[Question] Is Orim's Chant a good way to combat combo.

[undone]

If you are playing a Control/Aggro control or even aggro deck say landstill, UW dreadstill, UGwb thresh, Hanni fish, and maby R/w goblins.

The bottom line I will ask combo players here instead of asking it in 4-6 threads is. Does orims chant affect combo matchups of all kinds. Both storm and yard based (TES, FT, ichorid, Breakfast, Solidaridy exct)

[Michael Keller]

It certainly gives you the upper hand in Storm-based combo matches. Your opponent will have no choice but to stall mid-combo. That can be utterly devastating when you consider how much running through the motions they have to do before variably stalling out.

Ichorid is probably the least susceptible to Orim's Chant of all the listed combo decks. It is based on a quick thrashing, and if you cannot pay the crucial kicker, it won't matter. Cephalid Coliseum and Dredge go a long way in that respect as spell-casting isn't exactly a priority.

[GreenOne]

TES: chant is good. It's huge card advantage, cause TES usually tends to combo faster even if unprotected. They got 4 chants to counter yours and a good number of cantrips to find them. If they expect it they'll try to find a Chant or wish for thoughtseize before going off, that's it.

FT: Chant is good, but the deck aims at resolving a chant effect before comboing out, so it slows down the win (they'll try to find another chant/extirpate your chants before comboing off) but rarely it does create card advantage. Postside thy got 1 or 2 Abeyance to help with that plan. Chant+Extirpate is, however, backbreaking in this matchup.

Ichorid: Not worth it. It acts like a time walk if kickered. It's good in combo with extirpate/tormod.

Breakfast: Not worth it. It's almost useless unless you got some graveyrd hate / mass critter removal to support it.

Solidarity: It's a bit better than a Counterspell, because you can use it in your upkeep the turn you're winning. Tey usually can work it out around it with a decent hand.

Belcher. Chant is golden. They only have Xantid Swarm and Welder against it. Keep in your creature removal and you're done.


So, in sum, chant is good vs storm combo and not great vs grave-based combo.

[FoolofaTook]

Orim's Chant is certainly the best reponse to Orim's Chant when TES or FT is going off on you. Counters don't do it because they might just re-Chant after you've countered theirs, but Orim's Chant makes anything further in their hand useless for the rest of the turn.

I suspect that playing Orim's Chant just for that type of effect is not particularly valuable. You'd need to either be planning to combo yourself, playing Orim's Chant to protect in that role and as a reactionary defensive mechanism where appropriate, or in a traditional Scepter-Chant theme. Note that Scepter-Chant is of no use against FT because they'll just wait and use Wipe Away at the end of your turn before they go off on theirs. So maybe you'd have Scepter-Chant for most decks and never play the combo against FT or TES, choosing instead to keep the chants as instants when they would actually save you. That'd make your deck more like Scepter-Brainstorm in those matchups.

[BreathWeapon]

A lot of people don't understand how Orim's Chant wins games, Chant vs Chant is an irrelevant consideration game 2, because Storm combo wont put you on Orim's Chant after you SB and you turn it into an instant speed Mind Twist for W. Game 3 Storm combo has to play around Orim's Chant whether you have it in your hand or not, which gives you time to race them if possible.

So yeah, Orim's Chant is a good card against Storm game 2 for it's surprise value, where game 3 it's just an ok card when you compare it to Chalice of the Void or Pyrostatic Pillar etc.

Edit: The card plays totally different in a U shell compared to a non U shell tho', because Storm will be playing around counters any way. It's actually a pretty clever way for Landstill or Threshold to circumvent Vexing Shusher now that I think about.

[Nihil Credo]

I'd like to add a point that is not mentioned enough: Chant vs. combo is a stall card; it won't win you the game alone, even if it eats six cards and five points of mana burn. It's pretty pointless to disrupt the combo player with Chant/Abeyance when he's got all the time in the world to rebuild and go off again. UWb Landstill, for example, has no use for Chants and is better off running permanent hate (like Meddling Mage) since, in order to recover from them, the combo player has to do something more than wait a few draw steps.

tl;dr: Chant sucks as combo hate if you have neither a lock nor a clock.

[emidln]

A lot of people don't understand how Orim's Chant wins games, Chant vs Chant is an irrelevant consideration game 2, because Storm combo wont put you on Orim's Chant after you SB and you turn it into an instant speed Mind Twist for W.

You obviously aren't paranoid enough. My chants NEVER come out against decks that show white to me. This is a key reason why Goblins, Zoo, etc never randomly mind twist me. Even against aggro, Chant stops annoying shit like Extirpate and discard (well, stalls discard).

[BreathWeapon]

You obviously aren't paranoid enough. My chants NEVER come out against decks that show white to me. This is a key reason why Goblins, Zoo, etc never randomly mind twist me. Even against aggro, Chant stops annoying shit like Extirpate and discard (well, stalls discard).

Maybe, when I see aggro/w SBing in cards against me I assume their permanents and SB in Shattering Spree, more often than not I'm right and I win game 2 or less often than not I'm wrong and I go to game 3 on the play.

I just don't see a positive expectation from assuming the opponent has Orim's Chant in his SB, it's just not that common.

@Nihil, I don't think Orim's Chant is so much a stall card as it is a 1cc counter spell, but that said Landstill should be SBing Blue Elemental Blast since it's useful against Goblins and Blood Moon.

[emidln]

Maybe, when I see aggro/w SBing in cards against me I assume their permanents and SB in Shattering Spree, more often than not I'm right and I win game 2 or less often than not I'm wrong and I go to game 3 on the play.

I just don't see a positive expectation from assuming the opponent has Orim's Chant in his SB, it's just not that common.

@Nihil, I don't think Orim's Chant is so much a stall card as it is a 1cc counter spell, but that said Landstill should be SBing Blue Elemental Blast since it's useful against Goblins and Blood Moon.

Aggro has the following cards that Chant either stops or stalls:

Duress/Thoughtseize/Cabal Therapy
Orim's Chant/Abeyance
Extirpate
Krosan Grip/Ancient Grudge/Naturalize/artifact hate

Additonally, Chant buys time from aggro casting Chalice of the Void, Trinisphere, and more creatures, which slows their clock down and provides you with more time to combo. This isn't even including the obvious Chant w/kicker function that stops aggro from dealing damage to you.

That they might bring in Orim's Chant is irrelevant because they still have things that Chant is going to be good against and there aren't actually enough cards for combo to bring in that are better. TES has, possibly, Pyroblast against an aggro deck with Meddling Mage/it's easier to get out of your hand when comboing and then Shattering Spree (which may or may not be dead). FT will switch out the Wipe Away/KGrip main for ETruth/RRiver and possibly the Brain Freeze (depending on whether or not green/black were exposed as well leading to the possibility of needing a secondary win) for the other.

[BreathWeapon]

I don't think we're on the same page here, when I say aggro/w I'm thinking of Goblins, Zoo or Angel Stompy, if it's some kind of Aggro Rock or Suicide Black deck then you're keeping in Orim's Chant for their discard etc. regardless.

I wasn't considering more than a risk vs reward scenario of seeing Orim's Chant SBed over Chalice of the Void.

[undone]

The thing is I am testing UGbw Land still and threshold, and have the other mentioned decks. For landstill I am currently Worried about only a few matchups, 1 Storm Combo, 2 Ichorid just because it can be randomly too fast, and Bloodmoon Stompy I mean um Dragon stompy... Orims chant answers the 2 I am SERIOUSLY concerned about (stompy is inconsistent and I dont expect to have major issues with it seeing tons of play.) The other 2 could be serious issues and BEB/hydroblast doesnt solve FT, and only slows TES. Orims chant actualy looks at TES and says "NOT RIGHT NOW" and since they wait till the last moment. As well as FT to my knowlage they dont have counterspells so my chant in responce to chant will resolve, then I can counter bissunuss spells later.

The bottom line is Vs combo is W "end the turn" good enough to warrent board slots vs combo

[Benie Bederios]

The thing is I am testing UGbw Land still and threshold, and have the other mentioned decks. For landstill I am currently Worried about only a few matchups, 1 Storm Combo, 2 Ichorid just because it can be randomly too fast, and Bloodmoon Stompy I mean um Dragon stompy... Orims chant answers the 2 I am SERIOUSLY concerned about (stompy is inconsistent and I dont expect to have major issues with it seeing tons of play.) The other 2 could be serious issues and BEB/hydroblast doesnt solve FT, and only slows TES. Orims chant actualy looks at TES and says "NOT RIGHT NOW" and since they wait till the last moment. As well as FT to my knowlage they dont have counterspells so my chant in responce to chant will resolve, then I can counter bissunuss spells later.

The bottom line is Vs combo is W "end the turn" good enough to warrent board slots vs combo

I don't agree. I found Orim's Chant a weak solution against TES/FT and Ichorid. Look at UGw Threshold. What option do you have to board in against storm:

Meddling Mage
Counterbalance( with Top)
Stifle

They are both better than Orim's Chant. There easy on the manabase( not thougher than Chant). They are a little slower, but you have to be a combo-player with a lots of guts to go all in against turn 1 against Threshold. Fetchland Tendrils plays Extirpate for the mirror, to remove the Chants from the game. It just works as good against Thresh.

4C-Lanstill has got even more options. Thoughtseize and Extirpate to name a few.

Against Ichorid both decks got better options too. If you play Ugw Thresh you are forced to go for 2 white mana producing lands turn 1 and 2. This can hamper your clock. I don't know wich answers white has got, but Tormod's Crypt and Engineered Explosives are a bigger problem for Ichorid than Orim's Chant. Ichorid doesn't even have to board to fight Orim's Chant and keep its consistancy( don't blame me, I'm dutch). 4C-Landstill has zillion better answers than Orim's Chant.

So it might be a decent option against the decks, there are much better answers, wich can garantee a win, instead making it a little easier to beat.

BB

[Jaiminho]

Orim's Chant may actually be good if you need that extra turn to win the game, as with Enchantress. Mulling into Chant sucks, but it's the only out to combo other than a maintainable turn 2 Solitary, which might not be fast enough. It makes the opponent grab a Chant of their own, which might take some time, in order not to get N-for-1-ed. This can be enough to get Solitary into play, but then then Sterling Grove and Oblivion Ring/Seal of Primordium are needed so Solitary doesn't get bounced or destroyed and Serenity won't fuck you. Note that Karmic Guide doesn't do much, since Land Drop + lots of acceleration doesn't care about and empty board.

[FoolofaTook]

Edit: The card plays totally different in a U shell compared to a non U shell tho', because Storm will be playing around counters any way. It's actually a pretty clever way for Landstill or Threshold to circumvent Vexing Shusher now that I think about.

It's a wonderful tool against combo that is not backed up by counters. Orim's Chant says "no, you can't" and it does not matter where it says it in the chain as long as the kill is not already on the stack or is not instant speed (Brain Freeze).

It's iffy as a general proposition only because a 1 turn delay really does not do all that much unless you are ready to go off yourself the next turn or have other specific answers available to back it up.

[FoolofaTook]

I don't agree. I found Orim's Chant a weak solution against TES/FT and Ichorid. Look at UGw Threshold.

What were the specific weaknesses that you found against TES and FT? Give a few examples where having Orim's Chant in hand when they were trying to go off was a weak thing?

I'm just curious, because I think Chant is the strongest possible solution to have in hand against those decks when they start making scratch marks on the pad to record storm count.

[Benie Bederios]

What were the specific weaknesses that you found against TES and FT? Give a few examples where having Orim's Chant in hand when they were trying to go off was a weak thing?

I'm just curious, because I think Chant is the strongest possible solution to have in hand against those decks when they start making scratch marks on the pad to record storm count.

Allright. The point is Uwg Threshold and UBgw Landstill( the decks Undone mentioned) have stronger options than Orim's Chant. In a deck that can't use Counterbalance or hasn't got black Chant could be a good option. But counterbalance stops FT quite good. Atleast I never lost a game against FT with a deck using Counterbalance( and I played against quite some good players.) They have answers for it, but with such a large portion of the deck costing 1 mana, it takes alot longer for them to sculpt their hand. In Landstill I rather Thoughtseize there combopieces and Extirpate them than wait for them to play Orim's Chant and Chant back and buy a turn. Against TES it might be better, because of there Orim's Chant still works if they got a Shusher out.

In short I was just talking about those two decks, not in general.

BB

[Versus]

In the few matches I played against Solidarity using Orim's Chant, all it accomplished was adding to their Storm count. However this could have been (probably was) a misplay on my part.

[rufus]

In the few matches I played against Solidarity using Orim's Chant, all it accomplished was adding to their Storm count. However this could have been (probably was) a misplay on my part.

Did they counter it? It seems like playing Orim's Chant in response to Reset would stop Solidarity otherwise.

[Sanguine Voyeur]

That's what High Tide does. It can play around a single threat like Orim's Chant, Abeyance, or even Trinisphere. It's known for beating control decks.

[GreenOne]

In the few matches I played against Solidarity using Orim's Chant, all it accomplished was adding to their Storm count.

This is right. Unless you were playing a deck with counterspells, discard, or winning on turn 4.

[FoolofaTook]

Allright. The point is Uwg Threshold and UBgw Landstill( the decks Undone mentioned) have stronger options than Orim's Chant. In a deck that can't use Counterbalance or hasn't got black Chant could be a good option. But counterbalance stops FT quite good. Atleast I never lost a game against FT with a deck using Counterbalance( and I played against quite some good players.) They have answers for it, but with such a large portion of the deck costing 1 mana, it takes alot longer for them to sculpt their hand. In Landstill I rather Thoughtseize there combopieces and Extirpate them than wait for them to play Orim's Chant and Chant back and buy a turn. Against TES it might be better, because of there Orim's Chant still works if they got a Shusher out.

In short I was just talking about those two decks, not in general.

BB

It seems to me that Counterbalance is actually the weaker piece against FT and to a lesser extent TES. The problem is finding a 3cc spell to put on top of your pile and keeping it there when both Wipe Away and Krosan Grip will prevent you from using SDT or any other sort mechanism when they are played. I agree that it is possible to do this but it seems like a very complex balancing act with continuous potential to have a catastrophic failure.

[Versus]

To be honest rufus, I don't really remember. If I recall correctly I Chanted TWICE during his going off. He just keep going off in responce. It didn't help that my only knowledge of Solidarity was from reading about it here, but I don't think it would have mattered, really.

I just sat there like a deer in the headlights waiting to be ran over. At one point I just zoned out. I came to conciousness just in time to hear , "Brain Freeze you for 18."

[Iranon]

Against non-Storm combo, Chant is rather bad anyway. Against Storm combo, it depends a lot on the deck.
Chant is excellent if you have relevant cards already and need to stall. It's functionally similar to a cheap counter with the additional benefit that it also stops god hands that can power through a Force. It can also stall into a lethal attack phase, but I don't really consider that a major selling point, for reasons outlined below.



Some White Weenie variants would be a good example... Knight of Meadowgrain goes a long way towards holding off goblin hordes, True Believer shuts down Tendrils, maybe we also have something that's truly good like Thorn of Amethyst.
Some way to punish the opponent for trying to go all-in is more useful than more heavy-duty hate here, because we have enough for a long game already and we want to prevent an opponent from simply mulliganing into a turn 1-2 win (depending who plays first). Since we're playing a creature deck, the ability to enable an alpha strike is also of moderate use.


In decks that have nothing but their own clock, Chant isn't very helpful since it only delays the inevitable. A deck like Goblins isn't interested in keeping mana open for Chant on turn 1 or 2 since they want to apply pressure, and the Storm player has no real incentive to rush anyway; with the time to dig for protection Chant becomes a lot less relevant.
These decks would rather pack some proactive hate and I'd splash black for discard instead of white for chant.


Blue decks can run it but it's not a huge priority. While the effect is better than a counter, Daze is probably still preferable in Aggro/Control since digging for Daze/Force is possible on 1 mana and Daze can also protect you (somewhat) during turn 2 after casting a Counterbalance.
Chant in addition to the standard blue tools is fine, but I'd probably have a more pressing need for permanent-based hate... Crypt, Explosives etc.

[FoolofaTook]

Daze is probably still preferable in Aggro/Control since digging for Daze/Force is possible on 1 mana and Daze can also protect you (somewhat) during turn 2 after casting a Counterbalance.
Chant in addition to the standard blue tools is fine, but I'd probably have a more pressing need for permanent-based hate... Crypt, Explosives etc.

Daze is wonderful against the turn 1/2 assaults, although it can also mean bupkus if they are holding an SSG, however it's a horrible topdeck later on turns 4-6 when they are loaded for bear again and Daze neither stops storm nor is a definite no to what you are countering.

I will readily concede that Orim's Chant has general weaknesses that make it a poor choice before you know what you're playing, however it's just clearly the best answer to the most played storm variants once you know that's what you're facing.

[Bahamuth]

In the few matches I played against Solidarity using Orim's Chant, all it accomplished was adding to their Storm count. However this could have been (probably was) a misplay on my part.

It completely depends on your clock. If you have a slow/no clock, the Solidarity player can easily sculpt his hand to win trough Chant.

[undone]

Thanks for the input. I thought that the storm MU got significantly better with orims + c spell