I don't play SI because I don't have Cruel Bargains, but Slithermuse grants you 4-7 cards for 3U vs 4 cards with Meditate. If you can reach the mana, seems superior to me.
LED is pretty important. I doubt you can replace it with something else. LED really is an investment though. Everything in Legacy seems like its rising in price. If you ever want to make Storm combo (all storm combo plays LED), I'd buy LED's now while they are 40.Originally Posted by claudio.r
Meditate isn't bad. I haven't tried it in Pact SI though, have you? I played with 4 Slithermuse just to see if it would work (ultimately I switched back to 2 Slithermuse, and 4 Infernal Tutor). It was hard to find U consistently and R for Burning Wish, and Black for rituals, D4's, etc. It has certainly been superior to Meditate though. For 3U I've never drawn less than 4 cards with it, often drawing 7, and occasionally drawing 5 or 6. If I think back on the games, I would have had no trouble finding the extra 1 to play Slithermuse instead of Meditate. Also, Slithermuse is secret tech with Culling the Weak (and it randomly beats for 3 when you need it to). Its been a great topdeck and doesn't let the opponent Timewalk if we fail to go off. I think its much better. I've been playing with it in the IGG slot, and have been loving it. I almost want to test x4 Living Wish (its easier to find G than it is to find R) but it can't find ToA so I'm skeptical.
I agree about the Fetchlands. Xantid Swarm certainly becomes more powerful. Also, I should note that with D7's, most of the time my ToA is at about 30/32. In that case, it doesn't make sense to play LG for the extra storm. However, I'm not sure that Swarm suits all the situations that Trow does. Trow can be cast with black. I'm not playing it right now (I'm only playing with x1 Wild Cantor) and I've really missed it (I had to mull a few hands that with Trow in the deck, I would have won).
Blind LED is one of the hardest things to do when playing with SI. I've found that Ewit and/or Manamorphose make such risky moves more profitable. What I'd recommend doing to practice is, when you decide to mulligan a hand, play it out anyway (as everything will just be reshuffled) to see if mulliganing was the right play, and then you will expose yourself to more lines of play. You can even record which hands were bad and which hands were good, and which blind LED's were a good call. Sometimes though, its good just to wait. If you have enough mana to play a Cruel Bargain + LED. It might be worth your while to chill for a turn and pick up some more gas.
Agreed. Meditate is better in certain situations though. Namely, if you play staying mana sources like Chrome Mox and Land, you can play it at the end of your opponents turn, and then go off on your turn with 11 cards in hand.
EDIT:
Hmm.. I got my own attention. Living Wish can find Magus of the Moon too.. Thoughts on Living Wish?
The problem with Living Wish in Storm Combo is that Living Wish doesn't have a kill condition, so if you do play Living Wish you have to play it as like a 1x where Xantid Swarm and Slithermuse are your only targets - it's 1 card away from playable IMO.
The other option though is instead of finding a win condition, you can just find another Slithermuse so that you can draw into your win condition in the deck, or just start another D4 chain. I find it much easier to find Green than Red. Burning Wish really is a strong card, but its probably stronger in your SITES list. Could Living Wish-->Slithermuse is viable as a pseudo-wincondition? If Burning Wish lists continue to be less consistent than G/b lists, I'll probably switch out Living Wish for some Burning Wish and see how it plays. Burning Wish is really flexible though... I might just wind up playing SITES.
Are there any drafts yet for a non-Land Grant manabase?
@Breathweapon: What is your SITES land configuration?
Concerning Living Wish: This might allow to move Dryad Arbor to the wishboard (don't know if this is a good idea), leaving more place for lands which work as initial mana source.
EDIT: Has Death Wish ever been considered? It's one mana more, but it's on color. Also let's you get any card, which might allow for some creative wishboard crazyness.
I think that a kobald based sites is a nice way to go I used to play this list on mws and goldfished it a decent amount. Insted of draw 4s it plays goes for turn one ad nauseum. Since I wanna play a turn one bomb I stole the idea of gamble from belcher though infernal tutor may be better gamble has been great in goldfishing. and i kinda run a belcher heavy plan although i really only included one belcher because i think adnaus turn one is the better bomb. Im thinking about cutting becher and going up to around 6 or so lands and adding a couple infernal or grim tutors but I don't own any grim's and the would be annoying to trade for so I would rather not add them. I side into an "All In Red" deck after board vs matchups where they board out creature removal.
4 dark ritual
4 rite of flame
4 manamorphase
4 ssg
4 petal
4 culling the weak
8 kobalds
3 ad naus
4 burning whish
1 tendrils
4 led
4 gamble
4 mox
4 land grant
1 belcher
1 badlands
1 bayou
1 tiaga
side
1 etw
1 tendrils
1 draw 4
1 diminshing returns
1 duress
1 shattering spree
1 IGG
4 tombstalker
4 arcslogger
Well for which build? Playing with D7's has proven to me that it doesn't need LG but it would have to be build specific (ie. which D7, Burning Wish or Slithermuse). 2 Fetch 2 Dual seems good, but Dryad Arbor needs to fit in somewhere... 1 Badlands, 1 Bayou, Bayou for Swarm, Badlands for Burning Wish. If we don't run Burning Wish.. then maybe Underground Sea could replace Badlands (so we can color fix for Slithermuse builds).Are there any drafts yet for a non-Land Grant manabase?
People have tried Deathwish. 3cc is just too much. Often you will be short 1 when you wouldn't be otherwise.
I was thinking the same thing. Dryad Arbor could be moved to the board. Then again, we can also run Skyshroud Cutter. If we have already made our land drop then this is a 0cc green creature for Culling. Also, Dosan the Falling Leaf doesn't look bad. Pulpfiction played with Living Wish in Belcher for a while. His thoughts (from Stormboards):
He played the following LW board:My opinion on Living Wish: it is worth testing out and seeing if you like it, but it does not improve the blue matchups like Moons will. However, it gives the deck a sick threat density and you are now able to attack the opponent from a variety of different angles.
Magus and Ingot Chewer are the strongest choices it brings to the table IMO. I can't see Castle or Deus and friends doing much and his tournament reports allude to just that (though Multani looks great).1x Deus/Multani/Kodama
1x Magus of the Moon
1x Ingot Chewer
1x Gargoyle Castle
Now we have access to:
Hellcarver Demon (likely too expensive)
Slithermuse (D7)
Dosan (protection)
Dryad Arbor (Culling fodder)
Skyshroud Cutter (Culling fodder)
Ingot Chewer (artifcat hate)
Magus of the Moon (protection)
Xantid Swarm (standard in the board anyway)
Tomb of Urami (we know this is good)
Eternal Witness (regrowth)
Multani (I actually like this guy. Shroud fatties are awesome)
Other ideas? The main reason to play it at all is Slithermuse.
Bloodmoon effects really do have my attention though. Might they be worth playing in SITES?
EDIT:
Might Telemin Performance be worth running in the board?
EDIT2:
@Combo Winter
Gamble is a terrible card in everything but 43 land variants where you can find Loam or something.
Its certainly not SI if it doesn't run D4's. Its not a bad idea but I have no testing to confirm either way. Whats your goldfish rate? Its another protectionless combo so if its not faster than 70% turn 1, I don't see a reason to play it over the fastest lists of Pact SI. Also, if you are running Diminish Returns as a D7, you might as well also play Balance of Power and Recurring Insight, which are marginally better in certain situations.
Last edited by Vacrix; 04-26-2010 at 02:17 AM.
Skyshroud Cutter seems really good, granted you have to have a Land Grant/Bayou and +3 Storm, but a free creatures that doesn't require a land drop looks awesome in theory.
As far as the land count is concerned, I think 2xBayou and X /g Fetch is the way to go, you may actually want to cut back on Spirit Guides to fit in more Fetch.
SITES manabase is just 3 Badlands and 4 Fetchlands.
I played a round of 3 for fun at my local shop today with a build I was testing:
Pact SI:
Business:
3 Tendrils of Agony
2 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
Mana:
1 Odious Trow
4 Manamorphose
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
SB:
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Simian Spirit Guide
3 Tomb of Urami
In short, it wasn't that great:
Match 1 (Matt w/ UW Tempo)
Game 1, I mulligan to 4 cards (probably should have kept my opening 7) and try to go for IGG before he has the kill it eats a grip full of counters.
Game 2, I play Xantid Swarm and pass. He plays Thorn, I can't go off and lose.
Afterwards, I played 3 games with him and won all 3. I feel much more comfortable with the matchup now even though its pretty difficult. Postboard he has a lot of hate for SI. Chrome Moxen were key in going off more than once (his wasteland eats my Bayou almost every game) and I was often just baiting with D4's and then winning by resolving a Belcher, pass, until I could activate it. I think its best to keep your 7 cards hand against UW Tempo that way you have more resources to make multiple attempts at going off. I lost to him last tournament 2-0 too but I think the next one will go differently.
Match 2 (Jerry w/ Belcher)
Game 1: He goes first, but I have the turn 1.
Game 2: Turn 1 I chain D4's together and ToA for the win.
Match 3 (Can't remember his name w/ Countertop)
Game 1: He has Force. I try a second time, he has the 2nd Force.
Game 2: I play Bayou, Rit, D4, expecting Daze. He plays it, and I ESG in response, draw my 4, play some shit and pass (no initial black to continue). Then I have rituals into either EtW x2 or I can play a D4, so I bait with the D4, it resolves and I D4 into my x2 EtW (w/ ESGs) and he scoops.
Game 3: He has x2 Force, Goyf, Daze, and STP. I can't win through that shit.
Technically I played a 4th match, against some sort of ANT variant.
Game 1: I win turn 1 with a long D4 chain.
Game 2: I am 1 short of winning turn 1, I pass, he goes off turn 2 with Ad Nauseum.
Game 3: I start chaining D4's together and I break an LED off a D4 into LED, Pact, Dark Ritual Land Grant. Unfortunately I was not playing Eternal Witness so I lost.
Conclusion? I really like Empty the Warrens and I think its possible to play it in the board. I thought I need SSG to get to the red more often, but that wasn't the case. I didn't really need it because I had Manamorphose and Petal as color fixers. I really wanted Eternal Witness too.. I'll be switching back to the old build for now, at least until I get my hands on all the D7's. Then I can test that build more thoroughly (and against real players). I also got a little bit more experience against UW Tempo, which I think will go a long way considering that it is gaining in popularity.
EDIT:
I'm really liking the idea of more staying mana sources. If I recall, Belcher used to play BoP way back in the day to help it set up. Might that be worth playing in the board? I really do enjoy having access to mana each turn. This might be a decent option considering it is also a possible Culling target.
Last edited by Vacrix; 04-30-2010 at 04:21 AM.
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.
A really interesting option for this problem would be Ancient Stirrings from the new set. I tested this card in the manamorphose/protection slot of the B/G list and it works like a Ponder, which can dig 5 cards.EDIT:
I'm really liking the idea of more staying mana sources. If I recall, Belcher used to play BoP way back in the day to help it set up. Might that be worth playing in the board? I really do enjoy having access to mana each turn. This might be a decent option considering it is also a possible Culling target.
Ancient Stirrings harmonize very well with the draw4s, beacause sometimes it is very nice to know what are you drawing or manipulate your draw. Of course all our colourless spells become better and especially belcher (removing bayou from the top/ possibility of drawing is higher/LED) and the shuffle effects (pact/Land grant) becomming more important.
The probability to reveal a colorless spells is around 70% and another negativ aspect is that sometimes it can you slow down.
I'll test more with this card, maybe it's better in g2 or g3 and belongs just to the SB.
That sounds pretty good. Investing G to grab an LED is tech. The only problem is that we won't always be able to grab LED. G into Lotus Petal is mediocre. Also, you can't really manipulate your draw because all the cards go to the bottom.
I'm very interesting in running Fetchlands. It gives us the resources to go off multiple times which is particularly important against control. Sure Belcher is a great plan but I think Fetchlands will win more games in the long run. In which case, we could run Ponder instead of Ancient Stirrings. The question is, what would a fetchland configuration look in Pact SI? I agree with Breathweapon that we should cut some Spirit Guides:
-2 Elvish Spirit Guide
-4 Land Grant
+4 Polluted Delta
+1 Underground Sea
+1 Bayou
Maybe we could run x1 Tropical Island in the board.
Also, secret tech I discovered from playing Jerry (the belcher dude). He ran Living Wish-->Salvager. Salvager + LED is infinite mana so he ran Pyrite Spellbomb maindeck. I don't know how good this is but infinite mana with LED (which is also infinite spells, seems pretty good to me).
Why would we play Spellbomb? It can draw a card randomly.. but more importantly, it can kill Hate bears like Ethersworn Cannonist.
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.
Ancient Stirrings has many useshe only problem is that we won't always be able to grab LED. Also, you can't really manipulate your draw because all the cards go to the bottom.
Example:
-you can cast a Draw4, but you start with Ancient Stirrings-> view your 5 cards, you see 4 ESG and chrome mox (crap that you would draw), take mox and hope for more useful for cards.
- If you have put actually good cards on the bottom, use pact/LG to increase the possibilty to draw them again.
- If you just reveal coloured spells which contains crap, shuffle them also away
- Chrome mox profits, if your opponent starts with wastland-> go
- It gives you Information how to plan your next turns
true, butG into Lotus Petal is mediocre.
- Stirrings can become a wild cantor (G->B)
-you can decide to draw petal, or not
@ fetchlands PactQSI sounds interesting, but why it should be better than ANT ?
@ Slavager 4 colours make you more vulnerable to counter.
It can color fix, that is true. We don't run too many colorless sources though. Ponder would be better if we had access to fetchlands and blue.
Why play PactQSI (we don't have a build yet so I can't say for sure)? We will likely be faster, and have a higher threat density so we can go off multiple times much sooner than ANT can.
Salvager would be primarily a Living Wish target if you have LED. There isn't really a point to grabbing it unless you already have access to white, and Pyrite Spellbomb. Its a little farfetched I admit, but some dude plays it and claims moderate success with it. I'm certainly going to try it.
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.
Chromatic Sphere > Spellbombs for the Salvager combo, you can always draw infinite cards into Burning Wish for Tendrils of Agony, and the Spheres actually serve a purpose while comboing normally.
Would have liked a 'next time my SB would be' from Vacrix.
I'm guessing:
4 Xantid, 4 EtW, 1 Manamorphose (-1 MD, +1 EW), 3 Tomb of Urami, 3 ???
Only the heroic and the mad follow mountain goat trails.
My current list is:
/ Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)
// Lands
1 [FUT] Dryad Arbor
1 [R] Badlands
3 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
1 [R] Bayou
// Creatures
2 [AL] Elvish Spirit Guide
1 [GP] Wild Cantor
1 [MOR] Slithermuse
1 [EVE] Odious Trow
// Spells
4 [EX] Culling the Weak
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [TE] Dark Ritual
4 [FUT] Summoner's Pact
3 [PT] Cruel Bargain
4 [MI] Infernal Contract
4 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
4 [SHM] Manamorphose
4 [JU] Burning Wish
1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
// Sideboard
SB: 1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 [PT] Cruel Bargain
SB: 1 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
SB: 4 [SC] Xantid Swarm
SB: 1 [ROE] Recurring Insight
SB: 1 [P3] Balance of Power
SB: 1 [AL] Diminishing Returns
SB: 4 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 [PT] Virtue's Ruin
Some thoughts:
-) With B Wish and Infernal Tutor, both 1 IGG MD and SB seem to add consistency.
-) I replaced the SSG with Chrome Moxen, as they allow you to go off easier multiple times. I never had troubles with imprinting something, also with Trow/Cantor, you can colorfix with Pact and Chrome Mox for all colors you need (except Slithermuse).
-) I keep switching between Eternal Witness and Trow.
-) In the SB I run 1 Virtues Ruin, cause I hate folding to white hatebears. If the oponent excessively mulls into a bear, this could give you some time to draw B Wish -> Virtues Ruin -> Go off.
Your thoughts?
You may want to consider Death Wish instead of Burning Wish, being on color reduces the need for Manamorphose and the life loss isn't the end of the world, I liked it a lot more than Infernal Tutor in testing.
It really depends. I'm itching to try out the D7's. All I need right now is x1 Diminishing Returns, x1 Balance of Power, and x1 Slithermuse. I picked up Recurring Insight the other day. If I played the same build I played at Knightware, I'd probably play this board:
SB:
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Xantid Swarm
2 Belcher
2 Birds of Paradise
1 Taiga
2 Tomb of Urami
Certainly it looks unconventional. I think that having lands against control is crucial to SI's strategy. The extra land can go a long way when you are trying to go off more than once, bait with D4's into EtW, bait with Swarm into EtW, etc. Having staying resources is a great asset. We can recover quickly from a countered D4. Its much more difficult when we are required to draw starting mana, rituals, and business. From playing Matt (Forbiddian) I discovered that Belcher is actually really good in SI. Sure D4 chain into Tendrils is pretty awesome. In the games in which I had Chrome Mox and/or lands I was able to burst through Matt's wall of countermagic with Belcher, and then activate it on the following turn. Its worth noting, though, that we were only playing pre-board games after I lost the 2 that counted. UW Tempo gets much harder when they bring in the hate bears and Etutor plan. Still, Belcher is a strong strategy when you bait them out of their countermagic. I am apprehensive about boarding in Belchers AND land because its obviously a little counter intuitive. Still, Land Grant--> Taiga provides more red for EtW. The only other option we have is to try something like Birds of Paradise which doesn't increase our land count, but provides not only mana of any color but also a Culling outlet. It looks stronger the more I look at it. I think Tomb is great, but nowadays people know the Storm combo matchup and leave in their removal in for Swarm, in the process, ruining the Tomb plan. Tomb is only good in my experience against Mono-U Merfolk or U/g Merfolk. I'd suggest running x2 unless you have a very heavy Merfolk meta.
It should be noted, however, that this plan is horrid with the lands build we are currently exploring. This would be my sideboard until I get my hands on the duals necessary to test the maindeck lands.
Agreed. But is it even worth playing is the question? A spell that costs 1 to draw us a card and converts mana? It could be played in the Manamorphose slot if Living Wish is any good. I like the idea because we have so much access to green especially if we play something like MD Chromatic Sphere (or Chromatic Star). The problem with Living Wish is that it can't find a win condition but this is not the case if your hand includes LED, Living Wish, and Chromatic Sphere. If not, we can go for Slithermuse in an attempt to find the rest of the pieces to find Salvagers OR we can just go for Tendrils, start a D4 chain, etc.
Actually I think the deck works better with 8 D4s. There are very few occasions in which I wish for a D4 and more often than not in this build, I find myself short on business after D4's. Its much harder to chain D4's together when you only run 7 MD.
I also liked IGG postboard, but also maindeck? In the case that you are trying the IGG loop, you will likely have an LED post Infernal Tutor in which case Slithermuse into 7 new cards looks like a strong alternative. I think that slot might be put to better use, probably as a 3rd ESG as you want that Daze protection and access to green postboard for Xantid Swarm.
Have you ever had issues color fixing? I like that Pact-->Cantor imprint on Chrome Mox can also give you access to red. Thats pretty badass. I like Witness. With additional land maindeck, it looks like it would be a nice set up card since you will have the perpetual resources to set up. It might be worth playing in that IGG slot actually.
Virtue's Ruin looks decent with the extra land. It conveniently hits all the bears that might give us trouble. Consider, though, that all the bears have 2 toughness. Why not play pyroclasm? It also helps when you are in the Belcher Mirror facing down EtW tokens and can't go off in time, or are kinda stuck against aggro.
I think you did the land configuration correctly. Thats how I would play it. Now I just need to find myself a badlands.
Considering that this build enables us to set up now more often than the other builds, its certainly worth exploring Duress/Thoughtseize/Cabal Therapy postboard as a supplement to EtW. Cabal Therapy looks the best if we also play Birds of Paradise as a perpetual manasource and therefore also a resource to work with Culling and Therapy.
I'm confused. You said consider Death Wish instead of Burning Wish but that Death Wish was better than Infernal Tutor in testing. Wouldn't in then make sense to replace Infernal Tutor with Death Wish?
Considering that we have access to D7's now, we have much better resources to find with Death Wish. I haven't tested it yet in Pact SI with D7's but it looks pretty strong. Running Burning Wish and Death Wish means that we will usually be going to our board for goodies. Then again, if we run a maindeck Slithermuse, then Infernal Tutor also lets you access D7's for 1 less than Death Wish does.
EDIT:
I realized something. It doesn't make much sense to go for Cutter with Living Wish when you can just get a Kobold. :P
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.
How do we deal with white hate bears (Teeg, Canonist)? I was thinking about Death Mark (unless Mother of Runes is already out as well, then you're kinda screwed I guess).
Only the heroic and the mad follow mountain goat trails.
Well it depends on the matchup. In the aggro matchup, you usually win game 1, and then they board in their bears. They usually go first which is their mistake if they actually know the matchup. We can go off pretty often with 8 cards in hand. If we don't win game 2, which we should, then we should let them go first again and try to win game 3. Seriously though, non-distruptive aggro is a virtual bye. Just win first.
Decks like UW Tempo are seriously an absolute bitch. I used to treat it like Merfolk. Don't. The Etutor package is really, really strong. They can follow up countermagic with a lock piece. Cannonist is seeing way more play than anything else. Thorn also sees some play. In general, Oxidize is the right board card, if you want to play anything at all to beat bears. Ingot Chewer looks just as good though if not better with the lands version. I'd give both a try. Goldfish the postboard plan on MWS or IRL and just assume that your opponent will drop a bear on turn 2. If you want, you can assume your opponent has Daze/Force and the bear (like if you were playing against UW Tempo or Bant Survival).
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.
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