[Deck] NLI - Next Level Iggy

[Gocho]

- What do you think if I say you that I play Legacy with 4 Ancestral Recall?
- Are you crazy?
- No, I'm playing NLI.

The Deck
I was seeking in Magiccards.info and found Dream Salvage. I know the card, but didn't find a way to play with it when was printed. For reference:

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/shm/160.jpg
Dream Salvage:
Instant, {U/B} (1)
Draw cards equal to the number of cards target opponent discarded this turn.

I think that some Draw 7 could make the opponent discards his hand and make me draw another 7 if I draw DS (I miss you Windfall and Wheel of Fortune!), so I seek for "discards his or her hand" spells and...

Ill-Gotten Gains
Sorcery, 2BB (4)
Exile Ill-Gotten Gains. Each player discards his or her hand, then returns up to three cards from his or her graveyard to his or her hand.

Wow! We have a winner.

I started with a UB deck based in old IGGY-POP and add W for Chants. The list could make you cast IGG with nothing in your hand and BBBBB, getting Lotus Petal, Silence and a DS drawing 3-6 cards.

The first DS would make you draw 4-5 cards + 3 from the IGG = 7-8, with your opponent drawing 3, but the next IGG in the chain, would make you draw 7-8+3=10-11, and the next 10-11+3=13-14. And you choose the 3 one from the IGG, so you can try the IGG loop again or cast Infernal o play Tendrils if you draw into it. Cheeseburger remember me that IGG says "up to three cards", but if you draw 7-8 cards and he get nothing you must win the game.

So, we don't need to get 2x LED/Rit + Infernal Tutor to get a win, we can simply cast IGG and hope that the deck gives us the cards for the loop. If not, we can chant-lock the opponent and try again the next turn.
Try it, works more times that what you think.

NLI (Next Level Iggy) at 2010-06-29

IGG-Loop
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 LED
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual

New tech
4 Dream Salvage

Cantrips
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

Kill
1 Tendrils of Agony

More Artifact Mana
4 Lotus Petal

Defense slots
4 Orim's Chant
3 Silence

Lands
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Island
1 Swamp

Chaining
As any storm deck, you want to chain spells to reach 9 storm and cast Tendrils of agony.

The main way is the good old IGG-Loop, if anyone didn't know it, you need Infernal Tutor + 2x [/cards]Lion's Eye Diamond[/cards] in your hand and 1B. You cast both LED's, cast IT to search for Ill-Gotten Gains and break LEDs in response. This gives you BBBBBB and IGG in your hand. Cast IGG and get IT + 2 LED, repeat. You have 4 IGG so you don't need initial storm like ANT. You can get another IGG and another, and another to cast a Tendrils of 40 life loss if you need, which must kill anyone behind a Rhox War Monk.
You can change LED for Dark Ritual or Cabal Ritual, if you have more mana. But you need an additional B for each Dark Ritual you change and for each IGG that you chain.

With NLI you have another Loop with Ill-Gotten Gains, the Dream-Chaining! You need IGG + Dream Salvage in hand and BBBBB (it's easy with rituals and you can do it with BBBB if can get a petal from graveyard). You cast IGG discarding DS and get DS + Mana or defense from your graveyard, cast your brand new Ancestral Recall (Aka DS) and draw 3-6 cards. If you draw into another IGG or DS to keep chaining play it. If not, you can Chant-Walk you opponent and start again next turn. With some testing you could know when to keep and when Chant-Walk.

But more better, you can play both loops at the same time! If you have little mana to play the standard IGG-loop you can't cast a 2nd IGG or Tendrils, but you can always search for DS with the second IT and play it with your black mana! You can win with hands that would fizzle in the older lists. That gives you more 2nd and 3rd turn wins that the standard Iggy-pop.

How to play it
It's important to know how to mull. I win at T2-3 after Mulligan to 5 many times in testing.
You want to use your Ponders and [/cards]Brainstorm[/cards]s to dig your deck. As any MTG Player must know, the chance that you draw a card with 4x in your deck is almost 40% in your first 7. If you dig 3 more cards you up it to 52.77% and 63.77% after the second digger.
As we don't have Mystical Tutor is very important that you maximize your dig 3 spells. I always play 1st turn Ponder, 2nd turn Brainstorm, and then break Fetch if I can.

After every dig or draw stop to think, can you IGG-Loop? If not, What do you need?

Remember that IT can search for a copy of any card in your hand, so you can look for 2x DS, 2xChant or 2xLED if you need.

Chant is your friend. You can Chantwalk your opponent, if he is playing an aggro deck and you don't need them as defense, to keep his hand full of cards and make your DS betters.

Never break a LED in response of a DS if you don't need the mana. Many times you would draw in IT and crap and you can chain with you previous LED, but if you break it, you only can search more crap.

ALTERNATIVES
The deck was testing with 20, 18 and 16 lands, with 2, 3 and 4 Cabal Rituals and with 0, 1 and 2 Chrome Mox. The list I post is the more explosive. Anyway, we have 7 open slots for Defense and you can change the deck to adapt it to your style of play. I told you some alternatives that we can discuss and test in the Thread. Many of them are usual alternatives in Storm decks so any storm players would know them.

Burning Wish
-1 Ill-Gotten Gains (to the Sideboard as Wish Target)
-1 Infernal Tutor (to the Sideboard as Wish Target)
-2 Silence
-2 Underground Sea
+4 Burning Wish
+1 Badlands
+1 Volcanic Island

Burning Wish can search for the half of the both IGG-loops, and for anti-hate cards, that the current list can't, but you must add Red to the manabase and slow the deck a little.

Leyline of the Void + Helm of Obedience
- 4 Orim's Chant
- 3 Silence
- 1 Chrome Mox
- 1 Tundra
- 1 Scrubland
+2 Ancient Tomb
+4 Leyline of the Void
+4 Helm of Obedience

The combo gives you a non-graveyard dependent win condition, but I dislike it, because the deck didn't have any tutor's to find it and LoV in your initial hand when you want to IGG-loop makes yours DS worse.

Rainbow Lands
We can go to the Rainbow lands manabase if you want to play 4 or 5 colors. The 16 lands would go like this:

4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
2 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Blue or Black Fetchs

You have -2 fetch that could make your brainstorms worse and put more pressure on your shoulders because Gemstone self-destroy and City needs your life, but you can SB all colors spells and is cheaper if you don't have cash.

The Enlightened Tutor SB
You can't use MT because she isn't a second-tier tutor, so use the other second-tier tutor and find your anti-hate spells and LED's.

SB:

4 Enlightened Tutor
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Seal of Removal
1 Serenity
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Propaganda
1 Defense Grid/City of Solitude
1 Seal of Doom/ Fire (if you play 4 colors or Rainbow lands)
4 Free slots

I must find more ET targets, but I'm sure that you get the idea.

Green Splash
The Green Splash gives you Reverent Silence, Xantid Swarm, Krosan Grip and Carpet of Flowers. I think that Orim's Chant + Silence maindeck gives you a better play vs Blue decks in 3 games, than the Green spells in the SB for games 2-3. Don't put 4 Krosan in the main except if the last Top8 in your shop was 8 CB decks.

But if anyone want to test it, this would be the maindeck:
-1 Scrubland
-1 Tundra
-4 Orim's Chant
-3 Silence
+1 Bayou
+1 Tropical Island
+4 Duress
+3 Xantid Swarm

Shelldrazi
You can forget your main plan and use a SB with Doomsday + Emrakul + Shelldock Isle, to beat almost any hate that you can't with IGG.
SB:
4 Doomsday
1 Emrakul
1 Shelldock isle
4 Sensei's Divining Top
5 Free slots

Any alternative would be mixed with any other. So you can play with the ET SB and LoV+HoO combo and make it better, or can maindeck BW with the Shelldrazi SB.
Test them and choose what you like more. NLI is flexible!

FIGHTING THROUGH HATE
Your storm engine doesn't need Life Points, so you can wait some turns sculpting your hand before start chaining spells. In this turns, your opponent would try some of this Spells:

Graveyard hate
Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus, Faerie Macabre and similar spells: Cast IGG with 1 or 2 DS in your hand and laugh when you draw 6+ cards after his activation. He can remove your graveyard in response to IGG, but can't stop that you return the DS.
Ravenous Trap, if you think that your opponent plays it, cast Chant/Silence before beginning to IGG-Loop, or forget your current graveyard and play like vs Tormod's.
Leyline of the Void: You're fucked. You need to find a removal for it before start to combo, is easier with BW, ET or Doomsday. If you can't, and you're playing BW, try to win through 2 Tendrils in different turns.

Bears hate
Gaddock Teeg, Ethersworn Canonist and similar: Again, you need to find a removal for it before start to combo. Much easier with BW or ET

Artifact Hate
Chalice of the Void: If X<2, get Threshold and 2x Cabal Ritual + IT and start to combo as usual. If X=2 and they get multiple Chalice you need to find a Serenity in topdeck mode so it would be hard.
Trinisphere: The easy way is get removal, the hard way is combo for 18 damage with Threshold, 3x Cabal Ritual + IT, it would cost you B3 to start instead of BB.

Counterspells
You play 7 Orim's Chant/Silence. Skip Daze[Cards]/[Cards]Spell Snare and cast them. Generally your opponent would have Fow and Spell Pierce has hard-counters, and only FOW can counter unkickered Chant/Silence[Cards]

Counterbalance
Get removal with your diggers before he land CB or you would have a hard day. Here, the Green splash would be great, but the ET SB would find you a removal too.


Choosing a Sideboard
I'll post the multiples alternatives to the SB, so you can choose what you want, the board changes if you use it UBW or with the Rainbow manabase

The best hate cards vs you are:
[Cards]Leyline of the Void
Gaddock Teeg
Ethersworn Canonist
Counterbalance

2 are creatures, 2 Enchantments and Canonist are Artifact.
So we need a pack of disenchants/removal/bouncer to fight them, but as I say without MT we can't side in a single Echoing Truth and hope to find it. We can use 3 approaches:

Recursive SB
You use Multiples copies of removal, with the hope that you find it at time. This have the drawback that you can hold an useless card in your hand all the game if you SB the wrong one:
SB choices:

4 Wipe Away/Krosan Grip
4 Slaughter Pact
7 open slots

Tutoreable SB
You use 4x copies of any tutor and cards that you can tutor for. The drawback is that the cards are worse than his instant alternatives.

SB Choices, with Burning Wish Maindeck:
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Eye of Nowhere
1 Deathmark
1 Pyroclasm
1 Grapeshot
1 Empty the warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
7 Free Slots

SB Choices, with Enlightened Tutor SB:
4 Enlightened Tutor
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Seal of Removal
1 Serenity
1 Seal of Doom/ Fire (if you play 4 colors or Rainbow lands)
7 Free slots

Shelldrazi SB
You forget about alternative and play the Doomsday + Emrakul combo that could beat all your hate cards, but is worse vs other cards, like Wasteland, so any deck that plays it + Ethersworn Canonist (for example) would beat you.

SB Choices,
4 Doomsday
1 Emrakul
1 Shelldock isle
4 Sensei's Divining Top
5 Free slots

As you can see, every SB option have many Free slots, so you can mix them and play BW with a DD SB, or Recursion + ET.

My actual choice is the mix between Doomsday and ET, so I can test both:
SB:
4 Doomsday
1 Emrakul
1 Shelldock Isle
2 Top
4 Enlightened Tutor
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Seal of Removal
1 Serenity

DD plan is vs CB decks and ET plan vs the others.

The deck is young, but I think that is good enough to post here so anyone can help in his development, because everyone is looking for a new non-MT deck :tongue:
Questions?

[GreenOne]

This should be really LOL against Dredge.

Me: Land, go.
Him: Breakthrough, discarda hand go.
Me: EOT Dream Salvage -> Draw 11

[Aleksandr]

Awesome primer. I really like the deck. Shame that MWS is all screwed up, I can only goldfish it right now... :-(

EDIT: Oh, and you should rename the deck to Dream Iggy. :smile:

[jazzykat]

EDIT: Oh, and you should rename the deck to Dream Iggy. :smile:

"I dream of Iggy" ?

[Vacrix]

Nice work Gocho. I'm glad to see this is finally up on TheSource. How fast on avg. are you goldfishing aggro?

I know you don't have matchups listed yet but here is a quick analysis..
You can play DS in response to Ichorid discarding their hand to Breakthrough or something and then you can Chant them, and then go off on your turn with plenty of cards in hand. Against other storm combo you have a pretty good matchup with 7 MD Chant effects. Chants are also quite useful in the aggro matchup, giving you a psuedo-timewalk. You are fast enough to race aggro and don't need to use your life as a resource like some combo decks (ANT/SI). Against control, you have the resources, land and cantrips, to sculpt a game winning hand with multiple Chants.

Also, have you tried Flux? It looks pretty good to me at first glance. It replaces itself and replaces whatever jank you might have in hand, AND an unfamiliar opponent might also discard. Especially if you Chant first, it wouldn't matter if the opponent discards their 7 for a new 7 because they can't play any spells. Also, Gustha's Scepter helps you dodge discard and has some sick interactions with IGG and LED.

[Morim_Brightsmoke]

Have you considered turning the leyline-helm combo tranformational sideboard into a painter's servant grindstone one instead? They positively interact with your rituals are still not gy dependent, do not fuck up the dream salvage Iggy interaction, and can be protected by chant plus going off in one turn. You also can replace (potentially) the ancient tombs with enlightened tutors to make the ability to tutor for pieces better. Just a thought. I assume people will be bringing out some of their creature hate against you anyway and this way you can keep them guessing.

[Aleksandr]

Vacrix, where would you put Flux? Because it looks pretty strong, but what to cut?

[Lord_Cyrus]

Love it!! Amazing tech. Why haven't we all been playing this for a couple years now? Oh yeah... Because Mystical => Ad Nauseam was so easy to win with. I read some discussion on Dream Salvage when it was spoiled but I believe you are the first to combine it with IGG for fun and profit. I'll be playing this one on MWS a bunch, for sure.

[Vacrix]

Vacrix, where would you put Flux? Because it looks pretty strong, but what to cut?
To tell the truth I'd have to play the list to find out, and can't due to lack of MWS. :/ The best thing you could cut is probably a fetch and a Chant. The only problem I might see with Flux is finding the blue; however, this problem already exists for cantrips. I really think some land should get cut for Chrome Mox. Without Mox, you have very few blue sources to take advantage of your cantrips after going off. If you draw jank post-DS, like lands and cantrips, you will certainly want Chrome Mox in this case (and Flux). Also, in this case, it looks very strong to have an un-used fetchland before going off to take advantage of BS post-DS and shuffle away unwanted lands.

As for Flux, it looks really good once you start going off because you can discard the land to find useful shit, and it cantrips. It might be playable as a 2'of or something. As long as you have the mana, it won't be dead off of a mediocre DS because it lets you cycle into business. In clutch situations, you can cycle your entire hand, breaking LED, and hope you draw business.

EDIT:
I recall Gocho exploring a BW build on the Stormboards. Flux might be worth running in a Wish board.

[Gocho]

Awesome primer. I really like the deck. Shame that MWS is all screwed up, I can only goldfish it right now... :-(

EDIT: Oh, and you should rename the deck to Dream Iggy. :smile:

I like more "The Sandman" than Dream Iggy, I'm tired of decks that was named with his cards names. :laugh:
What do you like?



Nice work Gocho. I'm glad to see this is finally up on TheSource. How fast on avg. are you goldfishing aggro?

I know you don't have matchups listed yet but here is a quick analysis..
You can play DS in response to Ichorid discarding their hand to Breakthrough or something and then you can Chant them, and then go off on your turn with plenty of cards in hand. Against other storm combo you have a pretty good matchup with 7 MD Chant effects. Chants are also quite useful in the aggro matchup, giving you a psuedo-timewalk. You are fast enough to race aggro and don't need to use your life as a resource like some combo decks (ANT/SI). Against control, you have the resources, land and cantrips, to sculpt a game winning hand with multiple Chants.

Also, have you tried Flux? It looks pretty good to me at first glance. It replaces itself and replaces whatever jank you might have in hand, AND an unfamiliar opponent might also discard. Especially if you Chant first, it wouldn't matter if the opponent discards their 7 for a new 7 because they can't play any spells. Also, Gustha's Scepter helps you dodge discard and has some sick interactions with IGG and LED.


2.5 turns on the play, 3 on the draw because DS get worse and I look for more mana. I get many 2nd turn win playing like this:
T1: Land, Ponder
T2: Brainstorm, Fetch, bunch of artifact/rituals, Igg-loop or Dream-chain.

In the 2nd game I face many 2nd turn Gaddock Teeg with ET -> Seal of Removal. Nobody expect it :laugh:, but I need to find better ET targets, I can't face double Bear easily.

Thanks for the quick analysis, I'll add to the Primer when I test vs more decks.

Scepter doesn't worth the testing (and I have something in my shoe box). I don't wait so many turns to make it good.
I didn't try Flux, but seems a great option. -1 Cabal Ritual -1 Silence +2 Flux, could be a starting approach. I cut Chrome Mox to up Cabal Ritual to 4x but I like 16 land to get my landdrop in the first 3 turns. Flux as Wishable slot is a must have.
I don't use the cantrips after going off but with all your Rituals, you can break some artifact mana for blue without problems and use it for DS and colorless. Breaking LED to Flux all your hand looks powerful, because if your opponent discards some cards and you draw DS you get a great card advantage. And if you Flux into IGG you must have the standard IGG-loop after draw 15 cards in your hand+graveyard so you can win the same turn or the next one.


Have you considered turning the leyline-helm combo tranformational sideboard into a painter's servant grindstone one instead? They positively interact with your rituals are still not gy dependent, do not fuck up the dream salvage Iggy interaction, and can be protected by chant plus going off in one turn. You also can replace (potentially) the ancient tombs with enlightened tutors to make the ability to tutor for pieces better. Just a thought. I assume people will be bringing out some of their creature hate against you anyway and this way you can keep them guessing.

The Leyline-helm combo aren't a transformational SB, if you look the primer, the idea is to put them Maindeck, because without DS, IGG with LoV in play is a strong play.
I have a mistake, because I discard it in an older list, I didn't play Chrome Mox, so I can't remove one.

I dislike the painter-grindstone, isn't synergistic with the rest of the deck, can't deal with CB and is weaker than the DD one. But is an option if you play the MT and likes it. As I said the deck is flexible :wink:


Love it!! Amazing tech. Why haven't we all been playing this for a couple years now? Oh yeah... Because Mystical => Ad Nauseam was so easy to win with. I read some discussion on Dream Salvage when it was spoiled but I believe you are the first to combine it with IGG for fun and profit. I'll be playing this one on MWS a bunch, for sure.
I love that you love it. :laugh:

[Piceli89]

This deck has a cute innovative idea and all, but I really fear this falls under the danger of cool things.
What do you want from a Storm Combo to be competitive, given the departure of Mystical? That it should preserve its good dose of consistency, i.e. opening good hands and still managing to fight through the many situations of hate, in one word, resiliency.
Now, is this deck opening good hands? 4 Ill- Gotten Gains are surely what the deck needs to get its gameplan going, but they're crap when you draw them in hand without being able to cast them. You might say that it can be good to cast it even without being able to go off, just to undo the threee cards among which there's a juicy Dream Salvage that will draw you X cards, but good players will understand how this deck works after a single game and will counter Igg leaving you with a bunch of dead cards in hand. You have Chants? True, but it gets countered as well brought back by your Igg. You can use the Chant again to protect your DS, but then what? You draw X cards (usually 2-3-4 againt blue, not more) with few black manas in pool (Igg is mana intensive and usually requires you to bring back Rituals to have the mana to go off after-it), and hope to draw the cards to close the combo. Pretty a matter of luck,if you as me.
Regarding this, Dream Salvage is a card that's as cool as terrible. Cool given its potentiality, terrible because it's undeniably situational and you want to avoid situational wins as much as you can when playing SC. Dream Salvage is pretty much a dead card if you can't resolve an IGG, and drawing 2 of them into the initial hand virtually means beginning with 5 cards. I should also point out that it's totally narrow if you're playing Chants-only since, well, you can't even try to cycle it after Duress/Seize (but of course you have to play chants if your focus to win through IGG), and that against tempo decks the match usually goes to a point where you have to get a Chant resolved, and this implies using many resources both from you and from your opponent. Chantwars usually levaes them with few cards in hand , given they have used an amount of Fows, Dazes and Pierces, You could also manage to make a Chant resolve, but then what? You bring back a DS via Igg, and maybe it makes you draw 2 cards off it because they were the only useless stuff in opponent's hand, say a Snare and a Stifle.
Also, remember aggro is not keeping their cards in hand against you. As soon as they realize you're combo, they will try to empty their hand just to race you. You have to win via Igg loops+Infernal, and probably you will succeed in this. But again, Dream Salvage is plain bad to be drawn or used in here.

I also mentioned the resiliency issues, i.e. coming out from difficult situations. The UBw(g) version wins via IGG-loops only, apart from Natural Tendrils. This means it's totally susceptible on Meddling Mage naming IGG and Gaddock Teeg. Of course Relic and Tormod's come by, if you are willing to win via regular Igg-loops+Infernal and don't have a dream salvage in hand to play around them.
Doomsday eludes all these hate pieces, with the only drawback of requiring a cantrip and a slower setup.

Once again, the concept of the deck is fine, but I doubt it's nearly as consistent as ANT used to be-in the sense that every card you culd draw was never dead and the deck was elegantly designed to offer solid hands without multiple dead cards like Igg/DS- ; and most of all its most solid incarnation would be pretty mono-engine, while the hybrid with Burning Wish are furterly diluting the consistency of the hands to play a bunch of good cards that often don't have valuable sinergies among them (Wish and Salvage, with 3 Iggs? Also, I've learned from experience that Chant and Wish cause a sketchy manabase, and there's only one lucksack who can manage to make both work).

[klaus]

This deck has a cute innovative idea and all, but I really fear this falls under the danger of cool things.

Dream Salvage is pretty much a dead card if you can't resolve an IGG, and drawing 2 of them into the initial hand virtually means beginning with 5 cards.

this.

[K_Rot_T]

Ok one little Question:
How exactly you want to combine Flux with LED?
Flux on stack->Activate LED, discard Hand, can't dsacrd anything with Flux-> draw one card....wow
FLux resolves, you discard your Hand, draw that many cards +1 and then what? Activating LED is the same as before.
If I don't see something correct me, but paying 3 Mana for a cantrip which MIGHT make Dream Salvage better doesn't seem that strong.


given they have used an amount of Fows, Dazes and Pierces
At least Daze doesn't change that much, as they play a card and return a land, leaving them with the same hand size


Once again, the concept of the deck is fine, but I doubt it's nearly as consistent as ANT
If it would be as consistant as ANT, people would have started to play this much earlier....the positive thing is, that a lot of people are going to cut storm combo hate from their Sideboard, leaving them with the usual Relict, Crypt, Gaddock Teeg and then....well you should be able to beat that.

The question is: why should you play this Deck over Solidarity? As they are both flexible, Combodecks and specially: Legacy Legal.

[Vacrix]

Yes I missed that. You would actually discard your hand to LED before Flux resolved, making it a terrible play.

Why should anyone play this over Solidarity? Because Solidarity is probably about a turn slower on average and has Chant protection.

It might be better to start the combo with Diminishing Returns or something to get 7 cards into your opponent's hand.

[Rood]

Why not enable other I win the game 4 mana spells since you already play Ill-Gotten with Persecute over Silence?

Persecute you...DS Draw a ton.

[Grumpollion]

I thought of using Dream Salvage with IGG also. See posts #558 and #559 in this thread:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?6099-[Deck]-Spanish-Inquisition-(B-x-Storm-Combo)/page28

[Vacrix]

Yes I thought of it as well, many times. Either way, Gocho made the first list abusing it, at least one that we know of. Props go to him.

[Gocho]

This deck has a cute innovative idea and all, but I really fear this falls under the danger of cool things.
What do you want from a Storm Combo to be competitive, given the departure of Mystical? That it should preserve its good dose of consistency, i.e. opening good hands and still managing to fight through the many situations of hate, in one word, resiliency.
The deck is at early stage. I found the DS-IGG interaction las Friday, and MWS is out, so I can't do all the test that I want.
Nobody can expect that the deck would be as resilient as ANT, in 3 days. The first lists of ANT played 4x, expensive spells, and fizzled all the time, but with some time, the deck was better.



Now, is this deck opening good hands? 4 Ill- Gotten Gains are surely what the deck needs to get its gameplan going, but they're crap when you draw them in hand without being able to cast them. You might say that it can be good to cast it even without being able to go off, just to undo the threee cards among which there's a juicy Dream Salvage that will draw you X cards, but good players will understand how this deck works after a single game and will counter Igg leaving you with a bunch of dead cards in hand. You have Chants? True, but it gets countered as well brought back by your Igg. You can use the Chant again to protect your DS, but then what? You draw X cards (usually 2-3-4 againt blue, not more) with few black manas in pool (Igg is mana intensive and usually requires you to bring back Rituals to have the mana to go off after-it), and hope to draw the cards to close the combo. Pretty a matter of luck,if you as me.

ANT besides in the luck too, some list tuning and a lot of luck. I know that the deck need it a little, but believe me, it works a lot of times, and if it doesn't work, don't let you at 4 Life Points.



Regarding this, Dream Salvage is a card that's as cool as terrible. Cool given its potentiality, terrible because it's undeniably situational and you want to avoid situational wins as much as you can when playing SC. Dream Salvage is pretty much a dead card if you can't resolve an IGG, and drawing 2 of them into the initial hand virtually means beginning with 5 cards. I should also point out that it's totally narrow if you're playing Chants-only since, well, you can't even try to cycle it after Duress/Seize (but of course you have to play chants if your focus to win through IGG), and that against tempo decks the match usually goes to a point where you have to get a Chant resolved, and this implies using many resources both from you and from your opponent. Chantwars usually levaes them with few cards in hand , given they have used an amount of Fows, Dazes and Pierces, You could also manage to make a Chant resolve, but then what? You bring back a DS via Igg, and maybe it makes you draw 2 cards off it because they were the only useless stuff in opponent's hand, say a Snare and a Stifle.

DS is a dead card without IGG, but we can't assume that 4 DS are the right number. Maybe the right number is one, with 3 IT, 2 IGG, 3DD, 4 BW, 1 DS. We don't know because have to test all this combinations yet. Many ANT lists have IGG + Tendrils + EtW as dead cards, so 3 would be acceptable.

But a single DS in your list makes your IGG-Loops an option with less mana. You can IGG-loop with 2x Ritual, IT + 1B, it needs some luck, but is better than the alternative, die because you don't have enough mana.

We can Discuss if the right number is 4 or 1 but I think that the card is enough powerful to worth the slot.



Also, remember aggro is not keeping their cards in hand against you. As soon as they realize you're combo, they will try to empty their hand just to race you. You have to win via Igg loops+Infernal, and probably you will succeed in this. But again, Dream Salvage is plain bad to be drawn or used in here.

The current list beat Aggro at Turn 2 on the play many times, or Turn 3 after a Chant-walk turn, keeping his hand with 6-5 cards which make DS a good play.



I also mentioned the resiliency issues, i.e. coming out from difficult situations. The UBw(g) version wins via IGG-loops only, apart from Natural Tendrils. This means it's totally susceptible on Meddling Mage naming IGG and Gaddock Teeg. Of course Relic and Tormod's come by, if you are willing to win via regular Igg-loops+Infernal and don't have a dream salvage in hand to play around them.
Doomsday eludes all these hate pieces, with the only drawback of requiring a cantrip and a slower setup.

As I say, perhaps the best list is the UBwr one with maindeck DD, or perhaps is Rev614 + 1 DS, I'm trying it with 4x DS because is the most intuitive approach, but I would be crazy if I think that this is the definitive MD



Once again, the concept of the deck is fine, but I doubt it's nearly as consistent as ANT used to be-in the sense that every card you culd draw was never dead and the deck was elegantly designed to offer solid hands without multiple dead cards like Igg/DS- ; and most of all its most solid incarnation would be pretty mono-engine, while the hybrid with Burning Wish are furterly diluting the consistency of the hands to play a bunch of good cards that often don't have valuable sinergies among them (Wish and Salvage, with 3 Iggs? Also, I've learned from experience that Chant and Wish cause a sketchy manabase, and there's only one lucksack who can manage to make both work).
I like that you like the concept :)
The first lists of ANT fizzled more that this lists, so I expect that the list would be better in the next weeks, we are in "New and Developmental" ;)
I agree in the sketchy manabase, this is the reason why I add the Rainbow manabase as an alternative.


How exactly you want to combine Flux with LED?
Flux on stack->Activate LED, discard Hand, can't dsacrd anything with Flux-> draw one card....wow
FLux resolves, you discard your Hand, draw that many cards +1 and then what? Activating LED is the same as before.
If I don't see something correct me, but paying 3 Mana for a cantrip which MIGHT make Dream Salvage better doesn't seem that strong.
I was going to post it, after reading the card less tired.
But we can test it as a Wish slot for the SB, drawing 7 newer cards would be powerful in a deck that can regrowth is graveyard.



The question is: why should you play this Deck over Solidarity? As they are both flexible, Combodecks and specially: Legacy Legal.

The deck is faster than Solidarity, and easier to play. Have better SB options and more protection. And Solidarity have less free slots to play Defense (Chant or whatever you want).


Why not enable other I win the game 4 mana spells since you already play Ill-Gotten with Persecute over Silence?

Persecute you...DS Draw a ton.
In many list, Persecute only discards 1-3 cards from your opponent, this is a too little to make it viable.

[Grumpollion]

Yes I thought of it as well, many times. Either way, Gocho made the first list abusing it, at least one that we know of. Props go to him.

Props? For sticking a few Dream Salvages into an existing deck that already contained the card that we already thought of using with DS? Doesn't seem very innovative to me... unless I'm missing some kind of cool interaction other than the obvious IGG-DS one.

[Lorgalis]

Why does the deck play Chant effects over Duress + Leyline of the Void? The Leyline makes IGG a real Mind Twist for any opponent and Duress helps in the blue matchup. Also, I think that keeping the deck UB would make it more consistent. If I had to make a splash, it would be the red one (Burning Wish).

I am aware that adding Leyline makes it impossible to profit from the opponent discarding multiple times, but IMO a smart opponent will recover as few cards as possible from IGG to stop your combo....

Hope this helps.

[yankeedave]

I am aware that adding Leyline makes it impossible to profit from the opponent discarding multiple times, but IMO a smart opponent will recover as few cards as possible from IGG to stop your combo....

Hope this helps.

Its not the recovery of cards that stops the combo, its the discard portion, so the more they discard, the better it is for you. If they don't bring any cards back, you always have the Inferal Tutor and the traditional Iggy loop for a win con.

[Lorgalis]

Man, Leyline in play doesn't let them get their cards back...so they won't be able to discard anything to successive IGG's. As I said before, this won't be much of an issue as:

- You can still cast more DS to draw 3-4 cards each time
- a smart opponent, on G2 (after loosing G1 supposedly), would recover as few cards as possible to prevent you from drawing more cards from DS.

So, if the decks takes the Leyline route, 3-4 DS maindeck are a must.

[semioldguy]

What about Abeyance?

It goes along with the silence/chant plan for the most part (it takes care of spells played during your turn) as well as preventing any activations from crypts/relics while going off. It costs a mana more, but it cantrips too.

[Aleksandr]

I already tried it.

You'll be one turn slower, obviously, but the built-in draw and the ability to stop Crypt is helpful games 2 and 3 when you calm down and slowly fight through hate.

[Gocho]

I dislike the Duress + Leyline because without an initial LoV, your deck has a worse match vs Blue decks.
And if you need to use DS, LoV make it worse, so the % of times that LoV would be useful are low.

You can try it, it's easy to put out the Chants ;)

The last change is adding Oblivion Ring in the Enlightened Tutor SB, it's an all nonland permanents removal and is working very good.

[Darkenslight]

what about Liliana's Caress (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=106150&d=1276147724) as an optional alternate Wincon? Each iteration of the IGGy part should net you six life from your opponent, reducing the cycle required once per iteration.

[Lord_Cyrus]

what about Liliana's Caress (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=106150&d=1276147724) as an optional alternate Wincon? Each iteration of the IGGy part should net you six life from your opponent, reducing the cycle required once per iteration.

You should remember as Gocho said, they don't have to return any cards to their hand at all for IGG. Neither do you, for that matter. It's an "Up to" clause, so as soon as they see the Caress in play your plan doesn't work anymore.

I've been testing the deck and it works quite well but I believe it needs more Tendrils to become consistent, at least 2-3. Playing 3 Tendrils means you have to dig through less cards to set up your win and fizzles become practically non-existent as long as you resolve your DS for at least 4 cards. Of course, you can still win with a natural IGG loop, and having Tendrils already in your hand makes this a whole lot easier, functionally saving you 1B and a card (infernal tutor).

I should also note that this deck is actually a lot easier to play against Aggro since your win doesn't involve lifeloss like ANT. It's really quite simple to timewalk them with Chants, preventing them from playing out most of their cards and winning at a very healthy 12+ life. Overall I would feel quite confident bringing this deck to a tournament, and any other combo player should as well. The win mechanism is a little tricky if you're used to playing ANT but if you have any of these combos with at least 6 mana you should probably win:

LED + IT
IGG + IT
IGG + Dream Salvage

Overall, if you are at a loss for what to do, just chant them and wait to see another card before deciding to go off.

[woremak]

I've been playing this deck a lot on MWS, so I guess results don't count for a lot, but Dream Salvage has been pretty sweet. Though there are some random cool wins I've gotten, like against a guy holding faerie macabre I infernal tutored for infernal tutor for infernal tutor for infernal tutor for tendrils to do exactsies.

[chokin]

This is actually a pretty neat deck. It has a very SI feel to it without losing life, but being dependent on IGG. I goldfished the OP list and sometimes I'd get stuck on a hand with Dream Salvage with no IGG or I'd get a bunch of mana ramp, an IGG, but no Tutor or Dream Salvage.

Hell, even a Tendrils in the second scenario would have been useful. Maybe -1 Silence for an extra Tendrils? Not sure though. It just feels like it needs more gas. When it goes off, it really goes off though.

[JonBarber]

So what happens when your opponent plays chant effects?

[yankeedave]

Well, you scuplt your hand until you can chant them and keep using that to keep up. We have 7 chants, they will most likely run out before we do!

[JonBarber]

Well, you scuplt your hand until you can chant them and keep using that to keep up. We have 7 chants, they will most likely run out before we do!

Minus the fact that they play threats and you don't. A single chant in their grave yard means you cant use igg. The deck needs to run at least 2 tendrils to have any hope of winning against chants.

[semioldguy]

Minus the fact that they play threats and you don't. A single chant in their grave yard means you cant use igg. The deck needs to run at least 2 tendrils to have any hope of winning against chants.

What is this deck you are thinking of that is playing both threats and chants that you won't have enough time to dig for a second chant? It just means you have to chant before IGG. If you've already chanted, then a single or multiple chants in the graveyard don't do anything because whatever three cards they get back can't be played.

If you are playing against chants, then you chant first, if they have a chant they have to use it immediately and you wait until next turn to go off. If they don't have a chant, then you're free to do whatever.

[coolmagics]

I remember the old IggyPop lists used to run Intuition. Don't know if it would be good to include in here or not.

[Vacrix]

I remember the old IggyPop lists used to run Intuition. Don't know if it would be good to include in here or not.
The man has a good point. It might seem slow... but the deck can handle life loss. It doesn't need to use it as a resource like ANT or SI do. It is particularly slow though.. maybe this is a better plan post-board.


@ Gocho
I suggest you take a look at all the IGGY Pop lists on deck check. You might be able to glean some ideas from teh old school.
One that immediately caught my eye was Cabal Pit. It seems a little janky but it provides you with starting black, AND is an out to hatebears. Some lists were running it mainboard, which is quite easy to accomodate considering you can Chant walk to stall and don't need your life as a resource. What do you think?

[coolmagics]

@ Gocho
I suggest you take a look at all the IGGY Pop lists on deck check. You might be able to glean some ideas from teh old school.
One that immediately caught my eye was Cabal Pit. It seems a little janky but it provides you with starting black, AND is an out to hatebears. Some lists were running it mainboard, which is quite easy to accomodate considering you can Chant walk to stall and don't need your life as a resource. What do you think?

Oh yeah, I remember Cabal Pit, just wish the deck had a way to tutor for it. Old decks also ran LotV for the classic Mindtwist for your hand on turn one. Problem with adding that (and Intuition) in is that they probably take the slots of Orim's Chant / Silence, which means you're a lot worse against FoW.

[Vacrix]

Well you can cantrip into it. You'd be hitting your land drop and preparing for hate at the same time. Seems dank to me.

Also, its worth noting that Intuition dodges Teeg. If you play it and 3 MD Cabal Pit, you can fetch them out if need. The only problem with Intuition is that its 2U, so you will need to find U via Lotus Petal or Chrome Mox to actually take advantage of it post-going off. The ability to find 3 Cabal Rituals, and then return 2 after IGG looks strong as hell to me. Also, get 3 Dream Salvage then IGG? Isn't that GG?

[Hanni]

I would definitely be looking at Leyline of the Void, since it was a pivotal piece of the original IGGy Pop deck.

Of course, they deck now has access to 4 more Chant-effects with Silence that it didn't have back then, but Leyline is free and starts the game on turn 0.

If not maindeck, then definitely in the sideboard. Hosing graveyards is still very relevant in Legacy.

4 Orim's Chant and 4 Leyline of the Void sounds like a pretty sweet Mind Twisting package to me.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

+1 goes to danger of cool things. I think over all you guys are going to see that only 4 chant effects isn't enough and the mind twist isn't worth the inconsistency. I've been testing a list with burning wish. I think you guys might do well to take a page out of bryant's book and try a more TES approach. Red mana accel has helped a bit. I'm also slow-rolling it with tops instead of ponders so I can use D-Day still with Imrakul. Haven't had enough time off of work to do any real testing (plus all my testing buddies are back on campus). Anyway, I dropped green in favor of red, and the burning wishes do slow me down about a turn, but with scenarios I have set up and goldfished through, I've been fully capable of beating most blue control settings. I only ever really had a problem with a blueberry zoo list, and I think that was a freak accident...

Also, I've been running Abeyance over Silence. The cantrip works nicely but most of all I like it to bait out Spell Snare. I don't know if you guys still see much spell snare with spell pierce and all, but its not very popular in my playcircle yet (idk why).

[Lord_Cyrus]

No the Mindtwist effect is definitely not worth running Leyline. Adding Dream Salvage changes the deck enough that you really don't want to retrograde the deck in this way - it just strips useful protection from the deck. I frequently find myself winning through FoW anyways with 7 chants - it's just not that hard. If anything this deck needs more gas against Aggro which is why I am now running 3 Tendrils of Agony to make early attempts more consistent and rely less on IGG + DS to find my win. So far, it's been working well.

I like the idea of Abeyance as a cantrip but I really dislike having to produce another mana. The deck feels tight like a good combo should - not much wiggle room in there. +1 mana is often the difference between victory and defeat in such cases.

[denial]

Yes I thought of it as well, many times. Either way, Gocho made the first list abusing it, at least one that we know of. Props go to him.

no way man, conley woods invented this deck.

[Hanni]

no way man, conley woods invented this deck.

+1

[sam.]

So I've been playing DDFT for a while now, and just picked up the last 3 Iggy's. I'm looking into making this deck, and tried out the following build:

Next Level Iggy
Win Conditions [ 9 ] ( 9 )
3x Ill-Gotten Gains
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Empty the Warrens
4x Burning Wish

Mana Accel [ 16 ] ( 25 )
3x Lotus Petal
2x Chrome Mox
4x Lion’s Eye Diamond
4x Dark Ritual
3x Cabal Ritual

Cantrip + Dig + Tutor + Draw [ 12 ] ( 37 )
2x Infernal Tutor
4x Brainstorm
2x Ponder
4x Dream Salvage

Disruption + Protection [ 10 ] ( 47 )
2x Duress
4x Silence
4x Leyline of the Void

Land [ 13 ] ( 60 )
2x Underground Sea
3x Polluted Delta
1x Volcanic Island
1x Bloodstained Mire
2x Marsh Flats
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Scrubland
1x Swamp
1x Island

Sideboard
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Goblin War Strike
1x Ill-Gotten Gains
1x Doomsday
3x Defense Grid
3x Echoing Truth
1x Diminishing Returns
3x Hurkyl’s Recall

I personally really like Void+Iggy, but maybe over time I'll find out that it's not as viable. It also compensates for me not owning any Orim's Chants.

Chrome Mox helps reduce the redundancy of Leyline while also accelerating mana.

Burning Wish was just something I wanted to test. Enough storm means Goblin War Strike becomes viable, though it's usually just there in case EtW was cast and I draw a Wish.

This deck was really interesting to me the first time I saw it because of the potential to get insane card advantage. My biggest problem of course is getting DS and Iggy at the same time.

EDIT

Also, here's a list that's more red-focused and drops Silence altogether (though probably a bad choice)

Win Conditions [ 9 ] ( 9 )
3x Ill-Gotten Gains
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Empty the Warrens
4x Burning Wish

Mana Accel [ 14 ] ( 23 )
3x Rite of Flame
4x Lion’s Eye Diamond
4x Dark Ritual
3x Cabal Ritual

Cantrip + Dig + Tutor + Draw [ 16 ] ( 39 )
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Dream Salvage

Disruption + Protection [ 8 ] ( 47 )
4x Duress
4x Leyline of the Void

Land [ 13 ] ( 60 )
3x Underground Sea
4x Polluted Delta
2x Volcanic Island
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Swamp
1x Island

Sideboard
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Rite of Flame
1x Goblin War Strike
1x Ill-Gotten Gains
1x Doomsday
3x Defense Grid
3x Echoing Truth
1x Diminishing Returns
2x Hurkyl’s Recall