ZadaStorm

[Cire]

Rough deck list based on a new spoiled card:

Zada, Hedron Grinder 3R
Legendary Creature - Goblin Ally
Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell that targets only Zada, Hedron Grinder, copy that spell for each other creature you control that the spell could target. Each copy targets a different one of those creatures.
"A hedron holds magic for a thousand years, or less, if need be."
3/3

After some thinking I came up with this:


4 Noble hierarch
4 Birds of paradise
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Llanowar elves
4 Zada, Hedron Grinder
4 Snapcaster mage

4 Cerulean Wisps
4 Crimson Wisps
4 Viridescent Wisps
1 Refocus
3 Become Immense
4 Time of Need

2 Dryad Arbor
3 Breeding Pool
3 Stomping Ground
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Mountain


Not a great deck - but the scenario where you get out Zada out turn 4 or even turn 3 and "combo off" is actually pretty reliable. Also - once you get Zada out - you are immune from removal since you all the cantrips (and pump and snapcaster) are all instant speed.

A turn 3 kill that is probably uncommon but happened once already in a goldfish was

1) Forest - Hierarch
2) Fetch - Sac - Dryad Arbor - Elvish Mystic - Elvish Mystic
3) Fetch - Stomping Ground - Zada - Viridescent Wisps - Draw 5 - Cerulean wisps - Draw 5 - Viridescent Wisps - Draw 5 - Snap Caster mage - flashback Cerulean Wisps - Draw 6 - Crimson Wisps - Draw 6 - repeat till draw deck and cast all snap casters + give them each haste (careful you could kill yourself with draw) and cast become immense once or twice. Attack.

Turn 4 kills are roughly the same except you have time for time of need to search out Zada.

[Di]

You honestly might as well add Jeskai Ascendancy to the deck and try to have multiple routes to combo. Makes the mana that much worse, but would make the deck infinity times better while doing a good job fueling Become Immense.

[Cire]

I don't know if it would make the deck that much better though - the deck already goldfishes reliably by turn 4 (with variance on turn 3-5). The only card that Ascendancy can think to replace is Time of Need - Then the wisps would only draw 1 and loot another card. Sure they will generate mana, but I don't think you'll be digging deep enough to see other wisps? Since I think the combo itself is actually reliable what we really need is protection. . . . and that. . . is a whole other ball game. . .

This deck is weak against removal/discard/counters even ghost quarter - and I can't really think of a solution to that. So in the end this is just another turn 4 glass-cannon combo deck in Modern that can occasionally go off turn 3.

[rufus]

I'm wondering if it makes sense to include some number of ink-treader nephilim. They've got a slight upside on Zada since they copy for the opponent's creatures too, but the mana cost is obviously nastier. In principle it's faster than Time of Need for zada.

There's also potential for a time of need toolbox with one-of Jace, Venser, Vendillion Clique and such.

My original thought when Zada was spoiled was to play it with copy effects like Twinflame or Heat Shimmer, but they seem superfluous here.

[Cire]

Ink-treader nephilim does seem faster than time of need! Good idea! casting it shouldn't be that much harder since you have BOP, Nobel and Fetches. We do have to work out the mana base though . . .

[rufus]

Ink-treader nephilim does seem faster than time of need! Good idea! casting it shouldn't be that much harder since you have BOP, Nobel and Fetches. We do have to work out the mana base though . . .

Oh, you might also be able to get more colors with Arbor Elf than with the Llanowar or Elvish Mystic.

Edit:

Bandage and Shelter (not modern legal) could help against removal.

[rufus]

If you hit 2 mana critters reliably, and 3 regularly, then To Arms! might also help as acceleration or a freetrip.

Firey Gambit could work as a 1-of so you can work around moat-type effects, though you'd have to get lots of bodies on the table for a reliable finish. (And making the other guy read the card is always a moral victory.)

[square_two]

Ink-treader nephilim does seem faster than time of need! Good idea! casting it shouldn't be that much harder since you have BOP, Nobel and Fetches. We do have to work out the mana base though . . .

I think you'd really want to have some more hexproof or color protection, so that you don't get blown out by some removal targeting your Nephilim and then copied for all your other creatures.

Gods Willing while not card draw, could let you scry to one.
Mizzium Skin has cheap 1U overload for before you get Zada or Nephilim out.

[rufus]

From the department of bad ideas: How about Sakura-Tribe Scout as a 1 or 2 of?

[Cire]

Just thinking about how many "wisps" you actually need to go off by turn 4 . . . you need the [Untap Target + Cantrip] in your first 10 cards. . . so you need at least 6 of them. You definitely need to draw into one after your first Snap Caster mage . . . but by then you drew 16 cards. So you need 2 [Untap Target + Cantrip] in your first 26 cards. Technically this means you only need 5 in the deck but considering that you need 6 to start off with, I actually think this means that you only need 6 in total in the deck. The [Haste Target + Cantrip], you really only need to smooth into the draws, and one in the end of the chain - 4 is enough, since you should draw into one after the first [Untap Target + Cantrip]. So really we can take out the green wisp and just have the following as the "combo pieces."

4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Cerulean Wisps
4 Crimson Wisps
2 Refocus

[rufus]

... The [Haste Target + Cantrip], you really only need to smooth into the draws, and one in the end of the chain - 4 is enough, since you should draw into one after the first [Untap Target + Cantrip]. So really we can take out the green wisp and just have the following as the "combo pieces."

4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Cerulean Wisps
4 Crimson Wisps
2 Refocus

I expect that 14 will be plenty. Especially if you add filtering like Faithless Looting in the vacated slots.

[Cire]

I expect that 14 will be plenty. Especially if you add filtering like Faithless Looting in the vacated slots.

Well, I'm really trying to figure out if we can put in some protection into this combo - stuff like Pact of Negation or even discard (although discard means you can't play ink-treader and have to go back to time of need).

So far I have

14 "Wisps"
6 "Zada"
2 Become Immense
2 Arbor
16 Lands
16 Mana Dorks
4 "Free"

my project at the moment is to goldfish (aiming for turn 4 at this point) and try to increase the "Free" as much as I can. If we can get it up to 8, then this deck might actually be playable as tier 2?

[rufus]

...

my project at the moment is to goldfish (aiming for turn 4 at this point) and try to increase the "Free" as much as I can. If we can get it up to 8, then this deck might actually be playable as tier 2?

You could probably bring the land count down to 14 and drop the dryad arbors. You can almost certainly cut the arbor count.

I have a tendency to want to build to an 'go fast / all in' plan so I'm mentally stuck on To Arms! as an accellerant/cantrip effect.

P.S. The newly spoiled elf ally might work well in this concept.

[Cire]

Don't think you can cut the Arbor's . . . To reach 4/5 creatures by turn 3-4 when you cast Zada you need around 3-4 "mana dorks" - You can't run that many mana dorks. Instead you can run 14-16 mana dorks, hope to hit 2-3 of them and then fetch 1-2 Arbors by the time you cast Zada. Without them, you are stuck with only 2 mana dorks whom are untapping. Let's say there are only 2 mana dorks in play when Zada comes into it - not only are you making less mana (and not enough the Flashback a Refocus) you are not drawing enough cards.

Edit:

Here look at the combo step -

5/6 mana - cast Zada - 2 mana - [Cerulean/Refocus] - 0 mana - Draw X+1 and add X mana to your mana pool where X is how many mana producing creatures you have - worst case scenario you will need to use 4 mana to cast Snap Caster FB Refocus. However we could also use blue or red wisp to draw X cards hoping to get another blue wisp or refocus. So lets say that at the very least this means that we need at least 3-4 mana dorks or arbor when we are going off, which I stated before. 3 mana dorks by turn 3 means we need to run at least 20, while 4 means we need to run at least 24. We are running 16. Arbor allows us to count each fetch as a mana dork though. This is really just a convoluted way of saying that we need at least 1 or even two Arbor's in this deck.

[rufus]

Don't think you can cut the Arbor's . . .

You're right, and you'll want 2 when running land-heavy (4+ lands).

Regarding 'finding slots', let's try working it backwards form the target for a moment:

Turn 4, on the play, you'll (naively) have seen 10 cards. What do we want those 10 cards to be:

* 6 lands + mana dorks
* 1 "Zada"
* 1 "Wisp"
* 2 Free Slots

So if we can multiply that back into the deck list:
* 36 lands + mana dorks
* 6 Zada
* 6 Wisp Effect
* 12 Free Slots

But those "Free Slots" aren't free because some of them are occupied by finishers, and some by the extra wisp effects that you're playing in order to go off reliably. From that perspective, you're already shaving the margins on the mana source count with 34 instead of 36 in order to open up those 4 'free' slots.

Now, let's suppose that, instead of only considering the Wisp effects as cards to be played while going off, we also consider their potential use as free cantrips in turns 1-3: If you cast a mana creature on turn 2, and then crismon wisp, you get 1 extra mana from the haste effect, and the wisp replaces itself. Similarly, Cerulean wisps can untap an already active mana creature to pay for itself, and it will replace itself. And, because it makes the math easier, let's say we round out the cantrip suite with 2 To Arms!, Manamorphose, Street Wraith or Gitaxian Probe so that there are 50 'business' cards.

Now we multiply by 5 instead of 6 for the other cards:
*30 mana sources
* 5 Zada Effects
* 5 Wisp Effects
* 10 Free Slots

Because the better wisps are doing double duty as cantrips in the early turns, and business spells in the later ones these primary wisp effects will have to be second tier ones - something like 4x Refocus, 1xViridiscent Wisps. Now those 10 slots can have 2 finishers, and the 8 slots for utility spells that you were looking for.

So how about a composition like:

*8 Cantrip Wisps
*2 Freetrips
*5 Pure Wisps
*16 mana dorks
*14 lands
*5 Zada
*2 Win cards
*8 Utility/Protection slots

[Cire]

Now, let's suppose that, instead of only considering the Wisp effects as cards to be played while going off, we also consider their potential use as free cantrips in turns 1-3:

That's a good point, but it is more problematic that I think you've admitted. For example as you said:

Turn 4, on the play, you'll have seen 10 cards. What do we want those 10 cards to be:

* 3 Lands (x6 multiplier = 18)
* 3 mana dorks/arbor (x6 multiplier = 18 )
* 1 "Zada" (x6 multiplier = 6)
* 1 "Wisp" (x6 multiplier = 6)
* 2 Free Slots (x6 multiplier = 12)

If we're treating Wisps as cantrips then we see 10 cards + X where X is any wisp that isn't the "go-off wisps" - We cannot count snapcaster mage as a wisp at this point as it supposes that we cast a wisp previously (off course we can then count it as a second purely cantrip wisp). We are only running 14 "wisps" - 4 of them are Snapcasters and 6 of them are "Go-Off" - which only leaves 4 "cantrip wisps" - only by running 2 extra "cantrip wisps" may we use the x5 multiplier instead [since then we are guaranteed to see 11 cards or more)

* 3 Lands (x5 multiplier = 15)
* 3 mana dorks/arbor (x5 multiplier = 15 )
* 1 "Zada" (x5 multiplier = 5)
* 1 "Wisp" (x5 multiplier = 5)
* 2 Free Slots (x5 multiplier = 10)
* 1 "cantrip wisp" (x5 multiplier = 5)

leaving us 5 "extra" spots. The "wisp" + "cantrip wisp" include 4 Cerulean Wisps, 4 Crimson Wisps, 2 Refocus, which means that the "free spots" include 4 Snapcaster and 2 Become Immense. They must also include 2 extra "cantrip wisps" as discussed above.

Which leaves 7 spots left for protection.

15 Lands
13 Dorks
2 Arbor
4 Zada
1 Ink-Treader/Time of Need
4 Cerulean Wisps
4 Crimson Wisps
2 Viridian Wisps
2 Refocus
4 Snap Caster
2 Become Immense
7 Protection

I think that's close to what you had, although we came about to it in different ways. (Differences are my math gave me 1 more land (arbor), one less protection, and one more "wisp" and one less "Dork")

But really, all this theory craft is pointless unless we figure out what are protection spells we should be running?

[square_two]

There are a couple of effects like Hour of Need that could be useful here. Might be too expensive, but being an instant is nice. Worked for me in Standard with dorks + Battlefield Thaumaturge. Swarm of 4-5 flying 4/4's isn't bad.

[rufus]

But really, all this theory craft is pointless unless we figure out what are protection spells we should be running?

The mana curve is pretty tight. I don't know what people play. I think stuff like Swan Song and Banishing Knack could work well as reactive options, and things like Faithless Looting and Serum Visions could be strong filtering options for a more aggressive plan where you dig for replacement pieces.


...
* 3 Lands (x6 multiplier = 18)
* 3 mana dorks/arbor (x6 multiplier = 18 )
..

2 lands and 4 mana dorks would be OK too - probably even preferred since you might go off turn 3 (or turn 4 keeping mana open). You can even ramp 1 land and 5 creatures by turn 4 with an initial land drop. On the other hand 4 lands is no good unless one of them is an Arbor.


... (of course we can then count it as a second purely cantrip wisp). ...
It costs 3 mana to snapcast into a wisp, and it's conditional on having a card in the graveyard. For the same reasons, the actual targeted draw spells also seem superior to the snapcaster, though snapcasting to an untap spell might be better than the green wisp.

I understand that the snapcaster lets you get extra wisp copies at instant speed, but that looks a lot like a win-more thing when you can also reload on cards and mana let the stack empty, play out a bunch of creatures, and start again.

[rufus]

Still brainstorming...

Musing on the instant speed thing for a moment, what about Lighting Volley instead of Become Immense as the win condition? Then you can properly go off at instant speed like a solidarity deck. You still have to play zada at sorcery speed, but you can win with something dangerous on the stack. In that context, Snapcaster Mage makes a lot more sense. ...

Among other things, that means you could tap out to play Zada on turn 3, protect him with Pact of Negation, and then untap and go off during the upkeep on turn 4 with the game loss trigger on the stack.

Since the deck uses spell copy triggers, Remand is intriguing as a defensive option since it can serve a secondary role while going off.

Edit;

I'm not sure what the best way to get the Lightning Volley into hand is since you can run out of cards in library before you get enough damage to kill with it. Looking through the card pool it looks like One with Nothing+Emrakul or Dangerous Wager+Psychic Spiral might be the best instant speed ways to recycle the library.

[rufus]

I think I'll look into something like:

Mana sources (30)

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Arbor Elf
4 Llanowar Elves

2 Dryad Arbor
2 Breeding Pool
2 Stomping Grounds
2 Temple Garden
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Verdant Catacombs

Amplifiers (5)

4 Zada Hedron Grinder
1 Ink-Treader Nephilim

Cyclewisps (8)

4 Cerulean Wisps
4 Crimson Wisps

"Utility Freetrips" (2)

2 To Arms!

Combo continuation (5)

4 Refocus

Victory Condition (3)

1 Noxious Revival
1 Lightning Volley
1 Psychic Spiral

Protection (8)

4 Remand
4 Swan Song


The basic game plan is to get Zada + 4 mana creatures, and 2 open mana on the table turn 4. Ideally something like:
T1: Land, Mana Dork
T2: Land, Mana Dork (leave 2 mana open)
T3: 2x Mana Dork (leave 2 mana open)
T4: Zada (leave 2 mana open)

T2 and T3 open mana is for reaction counters. T4 Mana is either for reaction counters, or for going off at instant speed.

During the Combo, Swan Song can be used to create extra creatures and Remand can be used as a buyback effect by countering the wisp spell that targets Zada, since resolving that spell isn't that important to the combo.

Cantripping into Noxious Revival to recover and recast Psychic Spiral allows the deck to go infinite. Under those conditions, Psychic Spiral will deck the opponent, and Lightning Volley provides infinite damage.

[rufus]

I did some math. It suggests -2 To Aarms!, +2 Ink-Treader. Even with that, the chance to go off on turn 4 only seems to be around 50%.

[nudon]

Young Pyromancer seems pretty good in this kind of deck. He buys you extra time against faster decks while complementing the combo when you're ready to go off. Having additional removal targets might alleviate the concern to have to go off at instant speed as well. I don't think you'd need Become Immense anymore either since the Elementals all gain Haste.

[rufus]

Young Pyromancer seems pretty good in this kind of deck. He buys you extra time against faster decks while complementing the combo when you're ready to go off. Having additional removal targets might alleviate the concern to have to go off at instant speed as well. I don't think you'd need Become Immense anymore either since the Elementals all gain Haste.

Pyromancer is a strong card, but I'm not sure how much it helps the combo plan. For some reason I thought all of the extra bodies had to cost 1 and tap for mana, but that's just not true: Cards like Knight of the White Orchid,Voyaging Satyr and Sylvan Caryatid should be considered as well, and Wood Elves or Yavimaya Dryad can fetch either a creature land in Dryad Arbor or a color-producing land and that's very strong.

Hitting land drops, a turn 1 mana dork, and a turn 2 wood elf effect for a Dryad Arbor would be good enough to go off on turn 3 with 6 mana available and 4 creatures in play

If the goal is to go off by turn 4, then a greedy player could readily Summoner's Pact on turn 2 to put a mana source into play, pay the devil on turn 3, and still go off on turn 4. Pact also finds Ink-treader, so it probably needs to be included in the deck.

[rufus]

It's hard to get decent goldfishing with 8 protection spells - swapping out for Chord of calling seems to help a lot.


4 Cerulean Wisps
4 Crimson Wisps
4 Refocus

4 Noxious Revival

2 Dryad Arbor

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Arbor Elf
4 Noble Hiearch

2 Temple Garden
2 Stomping Ground
2 Breeding Pool
1 Forest
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Misty Rainforest

4 Pact of Negation

4 Chord of Calling
4 Summoner's Pact
2 Ink-Treader Nephilim

1 Psychic Spiral
1 Lightning Volley



While going off, each extra point of mana requires a card draw, and it's very easy to deck yourself. Psychic Spiral will recycle the graveyard, but you'll still need to play a spell for every wisp (copy or not) that resolves in order to break even.

Suppose there are 4 creatures in play - 3 hasty mana dorks and a zada, and there are 12 cards in the library, and the graveyard has 1 card in it.

Then you can fire off two cerulean wisps, and one refocus to net +6 mana, and draw the library empty. (You also get 3 untaps of the zada for pinging the opponent.)
Now there are 4 cards in the graveyard. Then you have to fire off 7 pacts to get the graveyard up to 11 cards, cast psychic spiral to shuffle those 11 into the library, and then noxious revival to put the spiral on top.

This closes the loop - there are still 4 creatures in play, there is 1 card in the graveyard, and there are 12 cards in the library. You should be able to cast the other 2 cerulean wisps and the refocus.

It might be possible to protect it using stack tricks, but the loop is quite delicate.

Some One with nothning effect like Dangerous Wager, or Angel's Grace would make the loop looser. Stuff like Pyretic Ritual or To Arms! could also help.

N.B.: This concept has the same fundamental durdle-factor that eggs does, so if it does turn out to be strong, WotC may ban some card in it

[Cire]

I get that summoner's pact gets Ink-Treader - but why run two instead of 1/1 split with Zada. Also I do like Noxious revival, but I think you should still run Snapcaster to be more reliable during the combo. Also 4 Refocus looks liek too much, I think you only need 2, use viridian wisps as the other two if you want a cantrip. I agree that a "safety net' is required for the loop - i've been thinking of using Emrakul and faithless looting, as that can act like a kill and draw while also helping you reshuffle. I did not find chord of calling helpful - but I did like summoners pact into mana dork into crimson wisps. . .

What do you think of:

//23 Spells
4 Cerulean Wisps
4 Crimson Wisps
4 Pact of Negation
4 Summoner's Pact
2 Refocus
2 Viridian Wips
1 Noxious Revival
1 Become Immense
1 Faithless Looting

//22 Creature
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Arbor Elf
4 Noble Hiearch
4 Zada, Hedron Grinder
1 Ink-Treader Nephilim
1 Emrakul, Aeons torn

//15 Lands
2 Dryad Arbor
13 (still working out numbers)

[square_two]

Still need Become Immense if you are able to generate the mana easily to cast Emrakul? That would free up a slot for something else.

[Cire]

Still need Become Immense if you are able to generate the mana easily to cast Emrakul? That would free up a slot for something else.

It's there just in case you don't and for the scenario in which you cast too many snapcasters - exiling too many wisps before looting Emrakul and thus not being able to continue the loop. Additionally, if you have used summoner's pact, Emrakul might not win you the game automatically and might lose you the game. I am actually thinking of replacing it with Kozilek for the card draw. (I found the Lightning Volley kill way to inconsistent)

[rufus]

...
What do you think of:

....



Our ideas about how the deck should finish and work are somewhat different because I'm looking at instant speed combo with Lightning Volley and Psychic Spiral rather than Become Immense and the red zone. That informs how we're making lists.

Zada is better than Ink-Treader in a couple of ways. Maybe a 1/1 split is better.

I don't understand how you think Emrakul will work well when you don't have a way to get bulk cards into the graveyard... I guess you can dump pacts and use faithless looting to ditch him and then revive it.

Mostly, chord of calling is for EoT fetching of Dryad Arbors with x=0, but it has other utility potential. Multiple zada-type creatures are dead cards so there is fundamental card value in replacing them with utility tutors. A Glittering Wish-board with Trace of Abundance,Zhur-Taa Druid, Hindering Light, and Ink-Treader Nephilim may be a better package. (Maybe some crazy stuff like Inside Out as a desperation option...)

Edit: Kiora's Follower is better than the druid.

[Cire]

Our ideas about how the deck should finish and work are somewhat different because I'm looking at instant speed combo with Lightning Volley and Psychic Spiral rather than Become Immense and the red zone. That informs how we're making lists.

Zada is better than Ink-Treader in a couple of ways. Maybe a 1/1 split is better.

I don't understand how you think Emrakul will work well when you don't have a way to get bulk cards into the graveyard... I guess you can dump pacts and use faithless looting to ditch him and then revive it.

Mostly, chord of calling is for EoT fetching of Dryad Arbors with x=0, but it has other utility potential. Multiple zada-type creatures are dead cards so there is fundamental card value in replacing them with tutors. A Glittering Wish-board with Trace of Abundance,Zhur-Taa Druid, Hindering Light, and Ink-Treader Nephilim may be a better package. (Maybe Inside Out as a desperation option...)

Emrakul was used to just prevent you from loosing if you're drawing too many cards. At that point, when you shuffle it back in with faithless you can keep the combo going with wisps and draw into him again and cast to win.

You're right that an instant speed kill would be better - however I think Volley/Spiral are inadequate. You don't untap and tap your creatures nearly enough for their to be a kill AND for you to be making mana to cast your wisps/refocus/snapcaster - additionally, if playing snapcasters shuffling your grave into your library gives you less wisps, and even if you're not playing snapcasters, I still don't think you are going to be untapping enough to both generate mana and kill.

Maybe Lightning Storm instead since you'll draw into enough land cards to kill with?

I could do -1 Become Immense/-1 faithless looting/-1 eldrazi for +1 Lighting storm/ +2 lands

I need the lands anyway and those lands fuel the storm.

As for the redundancy of 4 Zada/ 1 Ink Treader/ 4 Summoner's pact - I feel that you need them as you need at least 7-8 chances of casting Zada/Ink by turn 3/4. Additionally pact can be used to find elves if you have crimson wisp during combo

[rufus]

Emrakul was used to just prevent you from loosing if you're drawing too many cards. At that point, when you shuffle it back in with faithless you can keep the combo going with wisps and draw into him again and cast to win.
Right, but how many cards will you be shuffling back?



You're right that an instant speed kill would be better - however I think Volley/Spiral are inadequate. You don't untap and tap your creatures nearly enough for their to be a kill AND for you to be making mana to cast your wisps/refocus/snapcaster - additionally, if playing snapcasters shuffling your grave into your library gives you less wisps, and even if you're not playing snapcasters, I still don't think you are going to be untapping enough to both generate mana and kill.

I haven't done testing, but I'm pretty sure that if you can get to the bottom of the deck to find a 1-of win con reliably, then you can also untap fast enough.



As for the redundancy of 4 Zada/ 1 Ink Treader/ 4 Summoner's pact - I feel that you need them as you need at least 7-8 chances of casting Zada/Ink by turn 3/4. Additionally pact can be used to find elves if you have crimson wisp during combo

Pact can also be used to find a mana dork on turn 2, paid for on turn 3 (4 mana), and still give you a resource boost for going off on turn 4.

On reflection, I think glittering wish is probably a better package than chord.

[Cire]

I haven't done testing, but I'm pretty sure that if you can get to the bottom of the deck to find a 1-of win con reliably, then you can also untap fast enough.

Regardless - why not then use Lightning Storm then as it requires 1 less card?

[rufus]

Regardless - why not then use Lightning Storm then as it requires 1 less card?

With Glittering Wishes and Noxious Revivials in the deck, Quicken is potentially a leaner option.

A stupid route is Quicken->Glittering Wish->Research // Development -> Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir,Laboratory Maniac , though 13 mana is a bit much.

[rufus]

The glittering wish list seems reasonably reliable for going off turn 4. Still needs a bit more room for protection thouhg

Wishboard:

Kiora's Follower
Ink-Treader Nephilim
Trace of Abundance
Hindering Light
Safewright Quest
Vanish Into Memory
Research // Development
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
Laboratory Maniac


Main

4 Cerulean Wisps
4 Crimson Wisps
4 Refocus
4 Noxious Revival

2 Dryad Arbor

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Arbor Elf
4 Noble Hiearch

1 Temple Garden
2 Stomping Ground
3 Breeding Pool
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Windswept Heath

4 Pact of Negation

4 Glittering Wish
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Ink-Treader Nephilim
2 Zada Hedron Grinder
1 Quicken


That's 11 ways to get to a Zada-type creature. Still miss ~ 11% of the time, but that's not counting cantrips.

Edit: Are there any good ways to turn Summoner's Pact or Glittering Wish into a wisp effect?

[Cire]

I still don't understand why you don't play Snapcasters? I think the reason my list has a higher (in my testing) success rate by turn 4 is that I have 10 untap effects (4 Blue Wisps, 4 Snap Caster, 2 Refocus) why you only have 8. Also why do such fancy stuff when Lightning Storm is good enough?

[nudon]

If you guys are playing Summoner's Pact, Craterhoof Behemoth is probably a good 1-of win-con that is possible to cast without the combo.

@Cire Have you tried playing with Young P? The deck already plays a good number of cantrips (Probe/Visions might be ok too). The elementals also powers up your Wisps so that you're not as reliant on mana dorks surviving.

[rufus]

I still don't understand why you don't play Snapcasters? I think the reason my list has a higher (in my testing) success rate by turn 4 is that I have 10 untap effects (4 Blue Wisps, 4 Snap Caster, 2 Refocus) why you only have 8. Also why do such fancy stuff when Lightning Storm is good enough?

Mostly I'm not that far along yet. I'm still working on the best way to assemble the combo. For that purpose Snapcaster isn't so useful Quicken is marginally better than Lightning Storm because it cantrips, and Glittering Wish can find combo pieces. (Heck, part of me is wondering whether the deck should go without zero power creatures to make Inside Out a wishboard card.)

FWIW: The list above has extra Noxious Revivals which can be used to recycle the untap effects, so the effective untap count is 11.

[Cire]

If you guys are playing Summoner's Pact, Craterhoof Behemoth is probably a good 1-of win-con that is possible to cast without the combo.

@Cire Have you tried playing with Young P? The deck already plays a good number of cantrips (Probe/Visions might be ok too). The elementals also powers up your Wisps so that you're not as reliant on mana dorks surviving.

I've actually been thinking of playing Mentor as a win con. We have crimson wisps to give them all haste. . . the question is whether we want to win instant speed or through the attack zone. If attack zone, then Mentor might be a good win con in that we can cast him without the combo and it'll only take 5-6 spells (plus crimson wisp) to attack for the kill.

The following deck can be a baseline for a monastery mentor build of this deck:



//15
8 Lands
2 Dryad Arbor
5 Fetch

//23
4 Cerulean Wisps
4 Crimson Wisps
3 Refocus
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Pact of Negation
4 Summoner's Pact

//22
4 Monastery Mentor
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Arbor Elf
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Ink-Treader Nephilim
1 Zada, Hedron Grinder

The idea is the same as usual - but the win is casting Monastery mentor, cast 3 spells (which can include your pacts and probes) and then crimson wisps on hedron. The bonus is the Mentor can be cast by turn 2, and you can simply play prowess beats with him out.

@rufus: I don't think quicken and glittering wish are that good - lightning storm is only 1 card and you don't need to cantrip by the time you are playing your win con, and if you are using it to cantrip you're no longer instant speed. Glittering wish just seems to add another complication to this deck that is already full of complications.

Btw . . . while we're figuring out this deck and whether to include card A or B I just wanted to write down the cards that seem to be set in stone in this deck: Note that Zada himself is not set in stone. . . .

4 Cerulean Wisps
4 Crimson Wisps
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Arbor Elf
4 Noble Hiearch
2 Dryad Arbor
And at least 13 other Lands.

[rufus]

Making hasty mentor tokens is certainly an explosive idea. I'm not sure it's got the best synergy with Zada though.

[square_two]

Bit of a necro, but I was reconsidering this deck last night and realized that another win-con could be good ole' Tendrils of Agony.

In the combo version of the deck, you essentially draw most of your deck with wisps and snap-wisps, using pacts to grab creatures as well as counter stuff. By the time you have a high storm count, you should have access to plenty of hasty Birds of Paradise to create the required black mana for Tendrils. I don't see how storm 10 would be difficult at all - if you are running low on library then just wisp on target non-zada creature. Sylvan Caryatid also a potential mana dork - the hexproof could be very useful against burn for instance. Anyhow, just seems a bit hilarious to me to have Tendrils in a creature deck, but it gets around counters itself which is very good. Of course, throw in a singleton Become Immense as a backup.

//23 Spells
4 Cerulean Wisps
4 Crimson Wisps
4 Pact of Negation
4 Summoner's Pact
2 Refocus
2 Viridescent Wips
1 Noxious Revival
1 Become Immense
1 Tendrils of Agony

//22 Creature
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Arbor Elf
4 Noble Hiearch
4 Zada, Hedron Grinder
1 Ink-Treader Nephilim

//16 Lands
2 Dryad Arbor
13 other

This seems like one of those decks that won't be siding very well. An option would be to have Monastery Mentors in the side which you could bring in to anticipate a grindier game 2 and 3. Odds of going off in games 2 and 3 goes way down. I could see -2 Viridescent Wisps, -1 Tendrils, -1 Ink-Treader to bring in a playset of Mentors.

Anyhow, I'm going to work on constructing and playing in local Modern events, just seems like a fun brew. Plus I should be getting some yearly bonus pay which would let me grab up the pacts and hierarchs...my legacy/modern playables binder has become just an odd mixture of cards for a lot of these crazy brews in the modern and legacy developing threads, but I'm still missing a lot of "normal" staples.

[Di]

That all sounds great, except for the part where Tendrils of Agony is not a Modern-legal card.

[square_two]

That all sounds great, except for the part where Tendrils of Agony is not a Modern-legal card.

Well, I feel like an idiot now. I could swear I looked it up last night on gatherer to double check.