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Thread: Escape Brain Freeze

  1. #201
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Thanks for the feedback AngryBacon.

    Quote Originally Posted by AngryBacon View Post
    One of those is more of a corner case:

    - Stifle and similar effects
    - Pull from Eternity + removal (my Echo Storm list has access to that)

    Unexpectedly Absent + Swords to Plowshares works as well from a tiered deck. Stifle is the big one if that's saying anything.
    Colors aren't much of a concern though I'd say.
    Removal doesn't stop the trigger from Oracle since 0>=0 you still win. I hadn't thought of stifle. That'd be a blowout.


    Quote Originally Posted by AngryBacon View Post
    I can suggest trying both, maybe start with a single copy of Intuition instead of the third Gamble. Everytime you draw one of those 3, note down which one you would have preferred. This is what I do all the time and this is why my sideboard might sometime look like shit :D
    Good idea!

    Quote Originally Posted by PMCire
    If you're running white MD (like silence/STP) how do you justify not running ETutor?
    So this is something I'm not happy with. Each tutor has pros and cons associated with it, and (at least to me) there isn't a very clear answer which is the correct one to run.

    Gamble fetches 3/3 combo pieces, however there's a 16-33% chance you just get screwed over and discard the wrong combo piece, which is worrisome. The other combo pieces can start in the yard though, so it's possible that this is the best since 2/3rds of the time we'd be casting it after we cast UB.

    Intuition fetches 3/3 and can even fetch LED and BF together, since we don't care if they start in the yard. However it's very expensive at 3 mana (making it literally unplayable EOT with a Defense Grid)

    Etutor fetches 2/3 combo pieces, (which is probably ok since we're running 7 virtual copies of the 3rd). The main con of Etutor is that it's really only better than the others EOT where we'll draw it right away. However with Defense Grids MD, it's likely to not be castable EOT. This teligraphs your plan to your opponent, which may or may not matter very much.

  2. #202
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by Lemon View Post
    [*]For a win conditions is Living Wish + Thassa's Oracle or Grapeshot better? The Oracle path ignores all hate I can think of, but takes up more sideboard slots and requires 3 colors floating instead of the 1 color for grapeshot.
    Grapeshot. 1 slot instead of 2. With both a transformational plan and a Wishboard, SB space is precious.

    What hate does Burning Wish not answer? Eldrazi/Progenitus? Grapeshot them. Leyline of Sanctity? Wish for Reverent Silence then Brain Freeze/2nd wish for Grapeshot. Stifle? Escape Grapeshot again.

    The only commonly-played problem I can think of is Glacial Chasm, but those decks probably lose to Brain Freeze (and are more likely to Crop Rotate into Bojuka Bog than Chasm, so the bigger thing to answer is Crop Rotation).

    [*]For tutors should I use Intuition or Gamble? Intuition can get any number of combo pieces, but costs much more and can be Veil of Summered.
    Depends which you fear worse: losing to variance or getting outraced. Until we have some real test data, it's hard to say which affects our win % more. Turn 1 Gamble keeps Underworld Breach 83% of the time OTP, 86% OTD, but the odds get worse if you have other "must keeps" in hand (e.g. only 1 other mana source, protection). Intution is difficult to resolve through Daze and Thalia and Wasteland, something to consider.

    [*]For removal is Swords to Plowshares or Lightning Bolt better? Swords is better creature removal, but lightning bolt can be escaped in combo to make up for extra damage if things go south.
    StP. I suggested Bolt before, but realistically you can hedge: 2-3 StP + 1 Bolt. You only need 1 Bolt in the deck to escape combo it.

    [*]Should I run Spell Pierce or Daze? Spell Pierce can be escaped with the remaining U from LED to counter early hate, but Daze is free from hand.
    Pierce. Or Flusterstorm as AngryBacon suggested.

    Daze doesn't protect you as easily when you crack LED and is easier to play around. Also undoing land drops slows us down. Good Daze decks are proactive, i.e. they Daze after playing the threat when the land is less relevant (Delver, DS, UB Reanimator). Dazing before resolving a win condition is a Time Walk for the opponent, it slows down our combo turn.

    [*]Is Echo of Eon's needed in wishboard or can I replace that with something better?
    If you're tight on room and don't see yourself using it, replace.

    I have it for the same reason I always played Diminishing Returns in Belcher and old TES wishboards. It was a controversial slot because it got used so rarely, but sometimes it's nice to have a reset button after everything goes wrong.

    [*]Is Green worth it for Reverent Silence? or should I cut it to ease up on the manabase?
    What's your plan to answer those cards? As long as you have some other plan (e.g. ETutor/Gamble into Serenity), seems fine to cut.

    Etutor fetches 2/3 combo pieces, (which is probably ok since we're running 7 virtual copies of the 3rd). The main con of Etutor is that it's really only better than the others EOT where we'll draw it right away. However with Defense Grids MD, it's likely to not be castable EOT. This teligraphs your plan to your opponent, which may or may not matter very much.
    Yeah the dissynergy with Grid is a problem. There is another way to draw the card right away, a line I use often. Upkeep ETutor. It does cost you 1 mana on the combo turn, but it puts the card immediately and has surprise factor (e.g. they can't Thoughtseize it out of you). This line is especially good if you have Grid out, as you won't need to cast Silence so you just need 2 more mana to go off. If you're on Silence instead of Grid, then you can EOT Tutor!

  3. #203
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by Lemon View Post
    Removal doesn't stop the trigger from Oracle since 0>=0 you still win.
    In my example, opponent actually puts a card in your library before the trigger resolves :-) But you're right, I wouldn't worry either about removal.

  4. #204

    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Thanks for posting your results! It looks fun.

    So you were goldfishing about Turn 2-Turn 3 on average? Sounds on par with the speed of our other builds. Most of our lists goldfished turn 2-3ish with protection, but also had options to play slow around hate.

    To go fast and all-in the goal should be turn 1. Any way to speed it up?
    FTW, in some of the games I held off on "going for it" on T1. to either build up the hand or wait for protection. This build has a very high chance of going off on T1 when facing no disruption. I played a similar build of this when Gitaxian Probe was legal and placed in the top 20 of a 200ish person event. There are ways to make the deck faster:

    1. cut 2-3 lands
    2. cut BF
    3. run another CM
    4. run 1-2 Cabal Ritual
    5. Other cards that have been tried are Street Wraith, Noxious Revival, PiF, Ill-Gotten Gains. (3 0f those 4 are subpar now that UB has been spoiled).

    Serum powder is another card to consider but it is a dead draw and potentially exiling win cons can be a huge loss when you face cards like Veil of Summer, which shuts off the ToA lines.

    When I do some more goldfishing I will "just go for it" with the "fastest" list, but I think I prefer the version with more lands. Give the BF list a shot if you have time. I am still learning some tricks with the deck that lead to bigger chains for more storm. It is pretty complicated to pilot correctly but what it does better than glass cannon style decks is recover. The "Draw Four" sorceries really help you keep your card count in hand up, which obviously allows you to try and go off multiple times. Now that UB is a thing it is even better.

    Have fun with it!

  5. #205
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Yeah the dissynergy with Grid is a problem. There is another way to draw the card right away, a line I use often. Upkeep ETutor. It does cost you 1 mana on the combo turn, but it puts the card immediately and has surprise factor (e.g. they can't Thoughtseize it out of you). This line is especially good if you have Grid out, as you won't need to cast Silence so you just need 2 more mana to go off. If you're on Silence instead of Grid, then you can EOT Tutor!
    Feeling a little stupid that I didn't think about upkeep Etutor. I did that when I played Parfait, so I really don't have any excuse not to have thought of it here. This makes it significantly better, and probably will replace 1-2 preordains. maybe a 2-2-2 split gamble - etutor - preordain until I decide which I like.

  6. #206
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by Lemon View Post
    Feeling a little stupid that I didn't think about upkeep Etutor. I did that when I played Parfait, so I really don't have any excuse not to have thought of it here. This makes it significantly better, and probably will replace 1-2 preordains. maybe a 2-2-2 split gamble - etutor - preordain until I decide which I like.
    I usually don't treat Gamble as a tutor per se and instead as a combo piece. Assuming you have Three Mana Sources, Breach, Combo Piece 2 in your hand by turn 2-3 - Gamble OR Entomb is indistinguishable from Combo piece 3 to go off. As such I never really use it to tutor and instead just use it as a combo piece itself.
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  7. #207
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    How about "Ice Cream Headache" for a deck name?

    Quote Originally Posted by Wikipedia
    The term ice-cream headache has been in use since at least January 31, 1937, contained in a journal entry by Rebecca Timbres published in the 1939 book We Didn't Ask Utopia: A Quaker Family in Soviet Russia. The first published use of the term brain freeze, in the sense of a cold-stimulus headache, was in 1991. 7-Eleven has trademarked the term.
    EDIT: I wonder if there's a synonym for "Headache" that starts with E so we can be ICE Storm.
    EDIT2: "Ice Cream Escape" would make ICE Storm.

  8. #208

    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    I usually don't care about deck names, but I can't miss the opportunity to suggest Hell Freezes Over or something along those lines

  9. #209
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    I'm still fooling around with my Serum Powder Mix, but I totally forgot about this card Sphinx of Foresight

    1) Sphinx doesn't exile your hand like Powder so you can run it with more fragile combos (you don't have to run all 4 offs)
    2) Unlike Powder, Spinx is not a total dead card since it can be pitched to FOW, imprinted on Chrome Mox, and even played as a threat if need be.

    Brainstorming a test list with Sphinx I got the following:

    14 lands

    4 Underworld Breach

    4 Lotus Petal
    4 LED
    2 Chrome Mox

    4 Sphinx of Foresight

    4 Brain Freeze
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Enlightened Tutor
    4 Gamble
    2 Burning Wish
    2 Tome Scour
    4 Pact of Negation
    4 Force of Will
    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Safety View Post
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  10. #210
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    How is Sphinx for you?

    Sphinx of Foresight vs Ponder
    -both filter through your top 3 cards and can get rid of all
    -Sphinx saves one blue mana
    -Sphinx doesn't cost a card but also doesn't put the card in hand (card neutral?)
    -Ponder is +1 graveyard size, Sphinx doesn't add to GY
    -Ponder digs beyond turn 1 and is a great topdeck
    -Sphinx can be cast lategame as a creature... if we get to 4 mana AND care about dealing the opponent damage, otherwise it sits dead in hand
    -both pitch to FoW
    -Sphinx is good fodder for Gamble discard. padding hand size with a disposable card

    It might be better than Serum Powder but don't know it's worth playing before Ponder.

  11. #211
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    How is Sphinx for you?
    I have no idea yet - will post another one of my "test posts" after I run it a couple times. You may be right RE Ponder though so my test list with Sphinx may change. That said, in my tests with Powder I found that my turn 1-2 win percentage is slightly (only goldfished no actual games, and only about 60 times) higher than it is without it. This is too be expected as id decreases variance. However, also expected is that you run (or at least my Powder test list ran) four protection pieces only and due to aggressive mulligan decisions for combo pieces you might as well forget about seeing any of that protection. Don't have a conclusion yet in terms of "most playable version", but IMO if you're going for speed and consistency only I feel that Powder is the correct track to take.
    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Safety View Post
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  12. #212
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    What did your Ponder list look like? I'm currently running 11 cantrips (4 Ponder, 4 Brainstorm, and 3 Preordain) and 3 tutors (3 Gamble) and still have room for 9 combo protection and 3 StP.

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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    I'm probably in a terrible position to be making arguments here seeing as every list I've put together has keeled over in goldfishing, but why run those tutors when we're not running a full suite of cantrips? I feel like we've still got a problem, which is that our tutors aren't versatile enough to help us when we don't have a good portion of our combo already in hand.

    Sphinx and Force of Will definitely crossed my mind a while back. I still think they're worth considering in All Spells, and I'm interested in testing them here, too, though I haven't had the chance to play Legacy in far too long.

    A quick update on backup plans: I now agree that the "Storm plus Breach plus Brain Freeze" idea isn't holding up. We're giving up the best aspects of a Storm deck to jam in a combo that doesn't synergize unless we have the perfect piece, and we aren't gaining speed or versatility by adding the other cards. One thing I tinkered with and found wanting was a TinFins package using Entomb as a centerpiece tutor. We'd try to start with either Shallow Grave or Underworld Breach and a tutor or a Loot, then we'd go from there. It didn't feel consistent, but has anyone tried anything similar?

    Apologies for not posting lists; I'm testing janky ideas on janky software and have been tinkering with my ideas too much to have settled on anything concrete.

    I still vote for "A Cold Day in Hell."
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  14. #214
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by Lemon View Post
    What did your Ponder list look like? I'm currently running 11 cantrips (4 Ponder, 4 Brainstorm, and 3 Preordain) and 3 tutors (3 Gamble) and still have room for 9 combo protection and 3 StP.
    Me? I had a Powder not Ponder list. I posted it a while back.

    Outside my experimental test lists I sort of stick with FTW's shell which roughly gets the same results in testing more or less regardless of configuration. Haven't really seen any configuration that is obviously better and it seems like any person choosing a particular configuration is mostly depending on preference.

    13-16 lands
    4 Lotus Petal
    0-6 Additional Accel
    - Mox Opal
    - Chrome Mox
    - Rituals

    4 LED
    4 Underworld Breach
    4 Brain Freeze
    2-4 Burning Wish
    0-2 Tome Scour

    4 Brainstorm
    0-6 Additional Cantrips
    -Ponder
    -Preordain

    4-10 Tutor
    -Gamble
    -Entomb
    -Enlightened tutor
    -Infernal Tutor
    -Wishclaw Talisman

    6-10 protection
    -Defense Grid
    -Veil of Summer
    -Pact of Negation
    -Thoughtseize
    -Duress
    -Silence
    -Etc.

    -Generally 20-25 Mana Sources between Lands/Accel
    -Generally 10-16 between Cantrips and Tutors
    -Artifact count for Mox Opal should be 16+ (Including Opals, Petals, LEDs that means at least 4+ more cheap artifacts)
    -If you are running 3CMC cards like Intuition, Land count needs to be 18+ and you need around 25+ Mana Sources between Lands/Accel
    -interaction cards like STP generally take/supplement the protection spots.
    Last edited by Cire; 01-08-2020 at 06:34 PM.
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  15. #215
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Shouldn't all lists have at least 1 of the new labmaniac in the main for the Show and tell and 12 posts match-ups?
    You mill yourself completely and then cast the new lab-maniac?

  16. #216

    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Shouldn't all lists have at least 1 of the new labmaniac in the main for the Show and tell and 12 posts match-ups?
    You mill yourself completely and then cast the new lab-maniac?
    Just one off grapeshot seems better against veil of summer and emrakul effects

  17. #217
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by adrieng View Post
    Just one off grapeshot seems better against veil of summer and emrakul effects
    As far as i know, veil of summer doesn't counter. and New lab maniac doesn't target the opponent contrarely to grapeshot.

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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by Tylert View Post
    Shouldn't all lists have at least 1 of the new labmaniac in the main for the Show and tell and 12 posts match-ups?
    You mill yourself completely and then cast the new lab-maniac?
    Quote Originally Posted by Tylert View Post
    As far as i know, veil of summer doesn't counter. and New lab maniac doesn't target the opponent contrarely to grapeshot.
    Grapeshot is superior. It kills a Thalia when you're that deep.
    Still in colors, Thassa's Oracle is a better Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, is still in colors and doesn't die to removal like Laboratory Maniac does. The one way you have to be protected off Laboratory Maniac is to have backup like Veil of Summer, or draw the card with Chromatic Sphere. Very bad cards outside of the combo.

  19. #219
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by AngryBacon View Post
    Grapeshot is superior. It kills a Thalia when you're that deep.
    Still in colors, Thassa's Oracle is a better Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, is still in colors and doesn't die to removal like Laboratory Maniac does. The one way you have to be protected off Laboratory Maniac is to have backup like Veil of Summer, or draw the card with Chromatic Sphere. Very bad cards outside of the combo.
    I was talking about the NEW laboratory maniac :)
    Why are we talking about veil of summer here exactly? If we're playing blue, we can mill our counterspells and escape one if they try to break the combo? Can't we?
    Not saying i am right. just trying to understand...

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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by Tylert View Post
    If we're playing blue, we can mill our counterspells and escape one if they try to break the combo? Can't we?
    Not saying i am right. just trying to understand...
    Nothing prevents them from having Hexproof before you go off, be it with an early Veil, or with a permanent like Leyline.

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