[Discussion] What is the best current combo deck?

In the past two years, It seems that legacy has been dominated by aggro/aggro-control decks, but, lately it seems like combo is making a comeback. With Ichorid and CRET Belcher making it to DTB, it seems like there is a better chance of combo becoming stronger in the format. As combo is becoming more viable, I was thinking about what combo deck I should build.
In terms of speed, consistency, and versatility, what do you think is the best combo deck in the format? Speed being defined as the amount of turns (on average) it takes for the deck to win. Consistency being defined as the ability to combo off without fizzling. Versatility being defined as the ability to deal with threats, to include, counter spells, grave control, etc. A few combo decks to keep in mind would include, TES, Ichorid, Iggy Pop, CRET Belcher, Salvager's Game, solidarity, Aluren, etc.
Also, what combo deck do you think would work best in an aggro-control, specifically, WGB threshold meta?

To me, the two best combo decks in Legacy are Ichorid and Fetchland Tendrils. They both are extremely consistent decks built to beat Threshold and Control, not aggro. Ichorid can slow roll in a way other combo decks can't, and Tendrils, thought it doesn't have as good of a Thresh MU as Ichorid does, can beat any deck in the hands of a competent pilot. Also, it crushes Landstill, which in many forms becomes hateonichorid.dec. Both of these decks have a few things in common, which sets them apart from the other combo decks that are around at the moment.
1) They have the ability to win through disruption very effectively. Ichorid does this by not playing spells. Tendrils does this by running lots of cantrips, transforming it in a pseudo Thresh deck.
2) They are extremely flexible. Both decks can kill very quickly or sit back and wait until they can't be stopped. They can both adapt to cards like LotV, Pate, and Counterbalance. They can be built to do well in any meta.
3) They are extremely consistent. Tendrils because it plays like Thresh and can shape the perfect hand for any situation, and Ichorid because so many of it's cards do the same thing. That deck is the definition of redundant.

In my mind, CRET Belcher and TES just aren't up to par anymore. While these decks are fast and brutal, they can't stand up to Stifle/Force in the ways that the FT/Ichorid can. Belcher especially - Games 2 and 3 16 Goblins on T1 isn't really that intimidating for a lot of decks.

Solidarity seems best compared to FT in today's meta. It's slow and consistant. But unlike FT, it doesn't have the flexibility to win quickly when it has too, and has a worse Thresh MU than FT because it doesn't play Chant.

The Game is a dead deck. Yeah, Extirpate is a good card.

Aluren was never a good deck. Meh.

Oh, BTW, in a lot of metas speed isn't necessarily a good thing, unless you can guarantee speed backed by Chant.

Cephalid Breakfast!!!!!!!


Dredge is good 2 since it only has to deal with graveyard hate and countermagic is useless VS it.

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Originally Posted by calosso

Cephalid Breakfast!!!!!!!


Dredge is good 2 since it only has to deal with graveyard hate and countermagic is useless VS it.

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Breakfast hasn't been good for a few months now (basically since Worlds). Pithing Needle owns it, running the back up plan of Goyf isn't strong anymore because everyone builds there deck to beat that back up plan, and it gets hit sideways by random Graveyard hate. Basically, every form of hate in the game hits it.

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Originally Posted by Mental

Breakfast hasn't been good for a few months now (basically since Worlds). Pithing Needle owns it, running the back up plan of Goyf isn't strong anymore because everyone builds there deck to beat that back up plan, and it gets hit sideways by random Graveyard hate. Basically, every form of hate in the game hits it.

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Who honestly plays pithing needle in the current format. Also Breakfast has strategy's to beat both countermagic and graveyard hate. They have aether vial and abeyance for counterspells, and for crypt it is easily dealt with crypt or main deck stern proctor. Also the deck does play force of will to stop some of those potential threat.

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Originally Posted by calosso

Who honestly plays pithing needle in the current format. Also Breakfast has strategy's to beat both countermagic and graveyard hate. They have aether vial and abeyance for counterspells, and for crypt it is easily dealt with crypt or main deck stern proctor. Also the deck does play force of will to stop some of those potential threat.

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None of those cards stop Leyline/Pate. Face it, Breakfast just isn't what it used to be. And yeah, you have a point that not that many people play Needle, but if Breakfast becomes "good" then they will. And then it will be bad again.

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Originally Posted by Mental

None of those cards stop Leyline/Pate. Face it, Breakfast just isn't what it used to be. And yeah, you have a point that not that many people play Needle, but if Breakfast becomes "good" then they will. And then it will be bad again.

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I am pretty sure stern proctor stop leyline of the void lol. What the hell is PATE??

ExtirPATE, I assume.

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Originally Posted by calosso

I am pretty sure stern proctor stop leyline of the void lol. What the hell is PATE??

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Ok, I should have looked up Stern Procter. However, I still can't say I'm buying it. A deck that is hit by 75% of the hate in the format, even if it has answers, can't be good.

People are always selling Aluren short simply because they think it's a combo-deck while in fact it's much more of a control- than combo-deck, just with a combo-win. It sets up, clears all disruption with Cabal Therapies and lands Aluren to win. Thanks to Walls, Force and so on, it lacks the usual combo/control-variant's weakness versus aggro. In places where it's played in relevant amounts (I suppose that's France only though), it finishes well too.

That said, Fetchland Tendrils seems like the premiere combo-deck presently based on its results, although I'm not qualified to make comparisons between it and TES (which is another strong contender) simply because I lack the inherent familiarity with the match-ups and builds for both. Ichorid is, of course, also something you can't afford to sell short.

I think Breakfast isn't optimal at the present; it had a great alternate gameplan in beating with Goyfs but now that everyone is planning to kill Goyfs anyways, that plan loses much of the efficiency it had and without that, it's a 2-creature combo that's vulnerable to graveyard hate. It's not a bad deck and I wouldn't be startled to see it win tournaments, but I'd say playing it is somewhat gimping yourself.

In my short experience playing Cephalid, I can say it is a very strong deck. I think of it as a very much nerfed Flash, since it requires both combo cards to actually be on the board at the same time. It uses a single extra slot for the combo than Flash did and has the very same weaknesses of Flash, plus others. Still, it is not a deck to be underestimated. BTW, about alternative plan: never going 100% into the goyf plan and trying to assemble the combo win while holding the board (Lim Dul's Vault is the perfect card for that) wins so many games. You make them spend removal (which kill the combo) on the big dudes, so you can combo off when the opponent might think it's all safe. The card I found that is the hardest to fight is Planar Void, since it makes goyfs at most 1/2.

Now, about the best combo deck: I believe it is Fetchland Tendrils. It dodges hate so much easier than other combo decks, simply because it has a well built toolbox of tutorable/wishable answers, which make the hardest match ups way better than they would be, even game one.

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Originally Posted by Eldariel

People are always selling Aluren short simply because they think it's a combo-deck while in fact it's much more of a control- than combo-deck, just with a combo-win. It sets up, clears all disruption with Cabal Therapies and lands Aluren to win. Thanks to Walls, Force and so on, it lacks the usual combo/control-variant's weakness versus aggro. In places where it's played in relevant amounts (I suppose that's France only though), it finishes well too.

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You may have a point that Aluren is heavily underestimated. I have tested out the deck a few times and I just can't wrap my head around it. I imagine it's very skill intensive and played quite differentially than other slow combo decks.

EDIT:
@FT's bad MUs. Stax, yeah, is ugly. That's why I need to fit Death Wish into my build =/. However, blue based control is easy. Landstill is a joke. 8-10 Counters, no CB, no clock? MUC is a little harder, but is still easier than something like Ichorid or Thrash.

Fetchland Tendrils, it isn't even close.

You have a fantastic, incredibly consistant plan which allows you to play some of the most powerful spells in the format and still leave room for metagaming and the answer for almost every situation.

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Originally Posted by Mental

You may have a point that Aluren is heavily underestimated. I have tested out the deck a few times and I just can't wrap my head around it. I imagine it's very skill intensive and played quite differentially than other slow combo decks.

EDIT:
@FT's bad MUs. Stax, yeah, is ugly. That's why I need to fit Death Wish into my build =/. However, blue based control is easy. Landstill is a joke. 8-10 Counters, no CB, no clock? MUC is a little harder, but is still easier than something like Ichorid or Thrash.

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I find Stax easy enough. Game one without DW sucks, but game two and three with Serenity + Rushing River and tutors for them (I run 2 LDVs plus the standard tutors) are not trouble. You just gotta do this before Smokestack finds home or grabbing more lands to play things over Trinisphere will be tricky.

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Originally Posted by Jaiminho

I find Stax easy enough. Game one without DW sucks, but game two and three with Serenity + Rushing River and tutors for them (I run 2 LDVs plus the standard tutors) are not trouble. You just gotta do this before Smokestack finds home or grabbing more lands to play things over Trinisphere will be tricky.

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Point. Game one is pretty hard to win though. Game 2 I bring in a Trop, a Serenity, Echoing Truths, and 2 KGrips. That is a lot of hate, I guess. I haven't tested this MU that much but it seems to me that it can't be that easy, because if they have, say, a 3Sphere, a chalice@1, and a Crucible + waste is down, you're pretty much fucked. At that point Serenity is your only out. So meh. It seems like preboard it's around 40/60, and postboard it MIGHT be 50/50. Luckily there isn't a lot of Stax in my meta, or I would have to play 3 or 4 Serenities.

Ichorid is obviously the best combo deck in format, I mean its the best deck period so of course its the best combo by extension :wink:

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Originally Posted by Bovinious

Ichorid is obviously the best combo deck in format, I mean its the best deck period so of course its the best combo by extension :wink:

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Post-sideboard I've NEVER had my Leyline bounced by Ichorid. NEVER.

I can't beat a god-hand of Fetch-Tendrils, though, no matter what I try. Not playing :u:, though.

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Originally Posted by mujadaddy

Post-sideboard I've NEVER had my Leyline bounced by Ichorid. NEVER.

I can't beat a god-hand of Fetch-Tendrils, though, no matter what I try. Not playing :u:, though.

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Even playing :u:, it's hard to beat a good Tendrils hand. Take this scenario:

Thresh player's hand:
Strand, Trop, Force, Force, Stifle, Goose, Ponder

You're on the draw.

The FT player goes fetch, break for Sea, go.

You go Trop, pass. Keep mana open for Stifle.

They lay a Delta and play Orim's Chant. You let it resolve. It's turn 2, and it's hard for FT to win off 1 land. They go Rit, Cabal Rit, IGG. They take back Chant, Delta, Ponder. You take back Force, Stifle, Ponder.

Now you lose the game. It's over. You have no aggro and 1 land in play. The FT player sits on his ass until he has refilled his hand, and then combos with Double Chant (not too hard if one tutor has been drawn) through your disruption.

Thanks for the advice Mental. I tested fetchland tendrils on MWS and it seems to have a pretty good match up versus aggro-control decks as well as being more versatile with dealing with other decks as well (i also compared with solidarity and ichorid). When I tested online, ichorid had a higher win percentage versus thresh than fetchland tendrils, but, to me, it seems like it would be easy to hate out ichorid.
Considering I have the lion's eye diamonds, polluted deltas, and, the orims chants, how much would it cost to make fetchland tendrils with the following list at this link: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ead.php?t=7800

I'm no expert, but I'd say you're still looking at $250 or greater for the Strands, the Duals, and the random other stuff, plus the Confidants in the board. Possibly a lot more.