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Thread: Captain Proton! (combo-control)

  1. #1

    Captain Proton! (combo-control)

    Here's an exciting new combo-control (ish...) deck. I played against someone (MWS nickname "pablo") online who used the Proteus Staff + Manlands combo to get Sliver Queens and so on, but I figured that this version was probably better and more consistent. Probably also more stable for today's metagame. I don't know if we can tweak this to the point where it's competitive, but as far as rough decklists go, I'm pretty impressed. The combo is very consistent, and the transformational sideboard smoothes out a lot of kinks, in my opinion. Hope you guys enjoy this enough to put some work into it.

    Here's the deck:

    8 Island
    4 Ancient Tomb
    4 City of Traitors
    4 Mishra's Factory
    3 Mutavault
    2 Tolaria West
    1 Academy Ruins

    4 Mox Diamond
    4 Proteus Staff
    4 Engineered Explosives
    1 Crucible of Worlds

    4 Fabricate
    4 Force of Will
    4 Daze
    3 Mana Leak

    3 Drift of Phantasms
    2 Darksteel Colossus
    1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath


    SB:

    4 Leyline of the Void
    4 Stifle
    4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
    3 Trickbind



    It's obviously still full of kinks, but that's why it's here. One big question is what the optimal creature choices are--at the moment, Swords to Plowshares is a major vulnerability. If you have the time, you can Proteus Staff the StP target away, but that's a big if. The other big question is if the transformational sideboard is worth it--maybe it would just be better off as a strict Dreadnought deck. Anyway, some explanations:


    The combo: Pretty obvious. Proteus Staff your way through a Drift or a manland into Darksteel Colossus or Akroma on your second or third turns, and proceed to win. Alternately, you could attempt to go the manland route, which might work against opponents with low creature counts (since you might manage to overpower most of their creatures). After boarding, you can morph the deck into a Dreadnought-based combo-control deck, with the advantages that that brings. Remember that you can use Proteus Staff on your opponents' creatures, too.

    Drift of Phantasms: Its Transmute ability allows you to search out Proteus Staff, Fabricate (why beats me, however), and Crucible. It's also a decent early blocker. Staffing into one of these is a small letdown, but worth the risk IMO.

    Academy Ruins: There are more than enough artifacts in here to justify its inclusion, especially post-board. I've only listed one because I don't feel it should be a main strategy point, and because there are too many colourless mana sources as it is.

    Crucible of Worlds: Here because the apparatus to fetch it out is in place, and it has great synergy with Academy Ruins and the manlands, should the worst happen. Again, I don't think this strategy is or should be the deck's focus, but Crucible gives it a viable out/plan B.

    Mana Leak: Chose to run this over Counterspell simply because I'll pretty much always be able to cast it, whereas double-blue is harder to come by when you want to spend blue on Proteus Staff.


    Tolaria West: Included because it can fetch out a manland for the combo or Academy Ruins if necessary. It also gives you blue mana, which is nice.

    Colossus-Board: The infrastructure for a different sort of combo is already here, should it be required. Hence why I included it. Makes for a solid gear-shift post-board, when your opponent is loading in the Needles and Grips (well, Grips still hurt, but you have Academy Ruins to help there).



    Matchups:

    Not available yet--I only came up with this deck a little over an hour ago, and only had the chance to do some VERY limited testing. As I test, I'll post results. Please do so as well.



    That's it from me for now. Hope some of you are interested and help me to smoothe it out.

    Take care,
    -Goas

  2. #2
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    Re: Captain Proton! (combo-control)

    Are you sure it's Phyrexian Colossus the one you are looking for on the SB? Not Phyrexian Dreadnought?
    Keep moon-walking.

  3. #3

    Re: Captain Proton! (combo-control)

    Quote Originally Posted by Jaiminho View Post
    Are you sure it's Phyrexian Colossus the one you are looking for on the SB? Not Phyrexian Dreadnought?
    Whoops. Thanks for the heads-up.

  4. #4

    Re: Captain Proton! (combo-control)

    EE looks like it eats absolute shitpenis here. Yuck.

    I had a lot of fun with a similar deck (using Polymorph) years back; I used green for Living Wish (for a manland or tabernacle or whatever), Call of the Herd (creature-which-isn't-a-creature, and also I was running Intuition which is so good with flashback spells), and probably something else I'm forgetting.

    Also: if you drop the (2)-lands, which you maybe should, Vedalken Shackles is pretty sweet in such a deck. Gives you a guy to steal for Staff, and when it isn't doing that, it's gumming up the works.
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  5. #5
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    Re: Captain Proton! (combo-control)

    I'm skeptical that Drift of Phantasm is worth the trouble. Hitting one not only costs you a turn, you also now have to find another manland to activate it. Why not some simple dig in its place, like Thirst for Knowledge (discarding a Colossus is pretty cool)?
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  6. #6
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    Re: Captain Proton! (combo-control)

    Quote Originally Posted by Nihil View Post
    I'm skeptical that Drift of Phantasm is worth the trouble. Hitting one not only costs you a turn, you also now have to find another manland to activate it.
    Since he did get the Drift from Staff activation, he can use it to get another crit from the library. Still, it isn't worth the trouble, since it is also only a do-nothing-else sorcery speed tutor.
    Keep moon-walking.

  7. #7
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    Re: Captain Proton! (combo-control)

    Fuck the Phantasms!
    Add more man-lands or token generators if you like, but cut them.
    Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity - Seneca, Roman dramatist

  8. #8

    Re: Captain Proton! (combo-control)

    You could also use Goblin Charbelcher as kill. Just stack your deck with Charbelcher on top and all lands on bottom.

  9. #9
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    Re: Captain Proton! (combo-control)

    I second that. Why play a two turn clock when you can actually win on the spot with charbelcher? It dies to completely different hate, and it allows you get a backup win condition if it's Gripped. Play with 2 belchers and cut all the other jank. Also, play enlightened tutor, humility, moat if you can access it and some other "all-creature's now become pretty sucky" cards. You know what I'm talking about :D
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  10. #10
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    Re: Captain Proton! (combo-control)

    I second that. Why play a two turn clock when you can actually win on the spot with charbelcher? It dies to completely different hate, and it allows you get a backup win condition if it's Gripped. Play with 2 belchers and cut all the other jank. Also, play enlightened tutor, humility, moat if you can access it and some other "all-creature's now become pretty sucky" cards. You know what I'm talking about :D
    "You're English is terrible and inconsistent."

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  11. #11
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    Re: Captain Proton! (combo-control)

    Blazing Archon versus aggro?

  12. #12
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    Re: Captain Proton! (combo-control)

    What about going with a Combo-Prison approach?

    8 Island
    4 Ancient Tomb
    4 City of Traitors
    4 Mishra's Factory
    3 Mutavault
    2 Tolaria West
    1 Academy Ruins

    4 Mox Diamond
    4 Proteus Staff
    4 CotV
    3 3sphere
    2 Vedalken Shackles
    2 Powder Keg
    1 Crucible of Worlds

    4 Fabricate
    4 Thirst for Knowledge
    4 Intuition

    2 Darksteel Colossus
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  13. #13
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    Re: Captain Proton! (combo-control)

    Quote Originally Posted by kabal View Post
    What about going with a Combo-Prison approach?

    8 Island
    4 Ancient Tomb
    4 City of Traitors
    4 Mishra's Factory
    3 Mutavault
    2 Tolaria West
    1 Academy Ruins

    4 Mox Diamond
    4 Proteus Staff
    4 CotV
    3 3sphere
    2 Vedalken Shackles
    2 Powder Keg
    1 Crucible of Worlds

    4 Fabricate
    4 Thirst for Knowledge
    4 Intuition

    2 Darksteel Colossus
    running 3 trinisphere seems subpar. I would run 6 if I could.

  14. #14
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    Re: Captain Proton! (combo-control)

    You could use a pseudo wishboard to improve game 2 and 3 if you lose. You could use utility creatures as Blazing Archon like Cavius said, or Nullstone Gargoyle or something. I think this is a good idea, and the deck can be pretty good if you popped some more aggro hate (like I said earlier) mainboard like Humility.
    "You're English is terrible and inconsistent."

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  15. #15
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    Re: Captain Proton! (combo-control)

    This deck was submitted to the Creat a New Good Deck contest, so I doubt that you "made it an hour ago"...

    Anyway, I you should try playing 4 Humility and make the win condition 2x Phantom Nisho<3a

    4 Ancient Tomb
    3 City of Traitors

    4 Mutavault / Blinkmoth Nexus
    4 Mishra's Factory

    3 Flooded Strand
    4 Tundra
    3 Island

    4 Mox Diamond
    3 Crucible of Worlds

    4 Chalice of the Void
    4 Trinisphere
    4 Humility
    3 Propaganda / Wrath of God

    4 Thirst for Knowledge
    4 Standstill

    3 Proteus Staff
    2 Phantom Nishoba

    If you take out Propaganda for Intuition, then play 1 Engineered Explosives or Powder Keg, 1 Academy Ruins, and 1 Polymorph, etc.

  16. #16

    Re: Captain Proton! (combo-control)

    Quote Originally Posted by Isamaru View Post
    This deck was submitted to the Creat a New Good Deck contest, so I doubt that you "made it an hour ago"...
    It was? Like I said, I played against a similar deck but with Sliver Queens, so I re-made it in a manner that I thought was superior. I definitely didn't mean to tread on anyone's turf. It IS possible for many people to have the same idea, you know. You mentioned CANGD III--at least three entries were VERY closely related to TarmoTog, and highly similar decks have cropped up in tournies the world over, all after I started my work on the deck. I don't doubt a number of people have and had similar ideas. Nothing wrong with that.

    EDIT: By the way, if you have a link to the CANGD entry handy, that would be cool. Would save some development time, for sure.

  17. #17
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    Re: Captain Proton! (combo-control)

    Sorry for being rude before.

    Puzzle made this thread around the same time the CaNGD contest was going on, but I guess it wasn't his submission(?):
    http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ead.php?t=8402

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