Mizzix's Mastery / Enter the Infinite Combo

[LMental]

http://media-dominaria.cursecdn.com/avatars/thumbnails/80/749/200/283/635821861343102406.png

Get Enter the Infinite into your graveyard. Cast Mizzix's Mastery. Exile 3 Simian Spirit Guides or cast 3 Lotus Petals. Cast Conflagrate, Lightning Storm, or Laboratory Maniac. Win.

I have no idea if this combo is worth exploring given that there is already a powerful legacy deck, Reanimator, that depends on getting an expensive card from the graveyard into play. Thus this combo will obviously get hit sideways by a lot of Reanimator hate. And it is not clear that it offers major advantages over Reanimator, either: it is slower. Reanimator pays BB to Reanimate a Griselbrand, while casting Enter the Infinite from the grave costs B + 3R (Entomb + Mizzix's Master).

However, I think it is still worth exploring because it does offer certain advantages to the traditional "reanimate a fatty" route:

- Win on the spot.
- Can play a more controlling game.
- Potential lategame win by overloading Mizzix's Master and flashing back your whole graveyard.
- Doesn't cost any life.

In short, Mizzix's Mastery may be less aggressive than Reanimate and Exhume, but it also might be more powerful.

I have not really started work on a decklist, but I do want to make a list of cards that are worthy of consideration:

Mizzix's Master: Obviously we're playing some number of these.
Enter the Infinite: And these.
Lotus Petal: Acceleration that enables our kill after we combo. We probably want 3-4.
Simian Spirit Guide: An alternative to Lotus Petal which is stronger against Daze, and can block, but can only make red mana.
Entomb: Can put Enter the Infinite in your graveyard.
Careful Study: See above.
Faithless Looting: Careful Study which doesn't pitch to FoW, but has flashback.
Brainstorm: When playing blue...
Force of Will: Again, if playing blue...
Daze: Protect the combo.
Pact of Negation: An alternative way to protect the combo. Other cheap counterspells include Spell Pierce and Flusterstorm.
Thoughtseize: Protect the combo, or dump Enter the Infinite in your graveyard.
Ancient Tomb: Acceleration.
City of Traitors: And more acceleration.
Lightning Bolt: Kill Deathrite Shaman.
Sudden Shock: Make sure they can't stop you from killing Deathrite Shaman.
Burning Wish: Finds both halves of the combo. Now you just need to discard one...

There are many more where these came from, obviously. People have suggested an all-in red version of storm playing Rite of Flame and Seething Song, which could have the alternate gameplan of overloading Mizzix's Mastery and flashing back a ton of ritual effects to do...something. It's that last "something" bit that makes me feel like this is a worse plan than just binning Enter the Infinite and winning outright.

Looking forward to hearing all your thoughts. Let get brewing!

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Potential UR Burning Wish list:

3 Mizzix's Mastery
3 Enter the Infinite

4 Burning Wish
4 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting
4 Brainstorm

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Sudden Shock

4 Lotus Petal
2 Simian Spirit Guide

2 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
4 Volcanic Island
3 Island
1 Mountain


URb is likely to be more powerful than UR, but I had trouble balancing the conflicting roles of Entomb and Burning Wish in my initial draft of this deck. Burning Wish wants you to have discard in your hand, such as Careful Study and Faithless Looting, not tutors like Entomb. You can, of course, Entomb for Faithless Looting. But this is rather slow... Still, the Wish + Entomb build probably offers more raw power than just the UR build.

The URb build, as I conceptualize it, would likely play 4 Entomb in place of 1 Careful Study and 3 Faithless Looting. I'd like to play Thoughtseize maindeck, but cutting Daze brings the blue count dangerously low for Force of Will, forcing us to play either 3 FoW, 3 Thoughtseize, 2 Daze, or to stick with the Daze / FoW package:

3 Mizzix's Mastery
3 Enter the Infinite

4 Burning Wish
3 Careful Study
1 Faithless Looting
4 Entomb
4 Brainstorm

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Sudden Shock

4 Lotus Petal
2 Simian Spirit Guide

2 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
3 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Mountain


SB:
1 Conflagrate
1 Mizzix's Mastery
1 Enter the Infinite
1 Thoughtseize
1 Massacre

BR builds are also possible, and seem pretty cool:


3 Mizzix's Mastery
3 Enter the Infinite

4 Burning Wish
4 Entomb
4 Faithless Looting

4 Thoughtseize
3 Duress
4 Sudden Shock

4 Lotus Petal
2 Simian Spirit Guide

2 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
4 Badlands
2 Swamp
2 Mountain

That leaves 5 open slots.

[TheG]

May i suggest spelltwine or sins from the past as combo piece and personal tutor instead of burning wish?

[LMental]

May i suggest spelltwine or sins from the past as combo piece and personal tutor instead of burning wish?

I don't like those cards. Personal Tutor is card disadvantage and has never been strong in legacy. Sins from the Past is way too expensive to be strong; it's better to just play Burning Wish as additional Mizzix's Masteries. Same goes for Spelltwine.

[Echelon]

You could use stuff like Quiet Speculation to drop, say, Army of the Damned in your graveyard. 4 mana, get 13 2/2 tokens seems kinda cool. Also don't die to -1/-1 effects etc. while presenting a good 1 turn clock.

Doesn't win on the spot though.

[Holmen]

Is something with SnT possible? This list is kinda close to my 7wish-omni that won me a tournament a while ago. Intution is a great way to discard Mastery and Omni works well with TtI as well. This kind of build has great range, since it's harder to hate out through a single card like DrS.

Main:

3 Snt
2 Mizzix's Mastery

4 Omniscience
3 Enter the Infinite
3 Griselbrand

2 Intuition
4 Burning Wish
3 Izzet Charm

4 Brainstorm
2 Gitaxian Probe
4 Force of Will
2 Flusterstorm

3 Lotus Petal

2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
3 City of Traitors
8 Fetch
3 Volcanic Island
3 Island

Potential boardslots (for Burning):
1 SnT
1 Mizzix
1 EtI
1 Ponder
1 Spiraling Embers (main win: EtI > 3 petal for SnT > Omni > Burning > Embers)
1 Overmaster
1 Pyroclasm
1 Faithless Looting

EDIT: almost forgot Dack Fayden, should be great in this kind of deck.

[VeniVidiVici]

You could use stuff like Quiet Speculation to drop, say, Army of the Damned in your graveyard. 4 mana, get 13 2/2 tokens seems kinda cool. Also don't die to -1/-1 effects etc. while presenting a good 1 turn clock.

Doesn't win on the spot though.

Speculation for Army + double Cabal Therapy seems really solid.

[Cire]

Rough Deck List for a Mizzix's Mastery combo deck.

Ideal turn structure:

1st - Land + Faithless/Careful Study/Brainstorm
2nd - Land + Mox (plus Discard/Imprinted Card)/Petal +Dack Faydan/(another Faithless/Careful Study/Brainstorm)
3rd - 2 mana Land + (if need be another Faithless/Careful Study) + Mizzix's + Daze/FoW --> EtI flashback --> Conflagrate kill.

4 Dack Faydan

4 Mizzix's Mastery
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Faithless
4 Careful Study
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Brainstorm
1 Conflagrate

14 Lands
5 2-Mana Lands

Slow compared to some combo decks, but it is basically all draw, with 8 protection spells.

[square_two]

Do any graveyard based decks run something like 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, and then some number of Thought Scour to help get certain cards from hand into your grave? Or is it just a worse version of Faithless and Careless Study? I was just thinking of ways to flesh out a few more blue cards to increase the power of Force of Will.

[Richard Cheese]

So this is actually something .dk and I were talking about over the weekend, and I think there's some great potential here. I'm just starting based off a UR list I was brewing around Epic Experiment. Experiment itself is pretty mediocre, but combining Personal Tutor and Burning Wish felt really strong.

Mizzix's doesn't need nearly as much mana to go off, and doesn't really restrict your card choices the way Experiment does, so there's more room for protection. The downside is that you're actually reliant on the graveyard, and dealing with a two-card combo. Still, I think it's worth looking into. Haven't had much time to test yet, but here's what I've got on paper so far:


4 Personal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Burning Wish

2 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will

3 Izzet Charm
2 Faithless Looting
3 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy

4 Scalding Tarn
4 Volcanic Island
1 Mountain
1 Island
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta

1 Conflagrate
1 Enter the Infinite
1 Mizzix's Mastery

4 Lotus Petal
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Rite of Flame

SB: 1 Past in Flames
SB: 1 Grapeshot
SB: 1 Void Snare
SB: 1 Pyroclasm
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 4 Young Pyromancer
SB: 2 Sulfur Elemental
SB: 2 Magus of the Moon
SB: 1 Enter the Infinite
SB: 1 Mizzix's Mastery


You can mostly ignore the board, it's just ripped from the other list with Mastery over Experiment (although Pryomancer postboard may still be correct). This is without any playtesting though, so there's a lot I'm not sure about. How many looting effects, how many red rituals, other mana sources, how much protection, places for Probe, Top, etc. On paper, baby Jace and Izzet Charm both seem super strong.

Black might also be correct for Entomb alone just because it negates the need for as many looting effects, but I'd like to start with straight UR and work out from there.

[LMental]

Hi everyone:


You could use stuff like Quiet Speculation to drop, say, Army of the Damned in your graveyard. 4 mana, get 13 2/2 tokens seems kinda cool. Also don't die to -1/-1 effects etc. while presenting a good 1 turn clock.

Doesn't win on the spot though.

Because it doesn't win on the spot, it seems inferior to the Enter the Infinite route. However, the interaction between Army of the Dammed and Cabal Therapy, mentioned by VeniVidiVici, seems like it could be worth exploring. Such a route might require playing creatures, however, to make Therapy powerful even without Quiet Speculation. If not creatures, then Gitaxian Probe would certainly be necessary. I just am doubtful that this route will prove more powerful than Enter the Infinite --> Win.


Is something with SnT possible? This list is kinda close to my 7wish-omni that won me a tournament a while ago. Intution is a great way to discard Mastery and Omni works well with TtI as well. This kind of build has great range, since it's harder to hate out through a single card like DrS.

Main:

3 Snt
2 Mizzix's Mastery

4 Omniscience
3 Enter the Infinite
3 Griselbrand

2 Intuition
4 Burning Wish
3 Izzet Charm

4 Brainstorm
2 Gitaxian Probe
4 Force of Will
2 Flusterstorm

3 Lotus Petal

2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
3 City of Traitors
8 Fetch
3 Volcanic Island
3 Island

Potential boardslots (for Burning):
1 SnT
1 Mizzix
1 EtI
1 Ponder
1 Spiraling Embers (main win: EtI > 3 petal for SnT > Omni > Burning > Embers)
1 Overmaster
1 Pyroclasm
1 Faithless Looting

EDIT: almost forgot Dack Fayden, should be great in this kind of deck.

I thought about SnT initially as well, but I don't like it generally because I think SnT is probably a stronger deck than this one, and if we're just shoving SnT into this deck, we'd be better off just playing SnT. However, I do think Mizzix's Mastery serves as a great wish target in any Burning Wish version of SnT. I just doubt it'll be good enough to be maindeck because, while not anti-synergistic with SnT, it accommodates a different gameplan. Feel free to prove me wrong, however.

Izzet Charm is freaking awesome and I'm so happy you reminded me of its existence. It serves as removal for DRS, protection for the combo, and a discard outlet. I think we can safely say that the core of the deck should be:

3 Mizzix's Mastery
3 Enter the Infinite
4 Burning Wish
4 Izzet Charm
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will


Then, if we go the entomb route, we are adding:

4 Entomb
1 Crippling Fatigue

And if we don't, we are probably playing some amount of Intuition and maybe even of Dack Fayden. I'm not sure why you think Dack is amazing in this deck -- as he's essentially just a recurring Faithless Looting -- but he's certainly not bad.


Speculation for Army + double Cabal Therapy seems really solid.

I address this above, and agree.


Rough Deck List for a Mizzix's Mastery combo deck.

Ideal turn structure:

1st - Land + Faithless/Careful Study/Brainstorm
2nd - Land + Mox (plus Discard/Imprinted Card)/Petal +Dack Faydan/(another Faithless/Careful Study/Brainstorm)
3rd - 2 mana Land + (if need be another Faithless/Careful Study) + Mizzix's + Daze/FoW --> EtI flashback --> Conflagrate kill.

4 Dack Faydan

4 Mizzix's Mastery
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Faithless
4 Careful Study
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Brainstorm
1 Conflagrate

14 Lands
5 2-Mana Lands

Slow compared to some combo decks, but it is basically all draw, with 8 protection spells.

This is very akin to the first list I posted above. I think Chrome Mox isn't great in a deck that wants to play Force of Will as well. I also like the flexibility Burning Wish provides.


Do any graveyard based decks run something like 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, and then some number of Thought Scour to help get certain cards from hand into your grave? Or is it just a worse version of Faithless and Careless Study? I was just thinking of ways to flesh out a few more blue cards to increase the power of Force of Will.

I considered Ponder, but see it as worse than Careful Study effects in this deck. However, I might be wrong. The card is obviously great and could be worth playing in some number. However, counting on Ponder/Brainstorm + Thought Scour to dump cards in the yard seems terribly inefficient and not worth pursuing.

[apple713]

4 Personal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Burning Wish

2 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will

3 Izzet Charm
2 Faithless Looting
3 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy

4 Scalding Tarn
4 Volcanic Island
1 Mountain
1 Island
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta

1 Conflagrate
1 Enter the Infinite
1 Mizzix's Mastery

4 Lotus Petal
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Rite of Flame



You can mostly ignore the board, it's just ripped from the other list with Mastery over Experiment (although Pryomancer postboard may still be correct). This is without any playtesting though, so there's a lot I'm not sure about. How many looting effects, how many red rituals, other mana sources, how much protection, places for Probe, Top, etc. On paper, baby Jace and Izzet Charm both seem super strong.

Black might also be correct for Entomb alone just because it negates the need for as many looting effects, but I'd like to start with straight UR and work out from there.

The black splash for entomb is easy because you are running so many fetch lands but i think that there are better options than entomb.

Since you have almost no removal or way to protect jace i think he's not a great option. Any removal opponent gets will go straight to him. If you like the flashback type ability that jace offers, i'd recommend snap caster. Snap is a blocker and always does what he is intended to do. Jace can get killed easily before he does anything.

Mizzix mastery is really important and I think you should run more than just 1 in the deck. The reason is because drawing it is ALWAYS better than having to tutor for it.

Izzet charm is actually EVERYTHING this deck wants so the number should be 4x.

Also, since you are expected to win on the spot, Pact of negation could easily be included as a 1-2 of.

Desperate ritual seems excessive and unnecessary. If you want to accelerate the combo you can work Ancient tomb / city of traitors into the mana base. The mana curve of this deck is similar to S&T so I know it could work here.

S&T runs 8-10 counterspells last time i checked. This deck should be running at least that many because it seems like the optimal amount to keep combo decks in check and buy time.

-4 desperate ritual
-4 rite of flame
-3 jace
+1 izzet charm
+1 pact of negation
+1 Faithless looting
+2 Mizzex Mastery
+2 Snapcaster?
+3 Ancient Tomb
+1 City of traitors

[Echelon]

However, the interaction between Army of the Dammed and Cabal Therapy, mentioned by VeniVidiVici, seems like it could be worth exploring. Such a route might require playing creatures, however, to make Therapy powerful even without Quiet Speculation. If not creatures, then Gitaxian Probe would certainly be necessary. I just am doubtful that this route will prove more powerful than Enter the Infinite --> Win.


It seems to be a go-to for TES/ANT, so there's that. Those decks do run Therapy but aren't quite known to run a whole lot of creatures. And Gitaxian Probe is never bad for a combo deck.

You could also use Quiet Speculation to fetch stuff like Crippling Fatigue or Feeling of Dread to (temporarily) get rid of DRS before comboing off or Faithless Looting to get rid of that Army of the Damned that's stuck in your hand, to mention some utility.

Furthermore, Enter the Infinite itself doesn't do a thing. You still need a separate win-condition. That's why the DTT era OmniShow deck dropped it. Something like the Army doesn't need any other cards to win (and the double Therapy does make it pretty likely the tokens'll be there the next turn to stomp your opponent). Compare it to TES's Empty the Warrens for an easy 26 damage worth in tokens.

[Gikkman]

Another interesting aspect of the card is that it allows us to cast spells with suspend immediately. For example, Hyper Genesis. This might be usable somehow in someones brainstorming.

[LMental]

So this is actually something .dk and I were talking about over the weekend, and I think there's some great potential here. I'm just starting based off a UR list I was brewing around Epic Experiment. Experiment itself is pretty mediocre, but combining Personal Tutor and Burning Wish felt really strong.

Mizzix's doesn't need nearly as much mana to go off, and doesn't really restrict your card choices the way Experiment does, so there's more room for protection. The downside is that you're actually reliant on the graveyard, and dealing with a two-card combo. Still, I think it's worth looking into. Haven't had much time to test yet, but here's what I've got on paper so far:


4 Personal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Burning Wish

2 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will

3 Izzet Charm
2 Faithless Looting
3 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy

4 Scalding Tarn
4 Volcanic Island
1 Mountain
1 Island
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta

1 Conflagrate
1 Enter the Infinite
1 Mizzix's Mastery

4 Lotus Petal
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Rite of Flame

SB: 1 Past in Flames
SB: 1 Grapeshot
SB: 1 Void Snare
SB: 1 Pyroclasm
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 4 Young Pyromancer
SB: 2 Sulfur Elemental
SB: 2 Magus of the Moon
SB: 1 Enter the Infinite
SB: 1 Mizzix's Mastery


You can mostly ignore the board, it's just ripped from the other list with Mastery over Experiment (although Pryomancer postboard may still be correct). This is without any playtesting though, so there's a lot I'm not sure about. How many looting effects, how many red rituals, other mana sources, how much protection, places for Probe, Top, etc. On paper, baby Jace and Izzet Charm both seem super strong.

Black might also be correct for Entomb alone just because it negates the need for as many looting effects, but I'd like to start with straight UR and work out from there.

We cross-posted last night. I'm not sure I agree with the inclusion of Personal Tutor. I get that it gets all the combo pieces, but it's just a bad card. Why do you think it's correct to run only 1 Mizzix's Mastery and so many Tutors, instead of more Mastery and less tutors? It might make you more flexible, but it also slows you down and reveals your plan -- plus, Burning Wish offers all the flexibility of Personal Tutor, while also not being sorcery speed card disadvantage.

I get that Mystical Tutor was good. If we could make Personal Tutor good too, that would be awesome. I'm just skeptical.

Baby Jace is cool. I can see it being pretty vulnerable in this deck, though.


The black splash for entomb is easy because you are running so many fetch lands but i think that there are better options than entomb.

Since you have almost no removal or way to protect jace i think he's not a great option. Any removal opponent gets will go straight to him. If you like the flashback type ability that jace offers, i'd recommend snap caster. Snap is a blocker and always does what he is intended to do. Jace can get killed easily before he does anything.

Mizzix mastery is really important and I think you should run more than just 1 in the deck. The reason is because drawing it is ALWAYS better than having to tutor for it.

Izzet charm is actually EVERYTHING this deck wants so the number should be 4x.

Also, since you are expected to win on the spot, Pact of negation could easily be included as a 1-2 of.

Desperate ritual seems excessive and unnecessary. If you want to accelerate the combo you can work Ancient tomb / city of traitors into the mana base. The mana curve of this deck is similar to S&T so I know it could work here.

S&T runs 8-10 counterspells last time i checked. This deck should be running at least that many because it seems like the optimal amount to keep combo decks in check and buy time.

-4 desperate ritual
-4 rite of flame
-3 jace
+1 izzet charm
+1 pact of negation
+1 Faithless looting
+2 Mizzex Mastery
+2 Snapcaster?
+3 Ancient Tomb
+1 City of traitors

I'm not sure Snapcaster -- or Jace for that matter -- warrants a spot here. Both are slow (while powerful) and more suited to control than combo.

Desperate Ritual seems bad. Izzet Charm, as I've said above, is perfect, and I agree it should be a 4-of.

Why are you discounting Entomb? I'd love to not run it -- it seems a bit clunky -- but it's super powerful. I don't like needing to rely only on looting effects to bin EtI, since firing them off in multiples creates a ton of card disadvantage to the point where casting FoW might be difficult.

Finally, Pact of Negation -- I was hoping to play counters that could stop proactive interaction such as DRS or discard as well as counterspells, and thus have shied away from PoN. Sure, it's good once you resolve EtI, but so is having 4 FoW in your deck. I think PoN will remain not the best option -- just look how OmniTell moved away from it.


It seems to be a go-to for TES/ANT, so there's that. Those decks do run Therapy but aren't quite known to run a whole lot of creatures. And Gitaxian Probe is never bad for a combo deck.

You could also use Quiet Speculation to fetch stuff like Crippling Fatigue or Feeling of Dread to (temporarily) get rid of DRS before comboing off or Faithless Looting to get rid of that Army of the Damned that's stuck in your hand, to mention some utility.

Furthermore, Enter the Infinite itself doesn't do a thing. You still need a separate win-condition. That's why the DTT era OmniShow deck dropped it. Something like the Army doesn't need any other cards to win (and the double Therapy does make it pretty likely the tokens'll be there the next turn to stomp your opponent). Compare it to TES's Empty the Warrens for an easy 26 damage worth in tokens.

You could use Entomb to fetch those cards too, and it has the added benefit of grabbing EtI. I get that EtI needs another win-con maindeck, but you can just play Burning Wish + a bunch of accel and wish for Conflagrate, which costs a total of 2RRR -- not unreasonable in a deck running 4 Lotus Petal and 2-3 Simian Spirit Guide. Playing 1 Conflagrate maindeck would cut that cost down to RRR.

You could also just Quiet Speculation / Entomb for Army of the Damned or EtI if one is stuck in your hand, in lieu of getting Faithless Looting, which is why I think Looting isn't too good here.

I can see the argument for Army of the Dammed + 2 Therapy in a deck running 4 Therapy and 4 Gitaxian Probe. However, it still means being pretty (and I think too much) all-in on Quiet Speculation since Mizzix + Army without Therapy backup is pretty weak to combo and Terminus. Also, Terminus can still wreck you after an Army resolves even with double therapy, if they're just floating it on top with SDT.

In short: I think the EtI plan is less vulnerable and inherently more powerful.

[Megadeus]

This is also something I was thinking with lab man win condition. I'm glad that someone else thinks it may have potential. I like the quiet speculation package. Burning Wish is interesting as well. I'll have to give it more thought later. I think jace is very good in this deck as well. Looting your thing into the yard then basically getting two shots with mastery is nuts

[LMental]

This is also something I was thinking with lab man win condition. I'm glad that someone else thinks it may have potential. I like the quiet speculation package. Burning Wish is interesting as well. I'll have to give it more thought later. I think jace is very good in this deck as well. Looting your thing into the yard then basically getting two shots with mastery is nuts

Oh yeah I forgot about the Looting side of Jace. That gives it much more potential here IMO.

[Richard Cheese]

I actually love Personal tutor here with a bunch of looting effects, since it allows you to negate the biggest downside of the card. I know it pretty much got written off in traditional storm lists and Reanimator, but a large part of that is just how many critical cards it can't search up. Here, it gets every combo piece, a discard outlet, or even Burning Wish for a silver bullet from the board. It is slow, but we don't care about life total so the downsides are worth it for the consistency that running 8 tutors offers. I'm

The problem with running more copies of the combo pieces is that they're just dead cards on their own. It's not like we're ever trying to hardcast Infinite, and spending 3R to re-cast a cantrip is pretty mediocre. I could see Mastery having some utility outside the combo, but Infinite is definitely a card you never want to see more than one of.

Obviously I haven't tested that list at all, so I could be way off, but the 8-tutor package was definitely the best thing going for my Epic Experiement brew. This is a different combo though, so it's entirely possible that it needs an entirely different shell to be effective. I'll try to actually get some testing in this week to have more than just speculation to go off.

@Megadeus - Lab Man is definitely a potential wincon. It opens you up to removal, but at that point in the game you should have a 30-40 card hand with plenty of protection. I like it a little less than Conflagrate though since you still need 3 mana to cast him, but likely some additional amount to draw 2 cards, when Conflagrate wins off RRR.

Also...if I'm reading Mastery right, does it play around Grafdigger's Cage?

[Cire]

How about going Combo-Control?

4 Mizzix's Mastery
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Spell Snare
4 Lighting Bolt
4 Izzet Charm
4 Brainstorm
1 Conflagrate

15 Lands
4 Lotus Petal

Plan to go off turn 3/4 and use the rest of the time to bolt creatures, counter spells, and sculpt your hand. This list looks simple, but the again its has 20 answers (Bolt, Charm, FOW, daze, Pierce) and 12 loot effects plus brainstorm. By turn 4 you should be able to go off depending on how many cards you have seen.

The issue is that this deck will always be worse than reanimator unless it goes control. Reanimator is just so much faster and more consistent. So the only way to justify this deck IMO is to slow way down and play it more like control with an opps I win button.

[LMental]

I actually love Personal tutor here with a bunch of looting effects, since it allows you to negate the biggest downside of the card. I know it pretty much got written off in traditional storm lists and Reanimator, but a large part of that is just how many critical cards it can't search up. Here, it gets every combo piece, a discard outlet, or even Burning Wish for a silver bullet from the board. It is slow, but we don't care about life total so the downsides are worth it for the consistency that running 8 tutors offers. I'm

The problem with running more copies of the combo pieces is that they're just dead cards on their own. It's not like we're ever trying to hardcast Infinite, and spending 3R to re-cast a cantrip is pretty mediocre. I could see Mastery having some utility outside the combo, but Infinite is definitely a card you never want to see more than one of.

Obviously I haven't tested that list at all, so I could be way off, but the 8-tutor package was definitely the best thing going for my Epic Experiement brew. This is a different combo though, so it's entirely possible that it needs an entirely different shell to be effective. I'll try to actually get some testing in this week to have more than just speculation to go off.

You do want to see EtI every game... so you can discard it. That's far easier than having to cast Personal Tutor and a looting effect. Yeah, the flexibility could be nice. I just think if you're already playing Burning Wish, it's probably not necessary. That said, test it and let us know.

It doesn't matter that Mastery and EtI suck on their own, they win the game when they're together. So you do want to see both of them each game (as I said above). I'm of the opinion that drawing them off a looting effect or wishing for them is more powerful than using Personal Tutor to find your 1-ofs. In your list, literally the only way you're going to assemble the combo in 90% of games is to Wish and Tutor for EtI and Mastery, since you won't naturally draw either. That seems slow. The lists playing just BW can at least naturally draw one of the combo pieces much of the time.

Seeing more than one EtI isn't even that bad: pitch it to FoW. Hell, we could add in a 1-of Misdirection.


How about going Combo-Control?

4 Mizzix's Mastery
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Spell Snare
4 Lighting Bolt
4 Izzet Charm
4 Brainstorm
1 Conflagrate

15 Lands
4 Lotus Petal

Plan to go off turn 3/4 and use the rest of the time to bolt creatures, counter spells, and sculpt your hand. This list looks simple, but the again its has 20 answers (Bolt, Charm, FOW, daze, Pierce) and 12 loot effects plus brainstorm. By turn 4 you should be able to go off depending on how many cards you have seen.

The issue is that this deck will always be worse than reanimator unless it goes control. Reanimator is just so much faster and more consistent. So the only way to justify this deck IMO is to slow way down and play it more like control with an opps I win button.

Fair enough. I think if you're going full-on control baby Jace is worthy of some consideration. I also wonder about the ability of a control deck that plays 12 looting effects to keep enough cards in its hand to control anything. But who knows. I definitely think we want to be more controlling than both Reanimator and SnT, and are moving in that direction with the inclusion of Izzet Charm and possibly Baby Jace. I doubt Lightning Bolt does enough for this deck to be worth it, though.

Why Spell Snare over Pierce?

I'm worried that Daze slows us down too much when our wincon costs 3R.

A final thought: if playing Baby Jace, Entomb --> Mizzix's Mastery is another line that can lead to the win. Entomb could be good here!

[death]

Jace, Vryn's Prodigy + Intuition pile

4 Mizzix's Mastery
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Intuition -- *finds both*
3 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Dack Fayden/Attunement/Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Izzet Charm
1 Conflagrate
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
3 Ancient Tomb
10 fetch
4 Island
2 Volcanic Island

[apple713]

I think before this progresses further we need to assess why we should play this over other current options? Is it better in some way?

[death]

- Win on the spot.
- Can play a more controlling game.
- Potential lategame win by overloading Mizzix's Master and flashing back your whole graveyard.
- Doesn't cost any life.

[Cire]

Fair enough. I think if you're going full-on control baby Jace is worthy of some consideration. I also wonder about the ability of a control deck that plays 12 looting effects to keep enough cards in its hand to control anything. But who knows. I definitely think we want to be more controlling than both Reanimator and SnT, and are moving in that direction with the inclusion of Izzet Charm and possibly Baby Jace. I doubt Lightning Bolt does enough for this deck to be worth it, though.

Why Spell Snare over Pierce?

I'm worried that Daze slows us down too much when our wincon costs 3R.

A final thought: if playing Baby Jace, Entomb --> Mizzix's Mastery is another line that can lead to the win. Entomb could be good here!

There was no reason exactly for the card choices - it was a rough list that was just trying to emphasize control over speed. Thank you for agreeing with me regarding the direction - i.e. that combo-control is the correct route to take. Now we just need to figure out the best way to go combo control.

My belief that entomb is a wasted space - if you're running black, you're in three colors and might as well run reanimator. Additionally entomb eats up spots in your deck that as control you would rather be on cards that draw you cards - which is why loot effects are better.

Moreover I think Baby jace while powerful is a mistake as it is still a creature and by running no permanents (except lotus petal and lands) you blank a lot of cards in other players decks. STP and terminus are useless. Decay is useless. Etc.

I would argue that the reason to run this deck would be:

1) A combo that wins consistently turn 4 and can pack 15+ control spells in the MD.
2) Doesn't run or rely on non-mana permanents
3) Two colors and can comfortably function underneath a Blood Moon (and perhaps run one of its own in the SB) and is not susceptible to wasteland.

[death]

Baby jace while powerful is a mistake as it is still a creature and by running no permanents (except lotus petal and lands) you blank a lot of cards in other players decks. STP and terminus are useless. Decay is useless. Etc.

Makes them think twice. If they knew you're creatureless from the get-go it would be an easier decision to Brainstorm those removal away.

Also, relying heavily on 8 0cc Artifacts/1cc loot cards makes the deck auto-lose to Chalice @ 0/1.

[LMental]

There was no reason exactly for the card choices - it was a rough list that was just trying to emphasize control over speed. Thank you for agreeing with me regarding the direction - i.e. that combo-control is the correct route to take. Now we just need to figure out the best way to go combo control.

My belief that entomb is a wasted space - if you're running black, you're in three colors and might as well run reanimator. Additionally entomb eats up spots in your deck that as control you would rather be on cards that draw you cards - which is why loot effects are better.

Moreover I think Baby jace while powerful is a mistake as it is still a creature and by running no permanents (except lotus petal and lands) you blank a lot of cards in other players decks. STP and terminus are useless. Decay is useless. Etc.

I would argue that the reason to run this deck would be:

1) A combo that wins consistently turn 4 and can pack 15+ control spells in the MD.
2) Doesn't run or rely on non-mana permanents
3) Two colors and can comfortably function underneath a Blood Moon (and perhaps run one of its own in the SB) and is not susceptible to wasteland.


Makes them think twice. If they knew you're creatureless from the get-go it would be an easier decision to Brainstorm those removal away.

Also, relying heavily on 8 0cc Artifacts/1cc loot cards makes the deck auto-lose to Chalice @ 0/1.

I fully agree with Death. Jace provides another angle and makes sideboarding more difficult for the opponent. Sure, game 1 perhaps more looting effects are preferable, but in general I think Jace is a nice option. 4 might not be the right number, but I'd at least want to test out 3.

Going two colors would be great. I'm just struggling to fill the deck with enough powerful cards and stay UR. Playing 8 Careful Studies seems like overkill, especially when you've already got Izzet Charm in that role. Sure, let's play some number of Careful Study -- I like 4 Charm, 3 Jace, 3 Careful Study. Something like that.

Not sure what the control suite should be. If we're in black I like Thoughtseize. If not, Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm, PoN, or Misdirection, added to the FoWs and Izzet Charms we already play? What do you think?

EDIT:

I missed Death's post on the previous page. That list looks like something worth testing.

EDIT 2:

Played a game tonight with this:

3 Mizzix's Mastery
3 Enter the Infinite
4 Burning Wish
4 Izzet Charm
4 Force of Will
4 Careful Study
4 Brainstorm
4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2 Spell Pierce

4 Lotus Petal
4 Simian Spirit Guide
2 City of Traitors
2 Ancient Tomb
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
4 Volcanic Island
3 Island
1 Mountain

SB:
1 Conflagrate
1 Mizzix's Mastery
1 Enter the Infinite
1 Pyroclasm
1 Faithless Looting
1 Overmaster
1 Boseiju
4 Show and Tell
4 Omniscience

I beat some weird Aluren brew. He ragequit when I cast Mizzix's Mastery off Jace flashback after he FoWed it the first time. List felt pretty good. Turn 1 Jace off of SSG + a land seemed strong. Mana wasn't an issue. I used Burning Wish to find Mizzix's Mastery, which worked well. Fought through double therapy and FoW, but he had no clock so I wasn't really under pressure. Saw Izzet Charm several times and never had the opportunity to cast it, but it seemed like it could have been useful.

So far so good. The transformational SB is to fight grave hate (obviously). But if that's the plan then Conflagrate won't work (which somehow escaped me). So maybe Lightning Storm is the way to go? It's just as good, basically. Or someone has a better idea for the SB?

Also, I'm still considering running the Entomb package, or even just a single Underground Sea for Thoughtseize + Massacre in the board. Massacre seems so much better than Pyroclasm.

Thoughts?

[death]

So far so good. The transformational SB is to fight grave hate (obviously). But if that's the plan then Conflagrate won't work (which somehow escaped me). So maybe Lightning Storm is the way to go? It's just as good, basically.

Lightning Storm is likely the way to go since it's castable via Omni (or Dream Halls) as well. In case the card ends up in the grave just Mizzixy-cast it again, this also totally bypasses Grafdigger's Cage which is not doable with Conflagrate.

Advantages of Intuition over B-Wish/P-Tutor: lets you search and bin multiple EtIs (Sol-lands make this easier), or fetch the entire combo --> win via Jace VP. You run 4x Mastery/4x EtI and can search both parts of the combo, counters or mana source.

[LMental]

Lightning Storm is likely the way to go since it's castable via Omni (or Dream Halls) as well. In case the card ends up in the grave just Mizzixy-cast it again, this also totally bypasses Grafdigger's Cage which is not doable with Conflagrate.

Advantages of Intuition over B-Wish/P-Tutor: lets you search and bin multiple EtIs (Sol-lands make this easier), or fetch the entire combo --> win via Jace VP. You run 4x Mastery/4x EtI and can search both parts of the combo, counters or mana source.

Let's make a list:

Burnish Wish:
+ Lets you get useful one-of silver bullets from your SB
+ Costs 1 less than intuition
+ Not graveyard dependent (although the whole combo still is)
+ Allows you to run your win-con in the SB
- Can't put anything in the graveyard
- Can't be flashbacked if it resolves
- Can't be pitched to FoW
- You've got to clutter up your SB with EtI/ MM/ Lightning Storm
- Sorcery speed

Intuition
+ Can dump EtI in the grave
+ Is awesome with active flipped Jace
+ Can pitch to FoW
+ Allows you to maintain a "normal" sideboard
+ Instant speed
- Costs 1 more than BW
- Vulnerable to grave-hate (but again, so's the whole combo)
- If you're tutoring for, say, Mizzix's Mastery, you're going to be dumping 2 of your 4 Mastery into your GY -- giving you not exactly great odds of topdecking another if you should need it.
- Can't grab silver bullets unless you play it alongside Snapcaster + Noxious Revival
- Must play your win-con maindeck

I'll test it out.

[Richard Cheese]

FWIW you can't Burning Wish for Lightning Storm. Cunning Wish?

[LMental]

FWIW you can't Burning Wish for Lightning Storm. Cunning Wish?

But you can't Cunning Wish for Mizzix's Mastery or EtI. Clearly if we're doing the transformational SB we need a different plan (or just to take the Intuition route).

[Richard Cheese]

But you can't Cunning Wish for Mizzix's Mastery or EtI. Clearly if we're doing the transformational SB we need a different plan (or just to take the Intuition route).

Yeah honestly I'm not a huge fan of C. Wish on paper. I think Omitell gets away with it because they're planning on casting everything for free, but for us that's 4URR after paying at least 3R to go off. It might have some tricksy applications, but in general I think Burning Wish is just better. Gets all the combo pieces, a lot of good answers, and the ever-useful Empty the Warrens.

It may be right to just have a singleton Lightning Storm in the main, since we're assuming we draw the whole deck anyway.

[death]

So I did some testing on MWS....

BladeControl 1-0
UWr Delver 0-2
DeathBlade 1-0
Canadian Thresh 0-2
BUG Shardless 0-1
UR Burn 1-0
UG Infect 0-1
White Weenie 1-0
Suicide Black 1-0
Pox 1-1
4-Color Delver 1-1
U/w Miracles 0-1
Sneaky Show 2-1
12-post MUD 1-1


Here is my decklist, no sideboard

4 Mizzix's Mastery
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
4 Intuition
4 Careful Study
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Izzet Charm
1 Lightning Storm
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
3 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
9 fetch
3 Island
1 Mountain
2 Volc. Island


Jace, VP was strong in testing as predicted, I just wish he didn't die a lot :) There were scenarios where Firestorm/Bonded Fetch or Dack Fayden could've done a better job (no summoning sickness) but Jace's -3 ability has won a few games. Lightning Storm was excellent as additional removal and as long you keep track of land drops you'd be dealing 21+ damage on a regular basis. Strictly better than Conflagrate, imo. It can be copied/replayed under Grafdigger's Cage via Mizzix's. I didn't have any problem casting Intuition with 4 Sol-lands, 4 Petals and 4 SSGs. For a combo deck, this is fairly consistent and fast and able to assume a control role. Decks that run Daze and Spell Pierce coupled with a fast clock will give us a hard time though. Right now, I don't feel the deck mulligans very well and the list above is still far from optimal.

[LMental]

So I did some testing on MWS....

BladeControl 1-0
UWr Delver 0-2
DeathBlade 1-0
Canadian Thresh 0-2
BUG Shardless 0-1
UR Burn 1-0
UG Infect 0-1
White Weenie 1-0
Suicide Black 1-0
Pox 1-1
4-Color Delver 1-1
U/w Miracles 0-1
Sneaky Show 2-1
12-post MUD 1-1


Here is my decklist, no sideboard

4 Mizzix's Mastery
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
4 Intuition
4 Careful Study
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Izzet Charm
1 Lightning Storm
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
3 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
9 fetch
3 Island
1 Mountain
2 Volc. Island


Jace, VP was strong in testing as predicted, I just wish he didn't die a lot :) There were scenarios where Firestorm/Bonded Fetch or Dack Fayden could've done a better job (no summoning sickness) but Jace's -3 ability has won a few games. Lightning Storm was excellent as additional removal and as long you keep track of land drops you'd be dealing 21+ damage on a regular basis. Strictly better than Conflagrate, imo. It can be copied/replayed under Grafdigger's Cage via Mizzix's. I didn't have any problem casting Intuition with 4 Sol-lands, 4 Petals and 4 SSGs. For a combo deck, this is fairly consistent and fast and able to assume a control role. Decks that run Daze and Spell Pierce coupled with a fast clock will give us a hard time though. Right now, I don't feel the deck mulligans very well and the list above is still far from optimal.

Thanks for doing that. Results look decent. Tempo looks rough, as does Miracles. That's not a huge surprise.

After testing, do you have any thoughts about further optimization?

[death]

Replace all instances of "Jace, VP" with "Faithless Looting." In hindsight, the number of times he ate Snapcasted StP/Bolt/Forked Bolt is much higher than the times he was awesome. This gives the deck more speed and shore up games against red blasts although softer to Chalice/CB lock.

Note on Lightning Storm: I came across a player who tried to redirect the spell at me, luckily I have spare lands in hand when I passed priority so I bounced it back (last man to pitch land chooses the final target). Something to keep in mind especially against Life from the Loam decks.


EDIT:
So I did a quick revision of the deck and played two quick games....

Affinity 2-0
G1 - He starts off with a fast start. I Careful Study on turn 1 and kill him on turn 2.
G2 - This went longer as I Fow'd a Tezzeret then some turns later Fow'd Master of Etherium to buy time. I combo off the turn before I die.

4C Delver 1-1
G1 - He starts off with Thoughtseize, I Brainstorm hiding an Intuition. Turn 3 I double Intuition'd using 2 Petals and SSG. Win w/ Fow backup.
G2 - He goes first with Leyline of the Void. Nice!


This is what I played.. replaced Lightning Storm with Spiraling Embers since I knew I would be looting like a maniac and lose lands.

4 Mizzix's Mastery
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Intuition
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Izzet Charm
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Spiraling Embers
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
3 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
9 fetch
3 Island
1 Mountain
2 Volc. Island

[Gikkman]

4 Mizzix's Mastery
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Intuition
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Izzet Charm
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Spiraling Embers
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
3 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
9 fetch
3 Island
1 Mountain
2 Volc. Island

I dig the list. Wouldn't we want some more removal though, to handle Deathrites? At the moment, a single Deathrite is very hard to handle (only got 3 Izzet Charms).

[Notion Thief]

This is what I played.. replaced Lightning Storm with Spiraling Embers since I knew I would be looting like a maniac and lose lands.

4 Mizzix's Mastery
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Intuition
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Izzet Charm
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Spiraling Embers
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
3 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
9 fetch
3 Island
1 Mountain
2 Volc. Island

Man that list looks fun, I might have to give it a try sometime. I imagine Pithing needle in the board would be good for DRS. Biggest concern for me would be Slaughter Games, which sometimes shows up in my meta in sideboards. That wrecks this deck pretty badly if they can get to 4 mana. Still, looking forward to getting my Mastery's in the mail and giving this a whirl.

[death]

I call dibs on the deck name "Truffle Butter (https://youtu.be/EUS_ONfxRnQ)."

[JPoJohnson]

Replace all instances of "Jace, VP" with "Faithless Looting." In hindsight, the number of times he ate Snapcasted StP/Bolt/Forked Bolt is much higher than the times he was awesome. This gives the deck more speed and shore up games against red blasts although softer to Chalice/CB lock.

Note on Lightning Storm: I came across a player who tried to redirect the spell at me, luckily I have spare lands in hand when I passed priority so I bounced it back (last man to pitch land chooses the final target). Something to keep in mind especially against Life from the Loam decks.

Just a legacy version of Ad Nauseam which should be pretty straight forward. :p


I'm interested to see how this deck progresses. Although I don't see it being the next big thing when it comes to combo, I think that it will be fun to toy around with. What would you guys say it the major selling point for the deck? It seems to lose out on any angle to something superior:

Speed - Belcher/No Lands (These decks are just faster on a regular basis)
Graveyard Based - Reanimator (This deck can tutor based on the situation and still beat out anti-graveyard strategies. How does this deck beat RiP?)
Flexibility - TES/ANT
Ease of Use - Show and Tell


Realize these thoughts are coming from someone that is interested, hasn't played the deck, and is curious what sets it apart.

Also, would a 1-of Burning Wish be welcomed? Feels like the flexibility would be most welcome.

[Rook1e]

So I am bringing this list to our weekly legacy night tonight:

Sorcery (21)
1x Conflagrate
4x Enter the Infinite
4x Faithless Looting
4x Gamble
4x Mizzix's Mastery
4x Ponder

Instant (13)
4x Brainstorm
4x Force of Will
4x Izzet Charm
1x Misdirection

Land (18)
4x Ancient Tomb
2x Island
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Mountain
4x Scalding Tarn
3x Volcanic Island

Creature (8)
4x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy Flip
4x Simian Spirit Guide

Sideboard (15)
1x Defense Grid
2x Null Rod
1x Pithing Needle
4x Pyroblast
1x Sulfur Elemental
2x Surgical Extraction
4x Young Pyromancer

A few notes on the list:

I haven't tried playing with it, I just threw together the cards and hope for the best. Other than that I wanted to run a 2-3 Defense Grids in the SB but I couldn't find more than one. The YP is for opponents who I expect to bring in Leyline or RIP effect that completely shut off my GY.

I played around with Grove/PFire and Dack initially, but ended up cutting it for more raw speed. But I kinda wanna try it out sometome since it gives access to some additional SB tech.

However, honestly I don't expect this to be a very successful night, but had to try it :D

[death]

Speed - Belcher/No Lands (These decks are just faster on a regular basis)
Graveyard Based - Reanimator (This deck can tutor based on the situation and still beat out anti-graveyard strategies. How does this deck beat RiP?)
Flexibility - TES/ANT
Ease of Use - Show and Tell

Island + Brainstorm + Force of Will beats No-land Belcher/All Spells all day. Glass cannons don't compete in top tables and will never be tier 1. Anyone who has played these decks knows how disappointing it is to aggresively mulligan and not able to sculpt a hand only to lose against discard or countermagic. Decks like Hive Mind, Sneaky Show and Omni-Tell on the other hand, we've seen plague legacy to prove this point.

What will differentiate Mastery from Reanimator and Ad Nauseam will be its ability to transform post-sideboard (into Omni-Tell, Painter-Stone, Big Red, or Helm-Void) and still be Wasteland-proof, moon-proof. I guess.

@Rook1e, Careful Study > Gamble. No maindeck Intuition is a gamble and Conflagrate is inferior. Best of luck.

[Rook1e]

Island + Brainstorm + Force of Will beats No-land Belcher/All Spells all day. Glass cannons don't compete in top tables and will never be tier 1. Anyone who has played these decks knows how disappointing it is to aggresively mulligan and not able to sculpt a hand only to lose against discard or countermagic. Decks like Hive Mind, Sneaky Show and Omni-Tell on the other hand, we've seen plague legacy to prove this point.

What will differentiate Mastery from Reanimator and Ad Nauseam will be its ability to transform post-sideboard (into Omni-Tell, Painter-Stone, Big Red, or Helm-Void) and still be Wasteland-proof, moon-proof. I guess.

@Rook1e, Careful Study > Gamble. No maindeck Intuition is a gamble and Conflagrate is inferior. Best of luck.

I goldfished a couple of times last night with Careful Study - didn't like it at all, so I cut it for Ponders. I don't have any Intuitions, which is why I am going with Gamble. Also I do like the fact that it only costs 1 mana. But yeah, Intuition is probably the better card here.

[Rook1e]

I goldfished a couple of times last night with Careful Study - didn't like it at all, so I cut it for Ponders. I don't have any Intuitions, which is why I am going with Gamble. Also I do like the fact that it only costs 1 mana. But yeah, Intuition is probably the better card here.

I ended up 2-1. Unfortunately we only get to play 3 rounds, but I played a practice match against my friend on D&T before we started and won.

R1: 0-2 vs. BUG Delver. Very close matches, could easily have gone my way.
R2: 2-0 vs. Dredge. "Two ships in the night..." - well, turned out I was 1 turn faster each game.
R3: 2-0 vs Shardless BUG. Managed to kill his Deathrites and he didn't have any counters when I went for the kill.

Deck was fun, and I actuallly think it can be playable. Probably not Tier 1, but Tier 2 should be realistic. I actually think Conflagrate is the best wincon, the ability to cast it from hand to kill a DRS, Thalia or whatever can be useful and I can easily see myself looting away too many lands to kill with Lightning Storm and the 4CMC one that was suggested can be tough to cast (I found myself looting away 1 SSG most games).

After I got home I tinkered a bit with my list (see earlier post) based on my experiences and this is what I will be playing next time I pick up the deck:

Land (18)
4x Ancient Tomb
2x Island
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Mountain
4x Scalding Tarn
3x Volcanic Island

Sorcery (20)
4x Careful Study
1x Conflagrate/Lightning Storm
4x Enter the Infinite
4x Faithless Looting
4x Mizzix's Mastery
3x Ponder

Instant (14)
4x Brainstorm
4x Force of Will
4x Izzet Charm
2x Misdirection

Enchantment (4)
4x Pyromancer Ascension

Creature (4)
4x Simian Spirit Guide

Sideboard (15)
2x Defense Grid
1x Helm of Obedience
2x Pithing Needle
3x Pyroblast
1x Sulfur Elemental
2x Surgical Extraction
4x Young Pyromancer

[death]

Not sure what role Pyromancer Ascension fills in this deck. Very situational card and a poor top deck.

Anyway, here's where I'm at regarding the transformational sideboards I mentioned

Omni-Tell
4 Show and Tell
4 Omniscience
4 Griselbrand
3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Painter-Stone
4 Painter's Servant
4 Grindstone
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Goblin Welder

Big Red
4 Sneak Attack
4 Through the Breach
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Griselbrand

Helm-Void
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Helm of Obedience
4 Serum Powder
3 Goblin Welder


Since we might want to bypass the graveyard in game 2 and possibly dodge red blasts and flusterstorm, we could replace the combo and a number of red loot cards and accel with the following options. Intuition still plays a major part in assembling pieces of the above combos.

[Rook1e]

Not sure what role Pyromancer Ascension fills in this deck. Very situational card and a poor top deck.

My thought were that it helps us loot through our deck even faster and it neuters counterspells, but after sitting on it I think you might be right. Ideally we should be going off the turn this would be 'turned on'.

Another card I want to try is Dream Halls. I enables us to bypass our GY and just cast EtI.

[death]

2-3x Dream Halls seems legit!!1! Intuition is broken now you can cast Enter the Infinite from both zones.


4 Mizzix's Mastery
3 Dream Halls
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
4 Force of Will
4 Izzet Charm
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Spiraling Embers
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
3 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
9 fetch
3 Island
1 Mountain
2 Volcanic Island


Anything like this don't even have to bother with transformational sideboard plans.

http://45.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3hhb5ezs91r0oyboo6_250.gif

[Rook1e]

2-3x Dream Halls seems legit!!1! Intuition is broken now you can cast Enter the Infinite from both zones.


4 Mizzix's Mastery
3 Dream Halls
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
4 Force of Will
4 Izzet Charm
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Spiraling Embers
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
3 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
9 fetch
3 Island
1 Mountain
2 Volcanic Island


Anything like this don't even have to bother with transformational sideboard plans.

http://45.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3hhb5ezs91r0oyboo6_250.gif

Do you ever have problems casting Spiraling Embers post EtI?

[Svyelunite]

Do you ever have problems casting Spiraling Embers post EtI?

With 4 Simian Spirit Guides and 4 Lotus Petals I don't know how you could. Assume you drew 4 of them prior to "going off" and you still draw 4 more to go off with. Also, if you cast Enter the Infinite via Dream Halls, its free, you just pitch another red card.

[apple713]

With 4 Simian Spirit Guides and 4 Lotus Petals I don't know how you could. Assume you drew 4 of them prior to "going off" and you still draw 4 more to go off with. Also, if you cast Enter the Infinite via Dream Halls, its free, you just pitch another red card.

you probably wouldn't have issues casting it even if you cut the number of ssg to 1. You would just have to be sure not to use more than 1 petal unless you had extra mana. Adding that many extra SSG is really wasteful and you start to lose your edge over other decks that run more protection.

[death]

Petals also get hit with Decay, Judgment or Chalice at 0. The Mastery route is still quicker so I don't cut any SSG for Spiraling Embers/re-Mastery since SSGs are burned usually on soft counters (or looted away/hardcasted). If we go off via Dream Halls on the regular we could cut SSG, but we don't.

After goldfishing with the deck, Jace VP certainly needs to be cut for City of Traitors #2 (20th land in the deck). With Dream Halls I find the deck can struggle with mana availability so it makes sense to add the 5th Sol land. 9 fetch and 4 basics help mitigate Wasteland/Loam matchups.


3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
9 fetch (8 Blue/1 Red or 3rd Volc.)
3 Island
1 Mountain
2 Volc. Island

[LMental]

Running 2-3 Dream Halls as a backup plan is a pretty cool idea, and reinforces the need to run a lot of blue cards for Force of Will. Assuming 3 Dream Halls for Intuition to be able to grab it, the deck should look something like:

4 Mizzix's Mastery
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Intuition
4 Careful Study
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Izzet Charm
3 Dream Halls
1 Spiraling Embers
4 Lotus Petal
4 Simian Spirit Guide
20 Lands (5 Sol-lands, 9 fetches).

It seems like we're all pretty much in agreement about how the deck should look at this point. Someone should do some real testing! (That person could be me, to an extent, though I am in the middle of a serious move.)

As for the sideboard, it's great that Dream Halls liberates us from the need for a clunky transformational sideboard. Scrapping that, we can run some actually useful hate cards, such as:

Pyroclasm
Red Elemental Blast
Sulfur Elemental
Young Pyromancer
Goblin Rabblemaster
Pithing Needle
Relic of Progenitus
Surgical Extraction
Misdirection
Blood Moon
Chalice of the Void (!!) (It only turns off two of our cards: Brainstorm and Careful Study.)

The possibilities are endless...

[death]

The 9th red fetch at worst will fetch a Volc. Island. At best, it will make you immune to Wasteland by fetching a Mountain AND shuffle away dead cards so you don't brick. Most people would cut it for a dual because damage from Ancient Tomb adds up, it all boils down to whether Wasteland is prevalent in the field. The deck doesn't run Ponder or any other cheap shuffle effects.

SB: 4 Leyline of Sanctity is our secret sideboard tech.

So how fast does this deck goldfish? The deck is capable of turn 4 goldfish kills most of the time (~65%), turn 3 on semi-nut draw (~25%) and turn 2 on nut draw (~10%) based on experience. All the pieces mesh really well so it's easy enough to assemble the combo making this a consistent deck. YMMV

[Gikkman]

Boarding into CotV is quite interesting. It does lock down one of our methods of dumping EtI into or graveyard though... But I like the thought of a combo deck that can run chalice.

Another idea I had was to try to squeeze a ReB into the main. I'd like to be able to over power delve decks with Daze, FoW and Pierce main. I feel they are hard to combo of against.

[adrieng]

What about burning wish ? EDIT : didnt see it was on the first page
It is also a nice out to DRS. I think it is better than intuition.
It can take both mizzium and enter the inifnite and is a win condition.
I suspect you just lose if your win condition get exiled (spiraling embers) might happened with DRS.
yeah I would play both BW and dream hall in the deck

[death]

Burning Wish would require running less of your combo pieces main deck therefore losing competitiveness. It can also make the deck slower, run short on mana, and fold to discard. But it can be done.

Also, try to counter or put out DRS with Izzet Charms that are maindeck. Never dump business spells in the GY unless it's safe, or use Dream Halls.

So, you have Brainstorm, Force of Will and Izzet Charm to protect your win condition. If you still lose it then probably you are losing already anyway. See my previous post above regarding white Leyline.


More goldfish kill turn stats for today:
turn 1 0%
turn 2 0%
turn 3 35%
turn 4 55%
turn 5 10%

No changes to main deck.

General sideboard:
4 Leyline of Sanctity -discard, burn, tendrils of agony
4 Chalice of the Void -shuts off crop rotation, discard, DRS, nihil, red blasts, spell pierce, relic, surgical
3 Pyroclasm -Elves, Teeg, Thalia, Canonist (mostly G/W decks)
3 Echoing Truth -for white Leyline, Rest in Peace, catch-all
1 Dream Halls -address GY hate

[death]

Will replace 9th red fetch with 1 Preordain as general utility card since it can filter draws to find land. It also counts as blue pitch card for Dream Halls.

Why not Ponder? Because with scry we get rid of unnecessary cards meaning no lost turns and Careful Study can dig much deeper into the library.


4 Mizzix's Mastery
4 Enter the Infinite
3 Dream Halls
4 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
4 Force of Will
4 Izzet Charm
1 Preordain
1 Spiraling Embers
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
3 Island
1 Mountain
8 fetch land
2 Volcanic Island

Sideboard:
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Pyroclasm
3 Echoing Truth
1 Dream Halls

Frankly, this deck can retire Omni-Tell and Sneak Attack. See you in the DTB/Established forums.

[Gikkman]

Sideboard:
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Pyroclasm
3 Echoing Truth
1 Dream Halls


When siding in Chalice, what do you side out? We have 9 cmc1 cards. Do we just keep a few in? One idea could be to board in a few flusterstorm, they can resolve through a chalice.

[death]

-4 Careful Study cause we have Izzet Charm and Intuition to get EtIs in the yard under Chalice @1, if the coast is clear. CotV or Leyline (+Force and Charm) would already address those matchups where you want Flusterstorm boarded in, I think. There's still room to tinker with the 75 once we're done theorycrafting and start testing.

[Daize]

Hi guys, from a competitive perspective: is this already the time to ask why to play this instead of Omnitell / Sneak & Show / reanimator? Some reasons may be obvious, but yay documentation. Think about graveyard hate, speed, dependencies. It's an interesting concept that I haven't tried. I'm looking forward to your answers, and hopefully it also gives insight to other builders in this thread.

[death]

Our "cheat spells" are non-symmetrical. Krosan Grip on Dream Halls doesn't work. Grafdigger's Cage on Mizzix's Mastery doesn't work. Omni-Tell is a 3-card combo, Sneak Attack doesn't win on the spot, and Reanimator has no answer to DRS unless it splashes a 3rd color. Speed and consistency across the board is comparable.


How does Krosan Grip do nothing for Dream Halls? Or are you talking about resolving Dream Halls and immediately casting Mizzix?

By resolving Dream Halls into Infinite following APNAP. Mizzix is cheaper you don't need Dream Halls to cheat its cost :)

[Daize]

How does Krosan Grip do nothing for Dream Halls? Or are you talking about resolving Dream Halls and immediately casting Mizzix?

EDIT: Yes of course I meant Enter the Infinite :D. Thank you for the explanation.
EDIT2: So the combo is more susceptible to Trinisphere than Sneak Attack, has less counters, how do you deal with that? Why is this better than T2 emrakul (in a great scenario) with counterbackup?

[death]

EDIT2: So the combo is more susceptible to Trinisphere than Sneak Attack, has less counters, how do you deal with that? Why is this better than T2 emrakul (in a great scenario) with counterbackup?

You just have to pass the turn after casting Dream Halls. Or if you get to 7 mana you can still go off through Mastery > EtI provided you have not used up all the SSGs. With 5 Sol-lands and 4 Petals main deck, Trinisphere could be a non-issue. (Assuming you were not able to counter with charms or FoW). T2 Emrakul can be beat by Tidespout Tyrant, Ashen Rider, KotR > Karakas, or Esnaring Bridge etc. because Show and Tell has that symmetrical effect.

[death]

http://i.imgur.com/e3uWxzJ.jpg

Quad Halls Mastery, "All Bizziness" build


4 Mizzix's Mastery
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Dream Halls
4 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
4 Force of Will
4 Izzet Charm
1 Spiraling Embers
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
3 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
8 fetch land
2 Volcanic Island

So I tried this 4x Dream Halls version and found myself loving it. Although I was going off of MM mostly, consistent turn 3-4 goldfish kill turns. Drawing into DH (without FoW) as backup plan is viable, it does make mulliganing decisions easier.

[Rook1e]

I am wondering if City of Traitors is right to play in this deck. We are rarely a bit more mana hungry than SnT e.g. so we wanna build our mana a bit more. Could Crystal Veins be better?

[death]

:2: per turn without having to sac the land prior feels like cheating. Double City on turn 3 with Petal, Island... BAM! Daze-proof Dream Halls. We're mana-hungry. SnT and Sneak Attack is cmc3-4, while Mizzix plus Dream Halls is cmc4-5.

[square_two]

I am wondering if City of Traitors is right to play in this deck. We are rarely a bit more mana hungry than SnT e.g. so we wanna build our mana a bit more. Could Crystal Veins be better?

City of Traitors allows for a turn 2 Intuition at end of opponent's turn, which is pretty powerful - and you keep the 2 mana land so that you can followup with turn 3 Mizzix or Dream Halls. There is also a lack of 1U or 1R costing spells to make good use of a single land + Cystal Vein scenario.

[Rook1e]

City of Traitors allows for a turn 2 Intuition at end of opponent's turn, which is pretty powerful - and you keep the 2 mana land so that you can followup with turn 3 Mizzix or Dream Halls. There is also a lack of 1U or 1R costing spells to make good use of a single land + Cystal Vein scenario.

True. I guess you are right. I just die a little everytime I have to sac a city :P

[Gikkman]

I took death's list to a small local event to jam a few games. I was surprised by how well the list performed (while gold fishing, the deck felt inconsistent).

A few observations:

Careful Study felt weak. I boarded them out most of the time and boarded in Pyroclasm or Challice and I never missed them. I also dislike the card disadvantage they cause.

Dream Halls feels so broken. We slam it and we win. People board in grave hate and we just laugh. I often boarded out 1 Mizzix in game 2 and 3 and just focused on going the Dream Halls rout, and used Mizzix if I got the chance or simply for value (Mizzixing an Intuition feels great).

Counters, I'd like a few more of them. Delver decks can be problematic. Maybe a singleton Misdirect or Pact of Negation or Flusterstorm main?

[square_two]

I took the "Bizziness" version out for a spin at a very small local legacy event (6 players).

The card disadvantage can be a real struggle. After looting a couple of times, you can be left with 2/3 key cards in hand and a single hand disruption against you can spell doom. I should have tried boarding in the Leylines to avoid that. Dream Halls is both awesome and annoying...it requires yet another blue card in hand in order to Dream Halls -> Enter the Infinite.

That said, the deck played well and it could be my lack of experience with this archetype that hurts it. I made a few mistakes, and could have boarded differently. Bringing in 4 Chalice of the Void completely shut down a High Tide player - I turn 1 played Lotus Petal -> Careful Study (the only one I'd left in) -> Ancient Tomb -> Chalice on 1.

I think it could be correct to shave a Spirit Guide and Dream Halls or two in order to have a couple of 1 cmc counters. Would up the blue card count, and delaying either hand disruption or whatever the opponent is doing for a turn can really put us ahead and let us sculpt our hand. I've not had any issue goldfishing or playing this past weekend where I didn't have enough free mana to play the Spiraling Embers after going off.

[.Ix]

I'm building this deck because it's weird as hell. I wonder about the card disadvantage though. Is there no space for Thirst for Knowledge (+seat of the synod? ) or Accumulated Knowledge?

Edit: FWIW I've been goldfishing it. I felt like the full 4 SSG, 4 Careful Study, and 4 Dream Halls in the Bizziness build weren't improving the deck enough, and I would often go off with no protection. I went -2 SSG -2 Dream Halls -1 Careful Study and +2 Flusterstorm +1 Pact of Negation +2 Ponder. It's much more viable to try to dig for protection with these changes. 2 Dream Halls are still in the SB if dodging graveyard hate seems necessary.

[Gikkman]

I wouldn't go under 3 Dream halls, as we want to be able to get them via Intuition. Maybe we could cut down on them main board though, and sb into 3.

As per the Careful Study, I actually considered cutting them all together for CotV. That card is so good and careful without a EtI in hand is really really bad.

[.Ix]

I'm not sure how often Intuition for Dream Halls will happen. If I have to Intuition for something it's usually ETI or Mastery. Intuition for Halls seems like a corner case to me, but I could be wrong. I do agree that Careful Study is not very good without ETI, and I agree the deck might actually be better with 4 Chalice over Careful Study.

[Gikkman]

Intuition for Halls often comes up game 2, when I know people have boarded in grave hate (unless they board into Grafdiggers). But G1 it happens very rarely.

And I am not entirely sure that Careful should become CotV, but I think they should become something else than Careful. I don't like them at all.

So if we lose 4 Careful, 2 SSG and maybe 3 Halls main, what do we take in?

Flusterstorm, it even works from under chalice.
Ponder is always good.
CotV main deck? (God I want this to work)
Splash black again for Entomb and/or Lim-Duls vault?

I still think this deck has potential, we just need the correct configuration.

[.Ix]

That's based on the All Bizziness build right?

This could work:

4 Chalice of the Void / Ponder
2 Flusterstorm
1 Pact of Negation
2 Impulse


I've also been thinking of Forbidden Alchemy, which digs pretty deep and buries ETI, but 3 mana is a lot for something not named Intuition.

[Gikkman]

Yeah, that's based on All Bizzness.

Your suggestion looks fine to me. Impulse is an interesting choice. Might work, needs testing.
Also, I'd you want Forbidden Alchemy I suggest looking at Strategic Planning instead: digs one less but costs one less.

Edit: I was convinced that Forbidden Alchemy was a sorcery, so my suggestion might be a bit of. Still, I don't think FA is a reasonable suggestion.

[.Ix]

This deck won an SCG IQ once, and now he's back in top 8:

Spells (40)

4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
1 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Intuition
4 Izzet Charm
1 Lightning Storm
2 Careful Study
3 Enter the Infinite
2 Gitaxian Probe
4 Mizzix's Mastery
4 Ponder
3 Preordain

Lands (20)

6 Island
1 Mountain
3 Ancient Tomb
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Volcanic Island

Sideboard

2 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Dream Halls
3 Chain of Vapor
2 Pyroblast
1 Conflagrate
3 Pyroclasm
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All


3 ETI and no SSG/City of Traitors makes this deck look a lot slower, but it seems to be working well for him.

[Gikkman]

Looks like that deck doesn't want to go for the kill the same turn you cast Mizzix. Otherwise the Boseiju makes no sense.
And I am no big fan of Lightningstorm. It can be needle'd out revoke'd. But apparently it's been putting up some results. The amount of Ponder and Preordain probably helps a lot.

It does look a lot like a stock Show and Tell last, with a different win-con

[.Ix]

http://mythicspoiler.com/soi/cards/piecesofthepuzzle.jpg

Well this seems better than Forbidden Alchemy. I would probably run this together with Daze.

[Gikkman]

I saw that card and immediately thought of this deck. I definitely think it might work. Sure, it's expensive but with Daze and FoW we might be able to pull it off.

[.Ix]

It's pretty interesting that this is one of the few spell-based combo decks that can actually beat Eldrazi. I haven't played it, but Chalice does next to nothing, and it can win through a Thorn faster than Eldrazi can capitalize. Has anyone played this pile recently?

[potatodavid]

I'm currently in the process of slapping this monstrosity together.

[Gikkman]

The sudden Rise of Eldrazi in legacy (pun intended) certainly helps this deck a lot. If someone else is playing CotV, that means we can board something else. The version we've been brewing here is certainly liking the Eldrazi decks, but the one that has put up results (linked in a post a while back) would be hit a bit, since it runs Ponder and Preordain.

So what can we do to adapt? I have been thinking about scrapping the Dream Halls idea in the main deck again. I rarely go for it G1 at least. Maybe leave 1 in MB, in case of an overload of Deathrite Shamans would happen from say a Shardless player or so. I would either like to main more counter magic, main more removal OR splash another color.

If more counters: I think we would like either just Counterspell, Flusterstorm or Spell Pierce. Out of those, only Counterspell helps against Eldrazi, though the other two helps against Reanimator (which is a hard matchup).
If more removal: I think we would like either Lightning Bolt, Pyroclasm, Echoing Truth or... I don't know really... Burning Wish?
If splash a color: Black for Entomb, Thoughtsieze and possibly some kind of destroy (against DRS, Canonist, Thalia or the similar)

I feel I need some input at the moment. Not sure where I want to go with this deck...

[.Ix]

I want to keep at least 3 Dream Halls in my 75. I want to keep 3 in the main, actually. Lots of DRS and Rest in Peace (SB) here. I definitely want to stick to two colors. Blood Moon is something I want to keep running for metagame reasons.

Counterspell doesn't work on creatures in up to 40% of matches against Eldrazi. Most of them run 3-4 Cavern of Souls. I would run Ingot Chewer in the side for this matchup. I don't think we should care too much about the creatures. As long as we can pull off the combo quickly after dealing with the artifacts, we should be able to race them. Blood Moon and Chewer should make this matchup positive.

I think I want a card for the 4c Loam/Maverick/DNT matchups. They are common decks here. We need to kill both Teeg and Canonist through Chalice. Pyroclasm and Izzet Charm should be enough for that, right?
I will also board in 2 Blood Moon for this match, so just 2 Pyroclasm and 1-2 Ingot Chewer should be about right.

What are the decks worst matchups? I haven't played too many games with it, to be honest.

[Gikkman]

I've had a lot of problems against Reanimator and Delves actually. Decks that overloads on permission and discard.

I'm gonna try to jam a few games with Challice main actually, and see how that performs. Because in the decks current state, it lacks edge. It doesn't combo fast enough or consistently enough to be just all-in combo. Sneak and Show does that far better than we ever will. Even OmniTell is better at just going of. So we need to find another angle, it just do the usual and jam 4 bs, 4 ponder, 4 preordain like everyone else :-P

[Gikkman]

Have jammed a few games via XMage with Chalice in main and so far I've liked it. Sometimes it is quite useless, but sometimes it is such a blowout. I'm not entirely convinced that is the right way to go, but I certainly like the idea of a combo deck that runs Chalice main.

And when it comes to matchups: Delver and Reanimator have gotten far better with Chalices main. However, DnT seams almost unbeatable. It is so hard to combo through a Thalia, as we suddenly need 6 mana to go off instead of 4. And our Petals become neigh useless, and they can revoke/needle our Spirit Guides. I tried bringing in like 3 pyroblasts against them and I still cannot win. Maybe I've had bad draws, but through all those tax effects and ports and wastelands it is very very hard to combo. Haven't encountered Maverik as of yet, but I can imagine that it can be a tough matchup.

I've been looking a little towards Dack Fayden as well. Does anyone think he could be useful? His + is perfect, but his other abilities does next to nothing for us. Man... I would so like to run Entomb

[.Ix]

Why run Pyroblast against DNT? The deck is all white.
If DNT is that bad maybe Sulfur Elemental would help. It kills all of their taxing effects through Mother of Runes and isn't even affected by their Taxes. If you want to run black for Entomb then Dread of Night will be even better.

[Gikkman]

I ment Pyroclasm X-D And yeah, Sulfur Elemental might be something. The only thing it doesn't stop is the Aethersworn Cannonist.

I'm not sure if I want to dip into a third color yet. I like being resiliant against Wasteland, so I'm not entirely sure it is worth it yet. I'd need to try the tri-color version a bunch before I can give a verdict on whether it is worth it or not.

[Gikkman]

BrewSpyTheMagicGuy just toyed around and brewed with this deck on his stream. He did a few very good innovations.

One of them was adding a singleton Deep Analysis to the deck. In many cases, we use Intuition to get a Enter the Infinite into the 'yard. In those cases, we only need to pick 2 EtI actually, and is free to pick a 3rd card. Here, we can Deep Analysis and flashback it for value. Of course, this only works if the opponent doesn't have DRS.

The other notable idea was running Volcanic Spray. It is really good against DnT, and it allows for the same shenanigan as Deep Analysis.

He also tried a build with Burning Wish in it. I'll try Burning Wish for a while. I'm not really sure why we discarded it in the first place... Come think of it, I'm not sure why we disregarded Burning Wish before. Was it to slow perhaps? But that prompts the question: Is speed really what we want to go for? To be entirely honest, I'm not sure. Maybe we want to be a more grindy and slow deck that suddenly just wins... Can we somehow make an Intuition pile that will always let us combo the next turn somehow?

[.Ix]

Those are some very, very good cards for the deck. I will definitely steal that. I don't think there's any need for Wish though. We already have 8 copies of all our combo cards with Intuition. I also don't know why or how we would want to play grindy.

[.Ix]

And here we have yet another top 8 from Darrin Lowe
http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=19927&iddeck=151778

I suppose this might be what you're looking for in a grindy build. Personal Tutor seems awkward but so decent since it sets up the kill so well.

EDIT:

I just realized that the Mastery combo can be run in this shell:

http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=11998&d=268778&f=LE

In most cases, it will cost the same amount of mana: Intuition + Mastery vs Creature + Twin. Obviously, we dodge removal and are graveyard dependent instead, which seems like a great trade to me. We can probably start with -15 Twin cards + 3 Intuition + 3 EtI +4 Mastery + 4 Lotus Petal/SSG +1 kill card.

[Gikkman]

Man, that Twin-list looks quite spicy. Maybe we can borrow that and just teak it a bit to fit our MM-EtI combo.

[.Ix]

So this is what I've been goldfishing lately. Pieces is actually pretty good, but 3 might be too many. Dream Halls is probably just not necessary maindeck, so I replaced them with Ponders. I'm not sure about the Daze count or the Izzet Charm count. The mana is okay. 6 Sol lands seem solid in this build. T1 Brainstorm returning ETI, T2 Pieces is an interesting line that sets up the combo perfectly. I haven't tested this build in even one real game yet!

1 Conflagrate
4 Mizzix's Mastery
4 Enter the Infinite
3 Ponder
1 Careful Study
3 Pieces of the Puzzle
4 Brainstorm
4 Intuition

3 Daze
3 Izzet Charm
2 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will


4 Lotus Petal
2 Simian Spirit Guide

4 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
2 Volcanic Island
1 Mountain
2 Island
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Flooded Strand

Sideboard
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Laboratory Maniac
3 Dream Halls
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Red Elemental Blast
3 Pyroclasm

[nevilshute]

Sorry to ask what I can only assume is a stupid question, but:

I cast Enter the Infinite and draw my entire deck. Among the cards drawn is Conflagrate. How do I win? The reason I'm confused is that it would appear that I need Conflagrate in my graveyard but I can't see how I reliably get it there. I can't loot as it requires drawing two cards which will lose me the game.

This deck obviously works so I'd just like to ask what I'm missing :smile:

[.Ix]

You can cast it for X=0 then flash it back.

[nevilshute]

You can cast it for X=0 then flash it back.

Many thanks. Couldn't see the forest for all the trees.

[keys]

Man, that Twin-list looks quite spicy. Maybe we can borrow that and just teak it a bit to fit our MM-EtI combo.

I was actually wondering if you could play both combos (or play a transformational sideboard...)

Something like this:

4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy/Dack Fayden/Izzet Charm (I don't know the proper split)
4 Deceiver Exarch
4 Splinter Twin
4 Mizzix Mastery
4 Enter the Infinite
1 Conflagrate
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
4 Intuition
2 Ponder
3 Lotus Petal

4 Ancient Tomb
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Volcanic Island
2 Cascade Bluffs
2 Island
1 Mountain

[Namida]

I don't know that you gain so much from having both combos in your deck that it is worth the risk of playing a deck with so many do-nothing cards that don't work well with each other. Basically, I think you will lose more games with something like Splinter Twin + Enter the Infinite in hand than you will win games that were truly unwinnable otherwise because you sidestepped your opponent's hate by finding your second combo.

[DJ_AGUILA]

Hello boys!!! I hava a legacy tournament the next weekend and i would like go with Mizzix's Mastery Combo, what deck and sideboard recommend?
I think this deck isn't know in Spain and I like a lot.
Please help me!!! I never play this deck:frown::frown:

[DJ_AGUILA]

So this is what I've been goldfishing lately. Pieces is actually pretty good, but 3 might be too many. Dream Halls is probably just not necessary maindeck, so I replaced them with Ponders. I'm not sure about the Daze count or the Izzet Charm count. The mana is okay. 6 Sol lands seem solid in this build. T1 Brainstorm returning ETI, T2 Pieces is an interesting line that sets up the combo perfectly. I haven't tested this build in even one real game yet!

1 Conflagrate
4 Mizzix's Mastery
4 Enter the Infinite
3 Ponder
1 Careful Study
3 Pieces of the Puzzle
4 Brainstorm
4 Intuition

3 Daze
3 Izzet Charm
2 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will


4 Lotus Petal
2 Simian Spirit Guide

4 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
2 Volcanic Island
1 Mountain
2 Island
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Flooded Strand

Sideboard
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Laboratory Maniac
3 Dream Halls
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Red Elemental Blast
3 Pyroclasm

Hello people!!!this is the Mizzix's combo that I built,need opinion's please, Ix!!!!

1 Flusterstorm
1 Lightning storm
1 Pact of negation
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Intuition
4 izzet Charm
1 Pieces of the Puzzle
2 gitaxian Probe
2 Careful Study
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Mizziz's Mastery
4 Ponder
4 Lotus Petal
1 Mountain
2 Misty rainforest
2 Polluted delta
2 Volcanic Island
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Scalding Tarn
6 Island
SIDEBOARD
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Dream Halls
2 Pyroclasm
2 Graffdigger's Cage
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Pyroblast

Do you like the deck?, The sideboard is rubish? please.... I have a tournament this weekend, and I like go with the power of mizzix

[.Ix]

Your list seems fine, but 4 izzet charm + 2 careful study seems like it's s too many. Also, I've come to realize that a maindeck way to kill Deathrite Shaman and Thalias might be necessary. Firestorm could be great in that spot, but maybe Pyroclasm is just better. I'm NOT an expert with this deck, though. I still haven't played it in a tournament.

[DJ_AGUILA]

Your list seems fine, but 4 izzet charm + 2 careful study seems like it's s too many. Also, I've come to realize that a maindeck way to kill Deathrite Shaman and Thalias might be necessary. Firestorm could be great in that spot, but maybe Pyroclasm is just better. I'm NOT an expert with this deck, though. I still haven't played it in a tournament.

Thanks Ix, I think one careful study out for one pyroclasm the main, and in the sideboard, ¿Do you like firestorm or izzet staticaster?,the side has three dream halls :smile:

[Secretly.A.Bee]

4 Izzet Charm IS a way to kill DRS maindeck...

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

[.Ix]

Yeah I tried to post that earlier, my internet is so bad right now that even posting in forums is painful.

[DJ_AGUILA]

Yeah I tried to post that earlier, my internet is so bad right now that even posting in forums is painful.

There are a new card that can be played in the sideboard, "Madcap experiment", with two biggest criature artifact (platinum emperium), can be interesting combo.


http://magiccards.info/scans/en/kld/122.jpg

[DJ_AGUILA]

Yeah I tried to post that earlier, my internet is so bad right now that even posting in forums is painful.

The finish question; ¿Why Darren Lowe in the last sideboard play two Jace the Mind Sculptor and in other sideboard play one Boiseju?

Do you think is better two Jace than one Boiseju versus Control decks (miracle, Blade Control, team america,..)?

Somebody play personal tutor the main to find pyroclasm, enter the infinite or Mizzix?

Thanks for your answer, forever Mizzix!!!!

[Poron]

Miracle will never interact with Mizzix's but only with EtI which is also blue and can be red blasted.

Boseiju makes no sense in this deck unless you are casting Burning Wish or other non-finisher with it.

Boseiju makes sense if you are renimating an uncounterable instant or sorcery

[DJ_AGUILA]

Miracle will never interact with Mizzix's but only with EtI which is also blue and can be red blasted.

Boseiju makes no sense in this deck unless you are casting Burning Wish or other non-finisher with it.

Boseiju makes sense if you are renimating an uncounterable instant or sorcery

Thanks Poron, ¿do you play mizzix combo?, in Spain this deck never play it and I think this deck is good versus Eldrazi deck's, and agro with sideboard (pyroclasm) and is a surprise!!!!

[DJ_AGUILA]

Hello people,with DRS banned,the deck can be play again ¿correct? Only the gitaxian banned :mad:,come on people, need advice with the deck, combo returns!!!