[Primer] Blazin' Wish

[PopyMartins]

Blazin' Wish

Primer by Popy Martins

popymartins@gmail.com


http://magiccards.info/scans/en/bok/96.jpghttp://magiccards.info/scans/en/mma/182.jpghttp://magiccards.info/scans/en/mbs/145.jpg

Overview

Blazin' Wish, Shoal Infect, Shoal Wish or whatever you like, is a mono blue combo-control deck that wants to win the game by casting Blazin Shoal pitching either Progenitus or Reaper King to give Inkmoth Nexus or Blighted Agent +10/+0, inflicting 10+ points of infect to the oponent.

Oh, that's an old idea, you say, people used it in modern, you say.
You're right, but what differs this deck from the old shoal infect decks is that we Cunning Wish.



The Deck

The actual list looks like this:



6 Island
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
4 Inkmoth Nexus

4 Blighted Agent
3 Progenitus
2 Reaper King
3 Blazing Shoal

4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection
4 Spell Pierce
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Impulse
4 Cunning Wish
4 Gitaxian Probe


Sideboard
1 Blazing Shoal
1 Searing Wind
1 Pact of Negation
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Echoing Truth
1 Mizzium Skin
1 Shadow Rift
2 Defense Grid
3 Pithing Needle



Card Selection

The Combo:
Infecters:
4x Inkmoth Nexus
4x Blighted Agent

Pretty straightforward, Inkmoth is the best here, since we dodge Abrupt Decay, doesnt die to Sorcery-speed removal, flies and we can use it to get one colorless mana until we get Shoal+Progenitus. Sadly, this is the only target for enemies Wasteland in the deck, but that's one of the main reason we have Pithing Needle in the Sideboard.
Blighted Agent, unblockable, takes 99% of all removals of the game, but still, unblockable. (:

Pump:
3x Blazing Shoal

Yes, we run only 3 copies of the red Shoal. But have you noticed it's an Instant? Cunning Wish certainly did. The fourth copy is in our sideboard, so we can tutor for it! So, basicaly, we have 7 copies of Shoal in the Main Deck!

Pitchers:
3x Progenitus
2x Reaper King

Both have CMC10, both can be pitched to Force of Will, Misdirection and, obviously, Blazing Shoal. We have a split to dodge Cabal Therapy and Surgical Extraction, even though Progenitus doesnt hit the graveyard.

ALSO, we have Searing Wind that can be tutored with Cunning Wish from the Sideboard!



Searching:

Since we run a 3-card combo, we need to find all the pieces! For that, we use the standard package and 2 new cards:

4x Ponder
4x Brainstorm
4x Impulse
4x Cunning Wish

Impulse! Why do we use Impulse? It digs for 4, we can get ANY card (unlike Peer Through Depths) and we get rid of those 3 others cards that we don't want at all. It's amazing when you need to find that last piece of combo or you need a Wish to get out of a troublesome boardstate.

Cunning Wish, ah, Cunning Wish. We can tutor for 2 of the 3 cards we need to win. Blazing Shoal and Searing Wind, at INSTANT-SPEED!


Protection:

Since we're playing Legacy and there's a lot of fast combos in Legacy, we still need to protect ourselves (and our combo) in order to win. For that, we have:

4x Force of Will
4x Spell Pierce
3x Misdirection

Force of Will and Spell Pierce help us against faster combos, and it also helps us to protect our combo against other decks. Misdirection helps in counter wars and is here mainly because of Abrupt Decay and Hymn to Tourach.

Utility:

4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Cunning Wish

We can Probe before we try to combo off to know what we'll have to deal with. Paired with Cunning Wish and the Sideboard package, we can pretty much avoid anything.

Sideboard Package:

We have 3 "plans" in the sideboard package:

The protection stuff:

1x Pact of Negation
1x Mizzium Skin

Need one more counter? Pact of Negation
Maze of Ith, Wasteland, Mangara or any-targeting-trouble-crap? Mizzium Skin!

The get-out-of-my-way stuff:
1x Slaughter Pact
1x Echoing Truth
1x Shadow Rift

Kill problem creatures with Slaughter Pact, or just bounce any permanent (Jitte, you little bastard) that is messing with your plans or maybe you have only Inkmoth and they have a flier? Fine, give it Shadow and draw a card!


The NO YOU WONT WIN stuff:
1x Mindbreak Trap
1x Ravenous Trap
1x Surgical Extraction

Dredge.dec? Storm.dec? Lands.dec? Punishing Fire.dec? No probs. (Please remember you can also use Surgical in agressive ways, removing enemies removal spells from the game)


Sideboard:

3x Pithing Needle
2x Defense Grid

Defense Grid is here to help us to fight against multiple removals.
Pithing Needle help us against Wasteland and Jitte, mainly, but you can use it agressively, naming Deathrite Shaman or Vial Turn 1 after a Gitaxian Probe.





Please, if you have any comment, feedback, question or sugestion, post below!

[KazinMtg]

Cool idea. My first thought would be to replace impulse with preordain. 1 mana is nice in a deck like this.

[Poron]

techy and fun but how do you deal with hate? I would add a very light splash of white (StP and Disenchant)

[Qweerios]

Isn't Blasphemous Act better than Scarecrow? At least it can be cast when the board is crowded.

[mote5]

Sol lands might be worth adding. They could speed you up a turn considering the colorless requirements of Cunning Wish, Impulse, and Inkmoth Nexus activations. Could a green splash be worth it for Crop rotation and maybe even Noble Hierarch? Hierarch would either accelerate you or eat a piece of removal that might've otherwise hit one of your infectors.

[PopyMartins]

Cool idea. My first thought would be to replace impulse with preordain. 1 mana is nice in a deck like this.
I'm glad you liked the idea! :laugh:
I run Impulse over preordain because I rarely have any turn2 plays, except when I know my Bligted Agent wont be countered/killed. Also, with Impulse I can look at 4 cards, that's 2 times what I see with Preordain. And it really goes well with a turn 2 Inkmoth. I'd rather cast Impulse on turn 2 then two 1 mana cantrips since I can just get rid of the cards I don't want with Impulse, while Preordain after a Brainstorm or Ponder will show me two cards I already know most of the times.


techy and fun but how do you deal with hate? I would add a very light splash of white (StP and Disenchant)
With hate-permanents I can just sculpt my hand with the cantrips and safely cast an EoT Cunning Wish to Echoing Truth, boucing the hate in my Main Step once I can combo out. If I can't bounce with Echoing (say, Maze of Ith) I can just Wish for Mizzium Skin.
And for matchups with a lot of hate I bring in the 3 Pithing Needle from the sideboard.


Isn't Blasphemous Act better than Scarecrow? At least it can be cast when the board is crowded.
I can't really cast Blaspemous Act since I have no red sources. Adding red to the deck would make it a lot more vulnerable to Wasteland/Blood Moon/Back to Basics.
Also, Reaper King can be pitched to Force of Will and Misdirection, which is always good.



Sol lands might be worth adding. They could speed you up a turn considering the colorless requirements of Cunning Wish, Impulse, and Inkmoth Nexus activations. Could a green splash be worth it for Crop rotation and maybe even Noble Hierarch? Hierarch would either accelerate you or eat a piece of removal that might've otherwise hit one of your infectors.
I already run few lands, adding Sol Lands would make the mana base nearly unplayable, since I really need blue mana, and a lot more vulnerable to Wastelands.
Why would I want Noble hierarch? It doesn't really add anything to my gameplan. I really don't need mana acceleration (If I did, sol ring would be a better option), and, well, If I splash green, I'd be better playing the usual infect deck, since I'd have access to a bigger array of pump and creature spells.

[whienot]

I've played variants of the deck for some time. My observations:

-Intuition is better than Cunning Wish. It may seem miniscule, but having access to all 4 Shoals in the main is important. Also, you get to have a real sideboard. (Surgical Extraction is rarely relevant.)
-Pithing Needle is maindeckable.
-You don't really need more than 4 things to pitch to Shoal (tutors are there for redundancy) and they probably should be all Progenitus.

I tend to run a BUg list. Discard is important in the current metagame and Crop Rotation is kind of a pet card of mine. I also ran 1 Karakas in the main, since you can't reliably beat Gaddock Teeg +Mom (I guess this is less of a concern as of late), and Needle + Karakas is usualy GG verses Sneak & Show game 1. Also, Reanimator is a deck. Rotation gives you access to Bojuka Bog in the sideboard as well as the cutesy Boseiju, Who Shelters All to power out Progenitus via Show and Tell.

I know you aren't running it, but it bears mentioning. I can go either way on Show and Tell. Progenitus can still win games. I've grown to hate that stupid sorcery, but having an additional angle of attack is relevant.


Isn't Blasphemous Act better than Scarecrow? At least it can be cast when the board is crowded.
Does not pitch to Force of Will. Does not have red mana. I don't see a need to have more than 4 enablers, and Progenitus gets the nod.


Sol lands might be worth adding. They could speed you up a turn considering the colorless requirements of Cunning Wish, Impulse, and Inkmoth Nexus activations. Could a green splash be worth it for Crop rotation and maybe even Noble Hierarch? Hierarch would either accelerate you or eat a piece of removal that might've otherwise hit one of your infectors.
I would only run Sol lands if i were running Show and Tell. If you're going to run Hierarch, you should probably lean more towards an Invigorate build that can grind out wins.


Also, there are like 3 threads for this deck.

[PopyMartins]

-Intuition is better than Cunning Wish. It may seem miniscule, but having access to all 4 Shoals in the main is important. Also, you get to have a real sideboard. (Surgical Extraction is rarely relevant.)


I've been discussing about Intuition vs Cunning Wish with a friend of mine (we both are playing and testing this deck), he likes Intuition better, but I like prefer Wish.

I get it that Intuition can find any piece of the combo, but it's not as versitile as Wish. Against many matchups I would've lost if I had Intuition instead of Cunning Wish, mainly because of Shadow Rift, Echoing Truth and Mizzium Skin.



I tend to run a BUg list. Discard is important in the current metagame and Crop Rotation is kind of a pet card of mine. I also ran 1 Karakas in the main, since you can't reliably beat Gaddock Teeg +Mom (I guess this is less of a concern as of late), and Needle + Karakas is usualy GG verses Sneak & Show game 1. Also, Reanimator is a deck. Rotation gives you access to Bojuka Bog in the sideboard as well as the cutesy Boseiju, Who Shelters All to power out Progenitus via Show and Tell.

I like the idea of being mono blue, Wasteland still hurts, but I just won't lose to mana denial strategy.
To deal with Teeg + Mom I'd have to use 2 Wishes and get Echoing + Slaughter Pact, or Misdirect a Path + Pact/Echoing, but, hey, I have Forces and Spell Pierces (For GSZ).

[nedleeds]

Making a free pitch spell that is supposed to win the game for you cost 2U doesn't seem good. I guess you could tap out EOT to grab a Shoal. But as whienot points out then Intuition is just better (barring some insanely idiotic situation like they have white leyline game one). You also can just win on the second turn like a pro.

[KazinMtg]

The show and tell idea seems interesting. Another angle of attack is always nice, especially considering all the cantrips that are naturally in the deck. I dont see any reason not to go with 4 show and tell 4 progenitus. Also pithing needle is an interesting idea against wasteland, and has some precedent as a staple in 12 post.

These ideas also keep you in mono blue, which seems to be where you want to stay.

[Ozymandias]

Add a summoner's pact to your sideboard so you can cunning wish for a Progenitus if you have the Shoal.

[whienot]

Why open yourself up to death by Pact? He already has Searing Wind to wish for.

[PopyMartins]

Add a summoner's pact to your sideboard so you can cunning wish for a Progenitus if you have the Shoal.

What whienot said...


Why open yourself up to death by Pact? He already has Searing Wind to wish for.

I can Wish for Searing Wind. I need no Progenitus...