Escape Brain Freeze

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Originally Posted by ESG

It's worth noting that Force of Negation isn't free on the turn you're going off. And Pact of Negation is strong on the turn you're going off but usually just dead or Force of Will fodder otherwise.

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Right, both are situational. FoN beats permanent hate (e.g. Chalice). Pact beats tricks and counters. The mana efficiency still matters though, as it frees up more mana to cast cantrips and tutors and play around Daze. All that does matter towards speed and speed matters in some matchups. Spell Pierce is sometimes awkward to hold up in the Jeskai build (easier to do in RUG), often costing a whole turn.

Also there is a nontrivial case where you can pay for Pact. LED lets you pay the Pact upkeep. If you also Brainstorm/ETutor Breach to the top of your library before losing your hand (EOT or upkeep), you can potentially even set yourself to go off next turn despite losing your hand. It's even easier if you're playing a Grinding Station line and already have Station in play.

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Aside from the core combo pieces, the cantrips, and the free counterspells, there are a number of different lists seeing play, and one could easily be better in one event and worse in another.

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As we had a few pages back, the core is just the combo, cantrips and mana. Any variation of that can go off consistently against a goldfish. The flex slots are the answers (main and SB) to beat the opponent's interaction. There are no universal best choices for these. They shine at beating different cards. The original slots were to beat the pre-Breach meta, but now that this deck is a thing players are adapting their boards and gameplay to beat it, we have to adapt too and pick the slots to fit the meta.

FoN is a great tool to beat things like G1 early Chalice @ 0 or 2.

Hey, thought I’d update on my experiences with RUG breach and update what I’m working on now. With a little tech that I think is quite strong. For reference my last posted trophy result with rug breach: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2727457#paper

So i started off on an absolute tear with builds very similar to this, with 4 trophies in my first 13 leagues. At one point I got 3 trophies in 4 leagues (with a 2-3 sandwiched in). Lately, I’m in a bit of a slump, and my overall record is 64-31.
Still not a shabby record, but it does feel like people are more prepared and i haven’t adapted to the meta as well as the meta has adapted to me.

I’ve begun working on infernal tutor builds, and I’ve found a particular gem in all builds running infernal tutor. That card is Memory Sluice. At first, it looks like a strictly worse tome scour (a card I’m not on board with running anywhere except in a burning wish board). Well, why is mill 4 better than mill 5? The answer is black mana. I’m going to outline a t2 win on the play and/or a t1 win on the draw line that involves drawing neither brain freeze nor breach. And requires nothing in fact except two fetches OR petals (for the t2 on the play, t1 you need at least one petal), infernal tutor and led. A cantrip instead of a fetch will also do the trick!

Example hand:

T1 on the play. Island, ponder, go.
<opponent plays plains, aether vial>
T2 our hand is fetchland, led, infernal tutor and 4 blank pieces of cardboard. This is a win if your deck contains memory sluice:

Fetch swamp, led, infernal tutor crack for RRR. get breach, cast breach.

R in pool. IT, LED, ponder, fetch, 4 blanks in yard.

Cast LED, crack for BBB. remove ponder fetch and the last blank to IT for Memory sluice using BR.

BB in pool, led and IT in yard. This is why it’s critical sluice can be paid for using black mana.

sluice yourself (if you mill freeze you win now but we whiff here).

B in pool, IT, LED, sluice +4 blanks.

Cast LED. crack for uuu. BUUU in pool. Led, it, sluice and blank in yard.

Eat everything to tutor for brain freeze. Uu in pool. Brain freeze yourself (storm 8) for 27.

Notice this is not deterministic, but we have 7 outs in 27 cards. We need an led or petal. I used a hypergeometric calculator to determine this is 99.8% to succeed. And note that we only had one fetch, if both lands were fetches we wouldn’t have to eat led at the end and it would be deterministic. This exactly works.

The cost is one slot in your deck, and the reward is opening up winning lines that otherwise wouldn’t exist. This also creates turns that allow you to thoughtseize before going allin with the tutor with a mana that you would otherwise need if sluice wasn’t in your deck. With this one card, you turn infernal tutor plus led into a two-card win-the-game combo with NO graveyard setup required. This is a *big deal.*

I’m working on a build with IT that shows promise and I’ll update in a couple weeks.

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Originally Posted by FTW

FoN is a great tool to beat things like G1 early Chalice @ 0 or 2.

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Just a PSA For anyone running Veil of summer. Veil also beats a chalice on 0 or a chalice on 2. Or a Lavinia. Or a Chancellor of the Annex.

I just learned this today and I’ve been playing with veil for weeks. <facepalm>

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Originally Posted by Jblinder

I’ve begun working on infernal tutor builds, and I’ve found a particular gem in all builds running infernal tutor. That card is Memory Sluice.

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Memory Sluice came up way back in the discussion (before the Jeskai build) for the exact same reason: it can be cast off an LED for BBB, while Tome Scour can't. It wasn't discussed further because no one was discussing the Grixis version, but it's definitely worth testing as a 1-of as it opens up extra lines of play that aren't possible without it. If Jeskai can fit in 1 Grinding Station, Grixis can fit in 1 Memory Sluice.

The IT builds I've seen and tested have looked something like this.
Adding in 1 Memory Sluice...


//Lands: 16
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
2 Prismatic Vista
1 Volcanic Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
2 Island

//Artifacts: 8
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

//Enchantments: 4
4 Underworld Breach

//Spells: 32
4 Force of Will
4 Thoughtseize
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Pact of Negation
1 Memory Sluice
3 Burning Wish
3 Infernal Tutor
4 Brain Freeze

//Sideboard: 15
1 Grapeshot
1 Tome Scour
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Shenanigans
1 Pulverize
1 Massacre
1 Reverent Silence
1 Tropical Island
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Flusterstorm
1 Spell Pierce


Card Choices:
Thoughtseize - Very strong card. Perfect information. Removes a problem. Seems like an auto-include with black mana

3 ITs - Leave 4th copy in Wishboard to open up Burning Wish wins

Chain MD - Answer permanents in game 1. Opponents are wising up to how to beat this deck, so permanents may be a problem in game 1. With 4 Thoughtseize, Grixis has more tools to answer threats in hand, so dealing with threats on the board seems important.

0 Spell Pierce - High sorcery count (TS, IT, Wish, Preordain) makes it hard to leave mana open in this build.

I don't know if the green splash is worth it, but it keeps access to Reverent Silence and opens up Abrupt Decay to answer a wide range of permanent-based hate.

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Originally Posted by Jblinder

Just a PSA For anyone running Veil of summer. Veil also beats a chalice on 0 or a chalice on 2. Or a Lavinia. Or a Chancellor of the Annex.

I just learned this today and I’ve been playing with veil for weeks. <facepalm>

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LOL. Yeah that's one of the main reasons to play Veil. For some reason (typo? brain fart?), WOTC made that card make ALL your spells uncounterable by ANY sources, not just by blue spells. It's not intuitive at all, I can see why you'd miss it. That mode randomly helps combo decks like ours even more than green creature decks.

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Originally Posted by FTW

Memory Sluice came up way back in the discussion (before the Jeskai build) for the exact same reason: it can be cast off an LED for BBB, while Tome Scour can't. It wasn't discussed further because no one was discussing the Grixis version, but it's definitely worth testing as a 1-of as it opens up extra lines of play that aren't possible without it. If Jeskai can fit in 1 Grinding Station, Grixis can fit in 1 Memory Sluice.

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Really want to somehow make a non-serious list called "All the Spice". Five colors, Grinding Station, Sluice, Veil, Thought Seize, Fow, Infernal Tutor, Gamble, Tome Scour, Thought Scour, T3feri, just mash it all up together. Everything :cool:.

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Originally Posted by Cire

Really want to somehow make a non-serious list called "All the Spice". Five colors, Grinding Station, Sluice, Veil, Thought Seize, Fow, Infernal Tutor, Gamble, Tome Scour, Thought Scour, T3feri, just mash it all up together. Everything :cool:.

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lol
Let's see what you can get.

For the main lists, I created a new thread with a primer under Established Decks. The mods may move it... but given the results and the stability of the core shell I think it's safe to call this an Established Deck.

It uses pieces from our previous discussions. Feel free to add more! I thought it was time we had a proper primer, instead of scattered mini-primers on Page 14, Page 19...

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Originally Posted by FTW

For the main lists, I created a new thread with a primer under Established Decks. The mods may move it... but given the results and the stability of the core shell I think it's safe to call this an Established Deck.

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Results are not actually needed to be an "Established Deck" only a sufficiently written Primer, which I think you did a pretty great job on. I can't imagine anyone will move it.