[Brainstorming] Enduring Ideal

[largebrandon]

In the latest PE, Enduring Ideal got 2nd place. Is there any place for this deck in legacy? Are there any enchantments that can further benefit the deck?

I think that Enduring Ideal is an interesting deck that is not hurt by common combo killers: Leyline of the Void/Tormod's Crypt, Pithing Needle. It can be hurt, though, by meddling mage and stifle, but with stifle you can just get a copy next turn.

[94teen]

It's a cool idea, especially since I love the deck. However, I think that the real questions are:

1) What acceleration and/or redundancy does Enduring Ideal gain? WBR may or may not be the best colors for this. You get a burning wish package, Dark Ritual/Rite of Flame for mana acceleration, maybe LED and Infernal Tutor for redundancy, and Grim Tutor or Gamble at worst.

2) You get disruption like REB and Duress/Thoughtseize, but this may or may not be enough. The strength of storm based decks is that they don't necessarily rely on resolving any one spell like Enduring Ideal. Thresh can just hold FoW until you try to play the ideal. There aren't free counters in extended, and so it's a lot easier to play a deck that just needs to resolve one spell.

[largebrandon]

I was thinking the same thing in terms of how storm isn't as hurt by a FoW than Enduring Ideal. However, If you resolve one ideal you pretty much win. You have Boseiju and Xandid Swarm to help you if need be. More importantly you have Orim's Chant or Abeyance.

Furthermore comparison with Storm, it isn't as hurt by mass discard than storm. All you need is one card to resolve and you are golden. Just my thoughts.

[Happy Gilmore]

Ideal is strictly worse than every single storm based combo deck in legacy.

7 mana >> 4 mana

[Moczoc]

How do you win with Enduring Ideal?

[largebrandon]

The point of the deck is to Get Enduring Ideal Resolved, when that happens, your goal is to get a hardlock with some enchantments with the end goal of winning with Form of the Dragon:

1) You could First Fetch Dovescape to prevent your opponents from countering any of your spells or destroying any of your enchantments; or you can first fetch Solitary Confinement so your opponent cannot attack you or target you for burn or its own combo; or fetch a Pernicious Deed to get rid of any eminent threats; or Go for the kill condition, Form of the Dragon.

2) Next, you could fetch a Solitary Confinement if you haven't got it yet; or if you have already one in play, and need a way to get cards in hand, play Honden of Seeing Winds to draw cards; or get a Form in Play

3) Lastly, put a Form of the Dragon into play. If you already have one, then get another!

[Cavius The Great]

Enduring Ideal is too mana intensive. They are cheaper spells that win you the game that cost significantly less. I don't see how this card can be broken.

[Silthyn]

If you're worried about counters, Boseiju, Who Shelters All could work.

[matelml]

Enduring Ideal is too mana intensive. They are cheaper spells that win you the game that cost significantly less. I don't see how this card can be broken.

Well what cards?
Belcher has a significant disadvantage by not being able to play enough lands for combo protection and setup, and storm needs usually more than 7 mana to get enough storm, except for Etw which is answered more easily than the rest.

[adrieng]

On their own there aren t .
But cards like aluren (+raven familiar harpi) or natural order (for the protean hulk combo + a way of sac protean hulk)
or flash (for the protean hulk combo +protean hulk+ a way of sac protean hulk)
makes you win the game ...

[94teen]

Upon further reflection, this isn't as terrible an idea as it first seemed. This deck has an easy excuse to play Counterbalance Top as lock pieces, and can easily play combo/control, much like Aluren, especially if it can hardcast most lock pieces.

Something like this doesn't seem like it'd be too bad. It's definitely nothing final, but a list to work with/off of.

3 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
2 Scrubland
1 Underground Sea
3 Remote Farm
1 Saprazzan Skerry
1 Island
2 Plains
1 Swamp

1 Lotus Petal
3 Counterbalance
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Enduring Ideal
3 Solitary Confinement
1 Dovescape
1 Pernicious Deed
2 Form of the Dragon
1 Honden of Seeing Winds
4 Pentad Prism
4 Dark Ritual

I like this list for a few reasons. Firstly, it's got countermagic and counterbalance top. You have enough digging in blue to make Burning Wish and tutors unnecessary (in my mind), and, especially when you consider top, you have no reason not to play blue. THis gives you FoW, Daze, and Stifle (if you can fit them all, which I couldn't), and maybe even Remand since you like digging for cards.

Even better, you can cast all your lock pieces, and can play a control deck for the first few turns with Countertop and FoW, until you can play Enduring Ideal.

The black splash is there for a few reason. First, Dark Ritual is the most efficicent mana acceleration you're going to get, so it's never going to be bad. Secondly, it allows for Thoughtseize/Duress if those turn out to be better than counterspells. Sideboard would probably be something like...

1 Leyline of the Void
1 Solitary Confinement
1 Ivory Mask
4 Thoughtseize
4 Duress
4 Orim's Chant/Abeyance

It's nothing much, not very good, but it's a start.

[Happy Gilmore]

Not only do you have to try and reslove EI, you have to do it before your opponent wins, while at the same time dodge hand disruption. I hate being a doom sayer but EI is not a viable deck in legacy. If Mind's Desire was legal I can see revolving a deck around a 6cc spell, otherwise Belcher/ETW/Tendrils is better.

[b4r0n]

Interesting. I think the logical comparison to Ideal would be Aluren (which is currently a DTW...), since both try to resolve one spell, then win the game. While Idea does cost 3 more than Aluren, it doesn't require any other combo pieces (Harpy, Familiar, etc.) in hand or in play. It can protect the combo just as well (Chant and Duress/Thoughtseize vs. Force and Therapy), and it can also have the versatility of a Wishboard. I think it's worth playing around with this.

EDIT: Top seems like a solid way of fighting hand disruption, and the Wishboard seems like a solid way to slow down other decks (Pyroclasm? Vindicate? Morningtide?).

[Happy Gilmore]

Interesting. I think the logical comparison to Ideal would be Aluren (which is currently a DTW...), since both try to resolve one spell, then win the game. While Idea does cost 3 more than Aluren, it doesn't require any other combo pieces (Harpy, Familiar, etc.) in hand or in play. It can protect the combo just as well (Chant and Duress/Thoughtseize vs. Force and Therapy), and it can also have the versatility of a wishboard. I think it's worth playing around with this.


I want Aluren to be good in legacy, its one of my favorite decks to play. Unfortunately it is too slow and not flexible enough in the card choices. In a ten game set against Cephalid Breakfast I never even got a chance to go off. :frown: Storm combo can be a nightmare as well. Even if you have FoW your probably going to pitch a combo piece to it since there are no utility spells besides brainstorm. Don't even get me started on the Recruter version.

Aluren aside, there are some serious drawbacks to EI, such as counterability, taking multiple turns to kill, Drawing pieces such as dovescape and such. In other words you would be much better off with another combo deck with more resilency and speed. I can see no justification for playing EI over any other combo deck in legacy.

[94teen]

Though there may not be anything going for it on the surface, it could be halfway decent with some development behind it, so it's still worth a shot in my mind.

There are so many disruptive engines that could be usd to set up ideal that I think some combination of them has to be able to give it a fighting chance. Besides, the good thing abut this is: if you resolve one spell, you win. Honestly, that's what it comes down to. If you resolve Ideal, there's pretty much no way that you can lose.

Add to that that it's a controllish combo deck, capable of using counters or discard to keep people off their game long enough to cast ideal, and I think it has a reasonable chance. The key thing with aluren is that (from what I've seen) it only runs 3-4 FoW. That's not enough for a deck that relies on resolving one card.

Enduring Ideal has the space to run stuff like Countertop, Daze, Thoughtseize, Cabal Therapy, etc. to allow it to go off cleanly, because it's essentially a 1 card combo. None of your pieces are necessarily dead depending on how the deck is built, and so you're more than capable of hardcasting enchantments to set up a lock. I think it's worth developing the deck further. It lacks blistering speed, but it's not a pure combo deck, so that shouldn't be a problem.

EDIT: What about leylines? An enchantment based deck gives you a valid reason to run Leylines and Serra's Sanctum.

I don't feel comfortable running Form of the Dragon in a metagame saturated with Burn, so I think that a different win condition should be considered (Sacred Mesa?).