Oops, All Spells! (Formerly The Rogue Hermit)

[Ronald Deuce]

Just goldfished ten games with this list featuring the new Sphinx of Scry 3. I've spent all of 20 minutes on this:

4x Chrome Mox
4x Lotus Petal
4x Summoner's Pact
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Simian Spirit Guide

4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual

4x Balustrade Spy
4x Undercity Informer
4x Narcomoeba

4x Pact of Negation
4x Sphinx of Foresight
4x Force of Will

1x Street Wraith
1x Chancellor of the Annex
1x Cabal Therapy
1x Dread Return
1x Garna, the Bloodflame
1x Laboratory Maniac
1x Wild Cantor
1x Manamorphose

G1: T1 kill, Pact protected
G2: T2 kill, Force protected
G3: T3 kill, mulligan to 6, Force protected
G4: T1 kill unprotected; T2 kill (Daze-proof)
G5: Fizzle; T6 kill, Force and Pact protected
G6: Fizzle; T5 kill, mulligan to 6, Pact protected
G7: T3 kill, Force protected
G8: T3 kill, Force protected (N.B.: This is the first game I got to Scry more than once off of Sphinxes. Didn't need the second one.)
G9: T3 kill, mulligan to 5, Pact protected
G10: T2 kill, Force protected

20% failure rate; 20% T1 kills; 20% T2 kills; 40% T3 kills; 0% T4 kills. 30% unprotected (or Daze-proof) kills and/or fizzles; 70% protected kills.

EDIT: I'm 90% sure Chancellor should just be Unmask. Manamorphose can probably go in place of a Bridge or another Unmask if people think it's necessary.

EDIT again: Watch out for Flusterstorms/Mindbreak Traps.

[mistercakes]

good idea w/ this deck. the new guy lotleth giant lets you reduce your win con by 1 card.

i'd also recommend trying to run a higher amount of manamorphose and/or street wraith.

maybe something like this:

4x Chrome Mox
4x Lotus Petal
4x Summoner's Pact
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Simian Spirit Guide

4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual

4x Balustrade Spy
4x Undercity Informer
4x Narcomoeba

4x Pact of Negation
4x Street Wraith
4x Sphinx of Foresight
4x Manamorphose

1x Cabal Therapy
1x Dread Return
1x Lotleth Giant
1x Wild Cantor

this still gives you enough creatures to kill with Lotleth and it lets you see a lot of extra cards if you have to scry 3 to the bottom. i also like 4 chancellor of the tangle in the street wraith spot too, since it can help give you enough initial mana to cast manamorphose into a dark ritual/cabal ritual.

[Ronald Deuce]

good idea w/ this deck. the new guy lotleth giant lets you reduce your win con by 1 card.

i'd also recommend trying to run a higher amount of manamorphose and/or street wraith.

maybe something like this:

Yeah, I've definitely considered both Chancellors of the Tangle and upping the number of Manamorphoses. The reason I didn't use Lotleth Giant was that I was concerned I wouldn't have enough creatures to make it lethal, though if we treat Force as a sideboard card and go for a faster kill rather than a more resilient one, I think Lotleth with Chancellors/Wraiths is probably better. I was just looking to increase consistency using Sphinx (it works) and resilience using Force (it also works). Regardless, I think we're getting a really cool new toy soon in the Sphinx.

Thanks for the input! Tinker away with the lists; I want to see where this goes.

[mistercakes]

Yeah, I've definitely considered both Chancellors of the Tangle and upping the number of Manamorphoses. The reason I didn't use Lotleth Giant was that I was concerned I wouldn't have enough creatures to make it lethal, though if we treat Force as a sideboard card and go for a faster kill rather than a more resilient one, I think Lotleth with Chancellors/Wraiths is probably better. I was just looking to increase consistency using Sphinx (it works) and resilience using Force (it also works). Regardless, I think we're getting a really cool new toy soon in the Sphinx.

Thanks for the input! Tinker away with the lists; I want to see where this goes.

makes sense, keep in mind this new blue guy is also a creature, so he'll add to the count, there's also random games where you just cast a 4/4 sphinx. (tangle + esp + manamorphose +2 other mana.) not great but still an option!

[Ronald Deuce]

Been goldfishing this some more, and I think we've got ourselves a real contender, boys. Interested to hear whether anyone else is still living in 2013. Anybody been testing this monstrosity?

[GradStudent]

Im always down to try to revive this bad boy

[Mr. Safety]

It is very sad that the blue count couldn't be increased so you could use Force of Will in some number. Four Pact of Negation is fine and all, but having up to 6-7 free counterspells would be good to have available. Even 2x Force would be very iffy, considering there is only 12 blue cards in the deck (4 of which you really want in your deck, not in your hand.)

[mistercakes]

I still like the living wish version the most.

[Ronald Deuce]

It is very sad that the blue count couldn't be increased so you could use Force of Will in some number. Four Pact of Negation is fine and all, but having up to 6-7 free counterspells would be good to have available. Even 2x Force would be very iffy, considering there is only 12 blue cards in the deck (4 of which you really want in your deck, not in your hand.)

Adding the four new Sphinxes and four Forces ups the blue count to 16. The deck feels slower and less consistent than it did when Probe was around, but I haven't brought the deck out in over a year, so I'm not sure whether that's been an issue for a while or whether it's just that my brew's bad.

With that said, I was aiming to produce a more consistently protected build rather than a faster one.

I still like the living wish version the most.

Do you have an up-to-date decklist? I'd messed around with it a little bit a couple of years ago but couldn't get it to work as consistently as the Wish-less build.

[mistercakes]

Do you have an up-to-date decklist? I'd messed around with it a little bit a couple of years ago but couldn't get it to work as consistently as the Wish-less build.

// 60 Maindeck
// 12 Artifact
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

// 25 Creature
3 Balustrade Spy
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Narcomoeba
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Undercity Informer
1 Lotleth Giant
1 Wild Cantor
4 Chancellor of the Tangle

// 1 Enchantment
1 Bridge from Below

// 16 Instant
4 Dark Ritual
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Manamorphose

// 6 Sorcery
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
4 Living Wish


// 15 Sideboard
// 5 Creature
SB: 4 Vampire Hexmage
SB: 1 Balustrade Spy

// 9 Land
SB: 4 Dark Depths
SB: 4 Thespian's Stage
SB: 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

// 1 Sorcery
SB: 1 Sylvan Scrying


it's the opposite, i'm going for consistency over resiliency. sb is to change it up in case too much gravehate. not sure if it's better, if not you can always play the pact of negation chancellor package in the sb, but your game 1's will be fastest and require the least amount of mulligans.

[gngpostalsrvc]

How do you sideboard with the wish version? Do you leave copies of Stage and Depths in the SB to wish for?

[mistercakes]

How do you sideboard with the wish version? Do you leave copies of Stage and Depths in the SB to wish for?

i have been keeping 1 of each combo piece and i'm still on the fence if i should bring in the urborg.

i also like spy over informer here, so you can try to keep those in the maindeck. (you can still cast spy, potentially hit a few narcomoebas and that might be enough vs some decks that might mulligan for hate cards and whiff.)

[Blastoderm]

Long post incoming. Haven't posted here in a while due to having a kid and buying a house.

With all the grixis control running around, has anyone considered Reanimate in the SB? Pact of Negation is great vs blue decks packing spell pierce, fow, daze, etc but I'm having a hard time vs decks that have countermagic AND discard (thoughtseize, hymn). Reanimate would be there to recover a discarded or countered Rogue. Can also be sided in against BR Reanimator.

On another topic, how good is Manamorphose? I hate this card in Belcher and seem to be forced on playing it now that Probe is banned. If the color fixing is needed for this deck, maybe Wild Cantors are better. I don't see myself going off unless I have all the mana and a rogue. Spending 2 mana to gamble the top card of your deck for the last required mana or even to just dig is terrible and even worse in this deck because it's mana and threat density is lower than Belcher. Wild Cantor also has niche uses like playing it off a Chrome Mox turn 1 and going off turn 2 using it as an additional mana source.

[Ronald Deuce]

With all the grixis control running around, has anyone considered Reanimate in the SB? Pact of Negation is great vs blue decks packing spell pierce, fow, daze, etc but I'm having a hard time vs decks that have countermagic AND discard (thoughtseize, hymn). Reanimate would be there to recover a discarded or countered Rogue. Can also be sided in against BR Reanimator.

On another topic, how good is Manamorphose?

Reanimate seems good if we've got the mana to cast it, but I worry about not having mana on consecutive turns. With that said, it works well with Unmask, which is another card I've been tinkering with in my Sphinx list. I haven't had the chance to test it much, but I've had a bit of trouble against Chalice on 0 and Thorn/Sphere from non-Force decks, so I think if we're on the play against decks like those we're going to want proactive disruption at least as much as reactive disruption. (For what it's worth, I'm still testing maindeck Force. Seems ok, though probably not as good as the Cockatrice shuffler first indicated it would be.)

Cantor seems fine, and it's a creature to help fuel Lotleth Giant. I don't know whether it's something I prefer to Manamorphose; I haven't been logging my matches, but it feels like the extra card is useful about as often as it isn't. I've gone back up to 2–3x Manamorphose from the 1x I ran a few years back, but I might cut one or two for a redundant Cantor. A quick Thoughtseize on Cantor can actually screw us, so maybe having an extra one for Summoner's Pact is useful.

[mistercakes]

i like manamorphose especially in builds with chancellor of the tangle. getting black mana from green is the most important part and i think it's generally better than cantor (although 1 cantor is great).

[Blastoderm]

i like manamorphose especially in builds with chancellor of the tangle. getting black mana from green is the most important part and i think it's generally better than cantor (although 1 cantor is great).

I'm currently playing with Chancellor of the Tangle as well. I'm using 4 Wild Cantor and 3 Tinder Wall to essentially "preserve" that mana for a turn if needed (sometimes you don't have 4 mana on turn 1, especially after aggressive mulligans). Wild Cantor does the same thing as manamorphose does: converts green to black but with a 1 mana investment and the ability cast it of a chancellor or chrome mox turn 1 and pass the turn. To play Tinder Wall I had to cut street wraith, which makes my black card count a bit low for chrome mox. Also, it's unclear to me which chancellor is better right now, white or green.

More testing required ;)

[Ronald Deuce]

Sphinx seemed like a really good way to solve the initial problem that struck me about this deck, which was that it was hard to function if we weren't sure we'd get ahold of either a Rogue or a mana-fixer on our first turn or two. Has anyone else been working with Sphinx? Again, my testing's been limited, but it seems good to me.

[pettdan]

A local player is playing it, a Sphinx build, not sure how it's working for him. I'll suggest he drops a comment.

[Blastoderm]

Sphinx seemed like a really good way to solve the initial problem that struck me about this deck, which was that it was hard to function if we weren't sure we'd get ahold of either a Rogue or a mana-fixer on our first turn or two. Has anyone else been working with Sphinx? Again, my testing's been limited, but it seems good to me.

I think adding more dead-weight in the deck is not where you want to be. Instead of adding 4 "do nothing" cards, why not just add more of what you actually want instead of scrying to find it and delaying a turn? More often than not, it's mana or color fixing you're searching for as you mulligan for a Rogue. I've added 4 Chancellor of the Tangle, 3 Tinder Wall and 4 Wild Cantor to solve this issue.

[Ronald Deuce]

I think adding more dead-weight in the deck is not where you want to be. Instead of adding 4 "do nothing" cards, why not just add more of what you actually want instead of scrying to find it and delaying a turn? More often than not, it's mana or color fixing you're searching for as you mulligan for a Rogue. I've added 4 Chancellor of the Tangle, 3 Tinder Wall and 4 Wild Cantor to solve this issue.

My thought process was that the Sphinx could replace Chancellor of the Annex, and also that with Lotleth Giant, we could trim some fat to make room for more disruption. One of the big reasons I've been testing Sphinx and quad-Narco (instead of 3x Narco, 1x Bridge) was that I wondered whether we could run Force of Will. I guess there's no reason the old builds with Gitaxian Probe wouldn't have been able to support it, but I didn't have Forces back in the day so I never thought to try it.

The Sphinx build is definitely slower than this deck used to be—no argument there. But I've found that having a scry without a Rogue has typically allowed me to find one in the top 3 or in the first card off the top if I bottom the scried cards, and adding extra disruption (either preboard or postboard) has been yielding extremely frequent protected kills faster than or on a par with TES's target kill of T2–3. And without the free card-drawing we used to have, I can't say I'm as comfortable with our mulligans as I used to be; I want a way to know I've got better-than-betting odds of finding a Rogue and the mana to cook off, and Sphinx feels like a useful tool.

But seriously: test it, shred it, get back to me. I don't want to pull punches against my deck ideas.

EDIT: Pettdan, that sounds great! Keep us posted!