'Mississippi River' (All In Creativity Technique Combo) [Archive]

Rationalist

09-10-2022, 03:02 PM

[EDIT: Now Available on MTGO]

The Deck (as seen in Rounds 1 and 7 below):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kuAATQjRM0

The Exact List Mark Played in the Video Above:

4x Boarding Party
4x Creative Technique
4x Maelstrom Wanderer
3x Aurora Phoenix
2x Sweet-Gum Recluse
2x Let the Galaxy Burn
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4x Gemstone Cavern
4x Sandstone Needle
4x Saprazzan Skerry
4x Hickory Woodlot
4x Ancient Tomb
4x City of Traitors
4x Dwarven Ruin
4x Otawara, Soaring City
3x Crystal Vein
3x Sulfur Vent
1x Havenwood Battleground
1x Mountain

Sideboard:

4x Throes of Chaos
4x Pyrokinesis
3x Mirrorshell Crab
2x Tibalt's Trickery
1x Maddening Hex
1x Aeve, Progenitor Ooze

Whatever I am personally playing at this moment in time: Mississippi River Moxfield Link (https://www.moxfield.com/decks/fQT_IAch00iXji-RJxBYiw)

Deck Description:

The basic premise of this deck is that the chain of Cascader -> Creative Technique -> Cascader -> Creative Technique is very difficult to interrupt and has an overwhelming chance of wining you the game on the spot on most boardstates. Starting the combo, even redundantly if needed, is also extremely consistent, as the deck is basically all gas and lands. In the current "fiat stock" list there are currently 4 cards that with the game on 5 mana and demand double-countermagic to stop, 11 cards that win the game with 6 mana and demand double-countermagic to stop, and 4 cards that win the game on 8 mana and cannot be stopped by double-countermagic. When the combo chain ends, you should usually have somewhere between 50 and 100 power on board, they should all have haste, and quite often you should also have a hasty Emrakul as well as an extra turn trigger. We're going "over" classic Show and Tell here, and we're doing so with a deck with more consistent access to its combo and a combo that is more resilient to countermagic.

Individual Card Discussions:

Boarding Party - This is the best individual cascading 6-Drop. It's a 6/3 Haste and even through an opposing Deafening Silence that you failed to remove just casting spells that summon 3 beaters (Cascade -> CT -> 2 more Cascaders) can win quite a few games just by being big and hasty. Most importantly, it's easy to cast with a mana cost of 5R.

Creative Technique - This spell is the deck. Quite often it becomes correct not to "demonstrate" with CT when you're confident you are effectively certain to win the game with the amount of combo-chaining you've already built up and there is a card or two that could ruin your chain somewhere in your opponent's deck. If you're anything like me this will come up far less often then you'll initially expect, however, and you should almost always default to demonstrating. You almost always demonstrate.

Maelstrom Wanderer - Maelstrom Wanderer is a lynch-pin of the deck. Not only does his haste let you win without passing the turn to the opponent even if you miss Emrakul in the entire chain, his double-cascading is what helps propagate the combo chaining (into a forking river, if you will). It's also worth noting that the way timing works hitting (or even hardcasting) MW provides insulation for you against Flusterstorm and Mindbreak Trap as he seeds a Cascade Trigger into the stack that survives both forms of interaction. Hardcasting MW vs. Delver is a solid way to power through a sculpted hand of countermagic.

Aurora Phoenix - The deck leans heavily red and the manabase largely informs our choice of cascading 6-Drops. This is the "other" Mono-Red one that's still a creature threat. Other than flying and cascade the text on him is almost always irrelevant. The double-red pips make him harder to cast than even Let the Galaxy Burn as there are only 8 lands in the deck that make double-red pips on their own, but the deck needs a critical mass of beefy creatures and he checks all the boxes even if he doesn't excel at any particular one. Flying can be relevant.

Sweet-Gum Recluse - This is probably the least popular 6-Drop Cascader currently in the "Fiat Stock" list, but there are two strong cases for his presence in the deck in some small number. Firstly the most inflexible thing about this deck is its manabase. They've just only printed so many Sol-Lands in the game's history and we're clearly already turning the dial to maximum here. One consequence of this is that we end up with a lot of non-red lands in our primarily red deck, and an astute opponent is likely to prioritize wastelanding specifically the red ones. It benefits us, then, to run a couple cascaders that don't rely on red-mana and instead utilize another color since we'll be forced to run some number of non-red depletion-lands. You don't want to run a lot of such creatures since we're so predominantly a red-deck, but matching our cascaders to our manabase means a healthy creature selection will have 1 or 2 non-red ones. Furthermore Sweet-Gum's "triple-lord" effect can actually be a huge amount of beef, which can matter both when our combo is stifled before it reaches critical mass (such as through Deafening Silence) and we have to go beatdown, or against decks like Reanimator when we want our board to swing happily through Emrakul et. al. He also has flash which could be relevant someday, but I've never personally had cause to make use of the flash.

Let the Galaxy Burn - This might not be an actual threat, but it's more maindeck answers to hatebears and it's just as easy to cast as Boarding Party. It's quite useful in the right matchups.

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn - She wins the game even in awkward boardstates where pure force doesn't and even gives us strong protection against Painter. The extra turn is particularly helpful is the opponent is threatening a combo win on their next turn, also has an answer for MW to remove haste from our non-BP threats, and also has a blocker or two. You know her already; she's good.

Gemstone Cavern - Free mana is good and throwing away one card from hand is cheaper for this deck than pretty much any other. Can both enable Turn-2 hardcast CT as well as let us power through Daze or Thalia as needed. Credit to Jarvis Yu for the suggestion.

Sandstone Needle, Saprazzan Skerry, Hickory Woodlot - These lands are great. If you're new to this deck I know that might sound a bit crazy, but they really are; other decks are just overly dependent on casting a large number of spells from their hand for mana to win the game, but in a world where the game ends with a low from-hand-cast count but not on Turn 1, these are reusable colored Sol-Lands. Against decks like Delver the plan is often to Combo two turns in a row to burn out their countermagic. Lands that stick around make that ask much, much easier.

Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors, Crystal Vein - Most optimal lines involve playing an untapped Sol-Land on your critical combo turn, so we play lots of them.

Dwarven Ruins - We are very thirst for Sol-Lands, and we have a desire for Double-Red pips. Thus, Dwarven Ruins. I know it's a sacland, but we play 40 lands so it's not as bad as you think. If it helps, think of it as our Rite of Flame.

Otawara, Soaring City - It's maindeck interaction. In a combo deck that is doing everything it can to make it self immunized from opposing from-the-hand interaction, having maindeck answer to hatepieces is a beautiful thing.

Sulfur Vent - We remain thirsty for Sol-Lands, and this is another one that can make Red-Mana. Sulfur Vent tends to get the nod ahead of Timber Farm because the blue-mana can be relevant for Otawara, but in a variant that's running Boseiju, Who Endures you could swap in one for the other. Makes MW much easier to hardcast as the land provides 2/3rds of its color requirements on its own.

Havenwood Battleground - This is in the current "fiat stock" list as another land to turn on both Sweet-Gum Recluse as well as hardcast MW. Could reasonably be a 4th Crystal Vein instead.

Mountain - There are a lot of effects that destroy a land but get you a basic from the maindeck. Given that one basic is still enough to turn two colorless sol-lands into CT mana, running a single basic can become relevant. Given that opposing Boseiju, Who Endures allow you to search for any land with basic land types, if that's the only form of this effect you expect to see, could reasonably be replaced with a Volcanic Island to help turn on Otawara.

Throes of Chaos - Out of the sideboard this can let you turn the deck into a reasonably consistent Turn 2 deck in a way that is also resistance to Thoughtseize-effects to try to get under fast combo decks, or act as additional copies of Maddening Hex vs. most spell-based combos. Credit to 'rufus' for the suggestion.

Pyrokinesis - Kills hatebears. We want this over Fury because 6-CMC prevents it from clogging up our cascades. It can still end a branch of the chain by being hit off CT or a MW Cascade, but based on the way the internal engine of the deck works that would only happen after forking an additional branch into the chain so it's less of a problem. Credit to Joe, from Mox Boarding House Ballard.

Maddening Hex - We can play it turn 2 pretty consistent (particularly with Throes of Chaos) and there are many decks that just can't beat this card.

Tibalt's Trickery - This is what allows us to turn Throes of Chaos into a combo starter we can play on turn 2. You don't want to run more than 2 copies, however, as having multiple of these in the deck while combo chaining can get ... complicated. Credit to 'rufus', from this very thread.

Mirrorshell Crab - A surprisingly effective Counterspell/Stifle for 3 Mana (since it can't be countered back) that doesn't get Cascaded into by the 6-Drops, and is a beefy 5/7 with Ward when it ends up in your combo chain anyways.

Aeve, Progenitor Ooze - Specifically, blue tempo decks have the ability to counter a single copy of CT while we're comboing and then try to Surgical Extraction them from the deck to cut our chain short. Doing that adds an additional 2 storm to the stormcount, however, on top of what we've already generated ourselves. This allows Aeve becoming the last remaining cascade hit in the deck and come down along side any other cascader already on the stack to generate a threatening board. Credit to Bob Huang.

Other Cards Worth Discussing:

So the above is my best approximation of what I currently consider the optimal build. If you're not planning on running that exact list card-for-card, however, let's also talk about some of the other relevant cards not listed above.

Boseiju, Who Endures - There is another channel land that you may see in lists that I don't have listed above. It was in the original build of the deck but I personally cut it after realizing that after months of playing with the deck it was only ever useful once. If it was reliably able to answer a Bloodmoon or there were more Trinisphere decks in the meta I might reconsider, as it is an efficient answer and a flexible card, but I find I'd rather have the Gemstone Caverns.

Apex Devastator - Some lists have run a single copy of Apex Devastator and I've played around with this as well. It strikes me as overkill, though, as after hitting Maelstrom Wanderer the combo always seems to build sufficient critical mass, it's not as useful a creature on the board, you can't reasonably hardcast it, and it's not Red for Pyrokinesis. If you find yourself with a build and in a meta where building up critical mass is your sticking point it's worth remembering that this card exists, but in general I don't recommend it.

Magma Opus - A potential sideboard "ritual" that produces Treasure and doesn't get cascaded into.

Emergent Ultimatum - This is an interesting card to throw into the combo chain, but even Apex Devastator is better at building critical mass and isn't as vulnerable to countermagic. This card was floated by my friend Lee Hung Nguyen (who you might know as 1mrlee on twitch) but I don't think it's generically useful. It does, however, provide a way to plugging a different set of sideboard cards into the deck's internal engine as well as raising the deck's internal blue and green count, so if you're doing something more radical this card is a tool that plugs into the deck in an interesting way. As it stands, though, I think it's a slightly awkward adaptor that doesn't have a worthwhile payoff to plug onto the other end.

Keruga, The Macrosage - This guy is quite lovable and I wish I had a current excuse to run him. I don't. However, if you're trying to make Commandeer or Force of Vigor work, consider if you want to adopt this hippo as your companion.

Sakashima's Protégé - This is an alternative 6-Drop Cascader that can fall into the Sweet-Gum Recluse slot. Basically, it's a clone that defaults to a 3/1 without good targets. I've found Sweet-Gum to be more useful and reliable, but this is an option if the clone effect is super valuable to you. Worth noting that you can clone your own Emrakul to send your Emrakul to the graveyard while keeping a copy in place, which lets you shuffle your graveyard back into your library mid-chain.

Etherium-Horn Sorcerer - I used to run this guy so inertia and older stuff might cause you to see him here and there but he's awkward to cast and an unimpressive body with an irrelevant ability. I would strongly recommend avoiding this.

Tinder Farm - An alternative to Sulfur Vent if you care more about Green Mana that the 'Fiat Stock List' (or care about White Mana for some reason I can't currently predict).

Consign/Oblivion - This is a bounce spell for 1U that you can play without being cascaded into. Another very reasonable sideboard card that's just not currently being run.

Chancellor of the Annex - Obviously strong in multiple matchups if you have room for it in the sideboard.

Fry - I used to run this as an answer to Teferi, Time Raveler who is a major headache for the deck without an Otawara in hand. It really wedges itself into the gears of the combo though so I don't generally recommend it. Worth remembering its existing if Teferi becomes incredibly common, though.

Commandeer - If you're able to make the deck blue enough this is a massively powerful sideboard card alongside Keruga. I was never successful in making the deck blue enough so my recommendation remains a base red-deck with Pyrokinesis. If you want to try to construct a Blue Keruga version with Sakashima's Protégé and Etherium-Horn Sorcerer though I won't stop you.

Force of Vigor - A strong sideboard card in theory if you want to pair it with Keruga. Would be easier to pull off than Commandeer.

Boom Pile - We're a primarily red deck full of Sol-Lands and sometimes (vs. Red Prison, for example) you want want a catch-all answer to permanents. Sometimes it doesn't work and that's unfortunate, but if you don't need it to buy you a turn by clearing their threats and are just using it to remove hatepieces, technically it has a 75% chance since you'll get two-flips before your next pre-combat mainphase. Card is definitely questionable but if you're really looking for something to work regularly against something like classic Mono-Red Prison, a card worth remembering.

Show and Tell / Omniscience - Don't play these cards! In general I think I'm keeping an appropriately humble tone here for what for all its strengths is a homebrew I'm pretty much just testing at local 1ks and weeklies, but when other people play around with the deck I repeatedly see these cards being floated. They don't do anything you want to do. The deck is an engine designed to play itself out, not try to get extra value out of your hand. Anything that has a chance of "bricking" the combo chain needs to have a very specific purpose in mind. This is just trying to juggle while comboing for no reason. Whatever card you think this could enable could just have been the card you hit instead of either of these. Don't play these cards!

Sideboard Guide:

https://i.imgur.com/BcJ8IFT.png

- All suggestions in this sideboard guide are intended to emphasize the thoughts behind the sideboard construction, not to be definitive play suggestions. -
- I'm a metaphorical car-engineer, not a metaphorical Nascar pilot. Adapt as you see fit, Speed. -

[EDIT: Currently Playing with this sideboard and abandoning my original sideboard guide attempt. Short version though, you want 4x Pyrokinesis vs. Initiative, 4x Throes + 2x Trickery vs Fast Combo, you want to add 1x Maddening Hex if that Fast Combo is storm-based, you want to bring in Aeve vs Blue Tempo, and that leaves 3-ish sideboard slots that I'm honestly still unsure about myself]

FTW

09-10-2022, 03:59 PM

Interesting deck. The consistent goldfish is awesome.

Lowest hanging fruit: You get to run Keruga, the Macrosage in the SB for free. That guarantees you a threat and extra card in hand, even if you can't pull off the combo. Companion gives you something to do with your mana before you hit 5. It also gives you +1 blue card (see Commandeer).
Edit: Did not notice Keruga was already buried in the list.

The next step is to find ways to interact with interaction without disrupting the engine. It's a shame you can't run Defense Grid, as that both protects you from counters and stops opponent from casting their copies if you choose that option. You're limited to lands or CMC 6+.

Echo of Eons costs 6! It plays very well with aggressive mulligans and big mana. If you hit in the combo, it won't cascade into more spells, but it does reload your hand. When you fail to combo, it could help reload on resources.

All is Dust may be appealing in the SB. It's a catch-all answer to most permanent-based hate and creature swarms as long as you can ramp to 7. Blast Zone is another options for low CMC stuff.

Colossal Skyturtle could be good tech too. It bounces an early Murktide Regent/Marit Lage or returns a disrupted piece to your hand.

Split cards let you cheat and play below 6 CMC, because technically their CMC is the combined cost of both spells.
Reason // Believe costs "6" but is turn 1 library manipulation into a way to cheat Emrakul into play!!
Discovery // Dispersal costs "7" for a 2-mana cantrip
Expansion // Explosion costs "6" for a Fork that could be used to counter counterspells or double up on your own Creative Technique. Don't know if that's any good.
Supply // Demand unfortunately costs "5", otherwise you could run a 3-mana tutor
Crime // Punishment is a "7" cmc XBG board wipe for permanent-based hate. Bad off cascade, good in opening hand.

LennonMarx

09-12-2022, 04:47 PM

Is there enough Red in the deck for Pyrokinesis instead of Fry? And would Bojuka Bog be serviceable instead of Leyline of the Void? With those changes your SB plan never whammys you when you cascade aside from the song.

Edit: D'oh, not never, just much less. Maelstrom Wanderer still hits Pyro.

Rationalist

09-13-2022, 01:23 AM

Went 4-0 tonight at the Mox Boarding House Ballard (Card Kingdom) Legacy Weekly, beating Merfolk, Lands, WG Depths, and 4C Minsc Pile.

I'll post the details I remember as a rundown with lessons learned in the next 24 hours or so (I promised my architect I'd send her an email tonight with house measurements and stuff and it's almost 10:30 already).

Was exciting. Drew a crowd and one or two people took pictures.

I appreciate the input and ideas. Please keep them coming. =)

FTW

09-13-2022, 01:58 AM

Rationalist

09-13-2022, 02:35 AM

Great result! Well done.

I watched the YouTube video and am confused. Creative Technique's Demonstrate ability is optional. You don't have to use it. Then you only get 1 Creative Technique (instead of 2 branches), but you also don't give opponent a free spell. Against a goldfish, always branching makes sense. Against Show and Tell, I don't understand why the pilot (you?) made the copy. Opponent got free Griselbrand and Emrakul, prolonging the game, when it could have been a much faster win without the copy. With only 1 branch you still get 4 creatures in play, including a good shot at free Emrakul. The more times you use Demonstrate, the higher chance opponent hits a dangerous card (Griselbrand, Emrakul, Force of Will, cantrip -> Force of Will, Show and Tell -> big thing from hand, Cunning Wish -> Mindbreak Trap/Flusterstorm from SB?).

Point of clarification:

I'm not the one in the video. I'm just "citing my sources" since watching that video gave me the inspiration for the more "all in" version of the deck. (I didn't want to pretend I was the first person in the world to throw cascade cards into a deck with creativity - I just made this "forced echo chamber" all in combo version that's half Sol Lands). I'd have to rewatch it to try to guess their exact motives, but like you I don't know their exact thoughts.

Having played the deck I will say that there are times when you don't want to demonstrate (if you're confident you can win with what you have deterministically and the opponent has relevant disruption) so I suspect your analysis may well be correct, and they may have just made a poor play decision. One of the interesting things about the deck is that you can just "low-ball it" outright and simply grab 4 or 5 random creatures. I don't know their full list though. This entire thing started when I tried to recreate their list to submit to Bryant Cook and then suddenly realized I could make it much better by going in a different "all in" direction. I'm still naive in piloting this deck, but in my version at least I'd still demonstrate against Show and Tell by default. If you don't demonstrate you expose your stream to their countermagic since they would only need 1 FoW to shut you down, and as long as they don't hit an immediate Griselbrand to dig for answers on their first Creativity it doesn't seem much different than demonstrating against a blue deck which you should just go far over the top of.

Here's the kind of board state you can generate if your opponent can't shut down your stream early. (The die represents 2 extra turns on the stack.)

https://i.imgur.com/m7lqhC5.png

The fact that extra Emrakuls (or Sakashima's Apprentices copying Emrakul) can shuffle Creative Techniques back into your library is quite fun.

In general though, yeah, sometimes it's not right to go for it, but given that the combo becomes more vulnerable when you don't push at least at the start, at least in my version (without the Show and Tell "junk" hits and so forth), I'd certainly push the demonstrate at least on the first one if not further.

LennonMarx

09-13-2022, 04:30 PM

Went through gatherer for more options for the SB that would work for this deck. Found a few more Split cards that could have merit.

Catch // Release
Consign // Oblivion
Never // Return

All offer an answer to 3Feri at least which seems to be the toughest of the 3 big hate pieces you listed to deal with. The first 2 are also blue for Commandeer with Catch // Release also pitching to Pyrokinesis. The mana would need to change to incorporate Never // Return, but I left it included for completeness.

Bound // Determined

Need an extra 2 mana on the go off turn, but Determined serves as protection on the combo turn and hitting Bound off of Creative Technique isn't too bad.

Rough // Tumble

Might be better than Pyrokinesis for dealing with Thalia/Small creatures.

FTW

09-13-2022, 04:51 PM

Here's the kind of board state you can generate if your opponent can't shut down your stream early. (The die represents 2 extra turns on the stack.)

While this is certainly fun for meme value, half that board state would accomplish the same thing in 99% of games. You could generate an even crazier board state, but is that necessary? The "low ball" board state of 4-5 creatures should be enough to win most games (Edit: against most decks. Not only talking about Show and Tell here).

Imho you should weigh the necessity of extra branches (to get enough gas to win) against the risk of opponent hitting powerful cards to stop you. That varies by deck. Show and Tell is a worst case scenario: big fatties, blue counters, cantrips into counters, Cunning Wish into Flusterstorm/Mindbreak Trap (to end all branches at once!). There are at least 20 bad reveals possible, some enabling them to shut down multiple branches. Their plan is also to cast big spells for free, they don't need help. Against fair blue control, it makes more sense to Demonstrate the first 1-2 times to dodge Force (but too many times and you can dig them into a board wipe or T3feri).

Rationalist

09-13-2022, 11:50 PM

The "low ball" board state of 4-5 creatures should be enough to win most games.

Against Show and Tell with no Disruption of my own?

Imho you should weigh the necessity of extra branches (to get enough gas to win) against the risk of opponent hitting powerful cards to stop you.

I agree.

Show and Tell is a worst case scenario: big fatties, blue counters, cantrips into counters, Cunning Wish into Flusterstorm/Mindbreak Trap (to end all branches at once!). There are at least 20 bad reveals possible, some enabling them to shut down multiple branches. Their plan is also to cast big spells for free, they don't need help. Against fair blue control, it makes more sense to Demonstrate the first 1-2 times to dodge Force (but too many times and you can dig them into a board wipe or T3feri).

I'm not ... positive I agree yet (unless Mindbreak Trap is stock now and I missed it, in which case maybe I do).

I mean it's a reasonable argument, but I'm not sure it's worth capping the ceiling of the combo at four to 5 random creatures against Show and Tell as I'm not positive that clock is enough pressure to be relevant against their average hand. Rather than trying to "philosophize" this one though, let me actually investigate some hypergeometric possibility trees with a stock-ish list and really hammer out what the numbers look like here. Regardless of the outcome, it will probably be educational for me to look at some actual probabilities here, so thanks for raising this either way.

Rationalist

09-14-2022, 12:26 AM

Rationalist

09-14-2022, 04:51 AM

Re: FTW's thoughts re: Demonstrating the Combo vs. Omnishow

This is probably a healthy thing to do spend some time thinking about so I did. Feel free to correct me if and where you think I'm losing the plot here.

For some reason, initially, I thought I could do the same kind of hypergeometric "tree" I usually do manabase calculations (example:https://i.imgur.com/s3aGtW7.png) to resolve this issue, but I now think this isn't necessary so I'm going to do a quick facsimile of this sort of thing. To try to investigate this, I grabbed the most recent JPA Omnishow list from MTGGoldfish (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/5094284#paper) to serve as my prototypical 'stock/expected list' and tried to break up the spells they could technique into maindeck into "Wiffs", "Marginal", "Conditional", "FoW-Level Answers", "Problematic", and "Bangers" under the hypothetical scenario in which you're going off T3 against 3 untapped mana.

Taking a good number of liberties to keep this manageable, this is what I got

Wiffs 6/41 ~ 14.6%

2x Jace
4x Lotus Petal

Marginal 15/41 ~ 36.6%

4x Veil of Summer
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
3x Emrakul

Conditional 10/41 ~ 24.4%

4x Show and Tell
3x Eureka
3x Omniscience

FoW-Level Answers ~17.0%

4x FoW
3x Intuition

Problematic 3/41 ~ 7.3%

3x Griselbrand

Bangers

Nothing

Quick justification because there's more to talk about.

Jace isn't going to do anything until and unless I pass the turn and there are no lines where the 4th mana turns on a relevant line from hand
All of the non-creature spells in 'Marginal' have a small chance of drawing a Force of Will and Emrakul is relevant because it sets a floor in how much value we need to get off the combo. These have real utility for the opponent, but are closer to a Wiff than a Force of Will.
All of the cards in "Conditional" are more useful than digging 3 cards deeper for an answer, but given the composition of the deck have a hypothetical "expectation number of answers" level less than just getting 1 Force of Will. This is probably the most attackable assumption of this analysis, as with Intuition or Griselbrand in hand this turns into Drawing 14 cards. However, since the only maindeck answer they have is Force of Will, I think when you combine the chance that there hand meets that condition with the variance of drawing 14 cards, that this should easily be worth less than 1 Force of Will in expectation value.
The best thing that intuition can grab here with a natural expectation of getting a Show and Tell effect later in the turn with this deck is just FoW, so it's a FoW. Technically Intuition would be the worse of the two here due to the pitch-card required to cast FoW from hand, but that's a nuance we're paving over.

So according to this rough breakdown there's about a 75% chance that what they get is worse than a FoW, about 17% chance that what they get will directly or effectively be a FoW, and about a 7% chance that what they get will be Griselbrand, which is the one card they could hit that could be worse for us than them getting a FoW.

The point here is that by not demonstrating, comparatively, we're giving them exactly one free FoW, which is clearly at the upper end of the probability distribution of what they could get. That's not the end of the issue, though, because the relevant question would then become how bad for us would we expect the Griselbrand hit to be? So let's assume that they highroll that 7% off the Creative Technique and hit a Griselbrand, have 50 cards left in their library, and all 4 FoW and 3 Intuition (which we are counting as FoWs) are in there. I went and plugged these numbers into a hypergeometic calculator, assumed they drew 14 of those cards, and this is what I got:

Probability n = 0 : ~8%
Probability n = 1 : ~27%
Probability n > 1 : ~64%

There's more detail we could break these numbers into because we're being pretty rough, but here's the picture as we've established it at the resolution of this analysis.

When we demonstrate to this opponent, about ([7.3 X 0.64]%) ~ 4.67% of the time we're going to shoot ourselves in the foot, give them a Griselbrand, and see them draw into multiple answers. The other ~95% of probability space consists of them doing no better in halting our gameplan than if we had simply not demonstrated, and most of THAT portion of probability space (3/4s of all possibilities) consist of them getting a "Conditional", "Marginal", or "Wiff" off the technique, all of which are outcomes in which we would expect it is more likely than not that our combo will be safer than if we had not demonstrated.

The decision that is presented to us is then this:

1. We can choose not to demonstrate our first technique, in which case if our opponent has any of the 7 "FoW" level cards in hand they will stop our combo immediately. If not, then we will summon 4 or 5 creatures (depending on what spell initiated our cascade stream), which variably may or may not have haste, and try to use them to clock an opponent about to start their Turn 4 on Omnishow against no opposing disruption from our side of the table.

OR

2. We can demonstrate, raise the ceiling of our combo so that if our opponent doesn't stop it we will likely win without passing the turn at the cost of taking ~5% risk that we'll give the opponent the ability to stop us after the first Creative Technique even if they didn't have it already, but actively preventing our opponent from stopping our combo if they don't high-roll that very first creative technique.

I feel much better about option 2. Keep in mind that after the first demonstration, the next time we demonstrate we'll have 3 copies of creative technique on the stack and it will be even harder than to stop the combo than it was before (making each subsequent demonstration safer than the previous one).

This is pretty rough and I'm admittedly I'm only putting 30 or 40 minutes into this post and its math, but as a Fermi calculation to make this yes or no decision, I think it makes sense.

Am I getting something wrong here? Happy to correct and refine this outlook in the name of piloting this deck better as I'm rather enamored by it at the present time.

Rationalist

09-14-2022, 10:29 AM

... (continued)

FTW did allude to a Cunning Wish build though, which does seem more dangerous than the JPA list I pulled in this regard. I did find one more recent placing with a Cunning Wish build so I'll rerun this kind of Fermi-style calc here with that build later today.

[Will edit in here when appropriate]

FTW

09-14-2022, 12:04 PM

Thanks for doing that detailed analysis.

The deck in the video had better hits than JPA's. Against JPA's recent UG EurekaTell list I agree. But Jace is rare. Looking at recent results there's a wide range of Show and Tell lists. There isn't really a stock build like there is for Delver.

If you see Cunning Wish like the video then there is a Wishboard. A Wishboard could have 1 copy of Flusterstorm or Mindbreak Trap. Either could end all your branches.

DANGER Cards:
Griselbrand -> draw 14 into many answers or cantrips into answers + lifelink blocker
Cunning Wish -> possible Mindbreak/Fluster to end all branches
Flusterstorm -> can counter multiple Creative Techniques (not in JPA's list or video, but maindeck in some lists)
Force of Will -> counters 1 Creative technique
Intuition -> Puts Force or other answer in hand (not in the video deck)
Emrakul -> extra turn could happen before yours and annihilate your creatures before they attack

Conditionally dangerous:
Brainstorm -> Can put FoW, Wish or Fluster in hand
Ponder -> Can put FoW, Wish or Fluster in hand
Omniscience -> Lets them dig for answers or maybe even combo off before your branches resolve (Cunning Wish -> Firemind's Foresight -> ... -> set up Release the Ants)
Show and Tell -> bad if Griselbrand or Omni in hand
Sneak Attack -> bad if Griselbrand is in hand (not in the video deck or JPA's list)
Eureka -> bad if Griselbrand or Omni in hand

It definitely depends on the build. Given the variations between builds and the potentially dangerous cards in many, Show and Tell seems like the worst case scenario for Demonstrate. Most other decks don't have as many dangerous hits.

Against a generic fair blue deck, I agree with you that Demonstrate is worth it. They have some probability of hitting a counter while you get a guaranteed 2nd copy, so overall it improves your odds to beat counters (especially FoW in hand on the 1st copy).

Until there's sufficient playtesting of real matchups, this will be all theory. Maybe when you test more you'll find something different.

Rationalist

09-14-2022, 04:33 PM

Until there's sufficient playtesting of real matchups, this will be all theory. Maybe when you test more you'll find something different.

One of the reasons I'm hoping popularize the deck a little, for sure.

Also, what do you think, reasonable new sideboard card to test? (Being non-colorless is a small concern but I like some of what it opens up.)

https://www.mythicspoiler.com/40k/cards/letthegalaxyburn.jpg

FTW

09-14-2022, 04:46 PM

It looks like decent tech. But when do you bring it in? If you're casting big cascade spells, you should already beat a board of X/2s? Edit: Maybe D&T and Elves?

Is there anything good that would shuffle Creative Techniques back into your library so you can go through more than 4? Echo of Eons? Time Spiral? Time Spiral lets you untap to cast another cascader/Creative Technique to keep going off. Seems good.

Is 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All worth it to help force through the first copy?

Zoid

09-14-2022, 04:52 PM

https://mythicspoiler.com/40k/cards/letthegalaxyburn.jpg

This looks interesting.

On another note, I think you're focusing too much on the Show&Tell MU.
This is obviously bad and will stay that way.
It's probably best to not demonstrate or only do it at the start and gamble to get the ball rolling.
Rather, focus on the other MU where can easier edge out a win.

FTW

09-14-2022, 05:04 PM

Rather, focus on the other MU where can easier edge out a win.

Those should be easy. The deck is so redundantly built: 38x land 18x Creative Technique 4x Emrakul. Consistent goldfish should be easy. Matchups with minimal resistance should be easy. Unlike Hypergenesis or Living End, the threats are ALSO the cascade engines and come from the library instead of a vulnerable zone (GY or hand), so the engine is much lower variance.

The important question is how to help it fight bad matchups: disruption or faster combos. Especially because there is narrow design space to board in any tools without breaking the engine.

Rationalist

09-14-2022, 05:07 PM

It looks like decent tech. But when do you bring it in?

Against expected non-Teeg Hatebears would be the idea (so largely D&T, Esper Vial, Humans style decks), but this is what I'm still naively trying to figure out. It boards in as an effect very smoothly without disrupting the ratios naturally in the deck, the degree to which that effect is worth a sideboard slot is not immediately clear to me though so I'm an infant grabbing at blocks at this point to see if they fit in the hole and just fishing for outside perspective on which blocks I should focus on jamming in the hole first.

Is 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All worth it to help force through the first copy?

I don't think so. It's such an awkward 1-mana colorless ETB tapped land in a deck that's weakest point is often mana-disruption (EDIT: Well, mana-disruption and a quick combo if not v. a quicker combo). Even if I do cast Creativity off of it (which is itself only a minority of the hands since often you cast the cascader), it only protects one of the two copies from FoW, so it's specifically to stop the double-force line? I mean I did get double-forced + hydroblasted on the second creativity with 3 branches on the stack on Monday so it could come up, but I went on to win that game anyways just by jamming again later.

Doesn't seem worth it.

On another note, I think you're focusing too much on the Show&Tell MU.

It just came up conversationally; it's not like a tactical priority of the deck build over anything else. Please don't over-interpret the fact that I wrote paragraphs of analysis in response as it being a focus of the deck, I do that for basically everything as time allows (I believe that post starts with a link for me doing the same thing in more depth for whether or not to include the second copy of a marginal land in WU Bomberman circa 2019 or so). I appreciate that no one here knows me or my background personally, but as an anecdote ever since my father was diagnosed with diabetes some years back he has taken to running analysis on graphs of his blood-sugar throughout the day, every day, and using them to optimize his diet and eating schedule, and behaviorally I'm very much my father's son if you know what I mean.

I'm not focusing on Show and Tell from my perspective, I just spend half an hour plotting out the math for it because it seemed like a way to investigate a region of ignorance I had that was in the spotlight and it's what I do instead of ... tapping my foot or something.

EDIT: Just to be clear that doesn't mean my analysis is ANY GOOD, I just mean I do it a lot, good or bad.

Rationalist

09-14-2022, 05:17 PM

The important question is how to help it fight bad matchups: disruption or faster combos. Especially because there is narrow design space to board in any tools without breaking the engine.

Just so. (nods)

FTW

09-14-2022, 05:26 PM

Against expected non-Teeg Hatebears would be the idea (so largely D&T, Esper Vial, Humans style decks), but this is what I'm still naively trying to figure out. It boards in as an effect very smoothly without disrupting the ratios naturally in the deck, the degree to which that effect is worth a sideboard slot is not immediately clear to me though so I'm an infant grabbing at blocks at this point to see if they fit in the hole and just fishing for outside perspective on which blocks I should focus on jamming in the hole first.

That's worth a test at least.

Chandra, Awakened Inferno could also be strong and is uncounterable (Esper), but doesn't cascade.

I mean I did get double-forced + hydroblasted on the second creativity with 3 branches on the stack on Monday so it could come up, but I went on to win that game anyways just by jamming again later.

Nice. I think that's one of the best things your build has going for it: redundancy. Even if you get countered, just about every nonland draw lets you jam again.

SB Dragonlord Dromoka doesn't let opponent cast spells on your turn. Which means they can't counter your things, can't cast anything off Demonstrate, and can't even counter the Dragon. Is that unnecessary overkill?

Rationalist

09-14-2022, 06:12 PM

SB Dragonlord Dromoka doesn't let opponent cast spells on your turn. Which means they can't counter your things, can't cast anything off Demonstrate, and can't even counter the Dragon. Is that unnecessary overkill?

Before even addressing that question, WG4 is a hard ask on a manabase like this. Etherium-Horn Sorcerer has the advantage of being in enemy colors (which lines up well with the invasion sac-lands), none-the-less sharing a color with the key card and Otawara pushing the deck into UR anyways. Regardless of where it is on the spectrum of good to overkill, I'm skeptical it's in contention for good enough for rewiring the manabase to support him.

EDIT: I'd entertain the notion of an alternative WG build since there is a WG4 Cascader as well, but again, there is no Sol land that provides WG so without even investigating it it seems dubious.

FTW

09-15-2022, 08:03 AM

Before even addressing that question, WG4 is a hard ask on a manabase like this. Etherium-Horn Sorcerer has the advantage of being in enemy colors (which lines up well with the invasion sac-lands), none-the-less sharing a color with the key card and Otawara pushing the deck into UR anyways. Regardless of where it is on the spectrum of good to overkill, I'm skeptical it's in contention for good enough for rewiring the manabase to support him.

EDIT: I'd entertain the notion of an alternative WG build since there is a WG4 Cascader as well, but again, there is no Sol land that provides WG so without even investigating it it seems dubious.

Yeah, too bad, the mana is awkward. Guess you're limited to RUG colors and minimal colored costs.

God-Pharaoh's Statue could work to limit enemy counterspells and free Demonstrate spells?

If you face a lot of hate you can't beat (Blood Moon, multiple sphere effects), it might good to board in alternate win conditions like Chandra, Awakened Inferno or Carnage Tyrant and just win the game with a big hard-to-remove uncounterable threat instead of trying to remove every piece of their interaction.

Rationalist

09-15-2022, 12:40 PM

So Jarvis Yu just tweeted out some thoughts about this deck and Bob Huang reached out to me on twitter and asked me to follow him so he could PM me some thoughts. I'll sum up whatever they say here, but my immediate takeaway specifically to Jarvis' comments is that I really should be running a Gemstone Cavern or two at least in the board.

If you face a lot of hate you can't beat (Blood Moon, multiple sphere effects), it might good to board in alternate win conditions like Chandra, Awakened Inferno or Carnage Tyrant and just win the game with a big hard-to-remove uncounterable threat instead of trying to remove every piece of their interaction.

I kind of like this thought.

Rationalist

09-15-2022, 04:08 PM

After talking with Bob Huang who feels more stable mana has import vs. Delver I'm currently testing out this change

-3 Crystal Vein
-1 Tinder Farm
-1 Svyelunite Temple

+2 Hickory Woodlot
+2 Gemstone Cavern
+1 Vesuva

(I'm skeptical on the Vesuva but worth a test).

If it's good, might lean farther from Sakashima's Apprentice and closer to Sweet-Gum Recluse as mana combinatorics change. Corelated worsening of Commandeer not yet factored in.

Rationalist

09-17-2022, 11:08 AM

So more accomplished voices convinced me to experiment going down to 6 Invasion/FE Saclands to enable T3 + T4 jam playpatterns vs. Delver with 4 Hickory Woodlots and Gemstone Caverns. Also to try move away from focusing on Blue Maindeck to support Commandeer in the sideboard which may be questionable at best. Given that, I worked the logic in building the rest of the manabase and the cascade suite back up from scratch, and I drew up an infographic of the decisions I made in why.

https://i.imgur.com/sKynhLK.png

This is leading me to a maindeck that looks like this: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/5105321#paper

The sideboard here is incredibly rough, and we can add Consign // Oblivions as necessary to continue to bounce hate. The real question is, can we make fast-combo matches palatable, and if so how?

Rationalist

09-18-2022, 12:52 PM

Thinking of trying out a Dwarven Ruins version that aims to play Maddening Hex Turn 2 out of the board to help with the combo matchup: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/visual/5107960

(Trying to pick off some of the problematic fast combo opponents at the expense of some of the others)

Ran 100 simulated open hands mulligans included, assuming I was willing to Mulligan down to 3 to find it (I appreciate that isn't necessarily a strong position). I also assumed I was on the play because the mana for that is weaker given Gemstone Cavern.

I got a Turn 2 Maddening Hex or Curse of Shaken Faith in my opening 7 with 0 Mulligans 37 times.
I got a Turn 2 Maddening Hex or Curse of Shaken Faith in my opening 7 with 1 Mulligans 21 times.
I got a Turn 2 Maddening Hex or Curse of Shaken Faith in my opening 7 with 2 Mulligans 8 times.
I got a Turn 2 Maddening Hex or Curse of Shaken Faith in my opening 7 with 3 Mulligans 12 times.
I got a Turn 2 Maddening Hex or Curse of Shaken Faith in my opening 7 with 4 Mulligans 5 times.
I FAILED to get a Turn 2 Maddening Hex or Curse of Shaken Faith in my opening hand 17 times.

Here's the logic behind the 4/0/2/2 split between Pheonix/E-Horn/Apprentice/Recluse in this version, along with a couple other takeaways that fall out of the math included below.

https://i.imgur.com/wCR9uvQ.png

Relevant Takeaways: Otawara and Boseiju are slightly harder to active in the Dwarven Ruin "Red" set-up, so that's a sacrifice that doing this entails. Also, Maelstrom Wanderer is also slightly harder to hard-cast. On the pro-side, the sequencing with Dwarven Ruins and Creative Technique is more flexible than with Sulfur Vent or Tinder Farm, so shifting to the Red version does make it easier to go T3 Creative Technique, T4 Jam again since you can get the Red out of Dwarven Ruins for a 5 cost spell on 3 without sacrificing it. Also, for what it's worth, average creature quality does go up. (5/3 Flyer > 3/6)

LennonMarx

09-20-2022, 11:47 PM

Just a few assorted thoughts.

-For the red list, given that you have 4 SB cards that turn off Keruga and don't need it to be a blue card for Commandeer, is that better as a 15th SB card?

-Should the Mountain be a Volcanic Island? It makes casting Wanderer, Otawara, and Consign a bit easier and the deck already has a zillion targets for Wasteland.

-Regarding the Wanderers in the sideboard, is the idea to bring those in when you bring in removal so you have more density? They stood out to me at first but that seems like a reasonable plan.

Rationalist

09-21-2022, 03:31 PM

-For the red list, given that you have 4 SB cards that turn off Keruga and don't need it to be a blue card for Commandeer, is that better as a 15th SB card?

It definitely is. Came to that same conclusion before the next time I actually ran the list. Without Commandeer Keruga is a pretty mediocre 3+5 Drop 5/4 with an occasional cantrip or two.

-Should the Mountain be a Volcanic Island? It makes casting Wanderer, Otawara, and Consign a bit easier and the deck already has a zillion targets for Wasteland.

That's an interesting argument. Personally I'm probably going to stay on Mountain for now just due to Assassin's Trophy being a card and playing in paper in the Seattle Area I think increases the chances of running into a GBx fair pet deck, but the MTGGoldfish "Recent Placings by Card" Show only 6 or 7 AT lists and I would expect that resource to be biased towards overrepresenting it than under representing it given the issues with how it accumulates data so I could easily be wrong on that. I'll definitely stay conscious of if/when being a basic actually ends up meaning anything to me, and if/when I end up with Mountain and short of Blue Mana.

-Regarding the Wanderers in the sideboard, is the idea to bring those in when you bring in removal so you have more density? They stood out to me at first but that seems like a reasonable plan.

The primary idea of the Wanderers were protection vs. Flusterstorm and Mindbreak Trap, since they largely combo off with a Cascade Trigger that survives either protected in the stack below the "active" portion. They're just a little safer against opposing cards and I wanted to the ability to lean more in their direction post-board. They might not actually be worth the space, and potentially should just be represented a bit more heavily mainboard, but that's the idea at least.

Rationalist

09-21-2022, 04:47 PM

So I went 3-1 this Monday night, specifically going

2-0 vs Reanimator
2-0 vs UG Omnitell
2-1 vs 8-Cast
0-2 vs Mono White Hatebears by "Mr. Lee"

I believe the final two matches here are going to end up being posted on the 90's MTG Youtube Channel in some short amount of time. The exact list I piloted is here: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/5115283#paper

https://i.imgur.com/zJWPd7L.png

REANIMATOR (Jeremy Edwards)

The Reanimator Matchup is not good. I went 2-0 largely on variance being my friend, but even if it can be won I don't think this will ever be favorable without some new card being printed.

Game 1 he had to take too many mulligans to remain competitive, and I just combo'd off.

Game 2 I start on Leyline of the Void. He Fragmentizes it T1 and he just combos off before I do and reduces my hand to lands. Luckily he's not on the Tin Fins line although I suspect he may have it as a plan B and he just passes back to me with a Griselbrand, an Archon of Cruelty, and knowing I have no action in hand. The deck is 1/3rd action though so I do manage to topdeck it and then I combo off. I fail to get an Emrakul or a Maelstrom Wanderer off the combo, but what board I do produce is just "beefier" than his (see image above) so we play "combat-magic" for a couple turns and I win.

Takeaway: I'm honestly skeptical of the Leylines of the Void. While I did manage to win the match, the first Leyline I mulled to was immediately answered (because Reanimator is pretty used to answering a single Leyline), and even the second Leyline that I got off of Comboing was immediately answered as well. The cost of including these Leylines, however, was that there was actually only a 50% chance that my combo was going to work in Game 2. Since I started it off with a Cascade Spell and one Creative Technique in the graveyard, I had a 3/6 chance of Cascading into a Creative Technique and a 3/6 chance of cascading into a Leyline of the Void against a pre-existing Griselbrand *and* Archon of Cruelty. Now once I get to the first Demonstration the math gets a lot safer for me, but that's a heck of an initial coin flip to volunteer for. Bob Huang convinced me to jam them on Monday and he's a more experienced and accomplished tournament Magic player than I am so I ceded the point. This experience didn't take away my skepticism of the card, however, and while I'll keep testing it I'm tempted to go down to 3 copies, unconventionality be damned, both to reclaim the sideboard space AND to improve my ability to Combo safely in such matchups. Hitting a redundant Leyline is not the same thing as hitting a redundant Maddening Hex is the relevant matchups.

UG OMNITELL (Do not recall name)

UG Omnitell is one of the more intimidating blue matchups, but not too intimidating.

Game 1 I jam the combo, he can't force of will both copies, but I end up Demonstrating him into an Omniscience. He then uses the Omniscience to Cunning Wish for that Blue/Red card with Niv-Mizzet's Head in the art to grab yet more cards that cantrip into yet more cards in order to find a sufficient density of countermagic to stop the Combo after it already gained a larger amount of momentum, forcing me to pass the turn. Stopping the Combo after the first couple demonstration points though used up most of the resources he had in hand, so he plays a 2nd Omniscience, a Coatl, and then passes the turn back to me. I combo again and I win.

Game 2 I combo, I demonstrate on the first CT giving him a cantrip or a coatl or something, and then, feeling like I'm in the clear, I stop demonstrating and he concedes to the combo noting that me continuing to demonstrate "was his out".

Takeaway: I still feel like I need to start off Demonstrating against Omnitell opponents because immediately exposing the combo to countermagic is so much worse than rolling the die once or twice, which is often just giving them a cantrip. There's definitely a right time to stop though, and I don't yet have the experience to be very confident in making that call. It was an easy call to make in Game 2 here because of the nice pulls I got off the combo already, how few resources he was on, and just doing my best to read him as a player, but I expect there are situations where the call is much closer to the line.

8-CAST (Do not recall name, despite the fact he told it to me after the match)

I enjoyed this match a lot. 90's MTG was recording the top tables on Monday so at this point I'm 2-0 and being recorded.

Game 1 He starts on a Chalice on 1 and an Urza's Saga strategy. I jam the combo, demonstrate him into a Force of Will, but continue to combo. I demonstrate him into another Force of Will (assuming I remember correctly), and continue to combo. I then cascade for 8 minutes or so copying Emrakul with Apprentice and shuffling more copies of Creative Technique back into the deck. Eventually he concedes.

Game 2 He keeps what I recall as a no-lander. I eventually combo, demonstrate him into a Kappa Cannoneer, and he Force of Will + Force of Negations me to stop the chain. On his turn he hits me with Kappa. I then combo again on my turn, he Force of Wills one more time to cut down the size of the combo, but I still get a something like 7 or 8 creatures. However, I don't hit Emrakul or Maelstrom Wanderer and I gave him a Kappa Cannoneer and a Master Thopterist. He is at 18, and I swing for 18 points of haste with the Pirates. He chumps one of them with the Thopterist, and on his turn he kills me with the Kappa Cannoneers I gave him that the rest of my creatures can't block.

Game 3 The details are a little fuzzy here, but he double Force of Wills my first attempt to combo, my demonstration giving him a Kappa Cannoneer, and my Sakashima's Apprentice choosing to come down as a copy of that same Kappa Cannoneer. He than plays a better fair game than my Mid-90's lands and 1 Kappa and passes the turn back to me. I draw more action of the top, I combo, he forces one of the copies and the other hits Emrakul off the top. At this point he is at 16 life with 7 permanents. I'm at 11 Life with 2 Permanents, one of which is Emrakul. I swing for 15, he sacrifices his entire board except the Kappa that, again, I gave him, and he goes to 1 and there are only 3 permanents on the battlefield. He then attacks me with the Kappa and I go to 2. He then passes the turn back to me and I end it.

Takeaway: I might be overvaluing hands with 1 piece of action post-board against blue decks that are going to bring in Force of Negation. Also, the fact that Kappa Cannoneer is unblockable is a real hole in my "giant boardstate pass the turn" backup plan. Matchup still seems pretty favorable though so I think the goal here is just improving my actual play.

MONO WHITE HATEBEARS (Lee Hung Nguyen - twitch.tv/1mrlee)

Well this matchup is a nightmare. I hope 90's MTG lost this footage. :rolleyes:

Game 1 He floods the board with hatebears including both Thalias. I wait until the last possible turn, bounce Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, and begin to Combo. Since he still has Thalia (3) I reason that I need to actually hit Emrakul to win the game, as no amount of hasty creatures will be able to attack him in the first place. This means demonstrating. I demonstrate him into Ethersworn Cannonist. :frown:

Game 2 I board in both the Frys and switch in the Boseijus over Otawaras. He starts doing fair white creature stuff, and just start playing lands. He Cataclysms me back down, so I just keep focusing on sequencing my lands in the way that seems both the safest to me and lets me hold up interaction when necessary as I have both a Fry and a Boseiju in hand. The turn before I combo I make the call and Fry his Thalia (3). I then combo holding up Boseiju with an untapped Hickory Woodlot as an answer if necessary. As I hit CT we begin talking as I try to work out whether or not I should demonstrate. Once I mention I was still thinking this through, he points out that he had already begun shuffling. This induces me to make a call on the spot and, partially for simplicity's sake since he already shuffled and partially because I think the 1 Fry still in the deck makes the expected outcome of the "lowball" combo potentially insufficient to beat him in a fair game from the point he was already at. I quickly think about the various hatebears in my head, that I still have the Boseiju up for Cannonist, and Thalia (2) would still let me get two more CTs beyond the 2 I'd immediately be putting on the stack and concede that I'll just choose to demonstrate on the first CT. He immediately hits Archon of Emeria. After momentarily regretting that fact that this was on camera, I extend the hand.

Takeaway: So I ran the numbers after the game ended. He was running 2 Archon of Emeria, 4 Thalia (2), and had 22 other spells left in the deck. Thalia 2 is a bad hit for him, but not that much worse than me never demonstrating since both end up with a total of 4 CTs that go off on my end. Given that that makes Archon of Emeria the only real "disaster" hit from his deck, I can't actually convince myself completely that what I did was wrong. But it certainly FEELS like I was being foolish, right? He's playing mono-white hatebears. Game 1, I demonstrate, he immediately hits a hatebear, he wins. Game 2, I demonstrate, he immediately hits a hatebear again, he wins. I feel like I'm the fool in this scenario, but when I try to think about this analytically I can't fully convince myself that I am. The logic for risking the 1st demonstrate makes sense to me as even demonstrating once will prevent the other Fry (which I have a 1/4 chance to hit on the next Cascade, a 1/3 chance to hit on the one after that, etc) from ending the chain. ... But that's exactly what I'd conclude if I *was* the fool, right?

All in all, between this week and last week I've gone 7-1, and powered through Reanimator and Flusterstorms. However, after that 0-2 loss on camera, which involves me playing my opponent's card and locking myself out of the game 2 games in a row, I kind of feel like Bart Simpson in that episode with the cupcake.

https://i.gifer.com/Z1sl.gif

EDIT: Supplementary Thought - While no one has done it against me yet, I have noticed people bringing in Surgical against me and Bob did mention that when he did 'serious testing' of the deck he did get Blue Blast + Surgical'd. Is it worth boarding 1 copy of Aeve or Temporal Fissure into the deck against decks with high amount of countermagic as well as Surgical in order to hedge for this outcome?

Rationalist

09-23-2022, 12:43 PM

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRkjVL8YN0C8K2rJwu1BsujPzwa6R5wi0GReQ&usqp=CAU

Just publicly recording some combinatorics calculations based on the Leyline of the Void issue from the previous post. If uninterested, feel free to ignore.

Chance of Leyline in hand of 7, 4/60 Cards in Deck: 39.95%
Chance of Leyline in hand of 7, 3/60 Cards in Deck: 31.543%
Chance of Leyline in hand of 7, 2/60 Cards in Deck: 22.146%
Chance of Leyline in hand of 7, 1/60 Cards in Deck: 11.667%
Chance of Leyline in hand of 7, 0/60 Cards in Deck: 0%

Chance of Leyline 3 Hands (2 Mulligans), 4 in Deck:[1-(1-.3995)3] = 0.7834595499 ≡ h[4:3] ≅ 78%
Chance of Leyline 4 Hands (3 Mulligans), 4 in Deck:[1-(1-.3995)4] = 0.8699674597 ≡ h[4:4] ≅ 87%

Chance of Leyline 3 Hands (2 Mulligans), 3 in Deck:[1-(1-.31543)3] = 0.6791857954 ≡ h[3:3] ≅ 68%
Chance of Leyline 4 Hands (3 Mulligans), 3 in Deck:[1-(1-.31543)4] = 0.7803802199 ≡ h[3:4] ≅ 78%

Chance of Leyline 3 Hands (2 Mulligans), 2 in Deck:[1-(1-.22146)3] = 0.5281078072 ≡ h[2:3] ≅ 53%
Chance of Leyline 4 Hands (3 Mulligans), 2 in Deck:[1-(1-.22146)4] = 0.6326130522 ≡ h[2:4] ≅ 63%

Chance of Leyline 3 Hands (2 Mulligans), 1 in Deck:[1-(1-.11667)3] = 0.3107624324 ≡ h[1:3] ≅ 31%
Chance of Leyline 4 Hands (3 Mulligans), 1 in Deck:[1-(1-.11667)4] = 0.3911757794 ≡ h[1:4] ≅ 39%

Chance of Leyline 3 Hands (2 Mulligans), 0 in Deck: 0%
Chance of Leyline 4 Hands (3 Mulligans), 0 in Deck: 0%

Specific # of Leyline Chances (Hypergeo)

(1) in hand, 4 boarded in: 0.33628 ∴ (0.33628/{0.33628+0.05934+0.0038+0.00007}) = 84.17732609% ≅ 84% of Leyline-Inclusive Hands with 4 in deck
(2) in hand, 4 boarded in: 0.05934 ∴ (0.05934/{0.33628+0.05934+0.0038+0.00007}) = 14.85393877% ≅ 15% of Leyline-Inclusive Hands with 4 in deck
(3) in hand, 4 boarded in: 0.0038 ∴ (0.0038/{0.33628+0.05934+0.0038+0.00007}) = 0.9512127963% ≅ 1% of Leyline-Inclusive Hands with 4 in deck
(4) in hand, 4 boarded in: 0.00007 ∴ (0.00007/{0.33628+0.05934+0.0038+0.00007}) = 0.01752234098% ≅ 0% of Leyline-Inclusive Hands with 4 in deck

(1) in hand, 3 boarded in: 0.28188 ∴ (0.28188/{0.28188+0.03252+0.00102}) = 89.36655887% ≅ 89% of Leyline-Inclusive Hands with 3 in deck
(2) in hand, 3 boarded in: 0.03252 ∴ (0.03252/{0.28188+0.03252+0.00102}) = 10.31006277% ≅ 10% of Leyline-Inclusive Hands with 3 in deck
(3) in hand, 3 boarded in: 0.00102 ∴ (0.00102/{0.28188+0.03252+0.00102}) = 0.3233783527% ≅ 0% of Leyline-Inclusive Hands with 3 in deck

(1) in hand, 2 boarded in: 0.2096 ∴ (0.2096/{0.2096+0.01186}) = 94.64463108% ≅ 95% of Leyline-Inclusive Hands with 2 in deck
(2) in hand, 2 boarded in: 0.01186 ∴ (0.01186/{0.2096+0.01186}) = 5.355368915% ≅ 5% of Leyline-Inclusive Hands with 2 in deck

(1) in hand, 1 boarded in: = 100% of Leyline-Inclusive Hands with 1 in deck

Weighted Chance of Cascading into CT with 1+ Leyline in Hand, Organized by Leylines Boarded In, Given Above Distributions, No CT Removed

4-Boarded In: [0.8417732609*(4/7)] + [0.1485393877*(4/6)] + [0.009512127963*(4/5)] + 0.0001752234098 = 0.5878244762 ≅ 59%
3-Boarded In: [0. 8936655887*(4/6)] + [0.1031006277*(4/5)] + 0.003233783527 = 0.6814913448 ≅ 68%
2-Boarded In: [0.9464463108*(4/5)] + 0.05355368915 = 0.8107107378 ≅ 81%
1-Boarded In: = 100%
0-Boarded In: = 0%

Weighted Chance of Cascading into CT with 1+ Leyline in Hand, Organized by Leylines Boarded In, Given Above Distributions, 1 CT Removed

4-Boarded In: [0.8417732609*(3/6)] + [0.1485393877*(3/5)] + [0.009512127963*(3/4)] + 0.0001752234098 = 0.5173195825 ≅ 52%
3-Boarded In: [0. 8936655887*(3/5)] + [0.1031006277*(3/4)] + 0.003233783527 = 0.6167586075 ≅ 62%
2-Boarded In: [0.9464463108*(3/4)] + 0.05355368915 = 0.7633884223 ≅ 76%
1-Boarded In: = 100%
0-Boarded In: = 0%

Combined Probabilities

Chance of Both Hitting Leyline and then Cascading into CT, Up to 2 Mulligans, Boarding 4 Leyline into the Deck, No CT Removed: 0.5878244762*h[4:3] = 0.4605366995 ≅ 46%
Chance of Both Hitting Leyline and then Cascading into CT, Up to 2 Mulligans, Boarding 3 Leyline into the Deck, No CT Removed: 0.6814913448*h[3:3] = 0.4628592411 ≅ 46%
Chance of Both Hitting Leyline and then Cascading into CT, Up to 2 Mulligans, Boarding 2 Leyline into the Deck, No CT Removed: 0.8107107378*h[2:3] = 0.42814267 ≅ 43%
Chance of Both Hitting Leyline and then Cascading into CT, Up to 2 Mulligans, Boarding 1 Leyline into the Deck, No CT Removed: 1*h[1:3] = 0.3107624324 ≅ 31%
Chance of Both Hitting Leyline and then Cascading into CT, Up to 2 Mulligans, Boarding 0 Leyline into the Deck, No CT Removed: = 0%

Chance of Both Hitting Leyline and then Cascading into CT, Up to 3 Mulligans, Boarding 4 Leyline into the Deck, No CT Removed: 0.5878244762*h[4:4] = 0.5113881663 ≅ 51%
Chance of Both Hitting Leyline and then Cascading into CT, Up to 3 Mulligans, Boarding 3 Leyline into the Deck, No CT Removed: 0.6814913448*h[3:4] = 0.5318223655 ≅ 53%
Chance of Both Hitting Leyline and then Cascading into CT, Up to 3 Mulligans, Boarding 2 Leyline into the Deck, No CT Removed: 0.8107107378*h[2:4] = 0.5128661943 ≅ 51%
Chance of Both Hitting Leyline and then Cascading into CT, Up to 3 Mulligans, Boarding 1 Leyline into the Deck, No CT Removed: 1*h[1:4] = 0.3911757794 ≅ 39%
Chance of Both Hitting Leyline and then Cascading into CT, Up to 3 Mulligans, Boarding 0 Leyline into the Deck, No CT Removed: = 0%

Chance of Both Hitting Leyline and then Cascading into CT, Up to 2 Mulligans, Boarding 4 Leyline into the Deck, 1 CT Removed: 0.5173195825*h[4:3] = 0.4052989673 ≅ 41%
Chance of Both Hitting Leyline and then Cascading into CT, Up to 2 Mulligans, Boarding 3 Leyline into the Deck, 1 CT Removed: 0.6167586075*h[3:3] = 0.4188936854 ≅ 42%
Chance of Both Hitting Leyline and then Cascading into CT, Up to 2 Mulligans, Boarding 2 Leyline into the Deck, 1 CT Removed: 0.7633884223*h[2:3] = 0.4031513857 ≅ 40%
Chance of Both Hitting Leyline and then Cascading into CT, Up to 2 Mulligans, Boarding 1 Leyline into the Deck, 1 CT Removed: 1*h[1:3] = 0.3107624324 ≅ 31%
Chance of Both Hitting Leyline and then Cascading into CT, Up to 2 Mulligans, Boarding 0 Leyline into the Deck, 1 CT Removed: = 0%

Chance of Both Hitting Leyline and then Cascading into CT, Up to 3 Mulligans, Boarding 4 Leyline into the Deck, 1 CT Removed: 0.5173195825*h[4:4] = 0.450051203 ≅ 45%
Chance of Both Hitting Leyline and then Cascading into CT, Up to 3 Mulligans, Boarding 3 Leyline into the Deck, 1 CT Removed: 0.6167586075*h[3:4] = 0.4813062177 ≅ 48%
Chance of Both Hitting Leyline and then Cascading into CT, Up to 3 Mulligans, Boarding 2 Leyline into the Deck, 1 CT Removed: 0.7633884223*h[2:4] = 0.4829294798 ≅ 48%
Chance of Both Hitting Leyline and then Cascading into CT, Up to 3 Mulligans, Boarding 1 Leyline into the Deck, 1 CT Removed: 1*h[1:4] = 0.3911757794 ≅ 39%
Chance of Both Hitting Leyline and then Cascading into CT, Up to 3 Mulligans, Boarding 0 Leyline into the Deck, 1 CT Removed: = 0%

Conclusion

Looking at the distributions above, I feel like my initial instinct of 2 is the sweet spot for Leyline of the Void. If we're making the conclusion that Turn 0 Leyline + Turn 3 Win is acceptably competitive vs. a dedicated fast graveyard combo deck, the first Leyline is buying a lot of competitive games and the second Leyline is buying another 10% or so on top of that. Past the 2nd Leyline though you can see how the combined probability numbers aren't actually increasing that much, and in some situations are even going down, all because of how they are interacting with the combo itself. These numbers are slightly unfair because I'm not accounting for when you start off on Creative Technique which let's you mitigate the issue by Demonstrating immediately (creating two "streams" on the stack allowing one to brick off and hit a Leyline safely) making the entire game more competitive in your favor, but I'm assuming v. Reanimator it is a higher priority target for their discard (which is why I did the parallel calculations for when 1 CT is removed from the deck but we're still starting on a Cascade spell) and accounting for opposing discard and topdeck probabilities is a much harder calculation for what strikes me as pretty minimal insight, so I think it's best just to assume that away and note that the actual picture is very slightly better across the board than the pure combinatorics here suggest.

So for current testing purposes (9/23/22) I'm going to go down to 2 Leylines (-2 Leyline of the Void), add the Aeve to protect the deck re: Surgical v. decks like Delver (+ Aeve, Progenitor Ooze), and look for another card to sideboard that perhaps has CMC>5 and can either be relevant in the matchup, is just another good sideboard card for unrelated purposes, OR, if we want to try to get clever, is a card that's good in the matchup but is more acceptable to Cascade into to water down the Leyline "whiffs".

FTW

09-23-2022, 05:02 PM

Congrats on your 3-1.

It sounds like Leyline is iffy due to limiting your combo. Then again, you should have enough combo starters that you can go off again if you miss on the first branch. You also need a turn 1 answer, otherwise they race you. They're the more explosive combo deck. You have ~0% chance of winning if you let them go off on turns 1-2 (Griselbrand -> draw 14 -> 3x Grief/Unmask discarding your hand, Serra's Emissary on creatures). Whereas you might be able to win a game where you start with Leyline but whiff on the first branch. Does that factor into your math?

What does the rest of your sideboard look like now? If most are 6+ mana or lands, you should be fine.

Rationalist

09-23-2022, 11:12 PM

Congrats on your 3-1.

Thanks. Top 30% isn't too harsh a cut though, realistically, and 5/16ths of players should go 3-1 on a given night.

It sounds like Leyline is iffy due to limiting your combo. Then again, you should have enough combo starters that you can go off again if you miss on the first branch.

If I have the time and resources, sure, but I'm assuming I'm under pressure in the matchup.

You also need a turn 1 answer, otherwise they race you. They're the more explosive combo deck. You have ~0% chance of winning if you let them go off on turns 1-2 (Griselbrand -> draw 14 -> 3x Grief/Unmask discarding your hand, Serra's Emissary on creatures).

I'm not sure I agree entirely with your assessment here. I'm not saying I'm confident your instincts are wrong, I'm just not where you are. Yes they're more explosive and yes if they go off Turn 1 it's *bad*, but if they have Griselbrand + Serra's Emissary and I live to combo they still lose to Emrakul, right? That's greater than 0%.

As I see it, the "stock" list of Reanimator is currently attempting to employ Discard on the Opponent -> Reanimate Griselbrand -> Draw a huge amount of cards -> Shred the Opponent's Hand -> Pass the Turn to the Opponent with no relevant spells in their hand and an unassailable boardstate that they have the resources to reconstruct if necessary. If I make it to turn 3 (or a lucky Turn 2 with Gemstone Cavern) and Combo though I'm still probably going to win, so the real issue is 1) 'Do I live that long?' and 2) 'What cards do I have access to if I do?'. The Game 2 I won against Reanimator in the post above, they did combo first, draw 14, and shred all the spells out of my hand. However, since my deck is a bit under 1/3rd action, I just high-rolled slightly, top-decked on Turn 3 and won anyways; because they still didn't do 20 damage to me before my 3rd turn.

Correct me if I'm wrong but the thing that current stock reanimator doesn't seem to be focusing on is actually ending the game quickly; because, frankly, they generally don't need to. If you have Griselbrand, Archon of Cruelty, a full sculpted hand, and your opponent is only holding lands, that's basically game over against most every deck in the format. However, I don't think we're subject to the exact same assumptions here because of how massively redundant our 1-card combo is. I'm constantly top-decking "the combo" (any castable spell) when I need to in all sorts of matchups because that's just how the deck is built.

So, if I can just make it to Turn 3 - which despite the fact I haven't run the numbers here I believe is more likely than not - there IS another way out that can be explored here, yes? I'm not saying any of this is enough to make the matchup "good", this is very far from a foolproof plan here, but given the abnormally diminishing returns on Leylines of the Void 3+ compared to most other decks, I think this is the territory to explore for the next sideboard slot for the matchup.

Have you ever seen the film "Moneyball"? You know the part where Brad Pitt says "If we play like the Yankees in here, we're going to lose to the Yankees out there."? This is kind of how I feel about the Leyline of the Void situation right now. We are worse at using Leyline against Reanimator opponents than really any existing deck in the format I can think of that's in the market to do so, and Reanimator is consciously tuned to beat their better Leyline of the Void plans. I think we need to find some unique point of leverage to exploit so that we're not just the worse Leyline deck which they'll plow over anyways, and I think that unique distinction is the fact that even after they shred our hand, we're still a 'hair's breath' away from winning on Turn 3 because all we need is to topdeck a castable spell.

So, if we have reasonable confidence we have a couple turns to work with as an alternative resource, maybe we explore ideas to ensure that, even with an "empty hand", we simply get that card when we need it and win anyways.

Maybe something in this kind of a space ...

https://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=532631&type=card

I haven't run the numbers, I'm not actually saying that's the card (in fact given that it only makes 1 mana I wouldn't be shocked to find out the combinatorics are better just on a cycle land), but if what's really killing us isn't the opponent's boardstate (which we can go over the top of if we combo), or the opponent's actual clock (because even if they combo on Turn 1 they don't actually tend to WIN on Turn 1), but simply the fact they draw infinite discard spells, maybe we can play into that. And yeah, we'll still Leyline. The first two are pretty good and I'm still willing to mulligan relatively far to reach them if necessary, it's just that the 3rd Leyline does so little and it feels like - to go back to the previous metaphor - we'd just be doing a much worse imitation of the teams the Yankees are already beating anyways because we'd be stepping on our own feet to employ the usual tools.

So, you know ... let's see if we can force the Yankees to play hopscotch. I could be wrong; again, I'm just explaining where I'm at mentally.

Whereas you might be able to win a game where you start with Leyline but whiff on the first branch. Does that factor into your math?

Not really; the math above basically assumes that you lose every game where you don't combo on Turn 3 and you win every game that you do. It doesn't have that particular nuance plugged in, but, you know, it doesn't account for the games where the opponent just destroys your Leyline and combos off without difficulty because they mulliganed to enchantment hate either. I think the only practical way to approach this kind of analysis (at least if you're doing it manually like I am and not with some kind of sophisticated game simulation program) is to interrogate some narrower condition and then simply keep the numbers you grind out in the appropriate context. It's a game with a lot of variance and I'm not able to model the entire game; what I can easily model, however, is the point at which additional Leylines start shutting down as many Turn 3 lines as they're opening up (under the supposition that Leylines are successfully opening up Turn 3 lines in the first place, which means the calculations above are implicitly overvaluing them withing the stated context if anything).

What does the rest of your sideboard look like now?

Recent changes are very untested, but in theory I'm currently here:

2 Boseiju, Who Endures
2 Fry
1 Cosign // Oblivion
2 Leyline of the Void
1 Aeve, Progenitor Ooze
4 Maddening Hex
2 Chalice of the Void (On the fence with these, currently in per Pro suggestion)
1 Something?

If most are 6+ mana or lands, you should be fine.

I'm not quite sure what you mean here. Do you mean it means "I should be fine boarding in 4x Leyline"? If so, I don't think I agree (points at math above).

FTW

09-23-2022, 11:47 PM

If I have the time and resources, sure, but I'm assuming I'm under pressure in the matchup.

With a full grip shouldn't you be able to go T3 6-drop T4 6-drop with relative ease? So many cascaders in the deck. If so, it's not game-ending to whiff on the first one.

I'm not sure I agree entirely with your assessment here. I'm not saying I'm confident your instincts are wrong, I'm just not where you are. Yes they're more explosive and yes if they go off Turn 1 it's *bad*, but if they have Griselbrand + Serra's Emissary and I live to combo they still lose to Emrakul, right? That's greater than 0%.

Sorry, I was not clear due to using shorthand.

I meant two different scenarios:
A) T1 Griselbrand. They draw 14. They cast 3 Unmask/Grief effects and shred your hand on turn 1. You have no nonlands left in hand. You now cannot go off unless you randomly topdeck one of your win spells by turn 3 (in a deck with 38ish lands). They might make a 2nd creature too. Archon of Cruelty would be devastating.
B) T1 Serra's Emissary on creatures. You have 3 turns to go off and must hit Emrakul, otherwise loss, since you cannot block or attack otherwise.

You're right that B is easier to come back from, since they have not disrupted your resources to go off, but it is not the worst case scenario. It was just one option. It's one of their weaker starts.
A is more common and more dangerous. Especially if the 2nd creature is Archon (speeding up the clock & discarding a land).

There is also
C) T1 Chancellor of the Annex. The tax makes it awkward. You either pay 6 for CT or cast a cascade spell and let it get countered. Even then, most of the branch spells will get countered.

Overall, the point is that Reanimator is faster and has broken starts that can stop you from going off. In combo mirrors, most combo decks can't afford to let Reanimator go off first undisrupted.

Therefore, should a turn 3 goldfish without hate count as a "win"? In your math it does, but in practice many of those will be losses. I think that skews the results towards fewer Leylines.

Although perhaps you're right in that they're tuned to beat Leyline so it's not enough and not worth disrupting your engine. If so, what else would you run instead? Just try to race? Karakas and Otawara, Soaring City may help.

I like Maddening Hex in here. Chalice of the Void seems bad. For the marginal disruption you get (stop Flusterstorm and Deafening Silence?), it cascades poorly. At least if you cascade into Leyline you've reset a hate piece, while cascading into Chalice @ 0 doesn't do much against most decks.

Rationalist

09-24-2022, 12:03 AM

There is also
C) T1 Chancellor of the Annex. The tax makes it awkward. You either pay 6 for CT or cast a cascade spell and let it get countered. Even then, most of the branch spells will get countered.

Eeew, you're right, I haven't been taking Chancellor into account. Good news is I don't think he's in the current stock lists. Bad news is he's probably totally still in Rando #4's pet or non-stock Reanimator deck, so he's still a very real threat I haven't been taking into account since I've just been staring at the current stock list.

Mmmm.

Good feedback, thank you, just feedback that makes me frown and go "Mmmmm.".

Although perhaps you're right in that they're tuned to beat Leyline so it's not enough and not worth disrupting your engine. If so, what else would you run instead? Just try to race? Karakas and Otawara, Soaring City may help.

I'm not sure yet, really. I just finished the "diagnosing problems" part of the cycle and am in the "rough brainstorming" phase. I'll run anything that seems promising past you here, but I'm not there yet myself.

I like Maddening Hex in here.

I do too. It's not that hard to Turn 2 it against fast spell-based combo decks and even if it cuts a combo chain short T2 Maddening Hex into T3 6/3 Haste + Maddening Hex is absolutely fine by me in the relevant matchups.

Chalice of the Void seems bad.

I could easily believe you're right here. Again, I don't currently have a great defense of the card other than default testing things Bob Huang messages me about until I can verbalize why it's wrong.

For the marginal disruption you get (stop Flusterstorm and Deafening Silence?), it cascades poorly.

It doesn't stop Flusterstorm due to how Storm works and I'm not actually too bothered by Deafening Silence, I just play spells that produce 3+ Random Creatures through the Silence and quickly outmuscle a lot of opponents while simultaneously fishing for Emrakul. The idea is inclusive of where Chalice on 0 has non-0 value though, but again, I'm not really defending it and could easily believe you are correct, I'm just explaining why it is currently there as it isn't logic-less, just arguably sketchy.

Anyways, a lot of good feedback and I thank you for it.

snugar_i

09-24-2022, 01:26 AM

Rationalist

09-24-2022, 11:10 AM

Speaking of Chancellor of the Annex, could it be useful in the sideboard against fast combo? Slows them down, cannot be cascaded into except with Wanderer, and is still kinda useful when flipped with Technique...

That's actually rather interesting. I mean ... I don't think I'd dare try that vs. Reanimator because they'd reanimate it against me and it definitely means something else to a T3 combo deck like us than to a T1 combo deck like you usually see it from, but ... that's just a really interesting thought.

Hmm.

LennonMarx

10-14-2022, 04:39 PM

I played the red version to 3-1 last night in a local event. Beat Pox and RUG control twice, lost to Death's Shadow but I think I could have sequenced differently and had an out. The sideboard could have had 13 mountain goats, the only cards I boarded in were Aeve and Boseiju (I only have 1 in the SB at the moment since I only own 3). Aeve is a great add, btw, every opponent brought in Surgical aside from Pox. I think a 2nd in the board might even be reasonable if you expect the room to be as grindy as the one I was in.

Edit: I did still have Keruga in the sideboard as I forgot to take him out before I went to the shop. I had 1 game on the night where I paid to put him into hand and was on the 5/4 beatdown plan, against RUG control, but I drew a cascade spell the next turn and won from there. His value isn't 0, but having had the option I don't want it again. What I will say is it was a great ice breaker. I haven't played in any live events in ~8 years and "Here is my weirdo companion, take your time reading" is a great way to introduce yourself.

Andy_Prime

10-14-2022, 07:39 PM

I played a red version of this week at a weekly and went 4-0. My take on it doesn't have any green cards, except wanderer. Using Boarding Party, Minotaur, and Phoenix as my cascaders.

I beat Nicfit, Cheerios, Esper selfmill big creatures, and Storm.

Curse of Shaken Faith x4 and Maddening Hex x4 in the sideboard did good work for me. I am not super happy with consign.

Deck is fun and powerful, I just accept there are matches I cant win and hope to avoid them. Would I run this in a big event probably not. But fun for weeklies.

snugar_i

10-22-2022, 04:41 AM

I believe the final two matches here are going to end up being posted on the 90's MTG Youtube Channel in some short amount of time.

Found one of them - Temur Cascade vs 8 Cast (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g54WBeuIoH0)

Thinking about putting this deck together and trying it out at the local weekly. I don't have any Boseijus or Otawaras though, and they are out of my budget currently, so the deck would be more glass-cannony than usual. Fortunately I already have the Cities and Tombs and the Taiga I don't even need when there's no Boseiju...

There are some things I don't quite understand and would appreciate an insight:
- Why do you play so many lands when you only need 3 to go off?
- From the video it looks like you don't really want to Technique into a 6-mana Cascader, hoping to hit an Emrakul or at least a Wanderer, so why only play 3 Emrakuls and 3 Wanderers? Would it be wrong to go to 4-of both? And how about a couple Apex Devastators?

Thank you for creating this thread. The deck looks like a fun thing to try at a local event :smile:

EDIT: Is Teferi's Isle a bad Sol land? You have to play it turn 1 and then it only gives mana on turns 3 and 5 (if I understand it correctly)...

Rationalist

11-05-2022, 11:26 AM

Appreciate the recent feedback here. There's more I want to respond to when I have the time, but yes, I do think that Teferi's Isle is a bad land. It only makes mana once in its first 4 turns on the battlefield, and that doesn't happen until turn 3. Unless one is incredibly thirsty for blue mana, I'd rather play a 2nd Crystal Vein, or if I was determined to get blue mana specifically, I'd rather play a Svyelunite Temple again.

Rationalist

01-29-2023, 02:15 PM

Tournament Report: Laughing Dragon 1k - 10th Place (49 Players)

https://i.imgur.com/BcJ8IFT.png

Event List:

4x Boarding Party
4x Creative Technique
4x Maelstrom Wanderer
3x Aurora Phoenix
2x Sweet-Gum Recluse
2x Let the Galaxy Burn
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4x Sandstone Needle
4x Saprazzan Skerry
4x Hickory Woodlot
4x Ancient Tomb
4x City of Traitors
4x Dwarven Ruin
4x Otawara, Soaring City
3x Crystal Vein
2x Sulfur Vent
2x Havenwood Battleground
2x Gemstone Cavern
2x Karakas
1x Mountain

Sideboard:

4x Pyrokinesis
4x Maddening Hex
2x Boom Pile
2x Pithing Needle
2x Leyline of the Void
1x Aeve, Progenitor Ooze

Round 1 (Red Painter):

Round one was against Heather, a local I know from the Card Kingdom Weeklies. Unfortunately, this means she knows what I’m likely on as I’ve been focusing on this brew for a few months now and I haven’t been quiet about it.

Game 1 I win with a quick combo without much interesting interaction that I can recall.

Game 2 I keep a hand with Gemstone Cavern and she drops an early Thorn of Amethyst into Painter’s Servant naming blue. Before my 3rd turn I tap Gemstone Caverns, Sandstone Needle, and a colorless Sol-Land to channel Otawara and bounce the Thorn. She responds by red-blasting my colorless Sol-Land. After the game she’ll note that this may have been a mistake and she should have gone for the Sandstone Needle, but was more concerned at the time with the more “permanent” mana-source. I agree with her assessment since colors are often a bigger weak point than ‘access-to-land’ with my 40-land-but-fetchless manabase. For context, Aurora Phoenix, which is the only spell I have in hand at the time, requires double-red pips. The good news is I topdeck a Creative Technique which is castable off a single red-pip. The bad news is that I don’t have another Untapped Sol Land to go off on my Turn 3 so I play another ETB-Tapped Sol-Land and pass the turn back where she redeploys Thorn of Amethyst. My turn 4 I get up to 7 mana despite the Sol-Land being blown up and I chain out a couple beaters through the Thorn. With Emrakul still in the deck providing one layer of grindstone insurance I’m assuming this is going to be a fair game and I soon do another “short chain” through the Thorn for 3 more beaters including Maelstrom Wanderer and she scoops.

I’m 1-0.

Round 2 (Jund Smog):

Game 1 I win with a quick combo without much interesting interaction that I can recall, although the first card I demonstrate him into is Witherbloom Apprentice so I’m quite conscious that there is some small chance that I demonstrate him into Chain of Smog while I continue to combo. I demonstrate anyways, reasoning I need to make sure I have haste or an extra turn to ensure he can’t combo me back on his turn with his new Apprentice.

Game 2 I keep a hand with Gemstone Cavern on my opponent goes from Turn 1 Thoughtseize to Turn 2 Golgari-Magecraft-Combo-Guy whose name I don’t remember. I play an untapped land on Turn 2 so that I have 4 mana up. Turn 3 he goes for the Chain of Smog on himself and I Otawara-bounce the combo-creature back to his hand in response. When he reverses the Chain of Smog back on me I keep Sol Land + Cascade Threat and discard the other two cards, untap, and combo kill him on my Turn 3.

I’m 2-0.

Round 3 (Blue-Red Delver):

Game 1 he wastelands me twice but he’s not putting on much of a clock until his 3rd or 4th turn so I just combo kill him on my Turn 5 without much he can do. The combo chain starts off a little weak though (Creativity into Creativity without intervening Cascaders), so – given that he’s expressed confusion as to what I’m doing – I pull out the Storm Counter I use for the sideboard Progenitor Ooze and start keeping track of storm. This causes him to decline casting a Dragonrage Channeler that I Technique him into which I figure is one less blocker if I variance very poorly. Rest of the chain goes fine though.

Game 2 he knows what’s up now. He keeps on 7, I eat an early wasteland, and he races to a 6/6 Murktide. Alongside DRC he swings in for 7 taking me down from 17 to 10 while I’m still on 4 or 5 mana. I start the turn on 10 facing down 7 damage and two options. I can play an untapped Sol-Land and combo off this turn. Alternatively, I can play an ETB-Tapped Masques Sol-Land and play for a hardcast Maelstrom Wanderer the following turn. Given how eagerly he kept his opening hand I assume he has to have at least two pieces of interaction, and I’ve already seen a bolt (and I believe two wastelands), so I reason that the best play is to risk death on his turn to overpower his interaction on my next untap. Even Flusterstorm or Double-Force of Will shouldn’t but a sufficient answer to Maelstrom Wanderer so I bet on him not having another bolt/wasteland rather than not having Double-Force/Flusterstorm and pass the turn. On his turn he hydroblasts my land to achieve delirium and attacks me down to 1. On my turn I untap, play a land, and cast Maelstrom Wanderer. After a little chaining from the first cascade I end up with a Cascader and an Aeve, Progenitor Ooze with 4 ‘oozlings’. I’m over 20 power now but without any other legendary hits I’m still reliant on the Maelstrom Wanderer resolving for haste. When I go to resolve the 2nd Cascade and hit a Creative Technique, with no other unresolve cascade triggers on the stack, he makes his move and double-counters to stop the chain. Unfortunately for him that means that Maelstrom Wanderer resolves and I already have enough to win this turn. We talk after the game and I point this out to him, but he says he felt he just had to “stop the chain”. I concur that letting me continue to chain was still a major threat, but it was still non-deterministic and there was always the chance I’d have to keep demonstrating to build up enough and demonstrate him into a lightning bolt.

I’m 3-0.

Round 4 (Bug Reanimator Brew):

Game 1: He entombs a threat so I put him on some sort of reanimation deck, but the BUG Manabase reads to me as more “Worldgorger Dragon Blue Midrange” than classic reanimator. I combo kill him on Turn 3 without much resistance.

Game 2: He Thougtseizes the only spell in my opening hand (Sweet-Gum Recluse) but I draw another before Turn 3. On his 2nd turn he plays Baleful Strix. On my Turn 3 I play Aurora Phoenix cascading into Creative Technique and I demonstrate. With the demonstration triggers on the stack he double-forces my combo so I resolve just the 5/3 flyer, which isn’t too impressive eyeing a Baleful Strix from across the table. He reanimates my Sweet-Gum Recluse and its trigger make it a 3/6 with reach. I’m silently amused by how well one of my unplayed draft threats lines up against my other unplayed draft threat. Double-Forcing didn’t leave him with a lot of other resources though, so a couple turns later I draw another spell, cast it, and win the game.

I’m 4-0. Since he’s also playing a deck he brewed himself and we played at Table 1 going into Round 4 of a 49-player event, we make some sarcastic comments about the inferiority of “net deckers”.

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Between Rounds: So I’m talking with people between rounds. 1MrLee (twitch name) tells me that I should be able to draw into Top 8 at this point, which gets me noticeably excited as the attention of a larger event Top 8 could potentially further my goals of getting Creative Technique onto MTGO, as I originally brewed the deck as a donation list for streamers but started playing it myself after finding out the card wasn’t ‘in digital’. He runs me though a hand-wavey version of the math with a calculator. The math I’m not doing in this moment, however, that I should be, is calculating how many other undefeated players there are in a 49 player tournament. It’s a pretty quick calculation to do, and the answer is 2. This is the math I should have been doing. Looking at the other players at the top tables I’m pretty happy with my odds against all of them except for one, and I know he’ll draw with me in his own interest.

Before the round begins I end up chatting with another local I know, Lauren Mulligan, and I mention that I’m glad I dodged her because she’s the hardest matchup that I know of in the room, as she rarely sleeves up cardboard without Life from The Loam. I can handle a couple wastelands from a tempo deck, but my weird little brew can’t really do a lot against an infinite number of wastelands coming online before I get to 5/6 mana (which is why the sideboard has two “desperation pithing needles”; I’d run more, but they can brick the combo chaining). She confirms that I’m safe from her evil clutches because she’s 2-2, after hitting a run of 3 combo players. I ask her what combos she’s run into, and I note that I feel pretty good against two of them, but I don’t think I can beat Oops All Spells.
Anyways, I’m just sitting happy getting ready to draw into the Top 8.

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Round 5 (Oops All Spells):

So, to my surprise (because I didn't do the math and overestimated the number of undefeated players), I get paired down. This means my opponent has no incentive to draw, and I don’t recognize them from the top tables so I don’t know what they’re on.

Game 1 I lose.

Game 2 we both Mulligan to 5. I keep Leyline, and the 4 cards I need to go off on Turn 3. After I pass on Turn 2, they Force of Vigor my Leyline and go off.

I’m 4-1.

Round 6 (Classic Ruby Storm):

Game 1 I lose the die roll and he kills me on his Turn 3 before I have a chance to kill him on my Turn 3. In retrospect, losing the die roll was a big mistake.

Game 2 he leads with Ruby Medallion Turn 1. I play a Maddening Hex on him Turn 2. After Taking 12 damage from the Hex after casting a few spells he seems to realize he cannot combo under it and starts attacking with Birgi. I hardcast a Maelstrom Wanderer and he scoops.

Game 3 I keep another hand with a Turn 2 Maddening Hex. On his turn 2 he wheels both of us into new hands. This hand doesn’t have Maddening Hex, so the shields are now down. It does have a cascader though, so the one glimmer of hope is that I should theoretically win if I manage to get a Turn 3, as it will either combo or get Maddening Hex. I don’t get a Turn 3.

I drop down to 4-2, and I end up 10th/49 in the Tournament.

Closing Thoughts:

I remain in favor with the most recent changes I’ve made to the deck, but there are a couple areas I suspect I’m still being sup-optimal.

The spell package has been trimmed to 20, which allows for 40 lands. This makes the deck weaker to Thoughtseize but more consistent overall, and I don’t think Thoughtseize is a big threat. At the current time this is as trim as I think I can make it without inducing other problems.

There are two lessons that I picked up from the list that Andrea Mengucci posted after seeing someone run the deck at a European tournament and also just miss out on Top 8. The first is that 4 Maelstrom Wanderer and 1 Emrakul is sufficient and therefore almost certainly better than the splits I was running previously. To be completely honest, 4 Maelstrom Wanderer and 0 Emrakul may actually be correct, but at this moment I like having the Emrakul in the mix, particularly with the uptick of Painter decks that I’m seeing in paper. Maelstrom Wanderer is simply more integral to the deck, the haste it provides, the fact that it is a chain-starter itself, the way it further increases the decks resiliency to interaction, and it’s even a red card for relevant pitch spells. The original 3/3 split was naïve, and hitting a 2nd Maelstrom Wanderer isn’t actually a problem as the additional cascade triggers will prevent the duplicate legendary from reducing the value of the chain. You want to hit Maelstrom Wanderer so much, and even want it from hand some times, that it’s worth running all 4 copies and is yet another reason to keep the total spell-count in the deck as trim as you can manage.

The thing that I’ve learned from other players is the value of Let the Galaxy Burn. It’s not a threat and it increases the weight of taxing effects when you have to combo through them, but … it’s more maindeck answers to Archon of Emeria, and it’s one of the easier 6-Drops to cast, so even with their drawbacks in mind they’ve been great. As shown above I’m currently on 2 while the list that inspired me to move towards them was on 4. I may be wrong here, but 2 is the most I feel I can get away with since I don’t want more than 20 spells and I want enough creature density to still win when I have to play scrappy fair-games, as came up in the tournament above. It’s a good card, but 20 spell slots isn’t a lot to work with.

Another change I’ve made recently is to focus the creature threat more on the manabase than focusing the manabase on the suite of creature threats. This is why there are 3 Aurora Phoenix and 2 Sweet-Gum Recluse, despite Aurora Phoenix being both easier for the deck to cast and a more aggressive beater in smaller chains. The least flexible parts of the deck can be found in the manabase. If you want Masque Lands, which this deck could not function without, then you’re kind of committed to only the first 4 being red. Given the number of colorless lands already in the deck, and the incentive for the opponent to play towards maximum numbers of wasteland, you need some non-red 6-drops. Moving the deck from the original tri-color split to a “red version” has increased its consistency, but given the nature of the manabase I feel like 100% red 6-drops is wrong. You do want some starters that you can cast off of Hickory Woodlot + Saprazzan Skerry + Ancient Tomb, for example. The deck still leans red because the spells automatically bias towards red, which incentivizes the manabase to move further towards red, but the manabase isn’t able to make the full journey to a mono-red deck so I don’t think the spells suite should either; just primarily red. I’m currently very happy with the 20 maindeck spells.

If there is a current shortcoming in the maindeck, it’s probably the 2 copies of Karakas. There’s a very strong chance that one or both of them should just be more Gemstone Caverns. I initially moved away from Gemstone Caverns after Jarvis recommended them because they were a 5th or 7th mana in a deck that so often just wanted to cast a 6-drop. However, when I moved them back in after increasing to 40 lands they’ve just proven themselves time and again. Even when they don’t give you the Turn 2 Creative Technique, they alleviate the burden on the deck for an untapped Sol-Land on 3 and they fix blue mana for a more consistent Turn 2 Otawara-channel-bounce.

The sideboard I have some mixed feelings on.

Pyrokinesis was a recommendation of a local who borrowed the deck from me for a weekly. I didn’t think of it first because I’m dumb, but it’s a great add, avoids muddying the combo chains the way Fury does, and really helps make the initiative matchup viable. The 4 Maddening Hex have also proven to be an excellent Plan B in more matchups than they were originally intended for.

As weird and silly as they look, the Boompiles have pulled their weight so far. If you play them Turn 2 they have a 75% chance of wiping all permanents from the board before your next chance to combo and can also buy you time in the process. Obviously the card is not ideal because it has a random element and a CMC of 4, but it’s colorless in a deck without fixing, enchantment removal with a primarily colorless-and-red manabase, an incidental anti-aggro card in an aggro-leaning metagame, and a catch-all hatepiece-answer in a deck without card filtering for the ‘appropriate’ answer. Worst case scenario, if you Cascade Threat into Boompile, you have a 50% shot of wiping the board and dropping a medium-fat creature which should buy you the time to combo again. They’re undeniably clunky, but with a combo deck so naturally resilient to hand-based interactions, 4-mana colorless board wipes have so far been worthwhile in otherwise problematic matchups with an abundance of hate-pieces. Combined with Pyrokinesis that does not clutter up cascade chains in the same way and maindeck Let the Galaxy Burn, Archons of Emeria have been much less scary of late.

The 2 Pithing Needles so far have been worthwhile, but they are admittedly taking a couple horrible matchups (the mox diamond, wasteland, loam style ones) and promoting them to … winnable but bad matchups. Without some very specific cards printed in the future fair green decks will always be one of the two unavoidable weaknesses of this archetype. Currently the needles are winning me enough matches that I would otherwise lose that I feel incentivized to keep them. However, “upgrading matchups to only be bad” is definitely questionable at its core if there are better ways to use these slots.

The 2 Leyline of the Void is highly questionable. They’re clearly insufficient against Oops All Spells, which means they’re just here for Reanimator. I’ve actually done quite well against reanimator to date since when they combo they generally shred your hand except for the lands and pass the turn, and all I need to win is to plays lands and cast any spell I draw, which goes over the top of them. I can’t really put in 4 Leyline if I want my combo to reliably good against them, though, since they’ll combo first. So I’m … what, buying 10% to 15% matchup increase against specifically reanimator, taking it from a bad-ish matchup to a ‘meh’ matchup, at the cost of … 2 sideboard slots? I’m probably wrong in doing this, but as of my typing these words those are still the 2 cards that in those sleeves upstairs.

Finally, the Aeve, Progenitor Ooze I’m unsure of. I originally put him in here because when Bob Huang offered to test the deck for me for a bit he specifically warned me about Delver siding in Surgical Extraction and countering the paper copy of technique and then extracting it as I start the chain. However, I keep boarding it in against Delver and they keep not doing that. It … hasn’t actually hurt me at all by ending a chain too short as of yet, but I keep paying a cost to counter a move that I’m considering optimal from my opponent, and they keep not making that move. Whether that’s their build, or their actual play, or unfamiliarity with what I’m doing, how long do I keep paying the cost to rent a safe in a building no one is breaking into? Isn’t the old adage that you lose a game of magic by being one level below your opponent or exactly two levels above them? I’m still happy to keep oozing people for now, but it’s starting to feel a little bit like a “two levels above them” thing. I don’t know … maybe those Delver players will read this, and then start going for surgical extraction thinking I’m no longer doing this, and *then* I’ll get them. Maybe.

Currently Considering:
2 Karakas -> 2 Gemstone Caverns
2 Leyline of the Void -> 2 Other Anti-Combo Cards

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More places I've seen the deck popping-up recently:

Andrea Mengucci mentioning it "just missing" Top 8 at a large European Tournament:

https://youtu.be/tjcw1FgUMi0?t=382 (Mengucci's 'Decks of the Week' Video)

(Amusingly, at least for me, he ends up attributing the origin of the deck as "[he thinks] some small Japanese Tournament")

It also appeared on ELD's Time Vault Games a couple months back:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7yAQ7Ktm6I

FTW

01-29-2023, 09:57 PM

Congrats on 10th!

That's a strong 8-0 (4 2-0s) start to the tournament! Always feels good entering the top bracket undefeated in games.

I like your recent red-heavy manabase.

Between Rounds: So I’m talking with people between rounds. 1MrLee (twitch name) tells me that I should be able to draw into Top 8 at this point, which gets me noticeably excited as the attention of a larger event Top 8 could potentially further my goals of getting Creative Technique onto MTGO, as I originally brewed the deck as a donation list for streamers but started playing it myself after finding out the card wasn’t ‘in digital’. He runs me though a hand-wavey version of the math with a calculator.

That's really frustrating.

As a habit, I ignore others' speculation of the standings and do my own math. Players chatter about it a lot. Sometimes casually speculating, sometimes trying to help, sometimes to talk you into drawing. But you never know if they did the math wrong or have biased interests (e.g. maybe they want you to draw because their friend has 100% chance of drawing into Top 8 but you aren't guaranteed, since tiebreaker opponent win% can change a lot in the last rounds, but they want their friend to secure a spot). I would rather figure out on my own what is optimal for me and stick to that plan.

You are clearly strong at math so I advise the same for you. Work the whole thing out yourself, pick a lane, and then enjoy chatting with others but don't let that sway your decisions. If you're confident in your deck (especially if you know what others are on from scouting between rounds), don't accept draws you don't need to or draws that could backfire.

Unfortunately when there's an uneven number of undefeated players, 1 gets paired down. Not only will that X-1 opponent not give you the draw, but their win % is lower than the win % the other undefeateds get paired against (each other). So even if you win, your tiebreaker stat went down relative to the other undefeateds, while that X-1 opponent's tiebreaker went up from playing you. Even worse if they are X-0-1 and not X-1. That means that pairing could also make drawing the subsequent round less optimal, forcing you to play both out. Then what if players the others' beat don't drop and play it out, making it into the X-1 or X-2 bracket, boosting others' opponent win%s while your opponents got creamed or drop? A lot can change over those last 2 rounds. Even if you aren't the one paired down, it may not be safe to double draw knowing the other X-0 has to play it out (could win) and then you would place behind them and all X-1s. It's frustrating going from X-0 to finishing 9th or 10th after tiebreakers affected by matches you aren't even playing in. A lot can change even when you start off X-0 in the 1st-4th spot, so always do your own math and logic tree first before listening to others about whether you can coast into Top 8.

Round 5 (Oops All Spells):

Round 6 (Classic Ruby Storm):

I drop down to 4-2, and I end up 10th/49 in the Tournament.

Unlucky pairings.

As I mentioned earlier, I think one of your biggest weaknesses is faster explosive combo decks. If they go off before turn 3, you don't have much meaningful game play. The SB should be tweaked to help. Maddening Hex seems very strong. It's unfortunate that it got Wheeled out of your hand in R6G3, otherwise maybe you win that game and match and then make Top 8 as X-1.

I think you also got lucky that Round 4 was slow BUG Reanimator (the new grindy Ledger Shredder + Baleful Strix build?) instead of explosive BR Reanimator, otherwise R4G1 would not be able to go off turn 3 undisrupted.

Overall the deck looks strong. Maybe some SB changes could help fight fast combo? The meta is shifting towards fast decks due to Initiative pushing out slower fair decks.

There are two lessons that I picked up from the list that Andrea Mengucci posted after seeing someone run the deck at a European tournament and also just miss out on Top 8. The first is that 4 Maelstrom Wanderer and 1 Emrakul is sufficient and therefore almost certainly better than the splits I was running previously. To be completely honest, 4 Maelstrom Wanderer and 0 Emrakul may actually be correct, but at this moment I like having the Emrakul in the mix, particularly with the uptick of Painter decks that I’m seeing in paper.

Yeah, keep the 1 Emrakul because of decks like Painter and High Tide. It's also a nice silver bullet to hit if you are able to make many branches but face some difficult board state. Emrakul beats a lot.

Another change I’ve made recently is to focus the creature threat more on the manabase than focusing the manabase on the suite of creature threats. This is why there are 3 Aurora Phoenix and 2 Sweet-Gum Recluse, despite Aurora Phoenix being both easier for the deck to cast and a more aggressive beater in smaller chains. The least flexible parts of the deck can be found in the manabase.

This seems wise. Your Sol Land mana base limits what you can play reliably, so it makes sense to pick threats that your manabase can support. Enlisted Wurm is a good creature but too awkward to cast. Even Etherium-Horn Sorcerer puts more pressure on your mana. With the change in threats, you were able to beat mana denial from Painter and Delver by just dropping more lands, and they couldn't color-screw you off action.

Pyrokinesis was a recommendation of a local who borrowed the deck from me for a weekly. I didn’t think of it first because I’m dumb, but it’s a great add, avoids muddying the combo chains the way Fury does, and really helps make the initiative matchup viable.

Agree. Much better than Fury here. Also being instant vs sorcery speed makes every difference vs Elves. Pyrokinesis in response to Hoof trigger or Allosaurus activation = GG, whereas they can sometimes sneak a fast win around Fury.

The 2 Pithing Needles so far have been worthwhile, but they are admittedly taking a couple horrible matchups ([I]the mox diamond, wasteland, loam style ones) and promoting them to … winnable but bad matchups.

The 2 Leyline of the Void is highly questionable. They’re clearly insufficient against Oops All Spells, which means they’re just here for Reanimator. I’ve actually done quite well against reanimator to date since when they combo they generally shred your hand except for the lands and pass the turn, and all I need to win is to plays lands and cast any spell I draw, which goes over the top of them. I can’t really put in 4 Leyline if I want my combo to reliably good against them, though, since they’ll combo first. So I’m … what, buying 10% to 15% matchup increase against specifically reanimator, taking it from a bad-ish matchup to a ‘meh’ matchup, at the cost of … 2 sideboard slots? I’m probably wrong in doing this, but as of my typing these words those are still the 2 cards that in those sleeves upstairs.

I think these 4 should be anti-combo slots. Pick something that is good against any fast deck and also won't mess up your branches too much. I don't know what that card is, but you do have weaknesses to stuff like Oops, BR Reanimator, and other fast combo. Hex is very strong vs Storm, but could still eat turn 1 discard and isn't enough vs non-Storm combo or a fast Empty win.

ESG

01-30-2023, 12:31 AM

Unfortunately when there's an uneven number of undefeated players, 1 gets paired down. Not only will that X-1 opponent not give you the draw, but their win % is lower than the win % the other undefeateds get paired against (each other). So even if you win, your tiebreaker stat went down relative to the other undefeateds, while that X-1 opponent's tiebreaker went up from playing you. Even worse if they are X-0-1 and not X-1. That means that pairing could also make drawing the subsequent round less optimal, forcing you to play both out. Then what if players the others' beat don't drop and play it out, making it into the X-1 or X-2 bracket, boosting others' opponent win%s while your opponents got creamed or drop? A lot can change over those last 2 rounds. Even if you aren't the one paired down, it may not be safe to double draw knowing the other X-0 has to play it out (could win) and then you would place behind them and all X-1s. It's frustrating going from X-0 to finishing 9th or 10th after tiebreakers affected by matches you aren't even playing in. A lot can change even when you start off X-0 in the 1st-4th spot, so always do your own math and logic tree first before listening to others about whether you can coast into Top 8.

I always appreciate your detailed posts, but I think this part mischaracterizes the situation. In a 49-player event, it's very safe to double draw the last two rounds as an X-0. The only potential issue is if the tournament organizer didn't run the event at the correct number of rounds for the turnout. This event was six rounds, which was correct for the turnout. If he wins his Round 5, then Round 6 doesn't matter: He's locked for Top 8 with a win, loss, or draw, so he could just concede to his opponent and grab some food if he wanted to.

Based on what happened, the two choices going into Round 6 should have been play or intentionally draw, knowing that a loss would leave the loser at X-2 and likely on the outside. If it had been me and I was in the dark about the matchup, I would take into account the records of the people around me (I would have been tracking this each round if I were X-0 or X-1 deep in the tournament). If I couldn't deduce how many slots were available, I would play. In the situations in the past when I've been on the bubble, I've had decent info and have almost always chosen to ID. But playing for seeding can also be a consideration. Being in the top half of the bracket means you get to choose to play first, and that is very important in current-day Legacy. If you know you're up against a bad matchup, then offering an ID is probably the best chance to make the cut.

I think these 4 should be anti-combo slots. Pick something that is good against any fast deck and also won't mess up your branches too much. I don't know what that card is, but you do have weaknesses to stuff like Oops, BR Reanimator, and other fast combo. Hex is very strong vs Storm, but could still eat turn 1 discard and isn't enough vs non-Storm combo or a fast Empty win.

There are precious few options, although alternate-casting-cost or high-CMC spells is something that seems inevitable in the next couple years as WOTC blasts out product. Maybe in the next Commander set. Maybe there would even be a conditional counterspell land or spell. Would Chancellor of the Annex be better than what's there currently? Would it be better to write off fast combo for now? What if cascade bricking against combo isn't that bad and as long as you're stopping them from going off, a Boarding Party or two is all you need on board to win?

Rationalist

01-30-2023, 07:39 AM

Congrats on 10th!

Thanks.

That's really frustrating.

As a habit, I ignore others' speculation of the standings and do my own math. Players chatter about it a lot. Sometimes casually speculating, sometimes trying to help, sometimes to talk you into drawing. But you never know if they did the math wrong or have biased interests (e.g. maybe they want you to draw because their friend has 100% chance of drawing into Top 8 but you aren't guaranteed, since tiebreaker opponent win% can change a lot in the last rounds, but they want their friend to secure a spot). I would rather figure out on my own what is optimal for me and stick to that plan.

You are clearly strong at math so I advise the same for you. Work the whole thing out yourself, pick a lane, and then enjoy chatting with others but don't let that sway your decisions. If you're confident in your deck (especially if you know what others are on from scouting between rounds), don't accept draws you don't need to or draws that could backfire.

The sentiment here is wise, but I need to actually research how the matchups and tiebreakers work before I can confidently do that math. I understand combinatorics well enough but I'm currently ignorant about the nuances of the matchup system itself and I wasn't going to feel confident here in the 20 minutes between rounds. A shortcoming of preparation, perhaps, but I'm rationally aware I lack the required intellect to both accurately acquire the appropriate information on how the system works and accurately perform the calculation in around 1200 seconds. I'll try to simply do this math before the next time I attend a similar event.

I think these 4 should be anti-combo slots. Pick something that is good against any fast deck and also won't mess up your branches too much. I don't know what that card is, but you do have weaknesses to stuff like Oops, BR Reanimator, and other fast combo. Hex is very strong vs Storm, but could still eat turn 1 discard and isn't enough vs non-Storm combo or a fast Empty win.

I find myself concurring with most everything you're saying.

There are precious few options, although alternate-casting-cost or high-CMC spells is something that seems inevitable in the next couple years as WOTC blasts out product. Maybe in the next Commander set. Maybe there would even be a conditional counterspell land or spell. Would Chancellor of the Annex be better than what's there currently? Would it be better to write off fast combo for now? What if cascade bricking against combo isn't that bad and as long as you're stopping them from going off, a Boarding Party or two is all you need on board to win?

I think at the moment finding the thing against fast combo that I don't mind "bricking into" might be better than finding the Commandeer-type effect that I can reliably cast. That's how Maddening Hex ended up in the sideboard to begin with, since in any matchups where I want it I really don't mind going [6/3 Haste Threat into Maddening Hex, swing for 6, pass the turn]. I mean in an ideal world another pitch-card that works against fast-combo would be fantastic, but the pool of cards that do work against such decks but that I would cascade into is so much larger than the cardpool of pitch cards.

Although, come to think of it, if these are cards that are coming in alongside Maddening Hex, then maybe I don't need to be automatically comfortable "Bricking" into them ... the chance of doing that is not only muddied by Creative Techniques but also the Maddening Hexes! ... Hmm.

FTW

01-30-2023, 01:10 PM

I always appreciate your detailed posts, but I think this part mischaracterizes the situation. In a 49-player event, it's very safe to double draw the last two rounds as an X-0. The only potential issue is if the tournament organizer didn't run the event at the correct number of rounds for the turnout. This event was six rounds, which was correct for the turnout. If he wins his Round 5, then Round 6 doesn't matter: He's locked for Top 8 with a win, loss, or draw, so he could just concede to his opponent and grab some food if he wanted to.

Good points.

In a 6-round 49-player event, you can either end up with 3 4-0s or 4 4-0s.

With an even 4 4-0s, no one is paired down. Then yes you could all agree to ID or even double ID. Double ID will guarantee Top 8 as long as there are fewer than 64 players in the 6-round event, though you'll lose standings to the X-1 winners. For example, with 49 players there are approx 12 3-1s behind the 4 4-0s. 6 of them will win. If you double ID, those 6 4-1s will have to play it out and 3 will win. Final standings:
1. 5-1
2. 5-1
3. 5-1
4. 4-0-2
5. 4-0-2
6. 4-0-2
7. 4-0-2
8. 4-2 with best tiebreakers

So with an even number of 4-0s you can all double ID as 4-0-2 and Top 8 (though you'll lose position).

With the odd 3 4-0s, one of the 4-0s gets paired down with 3-1 or 3-0-1. If OP gets paired down (which he did), he doesn't even get the choice to double draw. Opponent will want to play Round 5. If OP wins Round 5, then yes he's locked in as either 5-1 or 5-0-1 no matter what happens in Round 6. The "don't draw unless you need to" advice is still relevant if, like you said, you've scouted opponent & know it's a favorable matchup & you want the win for higher position (still Top 8 if you lose). But if OP loses Round 5 (which he did due to unlucky pairing down vs bad matchup), then he's 4-1. Will his Round 6 opponent even want to draw? Will all 4-1-1s always make Top 8 in a 6-round 49-player event? I don't think so. After Round 5 there are 2 4-0-1s and possibly 8 4-1s, so the 4-1s can't all draw into Top 8. Maybe OP can get lucky if some draw and some play, but opponent may want to play. Basically, if paired down OP has to play out Round 5 (can't ID) and if he loses then he has to play out Round 6 (probably can't ID). Drawing into Top 8 is not an option.

If he doesn't get paired down, he could ID Round 5. But if the paired down 4-0 player wins their match, that player jumps into 1st place. ~6 of the 3-1s will win. Standings after Round 5 would be:
1. 5-0
2. 4-0-1
3. 4-0-1
4. 4-1
5. 4-1
6. 4-1
7. 4-1
8. 4-1
9. 4-1

For Round 6, at 4-0-1 OP would either get paired up with the 5-0 or paired down with a 4-1. The 5-0 player would probably agree to ID letting you both Top 8. But maybe they want to play because they're in a favorable position either way. For the person paired down, the 4-1 can't necessarily afford to take the draw (tiebreaker can change after other matches play out), so the paired down 4-0-1 has to play it out. You could lose. One of the 4-1s gets paired down and might win. Final standings:
1. 5-0-1
2. 5-1
3. 5-1
4. 5-1
5. 5-1
6. 4-0-2 (paired up 4-0-1 who took the ID)
7. 4-1-1 (paired down 4-0-1 who played and lost)
8. 4-2 with best tiebreakers

With 49 players and those results, all 4-0 players make Top 8. 4-1-1 is still enough to get in if you're forced to play Round 6 and then lose. But if there are closer to 60 players at 6 rounds then the X-1 pool is bigger, and if there are some natural draws from earlier rounds (paper matches can go to time), then 4-1-1 might not be enough to Top 8 if your tiebreakers are bad, meaning you could miss the cut even after the Round 5 ID (and then forced to play Round 6). It's unlikely but mathematically possible. I swear I've seen it happen before. Maybe it had to do with byes and which players dropped, inflating the X-1-1 pool.

Anyway, bottom line is it's better to look at the standings yourself and figure out on your own whether you're guaranteed to Top 8 or not. It's a bigger problem when you're in the X-1 bracket, but the same principle applies. Other people can always get the math wrong or give bad advice, so check yourself if you can.

Rationalist

01-30-2023, 01:23 PM

It looks like someone else may have gotten to the Top 8 Before Me: https://twitter.com/MaiDireLegacy/status/1619991225700085760

rufus

01-30-2023, 09:11 PM

Rationalist

01-31-2023, 12:38 AM

I really like the concept. I'm not sure how helpful these thoughts are, but:

AFAICT aftermath cards count the CMC of both sides, so Commit//Memory is cmc 10 and won't get hit by the cascaders. If there's a deep stack, it's also not a total miss to tuck a creative technique back into the library while going off. That said, I'm not sure how good it is as an interaction piece.

Consign/Oblivion is a cheaper version of that same effect. Other players who have picked up the deck seem to be using Skyturtle. Those are both options if they meet your needs. Right now I feel good about the deck's ability to answer permanents, though, and I'm not personally running either of those.

Mostly I think it's funny, but I wonder if a 1-of shared fate could do any good from the sideboard.

Certainly fun, but I'm not sure what the incentive is there other than the laughs.

It seems like Aminatou's Augury could do lot of things that you want. It's vulnerable to counters, but the opponent could just have counted the Creative Technique instead if it's mid-combo.

I think if you want a card to hit to make the chain even more robust the pick is likely the mono-green fatty with quadruple cascade. I experimented with him again recently but I cut him since he's unnecessary. I do not think more "go yet bigger" cards that you never actually hardcast are worth cluttering the combo. In fact, while I still think she's worth including, I'm closer to cutting the last copy of Emrakul than I am adding another fatty.

The combo works when it goes off. I legitimately believe the focus should be in making sure it goes off in the first place.

The one concession I'll make to Aminatou's Augury, however, is that if you're working on a build of the deck where you want a higher blue-card count - say, for example, if you wanted to Commandeer+Keruga out of the sideboard, I could imagine cards like Aminatou's Augury and/or Emergent Ultimatum being a part of that. That aside though, I'm not seeing the incentive. Assuming the 1 Emrakul remains, you'd have to cut either a potential Cascade Starter or a Land for Augury, either of which would be losing a resource that is providing you consistency.

Comboing and sputtering into non-wins is not really where this deck loses the games it loses. Not comboing is. We don't need to sharpen the bullets, we need to make sure we get a chance to pull the trigger.

It seems like the combo is limited by the number of copies of Creative Technique that you can have in your deck, so reshuffles are going to be important for resilience.

This has not historically been a problem. Even most chains with one of the techniques stuck in hand should win. I used to use Sakashima's Protege to clone Emrakul to shuffle Techniques back into the deck mid-combo, but in truth this is show-boaty nonsense that helps you go even bigger in games you're already about to win. I do not believe shuffle effects are worth cluttering the combo.

rufus

01-31-2023, 08:34 AM

The combo works when it goes off. I legitimately believe the focus should be in making sure it goes off in the first place.

How do you feel about playing Throes of Chaos and Tibalt's Trickery to go off faster?

Rationalist

01-31-2023, 11:37 AM

How do you feel about playing Throes of Chaos and Tibalt's Trickery to go off faster?

Tibalt's Trickery requires 0 cost spells. I believe any number of 0 cost spells that would allow you to reliably Tibalt's Trickery would gum up the deck so much the combo engine would no longer function since you'd cascade into 0-drops. Plus you'd be changing the whole deck for a card you'd need to draw while only playing 4 copies, and worst of all they can just Force of Will Tibalt's Trickery anyways.

If I just wanted to go off a turn faster at the cost of gumming up the deck I'd probably play Seething Song, but even a single copy in the deck gives you a 20-25% chance of bricking with the combo off a Cascade-starter or exposing the combo off a Technique-starter to countermagic, plus obviously it itself is vulnerable to countermagic.

I think trying to be fancy in the maindeck is bad almost inherently because any card you put in the deck will be seen in combo chains far more often than you'll see it in hand in the first place, and elaborate sideboard plans are not space-efficient since we only have 15 sideboard slots.

rufus

01-31-2023, 12:25 PM

Tibalt's Trickery requires 0 cost spells. I believe any number of 0 cost spells that would allow you to reliably Tibalt's Trickery would gum up the deck so much the combo engine would no longer function since you'd cascade into 0-drops. Plus you'd be changing the whole deck for a card you'd need to draw while only playing 4 copies, and worst of all they can just Force of Will Tibalt's Trickery anyways. ...

Sorry, I should have been clearer. The plan would be to cast Throes of Chaos on turn 2 off of an RR + sol land, cascade into trickery with it, and then counter throes with trickery to bootstrap going off. So there aren't any 0 cost spells involved.

It's true that this is vulnerable to counterspells, and that it makes going off less reliable, but the ways that it fizzles are:
1. Cascading into Throes of Chaos with no more trickeries in the deck. This will happen eventually since other cascades can hit trickery too, but it should hit creative technique on the way most of the time.
2. "Cascading" into trickery with an empty stack off of creative technique or trickery. (This is relatively unlikely.)

Rationalist

01-31-2023, 03:35 PM

You weren't obliged to be clearer, I'm just slow on the uptake; that should be the takeaway from what you said I'm just being overly dismissive. Maindeck I still don't like that because the counterspell vulnerability and the increased number of fizzling sequences. ... It's an interesting place to think about playing around with such cards sideboard though ...

...

Thanks. I'll give that some thought.

Rationalist

01-31-2023, 03:47 PM

... In fact, I think right off the bat, not having any Throes of Chaos in the board is likely wrong.

I'm currently boarding 4 Maddening Hex. If I changed that to 3 Throes and 2 Hex, than I could effectively board in 5 Turn-2 Hexes, give 3/5 of those effective Hexes either resiliency to discard or the ability to recur themselves the next turn (retrace is pretty easy in a 40 land deck), and then if I spent 2 more sideboard slots on some other fast-combo answer that worked against some other deck with CMC 3 or less I could always board into 5 copies of that. Whether that's Tibalt's Trickery to try to go off on Turn 2 or some other hate-card ... it's still an incredibly efficient use of sideboard slots and always insulates itself against discard which is more common out of fast combo decks.

... this actually sounds quite good.

EDIT: In fact, in fact, I should test your suggested 4x Trickery 4x Throes as a complete sideboard package. There's some chance you solved it here and I'm just still being slow on the uptake. I need to sleeve and test some stuff ...

rufus

01-31-2023, 06:36 PM

You weren't obliged to be clearer...

No obligation, but my goal was to communicate.

...
EDIT: In fact, in fact, I should test your suggested 4x Trickery 4x Throes as a complete sideboard package. There's some chance you solved it here and I'm just still being slow on the uptake. I need to sleeve and test some stuff ...

To be fair, I haven't done any testing or careful analysis, so it might be terrible, or might need more multi-cascaders or some other modification to the deck to offset the higher fizzle rate.

dte

02-01-2023, 02:50 PM

Wouldn't the chos/trickery "combo" be worth testing even MD?

Throes allow to combo often 1 turn earlier, and with the high land count the retrace ability should also be a nightmare for counterspells decks.
Trickery is not dead, it is still a 2 manas counter, which is not that bad vs some combo decks, the worst MUs if I understood well?

rufus

02-01-2023, 05:29 PM

Wouldn't the chaos/trickery "combo" be worth testing even MD?

Throes allow to combo often 1 turn earlier, and with the high land count the retrace ability should also be a nightmare for counterspells decks.
Trickery is not dead, it is still a 2 manas counter, which is not that bad vs some combo decks, the worst MUs if I understood well?

On some level, whether cards start in the main or side is a meta game call anyway. I think the issue is more that the "throes package" ends up being too many cards to fit into a sideboard.

Throes does allow going off faster, but you basically need Sandstone Needle or Gemstone Caverns (with a counter) in play to cast it again on turn 3 if you get countered. Dwarven Ruins, Sulfur Vent and Tinder Farm all have to sacrifice to produce 2 mana. ... However, talking about red mana did make me realize that, thanks to reclaim (and the high land count) throes does also make Seething Song better. Hitting seething song on the cascade and re-casting throes from a graveyard is a way to continue to combo. (Of course you really want to be pulling the Throes of Chaos out of the library so that cascade is more likely to hit creative technique instead, so reclaiming it isn't perfect.)

dte

02-02-2023, 03:38 AM

Wouldn't even a single song bring a bit over 10% fizzles with any other start than throes of chaos?

rufus

02-02-2023, 11:42 AM

Wouldn't even a single song bring a bit over 10% fizzles with any other start than throes of chaos?

Wouldn't even a single song bring a bit over 10% fizzles with any other start than throes of chaos?

Let's divide the starts into: Throes of Chaos, Creative Technique, and "other"

On a start with an "other" card like boarding party a single seething song does lead to a roughly 1/9 chance to fizzle, but those are the third choice after throes and creative technique. I imagine that going off with technique brings the average closer to 6%.

Without the throes package, a single seething song would mean a 20% chance to fizzle from "other." So throes does make seething song better.

...

One of the issues with the Throes/Trickery idea is that going off will use up the trickeries faster than the throes. On average, twice as often, but there's no replacement and the numbers are small, so the calculation is a little messy. It's plausible that it's better to just let the late fizzles happen in exchange for more early consistency, but that made me look for other ways to keep the chains going. I had confused myself into thinking that seething song could help with that, but it really just uses up another copy of trickery via retrace.
...

For what it's worth the best candidate I've come up with as a supplement for trickeries so far is probably Founding the third path which can be started at 1 instead of 2 if there isn't anything useful in the graveyard when it resolves.

FTW

02-02-2023, 01:18 PM

The Throes/Trickery combo lets you potentially go off sooner, but it also increases the fizzle rate (current combo doesn't fizzle) and makes you more prone to counterspells (current combo wins through FoW by making multiple Branches).

Suppose you have 4 Throes & 4 Trickery.

You cast T2 Throes -> Trickery targeting Throes.
Opponent can Force or Daze Trickery and you fizzle.

IF Trickery resolves:
-> you hit a cascade creature with high probability (12-16 copies?)
-> you hit another Throes/Trickery with lower probability (6 copies)
-> you hit Creative Technique with the lowest probability (4 copies)

Trickery is a fizzle (no legal targets)
Throes will cascade into Trickery countering Throes & repeat
Cascade creature will hit Throes/Trickery with higher probability than Creative Technique. Trickery will counter the creature & repeat. Throes will cascade into Trickery countering Throes and you try again.
Creative Technique is the best hit. You Demonstrate into 2 branches and then you're more resilient if 1 branch fizzles.

The problem is that Trickery can be revealed by either Trickery, cascade creature or Creative Technique leading to more fizzles or pseudo-fizzles, or making it easier for a single counterspell to disrupt the whole combo. You could mitigate some of that risk by running more multi-cascaders (4 Maelstrom Wanderer + 4 Apex Predator) so that flipping a cascade creature won't fizzle if it cascades into the wrong card. But you can't run too many high CMC cascaders because you won't always draw Throes and will need to cast the cascade creature sometimes.

It deserves testing. It could add speed, but it also adds variance and threatens resilience, so it depends how badly you need a way to speed up vs combo. Would running Chancellor of the Annex just be better at buying +1 turn? Or maybe 3 Throes + 3 Trickery in the SB? It's useful that Trickery in hand can counter enemy combos.

PirateKing

02-02-2023, 02:45 PM

Small point of order, Tibalt's Trickery "cascades" until it hits a spell with a different name, so Trickery on Throes means Throes of Chaos isn't a live hit, you just move past it.
So really Trickery into Trickery is the only fizzle from the initial start.

FTW

02-02-2023, 03:17 PM

Good point.

Then your options with Trickery are:
A) Cascade creature (8-16 hits)
B) Creative Technique (4 hits)
C) Tibalt's Trickery (3 hits)

C -> Complete fizzle. Revealed Trickery has no legal targets. Pass the turn.
B -> Demonstrate and go off with good consistency due to extra branches (but opponent gets free spells)
A -> Cascade creature could hit either:
Creative Technique (4 hits) -> Demonstrate and win with high %
Throes/Trickery (6 hits) -> Possible fizzle if it hits another Trickery

So the fizzle rate is approx 3/(3+4+12) (hit Trickery right away) + 12/(3+4+12)*[6/(6+4)]*[2/(2+4+11)] (hit cascader into Throes/Trickery into Trickery fizzle) = 15.8% + 4.4% > 20%
There will also be increased fizzling from Creative Technique lines, but I have treated those as negligibly small if you always Demonstrate (though that increases risk of opponent disruption).

You could improve those odds by running 16 cascaders instead of 12, but then there's much less room for lands. 12 cascaders already means cutting 4 lands. With 40 lands + 4 creative technique + 8 trickery/Throes, there's only room for 8 cascaders. With 8 cascaders and 40 lands that fizzle rate becomes: 3/(3+4+8) + 8/(3+4+8)*[6/(6+4)*[2/(2+4+7)] = 20% + 4.9% ~= 25%

You could also run fewer copies of Throes/Trickery and more cascade creatures, but then that speed line becomes less available.

Overall the Throes/Trickery tech introduces more variance, more fizzling, and more losses to a single counterspell. For that tradeoff it adds +1 turn speed. The question is how often is that speed worth it vs how much does the consistency loss hurt more? It deserves testing. But that is a high rate of error added.

A possible list to test for the faster line:
//Creatures: 12
4 Boarding Party
4 Aurora Phoenix
4 Maelstrom Wanderer

//Spells: 12
4 Tibalt's Trickery
4 Throes of Chaos
4 Creative Technique

//Lands: 36
4 Sandstone Needle
4 Dwarven Ruins
4 Sulfur Vent
4 Hickory Woodlot
4 Saprazzan Skerry
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Crystal Vein
4 City of Traitors
4 Gemstone Caverns

//Sideboard: 15
4 Pyrokinesis
4 Maddening Hex
2 Otawara, Soaring City
2 Karakas
2 Boseiju Who Endures
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

You could also try to decrease the fizzle rate by running fewer Tibalt's Trickery and more multicascaders. Ex:
-2 Trickery, +2 Apex Devastator
Fizzle rate drops to: 1/(1+4+14) (hit other Trickery) + 0 (cascade creature cannot result in Trickery -> Trickery) > 5%
But there will be more lines where Creative Technique or Cascade reveals Throes and there are 0 Trickery left in library (that branch fizzles).

rufus

02-02-2023, 05:21 PM

...
So the fizzle rate is approx 3/(3+4+12) (hit Trickery right away) + 12/(3+4+12)*[6/(6+4)]*[2/(2+4+11)] (hit cascader into Throes/Trickery into Trickery fizzle) = 15.8% + 4.4% > 20%
There will also be increased fizzling from Creative Technique lines, but I have treated those as negligibly small if you always Demonstrate (though that increases risk of opponent disruption).
...

I did not expect trickery to be poisonous to the combo that way. I guess I'm too used to thinking in terms of decks with half as many lands and took for granted that it wouldn't wreck itself very often.

Even really squeezing it - say by splitting with Throes with Violent Outburst and adding 4 more "cascade creatures" - the initial fizzle is still 3/25 which is quite high. That makes the "go fast" plan look pretty bad to me. Danger of cool things rears its head again. Rational's suggestion of using throes as a sideboard amplifier may have a lot more merit.

FTW

02-02-2023, 06:45 PM

I did not expect trickery to be poisonous to the combo that way. I guess I'm too used to thinking in terms of decks with half as many lands and took for granted that it wouldn't wreck itself very often.

Even really squeezing it - say by splitting with Throes with Violent Outburst and adding 4 more "cascade creatures" - the initial fizzle is still 3/25 which is quite high. That makes the "go fast" plan look pretty bad to me. Danger of cool things rears its head again. Rational's suggestion of using throes as a sideboard amplifier may have a lot more merit.

It was a good suggestion. That's why I ran some numbers to check. Unfortunately the deck is a very tightly-tuned engine and has little flexibility for alterations.

It might be simpler to achieve that +1 turn via 4x Gemstone Caverns (Turn 2 Technique) or 4x Chancellor of the Annex (-1 turn for opponent).

More land-based disruption like Otawara and Boseiju could work too.

Another option could be to replace Leyline of the Void with Endurance. Then you have cascade into Endurance (or sometimes Evoke Endurance) as interaction vs graveyard combo, like Maddening Hex is vs Storm. The good thing about Endurance is that it doubles as a fair win condition so you're still adding pressure while disrupting, even if the combo misses (and it can recycle your Creative Techniques). Whereas combo cascading into Leyline is a bust. Faerie Macabre is another option that's better in opening hand but worse to cascade into.

Rationalist

02-03-2023, 01:23 AM

Warning: Extensive but still Rough Approximations ("Fermi Calculations") Ahead

I've been playing around with this idea and I do like it a lot, with some reservations and thoughts for modification. I had an anecdotal observation from running simulated games over and over for the past couple days though and I wanted to run some numbers, because when I'm playing with configurations with 4 Throes and 4 Trickery I keep actually fizzling. It feels like the fizzle states are being underappreciated here [EDIT: Up to when I last posted that is; it appears they were not underappreciated by FTW in the intervening time] because

1) The new piece of machinery [Throes + Trickery] being added to the machine has two distinct parts.

2) The composition of the deck changes as the combo chain propagates itself; especially as Trickery arbitrarily mills cards out of the deck and prevents them from being part of all further loops. It is rather common for the proportion of these two pieces to fall out of alignment (More Throes than Trickery in the deck, or vice versa) or even start out of alignment based on opening hands.

3) The effective "fizzle" states, then, are more than just Trickery into Trickery. They are also Any Cascader into Throes with no Trickery left to hit, or a chain that simply fails to get a sufficient board presence before fizzling, which is more possible now since hitting Trickery off a Cascade often has the effective result of "shrinking" the chain since you need to either counter one of your own spells or "sacrifice" that propagating branch of the chain.

For example, let's say you are lucky enough to have a 4 card hand of Throes, Sandstone Needle, Crystal Vein, Otawara. This is ostensibly the kind of starting hand we want because it's not removing any pieces of the engine from the deck, and it goes off Turn 2 through any discard effects (which would be more represented by the fast combo decks this configuration is aimed at). You are guaranteed here to hit Trickery off of the Throes, but after this point we start making relevant "dice rolls".

Depending on how the deck is constructed / how you sideboarded, let's assume what's left in the library looks something like this:

Prime Table

1 Emrakul
4 Maelstom Wanderer
4 Creative Technique
7 Cascade 6-Drops
3 Throes
3 Trickery

So if we hit a Trickery next, we fail, which is a 13.6% the deck fizzles from this single outcome alone. Let's start a running tally of probability space where we find failures to get a sense of scale for this whole thing.

Let's be optimistic again and assume that if we hit an Emrakul, Maelstrom Wanderer, or Creative Technique, we'll be successful 100% of the time in killing that turn. From my limited anecdotal experience this is not the case, but let's make that simplifying assumption. The next thing we should investigate, than is what happens if we hit another Throes. Well, that also has a 13.6% chance of happening, and brings us to this table:

Table A

1 Emrakul
4 Maelstom Wanderer
4 Creative Technique
7 Cascade 6-Drops
2 Throes
2 Trickery

10% chance of fail outright here. 10% Chance we hit Throes again, and go to the following table.

Table A - 2

1 Emrakul
4 Maelstom Wanderer
4 Creative Technique
7 Cascade 6-Drops
1 Throes
1 Trickery

Only about a 5.6% chance we fail here.

Let me construct a crude visual to highlight what I'm doing here.

https://i.imgur.com/QgWmhSd.png

So you add up these cases and we're already at about a 15% failure chance just from "hugging the bottom" of this hypothetical probability tree. These aren't the only "failure" branches though.

Let's go back to the "Prime Table" and investigate what happens in the portion of probability space where you hit a Cascade 6-Drop next, which you have ~32% chance of doing on that table. That would force you onto the following:

Table B

4 Creative Technique
3 Throes
3 Trickery

From Table B we would have a 30% chance of hitting Throes which, if we assume that the milling off the subsequent Trickery does not relevantly alter the probabilities, brings us to

Table B-1

1 Emrakul
4 Maelstom Wanderer
4 Creative Technique
7 Cascade 6-Drops
2 Throes
2 Trickery

On which we have a 10% Chance of failure. 10% of 30% of 32% is about 1%, so let's say we have explicitly found 16% chance of failstates so far.

The really interesting branch off of Table B, though, I think, is if we hit a Trickery. That would bring us to

Table B-2

1 Emrakul
4 Maelstom Wanderer
4 Creative Technique
7 Cascade 6-Drops
2 Throes
1 Trickery

Remember, this is approximately 10% of our total probability space as a whole (30% of 32% to get here). From this point on, we have an unbalanced number of Throes and Trickeries (and again, remember we made the optimistic assumptions that we've had balanced numbers all along without the secret complications of cards in hand or cards milled by trickery, which both introduce a bias in the direction of failstates by not effect all outcomes equally due to the special nature of hitting Throes without a corresponding Trickery). Let's try to get a sense of the new flavors of failstates that we have found here.

Emerging from Table B-2, yes, we can hit a Trickery (1/19th of this section of probability space) [so make that running tally now ~16.5% total failure rate], but we can also hit a Throes and effectively turn the last copy of Throes in our deck into a brick. It's also important to note that we haven't actually generated value yet. The Trickery we hit effectively "erased" the cascader we used to hit it.

You can continue to make detailed calculations here, but when you combine our already 16.5% fail-rate but given how generous the assumptions have been and the amount of unexplored probability space I feel pretty confident in making the assumption that the actual "failrate" here is north of 20%. Anecdotally, I'm seeing a failure rate closer to 25%, including boardstates where I just don't deal 20 damage before passing the turn back because Trickeries both mill cards out of the deck as well as force me to choose between eroding the stack or ending a chain of value.

Takeaways:

So, right off the bat I'm going to say that I don't like the idea of trying to utilize these cards mainboard to buy a turn at both the large costs of additional fail-rate as well as susceptibility to counterspells. I appreciate, as I believe FTW said above, the difference between maindeck and sideboard is really just a meta-expectation, but there are compounding costs here and I think throwing away the robustness and resiliency that sets the combo apart to try to buy a turn of speed for some portion of kept Game 1 hands is ill-adviced in most reasonable metagames.

However, there is something here that I still find extremely interesting. The fact that against fast combo this can turn a 3 card hand of Red-Sol, Untapped-Sol, Throes into a real competitor that is highly insulated from discard effects (since Throes has Retrace and the deck has 40 lands) is not only huge in creating a competitive hand in those matchups, it buys you a very strong ability to mulligan to such a hand, which in turn let's us consider implementing these cards in a slightly different way.

I want to spend a moment going over a different set of numbers. These are the hypergeometric calculations for mulliganing to such a hand (Red-Sol + Untapped-Sol + Throes) assuming 11 of both of the first two categories are in the deck.

If we (I'm assuming "board in" but feel free to play around with maindeck variations as you wish) 4 Throes and 4 Trickery, assuming we're willing to Mulligan down to 3 in such a matchup, the math looks like this:

If [W;X;Y;Z] is the hypergeometric probability of getting Z or more Successes with a sample size of Y with X possible successes in a total pool of size W. (Meaning W unaccounted for cards in deck that could be drawn, X "hits" in the deck, a Y card hand looking for Z or more copies of a card) than ...

A = [60;4;7;1] = 0.3995
B = [59;11;6;1] = 0.72765
C = [58;11;5;1] = 0. 66523
1-(1-(ABC))^5 = 0.6585

We have about a 66% chance of mulliganing to a hand that has all 3 pieces we want. What if, however, we only boarded in 3 Throes and 3 Trickery?

D = [60;3;7;1] = 0.31543
1-(1-(DBC))^5 = 0.5633

We only lose ~9% of probability space where we were previous getting such a hand but now we are not. That's not an insignificant number, but the kicker is how much it increases our chance of successfully comboing off by reducing the additional cards that can get "caught in the wheels" of the machine after the first Throes->Trickery cycle from 6 to 4, which is a huge decrease on a % basis. Let's try to mirror exactly what we did at the top in this new regime.

Prime Table-X

1 Emrakul
4 Maelstom Wanderer
4 Creative Technique
7 Cascade 6-Drops
2 Throes
2 Trickery

So, after we play our Throes from hand and hit the first trickery, if we hit a Trickery next, we fail, which is 10% the deck fizzles from this single outcome alone.

If we hit another Throe, which also has a 10% chance of happening, it brings us to this table:

Table A-X

1 Emrakul
4 Maelstom Wanderer
4 Creative Technique
7 Cascade 6-Drops
1 Throes
1 Trickery

5.6% chance of fail outright here, which of course is only that much of a subsection of the 10% chance above, so really this is an additional 0.6% chance.

Let's go back to Prime Table-X and investigate what happens in the portion of probability space where you hit a Cascade 6-Drop next, which you have a 35% chance of doing on that table. That would force you onto the following:

Table B-X

4 Creative Technique
2 Throes
2 Trickery

From Table B we would have a 12.5% chance of hitting Throes which, if we assume that the milling off the subsequent Trickery does not relevantly alter the probabilities, brings us to

Table B-1-X

1 Emrakul
4 Maelstom Wanderer
4 Creative Technique
7 Cascade 6-Drops
1 Throes
1 Trickery

On which we have a 5.6% Chance of immediate failure. 5.6% of 12.5% of 35% is about 0.2%, so that's a total of 10.2% failstate so far.

Now, did you notice the really dramatic geometric thing that happened here?

Our first order failure risk (immediately hitting a Trickery from our "Prime" table) went down over 25% (from 13.6% of all probability space to a clean 10%).

The second order failure risk we calculated dropped 80%!! (From 1% to 0.2%).

There's an intuitive geometric reason for this. Look at how those bottom "turn-offs" of the image above go.

13.6%

10% of 13.6%

5.6% of 10% of 13.6%

Now compare that to the equivalent in these new charts.

10%

5.6% of 10%

0% of 5.6% of 10%

Holistically speaking, what's happening is that every piece of the products in calculating the failstates of probability space are going down "1 order" in some unexplicated geometric structure. Which means that the magnitudes of those actual risks are falling off a cliff. I'm willing to bet, and my limited tabletop simulating supports the idea, that the actual risk of failure here is only 12 to 13% tops. If each second order risk is a product of 2 numbers that are now both smaller, and each third order risk is a product of 3 numbers that are now all smaller or have now hit 0 ... for the sake of this kind of approximation, I think's it's safe to say that in a 3 Throes + 3 Trickery set up, we can say that the chance of failing to combo off a cast Throes is around 12.5%, which is half of the risk of failure that I'm approximating for the 4 Throes + 4 Trickery set up.

Now obviously this is all a little rough, but let me end with one other quick calculation.

If 4 Throes + 4 Trickery has a 66% of giving you the hand you want with mulligans included, and a 75% success rate, than

.66 x .75 = 0.495

You have about a 49.5% chance of succeeding at Turn 2-ing that combo deck with 8 cards boarded in.

If 3 Throes + 3 Trickery has a 56% of giving you the hand you want with mulligans included, and an 87.5% success rate, than

0.56 x 0.875 = 49%

The difference between the two calculations is 0.5%.

One 200th of the time.

I'll restate that I really don't like this as a maindeck plan, and even sideboard by itself the numbers aren't as great as we'd probably like them to be; but I really don't think it's an 8-card package. I think it's a 6-card package, which means it doesn't have to come in alone.

TL;DR Conclusion:

I strongly, strongly suspect that

4 Throes + 4 Trickery = Inefficient

3 Throes + 3 Trickery = Efficient

If you're sideboarding this in I don't recommend wasting 2 slots on clogging up the deck's internal engine. When you only need a 3 card hand to win, you can mulligan for it.

EDIT:

So the fizzle rate is approx 3/(3+4+12) (hit Trickery right away) + 12/(3+4+12)*[6/(6+4)]*[2/(2+4+11)] (hit cascader into Throes/Trickery into Trickery fizzle) = 15.8% + 4.4% > 20%
There will also be increased fizzling from Creative Technique lines, but I have treated those as negligibly small if you always Demonstrate (though that increases risk of opponent disruption).

You could improve those odds by running 16 cascaders instead of 12, but then there's much less room for lands. 12 cascaders already means cutting 4 lands. With 40 lands + 4 creative technique + 8 trickery/Throes, there's only room for 8 cascaders. With 8 cascaders and 40 lands that fizzle rate becomes: 3/(3+4+8) + 8/(3+4+8)*[6/(6+4)*[2/(2+4+7)] = 20% + 4.9% ~= 25%

You could also run fewer copies of Throes/Trickery and more cascade creatures, but then that speed line becomes less available.

Ha. I think you took to the math quicker than I did. Egg on my face for composing an analysis then posting it before reading new posts from the past 48 hours.

I still like the idea of a smaller Throes package out of the board though.

Rationalist

02-03-2023, 01:29 AM

In fact, it may end up being correct to do something like

3 Throes

2 Trickery

[A Collection of Different 1-of 3 Drops bombs to bring in matchup-dependent to put a strong "floor" beneath a lot of the lines that would otherwise be failstates as well as another hate-piece that could be cast Turn 2 from hand, like Maddening Hex vs. Spell Combo decks]

FTW

02-03-2023, 03:06 AM

3 Throes + 2 Trickery has a much lower chance of those Trickery -> Trickery fizzles, some chance of Throes fizzles (no Trickery left), and yet still gives you a decent chance of the Turn 2 Throes in the opener. That may be a good balance to test. It's only a 5-card SB package.

With 4 Creative Technique + 4 Maelstrom Wanderer, hopefully there are enough branching tools that cascading into a dead Throes mainly happens once there are multiple branches, so it doesn't end the turn. Perhaps adding +1 Apex Devastator would help those odds too.

rufus

02-03-2023, 08:35 AM

With 4 Creative Technique + 4 Maelstrom Wanderer, hopefully there are enough branching tools that cascading into a dead Throes mainly happens once there are multiple branches, so it doesn't end the turn. Perhaps adding +1 Apex Devastator would help those odds too.

Roughly speaking, the impact of changing a card is going to be something like [number of similar cards before]/[number of similar cards after]. So adding one apex devastator to 4 creative techniques and 4 wanderers is going to help, but it's not going to make a huge difference. (We are dealing with small numbers and no replacement, so it can be possible for things like that to make a big difference after cards are used up, but that's not the case here.)

In contrast, going from 4 to 3 trickeries reduces the relative chance to trickery fizzle by 25 or 33%.

3 Throes + 2 Trickery has a much lower chance of those Trickery -> Trickery fizzles, some chance of Throes fizzles (no Trickery left), and yet still gives you a decent chance of the Turn 2 Throes in the opener. That may be a good balance to test. It's only a 5-card SB package.

The maddening hex / sideboard bomb kind of stuff does allow running fewer trickeries e.g. 3 throes, 2 maddening hex / whatever 1 trickery. Hitting hex off the trickery is something to want and the trickery->trickery fizzle rate becomes 0.

It's a pity the mana base can't support firing on turn 2 and then on turn 3 reliably. If it did, it might be possible to substitute a Last Chance effect in for one of the trickery spells. ... I imagine that many of the fast decks that you'd be looking to race won't really be stopped by something like Solitary Confinement.

dte

02-03-2023, 10:07 AM

. ... I imagine that many of the fast decks that you'd be looking to race won't really be stopped by something like Solitary Confinement.

A one-of phyrexian unlife could be great vs non BWish storm, as the galaxy burning takes care of pesky gobs, and I don't think they would bring in removal/bounce.

Rationalist

02-03-2023, 04:15 PM

PirateKing

02-03-2023, 05:20 PM

Oblivion Ring or equivalents to remove the threat?
Gilded Drake to steal the threat?

Ensnaring Bridge seems bad for both of you.

Light of Day is the closest, but that's CMC 4

Seems Sandwurm Convergence is the only card that's a reverse Moat, was hoping there was some cheaper Enchantment that just punished flying

LennonMarx

02-03-2023, 06:35 PM

Okay, continuing to play with the 3 Throes, 2 Trickery, 1 Targeted-Hatepiece modular-SB-package-idea, what would the 1 custom card to be able to cascade into with Throes against BR Reanimator be, knowing that it would be after they've had a chance to reanimate some fatty? I can't seem to find a card that just says ... "Black creatures now have an upkeep cost = to their CMC" or anything like that.

Are Restore Balance or Inevitable Betrayal too out there? With Betrayal especially you can get an Archon to kill their guy and maybe enough of a board to just win with, depending on if you hit Trickery first and how the branches go. Balance is better against them making 2+ guys but if they make 2 guys on their turn I suspect you were dead anyways.

Rationalist

02-03-2023, 09:45 PM

Are Restore Balance or Inevitable Betrayal too out there? With Betrayal especially you can get an Archon to kill their guy and maybe enough of a board to just win with, depending on if you hit Trickery first and how the branches go. Balance is better against them making 2+ guys but if they make 2 guys on their turn I suspect you were dead anyways.

Well, okay, bonus to Inevitable Betrayal: It could serve double-duty in the same role against Oops All Spells.

Guy I Don't Know

02-06-2023, 10:11 AM

What is the consensus optimal number of 6 mana cascades?

Rationalist

02-07-2023, 12:44 PM

I'm currently happy with 11, specifically the suite

4 Boarding Party

3 Aurora Phoenix

2 Sweet-Gum Recluse

2 Let the Galaxy Burn

but as one person I can't speak to the word "consensus" on my own by definition. For what it's worth I put a lot of thought and time into this, but as I'd be biased towards overestimating the quality of thought I can't give you a stronger testimonial so it's probably worth thinking about critically on your own at least a little. EDIT: I've edited the opening post of this thread now so you can read the individual card description portion for some justification of my thinking there.

Rationalist

02-07-2023, 12:59 PM

Alright, after jamming more games with the updated list locally I'm happy enough with the list (in particular a variation of the sideboard plan that was listed here) I'm going to rewrite the opening post of the thread.

Having played around with the probability trees, the trick was to make the sideboard package 4x Throes + 2x Trickery. Game 2 on the draw against Elves last night I just mulliganed down to 3 cards (Throes, Red Sol, Untapped Sol) and won and Turn 2, which the deck can pretty consistently do now if it wants to race. The trick to making the probability sufficientg was keeping Throes on x4, but realizing that 2x Trickery was the sweet spot for minimizing fail-states. In order for the numbers to work ideally you need to board out some 6-drops in these situations as 6 drop cascaders bias probabilities to the bottom of the possibility tree, but I'll write up a sideboard guide where that sentence makes more sense.

4x Boarding Party
4x Creative Technique
4x Maelstrom Wanderer
3x Aurora Phoenix
2x Sweet-Gum Recluse
2x Let the Galaxy Burn
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4x Gemstone Cavern
4x Sandstone Needle
4x Saprazzan Skerry
4x Hickory Woodlot
4x Ancient Tomb
4x City of Traitors
4x Dwarven Ruin
4x Otawara, Soaring City
3x Crystal Vein
3x Sulfur Vent
1x Havenwood Battleground
1x Mountain

Sideboard:

4x Throes of Chaos
4x Pyrokinesis
2x Maddening Hex
2x Tibalt's Trickery
2x Boom Pile
1x Aeve, Progenitor Ooze

I'm feeling very good about this current list. The only two immediate points of being notably sub-optimal to me seem to be the chance that the Havenwood Battleground is supposed to be a 4th Crystal Vein, and that Boompiles are a naturally inconsistent card (but I'm unaware of a replacement that does their same job).

I'm going to write up a more detailed opening post based on this list.

Alex_UNLIMITED

02-10-2023, 07:19 AM

FTW

02-10-2023, 08:44 AM

Do you have enough green mana to support Boseiju, which would help answer hate like Trinisphere or Ethersworn Canonist?

Having played around with the probability trees, the trick was to make the sideboard package 4x Throes + 2x Trickery. Game 2 on the draw against Elves last night I just mulliganed down to 3 cards (Throes, Red Sol, Untapped Sol) and won and Turn 2, which the deck can pretty consistently do now if it wants to race. The trick to making the probability sufficientg was keeping Throes on x4, but realizing that 2x Trickery was the sweet spot for minimizing fail-states.

This makes sense and sounds like a good compromise.

Did your probability trees also account for fail states where you "go off" but mid-combo cascade into a Throes with no Trickery left, ending the chain? I ignored those in my math above, but they become more probable with a bigger gap between the number of Throes and the number of Trickeries. Maybe it's still small enough to make 4 Throes optimal. Or maybr you can still win with the creatures you get before the chain ends.

In order for the numbers to work ideally you need to board out some 6-drops in these situations as 6 drop cascaders bias probabilities to the bottom of the possibility tree, but I'll write up a sideboard guide where that sentence makes more sense.

How does that help the odds? A higher cmc cascader will still cascade into the same things (or a 6cmc, which will cascade into the same things). Or does that only apply when the higher cmc ones all have multi-cascade?

rufus

02-10-2023, 11:47 AM

Trinisphere and other similar cards are strong against the deck, expecially if you can't bounce them due to the lack of Otawara or blue mana, also due to Blood Moon effects or land destruction. I was thinking about Jokulhaups, specifically against Red Stompy, but could also have a role against other decks, expecially midrange and control. Mississipi River runs about 40 lands, so could that card replace Boom Pile in the sideboard?

I'm not sure how Jokulhaups makes sense as an answer to an enchantment like Blood Moon. I guess it can clip Magus of the Moon but you'd still be waiting until turn 6 - at the earliest - to fire it off. It's also not so clear that you want to cast it while going off, and leaving it in the deck instead also has issues. I'm not sure how well it works in practice, but something like Nevinyrral's Disk makes more sense as an alternative to the boom pile to me.

One thing that makes blood moon - in particular - difficult to deal with is that red has very limited access to enchantment removal, and I think you need to use different approaches to answer it and 3sphere, but if you really want something to split the difference you could try Chaos Warp.

Rationalist

02-25-2023, 08:40 PM

Trinisphere and other similar cards are strong against the deck, expecially if you can't bounce them due to the lack of Otawara, Soaring City or blue mana, also due to Blood Moon effects or land destruction. I was thinking about Jokulhaups, specifically against Red Stompy, but could also have a role against other decks, expecially midrange and control. Mississipi River runs about 40 lands, so could that card replace Boompile in the sideboard?

Well something certainly should so I encourage the experimentation, but I'm skeptical about Jokulhaups. Getting to 6 mana against Blood Moon seems like quite an ask and even then you're resetting yourself as well. Against Moon Stompy I'm probably going for the Throes + Trickery package and hoping they can't kill me or Trinisphere by the end of their T3.

I used to board in Magma Opus for the matchup and I might again since I'm consider running 2 of them back just as anti-Daze tech against blue tempo decks, but there's no super clean answer I can think of for trinisphere.

If you're worried about specifically Trinisphere and are attempting to 1-for-1 it from hand, why not try Chaos Warp / Audacious Swap? (Swap in case you plan to use it in matchups where you'd be bringing in Throes + Trickery). 3 / 4 mana red spell you can cast in their endstep and then go off seems better then 6 mana reset the entire board.

Do you have enough green mana to support Boseiju, which would help answer hate like Trinisphere or Ethersworn Canonist?

I'm skeptical. I felt slightly weak back when I was on like 4x Boseiju, and I'm less in on green now. The Gemstone Caverns help, but it still strikes me as unreliable. If someone really wanted they could up the green count by swapping the Sulfur Vents for Tinder Farms and the Mountain for a Taiga. This would pretty comfortably bring the deck up to 9 reliable green sources + 4 Gemstone Cavern. Swapping out Sulfur Vents for Tinder Farms would make Maelstrom Wanderer harder to hardcast, though, and given how useful that's proven to be in the Delver matchup I don't personally feel incentivized to weaken the Delver match in order to strengthen the Trinisphere matchup. I run into Delver far, far more often than Trinispheres.

This makes sense and sounds like a good compromise.

Did your probability trees also account for fail states where you "go off" but mid-combo cascade into a Throes with no Trickery left, ending the chain? I ignored those in my math above, but they become more probable with a bigger gap between the number of Throes and the number of Trickeries. Maybe it's still small enough to make 4 Throes optimal. Or maybr you can still win with the creatures you get before the chain ends.

Only to the degree I actually calculated it out, but in the post after your math you can see me starting the original 4x/4x math on my own and then kind of abandoning it after a couple layers and I didn't go too much farther on 4x/2x before I just kind of handwaved it as better and started doing simulations. Against something like storm I'm currently boarding in 4x Throes, 2x Trickery, 1x Maddening Hex, to give those cases a "floor" of sorts. Of course I don't have an adequate modular "floor" to board in in all matchups where I'd be switching over to the T2 plan.

Anecdotally, though, I've physically goldfished with it something around a couple hundred times and it's relatively infrequent since you have to "come back down to 4 or less CMC" twice first without branching and the final time it's just 2x Throes or less that are in the deck for that final chance not to brick.

I definitely couldn't write a rigorous paper on the math of it as it stands but I've been shuffling it up like that for weeks now and I feel pretty confident 4x/2x is the right mixture if you want a Throes package, and given how much it addresses I definitely think you do.

How does that help the odds? A higher cmc cascader will still cascade into the same things (or a 6cmc, which will cascade into the same things). Or does that only apply when the higher cmc ones all have multi-cascade?

Hitting a 6-Drop essentially "grays out" 5 hits that aren't bricks it could have otherwise hit since we're introducing the risk of bricking to the deck.

FTW

02-25-2023, 09:12 PM

Only to the degree I actually calculated it out, but in the post after your math you can see me starting the original 4x/4x math on my own and then kind of abandoning it after a couple layers and I didn't go too much farther on 4x/2x before I just kind of handwaved it as better and started doing simulations. Against something like storm I'm currently boarding in 4x Throes, 2x Trickery, 1x Maddening Hex, to give those cases a "floor" of sorts. Of course I don't have an adequate modular "floor" to board in in all matchups where I'd be switching over to the T2 plan.

Anecdotally, though, I've physically goldfished with it something around a couple hundred times and it's relatively infrequent since you have to "come back down to 4 or less CMC" twice first without branching and the final time it's just 2x Throes or less that are in the deck for that final chance not to brick.

I definitely couldn't write a rigorous paper on the math of it as it stands but I've been shuffling it up like that for weeks now and I feel pretty confident 4x/2x is the right mixture if you want a Throes package, and given how much it addresses I definitely think you do.

Seems good enough. Just curious.

LennonMarx

02-27-2023, 02:07 PM

@Rationalist

At the risk of summoning another math paper that I mostly can follow, I have been goldfishing the deck -2 LtGB, -2 Recluse -1 Havenwood Battleground, +3 Throes of Chaos +2 Tibalt's Trickery and it seems solid (with the 4th Throes in the board still). The combo turns end up with a smaller board, but you don't generally need 70+ power to kill someone, and the ability to have turn 2 wins in the first game seems valuable against the deck's bad match-ups. Additionally, it allows for more actual sideboard cards, even if some of those end up being the LtGBs or Recluses for matches where being slower and more consistent is better. The main drawback I see is that Throes into Trickery can be stopped with one counterspell, but the deck seems so powerful against "normal" interaction that I don't feel like that's a huge weakness, though I'm willing to be wrong there, and obviously there is a huge delta between a turn 2 attempt that uses a Sandstone Needle + Ancient Tomb vs one that uses Sulfur Vents + Crystal Vein, the latter of which would be very risky against counter magic.

Also, I noticed that this deck has been popping up a few times on MTG Top 8, and one thing I notice in common among all of those Tinder Farm over Gemstone Caverns. Obviously it makes the goldfish more consistent, and I have noticed the "making the 5th mana in a deck that wants 6 mana" problem that you have mentioned before when I have been testing. Daze protection is great, and the occasional turn 2 CTs, but I think the turn 2 attempts are better served by the Throes + Trickery plan. I've yet to make the switch myself, but the more I read your primer section for Caverns the more it feels like Caverns is a good card in vacuum in a deck like this but I'm not convinced that it actually does all that much lifting for us.

rufus

02-27-2023, 04:44 PM

...Daze protection is great...

If the deck isn't running throes/trickery, then it seems like the only card that cares about daze is the one that costs 5.

.... I noticed that this deck has been popping up a few times on MTG Top 8, and one thing I notice in common among all of those Tinder Farm over Gemstone Caverns. ...

There also aren't any Throes of Chaos/Tibalt's trickery piles in those lists.

LennonMarx

02-27-2023, 06:06 PM

If the deck isn't running throes/trickery, then it seems like the only card that cares about daze is the one that costs 5.

The way the lands in this deck are set up, by necessity, makes Gemstones Caverns only really daze protection on curve for even mana cost spells, it's your 5th mana on turn 2 or your 7th on turn 3. From the lens of a protection spell, it might actually be the case that you play Caverns with the throes package to make the turn 2 a little more resilient and then cut the caverns in builds of the deck that only go for the 6+ Drop cascaders/side them out entirely when you're not on the throes plan.

There also aren't any Throes of Chaos/Tibalt's trickery piles in those lists.
Yeah, and some of the sideboards are fairly rough, too. I think this thread/Rationalist has the better list, but that one particular piece of the configuration (Farm over Caverns) seemed noteworthy to me. Might try it out the next time at the LGS.

Rationalist

03-02-2023, 08:15 AM

@LennonMarx

This is great feedback and I highly appreciate it.

As it stands, I'm not (personally) swayed by the idea of playing this package main deck as I'm far more interested in the increased resiliency of the combo than the 1 turn against most decks I'm expecting to face. What's main deck and what's sideboard is always a meta call, however, and since by necessity we're playing in local metas, unless you also happen to be in the greater Seattle area, we're not necessarily playing in identical ones so I can't actually say you're "wrong" here, it just seems like a big sacrifice against blue-matchups across the board to level-up against fast combo. Maybe you're just seeing more fast combo, though.

As to the Gemstone Caverns, you seem to have the sentiment that I had early on when I first started playing around with the card (GC as the 5th mana out of 6 when counting by 2's). What I can say is that eventually I found GC to do more than I initially identified.

It enables Turn 2 Creative Technique (if we assume 50% chance of being on the draw, never mulliganed, and never top-decked CT, this acceleration would happen in ~7% of all hands, so likely somewhere between 10% and 15% in practice)
It provides insulation against Daze / Thalia / Thorn / Sphere effects
It's another source of blue-mana for activating Otawara
It makes Maelstrom Wanderer's 3-color requirement far easier to hit
When counting to 6/8, it upgrades untapped singleton lands into effective untapped-Sols.

I encourage you to keep playing divergent lists if another way seems better to you (even just on a selfish level because it's good data for me) but I'm not currently interested in cutting Gemstone Cavern personally unless I really, really needed that space for something else.

So far I'm disagreeing with most of the ideas you're saying, but I'm still glad to have the input as if people only said things I already agreed with I wouldn't learn nuthin'. :smile:

The last thing you mention is Tinder Farm. It's a reasonable card and there are certainly reasons to run it, but I like Sulfur Vent more as I have little use for the singleton untapped green mana, and UR helps cast Maelstrom Wanderer which is often worth playing towards to go over the top of a sculpted, interactive hand, and I'm not even on the 4th Sulfur Vent currently.

Rationalist

03-02-2023, 08:26 AM

Do you know what sideboard card actually felt great for me recently? Mirrorshell Crab

https://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=548360&type=card

I initially tried bringing him back into the sideboard because being able to stifle Wastelands against Delver seemed worthwhile just because of how much you run into that deck and its analogues even at the lower Seattle-area numbers but he actually gave me a large amount of play against T3feri, as it's easy to hold open 2U as of Turn 2 (although technically Turn 1 is possible off of GC), he slowly turns into combo protection if they refuse to play into him, and the Otawara as additional Blue sources on top of GC make 2U a pretty reasonable ask.

Would hurt to summon one in off a CT in the early stages of chaining against most of the same decks you'd want him in hand against but he's a 5/7 with Ward 3 so that's still better than hitting Pyrokinesis in most situations where you're already comboing and a card like that is clearly worth the concession in its respective matchups.

... I'm really starting to dig the guy's flexibility.

Rationalist

03-17-2023, 11:28 AM

Spotted another person playing the deck on Youtube this morning. Looks like it did not go well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1moGk92CtQ

rufus

03-18-2023, 10:11 AM

Spotted another person playing the deck on Youtube this morning. Looks like it did not go well:

...

I guess double force of will into a turn 3 combo is the sort of power level that we should expect in legacy. Though that does look like a match-up where Mirrorshell Crab could win games.

Rationalist

03-26-2023, 11:31 PM

Deck being played in Italy:

https://youtu.be/0cALTIl-SqA?t=20729

Scott

03-30-2023, 01:30 AM

I saw this top 8 (https://mtgtop8.com/event?e=43046&d=518178&f=LE) from a few days ago

// Sorcery (7)
4 Creative Technique
3 Let the Galaxy Burn

// Creatures (15)
1 Aeve, Progenitor Ooze
2 Apex Devastator
3 Aurora Phoenix
4 Boarding Party
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Maelstrom Wanderer
1 Sweet-Gum Recluse

// Lands (38)
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Boseiju, Who Endures
4 City of Traitors
4 Crystal Vein
4 Dwarven Ruins
4 Hickory Woodlot
1 Otawara, Soaring City
4 Sandstone Needle
3 Saprazzan Skerry
4 Sulfur Vent
4 Tinder Farm

// Sideboard
SB: 3 Colossal Skyturtle
SB: 4 Fury
SB: 2 Leyline of Sanctity
SB: 2 Leyline of the Void
SB: 2 Seething Song
SB: 1 Thryx, the Sudden Storm
SB: 1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

FTW

03-30-2023, 03:58 AM

Neat build. But why maindeck Aeve?

There are 11 6cmc cascaders. If you lead off those, you have 4/5 (80%) chance to hit Creative Technique but 1/5 (20%) chance to immediately hit Aeve. Then that ends the chain and you only get 2 Oozes. 20% chance is not that rare. Did the player just get lucky and not see Aeve till later in the chain?

ToasTer86

03-30-2023, 04:31 PM

ToasTer86

03-31-2023, 05:53 PM

Been eyeing this deck for a while and it seems rightful my alley. Been playing 4c rhino cascade at our local tournaments and having lots of fun and good results. People are surprised by the deck, and I am that “cascade guy”. If you are interested take a look here : https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=39428&f=LE.

I would like to play this new deck Saturday for a change but I would like to play it as the “chef intented” as I see quite some variations and different count of lands/ spells and also type of lands. The source seems to be here so rather get your take on it.
What’s the current version people are running? If you have a side board guide even better.

Hopefully people will read this in the next 24 hours.
Thanks a lot !

Btw what’s the seething song for in the lists ?

I've played some games on Cockatrice, and gold fished quite some today. I came up with the following list after reading the whole thread :

Creature 14 cards
4 Boarding Party
4 Maelstrom Wanderer
3 Aurora Phoenix
2 Sweet-Gum Recluse
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Sorcery 6 cards
4 Creative Technique
2 Let the Galaxy Burn

Land 40 cards
4 Gemstone Caverns
4 Sandstone Needle
4 Saprazzan Skerry
4 Hickory Woodlot
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Dwarven Ruins
4 Otawara, Soaring City
3 Crystal Vein
3 Sulfur Vent
1 Havenwood Battleground
1 Mountain

Sideboard 15 cards
4 Throes of Chaos
4 Pyrokinesis
3 Mirrorshell Crab
2 Tibalt's Trickery
1 Maddening Hex
1 Aeve, Progenitor Ooze

I came up with the following sideboard guide for myself, I might be missing some decks, but I do not have infinite amount of time to prepare.
I make a big distinction that when I am on the play in the sideboard matches I take out the GC's quite aggresively, as I think they are not as good on the play. I also would rather not take out cascade spells.

Let me know what you guys think

==============
Fast Combo
==============
on the Draw
+4 Throes of Chaos
+2 Tibalt's Trickery
-2 Let the Galaxy Burn
-3 Aurora Phoenix
-1 Sweet-Gum Recluse

On the Play
+4 Throes of Chaos
+2 Tibalt's Trickery
-2 Let the Galaxy Burn
-4 Gemstone Cavern

==============
Fast Combo Storm
==============
on the Draw
+4 Throes of Chaos
+2 Tibalt's Trickery
+1 Maddening Hex
-2 Let the Galaxy Burn
-1 Havenwood Battleground

On the Play
+4 Throes of Chaos
+2 Tibalt's Trickery
+1 Maddening hex
-2 Let the Galaxy Burn
-4 Gemstone Cavern
-1 Havenwood Battleground

==============
D&T // Goblins // Go-wide decks // Hatebears
==============
on the Draw
+4 Pyrokinesis
-2 Sweet-Gum Recluse
-1 Gemstone Caverns
-1 Havenwood Battleground

On the Play
+4 Pyrokinesis
-4 Gemstone Caverns

==============
Blue counter decks (Tempo/ Control)
==============
on the Draw
+3 Mirrorshell Crab
+1 Aeve, Progenitor Ooze
-2 Let the Galaxy burn
-1 Sweet-Gum Recluse
-1 Havenwood Battleground

On the Play
+3 Mirrorshell Crab
+1 Aeve, Progenitor Ooze
-2 Gemstone Caverns
-2 Let the Galaxy burn

==============
Fair green decks (Lands/ KotR decks)
==============
on the Draw
+3 Mirrorshell Crab
-2 Let the Galaxy burn
-1 Sweet-Gum Recluse

On the Play
+3 Mirrorshell Crab
-2 Let the Galaxy burn
-1 Gemstone Caverns

FTW

03-31-2023, 09:27 PM

It looks good. Good luck! Rationalist is the deck expert here. He has the most experience with it and the SB plan.

Rationalist

04-01-2023, 01:36 PM

ToasTer86

04-01-2023, 02:32 PM

Looks like Mark (above) made it to the quarter finals before being knocked out. Had an on camera match Round 7.

https://m.twitch.tv/videos/1781612222

Very excited to read the list and sideboard guide posted above, but don't have the time at the moment. Just popped in because we got someone on Camera.

Fantastic Job, Mark.

EDIT: I also played round 1 on camera against 8-cast, the full vod on twitch will come online soon.

I had an awesome day playing Mississippi River, I really believe the deck has serious power and plays against the current meta.
It was a 80 man tournament and I went 6-1-1 , loosing to infect in the quarter finals in top 8.

I had some extreme highs -> Mulling to 3 and playing a turn 2 Throes of Chaos into Tibalt's trickery and winning.
Some extreme lows ->
1. getting a deck check and unfortunately a game loss because, Then immediately loosing to a turn 2 Infect win. More about the deck check and loss tomorrow
2. Tie in a game and tying my opponent by forgetting Sweet-gum Recluse +3/+3 counters and not presenting lethal in the last turn. That actually made it that I faced different opponents in top 8 and stared down Infect, which I think is a very difficult match up.

Tomorrow I will write a tournament report! Also, consider yourself a new regular on this thread, hoping to play and develop the deck further.
I expect the decklist and the tournament statistics later tomorrow or Monday

Kind Regards, Mark // ToasTer86.

Rationalist

04-01-2023, 05:13 PM

Highly looking forward to it.

ToasTer86

04-02-2023, 03:30 PM

One of my better friends and magic buddies started a new tournament series in The Netherlands. The series is called Bazaar of Boxes or BoB short. The unique selling point of the tournament is that proxies are allowed at the tournament. The nice thing about this that it allows you to easily sign up with whatever deck you want. As well as bringing in new players into the format. I really applaud them for all their efforts and hard work. They do how ever have a very strict and well written out proxy guide for any players attending the tournament. The BoB series 7 was played with 80 man and the grand prize was an ELM invitational.
Small side note, please leave out any discussions regarding if you think proxy tournaments are good/ bad for the format or Magic in general.

More about myself, and my results at the tournament. I’ve been playing legacy on-off since 2010, and I am the kind of player that really likes experimenting with different decks, and different cards in decks. I love those signature 1-offs, if you catch my drift.
Before any tournament basically all my free time goes into preparing my decklist, what deck to play, and playing such deck online on Cockatrice (still doubting about MTGO subscription).
For this legacy tournament I was doubting between 4 decks: Jund, Defiler Painter, 4c Rhinos, Mississippi River.
I ended up going with Mississipi River and got some good reps in online as well as gold fishing the deck. I owe my results and knowledge of the deck through the lively and well documented discussions off the deck on MTG the source.

Decklist:

4 Boarding Party
4 Maelstrom Wanderer
3 Aurora Phoenix
2 Sweet-Gum Recluse
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Creative Technique
2 Let the Galaxy Burn
4 Gemstone Caverns
4 Sandstone Needle
4 Saprazzan Skerry
4 Hickory Woodlot
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Dwarven Ruins
4 Otawara, Soaring City
3 Crystal Vein
3 Sulfur Vent
1 Havenwood Battleground
1 Mountain

4 Throes of Chaos
4 Pyrokinesis
3 Mirrorshell Crab
2 Tibalt's Trickery
1 Maddening Hex
1 Aeve, Progenitor Ooze

I am a bit nervous before the tournament, off course I want to do well. Before the tournament I bump into some of my friends and shortly talk about the deck, as up on till now no one knew really what I was going to be playing.
Unfortunately I did not make super accurate notes each game so I will be explaining the games from memory and from my observations. Rounds 1 and 7 were played on stream. I will be updating this post with the vods link once it’s up on Youtube/ Twitch.

Round 1 Teus van der Meij Mono-Blue 8-Cast won 2-0-0
Teus is a very experienced 8-cast player, who’s been playing 8-cast since the early start. He was the winner of BoB series 6. Going undefeated if I remember. This match is played on stream, but there were some technical difficulties with the stream so I will still explain this game.

Game 1:
I win the die roll and grab a solid 7. I’ve got 6 mana turn 3, with green/red dual lands and 2 cascade targets.
I play my land and pass. Teus has a very explosive start, Emry into baubles and he ends the turn with a chalice on Zero (He clearly thinks I am playing 4c Rhinos) and if I remember correctly a turn 1 Kappa cannoneer. I play my second tap land and pass. Teus hits me with his cannoneer for 12 and its clear, I only have 1 more turn. I go “off” turn 3, he’s got 1 FoW but its not enough. I end up having to demonstrate all my Creative Techniques (CT’s) as I did not hit a Wanderer early. I win on the spot.

Game 2:
-1 Sweet-gum Recluse
+1 Aeve, ooze
I board in the Ooze, as I know Teus is a good player and he might be running surgical.
This game goes way slower for Teus, he’s kept a hand with lots of interaction but no real threat. He double Fows my first cast on turn 3, but turn 4 I cast another spell. The CT’s actually hit another CT twice, which really isn’t favorable. You would rather hit other cascade targets. To makes matter worse the 1-off Ooze gets hit early and I end with lots of tokens, and the chain ends I still have 1 CT on the stack and no real win. But luckily one of my last CT’s hits a wanderer and it’s enough.

Round 2 Wouter Roest Rakdos Painter won 2-0-0
I’ve seen Wouter once before, but its long ago. I don’t know what deck he’s playing.

Game 1:
I win the die roll, and there is no real interaction between each other. I go off turn 3.

Game 2:
I think the painter matchup is really good, I do not board anything in.
This game Wouter goes fast, turn 1 Fable, turn 2 Welder. Turn 3 I go off the CT hits another CT and Wouter shows his mindbreak trap, all my spells get exiled. But not until Wouter gets a fury and a engineer from the CT’s. He gets his defiler and it hits the GY.
On his turn he gets his defiler in play but I have no targets but he hits me for 6 dmg with the fury. Turn 4 I go again, but as 2 of my CT’s are exiled, I need to hit good. Unfortunately, I do not. I get 2 phoenix, Recluse and a boarding party. My 2 Phoenix with both +3/+3 are the real threat. But with now with the flipped Fable and a Defiler + weleder I know for sure I am dead. Luckily for me Wouter does not see the winning game play. He could have copied the defiler and destroyed my whole board.
After the game I ask Wouter if he’s open to talk about another play he could have done to win, but he tells me he is just learning the deck and he rather focus on it by himself. I totally respect that, keep it up Wouter!

Round 3 Bram Aarts Mono-Blue 8-Cast won 2-0-0
I’ve never played Bram before; he wins the die rol and its clear I am playing 8-cast again.
Actually, both games are also played quick. I go off turn 3 both times. Bram gets a bit unlucky game 2, his turn 1 Emry flips 2 Force of negations and 1 Fow into the GY. This actually makes a big difference as otherwise he would have demonstrated into those cards. Both turn 3 cast branch early and nicely into a Wanderer and I win both times turn 3. I ended up not Boarding the Ooze this time, as the risk of hitting it early is quite dangerous.

Interlude:
As of now I am feeling good about the deck and the way it’s been playing. People have been showing up around the table and the deck is being “talked about”. It’s fun explaining the deck and talking about the results.

Round 4 Sam Dams Bant Infect Sam Dams won 2-0-0
I do not know Sam Dams, but later I learn this player is really experienced and strong strong infect player from Belgium.

Game 1:
Unfortunately, here things go a bit south. I get a deck check and my deck is full of proxies. Normally I always double sleeve my decks, proxies or not. But with Proxies the deck gets really thick, card-paper-innersleeve-outer sleeve. I make the decision when sleeving up the deck earlier that week, that I will not be using innersleeves, the deck is really shuffle intensive and having the deck be smaller twill improve my dexterity and in such also the game speed during the tournament.
But I forgot about the proxy ruling, they either must be glued or innersleeved. So I end up getting a game loss. Thanks to the judge team and their support (Thanks again!) they help me inner sleeve the deck in 8 minutes and I can return to the match with a game loss.

Game 2:
I have a solid 7, play my tap land. Sam fetches and plays a glistener elf. I play another tap land.
Sam attacks, plays scale up and Invigorate and its GG…. I end up joking that “we will see each other in the finals” .

Interlude:
I try not to get down and bothered about this match and the game loss. Sh*t just happens, I made no errors in play or during the day yet. I just have to make sure I win the next round!

Round 5 kevin werf Mono-Black Mill won 2-0-0
I know Kevin, he typically plays non-fare non-blue decks. But I do not know whats he’s playing today.

Game 1:
He starts the game with an Leyline of the void, so I think its mono black helm. He plays a turn 1 Sheoldred with a lotus petal and a dark Ritual. He discards one of my spells on turn 2. Turn 3 I go off and win.

Game 2:
+4 Throes of Chaos
+2 Tibalt's Trickery
-2 Let the Galaxy Burn
-3 Aurora Phoenix
-1 Sweet-Gum Recluse

I know my opponent is on the play and he’s seen the deck. I think he understands his only out is discard spells. So I go for the “Throes of Chaos package”, the retrace on the card will protect me against discard. I end up having to mull to 3, before seeing any Throes in my hand. I must say I am clenching my but cheeks, as I’ve never mulled to 3 before on a tournament, this just feels wrong ;-). Kevin must be either confused or think the deck power comes at a great cost of consistency but actually mulling this low is correct. I did not want to play the other hands as I want the critical mass of cascaders in my deck and not in my hand. He turn 1 thoughseize me. I play my tap land. Kevin plays something I forget. Turn 2 I play my crystal vein, discard my other land to retrace Throes into Tibalt Trickery. I go “off” and for the first time today I hit my Emrakul!

Round 6 Tomas Lens Aluren 1-1-0 Draw
I have not seen or played Tomas before, but I get a tip that he most likely playing alluren.

Game 1:
I combo turn 3, my CT’s hit to many CT’s so I am forced to demonstrate often. This results into my opponent getting a Alluren from one of my CT. This is not good…..
He gets to cantrip with CT into ponder and hits a Baleful strix and he chains as well, he ends up bricking a bit with 3 baleful strix and 4 Ice fang coatls and a Uro. Phew…. I still have a chance. My chains are good I hit a recluse early. But here I make the first misplay of the day, I forget the recluse trigger no +3/+3 counters, which ends up costing me the game. I have to brute force myself through 7 death touchers… But with the missed counters I do not get through enough damage this turn, or the next. He wins the following turn.

Game 2:
+3 Mirrorshell Crab
+1 Aeve, Progenitor Ooze
-4 Gemstone Caverns
I combo on turn 3, I choose to only demonstrate 1 CT. I have critical mass, but he has a Swords for the wanderer. So, I loose haste. But its still enough and I win the next turn.

Game 3:
I have to mull to 5 as the type of lands do not match with the spells in my hand. This did not happen before yet, the deck and draws feel consistent so I think this is just bad luck. Tomas just ponders and plays nothing, he’s got interaction!
I only have 1 play on turn 3 and the CT’s get double Forced. Luckily I draw another spell on the next turn, but he is able to double Force again. We are both empty and we run out of time this round.

Round 7 Bjorn Keulemans Rakdos Painter won 2-0-0
I do not know Bjorn, but I know he’s playing painter, he’s also seen my deck. As he had a deck check while sitting beside me so he saw the deck in action. He knows what’s up.
This match can be seen on stream. So, I will keep it brief.

Game 1:
I win off my combo turn 3, it’s still really close call. He almost has his combo assembled.

Game 2:
Bjorn got some sideboard tech, and he get a turn 2 Thorn of amethyst. This will make my CT’s cost 1 more after cascading. The gem stone cavern I hit this game really helps!! I calculate that I must have at least 3 CT’s to get critical mass so this delays me 2 turns. This makes me sequence my tap lands differently. I end up going turn 4. With 3 extra mana available. The combo with 3 CT goes quite strong, I only copy once as I know my opponent has no mana and is tapped out. I don’t want to give him a petal or mox. This would open window to blast my Wanderer. I get a good chain and have lethal and win.

It’s important to note how Thorn interacts with Cascaded spells and CT (I call a judge for this) as I’ve made earlier mistakes in other tournaments “assuming MTG rules”. In the end me and my opponent are both happy we did, as unexpectly the Thorn interacts differently than expected with “Copies”. The game goes close and I later find out that he was 1 land short to win with the combo as he will also have to use the spear to remove Emrakul ( Thanks Emrakul  )

Round 8 Sam Dams Bant Infect Sam Dams won 2-1-0
A clean top 8 split, unfortunately I must play against the hardest deck in top 8 immediately. That missed trigger in round 6 really costs me here. As I could have won there and would not have had to face Sam immediately (or at all).

Game 1:
No turn 2 kill this time. But he’s able to double force my first CT on turn 3. He wins the next turn.

Game 2:
-4 Gemstone Caverns
+4 Pyrokenis

He’s able to triple daze my turn 3 CT. But he’s not presenting a threat just yet. I hit the combo on turn 4 again. My first CT hits another CT. As predicted,my opponent is smart. He counters 1 off the non copy CT’s in response to a CT hitting a Boarding party and immediately surgicals the remaining 2 CT in my deck, unfortunately I did not board the Ooze this time.…. At this moment I still have 2 CT’s on the stack. The first resolves and it’s a recluse, not a good hit, the cascade does not hit anything because of the surgical. I resolve the last CT, I shuffle my deck, Sam cuts it. If I remember right, the first card I flip is Emrakul, my boy there to save the day ;-)

Game 3:
At this moment playing so many games is starting to take its toll. I really can’t decide what to board and what to take out. As I want to play the 4 Pyrokenis, but also want to board in the throes package on the draw vs fast “combo” deck. I arguably maybe take too long and can’t really decide how to board.
I do not see how I can play both Throes/Tibalt + Pyrokenis and still be consistent with the deck, as messing with the amount of cascade spells is really dangerous. Maybe it’s the inexperience with the deck hitting here. But I cant remove to many red sources as well for the Pyro’s to be interactive in my hand.

I decide the following :
+4 Throes of Chaos
+2 Tibalt's Trickery
-1 Havenwood Battleground
-3 Aurora Phoenix
-2 Sweet-Gum Recluse

I mull twice, and see no early Throes. So I decide to keep a hand with enough lands and 2 action pieces for turn 3. Sam luckily plays a ponder turn, ends up playing a threat turn 2. I go off turn 3. Boarding Party Cascades into throes of chaos, sh*t! That’s a disaster a CT would have been way better. I hit tibalt’s but he counters it. I leave my boarding party behind to block, and I think hopefully I might still have another turn. But he invigorates into berserk and the trample infect dmg is enough to kill me.
Afterwards he shows me he still had another FoW back up. So hitting the Throes instead of a CT would have made no difference.

Ending:
It was a great day, I had a lot of fun playing the deck and lots of enthousiastic players at the tournament. It was a great day! The deck is consistent in the draws, I personally do not like decks that must mull aggressively. Of course as any combo deck it really has some weaker matchups. But I think with enough work maybe there is still equatiy to be gained there in the sideboard. My expectations are that this deck pick up speed really quickly and we will be seeing more results soon.
I am going to gather my thoughts on the deck my sideboard and card choices a bit more, before posting again.

Hopefully you all enjoyed reading about the tournament.

Mark

Rationalist

04-02-2023, 10:10 PM

Very cool writeup, and very much appreciated.

I combo on turn 3, I choose to only demonstrate 1 CT. I have critical mass, but he has a Swords for the wanderer. So, I loose haste. But its still enough and I win the next turn.

This is an interesting choice, and may well be correct. I would like to get a better sense of risk vs. reward in a lot of these matchups, but Aluren seems like a pile of Interaction / Cantrips / Instant-Speed-Win-Conditions that has to be on the "play conservative" end, and if you didn't demonstrate them into a new card in hand or countermagic directly off the first demonstrate the only reason to consider continuing to demonstrate is if the output of the chain will be enough. Hearing that it was is a great.

Round 8 Sam Dams Bant Infect Sam Dams won 2-1-0

While I think it is winnable (meaning not as horrendous as Oops), Infect seems pretty set as a bad matchup. They have a quick clock, they're usually packing surgical and flusterstorms, and we are bereft of pre-combo blockers so they're relatively free to load up on a quick Glistener Elf. I think the fact that Sam in particular is leading them off of Vines of Vastwood and onto Skrelv is a small silver lining because it means that Otawara is functional removal against them, but that's not good enough news to make it a good matchup.

I don't have the games against New Bant Infect under my belt to say anything with the confidence I would like, but I think I would forgo the Throes package in favor of Pyrokinesis in its entirety. Your first combo attempt / Pyro will be countered post-board, and if we're acknowledging we're still not winning until at least Turn 3 I like going into Turn 3 on the Resilient line off of agnostic Turn 2 Land Sequencing than going into Turn 3 on a second attempt to Throes off of the land sequencing that enabled a T2 Throes. Unless that was off of specifically Sandstone Needle you might stumble trying to reestablish red mana on Turn 3.

I think the best shot of winning against a reasonable post-board Infect hand is either blowing out their Tempo with Otawara or having them waste resources fending off a Pyrokinesis without needing to devote mana to it. This is naive reasoning though as I haven't played against infect since before Skrelv.

ToasTer86

04-05-2023, 03:29 PM

The deck was posted and mentioned on mtggoldfish as well. Also heard of some players buying the cards. Seems like you really started the an awesome deck here.

ToasTer86

04-06-2023, 09:58 AM

This is an interesting choice, and may well be correct. I would like to get a better sense of risk vs. reward in a lot of these matchups, but Aluren seems like a pile of Interaction / Cantrips / Instant-Speed-Win-Conditions that has to be on the "play conservative" end, and if you didn't demonstrate them into a new card in hand or countermagic directly off the first demonstrate the only reason to consider continuing to demonstrate is if the output of the chain will be enough. Hearing that it was is a great.

I think Alluren is a 50/50 matchup, the reasoning behind this is following. Our CT's can hit insane targets for our opponents as well. Alluren, Baleful & Coatl are good hits for our opponent. Each deathtouch flyer eliminates one of our attacking targets. They can have instant speed removal in Swords vs the Wanderer. But alluren is slower but more resillient. I think the matchup is a really good one to practice explosiveness vs. conservative plays.

While I think it is winnable (meaning not as horrendous as Oops), Infect seems pretty set as a bad matchup. They have a quick clock, they're usually packing surgical and flusterstorms, and we are bereft of pre-combo blockers so they're relatively free to load up on a quick Glistener Elf. I think the fact that Sam in particular is leading them off of Vines of Vastwood and onto Skrelv is a small silver lining because it means that Otawara is functional removal against them, but that's not good enough news to make it a good matchup.

I don't have the games against New Bant Infect under my belt to say anything with the confidence I would like, but I think I would forgo the Throes package in favor of Pyrokinesis in its entirety. Your first combo attempt / Pyro will be countered post-board, and if we're acknowledging we're still not winning until at least Turn 3 I like going into Turn 3 on the Resilient line off of agnostic Turn 2 Land Sequencing than going into Turn 3 on a second attempt to Throes off of the land sequencing that enabled a T2 Throes. Unless that was off of specifically Sandstone Needle you might stumble trying to reestablish red mana on Turn 3.

I think the best shot of winning against a reasonable post-board Infect hand is either blowing out their Tempo with Otawara or having them waste resources fending off a Pyrokinesis without needing to devote mana to it. This is naive reasoning though as I haven't played against infect since before Skrelv.

Infect seems like a bad matchup. I am wondering how good the Throes+Trickery package is vs Infect. Especially on the draw it gives us a chance to combo before our opponent kills us. The downside is that it makes our combo more susceptible to counter magic, which Infect has mutiples: FoW's, FoN's, Daze, Stifle. On the play I think we should forego the Throes package.
I've read Sam Dams infect report and seen how highly respected he is in the overal Infect world. He's not playing Vines anymore and using Skrelv as a way to protect his threats. This means Pyrokenis can be protected against. Otowara seems like our best chance, but realistically it does not come online till turn 3 often, unless we sequence our lands in effectively.

What do you think about: The sky turtle (https://scryfall.com/card/neo/216/colossal-skyturtle)

Hajko

04-06-2023, 06:51 PM

Hi all,

As promised on Reddit, I've bought the deckand had a chance to give it a spin today.

Only 3 rounds with 2-1 result in the end.

2-1 vs maverick
2-1 vs ur delver (played against one and only Guillem Salvador)
1-2 vs ur delver

I've sideboard exactly like @ToasTer86 and found it sufficient. Although, I believe that it definitely need a bit of exploration (prolly will test out sky turtle, but will see...)

Rationalist

04-08-2023, 12:08 AM

What do you think about: The sky turtle (https://scryfall.com/card/neo/216/colossal-skyturtle)

Thoughts on Skyturtle:

Pros

Better at removing hatebears against blue-decks since it gets around countermagic
Better against Infect if deck becomes more popular (currently on upswing)
Compared to Pyrokinesis, is often a better hit when combo chaining wrt critical mass of threats
Has a secondary mode (this is actually not that useful but is technically non-0 utility so I thought I would list it)

Cons

Requires Blue Mana rather than Red Card in order to serve primary purpose, is therefore less consistent (Red Card Count > Blue Mana Count)
Makes demands of land sequencing that Pyrokinesis does not

I think it's a valid sideboard option that some lists have successfully placed with, but there is a real cost to running it and at least personally I'm not there yet. If you do choose to run it, however, since as of your last public sightning you were on 3x Mirrorshell Crab in the side, I'd consider whether the 1x Mountain should become a 1x Volcanic Island in such a list.

Rationalist

04-08-2023, 12:11 AM

Hi all,

As promised on Reddit, I've bought the deckand had a chance to give it a spin today.

Excellent.

Only 3 rounds with 2-1 result in the end.

2-1 vs maverick
2-1 vs ur delver (played against one and only Guillem Salvador)
1-2 vs ur delver

I've sideboard exactly like @ToasTer86 and found it sufficient. Although, I believe that it definitely need a bit of exploration (prolly will test out sky turtle, but will see...)

I don't think we have any illusions here that these lists are fully optimized; if you test out various reconfigurations please don't hesitate to share your findings here.

Rationalist

04-08-2023, 12:30 AM

The youtube channel 90s MTG has posted a few different Top 8 Mississippi River lists recently in their community tab over the past handful of days. This Simone Molaro list stood out to me so I wanted to discuss it a bit here:

https://yt3.ggpht.com/kbhtcGLAtWlto8ll0yjMQ0_s9HGhIWnXbCm07K7HBiYiDDc4tYNGuGZT6-gzX7rFCkLhGi_0AaBa=s640-c-fcrop64=1,00000000d765ffff-nd-v1

Now I will confess that I'm not an enormous fan of the way this 75 is built in every detail, but there is something about it I find very interesting.

First the negative bits. I'm still not a fan of Fury and Nimble Obstructionist just seems like a worse stand-in for Mirrorshell Crab. I'm also highly skeptical of 0x Otawara in the 75, but obviously they could have specific meta expectations so that could be correct for this exact paper tournament for all I know. Also, more to the core of what this list is attempting, I feel like leaning this heavily into Emrakul + Maelstrom Wanderer leaves the deck more vulnerable to post-chain interaction since it will have a less overwhelming board presence if Emrakul is removed and this list is far more vulnerable to discard effects since it's on only 8x 5/6-Mana Starters (it is admirably sleek and focused, though).

One thing I did find interesting, however, was that they Top 8'd a large tournament with only 8x Starters on 5/6 Mana. [EDIT/CORRECTION: SEE POST #107 BELOW] While I still feel that's too low even in non-Black world, this might be a datapoint that the deck can afford to squeeze the number of starters down slightly while maintaining sufficient consistency, and the 2x Let the Galaxy Burn are currently a bit of an artifact of the 4x Archon of Emeria stock-initiative lists that aren't really out there anymore (at least as stock). Maybe it would be worth experimenting with 1x or 0x LtGB and incorporating a Boseiju or two into the maindeck since Deafening Silence is as popular as it is and Trinisphere is still more popular right now than usual.

Other spots where their list might outshine.

They are on 16x effective Red Sol Lands. That's a number to be envious of and a common trait I'm seeing in this (what I presume are) Italian lists that are Top 8ing.

Also here is a chance that 1x Chimera 3x Wanderer is closer to correct than 4x Wanderer, but there are tradeoffs there too, and I will confess that the higher Red Sol Land count seems the most relevant distinction here.

Conclusion:

I think I'm going to experiment with cutting the spell package down even a bit further and seeing if I can squeeze some Boseiju, Who Endures and some Tinder Farm as additional Red Sol Land for consistency and to power them into the list.

Rationalist

04-08-2023, 12:46 AM

FTW

04-08-2023, 02:04 AM

Emrakul seems to help the mirror, because you get to take an extra turn and annihilate their blockers, so it doesn't matter what you cast for them (assuming they run fewer Emrakuls). Maybe that's the mirror breaker?

8 starters sounds low but maybe you can squeeze in room for maindeck Boseiju or Otawara by cutting down to 10-11 starters.

Mirrorshell Crab > Obstructionist

Pyrokinesis > Fury

Rationalist

04-08-2023, 02:51 PM

Oooh, I'm dumb. The image above has less than 60 maindeck cards. The image I copied cut off a column to the right. They DID have more than 8 normal starters.

rufus

04-08-2023, 04:51 PM

Also, one last thought in this small flurry of posts tonight ...

If this deck is now more "on the radar": How does the mirror ... work?

I've honestly never played it or tested it, and demonstrating would just start your opponent's chain unless they already exhausted their Techniques ...

You can chose not to demonstrate. The newly spoiled Etali, Primal Conqueror would be a little funny in the mirror too (but probably doesn't really help much.)

Rationalist

04-08-2023, 10:02 PM

You can chose not to demonstrate. The newly spoiled Etali, Primal Conqueror would be a little funny in the mirror too (but probably doesn't really help much.)

Should you though? If you don't hit a CMC 8+ you'll get a selection of 4/5 random creatures and deplete your deck of Techniques. The opponent can then combo chain on their turn with demonstrates and go over the top.

Naively, I actually think Aeve might be worth bringing in post-board. Just go bigger.

FTW

04-10-2023, 08:08 AM

I think, if you have more Emrakuls than opponent's build, then yes you want to Demonstrate in the mirror.

If you hit Emrakul and opponent doesn't, it doesn't matter that you started a chain for them because you'll get an extra turn and annihilate before they get a turn. If you hit 2 Emrakuls then you get 2 turns (more annihilating) and put Creative Techniques back in library.

If you both hit Emrakul, I *think* because theirs resolved first that you get your extra turns first so you still get to annihilate and maybe put back Creative Technique before they get a turn.

If they have multiple Aeves, it's a good counter to Emrakul (more bodies to annihilate) so that may alter the decision path, since storm counts both players' chains.

Rationalist

04-13-2023, 03:16 PM

Well this was unexpected ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzokMngFstg

Eisenkarl

04-18-2023, 02:06 PM

ToasTer86

04-19-2023, 08:03 AM

Well this was unexpected ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzokMngFstg

Man the deck is really picking up speed. To be featured on this channel means something.!

Rationalist

04-20-2023, 01:01 AM

Hi, I will give Marks list a spin at our monthly tournament on Sunday. The deck ist really fun to play and feels quite good at the moment. I am usually on painter but want to try something new. I think the deck is still under the radar. I will give you a short tournament report on Sunday/Monday.

Cheers Olli

That sounds excellent! Look forward to hearing your results whether you succeed or fall short, and most importantly any insights you gain from either.

inked

04-22-2023, 11:55 PM

Is there a Throes of Chaos build that could use Imoti which if it resolves and isn't stuck in the bottom of the stack as simply a 5 CMC starter to hit a Throes line, then opens cards up like Mirrorshell Crab to be less bricks (as they become 7 CMC cascades with Imoti on the field)? Or is Imoti just bad? Obviously it's bad/unplayable without a Throes/Trickery build, but if you're committed to that? Would Imoti ever resolve early enough that Crab cascading becomes good? Other cards discussed in the thread as potential SB cards like Commandeer also work as starters with a resolved Imoti. Would become a pretty drastic deck building change I'd think since you're wanting blue for Commandeer, but can't run Keruga companion with Tibalt's Trickery.

1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Maelstrom Wanderer
2 Mirrorshell Crab
4 Etherium-Horn Sorcerer
4 Sakashima's Protege
3 Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty

2 Commandeer
4 Creative Technique
2 Throes of Chaos
2 Tibalt's Trickery

4 Crystal Vein
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Dwarven Ruins
4 Havenwood Battleground
4 Svyelunite Temple
4 Hickory Woodlot 
4 Sandstone Needle 
4 Saprazzan Skerry
1 Otawara, Soaring City

is this terrible? Is it good? I have no idea and it's too complex for my brain to think if it fizzles too much. There is also the potential fear that it doesn't create a large enough board presence after comboing without the red base.

Fizzle lines would be like Imoti -> Throes -> Trickery -> Commandeer. That said you could Throes the following turn with Imoti in play, so if the second Trickery hits Commandeer at least Commandeer now cascades. Ditto Crab. Imoti -> Trickery and choose not to cast, but have Commandeer in hand might be a fizzle, but then restarts with Imoti in play.

I am 98% sure this is just worse than almost every post in the thread, but it's been on my mind so I thought I'd share. It's one saving grace is it has interaction against unwinnable cards (also the landbase needs reworking I used cards I have access to).

Eisenkarl

04-24-2023, 05:46 PM

That sounds excellent! Look forward to hearing your results whether you succeed or fall short, and most importantly any insights you gain from either.

Hi @ll,

we had our monthly Legacy tournament here in North Rhine-Westphalia State, Germany with 70 Players. I played this list:

Maindeck:
4 Boarding Party
4 Maelstrom Wanderer
3 Aurora Phoenix
2 Sweet-Gum Recluse
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Creative Technique
2 Let the Galaxy Burn
4 Gemstone Caverns
4 Sandstone Needle
4 Saprazzan Skerry
4 Hickory Woodlot
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Dwarven Ruins
4 Otawara, Soaring City
3 Crystal Vein
3 Sulfur Vent
1 Havenwood Battleground
1 Mountain
Σ 60

Sideboard:
4 Throes of Chaos
4 Pyrokinesis
3 Mirrorshell Crab
2 Tibalt's Trickery
1 Maddening Hex
1 Aeve, Progenitor Ooze
Σ 15

Round 1: 1-2 vs Mono W Dreadnought
Combo win Game 1, Game 2 I combo off into Crab and die to beatdown, Game 3 Thorn and two early Dreadnoughts stop me from winning

Round 2: 2-0 vs UR Control
Two easy Combo wins

Round 3: 2-0 vs Painter
Game 1 I don´t see much of my opponents deck and I think he is on Mono Red Stompy and board in fast combo with Throes and Trickery because of trinisphere. Game 2 I see he´s on Painter. He destroys one of my lands with blast to buy some time. He plays Enigneer to put ensnaring bridge in the bin. When I go into combo, goblin engineer could switch Painter for Bridge, so my plan is to put as much as possible onto the table and wait for Otawara. Then my oponent ofers the shake hands to me, he made a mistake and attacked with engineer in his turn.

Round 4: 1-2 vs Colorless Post
Game 1 Combo win by me with Emrakul hit, Game 2 I think he hits Warping Wail and counters my Technique and kills me with Ugin, Game 3 Technique does not hit for lethal and he plays all is dust, I can´t find any combo piece and he finds Trinisphere

Round 5: 2-1 vs Mirror Match
A friend of mine build Mississippi River as well (different list) and I didn´t know before we met at the venue. Game 1 + 2 The starter won the match. (I couldn´t find Cavern or fast Combo). Game 3 was crazy. I mulliganed for the fast combo but couldn´t find it. However i can combo first he counters with crab. Then I combo again but only find Wanderer and Crab if remember correctly. He plays CT and hits CT into Crab :eek: I can attack for lethal next turn.

Round 6: 2-1 vs 4c Control
Game 1 Combo Win, Game 2 he hits a counter with CT and has FOW to stop my combo and kills me with Minsc. Game 3 I play CT he counters with flusterstorm but I can pay for the copy, he plays surgical on CT but I hit Wanderer with the copy and some creatures thats enough

Round 7 1-2 vs Death Shadow
Game 1 Combo Win, Game 2 he finds Hydroblast in CT and has a second counter, Game 3 he has double FOW and I can´t find another enabler in 3 turns

Overall I finished 24 th place. Last game was win and in for prizes. Deck feels quite good and all people had a lot of fun and smiled about the crazy stuff we are doing with this deck :laugh: I think I need more matches to learn the right mulligans.
The only change to the Maindeck I will do is to put a second Emrakul in the deck, because a lot of times I had Emrakul on my hand.

That´s it for today.

Keep being creative.

Cheers Olli

Rationalist

05-03-2023, 09:50 AM

Overall I finished 24 th place. Last game was win and in for prizes. Deck feels quite good and all people had a lot of fun and smiled about the crazy stuff we are doing with this deck :laugh: I think I need more matches to learn the right mulligans.

Cheers Olli

Thanks for the report.

I'd be curious to know the logic behind bringing in Mirrorshell Crab vs. Mono-W Painter. Was there a card I'm not thinking of you were particularly afraid of?

Also, by the sounds of it I'm assuming you didn't demonstrate the chain-starter vs. Post since you say the combo was stopped by 1x Warping Wail. Is this accurate or is there something I'm missing here.

Is there a Throes of Chaos build that could use Imoti which if it resolves and isn't stuck in the bottom of the stack as simply a 5 CMC starter to hit a Throes line, then opens cards up like Mirrorshell Crab to be less bricks (as they become 7 CMC cascades with Imoti on the field)? Or is Imoti just bad?

I'm pretty sure Imoti is just bad. He's very hard to cast, turns on lightning bolt and red blast, does nothing vs Karakas, uses up depletion counters, is slow, exposes creative technique to countermagic just by being in the deck when it gets hit off the initial copy, even worse gets hit himself off of Cascade to brick the entire combo with a Cascade starter just by being in the deck, is air that doesn't turn on the combo when you need a starter, all to ... be a Fow-able piece of insulation against one copy of Fow when he's in your hand that some countermagic (flusterstorm / mindbreak trap) just gets around anyways? I don't understand why you'd want to force them to force him just so you can combo the next turn with protection against their Fow when you could just play combo that turn instead, let that soak up their countermagic (twice as much re: FoW) and then just combo again the next turn.

I'm having trouble seeing what he does that would be any good.

Obviously it's bad/unplayable without a Throes/Trickery build, but if you're committed to that?

That seems like it makes him worse, right? Now he still has all the faults above but now is even more of a risk of bricking the combo since you need to "cascade up" with Trickery additionally, both and the start of the combo and sporatically during it, and now he also doesn't protect your combo-starter from FoW at all.

I don't see how Throes/Trickery makes him better. Unless there's something I'm not seeing here it seems like it makes him even worse.

(list)

is this terrible? Is it good? I have no idea and it's too complex for my brain to think if it fizzles too much.

Respectfully I think it's terrible. Let's focus on what you're trying to do, though, at a basic level. It seems like you want a Commandeer version of the deck? That might well be possible, but you would not want Imoti (since I would argue he's horrible all-around), you would not want maindeck Mirrorshell Crabs (since you'd be throwing more bricks for technique on top of the bricks for technique you're already trying to add), and you want not want to be on Throes/Chaos (since Throes/Chaos exacerbates any potential bricks in the deck).

A Commandeer version of the deck, to the degree that would be any good, would presumably want to run Keruga companion for the ability to generate a blue card in hand for (3), the quadruple-cascade Chimera to insulate against the bricking of Commandeer, and want to use the Flash cascaders to try to squeeze value off of the risk of hitting Commandeer by comboing while they have a spell on the stack. It's a very large ask and I doubt the juice is worth the squeeze, but if that's the direction you want to explore that's the way I'd start that exploration.

Rationalist

05-03-2023, 11:32 AM

https://i.imgur.com/DzyqEwn.png

Eisenkarl

05-04-2023, 06:49 AM

Thanks for the report.

I'd be curious to know the logic behind bringing in Mirrorshell Crab vs. Mono-W Painter. Was there a card I'm not thinking of you were particularly afraid of?

Also, by the sounds of it I'm assuming you didn't demonstrate the chain-starter vs. Post since you say the combo was stopped by 1x Warping Wail. Is this accurate or is there something I'm missing here.

Hi,

I knew my opponent from other tournaments, after Game 1 I thought he is on his UW artifact pile and was afraid of FOW.

Vs Post I demonstrated the CT and didn´t expect that he plays Warping Wail out of the sideboard :cry: ... lessons learned ...

Regards Olli

Rationalist

05-04-2023, 08:47 AM

Hi,

I knew my opponent from other tournaments, after Game 1 I thought he is on his UW artifact pile and was afraid of FOW.

Vs Post I demonstrated the CT and didn´t expect that he plays Warping Wail out of the sideboard :cry: ... lessons learned ...

Regards Olli

Hi Olli.

Thanks for the clarification.

Demonstrated CT should actually get around a Warping Wail, though, right? If you demonstrate, he only counters one of the copies so you should still combo off.

Also, in general, I don't think you need to bring in Mirrorshell Crab to fight FoW. The deck is designed to not need to fight FoW. If you demonstrate, FoW doesn't stop the combo. That's the whole point of the deck.

Eisenkarl

05-04-2023, 09:00 AM

Hi Olli.

Thanks for the clarification.

Demonstrated CT should actually get around a Warping Wail, though, right? If you demonstrate, he only counters one of the copies so you should still combo off.

Also, in general, I don't think you need to bring in Mirrorshell Crab to fight FoW. The deck is designed to not need to fight FoW. If you demonstrate, FoW doesn't stop the combo. That's the whole point of the deck.

Yep he countered one CT, but I couldn´t kill him with rest.

Yeah that´s right with the FOW. Another idea was, to counter artifacts like thorn or Trinisphere.

Crab is a strong card, but maybe I mis-board it at the moment. In the tournament, most of the time the crab came to late or disturbed the combo, but I see that it is necessary in some match ups.

Cheers

Rationalist

05-04-2023, 09:14 AM

Yep he countered one CT, but I couldn´t kill him with rest.

Ah, okay.

Yeah that´s right with the FOW. Another idea was, to counter artifacts like thorn or Trinisphere.

Oh so you were bringing it in to what you saw as an abundance of answers. Gotchya.

...

... He was really playing a Trinisphere / FoW deck? (Or, rather, was previously and that's what you put him on) I don't want to be a hypocrite, FTW on this very forum chastised me not that long ago for thinking about doing exactly that, but honestly you don't really see that that often.

Crab is a strong card, but maybe I mis-board it at the moment.

I mean it's all good man. I'm not here to judge you, I'm just trying to squeeze the details out of you so I can see where the deck's shortcomings are for potential improvement.

Cheers

Respect

Scott

05-07-2023, 02:34 AM

I saw this finish (https://mtgtop8.com/event?e=44006&d=524646&f=LE) from a small tournament a few days ago

https://i.imgur.com/7AdzOGo.png

Cave

05-07-2023, 07:48 AM

I think there are interesting choices, just to name one this player is skipping spiders and every cmc6 cascader is red.
And that is a reasonable choice, Spiders are very strong but can't be cascaded at t3 without woodlot, otherwise you need double tinder farm and it's usually t4.
On the other hand, Spiders also provide you combo options when opponents are determined in keeping you off red.
So it has upsides and downsides.

I cannot force myself to like lotus bloom and Imoti though. The most paramount aspect of the deck is that you need to cascade into Technique. By playing 2 cards under cmc6 that aren't technique, you're giving yourself a whopping 33% fail rate on the first cascader, which is absolutely self defeating given you've spent 2 turns doing nothing already.
Imho no card that costs less than 6 should be in the mainboard except Technique or a new print with a comparable and/or better effect.

Cave

05-07-2023, 08:11 AM

sorry, double post. To add to the above, I haven't tried Imoti but I suspect it doesn't do much while comboing, or it could even be detrimental. A priori, your cmc6 cascaders will be cascading twice into technique, which means, if you cascade into an early Imoti, you will have less cmc6 cascaders on the stack when "on the way up" the cascade tree, which also means, when you start resolving "on the way down" you'll be less likely to Technique into Wanderer or Emrakul because you'll have more cmc6 cascaders in the deck; although, every Wanderer or Apex will have an extra cascade so you compensate if you get lucky.
One thing it does, though, non-cascade cards you play in the sideboard, such as the sky turtle, will now cascade into technique, which is good.

mfatz

05-07-2023, 01:16 PM

Hey all~
Just ran the deck in a 50pax legacy REL event today. Finished 2 Wins 4 Losses.
I know it isn't the best result, however the deck is absolutely fun and challenging to pilot. It always feels like I'm playing against all odds against the meta decks.

Played in a weekly casual on Thursday and went 3-0 (against 2 Initiative decks and D&T), so was feeling pretty good for the big event today...but guess it wasn't meant to be~

This is the list I ran today, and I hope my feedback would help for those that are also running the deck or want to pick it up to experience :laugh::

[Main - 61]
1 Mountain
4 Dwarven Ruins
1 Havenwood Battleground
4 City of Traitors
3 Sulfur Vent
3 Crystal Vein
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Hickory Woodlot
4 Sandstone Needle
4 Saprazzan Skerry
4 Gemstone Caverns
4 Otawara, Soaring City

3 Aurora Phoenix
2 Sweet-Gum Recluse
4 Boarding Party
2 Let the Galaxy Burn

4 Creative Technique

2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Maelstrom Wanderer

[Sideboard]
3 Pyrokinesis
3 Throes of Chaos
2 Tibalt's Trickery
1 Aeve, Progenitor Ooze
2 Inevitable Betrayal
1 Maddening Hex
3 Mirrorshell Crab

Round 1 (vs UR Delver) Loss 1 - 2
Opponent had played me before in weeklies so he had an idea how the deck works and how to play against it.

[G1] Started on the draw, kept a hand of 1 Boarding Party, 1 Technique, 1 Hickory, 2 Sandstone, 1 Tomb, 1 City
Got Wastelanded Twice on the first 2 lands, Hickory & Sandstone, while getting punched by Delver and Murktides til i was at 4, managed to jam technique and copy on T5 using the City (had a feeling he had bolt in hand, which he did!). He managed to FoW 1 copy and the rest of the technique went into Wanderer and Emmy for the kill.

+1 Aeve
- 1 Boarding Party

[G2] On the draw, kept a handful of 6 MMQ sol lands, 1 Wanderer. (abit iffy keep, but i wanted to have more lands to handle multiple wastelands)
Opponent went into the Delver, DRC, 2 Baubles and fast surveil with bolts and chain lightnings. Didnt draw any 6cmc cascader or technique and i was dead by T4 without getting wastelanded.

[G3] On the play, mulled to 2 cascaders, 3 red sol lands.
Again got double wastelanded, kept drawing techniques and cascaders, and got dispatched quick and fast with delvers, DRCs and Bolts

Round 2 (vs Elves) Won 2 - 0
[G1] Faced a deck check and opponent got a game loss due to a missing sideboard card. So I didnt know what he was on.

[G2] On the draw, kept Gemstone, 2 cascader, 4 tapped sols. Slow start by opp, but still managed to Natural Order on T4 for Progenitus. (later he showed me he drew the Hoof). Went for my T4 cascade chain into emmy and gang, and secured the game and match.

Round 3 (vs Breakfast) Loss 0 - 2
[G1] On the draw, mulled into Spider, Hickory, 2 Saprazzan, Otawara, Tomb.
Opponent T1 Ponder, T2 Shuko into T3 Teferi, T4 Pondered and passed. While i went T1 hickory, T2 saprazzan, T3 Tomb.

At the end of his T4, i went Otawara, bounce Teferi. Untapped and main phased Spider. And he responded with Orim's Chant (!) So had to stop the chain and pass back. Opp proceeded to Teferi again, i drew a blank and passed, and next turn opp setup the combo for the win.
*In retrospect, i should have casted spider in respond to his teferi on his turn and at least gambled that he wouldn't have the mana available for any Orim Chants. Mistake on my part.

+3 Mirrorshell
+2 Inevitable Betrayal
+3 Throes
+2 Tibalt

-2 Galaxy
-3 Phoenix
-2 Sweet Gum
-3 Boarding

Idea was to either combo faster with the Throes, and if it hits the Betrayal, it would take out the Thassa Oracle and eliminate his combo portion.

[G2] On the play, mulled into a hand with saprazzan, sandstone, dwarven, mirrorshell, technique, betrayal
T1 saprazzan, T2 dwarven. Opponent went all in with T1 ponder, T2 shuko.
T3 didnt hit an untapped sol land, so played sandstone and passed turn, keeping mirrorshell for the teferi.
Opp T3 jammed teferi, which got countered by the crab.
I untapped and jammed technique with demonstrate, and got double FoW. Opp untapped, brainstormed, and jammed Cehphalid for the combo win again.

Round 4 (vs Traditional RG Lands) Loss 1 - 2
[G1] On the draw, kept a T3 cascade combo hand. Opponent played T1 Mox & Thespian stage. At this point i was thinking, this is the absolute nightmare.....and the match played out how i imagined it to be.
My T1 sol land, passed. Opponent played wasteland, and followed up with Loam. This continued for another 6 turns with me drawing and playing sol lands into his waste-loam lock, until i was dead to Depths.

+3 Throes
+2 Tibalt
-2 Galaxy
-3 Boarding

Idea was to at least have the phoenix and spider to chump any flying depths just in case.

[G2] Managed to avoid their T1 wasteland, and pull off the T2 Throes into Tibalt chain, and opponent scooped.

[G3] On the draw, kept the T2 Throes hand again. And a repeat of game 1, opponent going T1 exploration into wasteland, T2 Sphere, T3 Library.
Was frantically trying to draw Otawara to deal with the sphere, and library got my opponent into more wastelands and the depths combo soon after.

***Lands is by far the most absolute nightmare matchup I've faced, with recurring wastelands and sphere effects to deal with.

Round 5 (vs Burn) Loss 1 - 2
[G1] On the draw (for the 5th time already, i knew it just was just one of those days)
Kept a T3 technique hand, opponent got me down to 6 after his T3 with T1 goblin guide, T2 swift-spear, T3 another guide + chain lightning.
My T3 at 6 life, ripped a City on the top instead of the tomb i had in hand. Played City and techniqued chain without demonstrating and hit emmy luckily for the win. He had the fireblast in hand, so it was lucky that i didnt need to use the tomb.

+3 Throes
+2 Tibalt
+1 Maddening Hex
-2 Sweet Gum
-3 Phoenix
-1 Boarding Party

Idea was to be faster on combo route before getting burned out.

[G2] Kept a T2 Throes hand, and opponent went T1 Guide into T2 Roiling Vortex....and i just stared at the vortex. And i died in 2 turns after while trying to dig for an Otawara.

[G3] On the play, mulled to 5 with dwarven ruins, hickory, city, boarding party, otawara. Played T1 hickory and passed.
**This was definitely a mistake, since i didn't think of ripping a throes next turn. Should have led with dwarven ruins instead.

Opp mulled to 5 too went T1 Guide. And behold, i did rip the throes from the top, and realised my downfall. So i just played dwarven ruins and passed back.
Opp went T2 Roiling vortex again. I drew sulfur vents, played and passed the turn.
Opp jammed Ensnaring bridge to my shock, while i stared at the 1 otawara in hand. And as the roiling vortex gnawed at my life, opponent's Eidolon chewed down at my life total.

Last Round 6 (vs 8-cast) Won 2 - 1
[G1] Finally was on the play. Mulled to 6 with T3 technique hand and opponent only had 1 FoW to deal with 1 copy, and the rest chained into a Maelstrom Wanderer with Emmy for the win.

+3 Throes
+2 Tibalt
+1 Maddening Hex
-2 Sweet Gum
-4 Boarding Party

Idea was to combo faster, and leave the phoenix in to fight in the air if it ever got too grindy.

[G2] Mulled to 5 with T2 Throes into Trickery using dwarven ruins, hitting technique with demonstrate. Opponent flipped into a free FoW, and Forced another from hand. I didnt draw into any red sol lands for the reload and constructs dispatched me soon.

[G3] Felt opponent had kept a 7 with multiple counters. So i kept a slow hand with 5 MMQ sol lands, and a Maelstrom Wanderer.
My hunch was right, as i went in T5 with Maelstrom, the 1st cascade went into throes and trickery that got hit with a Metallic rebuke, 2nd cascade went into another throes which found a Maddening Hex. Opponent decided to FoW the Maelstrom, and the Hex managed to stick..
Opponent's saga went off to find a Aether spellbomb. And i drew a land and retraced Throes into Trickery and chained into another wanderer, a few phoenix and emmy. Opponent had no choice but to bounce back the emmy with spellbomb, and take the hit. I took my extra turn and swung in for lethal.

[Thoughts]
Deck was absolutely a blast to play, to explain, and importantly to keep the stack and triggers clear to your opponents and if the judge was staring at the massive pile of stuff happening. The surprise factor does help when opponents don't really know what the deck is trying to do, or if they only mess with the non-red sol lands. However, anyone that has seen or played against the deck would know the inherent gaps and that makes the games a real uphill battle.

Didn't get a chance to play against the reanimator decks, but from my experience against Sneak Show decks, it feels disadvantageous too with them having a fast combo, with main deck dazes and permission spells to stop the techniques. Post-board, flusterstorms and blue blasts are a problem to deal with too.

Eisenkarl

05-08-2023, 09:12 AM

Hi,

I will play this list on Saturday:

Maindeck:
4 Boarding Party
4 Maelstrom Wanderer
3 Aurora Phoenix
2 Sweet-Gum Recluse
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Creative Technique
2 Let the Galaxy Burn
4 Gemstone Caverns
4 Sandstone Needle
4 Saprazzan Skerry
4 Hickory Woodlot
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Dwarven Ruins
4 Otawara, Soaring City
3 Crystal Vein
3 Sulfur Vent
1 Havenwood Battleground
1 Volcanic Island
Σ 60

Sideboard:
4 Throes of Chaos
4 Pyrokinesis
3 Mirrorshell Crab
2 Tibalt's Trickery
1 Maddening Hex
1 Aeve, Progenitor Ooze
Σ 15

Swapped 1 x Mountain for 1 x Volcanic Island.

I want to play a second Emrakul, but have no idea what to kick out. Any ideas?

Regards

mfatz

05-08-2023, 09:43 AM

I couldn't decide too, so I just played the 61st card as the 2nd Emrakul.

Eisenkarl

05-09-2023, 12:40 PM

Rationalist

05-10-2023, 03:05 PM

I want to play a second Emrakul, but have no idea what to kick out. Any ideas?

I couldn't decide too, so I just played the 61st card as the 2nd Emrakul.

Cutting a Cascader seems plausible if you really want a 2nd Emrakul. Let the Galaxy Burn, while laudibly castable, doesn't have as much utility as it did back during the Maindeck Tier 1 Archon of Emeria time period, and it is a liability vs. Thalia/Thorn effects.

ToasTer86

05-11-2023, 03:48 PM

Cave

05-12-2023, 05:13 AM

I will be playing the deck on stream on the BOB stream: https://www.twitch.tv/bazaarofboxes

You can watch the match afterwards as well in the vod around 60minutes 2nd match.

I won 2-1 from 5c zenith

The match is textbook demonstration that pitch counterspells are a bad deal against this deck, your opponent saw 2-3 per game and yet wasn't able to stop you.
In one of the games one can see very well that you decided for waiting an extra turn in order to cast your first cascader without sac'ing a land. That way you maximize card advantage and are able to follow up on the next turn with another combo starter.

Foxiferous

05-25-2023, 07:31 PM

https://i.imgur.com/DzyqEwn.png

Oh hey, that's me!

I'm currently 14-1 with it at our weekly legacy nights.
The one loss was to u/r delver and it as mainly because I kept a really bad hand and then made some really poor sideboard choices.

Running the deck at a trio teams tomorrow, will report back with how I go.

Foxiferous

05-28-2023, 08:01 PM

Alright so it was kind of a sucky tournament from my end.

Round1: Bye.

Round2: Against breakfast (1-2 loss)
- G1
-> Easy win as my opponent had no idea what was happening
- G2
-> It was such a dumb game, it took until around turn 10 before I drew my first red mana. My opponent was also stuck on 2 lands for this entire time.
I had attacked my opponent to 6 life with a single spider, the creative techniques had been countered from the cascade.
Finally untapped with a dwarven ruin and miscounted my mana so I sacced it as I thought I could cast 2 cascaders this turn.
I then lost because I didn't draw another red mana source.
- G3
-> Lost as my opponent combo'd me on t2. T1 Shako, t2 Illusionist.

This was technically a win, if I hadn't sac'd the mine, I'd have been able to cast another 3 cascader's and easily win on the following turns.

Round3: Against Maverick (0-2 loss)
This was against DougesOnTwitch (the guy that took the picture of me in the above post ;p)

I just flat out lost. Douges is really good with Maverick and just wasted the crap out of me.
I sideboarded in trickert and chaos and he had sideboarded in deafening silence. So I got wasted and silenced out.

Honestly not sure what to do against his deck except bring in Pyrokineses to kill the elves and hope that it's good enough. He was running the Elf that lets you fetch up lands and also a single Ramunap to play lands from the graveyard so it was very very easy for him to waste-lock me with green sun's to tutor up the elves and ramunap.

Round2: U/W Storyteller sharks (2-0 win)

G1-
-> Easy win, opponent had no idea what I was doing so it's super easy.

G2 -
-> Held off on going off on turn 3 as I didn't want to tap out for Technique into double counter and then have him untap into a Teferi.
He then went to play T3f3ri on his t3 and I crabbed him (Crab is soooo good)
Then I combo'd off and won as I felt safe for further Teferi's

---

So overall I felt pretty crap about my performance, definitely should have been 2-1 instead of 1-2, but even then my draws and the run for the day was pretty bad.

At my weekly legacies (featured in picture above :D) over the past few weeks I'm currently 14-1 with the deck, and the 1 loss was because I kept a bad hand and then sideboarded poorly. So I'm guessing it was karma coming back to bite me.
But also could be the difference between weekly fun times and a more serious approach to a tournament.

I still overall really dislike the chaos/trickery sideboard combo, I never know when to bring it in and how to use it properly. But I'm also not sure what to use over it
Crabs I love and I've found pyro to be really good.

Cave

06-01-2023, 01:25 PM

I still overall really dislike the chaos/trickery sideboard combo, I never know when to bring it in and how to use it properly. But I'm also not sure what to use over it

I was very enthusiastic of "Throesbalt" being discardproof and one turn faster than CMC6 cascaders, I've been trying it against a wide range of opponents, from reanimator to storm to elves and stompy.

To my disappointment, I found out that there's a vast number of things that can go wrong.

1. You can reveal the 2nd trickery with trickery, which never happened to me and i'm not exactly sure what happens, but i suspect you fizzle the combo. Although rare, it's a possibility.
2. You can turn draw into the 2nd trickery
3. You can turn draw into one of your techniques
4. Your trickery can mill the 2nd trickery

all of these 4 situations greatly reduce your chances to get a lethal boardstate.
You can partly fight the fizzle rate by removing a certain number of cmc6 cascaders, therefore improving the chances of flipping Wanderer, Emrakul or Apex Devastator (yep, i play 1 copy), but it's just a partial solution, you still whiff.

Overall, i wouldn't say the backup combo is bad, it turns some matchups from unplayable to ok, but every time you cast Throes you clench your butt and pray to the gods of Magic....

FTW

06-01-2023, 06:55 PM

I was very enthusiastic of "Throesbalt" being discardproof and one turn faster than CMC6 cascaders, I've been trying it against a wide range of opponents, from reanimator to storm to elves and stompy.

To my disappointment, I found out that there's a vast number of things that can go wrong.

1. You can reveal the 2nd trickery with trickery, which never happened to me and i'm not exactly sure what happens, but i suspect you fizzle the combo. Although rare, it's a possibility.
2. You can turn draw into the 2nd trickery
3. You can turn draw into one of your techniques
4. Your trickery can mill the 2nd trickery

all of these 4 situations greatly reduce your chances to get a lethal boardstate.
You can partly fight the fizzle rate by removing a certain number of cmc6 cascaders, therefore improving the chances of flipping Wanderer, Emrakul or Apex Devastator (yep, i play 1 copy), but it's just a partial solution, you still whiff.

Overall, i wouldn't say the backup combo is bad, it turns some matchups from unplayable to ok, but every time you cast Throes you clench your butt and pray to the gods of Magic....

Yeah. These points (and the math) came up earlier in this thread. That's why it's not the main plan.

3-4 Throes 2 Trickery was decided as a good compromise to go off fast and reduce the fizzle rate (4 Throes 4 Trickery is worse because hitting another Trickery kills the chain).

It still fizzles more than the main plan. However in some fast matchups doing nothing till Turn 3 OTD is bad, so gambling on the faster Throesbalt is a better plan. Especially because the deck has little flexibility to board in defensive cards vs fast combo. What else do you bring in? It makes a decent SB plan. An earlier plan was 4x Maddening Hex, but many combo decks win through that or discard it. Compared to that, Throesbalt is more effective and resilient.

When Maddening Hex is strong, you can board in 4x Throes 1x Hex to have a consistent discard-proof Hex.

PirateKing

07-08-2023, 07:16 PM

Heard there was a Mississippi River mirror match at the Bazar of Boxes top tables, anybody have more info?

Cave

07-09-2023, 02:18 AM

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/tournaments/legacy#paper

Both decks made it to 5-1, one list has less lands and 8 leylines sb, the other list has 40 lands and the throes+tibalt package and looks like the OP's list.

ToasTer86

07-09-2023, 09:28 AM

Heard there was a Mississippi River mirror match at the Bazar of Boxes top tables, anybody have more info?

I piloted the deck to top 8 and lost in the mirror match. Will post a tournament report tomorrow!

d3spam

07-19-2023, 11:34 AM

Hello,

[first of all, sorry for the long post]

I wrote simulations for Living End and Glimpse of Tomorrow in modern and after seeing this deck online, thought I could easily adapt to this deck and see if I can add insights to the community.
After summarizing the first results, I was pointed here. It has been a great read, excellent work!

Still thought it might be worth sharing the results. At worst it can be used to crosscheck other numbers.

Simulator: (Feel free to skip this if you don't care)
As for the legitimacy of the simulated results, there's always the potential for failure.
I manually checked about 100 games the simulator played. they seem fine to me, but I'm just a single person. Errors can't be ruled out.

In general, I simplified the problem as follows: All 6cmc cascades are Boarding Party. All lands are Ancient Tomb. All spells are colorless. => perfect mana always.
No mulligans implemented yet (will post again when I get to it), hence any hand that does not cast Throes by turn 2, or creativeT/cascader by turn 3 is considered a game loss.
CT is always demonstrated.

A win is when at least 1 wanderer/emrakul is cast and the total power of the board is >10 (maybe this threshold should be higher).
It plays an equal amount of games on the Play/Draw. the numbers below are the average of play/draw games.

Happy to share the python code in case you are interested.

Number of CMC=6 Cascaders:
I first ran the simulation without Trickery, just to get a feel for how many lands vs cascade spells I want. Turns out with only 1 emrakul and 4 wanderer, 11 cascaders was optimal (according to the criterion defined above).
Note that more cascaders lead to fewer 'fail' games but also tend to fizzle more often. The winrate includes failed games and with a better mulligain strategy than 'no mulligains at all', I expect the effect of this to be even lower.
=> I'll stick with 11 cascaders until other simulations point me elsewhere.

No further exploration into other numbers of emrakul/wanderer/otherwincon. but should be easy to adapt the code accordingly.
For reference, here's the outcome:
Num Cascade6: 11
won 922135 out of 1000000 games 0.922135 ratio
failed 53873
games that did not fail, but also not win on the spot 23992
avg boardsize 67.41395394064433
11 Cascaders: 0.922135 Winrate

(just making this clear: winrate should be viewed as a relative metric here. a) it is better than your normal paper game because the mana is perfect, but b) the winrate is negatively affected by the poor mulligain rule (no mulls). similarly 'failed' is inflated. avg boardsize is inflated because all cascaders with mv=6 are boarding party)

Tibalt's Trickery:
With that said, I then experimented with various numbers of Trickery + Throes.
A) finding the right number of cards to bring in,
B) finding the right cards to bring out.

Some constraints here:
- only cmc6 cascaders and lands can be boarded out.
- no maddening hex (for now, will get to it soon)
(if you think boarding out wanderer/emrakul/ct comes up, please let me know. also, if you think the package comes in alongside other hate pieces except for hex, let me know. happy to run those numbers as well.)

Long runs 2 trickery 3 throes
Summary with trickery enabled
Siding out 1 leads to a winrate of 0.823846
Siding out 2 leads to a winrate of 0.823368
Siding out 3 leads to a winrate of 0.820745
Siding out 0 leads to a winrate of 0.820726
Siding out 4 leads to a winrate of 0.813962
Siding out 5 leads to a winrate of 0.803907
optimal to board out 1 cmc6 cascade spells

Long runs 3 trickery 3 throes
Summary with trickery enabled
Siding out 1 leads to a winrate of 0.824843
Siding out 0 leads to a winrate of 0.824385
Siding out 2 leads to a winrate of 0.822
Siding out 3 leads to a winrate of 0.815689
Siding out 4 leads to a winrate of 0.805178
Siding out 5 leads to a winrate of 0.792261
optimal to board out 1 cmc6 cascade spells

Long runs 2 trickery 4 throes
Summary with trickery enabled
Siding out 3 leads to a winrate of 0.778046
Siding out 4 leads to a winrate of 0.77659
Siding out 2 leads to a winrate of 0.774626
Siding out 5 leads to a winrate of 0.773198
Siding out 1 leads to a winrate of 0.771279
Siding out 0 leads to a winrate of 0.765072
optimal to board out 3 cmc6 cascade spells

Long runs 4 tricker 4 throes
Summary with trickery enabled
Siding out 0 leads to a winrate of 0.771179
Siding out 1 leads to a winrate of 0.77051
Siding out 2 leads to a winrate of 0.768391
Siding out 3 leads to a winrate of 0.762464
Siding out 4 leads to a winrate of 0.75417
Siding out 5 leads to a winrate of 0.741701
optimal to board out 0 cmc6 cascade spells

some thoughts on this:
seems to me as if 3/3 and 2/3 are better than the other combinations, which as far as I can tell from glancing over this forum is also the conclusion others have arrived at.
Is the 4th Throes only for when you also bring in Hex? Do you bring 2/3 for matchups where Hex is irrelevant?

Companion:
Lastly, I've seen a bit of debate over Keruga. Have people tested Jegantha in here?
Might be a bit of a wild guess, but with some rework of the manabase, we could move away from double G, or double U cards and just run 5R and 4UR cascaders.
some upside of jegantha:
-in the face of stax, this is a reasonable body (in particular, if you opponent has 1 stax piece + urza's saga, it can wall the 4/4 constructs which keruga can't), while also providing a manasource.
-even though the mana can not be used fully, it helps a bit with casting 1 creature a turn as this is mana that does not require sacing.
-it's a card the gains a lot with gemstone caverns allowing you to utilize 3 and 5 mana which might allow you to go under wasteland + loam decks (untested).
-it helps with hardcasting the wanderer if that is where your game is at.
-it can fix your mana, letting you cast a 5R card with only green mana, as well as a 4UR card with only R or G mana.
-it sadly does not work with force of vigor, pyrokenisis, fury.

Blood Sun:
post #41 suggested to run pithing needles for wasteland against loam decks. ...I wonder if blood sun is just better at doing the same, while also cantripping, shutting down thespian stage/dark depths as well as urza's saga tokens. getting to 3 mana is more than getting to 1 against a wasteland deck, but it does significantly more when it resolves. ...with all that said, needle seems really bad to me, so maybe a better version is still not good enough.
Another thought is that Blood sun stops city of traitors from sacing itself and makes our lands come in untapped. This might be enough to make T2 Throes > Blood sun, T3 > combo again ftw quite consistent. Maybe this can be a 1 off, similar to Hex.
I might be missing something, but as far as I can tell, their most common answer to an unexpected blood sun will be to reach the 3rd chapter on urza's saga, fetch explorers map, crack it for boseiju and blow up blood sun (which at least buys us time and gives us a land).

Aeve: (disclaimer: the following is highly speculative / was not tested to the same extent as the rest of this post)
just while I'm here. looking at cards that work with jegantha, made me reevaluate the aeve slot.
temporal fissure has been noted before, but I think Noise Marine might be worth looking into, IF you already have the trickery package in the sb.

In games where you bring in trickery, noise marine can replace emrakul as a card that shoots the opponent for 18 dmg on average while also being a potential combo starter.
It's worse in the force + surgical games, but assuming you started with a creature, you still get to put 2 bodies into play and kill a thread of theirs while they go down 3 cards. might be enough to bridge the game towards 'play 1 creature per turn', especially when you have access to an extra body/manasource in the companion zone.

Additional thoughts: I ran simulations with this. bringing in noise marine shifts the ratio of trickery to cmc<6 cascades.
from preliminary results, I'd suggest to have 3 trickery, 3 throes and 1 marine, and bring in all 7 over 1 emrakul, 1 cascader, and 5 lands.

note that mariner evaluates the storm count upon entering the battlefield, not upon cast, meaning it will always deal near max damage.
the only exception to this is when you have multiple branches still on the stack, in those games you can decide to not cast mariner and spin into it at a later point
(you only turn it down if you already have several branches meaning you won't fail anyways. with no branches, it shoots for max damage which should be the number of non-lands in your deck minus spells in hand plus spells you demoed your opponent into. the simulations I've ran, always casted it as early as possible and ended up with 18dmg on average, in practice I think it should be well over 20).

Cave

07-19-2023, 05:10 PM

Blood Sun:
At some point here, I've seen someone say they run pithing needles for wasteland. ...I wonder if blood sun is just better at doing the same, while also cantripping, making our lands enter untapped and shutting down thespian stage/dark depths as well as urza's saga. getting to 3 mana is more than getting to 1 against a wasteland deck, but it does significantly more when it resolves. ...with all that said, needle seems really bad to me, so maybe a better version is still not good enough.

This deck can't run spells that cost less than 6.

And Emrakul is just too good due to the fact that it is not counterable, it gives you an extra turn (acting de facto as an extra copy of wanderer) and removing any chance they can do anything if they ever survive the attack.

d3spam

07-20-2023, 04:45 AM

This deck can't run spells that cost less than 6.

And Emrakul is just too good due to the fact that it is not counterable, it gives you an extra turn (acting de facto as an extra copy of wanderer) and removing any chance they can do anything if they ever survive the attack.

Apologies for not being clearer. I was not suggesting that you should run Blood Sun, but post #41 said that they run 2 pithing needles in the SB for decks that can recur wasteland. Given that since then they seem to have moved away from needles, I assume they ended up not being good enough. My point is, Blood Sun might be better than Needle for this purpose. If needle was worth testing, maybe also Blood Sun is. With that said, needle seems bad to me, and a card that's better than a bad card might still just be a bad card.

As for the emrakul: I was not suggesting to run the Marine over Emrakul. I was trying to say, if you already are on the fence about aeve vs force+surgical decks, maybe running a weaker version of Aeve that also has upside in other matchups might be worth testing.
So against Force+Surgical decks, you'd bring in Mariner (the same as you would bring Aeve right now), and if they do have force+surgical, you still get an extra body + kill something of theirs which may or may not be good enough for those matchups. (also mariner could work in a jegantha build where you have access to another body from the companion zone)
Now this is cleary weaker than aeve, but here is the upside you get in return: In matchups where you bring in 2/3 Trickery + 3 Throes, you can also bring in 1 Mariner (and board out emrakul for that slot). Based on simulations it does not hurt the combo potential as much as a 4th throes would and gives you 1 more combo starter at 5mana (which can be relevant in a world of gemstone caverns). It does not beat mindbreak trap the same way emrakul does, and you don't get to shuffle your gy should trickery mill it, but if it resolves, it shoots your opponent for 20+ to the face, pretty much no matter at which point of the combo you hit it. You also get the liberty to run it alongside emrakul for a higher threat density but I did not run simulations for that scenario yet.

in a way, Mariner is probably a weaker version of the 4th throes as well as a weaker version of aeve, but those are 2 already questionable sb slots in 1. ...maybe freeing up sb slots is worth it. again, this was not the main argument of my post and just a side thought.

Something else that I realized after posting yesterday:
Most people who posted SB strategy here seem to board out non-lands for the trickery package. Based on my simulations that might be incorrect. Let me try to give an intuitive explanation why that might be the cast:

Let's first look at the base deck without the trickery package:
AT MOST, you get to resolve 8 copies of CT. In order to win on the spot, you need one of those to flip into either a Wanderer or Emrakul. The more cards you run that are not Wanderer/Emrakul, the less likely you are to succeed, even if you get to cast all CTs.
This means the more cascaders we run, the more likely we are to start a combo chain. However, there is a point of diminishing returns where having too many cascaders starts lowering your odds of presenting a win.
I ran simulations for 8 to 16 cascaders and 11 was the optimum (assuming 5 'I win' hits). If you want more cascaders, you might want to look at running as 6th I win button.

Now, if we board in 3 trickery 3 throes, we get 8 copies of CT + 3 copies of trickery = 11 shots at wanderer/emrakul. this means we can afford to lower the odds of hitting a wincon for each individual roll to reach the same sweet spot.
Note that trickery can mill other copies of trickery/CT in which case you get less flips, but on average the number of shots at a wincon will be somewhere in the interval of [8, 11].
Again the question for the 'sweet spot' between max number of starters vs odds of turning a starter into a win arises.
To that end, I ran simulations that boarded out a varying number of lands/cascaders to see the effects. The simulations suggest that boarding out 1-2 cascaders is the sweet spot, meaning the rest of the cards you are supposed to board out are lands!

d3spam

07-22-2023, 05:34 PM

Ok, I got around to implementing a mulligain logic.
I'll add the exact rules on the bottom in case you are interested / have suggestions.

this has been running for 2 days. will start trickery simulations for the top configs over the next few days.
quick reminder: wr means percentage of games where emrakul and/or wanderer ended up being cast by turn 3.
the simulator always assumes 4 wanderer and 4 CT. the emrakuls are placeholders for any big 'I win' button that you run ontop of 4 wanderer.
number of cascaders referres to cmc=6.
I've ran this with 10^6 games first, and now with 10^7 games. the numbers only change very little (e.g., the best deck goes from 0.997616 to 0.9976351 after 10x games).

here's the results:
https://i.ibb.co/VS69CCt/wr.jpg

wr 0.9976351, 5 emrakul, 8 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9975394, 6 emrakul, 8 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9974991, 6 emrakul, 9 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9974563, 4 emrakul, 8 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9973862, 5 emrakul, 9 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9973488, 7 emrakul, 9 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9972219, 7 emrakul, 8 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9970799, 7 emrakul, 10 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9970562, 6 emrakul, 10 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9969484, 3 emrakul, 8 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9968969, 8 emrakul, 9 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9968531, 4 emrakul, 9 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9967543, 8 emrakul, 10 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9966897, 8 emrakul, 8 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9966318, 5 emrakul, 10 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9964613, 7 emrakul, 11 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9962403, 6 emrakul, 11 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9962338, 8 emrakul, 11 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9961585, 9 emrakul, 9 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.996015, 9 emrakul, 10 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9959897, 9 emrakul, 8 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9959027, 2 emrakul, 8 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9958404, 3 emrakul, 9 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.99567, 4 emrakul, 10 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9954916, 9 emrakul, 11 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9954793, 7 emrakul, 12 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9954083, 5 emrakul, 11 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9953095, 8 emrakul, 12 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9950104, 10 emrakul, 9 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9949377, 6 emrakul, 12 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9948451, 10 emrakul, 10 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9947935, 10 emrakul, 8 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9946078, 9 emrakul, 12 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9942267, 10 emrakul, 11 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9940447, 7 emrakul, 13 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9940188, 8 emrakul, 13 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9937818, 3 emrakul, 10 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9937542, 4 emrakul, 11 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9937437, 2 emrakul, 9 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9937069, 1 emrakul, 8 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9936198, 5 emrakul, 12 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9932072, 6 emrakul, 13 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9931775, 9 emrakul, 13 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9931288, 10 emrakul, 12 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9921604, 8 emrakul, 14 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9920872, 7 emrakul, 14 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9913948, 10 emrakul, 13 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9913303, 5 emrakul, 13 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9912611, 4 emrakul, 12 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9911377, 9 emrakul, 14 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.990915, 6 emrakul, 14 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9908729, 3 emrakul, 11 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9904435, 2 emrakul, 10 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9898025, 1 emrakul, 9 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.989633, 8 emrakul, 15 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9895658, 7 emrakul, 15 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9889624, 0 emrakul, 8 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9889431, 10 emrakul, 14 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9883643, 5 emrakul, 14 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9883142, 9 emrakul, 15 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9880604, 6 emrakul, 15 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9879898, 4 emrakul, 13 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9870877, 3 emrakul, 12 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.985771, 2 emrakul, 11 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9854407, 10 emrakul, 15 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9848673, 5 emrakul, 15 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9840764, 4 emrakul, 14 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.984014, 1 emrakul, 10 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.982352, 3 emrakul, 13 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9814257, 0 emrakul, 9 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9799531, 2 emrakul, 12 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9794385, 4 emrakul, 15 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9768043, 3 emrakul, 14 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9764657, 1 emrakul, 11 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9730174, 2 emrakul, 13 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9712031, 0 emrakul, 10 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9706404, 3 emrakul, 15 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.967367, 1 emrakul, 12 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9651062, 2 emrakul, 14 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9585142, 0 emrakul, 11 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9570413, 1 emrakul, 13 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9564075, 2 emrakul, 15 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9455524, 1 emrakul, 14 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9439158, 0 emrakul, 12 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9334481, 1 emrakul, 15 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9283588, 0 emrakul, 13 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.9115256, 0 emrakul, 14 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games
wr 0.8945183, 0 emrakul, 15 cascaders, False, trickery, over 10000000 games

I encourage you to not jump to conclusions from this yet!
There are some obvious insights to which configurations the simulator preferres to reach a win state:

as expected adding proper mulligains increases the overall winrate compared to my previous post.
It also reduces the demand for having a starter in your initial opening hand drastically (more than I anticipated tbh).
The result is that having fewer starters becomes favorable (at least in the context of this win criterion).
with fewer starters, you also need fewer wincons.

HOWEVER:
Note that this does not take into account opposing interaction. The mulligain logic prefers keeping a second starter if possible, but the winrate does not reflect any form of interaction!
While a high number of wincons seems preferably here, I would like to draw your attention to how little the wr actually improves with more cards dedicated to winning after you got off the ground.
A higher top end might help in matchups where you don't want to demo your opponent into a stax piece, but it also means less room for utility lands like boseiju, otawara, gemstone cavern and what ever else you might be packing (maybe ipnu rivulet to mess with doomsday, or scavenger grounds to mess with reanimator).

Think it would be too early to derive the optimal build from this, but I hope this can help with more datadriven deckbuilding.

Ive seen others have mentioned running simulations too. Let me know if this is in conflict with your results, please!

Simulator details:
the simulator keeps any opening hand that has a starter + enough lands.
'starter' means either Throes, CT, or a Cascader with cmc=6

the following criteria are checked to find cards to mull:
1) 2+ CT => mull CT
2) 1+ Trickery => mull Trickery
3) 1+ CT > 1 and 1+ other starter => mull CT
4) 1+ starter and 1+ wanderer => mull wanderer
5) 2+ wanderer => mull wanderer
6) 1+ emrakul => mull emrakul # this basically assumes wanderer is more important than emrakul for mindbreak protection
7) (2+ lands and Throes) or (3+ lands and CT/cmc6) => mull land
8) in case of multiple starters, first mull cmc6, then CT, then throes ...again assuming that if we board in Throes, it should be prioritized
9) in case of multiple copies of a specific starter => mull those
10) mull land
11) mull random

Whoshim

07-29-2023, 11:32 AM

PunishingWaterfalls played a version of the list here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWRolbb_j9g

Rationalist

08-03-2023, 09:06 AM

Haven't checked in on the thread in a while but a brief glance makes it look like someone here is doing a better job with the numbers than I ever did so I'll have to go catch up if people have improved the core of the deck.

Speaking of potentially improving the deck, congrats to Mark and Mattias for the double Top 8's at the most recent Bazaar of Boxes (a repeat for Mark) and the Aren for the 13 place finish at NRG.

Also, importantly (and why I just checked in) ... I believe Creative Technique hits MTGO today!

Rationalist

08-03-2023, 09:30 AM

(rereads d3's analysis over and over again)

Fantastic stuff; I'm taking notes.

Rationalist

08-05-2023, 01:38 PM

... and the deck has now won the Legacy Challenge: https://twitter.com/_SeanGoddard_/status/1687871159247986688

d3spam

08-06-2023, 10:24 AM

Some interactions I missed with Blood sun the first time around:
it kills saga right away, as the land keeps it's saga type, but looses all it's chapters. this means the #chapters = 0, and sagas die when the number of chapter-counters >= #chapters.
this should make it harder for lands decks to get boseiju into their hand as they can't get expedition map from a saga.
however it also makes lands enter without counters, so if they have boseiju already, any crop rotation can blow you out.

e.g., vs lands: the opponent can play depths, it comes in without counters, then boseiju blood sun to get a free 20/20.
also it means our counter lands do nothing post blood sun, so make sure you sequence your lands accordingly.

it kinda buys less time than I thought and also accelerates us less than I would like. might still be worth testing, but maybe just having more red sol lands is better.

inked

08-07-2023, 12:46 PM

Is Mind's Desire worth considering or too high of whiff potential hitting lands?

PirateKing

08-07-2023, 01:33 PM

Is Mind's Desire worth considering or too high of whiff potential hitting lands?

I don't think this deck is the place for Mind's Desire. Even storm of like 4-5 could realistically whiff on lands. The core is powerful enough to win just as is.
Mind's Desire doesn't do anything to shore up existing problems or make the deck any faster.

d3spam

08-11-2023, 04:46 AM

Is Mind's Desire worth considering or too high of whiff potential hitting lands?

Someone played it in a shell with mb trickery + CT, more threats and the 3cmc cascaders.

https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=46611&d=544464&f=LE

Is this better? Probably not as all of the sudden you are weak to force again. Hardcasting CT is harder and you don't get to retrace your t2 cascade spell.

Upside is instant speed VO, however minds desire does not work on opponents turns.. At least you get more T2 wins against non force decks.

If I had to make changes, I'd work in 4 hickory woodlots as well as noise Marins over the omniscience/tendrils as it does the same while not bricking your streams. They also work as combo starters.

Ultimatum can play a choice of apex/CT/desire to keep chaining. Make sure you cast the other spell before desire for an extra storm count.

d3spam

08-15-2023, 05:12 PM

Just saw thrabenU play a version of this deck.

SB Karakas is probably something we should be running in some numbers for thalia / reanimator / sneak show, possibly a MB card in the right meta.

FTW

08-21-2023, 02:48 PM

This is the Thraben U video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8ThLFcjfqo

He played a pretty standard build with 40+ lands, the 6 cmc cascaders, and the ThroesBalt plan in the SB (3 Throes, 2 Tibalt).

Maagler

08-29-2023, 08:38 PM

Looks like some new spice is LotR set:

**Call Forth the Tempest** `{5}{R}{R}{R}`

Sorcery (R)

> Cascade, cascade.

> ~ deals damage to each creature your opponents control equal to the total mana value of other spells you've cast this turn.

Eltinho

09-04-2023, 02:53 PM

Hi, my name is Eltinho and I have been a long time Red Prison player and more recently RW Initiative player as well.
Since I had the Sol Lands, I decided to test my luck playing Creative Technique for a change. Since it was on paper, I went with Let the Galaxy Burn.

This is the list I run on a 16 player LGS tournament into a 2-2 score:

4 Creative Technique
4 Let the Galaxy Burn
4 Maelstrom Wanderer
4 Boarding Party
2 Aurora Phoenix
2 Sweet-gum Recluse
1 Apex Devastator
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Otawara, Soaring City
3 Boseiju, Who Endures
3 Sulfur Vent
4 Dwarven Ruins
4 Tinder Farm
4 Hickory Woodlot
4 Sandstone Needle
4 Saprazzan Skerry
2 Crystal Vein
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors

Sideboard
1 Boseiju, Who Endures
2 Otawara, Soaring City
2 Karakas
2 Tibalt’s Trickery
4 Pyrokinesis
4 Throes of Chaos

List was geared into having 5R mana on 3 (hence the Sulfur Vents). After the tournament, I felt like Karakas overperformed (single-handedly won me a match vs Sneak n Show) but Otawara felt a little lackluster and it got me thinking about getting a bit greedier, going mainly RG and having a more consistent 6 mana plan on turn 3 (one of my losses was to Goblins, comboed on 3 by them on the draw, mulled to 5 and getting all the wrong mana, despite pyrokinesing them). Other loss was to UB scam where they Surgicaled my CT and with only 2 Trickery, I was left without outs. Third Trickery would win that game.
So I thought about a list like this:

4 Creative Technique
4 Let the Galaxy Burn
4 Maelstrom Wanderer
4 Boarding Party
2 Aurora Phoenix
2 Sweet-gum Recluse
1 Apex Devastator
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Mountain
1 Havenwood Battleground
4 Boseiju, Who Endures
4 Sulfur Vent
4 Dwarven Ruins
4 Tinder Farm
4 Hickory Woodlot
4 Sandstone Needle
4 Crystal Vein
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors

Sideboard
2 undefined slots
2 Karakas
3 Tibalt’s Trickery
4 Pyrokinesis
4 Throes of Chaos

LennonMarx

10-24-2023, 03:24 PM

https://www.magicspoiler.com/mtg-spoiler/hidden-volcano/

There is a full cycle with the same ability that has been spoiled, but the Red one seems most relevant for the time being. I assume this is too slow as you need this plus 3 more lands to go off, but it is 4 more "red" cascade spells. I have no idea what you would cut for this, either. Thoughts?

Edit: For some reason I thought it hit 5s, not 4s. Never mind. Maybe with a more all in Throes of Chaos build.

FourDogsinaHorseSuit

10-24-2023, 04:11 PM

There's a 7 drop revealed that will discovery for 10.
If you hit something less than 10 you get treasures equal to the difference.
https://mythicspoiler.com/lci/cards/hitthemotherlode.jpg

Reeplcheep

10-24-2023, 04:19 PM

Since discover only happens upon resolution, doesn’t that destroy the core idea of the deck. The whole point is multiple cast triggers so they can’t counter everything.

FTW

10-26-2023, 04:08 PM

It might work for the ThroesBalt version, but for the main build it seems strictly worse than Boarding Party and other 6-mana cascaders.

Boarding Party - 100% chance of hitting Creative Technique. FoW can't stop all of it. Costs 6 mana (turn 3). Doubles as wincon that turns sideways.

Mother Lode - Some chance of missing. FoW can stop all of it. Costs 7 mana (turn 4). Can't turn sideways without getting rules violation.

The treasures are trivial. If your big spell resolves, you don't really need more mana. You need mana when stuff isn't resolving.

Alex_UNLIMITED

11-03-2023, 08:05 PM

https://cards.scryfall.io/large/front/e/d/edc035ca-f0a3-4814-9405-d6dc6f048315.jpg?1698962820

This could take the place of Pyrokinesis and also be played in the maindeck, because if you flip it with Creative Tecnique it usually doesn't stop the combo.

FTW

11-03-2023, 08:39 PM

Discover 5 = It can only cast Creative Technique. It misses the 6-mana cascaders.

It also loses to Counterspell.

Compare that to cards like Boarding Party: 100% chance of revealing Creative Technique, does not lose to Counterspell (Cascade trigger goes on stack, Creative Technique can Demonstrate around a single counter).

So it doesn't seem good enough to maindeck, but it could be SB material replacing Pyrokinesis - if you can afford to wait until turn 3. One nice thing about Pyro is you can remove a hatebear early and still combo off turn 3, though it is worse to reveal mid-combo.

Edit: misread new ability

FourDogsinaHorseSuit

11-03-2023, 08:48 PM

Why does it need to be in the top five cards?

Zoid

11-03-2023, 08:48 PM

Discover 5 = It can only cast Creative Technique. It misses the 6-mana cascaders.

Probability of exactly Creative Technique in top 5 cards is quite low. It also loses to Counterspell.

Compare that to cards like Boarding Party: 100% chance of revealing Creative Technique, does not lose to Counterspell (Cascade trigger goes on stack, Creative Technique can Demonstrate around a single counter).

So it doesn't seem good enough to maindeck, but it could be SB material replacing Pyrokinesis - if you can afford to wait until turn 3. One nice thing about Pyro is you can remove a hatebear early and still combo off turn 3, though it is worse to reveal mid-combo.

That's not how discover works.
However, the rest is still correct.
The question is if you can afford to play something like this when you're ok with not being able to start the chain with it.
Not working with Dress Down might also be relevant.

FTW

11-03-2023, 10:14 PM

You 2 are right. I misunderstood Discover. It's better than I thought.

Still, it's a weaker "fixed" version of Cascade because it requires the spell to resolve. Unlike Boarding Party it's stopped by a single counter, Dress Down, Torpor Orb, Humility, etc.

As a maindeck card it's a bigger liability than the 6 cmc cascaders.

As a SB card it looks better. If you're bringing in burn, then you won't be using it as a chain starter anyway, you don't have to pitch the other starter in your hand, and then mid-combo it's a much better reveal than Pyro! However it slows you down compared to Pyro.

PirateKing

11-05-2023, 12:35 PM

murta

12-01-2023, 03:51 AM

Thanks for the discussion on Discover and its potential role in the Mississippi River deck. It's interesting to see how the community is evaluating this new mechanic and its potential applications. My game review you can find here (https://machance-casino-en-ligne.com/)

FTW

12-01-2023, 11:30 AM

I've found it to be a better answer to Teferi and Lavinia then the current answer of Otawara in testing.
It's a liability in the combo chain, but it's comparable to the underwhelming land drop Otawara represents.

That makes sense. It seems better than Pyrokinesis or Otawara as an "answer" slot. Do you run it in the SB then? How many copies?

PirateKing

12-01-2023, 12:27 PM

In testing it's 4 main right now, could see going down to 3.

The fail case isn't as bad as I thought, typically the Forces get smoked out on the Creative Technique, they wait to see what they blind flip, then Force to only get you 1 CT, and then once you're going the dinosaur is equivalent in the chain as any other cascader. The cascade/discover difference turns moot very quickly.
The weakest I could see it is when it's your only initial starter creature, you play Trumpeting Carnosaur and they Force and you get nothing, but that's whatever the opposite of Magical Christmas Land is.
The most unexpected upside I've come around to is the 7/6 Trample body is legit. Had a game against 8cast that suffered from the Throes/Trickery failcase but was left with 2 dinosaurs plus a few others. Sai tokens would have absolutely stabilized them in any other build, but instead they were forced to make lossy blocks, plus a cheeky cycle on Shadowspear to deny them lifegain and the game was over quickly.

I'm not sure if the math changes if the opponent's get savvy and let both CT resolve, hoping to one for one a dinosaur with a Force. I think I'd welcome twice as many chances to flip an Emrakul or Apex Devastator.

FTW

12-01-2023, 02:25 PM

The fail case isn't as bad as I thought, typically the Forces get smoked out on the Creative Technique, they wait to see what they blind flip, then Force to only get you 1 CT

Sounds like a critical play mistake from the opponent.

If they Force the dino then you get no bodies, no CT, no chain. They counter everything. Waiting to Force the discovered Creative Technique is a misplay.
If it was a 6cmc cascade creature, Force can't stop it. Their options: counter the creature or counter 1 CT.

If you get lucky with dino, they let it resolve and try to counter the discovered card (CT), then you keep going and win. Just like the cascade line. But opponent doesn't have to misplay into that.

Brewer's advantage means you steal some win % when opponent misplays around unfamiliar cards. It works at first. Eventually opponents wise up. You can only trick them into Forcing the wrong thing so long.

Even if you find another starter after, fizzling loses a turn of tempo, which could mean death vs a fast clock (Delver, Shadow, Dreadnought, Kappa, Doomsday).

The weakest I could see it is when it's your only initial starter creature, you play Trumpeting Carnosaur and they Force and you get nothing, but that's whatever the opposite of Magical Christmas Land is.

Yeah, if you have other starters, you don't have to use Carnosaur to start.

If Carnosaur is in a non-essential slot and you have redundant starters, then there's no risk. If it's replacing a slot that was a starter (for optimal odds to go off turn 3), then maybe it matters? Most of the time you should draw more than 1 starter in 9-10 cards. But after mulligans, counters, and discard, could you be left relying on Carnosaur as a starter?

Maybe it doesn't happen that often?

The upside is much better than typical SB options (Pyrokinesis, Otawara, Sky Turtle).

PirateKing

12-01-2023, 02:55 PM

FTW

12-01-2023, 03:09 PM

That's what I'm saying, starting with Boarding Party or Aurora Phoenix, you go and hit a CT. Maybe it's Creative Technique straight up. Either way, it's typically at that junction that the Forces come out, with CT on the stack after the demonstrate decision.

That's the normal line with the original build. You start with cascade or CT, and they can only Force once both CT copies are on the stack.

If you start with Dino instead, they don't have to wait for CT, they can Force the dino and End The Turn. That's the real fail case.

The failcase from flipping Dino with CT is much smaller because chances are that you have another branch OR they spent counters to restrict you to one branch. They're unlikely to have another Force for the Dino. If they had one they'd just counter the CT instead, because letting you reveal Boarding Party or Emrakul instead of Dino loses for them.

The failcase I meant is if Dino replaced a slot that used to be a starter and you need it as a starter. Rationalist did a bunch of math to optimize the deck composition for turn 3s. If Dino replaced a starter slot, that must have some effect. Maybe it's small?

PirateKing

12-01-2023, 03:38 PM

ehh I mean, it's nonzero but has yet to happen.
You have other starters or just play it knowing you're taking a risk, I donno
You're not starting with the dinosaur unless you have no other choice, in which case you're a few steps down in things going wrong
My experience has shown the upsides to be many and the "but sometimes!" has yet to manifest

FTW

12-02-2023, 12:48 AM

Ok, so let's say we run 3-4 Carnosaur and it doesn't replace the key starters. This opens up some new doors. For one, all the starters can be red now. The manabase could be streamlined to fewer colors to reduce variance in the mana.

I ran some math to see what the optimal ratios should look like in that altered build with 4 Carnosaur. Carnosaur competes with space for other things (starters, land, "big" effects like Emrakul) so it alters the odds. It would be useful to see where is best to cut to make that space.

The ideal opening hand should have 3 lands + 2 starters. 3 lands + 1 starter is also good, but 2 starters is even more redundant to disruption. I've run some numbers on those joint hands.

Opening Hand Probabilities
To avoid a clunky post, I've excluded the calculations. It was done with the Hypergeometric Distribution and some Combinatorics in Excel and should be easy to replicate.

The 60-card deck has 4 Carnosaurs, X sol lands, Y starters (Creative Technique or 6cmc cascade), and some number of "Other" cards.

What are the chances of a good opening draw with different compositions of sol lands & starters?
"Other" are the remaining slots that are not sol lands, starters, or Carnosaur. They could be: 1-mana lands, Emrakul, Maelstrom Wanderer, Apex Devastator. Cards that don't help start the chain on turn 3, but may be useful otherwise.

Sol lands
Starters
Other
3+ land, 2+ starter
3+ land, 1+ starter

34
14
8
42%
75%

34
15
7
46%
77%

34
16
6
50%
78%

34
17
5
53%
80%

34
18
4
57%
81%

35
13
8
39%
74%

35
14
7
43%
76%

35
15
6
47%
78%

35
16
5
51%
80%

35
17
4
55%
82%

36
12
8
36%
73%

36
13
7
40%
76%

36
14
6
45%
78%

36
15
5
49%
80%

36
16
4
53%
82%

36
17
3
57%
83%

Even with Carnosaurs in the deck, the chances are good of having a good random 7.

Adding more lands has less benefit than adding more starters, so perhaps the deck should be tilting towards a slightly lower land count and running more of the 6cmc red starters.

Some math on mulligan decisions
But what if you don't get an ideal hand. Are other hands keepable?

Suppose you keep a 2 land hand. What are the chances of drawing into a 3rd sol land by turn 3?

Sol Lands
T3 OTP
T3 OTD

30
78%
90%

31
80%
91%

32
82%
92%

33
83%
93%

34
85%
94%

35
86%
95%

36
88%
96%

37
89%
97%

38
90%
97%

The chances are good to hit the 3rd land.
The chances should be close to hit a 4th land from a 3-land opener (not shown here) to play around Wasteland / Daze.

Suppose you keep a hand with 1 starter (CT or 6cmc cascade). What are the chances of drawing into a 2nd starter by turn 3, for redundancy against discard or counters?

Starters
T3 OTP
T3 OTD

10
31%
43%

11
34%
47%

12
38%
51%

13
40%
54%

14
43%
58%

15
46%
61%

16
49%
64%

17
52%
67%

18
54%
70%

Hitting a 2nd starter is less reliable, though the chances go up a lot as more 6cmc starters are added, especially on the draw. The hand is still keepable if 1 starter could be enough to get there.
It's a bad idea to keep an opening hand with no starter. Similar math shows the chance of finding one in the top cards is low, although it gets better with 17-18 starters and on the draw.

What are the chances of having an opening hand with only Carnosaur as the starter? Should you keep it against a blue deck? What are the chances you'll whiff drawing into another starter?
(This assumes 4 Carnosaur in the deck and 1-4 drawn in the opening 7)

Starters
Only Carnosaur
Whiff T3 OTP
Whiff T3 OTD

10
12%
66%
53%

11
10%
62%
49%

12
9%
60%
46%

13
8%
57%
42%

14
7%
54%
39%

15
6%
51%
36%

16
5%
48%
33%

17
4%
46%
30%

18
4%
43%
28%

You could get stuck with only Carnosaur 5-10% of the time, not negligible.
Keeping that hand, the chance to find another starter is not good. Better to mulligan. Although there is significant benefit to adding more starters.

Optimal Mulligan Decisions:
2 land hand -> Keep
Hand with no starter -> Mulligan
Hand with 1 starter vs disruption -> Keep, especially on the draw
Hand with only Carnosaur -> Mulligan vs blue decks (lose to FoW, Daze, Dress Down)

FTW

12-02-2023, 01:33 AM

Based on that above math, it looks like there would be benefit to streamline the deck with more 6cmc red starters and a red-focused manabase instead of the tricolor mana. Especially now that red mana can do more disruption (Carnosaur).

That should both reduce variance from the mana and improve the % of good draws.

//Lands: 36
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
3 Crystal Vein
4 Sandstone Needle
4 Dwarven Ruins
4 Tinder Farm
4 Sulfur Vent
4 Saprazzan Skerry
4 Svyelunite Temple
1 Otawara, Soaring City

//Spells: 8
4 Creative Technique
4 Let the Galaxy Burn

//Creatures: 16
4 Boarding Party
4 Aurora Phoenix
4 Trumpeting Carnosaur
2 Maelstrom Wanderer
2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

//Sideboard: 15
3 Throes of Chaos
2 Tibalt's Trickery
2 Karakas
2 Otawara, Soaring City
3 Mirrorshell Crab
3 Leyline of the Void

35 Sol Lands
16 starters + 4 Carnosaur

Maybe +1 Maelstrom/Apex -1 Otawara.

This build cuts green mana to simplify to a 2-color manabase. You can't hardcast Maelstrom Wanderer anymore, but how often was that happening before? Instead there are more blue sources to use Otawara and Crab more reliably.

4 Galaxy seems excessive, but 5R cascade is at a premium here. It's one of the most reliable starters and it also disrupts things. The downside is it adds some risk of running through more Creative Techniques without hitting enough creatures. Etherium-Horn Sorcerer could be an option with all the blue mana but is harder to cast reliably. Sakashima's Protege is another option (works very well with Carnosaur in play), but UU is not easy for a starter.

Edit: Tested 10 hands with this build
8/10 - Had right lands & starters
1/10 - Had T3 Carnosaur only (mull or risk it?)
1/10 - No red mana, mull to 6

7/10 - Turn 3 CT/Cascade
1/10 - Turn 3 Carnosaur
2/10 - Turn 4 CT/Cascade (tapped lands)

10/10 - Lethal power + haste/time walk
Each hand was able to "go off". Demonstrating twice was usually enough.

FTW

12-02-2023, 12:47 PM

I tested many more.

I think the deck wants the 4th Crystal Vein/City (12 colorless sol lands) to have enough entering untapped to go off turn 3 instead of turn 4. In previous builds too much colorless mana was a drawback, but here the streamlined red-based deck hits its color requirements more easily. It seems more important to get untapped mana for tempo.

The 2nd Maelstrom Wanderer might be better as a 3rd Emrakul or 1st Apex Devastator. They're not really castable anymore and the 2nd copy is redundant, while the 2nd Emrakul revealed is not redundant (extra turn & puts used Creative Technique back in library).

The 4th Galaxy Burn feels like a lot when going through the combo chain, but there aren't really better alternatives in red. The 4RR equipment is worse.

//Lands: 35
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Crystal Vein
4 Sandstone Needle
4 Dwarven Ruins
4 Tinder Farm
4 Sulfur Vent
4 Saprazzan Skerry
3 Svyelunite Temple

//Spells: 8
4 Creative Technique
4 Let the Galaxy Burn

//Creatures: 17
4 Boarding Party
4 Aurora Phoenix
4 Trumpeting Carnosaur
1 Maelstrom Wanderer
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

//Sideboard: 15
3 Throes of Chaos
2 Tibalt's Trickery
1 Karakas
3 Otawara, Soaring City
3 Mirrorshell Crab
3 Leyline of the Void

PirateKing

12-03-2023, 11:39 AM

I'm still low on Let the Galaxy Burn, it's such a disappointing hit.
Keeping it heavy red is a positive turn, but fitting some Sweet Gum Recluse as B tier creatures shouldn't stress the mana too hard. Also, I'm not ready to give up on Boseiju as an out just yet. Compared to your list I'm less on the Invasion lands.

What's been your trouble spots?
I expect an abundance of Turbo Moon decks, very low number of Teferi. Not sure which Leyline to favor.

FTW

12-03-2023, 02:09 PM

If not Galaxy Burn then it's either run fewer starters (the math & testing suggests that's worse) or play an off-color creature (affects mana variance). For an off-color creature, Etherium-Horn Sorcerer seems better than Sweet Gum Recluse. Sweet Gum's effect is better but Etherium is more castable. The stock 3-color manabase can very rarely make GG.

In the Ru build I could consider swapping blue for green, with Boseiju and Sweet Gum instead of Otawara and Etherium/Crab. Boseiju is strong and Otawara is slow, although Otawara is flexible. I have used Otawara to remove big Murktides.

Galaxy does clear chump blockers. Hitting 2-3 Galaxy instead of creatures has happened but didn't cost me any games. I've never gone off and come up short on board presence. Either they disrupt me from going off or I go off and win. I don't run the small 3/xs though. The bodies are: 4x 5/3 flying, 4x 6/3, 4x 7/6 trample, 4x 15/15 flying, 7/5. It doesn't take many bodies to win. The older builds may have needed more bodies.

Maybe the high Emrakul count makes up for it. Time Walk + 15 power annihilate 6 does a lot. Once I accepted any of the top end are uncastables (Emrakul, Apex, Maelstrom) it felt suboptimal to not play 4x the strongest creature in the game. Annihilate 6 has solved the blocker issue in many games (especially after Galaxy kills small bodies), while hitting a 2nd Maelstrom Wanderer was underwhelming. Emrakul also randomly jukes Show and Tell or Painter.

Emrakul does have a downside. In one game I had CT into Emrakul (CT copy got Forced), chain ended, and opponent had untapped Karakas to bounce. However with the extra turn I cast a 2nd starter into the win. Time Walk was still good.

The Invasion lands aren't great but they're sol lands that make red. I've lost games to tempo with double Wasteland on red source, so I want as many red sources as possible. Red non-sol land could work but then costs more lands, turns, and tempo to catch up.

Blood Moon slows you down but CT is still castable if they don't kill by turn 5, and Carnosaur can still Bolt Caves of Chaos Adventurer or Rabblemaster.

What does your mana look like? How reliably have you been able to use Boseiju to bail you out against hate?

FTW

12-03-2023, 04:54 PM

Going green instead:

//Lands: 35
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Crystal Vein
4 Dwarven Ruins
4 Sandstone Needle
3 Sulfur Vent
4 Tinder Farm
4 Hickory Woodlot
4 Havenwood Battleground

//Spells: 6
4 Creative Technique
2 Let the Galaxy Burn

//Creatures: 19
4 Boarding Party
4 Aurora Phoenix
4 Trumpeting Carnosaur
2 Sweet-Gum Recluse
1 Maelstrom Wanderer
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

//Sideboard: 15
4 Throes of Chaos
2 Tibalt's Trickery
4 Boseiju, Who Endures
1 Aeve, Progenitor Ooze

Maybe that would combo off more smoothly and also benefit from Boseiju removing hate. Don't know what else to run in the board. Chancellor of the Annex? Leyline? Pyrokinesis? Maddening Hex?

gngpostalsrvc

12-03-2023, 06:35 PM

The 4th Galaxy Burn feels like a lot when going through the combo chain, but there aren't really better alternatives in red. The 4RR equipment is worse.

[/cards]

Since you're already playing a nearly full complement of UU sol lands, perhaps Sakashima's Protege would be preferable to Let the Galaxy Burn due to its favorable interaction with Trumpeting Carnosaur? I'm not sure if it's worth messing with the mana requirements though...

FTW

12-04-2023, 05:46 AM

Since you're already playing a nearly full complement of UU sol lands, perhaps Sakashima's Protege would be preferable to Let the Galaxy Burn due to its favorable interaction with Trumpeting Carnosaur? I'm not sure if it's worth messing with the mana requirements though...

5R with 15-16 red lands should be easier to cast than 4UU with 7-8 UU lands, so I feared it would add variance to the mana. 5R is castable off Tinder Farm even if they Wasteland your Sandstone Needle, so it adds some redundancy when the 8 4RR cards are uncastable.

But I did end up making the equivalent choice in the RG build (4GG with 8 GG lands), so it would be no different in RU with Sakashima.

Etherium-Horn Sorcerer would be castable off Sulfur Vent and Otawara. In total, 11-14 blue lands & 15-16 red lands. It should be easier to cast as a starter than Sakashima but is worse to reveal in the combo chain.

dte

12-04-2023, 07:48 AM

5R with 15-16 red lands should be easier to cast than 4UU with 7-8 UU lands, so I feared it would add variance to the mana. 5R is castable off Tinder Farm even if they Wasteland your Sandstone Needle, so it adds some redundancy when the 8 4RR cards are uncastable.

But I did end up making the equivalent choice in the RG build (4GG with 8 GG lands), so it would be no different in RU with Sakashima.

Etherium-Horn Sorcerer would be castable off Sulfur Vent and Otawara. In total, 11-14 blue lands & 15-16 red lands. It should be easier to cast as a starter than Sakashima but is worse to reveal in the combo chain.

Why not playing some numbers of Teferi's Isle?

It fits the basic requirement of allowing to cast a 6ccm T3. It is worse than the mercadia lands at letting you play another one T4, but much better than the invasion lands for another cast T5.

Another question: from all I read (never played the deck), if the chain starts it is a win. Then shouldn't you shave some of the cards that don't help starting (Emrakul/wanderer)? Normally you would like to have a very small but definitely non-zero rate of fizzling.

Reeplcheep

12-04-2023, 08:57 AM

dte

12-04-2023, 09:39 AM

I’m not sure they should be 4 ofs, but several maelstrom wanderer lets you beat mindbreak trap. Emrakul gives you free points vs S&T and Painter.

The primary reason for them is to win on the same turn. Without a lot it’s possible you would go through all 4 techniques and then have to pass the turn.

Sure for S &T, but I'm not sure there are many cases where 3 or even 2 Emrakul, gives you less points vs painter.

Currently (FTW's lists with 4 emrakul / 1 wanderer) it is 5-of "pure win", would 3 (2/1) be enough?
And by enough I mean losing 1-2% of games after you go for a big turn, play all CTs, and still lose despite all your big dudes / clearing the board.

PirateKing

12-04-2023, 10:17 AM

What does your mana look like? How reliably have you been able to use Boseiju to bail you out against hate?

My landbase is in flux right now, I'm still testing Gemstone Caverns back again to support cycling the dinosaur on the draw and as additional support the other cyclers, though primarily Boseiju, Outawara typically eats a Skerry counter to cycle.

What I have now is:
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Crystal Vein
3 City of Traitors
3 Gemstone Caverns
4 Sandstone Needle
4 Dwarven Ruins
4 Hickory Woodlot
4 Saprazzan Skerry
4 Sulfur Vent
2 Otawara, Soaring City
1 Boseiju, Who Endures
1 Volcanic Island

It's very rough since I keep toying with the deck, but Maelstrom Wanderer stays castable as a long shot backup. The 12 Mercadian Masques lands lets me EOT an expensive cycler and still be live for 6+ mana on my turn. I know one bad game shouldn't inform the whole deck, but I lost a game using 2 FE lands & City of Traitors to cast a 6 drop into CT that all got sank by a Flusterstorm. So I'm twice shy on those lands.

Reeplcheep

12-04-2023, 10:34 AM

To beat MBT you need to hit wanderer/emrakul before the 2nd creative technique. That’s very unlikely with only 5 hits.

FTW

12-04-2023, 01:33 PM

Why not playing some numbers of Teferi's Isle?

It fits the basic requirement of allowing to cast a 6ccm T3. It is worse than the mercadia lands at letting you play another one T4, but much better than the invasion lands for another cast T5.

Another question: from all I read (never played the deck), if the chain starts it is a win. Then shouldn't you shave some of the cards that don't help starting (Emrakul/wanderer)? Normally you would like to have a very small but definitely non-zero rate of fizzling.

Teferi's Isle might be better than Svyelunite Temple. Isle is a worse topdeck, but better at supporting a 2nd try.

If the chain starts, you get lethal power, but you pass the turn without Emrakul or Maelstrom. The chain won't get every creature in the deck, because you run out of Creative Techniques. Winning this turn improves when you have higher odds of hitting an "I win" button, i.e. more copies.

But it's a tradeoff between hitting an "I win" button and having enough starters & lands. Starters & lands are needed to go off turn 3 consistently, but enough "I win"s are needed to ensure a chain wins this turn. That's why I ran some numbers on different scenarios of Starters, Sol Lands, and Others. There's an optimal balance somewhere in there.

Is 5 too many? Is a 2/1 split enough? Or not enough? Good question. Needs more testing and math. In my games, I appreciated the extra copies of Emrakul and went up from 2/2 to 4/1.

Most players are on more copies of Maelstrom and fewer Emrakul. They favor Maelstrom because:
- the 3-color decks can occasionally cast it
- it's a red card that pitches to SB Pyrokinesis (those builds also have lower red count)
- double cascade creates another branch, helping get more bodies on the board
- casting Maelstrom as a starter (2x cascade trigger) lets you beat Flusterstorm, Mindbreak Trap, or double Force. Those would beat other starters into CT

The downside is Maelstrom is hard to actually cast. The stock manabase doesn't get turn 4 5RUG that often. It's also legendary. The 2nd copy doesn't add much (just +1 cascade).

Emrakul is not red or castable, and it ends branches instead of adding them. However it has these advantages:
- 15/15 flying is a much better attacker than 7/5
- Annihilate 6 removes blockers, so you need fewer bodies to win
- Immune to most removal you may Demonstrate them into
- Time Walk is better than haste (you untap & draw & can cast another starter or use disruption)
- 2nd copy reshuffles graveyard, putting CT back in library so the chain keeps going or you can try again next turn (e.g. vs Brainstorm into Terminus)

Imho the scales tip away from Maelstrom when you're not on tricolor mana and already have high red count. Then all it really does is cascade more (more bodies). But in my experience you don't need some extra 5/x body when you have a 15/15 flying annihilate 6. Putting CT back in library is often relevant too.

Reeplcheep

12-04-2023, 02:36 PM

Wanderer beats MBT sometimes even if not hardcast.

Source: A salty reeplcheep playing humans into cascaded, CT, maelstrom wanderer.

If I was working on this deck and we are ok with not winning the same turn, I would want to brew with mana leak crab a bit. Then you have 8 t2 plays to bridge to t3.

FTW

12-04-2023, 03:06 PM

Wanderer beats MBT sometimes even if not hardcast.

Wouldn't you need to hit Wanderer on the 1st Creative Technique reveal?

Starter -> Cascade -> CT -> Demonstrate [Stack = 2 copies of CT & Starter, Spell count = 2]
1st CT hits Wanderer -> Cascade x2 [Spell count = 3]
1st Cascade hits Starter -> Cascade -> CT -> Demonstrate

Opponent casts Mindbreak Trap, exiling: 3 copies of CT, Wanderer, 2 starters
Then 2nd Cascade trigger resolves and the chain continues!

If the 1st reveal is not Wanderer, opponent casts Mindbreak and exiles the whole stack.

Finding Wanderer 1st is a random outcome with low probability. It may happen but you can't count on it to play around hate.

If I was working on this deck and we are ok with not winning the same turn, I would want to brew with mana leak crab a bit. Then you have 8 t2 plays to bridge to t3.

Yeah, that was my original motivation for blue as a secondary color: SB Mirrorshell Crab & Otawara, Soaring City. With Carnosaur, you get many plays on 2 lands to curve into the combo.

In practice it's not as pretty. I found with all the ETB tapped lands it's hard to curve 2R/2U on turn 2 into 6 mana on turn 3. Usually either your T2 or T3 land will enter tapped, so it's hard to represent both.

PirateKing

12-04-2023, 03:12 PM

Reeplcheep

12-04-2023, 03:43 PM

Yes that exact play happened in my first match against CT with humans and I got extremely salty. It probably doesn’t happen frequently enough to matter though.

Reeplcheep

12-04-2023, 03:47 PM

With pirate kings mana base it seems somewhat reasonable. Crystal vein or gemstone into tomb or crystal vein would let you do that curve.

FTW

12-04-2023, 04:03 PM

small point to you FTW:
The Wandered adds +2 cascade, typically results in at minimum 2 extra bodies off a single cast, so the duplicate copy while dead as a 7/5 does put 10~12 power on board if not just hitting more CTs and branching from there. All with haste from the first one.

Fair point. I count it as +1 because the duplicate Wanderer dies. You end up with 2 bodies instead of 1 (if CT revealed another creature instead). 1 extra body and 1 extra branch. In practice you don't hit more CTs because you run out. Extra branch or not, you'll cast all 4.

Emrakul would die too (-1 body -1 branch), but you get +1 turn and a reshuffle. The reshuffle puts back used CTs. If you have any other branches, those chains can go deeper through more CTs. If you don't, you could cast another starter on the extra turn and hit more CTs. So in my experience Emrakul #2 leads to resolving more CTs than Maelstrom #2. I did not expect that.

It's a real challenge to evaluate because when the deck wins, it's with so much overkill you can't parse the good from the mediocre.
The corner cases are so narrow, we're either winning big or losing big.

This. It's hard to evaluate because most games are lopsided. You steamroll them or fail to go off. Very few are grinds.

I *think* that with the 7/6 trample now, the threats are big enough that I don't miss the extra bodies from Maelstrom and would rather just have the 15/15. But it's hard to evaluate.

Edit: 4 Emrakul may be overkill. In one game I had 7 extra turns, in another 4. Hit Emrakul too often. Once you hit the 2nd Emrakul, the chain goes so deep it gets more likely to hit more Emrakuls. That forces too many Demonstrates to keep going, and you don't need that many Time Walks. Cutting down to 3 copies.

PirateKing

12-11-2023, 12:01 AM

So here's an unexpected upside to the dinosaur:

EW side event, on the play opponent goes Lotus Petal, Ancient Tomb, Show and Tell, (presumably and later confirmed with Force backup). They put their card down and I put my card down. They have an Emrakul and I have a Trumpeting Carnosaur, with a trigger! 1 very scary demonstrated Creative Technique (they did have Force) and 3 clean Creative Techniques later, I take my turn 1 with 37 power across 6 creatures. Play Sandstone Needle and attack for lethal. They were perturbed.

So yeah I'm dinosaur for life now

FTW

12-11-2023, 11:45 AM

Between 4x Dino and multiple Emrakuls, the Show and Tell matchup is a joke. Unless they have the Omni win, they can't risk casting it and are stuck on some slower line like Sneak Attack, which we can try to race.

I've been sold on Dino since you convinced me to try it.

PirateKing

12-11-2023, 02:24 PM

Well I only have the 2 Emrakuls currently, so not something I'd base a plan around in the matchup.

But for all the poo poo people gave it for being "not-cascade" and loses to a counterspell, if that was any other cascade creature I'd have a neato Boarding Party or something lame for my effort. Enters the battlefield ain't all downside, baby. Just thought I'd share that interaction, since I was totally blind to it until I looked at my hand with Show and Tell on the stack.

Also don't want seem disproportionately negative to anyone, like play whatever deck you want, but holy wow is it a clown that tries to talk shit about my "not real" deck when they sleeve up Sneak and Show themselves. Glad you got beat guy :cool:

FTW

12-12-2023, 06:32 AM

But for all the poo poo people gave it for being "not-cascade" and loses to a counterspell, if that was any other cascade creature I'd have a neato Boarding Party or something lame for my effort. Enters the battlefield ain't all downside, baby. Just thought I'd share that interaction, since I was totally blind to it until I looked at my hand with Show and Tell on the stack.

It's a great interaction vs anything that cheats your card into play for you (Exhume or Eureka too). It's another upside, but doesn't change the downside. It still loses to counterspell.

If opponent didn't go for turn 1 Show and you led on Dino, it loses to his Force. Then he could untap and Show-> Emrakul/Omni and win. With a different sequence, his same hand wins. He lost by jamming Show and Tell greedily into another big creature deck (would also lose to Reanimator dropping Griselbrand/Archon, or if you had Emrakul).

The takeaway is Dino is a great answer, but it's still risky as a starter. That means it competes for non-starter slots (land or Maelstrom?). How many starters and lands are you on now?

I cut down a bit to:
4 CT
4 Boarding Party
4 Aurora Phoenix
2 Let the Galaxy Burn

4 Dinos
2 Maelstrom
3 Emrakul

37 lands

PirateKing

12-13-2023, 07:23 PM

How many starters and lands are you on now?

4 Creative Technique

4 Boarding Party
3 Trumpeting Carnosaur
1 Apex Devastator
1 Sweet-Gum Recluse
4 Aurora Phoenix
3 Maelstrom Wanderer
2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

1 Boseiju, Who Endures
4 Crystal Vein
1 Volcanic Island
4 Sulfur Vent
3 City of Traitors
3 Gemstone Caverns
4 Dwarven Ruins
4 Sandstone Needle
2 Otawara, Soaring City
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Saprazzan Skerry
4 Hickory Woodlot

Sideboard
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Tibalt's Trickery
4 Pyrokinesis
1 Boseiju, Who Endures
1 Otawara, Soaring City
3 Throes of Chaos

This was the list I had at EW

FTW

12-13-2023, 10:28 PM

I like the Gemstone Caverns.

How did you find the access to colors? Did you ever start the chain with Sweet-Gum? Did you ever get to start with Maelstrom Wanderer?

Were you always able to go off on turn 3? Did the mana sometimes take longer?

PirateKing

12-14-2023, 08:02 AM

All starts over the weekend were the traditional red starters. Prior though there was a win off a flashed in Sweet-Gum (I saw Flusterstorm off a blind Delver flip). That chain got stopped but then untap into my turn and a normal starter went deep for the victory.
Outside of a starter, Sweet-Gum does end up adding +4~12 power to a normal chain, it's become a welcome sight as it means they go from just dead even with careful blocks to wildly dead no matter what.
Maelstrom Wanderer has been cast before, typically in a heavy discard game where the good starters have been stripped and I just keep making land drops and getting poked by Grief and it's the only option. Not a common setup but has happened two or three times.

I'm actually not so sure on Gemstone Caverns.
I fundamentally love the card so jumped at a chance to play them, but they only add +1 mana, so it's not shaving a turn outside of specifically the natural Creative Technique start. They help with the cycle lands I'm still on so I've kept them in, but I mulligan aggressive to at least 5 card hands and sometimes the exile cost of getting the luck counter makes medium keeps into greedy keeps. I was looking at trying out the other cycle cards like Crab, since having more use for odd numbered amounts of mana does make Gemstone Cavern more useful.

Final change on the table was Leyline of the Void or Leyline of Sanctity. I didn't want to lose to Oops or Breakfast or very fast Reanimate, but I faced zero of those decks. The reanimate targets were always Grief, and honestly I didn't care about the 3/2 body as long as my hand wasn't being messed with. Feels like Sanctity would get brought in more often, but feels like overkill just to protect from the occasional Thoughtseize or whatever if it means including genuine dead ends into the combo math. Leyline of the Void has such a narrow set of decks I'd bring it in against, but the failcase of those decks is literally "I lose the game" so maybe the card is warranted, but I've yet to have to face that decision. So right now it feels like wasted space, and I abhor wasted space in a sideboard.

rufus

12-14-2023, 09:28 AM

It's a great interaction vs anything that cheats your card into play for you (Exhume or Eureka too). It's another upside, but doesn't change the downside. It still loses to counterspell. ..

It seems like "loses to counterspell" doesn't really matter much after creative technique's been cast as part of the combo since individual copies of creative technique also lose to counterspell. Sure, there are some highly specific counters like Dress Down, but most of the concern with "loses to counterspell" is when the combo is being initiated.

It's deep into win more territory, but there's a funny version of this where Sakashima's Protege copies Etali, Primal Conqueror (or trumpeting carnosaur) as way to get extra triggers.

FTW

12-14-2023, 10:42 AM

It seems like "loses to counterspell" doesn't really matter much after creative technique's been cast as part of the combo since individual copies of creative technique also lose to counterspell. Sure, there are some highly specific counters like Dress Down, but most of the concern with "loses to counterspell" is when the combo is being initiated.

If you read the rest of the comment, I continue that "loses to counterspell" thought into "it's risky as a starter" and conclude with "Dino competes for non-Starter slots" (lands, interaction, Wanderer, etc.). Then ask what ratio PirateKing is using, not challenge Dino's usage. Both of us have 3-4 copies.

Yes, the main risk is starting the chain. The deck is also a careful balance between starters, lands, and other effects. There are many posts earlier from multiple users with simulations and math to decide on the optimal balance between these effects to go off the most consistently. If Dino replaces a non-starter slot, it changes that balance, and maybe the other numbers need to change too. In other words, adding Dino could fundamentally change the deck ratios and composition in a way that was never considered before.

I started addressing this by adding new math and testing other build ratios, but this is still an open question. Dino is new tech and the stock build may need to change to best accommodate it.

I tested Sakashima's Protege. It copies Carnosaur to double "cascade", but that extra branch can only hit Creative Technique directly (no 6 cmc creature first). Since you'll normally run out of all 4 CTs no matter how many branches you make, that extra branch doesn't actually add more bodies to the board. The other multi-cascaders (Maelstrom, Apex) do add more bodies because the extra branches can hit creatures, but the Carnosaur copy can't. To use Sakashima as a starter, you'll want 8 UU lands (Saprazzan Skerry & Teferi's Isle probably). As a non-starter it's worse than the other multi-cascaders. Overall it seems unnecessary.

Edit: Dress Down specifically is a problem for builds too heavy on Carnosaur & Maelatrom Wanderer. It stops Carnosaur's trigger (ends the branch) and Maelstrom's haste, passing the turn. Emrakul's Time Walk does get through Dress Down since it happens on cast, so going up on Emrakul copies is one way to hedge against losing to Dress Down.

FTW

12-14-2023, 11:12 AM

All starts over the weekend were the traditional red starters. Prior though there was a win off a flashed in Sweet-Gum (I saw Flusterstorm off a blind Delver flip). That chain got stopped but then untap into my turn and a normal starter went deep for the victory.

Good to know. Having the option of a Flash starter is useful as long as the mana can consistently support it. Sweet-Gum is probably better than Sakashima's Protege.

I'm actually not so sure on Gemstone Caverns.
I fundamentally love the card so jumped at a chance to play them, but they only add +1 mana, so it's not shaving a turn outside of specifically the natural Creative Technique start. They help with the cycle lands I'm still on so I've kept them in, but I mulligan aggressive to at least 5 card hands and sometimes the exile cost of getting the luck counter makes medium keeps into greedy keeps. I was looking at trying out the other cycle cards like Crab, since having more use for odd numbered amounts of mana does make Gemstone Cavern more useful.

Did Caverns help cast Maelstrom Wanderer or activate the cycle lands?
Other than the rare turn 2 CT, the color fixing seems to be the best benefit. But I wonder if that happens consistently enough. If Gemstone exiles a land and you need 4 other lands to make 5RUG...

Final change on the table was Leyline of the Void or Leyline of Sanctity. I didn't want to lose to Oops or Breakfast or very fast Reanimate, but I faced zero of those decks. The reanimate targets were always Grief, and honestly I didn't care about the 3/2 body as long as my hand wasn't being messed with. Feels like Sanctity would get brought in more often, but feels like overkill just to protect from the occasional Thoughtseize or whatever if it means including genuine dead ends into the combo math. Leyline of the Void has such a narrow set of decks I'd bring it in against, but the failcase of those decks is literally "I lose the game" so maybe the card is warranted, but I've yet to have to face that decision. So right now it feels like wasted space, and I abhor wasted space in a sideboard.

I get not wanting wasted SB space. But just because you didn't face Oops, Reanimator, Breakfast etc. at EW doesn't mean you never will. Reanimator is a top deck. Those matches are unwinnable without Leyline. Do you just gamble you won't face them often and board for other decks? What's Leyline of Sanctity for? If just Thoughtseize/Grief, you can also protect by running extra starters (and those won't break the chain!).

rufus

12-14-2023, 11:31 AM

..
I tested Sakashima's Protege. It copies Carnosaur to double "cascade", but that extra branch can only hit Creative Technique directly (no 6 cmc creature first).
...

Yeah, I've got brain damage where I get stuck on silly things. I do find myself wondering how often the extra :1: in casting cost on Etali is offset by the better triggered ability in comparison to the Carnosaur, even if the discussion about whether to play Leyline of the Void is probably more relevant to winning matches.

PirateKing

12-14-2023, 12:29 PM

I've never liked Sakashima's Protege, the creatures I want to copy are legendary so it was always just another 6/3 or 5/3 flying. As soon as something better came out it was the first to go. Unless we're doing some crazy Commandeer tech or something, it was just what was left over as a 6cmc Cascader after all the good ones were used.

Cavern does help cast everything, but it's so uncommon it's hard to measure. You're right that beyond the 5 mana turn 2 CT it's just a fixer, but then a simple City of Brass would do that better. I just has an excuse to run it so I did, but if I want to make the deck "good" then I'll need to come to terms with my pet preferences. When it does get the luck counter it's mostly never an issue, the deck has so many redundancies it's not difficult to find a pitch. It'll only come up after an aggressive set of mulligans where you can keep a 5 of Cavern, pitch, land, land, CT and have a turn 2 that's soft to wasteland and folds to discard, or a normal speed hand of land, land, land, CT, 6cmc starter. It's a very narrow problem but for me it's happened more often than Trumpeting Carnosaur being my only starter and losing to Counterspell. I just like Gemstone Cavern lol.

You're very likely correct on Leyline of the Void, I just saw much more Scam decks around me that made me realize I don't even really want LotV against them, the double Grief was never about the body it was about leaving my hand bare of any spells. It is very much a meta call, so you could flex it into something you're anticipating to face against more often. I was also contemplating the Pyrokinesis since having the dinosaur fit that slot main makes 7 copies a lot of removal, but I know here locally I have a lot of D&T players so I don't mind always killing Thalia forever. I'm very happy with the Throes/Trickery package, the rest is likely to change based on day before tournament whimsy.

FTW

12-14-2023, 01:21 PM

Cavern does help cast everything, but it's so uncommon it's hard to measure. You're right that beyond the 5 mana turn 2 CT it's just a fixer, but then a simple City of Brass would do that better.

I suppose it gets better with Mirrorshell Crab in the SB. Cavern lets you hold up both Crab/Dino as early as turn 1 on the draw, allowing more interaction with opponent on pre-combo turns.

Otherwise you're probably right. It only beats City at getting Turn 2 CT, but that only happens with some hands and on the draw, and that line makes you softer to Wasteland or discard. Boarding into ThroesBalt is probably more reliable if you need speed. More random, but protected from discard & LD.

It's a very narrow problem but for me it's happened more often than Trumpeting Carnosaur being my only starter and losing to Counterspell.

Imho that's because you didn't cut starters for Carnosaur. You're still on 9 6cmc cascaders (+3 Carnosaur). I'm on 10 6cmc cascaders, about the same. At that level most hands have another starter. At those ratios the chance of having only Carnosaur and opponent having a counter are small, though it has happened to me rarely (against Delver, where Daze is a risk against 4RR cards when they also have Wasteland and/or a fast clock).

Earlier stock builds had 40+ lands and sometimes the same or fewer starters. If Carnosaur replaced another 6cmc in those builds, the Counterspell/Dress Down risk would be more of a problem.

I've also played against Dreadnought decks where Carnosaur is just dead (4x maindeck Dress Down), but with enough other cascaders I still won.

You're very likely correct on Leyline of the Void, I just saw much more Scam decks around me that made me realize I don't even really want LotV against them, the double Grief was never about the body it was about leaving my hand bare of any spells.

Agree that you don't need LotV against Scam. It's for fast decks like Reanimator. Scam is slow.

Vs discard, an extra starter seems better than Leyline of Sanctity. Both protect you, but Leyline can break the combo. Otherwise maybe board into ThroesBalt? Throes is immune to discard.

FTW

12-14-2023, 02:06 PM

Since so much of the SB is in flux, and the deck mechanic is so sensitive to small changes in deck composition, what if the approach to sideboarding changes?

Instead of doing the normal thing with designated slots for different matchups (grave, combo, creatures, counters, etc.), what if the sideboard is approached modularly as different transformational plans?

//Sideboard A: 5
3 Throes of Chaos
2 Tibalt's Trickery

//Sideboard B: 6
3 Gemstone Caverns
3 Mirrorshell Crab

//Sideboard C: 4
4 Leyline of the Void

3 different transformational SBs within 15 cards.

Sideboard A: go off 1 turn faster

Sideboard B: be grindier and more interactive pre-combo (Carnosaur & Crab)
Only have Caverns on the draw.

Sideboard C: don't scoop to turn 1 decks
Accept that the main combo is compromised.

Realistically the deck is very narrow in what it can do. Maybe we should be boarding into a cohesive plan instead of boarding in isolated tools. The ThroesBalt plan is proven, but Plan B & C could be adjusted to see what works.

Maybe plan B is better with other tools (Pyrokinesis, Boseiju, Otawara, Skyturtle). Maybe plan C is better with other tools (Leyline of Sanctity, Mindbreak Trap, Commandeer??). The idea is to shift the deck into a different plan that's better in that type of matchup.

Thinking about it that way, plan C doesn't make sense against Scam but does against Oops, even though both are "graveyard decks". If the meta has few fast decks, maybe you don't want Plan C at all and spend more slots on A and B.

PirateKing

12-14-2023, 03:23 PM

What would you aim to take out?

I use the 3 cycle lands and the 2 least favorite starter creatures for the Throes/Trickery package.
The other cards I just sort of wing it, honestly couldn't tell you one match from the next what comes out

FTW

12-14-2023, 03:47 PM

I usually board the same way: cut 2 worst starters (usually Let the Galaxy Burn), cut worst lands, then cut 1 Emrakul/Maelstrom.

But overall I've been winging it too. Since the combo is so sensitive to deck composition, it makes me think the SB strategy should be better planned. Both what comes in and what comes out. Otherwise boarding could accidentally handicap the winrate. Or the tools we bring in might not be usable often enough (due to mana or pitch costs) to compensate for the reduction in combo efficiency.

The deck is so sensitive to changes that imho sideboarding needs a deeper look.

FTW

12-14-2023, 05:32 PM

I do find myself wondering how often the extra :1: in casting cost on Etali is offset by the better triggered ability in comparison to the Carnosaur, even if the discussion about whether to play Leyline of the Void is probably more relevant to winning matches.

It's a fair question. Etali, Primal Conqueror has a better ability and bigger body.

5RR instead of 4RR means +1 land and +1 turn (minimum). That not only slows down the combo but increases the resource requirement. More resources = mulligans & Wasteland are more punishing. Resources already get tight sometimes. Imho there are enough playable starters at 6 mana, no reason to go higher.

Carnosaur was added mainly for the 2R ability. Etali doesn't have that. Trumpeting Carnosaur uncounterably kills "you lose" cards like Teferi, Time Raveler, Lavinia, Azorius Renegade, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, and Sanctum Prelate @ 5. EOT kill, untap and go off. Discover just means it doesn't mess up the combo when revealed (and it has some corner case uses vs Show and Tell or Exhume). It's a Pyrokinesis-type card that doesn't stop the combo, a maindeckable answer. Without the 2R ability, it's not as good. Could be Otawara or Sweet-Gum instead.

ESG

12-15-2023, 05:39 AM

FTW

12-15-2023, 06:34 PM

Good point ESG. Maybe the smarter choice is to just not play Mississippi River in certain metas. Accept the bad matchups. Leyline & Commandeer are weak plans. None of the Plan C options are good, just "lose less".

So instead of assembling a pathetic plan C, hope for better matchups and dedicate slots to those. Plan B could perhaps be broken into 2 sub-plans:
B1> Board in Mirrorshell Crab + Gemstone Caverns on the draw against certain decks
B2> Board in other faster grindy interaction (Pyrokinesis, Boseiju, Who Endures, Otawara, Soaring City, or Colossal Skyturtle)

There isn't room to bring in all of it at once, so it could be broken into different groups depending on which interaction is better in that match.

Example...

//MAINDECK
//Spells: 6
4 Creative Technique
2 Let the Galaxy Burn

//Creatures: 17
4 Boarding Party
4 Aurora Phoenix
4 Trumpeting Carnosaur
2 Maelstrom Wanderer
3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

//Lands: 37
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Crystal Vein
4 Sandstone Needle
4 Dwarven Ruins
4 Tinder Farm
4 Saprazzan Skerry
3 Teferi's Isle
3 Sulfur Vent
2 Otawara, Soaring City
1 Gemstone Caverns

//SIDEBOARDS
//ThroesBalt Plan: 5
3 Throes of Chaos
2 Tibalt's Trickery

//On the Draw Counters: 6
3 Gemstone Caverns
3 Mirrorshell Crab

//Removal: 4
2 Otawara, Soaring City
2 Pyrokinesis

The maindeck already has 6 removal for hatebears (Carnosaur, Galaxy) and 2 more removal for generic prison cards (Otawara).

The sideboard includes the ThroesBalt plan (better against fast combo, discard, and LD; worse against FoW).
It also has answers to spells/abilities (Crab), removal for hatebears (Pyrokinesis), and removal for prison pieces (Otawara). RU makes sense as long as Crab is a SB plan.

Rough sideboarding plan.

ThroesBalt:
+3 Throes, +2 Tibalt
-2 Galaxy/Phoenix, -3 Teferi's Isle (too slow)

On the Draw Crab:
+3 Gemstone, +3 Crab
-2 Galaxy/Phoenix, -3 Tinder Farm, -1 Emrakul

On the Play Crab:
+3 Crab, +2 Otawara
-1 Gemstone, -3 Tinder Farm, -1 Emrakul

On the Draw Hatebears:
+3 Gemstone, +2 Pyrokinesis
-4 Invasion sac lands, -1 Emrakul

On the Play Hatebears:
+2 Pyrokinesis
-1 Gemstone, -1 Emrakul

Vs Noncreature Hate:
+2 Otawara
-2 Carnosaur

In many matches you would just leave the main unchanged.

Zoid

12-15-2023, 07:03 PM

Is CT into crab/turtle a relevant failure line?

You also can't really mull into hate or board many cards so maybe dino + lands + thoughts&prayers are the better plan then.
Can't win everything and maybe focus on less unwinnable matchups.

BTW with the dino you can also put the card in your hand instead of casting it so you can turn a win more CT into a backup for next turn.

FTW

12-15-2023, 07:50 PM

Is CT into crab/turtle a relevant failure line?

Yes. You have to Demonstrate around it, but if you're down to only 1 branch then it could "fail".

So you have to weight the risk of terminating the chain vs getting blown out by interaction before you go off. In many matchups, there is no point in bringing in Crab. The SB is only for matches where the main plan won't work.

If the maindeck already has decent odds, just play the main plan.

If the ThroesBalt plan is better than holding up Crab, do that instead.

If both of those look bad, that's what Plan B is for. You have 10 more SB slots. Might as well use them for something.

Delver might be a good usecase. The ThroesBalt plan is bad there (too many counters). But the main plan can also get disrupted by early Wasteland/Daze. I've lost a few matches that way, where they double Waste me off red or double counter the first attempt (Daze + FoW), then DRC and Murktide kill me before I can try again. UB Shadow may be the same. If you bring in Caverns + Crab on the draw, you now start ahead on mana (better vs Daze & Wasteland), you can hold up Crab to counter Wasteland or big Murktide, or you can even just kill DRC with Carnosaur to buy time. That interaction hopefully buys you tempo to actually go off, instead of losing before you can cast a starter. You won't vomit 50 power on the board, but Delver will struggle to remove just a 7/5 trample Dino + 5/7 crab even if that's all you get.

You also can't really mull into hate or board many cards so maybe dino + lands + thoughts&prayers are the better plan then.
Can't win everything and maybe focus on less unwinnable matchups.

With 4 Caverns (1 main + 3 SB) and 12 untapped sol lands, that's a good chance of 2U/2R open on turn 1. Without Cavern, at least by turn 2. 4 maindeck Dino + 3 SB Crab = 7 pieces of interaction at 3 mana. A decent amount of time you can threaten either Carnosaur or Crab as early as turn 1. That's a lot more early interaction than the deck can normally pull off (normally you can't activate Carnosaur until turn 3). The hope is that's enough that you don't need to mull into them, and only 3 break the combo chain.

Those 7 pieces all answer big problem cards: Teferi, Time Raveler, Lavinia, Azorius Renegade, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Sanctum Prelate, Gaddock Teeg. Now you have 7 answers to "you lose" cards and better mana to hold up those answers early.

In matches where you want only Crab and not Carnosaur, then it gets less consistent and may not be worth it.

The question is what else do you do with those SB slots? Any nonland will threaten to terminate the chain. Do you just play lands (Boseiju, Otawara, Petrified Field, Blast Zone)? Otherwise any nonland will disrupt CT. But that risk is better when it's a creature with 7+ cmc (does not disrupt cascade) and 5/5 or bigger (not the worst body to get). Revealing Pyrokinesis or Leyline is much worse than revealing Crab!

Zoid

12-15-2023, 09:22 PM

The question is what else do you do with those SB slots? Any nonland will threaten to terminate the chain. Do you just play lands (Boseiju, Otawara, Petrified Field, Blast Zone)? Otherwise any nonland will disrupt CT. But that risk is better when it's a creature with 7+ cmc (does not disrupt cascade) and 5/5 or bigger (not the worst body to get). Revealing Pyrokinesis or Leyline is much worse than revealing Crab!

You could play a companion but the only possible ones are Keruga, the Macrosage and Jegantha, the Wellspring which give you no or very little benefit.

Karakas deals with a fair share of the cards you listed and also helps vs avatars and spaghetti monsters.
Scavenger Grounds is probably to slow vs combo and can be played around but might buy you the round you need if you just slam it T2.
Island of Wak-Wak might be a semi-legit way to buy time vs delver and would be funny as hell but is really expensive.

d3spam

01-22-2024, 09:00 AM

It's been a while since the last time I posted here. (Mind's Desire unban and the following increase in MBT post sb made me stay away from this deck).

Since then I discovered a couple of questions I could not answer with the previous simulation engine. I got around to rewriting it over the weekend, so expect some more data to come in the following days.

Questions I'm mostly interested in:

- How does declinging demo triggers change the math?
- Are there circumstances where we want different numbers than 2/3 for Trickery/Throes?
- Is Etali worth a try in this deck and how does he affect Trickery math?

Here's a detailed list of questions I'd like to see answered at some point. I'll highlight the ones I think I can answer myself in green, and the ones I might be able to answer with more time in orange.
New Cards:

- Trumpeting Dinosaur

- at first glance, this is the same as any other cascader, but in terms of mulligans, it is a lot weaker than a boarding party (due to its weakness to counter magic).
- I'd like to know the probability of finding a better hand when looking at a hand that only casts the dino on T3, in game 1.
- Call forth the Tempest

- extra copies of wanderer, that might be easier to cast. In particular, I'd like to investigate how likely it is, that boarding party + sweet-gum can assemble a winning board state without ever hitting a wanderer/emrakul.
- most people run only 1 copy of this, but maybe something extreme like 4 wanderer, 4 tempest has actual legs.
- Balrog of Moria

- List with this guy have been popping up on mtgtop8 recently.
- I thought this to be a meme at first, but the more I tested it, I started to realize that hitting a sweet-gum > CT > boarding party > CT > balrog is still a lot of hasty damage. (he also sits at 7cmc, such that wanderer can hit it)
- I assume when you just demonstrate always, some numbers of this card make wanderer/tempest more castable.
- I won't be looking into how much more likely you are to cast the 8 mana spells, but I will look into how much this decreases your winrate.
- Or differently put, how much more you need to demonstrate, such that you maintain the same winrate
- Etali, Primal Conqueror

- My first thought was that this is just a win-more card and that this deck does not want non-cascaders.
- However, playing with Trumpeting Carnosaur made me realize that in practice, people fight over the first copy of CT, meaning that if you ever CT into an Etali, it might as well be uncounterable.
- I've demonstrated people into removal that suddenly had a legal target when playing with the dinos, but I will not look into this downside for this analysis.
- Instead, what I want to see is, how Etali being just under the 8cmc restriction of Wanderer/Tempest changes the math, as now you have CT and Etali that can 'go up the chain'.
- Maybe this turns out to be useless, maybe it means that we can get away with demonstrating less while having more backup starters in a pinch.
- As said before, I can't look into anything that you could hit with it from your opponent, so for all analysis, the opponents' deck will be considered empty

Demonstrating:

- In previous analysis, I always assumed that we demo every CT we hit.
- I now try to Demo n times where n is [0, 1, 2, 4, 999]
- Why those numbers?

- 0: happens when you play against stax and don't want to demonstrate them at all.
It also happens when you demo once into an opposing force deck, and they have 1 force, then CT resolves and you don't demo any longer from there.
- 1: I assume that in the dark you always demo the first copy just to play around force. sometimes they don't have a force and now you get to have a copy.
- 4: This is the most common 'demo all' case.
- 2: I ran some isolated simulations with 2 and 3 and noticed that a lot of the time, 2,3,4 are very close, while 0 and 1 are noticeably worse.
I opted to save some time here by not running with 3, but kept the 2 just to validate that it will be close to 4 in most cases.
- 999: With enough Emrakuls, you can start to shuffle your GY over and over. I want to see how relevant that is in practice.
I want to see how reliable it is to get enough extra turns such that you can draw into an otawara and bounce that ensnaring bridge that your painter opponent has been hiding behind.

Sideboarding:

- Assume you know what your opponent is doing: Which SB strat maximizes your winrate?
- I'll consider the following scenarios:

- Force of Will

- Force decks tend to bring in more elemental blasts and Force of Negations. We want to take out dino's here. What configuration gives the best winrate?
- If they are a Daze deck, we probably want to win on T4, meaning either a 6cmc cascader + extra mana for daze, or an 8cmc double cascader.
- How does the math change if we consider 8cmc cascaders as plausible starters?
- Discard

- This are decks like reanimator or mono black scam. All I want here is a throes of chaos and as many lands as possible to retrace it.
- Which sb configuration maximizes the winrate, assuming I hard mull for a T2 throes? e.g., are we supposed to take out all/most cmc6 cascaders?
- Force + Discard (e.g., UB Scam or Doomsday)

- I pair these decks because they run a reason to bring trickery in either a fast combo or heavy discard, but are not all in on that plan and sometimes you need to go through more than 1 force.
- This is a group of decks where I bring in Throes/Trickery but don't hard mull for it, i.e., keep a hand that wins on T3 while sometimes you get to do it on T2 already.
- What configuration maximizes this win, assuming that I want either Throes, or a T3 starter that is not Dino?
- Hatebears

- Assume no Force/Discard, we just need 1 starter fast, how to sb such that we can make room for utility lands like karakas/ottawara/gemstone caverns?
- Deafening Silence

- If the main thing you have to play through is Deafening Silence, we
a) take out Let the Galaxy Burns and Call forth the Tempest, but
b) maximize our creature count. > Does this also mean that I am supposed to trim a CT or two? How would that change the math?

I will NOT consider these cases:

- SB

- opponent has a hatebear I need to remove via X, e.g., a gaddock that can be removed with karakas, ottawara, carnosaur, ...
- Manabase

- I still assume every land is Ancient Tomb. This is arguably the biggest Achilles heel of this whole analysis.
- With proper mana base, I could look into the odds of casting Wanderer or casting 2 starters in consecutive turns.
- I could assess how likely we are to play around daze.
- There would be more hands that can't be kept because they don't cast a relevant spell or have only 3 tapped lands.
- I also don't look into sequencing, e.g., if the draw for your third turn contains the 3rd land you need, I don't consider it to come into play tapped. I just assume you always have an untapped land#3 if you have 3 lands at all.
- I could see how likely we are to cast an interaction spell, e.g., discarding dino or channeling a land, while also doing the combo on T3.
- I could check the odds of casting spells in the face of a Wasteland or how likely we are to cast non-red spells for different manabase configurations. Since 2/3 or our deck are lands, this seems very relevant to me.
- In general this skews the mulligains toward only caring about the right spells and I fear that it leads to a bias in the analysis that I can't account for.

FTW

01-22-2024, 09:41 AM

I really appreciate that you're updating the simulation! Some of the deck design considerations have changed, and these are good questions to answer.

Here's a detailed list of questions I'd like to see answered at some point. I'll highlight the ones I think I can answer myself in green, and the ones I might be able to answer with more time in orange.
New Cards:

- Trumpeting Dinosaur
[INDENT] - at first glance, this is the same as any other cascader, but in terms of mulligans, it is a lot weaker than a boarding party (due to its weakness to counter magic).
- I'd like to know the probability of finding a better hand when looking at a hand that only casts the dino on T3, in game 1.

My solution to this, when doing the math above, was to treat Trumpeting Carnosaur as an "extra" (like Emrakul or Wanderer) in the opening hand math but then treat it like any other 6cmc cascader during the combo chain. Perhaps your simulation code could do the same? It's not a starter but also doesn't terminate the chain.

- Manabase
- I still assume every land is Ancient Tomb. This is arguably the biggest Achilles heel of this whole analysis.

In my testing there are a non-negligible number of hands where your first 3 lands are all tapped sol lands, delaying the combo by 1 turn or changing mulligan decisions. That has an even bigger impact on any slower starters (Maelstrom Wanderer).

Getting red by turn 3 is fairly reliable but the other colors are harder, depending on the manabase. You can run more green & blue double lands, but then getting red is reduced. Either way, this affects starters that require non-red (Maelstrom Wanderer, Sweet-Gum Recluse, Sakashima's Protege). From actual testing I found it better to rely on mostly monored starters even if the card is overall less good. The math & simulations don't show this because they treat all Sol Lands equally.

PirateKing

01-22-2024, 11:30 AM

Experience has shown outside of on board permanent hate cards like Teferi or Deafening Silence or Teeg, which by nature are known and can be played around, the biggest backbreaking play from the opponent is Force of Will plus Surgical Extraction. Just about every tempo deck should be expected to have a couple in their sideboard, which will be brought in to counter the original CT and then Surgical it away. You get 1 hit off your demonstrated copy and you hope to ride that all the way home, maybe hardcasting a 6 drop along the way. At least in my local meta (because of me, I'm sorry guys) Mississippi River is a known quantity, everybody knows this and I know to expect it.
Maybe if you're deviant enough to bring this to a 5k or something you could get people not knowing, but I feel that age is ending.

FTW

01-22-2024, 11:58 AM

At least in my local meta (because of me, I'm sorry guys) Mississippi River is a known quantity, everybody knows this and I know to expect it.
Maybe if you're deviant enough to bring this to a 5k or something you could get people not knowing, but I feel that age is ending.

My trick over the years (in local paper) has been to never bring the same deck 2 weeks in a row, especially with fringe decks or brews. That maintains some sense of brewer's advantage and prevents people from sideboarding too aggressively against you. Otherwise any deck can get hated out locally.

Mississippi River has gotten enough coverage that even at some non-local event, players may know what it is. They may not have mastered how to beat it though.

PirateKing

01-22-2024, 12:16 PM

Oh I haven't been playing it often or relentlessly to affect their sideboards, but at least here, every Delver player knows to side in their Surgicals along with any Flusters or blue Blasts they have. Which was not the case when I started playing, in fact there were open arguments against it at the beginning. But once they saw the play pattern I described above, it's the main source of misery I have with playing the deck now post sideboard.

d3spam

01-22-2024, 03:41 PM

the biggest backbreaking play from the opponent is Force of Will plus Surgical Extraction [...] counter the original CT and then Surgical it away.

I didn't have time to read through all of this thread yet, so apologies if this has already been said: This is where we board in Aeve. you cast party, then CT, demo it, they cast their demo spell, force your CT, surgical it, your copy resolves > boarding party > aeve (storm 7+). There is a 20% chance of hitting aeve over CT on the first cascader.

PirateKing

01-23-2024, 09:30 AM

Good call on Aeve, an embarrassing oversight on my part.

d3spam

01-25-2024, 09:20 PM

Number of Demonstrations

Ok, here's the first big milestone:
We look into how choosing not to demonstrate affects the success rate.

As outlined before, I look at [0, 1, 2, 4, 999] demonstrations.
0... e.g., vs a force deck that forces the first copy
1... e.g., vs a force deck that does not force the first copy
2... just to see how close this is to 4
4... very common
999... mostly here for other anlaysis to see how many extra turns we can expect to stack.

I ran 3000 games for each deck config.
parameters were:
#boardingparty/phoenix/dino = [6, 11]
#etali = [0,4]
#wanderer/tempest = [0,6]
#emrakul = [0,6]

I fill up the first 4 copies with boarding party, copy 5-8 with phoenix, and 9-11 with dinos.
same for wanderer/tempest.
In the case of Emrakul there isn't a second card I'd be aware of that does the same, but I was still interested in going over 4 just in case we find a comparable card (do not treat Apex devastator as Emrakul, it serves a different purpose)

This yields a total of 1260 different deck configurations and a total of 3.780.000 games simulated.

I'll add some pretty visualizations soon.
For now, here are the top 150 lists grouped by #demonstrations:

d3spam

01-25-2024, 09:20 PM

Number of demonstrations = 0
97.77 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:2
97.63 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:4
97.43 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:0
97.37 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:2
97.30 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:2
97.23 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:1
97.20 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:1
97.20 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:1
97.17 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:1
97.13 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:0
97.13 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:3
97.00 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:0
96.97 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:0
96.97 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:3
96.97 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:4
96.93 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:2
96.90 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:3
96.83 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:2
96.83 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:3
96.83 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:3
96.70 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:0
96.70 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:4
96.67 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:3
96.63 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:1
96.63 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:3
96.60 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:2
96.57 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:4
96.57 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:4
96.47 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:4
96.43 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:4
96.40 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:0
96.40 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:4
96.37 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:0
96.33 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:2
96.33 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:3
96.30 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:2
96.23 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:1
96.23 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:2
96.23 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:3
96.23 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:4
96.20 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
96.20 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:2
96.13 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:2
96.13 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:4
96.03 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:0
96.03 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1
96.03 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:1
96.03 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:3
96.03 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:4
96.00 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:3
95.97 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:1
95.97 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:3
95.97 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:3
95.97 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:3
95.93 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:0
95.93 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:0
95.90 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:4
95.87 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:3
95.83 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:1
95.83 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:1
95.83 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:1
95.83 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:3
95.83 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:4
95.80 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:0
95.80 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:1
95.80 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:3
95.77 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:2
95.77 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:4
95.77 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:4
95.73 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:0
95.73 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:2
95.73 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:4
95.70 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:3
95.70 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:4
95.67 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:2
95.67 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:2
95.67 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:4
95.63 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:1
95.63 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:2
95.60 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:2
95.57 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:0
95.57 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:2
95.53 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
95.53 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:2
95.47 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:0
95.43 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:0
95.43 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:2
95.43 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:4
95.43 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:4
95.40 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:4
95.37 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:0
95.37 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:1
95.37 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:4
95.33 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:0
95.30 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:1
95.27 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:1
95.27 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:1
95.27 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:3
95.27 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:3
95.23 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:0
95.23 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:4
95.20 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:1
95.20 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:2
95.20 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:3
95.17 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:1
95.17 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:1
95.17 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:3
95.10 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:2
95.10 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:3
95.07 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:1
95.07 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:2
95.07 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:2
95.07 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:4
95.03 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:0
95.03 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:1
95.03 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:3
95.00 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:0
95.00 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:1
95.00 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:1
95.00 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:4
94.97 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:0
94.97 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:4
94.90 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:0
94.90 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:2
94.90 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:3
94.90 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:4
94.90 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:4
94.80 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:3
94.70 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:0
94.70 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:4
94.67 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:0
94.67 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:1
94.67 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:3
94.67 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:4
94.63 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:1
94.63 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:2
94.63 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:3
94.60 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1
94.60 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:1
94.57 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:0
94.57 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:2
94.57 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:3
94.53 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:1
94.53 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:2
94.53 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:2
94.50 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:4
94.50 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:4
94.50 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:4
94.43 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:2
94.40 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:3

Number of demonstrations = 1
99.40 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:0
99.37 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:2
99.30 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:4
99.27 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:2
99.23 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:3
99.20 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:3
99.17 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:0
99.17 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:3
99.13 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:1
99.10 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:1
99.07 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:1
99.03 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:0
99.03 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:1
99.03 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:3
99.03 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:4
99.03 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:4
99.00 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:0
99.00 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:0
99.00 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:0
99.00 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:1
99.00 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:3
98.97 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
98.97 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:1
98.97 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:1
98.97 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:1
98.97 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:3
98.97 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:3
98.93 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1
98.90 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:2
98.90 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:2
98.87 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:0
98.87 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:2
98.87 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:2
98.83 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:0
98.83 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:1
98.83 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:2
98.83 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:3
98.83 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:3
98.83 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:3
98.80 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
98.80 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1
98.80 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:3
98.80 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:3
98.80 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:4
98.80 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:4
98.77 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:1
98.77 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:2
98.77 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:3
98.77 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:4
98.73 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:0
98.73 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:1
98.73 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:1
98.73 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:2
98.73 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:2
98.73 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:2
98.73 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:3
98.73 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:4
98.73 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:4
98.70 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:0
98.70 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:0
98.70 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:1
98.70 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:2
98.70 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:3
98.70 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:3
98.70 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:4
98.70 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:4
98.70 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:4
98.67 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:2
98.67 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:3
98.63 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:0
98.63 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:0
98.63 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:0
98.63 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:1
98.63 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:2
98.60 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:0
98.60 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:1
98.60 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:1
98.60 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:2
98.60 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:3
98.57 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:0
98.57 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:0
98.57 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:1
98.57 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:2
98.57 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:3
98.57 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:4
98.57 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:4
98.53 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:0
98.53 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:1
98.53 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:1
98.53 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:1
98.53 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:1
98.53 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:2
98.53 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:2
98.53 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:3
98.53 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:3
98.53 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:4
98.53 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:4
98.50 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:0
98.50 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:2
98.50 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:3
98.50 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:4
98.50 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:4
98.50 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:4
98.47 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:0
98.47 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:1
98.47 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:2
98.47 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:2
98.47 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:3
98.47 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:3
98.47 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:4
98.43 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:0
98.43 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:3
98.43 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:3
98.43 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:4
98.40 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:2
98.40 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:4
98.40 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:4
98.40 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:4
98.37 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:0
98.37 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:1
98.37 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:2
98.37 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:2
98.37 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:3
98.37 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:3
98.37 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:4
98.33 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:0
98.33 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:0
98.33 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:0
98.33 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:1
98.33 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:1
98.33 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:3
98.30 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:1
98.30 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:3 etali:2
98.30 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:2
98.30 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:2
98.30 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:3
98.27 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:0
98.27 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:1
98.27 casc6:6 casc8:0 wincon:6 etali:3
98.27 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:3
98.27 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:4
98.23 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:2 etali:1
98.23 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:1
98.23 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:2
98.20 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:3
98.20 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:4
98.17 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:3
98.13 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:0
98.13 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:2
98.13 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:2

Number of demonstrations = 2
99.77 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:0
99.77 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:0
99.73 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1
99.73 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:2
99.73 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:2
99.70 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:0
99.70 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:1
99.67 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:0
99.67 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:1
99.67 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:2
99.67 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:2
99.67 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:3
99.63 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:0
99.63 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:0
99.63 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:1
99.63 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:3
99.63 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:3
99.63 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:3
99.60 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:0
99.60 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
99.60 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:1
99.60 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:1
99.60 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:1
99.60 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:2
99.60 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:2
99.60 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:2
99.60 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:2
99.60 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:4
99.57 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:1
99.57 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:1
99.57 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:2
99.57 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:2 etali:2
99.57 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:3
99.57 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:4
99.53 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:0
99.53 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:0
99.53 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:0
99.53 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:1
99.53 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:1
99.53 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:1
99.53 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:1
99.53 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:2
99.53 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:3
99.53 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:3
99.53 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:3
99.53 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:3
99.53 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:3
99.53 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:4
99.50 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:0
99.50 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:0
99.50 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:1
99.50 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:1
99.50 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:1
99.50 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:1
99.50 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:1
99.50 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:2
99.50 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:2
99.50 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:2
99.50 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:3
99.50 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:3
99.50 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:3
99.50 casc6:7 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:4
99.50 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:4
99.47 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:4 etali:0
99.47 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:3 etali:0
99.47 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:0
99.47 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:0
99.47 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:0
99.47 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:4 etali:1
99.47 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:1
99.47 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:1
99.47 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:1
99.47 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:2
99.47 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:2
99.47 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:3
99.47 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:3
99.47 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:3
99.47 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:3
99.47 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:3
99.47 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:3
99.47 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:4
99.43 casc6:7 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:0
99.43 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:0
99.43 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:0
99.43 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:1
99.43 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:1
99.43 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:1
99.43 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:1
99.43 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:1
99.43 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:2
99.43 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:2
99.43 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:2
99.43 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:3
99.43 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:3
99.43 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:4
99.40 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:0
99.40 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:0
99.40 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:0
99.40 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:5 etali:1
99.40 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:2 etali:1
99.40 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:2
99.40 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:2
99.40 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:3 etali:3
99.40 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:3
99.40 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:3
99.40 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:4
99.40 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:4
99.37 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:0
99.37 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:0
99.37 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:1
99.37 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:3 etali:2
99.37 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:2
99.37 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:2 etali:2
99.37 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:2
99.37 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:2
99.37 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:3
99.37 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:3
99.37 casc6:6 casc8:0 wincon:6 etali:4
99.37 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:4
99.37 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:4
99.37 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:4
99.37 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:2 etali:4
99.37 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:4
99.33 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
99.33 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:2 etali:0
99.33 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:0
99.33 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:1
99.33 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1
99.33 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:1
99.33 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:1
99.33 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:2
99.33 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:2
99.33 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:2
99.33 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:3
99.33 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:4
99.33 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:4
99.30 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:0
99.30 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
99.30 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:0
99.30 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:0
99.30 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:0
99.30 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:1
99.30 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:2
99.30 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:2
99.30 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:3
99.30 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:3
99.30 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:3
99.30 casc6:9 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:4
99.30 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:4
99.30 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:4

Number of demonstrations = 4
99.97 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
99.97 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:1
99.97 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:2
99.93 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:2 etali:1
99.90 casc6:7 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:0
99.90 casc6:8 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:0
99.90 casc6:9 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:0
99.90 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:3 etali:0
99.90 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:2 etali:0
99.90 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:0
99.90 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:0
99.90 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:3 etali:1
99.90 casc6:8 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:1
99.90 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:1
99.90 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:1
99.90 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:1
99.90 casc6:7 casc8:0 wincon:6 etali:2
99.90 casc6:10 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:2
99.90 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:2
99.90 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:3
99.87 casc6:8 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:0
99.87 casc6:10 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:0
99.87 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:0
99.87 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:0
99.87 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:1 etali:0
99.87 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:2 etali:0
99.87 casc6:8 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:1
99.87 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:3 etali:1
99.87 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:1
99.87 casc6:9 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:1
99.87 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1
99.87 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:1 etali:1
99.87 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:4 etali:2
99.87 casc6:8 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:2
99.87 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:4
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:1 wincon:5 etali:0
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:0
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:0
99.83 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:0
99.83 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:2 etali:0
99.83 casc6:10 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:0
99.83 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:0
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:2 etali:0
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:0 wincon:6 etali:1
99.83 casc6:6 casc8:0 wincon:6 etali:1
99.83 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:1
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:3 etali:1
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:1
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:1
99.83 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:2
99.83 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:1 etali:2
99.83 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:2 etali:2
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:2
99.83 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:2
99.83 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:2
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:3
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:3 etali:3
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:3
99.83 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:3
99.83 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:3
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:0 wincon:6 etali:4
99.83 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:4
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:0 wincon:4 etali:0
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:0 wincon:6 etali:0
99.80 casc6:9 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:0
99.80 casc6:9 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:0
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:1 etali:0
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:0
99.80 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:0
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:0
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:0
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
99.80 casc6:11 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:0
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:0
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:0
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:0
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:0
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:5 etali:1
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:1
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:4 etali:1
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:2 etali:1
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:1
99.80 casc6:10 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:1
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:1
99.80 casc6:10 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:1
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:1
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:1
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:2 wincon:4 etali:2
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:2
99.80 casc6:9 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:2
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:2 etali:2
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:2
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:2
99.80 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:2
99.80 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:2
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:2
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:1 wincon:4 etali:3
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:3
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:2 etali:3
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:3
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:2 etali:3
99.80 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:3
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:2 etali:3
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:4
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:4
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:1 etali:4
99.80 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:4
99.77 casc6:6 casc8:0 wincon:4 etali:0
99.77 casc6:7 casc8:0 wincon:6 etali:0
99.77 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:5 etali:0
99.77 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:3 etali:0
99.77 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:4 etali:0
99.77 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:2 etali:0
99.77 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:0
99.77 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
99.77 casc6:10 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:0
99.77 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:0
99.77 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:0
99.77 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:0
99.77 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:0
99.77 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:0
99.77 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:0
99.77 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:2 etali:0
99.77 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:1
99.77 casc6:9 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:1
99.77 casc6:9 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:1
99.77 casc6:9 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:1
99.77 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:1
99.77 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:1 etali:1
99.77 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:1
99.77 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1
99.77 casc6:10 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:1
99.77 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:1
99.77 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:1
99.77 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:1
99.77 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:1
99.77 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:1
99.77 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:5 etali:2
99.77 casc6:8 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:2
99.77 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:3 etali:2
99.77 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:3 etali:2
99.77 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:2
99.77 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:2
99.77 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:2
99.77 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:2
99.77 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:2 etali:2
99.77 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:2
99.77 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:2 etali:2
99.77 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:2
99.77 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:2

Number of demonstrations = 999
99.97 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:1 etali:0
99.93 casc6:8 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:0
99.93 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:2 etali:0
99.93 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:0
99.93 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:0
99.90 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:4 etali:0
99.90 casc6:8 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:0
99.90 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:0
99.90 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:0
99.90 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:0
99.90 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:1
99.90 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:1
99.90 casc6:10 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:1
99.90 casc6:7 casc8:1 wincon:5 etali:2
99.90 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:2
99.90 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:3 etali:3
99.90 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:3
99.90 casc6:7 casc8:1 wincon:5 etali:4
99.87 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:4 etali:0
99.87 casc6:7 casc8:1 wincon:5 etali:0
99.87 casc6:9 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:0
99.87 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:0
99.87 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
99.87 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:0
99.87 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:0
99.87 casc6:6 casc8:0 wincon:5 etali:1
99.87 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:3 etali:1
99.87 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:4 etali:1
99.87 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:1
99.87 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:1
99.87 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:1 etali:1
99.87 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:3 etali:2
99.87 casc6:10 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:2
99.87 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:2
99.87 casc6:9 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:2
99.87 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:4
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:0 wincon:5 etali:0
99.83 casc6:8 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:0
99.83 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:0
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:0
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:0
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:0
99.83 casc6:10 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:0
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:0
99.83 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:0
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:0
99.83 casc6:9 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:0
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:0
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:1
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:1
99.83 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:1
99.83 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:1
99.83 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:1
99.83 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:2 etali:1
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:1
99.83 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:6 etali:1
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:1
99.83 casc6:8 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:2
99.83 casc6:8 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:2
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:2 etali:2
99.83 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:2
99.83 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:2
99.83 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:2
99.83 casc6:10 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:2
99.83 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:3
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:0
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:3 etali:0
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:3 etali:0
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:4 etali:0
99.80 casc6:9 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:0
99.80 casc6:9 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:0
99.80 casc6:10 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:0
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:0
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:0
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:1 etali:0
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:1 etali:0
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:2 etali:0
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:0
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:0
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:0
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:5 etali:0
99.80 casc6:10 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:0
99.80 casc6:9 casc8:6 wincon:6 etali:0
99.80 casc6:10 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:1
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:1
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:2 etali:1
99.80 casc6:9 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:1
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:1
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:1
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:1
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:1
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:1
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:1
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:1
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:0 wincon:5 etali:2
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:4 etali:2
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:2
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:2
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:2 etali:2
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:3 etali:2
99.80 casc6:10 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:2
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:1 etali:2
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:2
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:2
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:5 etali:2
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:2
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:2 etali:2
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:2 etali:2
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:2
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:0 wincon:6 etali:3
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:3
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:2 wincon:5 etali:3
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:3
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:2 etali:3
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:3
99.80 casc6:10 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:3
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:3
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:1 etali:3
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:3
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:0 wincon:6 etali:4
99.80 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:4
99.80 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:2 etali:4
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:4
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:2 etali:4
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:4
99.77 casc6:9 casc8:1 wincon:6 etali:0
99.77 casc6:6 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:0
99.77 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:3 etali:0
99.77 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:0
99.77 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:2 etali:0
99.77 casc6:7 casc8:4 wincon:2 etali:0
99.77 casc6:11 casc8:4 wincon:6 etali:0
99.77 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:1 etali:0
99.77 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:2 etali:0
99.77 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:0
99.77 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:0
99.77 casc6:6 casc8:5 wincon:5 etali:0
99.77 casc6:7 casc8:0 wincon:6 etali:1
99.77 casc6:6 casc8:1 wincon:4 etali:1
99.77 casc6:8 casc8:2 wincon:6 etali:1
99.77 casc6:6 casc8:3 wincon:2 etali:1
99.77 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:3 etali:1
99.77 casc6:7 casc8:3 wincon:5 etali:1
99.77 casc6:9 casc8:3 wincon:6 etali:1
99.77 casc6:6 casc8:4 wincon:2 etali:1
99.77 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1
99.77 casc6:7 casc8:5 wincon:1 etali:1

d3spam

01-25-2024, 09:24 PM

Here's the same data, but constrained to casc6 >= 6 and emrakul <= 4

Number of demonstrations = 0
93.43 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:2
93.37 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1
93.13 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:3
93.03 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:4
92.67 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:4
92.60 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:1
92.47 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:1
92.47 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:2
92.27 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
92.20 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1
92.03 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:2
92.03 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:4
91.97 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:4
91.93 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:3
91.93 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:3
91.87 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:0
91.87 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:2
91.87 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:3
91.83 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:3
91.83 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:4
91.80 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
91.73 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:2
91.73 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:3
91.70 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:1
91.63 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:1
91.47 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:4
91.27 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:0
91.23 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:2
91.20 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:3
91.17 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:0
91.17 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:4
91.07 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:0
91.00 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:1
90.97 casc6:10 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
90.93 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:2
90.90 casc6:9 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:4
90.80 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:0
90.77 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:2
90.73 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:4
90.63 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:1
90.63 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:2
90.60 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:0
90.60 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:3
90.57 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:3
90.53 casc6:10 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:3
90.50 casc6:9 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:1
90.47 casc6:9 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:3
90.47 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:4
90.40 casc6:10 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:2
90.27 casc6:10 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1

Number of demonstrations = 1
97.67 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:3
97.50 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1
97.43 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:2
97.43 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:3
97.33 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:2
97.30 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:0
97.30 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:2
97.30 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:3
97.30 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:4
97.17 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:4
97.13 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:1
97.10 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
97.07 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:4
97.00 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:1
96.97 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:2
96.90 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:0
96.87 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:0
96.80 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1
96.77 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:4
96.73 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
96.70 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:1
96.70 casc6:9 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:3
96.67 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:3
96.47 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:4
96.43 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:1
96.43 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:2
96.43 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:2
96.43 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:3
96.43 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:4
96.40 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:3
96.37 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:4
96.33 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:3
96.33 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:3
96.30 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:4
96.27 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:1
96.20 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:2
96.20 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:3
96.20 casc6:9 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:4
96.13 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:0
96.13 casc6:9 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:3
96.10 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:0
96.00 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:3
95.97 casc6:10 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1
95.97 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:2
95.90 casc6:9 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:4
95.87 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:3 etali:0
95.80 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:0
95.77 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:2 etali:0
95.77 casc6:10 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
95.77 casc6:9 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:1

Number of demonstrations = 2
99.40 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:4
99.33 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:3
99.30 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
99.30 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:2
99.27 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:3
99.17 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1
99.13 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:0
99.10 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:0
99.10 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1
99.10 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:2
99.07 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:3
99.03 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:1
99.03 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:3
98.93 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:0
98.93 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:1
98.93 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:2
98.93 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:2
98.93 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:4
98.90 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:0
98.87 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:1
98.87 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:1
98.83 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:1
98.83 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:4
98.80 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
98.80 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:1
98.80 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:3
98.77 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:1
98.77 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:3
98.77 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:4
98.77 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:4
98.73 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:2
98.70 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:2
98.70 casc6:9 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:4
98.67 casc6:10 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1
98.67 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:4
98.63 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:4
98.60 casc6:9 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:2
98.60 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:3
98.57 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:0
98.57 casc6:9 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:0
98.53 casc6:9 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:1
98.53 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:2 etali:3
98.53 casc6:9 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:3
98.53 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:4
98.47 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:0
98.47 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:2 etali:1
98.47 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:2
98.47 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:3
98.43 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:2
98.43 casc6:10 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:3

Number of demonstrations = 4
99.97 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
99.90 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:1
99.87 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1
99.83 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:2 etali:0
99.83 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:2 etali:2
99.83 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:3
99.83 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:4
99.80 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:0
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:1
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:2 wincon:4 etali:2
99.80 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:2
99.80 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:3
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:2 etali:3
99.77 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
99.77 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:2 etali:0
99.77 casc6:9 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:1
99.77 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1
99.77 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:1
99.77 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:2
99.77 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:2 etali:2
99.77 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:2
99.77 casc6:9 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:3
99.73 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:0
99.73 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:0
99.73 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:0
99.73 casc6:9 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:0
99.73 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:2 etali:1
99.73 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:2 etali:1
99.73 casc6:9 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:1
99.73 casc6:10 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:3
99.70 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:3 etali:0
99.70 casc6:9 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:0
99.70 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:0
99.70 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:1 etali:1
99.70 casc6:10 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:1
99.70 casc6:9 casc8:3 wincon:3 etali:2
99.70 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:2
99.70 casc6:9 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:2
99.70 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:3
99.70 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:2 etali:4
99.67 casc6:8 casc8:2 wincon:4 etali:0
99.67 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:0
99.67 casc6:10 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
99.67 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:2 etali:0
99.67 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:0
99.67 casc6:8 casc8:1 wincon:4 etali:1
99.67 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:1
99.67 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:1
99.67 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:1
99.67 casc6:9 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:2

Number of demonstrations = 999
99.90 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:0
99.90 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:0
99.87 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
99.87 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:0
99.83 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:1
99.83 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:2
99.83 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:2
99.83 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:3
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:2 etali:0
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:0
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:2
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:2 etali:2
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:2
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:3
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:3
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:4
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:2 etali:4
99.80 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:4
99.77 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:0
99.77 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:1 etali:0
99.77 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:0
99.77 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1
99.77 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:3
99.77 casc6:9 casc8:6 wincon:3 etali:3
99.77 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:2 etali:4
99.77 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:4
99.73 casc6:8 casc8:2 wincon:4 etali:0
99.73 casc6:9 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:0
99.73 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:2 etali:0
99.73 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:0
99.73 casc6:8 casc8:2 wincon:4 etali:1
99.73 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:3 etali:1
99.73 casc6:9 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:1
99.73 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:1
99.73 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:1
99.73 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:1
99.73 casc6:8 casc8:6 wincon:4 etali:1
99.73 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:2
99.73 casc6:8 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:3
99.73 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:3
99.73 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:4
99.70 casc6:9 casc8:4 wincon:3 etali:0
99.70 casc6:10 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:0
99.70 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:2 etali:1
99.70 casc6:10 casc8:3 wincon:4 etali:1
99.70 casc6:10 casc8:4 wincon:4 etali:1
99.70 casc6:9 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:1
99.70 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:4 etali:1
99.70 casc6:8 casc8:3 wincon:2 etali:2
99.70 casc6:8 casc8:5 wincon:3 etali:2