[Deck] Low Tide

[serenechaos]

Took a list a few cards off this one to Legacy this week, it was a lot of fun and Harness Infinity won me a game.

Combo
3 Shigeki, Jukai Visionary
3 Colossal Skyturtle

Mana
4 Dictate of Karametra
4 Early Harvest
1 Turnabout

Ramp
4 Growth Spiral
4 Joint Exploration
1 Atarka's Command

Dig/Tutor
4 Grisly Salvage
4 Brainstorm
1 Forbidden Alchemy
1 Mystical Teachings

Graveyard
1 Noxious Revival
1 Bound // Determined
1 Harness Infinity

Lands
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
1 Volcanic Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
4 Forest
3 Island
3 Swamp
1 Mountain

Sideboard
4 Endurance
4 Summer's Veil
4 Force of Negation
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Memory's Journey

The combo is pretty straightforward, Shigeki+Turtle+Harvest or Shigeki+Noxious+cantrip+Harvest for infinite mana and infinite recursion of every card.

+The entire deck is instant speed, including the land drops
+The wincon gets under hexproof and infinite life
+The actual combo is uncounterable and unaffected by cast restrictions
+Alternate wincon of flying turtles is pretty solid
+Most of the combo is self-resilient
+(Mostly) Basic manabase semi-blanks Wasteland
+You get to play beautiful $2 extended art foils of Harness Infinity

-You have to play bad cards
-You won't win any games


Lots of potential number shuffling and card choices; Force of Vigor is decent in the sb, Veils can be maindeck in a blue meta, Pact of Negation (and possibly Summoner's Pact) are very strong if you stay instant speed, whereas Uro is basically a must-include if you don't.

Deck is too slow to be competitive, but very fun and pleasant to pilot. Every card is beautiful and nature themed and you can build almost the entire maindeck for pennies in foiled special arts. My deck is almost entirely foil, extended/foil art when possible, Spiral and Brainstorm are each 4 different foil arts. Shocks are also very viable here, so that helps the budget immensely. There's tons of accidental tech and elegant overlap, and fully-instant decks have always been a soft spot of mine.

[FTW]

Combo
3 Shigeki, Jukai Visionary
3 Colossal Skyturtle

Mana
4 Dictate of Karametra
4 Early Harvest
1 Turnabout

Ramp
4 Growth Spiral
4 Joint Exploration
1 Atarka's Command

Dig/Tutor
4 Grisly Salvage
4 Brainstorm
1 Forbidden Alchemy
1 Mystical Teachings

Graveyard
1 Noxious Revival
1 Bound // Determined
1 Harness Infinity

Lands
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
1 Volcanic Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
4 Forest
3 Island
3 Swamp
1 Mountain

Sideboard
4 Endurance
4 Summer's Veil
4 Force of Negation
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Memory's Journey



Very creative idea!

I wonder if there's a way to modify this to make it more viable.

I suspect it will involve making room for Veil of Summer and Force of Will. Maybe Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath as a ramp spell & backup plan.

You could also clean up the manabase with Prismatic Vista and then rework the remaining fetches & duals so that any fetch finds any dual. For example, Misty Rainforest finds all 5 of your duals while the others don't, making Misty better than any fetch other than Prismatic Vista.

I'm going to tinker around with this a bit and see if anything helps.

Edit: You can safely cut Red, simplifying your mana. I guess Atarka's Command is there as an instant wincon? You could play something on color like 1 Brain Freeze or Blue Sun's Zenith instead (both dodge infinite life, but not Hexproof).

Edit2: You can play 4 Cunning Wish main, put 1 Early Harvest SB, and then hide the wincon in the SB. You can Wish for it when needed. You can also then Wish for answers to strange problems.
Harness Infinity should be overkill most of the time. You could play 1 in the Wishboard or just cut it.

[FTW]

Ok the following brew attempts the same plan, but with fewer colors, more interaction, and a lower curve.

The infinite loop requires 2G + 4GG + 1GG + 1 = 13 mana!! (Turtle + Shigeki X=2 + Harvest) That's a lot. It's impossible without Dictate in play (unless you play 13 basics). Even with Dictate, you need 7 basics in play. That is no easy feat. So I added Ice-Fang and Uro to stall and be a fair wincon.


//Spells: 24
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Veil of Summer
4 Growth Spiral
3 Once Upon A Time
4 Cunning Wish

//Creatures: 13
4 Ice-Fang Coatl
4 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
3 Colossal Skyturtle
2 Shigeki, Jukai Visionary

//Enchantments: 3
3 Dictate of Karametra

//Lands: 20
4 Prismatic Vista
4 Misty Rainforest
5 Snow-Covered Forest
6 Snow-Covered Island
1 Tropical Island

//Sideboard: 15
1 Early Harvest
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Noxious Revival
1 Flusterstorm
1 Cyclonic Rift
2 Force of Vigor
2 Veil of Summer
2 Run Afoul
3 Endurance


Once Upon A Time seems like an upgrade on Grisly Salvage, since you're not getting much value out of cards in the graveyard. Impulse is also possible. Uro profits off Grisly Salvage a lot more, though I don't know if it's worth the 3rd color.

Cunning Wish lets you hide the wincon in the SB. I chose Blue Sun's Zenith because it can also draw your deck with infinite mana, then goes back to library (cast cantrip to redraw), then you can Zenith opponent to death. Brain Freeze could work too, but it doesn't draw your deck, it loses to reshuffles like Emrakul, and opponent doesn't actually lose until their next draw step. Wish can also find untaps (Early Harvest/Turnabout), removal, and recursion (Noxious).

Heartbeat of Spring is much cheaper to cast than Dictate, but is sorcery speed and could backfire before you can go off. Since you need 7 lands either way, Dictate seems fine.

Edit: Since Early Harvest is essentially useless until you have 13 mana, it can be hidden in the Wishboard. The maindeck now has 0 combo-only pieces. Every piece is either in the Wishboard or is viable without the combo. Dictate is the worst card left.

Edit2: Ponder is probably just better than Joint Exploration. Ponder is a sorcery and doesn't put more land in play, but it's much more mana-efficient at setting you up. Most of the deck is still instant speed. I think it's more important to lower the curve so you can actually do stuff. Thought Scour is another instant speed option at 1 mana.

[serenechaos]

You very rarely need that much mana or that many basics to begin the loop. Having a second Dictate or Harvest makes it trivial, using Turnabout instead of Harvest changes the requirements, and anything in the yard at the time is potential gas to keep going or find the piece you need like a second Harvest.

Harvest is quite fine on it's own, I've never found it to be in the way. Typically 5 or 6 basics is fairly easy and quick to achieve, at which point Harvests can give you huge bursts during setup and then be in your graveyard for when you can launch with Shigeki.

The point of Atarka's Command as the wincon is that it is completely free to include; it is a combo deck based around playing lands and filtering cards, so adding a single color for a wincon is free and it isn't even necessary to have any red lands when you go off since you can just draw your whole deck and Spiral one. If you want you can play a single basic Mountain or red dual to minimize it's impact.


It also does the instant speed land drop, has utility modes, beats hexproof, and beats infinite life, all without dropping the stack when you're going off (if, for example, you want to play Pacts and then go off in response to the trigger). Your list is going to struggle tremendously to find enough basics to combo off, since you have no way to get more of them out besides Uro, only 3 Dictates, and one of your Harvests costs 3 more. Any other wincon is valid since you just need to insert whatever card you want into the loop, there's just not really any good reason to change it and it has a lot of advantages I like.

Grisly Salvage is way better than Once Upon a Time because the entire deck is centered around manipulating the graveyard. Half of the infinite combo is instant speed uncounterable Regrowths, and Shigeki even does more milling and ramping for you. Hence also Alchemy and Teachings, which are only one-ofs but fairly reliable with heavy mill and cantripping. USZ will perform a very similar function in being a powerful draw spell while setting up, although it will be extremely expensive to do so at which point you can probably just go off anyway.

Ponder and Heartbeat are easy inclusions if you move off instant speed. If you get to play Heartbeat I would probably do 4 Heartbeat+1 Dictate.

Using Cunning Wish is an ok way to compact and centralize the combo, the downsides will obviously be the extra mana, and the fact that you can only use it for Harvest and your wincon (if it's an instant). Teachings performs a similar function while giving yard value and also fetching Dictate and any other card you decide to include in the instant speed version (like Snapcaster for example).

Harness Infinity is obviously silly, but not as silly as it looks. Mana cost means very little in this deck which means it is just an instant speed superior YawgWill. It has never been something I have been upset about drawing because the cost is relatively easy to reach and it means I have an ace waiting when I'm ready to go off. It's a very good cut if you are making room for actually good cards, but in a deck that makes mana and wins with the yard like this there's basically nothing more powerful you can do in a single card.

I would basically never move Noxious Revival out of the 60 if I already have reasons to play it, it is simply one of the best Magic cards available. My friends and I thought it was just a cute protection option when we started using it in Cheeri0s and now it's won me almost as many games as some of my wincons.

Ice Fang is a very solid option and free to include since it already checks every box and there is no real difference in snow lands. If you are facing a lot of creature decks, Coatl and/or Subtlety will help immensely on top of Turtle's bounce ability and the rare Turnabout tapout on your opponent. Creatures are a very severe weakness since the only maindeck interaction is block-fogging with Shigeki and bouncing with Turtle.

[rufus]

An obvious possibility would be to switch from Early Harvest to Reset, and from Dictate of Karametra to High Tide with a mana base full of island duals. With that it's possible to go off with 4 lands.

Early harvest is neat, but for a combo that can go off at instant speed, the lower cost and non-basic support on reset make a big difference. High tide is a double improvement over dictate since it both costs less to cast and can be doubled with the recursion effects.

[serenechaos]

You could definitely go a straight High Tide route, although if you do I strongly strongly recommend using Turnabout instead of Reset. Possibly even 4 Turnabout 1 Harvest. Reset's timing restriction is worse than having Ponders in your instant speed deck.

The primary advantage Dictate has over High Tide is that you can basically have an extra half a turn of economy by dropping Dictate eot and spending as much mana as possible. Being permanent also isn't trivial, although as you pointed out High Tides can just be Regrowth'd. Harvest also means being resilient to Wasteland.

Overall I would say High Tide+Turnabout is probably superior for comboing and consistency, while Dictate and Harvest offer some niche advantages.

[FTW]

An obvious possibility would be to switch from Early Harvest to Reset, and from Dictate of Karametra to High Tide with a mana base full of island duals. With that it's possible to go off with 4 lands.

Early harvest is neat, but for a combo that can go off at instant speed, the lower cost and non-basic support on reset make a big difference. High tide is a double improvement over dictate since it both costs less to cast and can be doubled with the recursion effects.

Yeah, that's the obvious boost. But then you're just High Tide.

Once you're on that mana engine, there's no reason to keep green. The remaining green cards just let you play extra lands (unnecessary since Tide needs 4) and regrowth things (blue has Snapcaster Mage), so you're either a bad multicolor version of High Tide or just slowly morph into regular High Tide. It's more interesting to build in a different design space, even if Early Harvest is hard to work with.


You very rarely need that much mana or that many basics to begin the loop. Having a second Dictate or Harvest makes it trivial, using Turnabout instead of Harvest changes the requirements, and anything in the yard at the time is potential gas to keep going or find the piece you need like a second Harvest.

Maybe I missed something big. How many lands and resources do you usually need to start going off?

Do you usually wait until you resolve 2 Dictates so you only need 5 lands? (still means committing 10 mana on earlier turns)

If you have just 1 Harvest + 1 Dictate + 5 lands, do you start trying to chain off cantrips hoping to hit another Harvest or Dictate? Do you commit to casting the 1st Harvest before knowing if you'll hit 7 lands or another Harvest? Does that usually work? I didn't try that line because the fizzle risk seems high. For example, Growth Spiral is a neutral play. It draws 1 card & plays 1 land (netting 0 mana & 0 cards). Joint Exploration can scry but nets -1 mana & 0 cards. Both only replace themselves (probably a land if you didn't have enough & want to take advantage of the free land drop). They can't get both another land and another spell. The deck doesn't have anything like Meditate to accumulate resources while digging. So I didn't try the risk of non-deterministic digging. Is that how the deck usually plays?

I guess if you "fizzle" you can pass and continue next turn, unlike a storm deck or High Tide. But then that makes it riskier to do the whole "go off in response to opponent winning" thing that instant speed combos want to do.



Your list is going to struggle tremendously to find enough basics to combo off, since you have no way to get more of them out besides Uro, only 3 Dictates, and one of your Harvests costs 3 more.

4 Growth Spiral + 4 Uro does as much as 4 Growth Spiral + 4 Joint Exploration. The only difference is you can Joint Exploration on the combo turn to add lands at instant speed, while Uro is sorcery speed. But Uro is overall such a stronger card. The lifegain keeps you alive. The potential threat forces them to keep removal in the deck, otherwise you just win with Uro.

I worked on the premise that you need 6-7 basics and a multi-card combo to safely execute the loop (Dictate + Early Harvest + regrowth effects). That takes a while to set up. So then I wanted most of the cards to not be bad pre-combo on the set-up turns. The game plan was not to goldfish the combo fast, but to be able to curve out smoothly with low internal variance, interact with opponent, and also present fair threats they have to deal with before you get the critical mass of combo pieces. It can just cantrip, play an Uro game, and amass lands. At some point you get to 6 lands + Dictate + Shigeki/Turtle + Wish, with Turtle/Shikegi in hand or graveyard. EOT Dictate on 6 lands (can hold up Force and/or Veil). Untap. Play 7th land & go infinite (Wish -> Harvest -> float mana & untap -> Channel Shigeki X=2 -> Return Harvest & Turtle -> Harvest -> ... ). If you don't have a 7th land, there's enough spare mana to Channel X=3 returning a fetch. Spending mana on Wish doesn't really obstruct the combo turn if you have enough resources to loop, since you're still +6 mana after Wish+Harvest. You could also Wish on an earlier turn. If opponent kills Dictate or counters Wish/Harvest, it's not a big deal because you haven't committed many resources. The other cards have a "fair" mode, so you can pivot back into Uro or Skyturtle beatdown.

The point of lowering the curve and reducing the colors was so that you can consistently curve out and cast things on turn 1, turn 2, turn 3, etc. Drawing opening hands with a mismatch between colors of basics and draw spells (UG + Grisly Salvage, UB + Growth Spiral, RGB + Joint Exploration, UGB + Atarka) can make those early turns stumble. I wanted to minimize that. Grisly Salvage and Atarka are amazing when you have the right mana, but what about when you don't draw mana in the order you want? Nonbasics also slow down your progression (-1 land drop), since they don't work with Early Harvest. Reducing colors means both more stable early mana and not wasting land drops on nonbasics. Atarka is great, but if there's any suitable wincon in colors, isn't that smoother? Splashing is never free. It's "free" for the combo turn, but it affects the variance and dead cards in the early turns.

I also wanted to avoid having too many unwanted combo pieces in hand before ready to go off. That's why I went down to 3 Dictates and put Harvest in the SB. Dictate is expensive and symmetrical, so I didn't want them clogging my hand until ready to go off. You could cast Dictate earlier to cantrip faster, but opponent can use the mana to do nasty things like hardcast Griselbrand or sculpt into a ton of disruption. Seems risky. Heartbeat of Spring comes out sooner, but then you risk giving opponent boosted mana for even more turns, so is that better? Do you ever get punished by boosting opponent's mana and not going off that same turn?

If you're able to go off consistently on 5 lands, that does make a difference. I built under the assumption that you need more lands, and therefore need to be able to curve out and survive the early turns to even get there. Redundant combo pieces aren't as bad to have if you can go off earlier. I guess you can use Early Harvest as a ritual to play cantrips faster, like you said.


Took a list a few cards off this one to Legacy this week, it was a lot of fun and Harness Infinity won me a game.

What decks did you play against? How did you do? Were there any obvious strengths and weaknesses from those matches?

[serenechaos]

I apologize, I thought your list had also dropped the Spirals and only had Uro.

I think the reason you are feeling like you need so much mana is that you are not taking the sequence into account, just the raw numbers required. 2x Dictates can come down fairly easily on the same turn. Assuming 4 basics 2 shocks and Turtle in hand, you go Dictate-->tap out (4)-->Harvest (1)-->9-->Turtle for Harvest (6)-->Harvest (3)-->5-->Dictate (0)-->9-->Shigeki loop begins. A fifth basic in hand, second Harvest in hand or yard, or second Turtle in hand makes the loop even easier. A second Harvest instead of a second Dictate, a Harness Infinity, or any extra combo pieces in yard that can be accessed the turn before, all serve the same function.

My weekly Legacy meta is rather quirky, but I played against Shadow, Elves, and Lands. Vs Shadow the deck itself did ok, but there's just no way to handle fast creatures efficiently enough. Elves was much closer, about a half turn difference between us each game.

Lands I drew with but g3 was a wild toss up because of several misplays I made. Turtle bouncing Marit Lage was great though.

Edit: I should also say the deck felt basically impervious to all of the hate I saw. I played through aggressive discard, spheres, Glacial Chasm, yard hate, and WasteLoam. It was always just dying before I quite got there.

Edit 2: I'm really liking a lot of your input on this, and I'm glad people like the concept. If you'd be interested we could write up a proper primer; this has a lot of very good directions to go, from semi-viable extreme budget deck (playing shocks or even full basics and Vistas, cheap near-replacements like Autumn's Veil, etc) to relatively competitive brew to fun art piece.

[FTW]

I think the reason you are feeling like you need so much mana is that you are not taking the sequence into account, just the raw numbers required. 2x Dictates can come down fairly easily on the same turn. Assuming 4 basics 2 shocks and Turtle in hand, you go Dictate-->tap out (4)-->Harvest (1)-->9-->Turtle for Harvest (6)-->Harvest (3)-->5-->Dictate (0)-->9-->Shigeki loop begins. A fifth basic in hand, second Harvest in hand or yard, or second Turtle in hand makes the loop even easier. A second Harvest instead of a second Dictate, a Harness Infinity, or any extra combo pieces in yard that can be accessed the turn before, all serve the same function.

True. I guess that is a reason in favor of running the full set of Harvests and Dictates, because the 2nd copy is useful. If you're going for lines like that, I see why using Cunning Wish to get Early Harvest would hurt. I'm not punished for it in the line I was going for.

Wouldn't that all work even better if you had 6 basics and 0 shocks? How much value are you really getting from the black and red splashes?



My weekly Legacy meta is rather quirky, but I played against Shadow, Elves, and Lands. Vs Shadow the deck itself did ok, but there's just no way to handle fast creatures efficiently enough. Elves was much closer, about a half turn difference between us each game.

Lands I drew with but g3 was a wild toss up because of several misplays I made. Turtle bouncing Marit Lage was great though.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing the result!

Turtle bouncing Marit Lage is a great line. I like how it also stalls Murktide, Emrakul, and Saga tokens. At worst it can get back Brainstorm. It's never dead early.


Edit: I should also say the deck felt basically impervious to all of the hate I saw. I played through aggressive discard, spheres, Glacial Chasm, yard hate, and WasteLoam. It was always just dying before I quite got there.

Good to know. I was worried about graveyard hate. I guess you dodge it well enough?

Consistent speed was my #1 concern looking at your list, which is why I was trying to lower the curve.
e.g. Ponder & OUAT let you cantrip earlier, Ice-Fang stalls creatures, Uro life stalls. Even in a full instant speed version, Ice-Fang seems useful to keep you alive.

You have a lot of cool tech like Mystical Teachings and Bound/Determined, but I fear those may be too slow for Legacy. Lands is a very slow deck, slow enough to get to use tech like that, but most Legacy decks are too fast. The core combo is expensive enough. It helps if your support cards are cheap and relevant early.

For an instant-speed version, what about something like this?

//Instants: 23
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Growth Spiral
4 Joint Exploration
4 Early Harvest
3 Cunning Wish

//Creatures: 13
4 Ice-Fang Coatl
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Shigeki, Jukai Visionary
3 Colossal Skyturtle

//Enchantments: 4
4 Dictate of Karametra

//Lands: 20
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Prismatic Vista
6 Snow-Covered Forest
6 Snow-Covered Island

//Sideboard: 15
1 Turnabout
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Noxious Revival
1 Flusterstorm
1 Force of Negation
1 Run Afoul
1 Cyclonic Rift
2 Force of Vigor
3 Veil of Summer
3 Endurance

Edit: This was OK but clunky without Grisly Harvest

This has the full set of ramp spells, Early Harvests, and Dictates. Except all lands are basics, so you should be able to go off even faster, with just 5-6 total lands in play.

Snapcaster can target Early Harvest to ramp, Growth Spiral to ramp, Brainstorm to sculpt, or other things. Both it and Ice-Fang add blockers to keep you alive.

I wish there was another turn 1 play other than Brainstorm though. Is Search for Tomorrow worth it? You can suspend it turn 1 (for +1 land) or you can cast it later for +1 land that turn (same effect as Joint Exploration). Only drawback is it's a sorcery. Maybe Consider?

[serenechaos]

Snapcaster is extremely strong as a 2 mana option to recur Harvest, since Turtle being 3 and Shigeki being 4 (or 6) do place relevant limits on what lines are possible; the only issue is that he exiles it, and that's a real problem if it was your only Harvest and you needed the extra mana for a Shigeki channel. I do like him a lot here though, there's already yard value built in and he is another cheap value body on the ground.

Yard hate is scarier than anything else, but there are a lot of small things that can be done; Endurance and possibly Memory's Journey in the sideboard (trying out rn), Regrowth effects, or if it's a Bog type effect it's fairly quick and easy to refill.

The more I think about it, the more I really like a full-basic manabase and 4 Vistas (maybe +2 dual fetches). The flexibility of being able to swap Snow lands and use Coatl for free is very nice as well.

[rufus]

...
+The actual combo is uncounterable and unaffected by cast restrictions...

Isn't Early Harvest counterable?

I guess it ends up being a totally different deck concept but a Raise Dead effect like Urborg Repossession instead of the turtle would also makes the shigeki / harvest combo a bit leaner at the cost of requiring black and being sorcery speed.

[serenechaos]

Early Harvest is counterable, but there is no opportunity for them to counter it without leaving you able to continue the combo, provided you have 3 extra mana to spare and they don't use an exotic answer. It is affected by casting restrictions unlike the channel abilities, but those are much more rare.

Turtle has the advantage of returning anything at all, and being an alternate wincon without using extra slots, but if you wanted to use sorcery speed options, cheaper effects would be very effective in making the combo faster and more reliable. Every extra one mana needed per loop means needing more land out before you can go.

Edit: Also I can't remember the name, but the fixed Harrow is an instant and can turn a nonbasic into two basics on the combo turn; with a single Dictate out it's +1 mana, otherwise it gets you to your combo turn easier.

The Coatl variants should be called Snow Tide

[FTW]

If you go off at sorcery speed, you could play actual Regrowth in colors for 1 less mana than Turtle. Turtle's better for not being bad outside the combo though. Raise Dead effects would be very narrow and only saves 2 mana in the loop.

The bigger mana suck is Shigeki. If there's a way to return 2 cards for less than 4GG, it would speed up the combo turn. Restock and Bond of Insight and Recall have exile clauses to prevent loops like this.

Shadow of the Grave randomly has a funny interaction returning all channeled cards, and it works at instant speed. Probably too narrow though. It doesn't return Early Harvest, so you'd need 2 Turtles or 1 Shigeki X=2, which means it only saves 1 mana.

Regular Harrow is an instant. It might be a better way to go +1 land for 3 mana than Joint Exploration, but it gets blown out badly by counters. The reason I was eyeing Search for Tomorrow is getting another turn 1 play.

[serenechaos]

Funny option to blow out aggro: Jaheira's Respite. 5 mana isn't unrealistic, it's just the next part of surviving to get Dictate down. Fog+fetch X basics seems pretty game ending for us. Also randomly gives you a last chance against attack-based combo decks like Elves.

[rufus]

...
Edit: Also I can't remember the name, but the fixed Harrow is an instant and can turn a nonbasic into two basics on the combo turn; with a single Dictate out it's +1 mana, otherwise it gets you to your combo turn easier.
...

Unlike Harrow, Roiling Regrowth puts the lands on the battlefield tapped.

[serenechaos]

Ah yeah, my bad, I forgot about that.

Went ahead and ordered 4 Respite to test out because it's yet another $2 full art foil with beautiful nature art. If I picked up foil Vistas right now I will still have spent less on this deck than a playset of a single dual.

Edit: Sorry, less than a single dual.

[FTW]

I tested a few games. It's still slow and needs a lot of moving pieces to come together.

One cool thing I noticed is that you don't have to go infinite or draw your deck.

Dictate + Early Harvest + 7 basics (0 nonbasics) = 25 mana!

After that
2nd Early Harvest is +11 mana
Twincast is +12 mana
Snapcaster is +9 mana (but you lose an Early Harvest)
Regrowth is +9 mana (no losing Early Harvest)
Turtle is +8 mana
Shigeki is +7 mana (or +5 mana and return a 2nd card)
2nd Dictate is +6 mana (with just 1 Early Harvest, but it scales much faster with more)

Even with just 6 lands in play instead of 7, you get a lot of mana.

The deck can generate crazy amounts of mana without infinite loop or needing to play more lands on the combo turn. You just need an efficient way to convert that mana into a win.

So what do you do with all that mana? I found spending it on a bunch of 2-3 cmc "Draw 1" was not very effective. Instead I've been using Cunning Wish immediately for Blue Sun's Zenith to draw 15-30 cards, then use those cards to generate more untaps, maybe go infinite, then dig for the reshuffled Zenith and Zenith for lethal. I found that line easier to pull off than trying to assemble the 4-card combo of Dictate+Harvest+Turtle+Shigeki.

Is there a better way to convert mana into win? (X damage effect?)

Also I found Growth Spiral very unreliable. Sometimes it just cycles and you don't gain a land drop. Spending UG to cycle is pretty bad (when it doesn't come with a flash deathtouch flying creature). In a sorcery speed version Sakura-Tribe Elder or Coiling Oracle might be better. There's of course Veteran Explorer too...

[serenechaos]

I've had trouble making Spiral consistent under 21 lands, I'm currently on 23.

Spirals are also the answer to your question; if you have most of the combo, you can just dump resources into digging. Exploration is really good here, 1 land=Preordain, if you happen to have a land in hand, it sort of only costs 1 mana, and if you're using Shigeki you can spend a few mana early to get lands back because they end up paying for themselves. Then your recurred Harvests are stronger, the next pass around the loop is much better, and you can start dumping all the cantrips and Salvages until you find the pieces or a bomb like Harness. This should also help solve your speed issues. I would recommend trying 21-23 lands and comboing much more aggressively when you have a huge pool of mana. At the very least you can end your turn massively up on your opponent so that they will get 4 extra mana and you will untap and win.

[FTW]

The speed problem was not lack of lands, but lack of resources. I could get 6 basics on turn 4 or 7 on turn 5, but then didn't have enough combo pieces. Sometimes I did, but draw variance was big over many reps, because you need to assemble multiple cards. Getting enough lands wasn't a problem.


Spirals are also the answer to your question; if you have most of the combo, you can just dump resources into digging. Exploration is really good here, 1 land=Preordain, if you happen to have a land in hand, it sort of only costs 1 mana, and if you're using Shigeki you can spend a few mana early to get lands back because they end up paying for themselves.

I tried that the first few times. I found it an inefficient way to convert mana into digging. 2-3 mana draw 1 (without guarantee of a land to drop).

Then in one game after chaining 5 cantrips and still failing to find an untap or Shigeki, I desperation Cunning Wished for Zenith to keep drawing. At that point I could only draw a few cards. But had I just Zenithed earlier, I would have drawn much more cards and dug much deeper. After that, I realized Wish for Zenith was always better if I had Wish. Think about it. 2-3 mana spent on Growth Spiral or Exploration draws 1 card, while it would draw 2-3 extra cards with Zenith. I started regretting every mana I wasn't dumping into Zenith, unless it was for Brainstorm.

Sure, you could play more lands to make the next Harvest even bigger. But is that necessary? 7 basics is already enough to make a lot of mana. At that point the bottleneck was cards/resources, not mana.

I'm now wondering if we even need to play more lands on the combo turn. Ramp to 6 or 7 -> Dictate + Harvest -> draw cards -> untaps & more mana -> infinite loop -> draw deck -> wincon.

[serenechaos]

The bottleneck is still mana, because if you have enough you can just use dump a bunch of mana into Shigeki to get back lands and cantrips. I also strongly suggest the black for Salvage and Alchemy, because they basically say "Draw 4/5" if you're attempting to go off.

[FTW]

The bottleneck is still mana, because if you have enough you can just use dump a bunch of mana into Shigeki to get back lands and cantrips. I also strongly suggest the black for Salvage and Alchemy, because they basically say "Draw 4/5" if you're attempting to go off.

Well in that game the issue was I didn't have Shigeki, and the other tools were not efficient at digging for it (some variance because all copies were near bottom of library).

In another game I had Shigeki but not Turtle. I could have used it to return a bunch of lands and Growth Spirals, but that's a lot of mana to not dig very deep. If I had access to Zenith, I always went for it, because it just converts mana into cards more efficiently.

If you have more cards, you can easily make more mana. 1 Zenith would draw me into 3 untaps and/or another 1-2 Dictates.

Edit: Spending that mana on flashback Forbidden Alchemy and friends is one option, but if I have 25+ mana floating, doing anything other than drawing 15+ cards seems bad. But I see why Grisly Salvage digs effectively.

[Vacrix]

The bottleneck is still mana, because if you have enough you can just use dump a bunch of mana into Shigeki to get back lands and cantrips. I also strongly suggest the black for Salvage and Alchemy, because they basically say "Draw 4/5" if you're attempting to go off.

How about Unbound Flourishing as an amplifier for Shigeki? It can also double the output of Candelabra of Tawnos, or Magus of the Candelabra.
Candelabra of Tawnos will double your mana when its not symmetrical, ie. X = 3 untap 6 lands.

In terms of stax, there is Chalice of the Void, and Engineered Explosives could be board tech. Blast Zone's X input is slightly easier to arrange, but its still slow as a tap. Candelabra could untap it, but I think the effect is a bit narrow, and it doesn't kill EtW tokens.

In terms of tutors, Traverse the Ulvenwald looks like it would be most efficient, since you're binning 2 enchantment-creatures as a part of your mainline. Then, fetchland and an instant produces the conditions of delirium. Before that its like a cantrip directly to a basic land. Its a really solid, criminally underplayed tutor. I've been brewing a Spring Tide list that uses it as a pseudo cantrip to find basic Islands, or w delirium Cloud of Faeries and Eternal Witness. Caravan Vigil needs morbid, which suggests you're on more removal when it bins the creature.

If you want a sac input for Veteran Explorer, perhaps Neoform or Mask of the Mimic. I also think of Green Sun's Zenith and Lotus Cobra.

I really like the idea of putting Exploration and Daze together. Perhaps getting closer to the opening line will produce some new ideas.


Earthcraft is another basic-specific untapper, and it can feed High Tide lines, and I've played it this way in cEDH. I can assure you that there is more to this card than squirrel nest.

Some more cEDH tech I've developed that you might like to consider here is (SGS), Sea Gate Stormcaller + Crop Rotation. You'd have to play a lower curve for SGS, I'd say its worth exploring as a comparable to Snapcaster Mage. The kicker can be excellent as you reach more mana, in particular w Snap. SGS + Neoform is also a neat line type, but I can't think of what 3 drops here unless you want Eternal Witness.

The list as it is doesn't feel like its disruptive enough. FTW's list makes space for more control pieces. Thing in the Ice is neat af, tho I think these lists can't produce enough iterations to support this card. That said, it is a beat stick and a wipe, and the 0/4 dodges Lightning Bolt. Spellstutter Sprite is disruptive, instant speed. Cloud of Faeries is a faerie to increase the number of faeries.

[serenechaos]

Well in that game the issue was I didn't have Shigeki, and the other tools were not efficient at digging for it (some variance because all copies were near bottom of library).

In another game I had Shigeki but not Turtle. I could have used it to return a bunch of lands and Growth Spirals, but that's a lot of mana to not dig very deep. If I had access to Zenith, I always went for it, because it just converts mana into cards more efficiently.

If you have more cards, you can easily make more mana. 1 Zenith would draw me into 3 untaps and/or another 1-2 Dictates.

Edit: Spending that mana on flashback Forbidden Alchemy and friends is one option, but if I have 25+ mana floating, doing anything other than drawing 15+ cards seems bad. But I see why Grisly Salvage digs effectively.

Hmm, I wonder if Salvage is the main source of this discrepancy. For what it's worth, if you assume a perfect game of land drops and Spiral effects, replacing one Spiral with a Salvage nearly doubles your odds of hitting the 7th land by turn 4 or 5. That's a very singular case and doesn't factor in the color strain, I'll try to get more games in when I can so I can take notes on some specific lines.

[FTW]

Hmm, I wonder if Salvage is the main source of this discrepancy. For what it's worth, if you assume a perfect game of land drops and Spiral effects, replacing one Spiral with a Salvage nearly doubles your odds of hitting the 7th land by turn 4 or 5. That's a very singular case and doesn't factor in the color strain, I'll try to get more games in when I can so I can take notes on some specific lines.

Yeah, it could be just missing the Grisly Salvages. Putting Early Harvest + 1 channeler in graveyard and the other channeler in hand would help assemble the combo quickly. Otherwise it's very cumbersome to dig for all 4 pieces with regular cantrips. Hitting lands was easy enough. I consistently hit 6-8 basics early even with 20 lands in the deck (Ponder helps). It was just assembling all the combo pieces.

If Salvage can be splashed with ~2 basic Swamp and 0 nonbasics, then it should be fine. Being all-basics was a huge advantage.


The bottleneck is still mana, because if you have enough you can just use dump a bunch of mana into Shigeki to get back lands and cantrips.

I'm curious. If you think mana is the bottleneck, how much mana do you need normally?

Imho if you have 24+ mana in the pool (1 Early Harvest + 1 Dictate), mana is not the bottleneck.

If that is somehow not enough mana to dig or end the game, I would argue the issue isn't mana, it's a lack of tools to use the mana efficiently. Wish for Blue Sun's Zenith was my solution to that. Another option would be to run tutors to directly put the card in hand. Or to Wish for something that wins with 20-ish mana like Banefire. Some form of tutor may be better than just digging.

Traverse the Ulvenwald could be good. It's a turn 1 play that fixes land. Then during the combo it finds either Turtle or Shigeki. In the instant speed version, maybe Worldly Tutor or Enlightened Tutor (Dictate or channel creatures).

[FTW]

If you want a sac input for Veteran Explorer, perhaps Neoform or Mask of the Mimic. I also think of Green Sun's Zenith and Lotus Cobra.

The list as it is doesn't feel like its disruptive enough.

I've been thinking more about the lack of turn 1 plays, lack of disruption, lack of tutors, and importance of black for Grisly Salvage. In comparison, the blue cards Growth Spiral and Joint Exploration were feeling lacklustre to me - any green Rampant Growth effect will also add +1 land to the battlefield either before or during the combo, and with better color selection!

Another route could be to build GBu in a Nic Fit shell. Veteran Explorer + Cabal Therapy is the best Legacy engine to vomit basics onto the battlefield. It would give more turn 1 plays, more disruption, and pivot to black as a major color. Black offers Grisly Salvage and tutors.

Potential mana ramp:
Veteran Explorer
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Coiling Oracle
Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath

Potential card selection:
Traverse the Ulvenwald
Grisly Salvage
Diabolic Intent
Mastermind's Acquisition

Potential Disruption:
Cabal Therapy
Thoughtseize
Veil of Summer

Core Combo:
Early Harvest
Dictate of Karametra
Colossal Skyturtle
Shigeki


My UG list had Force for disruption. But in practice, the deck is so greedy on resources that pitching a blue card to Force is a big drawback. 1-for-1 disruption could be better.

That's a very different direction than OP had, so I don't want to spend too much space on this. It's another potential way to build to set up an Early Harvest + Dictate mana engine and the Turtle+Shigeki loop.

[serenechaos]

Hmm. What I was meaning was that if you have that much mana, your resources should be able to get you there, but if the Salvages make that much difference then I recommend being more aggressive about playing Shigeki early.

[FTW]

Hmm. What I was meaning was that if you have that much mana, your resources should be able to get you there, but if the Salvages make that much difference then I recommend being more aggressive about playing Shigeki early.

Do you ever get into trouble where they remove Shigeki and it disrupts you from being able to go off later? With Turtle you can recover from Lightning Bolt. But what about Swords to Plowshares/ Prismatic Ending? Or exposing it too early to Surgical Extraction or Pithing Needle?

I tried Salvage. It made a huge difference.

I tested out a sorcery speed GBu version.

//Creatures: 15
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Shigeki, Jukai Visionary
1 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
3 Colossal Skyturtle
1 Walking Ballista

//Sorceries: 13
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
2 Diabolic Intent

//Instants: 8
4 Grisly Salvage
4 Early Harvest

//Enchantments: 4
3 Heartbeat of Spring
1 Dictate of Karametra

//Lands: 20
4 Prismatic Vista
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Misty Rainforest
5 Snow-Covered Forest
5 Snow-Covered Swamp
2 Snow-Covered Island

//Sideboard: 15
3 Endurance
3 Veil of Summer
3 Force of Vigor
1 Collector Ouphe
1 Grist, the Hunger Tide
1 Plague Engineer
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Carnage Tyrant
1 Aeve, Progenitor Ooze


I'm much happier with this mana curve. More 1s and 2s, less at the top.

In 6 test goldfishes:
1) 8 basics on turn 3!! 10 on turn 4! Turn 5 infinite win with 2x discard
2) 5 basics on turn 3, 7 on turn 5. Turn 5 infinite win with 2x discard
3) Bad opener. Just 5 basics by turn 5, but turn 6 infinite win with 2x discard
4) 7 basics on turn 4. Turn 5 infinite win with 1x discard
5) 7 basics on turn 5. Turn 6 infinite win with 2x discard.
6) Turn 4 win on 5 lands.

Turn 5 is a bit slow for Legacy, but it is at least playing blockers and discard while doing so, and there are fair back-up plans.

Traverse the Ulvenwald is very powerful here. Early it cycles into a basic land of your choice. Late it can tutor for Veteran Explorer, Skyturtle or Shigeki for 1 mana. After infinite mana it finds Walking Ballista without needing to draw the whole deck. Ballista also has some small utility coming down turn 2 to kill an X/1 or flashback Therapy. Delirium is supported by 6 cards types and self-mill. It wouldn't be hard to squeeze in a 7th card type with 1 copy of Grist, the Hunger Tide.

Grisly Salvage does a lot of work. Goldfishing anyway. It also exposes you to earlier to grave hate.

Sadly this deck is only viable in paper. It's soft-banned online by requiring so many clicks, and you can't do them too quickly in case you select the wrong targets or accidentally cast instead of Channel.

[serenechaos]

The problem exists for all Tide variants I'm afraid, and things such as Four Horseman. It simply isn't possible to navigate in a digital format.

Walking Ballista is always a solid wincon especially in a build that can grab creatures so readily and recur everything almost any time it wants.

I'm genuinely surprised Salvage made that much difference, it always felt good when playing but I never figured it was that good lol.

That sorcery version looks incredibly stout and explosive, I expect it would be about as solid as we currently know how to make it vs a generic field. BUG is also relatively easy to pull off since all 3 colors have some kind of dig or land effects to maintain the colors themselves.

TtU seems like the best turn 1 play we have available, I use Consider for Modern (because Brainstorm and Turnabout are the only cards not Modern in my 75), but I doubt there are any instants that can compete with what is essentially a weaker turn 1 Salvage. I will keep looking but I doubt even any random free effects will be as useful

Also if you stay in red because you're silly like me, Kolaghan's Command is a good alternate wincon which can protect against hate permanents, eat their hand, function as a Turtle for the combo, and kill x/2s.

[FTW]

I'm genuinely surprised Salvage made that much difference, it always felt good when playing but I never figured it was that good lol.

It's even better in that version.

You can do things like
T1 Explorer. T2 Diabolic Intent -> get Forest + Swamp and hold priority -> Grisly Salvage getting Skyturtle, putting Early Harvest in graveyard -> Intent tutor for Shigeki or Heartbeat

Or
T2 EOT Grisly Salvage getting Veteran Explorer, putting Cabal Therapy into graveyard -> T3 Explorer+flashback Therapy -> get 2 lands -> Sakura-Tribe Elder -> Traverse for a creature & 6 lands on turn 3
In the game I had 8 lands on turn 3 I think I had 2 Therapies in graveyard so I Traversed for another Veteran Explorer

Those lines are just so much more explosive than I was getting with T2 Growth Spiral or Ice-Fang Coatl.

Edit: Against heavy disruption it can also board out the combo and play like a fair Nic Fit ramping into big creatures
-4 Harvest -3 Heartbeat -1 Dictate +8 fair cards (Endurance, Grist, Carnage Tyrant, etc)



Also if you stay in red because you're silly like me, Kolaghan's Command is a good alternate wincon which can protect against hate permanents, eat their hand, function as a Turtle for the combo, and kill x/2s.

I like that tech in red. Very versatile card for the instant speed version.

[serenechaos]

Legacy night again, did exactly as well as expected.

Still on shocks for now, played 1 Kolaghan 1 Atarka and 22 lands.


Round 1 vs Lands w/Narset et al

Friend of mine I haven't seen in a while was playing Narsets and other Brainstorm hate, and it turns out that's kind of tricky to get around. Salvage helps a lot, non-combo loops to set up help a lot. Game 1 I kept a 1 lander because I don't know how Magic works, g2 I almost got there after Turtling back Dictate twice, but I was 1 mana short of Harvest. I made a couple plays I think I could have done differently, like dropping eot Dictate instead of spending 2-3 mana trying to dig for extra gas, but overall it was just a tense game of Magic and all else being equal my deck is made of bad cards. Ton of fun, got a little practice with sequencing and interaction moreso than other games.

0-2 (0-1)

Round 2 vs Delver aggro

Game 1 was meh, not a slaughter but I wasn't going to win. Game 2 was close, I bought a turn and a half with a Turtle bounce, dropped Dictate eot, and got Forced. Clock was too fast to set up through hate. Delirium turning on the turn before K Command was up was relevant both games sadface. A discard/shock would have been game changing. I think if you play K-Command it might be best to bounce aggressively with Turtles, since you can bounce turn 2 and Command turn 3 to get Turtle back and kill a dude. Also made a couple minor color mistakes, assembling colors was fine but occasionally I would not leave up the right colors.

I didn't have Endurances because I can't afford them yet, but they would have blown out both times, and easily could have been hardcast without disrupting me in most of my games all night.

0-2 (0-2)

Round 3 vs Monoblack Initiative/Helm

Game 1 opp opens with Leyline, my hand is actually surprisingly ok for that although I am now exclusively on Turtle beats. But I have everything I need and there are no threats yet and oops they also just had the Helm in hand gg. Game 2 was another actual fight, and I had one misplay at the end that might have made a difference, but probably not; After K-command killed that 3/2 that steals your searches, I had a fetch I meant to crack while trying to dig for gas, but I forgot so after my Brainstorm drew me 3 lands I just put them back and then drew them again. But my hand was real sparse by then, it would've had to be like Harness or something to get me going.

0-2 (0-3)

Overall, the deck is "ok". I think with more experience piloting it my weeklies will be slightly less embarrassing, although if your list doesn't have answers to enchantments you may want to look into that lol. Channel was relevant a couple times, K-Command is a tiny tiny bit slow to hate against proactive decks, but is golden otherwise, full basics felt like it would've been much stronger because I ended up locked on Harvests a couple times with only 2-4 basics. If I'd had only basics each time I could even have used Harvest to set up early a couple times.

Probably going to be taking this for a little while because it's one of two decks I have actually built lol, going to try to grab snows and Coatls at some point to test that.

[FTW]

Thanks for posting your result!

Do you think the Kolaghan and Atarka did enough to make those shocks worth it? If you cut down to 3 colors with black as a minor color (just for Grisly Salvage), then you can run all basics.

Does your SB have ways to kill planeswalkers like Narset? The BUG version can combo off through Narset or Hullbreacher, just realized that. The instant version really relies on cantrips so it has to be able to kill prison pieces (Narset, Leyline, Deafening Silence, Trinisphere, Damping Sphere, Teferi, etc). Assassin's Trophy is a catch-all.

It sounds like a couple times you stumbled getting Dictate removed. Sure, the deck can recur it with Turtle or Shigeki, but doing that and replaying Dictate costs so much mana and tempo. That's enough tempo for opponent to beat through and win before you recover. I think jamming Dictate and hoping to recur it over and over won't be a winning strategy. Because it's so much mana, you want the 1st one to stick. Would Veil of Summer or other protection effects help in those situations? Spend 1 more mana but then make sure the first copy survives.


I think if you play K-Command it might be best to bounce aggressively with Turtles, since you can bounce turn 2 and Command turn 3 to get Turtle back and kill a dude.

That would stall them, but then you're dumping all your mana and turns into disrupting instead of cantripping and playing extra lands, so does that slow down the clock too much? Ice Fang could be a better solution.



although if your list doesn't have answers to enchantments you may want to look into that lol.

That's why all my sideboards have multiple copies of Force of Vigor. You have to be able to answer Leyline. Game 1 vs Helm combo they get you, but most decks don't have maindeck Leyline.

[serenechaos]

Ice Fang is definitely a good solution, and the snow build is going to be the next one I pick up. I also would like to try 4 Subtlety in the sideboard, being hardcastable sometimes is really good but other than that I'm not sure.

The Forces were bad sideboarding on my part, I had two Veils in the board and just didn't remember them because I was trying to think about Narset and the treasure making one. I also would have had the other 2 and some Force of Negations but that costs money. Recurring Dictate didn't feel too bad, at the very least it feels like a better baseline resilience than other combo I'm used to. They also have proactives like discard, but once the Force of Will happens, that's just going to be it no matter what your combo is, aside from the moments of glory where you have the absolute cheese. Still, I would much rather remember to bring in my sideboard cards next time lol.

Might try -1 Joint Exploration +1 Alchemy, because Salvage really is just a draw 5 and Alchemy is right behind it and also plays with the yard itself. The land drops are pretty valuable, so I'll have to try it out and see if mill 4 take 1 is better than seeing 3 deep and getting a land. My gut says very probably.

My early sideboard had Trophy and I swapped it for Abrupt Decay, so seeing Leyline killed me inside. It also felt like the most unplayable hate piece I'd seen yet; Narset was annoying, but didn't affect Salvage or Shigeki channel, only slowed down Spirals, and I could see a lot of ways out if I got a little lucky. Leyline was absolute. Salvage is dead. Turtle and Shigeki are dead. My only real hope was to use Harvest to power out early Turtles, and that was a really long ways off against Helm Leyline.

I really really want to try the full basic base, I just need to pick up 4 Vistas. I'm going to be really wild and see if I can support all 4 colors in basics first, because I've never felt all that troubled by assembling colors so far. Kolaghan's Command is wicked good, almost always a 2-for-1 and doing literally everything we need all at once. It's even an extra Turtle for Shigeki. Atarka's Command is mostly only useful as a super techy wincon that maindeck slides under almost everything, the land drop like... happens, but not being Spiral makes me sad. So as Spiral 9+free-include wincon, I've mostly been at "no reason to take it out". It is a flex slot I've been playing with though. It's also a little better with Endurance out of the board. I have actually used the +1/+1 to kill a construct.

I also meant to be on 23 lands, so I'm going to try to find that spot again because 22 felt like just barely enough and I'd like a little more comfort room.

[FTW]

Just curious. Do you play combo in Modern more than in Legacy? Do you play other formats more than Legacy in general?


I also would like to try 4 Subtlety in the sideboard, being hardcastable sometimes is really good but other than that I'm not sure.

I wouldn't waste money on Subtlety. They can replay the creature next turn. It's only Legacy-playable in decks with very narrow requirements, and this doesn't meet them. The card disadvantage is a big cost. Something like Brazen Borrower or Ice-Fang Coatl costs you less resources to still stall 1 threat. Assassin's Trophy can kill creatures too.



so seeing Leyline killed me inside. It also felt like the most unplayable hate piece I'd seen yet

Leyline of the Void is very commonly played due to all the graveyard-using decks in Legacy. Every graveyard-based Legacy combo deck needs at least 4 SB answers to Leyline. Most decks don't maindeck it, though it is a very common sideboard card. Monoblack Helm combo is the one deck that does maindeck it. Part of why that deck is viable is it picks up free wins from having Leyline in game 1.

Force of Vigor and Assassin's Trophy are probably the best answers for your build. Boseiju, Who Endures is an uncounterable option. Note that they kill Leyline while also killing other important hate.



but once the Force of Will happens, that's just going to be it no matter what your combo is, aside from the moments of glory where you have the absolute cheese.

Most Legacy combos are designed to win even if opponent has Force of Will. Half the format is playing Force of Will. If your plan is to hope they just don't have Force, that's going to cost a lot of games. Instead, most combo decks are built to consistently get through 1 Force. If opponent has something like 2x Force of Will + Flusterstorm, then yes, they win. But you want to make them have that much.

Veil of Summer counters Force of Will for 1 mana + draws a card. Add some Veils and you can get through 1 Force.



Recurring Dictate didn't feel too bad, at the very least it feels like a better baseline resilience than other combo I'm used to.

Are you sure? Because you got raced in those games. Losing 8 mana to re-deploy (Dictate cast + Turtle) is part of how they race you. Many Legacy decks are looking to see where they can make you waste the most mana (making you replay Dictate is an easy target) so they steal the tempo to kill you or dig into a 2nd Force before you can go off. Then they don't care if you can recur it. They either kill you first or have another answer ready. If you can protect Dictate with less than 8 mana, that's more resilient.

For example, Veil of Summer answers Force on Dictate for 1 mana instead of 8 mana. Then you can go off faster.

Good luck with the new build.

[serenechaos]

I mostly play Legacy and Vintage, mostly combo. I've tried a lot of control variants but I'm not good at navigating them, and I've only had a few inspirations for aggro decks, usually very niche tempo or combo-aggro. Always had a soft spot for Tidehollow Sculler.

Sorry, I think you misunderstood my Leyline comment. Most unplayable for me. Most impossible to play through compared to other hate. I agree swapping my Decays back out for FoV or Trophy would definitely be better.

I also agree Veil is much better than a recursion plan. I just meant that a recursion plan is better than just having to topdeck new pieces again. Once I get my other two Veils I'll remember to side them in I promise 🙃 The main reason I didn't feel too bad is I had the full 8 mana up each time and some vague gas in my hand, so I was more confident that I could push through it. K-command helped a lot too, it was extra slow having to get Turtle back first, but it killed a 3/2 with a draw hate effect on the way out so it also bought a little time. If you didn't already have enough mana I could definitely see this line being a disaster waiting to happen.

[Vacrix]

Do you ever get into trouble where they remove Shigeki and it disrupts you from being able to go off later? With Turtle you can recover from Lightning Bolt. But what about Swords to Plowshares/ Prismatic Ending? Or exposing it too early to Surgical Extraction or Pithing Needle?

I tried Salvage. It made a huge difference.

I tested out a sorcery speed GBu version.

//Creatures: 15
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Shigeki, Jukai Visionary
1 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
3 Colossal Skyturtle
1 Walking Ballista

//Sorceries: 13
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
2 Diabolic Intent

//Instants: 8
4 Grisly Salvage
4 Early Harvest

//Enchantments: 4
3 Heartbeat of Spring
1 Dictate of Karametra

//Lands: 20
4 Prismatic Vista
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Misty Rainforest
5 Snow-Covered Forest
5 Snow-Covered Swamp
2 Snow-Covered Island

//Sideboard: 15
3 Endurance
3 Veil of Summer
3 Force of Vigor
1 Collector Ouphe
1 Grist, the Hunger Tide
1 Plague Engineer
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Carnage Tyrant
1 Aeve, Progenitor Ooze


I'm much happier with this mana curve. More 1s and 2s, less at the top.

In 6 test goldfishes:
1) 8 basics on turn 3!! 10 on turn 4! Turn 5 infinite win with 2x discard
2) 5 basics on turn 3, 7 on turn 5. Turn 5 infinite win with 2x discard
3) Bad opener. Just 5 basics by turn 5, but turn 6 infinite win with 2x discard
4) 7 basics on turn 4. Turn 5 infinite win with 1x discard
5) 7 basics on turn 5. Turn 6 infinite win with 2x discard.
6) Turn 4 win on 5 lands.

Turn 5 is a bit slow for Legacy, but it is at least playing blockers and discard while doing so, and there are fair back-up plans.

Traverse the Ulvenwald is very powerful here. Early it cycles into a basic land of your choice. Late it can tutor for Veteran Explorer, Skyturtle or Shigeki for 1 mana. After infinite mana it finds Walking Ballista without needing to draw the whole deck. Ballista also has some small utility coming down turn 2 to kill an X/1 or flashback Therapy. Delirium is supported by 6 cards types and self-mill. It wouldn't be hard to squeeze in a 7th card type with 1 copy of Grist, the Hunger Tide.

Grisly Salvage does a lot of work. Goldfishing anyway. It also exposes you to earlier to grave hate.

Sadly this deck is only viable in paper. It's soft-banned online by requiring so many clicks, and you can't do them too quickly in case you select the wrong targets or accidentally cast instead of Channel.

If you're in GBu, Opposition Agent has synergy with Veteran Explorer, in particular if you have a way to play the basics you deny the opponent. Exploration is a solid 1 drop that you won't mind seeing in multiples if the land search could snowball.

Intuition and Eternal Witness + Unearth seems good. perhaps some of this tech would fit better into an old BUG Intuition control shell. Similar to the trick where you can Unearth Eternal Witness and return Unearth to hand, Traverse (delirium) can find Eternal Witness, cast Eternal Witness, return Traverse. All the mana ramp makes adding Ewit to the line much easier.

Deadly Brew is a neat one. It can closed loop each turn with available mana for GB + 1GG with 2 Eternal Witness or Skullwinder. I want to say Stitcher's Supplier could be paired with Veteran Explorer for more 1mv lines and opening lines. It can bin Uro, Therapy, and make much available to Shigeki or Ewit. Also, the mill supports more maindeck Traverse.

How about Rofellos's Gift? It can return each of the enchantment creatures, perhaps as a 1'of for an Intuition pile. I think more enchantments like Urza's Saga, Exploration will be ideal for supporting it on other lines though. The enchantment creatures can be discarded early to maximize the number of cards in hand before casting Rofellos's Gift, maybe Careful Study unless there's a better one.

[serenechaos]

Wasn't able to get to Legacy last week, but did this week. Had a fantastic showing of not picking up a single game, although only a couple games and no matches were blowouts.

Narset is horribly annoying in G1s. She doesn't stop you, but she slows you down so much if you aren't ready to play around her. Playing around her once you know isn't too hard; Salvage and Alchemy go around, EOT Spiral is still good, and Turtle/Shigeki can recur things so you don't have to try to draw into new ones.

But she's still a pain, and I only had a single Abrupt Decay in my sideboard. No Trophies, no Endurances for attacking. Teferi basically doesn't exist because you can just go off on your turn. None of the combo requires instant speed actions, and channel even gets around it as well.

Got stuck on 4 lands in a couple games, but I was on 21 lands and I think at least 22 are needed; once I can get Vistas I'm going to rearrange things to have 23.

Turtle bouncing a construct under Defense Grid was fun. Kolaghan's Command being an amazing card was relevant a few times. Noxious Revival was extremely relevant, but not quite enough; stalled a Breakfast player for a couple turns when he saw it in my hand.

Been working on math for lines: 2x Harvest can win on 6 lands without Dictate out. 2x Harvest+Dictate can win immediately on 5 lands, or Harvest-->Dictate eot and win on your turn with 4 lands. 2x Dictate wins with basically any cards that aren't air, obviously. Teachings for Harness Infinity is an excellent line because it gives a single card which lets you complete the combo no matter how much you're missing, as long as your yard has a little bit of gas in it.

Can't remember if it's been mentioned before, but Pact of Negation is a great inclusion, for any build since paying 4 is relatively easy, but especially for instant speed builds since there is the potential to just win with the trigger on the stack (or even begin comboing off and then just pay for it and continue, if you feel cheeky).

[FTW]

Glad you got to try it out again!

How close did you get to going off in those games?


Narset is horribly annoying in G1s. She doesn't stop you, but she slows you down so much if you aren't ready to play around her. Playing around her once you know isn't too hard; Salvage and Alchemy go around, EOT Spiral is still good, and Turtle/Shigeki can recur things so you don't have to try to draw into new ones.

But she's still a pain, and I only had a single Abrupt Decay in my sideboard. No Trophies, no Endurances for attacking. Teferi basically doesn't exist because you can just go off on your turn. None of the combo requires instant speed actions, and channel even gets around it as well.

Your build is hurt a lot more by Narset than mine, so you probably need at least 3 Trophies in the SB. I think you need Trophy instead of Decay, due to possible Leyline of the Void. Otherwise you would need to be on both Decays + Force of Vigor (because Force doesn't kill Narset/Hullbreacher, and Decay doesn't kill Leyline), and that consumes more SB space.



Got stuck on 4 lands in a couple games, but I was on 21 lands and I think at least 22 are needed; once I can get Vistas I'm going to rearrange things to have 23.

I had that frustration sometimes in the instant speed builds. You can have a bunch of Joint Exploration and Growth Spiral in hand, but if they just draw you into more cantrips or redundant pieces (bad luck) then you miss using the land drop and don't actually ramp. I found adding Ponder and more fetches helped (better sculpting), but that takes you away from instant-only. Maybe you need a higher land count.