT, flip it in response so that Culling Scales' effect fizzles: in this way Culling Scales stays permanently in play), an early Culling Scales against decks like Death n Taxes often wins you the game
Defense Grid: comes in against counterspell heavy decks like RUG and Miracles
Counterbalance: comes in against combo decks and those with a lot of 1-drops
Grafdigger's Cage: buys time against the faster graveyard decks
Devastation Tide: catch-all answer against permanents
How to play the deck:
Against fair decks resolving Thought Lash is key to success as it gives you plenty of time to find what you need. Many top tier decks don't have a preboard answer to it (Abrupt Decay can't hit it).
One of the biggest strengths of the deck is that it's so flexible and that it can attack from two different angles.
Once you know against which deck you play or have checked the opponents hand with Gitaxian Probe, your can decide which route fits best.
Against decks without creature removal it is safe to play Skill Borrower or Lab Man on turn 2/3 and try to find the rest of the combo during the next turns whereas against fair decks it is often better to wait for Long Term Plans or Thought Lash rather than play them blindly.
Corner cases are hands with Skill Borrower, LabMan and Thought Lash where Skill Borrower can be used as a measure to decoy creature removal.
In the case of Long-Term Plans in your opening hand it is sometimes correct to not probe your opponent right away and wait.
Be careful with your fetchlands. In scenarios involving Brainstorm and Kiki-Jiki/ Griselbrand (with enough life) or Long Term Plans in your hand you have to crack your fetchlands before playing Brainstorm/Long Term Plans.
The decks worst enemies are Pithing Needle and Phyrexian Revoker as all of the decks combos use activated abilities. It can be very problematic when Thought Lash is shut down, so there should be some cards in your sideboard addressing this issue.
Matchups: still to come
This weekend I took the deck to a Legacy tournament in Prague (149 participants).
I went 5-3, but I could have done much better. I was out of practice and made unexplainable play mistakes that cost me games.
The deck felt really powerful though and I am convinced that competent pilots can put up good results with it.
Notable mis-/plays:
Round 2 against Wizards:
My opponent has 3 Cursecatchers, 1 Silvergrill Adept and a Mutavault in play and one unknown card in his hand. He attacks me with everything while I am at 12 life, have three islands, 1 Ancient Tomb, a Skill Borrower and a SDT in play and Long-Term Plans with FOW backup in hand.
I block 1 Cursecatcher and drop to 6. At the end of turn I tutor up Kiki-Jiki and put it on top of my library with SDT. When I tap Skill Borrower to copy it, he plays his last card in hand: Vapor Snag. I FOW without thinking because in my mind I can pay for the Cursecatchers but I can 't cause I used mana for SDT.
The result: I drop to two, can only play one blocker next turn, and am attacked exactly for lethal by his Mutavault and Adept.
I should have just tutored up and dropped Thought Lash and digged for Maniac with SDT with plenty of turns.
Round 7 against U/W Miracles:
I have got Lab Man, S.Borrower and T.Lash in play. He taps out for Terminus. In response I remove cards from my library until SDT is on top. I tap S.Borrower to draw a card and remove the rest of my library in response for the win.
In round 5 against Death n Taxes i played Long-Term Plans and realized that I had just wasted the card because I had to remove cards with Thought Lash to prevent damage.
In most of the cases it is best to play LTP at the end of turn.
The sideboard is a mess because I decided two days before the event to participate in it, so that there is a lot of space to improve it.
Culling Scales was really good against Death n Taxes and can easily lock them out of the game when combined with SDT.
This is a very creative concept. If you put in a couple of Winding Canyons, you can flash Lab Maniac in at the end of turn, sacrifice your Thought Lash during your upkeep, and win during your draw step.
Sweet!
Looking forward to the matchup analysis and hope this will be at least somehow playable.
First thoughts:
Sweepers seem necessary thinking about elves and dnt as problemeatic matchups. I assume culling scales will often enough be too little too late. Have you thought about light splashes for the SB (pyroclasm)? Ratchet Bomb might be another option.
The Sol land split might also not be optimal. Opening with Top+Activate is a powerful play but not really sexy with City of Traitors.
Finding the right acceleration is challenging due to the deck being mana and color hungry and rather slow so damage is an issue. One shots like petals might not be good as you need a more permanent acceleration.
Did you test other mana artefacts? - they also have a nice synergy with skill borrower. Grim Monolith comes to mind but the Talismans might be an alternative to support a splash or Mind Stone to cycle or activate the combo later on. Also Turn 2 thought lash seems nice...
Other thoughts are if not other powerful control elements (ensnaring bridge, back to basics, blood moon) might be a nice addition in the 75 to buy time/bait counters.
Overall my feeling is that the deck is a little bit too clunky. Is long term plans really that good? Sneak plays only 2 intuition for a reason. Assuming you have access to BS, Ponder or top 80% of the time LT Plans is still card disadvantage and costs 2 more than Enlightened Tutor, Worldy Tutor which are also not widely played.
Currently playing: Elves
Is there any room for Chromatic Sphere? Thought Lash and Chromatic Sphere in play allow you to mill your entire library and draw a card without giving your opponent priority so they can't remove Laboratory Maniac.
Also, I'm wondering if there are any combos with Skill Borrower that don't require cards that are completely unplayable. Specifically, I'm thinking that there could be some combination of two activated abilities that would win the game, so your two card combo would be Thought Lash and Skill Borrower; you have the two cards in play, Exile your library down to Card A, activate its ability, then Exile down to card B, Activate its ability. The first thing that comes to mind for me is Wall of Blood and Skarrgan Skybreaker or Ghitu Fire-Eater, but that's infinitely worse on multiple levels--maybe there's some two card combo out there that just hasn't been stumbled onto yet.
Cooooool idea boss. I think that W splash could be the best one, because of:
-E.Tutor
-Terminus
-Detection Sphere/Moat/Orim other sb-main little choice
This is my list, i think that Control-Combo version is the only reasonable one: we aren't fast (and Skill summon's sickness is one of the most bitter weakness) but we can be solid, playing a mid-long-term plan (lol) settling down at the situation.
4 Thought Lash
4 Skill Borrower
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Island
3 City of Traitors
3 Ancient Tomb
3 Counterbalance
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Scroll Rack
2 Tundra
4 Enlightened Tutor
1 Detention Sphere
1 Phyrexian Devourer (Huge card with Skill, playable alone)
2 Terminus
1 Plains(or 3° Tundra)
SB: 1 Culling Scales
SB: 1 Trinket Mage
SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 3 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Ensnaring Bridge
SB: 2 Terminus
SB: 1 Moat
SB: 1 Defense Grid
SB: 1 Counterbalance
SB: 1 Devastation Tide
Looks like a solid home for Vedalken Æthermage. Can wizard cycle to maniac.
Not bad, must see if there is any utility that's a wizzy for this deck (other Skill, obv).
Btw, i think that there are two ways: Heavy Combo solution (Maniac+Skill+Devourer+Lash+Tutor, 4x) or a Control-Combo one: not sure what's the best.
Big problem i've found is Skill summon's sickness (for two turns, activating her on EOT... double opportunity for opponent's Jace/Liliana/ecc) and a well balanced manabase.
It will take some time until I post something about the matchups. I haven't played a lot with the deck yet and have to do a lot of stuff the next weeks. I hope you guys will help me with that by sharing your experiences ;)
A light black splash would enable Lim-Dul's Vault in the maindeck and Toxic Deluge out of the sideboard.
In the tournament in Prague I played 4 Ancient Tombs and 2 City of Traitor. That split didn't feel optimal as the life loss hurt in many games.
I think that 3/3 could be the right split.
I haven't tested mana artifacts yet but I like the idea of Talismans. I will definately try them out! Back to basics should probably also be somewhere in the 75.
LTP is not really card disadvantage in case of S.Borrower because the top of your library is the place where you want the card to be.
4 could be too much though.
I don't think that Chromatic Sphere is good because it doesn't do much on its own and Brainstorm/SDT are usually enough to protect Maniac.
The problem of the card A+B combo is that in 50% of the cases card B is above card A in your library ruining your plan.
Lantern of Insight seems good here, maybe Soothsaying?
Had a game with Thoughtlash, Counterbalance, and Skill Borrower all out. THAT was amazing. Countered every spell he played that turn (and EOT made a million Skill Borrowers, for the next turn win).
Liking the idea a ton. Chromatic Sphere seems like it would help against Abrupt Decay's (which are giving me issues), but otherwise the list is so solid I wouldn't change much. I actually don't like 4 Long Term Planning, so I might cut 1-2 for the 2 sphere's.
Add 1-2 Jace? Gives Brainstorm (that is an essantial spell here), alternative win-con ecc ecc
Plus, i think that W splash for E.Tutor deserve attention =D
I'm thinking about adding Counterbalance to the main deck, but I haven't got any experience with control decks.
Can it still be worth it to play 3 Counterbalance main deck although I don't play any other 2 CMC spells??
In theory CB can at least protect Skill Maniac and Lab Man.
Mmm, it's a shame that the oracle text of Phyrexian Devourer states the exiling as a cost, not an effect.
Also, a question: what happens with Skill Borrower and "conditional" activated abilities? Like e.g. [cards]Anavolver[/carsd], or other things that state that this creature has this activated ability "if x and y is met"?
Deck looks like fun (though with some very questionable choices, such as Long-Term Plans), I fail to see though how this deck can be any more consistent / faster than SnT.dec?
Exactly, LTP and honestly too Skill Borrower seem so slow - if you cast it on turn x, you can only at the end of your opponent's turn x+1 use the Kiki-Jiki trick, to attack on turn x+2. That's giving your opponents an extra 2 turns... Is that really worth it?
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