Legacy SX

[Iranon]

***Warning, non-Legacy introduction***

For those not familiar with it, SX for 'Storm 10' or Meandeck Tendrils is a rather infamous Vintage deck that evokes equal amounts of fascination and derision. Its game plan is very simple in theory: play 9 spells followed by Tendrils of Agony, without getting distracted by the desire to do anything flashy.
It is stripped of anything that would only slow it down. Timetwister, Necropotence, Tinker, Memory Jar, Mind's Desire, Yawgmoth's Bargain? Powerful, but too clunky.

So while Legacy storm decks sometimes run substitutes for Vintage bombs (e.g. Diminishing Returns as Timetwister's retarded cousin), the fastest deck in Vintage would rather throw out all real bombs other than Yawgmoths Will. So what cards give it speed and consistency instead?
A full set of Tendrils so you don't have to tutor them up, Sleight of Hand, Chromatic Sphere and Repeal to bounce your jewelry for yet more cantripping and free/cheap storm. Sadly, that is not a joke.
Spoils of the Vault alongside Night's Whisper are the other iconic spells that ensure blinding speed while making the more reserved observer wonder why anyone would want to play this crap.

To call it a mixed success would not do it justice, 'glorious failure' is more appropriate. It is ridiculously fast and, with tight play, consistent. The lack of bombs, however, means it needs to use all its resources to win - this makes it unforgiving, slow to recover from mulligans/disruption and leaves little to no space for protection.
It is the finest goldfish killer in magic, contingent only on how much you penalise it for occasionally losing to a goldfish. Nevertheless, it is generally not considered a solid choice.

Most players who can make the deck work in the first place are better served with something more robust (to turn around games on skill if things go pear-shaped) and/or interactive (to actively outplay their opponents).
Nevertheless, a deck that kills *someone* on the first turn three quarters of the time is inherently awesome. And yes, that number is realistic if you push the deck - and if you aren't, you probably want to play something more sane.



*** Moving on to Legacy***

We lose:
Jewelry, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Sol Ring for acceleration
Ancestral Recall, Demonic Consultation, Demonic Tutor, Yawgmoth's Will for business.

We gain the ability to run a full set of formerly restricted cards:
Lotus Petal, Lion's Eye Diamond for mana
Brainstorm and Ponder for cantripping

We lose 3 mana sources that produce more than 1 net mana in the first turn. Two of them only produce colourless and one requires an initial mana payment. In exchange, we gain 3 Lion's Eye Diamonds.
We lose the real moxes but gain 3 Lotus Petals, which can actually be better in a deck that doesn't want to pass the turn.

To get the required amount of initial mana we may have to include a few things we don't like: City of Traitors is not ideal as it interferes with our plan to Land Grant for the colour we need. Spirit guides provide no storm and don't come in our primary colours. The card disadvantage of Chrome Mox may bite us in the rear or force us to run bulk draw to recover. But on the whole, we should manage.
Losing Repeal as a super-awesome free or better-than-free cantrip (bounce and replay a permanent mana source) looks like a bigger hit than compromises in the mana base itself... and the deck predates Repeal. In short, the lack of decent mana should not destroy the deck.

Something similar applies to the business half. The deck certainly likes having access to Ancestral Recall and Yawgmoths Will, but it doesn't rely on them. Brainstorm and Ponder give us far better cantrips to make up for the loss of Ancestral, and Spoils of the Vault should become considerably better: Probably more 4-ofs. More LEDs to crack in response if we use it to end the game. Better control over the top of our library if we just want to cycle it while getting rid of a currently useless card.
If we want more tutors to replace Demonic Consultation and Demonic Tutor... well, there's still Infernal Tutor and Burning Wish.



We should definitely be able to build this. However, I'm having trouble smoothing out the kinks without turning it into something else.
For example, LEDs make Chromatic Stars and other eggs attractive in theory. However, we don't have tons of colourless mana to filter in Legacy - and if I include Helm of Awakening/City of Traitors to make the eggs good enough, I'll probably end up building Nausea instead. An emphasis on more powerful and reliable tutors would favour the inclusion of proper bombs again and push me towards a rainbow mana base... oops, I'm playing TES.

My current implementation that attempts to be faithful to the concept (rather than keeping as many cards as possible and supporting them with cards that works against the principles of the deck) looks like this:

Mana:
4 Land Grant
2 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual

Cantrips and Draw:
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Night's Whisper
4 Ideas Unbound
2 Meditate

Cheapass storm with benefits:
4 Manamorphose
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Repeal

Tutor and Win:
4 Spoils of the Vault
4 Tendrils of Agony



Chrome Moxes need something to imprint and we have less off-colour mana to waste in Legacy - hence Manamorphose over eggs and pseudo-eggs.

Ideas Unbound and Meditate are pseudo-bombs at a manageable costs, from my experience a necessary evil to let us try to go off blindly - an old adage of SX is 'if you have the mana, go for it'.
Despite its failings, the deck is surprisingly good at turning inane plays like 'play out mana sources, ponder or spoils -> crack LED' into kills.

Repeal is only a free cantrip/storm genereator if we have Chrome Mox and currently useless cards to imprint, but it can help colour fixing (including imprint land grant to cast manamorphose). Sensei's Divining Top is never free, but combined with our large amount of small draw spells it can generate a fair bit of storm if we have mana to spare.

In its current form, I'm not sure if I see a future. I'm not surpassing my goldfish performance with the fastest Spanish Inquisition variant and my rate of recovery if an early attempt fails is laughable in comparison.
On the other hand, I'm far more confident about how to tweak and play SI for relentless speed... I keep fizzling with Legacy SX on hands that turn out to be perfectly winnable. I'm not yet sure whether this is because I am a terrible player or because I'm trying to play a terrible deck.

So... can we do this in Legacy? And is there a reason why anyone would want to?


***Appendix: How to lose to a goldfish***

If you want to give this a whirl, quite a bit is going to hinge on correct use of Spoils. If you have only seen your first 7 cards, your chances of killing yourself are 12%/21%/36%/60% depending on how many copies are in your library. Since this deck can use Spoils to set up/continue a combo rather than a strict 'win now or lose now' card, you need to work the statistics.
Casting it after Night's Whisper or previous spoils is often safer than it seems - for every life lost, you also reduced your library size by an equal amount. If the risk still isn't worth it and we can't use it in a Double Tendrils (gaining life before we're confident using it again to deliver the kill) we can cycle it after a Brainstorm or Ponder, probably getting rid of one unwanted card from the top of our library.

[Fatestitcher]

I have not playtested your list yet but i've worked on my own AnT list a while back. On paper, your mana base looks too thin at 8 lands. Even with Land Grants, I think it's terrible with mulligans. You included good draw cards indeed but no real tutor except for Spoils of the Vault which sorta acts like a 1cc Ad Nauseam (in terms of the life loss disadvantage) but not strictly better than Mystical or Infernal Tutor. I think a deck that can chain tutors and Rituals or LED into Tendrils or IGG is absolutely more consistent.

[Vacrix]

This looks like QSI and Land Grant SI's bastard child without any IGG loop wins via Infernal Tutor, or the power of draw 4's. If you want to play balls to the wall combo, play Pact SI. Its hard shit to play with, and you will fizz sometimes, but its by far the most consistent fast combo, and easily the fastest deck in the format. Besides, you are going to have a lot of problems finding U for all the U spells you have. You packed it pretty heavily with blue spells and you hardly use black for anything. SI plays Cruel Bargains and Infernal Contracts because you can ramp into them with various rituals. Its awkward finding UUUU to play, Brainstorm, Ideas Unbound, and then meditate all in the same turn.

If you want to explore a deck that wins like Meandeck Long, try to break Necrologia. This deck isn't really being explored anymore on the Storm Boards, but maybe it will get some attention here:

gochu on the storm boards:


Insidious Dreams

Instant, 3B (4)
As an additional cost to cast Insidious Dreams, discard X cards.

Search your library for X cards. Then shuffle your library and put those cards on top of it in any order.

Looks a lot as Doomsday but at Instant speed. Changes life for Discard and don't remove your deck. I ask to myself:

Would be possible a Storm deck that wins at instant speed like Solidarity but with a more consistent engine? You can sit playing Chants in his upkeep, and combo when the first one resolves.

Ad Nauseam is instant and a lot of cards in ANT/Hybrid/NLS are instant too... The big problems are the Initial Mana Cards and that the only instant storm card is Brain Freeze, that needs 16 more spells to win in turn 2 (DD pass the turn pile, for example). I don't see ANT playing 15-6 spells every time to win, so I must forget about Brain Freeze.

I think that the way would be Quicken + Tendrils, it's cantrip, so I can play Mystical+Quicken+Tendrils. If I combo in my turn I can play Tendrils at Sorcery speed and if I need to combo in his turn, I could do it. The total CC must be in 51 + 5 of Ad Nauseam (like NLS and Hybrid)

A little search about cards give me this cards at instant speed:

Rituals+Mana:
Dark Ritual
Cabal Ritual
Desperate Ritual
Seething Song
Simian Spirit Guide
Elvish Spirit Guide
Summoner Pact --> Elvish Spirit Guide

Card Quality
Brainstorm
Impulse
Flash of Insight
Cunning Wish

Tutors
Mystical Tutor
Lim-Dûls Valut

Protection
Orim's Chant
Silence
Pact of Negation
Chain of Vapor
Krosan Grip

Storm Engines
Ad Nauseam
Insidious Dreams
Meditate
Necrologia

Kill
Tendrils
Quicken

I must to work a lot more in a decent list, and seems that you need more mana to combo that normal lists but, do you think that could be competitive?

I explored the card for a bit. I think the nature of the card is best if you play it with Quicken as your kill. I tried a list something like this a while back with little success, but its worth adapting I think:

Quick Tendrils
Business:
4 Necrologia
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Mystical Tutor
3 Quicken
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
17

Accel:
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
12

Starting mana:
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Manamorphose
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Land Grant
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
3 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Tropical Island
1 Vine Dryad
31

In my testing, if you resolved Necrologia, you could draw 16 or 19 cards and win without fail. The problem is getting it into your hand. The mana base doesn't really allow you to set up though. So I suggest we explore a more ANT style mana base that way it can set up a win with tutors. I've concluded that its too instable to fit into a Pact SI shell. The most important question to be asked though is why play this deck over something else? Necrologia plapyed on the first turn allows for a pretty consistent win if you can draw 19 cards. However Ad Nauseum is less restrictive in that it doesn't require you to play something bad like Quicken. The only other option would be to cast Final Fortune, and pass to your extra turn, untap and then spin off and win. The only problem with THAT is that you can't run and Pact's or you lose during your upkeep.

[4eak]

I used to play Meandeck Tendrils; the deck could easily be understood in terms of cost ratios. Unfortunately, porting to Legacy does change the availability of cards which break the Golden ratio (1 mana for 1 card). Ideas Unbound and Meditate will leave you colorscrewed. You only plays those spells on the turn you are going off (due to the drawbacks), so you should really just analyze the ratio. 2 for 3, 3 for 4 are good, but not as good as AdN, which might be 5 for 10ish. It would be better to play ANT sans protection/disruption. In my experience, it is faster than Belcher (another protectionless combo deck).

What I had used before:

Lands: 12x
1x Swamp
1x Island
4x Underground Sea
2x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta

Mana Accel: 26
4x Lotus Petal
4x Chrome Mox
4x LED
4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
3x ESG
3x Summoner's Pact

Card Quality: 16
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Mystical Tutor
4x Infernal Tutor

Win-Stuff: 6
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Ill-Gotten Gains
4x Ad Nauseam

This was back before m10 though. Mystical/Brainstorm+LED float into draw step isn't possible anymore.


peace,
4eak

[Jeff Kruchkow]

Necrologia

You realize that even if you necrologia for like 19 you still discard down to 7 right?

[Forbiddian]

You realize that even if you necrologia for like 19 you still discard down to 7 right?

Look at the deck again, he obviously knows.

@ Vacrix: List is pretty damn genius. Not sure if it's better than Ad Nauseum (which is the obvious test to pass). The life paid upfront is probably balanced out by the greater consistency, but Pacting for the Dryad and then culling it for a quickened Tendrils is hilarious.

[Vacrix]

Lands: 12x
1x Swamp
1x Island
4x Underground Sea
2x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta

Mana Accel: 26
4x Lotus Petal
4x Chrome Mox
4x LED
4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
3x ESG
3x Summoner's Pact

Card Quality: 16
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Mystical Tutor
4x Infernal Tutor

Win-Stuff: 6
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Ill-Gotten Gains
4x Ad Nauseam


What? You run Summoner's Pact, and no Manamorphose, or Dryad Arbor. Why? And Elvish Spirit Guide is -3 off Ad Nauseum. I'd have to test it but without manamorphose, I don't see much point to Summoner's Pact other than more shuffle effects with Brainstorm and Ponder. Even then I dont know if its worth it because ESG hurts off of Ad Nauseum.


You realize that even if you necrologia for like 19 you still discard down to 7 right?

Well aware sir. The way you win after Necrologia is by busting out a bunch of instants, generating mana out of thin air from ESG's or Summoner's Pact --> ESG, and then Manamorphose to color fix for UB, use U for quicken and use B for rituals to ramp into Tendrils. The other idea was to play Final Fortune, and pass to your extra turn with a well sculpted 7 card hand with IGG loop or something.


@ Vacrix: List is pretty damn genius. Not sure if it's better than Ad Nauseum (which is the obvious test to pass). The life paid upfront is probably balanced out by the greater consistency, but Pacting for the Dryad and then culling it for a quickened Tendrils is hilarious.

Thanks man. Still tweakn it. I've found that 19 cards is more than enough to win and I can consistently draw more than AdN can. Necropotence in vintage is a testament to that anyway. The problem is getting it into your hand. Its probably a pipe dream cause Doomsday gives you a pretty good 5 card library to spin off with for nearly half the mana. No harm done in experiments on MWS. Funnier, is winning with a hand like Summoner's Pact, ESG, Manamorphose, Quicken, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Tendrils. "Oh you spin off? Well I jack your spell count and Tendrils you in response. Yes, I know I just won with Quicken." God I love MWS.

[Kangaxx]

This looks like QSI and Land Grant SI's bastard child without any IGG loop wins via Infernal Tutor, or the power of draw 4's. If you want to play balls to the wall combo, play Pact SI. Its hard shit to play with, and you will fizz sometimes, but its by far the most consistent fast combo, and easily the fastest deck in the format. Besides, you are going to have a lot of problems finding U for all the U spells you have. You packed it pretty heavily with blue spells and you hardly use black for anything. SI plays Cruel Bargains and Infernal Contracts because you can ramp into them with various rituals. Its awkward finding UUUU to play, Brainstorm, Ideas Unbound, and then meditate all in the same turn.

If you want to explore a deck that wins like Meandeck Long, try to break Necrologia. This deck isn't really being explored anymore on the Storm Boards, but maybe it will get some attention here:

gochu on the storm boards:


I explored the card for a bit. I think the nature of the card is best if you play it with Quicken as your kill. I tried a list something like this a while back with little success, but its worth adapting I think:

Quick Tendrils
Business:
4 Necrologia
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Mystical Tutor
3 Quicken
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
17

Accel:
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
12

Starting mana:
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Manamorphose
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Land Grant
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
3 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Tropical Island
1 Vine Dryad
31

In my testing, if you resolved Necrologia, you could draw 16 or 19 cards and win without fail. The problem is getting it into your hand. The mana base doesn't really allow you to set up though. So I suggest we explore a more ANT style mana base that way it can set up a win with tutors. I've concluded that its too instable to fit into a Pact SI shell. The most important question to be asked though is why play this deck over something else? Necrologia plapyed on the first turn allows for a pretty consistent win if you can draw 19 cards. However Ad Nauseum is less restrictive in that it doesn't require you to play something bad like Quicken. The only other option would be to cast Final Fortune, and pass to your extra turn, untap and then spin off and win. The only problem with THAT is that you can't run and Pact's or you lose during your upkeep.

This list looks really interesting. Do you ever feel the need to pack disruption? Or is this list so fast that it doesn't matter? Duress effects come to mind.

[4eak]

@ Vacrix

The only relevant question this thread is asking: What is the best unprotected combo you can play? I highly doubt it has anything to do with meandeck tendrils (as Legacy lacks some important tools). If you are foregoing protection, you need to justify why you aren't just going to play an unprotected ANT list.


What? You run Summoner's Pact, and no Manamorphose, or Dryad Arbor. Why? And Elvish Spirit Guide is -3 off Ad Nauseum. I'd have to test it but without manamorphose, I don't see much point to Summoner's Pact other than more shuffle effects with Brainstorm and Ponder. Even then I dont know if its worth it because ESG hurts off of Ad Nauseum..

Why should I choose terrible cards like Manamorphose/Dryad Arbor? I've basically got an unprotected ANT list with a great deal of testing behind it (read the first 10 pages of the ANT thread). Manamorphose is a very neat card (breaking the golden ratio), but since this isn't Vintage (and you are missing key pieces to this strategy), resolving AdN appears to be a much stronger option, and that means cards like Manamorphose aren't as relevant. Arbor misses the point of the deck, which cares little for making land drops, but definitely relies upon the land drops it does make (Arbor has summoning sickness). You want a turn1 and 2 deck, and Arbor is not the best way to do that.

Culling is weak. It is conditional. ESG/Pact are virtually unconditional. Pact is storm count. ESG is pimp retarded against Daze.

3 ESG/3 Pact = Average 1.5 life per card from the 60-card view. Go 4/2 split if you want and make it 1 life per card. This cost is much lower than you seem to realize. In practice, you'll see it is even lower; Pact removes ESG from the deck, ending up costing you less. I've also tested the average lifeloss per game with the deck, which is well within acceptable ranges (and actually lower in lifeloss than protected lists).

ESG is the necessary evil (and not crazy, as SSG is played in TES), and certainly acceptable given how early the deck will combo off with AdN (meaning, we have more life to spend on average).

I could only advocate the unprotected combo in game 1, of course; and, perhaps, not even then.




peace,
4eak

[Kangaxx]

This looks like QSI and Land Grant SI's bastard child without any IGG loop wins via Infernal Tutor, or the power of draw 4's. If you want to play balls to the wall combo, play Pact SI. Its hard shit to play with, and you will fizz sometimes, but its by far the most consistent fast combo, and easily the fastest deck in the format. Besides, you are going to have a lot of problems finding U for all the U spells you have. You packed it pretty heavily with blue spells and you hardly use black for anything. SI plays Cruel Bargains and Infernal Contracts because you can ramp into them with various rituals. Its awkward finding UUUU to play, Brainstorm, Ideas Unbound, and then meditate all in the same turn.

If you want to explore a deck that wins like Meandeck Long, try to break Necrologia. This deck isn't really being explored anymore on the Storm Boards, but maybe it will get some attention here:

gochu on the storm boards:


I explored the card for a bit. I think the nature of the card is best if you play it with Quicken as your kill. I tried a list something like this a while back with little success, but its worth adapting I think:

Quick Tendrils
Business:
4 Necrologia
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Mystical Tutor
3 Quicken
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
17

Accel:
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
12

Starting mana:
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Manamorphose
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Land Grant
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
3 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Tropical Island
1 Vine Dryad
31

In my testing, if you resolved Necrologia, you could draw 16 or 19 cards and win without fail. The problem is getting it into your hand. The mana base doesn't really allow you to set up though. So I suggest we explore a more ANT style mana base that way it can set up a win with tutors. I've concluded that its too instable to fit into a Pact SI shell. The most important question to be asked though is why play this deck over something else? Necrologia plapyed on the first turn allows for a pretty consistent win if you can draw 19 cards. However Ad Nauseum is less restrictive in that it doesn't require you to play something bad like Quicken. The only other option would be to cast Final Fortune, and pass to your extra turn, untap and then spin off and win. The only problem with THAT is that you can't run and Pact's or you lose during your upkeep.

I'd go.
-2 manamorphose
-1 culling the weak
+2 Crop Rotation
+1 Scroll Rack

This is probably better since you're not gauranteed to have a Dryad in play before your end step. This basically ensures that you have one in play in situations where you need it in play but missed a land drop. CR being at instant speed makes this feasible as well as upping the storm count as well. While the single Scroll Rack will ensure that you're able to tutor for it if in hand, as well as get rid of any cards in your hand that you feel aren't relevent at that point and time. Scroll Rack is just an insane card by itself which is probably the biggest reason for running it.

[Vacrix]

he only relevant question this thread is asking: What is the best unprotected combo you can play? I highly doubt it has anything to do with meandeck tendrils (as Legacy lacks some important tools). If you are foregoing protection, you need to justify why you aren't just going to play an unprotected ANT list.

Well the FASTEST unprotected combo is Pact SI, easily. ANT lists dont even come close. If you are a good pilot, you can push the deck upwards of 70% turn 1 wins, some pilots claim 80%. I think its more like 75%. Belcher can't even do that as they get EtW more than half the time as their win condition. Speed is really the protection in this case. Win before they can play their spell pierces and daze. In that case, the only thing you have to fear is being on the play, or facing down FoW. Even then, Pact SI has tons of mana so it can often play around daze. Spell Pierce, not so often. Even then, the deck can recover quickly because of the sheer number of business spells the deck has. The other thing about unprotected lists, you can devote your entire SB to winning games 2/3. I am exploring Necrologia because it looks like a potential way to get the turn 1 even more often because draw4's can occasionally leave you dead in the water. If you ignore the 'play in endstep' draw back, Necrologia is strictly better than ANT, drawing you 19 cards consistently whereas Ad Nauseum is more akin to a draw 4 in that respect, occasionally leaving you dead in the water and rarely with 19 cards (unless you are playing NLS and draw 8 land). Ideally, I'd like a list that runs both Necrologia and Ad Nauseum, but it would have to run a low cc to support, which means a really tricky MD. Also, Quicken in an Ad Nauseum list will allow me to combo out on my opponents turn too because Ad Nauseum is still an instant, thus allowing me to raise the storm count with the opponents spells which means I dont need to draw quite so many cards with Ad Nauseum.


Why should I choose terrible cards like Manamorphose/Dryad Arbor? I've basically got an unprotected ANT list with a great deal of testing behind it (read the first 10 pages of the ANT thread). Manamorphose is a very neat card (breaking the golden ratio), but since this isn't Vintage (and you are missing key pieces to this strategy), resolving AdN appears to be a much stronger option, and that means cards like Manamorphose aren't as relevant. Arbor misses the point of the deck, which cares little for making land drops, but definitely relies upon the land drops it does make (Arbor has summoning sickness). You want a turn1 and 2 deck, and Arbor is not the best way to do that.

You should try the Pact Spanish Inquisition list. It runs both Manamorphose and Dryad Arbor with great results. I own it in real life and its wonderfully fast, and more or less consistent (much more so than belcher) if you know what you're doing. AdN appears to be a stronger option, but draw4's enable you to more consistently go off on turn 1. Speed is what you want in a protectionless combo deck.


read the first 10 pages of the ANT thread
Well, I kept track of the deck's progress up until its optimized list, but ok, sure.


Turn 1= 15% (11% w/7-card hands, 4% w/6-card hands)
Turn 2= 72% (53% w/7-card hands, 19% w/6-card hands)
Turn 3= 12% (7% w/7-card hands, 5% w/6-card hands)
Turn 4+ = 1%

Turn 1 is at 15% You are handing so many games to your opponent when you are on the play ie. turn 2 counterbalance, turn 2 3sphere (from stax).. etc. Consistent turn 2 is good, but I guarentee that Pact SI is better. I've tested way more than 400 games, though not in one sitting, and I'll tell you right now that its way faster than 15% turn 1. Though I admit there were a couple of games that I fizzled and died, I'm willing to take that chance because of how high the chances are of winning on the first turn, and it mulligans better than any deck in the format. Even then, NLS and TES can pull pretty consistent turn 2 protectionless wins against aggro and other combo or just those 'win now or die' situations. Why play your list over those decks?


-8.65 life spent per average game.
-Averaged 9.7 cards per AnD.
-IGG used in 12% of the games.
In an optimized list, Necrologia can consistently grab you 19 cards on the play turn 1, and 16 (if you fear bolt) on the draw turn 1), after that, you can draw fewer and fewer cards as your health goes down. In general, 1 life for 1 card is a good reason to play Necrologia over Ad Nausuem. The only reason NOT to play Necrologia is the obvious 'must play in the end step' draw back. However, if that drawback can be worked around then Necrologia.dec will certainly be a better protectionless combo deck. I'm exploring whether or not this is possible. I think I have adequately answered your statement,
If you are foregoing protection, you need to justify why you aren't just going to play an unprotected ANT list.


Culling is weak. It is conditional. ESG/Pact are virtually unconditional. Pact is storm count. ESG is pimp retarded against Daze.


Culling the weak is weak? Wow... um.. where to begin.. Land Grant can fetch out Dryad Arbor, Summoner's Pact can fetch you Dryad Arbor or Vine Dryad, and you run 1 copy of Dryad Arbor and 1 copy of Vine Dryad in the MD. That means you effectively have 10 tall men to use with culling the weak. I've played the good ol' Tall men SI for years (before I switched to the Pact list) and 8 tall men was pretty consistent, though you also ran cabal therapy. The tall men were occassionally not useful if you got too many in your hand but they were certainly good blockers before all the massive power creep. With the Pact list you dont have to worry about drawing too many tall men because you dont draw either Dryad too often because you only run 1 of each (even when you draw both, you can remove Dryad Arbor to play Vine Dryad because Dryad Arbor is green). Culling the weak is absolutely insane man. It provides BBBB with draw 4's, leaving you with B floating which often enables you to keep going. If you use it with AdN, you only need 1 more mana to cast it. It also justifies running Summoner's Pact and Land Grant because they provide you with more options. Culling the Weak is bad to the untrained eye, but try picking up one of the SI variants if you want unprotected combo, and then tell me otherwise. I play SI as my deck of choice, not as a side project, and the only big tournament I've ever been too I made top 4, lost to Stax because of a tricky play mistake (before I gathered a lot of experience), the deck performed beautifully, took 3rd (though I wanted the 4th place prize of 120 store credit instead of some mishra's factories, so technically I placed 4th like it says on deck check but I beat the Meathooks player pretty badly in our 'game for the lolz'). I also beat the reanimator player who won that tournament in the initial rounds. Culling the weak is amazing. End of story.


3 ESG/3 Pact = Average 1.5 life per card from the 60-card view. Go 4/2 split if you want and make it 1 life per card. This cost is much lower than you seem to realize. In practice, you'll see it is even lower; Pact removes ESG from the deck, ending up costing you less. I've also tested the average lifeloss per game with the deck, which is well within acceptable ranges (and actually lower in lifeloss than protected lists).
Yeah its pretty obvious that if you have Pact in hand then you are going to thin the of -1 ESG, but the point is that you shouldn't need ESG after you are going off with Ad Nauseum. Rituals should be plenty. Also, flipping, AdN, Tendrils, ESG, ESG, would certainly give me a headache. You should minimize the avg cc when playing with Ad Nausuem. You might have an acceptable avg lifeloss, but the question you should be asking then is does the addition of ESG improve the deck enough to justify running it? I don't think you have enough reason to play it unless you also run Dryad Arbor for culling the weak. AdN Tendrils would be better suited running crop rotations MD to find it after you are going off, or some secret tech like Boseiju.



I'd go.
-2 manamorphose
-1 culling the weak
+2 Crop Rotation
+1 Scroll Rack

This is probably better since you're not gauranteed to have a Dryad in play before your end step. This basically ensures that you have one in play in situations where you need it in play but missed a land drop. CR being at instant speed makes this feasible as well as upping the storm count as well. While the single Scroll Rack will ensure that you're able to tutor for it if in hand, as well as get rid of any cards in your hand that you feel aren't relevent at that point and time. Scroll Rack is just an insane card by itself which is probably the biggest reason for running it.

Manamorphose is cruical to generating blue mana for Quicken so if I am to keep Quicken then I can't really drop Manamorphose. I'm not sure I like Crop Rotation either if I'm not playing with more land. Scroll Rack seems very interesting. Never really thought about it. 3 mana isn't that much of an investment if you can use it to reshape your hand, and then shuffle all that away with a land grant or summoner's pact. I will definitely look into it.


This list looks really interesting. Do you ever feel the need to pack disruption? Or is this list so fast that it doesn't matter? Duress effects come to mind.

The idea of protectionless combo is to minimize interaction by winning on the first turn as often as possible. In the case of all unprotected combo, you have to acknowledge that you are going to lose games to FoW and must ultimately prepare for those games in the sideboard. Breathweapon played a Pact SI list a while back with 4 Pact of Negation for protection. I tried it, and preferred more consistency with Manamorphose. You could probably fit in some distruption, but in general, disruption is better suited to decks like TES or NLS that can slow play the opponent.

[Iranon]

Interesting work on Necrologia... but that more or less fills the role of Ad Nauseam as an expensive bomb which is something I wanted to avoid.

To draw attention to the theory behind SX again:
The concepts it is buildt on are 'one mana, one storm, one card' and 'You only need 3 more cards to make your opening hand lethal''.
As I understand it, 'Cards drawn per mana spent' in itself wasn't really a relevant number behind it, at least not without the additional qualifier 'and cheap enough to get us started''. Terrible 1-for-1s or 2-for-2s like Sleight of Hand and Night's Whisper made it over restricted 7-for-3s or a possible 19-for-6.

Bombs that aren't strictly necessary and don't spell 'I win' for less than your actual win condition are slow. Top-of-Library Tutors are probably slow (Definitely in Vintage. Probably in Legacy... we have a full set of LEDs to abuse here but sticking to cantrips is probably faster). 4 Land + 4 Land Grants is pushing it, anything more is definitely slow.
If all you are looking for is a better than even chance to go off on turn two and an almost guaranteed kill by turn 4 (probably backed up by at least some protection) you aren't even trying.

Power definitely doesn't equal speed. SX is probably the most underpowered Vintage storm deck ever. If you run more than 1 or 2 bombs in Legacy's Spanish Inquisition (as in: something bigger than a draw-4, probably Ill-Gotten Gains and Ad Nauseam; Null Profusion has also been experimented with), it becomes slower. The ancient list with Diabolic Intents is actually faster than most modern builds, which went for soft benefits instead.
For maximum speed, you'd have to add something light and janky that makes hands that didn't previously do anything... do something. From my testing experience, Glimpse of Nature results in the fastest variants. Others had their best anti-goldfish results with Pacts, which I could never really get to work as well... but maybe no-one else was sad enough to test Glimpse exhaustively. Either way, the fastest choice includes something horrible.

I'd love to know if an SX port could outdo SI in in sheer speed in some fashion - of course we need to define what counts as faster, since both allow one a great deal of control over how hard you want to push for a win.

From my testing, the goldfish numbers to beat are roughly 45% on turn 1 and 90% by turn 4 in the same set of games, or 60% on turn 1 if we will absolutely refuse to pass the turn without having attempted a kill. EDIT: 80% in a large enough sample size to be representative sounds dubious to me... and given that a Force wouldn't destroy all of the attempts and the deck recoves reasonably well, I'd expect a meta split between SI and something playing a total of around 30 free counters + staxy lock pieces if this was the case.

At the time being, I'm not beating either but may already have an edge somewhere in between. This is encouraging, considering I'm not at all confident about either the list (especially with regards to the viability of mana-wasting things that happen to work well with LEDs like tops and eggs, and how much bulk draw effects are prudent) or my decisions when goldfishing it.

[Vacrix]

I'd love to see your Glimpse list Iranon. I've tried time and time again to break it but the deck needs too many creatures to be work able and it never seemed to work out. The best list I've seemed to work out is this:
Kobolds Glimpse:
Mana:
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
2 Mox Diamond

Creatures:
4 Crimson Kobolds
4 Kobolds of Kher Keep
4 Crookshank Kobolds
4 Shield Sphere
4 Phyrexian Walker
4 Ornithopter
2 Tinderwall
1 Goblin Bushwhacker

Spells:
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Mystical Tutor
3 Scapegoat
2 Ponder
1 Rites of Initiation
1 Beastmaster Ascension

It was funny as hell to play with in MWS but honestly got destroyed by anything with blue. Does your list run the recycle engines (you mentioned Null profusion)?


From my testing, the goldfish numbers to beat are roughly 45% on turn 1 and 90% by turn 4 in the same set of games, or 60% on turn 1 if we will absolutely refuse to pass the turn without having attempted a kill.

Pact SI is significantly faster. Have you played with it? You just have to shuffle it really well and know when to mulligan, when to wait for the turn 2.

EDIT:
Btw, nobody needs to let me know that the Kobolds list is jank. :P
It was fun, not good.

[emidln]

While I never played Ad Nauseam in SI, 1of Ill-Gotten Gains, any number of ETW, and 1-4 Belcher (depending on your numbers of ETW and Tendrils) can speed up the deck significantly.

[Iranon]

I have played with Pact SI... and it seems slower than a list that runs 10 Robots and 2 Glimpse of Nature (in place of Diabolic Intent in the original B/g SI. 2nd IGG is the weakest slot which I keep shuffling around).
I can't reach that kind of speed with any deck that uses Glimpse as its primary mechanism.
Since apparently no kobold deck can keep up with SX in Vintage, Skullclamp is a rather huge difference and Legacy has nothing exciting (at lest we have LEDS and 8 good cantrips for SX), I don't think that concept is going anywhere. Kobold list arriving shortly via PM because it has even less to do with SX.

Regarding goldfish numbers: Mine come from MWS because real life involves too much cheating. It's pretty much impossible to ensure full randomisation with any practical amount of shuffling. I is equally impossible to judge whether suspicious strings are random or not... and breaking them up will give inflated results. Truly random numbers look less random than most people expect and all that.
We can't standardise everyone's shuffling habits (and even if we tried they wouldn't be the same).
If you can get an 80% first turn kill rate on MWS... well, I'd love to watch and hear comments about play decisions because I don't see it even with the tightest play humanly possible.

[Jeff Kruchkow]

This is more directed at the Necrologia lists, but since necrologia cares nothing for cmc, why aren't you running Force and Misdirection? It gives the deck free protection.
Also, it seems like the build shown is filled with terrible cards since all that artifact mana is useless in the end step when you are trying to go off.

[Vacrix]

This is more directed at the Necrologia lists, but since necrologia cares nothing for cmc, why aren't you running Force and Misdirection? It gives the deck free protection.
Also, it seems like the build shown is filled with terrible cards since all that artifact mana is useless in the end step when you are trying to go off.

Well you play the artifacts and then combo out in the end step, but yea I see that they are horrid draws. Its far from an optimized list. I'll probably drop chrome mox for SSG for more starting mana, and access to EtW. The issue is having starting black sources. Its crucial to hitting B to start ritual chains.

[Gocho]

This looks like QSI and Land Grant SI's bastard child without any IGG loop wins via Infernal Tutor, or the power of draw 4's. If you want to play balls to the wall combo, play Pact SI. Its hard shit to play with, and you will fizz sometimes, but its by far the most consistent fast combo, and easily the fastest deck in the format. Besides, you are going to have a lot of problems finding U for all the U spells you have. You packed it pretty heavily with blue spells and you hardly use black for anything. SI plays Cruel Bargains and Infernal Contracts because you can ramp into them with various rituals. Its awkward finding UUUU to play, Brainstorm, Ideas Unbound, and then meditate all in the same turn.

If you want to explore a deck that wins like Meandeck Long, try to break Necrologia. This deck isn't really being explored anymore on the Storm Boards, but maybe it will get some attention here:

gochu on the storm boards:


I explored the card for a bit. I think the nature of the card is best if you play it with Quicken as your kill. I tried a list something like this a while back with little success, but its worth adapting I think:

Quick Tendrils
Business:
4 Necrologia
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Mystical Tutor
3 Quicken
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
17

Accel:
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
12

Starting mana:
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Manamorphose
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Land Grant
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
3 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Tropical Island
1 Vine Dryad
31

In my testing, if you resolved Necrologia, you could draw 16 or 19 cards and win without fail. The problem is getting it into your hand. The mana base doesn't really allow you to set up though. So I suggest we explore a more ANT style mana base that way it can set up a win with tutors. I've concluded that its too instable to fit into a Pact SI shell. The most important question to be asked though is why play this deck over something else? Necrologia plapyed on the first turn allows for a pretty consistent win if you can draw 19 cards. However Ad Nauseum is less restrictive in that it doesn't require you to play something bad like Quicken. The only other option would be to cast Final Fortune, and pass to your extra turn, untap and then spin off and win. The only problem with THAT is that you can't run and Pact's or you lose during your upkeep.



I post the original quoted from Storm Boards about Quicken Tendrils. The original idea was to abuse Insidious Dreams, but Necrologia appears during the research as an alternative storm engine.

I like a lot that someone works in a list about that, but the deck was abandoned because Quicken +Tendrils don't seems as a consistent kill condition.

Works ok for you?
Can you get Necrologia + 3BB in your 1st turn almost every game?

EDIT:
After reading again seems that you don't get 1st turn Necrologia easily
Why don't you post anything in Stormboards or start a thread here? I'ld love to talk about your list and don't want to fill Iranon's thread with MORE offtopic garbage XD

EDIT 2:
Scroll Rack it's a good idea, but you can't play it at instant speed after Necrologia. You can get similar effect with any of this:
Flux
Laquatus's Creativity
Tolarian Winds
Winds of Change

Winds is the only at Instant speed, but can discard your lonely Tendrils in your hand. Could works if you play 4 of them. Laquatus seems the best one, because you discard after draw, but I don't know if 5cc is a lot.

[Kangaxx]

I post the original quoted from Storm Boards about Quicken Tendrils. The original idea was to abuse Insidious Dreams, but Necrologia appears during the research as an alternative storm engine.

I like a lot that someone works in a list about that, but the deck was abandoned because Quicken +Tendrils don't seems as a consistent kill condition.

Works ok for you?
Can you get Necrologia + 3BB in your 1st turn almost every game?

EDIT:
After reading again seems that you don't get 1st turn Necrologia easily
Why don't you post anything in Stormboards or start a thread here? I'ld love to talk about your list and don't want to fill Iranon's thread with MORE offtopic garbage XD

EDIT 2:
Scroll Rack it's a good idea, but you can't play it at instant speed after Necrologia. You can get similar effect with any of this:
Flux
Laquatus's Creativity
Tolarian Winds
Winds of Change

Winds is the only at Instant speed, but can discard your lonely Tendrils in your hand. Could works if you play 4 of them. Laquatus seems the best one, because you discard after draw, but I don't know if 5cc is a lot.


Do you dare run x4 Scroll Rack and go for the second turn kill?

[Gocho]

1st turn Scroll rack gives you 4 cards as much:
- Land/Petal + Ritual + Scroll Rack = 4 cards on hand.

You can't play it 1st turn and activate in your second turn with only 2 lands in the deck.
Ponder in your first turn gives you a similar effect looking 4 cards and choosing one.
Scroll Rack could be abused after Necrologia, but you need to play it before casting your massive draw. This is 4BB mana in your firsts turns.

And you get 3x Non Playable cards with Necrologia. Multiples Scroll Racks does nothing into play without shuffle effects.

Anyway, the deck needs a lot of testing. If I play Quicken Tendrils, I'ld like that everything would be instant spells, Quicken lets you to play some sorceries, but no some Scroll Racks.

[Kangaxx]

I recently just finished testing the Necrologia build, and came to the conclusion that the deck doesn't work becuase of the fundamental flaw of being not able to play your artifact mana that you draw off of it. This makes the deck incapable of winning aside from running all mana instants, but yeah, I believe that the deck isn't able to work properly.

But yeah, I've been testing a different build, and since I'm the advocator of Scroll Rack, I tried to innovate on the Tendrils archetype incorporating the idea and to put it simply, "i think i got something, boy."

[Gocho]

I recently just finished testing the Necrologia build, and came to the conclusion that the deck doesn't work becuase of the fundamental flaw of being not able to play your artifact mana that you draw off of it. This makes the deck incapable of winning aside from running all mana instants, but yeah, I believe that the deck isn't able to work properly.

But yeah, I've been testing a different build, and since I'm the advocator of Scroll Rack, I tried to innovate on the Tendrils archetype incorporating the idea and to put it simply, "i think i got something, boy."

I think that Storm at Instant Speed could be viable, but I don't know if it could be as competitive than standard ANT.

[Vacrix]

I think that Storm at Instant Speed could be viable, but I don't know if it could be as competitive than standard ANT.

I probably took the wrong approach initially anyway. Quicken + Tendrils seems feasible, but not in a Pact SI shell. Its already fragile. I think that if you can slow down and give the deck more protection, some fetchlands, etc, it might be develop into something competitive. The most significant advantage of playing Quicken in a Tendrils list, is that you can sometimes combo out using the opponents spells (like against affinity which plays mana spells) which is great against Belcher and SI, and even better against the slower combo decks that try to go off quickly. Other times it could be a way to, say, play something at the end of the opponents turn to get them to tap out (doomsday + quicken), then combo out on your own turn with Necrologia. Its a bit of a stretch but thats really the main reason you would run a Quicken list over a normal list, other than the consistent number of cards Necrologia allows you to draw.

[Gocho]

You can't play Doomsday + Quicken and Necrologia next turn because after playing DD you have only 5 cards in the deck :)

As I see it we have to make viable 2 parts. Getting the Storm Engine (Necrologia) and mana ASAP, and tweak the deck to win after draws 16-19 cards with it.

But the initial mana sources at instant speed only add G/R (Elvish and Simian Spirit guide), you can't get black mana to play the Necrologia easily without mana artifacts. And this artifacts can't be played during your end step.

@Vacrix,
Do you have many problems to win the same turn after draw 15+ cards with Necrologia?

[Kangaxx]

The main issue with this theory of playing Necrologia efficiently, is that you need a balanced amount of artifact mana before going off, and the same amount of instants, after going off, making any such possible concoction inconsistent. You can't have both at the same time becuase you're going to get terrible draws in your opening hand.

I was just joking about the all instant approach. I'm pretty sure a build like that would prove to be too inconsistent.

[Vacrix]

You can't play Doomsday + Quicken and Necrologia next turn because after playing DD you have only 5 cards in the deck :)

As I see it we have to make viable 2 parts. Getting the Storm Engine (Necrologia) and mana ASAP, and tweak the deck to win after draws 16-19 cards with it.

But the initial mana sources at instant speed only add G/R (Elvish and Simian Spirit guide), you can't get black mana to play the Necrologia easily without mana artifacts. And this artifacts can't be played during your end step.

@Vacrix,
Do you have many problems to win the same turn after draw 15+ cards with Necrologia?

I meant Doomsday into a pile that works on the draw, so likely with burning wishes and LED's.

You play the artifacts first, then play it in your endstep.

I haven't really tested 15 cards on the draw yet. I can though and get back to you.


The main issue with this theory of playing Necrologia efficiently, is that you need a balanced amount of artifact mana before going off, and the same amount of instants, after going off, making any such possible concoction inconsistent. You can't have both at the same time becuase you're going to get terrible draws in your opening hand.

I was just joking about the all instant approach. I'm pretty sure a build like that would prove to be too inconsistent.


You play the artifacts first, then play it in your endstep.

You need Manamorphose for it to work with ESG/SSG to color fix. I haven't had a problem yet finding just one manamorphose. You should usually draw 1. Final Fortune might be another option, as finding red is easier after Necrologia than finding black and blue. Sure you would have to discard down to 7, but you should be able to sculpt a dank hand with 19 cards. I keep thinking that its going to fit into some Belcher variant if it fits anywhere at all.

Another idea to consistently get Necrologia into your hand: Serum Powder.

[kicks_422]

I was just joking about the all instant approach. I'm pretty sure a build like that would prove to be too inconsistent.

I tried a hand at it, and let me just put it simply that I was surprised. When it works, it goes off Turn 2 with FoW and PoN backup, Tendrils'ng for 20+.

That said, it feels like Belcher that you either have it or you don't. If they print a Wizard Spirit Guide and a Zombie Spirit Guide, this deck would be so much simpler to build. Maybe even better than the established decks right now.

[Vacrix]

I tried a hand at it, and let me just put it simply that I was surprised. When it works, it goes off Turn 2 with FoW and PoN backup, Tendrils'ng for 20+.

That said, it feels like Belcher that you either have it or you don't. If they print a Wizard Spirit Guide and a Zombie Spirit Guide, this deck would be so much simpler to build. Maybe even better than the established decks right now.

Yeah my testing has yielded the same problems.

Lol @ Zombie Spirit Guide. Do it WotC. DO IT!!! Please? You can make it mythic!


Whats your list look like? I've concluded that the deck need fetchlands, and a lot of tutor/cantrips to be viable.

The other thought worth exploring is Final Fortune (after Necrologia, sculping a perfect hand). People keep overlooking it because it seems pretty bad. It has a lot of uses though, most of which I think make for some interesting plays. Namely, casting EtW for 10 or something, and then swinging for 10 the following turn, Final Fortune, swing for 10 again.

[kicks_422]

Here.

// Lands
4 [WL] Gemstone Mine
4 [8E] City of Brass

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Street Wraith
4 [PLC] Simian Spirit Guide
4 [AL] Elvish Spirit Guide

// Spells
4 [SHM] Manamorphose
2 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
2 [GP] Quicken
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [EX] Necrologia
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [MM] Dark Ritual
4 [FUT] Pact of Negation
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [AL] Lim-Dul's Vault
4 [MI] Mystical Tutor

It probably needs more land. And more instant mana. I was thinking of adding Zealous Guardian and Culling the Weak. I love how it just draws 15 cards at the end step (with FoW and PoN backup), removes SG's into Manamorphose, Tutors/Vaults for Quicken or Tendrils, then Wraiths into it for the kill.

And then sometimes, it looks like the Nets going up against the Globetrotters.

[Vacrix]

Interesting list. I don't understand Lim-Dul's Vault though. Its not that synergetic with Necrologia. Same with the Street Wraiths. How many cards are you usually drawing with it? 15? Thats the only amount I can see being reasonable to use all the other life loss cards effectively. I think that 2 Edge of Autumn looks better in that slot. Also, I think the deck should use fetches + duals mainly because its very synergetic with Brainstorm. Also, it thins the deck so that you draw fewer land. Also, how does Tolarian Wind look in this in place of Lim-Dul's Vault? If you play out all the relevant cards in your hand, then discard the extra fluff, then you can draw into more buisness for the win. Seems worth testing.

How about this?

// Lands
3 Underground Sea
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand

// Creatures
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Spirit Guide

// Spells
4 Manamorphose
2 Tendrils of Agony
2 Quicken
4 Brainstorm
4 Necrologia
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Pact of Negation
4 Force of Will
3 Tolarian Wind
4 Mystical Tutor
2 Edge of Autumn
3 Open Slot

Also, Angels Grace would open up some interesting possibilities. For example, Necrologia drawing 19, then play Manamorphose for WB, play Angel's Grace, and go off again with Necrologia drawing the entire deck, which would allow just 1 copy of Quicken in the MD to save space, or the deck could just win with Brainfreeze.

[Gocho]

I agree that Edge of Autumn would be better that Street Wraith because the life loss, but Lim-Dul's Vault in your 3 Open slots let you find Necrologia if you need it.

I like Tolarian Winds, you can Quicken your Tendrils, and cast Tolarian Winds in response of the Storm trigger, so you can reach 10+ spells.


Also, Angels Grace would open up some interesting possibilities. For example, Necrologia drawing 19, then play Manamorphose for WB, play Angel's Grace, and go off again with Necrologia drawing the entire deck, which would allow just 1 copy of Quicken in the MD to save space, or the deck could just win with Brainfreeze.

Doesn't work. You need to pay life with Necrologia. If you cast Necrologia for 19 and only have 1 life, you can only draw a card.

But if you play Tolarian Winds, maybe you can reach 18 spells or doble Brain Freeze to kill the opponent, so you don't need Quicken. It's cheaper (2UU), but multiple black mana is easier to get than multiple blue to cast tutors AND double Brain Freeze.

Nobody likes the Summoner Pact + Vine Dryad + Culling the Weak slots anymore? Gives 4 mana for tendrils + 3 Storm for 3 cards + B (Summoner, green card, culling the weak). Spirit Guides don't add storm.

Double Ritual 2
Necrologia 3
Guide
Guide
Manamorphose (UB) 4
Quicken 5
Summoner Pact 6
Dryad 7
Culling the Weak 8
Another card (Ritual, Edge of Autumn, 2nd Manamorphose before Quicken) 9
Tendrils 9+1 = 20 damages

[Iranon]

Since the thing discussed here is further removed from the concept I had in mind than almost any established Tendrils deck...

If anyone else has done some work on a deck that attempts to scrape together a lethal turn 1 Tendrils with the lightest possible tools , I'd be glad to hear about their experience in a PM. Lists I'm currently testing actually have less bulk draw than the one in the opening post, and more ways of storing cards on the table (because cracking LEDs into cantrips is the way to go. Seriously.)
Even if it turns out to be unplayable - it'll always be unforgiving and kill you for the slightest mistake - it's a fun challenge.

[Philipp2293]

So, Vacrix (or whoever was talking about it), could you post or PM me a list with that ultra-fast Pact SI? I've been playing around with a SI version for some time, but never managed to get to amazing speed.

[kicks_422]

Interesting list.

Yup. It's interesting, more than anything.


I don't understand Lim-Dul's Vault though. Its not that synergetic with Necrologia. Same with the Street Wraiths.

The Vaults were mainly there to search for Necrologia. I have to admit that post-Necro, it's basically worthless since it costs too much and does too little. As for the Street Wraiths, the idea was to put the Quicken or Tendrils on top via Vault or Mystical, then draw into them pre-Ad Nauseam Fetchland Tendrils style. The Edge of Autumns might be better than the Wraiths, not entirely though because sometimes I go off without any lands in play.


Also, how does Tolarian Wind look in this in place of Lim-Dul's Vault? If you play out all the relevant cards in your hand, then discard the extra fluff, then you can draw into more buisness for the win. Seems worth testing.

That sounds awesome, though I'm more wary of actually getting the Necro into my hand, rather than going through after I've drawn 15-ish cards.

I like the list though, looks better than what I previously posted. Though I'm sure that this would take lots more work (and a couple of cards to be printed) for it to be competitive. What I like most about it though is the ability to run Force of Will, which is so hard to do in Legacy Tendrils decks.

[BreathWeapon]

So, Vacrix (or whoever was talking about it), could you post or PM me a list with that ultra-fast Pact SI? I've been playing around with a SI version for some time, but never managed to get to amazing speed.

You can find my original Pact SI list in the SI thread if you use the search function.

[Gocho]

The search function seems broken. You can't search anything posted before the new look.

I suppose that the update clean the search database.

EDIT:
This is your original list?
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?6099-%5BDeck%5D-Spanish-Inquisition-%28B-x-Storm-Combo%29&p=220315&viewfull=1#post220315

[BreathWeapon]

The search function seems broken. You can't search anything posted before the new look.

I suppose that the update clean the search database.

EDIT:
This is your original list?
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?6099-%5BDeck%5D-Spanish-Inquisition-%28B-x-Storm-Combo%29&p=220315&viewfull=1#post220315

Yeah, except I think the list I settled on had 4 Tendrils of Agony, 1 Vine Dryad and 4 Pact of Negation in the MD with the Goblin Charbelchers and Xantid Swarms in the SB.

It's still the fastest Tendrils list to my knowledge

[Philipp2293]

Sorry to up this thread again, but BreathWeapon, could you maybe post your current SB and boarding plans? Would be great, thx.

[Pastorofmuppets]

What are your thoughts on Plunge into Darkness?

[Iranon]

I wouldn't run Plunge into Darkness and Spoils of the Vault in the same deck, at least not without some creatures to make the life loss tolerable. Mana is often a bottleneck so I think Spoils is the way to go.

[Oiolosse]

is it silly to consider twincast? Is the double blue too cost-prohibitive? You could TCast tendrils or opposing FoW to name the ultra obvious.

[Grumpollion]

False Dawn fixes all mana for the rest of the turn, does it not? That would allow you to play the best mana-adding and card-drawing spells of any color. A Lotus Petal on the first turn would give you the white mana.

[Gocho]

Yes, it fix the mana. But is a sorcery spell. So you need double Quicken to play it and Tendrils after cast Necrologia.

[Pastorofmuppets]

Ignoring all of this silly talk of Necrologia, I've got something for you guys that you might enjoy. This is pretty meandecky (1 mana-1 card), and is a budget build for all of you burgeoning Storm players out there.
oh, and it can still win on turn 1.

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
4 [WL] Gemstone Mine
4 [8E] City of Brass
4 [OD] Tarnished Citadel
4 [BOK] Tendo Ice Bridge

// Spells
4 [TE] Meditate
2 [FD] Plunge into Darkness
2 [ARE] Serum Visions
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
4 [SHM] Manamorphose
4 [BRB] Dark Ritual
4 [CS] Rite of Flame
4 [FNM] Brainstorm
4 [MPR] Ponder
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [US] Ill-Gotten Gains
SB: 3 [6E] Doomsday
SB: 2 [M10] Silence
SB: 2 [TSP] Angel's Grace
SB: 4 [US] Duress

The sideboard is pissing in the wind at the moment, opting for a less easily disrupted Iggy loop.

I keep waffling between Plunge and Spoils, since Spoils can kill you on a bad day I've taken to Plunge.

[Vacrix]

@ Pastorofmuppets

We had some discussion about this already I think. You need to give some justification for why your list should be played. We weren't really trying to build something budget. We were aiming to build 'a better mouse trap', ie. a faster glass house. So far that Necrologia list, Iranon's Glimpse SI list, and Pact SI are the only decks that come close. The Necrologia list is just a few cards short of being any good, while the SI has been proven to be competitive a long time ago.

Your list doesn't run any disruption. Why should it be played?

Your sideboard is interesting though. What would you board that in against? Control? Trying to resolve an IGG loop against control doesn't seem like the safest plan. How has it been working out?

[kicks_422]

To be fair, that is what the OP suggested - a deck that plays 10 spells off of the opening 7 plus draw spells and cantrips to chain to a lethal Tendrils.

But, yeah. No protection, and all mana/bombs - I'd play Belcher instead. Or old-school Nausea.

[Pastorofmuppets]

@ Vacrix: as I said, the Iggy loop is really just tomfoolery until I find a tighter sideboard. I really don't like Serum Visions of Sleight of Hand, though. Is there anything I'm missing? And it is essentially that guy in a forum who types in all caps to get his point across. If Wizards ever brings back the Arena league and has a Legacy section, I'd totally play this. You're either going to win on turn 1 or lose by your 4th turn almost every time. Usually after I resolve a Meditate or two I'm very low on mana. Because of this, an opponent can counter just about anything I play and earn themselves two time walks. Granted, it is possible to win after that. Just don't count on it. I really like the ability to run 4 Tendrils in this deck, however. It means I don't just fizzle if I can't play 9 other spells that turn.

EDIT: and this list was made for a friend who wanted to play Storm using his lands for Ichorid. I only mentioned that it was budgety because it might turn someone on to try it who is actually good at playing combo (I make stupid choices even with idiot decks like Belcher. The closest thing to combo I pilot is Burn). My IGG loop usually fails due to my own levels of epic suck. I'm yet to find the perfect pile, and Plunge is very anti-synergistic.
On a closing note, 6 is the magic number for Plunge. Just sayin'.

[Iranon]

To be fair, that is what the OP suggested - a deck that plays 10 spells off of the opening 7 plus draw spells and cantrips to chain to a lethal Tendrils.

But, yeah. No protection, and all mana/bombs - I'd play Belcher instead. Or old-school Nausea.


One of my problems is that most of my attempts to adapt SX to Legacy take the deck into the direction of Nausea and I'm not sure how far to go that way. A constant dilemma is balancing straighforward draw/cantrips and oh-so-useful throw-ins (Helm of Awakening, Sensei's Divining Top, possibly Eggs).
Nausea has a rather different game plan - with its comparatively high land count and eggs it always has something useful to put on the table, setting one up for a very comfortable turn 2-3 win with a lot of redundancy.

That's not really an option if we want to truly optimise for speed. If that's the goal, we need to remain aware that we're at the heart porting SX. As such, any tools borrowed from Nausea are simply substitutes for the things we lose (Ancestral Recall, Yawgmoth's Will, permanent if mostly off-colour mana sources) or ways to make use of Legacy's advantages (stronger cantrips, more LEDs, more available rainbow mana).

*

***Warning, the following list is for illustration only. For the love of whatever gods you believe in, do not play it!***

Unthinkingly butchering Meandeck Tendrils to make it Legacy-legal - taking out illegal cards and also Repeals since we have little worth bouncing, adding 4 Chrome Mox and upping formerly restricted cards to full playsets - would give us:

4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea

4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual

4 Chromatic Star
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Night's Whisper

4 Spoils of the Vault
4 Tendrils of Agony

1 open. I see 3 options for the last card for a 'braindead but faithful' port - City of Traitors to bring colourless mana up to scratch, Infernal Tutor to replace its Demonic ancestors or some bomb to replace Yawgmoth's will.


This is... awful. The obvious imbalance: Too many cantrips (we gained 3 Brainstorms and Ponders. We don't need that many eggs for mana filtering, although we may want some for sandbagging cards for LEDS) while a little tight on mana and lacking serious business (no tutoring for Yawgmoth's Will and simply win).
I think it's a good starting point for an interesting thought exercise though: How do we re-insert the power to make it work again, preferably while retaining as much of the SX concept as possible instead of loading up on expensive bombs?

[Gocho]

Sleight of hand is worse than Serum Visions, but this is a little improve. If you only plays cantrips in your combo turn, you can try the Draw4's or Ideas Unbound. Brainstorm don't seems a good option. You don't have any card to shuffle your deck and will draw any card you return with BS.

I think that someone said it, but Pauper Storm works like you want. Play some lands and Eggs and win in a single turn. It Goldfish at turn 3 easily, remember, they only play commons! For reference:

4 Cabal Ritual
4 Chromatic Star
4 Dark Ritual
4 Grapeshot
4 Ideas Unbound
4 Lotus Petal
4 Manamorphose
4 Ponder
4 Rite of Flame
4 Sign in Blood
3 Chromatic Sphere
3 Empty the Warrens
1 Seething Song

4 Ancient Spring
4 Irrigation Ditch
4 Sulfur Vent
1 Island


This is:
11 Filters (I count eggs + Manamorphose here)
13 Rituals
7 kill conditions
12 cantrips
4 non-land Initial mana
13 lands

In Legacy, with Chrome and LED you don't need the bad invasion lands and perhaps would keep in UB, but if you need more mana and less cantrips, you must play UBR for red rituals and filters.

[Iranon]

Well... the list in my last post was less of a workable deck and more the mangled remains of SX after having the banned-in-legacy bits lopped off with a rusty chainsaw and replaced with cardboard signs saying things like 'This is a gonad'. The main problem isn't 'not enough mana', the main problem is 'not enough power'.

The question is: how many and which of the cantrips do we need to replace with something more powerful but clunkier? My current list takes out Sleights and the pseudo-eggs for Ideas Unbound, Meditate and Manamorphose and fills the open spot with a single Helm of Awakening. It's ok, but not quite as lean as I'd like it to be.

Incidentally: Brainstorm needs to stay. It synergises nicely with Spoils and Land Grant, but more importantly it tells you whether you can crack an LED into your next draw effect.

[Iranon]

Preordain cuts it where Sleight of Hand and Serum Visions didn't... although it's still the weakest slot in the deck I'm finally happy with a completely lean build without clunky 3-mana spells.


4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea

4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
1 Elvish Spirit Guide

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Manamorphose
4 Night's Whisper
4 Ideas Unbound

4 Spoils of the Vault
4 Tendrils of Agony


While speed, redundancy and investing very little in a single spell are useful qualities if all we're worried about are counters and discard, the list still scoops to any permanent-based hate. This could be fixed with the right sideboard, but since the deck can't accumulate resources in a successful combo (like Spanish Inquisition) or recover from expending resources with a single card (like Ad Nauseam or Diminishing Returns) the cure may be worse than the problem.

[Vacrix]

You have my attention. How fast is it goldfishing ATM?

Also, have you considered Slithermuse?

[Iranon]

I'm stilll slower than with SI lists I'm comfortable with, around 40% turn-1-kills with sane play. That's definitely not the limit, but no high-end numbers from me yet: if I push much harder I have an unfortunate tendency to end with a Tendrils for 16-18.

I don't know whether that's a limitation of the deck or my lack of competence though. Imo, a good part of SI's challenge lies in the question 'Should I attempt a turn-1-kill at any cost?'. If the answer is 'Of course!', I can often do it on autopilot... at least against for testing purposes against a goldifsh.

I can't play this on autopilot. I don't get gamewinning loops and my draw doesn't come in neat identical 4-card-packages, I need to chain 10 unimpressive spells by hand. While dealing with colour issues, cantrip order, whether to use Spoils as a tutor (often enough, it's better just as a cantrip), harder imprint decisions, using Land Grant for deckthinning or reserving it as a shuffle effect and the nagging feeling that I made at least 2 mistakes after every single play.

Keep in mind that I do all my testing on MWS and am often unable to replicate claimed real-life percentages there... 40% without pushing hard is quite good by my standards. Especially since many non-winning chains leave us in a good position.

*

Regarding Slithermuse: I don't see how. It's rather expensive, and I have absolutely nothing to support it (Spoils isn't exactly a reliable tutor for something that isn't a 4-of...).
You can either run a critical mass of bombs+enablers, or keep your deck so tight and lean that you don't need them because you can go off with anything. Attempting both at once will just result in drawing the wrong thing.

[jafar]

Sign in Blood isn't better of ideas unbound/manamorphose?

Bye

[Iranon]

Even with just the 12 cantrips, I believe we would need some filtering unless we rework the mana base. So if we replace it, it would be something like Chromatic Star.This would actually save a few headaches and make playing around with LEDs easier, but I don't think I have enough off-colour mana to waste.

Sign in Blood wold be useful as a setup card if we believe we can afford to slow down... but I'd really miss plays like 'Ideas Unbound, crack LED' or 'Spoils for Ideas Unbound'; Night's Whisper isn't powerful enough for these and the same would aply to Sign in Blood.

[Vacrix]

Hmm... what if you instead opted to go for EtW every time and cut tendrils? Consistent turn 1 EtW for 16-18 still gets there. That is, if its consistent. IDK if it would be better than Belcher though if you took that path.

[Darkenslight]

4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea

4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
1 Elvish Spirit Guide

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Manamorphose
4 Night's Whisper
4 Ideas Unbound

4 Spoils of the Vault
4 Tendrils of Agony


Could you ever cut the Ponder and Cabal for Winds of Change and Pyretic Ritual/Rite of Flame? I'm thinking that the shuffle effect of Winds, combined with a Red Ritual, could help the deck so much. Or is it the pure cantrippiness that makes the deck so much a glass cannon?

[Iranon]

@ Vacrix: SX will would get more goblins more reliably than Belcher. However, I believe Belcher is consistent enough, has a non-neglegible chance of killing outright, uses more uniform cards meaning it'll be easier to get a goblin horde through a counter, has 8 Spirit Guides to play around Daze and answers to random junk in Burning Wish.

@ Darkenslight: I'm afraid I don't really see the appeal. Adding another colour is problematic in its own right. Winds of Change doesn't help if we already expended a few cards, lets an opponent see more potentially relevant cards, can't be used in tandem with LED and strains our resources even more because we end up with one card less.
The 'pure cantrippiness' is indeed what makes it work: the idea is playing your opening 7 ending with a tendrils is close to to a kill, and just requires a few cantrips and the mana to keep going... without the need of dedicated fixers, enablers or bombs.

[Darkenslight]

Thanks, Ira. I wasn't sure if that was all it was.

[Gocho]

I'm stilll slower than with SI lists I'm comfortable with, around 40% turn-1-kills with sane play. That's definitely not the limit, but no high-end numbers from me yet: if I push much harder I have an unfortunate tendency to end with a Tendrils for 16-18.


Tendrils for 16-18 aren't a bad play.
Saito played 2 Tendrils and 2 Ad Nauseam to make an early Tendrils for 14-16 and digg another one for the win.

Remember that Tendrils DRAINS the life points, so your opponent would have 4-6 life and you 20+.
You only need to find another Tendrils and 1-2 spells to win.

[Pastorofmuppets]

Tendrils for 16-18 aren't a bad play.
Saito played 2 Tendrils and 2 Ad Nauseam to make an early Tendrils for 14-16 and digg another one for the win.

Remember that Tendrils DRAINS the life points, so your opponent would have 4-6 life and you 20+.
You only need to find another Tendrils and 1-2 spells to win.

that's why my cantrip-heavy list ran 4.

[kinda]

I was having some success testing this...usually goldfishing turn 2-3 and some turn ones. I know pact and spoils are risky and I have lost to the goldfish, but I think they're worth it. Any suggestions appreciated...but LED is out of price range. The list probably needs night's whisper...not sure if it fits.

Lands
1 [R] Bayou
1 [A] Taiga

// Creatures
1 [CST] Tinder Wall
3 [GP] Wild Cantor
3 [AL] Elvish Spirit Guide
3 [PLC] Simian Spirit Guide

// Spells
4 [MR] Goblin Charbelcher
4 [OV] Meditate
4 [MR] Seething Song
4 [FUT] Summoner's Pact
4 [MR] Spoils of the Vault
4 [V09] Lotus Petal
4 [CS] Rite of Flame
4 [FNM] Tendrils of Agony
4 [MM] Land Grant
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [DDE] Dark Ritual
4 [SHM] Manamorphose