Chain Song

[MattH]

Rumored card:

Swans of Bryn Argoll
2{W/U}{W/U}
Creature - Bird Spirit Rare
4/3
Flying
If damage would be dealt to Swans' Song, prevent that damage. The controller of the damage's source then draws cards equal to the damage prevented in this way.

(Combine with Chain of Plasma)

So here's what I'm thinking.

1. FACT: this combo is cool and fun.

2. It might even be good, but it's not going to be insane, instant-tier-1 or anything like that. There's decent reasons to suspect it won't even be good but I'll play the optimist for now.

3. Decklists! Let's see, Anusien's "hellbent Demonfire off of LED" idea was pure shit. I'm not even sure how he meant to cast it - Recoup maybe. I independently came up with Conflagrate, although I was beaten to it by other people so I can't claim original credit for it.*

This is clearly going to be a "slow" combo, which means it will need protection. Luckily, that is available; see below.

The basic combo draws your entire library, or as much of it as you like; from there, numerous wins are possible, but Conflagrate and Lightning Storm, paid for by free mana, are the most compact, and therefore probably the best.

Free Mana

Naturally you'll want some fast mana to draw into while executing the combo. The candidates are SSG, Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, and Lotus Petal. They all have their strong points, but the most relevant ones are:

Petal: Fixes mana colors if drawn prior to combo, easier to use during combo since it doesn't make you lose 2 cards (this may not actually be a very big issue)
Diamond and Petal: allow off-color 1-ofs to protect final kill spell, most notably Orim's Chant
SSG: works through Chalice, Spheres, CAN be a beater or chump blocker (minor argument). Can be used at instant speed, which may actually be relevant (read on).
Both Moxen: can speed up your pre-combo game by more than the one-shot mana. Diamond fixes colors, Chrome is easier to use.

As a not-really-serious sidenote, if your lands are all Islands and Volcanic Islands, High Tide lets you get to six mana off of four lands. Just tossing that one out there.

Kill

Setting aside my silly footnote kill, Conflagrate and Lightning Storm are the best kill cards (I did think about some crazier stuff like Haunting Misery+the discard step). Both can be reasonably cast the turn you combo off. May actually want one of each, both for diversity of options and to guard against Jester's Cap-style effects. A comparison:

Conflagrate: since you can discard it to a Chain copy, you only need your deck to be able to make RR, although this plan means playing around Extirpate, about which more later. This helps in that you don't need to spend slots on extra Free Mana, and also that you can more easily use your Free Mana to cast the six-mana combo and not have to save it for the kill spell. Bonus: Can be cast from your hand to kill a Meddling Mage or other disruptive creature.

Lightning Storm: Has the problem that the opponent MIGHT be able to turn it back at you. You have to discard enough lands to charge it up and still have more than your opponent was sandbagging, unless you drop an Abeyance or something on them. Also avoids Leyline completely, although Leyline is not actually a huge problem. There's one other huge advantage, though...

Protection

Compare to other, similar combos. I LOVE how this isn't dependent on the graveyard, not even for Conflagrate really, since you'll have your entire deck drawn to deal with Leyline or Crypt. Free artifact mana can fuel a Chain of Vapor or something. (Abolish could even work since you might have extra Swans sitting around doing nothing, but Vapor is probably Just Better.) Force of Will is obvious here, but I haven't seen anyone mention what is probably a very good card here: Pact of Negation.

The many ways to use Pact can be kind of subtle. For example, if you only have four mana, you can play Swan, then Pact whatever the opponent does on his turn, and win in your upkeep after you untap to get 1R, as long as there's a Lightning Storm somewhere in your deck and you're using SSGs for free mana. This is THE major reason to have a Lightning Storm, as I see it.

I'm not sure if you want Daze or not. Depends on the land configuration - if there's any kind of Ancient Tomb or City of Traitors, then no, Daze is garbage. It may be poor anyway just because you're trying to hit six mana and setting yourself back land drops is bad for business.

For bouncing random problems, Echoing Truth and Chain of Vapor solve most issues. Turbulent Dreams could remove multiple things if necessary. As for Extirpate (or something completely stupid like a Boseiju'd MisD), one Chant or Abeyance puts a stop to that, although the REAL best plan is to just cast it for 0 from your hand, then flash it back. On your turn, which it would almost have to be since it's a sorcery, you don't have to give up priority. Those white spells are a principal argument for including some Diamond or Petals in your mix of free mana.

I'm not sure how to address potential Counterbalance problems. EE works. Hilariously, this combo could actually run Chalice of the Void for X=1, which most notably stops STP.

Search
There's not a lot of great search available, I'm afraid. Red has essentially nothing to offer, while blue has Mystical or Cunning Wish for Chain, but only Intuition can actually find the Swan itself. I expect Intuition will be a mainstay, which also offers the ability to have fun boarding into stuff like Deep Analysis or AKs against a slow control deck like TES or Landstill.**

A prospective deck skeleton:

4 Force of Will
4 Pact of Negation
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Orim's Chant

4 Swan Song
4 Chain of Plasma
1 Lightning Storm
1 Conflagrate

0-2 Mystical Tutor
4 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
X miscellaneous other draw and search such as Ponder, AKs, who knows!

3-6 Free Mana TBD (mix of Petals and Moxen and SSG)
Lands TBD, including plenty of basic Islands

SB: Chalice? Intuition stuff?

Realism

Now, all that said, I don't think this combo (in either my skeleton or some other) is going to smash its way to the upper tier of the format, and here's why: ultimately, it IS both a slow combo AND built around creatures. There's another combo I want to make a direct comparison with: Mizzium Vault. Both are slow, requiring relatively a lot of mana to get going. Neither uses the graveyard. Both effectively let you draw your deck, killing with whatever 1-of you want to put in there. By switching to this new one, you gain the use of Pacts, and possibly fewer issues with going to time (as well as not shelling out money for 4 Time Vaults, heh!). On the downside, you become vulnerable to some creature hate - mostly STP. On the upside, you no longer care about Pithing Needle or artifact kill, and have maindeck ways to deal with disruptive creatures.

Overall it's probably an improvement, but I suspect not a huge leap forward. It may well be a contender, but it's not going to be another Flash-level deck - at least not in Legacy. I can definitely see it tearing shit up in Extended, though, where there is no STP. It could definitely take Ideal's position after the rotation as the slow, non-storm, non-dredge combo deck.

And of course, this is all contingent on a spoiler card being accurate.



*I did think of Scent of Cinder, but I'll eat something vaguely hat-shaped if THAT ends up being the kill card of choice!

**If your deck is using green for some reason (Worldly Tutor, Living Wish...who am I kidding, we know it's for Goyf), Ancient Grudge and Ray of Revelation make fun Intuition targets.

[m03]

I think it's been covered:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ead.php?t=9086

[Anusien]

I thought I told you there was already a Source thread.

By the, the obvious answer for hellbent Demonfire is Conjurer's Bauble or Feldon's Cane.

[Willoe]

I think that the key is to go off on the spot and not wasting too many slots of acceleration. Also, instant speed makes the deck resistant to STP. Here is my take on the deck:

Hot Wings (cool name! :P)

EDIT: If I'm not wrong at that sock value, it's 2/6/11 with Chain of Plasma combo, but with free burn, it's 1+?/4/11. I think it's better. I haven't tested consistensy issues yet, though.

4 Swans of Bryn Argoll

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
3 Impulse
4 Opt

4 Thunderclap
4 Fireblast
4 Pyrokinesis
2 Chain of Plasma
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Desperate Ritual
1 Lightning Storm

2 Wooded Foothills
4 Flooded Strand
4 Volcanic Island
2 Steam Vents
5 Mountain
3 Island

The deck is like Solidarity. With Solidarity, you win as late as possible. With this, you win as late as possible as soon that you've played the Swan. If your Swan has been targeted by STP, play a pyrokinesis in response. Let it resolve. Draw 4. With STP on the stack, you simply play spells all the time to draw cards, because all of the red spells in the deck are "free" and at instant speed. You never have to worry about STP. If you can't play lightning storm right now, just let the swan die, wait till your untap step and win on your upkeep. In this deck, Chain of Plasma is only an alternate win condition.

The singleton Misdirection is for ensuring the win. Discard a required number of lands, then the opponent discards, then you discard, then he discards etc. If you somehow lose this discard battle, by i.e. an opponent welding a needle into play, just change the target with Misdirection.

What do you think of this build?

[xsockmonkeyx]

I think that Pyrokinesis and Thunderclap/Fireblast are a really interesting ideas. I like how the of Desperate Ritual is not a petal/mox because it's red, but why not Rite of Flame?

Anyway, since your deck's only win condition is the Swan, do you think that you can get by without a tutor for the Swan? Did you try Intuition and cut it already? It's relatively expensive and kinda opens you up to Extirpate, but it's the only way to find a creature with U/R, besides mulliganing/cantripping/drawing into it.

[Willoe]

Rite of Flame is a sorcery and therefore, very antiproductive. Desperate Ritual's only on the list because it's an instant. Because SSG's uncounterable, it ensures the Lightning Storm win even more.

Intuition seems like a really strong choice over the impulses. Fuck Extirpate, I'd never had problems with it. I'll try Intuition out over impulse. Or maybe accumlated knowledge. But I think it sucks. And really, you don't have to play intuition to win. The sock value's still the same: 2/6/11 or 1+?/4/11.

Anyway, it wasn't my intention to hijack the thread, so will it be ridicolous to make a new one?

[Sek'Kuar]

I just wanted to point out that Swans of Bryn Argoll has been confirmed.

[Willoe]

Fair enough. How many cards have really been confirmed so far?

[technogeek5000]

I already posted a thread for this deck. Both lists are essentially the same. Anyways im pretty sure you could stay 2 colors and have enough protection without opening your self more to wasteland, moon, etc...

[Willoe]

I'll try this out with some proxies and post my results in one of the threads.

[xsockmonkeyx]

Rite of Flame is a sorcery and therefore, very antiproductive.

Doh.

[Nightmare]

Already a thread on this.