This. This is why Eons, and to a lesser extent Gamble and Chrome Mox, don't seem that great to me. TES isn't linear, it just needs a critical number of cards to go off. This is a linear combo that needs specific pieces much more than random cards.
Yeah that's an option. Just need to figure out how/where to make room in the 75.Crazy idea - running some green land in SB to provide access to Green G2? Or something dumb like -1 Underground Sea, -1 Badlands, +1 Tropical Island, +1 Taiga (in the mana base from Post 54)
I found the 4-color mana unstable at times. Sometimes I just barely had the mana and colors needed to go off. It was good enough to goldfish, but I foresee losses to Wasteland and Blood Moon, especially after mulligans or greedy keeps. Playing 5 colors of duals could get even riskier. More artifact mana (Mox Opal) like TES may solve that if we can hit a critical artifact count, so maybe that would make the green easier.
We could also try rainbow lands. Fetches+duals were for 2 main reasons:
-graveyard fuel to Escape
-Brainstorm
Burning Inquiry looks good. Random discard cantrips both players out of the stability of an opening hand and it isn’t awful if you’re already going off. Also that direction means Notion Thief is pseudo-storm stax. Dream Salvage is also excellent with BI.
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Expect me or die. I play SI.
I got a chance to goldfish this list 20 times. It was really fun to goldfish!
With my results, I have some concerns about consistency and disruption in real games. Maybe this shell could be improved.
Here's what I noticed.
- The artifact mana is really explosive, enabling faster wins and more degeneracy with Echo of Eons
- I got a lot more turn 1 wins, and many turn 2 wins, but unprotected more often.
- Your protection is strong but slower and a bigger strain on the mana (2 mana for Grid, or hold open green for Veil on the combo turn). To get protected wins I usually had to wait until turn 3 (blowing a Petal on Defense Grid sucks). The great thing about TS and Pact is they don't slow you down on the combo turn.
- The maindeck has 7 answers for counters, but nothing for other disruptive cards, so its skewed towards beating blue decks G1. Thoughtseize can take out anything (e.g. Thalia, Eidolon, Crop Rotation into Marit Lage) and be cast the turn before you go off.
- Many times I played Chrome Mox imprinting nothing (to get Metalcraft) or Chrome Mox imprinting on off-color card for "colorless" mana. It must be necessary for Mox Opal, but is there anything better?
- Abrupt Decay doesn't kill Leyline of the Void/Sanctity, and unlike TES you don't have Burning Wish to find Reverent Silence, so beating Leylines seems hard.
- Every single time I used Grapeshot in the main, Burning Wish would have been as good or better.
- Entomb into Echo or Gamble into LED/Echo is a great way to salvage a bad hand for 1 mana.
- Echo of Eons can fizzle. Most of the time you get gas, but the random draws can backfire.
- Between Echo, Gamble, conditional mana sources, some cards that are bad in multiples, and less card selection, the deck is higher variance. More explosive but higher variance.
The shell is so explosive, especially with Echo to save bad hands, that it allows you to goldfish even with a lot of chaff. That doesn't mean they aren't chaff though. e.g. double Defense Grid draws, double Veil draws, double Mox Opal draws (with 0-1 other artifact FTL), or double Chrome Mox draws are awkward. Sometimes you can still win even if Gamble discards an important card, by switching lines. Goldfishing maybe that's fine, but in real games with disruption? Other times I just plain lost to Gamble. It also makes mulligan decisions awkward, not knowing which cards you'll keep. I think we can do better than Gamble.
Enlightened Tutor is slower (pass the turn), but it finds Underworld Breach, LED, Defense Grid, or a bunch of sideboard cards too and it never backfires.
There's also Wishclaw Talisman. Bryant Cook plays 4 copies main in TES now. It's an artifact for Metalcraft, and it's a much more effective tutor for our combo pieces and protection than anything else. We win that turn so who cares what happens to Talisman. The only drawback is it's slow.
Last edited by FTW; 01-03-2020 at 08:48 AM.
I tested my list again today:
2:0 ANT
2:1 Grixis Delver
2:0 Elves
2:0 Bug Delver
yesterday 2x 2:1 against 4c Miracle and lost once
2:1 Bug Delver
2:0 Lands
played more against miracle and came closer to this version today.
The Deck is insane!
I don't think we want slow cards like E-Tutor or white.
The Artifact mana base feat Defense grid is definitely strong!
Gamble is great. people should test the card better. Sure it can go wrong but the trick is too find LED or ECHO G1 and win with it or put us in a very good position.
I often boardet it out against delver because those match up are harder and gamble feels bad here. I try to grind a little bit there.
With Grinding we come to the next part. This deck can go off fast, really fast. The hardest part is too understand the opponents deck and how to play around the counter. Sometimes you just have to go for the double counter all in.
Its the same with every combo deck. Anyway i think this Deck is a great Grinder too. Also to board correct is really important. I feel like some tutor cards are insane g1 but depending on the match worse postboard.
I don't have any real boarding plan yet but let's see how it goes and how people like it.
I recommand a Jace, Wielder of Mystery instead of tendrils in the sb. I think he is the better alternate win con against crop rotation(glacial Chasm) or leyline of sanctity decks.
Also i try to split cards as 2off like decay is strong against miracle or delver for example. Silence for stompy and other random decks and so on. Works quit good so far.
My advice is to play actual match ups instead of Goldfishing:D then we get more data together. Don't be afraid to try it more when you lose or unlucky, its legacy and this deck is really hard to play.
Greets Pascal
What about this theory crafting using the different ideas people presented for a heavy protection version:
The idealized game plan is:
Turn 1 - Land + Discard
Turn 2 - Land + Proactive Protection CMC
Turn 3 - Search
Turn 4 - Land/Accel Reactive Protection --> "Combo"
Please note that the idea behind this is that you can definitely go off earlier with or without protection, search earlier, etc.
17 - Combo
4 LED
4 Underworld Break
4 Brainfreeze
3 Entomb
2 Burning Wish
17 - Protection
- Reactive
4 Pact of Negation
3 [[Veil of Summer]](bracketed in case you want other reactive solutions)
- Discard
4 Thoughtseize
3 Duress
- Proactive
3 [[Defense Grid]] (bracketed in case you want other proactive solutions)
7 - Search
4 Enlightened Tutor
3 Wishclaw Talisman
4 - Acceleration
4 Lotus Petal
15 - Lands
[[Mystical theoretical configuration at this point]]
SB 15
6 - Wishboard
1 Massacre
1 Grapeshot
1 Tome Scour
1 Echo of Eons
1 Dark Ritual
1 Rite of Flame
9 - Other
The idea compared to FTW's post 54 version is that casting Wishclaw the turn prior is a 1 mana tutor that searches for anything you need the turn you go off, so it should replace the draw spells entirely. This allows you to just play a crap ton more protection, especially since enlightened tutor can now seach up brainfreeze if necessary (by looking up the wishclaw first - super slow but still possible now). Additionally, since blue isn't needed now unless you're going off you can use green mana.
Unfortunately, something that the measly 15 lands and only 4 accel doesn't contend with is that the Most expensive cost of the combo during the go off phase is 2RBG (wishclaw activation + entomb for lotus + veil of summer. That said we can find a better balance between the 17 protection and the 4 Accel for a perhaps best of worlds option.
For example we can do 10/9 protection/Accel division.
The issue with that task seems to me deciding what is the other good accel? Chrome Mox doesn't really work right in this deck and we rarely have 3 artifacts for Mox Opal to be reliable
Thanks for posting your real match results! Great results Pascal.
I play online so I don't have many opportunities to test spoiler cards yet. I'm stuck goldfishing or playing local matches on Cockatrice until the Theros release. It's good to hear real results.
Did you try the other version before? It also had insane T2 win potential. ETutor isn't that slow. You cast it turn 1 to go off turn 2. It can also find SB answers.
I think the hardest part is choosing whether to roll the dice with Echos or try for the Breach line, or how much protection you need against the opponent without seeing their hand, due to the inherent variance and less information. Sometimes you can try to go off now or wait and hope for more resources, but because the line is non-deterministic the choice is not obvious. I waited on some only to brick for turns, and I rushed others that maybe I should have waited longer for. Mulligans are less clear too. With the Breach line it's very linear. You either have the resources to win or you don't, fizzling is basically non-existent.My advice is to play actual match ups instead of Goldfishing:D then we get more data together. Don't be afraid to try it more when you lose or unlucky, its legacy and this deck is really hard to play.
Even my first goldfishes with your deck were good, just not convinced they're better than what we had before:
Turn 1 win unprotected
Turn 1 win unprotected
Turn 1 win unprotected
Turn 1 Gamble lost to the discard. Replayed with a different random discard it won turn 3 with Defense Grid.
Turn 2 win unprotected, but got lucky with both Gamble & a topdeck
Turn 3 win unprotected after a T1 Gamble backfired and T2 Echo gave me a dud 7
Turn 3 win behind Defense Grid
Mulled to 5 and fizzled
Turn 4 win behind 2x Defense Grid + Veil, after turn 3 Gamble for LED discarded the LED
Turn 1 win unprotected
Turn 3 win behind Defense Grid
Turn 2 went off and fizzled on the 3rd Echo
Mulled to oblivion
Turn 2 win unprotected
Turn 3 win with Veil up
Turn 4 win behind Defense Grid after tried going off turn 1 with Veil and fizzled off Echo, then tried again turn 2 and fizzled after 2 Echos
...
It's very explosive! The biggest issue I found was just variance (relying more on randomness) and fewer fast wins with protection.
To get protection you have to slow down a lot, due to the awkward mana requirements for Veil and Defense Grid. I don't know how well it would grind against a blue deck with pressure (e.g Delver) without testing real games. What I like about our other build is the balance between speed and protection.
Again, this needs to be tested in real matches. Your deck looks strong for sure. My gut says the shell could be optimized though.
Also did you test any matches vs Leyline of the Void? I think your SB will have a hard time with it.
-1 Grapeshot +1 Burning Wish seems like an easy fix. (opens up Wish for Reverent Silence, or it can find a win con)
I've tested Gamble a lot over the years in various decks, kept trying to break it unsuccessfully. Gamble has been tested in other combo decks in the past and never stayed in the final version, not even in ones that use the GY like BR Reanimator or Buried Phoenix. In a short number of matches it can be great, but over 100+ matches players usually find the variance isn't worth it. Maybe your deck is the exception, I haven't played real games with it yet.
Anyway thanks for brewing, posting your deck and results! I hope more people can test and we keep seeing wins for this archetype!
Last edited by FTW; 01-03-2020 at 08:44 AM.
Interesting. Ok if you're cutting blue, how about this?
//Artifacts: 15
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Mox Opal
3 Wishclaw Talisman
1 Defense Grid
//Enchantments: 4
4 Underworld Breach
//Spells: 26
4 Pact of Negation
4 Faithless Looting
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Thoughtseize
2 Entomb
4 Brain Freeze
3 Burning Wish
1 Echo of Eons
//Lands: 15
8 fetches
7 duals
//Sideboard: 15
1 Grapeshot
1 Echo of Eons
1 Reverent Silence
1 Massacre
1 Pulverize
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Pithing Needle
2 Hope of Ghirapur
3 Silent Gravestone
3 Abrupt Decay
That's a lot of tutors (E Tutor, Wishclaw, Wishes, Entomb) and a lot of protection (Pact, TS, Defense Grid).
I had Veils in there at first, but I think Veil is less important if we're not giving them new hands with Echo. This way we only need green for the SB and also less mana on the combo turn. Pact has synergy with protecting the combo at all parts of execution, but maybe Veils is just a better card overall. Remains to be tested.
Edit: This build is bad. I'm back to the one on the previous page with blue and Brainstorms and Ponder.
Last edited by FTW; 01-03-2020 at 08:20 AM.
No, nevermind. That's worse than both the previous builds. Not consistent enough.
First few goldfishes:
1) T2 unprotected win or T3 behind Defense Grid (ETutor on turn 1).
2) T1 win behind Pact, all luck. Mulled to 5 seeing 4 blue cards in a deck with no Islands. T0 ROFL. LED -> Echo into the nuts (Petal, LED, Breach, Freeze, Pact, + 2 cards), but that could have easily backfired into chaff.
3) Mull to 5: Breach, LED, land, land and Burning Wish. T4 win behind Defense Grid.
4) T4 win behind double Thoughtseize
5) Mull to 6: T3 win behind TS + Pact
6) Mull to 5: T4 win behind TS + Pact
7) T2 fizzle. Forced to LED-> Echo into a hand that needed a 2nd Echo in the deck to keep going (Entomb + 2 LED).
The balance is off between protection slots and gas, the curve isn't right, and the variance is much higher. Back to the drawing board.
I think we should either go with Pdingo's explosive LED+Echo shell (taking the risk Echo helps the opponent), or play a slower consistent shell with tutors and protection but also cantrips for consistency (and not the mana rocks).
11-17 protection slots is way too many, especially with 0 Brainstorm in the deck to put them back. You get too many hands with all protection and no gas. 7-10 is probably the sweet spot, with cantrips and tutors to help find more as needed.
Last edited by FTW; 01-03-2020 at 09:38 AM.
A few things come to mind when I look at these lists:
—We should be running rituals. SExtraction or Faerie Macabre on LED is really rough, and I don't like that LED isn't an instant given what we're trying to do. Rituals also open up the deck to faster, non-deterministic kills.
—Relatedly, why aren't we running Empty the Warrens as a backup plan or a curveball?
—I've never liked Mox Opal. I get that it's made marginally more viable in this deck than anywhere else as a loop card with Breach, but it's asking a lot nonetheless.
—Enlightened Tutor feels out of place. For people interested in going all in, why not Spoils of the Vault? We're already looking to run four of everything we want except our kill card as a matter of course, and if we're banking on Brain Freeze, then we don't have any realistic targets that aren't quads in the deck. Other tutors (except Entomb and Burning Wish) feel much worse in any situation that doesn't involve fighting Chalice piles or Burn. Sure, we'll be exiling a lot if we don't get lucky, but then again, isn't the point of cards like Burning Wish and Tendrils that they don't really care about how many cards we have in any zone?
I just read through this whole thread in the last few minutes, so if I'm missing something, I don't mean to be obtuse. Definitely want to see where this goes.
EDIT: Regarding naming the deck, what about "Breach Freeze"? "A Cold Day in Hell"?
All Spells Primer under construction: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e...Tl7utWpLo0/pub
PM me if you want to contribute!
i was wondering if it makes sense to also try out hedron crab.
turn 1 crab, turn 2 fetch and cast underworld breach. you start with at least 7 cards in the graveyard there. if you're playing lotus petals you can also start by turn 1 crab into fetch -> ponder. that's quite a lot of digging for your turn 2 between opening hand and milling.
just a thought, dunno if it's good enough.
-rob
Posted a list a few pages back with 4 Rite of Flame and 4 Dark Ritual. It's capable of some explosive wins and has backup lines to win without any LEDs (rituals -> Infernal Tutor/Entomb -> Past in Flames -> Tendrils), but it lacked protection. Pdingo uses mana rocks over rituals.
If you have a better list in mind with rituals, by all means please post it! It's one option.
Pact of Negation/Defense Grid does protect against Surgical at all possible timings during the combo. Postboard there's tutorable 3xSilent Gravestone. It's not perfect, but it's something.
Passing the turn sucks. It's a last resort when combo decks don't have gas to win this turn, due to disruption or bad draws.Relatedly, why aren't we running Empty the Warrens as a backup plan or a curveball?
Because this one has a deterministic line, it's much more common that you either have it (and can arbitrarily hit storm 9-15) or you don't (and can't go off at all). Even in Pdingo's nondeterministic line, you just keep wheeling and tutoring until you have lethal storm or set up Breach+Freeze. There are a lot fewer hands that would get stuck at storm 5-6.
Because of that, the current builds are designed not to pass the turn. Echo of Eons gave them 7 cards (Pdingo's build), and Pact of Negation is clearly an autoloss (mine/Cire's).
Maybe a Wishable Empty SB is correct to beat heavy disruption, but otherwise I think this deck needs Empty much less than TES and ANT do.
Opal sucks in my lists. I cut them.—I've never liked Mox Opal. I get that it's made marginally more viable in this deck than anywhere else as a loop card with Breach, but it's asking a lot nonetheless.
It's surprisingly good in Pdingo's build because of the draw 7s. His deck just needs land + Gamble/Entomb + LED/Echo to wheel as early as turn 1. Opals in the starting hand probably tap for nothing, but you just play them out and draw more cards and then probably hit metalcraft. Check out Bryant Cook's latest version of TES. It's really powerful and runs a similar base of mana rocks.
Spoils is worth testing. The biggest risks I see are this:Enlightened Tutor feels out of place. For people interested in going all in, why not Spoils of the Vault? We're already looking to run four of everything we want except our kill card as a matter of course, and if we're banking on Brain Freeze, then we don't have any realistic targets that aren't quads in the deck.
- Can backfire hard.
- Exiles a lot of cards, which interferes with the Breach plan. Breach is bonkers if you enable it.
- Can cost a lot of life.
One advantage of this Ad Nauseam-free list is, like High Tide, you can just grind and go off on turn 4-6 at 3 life because the kill doesn't cost life and wins this turn. Once you add nondeterministic lifeloss you can't do that.
The odds on Gamble seem better.
I miss the days of colorfully-named decks. None of this "BURG" junk (they don't even try to make puns out of it, like Freezing IceBURG, IceBURG Storm, Flying RUG Delver)..EDIT: Regarding naming the deck, what about "Breach Freeze"? "A Cold Day in Hell"?
+1 for A Cold Day in Hell.
Tome Scour is probably better. Does the same thing but doubles as a digging engine with Breach if you don't have Brain Freeze.
It seems like a really bad card on paper until you try it out. I really want to go to a Legacy tournament casting T1 Tome Scour, look at my opponent's face, and then combo off on turn 2.
Leyline of Sanctity is no big deal. It doesn't stop you from going off. Once the engine is online, Burning Wish/tutor -> enchantment kill gets rid of Leyline just as easily as you could find Jace. Then you can Brain Freeze them.
Cards that shutdown the engine (e.g. Leyline of the Void, Surgical Extraction) are a much bigger concern.
The Belcher version looks fun as a glass cannon. Belcher does win games. It'd be nice to optimize a build with protection though.
So far of all the one's I've tested, I think the strongest protected builds are the one Cire and I posted a few pages back (Brainstorm, Ponder, ETutor, discard, Pact) and Pdingo's (Gamble, Echo, fast mana, Veils/Grid).
The ETutor one is less explosive but basically never fizzles, gets a lot of card selection from cantrips, and gets perfect information from discard. Unfortunately it's hard to add the better green SB cards.
Pdingo's Gamble Echo one is really explosive and can run some better tools but can lose to chance sometimes, risks giving the opponent gas to beat you, and has harder decision trees due to less information and card selection coupled with nondeterministic lines.
We need more real matches tested though.
Hi, just my 2 cents:
-really didn't know about this card.... too many cards to test for storm in a so brief period of time....
sure you all disagree, but I suspect that if you want to make a deck with that card good you need to avoid playing BFreeze even if the card has synergy with the enchantment, as it is byitself dead. (Ex.: metalnot is much better)
good combo decks tend to play as minimum combonations of combo cards as `possble.
another option I see is to reduce the number of disruption as the enchanmtn byitself refills.
My Parfait Build
My Psychatog Build
Yes, I am advanced and you know it...
Suggestion: Play Magic as a Hobby. Competitiveness is uniquely usefull in this Era and just to evolve the human being to a certain extent...
At least for FTW's list, I think it is incorrect to think of this as a storm list. It's not it's just a three card combo. What makes it competitive is that it is a very cheap 3 card combo (2 mana) and that a lot of its pieces have redundancy and are easily tutor-able (Enlightened for Breach and LED, Entomb for Brainfreeze and LED, Tome Scour for Brainfreeze, Gamble if necessary, Infernal for Breach, etc). This makes assembling the 3 card combo surprisingly easy and the deck can go off turn 3 with protection extremely often. Now, Pdingo's list is more Storm based and I haven't tested it or even goldfished it so I can state how similar it plays to TES etc.
My test deck:
Artifact multicombo
4 Elvish spirit guide
4 Simian spirit guide
4 Land Grant
4 Lotus petal
4 Chrome mox
4 Mox opal
4 Led
4 Veil of summer
3 Defense grid
4 Gamble
4 Underworld breach
1 Graphesot
4 Brain freeze
3 Grinding station
4 Echo of eons
3 Sevinne's Reclamation
1 Taiga
1 Savannah
4 leyline of the void
2 Karakas
2 silent gravestone
2 Wear/Tear
1 Shenanigans
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
2 Monastery mentor
The deck is clearly a "Belcher echo design". I doubt in Sevinne's Reclamation number. With it we can do sweet things like return Underworld breaches and some stuff like grinding station. Very evil deck..
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)