Spicy Popcorn

[Bahra]

Hi

I guess it's finally time to write the thread (which might later become a primer) for the deck I've been working on since yesterday

So here we go

Spicy Popcorn



The story

TL;DR: You can watch the origin of the deck here and the first league with the first 4 matches in this twitch VOD

It started when a friend sent me the list for a UW Death and Taxes deck, I said I'd look at it on stream, adjust it until I liked it and then try it in a league so he could see if it's something he would like to play and see how it works. Well I looked at the list and it was just so horribly unplayable from a theoretical standpoint that I refused to play it at all and considered it a complete waste of time

That accomplished almost nothing, I say almost because actually it gave me the appetite to try something new! I thought I was gonna play something new, cool and exciting and was left feeling utterly disappointed. And frankly, I had blue balls. So how do I cure these blue balls? Well earlier I had been working on a wacky version of D&T with something as crazy and "unplayable" as Fleshbag Marauder and even Disciple of Bolas, that's another story but basically I wanted something to kill my Hallowed Spiritkeeper when sometimes my opponents just raced it in the air instead of trading with it as I intended. So I thought I'd make a brand new deck that used the relatively powerful interaction of Disciple of bolas and Hallowed Spiritkeeper, and then build around it. Fast forward through a terrible green based, nic fit looking monstrosity that I dismissed before even putting lands in it - I reached what some people would call an unplayable pile of garbage.

Behold the first iteration of Spicy Popcorn



I believed that this pile could do something, so I actually just immediately entered a competitive Legacy league with 5 matches to be played before I could join with another deck (unless I dropped of course). Keep in mind that this was all while I was streaming, and completely ignoring all advice from my twitch chat I had now "prepared" for and entered a 5 match Legacy league.

The whole spectacle can be seen here and the last match here

2-1 ANT
2-1 LED Dredge
2-0 Miracles
2-0 Infect
2-0 4c Leovold

So that's a 5-0

Sweet! But I learned from that League, even though the deck crushed there was a lot of things that could've actually gone better. The next few leagues I replaced cards and tried many different things before I arrived at the following list that I believe is much better and more consistent. I am still tuning it and will stream it regularly over the next few weeks if not longer.

The cards that make up the backbone of the deck

Hallowed Spiritkeeper

This is the finisher of the deck, but it does so much more. The synergy with Cabal Therapy, Fleshbag Marauder, Recruiter of the guard is incredibly strong. Without this card there would be no deck.

Aether Vial

Makes our deck work with fewer lands and lets us have stronger draws.

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

How can we not play this combo killer when we're playing 25+ creatures?


The latest list of Spicy Popcorn



I'll leave it at that for now and then I'll update the thread as we go a long, and write much more information on the deck if I truly believe it is competitive.

[mistercakes]

happy to see leovold did make the cut. too bad about the bunny.

[aslidsiksoraksi]

knowing nothing about anything, I just wanted to come in here and say this is a sweet-looking deck. spirit-keeper can do broken stuff, and i love vial with strix. excited to watch the stream later on, and glad someone is out there brewing!

[Mr. Safety]

So is the idea to be a death & taxes type of deck, just using the best creatures instead of finding only the best white creatures? This reminds me of the modern Humans deck. It's all-in on creature synergies. It's interesting how the format has gotten to the perceived point of "the only 'real' Vial deck is D&T", but there is plenty of space for other Vial decks (goblins and merfolk don't count anymore, sadly.)

[Memories of the Time]

22 lands with 4 drs and 4 vial seems a lot (without ports too), but you've increased it between the two lists?

[pettdan]

I linked this list in the primer in this other thread, it shares a couple of things with the MOST deck. Basically changing the Recruiters into Fauna Shaman and changing a few lands into mana dorks would make it similar to MOST. Oh, and the Therapies. (I was actually trying to add Therapies and a Veteran Explorer the other day, probably a dead end road I thought but here is some motivation to continue with that idea.) Have a look here, maybe you'll get some ideas. I'll keep a close eye on this anyway... Very nice to see and read btw!

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...radewind-Rider

[Bahra]

22 lands with 4 drs and 4 vial seems a lot (without ports too), but you've increased it between the two lists?

Yea I had real problems with getting mana screwed very easily, maybe my draws have just been on the edges of statistical variance. But atm I've been flooded or screwed basically every other game.

I only won 50% of my matches today on stream, so I'm actually gonna cut the wastelands to try to increase consistency, it's a huge trade off in power but I really need to find consistency with the mana base in this deck, when there's so much power to be gained from just being able to play my creatures/spells.