Well, it takes an extra turn to go off and that is a very big drawback. But it does have the advantage of exchanging a nearly useless card (Blasting Station) for something that cycles (Think Twice). This is, in fact, exactly the build I tested before deciding that I did not like it. Well, I initially said that it was terrible and then actually went about making sure. These were my findings:
Sensei's Divining Top is just about a silver bullet against you. Sense's Divining Top allows the opponent to have a virtual card in their hand. It was a real pain in the butt before I went to four Narcomoebas because they could just keep STP in their top three cards and I almost could not win. That is no longer an issue though. STP is a completely dead card unless the opponent has two of them in the top 4 cards and two Sensei's Divining Tops with at minimum three open mana, two of which being Tundra. It is never going to happen. But with the Maniac build, they are in an even better spot because a resolved STP or Lightning Bolt, or Dismember, etc. actually kills you. They only need to get out a Top (or a Brainstorm if they are really good) and find any removal spell if they know your deck. Then you just about can not win no matter what. That is a very easy foil for any deck to overcome.
Compare that to how often an opponent actually has Leyline of Sanctity and either A) you have decided not to go for the Show and Tell sideboard or B) you somehow forget to side in Echoing Truths after game 1. There really is no comparison here even before you consider that the Maniac kill is a turn slower.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
"Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers."
Thanks for the testing results. I hadn't considered that the scenario with SDT hiding a removal spell would happen THAT often. Yes, Maniac loses to removal, but you have 4 Cabal Therapies to strip every removal spell out of their hand. So you're really just worried about Top + the top 3.Originally Posted by Finn
To foil you, seems like they would either need to drop SDT early and keep manipulating their deck until they had StP/Bolt/Dismember in the top 3, or they would need Brainstorm + SDT to stack it on top. If SDT is the only real foil, couldn't you just discard/counter it or try to counter the removal spell? Or do you find you don't have enough protection to do that?
Why the extra turn? Because you need the extra blue mana?
Yes. I typically go off with no mana left because I have been manipulating the cards in my hand to have exactly what I need to win.Why the extra turn? Because you need the extra blue mana?
I don't usually have extra cards when I combo out. The design has you forcing discards and perhaps countering a single spell before you go off with just enough cards. Anyway, it is not a matter of not having enough protection. It is a question of "why do I want a deck that requires it when I don't have to?"Or do you find you don't have enough protection to do that
Actually the Divining Top scenario does not happen often at all. But it is nearly unavoidable when it does.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
"Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers."
I guess this deck is dead as of January 1st. New rule:
Source: http://www.wizards.com/ContentResour...Guide_PDF2.pdf
You might be able to get around that rule if you can come up with an average number of turns that it takes and set that as the expected result.
You don't. You can't provide the result of x iterations, therefor you can't loop.
The seven cardinal sins of Legacy:
1. Discuss the unbanning ofLand TaxEarthcraft.
2. Argue that banning Force of Will would make the format healthier.
3. Play Brainstorm without Fetchlands.
4. Stifle Standstill.
5. Think that Gaea's Blessing will make you Solidarity-proof.
6. Pass priority after playing Infernal Tutor.
7. Fail to playtest against Nourishing Lich (coZ iT wIlL gEt U!).
How about Lat-Nam's Legacy? It allow us to shuffle useless cards in hand at first
I'd play see beyond before I played lat-nam's legacy. Lat-nam's legacy is also vulnerable to stifle, making it very bad because they 2 for 1 you.
With the new ruling you just have to switch from the emrakul/narc/blasting station kill to the mimeoplasm/murderous redcap/lord of extinction kill, which is much like cephalid breakfast in that you just mill your whole deck then kill them without having to shuffle.
Lab maniac is awful. I haven't yet seen a deck that can abuse maniac in legacy that has a decent shot against other legacy decks. The reason? He takes infinite setup to win the same turn and passing the turn is something I don't want to do.
Bread Connoisseur on MTGSalvation Forums
Currently Playing:
All flavors of storm combo
I really like this deck. I'll test with Stifles, Thirst for Knowledges, Gifts Ungiven and another base-color deck like non-blue version. Actually IMO I don't see the U/B version the best way to run even playing turn 1 Thoughtseizes but Cabaral Terapy still remains even changing entire strategy. I just want to test another cards (maybe only artifacts with Silent Arbiters togheter) :) Thoughts?
Unless you can find a wincon that does not need a creature to stay alive when you pass priority to let Dread Return resolve, this deck is pretty much now just a slow Cephalid Breakfast.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
"Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers."
A new version of the IPG has been posted (as of Jan 30, 2012). There's been a discussion about the new definition of slow play on the judge mailing list. The [O]fficial word is that since there's no deterministic answer for the number of iterations of milling your library to get the Narcomeba and therapy (or Sharuum, Blasting Station, and Dread Return) before hitting Emrakul, this combo is considered slow play.
I argued hard for this deck, but the powers that be have decided against it.
Would there be anyway to argue for time placement instead, of just a slow play violation like before. Say if you cant give a correct number of times you have to do the loop, you would be giving a set time limit or a set limit on how many times you can try. Most of the time solidarity and high tide take longer (mainly high tide) anyways
As it stands know in the area im from the judges arent saying you cant play this deck anymore, because you've been playing for the past 6 months and its not like the cards are banned. But now because of the rule change you have only a few minutes to combo off (so do it fast) and if you can't, then do something else or get a penalty.
No.
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
Bringing it back.
(LEG) Cthulhu
Combo: 15
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Think Twice
1 Dread Return
4 Narcomeba
4 Mesmeric Orb
4 Basalt Monolith
Dig: 16
4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Lim-Dûl's Vault
Protection: 13
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Thoughtseize
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
Lands: 16
2 Ancient Tomb
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Swamp
My fairly limited testing has given me generally good results, though I'm looking into cutting a Therapy for another Tomb.
With Lab Maniac as your main win condition, Misdirection is necessary. The only cards you really lose to are Gaddock Teeg with a Cavern, Extirpate, and Slaughter Games. Everything else has a plan that doesn't involve Thoughtseize. Misdirection is definitely the best card in the deck. Turning Thoughtseizes around and moving Abrupt Decay and Surgical Extractions away from your win cons is huge, right down to when I Misdirected a Life from the Loam away from a Wasteland so I could go off the following turn.
The Emrakul plan obviously has to be cut to accommodate the infinite loop rules, so I've basically just replaced Blasting Station, Sharum, and Emrakul, then tweaked the rest of it.
So you simply lose against a resolved Deathrite Shaman?
I'm suspicious. I don't mean I'm suspicious of you, YamiJoey, although Misdirection almost never works against Life from the Loam (too many targets). No. I mean, the deck. It's strength was in its ability to dodge hate by shuffling its graveyard back into its library in response to it. Add in the new requirement to have mana for Think Twice from the graveyard the turn you go off and you have a far weaker combo. Oh yeah, and DRS too. That was not around two years ago.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
"Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers."
The Misdirecting the Loam was just a fun quip. If I didn't kill him the following turn he just dredges it back and does it again, so it's not a play I'm going to make unless I know I can win. The additional mana for Thik Twice has been a small issue, forcing me to have to wait. I've been very interested in playing Dark Ritual and Lotus to give us the extra boost, considering you only actually need to generate U, as you have 3 from the Monolith.
A T1 Shaman is a problem. I'm slowly coming to learn that this deck has more and more weaknesses, which I am attempting to fix one at a time until the deck is workable again. The fact of the matter is, we are no longer allowed to use Emrakul in this deck, so we have to find other ways of winning. The way it is going though, it kind of looks like it's more convoluted than something like Storm or Omnishow, and even with the rather large protection package, you're still struggling against certain cards. I am currently trying to find a combo deck that I can call home in Legacy, and experimenting with this and Doomsday at the moment.
Is 2 Artifacts that cost a total of 5 just to get you to where you need to be too much when you could just play 0-cost rocks and some Rogues? I'm not entirely sure, but I want to find out. The deck feels generally resilient against a lot of other decks, though. It has a tonne of hate in the main for partial mirrors too, which is partly what brought me here. (Apart from the whole "Lab Maniac" thing.) Shaman can be beaten, I'll just have to figure out the best way to do that.
This deck started as a way to build Cephalid Breakfast to dodge StP and Mental Misstep - the combo pieces cost more, but the deck was more resilient. So...your version does neither and just is a more expensive Breakfast. What's the point?
Languages and dates for every set. For all you true pimps.
Think Twice costs mana.... In the 3 replaced slots you could run:
1 Lab Maniac
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
This is resilient to spot removal on Maniac, since you can just tap a second Wizard in response to draw again. It also takes up 0 mana post-Dread Return instead of 2U. This is also probably better than the Mimeoplasm plan since a lot of people are SBing Leyline these days.
But yeah, you probably want to SB into Pithing Needle on DRS.
Wow, you have a surprisingly good attitude about it all. You make me want to toss my hat in the ring once again. I want to plop down some thoughts to help you along then.
1. The deck always needs a reason to exist. I say this because Cephalid Breakfast is very similar in function and has some advantages. Amongst the advantages T4H had in the past was that creature removal was dead against it. That is gone in your version here.
2. This deck really wants to be a single color deck for access to better mana acceleration. If you can possibly find a way to make that happen (I never could) you will be in much better shape.
3. I never fully explored the benefits of Lion's Eye Diamond. If you ditch Force of Will and Misdirection you may be able to make it work with Infernal Tutor instead of Lim-Dul's Vault or something. Not sure. You may actually be able to make it work as fast combo that way. But Cabal Therapy is great for defense with LED as in Dredge.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
"Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers."
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote