I don't really want to jump into the middle of this debate because it's pretty boring. I just want to address this:
When I said that I was lucky with the matchups, I meant that they were very one-sided, with very little chance that I would lose. I did NOT mean that I wouldn't have made Top 8 or made the finals if it was a stronger, more representative metagame. I have a lot of confidence in this deck, and I know it like the back of my hand. I've had a lot of success with SI, even against "good" decks. I would have actually preferred a more tier 1 metagame, because then I could get a better idea of my deck's strengths and weaknesses before Gencon.
I hope you give SI a chance. And try to realize that it doesn't have to win on turn 1 or 2. The deck's strength is its explosiveness. Often that happens on turn 1 or 2, but it could just as easily sit back for 4 turns, then explode on turn 5.
With brainstorms + fetchlands/land grant + wraith = 8, you effectively have a 52card deck if you can play them all in sequence without pitching to mox, restricted by one land a turn etc. With the B/G version, you have 4 x IT, 2 x IGG, 8 x draw4 as your typical engine. You also have 8 x 1mana rituals in dark ritual/cull. This eddectively means that your chance of drawing into a ritual AND a business card after thinning your deck is more than the chance of you missing. 4 cards from a draw4 is 1/15 of the deck. This is even more pertinent when you use the B/U version, as that only runs a maximum of 12 draw4s, meaning you cannot use the IGG loop. 12 x draw4 only draws 48 cards, which means not hitting a draw 4 while chaining = fizzle. The importance of deck thinners is not so much of drawing any other card in your deck, but rather effectively making dark rituals more than a 4of, culls more than a 4of and so on.
I know brainstorm and wraith lack real synergy as well in B/U SI, but the chances of actually storming into a wraith are not high, and you can also return to lib or pitch to mox.
This is for a B/g version without disruption, 10 creatures, 2 intents. Percentages refer to an even split on the draw/play as we will often wish to draw game 1, play on subsequent ones. The data these claims are based on was collected on MWS, so if the shuffler drags it down it ought to be better irl.
If you play this conservatively, a goldfish should be dead by turn 4 90% of the time or slightly above. That's about par for the course compared to other disruption-less/light combo builds in the format.
At this 'leisurely' pace we still get a 40% first-turn-kill rate, which still blows any other combo deck out of the water.
SI might feel less consistent than it is, because nothing keeps us from pushing the deck past its limits. You can't do that with most other fast combo decks (apart from mulliganing aggressively); they're either ready to kill or they aren't.
Do we float mana into a draw 4, or do we use it as a setup card and simply go off next turn unless we find a independent mana sources? Our choice.
If we always go for the throat, a high fizzle rate is to be expected... but the ability to do so is valuable as well. If we were able to achieve a 50% first-turn rate on the play, logic dictates that any deck without pitch counters would be a positive match-up, regardless of its other capabilities... even if it's supposed to be a Combo-eating monstrosity like Sui or Stax. From my experience, SI isn't quite up to that but it's close enough to make this point extremely relevant.
***
Many attempts to fix the consistency issues backfire:
Street Wraith seems a natural replacement for the weakest link (in the version I run: 2 Ornithopters, 2 Diabolic Intent). The potential of being a dead card after chaining draw-4s (the same problem that plagues Night's Whisper) and the information loss for mulligan decisions make it very dubious that it would improve consistency.
Medallion makes the deck top-heavy. If we can get to 3 mana, we're probably in good shape anyway... unless we lack business spells. Business spells that we had to chuck out for Medallions in the first place.
It's to the mana side of the package what Null Profusion is to the draw suite: great when it works, but too clunky to be practical.
I took my build of SI to Legacy Worlds. My tournament report can be read here:
http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showt...098#post154098
I also play this deck, an i have a quastion for you, about the red splash.
I play the deck from before the Red cards you play werent printed, now i see this list. It looks very nice, but dont you mis the Cabal Therapy main?
Mvg
*Team Haste!*
Hey Emidln, you mentioned that you would play a close variant of SITES, and not the list on this thread. Is it possible to reveal the list? I've tested SITES, and I like it more than Bg primarily because it doesn't lose to FoW, and it's still blazingly fast. Thanks.
Yesterday I went to the local tourney with this list
//Maindeck
//Lands:
2 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
//Additional Mana Sources:
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
//Ritual Effects:
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
//Tall Men:
4 Phyrexian Walker
4 Shield Sphere
//Busted Draw:
4 Brainstorm
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
3 Meditate
//Other Business:
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Tendrils of Agony
Round 1 G/B/R aggro
Game1: I decide to slowball it with a hand of meat and no gas. I combo of 5th turn.
Game 2: I do not SB. I keep a normal hand with 2 meat and 2 gas. I combo off for the win 3rd turn.
Round 2: G/U/R Thresh
Game 1: I keep a hand of 3 meat and 1 gas preparing for the counter. I combo off 4th turn playing through a daze and FOW.
Game 2: I do not SB. I keep a decent hand with 1 therapy and 2 meat and 3 gas and a tall man. I start to combo 3rd turn and lay out therapy naming stifle he has a trickbind in hand I topdeck a 2nd tendrils with 10 mana floating FTW.
Round 3: G/B/W aggro
Game 1: I keep a normal hand and I combo off 2nd turn since I see no discard.
Game 2: I SB none. I keep a decent hand and I combo and see him Krosan Grip my Sphere giving me the 9 spell count I needed for a Tendrils.
Round 4: G/B Aggro control
Game 1: My first phenominal hand of the night I combo turn 1 FTW.
Game 2: I SB none. He plays duress getting rid of Tendrils. I pay a therapy naming Hymn to tourach I hit none. He draws 2 the next 2 turns. He then duress again. Then lays out goyfs and a rack. I combo off through all of that and deal 16 damage. I see nothing else and lose in three turns.
Game 3: He hates me out again with a duress hitting tendrils but this game I get a therapy naming hymn and get 2. I then proceed to combo off on 3rd turn and go to 1 after playing 4 Infernal/cruels and 2 Meditates I have a 12 card hand with 7 mana floating but no tendrils so he wins.
Game 5: R/B/G Aggro control
Game 1: I get a decent hand and win 7th with him dying to Bob and having 2 goyfs and a kird ape on the board. Take that Goyf!!!!
Game 2: No SB.I keep a decent hand and he trip chain lightning me. Then I proceed to combo but I see no tendrils again so I lose.
Game 3: I keep a hand with 5 gas and 2 meat. I live 8 turns and do not see any of the 17 mana effects that would have won me the game.
I leave 7th with a 3/2. I feel happy since my first tourney play with this deck. I learned that I need to acknowledge more when I need to mul a hand even if it seems phenominal.
Team Funk: The philosopher of the 70's.
Quote of the week: List of Power: God is a 10. Humans are 7's. Monkeys are 6's. Koalas are 8's they are telekenetic and control the weather.
A dreamcatcher works, if your dream is to be gay.
-- Demetri Martin
You didn't sideboard once... NICE!
How is it that you lost to black aggro-control but beat thresh 2-0?
Isn't countermagic more of an issue for the deck than discard... (usually mass draw rapes discard, and countermagic counters mass draw)...
Someone please clarify for me.
"Anybody want some . . . toast?" —Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
How well would Death Wish work? The way I see it, it's a tutor that doesn't rely on Lion's Eye Diamond like Infernal Tutor, it's on colour unlike Burning Wish, and it won't cost $600 like Grim Tutor. Conversely, it is three mana and half your life for one card.
I'm also considering supporting Brainstom and Meditate off of rainbow lands that aren't City of Brass.
Congratulations on the tournament, Nosomo. Looks like you only lost to luck.
That particular list doesn't sideboard very often. When it does, it's normally -4 black draw4, +4 Dark Confidant or adding in 6-8 bounce spells of some variety. The board that I run for it normally is:
4 Dark Confidant
4 Chain of Vapor
4 Echoing Truth
3 Rebuild
It absolutely destroys blue control and traditional threshold and thresh w/counterbalance lists. The roughest matchup as far as Thresh is concerned is my teammate Cappy's UGR list with Wastes and Spell Snares + Lightning Bolt. Without the bolts and snares I'd probably be above 60%, but with them, I'm slightly under 50 on total matches.
As far as him losing to black aggro control, it sounds like he got really unlucky. I'd question keeping a hand without an initial mana source against black aggro control, but it's really a tough decision depending on the hand.
The only thing I contemplate is going -1 Cruel Bargain, +1 Meditate because Meditate is so huge while playing against control, either winning after resolving or providin a mind twist + mana short effect for you to combo out on your next turn. Additionally, it lets you dig deeper on your combo turn, an important ability in a deck without actual tutors.
RE: topdecking against control
The deck typically plays 3-4 black draw4s and 1-2 meditates, plus 1-2 brainstorms and a fetch or two the turn that it combos out. "Topdecking" after seeing half of your deck isn't much of a feat. His outs were:
2nd Tendrils (3 left)
Cabal Therapy (2-3 left)
Creature (if he had a therapy in yard) (several left)
Tendrils + one additional black draw4 drawing more cards if he sees nothing after the initial crop of draws(worst case scenario)
My question is, would you play it again, and if so, what would you change? do you feel keeping a no initial mana source hand was a mistake? Would you feel comfortable devoting 6-7 slots in the sideboard 4 Mystical Tutor and 2-3 Ill-Gotten Gains that could be boarded in against extreme discard. This would cut down on total number of bounce, but allow us to play more varied bounce and sideboard as necessary.
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
Hi,
I've been testing this deck and I found the QSI list not that good. I fizzled more than I with Sir Speedy. Most of the time they force you to go earlier than planned. Can you give me/us some basic advice of playing the deck( you don't need to go in details.)
It is very good, if you only fear counter magic, but when your opponent plays more than counters and bad permanents, you have to make a though choice, you want to protect your combo from counters AND want to race their hate.
With Sir Speedy you could just go for the turn 1 kill. Alot of players don't mull into Force of Will game 3, so that you just can go for the head and it races anything that doesn't run Force.
But I feel that QSI is the best list, because the interaction of Therapy and the "Tall men" is great, and the exclution of LED and IT makes the deck harder to stop.
How would you(emidln) play against UGr Thresh( w/ Counterbalance) Cephalid Breakfast and Landstill. How to mull( lots of business, little mana or the other way around) how to play( go for a fast kill or just build the perfect hand) and how to board.
Anyway thanks for building such a insane deck.
BB
Hello yall, this week I went to my local tournie with high hopes playing old fashioned SI...
// Initial Mana Sources
4 Land Grant
2 Bayou
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
// Tall Men
1 Ornithopter
4 Phyrexian Walker
4 Shield Sphere
// Ritual Effects
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
// Business
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
2 Diabolic Intent
2 Ill-Gotten Gains
3 Tendrils of Agony
3 Infernal Tutor
2 Goblin Charbelcher
Round 1: Train Wreck
Game 1: A god hand and I keep. Opponent goes first and duress's my Chrome mox leaving me with no mana start. He then follows with a duress turn 2, a duress/hymn turn 3, and a hymn turn 4. I try to combo and fail since of god hand being dispatched.
Game 2: No SB. I keep a ok hand. He first turn duress's again. Then hymn's twwice in the next two turns. Same as last fail due to lack of cards he then consume spirits me FTL.
Loss 0-2
Round 2: G/W Unknown
Game 1: I win first turn.
Game 2: No SB. I win first turn.
Win 2-0
Round 3: R/B aggro control
Game 1: I win second turn through a duress.
Game 2: No SB I win turn 4 due to a bad hand and a charbelcher seeing no discard.
Win 2-0
Round 4: G/W/B Slide
Game 1: I blast off in his face and win first turn.
Game 2: No SB. I keep a bad hand and win through a confinement break with the belcher.
Win 2-0
Round 5: G/W Slide
Game 1: Win second turn.
Game 2: No SB. I win first turn.
Win 2-0
I lost once due to unluckyness but I win the rest. I come in third place. Best part though no SB'ding. I only have a SB against blue the only thing that SI usually ever loses against,except for mass discard as I have seen.
Team Funk: The philosopher of the 70's.
Quote of the week: List of Power: God is a 10. Humans are 7's. Monkeys are 6's. Koalas are 8's they are telekenetic and control the weather.
A dreamcatcher works, if your dream is to be gay.
-- Demetri Martin
What do you guys think about splashes? I mean, Blue offers Medidate. Not incredibly strong but ok. But what does red offer?
- Burning Wish
- lots of Rituals (Rite of Flame, Seething Song, Desperate Ritual )
- Red Blasts in the SB against blue based Decks
- last but not least: Emtpy the Warrens
Do you think it would be possible to add Wishes and Warrens without make the Deck look like TES? I mean I'd change 1 Bayou with one Taiga, cut some Business Spells to squeeze them into the Wishboard, add Wish and somewhere EtW. What do you think?
I guess the best splash would be red but only for S Spirit Guide and EtW. Everything else leads you to TES...or so.
Nosomo, that's only 59 cards. What's the last?
@ Joon: Did you check the opening posts for details of different splashes?
The B(g) list is still the fastest and most consistent in a vacuum, with excellent tools against reactive answers (Xantid Swarm) and anti-storm cards (Belcher).
I personally don't favour the blue splash, as regular counters aren't the only problem (Chant, Abeyance and the like are handled by Xantid Swarm but not by EoT Meditate. And with mana floating and the omnipresent self-harm SI can easily choke on one of those). I'd run that only in very specific metagames where every none-counter deck is an autowin.
The red splash offers the opportunity to keep them busy with a small EtW and follow up with a Tendrils shortly after, which is nice. However, EtW has significant problems when you burn your life points like there's no tomorrow.
I've also experimented with a variant that also runs Burning Wish, with decent but not overwhelming results. The toolbox is helpful and that version is still faster than TES but not consistent enough for my tastes.
I can think of valid reasons for all colour combinations; without detailed information about what opposition I'm likely to face I'd still run the one with Land Grants.
I did some goldfish with the list of QSI. Here's the decklist:
// Lands
2 [ON] Polluted Delta
1 [6E] Swamp (2)
4 [U] Underground Sea
2 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
// Creatures
4 [VI] Phyrexian Walker
4 [AL] Shield Sphere
// Spells
4 [A] Dark Ritual
4 [7E] Infernal Contract
4 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
4 [PT] Cruel Bargain
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [IA] Brainstorm
4 [JU] Cabal Therapy
4 [EX] Culling the Weak
3 [OV] Meditate
Here is what came form my results on 50 games:
- Can't kill in turn 4 or before: 20%
Of the remaining 80% games:
- Average cards in hand after possible mulligans: 6,75
- N° of games with a cabal therapy played before going off: 20%
- N° of games with at least a cabal therapy cast before playing Tendrils: 35%
- Average number of cabal therapies played in each game: 1,35
- Average turn with successful combo: 2,75
- Average number of black Draw4s played during the game: 2
Did anyone find different results?
Hope this is somewhat useful.
Currently Playing: Nourishing Lich.DeckOriginally Posted by Tacosnape, TrialByFire, Silverdragon mix
Current Record: 1-83-2
Thanks for the hard data, GreenOne!
Let me rummage through my own, pertaining to the protectionless B/(g) I used in the Goldfish Genocide thread. Unfortunately, I didn't document my goldfishing as thoroughly as you did... I will try to match your example in the future. Here the only relevant numbers I have for a direct comparison:
Failure to kill turn 4 or earlier: 10%
Average turn with successful combo: 2.00
Average kill of the best 80%: 1.63
These numbers assume an equal share of being on the play/draw. Did you make the same assumption? If not, any of the following ruminations may be useless.
***
In short, you played disruption in 35% of your games at the cost of doubling your 'failure' rate and sacrificing just over a turn in speed, assuming both our results are reproducible. At first glance that looks like a steep price to pay.
Against decks that rely on permanent-based hate, it doesn't seem worth it as only the 20% of playing Therapy before going off will make a difference. Also, Therapy for Chalice when there are other horrible plays such as a first-turn Trinisphere is inferior to just going off.
I'm far less sure about reactive hate, which we are more likely to encounter. Especially against cards such as Orim's Chant or Abeyance, comboing into a Therapy might be game-deciding; less so against counterspells because usually Control players will attempt to prevent SI from going off in the first place.
Also, the faster goldfish of the B/g version is to be taken with a grain of salt under these considerations as Ill-Gotten Gains plays a part in that. While it remains a relevant card, it's no longer an 'Oops, I win'. [ADDENDUM: and being careless with LED might give a free loss instead]
***
Both versions have soft benefits that aren't expressed in goldfish averages/numbers of Therapies played. However, those play a large part in determining which one is the more attractive choice. Is the data conclusive?
Personally, I'd still opt for the original in most environments. In matches where massive protection is wanted, 4 Therapy + 4 Xantid Swarm provide just that from the board.
On the other hand, I'm generally biased in this kind of comparison, sticking with the 'Stop losing to your own deck, then worry about your opponent' approach.
Oh snap I put only 3 contracts and I have 4 LOL.Nosomo, that's only 59 cards. What's the last?
Team Funk: The philosopher of the 70's.
Quote of the week: List of Power: God is a 10. Humans are 7's. Monkeys are 6's. Koalas are 8's they are telekenetic and control the weather.
A dreamcatcher works, if your dream is to be gay.
-- Demetri Martin
I don't understand those data. You probably mean "average kill of the best 90%" (everytime you don't fizzle/combo before turn 4). So the fundamental turn is 2 or 1.63? Does the 2.00 include times when you combo with belcher but you don't kill the oppo? Is there ETW tokens somewhere?
However, my games were 100% on the play, and i tried to play conservatively. Example: I have a hand with Land, D. Ritual, Draw4, Cabal therapy. On turn 1 I cast therapy instead of trying to combo.
I'm probably not the best player wiht that deck too. I'm a combo player at heart and quite good with (storm) combo in general, but took this deck just for a week or so.
Yeah, you hit the point. I'm still unsure what's the best version in my meta, but the 2 decks play in a totally different manner. Not having to worry to a single counter when playing with LED is huge, but data can't show it. Not having to worry about graveyard hate is good too. Having a higher land count helps with hitting land drops to beat trinisphere (if there's no Wasteland involved) and bounce a chalice @0. Not having Land Grant helps in having the opponent choose the wrong spell to counter.
However, it's still a pleasure to know what your deck is capable of, what's the combo-turn etc.
I got another question:
I can't see why is Goblin Charblcher any good. You can tutor for it only with Infernal tutor, so why not just going with a IGG or Draw4?
Currently Playing: Nourishing Lich.DeckOriginally Posted by Tacosnape, TrialByFire, Silverdragon mix
Current Record: 1-83-2
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