[Discussion] Contamination-Spirit

[kilukru]

I was brosing one of my friiend crap rare binder and came across :

Contamination
2B
Enchantment
During your upkeep, sacrifice a creature or sacrifice Contamination.
Whenever a land is tapped for mana, it produces B instead of its normal type and amount

Combine this and lets say Nether Spirit, and you get a pretty good mana lock against a good amount of decks.

Im thinking mono-b pox or bringing back black stompy.

So anyone tried this or think it's whort a shot?

[Jaynel]

Works well with Bitterblossom, too.

Also, note that this DOES NOT shut off manlands or other activated abilities of lands (fetchlands, Cephalid Coliseum, Maze of Ith, etc). In this respect, Contamination is VERY different from Blood Moon effects. It shuts off basic lands, which is also something Blood Moon does not do.

So you could activate a manland in response to the trigger and sacrifice it, then recur it with Crucible or something.

[Sanguine Voyeur]

Nether Spirit, Bitterblossom, Contamination, Crucible, and Smokestacks sounds like it could go in to a mean control/aggro-control deck.

[Peter_Rotten]

Many years ago, I believe that this was an actual Standard (or maybe Extended) deck. The problem is that you are using two crappy cards to make a mediocre lock that can be killed by many FREE cards:

Crypt
Abolish
Reverent Silence
Mox Diamond
Chrome Mox
ESG, SSG
Leyline

It has no effect on Manlands, Wasteland, Tombstalker, or the Ichorid deck. It probably is not terribly effective against Dragonstompy. It has little effect on Storm combo (however, to be fair, you'll probably be running this lock with a ton of discard).

I used to LOVE this combo, but it really just doesn't do enough for today's meta. It may be interesting to see if it can be Necroed with the addition of BitterBlossom, but I have my doubts.

[Timmy, Power Gamer]

Many years ago, I believe that this was an actual Standard (or maybe Extended) deck.

It was a part of the Extended Benzo deck way back when. The main plan was Entomb -> Reanimate, but a backup plan was Contamination backed up by Nether Spirit or Verdant Force or Zombie Infestation making tokens with Squees and Krovikan Horror.

[Kuma]

Bitterblossom + Contamination was tried and rejected in Demon Stompy, largely because Contamination was a terrible card on its own. A dedicated deck built on abusing Contamination might be possible, but I can't think of how it would be better than Dragon Stompy or Stax.

[Mantis]

4 Bitterblossom
4 Smallpox
4 Contamination
4 Nether Spirit
4 Nether Traitor
4 Epochrasite
4 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Pox
2 Tombstalker

4 Mishra's Factory
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
17 Swamp
Other options include; Wasteland, Hymn to Tourach, Sinkhole, Dark Ritual, Crucible, Phyrexian Totem.

This might be a nice start. There's a ton of synergy int hat deck, so it might just work out, I have never tested it however.

[Ebinsugewa]

Ask Scrumdogg about this deck and combo, he's been using it in Pox variants forever.

[Forbiddian]

Seems like it requires a ton of MD slots to be effective.

Saccing a creature to timewalk the opponent isn't really a very good tradeoff, especially when they could be packing factories or Chrome Moxen or Mox Diamond to get around the lock.

Or they could be running black.

All the stompy variants, Aggro Loam, and all black-based decks pretty much lol@u.


I can see a lot of situations where you'd rather just have the faerie tokens beating in than black locking your opponent.

I think it's a great sideboard option for decks that could justify running Nether Spirit and Bitterblossum, but it's a 2 card combo that's a little less potent than Countertop and 100% dead against a few decks.

[Shawon]

I was brosing one of my friiend crap rare binder and came across :

Contamination
2B
Enchantment
During your upkeep, sacrifice a creature or sacrifice Contamination.
Whenever a land is tapped for mana, it produces B instead of its normal type and amount

Combine this and lets say Nether Spirit, and you get a pretty good mana lock against a good amount of decks.

Im thinking mono-b pox or bringing back black stompy.

So anyone tried this or think it's whort a shot?

Kai Budde, dude. Enough said:

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=sideboard/worlds03/fm16

[Infinitium]

// Lands
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
4 [4E] Mishra's Factory
4 [TE] Wasteland
4 [EX] City of Traitors
9 [TSP] Swamp (4)

// Creatures
2 [MM] Nether Spirit

// Spells
3 [US] Smokestack
3 [10E] Crucible of Worlds
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
3 [LG] The Abyss
2 [US] Contamination
4 [MOR] Bitterblossom
4 [GP] Leyline of the Void
4 [SH] Mox Diamond
3 [PLC] Damnation
3 [MM] Unmask

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [US] Smokestack
SB: 1 [US] Contamination
SB: 3 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [REW] Powder Keg
SB: 3 [CHK] Cranial Extraction
SB: 4 [7E] Engineered Plague

I was literally 1 life point away from making top 8 in the last Mtgsalvation Legacy Tournament using this (going 4-2-0); and in all fairness this is a pretty crappy build and I'm a horrible pilot. Were I to play it again the Contaminations would most likely go to the side in order to bring in the 4th Stax (way too important in order to shut off BB) to be brought in versus slower decks in general (with Trinisphere or Chalice@0 it's essentially a hardlock) or decks that doesn't put pressure on the board directly. It's actually very good in this shell, as it has 6 direct enablers, Crucible + Mishra and it acts as a timewalk if you play it with an active Smokestack.

[Noman Peopled]

Contamination was also used as an sb card in Extended Goblins a whole while back. Might be worth a look.

[georgjorge]

Why four maindeck Leyline ? I understand that Stax doesn't like recursion, but that seems a bit over the top...

[Infinitium]

Ironically it's one of the less narrow cards available to the archetype. Every deck in the format uses the graveyard in some shape or form and I need the black card count for Unmask, and the MD doesn't really need more removal or win conditions preside anyway.

[Forbiddian]

Ironically it's one of the less narrow cards available to the archetype. Every deck in the format uses the graveyard in some shape or form and I need the black card count for Unmask, and the MD doesn't really need more removal or win conditions preside anyway.

Would you ever NOT put Leyline of the Void into play if it's in your opening hand?

I dunno, seems like a strong card, but I wouldn't count it toward black cards to pitch to Unmask.

[kicks_422]

How about when you open with two Leylines in your hand? How about when you draw into one?

[Infinitium]

How about when you open with two Leylines in your hand? How about when you draw into one?

Against an unknown opponent? Start with one in play and save the other one in case I draw into Unmask or whatever. Drawing into one? Hardcasting it would be an option. Unless my opponent plays a fully GY-independent deck and I don't have an active Smokestack. Does that answer your questions?

@Forbiddian: If I had a shot at an early Smokestack/Crucible with Unmask protection but only Leyline as another black card then yeah, I'd probably pitch it instead versus an unknown opponent. Also Unmask gets rid of redundant topdecks.

[kicks_422]

Dude, I was defending you from what Forbiddian said. Those two scenarios make Leylines actually not suck after Turn 0.

[Infinitium]

Oh dude, I totally misinterpreted that as one of those bullshit rethorical questions forumgoers likes to sling about. My bad.

[Mordel]

In defence of contamination, itself: An opponent dropping a chrome mox and being able to potentially play one spell a turn is not that impressive really. Who would make a deck that was just contamination->gg? I wouldn't. Contamination requires proper support and with stuff like chalice, smokestack(maybe?), wasteland or just fast beats that capitalize on an oppoenent playing a much slower game it serves it's purpose.

I played around with it in a black tomb aggro deck and it was a fairly encouraging. I do admit that on itsown, it is more or less useless though.

[Mantis]

The problem I had in testing was that I had to spend so many resources in order to keep Contamination up and running, one threat of the opponent per turn was already to much too handle.
That said, it's a very difficult task to build a deck that revolves around Contamination and is also able to punish the decks that make use of other manasources. I think the Stax route, though tempting, is not the right way to build the deck as the decks that Contamination is bad against, the Stax shell is bad as well. The Pox route does seem promising as you build your deck in such a way (Small)Pox hardly hurts your resources, this allows you to spend those extra resources on Contamination.

[Mordel]

A demon stompy-type approach seems like one of the better possible homes for contamination between easily being able to run bitterblossoms and pirest of gix.