Shardless Natural Order - Shardless with a combo win

[Captain Hammer]

When discussing ways to abuse Natural Order, it quickly became apparent that Shardless is the best shell for Natural Order. Liliana and Brainstorm are both great ways to get rid of a Progenitus in your hand so the deck would want to play 4 of each. The rest of the list fell into place automatically.

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
2 Bayou
2 Underground Sea
2 Swamp
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Tropical Island
1 Dryad Arbor

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
1 Verdurous Gearhulk
1 Progenitus

4 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Hymn to Tourach or Force of Will

2 Ponder
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Natural Order

What do you think?

[KobeBryan]

When discussing ways to abuse Natural Order, it quickly became apparent that Shardless is the best shell for Natural Order. Liliana and Brainstorm are both great ways to get rid of a Progenitus in your hand so the deck would want to play 4 of each. The rest of the list fell into place automatically.

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
2 Bayou
2 Underground Sea
2 Swamp
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Tropical Island
1 Dryad Arbor

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
1 Verdurous Gearhulk
1 Progenitus

4 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Hymn to Tourach or Force of Will

2 Ponder
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Natural Order

What do you think?

I dropped 1 NO and 1 lily to up the blue count to 19 in my list.

[Captain Hammer]

The one change I am strongly considering is to cut the Gearhulk to play a single Leovold, Emissary of Trest. This isn't a bad card to NO up in you can't get rid of a Progenitus stuck in your hand, and it also ups the blue count to 20.


I dropped 1 NO and 1 lily to up the blue count to 19 in my list.

The blue count in my list is already at 19. NO and Lily are both too strong in the list to cut IMO. However you are welcome to make those cuts to play 2 Hymn to Tourach alongside 4 FoW if you want to play both cards.

[KobeBryan]

The one change I am strongly considering is to cut the Gearhulk to play a single Leovold, Emissary of Trest. This isn't a bad card to NO up in you can't get rid of a Progenitus stuck in your hand, and it also ups the blue count to 20.



The blue count in my list is already at 19. NO and Lily are both too strong in the list to cut IMO. However you are welcome to make those cuts to play 2 Hymn to Tourach alongside 4 FoW if you want to play both cards.

I would make 2 cuts for thoughtseize in the main. Then make hymn to the side.

[Captain Hammer]

I would make 2 cuts for thoughtseize in the main. Then make hymn to the side.

That makes sense. Thoughtseize is an amazing card. I opted for Hymn instead because almost every Shardless list I've run into play 3-4 Hymn and 0-1 Thoughtseize so I figured Hymn is the superior option. But that may not be the case for this build since Thoughtseize does a better job of clearing the path for your combo.

So this is what you're trying?

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
2 Bayou
2 Underground Sea
2 Swamp
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Tropical Island
1 Dryad Arbor

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
1 Leovold or Gearhulk
1 Progenitus

4 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Force of Will

2 Ponder
2 Thoughtseize
3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Natural Order

List looks rocksolid.

[KobeBryan]

3 Natural Order
3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Thoughtseize
4 Shardless Agent
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Progenitus
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Ponder
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Bayou
2 Underground Sea
2 Swamp
1 Island
1 Forest
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Tropical Island
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Polluted Delta

With this deck, I am not scared of any fair decks. What i want is to bring in something that would drastically beat miracles. Maybe 7-8 cards for miracles. 4 more cards for combo. then tax the elves and the dnt matchups with the remainder 2-3 cards.

[ashent]

This is the list I've been working on. Rather than keep the slower/clunkier parts of Shardless like the full playset of AV and Shardless Agent, JTMS, or a bunch of Lili's and Hymns, I cut and shaved the numbers to fit 3 Green Sun's and 3 Natural Orders. The list also leans on Leovold being a powerful GSZ target and many Tarmogoyfs cluttering up the ground until you NO for Progenitus.

2 Bayou
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Dryad Arbor
3 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Thoughtseize
2 Ponder
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Shardless Agent
1 Liliana of the Veil
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
3 Natural Order
4 Force of Will
1 Progenitus

[Whitefaces]

Shardless Agent and GSZ are a big nonbo together.

[Echelon]

So... How is this an improvement over the existing NO deck..? It's at least a full turn (if not more) slower at casting NO and doesn't win the turn NO is cast - it still takes you at least 2 more turns to close the game. This deck folds even harder to NO decks' biggest weakness - Terminus, since it gives your opponent a lot more time to find it.

It also relies heavily on duals, i.e. you get blown out by Wasteland. At least run 2 basic Forests so you can reliably get the GG you need.

[Whitefaces]

So... How is this an improvement over the existing NO deck..? It's at least a full turn (if not more) slower at casting NO and doesn't win the turn NO is cast - it still takes you at least 2 more turns to close the game. This deck folds even harder to NO decks' biggest weakness - Terminus, since it gives your opponent a lot more time to find it.

It also relies heavily on duals, i.e. you get blown out by Wasteland. At least run 2 basic Forests so you can reliably get the GG you need.

It's not a NO deck, it's a Shardless deck with NO. And not everything playing NO has to be Elves, or an improvement on it. Let people play what they want, not everything has to be top tier, people still play Nic Fit because it's fun. There's no doubt NO is better in Elves, but this deck has other strengths Elves doesn't.

For one it's not as weak to Terminus as Elves is, Progenitus or not, as the card advantage from Visions, Agent etc means it won't have to overextend. It's not as weak to sweepers full stop. I've experimented with NO over Jaces in Shardless during the Treasure Cruise era since Bolts and Blasts were everywhere and it did OK.

And the second Forest would be terrible in the deck, clearly you've not played Shardless before.

[Echelon]

It's not a NO deck, it's a Shardless deck with NO. And not everything playing NO has to be Elves, or an improvement on it. Let people play what they want, not everything has to be top tier, people still play Nic Fit because it's fun. There's no doubt NO is better in Elves, but this deck has other strengths Elves doesn't.

For one it's not as weak to Terminus as Elves is, Progenitus or not, as the card advantage from Visions, Agent etc means it won't have to overextend. It's not as weak to sweepers full stop. I've experimented with NO over Jaces in Shardless during the Treasure Cruise era since Bolts and Blasts were everywhere and it did OK.

And the second Forest would be terrible in the deck, clearly you've not played Shardless before.

Yes, b/c Elves! doesn't have CA engines in Glimpse of Nature or Elvish Visionary + Wirewood Symbiote or anything.

You seem confused - do you want to be a regular Shardless deck or a deck that can cast NO..?

[Whitefaces]

Yes, b/c Elves! doesn't have CA engines in Glimpse of Nature or Elvish Visionary + Wirewood Symbiote or anything.

You seem confused - do you want to be a regular Shardless deck or a deck that can cast NO..?

I know those CA engines exist, the deck is still weaker to Miracles than Shardless is.

The latter? I don't get your point, the OP is putting NO in a Shardless shell.

[Echelon]

The latter? I don't get your point, the OP is putting NO in a Shardless shell.

Clearly you've not played NO before :wink:

[Whitefaces]

Clearly you've not played NO before :wink:

:confused:


I've experimented with NO...

And I've played Elves before.

I get what you were implying, and I've already agreed with you, NO is better in Elves. Doesn't invalidate any other deck playing NO.

[CptHaddock]

So... How is this an improvement over the existing NO deck..? It's at least a full turn (if not more) slower at casting NO and doesn't win the turn NO is cast - it still takes you at least 2 more turns to close the game. This deck folds even harder to NO decks' biggest weakness - Terminus, since it gives your opponent a lot more time to find it.

It also relies heavily on duals, i.e. you get blown out by Wasteland. At least run 2 basic Forests so you can reliably get the GG you need.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0la5DBtOVNI

[Whitefaces]

Thank you for perfectly articulating how I feel!

[ironclad8690]

I don't think Shardless and GSZ are actually a nonbo in this deck, because it's a free dryad arbor (as long as you haven't gotten it yet). Maybe putting 2 Arbors like Elves so that you can more consistently make use of the cascade into GSZ line, or dropping the GSZ count.

[mistercakes]

maybe i don't play enough shardless, but what matchups are shardless not doing well in that a 4cc sorcery is going to help? i'm not opposed to new ideas, i am just looking for some rational behind this.

[Echelon]

@CptHaddock: I lol'd!

It's not that I don't like it though - I just don't see how it's an improvement over regular Shardless. I mean, you might just as well cut out the middle man and play a bunch of TNN. UU is less awkward than GG, 3 mana is easier to get to than 4 and you can always pitch TNN to FoW.

[Asthereal]

I played Natural Order midrange decks for quite some time, and I found the following to be true:
1. You want your deck to work fine both with Natural Order (plan A) and without (plan B, which usually means Goyf beatdown).
2. Adding a third plan makes one of the following worse:
-Natural Order plan
-Plan B
-Overall consistency

I will expand on nr. 2.
Adding Liliana and Hymn to Tourach means needing BB reliably. Natural Order already makes you need GG, and we obviously need enough blue mana to be able to cast cantrips and the like. Deathrite tends to get killed on sight, so we will need to be able to cast all our stuff, requiring BB, GG and U (preferably UU) from lands. If we try this from basic lands, we're not going to get there. So using Hymn and Lily presses us towards a non-basic only mana base. Besides, adding additional black cards means we have to cut down on blue cards (making FoW worse) or green guys (making Natural Order worse).

Same counts for almost every other plan C you can add. StoneBlade ideas hurt the blue count and don't add to the green creature count for Natural Order, not to mention Proggie being unequippable.

Fun fact is: Shardless Agent is green, so it's a fine choice a a sca outlet for Natural Order. It's also blue, so it ups the blue count for FoW. Ancestral Vision also helps up the blue count. Unfortunately, almost everything else Shardless BUG plays does not improve a Natural Order deck. I mentioned Hymn and Lily, but there's also other support cards like Wasteland (doesn't provide coloured mana), Creeping Tar Pit doesn't help with mana accelleration and Baleful Strix doesn't aid plans A and B in any way. There are also a few minor nonbo's, though they aren't so problematic: Shardless into Zenith isn't ideal and Zenith for Shardless doesn't trigger the cascade.

I've tried adding Shardless Agent to my Natural Order deck, and never really got it to work, but if you really want to, I'd suggest leaving behind any cards that hurt the Natural Order plan or the blue count for FoW. Perhaps something like this could work:

1 Dryad Arbor
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
3 Vendilion Clique
1 Progenitus /17

4 Brainstorm
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Force of Will
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Thoughtseize
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Natural Order /25

3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Forest
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Polluted Delta /18

Blue count for Force is somewhat low but still more or less okay.
There are plenty green creatures to sac to Natural Order.
The mana colours should be okay with this base.

[Captain Hammer]

Any comparisons between TNN and Progenitus are misguided. Progentius deal more than 3 times as much damage as TNN for just a single mana more than TNN costs. It's a two turn clock rather than a six turn clock. It creates a far bigger change in the board state and lets you win many games that you simply would be unable to win with TNN.


I played Natural Order midrange decks for quite some time, and I found the following to be true:
1. You want your deck to work fine both with Natural Order (plan A) and without (plan B, which usually means Goyf beatdown).
2. Adding a third plan makes one of the following worse:
-Natural Order plan
-Plan B
-Overall consistency

I will expand on nr. 2.
Adding Liliana and Hymn to Tourach means needing BB reliably. Natural Order already makes you need GG, and we obviously need enough blue mana to be able to cast cantrips and the like. Deathrite tends to get killed on sight, so we will need to be able to cast all our stuff, requiring BB, GG and U (preferably UU) from lands. If we try this from basic lands, we're not going to get there. So using Hymn and Lily presses us towards a non-basic only mana base. Besides, adding additional black cards means we have to cut down on blue cards (making FoW worse) or green guys (making Natural Order worse).

Same counts for almost every other plan C you can add. StoneBlade ideas hurt the blue count and don't add to the green creature count for Natural Order, not to mention Proggie being unequippable.

Fun fact is: Shardless Agent is green, so it's a fine choice a a sca outlet for Natural Order. It's also blue, so it ups the blue count for FoW. Ancestral Vision also helps up the blue count. Unfortunately, almost everything else Shardless BUG plays does not improve a Natural Order deck. I mentioned Hymn and Lily, but there's also other support cards like Wasteland (doesn't provide coloured mana), Creeping Tar Pit doesn't help with mana accelleration and Baleful Strix doesn't aid plans A and B in any way. There are also a few minor nonbo's, though they aren't so problematic: Shardless into Zenith isn't ideal and Zenith for Shardless doesn't trigger the cascade.

I've tried adding Shardless Agent to my Natural Order deck, and never really got it to work, but if you really want to, I'd suggest leaving behind any cards that hurt the Natural Order plan or the blue count for FoW. Perhaps something like this could work:

1 Dryad Arbor
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
3 Vendilion Clique
1 Progenitus /17

4 Brainstorm
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Force of Will
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Thoughtseize
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Natural Order /25

3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Forest
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Polluted Delta /18

Blue count for Force is somewhat low but still more or less okay.
There are plenty green creatures to sac to Natural Order.
The mana colours should be okay with this base.

That list looks really solid. Great post. One question, do you think the list has enough ways to shuffle a drawn Progenitus back into the deck that it can get away with playing only 1 Progenitus maindeck and nothing else. I count Brainstorm, Shardless -> Brainstorm and if you're really really desperate, Thoughtseize but I would almost never recommend doing that, and that's pretty much it.

4 Liliana was great because it increases the number of ways to get rid of a drawn Progenitus beyond just Brainstorm. Without maindeck Liliana, I would be tempted to play something like Veradous Gearhulk or a second Progenitus (you can always pitch it to FoW/MisD).

I think the better route to stick with just a single Progenitus but to forego Hymn like you suggested and still play Liliana. It's an amazing card in it's own right, serving as removal when needed as well, and BB and GG is not an issue by turn 3 and 4 respectively in a deck with duals, fetches and 4 Deathrites. You're already splashing black, adding a 1BB co=c card isn't going to kill you when you have Deathrite helping out.

For the list you posted, I would at the very least make the following change...
-3 Vendilion Clique
+2 Lilana of the Veil
+1 Leovold (You can't not play Leovold if you're playing GSZ imo).

However I would personally play 3 Liliana. Below is my list...

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
2 Bayou
2 Underground Sea
2 Swamp
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Tropical Island
1 Dryad Arbor

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Shardless Agent
3 Tarmogoyf
1 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Tasigur
1 Progenitus

4 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Force of Will

3 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Natural Order

I am currently debating cutting the 3rd GSZ to play the 4th Liliana or the 4th Goyf or possibly an Eternal Witness when you're desperate to reuse your Abrupt Decay or cast a Lili to deal with a big threat.

[Captain Hammer]

With Terminus on the decline (due to Top's ban), Progenitus became an absurdly good threat again. I think the time is ripe to look in this direction.