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Thread: Escape Brain Freeze

  1. #281
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by Lemon View Post
    I’m currently looking for a better option that’ll hopefully answer tomod’s and bog, which I see more often.
    For Tormod's Crypt/Relic of Progenitus/Nihil Spellbomb I have a 1-of Pithing Needle in the SB (in the URw lists with 4 ETutor). It seemed like a clean answer without taking up too much space. Otherwise you can try to Spell Pierce them.

    How are they getting Bog into play? If they're using Knight of the Reliquary or Elvish Reclaimer, Needle helps there too!

    If it's Crop Rotation, I think we just cannot let them resolve a Crop Rotation on the combo turn. Bog or Glacial Chasm wrecks us. So we need to either counter it or proactively stop it with Defense Grid/Silence. If they play Bog before the combo turn, I think we can just play around that by not self-milling (or doing an EOT Brain Freeze for 6-12, then untapping and going off).

  2. #282

    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Good results! I might start playing Thought Scour over Preordain.

    Finished that league 3-2, so it's 10-5 overall. Not sure if Intuition is where you want to be; I just wanted to try out my first drawup. I'm going to tinker with some Gamble lists soon.


    How has it been against mana denial decks? Did you face much Delver or D&T?

    I have yet to face D and T. Intuition is passable against Delver, which I have faced. I cut one post board. You sometimes have to play it into a Daze.

    Where has Veil shined for you that Silence wouldn't? I would think that a random draw on the combo turn doesn't make a huge difference if you already committed to going off. Did you face much Counterbalance? I like Silence for beating Surgical and disenchants, but maybe your counters were sufficient to beat those.

    Veil has primarily shined against Thoughtseize (which Silence doesn't stop) and winning a counter war on the opponent's turn (vs the New UG Show and Tell deck). Being able to cycle it is also sometimes nice.

    Thinking about it more, there are some nice things about Silence that I hadn't thought of. Much better against something like Crop Rotation, for instance.

    I was torn about Flusterstorm vs Spell Pierce earlier. In your games how often did it win situations that Spell Pierce wouldn't (i.e. storm >=3 and opponent has 2 open)? I like that Pierce can counter permanent hate like Chalice, Counterbalance, Cage, Crypt....

    In the faster builds, I think Spell Pierce or a split makes more sense. As I am more equipped to play a slow game, and often do, the extra storm copies of Flusterstorm have come in handy several times. In builds without FOW Pierce is probably also correct, since you have fewer answers to things like Chalice and Karn.

    You can play around Surgical Extraction until you can counter it or stop them from playing spells. What about Faerie Macabre, Scavenging Ooze and Extirpate though? That's why I started with the 3 Gravestones originally. If it was just for Surgical, even Silence stops that. Although note that Silent Gravestone also stops their Snapcaster Mage and Dreadhorde Arcanist in those Surgical decks.


    Not gonna lie...Extirpate seems almost unbeatable. If opponent has it and always leaves a black mana available it seems like they should be able to win eventually with a ham sandwich. I've comboed through double Macabre. Macabre is a card that could occasionally "catch you" on an early turn. In general Surgical seems only marginally better against us than it is vs something like ANT. It comes in against ANT, and it is even better vs us (so it's not like we are happy the opponent has access) but most of the time you can navigate around it. Flusterstorm vs Pierce also tends to help here.

    It also has a 2nd mode of slowing down Reanimator, which is faster than us. Do we have any other plan against them? We can't race. I figured having a protection piece that doubled as hate was efficient use of SB.

    Gravestone is a total beating vs Reanimator to be sure. Forces them to have an answer or exactly Exhume. My plan is force/flusterstorm (4 of each post board) into a combo on t2-4. I guess I can get behind a single Gravestone if you have room. Maybe it does deserve a slot--I'm a fan of the card, and used to play three copies in Ice Station Zebra back in the DRS days. I'd just go with one because of (extreme) diminishing returns and it being somewhat borderline to begin with.

    Speaking of Ice Station Zebra, I made a kind of funny Tin Fins mashup with Breach. You can find it on the Tin Fins forum in Established decks. I'm 2-0 in my first league with it! (Def don't think it's actually good).

  3. #283
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    This is what I'm on now. It's been running pretty well.


    //Lands: 15
    4 Scalding Tarn
    4 Flooded Strand
    3 Volcanic Island
    2 Tundra
    1 Island
    1 Plains

    //Artifacts: 11
    4 Lotus Petal
    4 Lion's Eye Diamond
    2 Defense Grid
    1 Grinding Station

    //Enchantments: 4
    4 Underworld Breach

    //Planeswalker: 1
    1 Teferi, Time Raveler

    //Spells: 29
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    4 Enlightened Tutor
    4 Silence
    4 Burning Wish
    4 Brain Freeze
    3 Spell Pierce
    2 Preordain

    //Sideboard: 15
    1 Grapeshot
    1 Tome Scour
    1 Infernal Tutor
    1 Sevinne's Reclamation
    1 Shenanigans
    1 Fragmentize
    1 Pyroclasm
    1 Pithing Needle
    1 Serenity
    1 Silent Gravestone
    2 Brazen Borrower
    2 Chain of Vapor
    1 Red Elemental Blast


    After more testing, I added back Preordain. I missed the card selection. I found running protection or answers (StP, bounce) in that slot led to worse draw consistency even if I could 1-for-1 something. Maybe Intuition or Gamble are better, don't know. Preordain played better for me than Thought Scour, could come down to play style. I really abuse card selection and don't like random draws.


    Card choices (for the flex slots):
    Grinding Station - lets you ETutor for mill when you have Breach + LED + ETutor (alternate combo loop to dig for BF)

    Tome Scour - lets you Burning Wish for mill (alternate combo loop)

    Infernal Tutor - lets you Burning Wish for Underworld Breach with 1RR+LED for BBB.

    Sevinne's Reclamation - lets you Burning Wish to get back milled/killed Underworld Breach, Grid, Teferi, or LED

    Spell Pierce - protects the combo. reusable with Breach. counters enemy combo and early problems like Chalice, Counterbalance, Cage, etc

    Teferi, Time Raveler - protects the combo. bounces hate. bounces Underworld Breach if you fizzle.

    Silence - protection from countermagic, Crop Rotation, Surgical, Extirpate, and Disenchants.

    Defense Grid - ETutorable Silence

    Pithing Needle - ETutorable answer for Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus, Nihil Spellbomb, Faerie Macabre, Scavenging Ooze, Elvish Reclaimer, Karn, etc

    Serenity - ETutorable answer for Chalice @ 0, Trinisphere, Blood Moon, Leylines, Back to Basics, Null Rod, Enchantress, etc

    Silent Gravestone - ETutorable answer for Surgical Extraction, Extirpate, Faerie Macabre, Scavenging Ooze, etc. Hates on Reanimator and recursion.

    Fragmentize - Wishable answer for Leylines, Chalice @ 0/Chalice @ 2, Counterbalance @ 0/2, Grafdigger's Cage, Null Rod, Rest in Peace

    Shenanigans - Wishable answer for Chalice @ 1, Trinisphere, Grafdigger's Cage, Tormod's Crypt, etc

    Pyroclasm - Wishable answer for Thalia, Revoker, Eidolon of the Great Revel, Meddling Mage, Collector Ouphe, beatdown, etc

    Brazen Borrower - Bounce hate pieces or beaters. Alternate win condition.

    Chain of Vapor - answers most permanent hate, except Chalice @ 1

    Red Elemental Blast - counters, Counterbalance, etc

    I'm on the full 4 ETutor and 4 Burning Wish. I tweaked the deck so they can both find almost any combo piece or solutions to most problems.
    ETutor gets Underworld Breach, LED, mill (Grinding), protection (Grid), SB answers
    Wish gets mill (Scour), Breach (IT), recovery (Sevinne), SB answers, win condition. If I need LED, I can try to mill into it, or just use Petal instead.

  4. #284
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by Jblinder View Post
    Not gonna lie...Extirpate seems almost unbeatable.
    I realized Defense Grid, Silence and Teferi, Time Raveler already beat Extirpate just like they beat Surgical. Extirpate is just harder to beat with counters and stack timing. I cut back on Silent Gravestones.

    We can win through Extirpate on LED (deterministic win with Lotus Petal + Brain Freeze)
    We can win through Extirpate on BF (deterministic win with LED + Wish for Tome Scour)

    Double Extirpate on both LED and BF is very hard, but we don't have to concede unless they have pressure. If we resolved the first BF before Extirpate, it's theoretically beatable by a Tome Scour+Lotus Petal loop. That reduces GY size each iteration, but if starting size and mana are enough then we can try to build enough storm to Wish -> Grapeshot. Could be very time consuming, maybe only worth it in G3.

  5. #285
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    EWLandon just streamed a version of this deck with a guest, MentalMisstep:

    4 Flooded Strand
    2 Prismatic Vista
    4 Scalding Tarn
    2 Snow-Covered Island
    1 Snow-Covered Mountain
    1 Snow-Covered Plains
    1 Tundra
    1 Volcanic Island


    4 Lion's Eye Diamond
    4 Lotus Petal

    4 Underworld Breach
    4 Enlightened Tutor

    4 Force of Will
    1 Orim's Chant
    1 Pact of Negation
    2 Defense Grid


    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    4 Preordain
    1 Seal of Removal
    4 Brain Freeze
    1 Grinding Station
    1 Seal of Cleansing
    1 Thassa's Oracle


    SIDEBOARD
    2 Chain of Vapor
    4 Silence
    4 Swords to Plowshares
    2 Serenity
    1 Force of Negation
    2 Wear

    He went 4-1, deck looked pretty decent.

    Also, 5th place from the Challenge this weekend by MartinMedMitten:

    1 Narset, Parter of Veils


    4 Ovalchase Daredevil
    4 Riddlesmith
    2 Simian Spirit Guide


    4 Echo of Eons
    4 Gamble
    1 Grapeshot
    3 Brain Freeze
    2 Chain of Vapor
    4 Chrome Mox
    2 Defense Grid
    4 Lion's Eye Diamond
    4 Lotus Petal
    2 Mishra's Bauble
    4 Mox Opal
    3 Urza's Bauble
    3 Underworld Breach


    1 Ancient Tomb
    4 Scalding Tarn
    1 Taiga
    1 Tropical Island
    2 Volcanic Island


    Sideboard
    2 Chain of Vapor
    2 Defense Grid
    1 Faerie Macabre
    1 Karakas
    3 Nature's Claim
    1 Pyroblast
    1 Silent Gravestone
    2 Tormod's Crypt
    2 Veil of Summer
    "The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
    Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order

  6. #286

    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    That Riddlesmith version looks extremely sweet. I'd pick it up if had an extra $2k lying around!

  7. #287
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by H View Post
    EWLandon just streamed a version of this deck with a guest, MentalMisstep:
    Interesting. He's using the same URW shell as a few of us, with some similarities (ETutor, Silence, Defense Grid, Chain of Vapor, Serenity, 1-of Grinding Station) and some interesting choices:

    1) More fetches and basics. Better resilience vs Wasteland. We've all been dual-heavy. I thought basic-heavy would hurt speed too much, because nonblue lands are really bad draws early, but I guess he has as many blue sources as me.

    2) 10 MD protection slots. That's where I settled too. More and I wasn't drawing enough gas. Only 7 (previous versions) felt light in real games.

    3) Pact of Negation. Glad to see this card back in! The synergy on the combo turn is amazing. I wonder how effective it is as just a 1-of without Entomb. Maybe he's just testing that in an open slot.

    4) Force of Will. Pitching a card hurts (especially after a mulligan, I rarely have a card to spare if I want to go off early since the combo takes 3 pieces + 2-3 mana sources + protection) but it also answers a lot of problems. Relative to Spell Pierce, it speeds up the deck by a turn (1 less mana on combo turn), maybe more. Leaving mana open for Spell Pierce early is a big pain, you want to optimize mana cantripping and tutoring. I'm leaning towards Force too.

    5) The full 4 Preordain. I found 2x-3x Preordain hands very weak, wonder if it would be better as a split with something that can dig deeper (e.g. Gamble or Intuition).

    6) Silence moved to the board, 1 Chant main. I wonder how this affects his G1 win %. With FoW+Pact instead of Pierce or Silence, he can go off with less mana, so he gains a bit in explosive speed. Silence can also be dead game 1 (Chant is live even against aggro). I cast Silence before going off just in case, but you may not need it G1 if they have no idea what you're doing or how to disrupt it. Surprise factor could be a big edge.

    7) No Wishboard or Grapeshot, Thassa main. Executing the combo would take many more clicks.

  8. #288
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    After some friends started playtesting with me, I've started to gravitate heavier into a T4+ win with disruption. The more I play the more I am finding that the power of the deck is in it's ability to just win on a resolved Underworld Breach. As such, I've started to tailor my 75 to support more of a durtling playstyle. Hall of Heliod's Generosity allows for inevitability once you've found your combo pieces, so cards like silence end up not being as useful since you don't especially care if UB gets countered since you can just Hall it back to cast again next turn.


    3 Scalding Tarn
    3 Flooded Strand
    2 Prismatic Vista
    1 Plains
    2 Island
    1 Mountain
    1 Tundra
    2 Volcanic Island
    2 Hall of Heliod's Generosity

    3 Enlightened Tutor
    2 Gamble
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    1 Sevinne's Reclamation

    2 Teferi, Time Raveler
    3 Force of Will
    3 Chain of Vapor
    2 Flusterstorm

    4 Lotus Petal
    4 Lion's Eye Diamond
    4 Brain Freeze
    4 Underworld Breach
    3 Burning Wish


    Sideboard:

    3 Monastery Mentor
    2 Brazen Borrower
    1 Surgical Extraction
    1 Defense Grid
    1 Ensnaring Bridge
    1 Pithing Needle
    1 Serenity

    1 Gamble
    1 Tome Scour
    1 Meltdown
    1 Eye of Nowhere
    1 Grapeshot


    I'm not sure about some of the 75, especially in the sideboard. But I am happy with how this deck is turning out, and for the first time am wondering if my petdeck it's going to make a break into a T2-T1 strategy.

  9. #289
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by Seymour_Asses View Post
    That Riddlesmith version looks extremely sweet. I'd pick it up if had an extra $2k lying around!
    Yeah, I mean, it's not a budget deck, that's for sure. I could likely try it out at some point, since all I need are Breaches and Daredevils. But I'm not much of a combo player.

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Interesting. He's using the same URW shell as a few of us, with some similarities (ETutor, Silence, Defense Grid, Chain of Vapor, Serenity, 1-of Grinding Station) and some interesting choices:
    Yeah, I saw it more as a "proof of concept." That is, the deck seems to have the real ability to win games. Can it do it consistently in the face of possibly changing hate and people learning patterns to beat it? That is a whole other issue really that will remain to be seen.

    One thing that was rightly pointed out in the stream is that, most of the time, you can "naturally" beat Surgical, since you will always have priority after cracking LED. Brain Freeze being an Instant is key too.
    "The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
    Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order

  10. #290
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by H View Post
    One thing that was rightly pointed out in the stream is that, most of the time, you can "naturally" beat Surgical, since you will always have priority after cracking LED. Brain Freeze being an Instant is key too.
    This is a very good thing to keep in mind when you're wishing for Grapeshot. They never have an opportunity to Surgical the grapeshot as long as you don't stop to cast LED, so get all the R you need before wishing.

  11. #291
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    I've tested for a while over the long weekend to supplement my amateur math posts and have the following design note:

    1) I found that I couldn't support Opal with any degree of reliability with less than 20 cheap artifacts in the deck. Assuming Opal, Petal, LED, that left me needing 8 additional artifacts. In testing 2-3 of them were Defense Grids but I never found additional ones that I was happy with that replaced other much needed cards.

    2) 8 Cantrips (BF and Ponder) are the bare minimum that we should run. However the deck often played like it wanted more. I played with 5 copies of BF and Ponder each and found that was what the deck wanted, but obviously we can't do that. For the remaining 2 wanted cantrips I played preordain but see next point.

    3) I tested with index cards to represent a hybrid of Gamble/Tomescour/Preordain and I tallied how much I wanted to see any of the cards. Out of fifty games the tallies were 22/24/4.

    4) Testing protection, I found that "free" protection such as Pact and FOW (and Defense Grid played the turn before) was far superior to non-free protection such as silence and veil (did not test discard). Further in testing protection anything below 9 was far to few and anything about 11 seemed to take necessary cantrip/search spots. 9-11 was the sweet spot.

    5) In terms of mana sources I found 20 far to few and 25 far too much. 22 seemed to be the sweet spot. Given that I was not running Opal that mean either more lands or some spots for chrome mox or other accel.

    6) Given the increased space to mana sources after testing this means the spaces devoted to Gamble/Tomescour/Preordain above had shrunk down significantly. Additionally, they were also now competing for spaces that could also be additional Burning Wishes. Given that previous posts of mine indicated that you would more than likely want to see burning wish over thought scour AND that I wanted to see scour marginally more than even Gamble the transitive property inidicated that I would want to devote spots to Burning Wish over either Gamble or Thoughtscour. I tested this by again shuffling blank index cards into my deck to represent a hybrid of Gamble/Tomescour/burning wish and tallied how much I wanted to see any of the cards. Out of thirty games the tallies were 5/5/20. I thought that was a pretty clear result and decided to just run a full set of wishes.

    7) At this point there was only one open spot in my main deck. Looking at the above I was leaning towards Tomescour over Preordain/Gamble just because its tally was slightly higher. But since I was thus far running the bare minimum of protection I wanted to see if I would rather just run protection in this spot instead. So again I used an index card to be FOW/Tomescour and see if I would rather use the mill/win option of scour over the additional FOW. In twenty games I drew the single index card ten times and tallied what I would rather have had each time. The results were 6/4. Given the slight edge I used FOW.

    Looking at the above I made the following list:

    - 22 Mana Sources:
    4 Flooded Strand
    4 Scalding Tarn
    3 Prismatic Vista
    1 Island
    1 Mountain
    1 Plains
    1 Tundra
    1 Volcanic Island
    1 Badlands
    1 Underground Sea

    4 Lotus Petal

    - 16 Combo
    4 LED
    4 Underworld Breach
    4 BrainFreeze
    4 Burning Wish

    - 10 Protection
    4 Pact of Negation
    3 Defense Grid
    3 Force of Will

    - 12 Cantrips and Search
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    4 Enlightened Tutor

    SB includes the usual targets:

    1 Grapeshot
    1 Tome Scour
    1 Infernal Tutor
    1 Sevinne's Reclamation
    1 Shenanigans
    1 Fragmentize
    1 Pyroclasm
    1 Echo of Eons
    1 Thoughtseize

    Honestly, it's not radically different than any of the other lists people have been running here, just slightly different choices to see how it would play given past results. Happy with it and I think what I've discussed supports building it this way. Haven't played enough to say it is much better than previous builds but it seems to run better - but then again there is literally only 8 or so different cards in each of the main builds at this point. . .

    FYI: BTW manabase supports Black to run Infernal tutor in the board (since you cant use LED mana for your first IT). Wish for IT and then win with IT+LED-> Breach is the plan. This lets you count Wish as Breach as long as you also have LED in hand.
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  13. #293
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    @ Lemon; you're not wrong, but I think at this stage we should be trying to narrow down the list more. My argument is (a) enlightened tutor is necessary four of and (b) apparently that Burning Wish > Max out available protection spots >Thoughtscour/Gamble > Preordain. For example, in my list above if you take out one land it seems logical to me that you will include an additional protection spot. If you take out an additional land it would seem that you will start adding in Thoughtscour/Gamble (I lean slightly towards thoughtscour, other may and do feel differently). My take on this is that the "shell" is, or should be, more restrictive.
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  14. #294
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    @ Lemon: Primer list looks good. I think we can narrow it down more for the URW version.

    E Tutor should be 3-4, I think we're all on it by now except the nonwhite lists. The nonwhite lists replace it with 4x some other tutor (Infernal Tutor, Intuition, Gamble)
    Wish should be at least 2 copies. It exiles so you can't escape it, and 1 is too few to use a Wishboard anyway.
    Reclamation max 2 maindeck? Is anyone playing more?
    Fetchlands 8-10 seems to cover all lists

    I think most of us agree MD Swords to Plowshares is not good as protection. That one list has it SB. I had it main but cut it.


    Quote Originally Posted by Cire View Post
    2) 8 Cantrips (BF and Ponder) are the bare minimum that we should run. However the deck often played like it wanted more.
    Reached the same conclusion, but couldn't settle on what to fill that hole. Just know it should be something that accelerates the combo, not mana or protection.

    3) I tested with index cards to represent a hybrid of Gamble/Tomescour/Preordain and I tallied how much I wanted to see any of the cards. Out of fifty games the tallies were 22/24/4.
    Interesting. Was this goldfishing or vs an opponent including postboard? I might cut Preordains for Gamble again.


    4) Testing protection, I found that "free" protection such as Pact and FOW (and Defense Grid played the turn before) was far superior to non-free protection such as silence and veil (did not test discard). Further in testing protection anything below 9 was far to few and anything about 11 seemed to take necessary cantrip/search spots. 9-11 was the sweet spot.
    Also agreed 9-11 is the sweet spot, having tested both more and less.

    I tested discard in previous versions and it's very good, proactive mana optimization pre-combo, but requires going URB instead of URW, which has different sideboard and tutoring implications.

    After testing with Spell Pierce, I think it's really suboptimal for your mana development. Seemed good on paper, but I had better results before even with Pact of Negation. I need to test FoW more. Pierce can theoretically answer permanent hate that Flusterstorm misses, but only if you leave U open T1-T3, which you rarely want to do.

    Resolving Silence gives me the confidence of letting me go off on autopilot without having to worry about the stack, but may be wholly unnecessary. I won a lot of games with it, but don't know if I would have lost without it.


    5) In terms of mana sources I found 20 far to few and 25 far too much. 22 seemed to be the sweet spot. Given that I was not running Opal that mean either more lands or some spots for chrome mox or other accel.
    Interesting. I'll try more lands. I really exploit optimal cantrip sequencing to curve out and hit lands, otherwise the mana is tight.

    6) I tested this by again shuffling blank index cards into my deck to represent a hybrid of Gamble/Tomescour/burning wish and tallied how much I wanted to see any of the cards. Out of thirty games the tallies were 5/5/20. I thought that was a pretty clear result and decided to just run a full set of wishes.
    Agree. Wish is so good in many situations. Adding 1 Infernal Tutor to the SB made it even better, you can Wish for UB.

    BTW manabase supports Black to run Infernal tutor in the board (since you cant use LED mana for your first IT).
    Yes you can. Tap lands for 1RR. Cast Burning Wish for 1R, hold priority. Crack LED for BBB in response, discarding hand. Resolve Wish. Get IT. Cast IT with Hellbent paying BB, with RB floating, and get Underworld Breach. Cast Underworld Breach paying RB. Escape LED. Escape BF/Scour or IT for BF if necessary. Black lands aren't needed maindeck if black is just for IT.

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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    After testing with Spell Pierce, I think it's really suboptimal for your mana development. Seemed good on paper, but I had better results before even with Pact of Negation. I need to test FoW more. Pierce can theoretically answer permanent hate that Flusterstorm misses, but only if you leave U open T1-T3, which you rarely want to do.

    Resolving Silence gives me the confidence of letting me go off on autopilot without having to worry about the stack, but may be wholly unnecessary. I won a lot of games with it, but don't know if I would have lost without it.
    I've been on a 3 FoW, 2 Flusterstorm counter package and have been very happy with it. Pitching a cantrip or BF to FoW hurts, but a lot less than a Chalice of the Void or surgical. Plus Fluster allows you to cast it outside of combo turn. I think there's merit to Pact over Fluster, but I'm hesitant to register combo-turn-only cards.

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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Yes you can. Tap lands for 1RR. Cast Burning Wish for 1R, hold priority. Crack LED for BBB in response, discarding hand. Resolve Wish. Get IT. Cast IT with Hellbent paying BB, with RB floating, and get Underworld Breach. Cast Underworld Breach paying RB. Escape LED. Escape BF/Scour or IT for BF if necessary. Black lands aren't needed maindeck if black is just for IT.
    I was using it the turn before so that my combo turn was:

    Cast LED
    1B - Cast IT to search for Breach
    Crack LED in response for RRR
    Cast Breach (R floating)
    Exile 3 cards in graveyard - Cast and Crack LED for BBB (BBBR floating)
    Exile 3 cards in graveyard - Cast IT for BF (BB floating)
    Hopefully have one mana still open for U or 3 more cards in graveyard for another LED crack for UUU - Cast BF win.

    Compare this to using BW during the Combo turn.

    Cast LED
    1RR - Cast Wish
    Crack LED in response for BBB
    Wish gets IT
    Cast IT for Breach (RB floating)
    Cast Breach
    Exile 3 cards in graveyard - Cast and Crack LED for BBB (BBB floating)
    Exile 3 cards in graveyard - Cast IT for BF (B floating)
    Exile 3 cards in graveyard - Cast and Crack LED for UUU - Cast BF win.

    The difference between playing Wish the turn before combo and during combo is that casting it during combo requires 9 other cards in hand/graveyard (- 3 if you have BF or Tomescour) vs. the chance of only 6 other cards in hand/graveyard (if you can generate 1RU to start the combo). Those extra 3 cards (or even the chance of going off a turn earlier with less mana) may show that having a manabase that can create B MD could be potentially significant.
    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Safety View Post
    You sir are a ninja of fine quality.

  17. #297
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    Quote Originally Posted by Cire View Post
    I was using it the turn before so that my combo turn was:

    Cast LED
    1B - Cast IT to search for Breach
    Crack LED in response for RRR
    Cast Breach (R floating)
    Exile 3 cards in graveyard - Cast and Crack LED for BBB (BBBR floating)
    Exile 3 cards in graveyard - Cast IT for BF (BB floating)
    Hopefully have one mana still open for U or 3 more cards in graveyard for another LED crack for UUU - Cast BF win.
    Oh I see. It does save you GY cards, though it telegraphs what you're doing, takes an extra turn, and gives the opponent a mainphase to respond. Pros and cons, depends on the situation. If you already have BF/Scour in hand or GY then you don't need to Tutor for it and you can go off in 1 turn without exiling many cards.

    If you want to Burning Wish the turn before because you're more restricted on GY size than tempo, there is another way to do it.

    Cast LED
    1R - Burning Wish.
    Crack LED in response for BBB.
    Wish for IT
    Cast IT with Hellbent for Underworld Breach.
    Pass the turn.

    1R - Cast Underworld Breach
    Exile 3 cards - Escape LED, Crack for BBB
    Exile 3 cards - Escape IT with Hellbent getting Brain Freeze (B floating)
    Tap land for U - Cast Brain Freeze from hand, milling 12. Win.

    That takes 1R the turn before and 1RU on the combo turn. No black mana needed. Only needs 6 cards to exile.

    The drawback is you crack LED in advance, so you can't hold up protection for resolving Underworld Breach. You'd need Defense Grid/Teferi in play or a nonblue opponent. But if you already have BF, then you can go off the turn before with protection.

  18. #298
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    I agree that their are multiple ways to do it - each with pros and cons. I guess my argument is two fold:

    First is that we should be running a full set of wishes. I think that math that shows that each time you have Tomescour in your hand you will only want it to be Gamble a little less than half the time. If you have a gamble in hand you will want it to be Tomescour a little bit more than half the time. Either way though you will definitely want Wish over Scour and while I haven't done the math on it the transitive property of logic leads me to believe you will want Wish over Gamble. This means if you have any Scours or Gambles in your deck you should replace them until you have a full set of wishes.

    Second is that to increase the versatility of your Burning Wishes you will want to run a manabase that can produce black mana even though you have no cards MD that require it. You can win with Wish+LED without black, but running black can reduce the amount of cards in hand/grave to go off and thus makes your Burning Wish.

    I am happy to debate any of the above points
    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Safety View Post
    You sir are a ninja of fine quality.

  19. #299
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    I just played a League match against what appeared to be a BUrg list. I saw Dark Ritual, Thoughtseize, Infernal Tutor, and Duress in , Brain Freeze, Ponder, and Preordain in , Underworld Breach and Lightning Bolt in , and Veil of Summer in . Don't know if anyone else is going that route; seemed cool, thought I was just playing against ANT at first.

  20. #300
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    Re: Escape Brain Freeze

    If Bog/Crypt are problems is white Leyline an option?
    Quote Originally Posted by Richard Cheese View Post
    I've been taking shitty brews and tier 2 decks to tournaments and losing with them for years now. Welcome to the club. We meet for cocktails after round 6.
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    Top quality german restraint there.

    If I'm at the point where I'm rage quitting, you can bet your kransky that I'm calling everyone involved a cunt.

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