Chainsmoker

[Vacrix]

Chain of Smog and Witherbloom Apprentice is the combo.

https://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=12448&type=card https://www.cardkingdom.com/images/magic-the-gathering/strixhaven-school-of-mages/witherbloom-apprentice-76857-medium.jpg

Chain of Smog can be copied any number of times when you target yourself. Magecraft triggers for each time you copy the Chain of Smog.

Vulnerable to removal. Both pieces cost 2 means Spell Snare is good.

Here's a super-rough SI shell of it. Summoner's Pact can be a mana source or a win condition seems quite strong.

4 Witherbloom Apprentice
4 Chain of Smog

4 Ad Nauseam
4 Wishclaw Talsiman

4 Summoner's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide

4 Hope of Ghirapur

4 Dark Ritual
4 Culling the Weak

4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Mox Opal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

1 Dryad Arbor
3 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs




Entomb and EoE is another route, which leads to reanimation lines for Witherbloom Apprentice. Diabolic Intent could be good with Summoner's Pact.

[Barook]

I like the idea of Pact as both Apprentice tutor and mana generator via ESG.

Dumb question: What's the role of Ad Nauseam here? You don't need to generate storm, you have compact 2-card combo that deals infinite damage. I would rather be concerned how you protect the combo aside from Hope of Ghirapur since going off with Smog will leave you hellbent.

[Vacrix]

The SI shell might not be optimal for the combo itself, but it makes absurd amounts of mana to make Ad Nauseam castable early.

Scheming Symmetry (perhaps with cantrips like Street Wraith), Diabolic Intent, and Entomb could fetch out a piece of the combo.

EDIT:
Responding with Weather the Storm with Witherbloom Apprentice in play puts storm far out of kill range, or can kill the storm player. The combo vs. storm matchup could be strong in game 2/3.

[Lexi]

I really think you want silence effects in this type of combo deck. Imagine you're starting to go off and your opponent counters chain of smog after you've discarded your whole hand. There's virtually no recovering. I also noticed your shell doesn't include thoughtseize which seems very very questionable. If you decide to run blue you can have up to 3 different uncounterable tutors for either piece of the combo the combo in Muddle the mixture, Dimir infiltrator and shred memory.

[FTW]

4xAd Nauseam seems bad in general and especially unnecessary here.

Because this is an A+B combo, not a critical mass combo (like Storm), you don't even need to play such an all-in SI-type shell. You can just play good cards. You don't even need something like Ad Naus or the draw 4s to draw a lot of cards. You just need ways to find and protect it. Even better if you can do it vs a disruptive opponent.

In an SI shell you probably want cards like Defense Grid and Veil of Summer (which also makes a fair Chain of Smog @ opponent a viable play). You can run direct tutors like Diabolic Intent or Scheming Symmetry with cantrips. But these seem like high variance cards.

You could also just play Xerox. Xerox works well for A+B combos.



//Combo: 8
4 Chain of Smog
4 Witherbloom Apprentice

//Fast Mana: 8
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal

//Spells: 28
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Thoughtseize
3 Veil of Summer
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Lim-Dul's Vault

//Lands: 16
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest


Potential sideboard cards:
Defense Grid
Flusterstorm
Assassin's Trophy
Brazen Borrower
Chain of Vapor
4th Decay
4th Veil

Edited to add Veil back in
That's 14 draw fixing + 14 interaction slots

[kirkusjones]

4xAd Nauseam seems bad in general and especially unnecessary here.

Because this is an A+B combo, not a critical mass combo (like Storm), you don't even need to play such an all-in SI-type shell. You can just play good cards. You don't even need something like Ad Naus or the draw 4s to draw a lot of cards. You just need ways to find and protect it. Even better if you can do it vs a disruptive opponent.

In an SI shell you probably want cards like Defense Grid and Silence (NOT Veil of Summer because Hexproof from Black breaks the combo!!!). You can run direct tutors like Diabolic Intent or Scheming Symmetry with cantrips. But these seem like high variance cards.

You could also just play Xerox. Xerox works well for A+B combos.



//Combo: 8
4 Chain of Smog
4 Witherbloom Apprentice

//Fast Mana: 8
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal

//Spells: 28
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Thoughtseize
3 Hymn to Tourach
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Lim-Dul's Vault

//Lands: 16
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp


How does Veil of Summer break the combo? Hexproof only prevents you from being targeted by the opponent's spells and abilities, not your own.

[FTW]

How does Veil of Summer break the combo? Hexproof only prevents you from being targeted by the opponent's spells and abilities, not your own.

Isn't the copy of Chain of Smog controlled by your opponent?

Edit: Oh, you're targetting yourself not chaining it back and forth. Nevermind.

[kombatkiwi]

You could also just play a deck like jund with a combo plan B

4 Hexdrinker
4 Tarmogoyf
4 New GB 2/2 Combo Piece

4 Chain of Smog
4 Thoughtseize
X Removal Spells

etc (No reason why this couldn't be BUG with all the cantrips etc)

It might be worth waiting until the full set is spoiled because there is potentially a bunch of cards with that keyword and they all combo with chain of smog (like the white 1drop for example)

[Barook]

About a potential BUG shell, here my summed up thoughts from the spoiler thread.


People have died to DRS drain before. While those two cards aren't comparable, it should still be able to get quite the lifeswing going in a Xerox shell, especially in multiples. It just happens to have the "Oops, I win" factor with Chain of Smog.

I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually go towards a BUG shell that runs the BG and UG Apprentice, Uro, GSZ, a bunch of cantrips, Flusterstorm, some copies of Raven's Crime, some copies of Loam and 4x Chain of Smog. You can use the UG one + Crime to make the opponent empty-handed before you go off. Or you just grind your opponent into the dust with repeated Raven's Crime while BG Mages drain your opponents to death.

Some additional thoughts:
The more I think about it, the more I like adding some Entomb/Snapcaster/Reanimate (or Unearth?) package to said deck. Entomb fetches Raven's Crime, Loam, Uro, random reanimation or Snapcaster targets. Snapcaster is random value and just dumb with Reanimate. You could even throw in a single Griselbrand for shit and giggles as Entomb target.

Raven's Crime with Loam or UG Mage can also be used to build up Storm count before targeting the last one with Flusterstorm for a massive Magecraft trigger fireworks. Lots of synergies going on here.
Considering it's just an A+B combo, just using it in a normal shell might be better instead of structuring an entire deck just around a one-trick pony.

[kinda]

I think I like spoils of the Vault over ad n 2-4. In the quick combo version.

I'd like to try the nic fit version though:


4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Witherbloom Apprentice
3 Arena Rector
1 Professor Onyx
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dagon
1 Liliana, Dreadhorde General
3 Chain of Smog
2 Veteran Explorer
1 Xantid Swarm
1 Collector Ouphe
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Questing Beast
1 Elder Gargaroth
1 Tarmogoyf
1 Knight of Reliquary
1 Hexdrinker
1 Sylvan Library
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize

2 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Plains
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
2 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou
1 Scrubland
2 Savannah
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Karakas
1 Dryad Arbor

4 Leyline of the void
3 Assassin's Trophy
2 Carpet of Flowers
3 Plague Engineer
1 Thoughtseize
2 Unmask

[kombatkiwi]

The very awkward thing about this gameplan is that if your opponent has Counterspell / Plow then they let you loop Smog like 3 times before stopping you, so not only did your combo fail to kill but you also One with Nothinged yourself

Another option might be to jam the combo into the Jund Phoenix deck because you can generate a lot of pings naturally with Looting / Land Grant / Therapy / Ritual etc to make the apprentice kind of threatening by itself, and you also are okay using Chain of Smog in a "fair" way because if your opponent redirects it back at you then you should have good stuff to discard. (Unfortunately copying chain of smog doesn't count as casting a spell for arclight phoenix). Maybe could be okay as like a plan B to juke gy hate or something

[FTW]

About a potential BUG shell, here my summed up thoughts from the spoiler thread.

Considering it's just an A+B combo, just using it in a normal shell might be better instead of structuring an entire deck just around a one-trick pony.

Yeah, I agree with you. BUG seems the most competitively viable. The backup plan of playing it as a fair creature and cantrip-draining the opponent is real in grindy games. There's also the line of aggro-Chaining the opponent. If they send it back, you can always Veil their 1st or 2nd copy to stop it. Both cards have potential use outside of the combo. They just happen to combine into "I win" if you have 5 mana to cast both pieces with Veil/Thoughtseize.

Maybe it's better to play Ice-Fang Coatl, Snapcaster Mage and Uro over combo cheese like Lim-Dul's Vault and Dark Ritual. I think the mana acceleration will help though because you need so much mana in 1 turn to go off. Needs some testing.


Edit: Fair BUG deck

//Creatures: 10
4 Baleful Strix
4 Witherbloom Apprentice
1 Quandrix Apprentice
1 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath

//Spells: 30
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Thoughtseize
2 Veil of Summer
2 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Chain of Smog
3 Abrupt Decay

//Lands: 20
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
2 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Snow-Covered Swamp

//Sideboard: 15
2 Veil of Summer
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Assassin's Trophy
1 Fatal Push
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Brazen Borrower
2 Plague Engineer
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
1 Collector Ouphe
1 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath


Even in a fair shell, I think you want to be playing all 12 cantrips and at least 27 spells to be getting full value of the fair side of magicraft.
The SB can either protect the combo or board into more fair bodies and interaction.

[Mr. Safety]

I think you might be able to tighten this a little more by going -2 Preordain, +2 interaction. Preordain is the weakest of the cantrips, and as long as the card you are replacing is blue you would still have 22 blue cards to make Force reliable. Drown in the Loch, maindeck Borrower, maindeck Leovold, or even something like Narset, Parter of Veils. I get that a bunch of cheap cantrips is really good with Witherbloom Apprentice, I just enjoy the mid-range alternative plan.

[chunderbucket]

I feel any deck relying on this combo has to use Clever Luminancer (http://www.magicspoiler.com/mtg-spoiler/leonin-lightscribe/) and maybe Leonin Lightscribe (http://www.magicspoiler.com/mtg-spoiler/leonin-lightscribe/). Complement with a bunch of cantrips and countermagic and you've got a deck.

4 Clever Luminancer
4 Witherbloom Apprentice
4 Leonin Lightscribe

4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
2 Flusterstorm
2 Veil of Summer
2 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Chain of Smog
3 Abrupt Decay

//Lands: 20
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
2 Tundra
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Plains

The best part about this deck is that you don't actually need to look for the combo, you just keep chaining cantrips to keep the beatdown going and sometimes you just win out of nowhere.

[Gruul]

In green, instead of the cat, you have Dragonsguard Elite, it gets counters and is GSZ-able.

[Vacrix]

https://cdn1.mtggoldfish.com/images/h/Sedgemoor-Witch-STX-672.jpg

This looks quite good. Doesn't quite get there as quickly as Witherbloom Apprentice. Almost like Empty the Warrens as a creature in a deck like storm, and Young Pyromancer in a deck like control.

I'm still leaning toward combo with cards this cheap, and in GB where a range of potential fast mana sources are quite good, Carpet of Flowers is available in the board, and protection in green has never been better (2 veils, or hope/swarm). Chain of Smog and Witherbloom Apprentice is a mere GBBB. I'd just play Painter/Servant or something if I wanted to play a cheap combo inside a control shell. Summoner's Pact finds part of this combo, but that could be a mana source. Its a free green ritual at 0, initial mana source, or a free combo piece. If you play your cards right and set up, Summoner's Pact isn't bad at all. Infernal Tutor would be just as bad a card if you don't play it well. Veil of Summer helps a lot when one wants to protect a creature based combo. I think maindeck Xantid Swarm/Hope sets up in quite the position to slow play when thats preferred. Belcher is a one trick pony because the card costs 7 to play and activate. This costs 4 mana at once, perhaps at the least 2 mana, and 2 turns. Bayou, Chrome Mox, Apprentice pass. Chain of Smog next turn. That considered, Daze and Spell Pierce appear rather underwhelming.

Perhaps the control lists with Chain of Smog as a win con will prefer Sedgemoor Witch as a Young Pyromancer when it can also combo win with Chain of Smog.

EDIT:
There's something strangely satisfying about the metaphor Chainsmoker.

'No sir, I did not offer you a cigarette. Yes, second hand smoke is far more dangerous than smoking a cigarette. No I won't stop blowing it in your face. I think I'll have another.'

[FTW]

Witch looks much better for the fair plan than the combo plan. It does well with Cabal Therapy.

For example, this Jund tokens version


//Creatures: 14
4 Witherbloom Apprentice
4 Dragonsguard Elite
3 Young Pyromancer
3 Sedgemoor Witch

//Spells: 29
4 Once Upon A Time
4 Abundant Harvest
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
3 Faithless Looting
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Chain of Smog

//Lands: 17
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Bayou
2 Badlands
2 Taiga
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Forest

//Sideboard: 15
3 Veil of Summer
2 Pyroblast
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Cling to Dust
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Assassin's Trophy
1 Pithing Needle
2 Liliana's Triumph


It can't assemble the combo very consistently, but it can generate permanent fair value from casting spells via the token makers and the +1/+1 counters. It also has a significant amount of fair interaction.

[Barook]

If you're already playing red, why not Burning Wish? Can find you Chain, discard or utility. That should also increase the consistency of the combo since you have 7 ways to access Smoke at a reasonable cost instead of 4.

[kombatkiwi]

If you're already playing red, why not Burning Wish? Can find you Chain, discard or utility. That should also increase the consistency of the combo since you have 7 ways to access Smoke at a reasonable cost instead of 4.

Yeah I think this is a good idea if you are playing 8+ of the creature enablers.
I had the idea on discord to jam this in with the Phoenix shell

4 Ritual
4 Sedgemoor Witch
4 Phoenix
1 Ox of Agonas

4 Dark Ritual
4 Burning W
4 Looting
4 Land Grant
4 Therapy
3 Buried Alive
X Thoughtseize
X Lightning bolt
+ Lands

Sb:
1 Smog
1 Buried Alive
1 Maelstrom Pulse or whatever
1 zero cost sorcery like a unmask or pulverize or something so you can use burning wish to return phoenix if you're choked on mana (maybe reverent silence as the anti rip/leyline)
etc

I like the turn 1 ritual into witch option but if you wanted you could try a similar list but cut the phoenix/buried/rituals plan and play more copies of the Smog + Enablers maindeck
You probably want to have a roughly similar amount of each side of the combo (like I probably wouldn't play 4 witherbloom + 4 dragonsguard + 3 witch, even with 3 smog + 4 wish it seems like too many)
Edit:
The problem with this approach is that without the Phoenix to take advantage of the graveyard you aren't really getting a very good benefit from playing faithless looting and therefore you should probably be a blue deck with brainstorm etc

So for example you could play like a grixis version of Whitefaces of one mind mentor deck

Creatures (9)
3 Baleful Strix 3.18 tix
3 Snapcaster Mage 14.94 tix
3 Monastery Mentor 30.45 tix
Planeswalkers (3)
2 Teferi, Time Raveler 74.42 tix
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 11.91 tix
Spells (28)
4 Brainstorm 0.20 tix
1 Fatal Push 0.44 tix
2 Inquisition of Kozilek 9.36 tix
4 Ponder 0.08 tix
4 Swords to Plowshares 0.84 tix
2 Unearth 0.08 tix
2 Hymn to Tourach 0.24 tix
2 Force of Negation 203.74 tix
3 Of One Mind 0.03 tix
1 Vindicate 0.02 tix
3 Force of Will 167.25 tix
Lands (20)
4 Flooded Strand 31.72 tix
2 Island 0.00 tix
2 Marsh Flats 8.42 tix
1 Plains 0.00 tix
4 Polluted Delta 63.92 tix
2 Scrubland 3.92 tix
1 Swamp 0.00 tix
2 Tundra 8.46 tix
2 Underground Sea 31.70 tix
Sideboard (15)
1 Fatal Push 0.44 tix
2 Surgical Extraction 32.80 tix
2 Disenchant 0.02 tix
1 Hymn to Tourach 0.12 tix
4 Meddling Mage 1.52 tix
1 Hullbreacher 93.27 tix
1 Narset, Parter of Veils 0.05 tix
3 Plague Engineer 32.40 tix
75 Cards Total


So for example
Mentor -> Sedgemoor Witch (just like mentor it's a human that makes non-human tokens)
Plow -> Bolt
Vindicate -> Kolaghans Command
Teferi or etc -> Burning Wish

Obviously it's not clear that this is an improvement over the esper list in any way (Monks > Pests, Plow > Bolt probably even with the slightly aggro angle that your black mentor lavaspikes the opp if they try to kill it, in the coverage of the deck in podcasts etc Callum rates Teferi pretty highly I think and there's also a pretty strong argument to be made that burning wish is just a shit card in a fair deck) but it's another possible route to take if you want to smog people

[FTW]

If you're already playing red, why not Burning Wish? Can find you Chain, discard or utility. That should also increase the consistency of the combo since you have 7 ways to access Smoke at a reasonable cost instead of 4.

Good point. Burning Wish could really boost the combo plan while also allowing fair options.


//Creatures: 14
4 Witherbloom Apprentice
4 Dragonsguard Elite
3 Young Pyromancer
3 Sedgemoor Witch

//Spells: 29
4 Once Upon A Time
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
4 Burning Wish
3 Chain of Smog
3 Abrupt Decay

//Lands: 17
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Bayou
2 Badlands
2 Taiga
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Forest

//Wishboard: 6
1 Chain of Smog
1 Massacre
1 Pulverize
1 Unmask
1 Hull Breach
1 Dreadbore

//Sideboard: 9
3 Veil of Summer
2 Cling to Dust
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Liliana's Triumph


The maindeck discard & Decays should already answer a lot.

Tentative SB slots:
Chain - 7 copies of combo piece now

Massacre - D&T, Maverick, Mentor, white Magecraft decks

Pulverize - Chalice decks

Unmask - to discard the same turn for free. SBing can put Thoughtseize or Therapy in the wishboard too.

Hull Breach - enchantments or artifact without losing lands, especially vs Blood Moon & B2B

Dreadbore - removal

Veil - proactive shield vs counters & removal on Magecraft creature

Surgical - 0cmc magecraft triggering gravehate, since this deck is slower than Reanimator & Hogaak

Cling - gravehate and 1cmc cantrip!! maybe maindeckable

Triumph - vs Depths & SnT, which are also faster

[Barook]

So a BUG List 5-0'd on MODO (https://twitter.com/mopanda_mtg/status/1385246810667511823/photo/1)

Looks like the Witch is actually good enough, after all.